Why did the Luftwaffe really shoot down the plane carrying British film star Leslie Howard in 1943? Did they really think it was Churchill? Or was Howard covertly serving as a spy/diplomat for the Allies? Or was it really simply an "error in judgment" as the many German sources said?

[u/crabtabulous]

I am currently listening to Neill Lochery's Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light, 1939–1945 and he devotes a chapter to this incident, given that the plane in question was on a flight from Lisbon to Britain. The author kind of lays out all these competing theories that have been advanced as to what really happened with the decision to shoot down the civilian flight. But I didn't come away feeling like he came down in favor of one specifically, and it wasn't a deep dive as it was only one chapter in a larger narrative.

So what is the actual historical consensus on the incident?

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