Why did the RAF go out of its way to completely level strategically unimportant medieval German towns during the final month of the second World War?
Hildesheim was one of the oldest and most well preserved medieval towns in Germany. It was also a town of zero strategic importance and was not targeted prior for this reason. However, on the 22 March 1945, the final month of the war, it was completely levelled in just 20 minutes, killing nearly 2000 people and wiping out a thousand years of history. This happened all over Germany and went far beyond what is generally considered to be the isolated incident of Dresden. How can this be justified?