>>17891785
>500.000 are the highest estimates.
Half which are technically owed to the Americans.

>trading 10 civilian for a single pilot is a terrible trade-off
People seem to think that the bombing campaign was about killing civilians. It wasnt.
In fact the allies tried to pretend that there were no civilian caualties since the entire strategy on paper was labeled "de-housing", they wanted to destroy cities as the economic centers of the country, but to do so they had to disregard the idea of civilian casualties.

The bombing campaign was actually extremely successful. It is estimated that 30% of German armament was destroyed/delayed because of the bombing campaign, and 98% of their synthetic oil production.
Meanwhile Germany had to spend nearly half of its ENTIRE munition production on single engine aircrafts, specifically to defend German airspace for allied bombing campaign.
They also spend roughly 10% of their entire munition production on AA-guns, again to specifically defend their cities. These flak-88s would have made a major difference on the eastern front without the allied bombing.

Basically, just as much German armament was destroyed in their production line as were destroyed on the field of battle.