I recently saw a post concernng the Bombing of Dresden so i thought I'd start a thread about it. My Grandparents grew up in Saxony in a town near Leipzig, (sorry don't know name) and they, like alot of people, say it's a horrible war crime. But when you look at the reasons of the bombing, the Allies claim it held troops to be transported to the Eastern Front, and also that it's destruction would hurt communications in the area. So what's your take on the Bombing?

The bombing hardly served any military purposes.

It is hard to justify the Dresden bombing. A final blow to teach the German people total war is bad, is the only thing I can make of it.

It was a war crime for sure. Dresden had minimal military importance...

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden2.JPG

No, it's not justified. Killing civilians? Definetly a war crime.

The bomber campaign inteded to make the German people surrender or even revolt against their government. This did not happen, even the destruction of whole city centers and infrastructure caused the economy to collapse, but still people did not surrender. Military targets were not always top priority, civilian targets were systematically bombed, too - namely large cities.

There were many times were bombings of aircraft fuel refineries and so on were not performed in favor of city raids - a refinery built with US help before the war was never bombed at all. It was an important one, without the substances produced there no German fighter could have get necessary fuel additions.

The infamous "Bomber Harris" is still discussed by the former Allies and Germans alike, I think intentional bombing of civilian targets is an act of terrorism and not justifiable.

Imagine Germany would not already have been down, perhaps it would not have been Hiroshima and Nagasaki but Dresden and Hiroshima?

There would of course be some myth that fanatical members of the Hitlerjugend would have killed 1.000.000 US soldiers at the minimum, this thread just reminded me of the 60 years Hiroshima thread.

It was a war crime for sure.

I don't think the bombing of Dresden was justified. The bombing of Germany yes.

Bombing civilian targets is never justified. Also not to "change their minds towards a better idea". That practice, terrorising people into changing their views, is called terrorism...

I agree with Zardnaar, the bombing of Germany as a whole was a necessary evil, the bombing of Dresden was a gross mistake.

A War crime. As in every war there are. Think to everyday news from Iraq...

It's a crime agianst humanity

It was planned crime. IIRK One group of bombers flew over and dropped normal bombs to blow holes into the roofs of buildings the next wave dropped the incendary bombs, the holes in the roofs allowed the whole thing go up in flames

The fire-bombing consisted of dropping large amounts of high-explosive to expose the timbers within buildings, followed by incendiary devices (fire-sticks) to ignite them and then more high-explosives to hamper the efforts of the fire services. This eventually created a self-sustaining 'fire storm' with temperatures peaking at over 1500 °C. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area became extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

yeah, and those people still in active bomb shelters lost all breathable air, which got sucked outside of the shelters where it burned. in the shelters, the temperature increased more and more, and without oxygen, the people inside did not burn but their flesh began to melt. tasty, isnt it?

Ya and it all basically planned to be like that. I don' think they counted on the air from the bombshelters being sucked out, but they probably knew it could happen

We can discuss about the bomb war, if it was a crime, I think so, or not. But Dresden was DEFINATELY a war crime! In Dresden there were thousands of refugees from Silesia. There was no industry or military target. There was no FlaK. The "excuse" as transport centre or helping the Russians to take the city is loughable at best. No, it was a terror bombing and a war crime worth to be mentioned in the line of the worst ones.

Adler

I'm actually ... *sigh* I'm actually not going to complain. Sorry, but the photo didn't twinge my soul one bit.

(It's like being a fan of the Mongols, I guess :mischief: )

Well so far no one has been pro Dresden. Probably the most infamous raid of the war.

It's very hard to be pro-Dresden. One of the most blatant war crimes comitted by the the United States. Unfortunately no won was prosecuted because the US won...(note: I am not in any way wishing that the US had not won). However, I feel the bombing of Germany overall was justified.

I admit, I'm not pro-Dresden ... it just doesn't bother me. Then again, a lot of things don't bother me anymore. :(

*misses his soul*

I admit, I'm not pro-Dresden ... it just doesn't bother me. Then again, a lot of things don't bother me anymore. :(

*misses his soul*
I'm sure some church will sell you absolution for an appropriate price. :goodjob:

All terror bombings of this sort, i.e. directed at the civilian population, not industrial or military targets, were atrocities. War crimes in fact. No matter who committed them.

What goes around, comes around, call it poetic justice, if these same people has rebelled against the Third Reich, they might have had a chance. Even for civilians it has consequences to not take firm action against a regime bent on destroying the world.
By allowing this to happen, the conquest of some 20 sovereign nations, the German people sold out the Western liberal ethics of human rights. By selling out these very ethics for the delusions of grandeur, they made a poor decision. Not only the leaders got the responsibility, but also the people. So, the consequences was too harsh, unfair too many, but a direct consequence of apathy, submissiveness and fanatism.
Some people think it is a right to be an ignorant and a "normal" person, but do not forget that the living standard in civilian Germany was numer 2 on Earth after the USA in the war years, only from Norway alone, they ripped of 70 % of the GDP home to Germany. The Germans decided to some extent to bring the battle to the peoples, collectively, and they got it back, collectively.

What goes around, comes around, call it poetic justice, if these same people has rebelled against the Third Reich, they might have had a chance. Even for civilians it has consequences to not take firm action against a regime bent on destroying the world.
By allowing this to happen, the conquest of some 20 sovereign nations, the German people sold out the Western liberal ethics of human rights. By selling out these very ethics for the delusions of grandeur, they made a poor decision. Not only the leaders got the responsibility, but also the people. So, the consequences was too harsh, unfair too many, but a direct consequence of apathy, submissiveness and fanatism.
With only marginal adjustments this is the very justification used by people who blow themselves up in pizza parlours...

And those really have no other measures to "win" the conflict...

Hitro

sorry for provoking you, but the Dresden bombing was indeed a warcrime. However, the only way to counter similar situations, is not to fall for the lures of totallitariansim, bu to destroy it. In a totalitarian regime, you have no insurances whatsoever, you may even be considered a global risk. So I will not be considered with the Palestinian suicide bombers, but I can relate to the thinking of the Bomber High Command of Harris. The question is not to condemn evil , but to understand it.

I recommend the documentary "Fog of War, with the life of Robert McNamara, who actually developed the equations for bombing runs, CEO for Ford, Defense Minister in the Vietnam War Part I and the GD of the World Bank.

Do not forget, by 1944-45, the world had lost its sanity, and the German people has been transformed into monsters by Allied and Soviet propaganda, as well as their own actions. By gradually allowing that to happen, the German people took a terrible risk.

yes and no

When dose an civilian thus non-combatent become a legitimate target ? For the second time the world experienced TOTAL WAR. an alien concept perhapes advanced more so by germany own action during WW1. Unrestricted Uboat warfare, gas, chemical warfare, mass bomber raids, shelling of cities. Under what grounds did germany legitimise such actions ? self defence ? End, justified means ?
They allies followed suite of course. pretext of revenge?, acceptable behaviour in war ?

WW2 was the second TOTAL WAR. Where as civilians which armed and fueled war machines became a target, The nature of warfare itself changed. Once again bombing and strafing of civilians, industrial targets, civilians, salve labour, uboat warfare etc.
(Irrefutable eyewitness to strafing of belgium civilians in order to show chaos and slow the allied advance.) Actions like these set the tone for the war. To the East even more so the utter ruthless nature of the warfare there.

Dresden bombing which specificly targeted civilians ? manpower? germanys ability to wage war ? War crime = yes.
But in the new climate of total war I can see no choice but to take this road.

Inter arma enim silent leges (in war the law is silent). Cicero. Only when you agree to this you can justify the death of civilians. We should stay out of ww1 as there it is very difficult to say if these actions of both sides were justified or not. However civilians as main target is a barbary all powers of ww2 did. Nothing can justify it. Bombing industrial or military targets? Okay. Accidently bombing of civilians? **** happens. Collateral dammage? Until a certain degree is this an accident. But as main targets? No. The human rights protect this even in times of war. So the bombing run on Dresden (if not most other with the exception of Essen for example) at least was a huge war crime. If the justice was truly neutral Harris and others would have hung in Nuremberg.

Adler

The greater evil was removed. As sad as this was due to it being after the enemy was beaten for sure, I have to say sorry, but tough, war is war. FF is right, the nature of WWII and WWI are unlike almost every other war before and since and judging the events in it that were part of a greater good as wrong or evil is just plain ignoring the situation the majority of those choices were taken in. As far as I'm concerned Dresden was unecessary, but I won't loose any sleep over Harris escaping "justice" when scum like Goering were brought to trial and other scum escaped.

"All is fair in love and war..."

:hmm:

Meh, has no affect on me.

There is no doubt that the Dresden firebombing is one of the worst (state-sponsored) terrorist atrocities the world has ever seen.

There were two good arguements for such raids from:

1. Making Germany accept terms ASAP, before Russia had men inside Germany.
2. Getting revenge on the German people for the immense damage they had done and to make them think twice before doing it again.

I find it hard to feel sympathetic towards the German people of that period, given what they allowed to happen and the damage they did to the interests and people of the country of my birth.

The phrase used to describe the targetted bombing of cities by the RAF was:

"They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind."


All this talk of war crimes is silly. If your enemy doesn't play fair by the rules of war (such as they are), why should we?

[QUOTE=kittenOFchaos]
I find it hard to feel sympathetic towards the German people of that period, given what they allowed to happen and the damage they did to the interests and people of the country of my birth.[QUOTE]

Hmmm... I would say that the ordinary German was as much a victim of Nazism as everyone else.

[QUOTE=kittenOFchaos]
I find it hard to feel sympathetic towards the German people of that period, given what they allowed to happen and the damage they did to the interests and people of the country of my birth.[QUOTE]

Hmmm... I would say that the ordinary German was as much a victim of Nazism as everyone else.

Its the government they wanted and they were more than happy to accept the spoils of war.

I'm not sure the Nazis WERE the government people in Germany wanted. Didn't Hitler sieze power with less than 50% of the vote?

I'm mpretty sure he was very popular, and had a majority in at least one of the houses of the Reichstag. The people ("Aryans") seemed to love him.

There is no doubt that the Dresden firebombing is one of the worst (state-sponsored) terrorist atrocities the world has ever seen.

-----

"Superfortress reports of damage .. were not exggerated: If anything they constitute the most shocking understatement of the history of aerial warfare." - Zero (reporter on damaging raids on japan)

From Spain, Poland, Belgium, France, Britian, Russia, V2s, the Germans carried out bombings of civilians. These bombings were no less atrocities then those carried out by the allies. The allies can quite rightly say they were forced into such tactics. Or at least respond in kind to such actions.

One can wonder had the Germans not acted so barbaricly in the East. Would Russia not have unlessed the backlash of revenge and vengence on its own civilian population.

Of course the Western allies were much more merciful to a defeated Germany. This could be attributed to the fact Germans remain at least civil in the war in the west.


"They sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind."

I wonder what terrible crimes the British should have suffered by the Germans in WW2, kittenofchaos. Hitler actually wanted them as allies. Jews and communists suffered, but what crimes were committed in France against non-jewish French and against trapped British soldiers in Dunkirk?

The invention of carpet bombing of cities is something the Nazis cannot claim for their list of crimes, this is a domain of the western allies.

To quote FriendlyFire:

Of course the Western allies were much more merciful to a defeated Germany. This could be attributed to the fact Germans remain at least civil in the war in the west.

Germans should be happy they lost, and the way they lost it. Bith Japan and Germany are G8 nations now, and should indeed be happy it went as it went.
Operation Olymp (Conventional invasion of Japan) and no reprisal to German V1 and V2 bombs would have made it impossible for younger Germans to visit other countries today.
The fact that atrocities went both ways, maybe with a significant majority on the German side, enabled the postwar populations to be properly educated on the lures of war. Obviously Europe did not learn about WW1. Dresden, Hiroshima and other displayes of utter terror and supreme military might, in addition to the nuclear arms race, have tamed the vicious urges in the Northern hemisphere more than we know.
I also think that I am of consequence ethics, and the other side is of intention ethics.

I accept what happened, try to avoid similar developments in politics, and think forwards. I think bringing up the Dresden episode to make the Germans look more neat and nice is not the way to go.

I wonder what terrible crimes the British should have suffered by the Germans in WW2, kittenofchaos. Hitler actually wanted them as allies. Jews and communists suffered, but what crimes were committed in France against non-jewish French and against trapped British soldiers in Dunkirk?

The invention of carpet bombing of cities is something the Nazis cannot claim for their list of crimes, this is a domain of the western allies.

To quote FriendlyFire:


There were massacres of British POWs in France 1940, Bombing of Warsaw and Rotterdam, and the Holocaust started in 1941. Heavy bombing of German cities didn't begin until 42-43. Numerous French civilians were also executed.

I wonder what terrible crimes the British should have suffered by the Germans in WW2, kittenofchaos. Hitler actually wanted them as allies. Jews and communists suffered, but what crimes were committed in France against non-jewish French and against trapped British soldiers in Dunkirk?
.

???

Blitz? V2? Unrestricted uboat warfare?

Like I said it is very likely as a conseqence of this that the Allies began there relentless bombing campaign.

Germany did attrocities. But this is never an excuse for the carpet bombings. The eye for an eye law is obsolete in the civilized world. You are cought in a devil´s circle if you believe in it. In ww2 both sides lost the civilized method to make war. Barbary is barbary and so the responsible people of both sides had to be trialed. This is not excuseable.
To the German bombings: Civilians were the main target. Only in the last months also the refineries were bombed massively. If this happened before war might have been over much earlier. So it was only an act of terrorism to bomb the German population. At least when Harris & co. realized, this was not successful, that the Germans didn´t revolt.
Also Hitler never had the majority in the Reichstag. Even after the last elections, which were hardly democratic, he had to coalate with the German national party. These conservatives agreed and thought Hitler would be the puppet. Soon they saw the mistake they made as Hugenberg, their leader, said, he made the biggest error of his life. Later Hitler was able to gain the fruits others deserved: Rearmament, Saarterritory, reduction of unemployment. So he was quiete popular. But never he was legitimized by the population by an election. Also he lost popularity with the start of the war. Later on rebellions which would have come were not possible due to the bombings, which had the effect to make Hitler more popular instead of breaking the morale.
I can´t believe that each people got the government it deserved. Deserved the Cambodians Pol Pot, the Russians Stalin or the Chinese Mao? No. Gaining the power is not equal with the deserving of the population.

Adler

I can only agree with Adler17.

Better play [c3c] than even to dare thinking of any sorry excuses for bombing civilians everywhere for everything. :nono:

Germany did attrocities. But this is never an excuse for the carpet bombings. The eye for an eye law is obsolete in the civilized world. You are cought in a devil´s circle if you believe in it. In ww2 both sides lost the civilized method to make war. Barbary is barbary and so the responsible people of both sides had to be trialed. This is not excuseable.

Could we for once recognise that attacking German industrial might consisted of more than attacking refineries? :rolleyes: The allies attacked many different and wide ranging targets from 1942-45 and to add such an arbitary and simplistic analysis of this campaign is ridiculous. War is barbaric, the Germans under Hitler were more barbaric, that to me is enough. Let us worry about bringing to justice those who slaughtered without rhyme or reason in the holocaust, then let us worry about the rest.

In 1939 (already earlier in fact, Guernica in 1936) the Luftwaffe had no scrupules bombing civilian centers. Warsaw, with no air defence, was bombed daily by the Luftwaffe for almost 3 weeks during its siege in september 1939 in order to force it to surrender. The same principle was applied in Rotterdam 1940, when the Nazi's demanded that Holland would surrender or else Rotterdam (and later on other cities) would be bombed. Holland did in fact surrender, but something went wrong with signalling the bombers which were already in the air and one group of bombers dropped their load on the centre of Rotterdam. This is long before any of the major bombings by the allies on Germany.
By 1945, the news of the nazi death camps had been revealed in its full horror and the desire to take revenge (however wrong that may be) might have been too much for the bomber crews who bombed Dresden.

The main target of British bombers were civilans, not industry. Some exceptions excluded German bombing runs against western powers were generally targeting industrial or military targets. However the Brits had at first developed long range attacks on civilians, but not executed until 1941. Since then they bombed CIVILIANS as main targets. That´s no simplification but the truth, admitted by Harris himself (exception: Essen). Indeed no one of the responsible officers of the allies was trialed. And there the democracy failed. There the western allies betrayed the high target to reestablish democracy in Europ. They did so but failed in their own states.
Again I repead myself: NOTHING CAN EXCUSE OR EVEN JUSTIFY THE DEATH OF CIVILIANS.

Adler

The main target of British bombers were civilans, not industry

What do you expect from night bombing raids? :rolleyes: The allied air effort though consisted of more than the British night raids... To suggest that the allies overall mainly concentrated on civilians is just silly (which was your initial insinuation), to suggest that somehow the British should have concentrated on a type of bombing that their planes were quite unsuited for is almost as silly, but quite expected I guess....

As for the German lack of major bombing campaigns, the latter stages of the BOB show they certainly had the will, what they lacked was the ability. The Luftwaffe was incapable of launching the kind of campaign the RAF did, do not for a moment mistake that with being unwilling to do so. As for betraying the higher target, what would that be? The morale highground wouldn't have mattered a jot if we had lost the war :lol: They did what they had to do to remove a menace from europe in total war. I do love the way though that Geurnica, Warsaw, Rotterdam and others are labelled "Exceptions" whereas fully half the allied air campaign is ignored entirely to make your point. :mischief:

Still never mind, I'm sure one day everyone in charge of anything from a Captain upwards during WWII will be labelled a war criminal in our history books. :sad:

The main target of British bombers were civilans, not industry. Some exceptions excluded German bombing runs against western powers were generally targeting industrial or military targets. However the Brits had at first developed long range attacks on civilians, but not executed until 1941. Since then they bombed CIVILIANS as main targets. That´s no simplification but the truth, admitted by Harris himself (exception: Essen). Indeed no one of the responsible officers of the allies was trialed. And there the democracy failed. There the western allies betrayed the high target to reestablish democracy in Europ. They did so but failed in their own states.
Again I repead myself: NOTHING CAN EXCUSE OR EVEN JUSTIFY THE DEATH OF CIVILIANS.

Adler

In total war anything is fair game. What makes civilians sacrosanct? Theres a difference between bombinng civilians who contribute towards your enemys war industry and rounding up civilians for death in captured countries based on their percieved racil group. Both sides bombed each other. The fact is the Germans got it worse largly because they were incapable of the sustained bombing campaign required. Also even in the terror bombing the aim and motivation was to force the Germans to surrender. Killing civilians was a means to an end compared to the deliberate murder of Jews, gays etc.
BTW I have no moral qualms involving the Luftwaffe bombing England either- they failed due to stupid leadership, British technology, German technology and industrial base.

A neccessary evil as the intentions were good- or at least better than the alternatives (Hitler winning the war).

In total war anything is fair game. What makes civilians sacrosanct? Theres a difference between bombinng civilians who contribute towards your enemys war industry and rounding up civilians for death in captured countries based on their percieved racil group. Both sides bombed each other. The fact is the Germans got it worse largly because they were incapable of the sustained bombing campaign required. Also even in the terror bombing the aim and motivation was to force the Germans to surrender. Killing civilians was a means to an end compared to the deliberate murder of Jews, gays etc.
BTW I have no moral qualms involving the Luftwaffe bombing England either- they failed due to stupid leadership, British technology, German technology and industrial base.

A neccessary evil as the intentions were good- or at least better than the alternatives (Hitler winning the war).


Some interesting views here thanks

In short, for britain this was a war to survive, not a limited campaign
with the luxury of worrying about targets and casualties etc.

Consider the consequences if we had lost as a result of trying to
be "moral" in war

Or for those who feel russia alone would have won (not a theory i
personally precribe to) the consequences of the red army holding
all of western europe.

The reasons to protect civilians are many, but only one word explains all: CIVILIZATION. In it the great ideas of philosopher are in up to the conventions to protect civilians.
Indeed the German Luftwaffe lacked on strategic bombers for a long time. They were not planned because the strategic warfare was seen as not so important. OTOH the British had plans to act like they did from the mid 1930s.
Killing civilians was in no way a reasonable means to stop the war, in contrary. If they bombed railstations or refineries war would have been over very soon. Indeed even after the Bomber Command recognized it as failure they didn´t stop the war. They continued. This isnt excuseable.
Privatehuson you contradicts yourself when admitting night carpet bombings are only for the terror of population. The British bombers were in the last 2-3 years so good to hit their target very precisely in general. So they were able to hit only the area of railsations or factories. But indeed they bombed civilians. What is it that you don´t seem to recognize that kind of bombardment as war crime :confused: ? It isn´t excuseable.

Adler

I think you guys simply forget that if one does a war crime this is no justification for the other party to do the same!

Following this argumentation, the Allies fighting against the considered evil dictatorship of Nazi Germany would then be allowed to commit everything they did, and more!

Because one does fail in moral terms in no excuse to do the same! I guess the western allies did not copy concentration camps, but they had no problems to start a never before seen bombing campaign.

One cannot see the havoc wrecked upon civilian cities from a bomber as if he would be down there in the bombed city, the psychological barrier is much lower than to kill someone directly with own hands.

For those pretending to be Christians, this attitude of an eye for an eye has been considered wrong by the new testament and many people a thousand years ago.

The boming campaign also has the flavor of two eyes for one eye. Finally: If anyone still considers bombing of civilians justifiable in any way, he should be dropped with the bombs, too. Would fit his barbaric views.

The reasons to protect civilians are many, but only one word explains all: CIVILIZATION. In it the great ideas of philosopher are in up to the conventions to protect civilians.

:lol: Philosophy is mostly too idealistic to deal with the real world, and almost entirely useless at times of war.

Killing civilians was in no way a reasonable means to stop the war, in contrary. If they bombed railstations or refineries war would have been over very soon. Indeed even after the Bomber Command recognized it as failure they didn´t stop the war. They continued. This isnt excuseable.

Privatehuson you contradicts yourself when admitting night carpet bombings are only for the terror of population. The British bombers were in the last 2-3 years so good to hit their target very precisely in general. So they were able to hit only the area of railsations or factories. But indeed they bombed civilians. What is it that you don´t seem to recognize that kind of bombardment as war crime

:rolleyes: Try taking the entire allied air effort into account for a change, the allies were doing all of these things :mischief: However, the RAF suited more night raids when compared to the USAAF, and it was the USAAF's role to attack such targets. And they did. As for why they chose civilians over military targets, well firstly Harris and others believed it would work. So it didn't, they were proved wrong, point being they believed it would end the war sooner, and then sooner or later. Big difference between that and slaughtering civilians in camps. The RAF also did attack specific targets on some raids, though not usually mass raids which would be much more difficult to co-ordinate and get specific targets on at night.

The British effort can only be viewed alongside the USAAF's efforts and their style of attacks. The allied air war effort was an attempt to strike at both civilian and millitary targets to reduce the German morale and ability to fight the war. One didn't have it's intended affect, the other did. IMO in total war both are targets, especially if the enemy has already set the scene by doing exactly the same to you. To quote others, if you sow the wind....

Civlians pay for war, they pay more for total war, to expect otherwise is just nieve, which IMO philosophy and international law tends to be.

The problem here is that not all people agree that civilians were not targets, and let's face it, nor did the majority of air-force people on all sides in WWII. You believe them not to be, people in the Luftwaffe and the RAF did. I'd never be in doing it right now, but back then, the world was a different place. Preserving democracy and stopping hitler were a damned sight more important than preserving the lives of the civilian population of your enemy. :mischief:

War crime definatly. Same with the bombing of Hamburg 300.000 people were killed during one day alone.

I'd like to point out that the Allies deliberately bombed the civilian areas outside Dresden in full knowledge that refugees would flood to the 'safe' city (assumed to be safe because of it's limited military targets and because the city was so beautiful it was on a par with Paris and Prague). So you have a pattern where the Allies deliberately herd the German population into 'safe' Dresden, then firebomb them.

The Dresden bombing stands utterly apart from any other bombing in the European theatre of WWII. It's a false analysis to compare it to, for example, the bombing of Clydeside shipyards or of the East End of London.

It was a barbary and war crime. Bad enough that the commanding officers of the air forces were acting so and were war criminals. Even worse it is to see this not as war crime as it was. This means the surrender for the barbary the civilized world abolished. There is no justification. Also the war lasted longer by doing so. That Hitler was really beaten due to the bombing raids or the Russians prevented to take whole Europe I can not see.

Adler

Perhaps then you should quit looking at the campaign as being about more than air raids against civilian then...

As for the civilised world being abolished :lol: I've not heard anything so ridiculous in all my life. A barbaric world would be one in which it happened frequently and without the extreme circumstances of WWII. If you wish to ignore those then there's no point talking about it any more...

Furthermore, to expect the allies to try their own airforce officers is just nieve, on your terms the allies would have had to try just about every officer involved in WWII and we'd still be holding nuremberg trials right now.

Just look up at Wikipedia what was considered to be a war crime in the Nuremberg Trials and then judge air raids on cities.

You are trying to justify somehow something which was seen as a war crime by Eisenhower and Churchill. But not by privatehudson.

You might of course continue narrowing your view of the world to fit your needs even more.

Just look up at Wikipedia what was considered to be a war crime in the Nuremberg Trials and then judge air raids on cities.

You are trying to justify somehow something which was seen as a war crime by Eisenhower and Churchill. But not by privatehudson.

You might of course continue narrowing your view of the world to fit your needs even more.

No, I'm saying that in the real world, some things are necessary and some are not. Lining up and trying everyone who comitted a "warcrime" in WWII would have left no-one in the allied forces above a certain rank. At some point the allies recognised that beating the evils of Hitler and his regime were a little more important than their own temporary moral questions about bombing civilians. I'm saying that extreme times call for extreme measures, and whilst Dresden was deeply regretable due to it's timing, to start labelling the entire allied bombing efforts, or even the RAF's attempts as "warcrimes" is not something I agree with.

You might want to call it a warcrime, technically it may be a warcrime according to various treaties and courts, that does not mean that I agree that the allies were not justified in taking the actions they did. Call it what you like, more important is whether it was felt to be justified at the time or not, and that's what matters to me, and guides my choice on how we should view the people responsible for the actions.

My appologies for not insisting on following such straight jacket views of the world :p

What crime had the Germans committed against the West I see one German poster put up failing to recognise that forcing Britian to war twice in a period of about 25 years costing over 1,250,000 British and Commonwealth lives counts as enough reason to want revenge.

I could add the sinking of our merchant marine, the devastation of our economy, the massacure in some instances of our prisoners of war, the blitz of British cities, including the utter devastation of Coventry and then we get to the V1 and V2 rockets which were indiscriminate and purely designed to be weapons of terror. Just by posting that the acts of an enemy are no excuse for retailiation in kind is just stupid, the idea that the Germans should in essence get away with what they did.

Britain had all these reasons and that of wanting the Germans to give up the fight and overthrow Hitler and not force the war to continue. The Germans this time had to be shown the horror of war and that they had been defeated completely to prevent it happening again.

This talk of war crimes is nonsense as the gloves were off, war crimes had been committed against us and there was no reason to handicap ourselves in defence of an enemy who had little regard for the rules of war with some exceptions (Generally, POWs were handled well).

People sometimes idiotically think that how you act in war should be a banner as to the value of your civilization, that is nonsense. Times of war can force a civilization to turn to all weapons at their disposal, it is how that civilization lived and acted before and after the war that shows the merits of that civilization.

What I find scarely in this thread is the two German posters condemning Britain and not the Nazis for forcing War upon Europe, for some reason they think Germany didn't deserve to get levelled for what it had done. The difference between the combatants is that Britain didn't start the barbarity, Britain wasn't barbarous to its own citizens and didn't conduct genocide (the attempt or complete annihilation of a people).


Ask the people of Warsaw in 1945 if the German people deserved payback after the destruction of their city.

War crime definatly. Same with the bombing of Hamburg 300.000 people were killed during one day alone.

Yeah, we sure hurt your ally for plunging Europe into war.

I have no sympathy for the victims of Dresden. Their inaction sanctioned the Holocaust, and so they should burn with my forefathers.

Very good many brits dont even know that Finland was on Germanys side on WW II.

But the civilians of Germany didint commit any war crimes nor did the Regular Wermacht. The Naziz deserved punisment but not inocent civilians who had done nothing.

The Wermacht certainly was at some levels associated with war crimes such as the rounding up of civilians in the east and so on. As for the civilians, none of the civilians in war "deserves" to be bombed, actions in war are less dependent on what the enemy deserves and more on what is necessary.

Talking about war crimes makes me remember that a Finn who was part of the
SS-Wiking, When he returned to Finland he later became the defence minister of Finland.

Well, wy do the Soviets go free as usual, all the 5th columnists in the forum. What about the Soviet mass deportions from the Baltic states, expropriations of Eastern Prussia and Memel, Massacre of the Katyn Forest and so on and so on. When you shoot a singular bullet in the head of a thousand people, at least it is personal seems to be the opinion here, where carpet bombing seems to be considered the ultimate evil.
I do not defend or attack the Dresden bombing per se, but understands it.
However, all the efforts put into Western Germany compared to the Soviet efforts into Eastern Germany, should be the true lithmus test of intentions and consequences.
I will have less of this anti-american jingoism, and this forgiveness of Soviet malice.

Because that's off topic. Stalin was the worst man in history, no one denies that. The topic is Dresden. Make a new thread if you wanna get into that.

Well, wy do the Soviets go free as usual, all the 5th columnists in the forum. What about the Soviet mass deportions from the Baltic states, expropriations of Eastern Prussia and Memel, Massacre of the Katyn Forest and so on and so on. When you shoot a singular bullet in the head of a thousand people, at least it is personal seems to be the opinion here, where carpet bombing seems to be considered the ultimate evil.
I do not defend or attack the Dresden bombing per se, but understands it.
However, all the efforts put into Western Germany compared to the Soviet efforts into Eastern Germany, should be the true lithmus test of intentions and consequences.
I will have less of this anti-american jingoism, and this forgiveness of Soviet malice.

True the Soviets did allmost depopulate Eastern-Prussia, Poland, Silesia,
East-Pommeria by commiting atrosities to the local populace. Read the book Berlin 1945 and it will give atleast somekind of idea about those crimes that the soviets did. but back to the topic which is dresden.

not off topic, as the bombing must be compared with real intentions and consequences of all parties.

Anyone else here that wants to express his support of bombing civilians in various times for various reasons?

I just see the same ones here that found nuking Hiroshima a reasonable thing. :nuke:


Anyone else wanting to join the list? :thumbdown

Anyone else here who wants to turn a blind eye to German and Japanese aggression?

Anyone else here who wants to turn a blind eye to German and Japanese aggression?


If you feel that bombing inocent civilians is a good response to militarist agression then there is something very wrong with you...

No, but I feel bombing civilians that condone the Holocaust is a very fair response.

If you feel that bombing inocent civilians is a good response to militarist agression then there is something very wrong with you...

And if you think that was the only or main thing the allies did during WWII then there's something you need to read about ;)

Bombing Dresden they way it was carried out was a War Crime without any doubts. I believe it was done in retaliation to the german bombing of Coventry, which could also be considered as a War Crime. I think Germans started to bomb civilian Brits well before with the help of V-1's and V-2's. So you cannot blame the brits really for that. Germans needed to be demoralised (although one could argue that was not the right way. As Grant used to say IIRC: War is hell); Air Marshall Goering said the allies couldn't bomb German cities and he was proved, eventually, wrong by the R.A.F. and U.S.A.F.

No, but I feel bombing civilians that condone the Holocaust is a very fair response.

I can't believe I just read that. What an unfair and offensive statement to make. First of all, I don't accept that your ordinary German was as involved in the Holocaust as you imply they were. Secondly, there are LOADS of examples of very courageous Germans who saved the lives of those being persecuted by the Nazis. Thirdly, I don't accept that your average German on the street even knew about the Holocaust. How could they even begin to imagine that such a thing was taking place?

The people who were killed in Dresden were inncoent civilians. Old people. Women. Children. They were people who were on the run to safety because the Allies had deliberately bombed their homes and cities. Then, when the refugee population in Dresden was at it's peak, the Allies fire-bombed them all and destroyed one of the architectural wonders of Europe. Doesn't it make you proud?

As for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

I believe it was done to:

1) Save an estimated one million american marines life's to take over the japanese homeland. Knowing how well Japanese fight perhaps the figure would have been even larger considering it was their motherland this time.
2) Stop the ongoing War immediately.
3) Send a clear message to the U.S.S.R. regarding American Power. Even well before the end of WWII (Postdam and Yalta) Americans could tell who was going to become their next mighty foe.
4) I believe two bombs were needed because the Japanese wouldn't surrender after the first blast. Tells you much about japanese determination and will...

Nothing about Dresden makes me proud, it is important though to distinguish the difference between it and other raids, and further to note that nothing about war should especially make us proud, we did what we thought we had to, pride and pre-war/peacetime conceptions of how war should be thought in idealistic terms wasn't a luxury the allies could afford.

I am proud of what we did at Dresden, and if we had to do it again, I'd support it then too. There's an enemy, you kill them. "Civilian" or not.

So in other words rmsharpe, suicide bombings, the WTC attacks, and beheading of civilians in Iraq is all justified?



On topic: Wasn't the first bombing of London a mistake? You send 30 some bombers out to at night, during a black out with crude navigational equipment you can't expect to come anywhere near your target.

I can't believe I just read that. What an unfair and offensive statement to make. First of all, I don't accept that your ordinary German was as involved in the Holocaust as you imply they were.

Why not? Those that do nothing are just as responsible.

Secondly, there are LOADS of examples of very courageous Germans who saved the lives of those being persecuted by the Nazis.

I know of such stories. These are great people and I thank all of them for their hard work and courage. Unfortunately, those people were very hard to come by at the time.

Thirdly, I don't accept that your average German on the street even knew about the Holocaust. How could they even begin to imagine that such a thing was taking place?

Of course they knew! How couldn't they know? "Oh yeah, all the Jews have been deported, and I was told I'll never hear from them again, but it's no biggy." Signs of Holocaust were everywhere. Those that deny they had any knowledge are liars, and you believe them.

The people who were killed in Dresden were inncoent civilians. Old people. Women. Children. They were people who were on the run to safety because the Allies had deliberately bombed their homes and cities. Then, when the refugee population in Dresden was at it's peak, the Allies fire-bombed them all and destroyed one of the architectural wonders of Europe. Doesn't it make you proud?

Not proud, but not sorry either. You condone killing, you might just get yourself killed. *shrug* That's life...and that's total war.

They were people who were on the run to safety because the Allies had deliberately bombed their homes and cities. Then, when the refugee population in Dresden was at it's peak, the Allies fire-bombed them all and destroyed one of the architectural wonders of Europe. Doesn't it make you proud? This comment is hilarious, anybody who believe Nazi Germany to be the victims in World War 2 is wrong, flat out. What would have made me proud is if they hadnt allowed Hitler to become powerful in the first place.

They didn't, their fault, I dont really care what happened to them because of it.

Saying THAT actually made me kind of proud.

BTW this whole refugee thing is a creation of one infamous minister who went by the name of Goebbels, I trust his word about as much as I trust his ability to walk in a straight line.

This comment is hilarious, anybody who believe Nazi Germany to be the victims in World War 2 is wrong, flat out. What would have made me proud is if they hadnt allowed Hitler to become powerful in the first place.

I believe that German people were as much victims of WWII as anyone else.

Hitler might have been stopped earlier if Britain hadn't been following a policy of appeasement. So British people are also to blame for WWII.

Yep, those merry children playing in Berlin wearing their childrens SS uniforms sure were as much a victim as Anne Frank was, yep you sure as hell got me.

SImply put, I stare at that picture of the burnt bodies piled on top of each other, and do you know what I feel:

NOTHING.

Dresden apologists are a shameful lot.

If I was PM I would apologize for Canada's involvment in Dresden, Cologne and the other cities we bombed for the sake of bombing. What's so shamefull in that?

Several points to make. I earlier stated that I disagreed with the bombing of Dresden but not with bombing campaign on Germany.

1. Germany bombed England 1st. Rightly or wrongly England and later the USA retailiated.

2. At the time it was thought it could win the war when the western Allies had no other option due to being kicked out of Europe.

3. Bombing Refineries. The WW2 bombers didn't have the range or accuracy to hit them. Later in the war when they did Ploesti and the refineries did get bombed. Also WW2 was the worlds 1st mechanised war. With hindsight you need fuel to fight but perhaps the Allies didn't know how vulnerable Germany was for fuel.

4. The bombing gutted German war production. True production peaked in 44 but how much higher could it have gone if there was no bombing? An extra 500 King Tigers (with the required fuel), 1000 Panthers???? Both of these tanks statisically killed 5 Shermans and 9 T34s each. How many allied soldiers should die in place of enemy civilians.

5. Germany had lost the war in 43. By 44 it was obvious to everyone. They could have surrendered or got a peace treaty before the allies insisted on unconditional surrender. They didn't

6. At the time of the Dresden raid Germany was firing V1 and V2 missiles at England. Although militarily useless they did cause mass panic and children wer again evacuated to the countryside.

7. With hindsight even the Allies and most of the world realised carpet bombing cities was wrong. It has never been repeated since. However at the time people were scared and they thought it would work. Its easy to sit at our computers and judge our Grandfathers and Great Grandfathers.

8. It was total war like it our not. Civilians were targeted by all sides.


I don't see what other options the western allies could have taken. What were they supposed to do? Sit in England and what for the war to be over, let the reds overrun europe, or invade anyway and let the Germans have uninterrupted production? Without the bombing would every German city have been fought over a'la Stalingrad and Berlin? Without a surrender the German cities were probably going to be wrecked anyway. The Marshall plan did help rebuild Europe including Germany. Although not perfect compare allied motivations and occupations to German or USSR occupations. The average Geramn civilian must have known or at least suspected what happened to the Jews.German soldiers on leave talked about what they got up to in the USSR. The Wehrmacht fought on for an extra week after Hitler died to give the civilians time to flee the Russians- they knew what Russian treatment would be like and why.

If I was PM I would apologize for Canada's involvment in Dresden, Cologne and the other cities we bombed for the sake of bombing. What's so shamefull in that?

Admit you're wrong and you could have a legal lawsuit for compensation.

So in other words rmsharpe, suicide bombings, the WTC attacks, and beheading of civilians in Iraq is all justified?

No, becuase they're on the wrong side.

No, becuase they're on the wrong side.

The Jews were on the wrong side (According to Hitler) to.

This again?

It's incredibly exhausting to hear the constant chanting that Bush is equivilant to Hitler.

This again?

It's incredibly exhausting to hear the constant chanting that Bush is equivilant to Hitler.

I really don't give a rats fart about Hitler/Bush comparisons. Comparing Bush to Hitler is like comparing aples to oranges and is stupid-regardless of what one may think of Bush. Bush at his worst in infinately better than Hitler at his best. Your post seemed to condone any civilians casualties inflicted by US forces but US civilians are off limits. Terrorism is different than a decleared war between 2 industrial nations.

In the Iraq war, if Iraq had the capability to bomb America in retaliation of America bombing Baghdad it would have been fine by me. In total war you take your chances and that includes targeting civilians if needed. Is it right no, is it fair no, is it the way the world works yes.

Yep, those merry children playing in Berlin wearing their childrens SS uniforms sure were as much a victim as Anne Frank was, yep you sure as hell got me.

SImply put, I stare at that picture of the burnt bodies piled on top of each other, and do you know what I feel:

NOTHING.

Dresden apologists are a shameful lot.

I feel that some people on this forum seem to equate holding an opinion that the firebombing of Dresden was wrong with being a holocaust-denier or being a holocaust-belittler. I'd like to point out I'm neither of these things.

I also feel that some people are confused about the terms 'German' and 'Nazi'. I differentiate between them.

I am not ashamed to apologise for Dresden.

And if you think that was the only or main thing the allies did during WWII then there's something you need to read about ;)

Yeah Yeah they landed in algeria in 1942 *Torch* Suplied russians with tanks in 1941-44 landed in France in 1944 *Overlord* then the Failed airborne assault on Holland *Market Garden* bla bla bla... The topic is not about what the allies did during WW II but about the bombing of Dresden.

I believe that German people were as much victims of WWII as anyone else.

Hitler might have been stopped earlier if Britain hadn't been following a policy of appeasement. So British people are also to blame for WWII.

Us is also to blame for falling to be part of the league of nations
Us is to blame for great depression
Harsh terms place on Germany at Versies treaty
Stalin for the non-aggression pact
Stalin for helping Nazi germany aquire tanks

and so on ...........

actions and conequnces of these actions. Like I said before dresden was a war crime but the allies had no other choice.

It is said that it was good to kill German civilinas as they were enemies. This is the same level as Nazis have. The very same level. The unnecessary death of civilians is not justifieable.
As I mentioned before the Germans were equipped to lead a tactical war. No strategical. The Brits had strategical weapons and so they were the first who really thinked of those crimes they commited in ww2 when it was unneccessary to think about. Also I concur that Ploesti was out of range, many other refineries like Hamburg or Leuna were in range. Also the big rail stations. They weren´t bombed until the last month. Even a thousand Panther are useless if you can´t bring them to the front. And for breaking the morale it was useless.
Dresden neccessary? It was in the last days of the war. The city was undefended. There was no Flak. Only masses of German refugees from Silesia and Bohemia. It was clear Germany lost the war. But now the Brits any US bomb Dresden, which was without any industrial or military target. Just the "Florence of the Elbe". Tell me, firendly fire what was necessary to bomb Dresden?

Adler

It is said that it was good to kill German civilinas as they were enemies. This is the same level as Nazis have. The very same level. The unnecessary death of civilians is not justifieable.

Which is irrelevant since the allies believed that the bombing raids over Germany were necessary to defeat the Germans. On the other hand, no level of logic can be forwarded to suggest that the Nazi acts of barbarity were likely to bring WWII to an end sooner. Comparing the entire allied air campaign to the Holocaust is just ludicrous :crazyeye: Comparing Dresden to the holocaust is closer, but still there's a vast gulf between them. The holocaust was years of planned slaughter, where the choices to do so were numerous, Dresden was one or two occasions.

The fact that they may or may not have been right doesn't escape from the fact that they believed it to be the best way to take the fight back to Germany at that time.

As I mentioned before the Germans were equipped to lead a tactical war. No strategical. The Brits had strategical weapons and so they were the first who really thinked of those crimes they commited in ww2 when it was unneccessary to think about.

The British and others believed that WWII could be won through using air power to attack the enemies ability to wage war, mostly through attacking her industries and so on. The notions about attacking civilian targets were mostly not planned prior to WWII, in fact there were many in the RAF and Air Ministry who were against that kind of role. Planning strategic warfare is not the same as planning an anti-civilian role for your airforce. The British may have been the first to commit the crime of attacking civilians as a purposeful target, but the Germans were certainly doing this anyway, planning/doing, not sure if there's any point to discussing this frankly.

Also I concur that Ploesti was out of range, many other refineries like Hamburg or Leuna were in range. Also the big rail stations. They weren´t bombed until the last month

Wrong on the railways. The allies attacked the railways in a number of ways, and especially around the front. Proof of this is in Normandy were the Germans were often reduced to using trucks to bring fuel and supplies to the front just prior to D-day and after it because the allies, between the Resistance and the air campaign had mostly destroyed france's rail capacity. However there would be little point in doing this prior to D-day as it's effect would be minimal and quite possibly detrimental. To say it happened at the end of WWII though is just plain silly.

Personally, because of it's timing I deeply regret that the allies launched the raids against Dresden as it was certainly not going to end WWII any quicker. Trying to present the entire allied air campaign in the same light though is silly.

I believe that German people were as much victims of WWII as anyone else.

Hitler might have been stopped earlier if Britain hadn't been following a policy of appeasement. So British people are also to blame for WWII.


Dresden aside i do find the current practice of re-writing history on
the continent quite shocking. Suddenly germany was a victim (and we are
to pretend hitler did not have massive support and that the massacre of
an entire people was un noticed). And articles in eminent french papers
now claim france liberated itself, sugesting vichy collaboration had tiny
amounts of influence and talking up the size of the resistance.


Its all in the past, and there should be no hard feelings between
european nations now

But the re-writing of history really annoys me.

Of course they knew! How couldn't they know? "Oh yeah, all the Jews have been deported, and I was told I'll never hear from them again, but it's no biggy." Signs of Holocaust were everywhere. Those that deny they had any knowledge are liars, and you believe them.

Everybody knew something, but how could you even imagine something like Auschwitz, built for the very reason to mass kill people. No I don´t think a normal human who ahdn´t seen something like this before, would choose this answer when asking himself "Where did my neighbour go?" I would rather believe the propaganda constantly telling me that the jews now live in beutifull cities in the east. The people believed Hitler much stranger things, too.

Yep, those merry children playing in Berlin wearing their childrens SS uniforms sure were as much a victim as Anne Frank was, yep you sure as hell got me.

SImply put, I stare at that picture of the burnt bodies piled on top of each other, and do you know what I feel:

NOTHING.

Dresden apologists are a shameful lot.
People like you make me sad...

[QUOTE=Immortal
BTW this whole refugee thing is a creation of one infamous minister who went by the name of Goebbels, I trust his word about as much as I trust his ability to walk in a straight line.[/QUOTE]

I believe you're mistaken. As Adler17 has pointed out twice before in this thread, Desden was full of silesian refugees amongst others. The charred bodies formed heaps of up to 5 meters tall after the raids. If you don't feel sorry at heaps of dead civilian bodies you are heartless, my friend.

Now, I fully sustain and defend the way the R.A.F. and the U.S.A.F. bombed Germany during WWII. But in Dresdens case, the Venetia of the North of Europe, I just have to say it was a War Crime. It had no military interest whatsoever, wasn't vital at all. It was done out of revenge flat out. Now can you blame the British after the way in which the Luftwaffe had bombed Coventry just shortly before ? What military or strategical interest did Coventry have ? None. They just killed masses of innocent British civilians.

@Privatehudson:"The British may have been the first to commit the crime of attacking civilians as a purposeful target, but the Germans were certainly doing this anyway, planning/doing, not sure if there's any point to discussing this frankly"

I don't agree with you Privatehudson. The British didn't start bombing civilians in WWII. It was clearly the Germans who started this. What military interest might London have ? None, it was full of civilians at the time the first V1 and V2 fell. The Germans bombed sistematically civilian population in large cities. So it's little surprising why they ended being fed up and did what they did in Dresden.

Bombing Germany was neccessary at the time. And as someone has pointed out, unfortunately at the time the precision of bombers was very low. I believe I have read somewhere that only around 10% of bombs hit their intended target at the time.

As for Germans not knowing what was hapenning makes me laugh. Perhaps they didn't know that Auschwitz existed (or the other 30 concentration camps) albeit they certainly knew Jews were being sistematically erradicated. Now one can argue they closed their eyes to the truth or that they were under some sort of Hammelin's magical flute spell, but common....Germans were also to blame for what hapenned in Germany (and I'm making a distinction between them and Nazis).

We are all now Europeans, and we've gotten over it, but please let us not rewrite the past. Dresdens bombing was an awful War Crime. Right, I could point out a hundred war and not war crimes for it committed by the Nazis.

Us is also to blame for falling to be part of the league of nations
Us is to blame for great depression
Harsh terms place on Germany at Versies treaty
Stalin for the non-aggression pact
Stalin for helping Nazi germany aquire tanks

and so on ...........

actions and conequnces of these actions. Like I said before dresden was a war crime but the allies had no other choice.

The League of Nations failed, just like the UN as countries did not want to have to go to war over minor things like an invasion of Manchuria here, an invasion of Abyssinia there and who can blame them! Having the US and her insignificant military on board would have helped not one iota as Americans didn't want to lose young men in foreign wars they cared little for.

Comeon, Germany got away lightly at the Treaty of Versailles and through American loans and simply by not paying for very long didn't pay much back. Compared to what the Germans had lined up for the Allies and indeed what they put upon the defeated Russians and Rumanians they have a cheek to whine. The problem was that the treaty did not go far enough!

Stalin with the non-aggression pact was buying himself time and his country peace when the Western Powers failed to make a serious offer of alliance in opposition to Hitler.

As for Russia allowing Germany to train up tanks etc via the Treaty of Rapallo...it was a time when Germany was not Nazi (from 1922) and ended soon into Hitlers reign. It allowed Russia to copy German tactics and tanks and also to form a bond rather than be antagonistic. At the time it was a good move.


The sort of blame you and many are dishing out is the same blame some give to house owners who don't lock their doors and get robbed. Hell, it is a good idea, but the house owner shouldn't HAVE to lock their doors, the blame should rest with the perpetrator of the crime.

[QUOTE=Immortal
Now, I fully sustain and defend the way the R.A.F. and the U.S.A.F. bombed Germany during WWII. But in Dresdens case, the Venetia of the North of Europe, I just have to say it was a War Crime. It had no military interest whatsoever, wasn't vital at all. It was done out of revenge flat out. Now can you blame the British after the way in which the Luftwaffe had bombed Coventry just shortly before ? What military or strategical interest did Coventry have ? None. They just killed masses of innocent British civilians.


FFS dude.

What military or strategic interest did Coventry have? It house factories and workers that helped supply the British economy and war-machine. Coventry wasn't a town that produced nothing but tea-cosies and hell, neither was Dresden.

Apparently Dresden contained:

"The Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory (both of which were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gunsights).
The immediate suburbs contained factories building components of radar and electronics, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells. Other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters."

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Bombing-of-Dresden-in-World-War-II

(Interestingly enough, this website says a justification for the attack was that it was requested by the Soviets to counter a German Armour Division moving through and for the RAF to demonstrate its power to the Russians who were going to take the city.)

As for Coventry:

"Coventry played a pivotal role in World War Two, as a munitions centre and target for German air raids. The city's character, architecture and population remain forever entwined with war events.

The Blitz
In World War One, Coventry became established as a centre for the motor industry, a business which boomed with the war's reliance on transport. By the time war broke out again in 1939, many new factories had been built in and around the city, and a large number of local people were employed in the motor industry.

During World War Two these factories built cars, engines, armaments and aeroplanes, all of which contributed to the war effort. This industrial activity made it an obvious target for German air raids.

On 14 November 1940, 500 German bombers dropped 500 tons of explosives and nearly 900 incendiary bombs on Coventry in just ten hours. The city was almost destroyed and the bombs claimed many lives."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A1064648


Just for the record to posters in the history forum, don't just make **** up.

Just spotted that Drakan thinks also that London had no military significance, I'm going to stop typing here, but needless to say, what an...

Very controversial thread...

I find it interesting to note the reactions of some of the posters, who discount the very thought of Dresden possibly having been a war crime by diverting the discussion to the undoubted German war crimes. Those aren't in doubt!
What's supposed to be the point?

I see several incredible arguments on this thread:

- Any war crimes are justified if the other side commits them too
- We want to win the war, so anything we do is justified
- We are right and the others wrong, so whatever we do is justified
- All is fair in war / there is no morality in war

Please think about what you're saying here. How is that thinking any different from what the Nazis thought? And any other war criminal throughout history?

It was fair and correct to put the Nazi leadership on trial at Nuremberg and execute the worst offenders - it was a good precedent, which should be followed for other offenders as well (see Milosevic of Serbia for instance) - but only if the rationale is morality, not revenge.

People, by using arguments like the above, YOU are the ones who support the revisionists claiming Nuremberg was 'victors justice' !

Morality can't only be applied to the losers in a conflict, or it's only an excuse for revenge!

Killing civilians to institute terror and 'persuade' the survivors to follow a different course is the very definition of terrorism, I agree - and very few people except terrorists deny that terrorism is a crime.

No one can dispute that Germany committed the first such crime of deliberately killing civilians by indiscriminate bombing (Guernica anyone?) - but why should that excuse Dresden?
Dresden was especially horrific, because obviously civilian casualties were not only tolerated (so-called collateral damage) but the whole object of the exercise - they set it up specifically to kill as many civilians as possible.

So, what else can you count Dresden as, if not a war crime?

And why does it bother some of you to admit that, yes, the Allies also committed some war crimes? That doesn't excuse the German war crimes either, so where's the problem?

Not to say it was not a war crime but many people seem to check its military value.
I don't agree. It was a political act to break the German morale and population support of the government and the war.

In a time of "total war", the civilians were considered part of the military problem. This started during the USCW, was seen during the Boer War, the Spanish civil war and of course the peak was reached during the two world wars.

In a way I would put the blame on the ideology shared by most people, armies and governments of that time.

In spite of the huge number of casualties I would not call it a "war crime" stricto sensu paralleled to German war crimes against jews or Slavic people. It was more a total act of war such as the bombing of Coventry.

One thing to say is that the US may not have used the A bomb against German civilians which means the mass bombing decision was not that easy to take.

Let's just hope this kind of total war don't reappear too soon.

Lets hope that it dosent EVER happen again...

War itself is a crime

It is said that it was good to kill German civilinas as they were enemies. This is the same level as Nazis have. The very same level. The unnecessary death of civilians is not justifieable.In general, it was believed it could bring an end to the war earlier. Still wrong, but definately a different level than many nazi crimes.

It was clear Germany lost the war. But now the Brits any US bomb Dresden, which was without any industrial or military target. Just the "Florence of the Elbe". Tell me, firendly fire what was necessary to bomb Dresden?
Some people say the German people needed to be defeated beyond any level in order to prevent a new uprise. Maybe that made sense according to the march 1945 logic? This might be the lamest of all arguments, but it is still a better one than killing people for their race.

The concept of total war means you need to defeat the people, and not only the army. Today we all know that doesn't make sense. But maybe it did according to 1945 lines of thinking?

The ideas of total war are beyond our imagination. It is very hard to judge on the matter today.
For those interested: A study on Sherman's campaign in 1864 might help you to understand the concept of total war.

The point some people are missing is in the thread title as regarding whether Dresden was justified. The debate isn't about whether it would come under the terms of war crime, but whether it is justified.

Just because it comes under a ridiculous definition of war crime which is arbitary and is not the definitive answer to what is justifiable conduct in war, doesn't mean the act wasn't justified. There are some posters such as myself who have laid out the justification for the action of the RAF, but the opposition seem to cry 'war crime' and then try to make out that there is little or no difference between the actions of the Nazis and the British in WW2 which I argue is worrying and not only that, wrong.

It is quite scary that some Germans on this thread are trying to rewrite History. It appears they are regurgitating Nazi and Russian propaganda of the 40s, 50s etc.…..

There is a fairly recent book out, based on new information obtained from the former East Germany, that maintains that the bombing of Dresden was justified.
The book is Dresden Tuesday, February 13, 1945 by Frederick Taylor.

There are many reports on the book if you Google it. This is one of the many reports I found.


Even before the war was over, a legend grew up around the bombing of Dresden - largely thanks to Goebbels and his Propaganda Ministry. Nazi propaganda described Dresden as a city of no military value, crammed with refugees from the East. The "Florence on the Elbe" was allegedly obliterated in a senseless act of barbarism. Later accretions to the myth included the obscene suggestion that Dresden was targeted by the Western Allies as an object lesson for the Russians.

Taylor exposes each one of these legends. Dresden was hardly "an innocent city". It was a Nazified city in which opponents of the regime and Czech nationalists had been incarcerated and executed en masse. The Jewish population, which included the remarkable diarist Viktor Klemperer, had been reduced by deportations from 6,000 to a few hundred.

Thousands of impressed foreign workers and slave labourers toiled in the city's armaments industries. Dresden had not been turning out harmless porcelain or consumer goods for years. More than 120 factories were devoted to the German war effort. On an average day in 1944, 28 military trains passed through its marshalling yards.

Nor was Dresden selected on the whim of the maligned Air Marshal "Bomber" Harris, head of Bomber Command, at a time when the war was won. It was identified as a target by the Joint Intelligence Committee, which perceived its strategic role in resistance to the Red Army. The German high command designated it a strongpoint, although this was wishful thinking rather than military reality.

Just four weeks earlier, the German army had ripped a massive hole in the Western front and advanced halfway to Antwerp before they were stopped at massive cost. To Allied soldiers and air crew, in the first weeks of 1945 Germany looked anything but beaten. Nor were Allied civilians sanguine about victory while V1s and V2s were inflicting heavy loss of life on Brussels, Antwerp and London.

If Dresden was defenceless, this was the fault of the local Nazi Party leadership and military overstretch. Raids on nearby cities offered plenty of warning, but the Party boss contented himself with building a private bunker. Seven batteries of heavy anti-aircraft guns were stripped away to defend the Ruhr area or for use against Russian tanks on the Eastern Front.

Protection for civilians was incompetently constructed. Tunnels connecting basements and cellars functioned as convector ovens once the firestorm began. People were instructed to stay underground when they should have rushed up to roofs to extinguish incendiary bombs.

Taylor does nothing to minimise the horror of the two RAF assaults and the less effective US Army Air Force raid the following day. But he points out that bombing continued until the end of the war, by which time several towns were relatively worse hit. Nazi propaganda fastened on Dresden because its cultural importance resonated in Britain and among neutrals.

During the 1950s, a succession of Communist officials supplemented their incomes by churning out stories of the raids that uncritically used casualty figures doctored by the SS. These tracts were explicitly intended to blacken the Western Allies' reputation, but this did not prevent the right-wing Nazi apologist David Irving from happily recycling the fantastic computations in his bestselling 1963 book, The Destruction of Dresden.

As if the fate of Dresdeners was not bad enough, their memory is still traduced for crude political reasons. In laying to rest the legends, Taylor's authoritative and moving account provides a truer, more fitting memorial.

Ignoring some of the BS I don't think Dresden was as innocent as Goebbels portrayed it I doubt bombing Dresden shortened the war by a single day given the state of the German economy and the disruptions caused by the rest of the bombing campaign. As to the earlier photo I didn't feel anything. Just another photo of more war dead to me. Photos like that don't disgust me anymore regardless of whose in them. Maybe reading books on Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Holocaust when I was 11-14 years old made me immune to it.

I don't agree with you Privatehudson. The British didn't start bombing civilians in WWII. It was clearly the Germans who started this. What military interest might London have ? None, it was full of civilians at the time the first V1 and V2 fell. The Germans bombed sistematically civilian population in large cities. So it's little surprising why they ended being fed up and did what they did in Dresden.

My point wasn't clear, but it was that the British were the first to organise massive and frequent raids against the enemies civilian targets. The germans may have started and continued to attack civilians, but the British began the process of massive attacks against them.

I see several incredible arguments on this thread:

- Any war crimes are justified if the other side commits them too
- We want to win the war, so anything we do is justified
- We are right and the others wrong, so whatever we do is justified
- All is fair in war / there is no morality in war



I have never argued these, I have argued that actions that may later be considered a warcrime are justified if there is little other choice and it will assist in bringing the war to an end sooner. I have suggested that the peacetime ideological theories of how war should be fought are, to say the least pathetically out of touch with reality, and whilst morality should not be ignored, to pay attention to it completely would be to loose the war. In the exceptional circumstances of WWII, this was simply not an option.

And why does it bother some of you to admit that, yes, the Allies also committed some war crimes? That doesn't excuse the German war crimes either, so where's the problem?

Because sooner or later, if both sides are seen as guilty, people will start thinking that maybe Hitler and his goons weren't so bad after all :crazyeye:

Mega Tsunami:

Excellent read :goodjob:

KoC: as usual, you shine for your politeness.

Dresden bombing THE WAY IN WHICH IT WAS CARRIED OUT that February 13, 1945 was a War Crime under modern standards. The civilians were the ones that were expressly and specifically being targeted, not the factories you point out in that particular raid we are refering to.

Regarding Coventry I don't argue with you it had some strategical importance, but the Luftwaffe aimed for the civilians not for the factories in the raid I'm talking about which made them retaliate, as they did, towards Dresden. We're being specific here and not talking of bombings throughout the war.

As for London, perhaps I haven't expressed myself correctly, what I meant is that when it was bombed by V1's and V2's indiscriminately, the same as when it was later on bombed by German bombers. The Germans were targeting the city itself, the civilians, not the factories. They were killing the people, the civilians on purpose, and that to me has no strategical importance. Of course London had it's importance, it was of paramount importance, it's only blatant. What I meant is that it was the civilians being targeted mostly, in the context of this thread (bombing civilians) it served no purpose strategically, save inflict terror and loss of morale on the British population, which is injustifiable as well.

Please don't take the bombing of Dresden as something almost personal. We are talking of one war action which was a mistake IMHO, and nowadays would clearly be considered a War Crime. The thread refers to a particular bombing, not throughout the war as you seem to suggest. Everybody here I suspect fully defends the bombing of Nazi Germany in WWII, no one argues that. In that air raid the factories, if at all, were a secondary target, being the main one the city itself, the civilians, and that is what I oppose to. As I have already written down, for that crime committed by the R.A.F. one could easily point out a hundred crimes or more perpetrated by the Nazis. No one here is trying to say the British acted as the Nazis all the time. I'm just saying that in that particular raid they went awfully wrong. Only that.

As I wrote down it was done in retaliation for the bombing of Coventry by the Germans shortly before which had purposefuly targeted the innocent British civilian population, not the factories as you point out in your post. There were other air raids in which, naturally, the factories were hit, but in the case of that particular bombing of Coventry I refer to and to which the British retaliated with Dresden unjustifiable bombing; in both cases it was the civilians being targeted, not the factories you mention. And Dresden's case was infinately worse than Coventry because at the time it was packed with a massive influx of refugees and the R.A.F. knew this fact.

I believe no one is comparing the bombings carried out by the R.A.F. in general with the Nazis. All we are saying is that Dreden in particular was not justifiable in the manner it was done by the R.A.F.. It was the civilians being targeted in that particular raid to which this thread refers to, not the German War factories you point out, so please don't mix it up. I'm sure other raids were carried out in which, specifically, the factories were targeted but not in this one to which this thread refers to. In almost every German (and British) city at the time to a greater or lesser extent they were producing war equipment.

Who's making facts up ? Do you mind pointing out which are, in your opinion ?
Let's try to be less aggressive KoC.

It is remarkeable how many people especially in Britain try to justify a crime, which isnt justifieable. It is a war crime. Nothing more or less. This is in no means a rewriting of history, but the truth. That it is a number lower than the Holocaust I agree. But it is high enough to be one of the most shameful crimes in history. That someone kills someone because the other did a crime on him is a murder as well as someone murders someone because of racial motives. Both are murderers.
Dresden was FULL of refugees. Dresden had NO Flak. Dresden had factories I admit but the worth of these factories was very low if any. Dresden was full of artificial jewels, like the Zwinger, the Frauenkirche or the other old buildings with the paitures of Cranach and many others. Also the Russians had alreadz crossed the Oder river, the Brits anz US were at the Rhein and who can say Germany was not beaten.
This discussion shall not lead to the glorification of Hitler or one of his monstrous helper, but the truth about a warcrime commited bz the allies. The discussion of some of you is very near to the argumentation of Nazis. Consider this.

Adler

It is remarkeable how many people especially in Britain try to justify a crime, which isnt justifieable.

It is remarkable how many people, especially in Germany, try to claim victim status during a war that was committed by their own people! You reap what you sow.

Fair enough, let the Germans keep Dresden as a monument to their victimization to unfair treatment, humanity and in general apologism, and let that be their 2 D-Mark to the grand debate, allowing them to emphatize on common grounds in similar debates.
They need to be 100 % right for their own sense of wellbeing, just let them get that recognition, and please restrain the pride of the Anglo-American Eagle. The Germans will probably stay out of wars for yet another couple of centuries thanks to this.

It is remarkable how many people, especially in Germany, try to claim victim status during a war that was committed by their own people! You reap what you sow.

In what way was WWII 'committed' by the German people?

By supporting and being part of the apparatus with which Hitler and his supporters went around invading Europe and committing genocide against certain ethnic groups.

Without popular support Hitler would have not been able to conduct his war and remain in power, especially when the war started to go from bad to worse.

In what way was WWII 'committed' by the German people?

WWII was started by the Germans. I'd like to see you refute that statement.

It is remarkeable how many people especially in Britain try to justify a crime, which isnt justifieable.

With respect that is your opinion not fact.

That it is a number lower than the Holocaust I agree. But it is high enough to be one of the most shameful crimes in history. That someone kills someone because the other did a crime on him is a murder as well as someone murders someone because of racial motives. Both are murderers.

Remind me, did millions die in Dresden? Then lets refrain from making ridiculously overblown statements like "one of the most shameful crimes in history" if we want to be taken seriously :rolleyes: The justice system in certain countries under your defenition is now "murderers"

Dresden was FULL of refugees. Dresden had NO Flak. Dresden had factories I admit but the worth of these factories was very low if any. Dresden was full of artificial jewels, like the Zwinger, the Frauenkirche or the other old buildings with the paitures of Cranach and many others. Also the Russians had alreadz crossed the Oder river, the Brits anz US were at the Rhein and who can say Germany was not beaten.

I believe the new book refutes much of this. You might like to take the time to study it since it appears to be a subject of interest to you. In the interests of furthering your knowledge of course... :mischief:

This discussion shall not lead to the glorification of Hitler or one of his monstrous helper, but the truth about a warcrime commited bz the allies. The discussion of some of you is very near to the argumentation of Nazis. Consider this.

I'm afraid no matter how often you and others repeat this tripe cannot make it true, especially about me. I have repeatedly stated that the actions of the allied air raids should only be considered in the extreme circumstances of WWII or similar, and only if it is believed it will bring the war to an end sooner. Comparing this point of view to the Nazis is an insult to my intelligence :mad:

WWII was started by the Germans. I'd like to see you refute that statement.

Certainly! :goodjob:

If WWII was 'started' by anyone, it was the Nazis. As I've said far too often before on this thread, Nazis and Germans are far from being interchangeable.

... and we're kinda off-topic a bit here anyway.

It is remarkable how many people, especially in Germany, try to claim victim status during a war that was committed by their own people!
That's racism on the Nazi level. Plain and simple. Either you think about people as individuals or as members of larger entities (nations, races, etc.).
You obvious do the second.

Nobody in this thread was claiming "victim status" for the country, it is about individual people falling victim to a war crime.

Some ten year old child that was incinerated in the burning residential areas of Hamburg, Dresden, Cologne, etc. is as much an innocent victim of the war as a ten year old child that had to share the same fate in London, Coventry or Belgrade.

The above is of course only true if you aren't thinking in racist terms, because if you would every member of a certain people (usually what a people exactly is is your personal definition or that of your favourite ideologue) is an enemy and a target.

Of course that is a not uncommon thinking, but it is very thinking of all those regimes that have brought genocide over the world. And for that reason alone I think that the world is better off with each individual less that thinks that way...

Without popular support Hitler would have not been able to conduct his war and remain in power, especially when the war started to go from bad to worse

(Not signling you out Kitten, just using the quote cause it's the most elegant posts about this aspect of the topic)
Same can be said for anyone else who was president/PM/whatever of a country and started a war. Bush was elected by the people of America......so the people of america(the little 5 years old too) are to blame for all the dead civilians, I mean Iraqi Combatants, and dead Coaliton troops.


At the time, Dresden might of been justified. At the time, the Allies probably didn't know about the lack of flak, or that so many refugees where there. But hindsight is 20/20, or 20/10 in this case

Certainly! :goodjob:

If WWII was 'started' by anyone, it was the Nazis. As I've said far too often before on this thread, Nazis and Germans are far from being interchangeable.

... and we're kinda off-topic a bit here anyway.

They are not interchangeable so long as the Germans voted the Nazis into power.

That's racism on the Nazi level. Plain and simple. Either you think about people as individuals or as members of larger entities (nations, races, etc.).
You obvious do the second.

Adler17 made the claim "It is remarkeable how many people especially in Britain try to justify a crime, which isnt justifieable."

I was only countering using his very tactic of gerneralizations.

Nobody in this thread was claiming "victim status" for the country, it is about individual people falling victim to a war crime.

WHAT?! I never said anyone was claiming "victim status" for a country. Read what I wrote:
"It is remarkable how many people, especially in Germany, try to claim victim status during a war that was committed by their own people! You reap what you sow."

Nowhere do I mention the word "country".

Some ten year old child that was incinerated in the burning residential areas of Hamburg, Dresden, Cologne, etc. is as much an innocent victim of the war as a ten year old child that had to share the same fate in London, Coventry or Belgrade.

True, they didn't deserve to die, but that's war. Not all of them were 10 years old...or 2 years old, or elderly, or whatever. If your elected government throws the first stone, you have to be prepared to take the cosequences when your enemies throw back.

True, they didn't deserve to die, but that's war. Not all of them were 10 years old...or 2 years old, or elderly, or whatever. If your elected government throws the first stone, you have to be prepared to take the cosequences when your enemies throw back.


So if Iraqi special forces had set of bombs in New York that would have been OK with you?

No, because Iraqi Freedom and World War 2 are incomparable. One is total war, one is a mere regional conflict. One's fight to stop fascism from conquering the world, the other is a fight to stop the shi'ites from killing Iyad Allawi.

Never the less America invaded another country. If that country was in any way capable of hitting the USA with spec ops or bombs/missiles as an act of war wouldn't they be allowed to target miltary targets or civilian infrastructure that supports your war effort (telecommunications, power plants, bridges etc). USA bombed their infrastructure.

No, because we aren't in total war.

No, because we aren't in total war

Once Iraq or the enemy dose something like attacking "soft targets" it opens the way for the US to respond in kind.

This rule also appiles to NUCLEAR WEAPONS, and CHEMICAL WEAPONS.
should be ovious to all the consequnces of going down such a path.

I doubt nuclear weapons would be used in retaliation for a conventional strike on the US homeland during a war the US started.

No, because we aren't in total war. So its OK for you to bomb other countries but not fo them to retaliate in kind. At least I was consistent with the British/Germans bombing each other in WW2.

I contend that the Dresden bombing was unjustified.

(1) Dresden was full of refugees and was attacked to give the Russians a demonstration of Allied air power.

Dresden, the seventh largest city in Germany and not much smaller than Manchester, is also far the largest unbombed built-up the enemy has got. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westwards and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium. The intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed front, to prevent the use of the city in the way of further advance, and incidentally to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do.
- From an Internal RAF memo of January 1945.

(2) Churchill was uncomfortable with the bombing of Dresden because he felt the city wasn't all that valid a target compared with other possible bombing targets. He believed that the purpose of bombing Dresden was to spread terror amongst the German people.

It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, should be reviewed…I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives, such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction.
- Memo from Churchill to 'Bomber' Harris, March 1945.

(3) No attempt was made to limit civilian casualties.

My father was one of the "anonymous RAF meteorological officers (who) finally sealed Dresden's fate"….At the Dresden briefing, my father told me, the crews were given no strategic aiming point. They were simply told that anywhere within the built-up area of the city would serve.
He felt that Dresden and its civilian population had been the prime target of the raid and that its destruction and their deaths served no strategic purpose, even in the widest terms; that this was a significant departure from accepting civilian deaths as a regrettable but inevitable consequence of the bomber war; and that he had been complicit in what was, at best, a very dubious operation.
David Pedlow, writing in the Guardian 07/14/04

Finally, I like the last sentence of this next extract, to me it sums up what a lot of brave people have been arguing in this thread.

In Coventry, on the 50th anniversary of the attack, the German president Richard von Weizsäcker spoke of his nation's guilt; but when the Queen visited Dresden, she failed to lay a wreath at the cathedral ruins. Her advisers feared tabloid headlines. And, who knows, someone might throw an egg. It was a sad failure of diplomacy. Yet maybe a few have accepted that in war, however just the cause, no one emerges with clean hands. Saying sorry is not a sign of weakness.

That last quote was also from the Guardian, 03/03/04.

First of all we were involed in 2 wars in the last 5 years: Kosovo and Afghanistan. Secondly Hitler was never elected. He was appointed by Hindenburg because of the emergency laws he made. The conservatives thought Hitler would be a good puppet. They failed...
Nevertheless why it is so hard to accept the fact that Germans were also victims by the allies? It is only a matter of fact. This can´t be justified by the Holocaust and the equalization of Nazis and Germans is the same the Nazis made.
In such a war no nation kept a white west. But ot accept the fact there was crimes commited by each side and to regret them is the first step to avoid these in future.

Adler

@Adler,
I think most people who have seriously studied the Dresden bombing do not argue about it. It seems quite obvious it was a warcrime.
But there are warcrimes and warcrimes. And technically, a warcrimes is not per se a crime against humanity. The goal of the bombing of Dresden was not to kill as many innocent German people as possible. The goal was to kill the enemy.

In february 1945 it was a goal to hit the enemy hard. The wrong assumption (maybe another word?) was that not just the German Army was the enemy, but the German people.
Does that justify the bombing? No, I think not. Can we blame allied 'february 1945' officers for thinking the German people were the enemy?

Well, I think we can, but it is not an easy question. It is to easy to judge on it from our 2004 points of view.

Excellent quotes Boleslav.

Right on Boleslav and Adler17!

I find it very sad that any German poster who dares call Dresden a war crime - which opinion is shared by many non-Germans - is immediately labelled 'revisionist' and a Nazi-sympathizer.

I haven't seen one word by any German on this thread which in any way attempted to justify Nazi war crimes or lessen them by comparing them to Allied war crimes!
Please accept that I, and I assume the other German posters as well, was born long, long after WWII and have no interest at all in revising history to favor the Nazis.
I can assure you that the overwhelming majority of Germans abhors Hitler and the Nazis at least as much as non-Germans do!

I totally agree with Hitro that it is a racist attitude to condemn a whole people for the acts of a part, especially when you're talking about killing them in wholesale lots in a firestorm. Granted not all in Dresden were innocents - does that mean it's all right to fry 99 refugees, mostly women and children, to get one Nazi? Strange reasoning..
As you reap, so shall you sow... what total BS! Germany under Hitler was not a democratic state. He wasn't elected democratically in the first place - he only got 30something percent of the popular vote in 1933, remember, which means two thirds of the German populace DID NOT elect him - and after he was APPOINTED to be head of state by the Reichspresident, he turned Germany into a totalitarian state with no chance to remove him democratically.
And to link the deaths of these refugees with the Nazi death camps is even worse BS! Hitler was not given a mandate by the German people to kill Jews or other 'undesirables' (so-called by the Nazis, not me). In fact, the Nazis did everything they could to keep their murders secret, exactly because they knew they wouldn't have popular support for them!

To sum up, I will never be convinced it's OK to specifically target civilians and it can't be justified by saying it's their own fault for being German...or whatever else nationality, race or religion.
Of course, this goes for Guernica and the V1/V2 bombings as well - as well as Lidice, My Lai and wherever else...

Having got that off my chest - the level we should be discussing on is not whether civilian refugees deserved to die, or whether it was all right to target them, but whether that was the allies aim at Dresden, or whether they had different objectives and the civilians were 'collateral damage' on a massive scale.

I would be interested in more facts supporting the view that Dresden was a legitimate target with strategic significance - though those quotes by Boleslav look pretty conclusive to me.

@PrivateHudson - I didn't mean you specifically with those rather sick arguments I pointed out, but if you look through some of the other posts I'm sure you'll see what I mean!

I have no sympathy for the victims of Dresden. Their inaction sanctioned the Holocaust, and so they should burn with my forefathers.

@PrivateHudson again: This is the kind of argument I meant...

@Stapel: I can understand that point of view - though whether the aim of Dresden was to kill 'innocent people' - let's rather say 'civilians' - is exactly the question

Right on Boleslav and Adler17!



To sum up, I will never be convinced it's OK to specifically target civilians and it can't be justified by saying it's their own fault for being German...or whatever else nationality, race or religion.
Of course, this goes for Guernica and the V1/V2 bombings as well - as well as Lidice, My Lai and wherever else...


:goodjob: Exactly, very well summed up. No one is attacking or questionning per se the Allies war effort. No one is comparing them with the Nazis. All we are saying is that Dreden's bombing was not justified in the way it was carried out on Feb 13, 1945, that's all.

Only because I refute and contend the manner in which Dresden was bombed that day doesn't make me a Nazi or a revisionist. I'm very glad the Allies won, thanks God for that.

As I've already pointed out, Benderino's arguments on Dresden bombing are close to being philonazi...he's heartless...

@PrivateHudson again: This is the kind of argument I meant...

@Stapel: I can understand that point of view - though whether the aim of Dresden was to kill 'innocent people' - let's rather say 'civilians' - is exactly the question

I think there was definately more to it than killing civilians. I don't think there are good reason to think the allies decided to 'kill some more civilians', just like that.
This what makes the bombing of Dresden a warcrme, and not a crime agaianst humanity, I think.

I think there was definately more to it than killing civilians. I don't think there are good reason to think the allies decided to 'kill some more civilians', just like that.
This what makes the bombing of Dresden a warcrme, and not a crime agaianst humanity, I think.

Well, but look at those quotes Boleslav posted - they definitely point in that direction fo