Jörg Friedrich (author)

Friedrich is best known for his publication Der Brand (2002), in which he portrays the Allied bombing of civilian targets during World War II as systematic and in many ways pointless mass murder.

For his work The Law of War: The German Army in Russia Friedrich has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Following thereon, he began to write books on the history of the war in Germany and work as an independent historian, researching postwar justice and the Nuremberg Trials.

As a historian who has written strongly on the horrors committed by the German state under the Nazis, Friedrich's position has always been assumed to be anti-Nazi with antiwar tendencies focused towards Germany's taking responsibility for its actions during the war.

Less well-known bombings, such as that of the Polish town of Wieluń within the first two hours of the war and prior to any attack on Germany, either by air or land, are left out.

He also mentions that the technique to create firestorms was a German development first seen in the bombing against British cities, such as the Coventry Blitz (14 November 1940) and the Second Great Fire of London (29/30 December 1940).

One explanation offered for Friedrich's recent books and their choice of topics is that he maintains strong antiwar feelings, and with the looming War in Iraq and other global conflicts, he wanted to join in the general German antiwar feelings and implicitly criticise the policy of attacks on foreign nonmilitary targets in Iraq.

Friedrich has himself rejected this explanation, stating that he is "dismayed that The Fire has bolstered the pacifist argument against German participation in an Iraq war".

), with the actions towards Jews described as a decision of Hitler for strategic reasons whilst the needless incineration of hundreds of thousands of defenseless German civilians is reappraised as a war crime and a massacre.