Bombing of Dresden--and for what?

The_Historian:

Of course it is not my intention to insult or attack new members. The point why I was annoyeed about your statement is that it somewhat implies that you find this kind of revisionist mentality in here, which is not the case. Therefore your posting can be considered an insult for the users of this forum.

If your posting was not meant this way, I apologize. </font>[/QUOTE]accepted

 

I have spend ta while reading the whole thread. A very good one, by the way. And one year later, I just found out how silly were my posts back then... completely unclassy and immature... That annoys me, that's why I deleted them. Now I can add my two cents from a more objective way.

A political decision? Yes. Churchill wanted to show support to the Red Army - which we know was the one that broke the Wehrmacht's back - by preparing the ground in eastern Germany for the Soviets arrival. Dresden was a very large city and a strategical rail junction, this alone makes it a military target (with trains or no trains). Then an attack on the city to smash those rails junctions, make the refugees flood the motorways and roads - making it impossible for the Wehrmacht to deploy reinforcements or withdraw its forces -, destroy the military targets as prelude to your most important ally's offensive - which you want to show gratitude and that you promised to do - is perfectly justified.

The thing here is that Dresden was a city with a normal large population and was crowded with refugees; its military industries were not as significant as in other cities - we cannot say that there were no guns being produced in Dresden, since weaponry was produced in every little town -, it was a medieval cultural spot and its buildings were mostly made of wood. Then a massive bombardment with incendiary boms in a time when bombardment tactics were well-developed on a target like that makes no surprise as to the numbers of people killed. There's were the moral problem is! I think that Dresden was indeed a military target - for the Red Army - but the way it was bombed is very debateable. Many, many people were killed, but there was a war going on. A TOTAL war in which no one cared about the means.

Just to conclude: this thread has been going on for two years and we have argued and even insulted other people but we have not came to historical conclusions like the MOST PROBABLE number of people killed. Why don't we all put our sources into account? I find Steve's 35.000 a very small figure and Knight Templar's - a very respected forum member by the way - 110.000 a complete exaggeration.

Once again, an apology for my posts of a year ago. I was then very influenced by my grandfather (a Dresden native himself who lost many, many relatives as well as his flat) who had very strong opinions about it, obviously!

 

Only problem is, that the bombing inflicted very little damage on the railway...

 

For the record, Irving's biased 'The Destruction Of Dresden' contains a photo of Dresden's Central Bahnhof - completely gutted by fire. ( 1963 edn, p.193), and also a reconnaissance photo of the Dresden-Friedrichstadt marshalling yards with bombed trains ( p.144 ).

[ 31. October 2003, 01:15 AM: Message edited by: Martin Bull ]

 

"And it [Irving's book:'The Destruction of Dresden', AndyW] was proven to contain much material that had been incorrectly interpreted, and other documents found by Irving had been ignored."

Martin Bull on 28-10-2002



Acutally, I don't understand the discussion about factories, central stations, trains, military industry etc. being in a town. Of course there are, that's a no-brainer.

Dresden was a major city like so many, located in Germany which was in a state of war, OF COURSE it had a central station, trains, soldiers, bakeries, factories, shoemakers, a Gestapo post, craftmenship, power plants, roads etc. in it...it was a town!

If it wouldn't have had roads, trains, craftmenship and factories, workers, soldiers it would not been a town at all.

Isn't a forrest a legitimate target too? A field of crop? Farmers harvesting the crop to feed the Wehrmacht? The baker baking bread out of the crop?

Cheers,

 

You're right, Andy. It was a town, and a large one. It must be hit! Unfortunately it was too badly hit... and many people died.

 

Irving certainly misconstrued documents, but in 1963 I don't think he had sufficient technological expertise to 'doctor' official photographs. Remarkably, that is one thing which he was not accused of at his High Court hearing.

The point was, Irving was trying to make a 'war-crime' case of Dresden, but even he had to admit - the railways were hit.

 

Seems you never can use enough winks.

Yeah, railroads were hit. And factories. The entire fu**ing town was hit!

What is a more strategic target: A railroad or the baker who bakes bread for the Wehrmacht, the grain field where the wheat is growing to feed the Wehrmacht, the forrest where the firing wood is made for something helping somehow the Wehrmacht, or a German Infantry division?

The bomber command firebombed the bakers, shomakers, railroads, factory workers, but not the Infantry Divisions. They don't bomb the forrests and grain fields. They bombed the cities.

The USAF bombed somehow the factories and railroads and cities and shoot the farmers on their fields, aside to Japan where they just bombed the Japs, the more the better.

What's so awfully bad in saying it like it is? Reality is: The Allies had an understandable desire to win the war, and I say: At all costs and suffering whatsoever. If the costs and suffering is on the enemy's side, the better.

I don't believe for a second that ride on the high moral horse saying: "Oh, wait this might be too cruel to the enemy, don't do it, let's better surrender to Hitler".

To me, this is crap.

Cheers,

[ 31. October 2003, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: AndyW ]

 

I'm going to get chastized for this I know........

The raid on Dresden was a terror bombing and nothing more. Allied reconaissance had shown for weeks the hordes of civilans moving through the city and out it's many road systems to the west in escape of the Soviet forces. In 1945 all heavy industry had moved out to other areas to the south so there was nothing there to bomb and the railways were used to transport the German populace from Ost Preussia west and south.
The US 8th AF was ordered to bomb on top of the RAF raid and then the fighter escorts of P-51's was to "kill" anything that moved whether by wheels or two feet. Sinister as it sounds, but it was the truth. Interviews with pilots of the 357th fg confirm this........

Ich Steige aus !

~E

 

A small correction ; Bomber Command was of course used against infantry divisions in Normandy.

 

Terror bombing? Yes. A bloody massacre? Of course! Strategic target? Yes! Justified? That's much more difficult and can be subjected to discussions like the last year...

 

Would you mind pointing me to a source for these interviews, or information on the 357th's activities in this period?

According to what I have read, the alledged P-51 attacks on Dresden were conducted by aircraft of the 20th Fighter Group, and moreover such accounts have been discredited, so I would be interested to read about this unit and these interviews for myself.

 

what reference claims show they were discredited... ?

I was not speaking just of the 357th friend. In the surrounding areas and beyond to the east for 5 days strafing attacks continued. My relatives felt the brunt of these while in the Pfalz. Continued harassment of RAF Spits came also into play to the north.

 

Let's ask it in this way: What effect did the bombing of Dresden have, despite the annihilation of a big city and the death of a 5-6 digit number of people, almost all undefended civilians?

 

Are you a nacht Uhu ? up late eh ?

have you gone back through the past 5 pages to see where the thread was taking us ? I shall not repeat again my thoughts except that I interviewed two suriving 357th fg vets who are now high ranking retired members of the group. Asking both of them as they were sitting at a table at a conference about this mission they both hesitated and one told me to basically FOff......."war is hell son"

enough said Are we going to read in any fighter group history that the pilots were given orders to shoot up civilian horse and motor stock ? Of course not ! I wouldn't expect it. In the 20th fg history it mentions one German MT shot up and then engagement of three Me 262's from KG 54 or 51

Ich Steige aus !

 

As you see... However my question was adressed mainly to those who defend the Dresden air raid.

 

I think that novelist Kurt Vonnegut ( a POW in Dresden at the time of the raids ) was an eyewitness of daylight strafing atacks by US fighter aircraft.

 

Correct. Question is how happy Harris was about using "his" Bomber Command for that purpose?

As for strafing civilians (is this a war crime, btw?):

"It was the first time I ever strafed troops, and I was surprised at how quick and easy it was to take out an entire battalion. Enemy troops are fair game: A driver in a jeep - zap him. A soldier running through the snow - zap him. But we weren't always scrupulous about our target.

Atrocities were committed by both sides. That fall our fighter group received orders from the Eighth Air Force to stage a maximum effort. Our seventy-five Mustangs were assigned an area of fifty miles by fifty miles inside Germany and ordered to strafe anything that moved. The objective was to demoralize the German population. Noboby asked our opinion about whether we were actually demoralizing the survivors or maybe enraging them to stage their own maximum effort in behalf of the Nazi war effort.

We weren't asked how we felt zapping people. It was a miserable, dirty mission, but we all took off on time and did it. If it occurred to anyone to refuse to participate (nobody refused, I recall) that person would have probably been court-martialed. I remember sitting next to Bochkay at a briefing and whispered to him: 'If we're gonna do things like this, we sure as hell better make sure we're on the winning side.' That's still my view."

Yeager, C. & Janos, L.: "Yeager - An Autobiography", 1985, pp. 62-63

 

It would seem that Harris was about as 'happy' being ordered to use Bomber Command in Normandy as he was later at being ordered to send Bomber Command on what he considered an overly-long-penetration raid to Dresden. In both cases, he was ordered to do it - and he did it.

 

Shortening the war and teaching the Germans a solid lesson.

Cheers,