German bombing of Rotterdam: Difference between revisions

The telegraphed message from Schmidt to halt the bombers and put them on standby was confirmed as received by the 2nd ''Luftflotte'' at 12:42.<ref name=":0" /> The commander of ''Luftflotte 2'', Field Marshal [[Albert Kesselring]] was interviewed about the event during the [[Nuremberg Trials]] by [[Leon Goldensohn]], who recalled:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goldensohn |first=Leon |title=The Nuremberg interviews : an American psychiatrist's conversations with the defendants and witnesses |date=2005 |publisher=Vintage Books |others=Robert Gellately |isbn=1-4000-3043-9 |edition=1st |location=New York |page=326 |oclc=69671719}}</ref><blockquote>Kesselring admitted that the conditions were such that an attack could have been called off, but still clung, rather unreasonably, to the idea that it was tactically indicated because he had been ordered to do so, and he was not a politician but a soldier</blockquote>Kesselring stated that he had not known about the capitulation, but that is contradicted by the evidence that his headquarters had received the message at 12:42, roughly 40 minutes before the bombs started to fall. Yet, at Nuremberg, both Göring and Kesselring of the Luftwaffe defended the bombing on the grounds that Rotterdam had been not an open city but one stoutly defended by the Dutch. It would be unreasonable for the Germans to bomb a captured city as that would mean it was occupied by their own troops. Further, the fact that German troops were holding out in a pocket within the city negates allied claims that it was an indiscriminate carpet bombing of the sort the Allies later employed themselves. <ref name=":1" /> In his memoirs, written while he was in prison for war crimes, Kesselring gave his account:<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Kesselring |first=Albert |title=The memoirs of Field-Marshal Kesselring |date=2015 |isbn=978-0-7509-6434-0 |location=Stroud |page=56 |oclc=994630181}}</ref><blockquote>On the morning of 13 May, Student kept calling for bomber support against enemy strongpoints inside Rotterdam and the point of main effort at the bridges where the parachutists were held up. At 14:00 hours the sortie in question was flown, and its success finally led to the capitulation of Holland on 14 May 1940</blockquote>[[Kurt Student|General Student]] requestedhad onlyrequested strikes against enemy strongpoints, not carpet-bombing of the city. Had the Germans indescriminately carpet bombed the city, they would have endangered their own troops holding out around the bridges. <ref name=":4" /> Kesselring also states in his memoirs that he spent hours in heated argument with Göring on how the attacks were to be carried out, if at all.<ref name=":4" /> The arguments happened before the bombers took off and so that cannot be used as an excuse for why he did not get in contact with the bombers.