2 JANUARY 1982, Page 16

Philistine

Sir: Perhaps Mr Sudjic would tell us which wartime leader knew more about and cared more about architecture than did Adolf Hitler (Letters, 5 December). It was this fact that made it all the more shocking that it was he who started the beastly destruction of such beautiful places as Warsaw and St Petersburg, but his reasons for this were at least entirely military. There was no such excuse (when the war was all but won) for the philistine destruction by Bomber Com- mand of German mediaeval towns and baroque palaces which had no military value.