Hausser, Paul (1880–1972) the key policies of the early Cold War, including containment of the Soviet Union, the European Recovery Program, and NATO HARRIS, ARTHUR (1892–1984) “Bomber Harris.” British air chief marshal Rhodesian born Arthur Harris remains the single most persistently controversial of all senior Western Allied military leaders Harris was the supreme advocate of area bombing, the method of strategic bombing evolved by the RAF during his tenure as commander in chief of RAF Bomber Command, from February 1942 to the end of the war in Europe in May 1945 Harris was impressed with the effects of German bombing of London and other cities during the Blitz, yet he missed a central fact about those raids: area bombing, or morale bombing, did not work against the British Why should it work against the Germans? Nevertheless, he remained absolutely—one can say with fairness, also blindly—committed to bombing German cities over all other targets, even oil refineries, rail yards, or other high priority strategic targets set by the Joint Chiefs of Staff Harris deflected nearly all efforts by his fellow air men and his superiors to divert bombers to noncity targets, which he contemptuously dismissed as mere “panacea targets.” He notably resisted calls to use heavy bombers for tactical preparation in advance of OVERLORD, though he lost that argument to General Dwight Eisenhower Harris’ most blameworthy behavior was to make exaggerated claims about bombing to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, combined with rigid refusal to accept growing evidence that neither area nor morale bombing were working For instance, he told Churchill in mid-1943 that the Ruhr Valley was “largely out” and that he was “certain that Germany must collapse.” He continued in this attitude to the end of the war, often ignoring or outright refusing to believe mounting intelligence that said German war production was expanding and dispersing in response to the area bombing campaign and that enemy civilian morale and even support for the Nazi regime was nowhere near breaking into late 1944 Into 1943 Harris built up Bomber Command to levels capable of conducting thousand bomber raids and other operations of the Combined Bomber Offensive against German cities He sincerely thought such devastating bombing could by itself provide decisive victory before D-Day (June 6, 1944) His greatest operational failure was the Berlin bomber offensive (1943–1944), which cost the Western Allies a great many planes and crews Harris’ name became permanently associated with the great raid on Dresden, for which some critics later accused him of carrying out war crimes In postwar interviews and memoirs, Harris never repented the policy of area bombing or any given instance of it; he defiantly defended it instead HAUPTKAMPFLINIE “Defensive Battle Line.” A Wehrmacht designation for a fixed defensive position, usually shortened to “HKL.” HAUSSER, PAUL (1880–1972) German general He served as a young officer on the General Staff during World War I He retired from the Reichswehr in 1932 He joined the Stahlhelm the next year and the Sturmabteilung (SA) in 1934 He joined 497