The bombing of Rotterdam, 14 May 1940

German officers sit at a table covered with maps, facing a man in a dark uniform; formations of twin-engined bombers pass in stepped rows, a bomb slides from its rack beneath an aircraft, and aircraft with the cross and the swastika fly over burning ruins. Flames pour from the houses of narrow streets, dive bombers tip over into their dives, and the girders of a bridge stand black against the smoke. Much of the material, filmed from inside the aircraft, is German newsreel footage.

On 14 May 1940, while the Dutch commander in Rotterdam was negotiating the surrender of the city, nearly sixty German bombers attacked its old centre. About 850 people died and some 80,000 lost their homes. The threat of further raids on Utrecht and other cities led General Winkelman to capitulate; the surrender was signed at Rijsoord on 15 May.