Operation Steinbock

Operation Steinbock or Operation Capricorn (German: Unternehmen Steinbock), sometimes called the Baby Blitz or Little Blitz, was a strategic bombing campaign by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) during the Second World War. It comprised attacks on southern England and lasted from January to May 1944. Steinbock was the last strategic air offensive by the German bomber arm during the conflict.

In late 1943, the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive was gathering momentum against Germany. The Allied air forces were conducting a strategic bombing campaign day and night against German industrial cities. Adolf Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to prepare a bombing operation against the United Kingdom. The bombing offensive also served as propaganda value for the German public and domestic consumption. The operation ran parallel to the Battle of Berlin conducted by RAF Bomber Command (November 1943 – March 1944).

The Luftwaffe assembled 474 bomber aircraft for the offensive. The attacks were mainly aimed at and around the Greater London area. In Britain, it was known as the Baby Blitz due to the much smaller scale of operations compared to the Blitz in 1940–1941. The operation began in January and ended in May 1944. It achieved very little, and the German force suffered a loss of some 329 machines during the five months of operations before it was abandoned. Casualties were at 70 per cent for the aircraft committed and were destroyed at an average rate of 77 per month.

The revenge attacks gave way to attempts to disrupt preparations for the impending Allied invasion of France but Steinbock had worn down the offensive power of the Luftwaffe to the extent it could not mount any significant operations when the D-Day invasion began on 6 June 1944. The offensive was the last big bombing campaign against England using conventional aircraft, thenceforth only the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rockets – the pioneering examples of cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles respectively – were used against British cities.

By the end of 1943 the Allied Combined Bomber Offensive had taken a severe toll on Germany. Under the leadership of Generalleutnant Josef Kammhuber, the Luftwaffe night fighter force expanded against the threat. The introduction of airborne radar in the Luftwaffe enabled the German air defences to inflict many losses on RAF Bomber Command, but they could not prevent widespread destruction of industrial cities. Two years after the first radar-intercepted victory by the Luftwaffe, only 83 per cent of the night fighters (49 per cent of establishment) were equipped with Lichtenstein radar. Production of sets was well behind and the later SN-2 sets were unusable by late 1943. By the following spring, technical and production improvements made it effective and available in quantity. The 1,000th set was built in May 1944. Only once did the RAF lose as many as 9 per cent of the attacking force over Germany—during an attack on Pilsen, Czechoslovakia on 17 May 1943. This was below the 10 per cent required to force the British to abandon operations, though Bomber Command losses increased to a peak of 7.14 per cent in December 1943. Average Bomber Command losses rose from 3.98 per cent in January to July 1943 to 5.76 per cent August to December and reached 7.14 per cent that month.

Kammhuber's efforts were damaged by the amateurish leadership style of Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe. Göring's poor understanding of the technicalities of air warfare was mirrored by the Chief of the General Staff, Hans Jeschonnek. Göring had neglected his command since the outbreak of war but sought to meet his responsibilities in 1943 as his prestige with Adolf Hitler waned in the aftermath of Stalingrad on the Eastern Front. Göring's interference in air defence was disastrous. On the night of 22/23 October 1943, he took command of the night fighters. The British Operation Corona helped confuse the defences and Göring's mishandling of the night fighter force allowed Bomber Command to devastate Kassel. Göring deflected the blame for British attacks on his subordinates and his relations with them deteriorated. In August 1943 Jeschonnek killed himself after the Peenemünde Raid. In November 1943 Bomber Command began the Battle of Berlin and Kammhuber was sacked.

At the top of the German High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW) there was little understanding or appreciation for air defence, even in the aftermath of the bombing of Hamburg which inflicted 76,600 casualties and destroyed large parts of the city and its industry. While Hitler had left the Luftwaffe to Göring earlier in the war, he was now enmeshed in decision-making. Göring was reduced to a conduit through which Hitler's orders were channelled to senior commanders and the failure of the Luftwaffe frequently drew Hitler's ire. At one conference Göring attempted to placate Hitler by suggesting that the destruction of German cities worked in the Nazi favour, as he perceived it created a body of people with nothing to lose and who "will therefore fight on with utter fanaticism".

Göring was reluctant to allocate resources to the defence of Germany for other reasons. He argued that the German people had survived before there were cities and that the Soviet danger was the priority of the Luftwaffe. Even at this stage of the war, in October 1943, Göring exhibited a bias toward bombers rather than fighters. He said, "All they [the German people] wish to hear when a hospital or a children's home in Germany is destroyed is that we have destroyed the same in England!".