War Damage in Western Europe : The Destruction of Historic Monuments During the Second World War

Introducing the subject of wartime destruction of architecture and historic monuments, Nicola Lambourne compares the damage inflicted upon Germany, Britain and France and considers the use and abuse of this type of destruction in the lowering of morale and for propaganda purposes.

Wartime architectural damage is an area which has until now been subject more to a process of mythologization than to historical analysis - for most it means only Coventry, Dresden, and perhaps Bomber Harris. This fascinating new book attempts to counter this trend. Introducing the subject of wartime destruction of architecture and historic monuments, Nicola Lambourne compares the damage inflicted upon Germany, Britain and France and considers the use and abuse of this type of destruction in the lowering of morale and for propaganda purposes.Commentaries on large-scale destruction have focused more on the resulting human damage than on the effect on the architectural heritage, with the result that the bombardment of historic monuments has almost been taken for granted as an inevitable but essentially unproblematic aspect of ''total war''. However the debate surrounding the morality of this type of damage made it an important and highly visible issue during the Second World War and this book aims t