Dresden Bombing. Holocaust?

Those were civilians.

Image and text from http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm


On the other hand here is the HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945 Prepared by: USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University.

In my oppinion bombing of any civilian target is a war crime. In WW2 it was common to bomb cities and civilian targets and there are cities that suffered more civilian casulties than Dresden, but Dresden is considered if you like a "mistake". It wasn't necesary.

Peace!

Like I said ;there were also civilians in the cities the Germans bombed.
I'm against any military actions against civilians ,but all I hear is about Germans being bombed.
A family friend(German)who emigrated to Germany in 1963,told me once how horible was even then in Munich as a result of allies bombardments....
Munich is where the National Socialism started isn't it?

So, for this thing should Munchen be erased from the map?

Why do you always assume we are talking about the germans? It seems you always bring this discussion onto yourself...

This post has been edited by Alexandru H. on April 17, 2005 05:07 pm

yeah, wipe it off the face of the planet....i am sorry to say it, but this statement can only come from hatred, not from wisdom and knowledge

Hatred to who?
I have a German origin....

well perhaps you hate that....

I hate extremism and intolerance .

I think Dresden is the only case discussed of germans being bombed.
Or maybe I'm wrong?

well blatantly admitting that the Dresden Bombing was OK is a form of intolerance and extremism becasue it presents the SLAUGHTER of CIVILIANS as a morally just thing to do. it has nothing to do with military economy like i said.

According to writer Paul Johnson:

"At the origin of the raid was Roosevelt's and Churchill's will to prove Stalin at the Yalta Conference that the Allies were doing everything in their power to help the russian on the Eastern front.
In private they wanted to deal a crippling blow to the german morale, so as to help the russian offensive which started on January 12th.
Dreden was not an industrial center, but a communication one. Her population of 630,000 was doubled by german refugees, 80% of them being peasants from Silesia.
Stalin wanted them destroyed to facilitate the plan to "relocate" the polish westward, and, also, he thought the town was used as concentration hub for soldiers."

[...]

"650,000 incendiary bombs were dropped, the fire storm engulfing 21 square km, completely destroying 17 square km and killing 135,000 men, women and children. [...] For the first time in the war a target was hit so bad that there were not enough survivors to bury the dead."

"Modern Times. A History of the World From the 1920s to 1990s" pg. 394-395

In the Battle of England, the german bombings killed about 30,000 people. In Dresden 5 times that number died in one day of bombing.
Its obviously something that IS big enough to be controversial.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on April 18, 2005 10:59 am

Here is another interesting view of the Dresden bombings, according to russian historian Valentin Falin:

It certainly puts the previous theories on their heads.

This post has been edited by Imperialist on May 22, 2005 01:39 pm

Entertaining. But I would reject the bridges for the same reason I rejected the railroad : the loaded ordonance, the amplitude of the raid and it's organisation are not compatible with the targeting a couple of bridges.

Hi Chandernagore,

Would the presence of 127 factories engaged in military production according to the Weapons Office of the German High Command make Dresden a worthwhile target? (see "Oberkommando des Heers: Liste der Fertigungskennzeichen fur Waffen, Munition und Gerat", Berlin 1944)

Or the passage of 28 military trains a day through just the main Dresden railway station? (see Taylor, "Dresden", p.186).

Or the presence of some 20 German Army depots of various sizes? Wehrkreis VIII, which administered about 8% of all German Army manpower (between 1 and 2 million men) was the largest of them. (see Tessin, Vol. XVI - I think).

The fact is that, horrible though it was, the bombing of Dresden (which, incidentally, was not the most damaging Allied air raid on Germany), was justified on military grounds.

Furthermore, it was legal. You will note that no Germans were tried for bombing of cities. Why? Because the Laws of War of the time did not cover it. The exception was the German commander of the Luftwaffe attack on Belgrade in 1941, but this was because it had been declared an "Open City" under intenational law.

The Germans could have avoided the bombing by declaring Dresden an "Open City" and stopping all military activity in it. However, the Nazi regime never declared any German city "Open". Indeed, it occupied Hungary in March 1944 partly because the Hungarians wanted to declare Budapest "Open", which would have prevented the passage of German troop trains.

Indeed, the Germans could have avoiuded ALL bombing by surrendering in an already lost war.

Cheers,

Sid.

Hello Sid. If you read back far enough you will see that I answered and debated most of these points previously so I will not rehash them ad infinitum. You utterly disqualified yourself by citing Taylor as a source The final point is that interesting idea that the Germans could have somehow started to declare cities "open" to avoid them being bombed. How the hell was that fantasy supposed to happen ? By "partial" capitulation ? And perhaps have the SN send inspectors under SS escort to control that the factories only churned out hamburgers and no more planes and tanks ? Nonsense. Wrong war and wrong period for such niceties.

The piling up of excuses create mounds higher than the pile of civilian victims but no one stand up to any serious scrutiny. And they certainly don't stand up to the British acceptance that is was simply a terror raid.

Hi Chandernagore,

I have looked back through this thread and cannot find you answering any of my points anywhere. Could you please address them now.

Taylor is the most up to date, fully footnoted book on Dresden. I appreciate you might not like what he writes, but fortunately, because he gives his sources, I do not have to rely on him alone in this instance. The 28 military trains passing through Dresden were originally on p.203 of a German source: "Der Wehrmacht so nahe verwandt" by Matthias Neutzner - an article in Dresdner Geschichtsbuch 5 (Altenburg, 1999).

As for "Open Cities", the Germans were definitely aware of the possibility. For example, they belatedly declared Rome an Open City before they left it. Actually, the problem lies less with the Germans stopping a city being used for military purposes (a single order from the top could ensure that) than with the Allies being able to confirm it. As the Red Cross had access to German prisoner of war camps (where the Germans allowed), the Germans could equally have allowed neutral bodies into their cities to confirm they were, indeed, "open". As you point out, if the neutral inspectors had been frustrated it would have been by German authorities. The ball is firmly in the German court on this one. Only they could declare their cities open and only they could ensure that neutral inspectors got the access they needed to confirm it.

"Partial capitulation"? No. My suggestion is better: Total capitulation no later than August 1944. Once the Western Allies had broken out of Normandy there was no practicable hope of Germany fighting even a drawn war. Half of all German fatalities occurred after June 1944. If the Germans had capitulated in August 1944 they could have saved themselves nearly half their dead (including those of Dresden).

I appreciate that you want to score cheap propaganda points and that the facts get in your way. However, the facts are central to this discussion and you must address them if you want your proposition to be taken seriously.

So, for a start, perhaps you would care to answer these points that you avoided last time:

1) According to internal German military documents from 1944 Dresden had 127 factories engaged in war work. (Oberkommando des Heeres: Liste der Fertigungskennzeichen fur Waffen, Munition und Gerat. Berlin 1944).

2) 28 military trains passed through Dresden-Neustadt station ever day. (Matthias Neutzner, p.203 - see above).

3) There were some 20 different German Army depots in Dresden, including Wehrkreis VIII, which administered about 8% of all German military manpower. (Tessin, Vol.16, I think.)

Cheers,

Sid.