Paper as a Weapon: Bombing with Leaflets
Contributor: Barry Fetzer
Sources: History.com, USAF
Photo of American USAAF soldier loading leaflets in bomb, circa 1944. Courtesy USAF.
We typically don’t consider paper as a weapon, but it has been used as a weapon in many cases during war and aviation has been a major transporter and deliverer of that weapon.
According to History.com and downloaded on June 15, 2025 from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/June-15/american-bombers-deluge-budapest-in-more-ways-than-one, “On June 15, 1944, American aircraft bombed German-occupied Budapest—with leaflets threatening “punishment” for those responsible for the deportation of Hungarian Jews to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. The U.S. government wanted the SS and Hitler to know it was watching, to deter further deportations.
Photo of leaflet dropped on Hiroshima prior to the atomic bomb to warn residents of their impending doom. Courtesy USAF. No copy of the Budapest leaflet seems to exist.
Admiral Miklas Horthy, regent and virtual dictator of Hungary, vehemently anticommunist and afraid of Russian domination, had aligned his country with Hitler, despite the fact that he little admired him. But he, too, demanded that the deportations cease, especially since special pleas had begun pouring in from around the world upon the testimonies of four escaped Auschwitz prisoners about the atrocities there. Hitler, fearing a Hungarian rebellion, stopped the deportations on July 8. Horthy would eventually try to extricate himself from the war altogether—only to be kidnapped by Hitler’s agents and consequently forced to abdicate.
Lest we forget. On this day, June 15th, 1944, a photograph captured the deportation of nearly 3,000 Jews from Dunaszerdahely, Hungary, to the Nazi extermination camp Auschwitz. Today marks 80 years since that tragic event. The Holocaust claimed the lives of approximately 565,000 Hungarian Jews. Public Domain
One day after the deportations stopped, a Swedish businessman, Raoul Wallenberg, having convinced the Swedish Foreign Ministry to send him to the Hungarian capital on a diplomatic passport, arrived in Budapest with 630 visas for Hungarian Jews, prepared to take them to Sweden to save them from further deportations.
Onward and upward!
Sources: History.com, USAF