From one who flew a Lancaster on all four RAF raids - Rated 
In 'Inferno' Keith Lowe tells the story of the British and American air raids on the German city of Hamburg during one week in the summer of 1943. Although he covers in great detail the actual raids and the build -up to them, when the forced humour of the waiting aircrews masked their true feelings, the main thrust of the book is about the hellish events in the streets and cellars below. The 'firestorm' after the second raid, when winds of up to 150 miles per hour fanned the all-consuming flames, inflicted unimaginable horrors on the civilian population. The author seeks a balance by noting that 'by the beginning of September the charred, burned trees sprouted new life and white lilac bloomed in the destroyed gardens of the houses'. This was nature's reaction to man's inhumanity. Extensively researched and beautifully written, 'Inferno' recalls one of the significant turning points of the Second World War. As more than a million refugees from Hamburg took with them their stories of the city's destruction, the German people began to accept, probably for the first time, the inevitability of their defeat.
`From a reluctant military history reader who was very impressed' (5 stars - Rated
I am someone who has never before read a military history book in their lives - and was persuaded to read this by my husband who thought I would like it. He said it wasn't the usual `run of the mill' military history book (whatever that is!) and so I gave it a go. I was amazed. I found myself gripped, challenged and very moved, immersed in an account that drew me on to read more whilst gently informing and educating me. Most of all, I felt my prejudices about the German experience during the war challenged and felt that the true horror of war was - probably for the first time- vividly conveyed to me by the author presenting both the perspectives of the British and American airman and the Germans on the ground. This book has a deceptive simplicity to it. To read it and engage with the story is a powerful and challenging emotional task, and reading it is something you will never forget. I was left feeling older and wiser about what it can mean to be caught up in a war, and I wholeheartedly recommend it because of this. If more history were written like this we may be more likely to heed its lessons.
Wonderful, terrifying and very thought-provoking - Rated
I found this a wonderful, terrifying and very thought-provoking book. It is impressively researched, Mr Lowe seems to have been to every relevant archive and has managed a balanced view of an emotional subject by interviewing people from both sides who were actually involved in the Hamburg firestorm. However, what really clinched it for me and makes it such a good book is that Mr Lowe obviously knows how to tell a good story. First of all he describes the run up to the bombings, which is full of suspense; then the terrible firestorm itself is presented in the sort of detail that really makes you feel like you're there (but makes you thank god you are not); and then finally when he describes the aftermath it's almost like he's describing Armageddon. However this is not just the telling of a story - Mr Lowe completes the book (as he should) with a discussion about the morality of bombing,inevitably this raises uncomfortable questions about the way we conducted the bomber war, but also asks, could we really have done it any other way? It is interesting to read about the bombing Germany in the context of a city other than Dresden and given that the Hamburg firestorm was such a huge event, I am surprised that I hadn't heard more about it before, however it seems that the Second World War was filled with hundreds of such events and this adds to the poignancy of this book - you can't read it without reflecting that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
We need to straighten one thing out - Rated 
The statement regarding German deployments overseas against those of the UK, France and Britain is misleading in th extreme. Germany was not permitted BY LAW, to deploy forces overseas and even now such moves are difficult for their government. The UK and France, by contrast had the vestiges of empires at the end of WWII which, rightly or wrongly, needed protecting. The legacy of those empires still influences our involvement in some areas (the Falklands and Sierra Leone are good examples - were we to let the Argentinians subjugate British citizens, or the RUF, et al, to overrun Sierra Leone?). The French have similarly been involved in a number of their former colonies (Chad springs to mind.) We have also leant forward when it comes to supporting UN operations. I don't believe the Germans can claim the same, as there reluctance to engage directly in Afghanistan clearly demonstrates, although I do understand and sympathise with their view.
Whether the US like it or not, they are now the world's policemen - I won't discuss how well they are doing in this role - much as the UK was in the 19th Century. The shrinking of the world through telecommunications, TV and the Internet makes it even less possible to ignore the 'hotspots' of the world. Governments in all democratic countries are influenced by their populations, don't forget, who are in turn influenced by the media - this is not a good thing, simply a fact of the 21st Century.
It is too easy to say "we shouldn't go". But what are we to do? Just let these countries (many of whom should have more potential) implode and turn to anarchy? When they turn to us (as they have), do we just ignore them?
To compare our military activities since WWII to those of the Germans is a naive statement that appears to deliberately overlook some critical points. It is also, largely, irrelevant when discussing the Op Gomorrah raids on Hamburg (just one of many SBO operations which is more remarkable by its success at the time, than anything else) and, sadly, detracts from the overall message. I don't think the former crewman should castigate himself too much, either. Wars are dirty affairs, none more so than WWII, where terrible things are done - he was merely one of the tools and must try to recall the circumstances of the day; it is too easy to look back with hindsight and criticise.
Readable, but occasionally lacking in authority - Rated
I applaud the author's efforts to make the consequences of the Hamburg raids known to a wider public here in the UK, but I think the book has a number of weaknesses as well as undeniable strengths. The sections that deal with the raids themselves are the most compelling, perhaps because they are also the sections where the author has clearly had the greatest access to eyewitness accounts. In comparison, I found some other sections colourless and lacking in detail, and the sections dealing with what flight crews might or might not have done in the hours before setting off for a raid were largely speculative - 'they might have done x, they might have done y' - and unworthy of a book on such a weighty topic. The author's weighing of the moral case lacked authority - far better to read AC Grayling's 'Among the Dead Cities' to get that, and there were one or two rather worrying mis-translations from the German - for example 'Du gehorst zu mir' does not mean 'you happened to me', as the book would have it, but 'you belong to me'. Not in itself such a serious error, perhaps, but in a book dealing with a German topic and citing numerous German-language sources, it's a bit of a worry. I also take issue with his dismissal of the Jorg Friedrich book 'The Fire', now available in English language translation and unfairly overlooked by reviewers in the UK. Nevertheless, the author does have an eye for a telling point, as at the end when he contrasts the German's peaceable nature since World War Two with the continued enthusiasm of the Americans and British for war.
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