Firestorm

Though even the most progressive historians generally regard the Allied tactics in the Second World War as just, fair and necessary, the German man-of-letters Joerg Friedrich argued otherwise in his revisionist historical tome The Inferno - a bestseller in Germany. The book reopens the chapter of WWII that pertains to the Allied air-raid bombings on German metropolises as the European campaign neared closure, and argues that the assaults entailed cruel and purposeless acts of vengeance. This documentary - a loose cinematization of Friedrich's book directed by Spiegel TV correspondent Michael Kloft - essentially makes the same point, by charting the trajectory of the air campaign per se, with footage that intercuts archival film, and interviews with civilian survivors and Allied veterans. The film wraps with an open-ended debate between Friedrich and English history expert Richard Overy.