Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: zack1234 on January 23, 2014, 02:11:14 AM
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The Grand slam bomb introduced in March 1945 would have ended the war if introduced in 1944 :old:
The Narrzzies did not have or would have any plans to counteract earthquake bombs :old:
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I did a research paper on the Strategic Bombing Campaign years ago. Here are just some highlights of it:
Targets that were extremely vulnerable, like the electrical grid (especially in Berlin) were ignored because of lack of data on how vulnerable they actually were.
The bombing of bottleneck industries, such as German ball bearing plants, was ineffective.
The bombing of refineries was ineffective. Only when the refineries were overrun by ground troops did fuel production stop for the Germans.
The manpower required by the Luftwaffe (which also had some 2 million ground troops) to defend against bombing was effective due to the fact that those soldiers could not be used as front line ground troops.
Even daylight bombing was extremely inaccurate. I don't remember the exact figures, but it's something on the order of only 30% of bombs dropped fell within a 1 mile radius of the target.
The best defense a bomber had against enemy aircraft was speed.
The main quality for an escort fighter to be effective was having a higher speed than the enemy aircraft.
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(http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/grandslam.jpg)
The grand slam breakfast was introduced in 1977 :old:
The Free world has not introduced a replacement :old:
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yum
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'A Single Column Of Flame'
In December 1944, Kurt Vonnegut was captured by the German army and became a prisoner of war. In "Slaughterhouse Five", he describes how he narrowly escaped death a few months later in the firebombing of Dresden. More than 600,000 incendiary bombs later, the city looked more like the surface of the moon. Returning home to Indianapolis after the war, Vonnegut began writing short stories for magazines such as Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post, and, seven years later, published his first novel, Player Piano. Finally, in 1969, he tackled the subject of war, recounting his experiences as a POW in Dresden, forced to dig corpses from the rubble. The resulting novel was "Slaughterhouse Five". Banned in several US states - and branded a "tool of the devil" in North Dakota - it carried the snappy alternative title: "The Children's Crusade: A Duly Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, a fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much) who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden, Germany - the Florence of the Elbe - a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale...
Toward the end of World War II, as Allied planes rained death and destruction over Germany, the old Saxon city of Dresden lay like an island of tranquility amid desolation. Famous as a cultural center and possessing no military value, Dresden had been spared the terror that descended from the skies over the rest of the country.
In fact, little had been done to provide the ancient city of artists and craftsmen with anti-aircraft defenses. One squadron of planes had been stationed in Dresden for awhile, but the Luftwaffe decided to move the aircraft to another area where they would be of use. A gentlemen's agreement seemed to prevail, designating Dresden an "open city."
February 13/14 1945: Holocaust over Dresden, known as the Florence of the North. Dresden was a hospital city for wounded soldiers. Not one military unit, not one anti-aircraft battery was deployed in the city. Together with the 600.000 refugees from Breslau, Dresden was filled with nearly 1.2 million people. Churchill had asked for "suggestions how to blaze 600.000 refugees". He wasn't interested how to target military installations 60 miles outside of Dresden. More than 700.000 phosphorus bombs were dropped on 1.2 million people. One bomb for every 2 people. The temperature in the centre of the city reached 1600 o centigrade. More than 260.000 bodies and residues of bodies were counted. But those who perished in the centre of the city can't be traced. Approximately 500.000 children, women, the elderly, wounded soldiers and the animals of the zoo were slaughtered in one night.
On Shrove Tuesday, February 13, 1945, a flood of refugees fleeing the Red Army 60 miles away had swollen the city's population to well over a million. Each new refugee brought fearful accounts of Soviet atrocities. Little did those refugees retreating from the Red terror imagine that they were about to die in a horror worse than anything Stalin could devise.
Normally, a carnival atmosphere prevailed in Dresden on Shrove Tuesday. In 1945, however, the outlook was rather dismal. Houses everywhere overflowed with refugees, and thousands were forced to camp out in the streets shivering in the bitter cold.
However, the people felt relatively safe; and although the mood was grim, the circus played to a full house that night as thousands came to forget for a moment the horrors of war. Bands of little girls paraded about in carnival dress in an effort to bolster warning spirits. Half-sad smiles greeted the laughing girls, but spirits were lifted.
No one realized that in less than 24 hours those same innocent children would die screaming in Churchill's firestorms. But, of course, no one could know that then. The Russians, to be sure, were savages, but at least the Americans and British were "honorable."
So, when those first alarms signaled the start of 14 hours of hell, Dresden's people streamed dutifully into their shelters. But they did so without much enthusiasm, believing the alarms to be false, since their city had never been threatened from the air. Many would never come out alive, for that "great democratic statesman," Winston Churchill--in collusion with that other "great democratic statesman," Franklin Delano Roosevelt--had decided that the city of Dresden was to be obliterated by saturation bombing.
What where Churchill's motives? They appear to have been political, rather than military. Historians unanimously agree that Dresden had no military value. What industry it did have produced only cigarettes and china.
But the Yalta Conference was coming up, in which the Soviets and their Western allies would sit down like ghouls to carve up the shattered corpse of Europe. Churchill wanted a trump card--a devastating "thunderclap of Anglo-American annihilation"--with which to impress Stalin.
That card, however, was never played at Yalta, because bad weather delayed the originally scheduled raid. Yet Churchill insisted that the raid be carried out--to "disrupt and confuse" the German civilian population behind the lines.
Dresden's citizens barely had time to reach their shelters. The first bomb fell at 10:09 p.m. The attack lasted 24 minutes, leaving the inner city a raging sea of fire. "Precision saturation bombing" had created the desired firestorm.
A firestorm is caused when hundreds of smaller fires join in one vast conflagration. Huge masses of air are sucked in to feed the inferno, causing an artificial tornado. Those persons unlucky enough to be caught in the rush of wind are hurled down entire streets into the flames. Those who seek refuge underground often suffocate as oxygen is pulled from the air to feed the blaze, or they perish in a blast of white heat--heat intense enough to melt human flesh.
One eyewitness who survived told of seeing "young women carrying babies running up and down the streets, their dresses and hair on fire, screaming until they fell down, or the collapsing buildings fell on top of them."
There was a three-hour pause between the first and second raids. The lull had been calculated to lure civilians from their shelters into the open again. To escape the flames, tens of thousands of civilians had crowded into the Grosser Garten, a magnificent park nearly one and a half miles square.
The second raid came at 1:22 a.m. with no warning. Twice as many bombers returned with a massive load of incendiary bombs. The second wave was designed to spread the raging firestorm into the Grosser Garten.
It was a complete "success." Within a few minutes a sheet of flame ripped across the grass, uprooting trees and littering the branches of others with everything from bicycles to human limbs. For days afterward, they remained bizarrely strewn about as grim reminders of Allied sadism.
At the start of the second air assault, many were still huddled in tunnels and cellars, waiting for the fires of the first attack to die down. At 1:30 a.m. an ominous rumble reached the ears of the commander of a Labor Service convoy sent into the city on a rescue mission. He described it this way:
"The detonation shook the cellar walls. The sound of the explosions mingled with a new, stranger sound which seemed to come closer and closer, the sound of a thundering waterfall; it was the sound of the mighty tornado howling in the inner city."
MELTING HUMAN FLESH
Others hiding below ground died. But they died painlessly--they simply glowed bright orange and blue in the darkness. As the heat intensified, they either disintegrated into cinders or melted into a thick liquid--often three or four feet deep in spots.
Shortly after 10:30 on the morning of February 14, the last raid swept over the city. American bombers pounded the rubble that had been Dresden for a steady 38 minutes. But this attack was not nearly as heavy as the first two.
However, what distinguished this raid was the cold-blooded ruthlessness with which it was carried out. U.S. Mustangs appeared low over the city, strafing anything that moved, including a column of rescue vehicles rushing to the city to evacuate survivors. One assault was aimed at the banks of the Elbe River, where refugees had huddled during the horrible night.
In the last year of the war, Dresden had become a hospital town. During the previous night's massacre, heroic nurses had dragged thousands of crippled patients to the Elbe. The low-flying Mustangs machine-gunned those helpless patients, as well as thousands of old men, women and children who had escaped the city.
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When the last plane left the sky, Dresden was a scorched ruin, its blackened streets filled with corpses. The city was spared no horror. A flock of vultures escaped from the zoo and fattened on the carnage. Rats swarmed over the piles of corpses.
A Swiss citizen described his visit to Dresden two weeks after the raid: "I could see torn-off arms and legs, mutilated torsos and heads which had been wrenched from their bodies and rolled away. In places the corpses were still lying so densely that I had to clear a path through them in order not to tread on arms and legs."
In one ironic note, Dresden's only conceivable military target -- its railroad yards -- was ignored by Allied bombers. They were too busy concentrating on helpless old men, women and children.
If ever there was a war crime, then certainly the Dresden Holocaust ranks as the most sordid one of all time. Yet there are no movies made today condemning this fiendish slaughter; nor did any Allied airman--or Sir Winston--sit in the dock at Nuremberg. In fact, the Dresden airmen were actually awarded medals for their role in this mass murder. But, of course, they could not have been tried, because there were "only following orders."
Churchill, the monster who ordered the Dresden slaughter, was knighted, and the rest is history. The cold-blooded sadism of the massacre, however, is brushed aside by his biographers, who still cannot bring themselves to tell how the desire of one madman to "impress" another one let to the mass murder of up to a half million men, women and children.
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I've read Slaughterhouse Five. It *may* incorporate some of K.V.'s experiences in the book, but it is about a time traveler/body traveler.
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Rense's article is not an excerpt of the book.
"The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is. One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I'm in."
—Kurt Vonnegut, writer of the novel Slaughterhouse-Five
To my left I suddenly see a woman. I can see her to this day and shall never forget it. She carries a bundle in her arms. It is a baby. She runs, she falls, and the child flies in an arc into the fire.
Suddenly, I saw people again, right in front of me. They scream and gesticulate with their hands, and then — to my utter horror and amazement — I see how one after the other they simply seem to let themselves drop to the ground. (Today I know that these unfortunate people were the victims of lack of oxygen). They fainted and then burnt to cinders.
Insane fear grips me and from then on I repeat one simple sentence to myself continuously: "I don't want to burn to death". I do not know how many people I fell over. I know only one thing: that I must not burn.
”
—Margaret Freyer, survivor
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As tragic as the event was, it serves no good purpose to exaggerate beyond the truth of the matter.
"Large variations in the claimed death toll have fueled the controversy. In March 1945, the Nazi regime ordered its press to publish a falsified casualty figure of 200,000 for the Dresden raids, and death toll estimates as high as 500,000 have been given.[9] The city authorities at the time estimated no more than 25,000 victims, a figure which subsequent investigations, including one commissioned by the city council in 2010, support.[10]"
^ Götz Bergander: Dresden im Luftkrieg, Flechsig, Würzburg 1998, ISBN 3-88189-239-7, p. 217
^ Neutzner 2010, p. 70.
"According to official German report Tagesbefehl (Order of the Day) no. 47 ("TB47") issued on 22 March the number of dead recovered by that date was 20,204, including 6,865 who were cremated on the Altmarkt square, and the total number of deaths was expected to be about 25,000.[81][82][83] Another report on 3 April put the number of corpses recovered at 22,096.[81] Three municipal and 17 rural cemeteries outside Dresden recorded up to 30 April 1945 a total of at least 21,895 buried bodies of the Dresden raids, including those cremated on the Altmarkt.[84]
A number of refugees fleeing westwards from the advancing Russian forces were in the city at the time of the bombing. Although exact figures are unknown, reliable estimates based on train arrivals, foot traffic, and the extent to which emergency accommodation had to be organised, place the refugee population at between 100–200,000.[85] The city authorities did not distinguish between residents and refugees when establishing casualty numbers and "took great pains to count all the dead, identified and unidentified".[85] This was largely achievable because most of the dead succumbed to suffocation; in only four places were recovered remains so badly burned that it proved impossible to ascertain the number of victims. The uncertainty introduced by this is thought to amount to a total of no more than 100.[85] 35,000 people were registered with the authorities as missing after the raids, around 10,000 of whom were later found to be alive.[85]
A further 1,858 bodies were discovered during the reconstruction of Dresden between the end of the war and 1966.[86] Since 1989, despite extensive excavation for new buildings, no war-related bodies have been found.[86] Seeking to establish a definitive casualty figure, in part to address propagandisation of the bombing by far-right groups, the Dresden city council in 2005 authorized an independent Historian commission to conduct a new, thorough investigation, collecting and evaluating all possible sources by modern scientific methods. The results were published 2010 and stated that a minimum of 22,700[87] and a maximum of 25,000 people[88] were killed."
^ Addison (2006), p.75
^ Taylor, Bloomsbury, 2005, p. 424.
^ Evans 1996, "The Bombing of Dresden in 1945; The real TB 47
^ Neutzner 2010, pp. 38-39.
^ Evans 1996, (vii) Further misuse of figures: refugees, burials, and excavations.
^ Taylor, Bloomsbury, 2005, last page of Appendix B p.509
^ Shortnews, April 14, 2010: Alliierte Bombenangriffe auf Dresden 1945: Zahl der Todesopfer korrigiert
^ Rolf-Dieter Müller, Nicole Schönherr, Thomas Widera (ed.): Die Zerstörung Dresdens: 13. bis 15. Februar 1945. Gutachten und Ergebnisse der Dresdner Historikerkommission zur Ermittlung der Opferzahlen. V&R Unipress, 2010, ISBN 3899717732, page 48
"The bombing of Dresden has been manipulated by Holocaust deniers and pro-Nazi polemicists—most notably by the British writer David Irving in his book The Destruction of Dresden—in an attempt to establish a moral equivalence between the death toll of Jews in German concentration camps and the indiscriminate killing of German civilians by Allied bombing raids.[121] As such, "grossly inflated" casualty figures have been promulgated over the years, many based on a figure of over 200,000 deaths quoted in a forged version of the casualty report, Tagesbefehl No. 47, that originated with Hitler's Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.[122][123][124]"
^ Shermer & Grobman 2009, p. 261.
^ Evans 1996, "Chapter 3: Dresden and Holocaust Denial.
^ Gray, Charles. Judgement: Whether Irving has bent of falsified or misrepresented evidence. "Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Judgment: Electronic Edition". Irving v. Lipstadt. Retrieved July 2013.
^ Gray, Charles. Judgement: Irving's case as to the death toll and his use of TB47. "Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Judgment: Electronic Edition". Irving v. Lipstadt. Retrieved July 2013.
However ...
"The journalist Alexander McKee cast doubt on the meaningfulness of the list of targets mentioned in the 1953 USAF report, pointing out that the military barracks listed as a target were a long way out of the city and were not in fact targeted during the raid.[132] The "hutted camps" mentioned in the report as military targets were also not military but were camps for refugees.[132] It is also stated that the important Autobahn bridge to the west of the city was not targeted or attacked, and that no railway stations were on the British target maps, nor any bridges, such as the railway bridge spanning the Elbe River.[133] Commenting on this, McKee says: "The standard whitewash gambit, both British and American, is to mention that Dresden contained targets X, Y and Z, and to let the innocent reader assume that these targets were attacked, whereas in fact the bombing plan totally omitted them and thus, except for one or two mere accidents, they escaped."[134] McKee further asserts "The bomber commanders were not really interested in any purely military or economic targets, which was just as well, for they knew very little about Dresden; the RAF even lacked proper maps of the city. What they were looking for was a big built up area which they could burn, and that Dresden possessed in full measure."[135]
According to the historian Sonke Neitzel, "it is difficult to find any evidence in German documents that the destruction of Dresden had any consequences worth mentioning on the Eastern Front. The industrial plants of Dresden played no significant role in German industry at this stage in the war"[136] Wing Commander H. R. Allen said, "The final phase of Bomber Command's operations was far and away the worst. Traditional British chivalry and the use of minimum force in war was to become a mockery and the outrages perpetrated by the bombers will be remembered a thousand years hence."[137]"
^ McKee (1983), pp. 61, 62
^ McKee (1982), pp. 62, 63
^ McKee (1983), p. 61
^ McKee (1983), p. 63
^ Addison (2006) Chapter "The City under Attack" by Sonke Neitzel p. 76
^ McKee (1983), p. 315, quoting H. R. Allen (1972) The Legacy of Lord Trenchard
Interestingly:
"Far-right politicians in Germany have sparked a great deal of controversy by promoting the term "Bombenholocaust" ("holocaust by bomb") to describe the raids.[147] Der Spiegel writes that, for decades, the Communist government of East Germany promoted the bombing as an example of "Anglo-American terror," and now the same rhetoric is being used by the far right.[148] An example can be found in the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD). A party's representative, Jürgen Gansel, described the Dresden raids as "mass murder," and "Dresden's holocaust of bombs."[149] This provoked an outrage in the German parliament and triggered responses from the media. Prosecutors said that it was illegal to call the bombing a holocaust.[150] In 2010, several demonstrations by organizations opposing the far-right blocked a demonstration of far-right organizations."
^ Volkery, Carsten. "War of Words", Der Spiegel, 2 February 2005; Casualties of total war Leading article, The Guardian, 12 February 2005.
^ Volkery, Carsten. "War of Words", Der Spiegel, 2 February 2005.
^ Germany Seeks Tighter Curbs on Protests by Neo-Nazi Party, The New York Times, 12 February 2005.
^ Cleaver, Hannah. "German ruling says Dresden was a holocaust", Daily Telegraph, 12 April 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II
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The actual number of dead will never be known, and is rather irrelevant considering the magnitude of suffering even at the most conservative estimates.
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The actual number of dead will never be known, and is rather irrelevant considering the magnitude of suffering even at the most conservative estimates.
Ah. You quote a number. I find it to be exaggerated. Now the number is 'unknown.' Inflating 25,000 to half a million is now, supposedly, 'irrelevant.'
I can sympathize with tragedy. You, however, have mentioned the politics behind the attack without recognizing the politics behind inflating the event.
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I did not write the article, and I don't presume to know the actual number of victims or whose estimates are the most correct.
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The resulting novel was "Slaughterhouse Five". Banned in several US states - and branded a "tool of the devil" in North Dakota - it carried the snappy alternative title: "The Children's Crusade: A Duly Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr,
What do you mean by 'banned' in several US States?
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I did not write the article, and I don't presume to know the actual number of victims or whose estimates are the most correct.
It doesn't matter if you authored the article or not when you quote it as if it is authoritative. If you aren't presuming it is accurate then disclaim that it represents an inflated amount of several magnitudes above official estimates. It may be wise to go so far as to recognize that there are groups and individuals that are apologists of the Jewish Holocaust (more than Jews involved, actually) that have inflated the casualty count of the Dresden raids in order to use such as a comparative example.
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What do you mean by 'banned' in several US States?
Possible reference:
"Censorship controversy
Slaughterhouse-Five has been the subject of many attempts at censorship, due to its irreverent tone and purportedly obscene content. In 1972, a circuit judge banned it on the grounds that it is “depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian.” In the novel, American soldiers use profanity; his language is irreverent; and the book depicts sex. It was one of the first literary acknowledgments that homosexual men, referred to in the novel as "fairies," were among the victims of the Nazi Holocaust.[11]
In the USA it has at times been banned from literature classes, removed from school libraries, and struck from literary curricula;[12] however, it is still taught in some schools. The U.S. Supreme Court considered the First Amendment implications of the removal of the book, among others, from public school libraries in the case of Island Trees School District v. Pico, [457 U.S. 853 (1982)], and concluded that "local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.'" Slaughterhouse-Five is the sixty-seventh entry to the American Library Association's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999. Slaughterhouse-Five continues to be controversial. In August 2011, the novel was banned at the Republic High School in Missouri. The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library countered by offering 150 free copies of the novel to Republic High School students on a first come, first served basis.[13]"
^ http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/the-neverending-campaign-to-ban-slaughterhouse-five/243525/#
^ 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five
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It doesn't matter if you authored the article or not when you quote it as if it is authoritative. If you aren't presuming it is accurate then disclaim that it represents an inflated amount of several magnitudes above official estimates. It may be wise to go so far as to recognize that there are groups and individuals that are apologists of the Jewish Holocaust (more than Jews involved, actually) that have inflated the casualty count of the Dresden raids in order to use such as a comparative example.
I do not know whether the claims are inflated or not. Like I said, I don't presume to know the actual number of victims or whose estimates are the most correct. If you do, then that's your case to prove, not mine.
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Grand slam bombs would have save lives :old:
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I do not know whether the claims are inflated or not. Like I said, I don't presume to know the actual number of victims or whose estimates are the most correct. If you do, then that's your case to prove, not mine.
You're the one that posted an article claiming half a million dead as if it's authoritative. I've found reference to that claim being inflated with official estimates making it 25,000. When challenged, you responded as if the count didn't matter. My source also mentioned the groups responsible for inflating the numbers and why.
I have no personal beef with you. As a matter of fact, it's my concern for you possibly getting sucked into deceitful political ideology that drives me to suggest you check your sources more carefully.
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The point I'm trying to make is that the actual number is irrelevant; at some point an atrocity becomes so large, of such a magnitude of cruelty, that the numbers of dead just becomes statistics. That's what you're arguing: Statistics. Not the fact that those statistics represent the deliberate burning alive of men, women and children, machine-gunning civilians en masse, and destroying an entire city of little or no military value.
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In Churchill's defense I can say that I've read that he regretted the destruction of Dresden. Harris otoh did not.
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The point I'm trying to make is that the actual number is irrelevant; at some point an atrocity becomes so large, of such a magnitude of cruelty, that the numbers of dead just becomes statistics. That's what you're arguing: Statistics. Not the fact that those statistics represent the deliberate burning of men, women and children, machine-gunning civilians en masse, and destroying an entire city of little or no military value.
I conceded that it was a tragedy right off the bat. What you seem unwilling to concede is that your source apparently saw a need to inflate numbers or even invent 'facts' (or repeat invented claims). For instance, the strafing incident:
"Strafing of civilians has become a traditional part of the oral history of the raids since a March 1945 article in the Nazi-run weekly newspaper Das Reich claimed that this had occurred.[63] For example, British historian Alexander McKee in Dresden 1945 (1982) quotes eyewitnesses who state that strafing did occur.[64] According to an RAF webpage on the history of RAF Bomber Command, "[p]art of the American Mustang-fighter escort was ordered to strafe traffic on the roads around Dresden to increase the chaos and disruption to the important transportation network in the region."[65] (see also Yeager's description of similar Second World War missions)
Historian Götz Bergander, who was himself an eyewitness of the raids, found no reports on strafing for 13–15 February, neither by any of the pilots nor by the German military and police. He asserted in Dresden im Luftkrieg (1977) that only a few tales of civilians being strafed were reliable in details, and all were related to the daylight attack on 14 February. He concluded that some memory of eyewitnesses was real, but that it had misinterpreted the firing in an airfight as being deliberately aimed at people on the ground.[66] Historian Helmut Schnatz found, in 2000, that there was an explicit order to RAF pilots not to strafe civilians on the way back home from Dresden. He also reconstructed timelines with the result that strafing would have been almost impossible due to lack of time and fuel.[67] Frederick Taylor in Dresden (2004), basing most of his analysis on the work of Bergander and Schnatz, concludes that no strafing took place, although some stray bullets from an aerial dog fight may have hit the ground and been mistaken for strafing by those in the vicinity.[68] The official historical commission collected 103 detailed eyewitness accounts and let the local bomb disposal services search according to their assertions: They did not find any bullets or fragments thereof which would have been used by planes of the Dresden raids.[69]"
^ Götz Bergander: Dresden im Luftkrieg, 1998, p. 204-209
^ Helmut Schnatz, Tiefflieger über Dresden? Legenden und Wirklichkeit (Böhlau, 2000, ISBN 3-412-13699-9), pp. 96 and 99
^ Taylor 2005, Appendix A. "The Massacre at Elbe Meadows".
^ Neutzner 2010, pp. 71-80.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II
You say that it's up to me to prove your un-sourced article wrong. Why isn't it up to you to back your article and prove it right .... without the 'well, the details don't really matter' bit?
Having said that, if the details don't matter then why does the article go to great ends to manipulate them?
Where is this article from? Who wrote it?
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The point I'm trying to make is that the actual number is irrelevant; at some point an atrocity becomes so large, of such a magnitude of cruelty, that the numbers of dead just becomes statistics. That's what you're arguing: Statistics. Not the fact that those statistics represent the deliberate burning alive of men, women and children, machine-gunning civilians en masse, and destroying an entire city of little or no military value.
you underestimate the power of "kill thousands, terrify millions". that military philosophy has worked since the time of the mongols...unfortunately for nazi germany and imperial japan, such decisions were necessary.
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in hindsight, all the efforts led to this....
(http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/wysiwyg/image/grandslam.jpg)
One free Grand Slam on your birthday
:banana:
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Possible reference:
"Censorship controversy
Slaughterhouse-Five has been the subject of many attempts at censorship, due to its irreverent tone and purportedly obscene content. In 1972, a circuit judge banned it on the grounds that it is “depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian.” In the novel, American soldiers use profanity; his language is irreverent; and the book depicts sex. It was one of the first literary acknowledgments that homosexual men, referred to in the novel as "fairies," were among the victims of the Nazi Holocaust.[11]
In the USA it has at times been banned from literature classes, removed from school libraries, and struck from literary curricula;[12] however, it is still taught in some schools. The U.S. Supreme Court considered the First Amendment implications of the removal of the book, among others, from public school libraries in the case of Island Trees School District v. Pico, [457 U.S. 853 (1982)], and concluded that "local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.'" Slaughterhouse-Five is the sixty-seventh entry to the American Library Association's list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999. Slaughterhouse-Five continues to be controversial. In August 2011, the novel was banned at the Republic High School in Missouri. The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library countered by offering 150 free copies of the novel to Republic High School students on a first come, first served basis.[13]"
^ http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/the-neverending-campaign-to-ban-slaughterhouse-five/243525/#
^ 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five
Yes I read those too. A few school districts banned the book and some literature classes don't have it on the curriculum.
It is a bit of an exaggeration to claim the book was 'banned in a number of states' because of couple of obscure school districts removed it from the local high school library.
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:rofl NatCigg, stop man, i don't have a denny's anywhere near me. :cry posting that is just mean...
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Yes I read those too. A few school districts banned the book and some literature classes don't have it on the curriculum.
It is a bit of an exaggeration to claim the book was 'banned in a number of states' because of couple of obscure school districts removed it from the local high school library.
Exaggeration appears to be a theme in this thread. :noid
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you underestimate the power of "kill thousands, terrify millions". that military philosophy has worked since the time of the mongols...unfortunately for nazi germany and imperial japan, such decisions were necessary.
I think the debate here is whether or not it was necessary. It's easy to second guess decisions with the benefit of hindsight, in my opinion it was not.
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Edit: What I was responding to was edited out. :D
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I think the debate here is whether or not it was necessary. It's easy to second guess decisions with the benefit of hindsight, in my opinion it was not.
i tend to place less value on human compassion...it was necessary at the time. i can think of a few other locales that could use similar treatment right now.
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Arlo, I named that author several posts ago: Rense. I'm not "unwilling to concede" anything, because I haven't made any claims to concede. I recognize the fact that the number of dead is controversial and in question, but I also state, repeatedly, that it is irrelevant for the purpose of my posting the article. As for the strafing; German civilians were strafed by allied fighters all over Germany, not only in Dresden. This BBS even has a member who's grandmother (or gandmother-in-law, I can't remember exactly) was strafed in Germany as a little girl, but I have forgotten his nick. In Chuck Yeager's autobiography he describes how he felt bad about being ordered to strafe civilians in late 1944 during a "maximum effort"; they were assigned what would today be called a "kill box" where they would attack anything that moved to demoralize the German population. They were also ordered to strafe farms and other civilian buildings in the German countryside. I'm not sure I could have done that. During the briefing Yeager said to a fellow pilot (I paraphrase): "If we do this we'd better win the war". Yeager was a ruthless warrior who strafed helpless civilians, but at least he has enough of a conscience to feel bad about it. I find it very hard to believe that allied aircraft did not strafe civilians at Dresden.
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It is true that U.S. fighters strafed civilians. In Steven Ambrose's book "Citizen Soldier", there is a picture of two beautiful girls, sisters. One is dead with bullet wounds and the other sister is holding her. Very moving. The caption claims that a P-47 strafed her.
Chuck Yeager briefly mentions that stuff that he and his squadron did to civilians. He said (I'm paraphrasing slightly) "We better win this war, because if they find out what we have done, we will all hang for it".
I can't remember what documentary I saw it on, but it said the main motive for bombing Dresden was to show the Soviets (who at that time had a massive ground army) that the British and Americans ruled the skies, and were completely capable of obliterating a city. Germany and it's territories were already being divvied up. Some may relegate this to a conspiracy theory. But the Soviet invasion of Japanese territories during the last few weeks of the war show that everyone was going for land-grabs.
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I think the debate here is whether or not it was necessary. It's easy to second guess decisions with the benefit of hindsight, in my opinion it was not.
There's not really a debate. My post was about giving an insight to the horrors of bombing, something the O.P. seemed to take lightly. I do not really want to debate any of the facts, but I realize others do. Personally I choose not to judge these acts except to say that I find them hard to justify.
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I did a research paper on the Strategic Bombing Campaign years ago. Here are just some highlights of it:
Targets that were extremely vulnerable, like the electrical grid (especially in Berlin) were ignored because of lack of data on how vulnerable they actually were.
The bombing of bottleneck industries, such as German ball bearing plants, was ineffective.
The bombing of refineries was ineffective. Only when the refineries were overrun by ground troops did fuel production stop for the Germans.
The manpower required by the Luftwaffe (which also had some 2 million ground troops) to defend against bombing was effective due to the fact that those soldiers could not be used as front line ground troops.
Even daylight bombing was extremely inaccurate. I don't remember the exact figures, but it's something on the order of only 30% of bombs dropped fell within a 1 mile radius of the target.
The best defense a bomber had against enemy aircraft was speed.
The main quality for an escort fighter to be effective was having a higher speed than the enemy aircraft.
And bomber crews feared flak more than they did enemy fighters.
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There's not really a debate. My post was about giving an insight to the horrors of bombing, something the O.P. seemed to take lightly. I do not really want to debate any of the facts, but I realize other do. Personally I choose not to judge these acts except to say that I find them hard to justify.
Regrettably, the article you chose to illustrate such was designed to be more inciteful than insightful. I'm not saying that was your intent but you could have chosen better. 'A Single Column Of Flame' is indeed referenced on a lot of sights on the internet, most of them having a common theme:
http://www.federaljack.com/the-wwii-dresden-holocaust-a-single-column-of-flame/
(removed David Duke link since the browser says it's untrusted.)
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/02/the-wwii-dresden-holocaust-a-single-column-of-flame-2-2565132.html
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/the-dresden-holocaust-a-single-column-of-flame/
http://downloadpolitics.com/showthread.php?25471-The-Dresden-Holocaust-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%98A-Single-Column-Of-Flame%E2%80%99
http://www.kickthemallout.com/article.php/Story-The_Dresden_Holocaust
http://northerntruthseeker.blogspot.com/2012/02/true-genocide-of-history-dresden.html
http://engforum.pravda.ru/index.php?/topic/200346-65-years-ago-the-wwii-dresden-holocaust-a-single-column-of-flame/
http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2011/02/wwii-dresden-holocaust-single-column-of.html
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I'm not sure if you found it at one of those sources or someplace else but it's quite common to see inflated hyperbole shared by political blogs of this nature.
The facts do matter. Better sources exist and I know you're capable of finding them. :salute :cheers:
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I found it (years ago) at rense.com
I wasn't interested in a documentary style, dry, unfeeling account of the events. For the purpose of this thread I wanted an article that focused on the human suffering and eyewitness accounts. Just disregard the numbers, inflated or not, and get a feel for the human tragedy that was the bombing of Dresden. Then realize that Dresden was only one of many cities that suffered such horrors.
This is not about blame.
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i tend to place less value on human compassion...it was necessary at the time. i can think of a few other locales that could use similar treatment right now.
I'm not sure what you mean by that, I think your trying to say you don't experience empathy for people.
It depends on what your definition of 'necessary' is.
I don't believe it was necessary to achieve a military victory over Germany. You might feel it was necessary to exact some form of retribution, or as a political statement.
To be honest we have to label the bombing of Dresden for what it was, which was the intentional and wholesale slaughter of non-combatants. At the time they felt this was a necessary, and to some degree it would certainly have hampered the civilian war production efforts.
Frankly at this point though everyone knew the war was lost for Germany, I'm not sure what burning little girls to death achieved.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-08778-0001,_Dresden,_Tote_nach_Bombenangriff.jpg)
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I found it (years ago) at rense.com
I wasn't interested in a documentary style, dry, unfeeling account of the events. For the purpose of this thread I wanted an article that focused on the human suffering and eyewitness accounts. Just disregard the numbers, inflated or not, and get a feel for the human tragedy that was the bombing of Dresden. Then realize that Dresden was only one of many cities that suffered such horrors.
This is not about blame.
I get (and have gotten) the feel for this human tragedy (like you, years ago). I'm probably just more sensitive to seeing such human tragedy used for political ends no less despicable than the author claims were motive for the event. :salute :cheers:
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:salute
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I'm not sure what you mean by that, I think your trying to say you don't experience empathy for people.
It depends on what your definition of 'necessary' is.
I don't believe it was necessary to achieve a military victory over Germany. You might feel it was necessary to exact some form of retribution, or as a political statement.
To be honest we have to label the bombing of Dresden for what it was, which was the intentional and wholesale slaughter of non-combatants. At the time they felt this was a necessary, and to some degree it would certainly have hampered the civilian war production efforts.
Frankly at this point though everyone knew the war was lost for Germany, I'm not sure what burning little girls to death achieved.
by the time the bombings occurred, the war had been raging in europe for nearly 6 years. the loss of life for both combatants and civilians was already too high. up until that time, i believe dresden was the largest city in germany that had not been bombed up to that point. the "intended" targets were industrial and logistical, however, as was somewhat typical of bombing efforts at the time, the "collateral damage" was far more devastating. it was necessary in the view of the people who planned the bombing attacks, and i for one don't disagree with their assessment all things considered.
try to imagine what the results would have been if allied command had known what they knew after buchenwald had been discovered. and i had relatives that were part of the problem in germany at the time.
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The Nazi party were responsible for all the deaths of WWII :old:
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Too bad some seem to forget cities like Coventry and Guernica, cities where the Germans practiced their terror bombing.
(http://cutoday.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/cathedral_ruins_380x2801.jpg)
(http://www.theprisma.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/No-mas-horrores-al-estilo-Guernica3.jpg)
War is Hell.
ack-ack
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Too bad some seem to forget cities like Coventry and Guernica, cities where the Germans practiced their terror bombing.
I'm not sure if this is true, but I think I read somewhere it was actually the English that started bombing civilians first.
If I recall correctly, the author described the Battle of Britain in chronologic order, with first the Germans bombing RAF airfields, then the RAF bombing German cities, then the Germans switching from RAF airfields to English cities as retribution.
edit: The Guernica bombing would have predated the Battle of Britain.
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I'm not sure if this is true, but I think I read somewhere it was actually the English that started bombing civilians first.
That would be incorrect.
Rotterdam is an example.
(http://albumwar2.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/38799.jpg)
Then there is the whole mess of Germans strafing civilian refugee columns during the their Blitzkrieg across Europe.
ack-ack
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February 13/14 1945: Holocaust over Dresden, known as the Florence of the North. Dresden was a hospital city for wounded soldiers. Not one military unit, not one anti-aircraft battery was deployed in the city.
Nonsense. Dresden was a legitimate military target. It was a major transportation hub for moving troops and materials to the eastern front. It also had at least 100 military related factories, production including poison gas, aircraft parts, and artillery. It was the last of Germany's major cities that hadnt been bombed. What were we supposed to do? let it go just because it had some nice architecture ?
It was the Germans who decided to militarize the city, including putting in a major Wehrmacht command center. Which our bombs destroyed.
I get tired of hearing it was just a terror bombing.
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I saw Dresden in the mid 90's. Hitch hiked from Berlin with a German friend. We went to this bar there and when the bartender found out I was American, she had nothing nice to say and kindof glowered at me the rest of the time. Not that I cared, nor was I offering apologies for that matter. I just thought it a bit strange, both of us were born about 25 years after the war ended.
It's a neat City, the capitol off Saxony back in the day. All the old buildings are scarred black from the fire. In some places there is gold trim which makes a unique contrast to the black. Worth a look if you have the chance.
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Something very important I would like to add. ........ Germany quit starting wars since the end of WW II. What was done was done fit and proper to bring a problem people into line with their neighbors. War is a terrible thing. Nothing will ever change that.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-08778-0001,_Dresden,_Tote_nach_Bombenangriff.jpg)
Really, you don't want to start posting photos of wartime atrocities, particularly when you're expressing empathy for German victims.
- oldman
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Really, you don't want to start posting photos of wartime atrocities, particularly when you're expressing empathy for German victims.
- oldman
A victim is a victim regardless of nationality... However, this thread is named: "Allied Bombing campaign".
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Nonsense. Dresden was a legitimate military target. It was a major transportation hub for moving troops and materials to the eastern front. It also had at least 100 military related factories, production including poison gas, aircraft parts, and artillery. It was the last of Germany's major cities that hadnt been bombed. What were we supposed to do? let it go just because it had some nice architecture ?
It was the Germans who decided to militarize the city, including putting in a major Wehrmacht command center. Which our bombs destroyed.
I get tired of hearing it was just a terror bombing.
"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land… The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforward be more strictly studied in our own interests than that of the enemy. The Foreign Secretary has spoken to me on this subject, and I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive."
- Winston Churchill
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I saw Dresden in the mid 90's. Hitch hiked from Berlin with a German friend. We went to this bar there and when the bartender found out I was American, she had nothing nice to say and kindof glowered at me the rest of the time. Not that I cared, nor was I offering apologies for that matter. I just thought it a bit strange, both of us were born about 25 years after the war ended.
It's a neat City, the capitol off Saxony back in the day. All the old buildings are scarred black from the fire. In some places there is gold trim which makes a unique contrast to the black. Worth a look if you have the chance.
You should have given her a picture of Churchill.
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A victim is a victim regardless of nationality... However, this thread is named: "Allied Bombing campaign".
Victims don't elect and follow a government who cant win world wars
Grand slam bombs would have reduced the carnage
They should have not upset the British because we were better :)
And still are :)
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Dresden wasn't the first. Hamburg got the same treatment in July 1943.
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The German people are to blame as does the crimminal who gets killed doing no good.
TAKE RESPONSIBILTY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS :banana:
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The German people are to blame as does the crimminal who gets killed doing no good.
TAKE RESPONSIBILTY FOR YOUR OWN ACTIONS :banana:
Medicate, mate.
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World war is tragedy.
Don't start nothing, won't be nothing.
"for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap".
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:)
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If the Allies did not stop Germany's intentions then this could be labeled "London" instead of Dresden.
(http://i569.photobucket.com/albums/ss137/Weltenlenker/dresden.jpg) (http://media.photobucket.com/user/Weltenlenker/media/dresden.jpg.html)
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By February 1945 I think it's safe to say that Germany's intentions towards London had been stopped already, and the German government had about two months left. The Red Army had advanced into Germany itself and the Allies had reached the Rhine.
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By February 1945 I think it's safe to say that Germany's intentions towards London had been stopped already, and the German government had about two months left. The Red Army had advanced into Germany itself and the Allies had reached the Rhine.
In February 1945 Hitler was still alive and calling for the extinction of people he deemed inferior. He had plenty of people willing to follw him continue the carnage he started.
No bombs fell on Germany after the surrender. Below is a picture of an 8th AF B-17 dropping food to people starving in the Netherlands.. Did Hitler do things like this or was it just the Allied
War Criminals?
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KEFarZC59iM/TeKTx8_xuII/AAAAAAAAELw/sKevj7jkGy8/s640/385thBg-4.jpg)
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In February 1945 Hitler was still alive and calling for the extinction of people he deemed inferior. He had plenty of people willing to follw him continue the carnage he started.
No bombs fell on Germany after the surrender. Below is a picture of an 8th AF B-17 dropping food to people starving in the Netherlands.. Did Hitler do things like this or was it just the Allied
War Criminals?
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KEFarZC59iM/TeKTx8_xuII/AAAAAAAAELw/sKevj7jkGy8/s640/385thBg-4.jpg)
did you notice all the bomb craters are around the house! :banana: america! :banana: :airplane: :cheers:
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By February 1945 I think it's safe to say that Germany's intentions towards London had been stopped already, and the German government had about two months left. The Red Army had advanced into Germany itself and the Allies had reached the Rhine.
There were rational military leaders within the German military hierarchy that realized the irrationality of Hitler and his close following. They also recognized the scope of the mistake it was to follow Hitler and the Nazi regime. Some knew before hostilities began in 1939, but all knew just 6 years later.
War is hell and will bring out the worst in people. Read Sledge's book
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Don't forget that the russians were part of the Allies too - and they committed their fair share of attrocities. Million raped women, who knows how many killed and tortured with no trials.
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Yep, which is why German leadership tried so hard to surrender to the Allies on the Western and Mediterranean fronts.
IMO, it was a crime to allow Stalin to have his way in this matter.
Wish we had Denny's here in Germany.
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Don't forget that the russians were part of the Allies too - and they committed their fair share of attrocities. Million raped women, who knows how many killed and tortured with no trials.
Yeah, having the Russians as our WW2 allies was like picking players for a pick-up, tackle football game. You know, the 350 pound 6'8 guy standing there with the one eyebrow and maybe 4 good teeth? You don't want him as a friend, but you sure don't want to play agains him either.
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Did you watch "The Bombing of Germany" ?
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There were rational military leaders within the German military hierarchy that realized the irrationality of Hitler and his close following. They also recognized the scope of the mistake it was to follow Hitler and the Nazi regime. Some knew before hostilities began in 1939, but all knew just 6 years later.
War is hell and will bring out the worst in people. Read Sledge's book
Another German myth the German werhmact were mass murderer's just as much as the SS.
The SS Alibi of a Nation is a very good book.
Staffenberg and his lot were traitors trying to save their necks, they were kissing Adolf's bott until it was going pear shaped :old:
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Toward the end of World War II . . .
Dresden was horrible, but what a bunch of propagandist tripe by whoever that author is.
and possessing no military value
Of course cities have military value, especially ones that are transportation nexuses.
A gentlemen's agreement seemed to prevail, designating Dresden an "open city."
So allied personnel could go there and hang out in some cafes and chat with the locals? Maybe the author means, no, they couldn't do that, but they could "hang out" and "chat".
Approximately 500.000 . . .
Or, as pointed out, maybe 1/20th of that amount.
Little did those refugees retreating from the Red terror imagine that they were about to die in a horror worse than anything Stalin could devise.
The author apparently has either read almost nothing about Stalin or is just lying.
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Yep, which is why German leadership tried so hard to surrender to the Allies on the Western and Mediterranean fronts.
IMO, it was a crime to allow Stalin to have his way in this matter.
Wish we had Denny's here in Germany.
Dude just drive down to Dieter's order yourself the Grand Slam Frühstück and stop your whining. :P
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The Grand Slam is served in my house on Saturday mornings :aok
The German Bistros serve breakfast on the light side ... What's up with that?
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I remember getting some kind of thick brown goolash for breakfast at the Luftwaffe base in Jever.. That stuff was fantastic.
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The full English breakfast is quite awesome.
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(http://cdn.twentytwowords.com/wp-content/uploads/Big-Breakfast.jpg)
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(http://electraforge.com/brooke/misc/RAFMuseum/00a_DSC_5674.jpg)
:aok
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I would like to know Zack's view on the full English breakfast.
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(http://electraforge.com/brooke/misc/RAFMuseum/00a_DSC_5674.jpg)
:aok
Wow beens and beer with breakfast!! :banana:
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I would like to know Zack's view on the full English breakfast.
Oustanding puctures
In fact the best ones of 2014 in the AH forums Brooke :old:
Fried bread is awesome