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Kesselring's attitude to bombing was at this stage, not as clear as is implied here. The bombing of Rotterdam happended in May. The development of the Battle of Britain into bombing London began to materialize in the following September. Battle of Britain#Raids on London ( RJP 09:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC))
Since when is an air raid on a fortress a terror bombardment? The front lines were running through Rotterdam, the dutch garrison wanted to defend the city, so it was a legitimate target. Markus Becker02 13:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
That may the German perception, but not the Dutch one. Also note that the bombers attacked the cities heart, where no (mentionable) defences were present. Rex 12:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Markus Becker02, please do not try to make German warcrimes seem less bad. The bombing of rotterdam was a terror bombing and more cities would follow. Don't you ask yourself why the German military attacked a bridge with heavy bombers (and bomb the city heart instead)? Rex 15:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
From Dutch wikipedia;
Kampfgeschwader 54 was called away from the Belgian front to be deployed in the Netherlands, this was a unit of heavy bombers, not Stukas necessary for a tactical breakthrough. Hitlers goal wasn't a breakthrough over the willemsbrug but the capitulation of the Netherlands. If the Netherlands wouldn't capitulate Utrecht, The Hague, Amsterdam, Haarlem and other large cities will also be bombed. The German defensive arguments supported by International law saying that Rotterdam was a defended city is worthless given that the bombing was a part of a much larger plan Rex 12:48, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Markus Becker02, please do not try to make German warcrimes seem less bad. The bombing of rotterdam was a terror bombing and more cities would follow. Don't you ask yourself why the German military attacked a bridge with 90 heavy bombers (and bomb the city heart instead)? Rex 15:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
It does not matter, this was terror bombing, in fact it was part of a whole plan of terror bombing. Rex 18:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
You do not need to lecture me on how wikipedia works, I've been here for quite some time. I have come have provide much information, this is a good one, you however did not, what have you got to strenghten your view besides a reference to a 1907 treaty (as if Nazi Germany complied with any treaty) which was proven to be false? Rex 18:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not have an own definition. Also the link you've provided doesn't even mention the bombing of rotterdam. Rex 19:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I've taken a look and I qoute; "Rotterdam was to be destroyed if the troops did not surrender." 20:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, excuses. Just because some German commander tried to stop the terror bombing doesn't mean it wasn't one. Rex 20:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe there's our difference. You prefer politically correct information while I prefer the truth. Rex 23:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Quite pathetic discussion, as often occures when this kind of symbolic issues drop between people that are poorly informed. Rex claims that the Dutch perception is that Rotterdam was a terror raid. He is hereby invited to provide sources. There has been extended studying on this subject by specialists on the international law and Geneva and Hague conventions. They were generally outspoken in their judgement that the Rotterdam event may have incorporated some frictions with the international law (as to particular procedures such as the grace period of the ultimatum, the Dutch unjust rejection of the first ultimatum and the unwise German decision to send in bombers notwithstanding ungoing negotiations), but that basically the German airforce was entitled to raid the defended town. Hence, it wasn't terror, but plainly a macabre result of modern warfare. Period. Secondly, people often claim that the RAF prior to 15 May 1940 was generally in favour of preserving the international law stipulations as to the limitation of populated area raiding by the RAF strategic bomber groups. That is beloney, long before filed as pure nonsense. The only reason for the RAF not to raid German populated areas containing strategic targets, were the French and British politicians and military key-persons fearing a Luftwaffe response that most likely couldn't be repelled. It had nothing to do with diligent adherence to the international law by the UK, but it was purely a matter of cold calculation. It is probably idle hope that these kinds of silly 'good and bad' discussions cease at some point, but I'll praise the day that so called specialists stop these pointless exchanges of chit-chat. Grebbegoos 12:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I am moving this article because:
-- PBS 12:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Amusing to following the (aged) discussion about terror raid or not. A classic. Markus is closer to the truth than Rex. Indeed, Rotterdam was a legid target for German bombers. Mind you Rex, the Dutch had defended Rotterdam for more than four consecutive days and chosen not to evacuate the city although they were positive that their defence would provoke German tactical (or worse) counter measures. Already during the first four days numerous Luftwaffe sorties were flown against the North of town. Besides the raid was part of a tactical operation too. Experts have studied the case numerous times. Only very few consider the raid a straight crime and they cannot be considered unbiased. So much for that topic.
Some remarks to the content:
- 'A Dutch counterattack by a Dutch Marine regiment'. There was no Dutch Marine regiment. There were Marines and there were Navy troops (miliciens). Probably the author referred to a Marines action. That was executed with less than a Marines company. In total there were only 430 Marines in Rotterdam, so not even close to a regiment I'd say ...
-'The situation in Rotterdam on the morning of 13 May 1940 was stalemate.' Nice. It had been a stalemate since May 10 at noon. Not a yard of the front-line was shifted between then and May 14, 1940 at 1800 hrs.
-'On the morning of May 14, Hitler issued Weisung nr 11'; nope. Weisung no. 11 was issued on the 13th to the higher staffs, and one of its effects was the availability of KG.54 to the Dutch theatre. Only the lower staffs got it in the morning of the 14th.
- 'The SS were to make an amphibious crossing of the river upstrea': Nope! It was a combined task force of mainly airlanding troops of 22.ID under Oberst Kreysing that was given the side show. The SS would follow the 9.PD and continue in the direction of Overschie.
- 'However General Student was in overall command and also controlled the air operations. Schmidt's request for air support had to go through Student's HQ, and instead of precision bombers, Student requested carpet bombing and replaced the Stukas by Heinkel He 111 bombers': straight lies all along. General Schmidt was commander in chief of the operations. Since the entire airlanding operation had been commanded and controlled by the Luftwaffe, it was Goering who intervened via Kesselring, commander of Luftflotte 2. Student needly passed on the request for a tactical bombardment via the long wave radio. But in Berlin the ObdL decided otherwise. Stuka's would be applied (and indeed were), but the KG.54 would add its secretly planned raid to the requested recepy. Stuka's were not replaced, but He-111 added. And on the sole initiative of the devious Goering.
- 'and if that would not break Dutch resistance, Amsterdam (capital) and The Hague (seat of government) were to follow the same fate': says who? That funny story has never been substantiated by proof. It was a later heard excuse from Scharroo, copied by his adjutant captain Backer and Mayor Oud. Only the city of Utrecht has been proved to be threatened too.
- not 33 but 27 bombers formed the southern Gruppe [Gruppe Hohne] and of those 27 it were 24 that were waived off before the bombs were dropped.
- The red flare theory citated in the lemma is soly based on the very dubious work of Loek Elfferich. It should be removed. The only valuable addition one could make is why the red flare arrangement had not been set the other way round; flares when bombing is on. That kind of excludes the chances of unintended bombing. That argument has been used by many authors.
- 'Germany threatened to bomb other Dutch cities, but started with Rotterdam due to its unrivalled strategic and industrial importance for the Netherlands '. Citations please! Germany threathened no other cities until Rotterdam was treated as such. Only Utrecht followed. At around 1500 hrs in the afternoon leaflets were dropped over Utrecht from Luftwaffe planes threatening the city to join the fate of Warsaw, not that of Rotterdam. Other cities have not been threatened. Not a single researcher or author has come with any trace of proof of that. This theory was made up as stated before.
-'and the Dutch government decided to capitulate rather than suffer a repeat of Rotterdam in Amsterdam or The Hague'; pure beloney. The memoires of General Winkelman - CIC - and the Hearings 1946-1949 minutes clearly proof that the CIC took the decision to capitulate when Utrecht was threatened to be raided. Amsterdam and the Hague were not mentioned nor part of his considerations. He did however embed in his general thoughts that after Utrecht even more cities could follow. But that was not related to a genuine German threat of those cities.
Generally, quite a poor lemma. Grebbegoos 01:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
-
I have largely revised the content. I have take out much of the Loek Elfferich citations, for these are highly speculative. Also many of the foreign sources which are too far off. Many of the facts and figures have been modified in full accordance with the generally accepted benchmarks on this topic. Basically I changed all that I addressed hereabove. Grebbegoos 01:38, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Tell me, anybody, is it okay to use Dutch sources? The problem with this topic is that there are no reliable sources in the English language with exception of www.waroverholland.nl; none whatsoever. So we are limited to Dutch and German sources. Grebbegoos ( talk) 19:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
There are plenty Dutch and German sources. I shall add them. Got to study some of the tools first though ;) Grebbegoos ( talk) 00:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I have incorporated a number of references. I have added them in the text too. Probably not perfectly, styling wise. But at least references are made now, hopefully adding value to the re-write. Grebbegoos ( talk) 13:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I find it very strange that nobody mentions the administrative mistake which led to the bombing. The Dutch sent the ultimatum letter which they had to sign, back to the Germans, because they read the name of a different office/administration on it. Can someone please work out the details, and put it in the article? ~Kardash —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.80.236.182 ( talk) 20:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The website of Allert Goossens, is cited several times, but I suspect not all the citations are to the "Welcome" page. Please could we have the web page that contains the information in the individual citations rather than having them all lumped together as one. -- PBS ( talk) 09:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
As I understand much of the devastation was brought on by vegetable oil tanks in the docks that were ignited by boms, and as a result great fires spread across much of city centre, which was the direct cause of the destruction, rather than the relatively small number of bombs dropped. IIRC it was part of the article too - why was it removed...? It needs to be stated, if it can be verified. The BA-MA commons even have pictures of these veggie tanks - can be used for illustration. Kurfürst ( talk) 15:38, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Excellent piece of German war propaganda! The fires ignited at many different locations. The vast area of destruction could never have been caused by a single large fire source, let alone a source in the harbour area. Please study appropriate sources rather than the German war propaganda. About 60 medium bombers unleashed 158 bombs of 250 kgs and 1,150 of 50 kgs, altogether a mere 100 tonnes. A wide corridor from the northeast to the southwest (ending at the river) was flattened. Not a chance that the dock fire caused the vast amount of destruction. Fires all over the raided area raged, caused by numerous ruptured domestic or small business gasoline tanks, domestic coal-stocks, etc. and fed from debris and plenty of free flying curtains and other lightly enflamable stuff. Increasing fire storms in the bombed corridor and last but not least the almost utterly ruptured water-circuit that caused available fire-fighting equipment to be fully dependant on canal-water. Plenty of WW2 examples of identical effects elsewhere around the continent after air-raids. It is a pity that much of the war propaganda still finds suitable grounds to grow its seeds ... Grebbegoos ( talk) 23:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
It is total crap, and all founded on the German propaganda message that a hit on a large butter-factory was the cause of the giant inferno. Anyone with a bit of sense, taking a good look at the commonly known pictures of the entire city heart of Rotterdam wiped away from the map Pictures of Rotterdam after the Blitz , is able to realize that not a single fire near the harbour docks could have caused this much extensive devastation. Grebbegoos ( talk) 08:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
No serious dispute on this matter. It's really a shame! That Rotterdam's destruction was caused by many bombs scattered all over the square-mile of its area is a fact. The photographs don't need interpretation, they speak for themselves. Hooton is not a renowned historian. Better provide references from reliable sources for his claims instead.-- Antiphus ( talk) 20:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
And again some editor changed the order of topics in the article putting more weight on Hooton's claims. For a while now this silly but evil dispute concerning the terrible destruction of Rotterdam has been going on. A silly dispute because the outcome of the bombing is known and the argument is futile. Accusing others of 'tinkering' another editor presented this nontopic in the article in a way that made the bombing look like a minor happening with an occasional hit on an oil tank: Eureka now we know what caused the vast destruction. It's a tendentious quasi-argument but apparently inspired by a hidden agenda: to suggest that the bombing itself was limited and that it took vegetable oil tanks to destroy the city. A silly dispute that has to end.-- Antiphus ( talk) 16:40, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
It is quite pathetic that Hooton is mentioned as a reputed source Hohum. It should be stricken all along. The only base source for this odd theory of a butter and vegi-oil plant to have caused the raging fire comes from German war-propaganda sources making that tale up to boost the nazification process of the Netherlands. The numerous genuine sources that remain quite down to earth on the cause of so much devastation, mention the actual causes like the powerless ring-lines of the watersupply, the increased wind and the quite extended bombed surface causing the fire to easily find food for expansion. Elas, the wiki system provides plenty of wanna-be's an easy opportunity to edit whatever they like, tilting the history archives on wiki any way the like. That is why wiki remains an instable platform to retrieve information from. Grebbegoos ( talk) 12:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
An author using German propaganda reports as a sole source to state certified beloney like the vegi-plant inferno as being the root-cause of the Rotterdam devastation should not be a source mentioned in a serious article on the Rotterdam raid. It shows just the limited inside foreign 'historians' often show as it comes to the peripheral of the main battles in WWII. I see no reason whatsoever to maintain the Hooton reference in this article. But like I said, it is exactly this kind of personal claims by wiki authors that makes this platform a poorly informative web-base. Grebbegoos ( talk) 01:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes it's speculated, that the Rotterdam-Blitz was the cause of a change in british bombing politics to start bombing civil targets. That was also alleged in the article (and just changed by me). In fact, british bombing strategy changed with Winston Churchill becoming prime-minister on May, 10th, 1940. The first bombing of civil targets hit german city Mönchengladbach on May, 12th 1940, a few days earlier than german bombing of Rotterdam. So the Rotterdam-blitz was not the cause of british strategic bombing. Maybe the german terror-bombing justified Churchills change of strategy, but this is just speculation and therefore not part of this article. -- mmg ( talk) 20:57, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
The Air Staff had considered that if the Germans invaded the low countries, it would be time "to take the gloves off." Even when that happened the politicians still hesitated. Then came Rotterdam. The next day the War Cabinet approved the plan long supported by the Air Staff and Bomber Command. Attacks against German targets.
Bomber Command had already been carrying out night raids against marshaling yards and communications inside Germany but only west of the Rhine (that is immediately behind the front) reckoning that these would count as legitimate attacks by any international standards.
More importantly, the British hesitation not to bomb strategic targets nearby populated areas was not so much given in by diligent adherence to the international law, but merely by cold calculation. Already during the Phoney War period the matter was addressed by RAF strategic command, but waived off by the French and British strategists as a provocation of the Luftwaffe. They expected the Luftwaffe to retaliate in large numbers. It was feared that such a massive response could not be repelled by the RAF and ground-to-air defences. Only when the invasion of the West occured on the 10th of May, the gloves were taken off. Unfortunately it is too often suggested that the RAF's motives were of an idealistic and human nature. That wasn't the case though. It was simple calculation. Grebbegoos (talk) 02:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The international law wasn't clear on the specifics, but individual terms like saving undefended sectors or populations from indiscriminate acts of war, saving institutions of human and religious character, the processing of ultimatums, etc. were clear. I am sorry to read that you fail to see the point. The thing is that all too often the point is made that the RAF decided not to raid German strategic sectors or cities due to the chances of collateral damage into the adjecent populated area, in other words on humane grounds. Hence, it is implied that the RAF (British) were being all that diligent in their adherence to the international laws. That subtile thought is unjust. Their considerations were of an operational kind, not a humane kind. On 5 September 1939 the RAF approached Ministre Kingsley Wood addressing the matter of raiding German strategic targets as in response to the German invasion of Poland. It was rejected. Churchill proclaimed on 13 September 1939 that if was not up to Brittain to set the first step into raiding Germany as it would unpleasantly work out on the imperative need of American support of Brittain. Gamelin informed Daladier on 9 September 1939 that Allied planes were restricted from raiding on German soil in fear of German response to either British or French cities. Those are quite significant issues. It means that should the Entente have felt comfortable in their airforce arsenals and abilities to repel German response, they probably would have started strategic raids into Germany as early as September 1939. That, my dear Philip, is quite a significant footnoot to the matter, wouldn't you think? Grebbegoos ( talk) 12:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. I recognize a lot of diplomacy in this last response that could be easily projected on plenty of accusations laid on the German side. But as I experienced during my many years as a war-historian, the war is still on, but then on paper... If we could only find a point of unbiased history analysis, it would be the day! Grebbegoos ( talk) 23:21, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Here's a source for the attack on Monchengladbach on May 12th, so I will remove the part where it says that only after the attack on Rotterdam the RAF started attacks into inner Germany: http://www.rp-online.de/niederrhein-sued/moenchengladbach/nachrichten/bomben-auf-jack-1.702198 91.61.102.44 ( talk) 13:21, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
A recent addition seems to be fringe/propaganda - I don't believe it has a place in this article.
German weekly Die Mühle (The windmill) stated that the Dutch government was to blame for turning Rotterdam into a fortress, despite multiple summonses to evacuate. It also claimed that the old city was ignited by Dutch bombs and incendiary devices.
Hohum ( talk) 22:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I propose that the article is split. The sections on the allied bombings being moved into a separate article Bombing of Rotterdam in World War II. -- PBS ( talk) 23:45, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
A Blitz is a natural phenomenon and has nothing to do with war. Even the term Blitzkrieg refers to a rapid movement of motorized troops and tanks, never to air operations. Everybody but a few ignorant Anglo-Saxon yellow press writers knows about that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.246.250.68 ( talk) 17:53, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Can we rename this article to Bombing of Rotterdam? Alternatively Bombing of Rotterdam (1940) or Bombing of Rotterdam in World War II. Rotterdam Blitz' is hardly used [2]. Grey Fox ( talk) 00:39, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
...even the headline.
How can just 90+ tons of bombs from 50 twin engine bombers be called a "Blitz". It's truly amazing that this propaganda silliness is still being thrown about 70+ years after the event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.255.125.120 ( talk) 22:45, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
A user by the name of Denniss has repeatedly changed the following text;
The Rotterdam Blitz refers to the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam by the German Air Force on 14 May 1940, during the German invasion of the Netherlands in World War II. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the Dutch to surrender. Even though preceding negotiations resulted in a ceasefire, the bombardment took place none the less, in conditions which remain controversial, and destroyed of much of the historic city centre, killing nearly nine hundred civilians and leaving 30,000 people homeless.
... to the one shown below:
The Rotterdam Blitz refers to the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam by the German Air Force on 14 May 1940, during the German invasion of the Netherlands in World War II. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the Dutch to surrender. Even though negotiations were successful, failing communications on the German side caused the unnecessary bombardment of much of the city centre.
In discussion:
Calling this section 'German POV' would be wrong as this isn't the consensus among either the general German populace let alone the prevalent view among Germany's history scholars. If anything, this seems to be the view of a Wikipedia user who goes by the name of Denniss.
In the mist of time, the reason the German military had for bombing Rotterdam in 1940 can never be definitively known. Even if all possible sources would be available (which they are not, and will never be) they could (and would) still be biased to a very serious degree for the simple fact that these documents and testimonies would all be from persons with a "German agenda". For one thing; the idea that troops could be "supported" by medium bombers carrier incendiary bombs, is enough for most to (in any case) cast doubt on any possible intention. (this is all explained within the article as a whole, I shall not continue on this.)
Given this, to answer this historical question with a single answer such as that "the bombing was the result of failing communication" is simply nonsensical. Stating that the nature of the bombing remains controversial, is the closest anyone can and will ever get to the "truth". To state anything but this would be nothing but historical fraud.
Furthermore, another statement made by Denniss states that the bombing was "unnecessary" because negations had been "successful" (talking about POV-writing, to whom where they a "success" exactly?) which strikes me as very odd. Given the open policy of isolationism and neutrality of the Netherlands (since 1839) the entire invasion of the Netherlands by Nazi-Germany could very well seem "unnecessary" to many if not most. In fact, the (seemingly implied) "necessity" of German actions in World War II as a whole, are unknown to me. Would you care to enlighten me on that?
Apart from this, what Denniss did as well, was change the articles infobox. Specifically, the wording concerning the "result". Which he changed from "884 civilian dead, Rotterdam surrenders" to "German victory". Now, any moderately intelligent reader will note the logical discrepancy in that the same user who claims that the bombing of Rotterdam was unintentional and due to error, still considers it a "victory" as, if anything, that premise would make it a "failure" to say the least.
Of course, that is of secondary importance the main concern with it is the following: sorting these kind of events into 'victories' and 'defeats' does not only make seem child-like, it is also bad historical writing. A football match is either won, drawn or lost. This is not a football match, this is war.
History isn't a scoreboard, World War II is not a computer game. If the result was a German "victory", then surely it was a Dutch "tragedy" as well. The factual result was the surrender of Rotterdam and the death of nearly 900 Dutch civilians. Those are the facts. Changing that to anything similar to "German victory" is not only offensive to the Dutch people as a whole, but (and this is the point most important for Wikipedia and this article) bad historiography not even worthy of being called "amateur".
In addition: Denniss also removed the category Category:Mass murder in 1940 from the article. Considering this event fits all possible definitions of Mass murder, this also seems odd to me.
I would ask for anyone reading this (especially Denniss of course) to share their views on this.
Regards, Kleinsma80 ( talk) 17:20, 31 December 2012 (UTC) (aka 77.169.3.175)
![]() | This discussion was listed at Wikipedia:Move review on 7 April 2013. The result of the move review was Decision endorsed. |
The result of the move request was: Closed as no consensus for move without prejudice to a refiling in the future. This is one of several pages currently under review at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring (see User:Kleinsma80 reported by User:Dapi89). Accordingly, due to the conflict of interest the filing editor has, the page can not be moved in good faith until the all issues related to both civility and the edit warring claims are sorted out, otherwise the move will be tainted by the accusations that the editor in question disrupted Wikipedia to make a point by initiating a move change while under administrative review. While this closure comes about as a result of the filing editor being under administrative review, it should not automatically disqualify the page from being moved by a neutral editor in the future. TomStar81 ( Talk) 01:35, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Rotterdam Blitz →
Bombing of Rotterdam – Excluding wikipedia's own pages, "Rotterdam Blitz" has 16.800 results using
google, whereas "Bombing of Rotterdam" has 183.000 results. On a side note, the common Dutch name (bombardement op Rotterdam, which translates as "bombing of Rotterdam) has over a million results. Searching on
google books, "Rotterdam Blitz" has a mere 63 results, "Bombing of Rotterdam" has 4.650.
Google scholar gives 219 results for the latter, while "Rotterdam Blitz" gets only 6 results. --Relisted
Tyrol5
[Talk] 02:03, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Kleinsma80 (
talk)
17:11, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was not moved. While the previous MRV explicitly allowed a new request, there's clearly not consensus for such a move now. Since this request is framed as a second look at a previous RM, which was itself relisted, I don't see value in relisting. -- BDD ( talk) 21:35, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Rotterdam Blitz → Bombing of Rotterdam – As can be read in the above section, references and popular opinion here on wikipedia support the move. However, despite there being a clear majority in favour the move was not carried out because of a personal conflict between to users; I don't see this existing anymore and suggest this page is moved to its correct and most common title asap. 77.169.3.175 ( talk) 09:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I seem to think the Germans managed to kill 9 civilians per tonne of bombs released. Was that a high number for that time? -- 82.134.28.194 ( talk) 11:27, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
I do not think that this edit is justified in completely removing the sentence with the edit comment "Removed unencyclopedic entry that had no WP:RS support."
As a simple Google search throws up plenty of reliable sources I am not sure how this conclusion was reached.:
A search on [Rotterdam 30,000 killed] returns lots of reliable sources (all of the below are from a search of the web and Google books using that search string):
"Two hours later Rotterdam's defenders surrendered. In London the next morning, and indeed in every city in the world outside the Axis countries, newspapers blazoned the horror of the attack, claiming 30,000 dead and characterising the German demolition of the old city as an act of unmitigated barbarism."
Some contemporary sources:
While the wording my not be the best there are plenty of sources to support that the Allied and neutral press did publish the number of 30,000.
There are reliable sources that claim that the figure of 30,000 was an Allied propaganda figure:
it is not surprising that these sorts of figures were propagated and believed as the world fully expected there to be these sorts of death rates in the period leading up to the war--and presumably in the early months of the war--because that is what the experts and the popular media had all predicted would happen through the 1930s (" The bomber will always get through" etc)
-- PBS ( talk) 21:58, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
User PBS is repeatedly inserting the following sentence into the article "Western news agencies grossly exaggerated the event for propaganda purposes, portraying Rotterdam as a city mercilessly destroyed by terror bombing without regard to civilian life, with 30,000 dead lying under the ruins". There are numerous problems with the sentence.
User PBS does not provide any verifiable WP:RS source for any of these claims. Despite claiming in edit summaries that "there are lots of reliable sources", user PBS fails to provide a single source and just keep reverting to a version with a broken source, and one that may not meet WP:RS requirements. The current sentence is vague, unenclyclopaedic and not properly sourced, and should be removed unless proper sources for each of its claims can be provided. Jeppiz ( talk) 23:46, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
changing "Western news agencies grossly exaggerated the event for propaganda purposes" to "Dutch and British sources informed the public through Allied and international new media" is unacceptable and propaganda in itself. if you like it or not but the bombing was inside the war zone and on a defended city. so it was legal by international law (hague treaties and roosevelts appeal) allied propaganda exaggerated the number of killed civilians by 5000% and used that as an excuse to strategically bomb germany. they also lied about rotterdam being an open city which it clearly wasn't with dutch and german troops having a battle inside the city. I know that dutch and possibly others feel very strong about all this (even though you should get over yourself, it's not your battle) the historic facts should not be replaced by allied war time propaganda and white washing. Swunt ( talk) 10:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
If you think a reference needs improving, then tag it appropriately. If you think something in the text needs a citation, then tag it appropriately. If you have a reliable, verifiable source for something, then add it as a reference. If you don't know how to do any of these then ask, politely, here or at the Help Desk. Don't demand that others carry out your edits for you. DuncanHill ( talk) 16:17, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm very concerned with the reliability of this article on the author " E. R. Hooton". I can barely find any of his books, one of his books is registered as written by a "Teddy Hooton", there is no mention anywhere about his qualifications, and his claims in this article are very dubious. He has, among others things, claimed that only 30,000 people became homeless. The general consensus is, as far as I know, around 85,000. Also odd are the claims that the Dutch had so many fighter aircraft. Were they all effortlessly destroyed? Where is the battle? This needs to be investigated. Bataaf van Oranje ( talk) 19:45, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
"E.R. (Ted) Hooton has been a journalist for 40 years and a defence journalist for about 25 years. He has written numerous articles on military history and three highly regarded books on the history of the Luftwaffe – ‘The Luftwaffe – A Study in Air Power 1933-1945’ (2010) ‘Phoenix Triumphant: The Rise and Rise of the Luftwaffe’ (1992) and ‘Eagle in Flames: The Fall of the Luftwaffe’ (1997) as well as contributing to several others. He has also written a detailed history of air operations over the Western Front, ‘War above the Trenches – Air Power and the Western Front Campaigns 1916-1918’ (2010). Tattered Flag Press recently discussed his latest book with him. ..." (Anonymous. "A five-minute interview with the author, E.R. Hooton". The Tattered Flag.).
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
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Kesselring's attitude to bombing was at this stage, not as clear as is implied here. The bombing of Rotterdam happended in May. The development of the Battle of Britain into bombing London began to materialize in the following September. Battle of Britain#Raids on London ( RJP 09:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC))
Since when is an air raid on a fortress a terror bombardment? The front lines were running through Rotterdam, the dutch garrison wanted to defend the city, so it was a legitimate target. Markus Becker02 13:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
That may the German perception, but not the Dutch one. Also note that the bombers attacked the cities heart, where no (mentionable) defences were present. Rex 12:34, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Markus Becker02, please do not try to make German warcrimes seem less bad. The bombing of rotterdam was a terror bombing and more cities would follow. Don't you ask yourself why the German military attacked a bridge with heavy bombers (and bomb the city heart instead)? Rex 15:42, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
From Dutch wikipedia;
Kampfgeschwader 54 was called away from the Belgian front to be deployed in the Netherlands, this was a unit of heavy bombers, not Stukas necessary for a tactical breakthrough. Hitlers goal wasn't a breakthrough over the willemsbrug but the capitulation of the Netherlands. If the Netherlands wouldn't capitulate Utrecht, The Hague, Amsterdam, Haarlem and other large cities will also be bombed. The German defensive arguments supported by International law saying that Rotterdam was a defended city is worthless given that the bombing was a part of a much larger plan Rex 12:48, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Markus Becker02, please do not try to make German warcrimes seem less bad. The bombing of rotterdam was a terror bombing and more cities would follow. Don't you ask yourself why the German military attacked a bridge with 90 heavy bombers (and bomb the city heart instead)? Rex 15:45, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
It does not matter, this was terror bombing, in fact it was part of a whole plan of terror bombing. Rex 18:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
You do not need to lecture me on how wikipedia works, I've been here for quite some time. I have come have provide much information, this is a good one, you however did not, what have you got to strenghten your view besides a reference to a 1907 treaty (as if Nazi Germany complied with any treaty) which was proven to be false? Rex 18:59, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not have an own definition. Also the link you've provided doesn't even mention the bombing of rotterdam. Rex 19:56, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I've taken a look and I qoute; "Rotterdam was to be destroyed if the troops did not surrender." 20:25, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, excuses. Just because some German commander tried to stop the terror bombing doesn't mean it wasn't one. Rex 20:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe there's our difference. You prefer politically correct information while I prefer the truth. Rex 23:55, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Quite pathetic discussion, as often occures when this kind of symbolic issues drop between people that are poorly informed. Rex claims that the Dutch perception is that Rotterdam was a terror raid. He is hereby invited to provide sources. There has been extended studying on this subject by specialists on the international law and Geneva and Hague conventions. They were generally outspoken in their judgement that the Rotterdam event may have incorporated some frictions with the international law (as to particular procedures such as the grace period of the ultimatum, the Dutch unjust rejection of the first ultimatum and the unwise German decision to send in bombers notwithstanding ungoing negotiations), but that basically the German airforce was entitled to raid the defended town. Hence, it wasn't terror, but plainly a macabre result of modern warfare. Period. Secondly, people often claim that the RAF prior to 15 May 1940 was generally in favour of preserving the international law stipulations as to the limitation of populated area raiding by the RAF strategic bomber groups. That is beloney, long before filed as pure nonsense. The only reason for the RAF not to raid German populated areas containing strategic targets, were the French and British politicians and military key-persons fearing a Luftwaffe response that most likely couldn't be repelled. It had nothing to do with diligent adherence to the international law by the UK, but it was purely a matter of cold calculation. It is probably idle hope that these kinds of silly 'good and bad' discussions cease at some point, but I'll praise the day that so called specialists stop these pointless exchanges of chit-chat. Grebbegoos 12:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
I am moving this article because:
-- PBS 12:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Amusing to following the (aged) discussion about terror raid or not. A classic. Markus is closer to the truth than Rex. Indeed, Rotterdam was a legid target for German bombers. Mind you Rex, the Dutch had defended Rotterdam for more than four consecutive days and chosen not to evacuate the city although they were positive that their defence would provoke German tactical (or worse) counter measures. Already during the first four days numerous Luftwaffe sorties were flown against the North of town. Besides the raid was part of a tactical operation too. Experts have studied the case numerous times. Only very few consider the raid a straight crime and they cannot be considered unbiased. So much for that topic.
Some remarks to the content:
- 'A Dutch counterattack by a Dutch Marine regiment'. There was no Dutch Marine regiment. There were Marines and there were Navy troops (miliciens). Probably the author referred to a Marines action. That was executed with less than a Marines company. In total there were only 430 Marines in Rotterdam, so not even close to a regiment I'd say ...
-'The situation in Rotterdam on the morning of 13 May 1940 was stalemate.' Nice. It had been a stalemate since May 10 at noon. Not a yard of the front-line was shifted between then and May 14, 1940 at 1800 hrs.
-'On the morning of May 14, Hitler issued Weisung nr 11'; nope. Weisung no. 11 was issued on the 13th to the higher staffs, and one of its effects was the availability of KG.54 to the Dutch theatre. Only the lower staffs got it in the morning of the 14th.
- 'The SS were to make an amphibious crossing of the river upstrea': Nope! It was a combined task force of mainly airlanding troops of 22.ID under Oberst Kreysing that was given the side show. The SS would follow the 9.PD and continue in the direction of Overschie.
- 'However General Student was in overall command and also controlled the air operations. Schmidt's request for air support had to go through Student's HQ, and instead of precision bombers, Student requested carpet bombing and replaced the Stukas by Heinkel He 111 bombers': straight lies all along. General Schmidt was commander in chief of the operations. Since the entire airlanding operation had been commanded and controlled by the Luftwaffe, it was Goering who intervened via Kesselring, commander of Luftflotte 2. Student needly passed on the request for a tactical bombardment via the long wave radio. But in Berlin the ObdL decided otherwise. Stuka's would be applied (and indeed were), but the KG.54 would add its secretly planned raid to the requested recepy. Stuka's were not replaced, but He-111 added. And on the sole initiative of the devious Goering.
- 'and if that would not break Dutch resistance, Amsterdam (capital) and The Hague (seat of government) were to follow the same fate': says who? That funny story has never been substantiated by proof. It was a later heard excuse from Scharroo, copied by his adjutant captain Backer and Mayor Oud. Only the city of Utrecht has been proved to be threatened too.
- not 33 but 27 bombers formed the southern Gruppe [Gruppe Hohne] and of those 27 it were 24 that were waived off before the bombs were dropped.
- The red flare theory citated in the lemma is soly based on the very dubious work of Loek Elfferich. It should be removed. The only valuable addition one could make is why the red flare arrangement had not been set the other way round; flares when bombing is on. That kind of excludes the chances of unintended bombing. That argument has been used by many authors.
- 'Germany threatened to bomb other Dutch cities, but started with Rotterdam due to its unrivalled strategic and industrial importance for the Netherlands '. Citations please! Germany threathened no other cities until Rotterdam was treated as such. Only Utrecht followed. At around 1500 hrs in the afternoon leaflets were dropped over Utrecht from Luftwaffe planes threatening the city to join the fate of Warsaw, not that of Rotterdam. Other cities have not been threatened. Not a single researcher or author has come with any trace of proof of that. This theory was made up as stated before.
-'and the Dutch government decided to capitulate rather than suffer a repeat of Rotterdam in Amsterdam or The Hague'; pure beloney. The memoires of General Winkelman - CIC - and the Hearings 1946-1949 minutes clearly proof that the CIC took the decision to capitulate when Utrecht was threatened to be raided. Amsterdam and the Hague were not mentioned nor part of his considerations. He did however embed in his general thoughts that after Utrecht even more cities could follow. But that was not related to a genuine German threat of those cities.
Generally, quite a poor lemma. Grebbegoos 01:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
-
I have largely revised the content. I have take out much of the Loek Elfferich citations, for these are highly speculative. Also many of the foreign sources which are too far off. Many of the facts and figures have been modified in full accordance with the generally accepted benchmarks on this topic. Basically I changed all that I addressed hereabove. Grebbegoos 01:38, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Tell me, anybody, is it okay to use Dutch sources? The problem with this topic is that there are no reliable sources in the English language with exception of www.waroverholland.nl; none whatsoever. So we are limited to Dutch and German sources. Grebbegoos ( talk) 19:40, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
There are plenty Dutch and German sources. I shall add them. Got to study some of the tools first though ;) Grebbegoos ( talk) 00:33, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I have incorporated a number of references. I have added them in the text too. Probably not perfectly, styling wise. But at least references are made now, hopefully adding value to the re-write. Grebbegoos ( talk) 13:06, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
I find it very strange that nobody mentions the administrative mistake which led to the bombing. The Dutch sent the ultimatum letter which they had to sign, back to the Germans, because they read the name of a different office/administration on it. Can someone please work out the details, and put it in the article? ~Kardash —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.80.236.182 ( talk) 20:08, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The website of Allert Goossens, is cited several times, but I suspect not all the citations are to the "Welcome" page. Please could we have the web page that contains the information in the individual citations rather than having them all lumped together as one. -- PBS ( talk) 09:57, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
As I understand much of the devastation was brought on by vegetable oil tanks in the docks that were ignited by boms, and as a result great fires spread across much of city centre, which was the direct cause of the destruction, rather than the relatively small number of bombs dropped. IIRC it was part of the article too - why was it removed...? It needs to be stated, if it can be verified. The BA-MA commons even have pictures of these veggie tanks - can be used for illustration. Kurfürst ( talk) 15:38, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
Excellent piece of German war propaganda! The fires ignited at many different locations. The vast area of destruction could never have been caused by a single large fire source, let alone a source in the harbour area. Please study appropriate sources rather than the German war propaganda. About 60 medium bombers unleashed 158 bombs of 250 kgs and 1,150 of 50 kgs, altogether a mere 100 tonnes. A wide corridor from the northeast to the southwest (ending at the river) was flattened. Not a chance that the dock fire caused the vast amount of destruction. Fires all over the raided area raged, caused by numerous ruptured domestic or small business gasoline tanks, domestic coal-stocks, etc. and fed from debris and plenty of free flying curtains and other lightly enflamable stuff. Increasing fire storms in the bombed corridor and last but not least the almost utterly ruptured water-circuit that caused available fire-fighting equipment to be fully dependant on canal-water. Plenty of WW2 examples of identical effects elsewhere around the continent after air-raids. It is a pity that much of the war propaganda still finds suitable grounds to grow its seeds ... Grebbegoos ( talk) 23:56, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
It is total crap, and all founded on the German propaganda message that a hit on a large butter-factory was the cause of the giant inferno. Anyone with a bit of sense, taking a good look at the commonly known pictures of the entire city heart of Rotterdam wiped away from the map Pictures of Rotterdam after the Blitz , is able to realize that not a single fire near the harbour docks could have caused this much extensive devastation. Grebbegoos ( talk) 08:30, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
No serious dispute on this matter. It's really a shame! That Rotterdam's destruction was caused by many bombs scattered all over the square-mile of its area is a fact. The photographs don't need interpretation, they speak for themselves. Hooton is not a renowned historian. Better provide references from reliable sources for his claims instead.-- Antiphus ( talk) 20:19, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
And again some editor changed the order of topics in the article putting more weight on Hooton's claims. For a while now this silly but evil dispute concerning the terrible destruction of Rotterdam has been going on. A silly dispute because the outcome of the bombing is known and the argument is futile. Accusing others of 'tinkering' another editor presented this nontopic in the article in a way that made the bombing look like a minor happening with an occasional hit on an oil tank: Eureka now we know what caused the vast destruction. It's a tendentious quasi-argument but apparently inspired by a hidden agenda: to suggest that the bombing itself was limited and that it took vegetable oil tanks to destroy the city. A silly dispute that has to end.-- Antiphus ( talk) 16:40, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
It is quite pathetic that Hooton is mentioned as a reputed source Hohum. It should be stricken all along. The only base source for this odd theory of a butter and vegi-oil plant to have caused the raging fire comes from German war-propaganda sources making that tale up to boost the nazification process of the Netherlands. The numerous genuine sources that remain quite down to earth on the cause of so much devastation, mention the actual causes like the powerless ring-lines of the watersupply, the increased wind and the quite extended bombed surface causing the fire to easily find food for expansion. Elas, the wiki system provides plenty of wanna-be's an easy opportunity to edit whatever they like, tilting the history archives on wiki any way the like. That is why wiki remains an instable platform to retrieve information from. Grebbegoos ( talk) 12:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
An author using German propaganda reports as a sole source to state certified beloney like the vegi-plant inferno as being the root-cause of the Rotterdam devastation should not be a source mentioned in a serious article on the Rotterdam raid. It shows just the limited inside foreign 'historians' often show as it comes to the peripheral of the main battles in WWII. I see no reason whatsoever to maintain the Hooton reference in this article. But like I said, it is exactly this kind of personal claims by wiki authors that makes this platform a poorly informative web-base. Grebbegoos ( talk) 01:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Sometimes it's speculated, that the Rotterdam-Blitz was the cause of a change in british bombing politics to start bombing civil targets. That was also alleged in the article (and just changed by me). In fact, british bombing strategy changed with Winston Churchill becoming prime-minister on May, 10th, 1940. The first bombing of civil targets hit german city Mönchengladbach on May, 12th 1940, a few days earlier than german bombing of Rotterdam. So the Rotterdam-blitz was not the cause of british strategic bombing. Maybe the german terror-bombing justified Churchills change of strategy, but this is just speculation and therefore not part of this article. -- mmg ( talk) 20:57, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
The Air Staff had considered that if the Germans invaded the low countries, it would be time "to take the gloves off." Even when that happened the politicians still hesitated. Then came Rotterdam. The next day the War Cabinet approved the plan long supported by the Air Staff and Bomber Command. Attacks against German targets.
Bomber Command had already been carrying out night raids against marshaling yards and communications inside Germany but only west of the Rhine (that is immediately behind the front) reckoning that these would count as legitimate attacks by any international standards.
More importantly, the British hesitation not to bomb strategic targets nearby populated areas was not so much given in by diligent adherence to the international law, but merely by cold calculation. Already during the Phoney War period the matter was addressed by RAF strategic command, but waived off by the French and British strategists as a provocation of the Luftwaffe. They expected the Luftwaffe to retaliate in large numbers. It was feared that such a massive response could not be repelled by the RAF and ground-to-air defences. Only when the invasion of the West occured on the 10th of May, the gloves were taken off. Unfortunately it is too often suggested that the RAF's motives were of an idealistic and human nature. That wasn't the case though. It was simple calculation. Grebbegoos (talk) 02:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
The international law wasn't clear on the specifics, but individual terms like saving undefended sectors or populations from indiscriminate acts of war, saving institutions of human and religious character, the processing of ultimatums, etc. were clear. I am sorry to read that you fail to see the point. The thing is that all too often the point is made that the RAF decided not to raid German strategic sectors or cities due to the chances of collateral damage into the adjecent populated area, in other words on humane grounds. Hence, it is implied that the RAF (British) were being all that diligent in their adherence to the international laws. That subtile thought is unjust. Their considerations were of an operational kind, not a humane kind. On 5 September 1939 the RAF approached Ministre Kingsley Wood addressing the matter of raiding German strategic targets as in response to the German invasion of Poland. It was rejected. Churchill proclaimed on 13 September 1939 that if was not up to Brittain to set the first step into raiding Germany as it would unpleasantly work out on the imperative need of American support of Brittain. Gamelin informed Daladier on 9 September 1939 that Allied planes were restricted from raiding on German soil in fear of German response to either British or French cities. Those are quite significant issues. It means that should the Entente have felt comfortable in their airforce arsenals and abilities to repel German response, they probably would have started strategic raids into Germany as early as September 1939. That, my dear Philip, is quite a significant footnoot to the matter, wouldn't you think? Grebbegoos ( talk) 12:31, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough. I recognize a lot of diplomacy in this last response that could be easily projected on plenty of accusations laid on the German side. But as I experienced during my many years as a war-historian, the war is still on, but then on paper... If we could only find a point of unbiased history analysis, it would be the day! Grebbegoos ( talk) 23:21, 18 November 2009 (UTC)
Here's a source for the attack on Monchengladbach on May 12th, so I will remove the part where it says that only after the attack on Rotterdam the RAF started attacks into inner Germany: http://www.rp-online.de/niederrhein-sued/moenchengladbach/nachrichten/bomben-auf-jack-1.702198 91.61.102.44 ( talk) 13:21, 29 January 2013 (UTC)
A recent addition seems to be fringe/propaganda - I don't believe it has a place in this article.
German weekly Die Mühle (The windmill) stated that the Dutch government was to blame for turning Rotterdam into a fortress, despite multiple summonses to evacuate. It also claimed that the old city was ignited by Dutch bombs and incendiary devices.
Hohum ( talk) 22:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
I propose that the article is split. The sections on the allied bombings being moved into a separate article Bombing of Rotterdam in World War II. -- PBS ( talk) 23:45, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
A Blitz is a natural phenomenon and has nothing to do with war. Even the term Blitzkrieg refers to a rapid movement of motorized troops and tanks, never to air operations. Everybody but a few ignorant Anglo-Saxon yellow press writers knows about that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.246.250.68 ( talk) 17:53, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Can we rename this article to Bombing of Rotterdam? Alternatively Bombing of Rotterdam (1940) or Bombing of Rotterdam in World War II. Rotterdam Blitz' is hardly used [2]. Grey Fox ( talk) 00:39, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
...even the headline.
How can just 90+ tons of bombs from 50 twin engine bombers be called a "Blitz". It's truly amazing that this propaganda silliness is still being thrown about 70+ years after the event. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.255.125.120 ( talk) 22:45, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
A user by the name of Denniss has repeatedly changed the following text;
The Rotterdam Blitz refers to the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam by the German Air Force on 14 May 1940, during the German invasion of the Netherlands in World War II. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the Dutch to surrender. Even though preceding negotiations resulted in a ceasefire, the bombardment took place none the less, in conditions which remain controversial, and destroyed of much of the historic city centre, killing nearly nine hundred civilians and leaving 30,000 people homeless.
... to the one shown below:
The Rotterdam Blitz refers to the aerial bombardment of Rotterdam by the German Air Force on 14 May 1940, during the German invasion of the Netherlands in World War II. The objective was to support the German troops fighting in the city, break Dutch resistance and force the Dutch to surrender. Even though negotiations were successful, failing communications on the German side caused the unnecessary bombardment of much of the city centre.
In discussion:
Calling this section 'German POV' would be wrong as this isn't the consensus among either the general German populace let alone the prevalent view among Germany's history scholars. If anything, this seems to be the view of a Wikipedia user who goes by the name of Denniss.
In the mist of time, the reason the German military had for bombing Rotterdam in 1940 can never be definitively known. Even if all possible sources would be available (which they are not, and will never be) they could (and would) still be biased to a very serious degree for the simple fact that these documents and testimonies would all be from persons with a "German agenda". For one thing; the idea that troops could be "supported" by medium bombers carrier incendiary bombs, is enough for most to (in any case) cast doubt on any possible intention. (this is all explained within the article as a whole, I shall not continue on this.)
Given this, to answer this historical question with a single answer such as that "the bombing was the result of failing communication" is simply nonsensical. Stating that the nature of the bombing remains controversial, is the closest anyone can and will ever get to the "truth". To state anything but this would be nothing but historical fraud.
Furthermore, another statement made by Denniss states that the bombing was "unnecessary" because negations had been "successful" (talking about POV-writing, to whom where they a "success" exactly?) which strikes me as very odd. Given the open policy of isolationism and neutrality of the Netherlands (since 1839) the entire invasion of the Netherlands by Nazi-Germany could very well seem "unnecessary" to many if not most. In fact, the (seemingly implied) "necessity" of German actions in World War II as a whole, are unknown to me. Would you care to enlighten me on that?
Apart from this, what Denniss did as well, was change the articles infobox. Specifically, the wording concerning the "result". Which he changed from "884 civilian dead, Rotterdam surrenders" to "German victory". Now, any moderately intelligent reader will note the logical discrepancy in that the same user who claims that the bombing of Rotterdam was unintentional and due to error, still considers it a "victory" as, if anything, that premise would make it a "failure" to say the least.
Of course, that is of secondary importance the main concern with it is the following: sorting these kind of events into 'victories' and 'defeats' does not only make seem child-like, it is also bad historical writing. A football match is either won, drawn or lost. This is not a football match, this is war.
History isn't a scoreboard, World War II is not a computer game. If the result was a German "victory", then surely it was a Dutch "tragedy" as well. The factual result was the surrender of Rotterdam and the death of nearly 900 Dutch civilians. Those are the facts. Changing that to anything similar to "German victory" is not only offensive to the Dutch people as a whole, but (and this is the point most important for Wikipedia and this article) bad historiography not even worthy of being called "amateur".
In addition: Denniss also removed the category Category:Mass murder in 1940 from the article. Considering this event fits all possible definitions of Mass murder, this also seems odd to me.
I would ask for anyone reading this (especially Denniss of course) to share their views on this.
Regards, Kleinsma80 ( talk) 17:20, 31 December 2012 (UTC) (aka 77.169.3.175)
![]() | This discussion was listed at Wikipedia:Move review on 7 April 2013. The result of the move review was Decision endorsed. |
The result of the move request was: Closed as no consensus for move without prejudice to a refiling in the future. This is one of several pages currently under review at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring (see User:Kleinsma80 reported by User:Dapi89). Accordingly, due to the conflict of interest the filing editor has, the page can not be moved in good faith until the all issues related to both civility and the edit warring claims are sorted out, otherwise the move will be tainted by the accusations that the editor in question disrupted Wikipedia to make a point by initiating a move change while under administrative review. While this closure comes about as a result of the filing editor being under administrative review, it should not automatically disqualify the page from being moved by a neutral editor in the future. TomStar81 ( Talk) 01:35, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
Rotterdam Blitz →
Bombing of Rotterdam – Excluding wikipedia's own pages, "Rotterdam Blitz" has 16.800 results using
google, whereas "Bombing of Rotterdam" has 183.000 results. On a side note, the common Dutch name (bombardement op Rotterdam, which translates as "bombing of Rotterdam) has over a million results. Searching on
google books, "Rotterdam Blitz" has a mere 63 results, "Bombing of Rotterdam" has 4.650.
Google scholar gives 219 results for the latter, while "Rotterdam Blitz" gets only 6 results. --Relisted
Tyrol5
[Talk] 02:03, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
Kleinsma80 (
talk)
17:11, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
The result of the proposal was not moved. While the previous MRV explicitly allowed a new request, there's clearly not consensus for such a move now. Since this request is framed as a second look at a previous RM, which was itself relisted, I don't see value in relisting. -- BDD ( talk) 21:35, 22 July 2013 (UTC)
Rotterdam Blitz → Bombing of Rotterdam – As can be read in the above section, references and popular opinion here on wikipedia support the move. However, despite there being a clear majority in favour the move was not carried out because of a personal conflict between to users; I don't see this existing anymore and suggest this page is moved to its correct and most common title asap. 77.169.3.175 ( talk) 09:54, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
I seem to think the Germans managed to kill 9 civilians per tonne of bombs released. Was that a high number for that time? -- 82.134.28.194 ( talk) 11:27, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
I do not think that this edit is justified in completely removing the sentence with the edit comment "Removed unencyclopedic entry that had no WP:RS support."
As a simple Google search throws up plenty of reliable sources I am not sure how this conclusion was reached.:
A search on [Rotterdam 30,000 killed] returns lots of reliable sources (all of the below are from a search of the web and Google books using that search string):
"Two hours later Rotterdam's defenders surrendered. In London the next morning, and indeed in every city in the world outside the Axis countries, newspapers blazoned the horror of the attack, claiming 30,000 dead and characterising the German demolition of the old city as an act of unmitigated barbarism."
Some contemporary sources:
While the wording my not be the best there are plenty of sources to support that the Allied and neutral press did publish the number of 30,000.
There are reliable sources that claim that the figure of 30,000 was an Allied propaganda figure:
it is not surprising that these sorts of figures were propagated and believed as the world fully expected there to be these sorts of death rates in the period leading up to the war--and presumably in the early months of the war--because that is what the experts and the popular media had all predicted would happen through the 1930s (" The bomber will always get through" etc)
-- PBS ( talk) 21:58, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
User PBS is repeatedly inserting the following sentence into the article "Western news agencies grossly exaggerated the event for propaganda purposes, portraying Rotterdam as a city mercilessly destroyed by terror bombing without regard to civilian life, with 30,000 dead lying under the ruins". There are numerous problems with the sentence.
User PBS does not provide any verifiable WP:RS source for any of these claims. Despite claiming in edit summaries that "there are lots of reliable sources", user PBS fails to provide a single source and just keep reverting to a version with a broken source, and one that may not meet WP:RS requirements. The current sentence is vague, unenclyclopaedic and not properly sourced, and should be removed unless proper sources for each of its claims can be provided. Jeppiz ( talk) 23:46, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
changing "Western news agencies grossly exaggerated the event for propaganda purposes" to "Dutch and British sources informed the public through Allied and international new media" is unacceptable and propaganda in itself. if you like it or not but the bombing was inside the war zone and on a defended city. so it was legal by international law (hague treaties and roosevelts appeal) allied propaganda exaggerated the number of killed civilians by 5000% and used that as an excuse to strategically bomb germany. they also lied about rotterdam being an open city which it clearly wasn't with dutch and german troops having a battle inside the city. I know that dutch and possibly others feel very strong about all this (even though you should get over yourself, it's not your battle) the historic facts should not be replaced by allied war time propaganda and white washing. Swunt ( talk) 10:32, 9 November 2014 (UTC)
If you think a reference needs improving, then tag it appropriately. If you think something in the text needs a citation, then tag it appropriately. If you have a reliable, verifiable source for something, then add it as a reference. If you don't know how to do any of these then ask, politely, here or at the Help Desk. Don't demand that others carry out your edits for you. DuncanHill ( talk) 16:17, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm very concerned with the reliability of this article on the author " E. R. Hooton". I can barely find any of his books, one of his books is registered as written by a "Teddy Hooton", there is no mention anywhere about his qualifications, and his claims in this article are very dubious. He has, among others things, claimed that only 30,000 people became homeless. The general consensus is, as far as I know, around 85,000. Also odd are the claims that the Dutch had so many fighter aircraft. Were they all effortlessly destroyed? Where is the battle? This needs to be investigated. Bataaf van Oranje ( talk) 19:45, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
"E.R. (Ted) Hooton has been a journalist for 40 years and a defence journalist for about 25 years. He has written numerous articles on military history and three highly regarded books on the history of the Luftwaffe – ‘The Luftwaffe – A Study in Air Power 1933-1945’ (2010) ‘Phoenix Triumphant: The Rise and Rise of the Luftwaffe’ (1992) and ‘Eagle in Flames: The Fall of the Luftwaffe’ (1997) as well as contributing to several others. He has also written a detailed history of air operations over the Western Front, ‘War above the Trenches – Air Power and the Western Front Campaigns 1916-1918’ (2010). Tattered Flag Press recently discussed his latest book with him. ..." (Anonymous. "A five-minute interview with the author, E.R. Hooton". The Tattered Flag.).