Is Condemnation of Dresden Bombing Justified?It

I think Irving later on denied Holocaust.

 

Seriously?

Google - Apocalypse, Dresden, PDF

It is available for free download from many sites.

However, I would humbly suggest your broaden your net when you visit the library.

- Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945.
By Frederick Taylor.
- Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden.
By Marshall Dr Bruhl
- After the Dresden Bombing: Pathways of Memory, 1945 to the Present.
By Anne Fuchs
- Dresden and the Heavy Bombers: An RAF Navigator's Perspective.
By Frank Musgrove
- The Bombing War. Europe 1939-1945.
By Richard Overy
- The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945.
By Richard Overy
- How Effective Is Strategic Bombing?
Lessons Learned From World War II to Kosovo.
By Gian P. Gentile
- Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare
By Tami Davis Biddle
- Targeting the Reich: Air Intelligence and the Allied Bombing Campaigns.
By Robert S. Ehlers Jr.
- Raiding the Reich - The Allied Strategic Bombing Offensive in Europe.
By Roger A. Freeman

And, of course the 1953 &1954 USAF documents on the Dresden Bombing.
1953
https://media.defense.gov/2011/Feb/08/2001329907/-1/-1/0/Bombings of Dresden.pdf

and 1954
https://media.defense.gov/2013/May/23/2001329959/-1/-1/0/Dresden again.pdf

Because, as CAC said...Anyone can Google and sound knowledgeable.

There are many more, these are just the most readily accessible on my book shelves.

Edited to add the link to the USAF 1954 "Why Dresden Was Bombed: A Review of the Reasons and Reactions"

 

Right, now I found it. Before I just googled "The Destruction of Dresden" without the "Apocalypse" part. I was already thinking it was some EU regulation blocking PDF books for free or something like that...

Btw, probably Kurt Vonnegut "Slaughterhouse-Five" played a greater role than Irving's book in making the destruction of Dresden known to the public.

 

..if Dresden was a

..if Dresden is a war crime, then so are most of the bombings--including most of the fire bombing of Japan...but they were not war crimes anyway = civilians died in most bombings

 

..well put ..plain and simple---

 

This is one of those rare occurrences where Bronk and I actually agree on something..

 

I read that if Sir Arthur had wanted to get even in dead civilians that could have taken place in two years or so. But we know he wanted every German City. Psychotic or post BoB wish to kill all that had died. Well, He did it and did it well. Not gonna go into details as war is war.

 

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..I agree with your agreement --so that's 2 times

 

Some perspective: the German siege of Leningrad (and evacuation due to famine) caused one million civilian deaths, which exceeds the combined total of civilians killed during the Allied bombing raids of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

Very true. Not sure but did Stalin refuse people from escaping?? Some were allowed to leave but many were Not??

 

Over half of the civilian population was evacuated(1,700,000+ evacuees), which is a wee bit more than "some."

Although, I am sure that those considered essential were not allowed to leave.

 

I could be mis-remembering, not at all unusual, but my impression from reading Salisbury's The 900 Days was that those, non military, considered essential went to the top of the list for evacuation. Everyone else was space available. You can tell me I'm wrong, it won't hurt . . . much.

 

I should have clarified, those essential to the defense of the city stayed. Those civilians considered essential to production were evacuated.

Both the Kirov tank factory and the Obukhov tank factory, while partially evacuated, continued production throughout the siege.

 

A dead heat . . . too bad the big race was yesterday, I could have used one. My choice, Hot Rod Charlie, came in second.

 

Together the Finns and Germans could have made the city totally surrounded. I could give reasons but during war time both sides had either military or political reasons. Or both.

 

I heard it was because the Germans told the allies don't bomb Dresden or you will destroy the world's art treasures stored there and kill helpless refugees. British bomber command said how dare they dictate to us will bomb it flat. Maximum effort, the US was but it is not a strategic target but maximum effort if you say so. It was a mess after the media got wind the public wanted the end of all bombing of any German cities the US were we just following British bomber command British government and the rest of the air command treated the bomber Commander like a leper and even the guys own family distanced themselves. The guy even said he felt the only way to break Germany was to break it's people and that meant bombing cities. Dresden wasn't the only city leveled but it was the most publized. In all it was a poor decision. The fact that it was three days of night and day bombing is clear they wanted to wipe it off the map and after the three days they say not one building was still standing. They say the vortexes created by the fire literally sucked women and children in. Don't they still have a memorial every year on the day of the bombing.

 

Bombing civilian targets was contrary to various conventions and accepted as morally wrong. However in the context of all out war it was extremely convenient and undertaken by all sides. There were also caveats that would technically permit bombing,. E.g. There is a line of argument that adding air defences to a civilian target provided evidence that the target was considered important to the war effort and therefore a valid target...

About 25 years ago I was in the audience for the launch of Robin Neillands book the Bomber War. He was supported by some veterans including a rear gunner who flew on the Dresden Raid. He expained that one reason that Dresden was hit particularly lhard was because there was very little air defence. Nightfighters and heavy flak made it much harder to concentrate on bombing accurately. There was little opposiiton that night.

 

At some point the figure of 250,000 dead came from somewhere. Since then, Dresden has had a strange special status, although the actual number is much lower.
Neither the alleged quarter of a million dead nor the alleged low-level attacks by American fighters on survivors afterwards could ever be substantiated.
In his extraordinarily meticulous study, historian Helmut Schnatz has demonstrated almost conclusively* how such alleged eyewitness reports came about and that only about 25,000 dead could be proven on the basis of official sources.
Everything else was also later instrumentalized by the GDR without reflection.
Ultimately, the shock came from the fact that the city was spared from attacks until shortly before the end - all the more violent was the impression of the residents, who lulled themselves into relative safety in view of the approaching end of the war.
In conclusion, Dresden is in no way different from Warsaw, Coventry, Cologne, Hamburg or Tokyo.

* https://www.dresden.de/media/pdf/stadtarchiv/Schnatz_100403.pdf

 

Stalin was heavily surprised that Winston could be replaced By the nation voting someone else instead even during war time.

 

The figure of 250,000 weas seized on by Geobbels and recycled oiur of convenience by the DDR.