Why was Dresden bombed to oblivion in WWII killing 600,000?
Question:
Dresden - The Worst War Crime Of WWII - 600,000 Dead
Fifty-two years ago, the Allies decided to make of the city of Dresden a moonscape.
The holocaust unleashed on Dresden had no strategic or tactical advantage whatsoever for the Americans or the British. Dresden was one of the most beautiful cities in Germany, dubbed the "Florence of the Elbe" because of its world-renowned collection of Baroque architecture. It was known as a showplace of culture. It had no military bases, no major communication centers or heavy industry. It had no air defense. In the last months of the war, it was known as "Die Lazarettstadt" - it had been declared a hospital town. It was also known as the "Fluechtlingsstadt" - the City of the Refugees.
Norman Stone, Professor of Modern History at Oxford, wrote in the Daily Mail:
"Already, by 1944, it should have been clear to most people in the government that we would have to deal with . . . Germans once victory had been won . . .
(W)e went on bombing German cities months and months after it had been clear that we would win, and that Stalin would be as potentially deadly an enemy. Some of the bombing was just pointless. In the last days of the war, we struck at the old gingerbread towns south of Wuerzburg, where there was no military target at all . . . just refugees, women and children. Of these acts of gratuitous sadism, the worst was the bombing of Dresden."
In the early weeks of 1945, the coldest winter in a century, Dresden was swollen with refugees fleeing the advance of the Soviet army. By then, the Soviets stood on German soil, and Ilja Ehrenburg, Stalin's Jewish propaganda demon - that monster master journalist of hate! - had for years hammered away in broadcast after broadcast aimed at the Red Army and repeated in millions and millions of leaflets: "Kill. Kill. Kill. Nobody is innocent. Neither the living, nor the yet unborn. . . " or ". . . if you have not killed a German a day, you have not done your duty to the Soviet motherland."
Now the Red Army was approaching - and by mid-February stood only 60 miles away from Dresden. Each new refugee train, each new river of wagons, trucks and cars brought fearful accounts of horrendous Soviet atrocities - murder, torture and brutal mass rapes. Hundreds of thousands of refugees flooded into the city of Dresden. The inhabitants moved closer together and took them all in, but even so, there was no room for all. Most of the refugees lived in the city's main park and in what was known as Die Altstadt - the Old Town. Weeping children lay on the cold and wet ground huddled against shivering dogs.
By then, the Allies knew the war was lost for Germany. No one in a decision-making capacity - civilian or military - believed that the German Reich could survive, much less rise to be a threat to the Allied military juggernaut.
In what can only be described as a premeditated institutional act of terror and deliberately planned mass murder, the decision was made by the British and US air force commanders at the prodding of the sadistic Churchill-Roosevelt-Morgenthau trio to exterminate these hapless people trapped utterly defenseless in Dresden.
In January of 1945, it was decided that several large cities in Eastern Germany that had escaped heavy bombing should now be subjected to "area bombing" to "wreak havoc" on German morale so as to pressure Germany to surrender sooner. Churchill himself wanted more than two cities a month razed - until none was left.
So, on February 13 and 14, 1945 nearly 1200 British and American bombers, followed by waves of bullet-spitting fighter bombers, conducted a triple air raid on Dresden - an aerial holocaust. The code word for this act of terrorism was "Clarion."
Dresden: An Undisputed Holocaust
The first wave of bombs struck at 10 PM on February 13, 1945, dropping high explosive bombs on the Old Town to blast the roofs off buildings in preparation for incendiary devices. It knocked out the air raid warning system and caused massive destruction and death. It also destroyed the fire halls and water mains.
The next wave brought the fire. It turned the Altstadt into a howling ocean of fire - 3 miles long and 2 miles wide. Air temperatures rose to 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit. Winds up to 100 mph sucked all oxygen into the center of the storm. Hundreds of thousands of people were burned alive or otherwise fell victim to this second carpet bombing, followed quickly by a third.
Thousands suffocated in cellars as the oxygen was sucked out of the bunkers and pulled toward the blaze to feed the flames. Thousands more were hurled into the air like rag dogs and sucked by the ferocious winds right into the inferno. The air suction of the fire was so strong that it uprooted trees and lifted roofs from houses miles away.
Utter panic struck the people. Horses reared and ran into the crowds. Wild animals such as lions and tigers escaped from the broken enclosures of the zoo and ran into the terrified crowds. Huge snakes slithered between the feet of the fleeing. Hospital trains, still filled with wounded soldiers from the front, were burning and tried to pull out, in the process severing limps from young children who had sought cover from the bombs underneath. Those few who managed to escape the air attack were hounded later from the air by diving planes to kill off any fleeing survivors.
This was described in one account of the bombing aftermath as
". . . scores of Mustang fighters diving low over the bodies, huddled on the banks of the Elbe, as well as on the larger lawns of the Grosse Garden, in order to shoot them up."
When all was said and done, the column of smoke could be seen 50 miles away and stood 15,000 feet high. More than three-fifths of Dresden was destroyed by bombing raids
Answer:
Well first of all.
The bombing of Dresden killed between 18-25,000 people. These figures are from a German Study undertaken over 4 years recently.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,581 992,00.html
Secondly. Your claim that Dresden had no industry and was declared a hospital town is innacurate. (see my standard answer below)
Thirdly. It was clear to anyone with a semblance of a brain that a Germany under attack was doomed.
If you stop attacking Germany then it could recover to do more damage, but if you continue to attack it will fold.
Unfortunately this means that more Germans will die.
I love the way that you all blame the Allies for continuing the war. What about the German High command? They could have ended the bloodshed with one radio broadcast basically saying. "dear Allies, we are totally and utterly B******D. We Surrender"
Standard Dresden answer
I am not in any way denying the fact that what happened in Dresden was horrific and appalling. I do deny that the men who undertook the mission have any crime to answer for.
The bombing of an industrialised town from the air in an attempt to destroy its industry or cause such loss of morale amongst its inhabitants that they ceased to work was NOT a crime by the Rules of War in 1945. The bombing of Coventry, London and other British Cities in 1940 and 1941 was also NOT a War Crime.
In early 1945 the war was far from over. The Allies were still camped outside the borders of Germany, V2 rockets were still falling. The Allies had just fought the battle of the Bulge where the supposedly defeated Germans suddenly punched a huge hole in the Allied lines, German Rocket and Jet aircraft were coming off the production lines and proceeding to rip the hell out of the allied air fleets.
It was an operation undertaken due to many reasons.
1. A request from the Russians at the Yalta conference in February
1945. General Antonov "We want the Dresden railway junction bombed"
Meeting between the Chiefs of staff as reported by an interpreter. Records kept at the Public Records office in Kew
2. It was a German base of operations against Marshall Koniev`s left flank as he advanced into Germany. (See above)
Captured German High Command documents from Berlin in 1945 state that "Dresden is to be fortified as a military strong point, to be held at all costs." These statements are also backed up by decrypts from Ultra at Bletchley Park.
3. Munitions storage in the old Dresden Arsenal.
4. Troop reinforcement and transport centre shifting an average 28
troop trains through the marshaling yards every day. Intelligence from Russian and other sources stored in the Public Records office in Kew
5. Communications centre. Most of the telephone lines connecting
High Command to the Eastern front went through Dresden.
6. Quote from The Dresden Chamber of Commerce 1944. "The work rhythm of Dresden is determined by the needs of our army."
There were 127 factories in the Dresden Municipal area. The most
famous of these was Zeiss the celebrated camera and optics maker. In 1945 it was turning out Bomb aiming apparatus and Time fuses. (If you think the Dresden China Works making those lovely shepherdesses are more famous, they are actually made in Meisen 12Km down the River and always have been.)
A factory that previously made Typewriters and sewing machines was making Guns and ammunition
The Waffle and Marzipan machine manufacturer was producing torpedoes for the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.
The arts and crafts workshops in the old town were using their woodworking skills to make the tail assemblies for V-1s.
Other factories were turning out such non warlike goods as Searchlights, Aircraft components, Field Telephones and 2 way radios.
"Anyone who knows Dresden only as a cultural city would be very surprised to be made aware of the extensive and versatile activity that make Dresden ONE OF THE FOREMOST INDUSTRIAL LOCATIONS OF THE REICH. (My Capitals)
Sir Arthur Harris? A Post war exponent of the bombing campaign?
Nope both wrong.
It comes from the Dresden City Council Yearbook of 1942.
The men who carried out these acts did so in the desire to make a world in which their descendants and countrymen, of whom I am one, could live in freedom from persecution and with a freedom to ask questions and form their own opinions. To those of you who feel it necessary to label them war criminals may I ask if you think that you could have asked a similar question under Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan?
Ray
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