ABSTRACT
German politics placed itself on the 'inclined plane' with the First World War and slid down it into the Second. Paranoia remained alive in collective feelings. The governments of the United States and Great Britain were united in the view that the air raids on non-military targets carried out by the Germans in the Spanish Civil War and by the Japanese in their campaign against China were war crimes. Technological innovations favoured total war, which included the sky, just as they favoured mass paranoia over the combatants' old codes of honour. Mass paranoia seems almost independent of traditions, constitutional states and democratic institutions that have existed for centuries. As happens with many institutions, Bomber Command had become an entity in itself, which could not be set aside even when it had achieved its purpose.
