Musashi wrote:Guernica was the first foreign city COMPLETELY destroyed for fun by the German bombers.
Sorry, but that is absurd. The Luftwaffe was used as "flying artillery" in direct support of Nationalist forces. About 600 were killed, mostly Republican troops.
However, since Communist propaganda and the Western Left promoted Guernica as a Fascist atrocity, notably through Picasso's
Guernica mural, there were some long-ranging effects.
1) The Luftwaffe determined that direct support or interdiction worked better than pinprick strategic bombing raids on cities. A strategic air force required building a long-range bomber force instead of close-air support fighters and medium bombers. 2) The Germans learned by Guernica that the mystique of the Luftwaffe could serve as a diplomatic Big Stick much the way the British Fleet or the gunboats of Western powers had in the past. When Commodore Perry steamed into Tokyo harbor in 1853 the isolationist Japanese said, Okay, we'll trade with America.
So, in WWII the Luftwaffe was developed for support of the Army (and to a lesser extend the Navy, when the Army didn't need fires put out). However, the British and American air forces, were developed from the start for strategic bombing. The main aspect of airpower theory that the Allies liked was the notion of Douhet that strategic air forces could win wars all by themselves.
When foreign representative were shown the Luftwaffe, which went public in 1935 after being banned by the Versailles treaty, they say the same planes taking off and landing with the markings changed to give the impression of greater size. And especially foreigners saw that the National Socialist Luftwaffe had the swastike on its tailplane, in sharp contrast to the Prussian Army or the Imperial Navy. Göring showed Charles Lindbergh the Luftwaffe and the industries behind it with full state-support, deliberately trying not to hide its presence but instead to make it look more fearsome that it really was, an ace in the hole if anyone tried to make war with Germany. Lindbergh was impressed and prudently agreed that the West, particularly America, should not make war with Germany.
During the first part of the war, the Luftwaffe was used in support of ground forces until the Battle of Britain, and then it was used against airfields, radar, and then in retaliation against British bomber factories. It took numerous provocations of Churchill and meager attacks upon German cities before Hitler ordered the enemy cities to be area-bombed at night. When Hitler area-bombed during the Battle of Britain there were diplomatic terms on the table. When the Allies area-bombed in force later in the war, the terms were Unconditional Surrender--and the Soviet Union was an equal partner in that Allied Peace.
It wasn't until the Battle of Britain when the Luftwaffe lost a battle of attrition with the RAF Fighter Command. The myth of the Luftwaffe as a diplomatic trump card was exposed. The weapon had been used well initially but for the first time it had failed to deliver. The RAF retreated into the interior beyond the range of German single-engined escort fighters, and the powerfully-armed twin-engined escort fighters were not maneuverable enough to deal with British interceptors, nor were they fast enough to get away. Thus, the Luftwaffe went to nighttime area-attacks, and these were rarely remarkable except for the Coventry raid, when electronic navigation methods produced an unusually stunning result--which, however, did not win the war or bring the British to the peace table. Indeed, the result, as Churchill had hoped, was to galvanize the British public into supporting the prosecution of an unpopular war with Germany.
Because of the pressure that Hitler and the tactical Luftwaffe had placed on the isolated British island (uncertain at this point of American salvation) the British war machine drew the conclusion that Terror Bombing was the preferred war-winning weapon "to take the fight to the enemy" if only sufficient force could be concentrated. The strategic RAF would be able to deliver Germany to the Democracies on a plate. When the Cherwell doctrine was secretly accepted by Churchill's war cabinet in March, 1942, Bomber Command never made any pretext about going after anything other than nonmilitary targets. Of course, this was denied in Parliament and after the war.