Why was the City of Oxford not bombed in WW2

[colin6789]

A question I have wanted the answer to for a long time is why was Oxford not bombed in WW2. It was not bombed in the Baedeker raids, or because of the factories at Cowley and around Oxford. These Factories made Lancaster Wings, Spitfire engine radiators and other important war equipment, and the Germans had aerial photos of these. The only bombing was a small possibly single plane raid on the airfield at Cowley, only being used to break-up crashed aircraft and one or two raids on the training airfield at Kidlington. One story I heard a long time ago was that Hitler wanted Oxford for his capital after he invaded Britain.

Anybody any views or information?

Thank you

[fredpuli47]

He didn't have Cambridge bombed, either. It's obvious that he was , at heart, an Oxbridge man !

[jno]

I think you're right, he planned to make it the capital

http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/1717202.hitlers_oxford_plans_revealed/

[mallam]

Faszinierend. But not entirely reliable if the German phrases are anything to go by. Even allowing for journalistic disinclination to bother with the umlaut, they ought at least to get the gender right: "Wo ist das nachste Brucke? (Where is the next bridge?)" should be "Wo ist DIE nächste Brücke?"

I had read that there had been some sort of pact whereby the Germans would not bomb Oxford in exchange for us not bombing Dresden. The timing doesn't look right for this to have been an excuse for us to rat on that, but perhaps we had prior knowledge of their ulterior motives, thanks to Alan Turing.

[jno]

I think the German phrases at the end have been added by journalists rather than being part of any Luftwaffe handbook. Umlauts can be hard to find on English-language keyboards.

[mallam]

Im sure youre right. Hence my ref to journalistic disinclination to bother with the likes of umlaut or gender, but it doesnt enhance the credibility of the story, does it?

[mike b]

I have always had the impression that by the time of the Baedeker raids, Oxford was probably too far inland for a major Luftwaffe attack, and would have involved overflying the most heavily-defended areas stretching from London and the South-East to the South Coast area around Southampton and Portsmouth. Most of the major Baedeker targets were not too far from the coast, with the possible exception of Bath, which was in the relatively more vulnerable West Country anyway.

mike b, Oxford

[lilbrown]

The Truth is there were bombing Raids on oxford and Cambridge, the first uk civilians to die in a raid were in Cambridge, but because the heavily censored media were not allowed to report where raids had taken place people assumed they were all in the Major Cities and as people have passed on they have been lost to time