During World War II, 131 German cities and towns were targeted by Allied bombs, a good number almost entirely
flattened. Six hundred thousand German civilians died--a figure twice that of all American war casualties. Seven
and a half million Germans were left homeless. Given the astonishing scope of the devastation, W. G. Sebald asks,
why does the subject occupy so little space in Germany's cultural memory? On the Natural History of Destruction
probes deeply into this ominous silence.