On April 8, 1945, several American bomber squadrons were informed that their Ger
man targets were temporarily unavailable due to cloud cover. As it was too late
to turn back, the assembled ordnance of more than two hundred bombers was divert
ed to nearby Halberstadt. A mid-sized cathedral town of no particular industrial
or strategic importance, Halberstadt was almost totally destroyed, and a then-t
hirteen-year-old Alexander Kluge watched his town burn to the ground. Translated
by Martin Chalmers, Kluge's "Air Raid "is a touchstone event in German literatu
re of the postwar era. Incorporating photographs, diagrams, and drawings, Kluge
captures the overwhelming rapidity and totality of the organized destruction of
his town from numerous perspectives, bringing to life both the strategy from abo
ve and the futility of the response on the ground. Originally published in Germa
n in 1977, this exquisite report, fragmentary and unfinished, is one of Kluge's
most personal works.
