This article examines the impact on German urban society of the allied air raids during the Second World War. It rejects the oft-made assertion that the bombing strengthened the ‘community of fate’ on the German home front, arguing that this is an invention of Nazi propaganda which has been absorbed uncritically by subsequent scholars. Instead, it contends that the bombing brought to the surface many social and cultural tensions within German society and led to a widespread process of atomization and dissolution of community ties. The local authorities were quickly overwhelmed by the scale of the bombing and Nazi party propaganda singularly failed to have any impact on the population.