Piles of corpses in front of destroyed buildings in Dresden after air raids on February 13 and 14, 1945. Deutsches Bundesarchiv/Wikimedia Commons
Business Insider: 74 years ago, Allied bombers obliterated one of Germany's most beautiful cities — here are 18 photos of the bombing of Dresden
World War II was more than three years old when Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and other Allied leaders met at Casablanca in January 1943, but the decisions made there would shape the rest of the war in Europe.
During the conference, Allied leaders settled on a policy of unconditional surrender and agreed on a strategic bombing plan to bring the Axis to its knees.
For the US, bombing would focus on daytime raids against strategically valuable targets — factories, ports, military bases, and other infrastructure involved in the war effort. For the British, who had suffered during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, the air war would target German cities with nighttime raids.
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WNU Editor: I visited Dresden about 25 years ago. The scars of that bombing were still showing. I always believed that the bombing was not necessary. It should have been spared like the Japanese city of Kyoto was spared during the war.
11 comments:
From the beginning of the war, Germany had no problem with destroying cities or indiscrimately killing civilians, whether by means of bombing raids or rocket attacks. The English city of Coventry, as just one example, was virtually annhilated in November 1940. As for Dresden, the Germans sowed to the wind and reaped the whirlwind. They deserved everything they got.
"At the start of the Second World War, Coventry was an industrial city of around 238,000 people which, like much of the industrial West Midlands, contained metal and wood–working industries. In Coventry's case, these included cars, bicycles, aeroplane engines and, since 1900, munitions factories. In the words of the historian Frederick Taylor, "Coventry was therefore, in terms of what little law existed on the subject, a legitimate target for aerial bombing".[1]"
Coventry is famous for the effect and because of Ultra.
Dresden was a rail nexus for that region of Germany. Large rail yards are legitimate targets.
At that point in the war you could argue that bombing the rail yards did not shorten the wear 1 day so it was unnecessary.
There is a leftist who generally makes a real ass of himself. He was a bomber crew and he recounts the bombing of a French coastal city in the waning days of the war. He has more than a valid point. He was 100% correct. It is crap like that that turns a significant % of people into whacked out Leftists. Kurt Vonnegut was at Dresden as a POW. So the person complaining, rightfully, about the French town was someone other than Norman Mailer or Vonnegut I think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer
Maybe it was the bombing of Royan in January 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royan
It was Howard Zinn that was turned into a raving lunatic by the bombing of Royan.
What nonsense, it was a civilian city, relatively undefended, had no military value and the war was already won.
You are applying Victors justice and conceding any moral high ground.
If Germany did win the war then those responsible would have been hung as the war criminals they were and as for the bombardier does just following orders not being a defence sound familiar?
So the office worker civilian victims of 9-11 deserved what they got because of U. S airstrikes in Iraq?
The Germans were decent and refused to bomb London
The scale of that was light compared to Dresden, London was defended, the war was very much in full swing.
Dresden losses still unknown, between 30 to 100k in 1 night.
Fazman, history can be very complex, but the bottom line is Germany was complicit in starting (or helping to start) two world wars within 25 years. I don't give a sh*t if 500k are still unaccounted for in Dresden. Probably at least that many were unaccounted for in Russia alone. F* 'em.
BTW, war criminals are hanged, not hung.
"no military value and the war was already won."
I agree the wart was already one by that point and the bombing of Dresden was wrong.
But according to Boolean logic and the laws as laid down at that time it is or was legal.
I often do not think much of law. It is a system and is as susceptible to GIGO and the machinations of men as any other system. If logic as applied and laws as written meant anything 9 old women in robes would not be muttering about penumbras and emanations and doing a lot of hand waving, but would provide a straight forward proof.
"the bottom line is Germany was complicit in starting (or helping to start) two world wars within 25 years."
Bull SHIT. I do not believe that reading of WW1. I consider France to be the guilty party more than Germany. France had been waging aggressive war for 3, 4 or more centuries. Strasbourg is French and the king convened a group of nobles together and asked him to consider the question of Strasbourg. They could find no legal basis to take it. Yet it is French although the suppressed language is much closer to what the people in Baden-Württemberg speak than anything else. I should know. A Frenchman would have a much harder time understanding the language of Alsace Lorraine.
The US came into WW1 under the false pretenses set up by Woodrow Wilson, Churchill and Creel. If you like Creel, you like being led by the nose. Churchill put ammunition on neutral flagged vessels.
If someone murders your leader and their wife, you go to war if there is no justice. You might not but red blooded people do.
Seems like an act of war really.
I don't know manstein. I am party to many of the parties involved, so my view is rather different. For me there is the same problem in the future as in the past. Rather not have the war but I won't shirk it.
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