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Bombs falling over Berlin-Mitte, 11 July 1944. A damaged American B-17 is in the frame; Alexanderplatz is the pale square at lower right.Photo: US Air Force, Reference Number: C54775AC, 1944. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

The bombing war

Berlin was bombed 363 times. The raids stopped on 21 April 1945 only so the Red Army could begin its assault

From the first RAF raid in August 1940 to the American attack of 3 February 1945, the heaviest on the city, the bombing killed between 20,000 and 50,000 people, by differing estimates.

363
air raids, Aug 1940 – Apr 1945
57months
from the first raid to the last
20–50thousand
dead, by differing estimates; no single figure is agreed
>3,700
killed on two nights, 22 and 23 November 1943

01Berlin, August 1940

The first British bombs fell on Berlin in the summer of 1940

On the night of 25/26 August 1940, British bombers attacked the German capital for the first time.

They came back within days. The photograph shows a flat in Kreuzberg burned out by incendiaries a few nights after the first raid; the archive records the street and house number.

It was the start of 57 months under the bombs, and 363 raids.

Men in a gutted room sort through charred furniture and debris beneath a broken window.
Clearing a flat at Kottbusser Straße 16, Kreuzberg, burned out by incendiary bombs in a British raid on the night of 28/29 August 1940, days after the first.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L08521A / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de
A black-and-white night aerial photograph: a grid of streets lit by flashes, crossed by bright wavering streaks of light.
An RAF bomber’s camera over Berlin on the night of 2/3 September 1941: bombs bursting near the central cattle market and railway yard, east of the centre. The wavy lines are searchlights and flak.Photo: Royal Air Force official photographer, 1941. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

The bombing of Berlin, 1940–1945

A calendar of the bombing of Berlin, one row per year from 1940 to 1945 and one cell per month, with the Battle of Berlin, the almost daily raids of early 1945 and four numbered events marked at their true dates.
Bombing monthsBattle of BerlinAlmost daily

Each cell is a month; spans and numbered events sit at their true dates. No monthly count of raids or bombs is drawn: none is verified.

Seen from above, a falling bomb is about to strike the tail of a bomber flying low beneath it, high over the street grid of a city.
An American B-17 on its bomb run over Berlin, 19 May 1944.Photo: United States Government, 1944. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

August 1940 – April 1945

363 raids in 57 months

From August 1940 to April 1945, Berlin was raided 363 times, by the count of the historians Frederick Taylor and Werner Girbig. The Bundesarchiv counts “more than 350”.

Men in a gutted room sort through charred furniture and debris beneath a broken window.
Kottbusser Straße 16, Kreuzberg: a flat burned out in a British raid of 28/29 August 1940, days after the first.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-L08521A / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

125/26 August 1940

The first RAF raid

British bombers attack Berlin for the first time.

At night, a ground crewman with raised arms guides a four-engined bomber across wet grass; a lamp shines from its nose and its propellers blur.
A Lancaster back at its Lincolnshire base from the raid on Berlin of 22/23 November 1943.Photo: Miller F/O, Royal Air Force official photographer, 1943. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

18 Nov 1943 – 25 Mar 1944

The Battle of Berlin

The RAF's winter of heavy night raids, from the first raid on 18 November 1943 to the last large raid, which ended on 25 March 1944.

The gutted church with its main tower broken off; an abandoned gun stands in the empty square in front.
The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche, Charlottenburg, in July 1945: it burned out in these raids.Photo: Hewitt C H (Sergeant), No 5 Army Film Photographic Unit, 1945. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

222 and 23 November 1943

The Gedächtniskirche burns

Two RAF night raids killed more than 3,700 people and burned out the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche.

Burnt-out vehicles stand among rubble in a street of gutted buildings.A head-and-shoulders portrait of a balding man in a dark suit and tie.
Mohrenstraße, Mitte, after the raid of 3 February 1945. Right: Roland Freisler, killed in the raid, photographed in 1942.Photos: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J31347 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de · Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J03238 / Heinscher / CC-BY-SA 3.0 de

3Feb 1945 – Mar 1945

The heaviest raid on Berlin

In February and March 1945 the Allies bombed the capital almost daily. On 3 February 1945 came the heaviest raid of all: nearly 1,000 American B-17s attacked the government and newspaper districts in Mitte and Kreuzberg. Roland Freisler, president of the Volksgerichtshof, was among the dead.

Passers-by walk past the gutted, rubble-filled corner of a café building; a sign stands in front of the ruins beside a street lamp.
The Kranzler corner, Unter den Linden, destroyed by the bombing; photographed in 1945.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J31402 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

421 April 1945

The bombing stops

The British and Americans ended their raids so that the Red Army could begin its ground offensive on the city.

02Charlottenburg, November 1943

In two November nights the bombs killed more than 3,700 people and burned out the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche

The RAF raids of 22 and 23 November 1943 came in the first week of the Battle of Berlin. More than 3,700 people died, by the Berliner Zeitung’s count; the historian Reinhard Rürup puts it at nearly four thousand. The memorial church at the end of the Kurfürstendamm burned out.

A tall neo-Romanesque church with a pointed main spire stands in a square with trams and pedestrians.
The Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in 1906.Photo: Max Missmann (1874–1945), 1906. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.
The gutted church with its main tower broken off; an abandoned gun stands in the empty square in front.
The same church on 7 July 1945, its main spire broken off. It burned out in the raids of 22 and 23 November 1943.Photo: Hewitt C H (Sergeant), No 5 Army Film Photographic Unit, 1945. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

Its broken tower still stands on the Breitscheidplatz, kept as a memorial. Every raid left Berliners bombed out of their homes, and streets, stations and railways to be propped up and cleared.

Two women sit beside a wooden fence among bundles of bedding and household goods; rubble lies in the street.
Bombed out: Berliners with what they saved, after a British raid, August 1943.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-085-28 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de
A steel railway viaduct over a street, its deck buckled and supported on stacks of timber beams.
The elevated railway viaduct on Bülowstraße, Schöneberg, wrenched by an air mine on 19 July 1944 and propped up with timber.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J30192 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

03The dead

Nobody knows how many died: the estimates run from 20,000 to 50,000

Published estimates of the number of people killed in Berlin by the bombing range from 20,000 to 50,000 (Rürup, 2003). Recent German studies suggest the lower part of this range.

The range is drawn whole, with no figure picked from its middle. For scale, the two November nights of 1943 are drawn on the same axis: more than 3,700 dead.

Scale from zero. The arrow marks a lower bound: “more than”.

04The count

363 raids, 310 of them on the city itself

The usual count, from the historian Frederick Taylor, is 363 air raids. Werner Girbig’s history of the air war over the capital breaks it down: 363 on the Berlin region, 310 of them on the city itself. The Bundesarchiv, more cautiously, says Berlin was bombed “more than 350” times.

The city answered with flak, some of it mounted on concrete towers like the one at the Zoo, which carried heavy guns high above the rooftops.

Helmeted soldiers man a long-barrelled anti-aircraft gun on a concrete platform high above the rooftops of the city; one carries a shell.
Heavy flak ready to fire on top of the flak tower at the Zoo, April 1942. The archive caption calls the Zoo bunker one of the few large reinforced-concrete shelters.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H27779 / Pilz / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Air raids on Berlin, August 1940 – April 1945

363
On the city: 310On the wider region: 53Bundesarchiv: “more than 350”One square: one raid
Seen from above, a falling bomb is about to strike the tail of a bomber flying low beneath it, high over the street grid of a city.
Over Berlin, 19 May 1944: the B-17G “Miss Donna Mae II” drifts under another bomber on its bomb run. A bomb from above tore off its tail stabiliser; all eleven men aboard were killed.Photo: United States Government, 1944. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

05Mitte and Kreuzberg, 3 February 1945

The heaviest raid came eleven weeks before the last

On 3 February 1945, nearly 1,000 American B-17s attacked the government and newspaper districts in Mitte and Kreuzberg. Roland Freisler, president of the Volksgerichtshof, was among the dead.

Burnt-out vehicles stand among rubble in a street of gutted buildings.
Mohrenstraße, Mitte, after the raid of 3 February 1945.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J31347 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de
Wrecked tramcars stand in a ruined street; a narrow path has been cleared through the rubble.
Oranienstraße, Kreuzberg, after the raid of 3 February 1945: a path cleared beside wrecked trams.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J31328 / (Otto) Hofmann / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

By then the raids came almost daily: through February and March 1945, the Bundesarchiv records, the Allies bombed the capital nearly every day.

0621 April 1945

The bombing stopped so that the ground battle could begin

On 21 April 1945, the British and Americans ended their raids on Berlin. The reason was not mercy: the Red Army was about to begin its ground offensive on the city.

Passers-by walk past the gutted, rubble-filled corner of a café building; a sign stands in front of the ruins beside a street lamp.
The Kranzler corner, Unter den Linden and Friedrichstraße, destroyed by British and American bombing; photographed before 9 April 1945. The sign gives the café’s new address.Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-J31402 / Unknown / CC BY-SA 3.0 de

Berlin was bombed 363 times in 57 months. Between 20,000 and 50,000 people died; no one has been able to count them more exactly.

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{{cite web |title=The bombing of Berlin, 1940–45 |url=https://berlinfographics.com/allied-bombing/ |website=Berlinfographics |publisher=Berlin Experiences |date=2026-11-05 |access-date=2026-11-05}}