sort it out

[Nashwan]

At Dresden it was different, a "firestorm" was created. Basically all the incediaries created an intensly heated "core-fire". This fire was so hot and so large that it created its own meteorological system around it. Air flowed into this core with hurricane strength. Basically anyone or anything caught outside was sucked into the flames where the intense heat obliterated any remains. This "core" fire basically stayed in one place, getting air and fuel from the winds rushing into it.

You cannot compare Dresden to any other bomb attack in Germany, beacuse that firestorm never happened anyplace else.

Before half an hour had passed, the districts upon which the weight of the attack fell were transformed into a lake of fire covering an area of twenty-two square kilometres. The effect of this was to heat the air to a temperature which at times was estimated to approach 1,000 degrees centigrade. A vast suction was in this way created so that the air "stormed through the streets with immense force, bearing upon it sparks, timber and roof beams and thus spreading the fire still further and further till it became a typhoon such as had never before been witnessed, and against which all human resistance was powerless." Trees three feet thick were broken off or uprooted, human beings were thrown to the ground or flung alive into the flames by winds which exceeded 150 miles an hour. The panic-stricken citizens knew not where to turn. Flames drove them from the shelters, but high-explosive bombs sent them scurrying back again. Once inside, they were suffocated by carbon-monoxide poisoning and their bodies reduced to ashes as though they had been placed in a crematorium, which was indeed what each shelter proved to be.

Major-General  Kehrl, Hamburg police commisioner

[Boroda]

I am sick and tired of insinuations and accusations of me being a revisionist or worse.

Hortlund, "Slaughterhouse Five" is one of my favourite books, and I will never call Kurt Vonnegut a "revisionist". His figure is 135,000.

You only have to understand that choosing such a deliberate style of protecting nazis and believing any Goebbels's roadkill (including the ones that were adopted by superpowers during the cold war) will probably not serve you well if you want to be taken seriously.

Anyway, OUR cause was just, the enemy was defeated, the Victory is OURS.

[midnight Target]

"Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., a survivor of the Dresden bombing who wrote Slaughterhouse-Five on the experience, actually cites (David) Irving's "Dresden" in the book. "

Irving is a noted and convicted revisionist. Even Vonnegut can be wrong.

[Tumor]

Originally posted by RRAM

You assume too much saying that "We have better laws here". What makes them so superior to, say, Spanish or British or German law?.  

I lived in the U.K. for 3 solid years.  So from one who know's... I feel we in the U.S. have MUCH better laws.  So THERE

[Tumor]

Originally posted by Udie
Originally posted by Hortlund

 Absolutely not.   I would poor said beer on top of your head and tell you to get the hell away from me.

ROTFL!!

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by midnight Target
"Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., a survivor of the Dresden bombing who wrote Slaughterhouse-Five on the experience, actually cites (David) Irving's "Dresden" in the book. "

Irving is a noted and convicted revisionist. Even Vonnegut can be wrong.

But the USAF sure as he** cant huh?

[Hortlund]

Nashwan...did you have a point with your quote?

[Hortlund]

Originally posted by midnight Target
Well go ahead and cry. But if the "suspect" provides the court with the type of objective documented evidence that is found on that site I will accept it. I guess some foxes can be trusted to guard the hen house.

Maybe you could suggest a better source?

 

Oh man this is so rich on so many levels.

Midnight, before I use this *points to big axe* let me just ask you what your view is on the US refusal to let US military personnel be tried for crimes against humanity by the international court of justice?

(Have you read Vonneguts book btw? Or is that one on your "automatically disqualified" -list, since somewhere you have read that Vonnegut quotes Irvin in his book?)

[Seeker]

Interesting thread, and not least because RAM seems to have suddenly found a brain! (really good postings RAM; maybe if we glued you into a Spit for a tour or two you'd be more likeable).

One snippet really lept out at me: Charon's German election figures. 98.8% for Hitler!

That means (I believe) a goodly number of German Jews voted for the Nazi's (they were allowed to vote??). I'd be interested to see if there any extrapolations of what procentage of the German pre-war Judaic community actually did vote for the Nazi's, and I'd be _fascinated_ to read of any German Jew's explanation of it.

What an incredible thought. People so blinded by Nationalism they voted for their own executioners.

[Charon]

That was the 1936 vote I believe, and I'm sure the Jews weren't voting by then, though I may be wrong.

What is surprising, as an American (with all of our voter apathy), was the high level of political interest in Germany during the period. The Nazi's and other parties campaigned hard for the votes at least until 1932. Life in many areas seemed to revolve around the various rallies, concerts, functions and other political activites as a form of weekly entertainment almost.

By 1936 Hitler had managed to solifdify his power, both through repressing serious political competition and, perhaps more significantly, by being in power during the economic recover (started by the SPD ironically) and promiting patriotism and Germanic pride. He also represented a comfortable return to an autocratic rule for a people who were still new to the republic/democracy concept after WW1, and who seemed to distrust the chaos and messiness such a system involves. Democracy is messy, but you have to accept that to have true freedom.

Charon

[midnight Target]

Originally posted by Hortlund


Oh man this is so rich on so many levels.

Midnight, before I use this *points to big axe* let me just ask you what your view is on the US refusal to let US military personnel be tried for crimes against humanity by the international court of justice?

(Have you read Vonneguts book btw? Or is that one on your "automatically disqualified" -list, since somewhere you have read that Vonnegut quotes Irvin in his book?)

There you go again. Trying to change the subject. I will be happy to answer your question if you were to answer the one I posed earlier. Do you know of a better site than the one I provided?

I have read Slaughterhouse Five, and I have seen the movie. Enjoyed both very much. I have read the Bible also, but I do not see it as a biology text, just as I wouldn't use Vonnegut as a history text. I did not say Vonnegut quoted Irving, I said he cited him. There is a difference.

[Nashwan]

Nashwan...did you have a point with your quote?

Hortlund, you claimed this:

At Dresden it was different, a "firestorm" was created. Basically all the incediaries created an intensly heated "core-fire". This fire was so hot and so large that it created its own meteorological system around it. Air flowed into this core with hurricane strength. Basically anyone or anything caught outside was sucked into the flames where the intense heat obliterated any remains. This "core" fire basically stayed in one place, getting air and fuel from the winds rushing into it.

You cannot compare Dresden to any other bomb attack in Germany, beacuse that firestorm never happened anyplace else.

The Hamburg police comminisioner said:

Before half an hour had passed, the districts upon which the weight of the attack fell were transformed into a lake of fire covering an area of twenty-two square kilometres. The effect of this was to heat the air to a temperature which at times was estimated to approach 1,000 degrees centigrade. A vast suction was in this way created so that the air "stormed through the streets with immense force, bearing upon it sparks, timber and roof beams and thus spreading the fire still further and further till it became a typhoon such as had never before been witnessed, and against which all human resistance was powerless." Trees three feet thick were broken off or uprooted, human beings were thrown to the ground or flung alive into the flames by winds which exceeded 150 miles an hour. The panic-stricken citizens knew not where to turn. Flames drove them from the shelters, but high-explosive bombs sent them scurrying back again. Once inside, they were suffocated by carbon-monoxide poisoning and their bodies reduced to ashes as though they had been placed in a crematorium, which was indeed what each shelter proved to be.


The point is, a firesorm did occur at Hamburg. The things you claimed as unique at Dresden also happened at Hamburg.

[Hortlund]

No they didnt Nashwan. I am suprised because I thought this was common knowledge. Hamburg and Dresden was devastated by fire, but the nature of the fire was completely different in Hamburg and Dresden.

In Hamburg it was a wall of fire moving across the city in the direction of the wind, in Dresden it was a "static" firestorm.

These both phenomenon has been evaluated thoroughly after the war, and the reason I came across them was when I was in college writing a paper about thermonuclear bombs (of all things). In a book, I think it was named "fate of the earth" or something like that, the writer, Jonathan Schell something discussed what would happen if a nuclear device detonated over a normal city. In that chapter there was an extensive discussion about the effects of conventional bombs in Hamburg and Dresden.

I have no doubt that several aspects of the fire was similar in both Hamburg and Dresden, such as heat and winds, and I have no doubt that any survivor of both bombings might think that they were similar. But there is a huge and fundamental difference between the nature of those fires.