Thank you, NoName, for finally revealing to this Forum your true beliefs and influences. Or, to put it in the vernacular, revealing your true colours.

'David Irving's exemplary work.....'

That statement is so incredible that I've got to write it again.

' David Irving's exemplary work......

Well now.

Have you heard of the High Court ? Have you heard of 'David Irving v. Penguin Books And Deborah Lipstadt' ? Have you heard of, and even if you had, could you be bothered to read the following books ? ; -

'The Irving Judgment' (ISBN 0-14-029899-1)
' The Holocaust On Trial - History, Judgment and the David Irving Libel Case'( ISBN 1-86207-397-X )
'Telling Lies About Hitler - The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial' ( ISBN 1-85984-417-0 ).

Evans' book in particular contains a minute dissection of Irving's 'The Destruction Of Dresden' upon which the proving of the defendant's case hinged.

I await with interest to see you cite your sources for your arguments.

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

G'day

The USAAF criteria for a succesful raid was achieved if only ONE single bomb fell closer to the targetpoint than five miles. Not very accurate I would say. That's why they used saturation bombing to get more damage to the target, more planes mean more chance of hitting the target.This also means the " Colateral Damage (sp?)" is very big. Only big target's can be hit.

And NoName, revealing your source shows what reading wrong books leads to. Irving is a criminal in several country's for writing lies. Talk about bending history, Irving is the living proof.

Popski

[ 10. January 2004, 01:49 AM: Message edited by: Popski ]

__________________
Wenn ist das Nunstrück git und Slotermeyer? Ja!.. Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
Monty Python's Killing Joke

Panzer,
Exactly WHY would the Allied air forces "deliberately target hospitals"?.
And yes, from 20,00 feet, in flak, with night fighters always hovering, I would think it was an incredibly difficult thing to do.

__________________
Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

Hang on a minute!
Cast your mind back to when the Germans bombed our Towns and Cities. Many of them raised to the ground, It was fine then, to come over here, kill and maim our men, women, and children by the thousands. The Germans called that "The good time"

It was fine to rain buzz bombs down, and fire rockets at undefended areas, that was ok, let us kill a few thousand Britain’s! We Germans can flatten Coventry and destroy it completely. That's fine....

WE can murder, torture, kill people by the millions in concentration camps, all over Germany and the occupied lands.

That is just great! We Germans can starve women and children to death. Then, for a bit more fun we can burn the women and children alive in a church at Orador after killing all the men folk. Enjoyable!

Then as a special treat, we Germans, think to ourselves? Let’s go to Tulle where we can hang 99 resident males from the towns lamp posts. We Germans enjoy this, for we have been killing and maiming all the way across Europe and Russia. Our bestial behaviour is beyond normal expectancy. "WE are Germans"! And it is OK for us to do these things!

Then, we can have massed Nazi meetings where we called for "Total War" I recall the shout, “Do you want total war? the audience screamed back Sieg Heil”, thrusting their arms in the Nazi salute YA, YA, Their greatest desire. TOTAL WAR” Ya!

They murdered our prisoners. American, Canadian, and British, in cold blood. Ask any of the allied Veterans they will agree.

The bombing of Dresden pales into insignificance compared with the millions of murders committed by the Germans.

After yearning, and crying out for TOTAL WAR, when they had a little bit of TOTAL WAR returned, they all start crying, how cruel! Those people bombed us, how dare they do that? Then to claim it was murder is just about as daft as it gets. The saying “Crocodile tears” comes to mind. Has anyone here counted the number of Concentration camps? OH” by the way, have a look how we Germans made some very attractive lamp shades from the human skin of those we murdered.
Sapper.

Brian,
I couldn't agree more.
My mother's cousin was "shot trying to escape" from a POW camp; my old man was a War Reserve Constable the night the luftwaffe hit Clydebank, and found himself recovering corpses. His Aunt was bombed out by an aerial mine a few days before.
I find it extremely hard to sympathise with Dresden.
Regards,
Gordon

[ 10. January 2004, 07:24 AM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

__________________
Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

I absolutely agree with Mr. Sapper.
Dresden raid was just a revenge for that unimaginable horror German crimes all over the world.

I had accepted that Dresden was bombed for strategic reasons, especially because the Russians demanded it... but Gentlemen, this your reasoning is problematic again.

Sapper: Your point proves convincingly that no one who sympathizes with nazis or the German war effort in WW2 is in any way entitled to complain about Dresden.

Not more, not less.

Sorry, but I can't agree in the reasoning "The Germans killed so many innocent civilians, therefore it was justified to kill their innocent civilians, too.", and I won't ever do. This leads back to blood revenge attitude in stone age. [img]graemlins/no.gif[/img]

__________________
If someone tries to remove the speck in your right eye, will you turn to him the other also?

The guys who think Coventry was "fine" can't say that Dresden wasn't "fine", too.

The guys who think Dresden was "fine" can't say that Coventry wasn't "fine", too.

Those who say one was fine, and the other was not are applying double standards and are hypocrists to me.

I say: Any military operation targeting primarily civilians is a war crime.

And "revenge" is a easy coat to hide your own bestialities. I dareto say that most nazi bestialities were explained with "revenge", too.

Cheers,

__________________
"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")

And I say it's easy to sit here six decades later and criticise-my final on this one.


Regards,
Gordon

__________________
Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

Criticising is an integral part of discussion and done for plenty topics in here, so if you deem this inappropriate, you thwart this forum as it is.

__________________
If someone tries to remove the speck in your right eye, will you turn to him the other also?

50 Million lost their lives in WW2, who started that war?
The Nazi's called mass meetings to propose "TOTAL WAR" that means that anything is possible....Anything! And dear friends, it was their idea..Not ours.

Goebels asked them "Do you want TOTAL WAR"? the mob screamed back JA! JA!

Now the allied command being "an obliging and kindly lot" thought that they would fullfill the Nazi yearning for TOTAL WAR.

After all, its not often that one gets what one wants.... And for free, what more do you want?
It cost enough!
Now, for heavens sake they are complaining? Why? Why? They asked for total war, and made it quite plain that there was no atrocity too savage, nor any murderous cruelty that they could inflict on innocent men, women, and children, in TOTAL WAR..

Unfortunately, they lost the taste for TOTAL WAR. Tough.Tough.

If I had my way, having experienced, and fought with my American, and Canadian mates. I would have given them far more TOTAL WAR. Like many of my generation, of all allies, we paid the price that gives you... the freedom to complain about TOTAL WAR.

Ask your Veterans what they think about the bombing. Then if you expound on the moan about bombing the poor enemy? be careful... stand back out of "left hook range".
Sapper.

Knight,
there's discussing.....and there's watching the same old arguments go round and round since January 2001.
Nothing new has been said....nothing has been clarified. Just the same old PC hand-wringing time after time after time.
I believe I used the expression "Revisionist History" in an earlier posting. I haven't seen anything to convince me I was wrong.

Regards,
Gordon

[ 10. January 2004, 02:18 PM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

__________________
Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

The Dresden Raid was a horrible thing, but it must be remembered that it is Hitler, insistent on war at all costs and indifferent to the price Germany and the world paid for his war, who is the true villain behind Dresden's suffering.

Adolf Hitler: "Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live."

Adolf Hitler: "We will not capitulate - no, never! We may be destroyed, but if we are, we shall drag a world with us - a world in flames."

Saxon State Library: Photo of Dresden's Frauenkirche and surrounding buildings, 1945

Saxon State Library: Photo of Dresden's Frauenkirche and surrounding buildings, 1947

[ 10. January 2004, 02:48 PM: Message edited by: Ahab ]

__________________

Only problem, sapper: Whom exactly do you address with "they"?

I agree with you, and I do not support these revisionistic arguments of NoName etc. However, avoid committing exactly the same mistake as you described: repetition.

If you say:
"The Allies bombed Dresden for several reasons. It cost the lives of civilians. That's (total) war, and we did not start it." ... ok, I can live with that.

But the reasoning of sapper (which you support) reads as:
"The Allies bombed Dresden for several reasons. It cost the lives of civilians. That was good and justified, as we did not start this..."

... do you notice the difference? This is going too far, Gordon.

[ 10. January 2004, 04:11 PM: Message edited by: KnightMove ]

__________________
If someone tries to remove the speck in your right eye, will you turn to him the other also?

Knight,
We'll agree to disagree, as I already said I wasn't going to continue, and find myself doing exactly that. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Regards,
Gordon

__________________
Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

It appears that after many pages this thread should be closed. It is outta steam boyz ! On one had you have British friends for the bombing plus justification and on the other, German friends who state it should not of happened and that it was a war crime......

ok then enough !

"They" Were the German people, When Goebels spoke the hall was crowded with German People all yelling "JA" with the Nazi salute to TOTAL WAR.
I cannot understand why there are still those around that stand up for that barbaric bastard, and his cohorts. I, during my fightimg days had to push up through the Falaise pocket...

Now there is a prime example of TOTAL WAR.... I bet the Germans and Austrians trapped there wish to GOD there had been no such thing as TOTAL WAR
For like the bombing, "he who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind" they had a taste of it, I Personally never wish to see anything like that again.
Sapper.

No offense sapper, but here you do fall for very Goebbels propaganda.

It was not the German people who yelled "JA". These were a lot of chosen fanatic nazis to fill the stadium. This was NOT open to public, as you maybe believe.

There are no statistics, but I believe that even the majority of the German people were desperate when they listened to the speech in their Volksempfängers, and realized very well what it meant. The raid against the Soviet Union, the declaration of war against the USA, and the total war... the German people did foresee the consequences! They were not so dull and fanatic as Hitler and Goebbels wanted to make the world believe.

__________________
If someone tries to remove the speck in your right eye, will you turn to him the other also?

I find myself agreeing with Erich.
At the end of the day, we're all still FRIENDS. [img]smile.gif[/img]


Regards,
Gordon

__________________
Regards,

Gordon
History Vault Bookshop
FortressScotland-http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y20/Historian/

So what? Knowing what a city looks like, even knowing what each individual building is beforehand, does not equate to being able see, identify, target and destroy the same building when flying several miles up and in total darkness, and dropping bombs with no guidance systems.

Quote:

The Mosquitos went in and kept the target lit up with red flares, the target being the citys interior, where everything such as hospitals were located.

Precisely, 'the target being the city's interior', not hospitals, schools, kindergartens or any other sufficiently emotive institutions.

[ 10. January 2004, 06:40 PM: Message edited by: Greenjacket ]

I can't share the idea that "TOTAL WAR" started on Feb. 18, 1943, because Herr Goebbels said so.

For the Brits, the war was already "total" by summer 1940, when they were facing the fear for the very existance of the UK, whith the questions what the next months will bring to Great Britain.

For the Soviets, the war was "total" since June 1941, when the Wehrmacht rolled over thier territory, threatening the very existance of the Soviet Union.

And for Germany, the war was "total" as soon as the Allies threatened the very existance of the Reich.

As long as you can afford to fight "limited wars" you do so, as soon as the existance of your nation is in question, you gear up to "total war".

There's nothing remakable in this to me.

Cheers,

__________________
"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the War Room!"
(President Merkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove")