By the time he reached London, after eight years as an activist political exile, Heine's anti-Nazi credentials could not be doubted, but relations with the British political establishment were nonetheless not entirely without friction. German anti-Nazis could not accept the assumption that the entire German nation was guilty of Nazi crimes. They disagreed – like many thoughtful British observers – with the industrial scale bombing of German civilians in Hamburg, Dresden and numerous smaller cities: they opposed the idea of dismembering Germany industrially and politically after the Nazi defeat. Following the abrupt switch in military alliances of 1941 there was, furthermore, a marked lack of sympathy in London for the reservations that many German political refugees, including Heine, continued to nurture about Stalin and the exiled German Communists, also a very significant presence in London during the war.