There was alot of controversity about bombing a city that had no military value.
Dresden had a population of around 650,000.
At a time when almost the entire German economy was given over to war production, and Germany had taken 7.5 million slaves to work in German factories, why was Dresden exempt from participating in the war effort? Why were the people of Dresden allowed to laze around in idleness, when all other Germans were doing their bit?
Note: I heard a rumor that the British General who decided to bomb Dresden picked Dresden because he had dated a German girl from this city and she dumped him.
Almost too sill to reply to, but if that was the case, wouldn't Dresden have been one of Harris's first raids? I mean, return later when the bombers were better, but make it one of your first raids as well.
I was under the impression that Dresden was revenge for Conventry. Churchhill new Coventry was going to be hit via Enigma. But could not act on the info, as it would have been damn suspicous to the Germans, and would have possibly lead to them finding out that Enigma had been broken. This apparently really pissed off Churchhill and he ordered the firebombings.
Churchill didn't know Coventry was going to be bombed. RV Jones says in his autobiography that Enigma messages had been intercepted detailing a target called "Korn", but not what that codename applied to, or when the attack would be carried out.
Seperate instructions led them to believe a large raid was scheduled for that night, but they had a total of 5 or 6 possible locations, and they believed London was the most likely target.
Britain carried on with attempts to bomb German factories and military targets at night into late 41, before switching to area attacks, because they were having no success with precision attacks, and because they were aware how much damage the Luftwaffe's attacks had caused.
Whoever had the final word for Dresden should have been put on trial for Crimes Against Humanity. Plain and simple.
No Germans were tried for similar attacks, for example the Luftwaffe's Blit on London killed close to 40,000, total attacks on the UK killed more than 60,000.
No US commanders were tried for attacks on Japanese cities, for example a raid on Tokyo killed more than 100,000 in one night, still recognized as the largest for a single raid, atomic or not.
What is the difference between these:
- Gestapo with help from SS shoots 100 french villagers
- RAF and 8th AF kills 100000-250000 in a bomb-raid
- Gestapo w/SS gives some Zyklon-B to 6 million jews
similarities: in all cases most of victims were innocent and couldn't defend themselves. If I would believe in heaven and hell I would be sure every one of those killers would burn in hell.
1 and 3 are carried out on civillians who were not aiding and abetting the enemy, who were in the care of the military that murdered them, and who could have helped the Germans if they had not been murdered for being racially inferior.
2 was carried out in an operation against an enemy city, that was actively engaged in the enemy's war effort, in a country that was not just still fighting, but hurrying along with it['s policy of genocide against Jews and other untermensch.
The rules and conduct of the war at the time banned executing hostages and group reprisals (the French villagers), banned the wholesale slaughter of enemy civillians (all the Jews from Poland, Russia and all the countries overrun by the Germans) but said nothing about attacking enemy cities.
As another example of "war is hell", consider Leningrad, where over 600,000 civilians died during the siege. That's more than died in Germany from all allied bombing.
A quote from Bomber Harris:
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a dozen other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."
