NEWS OF THE WEEK
fil HE appalling devastation which has been inflicted on the heart of the city of Berlin on two successive nights by RA.F. bombers is not intended as an act of revenge for the bombing of London in t94o and 1941. Though we should never have made these attacks on inhabited cities if Germany had not made it the practice of this war, we could not, in the circumstances which she has created, abjure the advantage of striking at a key point which is at the same time -the administrative centre of her war effort, the most important junction of her railway, telephone and telegraphic com- munications, and the home of many essential war industries. Among the results from a purely military point of view were the destruction of the Siemens factories, which are the greatest electrical works in Europe, the destruction of works at Spandau, Wilmersdorf, Neuktilln, Lichtenburg and Pankow, the smashing of the Potsdamer railway station and the tracks at 'Anhalter railway station, and— surely to be included under this head—the destruction of Speer's Armaments Ministry. That the loss of life among civilians was also extremely heavy was one of those consequences which most people in this country genuinely regret, but it is a consequence which the Germans have made inevitable by compelling us to strike at the centres of their strength as they have struck at ours. The total war which was waged in the bombing of Coventry has been continued in the bombing of the Ruhr, and the bombing of Berlin is not less justifiable than the bombing of the coal and iron centres. Such blows as this have been feared and expected by Germany, and must be repeated because they weaken the nerve-centre of her war effort. They may produce reprisals so far as these are within the memy's power, but today we know, as the Germans knew in 1940, who can strike the harder in the air and do most damage to the 3thees war-potential..
