Battle of Berlin ( RAF campaign ) The Battle of Berlin was the British bombing campaign on Berlin from November 1943 to March 1944 . It was not limited solely to Berlin . Other German cities were attacked to prevent the concentration of defences in Berlin , Bomber Command also had other responsibilities and operations to conduct . The campaign was launched by Arthur " Bomber " Harris , AOC of RAF Bomber Command in November 1943 . Harris believed this could be the blow that broke German resistance : " It will cost us between 400 and 500 aircraft . It will cost Germany the war " . By this time he could deploy over 800 long - range bombers on any given night , equipped with new and more sophisticated navigational devices such as H2S radar . Between November 1943 and March 1944 , Bomber Command made 16 massed attacks on Berlin . It is generally accepted that the Battle of Berlin was a failure for the Royal Air Force ( RAF ) as it was not the knockout blow that Harris had predicted and during the battle . The RAF lost 1 , 047 bombers , with a further 1 , 682 damaged , and well over 7 , 000 aircrew , culminating in the raid on Nuremberg on 30 March 1944 , when 94 bombers were shot down and 71 were damaged , out of 795 aircraft . There were many other raids on Berlin by the RAF and the USAAF Eighth Air Force in the strategic bombing campaign of 1940 – 45 and this is reflected in the RAF battle honour , which is for the bombardment of Berlin by aircraft of Bomber Command 1940 – 45 . In response to attacks on German cities , the " Luftwaffe " began Operation " Steinbock " ( ibex ) — a series of attacks on London . The Germans suffered heavy losses , but they persisted until May 1944 . Attacking formations during " Steinbock " suffered a higher loss percentage over every mission that the RAF flew over Germany . Although primarily a British operation , Australian and Canadian bomber squadrons also took part in the battle , under the command of RAF Bomber Command . Battle . The first raid of the battle occurred on the night of 18 / 19 November 1943 . Berlin was the main target and was attacked by 440 Avro Lancaster heavy bombers and four de Havilland Mosquito s . The city was under cloud and the damage was not severe . The second major raid was on the night of 22 / 23 November . This was the most effective raid on Berlin by the RAF of the war , causing extensive damage to the residential areas west of the centre , Tiergarten and Charlottenburg , Schöneberg and Spandau . Because of the dry weather conditions , several firestorm s ignited . Both the Protestant Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church , now serving as a war memorial , and the New Synagogue ( then used as a store house by the " Wehrmacht " ) , were badly damaged on 22 November . In the next nights Bethlehem ' s Church , John ' s Church , Lietzow Church , and Trinity Church and on other nights Emperor Frederick Memorial Church , Kirche am Hohenzollernplatz and St . Hedwig ' s Cathedral followed . Several other buildings of note were either destroyed or damaged , including the British , French , Italian and Japanese embassies , Charlottenburg Palace and Berlin Zoo , as were the Ministry of Munitions , the " Waffen SS " Administrative College , the barracks of the Imperial Guard at Spandau and several arms factories . On 17 December , extensive damage was done to the Berlin railway system . By this time the cumulative effect of the bombing campaign had made more than a quarter of Berlin ' s total living accommodation unusable . There was another major raid on 28 – 29 January 1944 , when Berlin ' s western and southern districts were hit in the most concentrated attack of this period . On 15 – 16 February , important war industries were hit , including the large Siemensstadt area in the north , with the centre and south - western districts substaining most of the damage . This was the largest raid by the RAF on Berlin . Raids continued until March 1944 . These raids caused immense loss of life and devastation in Berlin . The 22 November 1943 raid killed 2 , 000 Berliners and rendered 175 , 000 homeless . The following night 1 , 000 were killed and 100 , 000 bombed out . During December and January , regular raids killed hundreds of people each night and rendered between 20 , 000 and 80 , 000 homeless each time . German author Laurenz Demps collated the losses . He evaluated ( 1 ) the damage reports of the Berlin police commissioner ( " Polizeipräsident " ) issued after each air raid with the descriptions of losses and damage indicated by houses , and distributed to 100 – 150 organisations and administrations busy with rescue , repair , planning and so on ; ( 2 ) the reports of the main bureau for air raid protection ( " Hauptluftschutzstelle " ) of the city of Berlin , who issued more than 100 copies with variable frequency , each summarising losses and damage by the number of air raids ; ( 3 ) the war diary of the air raid warning command ( " Luftwarnkommando " , or ' Wako Berlin ' ) , a branch of the German air force ( " Luftwaffe " ) ; and ( 4 ) various sources on specific damage . According to Demps , a total of 7 , 480 were killed ( with an additional 2 , 194 missing ) , 17 , 092 injured and 817 , 730 made homeless . According to another author , Reinhard Rürup , nearly 4 , 000 were killed , 10 , 000 were injured and 450 , 000 were made homeless . The effect of smoke and dust in the air from the bombing and long periods spent in shelters gave rise to symptoms that were called " cellar influenza " , ( or " keller grippe " ) . Despite the devastation they caused , however , these raids failed to achieve their objectives . German civilian morale did not break , the city ' s defences and essential services were maintained and war production in greater Berlin did not fall . Area bombing consistently failed to meet its stated objective , which was to win the war by bombing Germany until its economy and civilian morale collapsed . The bombing had kept a check on German production output and caused to direct resources from offensive to defensive purposes . The 16 raids on Berlin cost Bomber Command more than 500 aircraft , with their crews killed or captured , which was a loss rate of 5 . 8 % , well above the 5 % threshold that was considered the maximum sustainable operational loss rate by the RAF . Daniel Oakman makes the point that " Bomber Command lost 2 , 690 men over Berlin , and nearly 1 , 000 more became prisoners of war . Of Bomber Command ’ s total losses for the war , around seven per cent were incurred during the Berlin raids . In December 1943 , for example , 11 crews from No . 460 Squadron RAAF alone were lost in operations against Berlin ; and in January and February [ 1944 ] , another 14 crews were killed . Having 25 aircraft destroyed meant that the fighting force of the squadron had to be replaced in three months . At these rates Bomber Command would have been wiped out before Berlin " . On the other hand , a loss of 500 aircraft had been anticipated , and Oakman observes that " . . . it would be wrong to say that it was , in a strategic sense , a wasted effort . Bombing brought the war to Germany at a time when it was difficult to apply pressure anywhere else " . Although the Battle of Berlin , as part of the Bomber Command strategic bombing campaign , did serve to divert German military resources away from the land war , and had an economic effect — in terms of both physical damage and worker fatalities and injuries , and through the enforced requirement to relocate and fortify industrial buildings and other infrastructure in an effort to protect it from Allied attacks — it is generally accepted that the battle was a failure for the RAF , in the sense that the bombing of Berlin did not did force the eventual German capitulation ( as Harris and others had hoped ) ; and in the words of the official RAF history " in an operational sense the Battle of Berlin was more than a failure , it was a defeat " .