Quote Originally Posted by Evil_Maniac From Mars View Post
Only nine hundred people perished in the bombing of Rotterdam, not tens of thousands. The bombing probably did save lives, in the same manner as Hiroshima.
The Germans were simply in a rush and didn't feel like committing the necessary manpower for taking Rotterdam by conventional fighting. It was a quick solution and they didn't care how many civilians would have died so long as it would force the surrender of the city. The only reason that so few people died was because the bombing had been announced and because of the air alarm, but nearly a hundred thousand people lost their homes.

In retrospect you could say that more than 900 civilians would have died in streetfighting (an assertion wich I'm not ready to accept just like that) but to say that this "justifies" the bombing is misguided - it was not the reason Rotterdam was bombed.

Neither was it the reason for Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but Japan had been the agressor in that part of the war and wouldn't have left the Americans alone if they had stopped after Iwo Jima. Japan was a threat that needed to be put an end to, Hiroshima and Nagasaki made sense. In contrast Hitler could have simply opted to leave us alone entirely.