Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: Sandman on March 02, 2002, 10:29:46 AM
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57 years ago (March 2 ,1945), the 8th Air Force dropped bombs on Dresden. :confused:
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There was alot of controversity about bombing a city that had no military value. I believe 40,000 civilians died. Probably a pretty horrible death. I am not real sure if bombing Dresden shortened the war, but the loss of so many German civilians probably hampered the war effort.
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.
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Hmmm... didn't the RAF hit Dresden in February?
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One tactic used by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force was the creation of firestorms. This was achieved by dropping incendiary bombs, filled with highly combustible chemicals such as magnesium, phosphorus or petroleum jelly (napalm), in clusters over a specific target. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area, become extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire.
In 1945, Arthur Harris decided to create a firestorm in the medieval city of Dresden. He considered it a good target as it had not been attacked during the war and was virtually undefended by anti-aircraft guns. The population of the city was now far greater than the normal 650,000 due to the large numbers of refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army.
On the 13th February 1945, 773 Avro Lancasters bombed Dresden. During the next two days the USAAF sent over 527 heavy bombers to follow up the RAF attack. Dresden was nearly totally destroyed. As a result of the firestorm it was afterwards impossible to count the number of victims. Recent research suggest that 135,000 were killed but some German sources have argued that it was over 250,000. Whatever the figure, it was probably greater than the 51,509 British civilians killed by the Luftwaffe during the whole of the Second World War and the 70,000 immediate deaths at Hiroshima after the dropping of the first atom bomb on 6th August 1945.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm
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At the end of the war,Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris was denied peerage(the title of Duke,Marquees,Earl,Viscount or Baron) given to all other major British commanders because of his terror tactics.
His aircrews were also denied a Distinctive Campaign Medal of their own because of this raid(and others..Hamburg..30,000 dead)
This is especially pathetic because they used the "Break the will of the people to win the war" excuse knowing full well from the Battle of Britain,bombing the civilians only strengthens their resolve to resist.
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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.
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Whoever had the final word for Dresden should have been put on trial for Crimes Against Humanity. Plain and simple.
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>they used the "Break the will of the people to win the war"
>excuse
(Shrug) War is Hell. The sure enjoyed it enough when they were blitzkrieging through Poland and France. I'm sure they enjoyed it less when their cities were being reduced to ashes. Reap the whirlwind mutha plowa.
Everything is a military target as far as I'm concerned. Children grow up to be soldiers. Women are production facilities for more children. Every citizen assists the war effort in some small way. Serves at a hospital. Serves as home guard. Collects metal and rubber scraps. Grows food that is eventually sent to soldiers. Makes shoes that are worn by factory workers who make weapons that are sent to soldiers. If nothing else they are manpower reserves. If you killed every living thing in the military production targets they would draw from the remaining cities. Its just like bombing fuel reserves, you’re destroying manpower reserves. If you look hard enough you can trace every citizen to some contribution to the war effort. Therefore every citizen is a potential target.
Can bombing break the will of a people to fight? I think the point is moot. Given sufficient firepower, there can only be two possible conclusions:
1. The will of the enemy is broken and they sue for peace
2. All life in the target country is eliminated
Either way, with sufficient ordinance, the problem is solved. Its simply a matter of volume of destruction. With sufficient destructive power you can guarantee one of the above conclusions.
The A-Bomb sure did wonders to break the Japanese will to fight. I think old Harris just didn’t have the right tools.
Regards,
Wab
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except, animal, that would set a precedent whose net could be cast over every country that has been in a war this century.
war for the most part, is gonna be 'total war'.
its hard to try someone for crimes against mankind when they are exhibiting one of the defining characteristics of mankind.
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I have plenty books on dresden Harris lied about its importance and everything really surrounding Thunderclap.
Individaul bomber crews were told that dresden was a viable target with all sorts of varying excuses. Alot of them also expressed concern.
If harris were Axis he would of been executed. The fact that he was denied peerage is telling in of of its self considering the magnitude of Nazi war crimes discovered after the war.
Dresden wasnt the only city to to be fire bombed
29 August 1944 Bremerhaven 200 bomber dropped 420,000 thermite incendiaries. Prior to the drop recon photos showed a "buit up area" (buildings and the like) of 375 acres. After thet showed 297 acres had been destroyed.
They later refined this type of attack on a raid on Darmstadt of 11 sept 1944. 78% of the center center was destroyed. 70,000 of the cities 115,000 were made homeless. There were only 5 buildings left in the cities old town. estimated casualties were 8,500 died in the 45 min raid.
Then came Brunswick 14 october 1944.
The came operation Thunderclap 13 through 15 February 1945.
You can do your own research but I have plenty of info. There were follow up raids to dresden but they mostly just stirred up the ashes. Theres a good eye witness account of the attck from in dresden by Eva Beyer a 17 year old red cross worker.
Harris although he did not start the area bombing believed that by the systematic destruction of large urban areas would in itself lead to victory.
He referred to the raids against oil refineries and transport targets during july and september 1944 as "panaceas" even though they crippled german oil production. Even though only 11% of bomber commands forces were used in these raids.
In november 1 1944 harris sent a norte to Air Chief Marshall Portal
In the past 18 months Bomber Command has virtually destroyed 45 out of the leading 60 German cities. Inspite of the invasion diversions (reference to the The Transportation Plan in which allied bombers hit rail networks in france and western germany. Harris opposed this as well) we have managed to keep up and even extend our average of two and a half cities devastated a month . . . There are not many industrial centers of population now left intact. Are we going to abandon this vast task, which the Germans themselves have long admitted to be their worst headache, just as it nears completion.
Again look it up for yourself. Like I said I have quotes from bomber pilots who were told all sorts of reasons why dresden would be bombed. They needed no reason they were ordered too.
My grand mother grew up in conventry. My Mother was born in England.
I have pictures of the Cathedral there burning and various other Axis bomber destruction. She was 16 at the time.
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Originally posted by AKWabbit
Everything is a military target as far as I'm concerned. Children grow up to be soldiers. Women are production facilities for more children. Every citizen assists the war effort in some small way. Serves at a hospital. Serves as home guard. Collects metal and rubber scraps. Grows food that is eventually sent to soldiers. Makes shoes that are worn by factory workers who make weapons that are sent to soldiers. If nothing else they are manpower reserves. If you killed every living thing in the military production targets they would draw from the remaining cities. Its just like bombing fuel reserves, you’re destroying manpower reserves. If you look hard enough you can trace every citizen to some contribution to the war effort. Therefore every citizen is a potential target.
Wab
Good God, man. I sincerely hope you never grow up to be in charge of anything military with that attitude.
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>Good God, man. I sincerely hope you never grow up to be in
>charge of anything military with that attitude.
(shrug)
Logic can be brutal and war itself is already an immoral act. The only thing more immoral in my opinion is misplaced angst and half measures. There is no rational way to deney that if every living person in Germany was wiped out that the war could not have continued.
Of course at any point if they've had enough they simple have to unconditionally surrender and it would stop.
What I find immoral is when leadership lacks the clarity of vision and willingness to do what is necessary, whatever is necessary, to conclude the war in the shortest possible amount of time.
We may not have had the bomb till late '45, but we could have could have begun dusting them with powdered, aerosolized plutonium years earlier. The effect would have been comparable, pherhaps even more lethal.
I doubt Germany could have sustained 150-200 million civillian casualties and still been able to continue hostilities. It would simply become impossible. How much more moral would it have been to end the war in ’43?
If you could have saved the lives of 5 million Allied military and civillians by sacrificing 100 million of the enemy, would you do it? I would. Without hesitation.
(shrug) War is Hell. That’s why it should be avoided.
Regards,
Wab
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More dresden crap?
Fek me.
Wars suck. If you dont want to kill or be killed then dont make war on other people. If you DO want to kill be damned well prepared to get killed. The german people supported that war (those that didnt should have gotten the hell out) and if german kids and women get killed then the german man in uniform is strictly to blame as are the so called "civilians" working in war indistries as well as farmers growing food and anyone doing anything that could support the german military.
Not some allied war planner.
No sympathy or sorrow from me. Im just damned glad the allies won.
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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.
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Yeager do you think it was acceptable for nazies to kill those jews?
What about when Legion Condor bombed watermelon out of Guernica ?
Where do you draw the line which was acceptable and which was not?
Bombing of Guernica
Republican troops guarded the capital city of the Basque region, Guernica while 3000 Nationalist troops lay siege to the city. Nearby, in the town of Burgos, a number of Luftwaffe bombers (an estimated 30) were each loaded with 550 pounds of bombs each. Led by Lt. Rudolf von Moreau, an experienced ace of the German Air Force, the bombers had orders for Hitler to bomb the city of Guernica. There were no military targets in the town except a weapons factory outside of town. Their target was a small bridge, the only one into town, that the Socialists supposedly would cross.
On April 26, 1937, the bombers left their base in Burgos and flew to Guernica. Moreau was a head of the group. He flew over Guernica on a reconnaissance mission. The townspeople were alarmed but the local pastor quenched their fears. The church bells were rung and the people hid in dugouts. Moreau circled the city and on his next run, he showered the city with bombs and grenades. From there, the other planes took several attacks on the city, destroying the central part of the city.
The damage on the city was extensive. After a few hours of bombing, the city was left in ruins. One of the first buildings hit was a shelter for wounded militiamen. Large 1000 pound explosives killed refugees hiding in the dugouts. Fleeing peasants were either killed by explosives or by machine guns from the planes. Herds of livestock were eliminated. 721 structures were destroyed. The exact number killed is not known although 45 people died in the hospitable. Many more were killed throughout the bombing.
When the smoke cleared three days after the attack, the bridge and the weapons factory were still intact. The officers were told to call the attack a "mistake". Nationalists were told by the Germans that "Red" extremists were responsible for the catastrophe. News of the bombing spread throughout the outraged world. Picasso had a strong reaction to the event. Guernica was different from other bombings because it was a peaceful city that had no reason to be bombed. Motives for the bombing are still questionable. From captured telegrams between Hitler and Wolfram von Richthofen, the German leader of the operation, the bombing was supposed to scare refugees in nearby Bilbao.
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Staga,
The difference was that the German people were the aggressors in WWII. They started the war. They decided to roll the dice for world domination and enslave the rest of Europe.
If 100000-250000 are later killed in an air raid its merely reaping what they have sown.
BTW, I have no animosity towards Germany today. But in WWII they needed to be beaten on, and beaten on hard until they surrendered.
Regards,
Wab
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Heh I always thought it was Hitler with his generals who started the war. Well you always learn some new things from these boards.
Wabbit lets take another example in a smaller scale:
I'm sure you know Soviet-Union did bomb finnish cities first in winterwar '39-'40 when russia (Government; Not civilians. Don't mix these two when you're talking about countries ruled by a dictator) was the agressor. If I follow your way of thinking it seems that Finnish soldiers had all rights to kill every russian men, women and child they could?
Thank god (or what ever) they didn't think like you do.
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"those that didnt should have gotten the hell out"
Yeager,
You make it too simple. You don't have to support or like the goverment and their ideology to love your country .Wantin to live in it, and if necessary to fight and die for it. Not for any political idea or for a "leader"(God beware us from any leader). But for your Fatherland.
In 1941 after Hitler invaded USSR, Stalin didn't talk about defending comunism. He called the russian people to defend Mother Russia. And they did.
Patriotism isn't always logical (what feeling is logical?) It's a part of your culture and some people like to deny it, but they can't.
A little story: I knew a former Yugoslavian who is from Serbia. His statement was in the past years that he is cured from patriotism. "Stupid civil war for stupid patriotic amazinhunks" was his favorite comment as he was hiding from the MP's not wanting to fight in a civil war against other misguided fools. But after the first bombs in 1999 falled on Serbia he discovered that he is too a Patriot. Ok, someone would say he wasn't until bombs falled on his part of Ex-Yugoslavia. But the point is, he detested the goverment and their ideas, but he loves his country.
Heck, nowhere is the air so fresh, the girls so beautiful and the sun so bright shining as in your homeland. And its worth to love and to fight for.
And yes, war sucks. But Humanity is too stupid and too proud to learn from his own failures.
There is no black-white world, only gray colours everythere...with tiny pink spotts :D
metro
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>Heh I always thought it was Hitler with his generals who
>started the war.
Well, you're wrong. It was the German nation that started the war. Sorry but a nations citizens are enevitablly held responsible for the actions of their leaders. Its called accountability. You better be very careful about who you allow to lead your country, and if someone gets into power who will lead you to ruin, then you better take them out quick. Even if its the hard way.
Unless you're claiming that Hitler and his 20 odd top generals single handedly drove the tanks into Poland themselves. It took hundreds of thousands of soldiers who were willing to follow those orders. It took millions of others to man the war industries, millions still the run the trains, grow the food, make the clothing etc that kept the war industry going. They cast their lot. They lost the gamble.
>dictator) was the agressor. If I follow your way of thinking it
>seems that Finnish soldiers had all rights to kill every russian
>men, women and child they could?
Hmmm good question. Let me ask you one. If the Finish general could have pressed a button and every Russian man, woman, and child dropped dead wouldn't that have stopped the invasion?
I'm not saying exterminating the enemy is pleasent. I'm saying that it can be effect in destroying their capacity to wage war.
I'm saying that if Germany lost 50-60% of its civillian population they could not have continued fighting.
Wab
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Lets follow Wabbits way of thinking....
1939 - World War II begins. Germany invades Poland. Their blitzkrieg method of "lightening war" proves effective. Britain and France declare war on Germany. The Russians invade Finland. A bomb explodes in the Buergerbraukeller in Munich, shortly after Hitler has left the building where he was giving a speech.
So England and France did declare a war against Germany. Lets hear if AKWabbit says it was o.k when Luftwaffe bombed british towns and when Gestapo/SS/what ever did kill french villagers and send jews to gas chambers. After all they were french and thus earned to die when France declared a war against Germany.
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uups looks like Wabbit did agree that it was o.k to kill civilians by shoting them in a neck or by giving 'em some gas.
Nice :)
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Come on people..Dresden...A populous living in mostly wooden housing,and very lightly defended by AA(It was one of the last civilian places that wasn't leveled out by fire bombing ...)it was a place of refuge for MOSTLY women and children)..And targeted by "Bomber Harris" as more important than "Industrial carpet bombing"... Harris was another Goering...He shoulda been tried after the war with the rest of them....
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I beleive that the most moral thing to do is to conclude the war as quickly as possible.
100 million are going to die, I'd rather it be all enemy.
I think if taking out 100 million of the enemies population causes them to collapse and capitulate and saves several million Allies then that is a bargin in my opinion. Especially if they are citizens oft he country that started the whole dame thing.
Reap the whirlwind.
Regards,
Wab
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Wabbit don't be shy, just shout it out loud "War is hell; It's okay to kill civilians!"
:D
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btw Wabbit what did you think when those planes did hit the WTC towers?
If I did understand it correct Al-Quaida and other terrorist groups were in a war against U.S so guess there is nothing wrong in the picture when they attacked against civilian targets like WTC?
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Originally posted by Staga
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.
Very good point Staga..
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>Wabbit don't be shy, just shout it out loud "War is hell; It's
>okay to kill civilians!"
War IS Hell.
And it IS ok to kill ANYONE who is contributing ANYTHING to the enemies ability to continue killing your people.
If more of them end up dying than your guys by the time its over, then thats fine by me. Better than if it were reversed.
If at ANY time they wish to stop dying, they need only unconditionally surrender. If they chose not to, then they choose to accept their fate.
Can I make it any plainer?
Regards,
Wab
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Originally posted by AKWabbit
War IS Hell.
And it IS ok to kill ANYONE who is contributing ANYTHING to the enemies ability to continue killing your people.
So you agree it was acceptable way of warfare when those planes did hit those towers too?
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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."
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>btw Wabbit what did you think when those planes did hit the
>WTC towers?
I thought...
1. Hmmm these guys are our enemy.
2. We should attack and kill our enemy and anyone who is assisting them in any way whatsoever.
3. We should continue step 2 until all Al-Quaida and anyone supporting them are dead, Or...
4. Until those that survive, completely, and utterly, unconditionally surrender to us.
(shrug) Why is this so confusing to you?
Regards,
Wab
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IMHO there is no acceptable way to wage a war, people dying no matter which side is not acceptable, but it happens in this world so we have to live with it. The WTC attack was just that an attack, no attack is considered acceptable but was it necessary, dresden did not seem necessary but it happend. the WTC attack was not necessary either but it happened and now the taliban and al-queada are dealing with the consequences of their decision to attack a major world power.
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Wabbit I expected you to answer the second question "was it right or wrong when Al-Quaida attacked against the WTC-towers....
second thought earlier you said "And it IS ok to kill ANYONE who is contributing ANYTHING to the enemies ability to continue killing your people."
So it looks like you already answered that question. Heh you and those terrorists are soul mates. You don't care how many civilians will die in your wars. Looks like you both think "More is better" in this case.
Oh humanity...
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Wabbit:
What strategic advantage do you think the bombing of Dresden gave the Allies? Did it do anything to shorten the war? Or did it piss off a large number of Germans who may have been wavering? (not a flame...I just can't see any advantage it would have given us.)
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plain and simple he ought to have been executed for what he did. I hope he burns in hell and pray the rest of his life was filled with pain and guilt.
Just as surely as I would hitler or Stalin or bin laden.
Air superiority was won in europe during the daylight raids. production transport and fuel were destroyed not by killing civilians. Countries were liberated in europe not through area bombing but by inf and ground units. There would have been victory without dresden and the others.
Most christians agree with the idea of a just war. But aside from religious implications the killing for civilians is wrong especially when victory can be achieved by less barbaric means.
Theres a reason we have smart weapons today. Theres a reason we dont resort to the extreme everytime a conflict breaks out.
It not because we cant it is we choose not to. We could go poison every arab terror nation and erase them from the earth but we dont.
Theres a line to be drawn somewhere.
If you think fire bombing 135000 civilans helped end ww2 or did 1 thing to ensure peace you are wrong.
Saying it was wrong in no way is defense of nazi barbarity.
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"was it right or wrong when Al-Quaida attacked against the WTC-towers...."
(Wabbit wonders if Staga has a learning disability)
No, because that makes them our enemy. Nothing my enemy does is acceptable. Our enemies must be pursued and killed without mercy until they unconditionally surrender. Anyone who assists them in any way becomes our enemy as well and will share their fate.
>Looks like you both think "More is better" in this case.
No. Little as possible is best. I highly encourage them to surrender as quickly as possible so they don't force me to have to kill them all. As I've stated before (again and agian for the learning challenged), as soon as they unconditionally surrender, I feel no further desire to keep bombing them. Their fate is in their own hands. Until that time, I have no sympathy for them. Not a single one has to die if they just surrender up front. Or better yet, don't even start it.
However, if there are going to be casualties, I'd rather them be the enemies than mine. If I have to sacrifice a 1000 enemy civillians to save one single allied soldier then to me, thats a no-brainer, especially if they are responsible for starting the conflict and can stop it at anytime by unconditionally surrendering.
If I'm willing to bomb their soldiers, I have to be willing to bomb their airplane factories. If I'm willing to bomb their aircraft factories, I should be willing to bomb the power plants that supply the factories. If I'm willing to bomb the power plant then why shouldn't I bomb the ball-bearing plant that makes the ball-bearings that go into the generators that supply the aircraft factories that produces fighteres for the soldiers. If the ball-bearing factory, why not the farms where the food is grown that feeds the workers that run the ball-bearing plant that builds the generators that supply the aircraft factories that produces fighters for the soldiers. If the farms, why not the people in the town that work on the farms where the food is grown that feeds the workers that run the ball-bearing plant that builds the generators that supply the aircraft factories that produces fighters for the soldiers.
Like I said, logic is brutal. I understand why you seem to prefer to avoid it.
Regards,
Wab
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Wabbit try to keep this civilized and leave personal insults like "learning disability" to another threads.
First you say it was right to do when RAF and 8th did bomb Dresden (which was filled by refugees and civilians) and thus kill 100000-250000 people in a firestorm.
Next you say it was wrong when Al-Quaida did kill few thousand Americans in a strike against WTC-towers.
Both cases were "act of war" or "act of terror" if you like to use that word.
In both cases civilians were target.
In both cases target wasn't able to defend themself.
If you say bombings of Dresden were acceptable then you should also admit attacks against WTC were also ok.
Of course I know thats something you can't ever admit so continuing this is waste of time.
Guess this is good example of "Double Standards"?
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This was all hotly debated when it happened.
People sympathetic to Arthur Harris provided evidence of the reaction of the German population to this attack. The survivors spread the word fast: anything, including surrender, was better than what they experienced and witnessed.
People against him cited the British reaction to Luftwaffe bomb raids.
I submit that if the British had to lose a city a day to that kind of attack, they might not have reacted the way they did during the Battle of Britain.
The effect of this attack on German civillian morale was far more dramatic than the Japanese reaction to the atom bomb.
Like others who have posted above, I believe a global war for survival like WWII was an all-out war. The results would and did have grave consequences for the rest of history. It is much easier to debate morality after you have won, than in concenctration camps while you are waiting to be gased.
Certainly, we must fight by some sort of rules, or we would be no better than the enemy we are trying to stop. But make no mistake, almost the entire German population was our enemy in that time frame. Hitler and his band of cronies could never have gotten as far as they did without a large majority of support from the general population. If the Germans hated what the Nazis were doing, almost all of their male population was armed to the teeth with planes, tanks, and rifles to stop the "minority of Nazis". I think "Nazi Germans" only became a minority after Russia had kicked their butt and was marching for Berlin.
While I strongly believe that the US and Britain did a lot to win the war, I cannot argue with Russians who claim that they sacrificed more than everyone else: more Russians died than the combined casualties of all other nations, including the Jews and others killed in German camps. Dresden was easily beyond the accepted Western standard of warfare, but justice demands that you treat your enemies as they have treated you. I am willing to bet, no one who lost loved ones on the Eastern Front has or ever will shed a tear for any of the Germans killed in WW2, including the "innocent" civillians in Dresden.
I do not think I would have ordered such an attack, but nor would I have refused orders to do so. It is interesting that both the leader and those who followed were penalized. Usually, the leaders find a way to pin the blame at the lowest possible level, or the leaders are held solely accountable since most troops are prohibited from questioning their orders.
May all those who were truly innocent rest in peace (both Allied and Axis), and all those who truly deserve it (both Allied and Axis) burn forever in hell. The people in Dresden got a sneak peak of hell on earth.
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>Wabbit try to keep this civilized and leave personal insults
>like "learning disability" to another threads.
Oh you mean like :
>Heh you and those terrorists are soul mates.
Hmmm Guess this is good example of "Double Standards"?
Wab
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So staga, you've got to play grand inquisitor all afternoon, now Ill ask you a question:
If I'm willing to bomb their soldiers, I have to be willing to bomb their airplane factories. If I'm willing to bomb their aircraft factories, I should be willing to bomb the power plants that supply the factories. If I'm willing to bomb the power plant then why shouldn't I bomb the ball-bearing plant that makes the ball-bearings that go into the generators that supply the aircraft factories that produces fighteres for the soldiers. If the ball-bearing factory, why not the farms where the food is grown that feeds the workers that run the ball-bearing plant that builds the generators that supply the aircraft factories that produces fighters for the soldiers. If the farms, why not the people in the town that work on the farms where the food is grown that feeds the workers that run the ball-bearing plant that builds the generators that supply the aircraft factories that produces fighters for the soldiers.
Where is the line to be drawn and what proves thats where it should be?
Wab
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As with any other equation, the solution to warfare is drawing the line at the point that results in maximum benefits (your side winning) with the minimum losses (of resources to both sides).
The real trick is having both the information and judgement required to accurately estimate that line.
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Streak,
If winning the war would cost:
1. 25 million Allied civ/mil dead vs 50 million Axis civ/mil dead
or
2. 10 million Allied civ/mil dead vs 100 million Axis civ/mil dead
Which would you pick knowing they started the war in a attempt to crush the world and rule as a master race?
Wab
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First you say it was right to do when RAF and 8th did bomb Dresden (which was filled by refugees and civilians) and thus kill 100000-250000 people in a firestorm.
Next you say it was wrong when Al-Quaida did kill few thousand Americans in a strike against WTC-towers.
Both cases were "act of war" or "act of terror" if you like to use that word.
If you say bombings of Dresden were acceptable then you should also admit attacks against WTC were also ok.
If America was organising, or supporting the Israelis in organising death camps for the extermination of the Palestinians I would say the WTC attacks were justified. They aren't, and they weren't.
Despite what Israel is doing, it is not a patch on what the Nazis did during the war.
The allies killed between 300,000 and 600,000 Germans during air raids.
The Germans killed 6,500,000 Jews, and an even larger number of Slavs. An average of around 8,000 a day, every single day of the war.
The true figure for Dresden, estimated at the time, since inflated by pacifists, communists (Dresden was in E Germany) and Nazi apologists (look, the Nazis were no worse than the allies), was around 35,000.
The initial reports of the Berlin and Dresden police chiefs both put the death toll at 18,000 confirmed (18K bodies were recovered by that time).
The Berlin police chief said he expected the true figure was around 25,000.
An officer responsible for recording the collection and disposal of bodies has said the final figure was 30,000 recovered.
The largest death toll in any other raid in Germany was 3.3% of the population of the city, which even if the population of Dresden was swollen to well over 1,000,000 would still indicate a figure of around 30-40,000.
Put into context, the allies killed up to 600,000 German civillians in air raids, the Germans over the same time murdered over 15,000,000 civillians, and would have carried on if not stopped.
For example, Kaltenbrunner sent an order to the commander of the Mathausen concentration camp in Austria in April 45:
Your quota is still 1000 Jews a day (to be killed)
The total number of German civillians killed in allied ai raids added up to around 1% of all deaths during WW2.
That doesn't strike me as out of proportion.
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AK,
Those were not the choices.
By the time of Dresden, too many of both sides were already dead. Whether adding 100,000 or more civillians living in Dresden changed the equation in a favorable direction is the whole issue of this debate. Unfortunately, the correct answer could only be known if we could view an alternate history where only that one variable was changed. Everything we post here is pure speculation.
Though the past two "wars" we have been in indicate our military leadership is finally using a pretty damn good model from the perspective of casualties. Of course they are using Hitler's basic formula for major military victories with minimal losses: overwhelm the enemy with numbers and technology!
The dropping of the atom bomb is often justified by the lives it saved. Certainly a lot more Japanese and Americans would have died if we had tried to storm Japanese beaches like D-Day. However, postwar analysis pretty much indicate that Japanese leadership was prepared to continue fighting in spite of the atom bomb. They believed (quite correctly) that we didn't have many. They also believed they could scatter production facilities and/or move them underground to continure fighting indefinitely.
Once again (much to my dismay), I have to agree with Russian historians based on what I have seen and read. The Japanese chose to surrender to the Americans, not because of two isolated bomb raids that did less damage than traditional firestorm attacks, but rather to prevent the Russians from getting the chance to invade them.
So I don't necessarily buy into an event like Dresden being necessary at that stage in the war. But I wasn't there and I wasn't losing loved ones to the war on a daily basis. Armchair generals like us can't ever fully understand what was going on in the heads of our leaders at that time. What did they really know? What was it really going to take to get the Germans to surrender as soon as possible? I like to consider both sides objectively. My mind says do what is mathematically correct, but my heart says, "BY EVERY MEANS AVAILABLE BRING DEFEAT TO THE ENEMY!"
But if they weren't so curious about the effects of a firestorm, instead of hitting an undamaged target with little tactical or strategic value, they could have used that same raid to inflict massive strategic military damage as well as terror.
Same thing with the atom bomb. It was an experiment as much as it was an act of self defense. They had specifically set aside cities for nuclear testing. That makes me question their real motives. In order to maintain national security after the war, we really needed to know the full effects of nuclear weapons. "Made in the USA, tested in Japan."
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>Those were not the choices.
Don't avoid the hard question.
Forget Dresden. I'm not interested if we actually had the ability. Examine the underlying principle:
If you could have brought Germany to its knee's earlier in saving millions of allied lives but at the cost of huge Axis civillian casualties would YOU have made that trade off?
If you could have saved 15 million extra allied dead at the cost of an extra 50 million Axis civillian dead would you have made that deal?
Don't dance around the question. Its easy to take the position that if its saves lives overall, but what if it saved our lives but cost them more so the net total was higher but shifted to them.
I know its a hard question, but that is the point. War is full of hard questions.
Wab
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Originally posted by streakeagle
But if they weren't so curious about the effects of a firestorm, instead of hitting an undamaged target with little tactical or strategic value, they could have used that same raid to inflict massive strategic military damage as well as terror.
Same thing with the atom bomb. It was an experiment as much as it was an act of self defense. They had specifically set aside cities for nuclear testing. That makes me question their real motives. In order to maintain national security after the war, we really needed to know the full effects of nuclear weapons. "Made in the USA, tested in Japan."
What I've heard about the atomic bomb was that we definitely wanted Japan to know that we could turn untouched cities into rubble. We didn't want to muddy the waters by hitting bombed-out cities, or setting bombs off in remote areas. We made it clear that the danger was very real, and very, very great.
I wonder if that was at work with Dresden? Did we want to make it absolutely clear that the war could not be won by Germany, and that the cost of prolonging it would be worse than that of an early surrender?
I don't know. It was a horrible deed, to be sure, but I see it as a message in the universal language. The message reads: "Do not make war lightly, because it is a horrible business."
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Staga..
Pull that cork outa your head. Fire storms ripped through London (a non military target) years before Dresden was hit. And it was continually targeted. Germany was comminting genocide to millions upon millions of people, this bothers me, not Dresden..
Germany wanted to rule the world, and got beat down. Germany is at fault for there own downfall, keep that in mind.
Dog out..
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My words to Wabbit-> "If you say bombings of Dresden were acceptable then you should also admit attacks against WTC were also ok."
Because Wabbit hasn't commented this I belive he agrees with that sentence.
We could also continue this discussion with words like Sudan, medical plant, Libya, Tripoli, Reagan and Benghazi.
Looks like Al-Quaida did use same methods against U.S that U.S did use against those countries. You reap what you sow ;)
Nashwan how do you know israels don't already have camps like those in nazi-germany? They already have "concentration camps" or "ghettoes" just like nazies had (this time refugee camps). After all most of horrors nazies did came to the "day light" after the war. Wonder what else than nuclear laboratories you could find from Negev desert....
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Lol fergetit wardog, that head is way too far up his bellybutton to reach that cork.
Did a litle research this afternoon. I had forgotten how closely tied Finland was with Nazi Germany.
I guess he has his own "particular" point of view.
Streak is right tho. Even tho Hitler was voted into office by a majority of the population, byt the time of the occupation you couldn't find a single German who admitted they had voted for him.
Come to think of it, its hard to find Americans who will admit they voted for Clinton. Lol.
Wab
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I'm kinda disappointed how easy target Wabbit was. That was like stealing a candy from a retard teenager :D
Did a litle research this afternoon. I had forgotten how closely tied Finland was with Nazi Germany.
I guess he has his own "particular" point of view.
Heh when I saw that it made me smile 'cause then I knew you run out of arguments and lowered this verbal fight to mud level. Nice try thought ;)
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>Heh when I saw that it made me smile 'cause then I knew you
>run out of arguments and lowered this verbal fight to mud level.
>Nice try thought.
Naw, I'm just trying to understand your "particular" point of view. That was 50 years ago and you're certainly not responsible for any "collaboration" that might have gone on. People today aren't responsible for their ancestors actions. Thats why I hold no grudge agianst modern Germany. But it does give me a reference point to understand where you're coming from. Its not intended as any kind of "mud".
At least not anymore than your suggestion of possible Isreali death camps hidden in the Negev desert. :rolleyes:
I am curious tho... oh nevermind. :cool: I guess everyone has their own "particular" point of view.
regards,
Wab
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My point of view? I thought it would be clear already...
There shouldn't be any reason to make intentionally killing of innocent people acceptable in a war and IMHO everyone, axis or allies, should be judged in a court and if proved guilty he/she should spend his sorry life in a prison.
You know, crimes against humanity.
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>There shouldn't be any reason to make intentionally killing of
>innocent people acceptable in a war
Hmmm The trick is who's innocent.
I think we would both agree soldiers are legitamate targets.
What about those who are working in arms factories producing weapons?
Well?
Wab
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The fins were Nazi collaborators lol...............wtf :rolleyes:
Hell most of europe were Nazi collaborators by that logic........
The fact is terror bombing didnt end the war It took hitlers death for that to happen.
The Germans on numerous occassions sought peace with the west which was rightly rejected.
They would and could not accept an unconditional surrender after yalta or the release of morgenthau plan.
It can be argued that the call for unconditional surrender actually prolonged the war and cost lives on all sides.
Hitler and the german people were unwilling to allow the soviets half of europe and of germany. The west was content to allow the russians to do the war winning.
edit
there were no arms factories in dresden. Dresden was full of refugees running from the russians.........
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Ah.. the handfull of Germans that started WW2 are to blame. Yep.. those few measely bastards. You know.. that handfull of Germans that marched across Europe taking over the entire southern portion. That handfull of Germans that marched into Northern Africa... you know... those few naughty ones.
When a country goes to war... takes it to an entire continent... it had better be prepared for reprisals.
The best way to avoid civilian casualties is to avoid starting wars.
AKDejaVu
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>The fins were Nazi collaborators lol...............wtf
Gee golly Wotan. I'm sorry. I'm just a poor dumb country wabbit. Never been out past the carrot patch. I'm not used to these fancy terms. Maybe I got it wrong.
They seemed to have sent units to serve under the German army in the invasion of Russia.
There were Finnish Waffen-SS units.
Maybe "collaboration" isn't the right term.
"Co-Belligerent"? Help me out here. Whats the proper term?
regards,
Wab
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the Fins were in a much tougher position.......
They were attacked by Russia abandoned by the west and left no other course then accept defeat or fight back.
The fins never were an aggressor nation. They accepted help from the only nation willing to give it. Germany.. once the Soviet threat was removed they broke ties with Germany.
We worked side by side with the other great evil the world has produced.........stalin does that make us responsible for the acts of terror the Soviets committed?
There were Finish volunteeers that served in the SS there were freiwilligen korps of ss from many Nations even those occupied by force.
That neither classifies them as co-belligerents or collaborators.
I never said anything about you personally but your comment about finnish collaborators is a bit much.........
I think anyone would agree with that
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I wasn't dodging the question, those simply were not the choices available.
If we kind find a choice that results in total defeat of our enemies for no loss to ourselves, then that is obviously the right choice.
But losses cannot be measured just by the immediate body counts. The treatment of defeated Germans ultimately led to more Americans dying... if the world had not blamed and punished Germany for WW1, maybe several million more people would not have died for nothing fighting WW2.
If we use methods to defeat our enemies which only inspire more enemies, have we really won?
Since you are making up hypothetical choices we didn't have, I would rather add and pick a choice you didn't list. The best solution would be one where Germany never empowered Hitler and would reach its current economic status without having started WW2, as opposed to waiting for Hitler to rise to justify slaughtering thousands or millions of Germans.
Even with hindsight, the right answer can never be determined because we only know with any certainty the history that occurred when an exact pattern of decisions was made in an exact set of circumstances. That doesn't stop us from trying to generalize and apply lessons learned to the future. But far too often people (myself included) can find a historical situation with some vague similarity that will justify whatever opinion they happen to have (great for BBS argument, but almost worthless for actual decision making). As with the weather, the slightest change in any of the variables will cause dramatic unpredictable differences compared to past trends for otherwise similar conditions.
Ironically, history repeats itself not because we forget what happened in the past, but because we remember it. Most actions taken by both people as individuals and as nations are responses to past stimulus. If everyone had forgotten about what happened during WW1, the events between 1920 and 1939 would be entirely different. If the Arabs and Israelis couldn't remember how all the people that have been killed while fighting over the years, maybe they wouldn't be fighting at all.
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Read and learn...
http://www.skalman.nu/third-reich/ss-finnisches.htm and http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/2130/index.htm
Here those men were also known as pawn- or mortgage bataillon because AFAIR it was Hitlers proposal to tie Finland to Germany by keeping those men almost as a hostage. All men had to be free willing to leave Finland and join to those troops.
Is there anything else I can help you with, Wabbit?
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Well, shucks, there ya go Wotan. Jus shows ya were 6 years of skoolin will get ya.
They didn’t have a division. Only a batallian that served under the Wiking Div. Waffen SS. While to their credit, they refused the oath of alliegence directly to Hitler, they weren’t force into service at gun point. It was with the full support of the Finnish goverment.
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/2130/
http://www.ipmsfinland.org/artikkelit/jarilievonen_drittenordland.php
http://www.apali.fi/Books/SS-Division/www.ss-division.html
http://members.tripod.com/~Sturmvogel/ss-finn.html
http://www.feldgrau.com/finland.html
http://www.angelraybooks.com/books/wiking/0003wd.htm
http://www.forces70.freeserve.co.uk/Waffen%20SS%20Text+Images/5th%20SS.htm
http://www.wssob.com/000batfin.html
http://www.skalman.nu/third-reich/ss-finnisches.htm
http://www.jjfpub.mb.ca/soldiers.htm
>The fins never were an aggressor nation.
Never said they were. But they served the German war machine. Slice it anyway you want. But for two years they wore those double lightning bars by choice. Soooo not collaborator, not co-belligerents….pals?
Regards,
Wab
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Streak,
Stop acting like a politician.
Just answer the question even if it is totally hypothetical.
Given the two choice I presented (assuming there were no others) which would you have chosen if you were in command of the allied war effort?
Its a simple question, you don't have to wiggle so hard.
Wab
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Now staga, back to my question you avoided.
I think we would both agree soldiers are legitamate targets.
What about those who are working in arms factories producing weapons?
Wab
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1200 "volunteers" to secure the aid of a nation in a fight to maintain your independence is tough but understandable descision.
I dont care anything about you, your schooling or where you're from so keep that to yourself.
That fact is by your rediculous logic any nation who had volunteers serve in the german military are collaborators or co-belligerents is bs.
Russia attacked finland the west did nothing which left finland with a choice.
The same choice we made when entering into agreements with soviets to fight hitler.
There were american citizens that volunteered to serve there. There were american companies with the support of the american government that did buisness with the nazi government.
Financial institutions in the us had buisness arrangements with the nazis to raise hard currency.
I guess we shoulda fire bombed helsinki to satisfy your bloodlust.
Hell theres some arab children just asking for it maybe we oughta give them a little to........:rolleyes:
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Gee golly Wotan, you gettin a little salamanderly there.
So, how would you decsribe the Finnish/Nazi relationship?
There is a difference between some citizens of a country joining them and direct support of that countries goverment.
Would "Allies" suit you?
If not, give me a word you agree with.
Well?
Wab
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Well?
Not collaborator, not co-belligerent, not allies, not pals....
Give me your word that describes the Finnish/Nazi relationship for the year 41-43????????
Stop taking so long thumbing through your thesaurus!
Wab
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Acquaintances?
:rolleyes:
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Let me guess...they didn't really know each other, they were just car-pooling to Moscow?
:rolleyes:
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OK, take yer time. Come up with a good answer. :rolleyes:
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i would agree that the Vichy government or 5th columnists in counties like Norway and others can be rightly labeled as collaborators because they openly supported and enabled many of Nazi Germanies policies.
i would agree that a nation like croatia can be rightly labeled as co-belligerent because not only did they enable but supported Nazi germanies world view.
Allies represent a much more personall relationship economically and politically.
Finland doesn't fall into any of that.
Finland had jews serving in its armed forces and never agreed or gave approval to any nazi policy. What they did do was accept help from the only place they could get it to maintain their freedom from the soviets.
They were forced to make concessions to ensure that support. As soon as the threat to them was gone so was their relationship with Nazi germany. They committed no more then was necessary and they certainly contributed nothing to the expansion of nazi policies in finland or else where.
Had russia never attacked finland they may have very well been allied against germany or atleast maintained their nuetrality.
I cant speak for a fin but it would be better for him to describe or label what his relationship with Nazi germany was during ww2.
From where I'm at they did what was neccessary and kicked the toejam out of some Reds.
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lol i was playing DoD a bit more fun then talkin to a wall...........
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Some of you revisionist kooks need to remember that the Nazis started a BARBARIC WAR OF CONQUEST, ENSLAVED MILLIONS, AND MURDERD MILLIONS IN DEATH FACTORIES. Those factors mitigate complaints about bombing.
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Well, I agree with "most" of what you said.
I have no love for reds either. I think we should have pushed to Berlin, gave them a list of Nazi's that had to swing to make us happy, then grouped up with the rest and pressed on to Moscow.
I think a case could definitly be made for "collaboration". But I feel the second choice I offered, "Co-Belligerent" is the best fit. It implies a choice to band together agianst a comon foe without implying a moral acceptance of the others political philosophies.
Never-the-less, every ounce of effort the Finn's gave the Nazi's agianst Russians was just that much longer the Nazi's could stay in power. Any way you slice it, their efforts even if in their country's best interest, aided and abbetted the enemy. (shrug)
Now go back to your DoD. :p
Wab
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Originally posted by Montezuma
Some of you revisionist kooks need to remember that the Nazis started a BARBARIC WAR OF CONQUEST, ENSLAVED MILLIONS, AND MURDERD MILLIONS IN DEATH FACTORIES. Those factors mitigate complaints about bombing.
Damn straight...
Two wrongs make it right. :rolleyes:
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Hope this forum is moved to OC, it has nothing to do with General Forum.
Originally posted by AKWabbit
Now staga, back to my question you avoided.
If I'm willing to bomb their soldiers, I have to be willing to bomb their airplane factories. If I'm willing to bomb their aircraft factories, I should be willing to bomb the power plants that supply the factories. If I'm willing to bomb the power plant then why shouldn't I bomb the ball-bearing plant that makes the ball-bearings that go into the generators that supply the aircraft factories that produces fighteres for the soldiers. If the ball-bearing factory, why not the farms where the food is grown that feeds the workers that run the ball-bearing plant that builds the generators that supply the aircraft factories that produces fighters for the soldiers. If the farms, why not the people in the town that work on the farms where the food is grown that feeds the workers that run the ball-bearing plant that builds the generators that supply the aircraft factories that produces fighters for the soldiers.
Like I said, logic is brutal. I understand why you seem to prefer to avoid it.
Wab
"Logic is brutal" you say? Ok, lets move your logic closer to the resent events.
US planes bomb Iraq cities, and US navy shelled Libanon. Soooo, if we will follow your logic, hitting US civilian skyscrapers with civilian airplanes is a legimate tactics? It undermine financial stability or US, and so ability of US to wage wars overseas, so it make it the legal weapon?
I just follow your logic. I think this logic is a complete, total roadkill. "War is hell"? It is. But when YOU fire at childrens, you are hell, not the war.
Fariz
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44% of aircrew assigned to Bomber Command raids didn't come back.
Whatever the political motivation behind the targetting, they were brave men one and all.
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So, you're celebrating this anniversary of those Civilian's death ?
This is pretty much distastefull.
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Originally posted by AKWabbit
Streak,
If winning the war would cost:
1. 25 million Allied civ/mil dead vs 50 million Axis civ/mil dead
or
2. 10 million Allied civ/mil dead vs 100 million Axis civ/mil dead
Which would you pick knowing they started the war in a attempt to crush the world and rule as a master race?
Wab
I thought my previous replies throughout this thread would make my answer clear. "BRING DEFEAT TO THE ENEMY BY EVERY MEANS POSSIBLE".
Minimizing enemy casualties is a consideration that is secondary to minimizing your own casualties. However, the answer should not be based solely on the casualty ratio at the end of the war, which can only be guessed at any way. The methods you use to get that ratio may come with unacceptable costs that make the first choice better than the second one in the long run. You have not provided sufficient data for a leader that is making a choice that will kill millions of people.
Leaders do not get a little magic tablet that says pick this option and you will get these exact results. Your question is oversimplified. Many things should be taken into consideration before making that kind of decision. I can easily construct cases making either choice superior depending on the circumstances at the beginning and end of the war.
Suppose we achieved your 2nd and "obviously superior" choice by nuking (or just carpet bombing) the crap out of Europe. Lots of people, including plenty that were not Germans, would be seriously affected by such a strategy. We might save 15 million allied lives now, but people have long memories and retaliation in the future could even cost us our existence as a nation.
Like it or not, real world warfare is almost always restricted by politics, which frequently take precedence over casualty rates.
The questions raised by Dresden:
Did bombing Dresden further any Allied objectives at all beyond observing the full effects of a firestorm on an undamaged city? Did it save any Allied lives? Did it shorten the war?
In the absence of hard data, the answers to these questions depend largely upon personal opinion. But one important fact is that we fought WWII for survival and political/economic victory, not revenge. If revenge was the goal, we would have kept the concentration camps open and made as many Germans die as the people they killed.
A line from a song in Roger Waters' album "Amused to Death":
"And the Germans kill the Jews, and the Jews kill the Arabs, and the Arabs kill the hostages, and that is the news." In that song, I am definitely the monkey and very much confused.
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And you still didn't answer.
You didn't answer because you're scared. You and I both know wich answer you'd pick. And thats not the popular answer. Not the safe answer. Not the Oprah Winfry/I feel your pain/group hug answer. But its the logical answer. Its a hard question. The kind of hard question men like Harris had to face.
If Harris had beaten Germeny to its kness by '43 and ended the war he not only would have been knighted but he would have been a friggen national hero. Irregardless of what the cillian toll might have been. His only war crime was being ineffective.
Its not that there was a Dresden, its that there weren't enough Dresdens, earlier enough in the war to make a difference.
I would have traded 1000 Dresdens to have avoided D-day, avoided Ansio, avoided the Bulge, to have liberated Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, Dachau, and Treblinka two years early.
Anyone who wouldn't is the real war criminal in my opinion.
And with this, the topic is squelched. It has become tiresome.
Regards,
Wab
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Originally posted by SirLoin
At the end of the war,Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris was denied peerage(the title of Duke,Marquees,Earl,Viscount or Baron) given to all other major British commanders because of his terror tactics.
His aircrews were also denied a Distinctive Campaign Medal of their own because of this raid(and others..Hamburg..30,000 dead)
This is especially pathetic because they used the "Break the will of the people to win the war" excuse knowing full well from the Battle of Britain,bombing the civilians only strengthens their resolve to resist.
"Bomber" Harris was denied peerage because he was difficult to work with, constantly second guessed his superiors, and repeatedly made stupid public pronouncements. It had nothing to do with perceived war crimes. As we all know the winners commit no crimes in the pursuit of their righteous war. :rolleyes:
The crews of RAF Bomber Command suffered horrendous losses, somewhere in the region of 40% fatalities, and are being considered for a retrospectively awarded campaign medal.
The problem with revisionist evaluation of historical events is that "hardware buffs" such as ourselves tend to ignore many of the mitigating social factors of the period. Our concepts of right and wrong are vastly different to the people that were forced to perpetrate war on such a scale. The view of society was VERY different to ours and the view of war was also very different.
Palef
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AK,
It is an assumption on your part that any number of Dresdens would have ended the war sooner. Back it up with facts. There is nothing to support any country ever being beaten into submission solely by any form of bombing, whether it is strategic, tactical, or terror. Britain did not give in to terror bombing, they only fought harder. Germany would not have sat back watching it happen either. They would have been forced to abandon major cities, which they were pretty much doing anyway. They also would have attempted to do the same to Britain in retaliation.
There are many who argue WW2 would have ended sooner if the US had dropped more bombs on tanks and troops at the front lines rather than trying to cut off their means of production. It took years for strategic bombing to even have any impact on the war. Despite bombing efforts, German aircraft production increased drastically every year until they surrendered. But it does no good to have ball bearings and oil factories if enemy tanks are rolling through them. If you oppose enemy forces directly on the battlefield, you defeat them far more quickly than if you piss them off by killing their families deep behind the front lines.
Having learned from past lessons, did we burn Iraq to the ground using terror bombing and killing as many people as possible? No, we pulverized select targets and focused on concentrations of military resources. Minimizing our casualties and winning a war does not necessitate committing the same criminal actions you despise in your opponents. Killing non-combatants is inevitable in warfare, but it is rarely, if ever, a useful objective.
If the aftermath of D-day could have been avoided simply by firebombing German cities, surely the Allies would have done so. Believe or not, Allied leaders were not trying to take their time and see how many people we could lose while fighting Germany. No matter how bitter you are about what the Germans did and how good it makes you feel to know they got firebombed in Dresden, it did not have prove to have any effects on the outcome of the war other than raising the German body count and demonstrating the physics of fire on a massive scale.
Combat decisions must be made based on the net results over both the long run and short run, not by emotions or a personal sense of vengeance.
The fact that no one involved was actually punished should be indicative how the people in charge really felt about Dresden. There is a big difference between not being knighted or getting a medal and being tried for war crimes. To this day Germans are still being hunted down and held accountable for their actions. Whereas in view of what the Germans did, very few Allied troops ever got punished for any atrocities they may have committed.
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AKWabbit: Bombing of civilian targets is prohibited by the Geneva convention. If countries acted with your logic, they'd be charged with crimes against humanity and warcrimes.
The world is not black&white.
What goes for finland and nazi-germany, we were two countries sharing a common enemy. An enemy that cowardly attacked our small and unprepared country. An enemy whose desant infiltrators attacked the inland villages murdering the civillians while the men were in the front. Those murders were such a painful issue, that only lately they have been discussed publicly. They explain why many veterans still have a burning hate for the 'russkies' enough to shed tears when talking about it.
Finnish armed forces had no guns, ammo or even proper clothing for all its crew.
Russians had 10:1 superiority in infantry, artillery, tanks, aeroplanes and naval forces. The brutal winter, poor planning by russians and skilled guerilla warfare were the only things that saved our country from such an attack.
The russian army expected to cross the whole country in 2 weeks.
Yes, we did accept help from ANYONE in this situation. We had swedish, estionian and norwegian voluntary batallions fighting for us also.
Next wabbit will say that since finland was linked with nazi germany, all those soldiers made swedish, estonian and norwegian countries nazi collaburators too. It's so easy and simple.
Nowadays we have men fighting in the french mercenary legion, I guess that means that we're collaborating France and Nato instead of following 'official' neutral policy.