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 for me!

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.

I'd say the first step to avoiding these problems in future is to make sure that we do not elect or place in power another right wing lunatic, especially not one who promoted his ideals before gaining power, therefore removing the need for the other countries to go to such extreme measures to defeat said right wing lunatic.

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!

Really? I have :confused:

Adler has often referred to it as one of the most shameful events in history, which insinuates that it is up there with the Holocaust or Stalin's purges. He may not be using that to lessen Nazi warcrimes, but he is blowing out of all proportion the level of crime that Dresden was.

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.

One thing to consider, but modern political parties in Britain rarely get more than 40 something percent when they win general elections. Hitler may not have been elected by most people, but that does not mean he was not popular, or close to winning. Being elected by everyone has never been important in a democracy. Though I do agree he was hardly democratic, there are still a lot of Germans who did vote for him.

! 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!

With respect though, they made absolutely no secret of their hatred of the Jewish race in general, and Slavs. Hitler's work, which I'm sure you're familiar with was full of such venom about both and creating space in the east. Nazi propaganda was full of hatred of Jews and others, through posters and speeches and the actions of Kristalnacht (sp?) and other such events. That doesn't mean I believe them to have been willing to see 6 million plus people gassed, or that these events were 100% popular, but Hitler was telegraphing his intentions to be pretty unkind to these people...

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!

Good :) I also feel some opinions here are a little extreme :mischief:

I just believe that it's vital that we consider the following:

1) WWII was an extreme example of warfare in which the allies were driven to extreme measures to defeat a truly evil enemy.
2) The allied air campaign, rightly or wrongly believed that the best way to defeat Germany was to strike at both her military and civilian capacity to wage war. Part of this decision was down to her abilities and failings of the planes etc. This was not an uncommon belief during WWII to be frank, many in other airforces agreed, some even before WWII.
3) Because the allies considered defeating Germany and specifically Nazism to be vital, normal restraints were lessened to achieve this, it is not normal for the RAF to specifically target civilians and aim to kill them in massive numbers either before or since WWII.
4) The British had suffered long and hard under similar attacks on their own civilians, though on a lesser scale, but this would have lessened their will to worry about doing the same back.
5) There was a very strong feeling during WWII that the Germans should be made to realise that war was not simply something that affected other countries territories*. The belief was that Germany had not suffered invasion and bombing during WWI, therefore the people were still unaware of the true horrors and consequences of war. Rightly or wrongly, the allies determined not to make that mistake again.
6) Contary to belief, the allies almost certainly would not have believed that Germany was on her last legs. The allies had believed this after Falaise, they were wrong. They believed it after Arnhem, and they were wrong. In hindsight we now know that Germany was close to defeat, but in January 1945, it would have been a brave man that believed the Germans incapable of pulling off another miracle.
7) The nature of the war did, like it or not, mean that civilians, due to their capacity to produce the weapons your enemy uses to fight you with were the enemy. If Dresden, or indeed anywhere with factories existed, it was a target. As deeply regrettable as the nature of the raids were, we should not allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking that a war like that would be fought with one hand behind our backs by not bombing cities.

This is not simply a case of revenge, but beyond this. We at this time cannot really comprehend the magnitude of decisions such as this, or the pressure on people who were fighting for the freedom of europe and beyond. Make no mistake, IMO Dresden was regrettable and a mistake because of it's nature. I don't believe it possible to judge it as justified or not, but I certainly understand why it was done in the climate of that time. Unless you put yourself in the shoes of the allied commanders and think the way they had to, you will never really answer the question posed here. Which is why arbitary remarks about never targetting civilians, no matter how morally right at this time, have no real bearing on the core discussion.

*In a small degree, this mirrors 9/11 and the thinking behind it's launchers :sad:

@privatehudson.

points 4 and 5 are excellent.

British had suffered FIRST indiscriminate bombing of their civilians by the Luftwaffe. The Germans were led to believe by Goebbels and Sky Marshall Goering that their cities couldn't be bombed by the Allies, they were proved wrong.

What the British did in Dresden was wrong ALBEIT it was in direct retaliation for what the Nazis had done in Coventry shortly before, butchering thousands of British civilians.

I also agree with Privatehudson that Adler is somewhat blowing out of proportion what hapenned in Dresden. With Stalin and the Holocaust millions perished, not so at Dresden. It was wrong, fair enough, but one could hardly contend it is one of the most shameful acts in History of Humankind, no way. It was done in the context of a War, where innocent British civilians had been murdered indiscriminately by the Luftwaffe shortly before, so it just didn't come out of the blue, it was done in direct retaliation, however bad it was.

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

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,

It still doesn't justify the bombing, but it does have some military purposes.

I believe it served no military pupose whatsoever. It wasn't the factories being targeted, it was the German civilians and the city itself as well as the massive influx of refugees.

You cannot justify Dresden's bombing, but on the other hand you cannot contend it was one of the worsest crimes against Humanity ever, no way.....Pol-Pot and the Khmer Rouge, Stalin, Hitler's Holocaust, Ruanda's tutsis, what Spain did to the Indians during the Conquest of the New World, Balcan's War, those are REALLY crimes against Humanity.

Dresden plays a third role in comparison no matter how wrong it was.

@privatehudson: The subject of this thread was whether or not the attack on Dresden was justified, that IS the core discussion. For me, that means do WE feel it was justified.
I grant you that the Allies had many reasons to believe it justified at the time, but that wasn't the aim of my argument.

Regarding the intentions of Hitler towards the Jews: there have been, and still are, many politicians who made and make attacks on specific groups; nowadays for instance immigrants from the 3rd world come to mind. Would you suspect them all of having actual homicidal intent?
I feel it's somewhat unfair to say ordinary Germans - voters - should somehow have divined Hitlers mass murders 10 years in advance... especially since the Nazis themselves only decided on their 'final solution' (systematic eradication of the Jews) at the Wannsee-Conference in 1942 (43? forget the date). Before that the Nazis themselves were undecided on what to do with the Jews, with solutions like mass resettlement to Madagascar or the newly conquered Eastern territories being discussed.
That there was widespread support for Anti-Semitism at the time isn't in doubt, though that wasn't unique to Germany, and persists with racists all over the world to this day - but it's a long, looooong step from that to mass murder!

Remember please that many among the Allies didn't believe their own intelligence about the murder camps - and never did a thing about them, either - right until they were overrun and the evidence could no longer be denied. If the enemies of the Germans couldn't believe it was true, how could you expect ordinary Germans to believe the rumours that I'm sure circulated to a certain extent?
If your Jewish neighbor and his family was transported off with a suitcase apiece, would you believe they were being sent to the slaughter, or would you believe the lie that they were being resettled in the East? How could you possibly believe they were being sent to a death camp, when such a thing had never been known before?
Even if someone had told you as much, you would rather have believed that someone was spreading allied propaganda than that it could actually be the truth... who could actually believe that civilized Germans would do such a thing?

So I find the argument that 'everyone must have known' that is often put forward unconvincing. In a totalitarian regime, with total control of all official news channels, and doing all it can to spread plausible misinformation about what they were actually doing, it's quite likely that most people didn't 'know' - some might have suspected, but even they would have hoped they were wrong.

I believe it served no military pupose whatsoever. It wasn't the factories being targeted, it was the German civilians and the city itself as well as the massive influx of refugees.

That is what we know now. In early 1945 many people were thinking bombing civilians was a military purpose. In a total war, that could make sense.

I believe it served no military pupose whatsoever. It wasn't the factories being targeted, it was the German civilians and the city itself as well as the massive influx of refugees.

You cannot justify Dresden's bombing, but on the other hand you cannot contend it was one of the worsest crimes against Humanity ever, no way.....Pol-Pot and the Khmer Rouge, Stalin, Hitler's Holocaust, Ruanda's tutsis, what Spain did to the Indians during the Conquest of the New World, Balcan's War, those are REALLY crimes against Humanity.

Dresden plays a third role in comparison no matter how wrong it was.

I don't think it's a good idea to rank war crimes or crimes against humanity by degree of evil or whatever.
That's making the same mistake the Nazi apologists make, like saying the Nazi crimes weren't all that bad because 'Stalin killed more people than the Nazis', for instance.
A crime isn't somehow less evil because others have commited crimes as well, or have committed 'worse' crimes.

Right on Dragonlord, but Dresden was committed in the context of a War as an act of retaliation as I've already pointed out numerous times. So this tarnishes it to some degree making it less of a crime and certainly not comparable to those I've already mentioned.

I'm not saying it's less of a crime because less were killed, which is true anyway. I'm saying it's less of a crime because it was a reaction to a similar thing the Germans had done shortly previously although to a much lesser extent, fair enough.

British had suffered FIRST indiscriminate bombing of their civilians by the Luftwaffe. The Germans were led to believe by Goebbels and Sky Marshall Goering that their cities couldn't be bombed by the Allies, they were proved wrong.

I believe I agreed with this earlier :) The difference I noted was the scale, British attacks were much more deliberate and on a massive level.

The subject of this thread was whether or not the attack on Dresden was justified, that IS the core discussion. For me, that means do WE feel it was justified.

Fair enough, but I reserve the right to contend that the way in which many are going about their arguments re justification are not paying any heed to the reasons it was launched, which are important. In my opinion, you cannot determine justification or otherwise from a perspective which is alien to that which the decision makers faced.

Regarding the intentions of Hitler towards the Jews: there have been, and still are, many politicians who made and make attacks on specific groups; nowadays for instance immigrants from the 3rd world come to mind. Would you suspect them all of having actual homicidal intent?

I feel it's somewhat unfair to say ordinary Germans - voters - should somehow have divined Hitlers mass murders 10 years in advance... especially since the Nazis themselves only decided on their 'final solution' (systematic eradication of the Jews) at the Wannsee-Conference in 1942 (43? forget the date). Before that the Nazis themselves were undecided on what to do with the Jews, with solutions like mass resettlement to Madagascar or the newly conquered Eastern territories being discussed.


Not my point at all. My point was voting for a man who sets out his stall to be extremely anti-semetic to the point of blaming them for every ill Germany suffered to that point is not someone I would expect rational and well informed people people to vote for. Maybe you could argue that the Germans were, by circumstance driven from rationalism towards him, however, arguing that the Holocaust was totally out of the blue when it was more of an extension (by warped logic) of what was already happening isn't very convincing. My point would be that people should not elect a man who thrives on Hatred, violence and muscle for power and so on in the first place. Moseley and others were around it's true, but to my knowledge the Facists here were very much not likely to be elected, Hitler on the other hand, with that percentage in a UK election would stand a very good chance of being elected. I never said that voting for him meant voting for the holocaust, that is your extension which does not fit my argument. I did criticise voting for him at all, because voting for such a man can only lead to problems such as dictatorial power and extreme attitudes.

If you vote for an extremist, don't be suprised if he commits one extreme action after another is all I would say. Expect the holocaust? No, but they really shouldn't have been so nieve as to expect someone who's stated aims and actions were so extreme to be anything but extreme when given power.

So I find the argument that 'everyone must have known' that is often put forward unconvincing. In a totalitarian regime, with total control of all official news channels, and doing all it can to spread plausible misinformation about what they were actually doing, it's quite likely that most people didn't 'know' - some might have suspected, but even they would have hoped they were wrong.

:lol: So do I funnily enough to some degree, which is why I never used that argument :mischief:

I don't think it's a good idea to rank war crimes or crimes against humanity by degree of evil or whatever.

No it is not wise, however it's also unwise to start comparing them or talking about them in the way Adler did is equally unwise.

Hmmm, at this thread you can see the whole problem of the world. If someone hurts me, i hurt him back. If this wasn't so bad, it's something i could lough about. OK, it's no question that the Hitler regime was one of the evils of this war period. But why have the allied killed the people who was presse down by this regime and not the regime by itself???? I say this crime was also a crime like the holocaust and the people who could not do anything against it, must pay for it. All those who legitimate this are on the same step like hitler.

Well bang goes the theory of not comparing it to the holocaust :lol:

Hmmm, at this thread you can see the whole problem of the world. If someone hurts me, i hurt him back. If this wasn't so bad, it's something i could lough about. OK, it's no question that the Hitler regime was one of the evils of this war period. But why have the allied killed the people who was presse down by this regime and not the regime by itself???? I say this crime was also a crime like the holocaust and the people who could not do anything against it, must pay for it. All those who legitimate this are on the same step like hitler.

No way.

Dresden was committed out of retaliation for Coventry. Wrong ? Yes. Not justifiable ? No to some degree.

The holocaust was sistematically and coldly designed by a bunch of military Lawyers mostly. The Holocaust took place in a wide scope of time and was specifically designed out of hatred to clense ethnically the Aryan race. British never had this in mind when bombing Dresden. They did it for many purposes (i.e. russians) but mainly 'cause of Coventry. Unlike Dresden which lasted barely a day the holocuast went on for years on. Plus i'm not going to enter in sordid detalis such as what soap's were made out of and finger nails and hairs, and pulling out golden teeth in Auschwitz's and the likes. Let's be reasonable, please.

To try to put the British at the same level of Nazis infuriates me and is a gross misinterpretation of historical facts. They made a mistake and it was a War Crime, but you cannot possibly compare it to the Holocaust under no circumstances whatsoever.

If it weren't for the Brits and the Americans we wouldn't have been saved from Hitler's clutches.

Right on Dragonlord, but Dresden was committed in the context of a War as an act of retaliation as I've already pointed out numerous times.

I don't think it was pure retaliation.

True Stapel, it was also a noticeboard for the U.S.S.R.. the same as Hiroshima and Nagasaki as I've posted in this same thread before.

Anyway on the post right above you I've posted it was done for numerous reasons but mainly for retaliation for what had hapenned previously at Coventry. Why doesn't anybody speak or write about Coventry ? That was also a massacre, come on lads, somebody please dig up the facts on that specific German air raid that wiped a great deal of innocent British civilians for no strategical purpose whatsoever.

http://www.cwn.org.uk/heritage/blitz/

And to remind a few that although Dresden was certainly the Florence or the Venice of North of Europe, Coventry was also one of the most beautiful and well-preserved medieval cities at the time as well, although to a minor extent than Dresden.

By mistake I wrote that the bombing of Coventry was shortly before Dresden's, my mistake, in fact it was five years earlier. The Brits in 1940 couldn't, yet, bombard German cities at the time as they later on did.

If i understand you right Drakan, than you say killing people is not the same as killing people? Wow, thats crazy. But i think you didn't understand me. I asked why the allies killed millions of people instead of killing the regime who has done this evils.

I don't like Nazis bombing civilians.
I don't like Brits or Americans bombing civilians either.

Dresden was awfully wrong, but, please you cannot compare it with the Holocaust Detlef Richter.

And millions weren't killed at Dresden if that is what you are implying, perhaps I've understood you wrong and you mean during the course of WWII in general...?

I believe Allies did what was right, and, yes it's inevitable to take up the toll of civilian casualties.

As I've posted before, the bombs at the time were very little precise and I believe, If I'm not mistaken, less than 10% actually hit their mark.

Besides, it wasn't as easy to kill off that regime. That's why in Germany Von Stauffenberg is widely regarded as a hero.

If i understand you right Drakan, than you say killing people is not the same as killing people? Wow, thats crazy. But i think you didn't understand me. I asked why the allies killed millions of people instead of killing the regime who has done this evils.

Assasination is a very difficult thing to pull off, especially against someone like Hitler. Attacking a regime is extremely difficult in other ways too, especially when the regime is by and large supported by the millitary, and no such things like Cruise missiles exist

Yes, i mean during the whole period of war.

You say it wasn't easy to kill the regime, i don't know only one try of the allied to do so. Our heros like Stauffenberg (and he was not the only german who tried it) was badly unlucky (he didn't payed his RNG god). Because of the regime, they hadn't any chance to organise a well sorted recondition. But at this time, the allied outside where able to do so. So, why not?? Perhaps because they are filled with hate and they only want 'retaliation', like many others at our modern times. But this is not the right way of doing. The only who have to pay are those who couldn't do anything against it.

My point would be that people should not elect a man who thrives on Hatred, violence and muscle for power and so on in the first place. .. I did criticise voting for him at all, because voting for such a man can only lead to problems such as dictatorial power and extreme attitudes..

Quite right, you'll get no argument on that from me.. ;) .. just once again to remind you that 2/3 of the German people DID NOT vote for Hitler.



:lol: So do I funnily enough to some degree, which is why I never used that argument :mischief:


I know you didn't - some of the other posters did, though.

Please don't think all I said was aimed at you, privathudson, it was some of the other posters who got my goat... :rolleyes:

To try to put the British at the same level of Nazis infuriates me and is a gross misinterpretation of historical facts. They made a mistake and it was a War Crime, but you cannot possibly compare it to the Holocaust under no circumstances whatsoever.

If it weren't for the Brits and the Americans we wouldn't have been saved from Hitler's clutches.

Please - this is exactly my point! DON'T compare them! The one has nothing at all to do with the other!

The Holocaust was a horrible crime. Full stop.

Dresden was IMO a war crime. Full stop.

Neither of the two has anything to do with the other and neither justifies the other.

Or perhaps they realised that in the case of whom may suceed Hitler, another more logical and sensible, and yet still evil man like Himmler may take control. Either way assasination is very rarely shown to work and extremely difficult. Witness the attempt against Rommel for example, and Hitler was infinitely better protected than him. Hitler was paranoid and very much trusted certain people. Getting into that circle would have been very hard. Even if it was sucessful, as I said, to take out an entire regime by just assasinating one or two people.

Retaliation is not just about hate, as I said, the Germans to some degree needed to be shown that war is something that can hurt their land, their industry, their homes as well. If you think about 2 other major wars prior to WWII which Germany took part in (WWI and Franco-Prussian) then neither had very extensive fighting over Germany itself, in both cases the dreadful effects of war on the land were visited on her enemies.

Quite right, you'll get no argument on that from me.. ;) .. just once again to remind you that 2/3 of the German people DID NOT vote for Hitler.


And I would remind you that 1/3 is not incredibly far away from enough to win a general election if the votes are in key areas, especially under a British system. Voting though is but one way to determine his level of support, which by all counts, when he was sucessful was quite a fair bit. Some of his policies were very popular, but no-one should have voted for him considering he was an extremist nutjob :mischief:

Retaliation is not just about hate, as I said, the Germans to some degree needed to be shown that war is something that can hurt their land, their industry, their homes as well. If you think about 2 other major wars prior to WWII which Germany took part in (WWI and Franco-Prussian) then neither had very extensive fighting over Germany itself, in both cases the dreadful effects of war on the land were visited on her enemies.

While true, I think this purpose could have been adequately served by 'normal' bombing of military targets - enough civilians get killed as 'collateral damage' w/o going out of one's way specifically to kill some more of them.

I agree, which is why I wouldn't have launched the raids... but I understand why they did :p

Voting though is but one way to determine his level of support, which by all counts, when he was sucessful was quite a fair bit. Some of his policies were very popular, but no-one should have voted for him considering he was an extremist nutjob :mischief:

I fully agree - though almost as many voted Communist, which wasn't much better IMHO.
True enough, he had a high level of support, even fanatical support from many. As you say, 'some of his policies' were very popular, and that probably includes his warmongering... :( ...
I don't believe that support extended to genocide, though, which is why everything that pertained to the Holocaust was kept strictly secret.

I think now i understand it too. They did it because it was the easiest way of doing.

I agree, which is why I wouldn't have launched the raids... but I understand why they did :p

So do I, as I stated earlier... :p :p

I think now i understand it too. They did it because it was the easiest way of doing.

If you wish to look at it that way :rolleyes:

Dragonlord:

I think a combination of circumstance, extremism, fear of communism, desire to restore German might and prestige and some genuine need to have a solution to the problems facing them, and a scapegoat was responsible for his support, so I can understand people being tempted, but they would have had to have either ignored his theories on race etc entirely or supported/not cared about them to have voted for him.

Dragonlord:

I think a combination of circumstance, extremism, fear of communism, desire to restore German might and prestige and some genuine need to have a solution to the problems facing them, and a scapegoat was responsible for his support, so I can understand people being tempted, but they would have had to have either ignored his theories on race etc entirely or supported/not cared about them to have voted for him.

You are of course correct - most of them did not care about those racist theories! Anti-Semitism was widespread in Germany at the time, no question about it - they were made the scapegoat for all German troubles since defeat in WWI. But that was the case in other countries as well - see Dreyfus in France, pogroms in eastern Europe, and many anti-Semites even in Britain and the US to this day!
There's no question that many Germans of the time were behind Hitler all the way in abusing Jews to some extent - but to what extent? Many Germans were shocked at the Reichskristallnacht in 1938, when Jewish businesses were trashed under the eyes of the Nazi police, which is why Himmler ordered a lower profile from then on.
My contention is simply that those who voted for Hitler weren't voting for Jewish extermination - Hitler didn't make a point of his anti-Semitism while campaigning, BTW, the focus was more on anti-Communism. How many people do you really think had read Mein Kampf at that point - which doesn't actually recommend killing all the Jews in any case, AFAIK?

The main topic of this thread is – was ‘Dresden’ justified. I mentioned above about a new book on Dresden by Frederick Taylor based on information obtained out of East Germany since the reunification. I have done a bit more digging about and he maintains the following:

(This is a big post – please, please, please read it all; it might change your whole view on Dresden!)

Taylor maintains Dresden was a legitimate military target because:-

1)It was a Nazi stronghold
On Jan. 1, 1945, unknown to the people of Dresden, their city had been secretly classified (by the Nazis) as a military strongpoint, a 'defensive' area (Verteidigungsbereich). So declared by none other than the Army Chief of Staff, General Heinz Guderian.

2)It had over 120 war machine factories making aircraft engines, bomb sights, fuses, radios and vast quantities of bullets.
As the 1942 Dresdner Jahrbuch (Dresden Yearbook) boasted: Anyone who knows Dresden only as a cultural city, with its immortal architectural monuments and unique landscape environment, would rightly be very surprised to be made aware of the extensive and versatile industrial activity, with all its varied ramifications, that make Dresden... one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich.

3)The Russians knew of its importance as a military target and requested its bombing specifically.

4)It was a communications bottleneck for moving troops from the Western to the Eastern fronts (and vice versa). It had many Wehrmacht troops in it at any one time

The importance of Dresden as a transit point for military traffic can be seen from the figures for October 1944, when the Western Allies' advance from Normandy was starting to slow down, but the fronts in the east and southeast were coming perilously close, and east-west movements of forces were heavy. A total of twenty-eight military trains, altogether carrying almost twenty thousand officers and men, were in transit through Dresden-Neustadt each day.

...After the war, an American former prisoner of war wrote:

The night before the RAF/USAAF raids on February 13.14, we were shunted into the Dresden marshaling yard, where for nearly twelve hours German troops and equipment rolled into and out of Dresden. I saw with my own eyes that Dresden was an armed camp: thousands of German troops, tanks and artillery and miles of freight cars loaded with supplies supporting and transporting German logistics towards the east to meet the Russians.


Propaganda by the Nazis
Goebbals immediately put it about that 350,000 to 400,000 people had died. Taylor has determined that the figure is much nearer 25,000 to 40,000.
This is still a lot of course but some of the reasons for this were: a)The Nazis had just moved much of the air defence east to help fight the Russians. b)Virtually no underground shelters had been built for the people (only a few for the Nazis themselves). c)The weather was, unfortunately for Dresden, ‘perfect’ at the time.

The Nazis maintained there were up to 2 million refugees in the city at the time. More bunkum – there was only ‘a few tens of thousands’ says Taylor.

And finally, for those people who insist on making out ‘Dresden’ was so much worse than anything else in the war:

It is rarely mentioned that almost exactly the same number of Soviet citizens died as a result of bombing during the Second World War as Germans: around half a million. Why are there no shelves of books emotively recalling the fate of the forty thousand human beings- many of them women and children and refugees- who died in the Luftwaffe's systematic bombing of Stalingrad, which began with a thousand-bomber raid and lasted over four days in August 1942, even before the siege had begun? Or in the bombing of Minsk, which included the central hospital? Was it morally right for eight hundred thousand Russians, again mostly civilians, to die by bombing, shelling, and starvation in the German siege of Leningrad? The conventions of war allow almost any tactic of destruction against a defended fortress town and the people within it once it has refused to surrender. But is such a thing, on such a scale, more or less moral compared with the bombing of Dresden?

In the case of extremism, they should care. I would never claim they voted for the holocaust, but they were voting for a man, and later supporting a man that they knew was anti-semetic, and what's more, they knew was a violent bully in his politics, witness the SA and the Putsch for example. I think the Germans who voted for him, whilst not condoning the holocaust, must have known that racism and extremism would be on the rise under Hitler. Posters under his reign were very racist and anti-semetic, and yet most people suggest his popularity really only fell drastically when the war turned against him, not over the racism and hatred endemic in the regime.

Oh and not many read Mein Kampf, IIRC he had to give it away to all new couples as a wedding gift to make it a best seller :lol:

Which in a way is part of the problem, the Germans were ignorant of what aims Hitler did have for a long time, and when it became obvious, they probably persuaded themselves to not pay as much attention to it as other aspects of his policies. Of course they would not suspect holocaust from Mein Kampf, but I suspect that many were not absolutely against discrimination and the like whilst Hitler's other ideas kept them happy.

Naturally that's not so different from any other electorate to be fair, ignorant of the true aims of a party and willing to ignore some aspects of a party if they'll do good for them....

I guess people are just fickle, but in Germany's case that fickle nature backfired in a massive way :(

In the case of extremism, they [b]should [b] care. I would never claim they voted for the holocaust, but they were voting for a man, and later supporting a man that they knew was anti-semetic, and what's more, they knew was a violent bully in his politics, witness the SA and the Putsch for example. I think the Germans who voted for him, whilst not condoning the holocaust, must have known that racism and extremism would be on the rise under Hitler. Posters under his reign were very racist and anti-semetic, and yet most people suggest his popularity really only fell drastically when the war turned against him, not over the racism and hatred endemic in the regime.

Oh and not many read Mein Kampf, IIRC he had to give it away to all new couples as a wedding gift to make it a best seller :lol:

Which in a way is part of the problem, the Germans were ignorant of what aims Hitler did have for a long time, and when it became obvious, they probably persuaded themselves to not pay as much attention to it as other aspects of his policies. Of course they would not suspect holocaust from Mein Kampf, but I suspect that many were not absolutely against discrimination and the like whilst Hitler's other ideas kept them happy.

Naturally that's not so different from any other electorate to be fair, ignorant of the true aims of a party and willing to ignore some aspects of a party if they'll do good for them....

I guess people are just fickle, but in Germany's case that fickle nature backfired in a massive way :(

I agree with every word of the above, well put! :goodjob:

@ Mega Tsunami

If those facts are correct, they are certainly a powerful argument that a bombing of Dresden may have been militarily justified.

Who is Frederick Taylor? What are his sources?

I'm willing to keep an open mind when faced with new facts - these seem to be directly opposed to those quotes by Boleslav, though.

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.

No, we bombed military/political sites...they could do that in kind. Now do you get me? Once total war status is reached, only then are civilians purposefully bombed (and only after the enemy strikes first).

@ Mega Tsunami

If those facts are correct, they are certainly a powerful argument that a bombing of Dresden may have been militarily justified.

Who is Frederick Taylor? What are his sources?

I'm willing to keep an open mind when faced with new facts - these seem to be directly opposed to those quotes by Boleslav, though.

This is the Guardian review of the book:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,6121,1142632,00.html

As regards Churchill’s quotes by Boleslav, I presume Churchill was reacting to the Nazi propaganda regarding the attack on Dresden just like the rest of us.

I find it hard to believe the average German knew nothing about the holocaust or the atrocities of the Wehrmacht in the east. All those German refugees were fleeing the Red Army. From all contemporary accounts they at least suspected what was going on. It also doesn't take much to classify a city as a military target. If nothing else it was a transport hub which would make it a legitimate target IMHO.

I find it hard to believe the average German knew nothing about the holocaust or the atrocities of the Wehrmacht in the east. All those German refugees were fleeing the Red Army. From all contemporary accounts they at least suspected what was going on. It also doesn't take much to classify a city as a military target. If nothing else it was a transport hub which would make it a legitimate target IMHO.

Exactly! Thus total war/bombing of civilian centers makes sense, because these areas also contribute to the war effort.

My take on Dresden is - it happened. I'm not proud that it happened.

However, it did teach important lessons - like not bombing Allied cities and don't build houses out of wood. Oh yeah, cramming refugees into potential bomb targets is also a really bad idea...

... the biggest legacy is that most modern tactical weaponry is high precision guided. Things like Daisy cutters and cluster bombs are outside this catergory though.

Some quotes from the USAF Historical Division's report on the Dresden bombing.

(1) on the refugee population
In addition to its normal population, the city had experienced a heavy influx of refugees from the east and of evacuees from bombings in other areas, particularly from Berlin.

(2) on the deathcount
Most of the latest German post-war estimates are that about 25,000 persons were killed and about 30,000 were wounded, virtually all of these being casualties from the RAF incendiary attack of 13/14 February.

(3) on theAllied use of force
The forces and means employed by the RAF in the area bombing of Dresden were significantly large.

(4) on the amount of damage done to property. Note the percentage of damage done to industry vs people's homes.
23 per cent of the city’s industrial buildings were seriously damaged and 56 per cent of the non-industrial buildings had been heavily damaged. 80 per cent of domestic buildings were heavily damaged.

(5) the damage to one of the most beautiful cities in Europe
85 per cent of the fully built-up city area was destroyed

(6) in conclusion...
Large-scale bombing was almost certainly a major contribution to the final weakening of the will of the German people to resist…the Americans, happily, cannot and would not claim credit for this aspect of the Dresden bombings.

Please - this is exactly my point! DON'T compare them! The one has nothing at all to do with the other!

The Holocaust was a horrible crime. Full stop.

Dresden was IMO a war crime. Full stop.

Neither of the two has anything to do with the other and neither justifies the other.

Agreed. :goodjob:

Russia was the country that suffered most heavily in the number of casualties in WWII whether they were civilian or military. That's why knowing what they had done, the German Wehrmacht would rather surrender to Allied Forces deployed than to the Russians who doubtless would torture them.

But still, I recall reading how the Russians shelled their very own troops in marshes just as long as they also hit the German soldiers trapped and outflanked...

OFF-TOPIC: I've always wondered why Hitler didn't crush the British at Dunquerque. Perhaps he had the hope that his fellow saxon brothers would sue for peace and leave Europe to him. How little did he know the Brits then....

First of all I compared a crime, the Holocaust, with another crime, Dresden in particular, while also meaning the bombing war. I should keep Dresden and will not discuss the other bombings (Hamburg, Berlin, Königsberg,...). I made the mistake not to be more precise. Of course the Holocaust was worse. Full stop. But the penalty for both crimes is the same. If you kill 100 Jews as a Nazi you deserve the worst penalty as well as you kill 2 Germans as revenge and terror.
Secondly, even if Dresden had so much industry, which might be possible, the time of the attack and the execution of the attack are remarkeable: The Allies were deep in Germany and the city full of refugees. They felt safe cause no bomber attacked it. Like Heidelberg it seemed to be safe. If it was so important why was it no attacked earlier? Within the bombing campaign it was possible. Why now? Why attacking small town and villages to spread up so much terror that there were more refugees? Why was the whole city target? No, the only logical consequence is it was done due revenge and terror and to show the Russians the ability of the RAF and USAAF. So it was attacked only to spread terror and was so a crime.
Third. Hitler got much support in contrast to his racism. He had to hide it. Was it wrong to elect someone like him? Yes. To a certain degree the Germans didn´t care about the Jews and the reprisals. Even most Jews thought it would only be a small phase of repression. No one could imagine the Holocaust. I repead: it was a huge mistake to oversee Hitler´s racism. But the Holocaust?
It is doubted that there must have been hints. The Germans must have known about the Holocaust. You´re right. There were hints and some Germans knew about this. But not the ordianary Otto Schmidt from the neighbourhood. I read about a man in the Spiegel magazine, who heard the only BBC report about death camps. He was against Hitler, but THAT? He thought about propaganda and so thought it was a lie like the bayonetting of babies in Fladres in ww1. Typical Brits, he thought. But unlike others, too many, he made researches. He needed over a year to have the proof! So most Germans didn´t know about that.
A crime (Holocaust) can never even excuse another crime (Dresden). Since there was in that time only one penalty for both, you can not do more than kill a person, the ones who were responsible should have hung.

Adler

first point: agreed
second point: agreed but the U.S.A.F. weren't involved, only the R.A.F. (if I'm not mistaken)
third: agreed. I doubt the majority of Germans knew about it. Men and officers such as Von Stauffenberg and the other 100 high-ranking officers (Rommel also, hmmm?...) saved, at least for me, somewhat the honour of Germany and the German Army as a whole for what they did, IMHO.

@adler

First – What has the ‘penalty’ got to do with it. Comparing the Holocaust to Dresden is like comparing a slap on the wrist to a bullet in the head. You should not even mention the two in the same sentence.

Second – You clearly did not read my previous post. Dresden was not ‘full of refugees’. This is Nazi propaganda you choose to believe.

Third – There’s none so deaf as those who do not wish to hear.

Dresden was not so much a crime, but a well intentioned bombing run against a military target “that went terribly right”. (as Taylor said)
And Dresden was as nothing compared to Stalingrad and Lenningrad.

Some quotes from the USAF Historical Division's report on the Dresden bombing.
A few corrections needed here:

(3) on theAllied use of force
The forces and means employed by the RAF in the area bombing of Dresden were significantly large.
Should read:
The forces and means employed by the RAF in the area bombing of Dresden were significantly, but not unduly large: 722 heavy bombers dropped 1477.7 tons of high explosives and 1181.6 tons of incendiaries, a total weight of 2659.3 tons. In its sustained area raids on Hamburg in 1943, the RAF had used comparable numbers of aircraft in single raids; for example, 740 heavy bombers on 24/25 July, 739 on 28/29 July, and 726 on 29/30 July. In other area raids, the British had dispatched such tonnages as 11,773 tons of high explosive and 4,106 tons of incendiaries against Cologne on 9 October 1944, 4,368 tons of high explosives and 3,846 tons of incendiaries against Hamburg on 7 August 1943, and 3,476 tons of high explosives and 3,814 tons of incendiaries against Frankfurt-am-Main on 24 March 1944.

(4) on the amount of damage done to property. Note the percentage of damage done to industry vs people's homes.
23 per cent of the city’s industrial buildings were seriously damaged and 56 per cent of the non-industrial buildings had been heavily damaged. 80 per cent of domestic buildings were heavily damaged.
Correction:
Later British assessments, which were more conservative, concluded that 23 per cent of the city’s industrial buildings were seriously damaged and that 56 per cent of the non-industrial buildings (exclusive of dwellings) had been heavily damaged. Of the total number of dwelling units in the city proper, 78,000 were regarded as demolished, 27,700 temporarily uninhabitable but ultimately repairable, and 64,500 readily repairable from minor damage. This later assessment indicated that 80 per cent of the city’s housing units had undergone some degree of damage and that 50 per cent of the dwellings had been demolished or seriously damaged.

(6) in conclusion...
Large-scale bombing was almost certainly a major contribution to the final weakening of the will of the German people to resist…the Americans, happily, cannot and would not claim credit for this aspect of the Dresden bombings.
Taken from this passage, but not the report's conclusion:

The major significance of the Dresden bombings lay in the fact that they were among several immediate and highly successful air actions made in response to the specific Russian request, given by General Antonov at the ARGONAUT Conference, less than two weeks earlier, for Allied air support of the Russian offensive on the Eastern Front. Had the German communications centers leading to that front--among which Dresden was uniquely important--act been successfully attacked by Allied strategic air forces, there can be little doubt that the course of the European war might have been considerably prolonged. At the time of the Dresden bombings, Marshal Koniev’s armies were less than seventy miles east of Dresden and by virtue of their extended positions highly vulnerable to German counterattack, provided the Germans could pass reinforcements through Dresden. With communications through Dresden made impossible as a consequence of the Allied bombings, the Russian salient in that area was rendered safe throughout the ensuing months of the war.
Of secondary significance, but by no means negligible, was the destruction or disruption of Dresden’s manufacturing activities, particularly of military goods, and the further reduction of Germany’s critically short railway rolling stock and operating facilities. Again, the death and destruction inflicted on the largest German city that had not before undergone large-scale bombing was almost certainly a major contribution to the final weakening of the will of the German people to resist. While the Americans, happily, cannot and would not claim credit for this aspect of the Dresden bombings, the fact remains that the RAF area raid on the city was the last of the instances during World War II in Europe when the shock effects of area bombing resulted in nearly total demoralization of a great enemy city.

The actual conclusion reads:
The foregoing historical analysis establishes the following definitive answers to the recurring questions concerning the February 1945 bombings of Dresden by Allied strategic air forces: a. Dresden was a legitimate military target. b. Strategic objectives, of mutual importance to the Allies and the Russians, underlay the bombings of Dresden. c. The Russians requested that the Dresden area be bombed by Allied air forces. d. The Supreme Allied Commander, his Deputy Supreme Commander, and the key British and American operational air authorities recommended and ordered the bombing of Dresden. e. The Russians were officially informed by the Allies concerning the intended date of and the forces to be committed to the bombing of Dresden. f. The RAF Bomber Command employed 772 heavy bombers, 1477.7 tons of high explosive and 1181.6 tons of incendiary bombs, and American Eighth Air Force employed a total of 527 heavy bombers, 953.3 tons of high explosive and 294.3 tons of incendiary bombs, in the 14-15 February bombings of Dresden. g. The specific target objectives in the Dresden bombings were, for the RAF Bomber Command, the Dresden city area, including industrial plants, communications, military installations, and for the American Eighth Air Force, the Dresden Marshalling Yards and railway facilities. h. The immediate and actual consequences of the Dresden bombings were destruction or severe damage to at least 23 per cent of the city’s industrial buildings; severe damage to at least 56 per cent of the city’s non-industrial buildings (exclusive of dwellings); destruction or severe damage to at least 50 percent of the residential units in the city’s non-industrial buildings (exclusive of dwellings); destruction or severe damage to at least 50 percent of the residential units in the city, and at least some damage to 80 per cent of the city’s dwellings; the total disruption of the city as a major communications center, in consequence of destruction and damage inflicted on its railway facilities; and death to probably 25,000 persons and serious injury to probably 30,000 others, virtually all of these casualties being the result of the RAF area raid. i. The Dresden bombings were in no way a deviation from established bombing policies set forth in official bombing directives. j. The specific forces and means employed in the Dresden bombings were in keeping with the forces and means employed by the Allies in other aerial attacks on comparable targets in Germany. k. The Dresden bombings achieved the strategic objectives that underlay the attack and were of mutual importance to the Allies and the Russians.

The report says that 80 per cent of the cities dwellings were damaged. That's as compared to 25 per cent of the industry in the city. Doesn't seem to me like industry was the main target from those statistics.

The USAF report does make very interesting reading overall. (Spelling mistakes aside) It is very much arguing that Dresden wasn't the fault of the USAF because (a) Stalin asked them to bomb it and (b) it was the Brits that did the bombing anyway. As was pointed out earlier in this thread, no one wants to admit culpability in case they are required to pay compensation.

Comparing the Holocaust to Dresden is like comparing a slap on the wrist to a bullet in the head.
Wrong. It is like comparing a "common" murderer with a serial rapist and murderer that was after little children for decades.

But the point is that the one thing already deserves the maximum punishment and contempt. Things like that don't get better if someone else does something even worse.

Edit: Decided this comment was best left unsaid lest it upset someone

The historian RHS Crossman, worked in the UK Foreign Office as Director of Psychological Warfare against Germany. He also worked during the war for Eisenhower and after the war stood for parliament in Coventry. Therefore he is a firsthand source on the thought process behind the Allied bombing of Dresden. He was at the meetings, he was in the loop. Here are some quotes from an article he wrote in Esquire Magazine, November 1963:

(1) Damage to people's homes
Out of 28,410 houses in the inner city of Dresden, 24,866 were destroyed.
- similiar to the USAF's 80 per cent figure.

(2) Dresden's defenses
All its flak batteries had been removed for use on the Eastern front; and the Dresden authorities had taken none of the precautions, either in the strengthening of air-raid shelters, or in the provision of concrete bunkers that had so startlingly reduced casualties in other German cities subjected to Allied attack.

(3) the plan
Air Marshal Harris decided to achieve this by a deliberately created fire storm, and to increase the effect he persuaded the Americans to split the available bombers into three groups. The task of the first wave was to create the fire storm. Three hours later, a second and much heavier night force of British bombers was timed to arrive when the German fighter and flak defenses would be off guard, and the rescue squads on their way. Its task was to spread the fire storm. Finally, the next morning, a daylight attack by the Eighth Air Force was to concentrate on the outlying areas, the new city.

(4) The premeditated nature of the Allied bombardment
Without exaggeration, the commanders could claim that the Dresden raid had "gone according to plan." Everything which happened in the stricken city had been foreseen and planned with meticulous care.

(5) Why Dresdeners thought they were safe
In the last year of the war, Dresden had become a hospital city, with many of its schools converted into temporary wards. Of its nineteen hospitals, sixteen were badly damaged and three, including the main maternity clinic, totally destroyed.

Dresden, as was known very well in London and Washington, was not only a hospital city but a prisoner-of-war city -- still another reason why the authorities assumed it would not be attacked.

(6) On the claim that it was the Soviets who called for the bombing
In order to stop awkward questions, General George C. Marshall then gave a public assurance that the bombing on Dresden had taken place at Russian request. Although no evidence was produced either then or since for the truth of this statement, it was accepted uncritically and has since found its way into a number of official American histories.

(7) His judgement
The British Cabinet, having secretly decided to sanction indiscriminate terror bombing, concealed this decision from the British public and therefore compelled Bomber Command to operate under cover of a sustained and deliberate lie.

The report says that 80 per cent of the cities dwellings were damaged. That's as compared to 25 per cent of the industry in the city. Doesn't seem to me like industry was the main target from those statistics.

The USAF report does make very interesting reading overall. (Spelling mistakes aside) It is very much arguing that Dresden wasn't the fault of the USAF because (a) Stalin asked them to bomb it and (b) it was the Brits that did the bombing anyway. As was pointed out earlier in this thread, no one wants to admit culpability in case they are required to pay compensation.
You quoted the report as having said 80% of dwellings heavily damaged, which was, you'll admit, an error.

While the RAF would have prefered to hit military/industrial targets they didn't really have the ability to - early in the war bombers would be lucky to hit the correct city, let alone a particular factory. As a night bombing force, area bombing was about all they could manage.

The report was written long before compensation issues became important I believe, I think that the reason the US was so careful to avoid heavy civilian casualties in Europe was really a domestic issue, due to the large number of US citizens of German decent. They used area bombing in Japan well enough.

...Indeed, the German authorities were probably correct who, a few days after the attack, put the total somewhere between 120,000 and 150,000.
I think that's all that needs to be said about the accuracy of Crossman's article.

It's true that Crossman is vehemently opposed to any justification for bombing Dresden, but in terms of his understanding of the death toll, he was no more wrong than everyone else at the time, including Churchill. It took time to arrive at the figures we have today.

I intentionally decided not to post his more sensationalist opinions. As I've said, he was personally involved in planning the Allied war effort and I believe it's telling how horrified and disgusted he was concerning Dresden.

Wrong. It is like comparing a "common" murderer with a serial rapist and murderer that was after little children for decades.


Wrong. Dresden was not murder. This was total war and Dresden was a legitimate military target. Don’t get me wrong, it was terrible carnage, but it was a legitimate bombing run (designed to help bring an end to the war) that “went terribly right”.
Did you not read my previous posts?

Mega Tsunami, I don´t know Taylor. I can´t say whether he is a good historician or something else. His article seems to be (IMO) not the historically acurate one. Indeed there were "only" 40.000 casualities (biggest figure), instead of 200.000 or so. Indeed Goebbels made propaganda of this. Indeed it might have any military value. But the city was one of the biggest Jewels of European architecture, full of things which are now in the UN heritage lists. Dresden was never bombed before. And there WERE thousands of refugees in the city. My grandma drove from Silesia back to Hamburg half a year earlier and even then there were refugees. Also the FlaK was at the eastern front. The city didn´t expect an attack. There were 500.000 inhabitants and 600.000 refugees. Even if it had any significant military value an attack because of this circumstances had to be stopped. These figures were also at least roughly known at the British bomber command. Also attacking with three waves to make a firestorm to destroy the whole city is not made to destroy the military targets but the whole city. Here are some good pictures of Dresden 1945: http://www.brigittewiechmann.de/kalender/februar2/13feb.html
http://www.dhm.de/lemo/objekte/pict/ba005532/
http://www.dresden-bilder.de/dd/zerstoerung.html
Dresden was a war crime. Of course the Holocaust was worse. Again full stop. You can´t compare them directly I agree but what about the penalties? Murder is murder, even when the worse has more guilty, there is only one penalty. In Germany the penalty of murder was the death in 1945. The delinquent was beheaded. In Britain and the US the penalty was the death. You was hung or got toasted. In each way you was dead. Perhaps we can discuss which way of execution should be for the certain crimes (sarcasm).
Dresden IS a war crime and also a crime against humanity IMO. It is not excuseable or even justifiable.

Adler

@adler. Let’s agree to differ. You prefer to believe Nazi and Russian propagandists, I prefer to believe a current historian.

A historian I might add who has only been able to get at certain information since the fall of the iron curtain.

You can think what you like, it’s a free country, as we say, due in part to the bombing of places like Dresden.

Why is it that the loser's story is always propaganda and the winners is always the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and if you don't believe it that your either an idiot, or a Nazi sympathizer...or just plain nazi?

I have read much about the bomb war and my sources are eldeder and new! I doubt in your source. I doubt in Taylor. I do not know him but he seems to justify something which isn´t justifiable.

Adler

Why is it that the loser's story is always propaganda and the winners is always the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and if you don't believe it that your either an idiot, or a Nazi sympathizer...or just plain nazi?

A bit ironic, but the ‘winners’ in Dresden itself was the Russians (Dresden being in East Germany). They continued the Nazi propaganda after the war, showing how evil the Allies were. It is only recently that the truth has come out.
We therefore had to put up with the ‘loser’s propaganda’ for 50+ years. (Or was that the 'winner's propaganda' :) )

Taylor's remarks are accurate enough, the problem Adler has with them is simply that they do not fit within his narrow view of what a viable target was, or his narrow view of what the enemy where. This and his "moral" stand against such actions are bound to influence his reading of such an article.

As for Dresden being a beautiful city, so was a lot of places in europe, so was Leningrad, so was a lot of England, this is what happens in war, if we're using cultural arguments to prevent bombing, no bombing would ever occur anywhere....

Dresden albeit used as propaganda wasn´t propaganda. It was a terrible fact. All who try to explain Dresden as lone propaganda come close to Holocaust deniers. Be careful with them.

Adler

It's a horrible fact, but the reasons behind the decisions, the effects and the way it's portrayed are open to propaganda as much as anything else...

Indeed the reasons behind them. I agree in this point, but not more. First why it was bombed? Taylor sais it was a military target. Okay one wave of bombers. It is questionable why it was not bombed earlier, another hint for a terror bombing, but let it be so. This wave should be enough. But then 3 (THREE) waves of bombers? The first to make a firestorm, the second to make it an inferno and the third to bomb the rest? Three waves were way too much. Also the bomber pilots got the whole city as target, and not special areas. There are also very strong hints that it was bombed for terror.
Now to the other side of the medal. Why could it be a normal target? There was a big railway station and so many troops en route to the front. There was industry. But that´s all. No more facts which could claim Dresden as legitimate target. And they are only small hints in the way.
This isn´t propaganda. I admit the figures of the death toll were propaganda. But not the rest.

Adler

@Adler It was a truly terrible thing to do, but was necessary – a necessary evil if you prefer those words. Taylor says this. He just tries to say it was not as terrible as the Nazis tried to make out.

You complain about the three waves of bombers etc. –Looking at it from a 21st Century point of view it is unacceptable. But this was total war in a very different age and the ‘rules’ were different then.

What Taylor tries to say is that no matter how bad Dresden was (and it was bad) it was nothing like as bad as the Holocaust, Stalingrad, Lenningrad and so many other things the Nazis did. People exaggerating Dresden are misguided. – trying to say the allies were as bad as the Nazis.

As I mentioned before three waves were UNNECCESSARY. They were only sent to DESTROY Dresden and not som target in Dresden but the whole city. Also Dresden can´t be compared or even justified with the Holocaust. Also nobody said, the western allies were as bad as the Nazis. However they also commited war crimes. And you can believe it or not Dresden was one of the worst.

Adler

Adler you should read speers ideas on total war.

Yes dresden was a war-crime
committing 12yr old boys into battle is also a war-crime
Starfing civilians in belgium to sow terror, jamming the roads in order to slow the allied advance is also a war-crime.
targeting neutral merchantmen
Bombing railways and trains

and so the list goes on and on.

As speer said wether it was food stuffs or luxvury goods it all help the war effet. Thats what TOTAL WAR is. WAR itself is a crime

FriendlyFire, I don't think attacking "neutral" vessels is a war crime when they are supply your enemy right under your nose. Attacking railway lines is also legit in my books. Attacking trains with big white crosses on them isn't.

We speak about Dresden! And many of the things you mentioned, firendly fire, is done by the allies, too. I know examples. But indeed we speak about Dresden and nothing else.

Adler

He speaks about them to try to get you to further understand the climate of the times, and by extension the reasons for the raid.

Maybe I am repeating myself here, but Dresden was so terrible because:
1. The weather over Dresden was perfect for bombing (blame God not the Allies)
2. There were no AA guns – they had been sent to Berlin (blame the Nazis not the Allies)
3. There were no underground shelters (blame the Nazis not the Allies)
4. The sirens did not work properly (blame the Nazis not the Allies)

OK, in hindsight they sent too big a stick, not expecting it all to get through. It did get through and there were terrible results. This does not make it inherently wrong. Bombing Dresden was (in total war terms) the right thing to do.
The RAF flew the whole way in 100% cloud (nil visibility). Were they all expected to find their target? Did they expect Dresden itself not to be in cloud and thus an easy target?

The following is a terrible, but true thing to say – The people killed could no longer work on the armaments factories, thereby helping to bring the war to an earlier end (in theory at least).
Taylor maintains “most Dresdeners were employed on war work or in armaments factories”.
Is it fair to bomb people who work in war factories? By today’s standards, no, but 5 years into a total war…….

(Remember, Taylor also maintains there were not that many refugees in the city at any one time – most were moved out as soon as they arrived.)

It's said in many sources that there were up to 300,000 refugees in the city at the time. I can understand both sides to the war, and as much as I think the German's knew they would be made to pay for the Blitz and Holocaust, it is still a war crime, even though there are many others.

@General Brown. These figures are now disputed. Dresden was not a refugee centre, but refugess did pass through the city.

I just found this – a bit poignant I think:


Taylor has written a thickly layered history of Dresden before, during and after Feb. 13-14, 1945. He even brings to light an irony others overlooked. Dresden was settled in the Dark Ages by invaders from northwestern Germany -- Saxons. Another group from the same tribe, at about the same time, gained a toehold in eastern England -- in exactly the area from which the bombers took off.

It's true that Crossman is vehemently opposed to any justification for bombing Dresden, but in terms of his understanding of the death toll, he was no more wrong than everyone else at the time, including Churchill. It took time to arrive at the figures we have today.

I intentionally decided not to post his more sensationalist opinions. As I've said, he was personally involved in planning the Allied war effort and I believe it's telling how horrified and disgusted he was concerning Dresden.

During the war, even Churchill was horrified at the thought that the death toll might be as high as the Germans had claimed, if Crossman's article was written in 1945 it would be entirely understandable, but it wasn't written until 1963 when much more accurate figures were available. This kind of damages Crossmans credibility. (1963, coincidently, was the year that David Irving's book on Dresden was published, which claims that far more people were killed in the raid)

@Adler: The American target at Dresden was the railway station.

Had a look at the links you posted Adler. Although perhaps not justified I don't know if you could call Dresden a war crime. By your arguement by focusing on Dresden alone we're to ignore some of the other influences that rightly or wrongly lead to the bombing of Dresden (Blitz 1940, various atrocities ie malmedy, V1, V2 etc) at the time and withen the context of total war.

The pictures although sad are just another ruin in WW2 joining a long list of cities- Stalingrad, Berlin, etc. I doubt the bombing of Dresden shortened the war by a single day though and at the time it was done it was obvious Germany was on the verge of defeat. It was a revenge/terror raid made for the wrong reasons perhaps but to call it a war crime you are indirectly comparing it to the Holocaust. Besides at Nuremburg didn't Doenitz get a lighter sentence than he could have because his lawyer pointed out the Kreigsmarine used the same tactics as the Allies? Over here we did get taught about the Allied war crimes as well (German POW's being shot).

We are discussing on another thread the Holocaust deniers. Privatehudson made a very good article there. Nevertheless are here some others who think like me that these deniers are wrong, but don´t hear on facts. Some of these do the very same here, what they attacked on the other thread: Trying to deny a war crime although the FACTS are there. Of course they doubts these facts. And albeit some of them were at first exaggerated, most of them aren´t. You can find excusions for everything happened. But that´s not enough. They must be reasonable. And in Dresden you can´t give any.
So Dresden was a warcrime.
Nevertheless because I doubt I can change the wrong point of view of the others I do sincerly regret that I have to stop now arguing at this thread. It seems to be like fighting against wind mills.
So I finish this discussion how I started here to discuss:

DRESDEN WAS A WAR CRIME!

Adler

DRESDEN WAS A WAR CRIME!


of course it was.

What about the bombing of the major railway marshelling yards at paris (?) prior to d-day ?. The allies knowing it was a civilian target non-the less bombed it causing an estimated 10,000 French dead. They had estimated the dead to be at least 25,000 - 70,000 and took the decision to bomb it anyway. Would u consider this a war crime ?

I'll make my point one more time.
Look today we accept the convention of no first used for nuclear weapons. Should an enemy decide for whatever reason to use nuclear weapons and we retaliate in kind. I would find it hard once an enemy starts using nukes as an option for anyone to hold onto restraint and not used this avenue to retaliate. Of course this would lead to a uncontrollable cycle of escalation.

For five unbroken years there had been an unrelenting bombing campaign across all fronts. By this time Bombing of cities had been accepted as part of total war.

There are no rules in war, and especially no rules when fighting those who brough thte war to the face of the Earth.

Dresden was completely justified. The Germans were lucky we didn't decide to destroy their entire civilization and never accept their surrender.

But Adler, you are the denier. You refuse to listen to new information, to understand what was going on in the war etc. You have been brought up on Nazi propaganda and deny the fact that they might be wrong.

Dresden was a legitimate military target.

Let me ask you a few questions, Adler – my mother was a nurse in Newcastle in the war. She was bombed by German bombers. Was that a war crime? My father was a soldier and gunner in Dunkirk, North Africa and Italy. He undoubtedly killed some Germans. Was that a war crime? Where do you stop? Should my father (at 86) be tried for war crimes too? He did not choose to go to war, the Nazis did that!

Okay, I will answer for the very last time now. Your father is not a criminal (unless he shot captured Germans or did other things). The fightings at the front are never war crimes. The next is bombing civilians. It is only excused if they are collateral damage. I think there we all agree. The very next point is the bombings of civilians as main target. THIS IS A WAR CRIME. Dresden and most other German cities were bombed because of destroying the German population. That was a war crime. Harris himself said, without Esssen, all cities were bombed to terrorize the population. The industrial targets were only sweets. According to your argumentation, it was total war, all German crimes, except perhaps the Holocaust, were no crimes. It was total war. So Lidice, the shootings on civilians, and so on. All justified.
I said it before, YOU are the denier. YOUR "facts" seems to be near the same level of facts Holocaust deniers bring.
My grandmother was nearly shot by a British pilot when cycling on an open road. He could see that there was driving a young girl, but he shot. Or the school train from Trittau to Ahrensburg in Schleswig- Holstein- bombed. Although it was known that there were mostly pupils in it! The bombing of German hospital ships. And Dresden. The bombing of Dresden was only to terrorize the German population, and even if we assume that it was a legitimate target, with the hundreds of thousands refugees an attack had to be stopped because of humanity reasons.
I know you will find now some "facts" to legitimate that, but you do with that the very same as the Holocaust deniers. Fighting against Hitler doesn´t justify warcrimes.
Ceterum censeo Dresden scelus erat.

Adler

@Alder
There was also the sinking of that german refugee ship late in the war. Over 13,000 civilians died on a clearly marked non-military ship.

The next is bombing civilians. It is only excused if they are collateral damage. I think there we all agree. The very next point is the bombings of civilians as main target. THIS IS A WAR CRIME.

Actually, I think you will find that some people do not agree with this analysis :mischief: Don't let that worry you though :sad:

According to your argumentation, it was total war, all German crimes, except perhaps the Holocaust, were no crimes. It was total war. So Lidice, the shootings on civilians, and so on. All justified.

Shooting civilians with no intention of ending the war sooner is a ridiculous comparison to the RAF's performances overall in WWII. :rolleyes:

and even if we assume that it was a legitimate target, with the hundreds of thousands refugees an attack had to be stopped because of humanity reasons.

I think that the true number of civilians/refugees is still undecided, as is the number of casualties the raids caused. Either way it would be impossible to have a sensible bombing campaign if you had to stop it every time refugees were present. :mischief:

I know you will find now some "facts" to legitimate that, but you do with that the very same as the Holocaust deniers

Why don't you look at the book, or even the facts with an open mind for a change rather than dismiss them because they happen to contradict your opinion... however, I strongly suspect that you would close your mind to them anyway because you have already made your mind up on this subject. This has never been a discussion, but a repetition of your set in stone stance. Denouncing it with emotional arguments because it happens to not agree with your opinion is just silly :rolleyes:

@Alder
There was also the sinking of that german refugee ship late in the war. Over 13,000 civilians died on a clearly marked non-military ship.

No that figure is wrong

The ships name is question "Wilhelm Gustloff"
It was jammed to the decks with refugees fleeing from the Russians and was sunk by a Russian submarine "Soviet sub S-13". Estimates of the dead are 5000-7000. making the incident the largest single naval disaster in history. (5 times more then the Titanic). She went down on the 18th Feb 1945
This ship a civilian liner also mounted a pair of Quadriple AAA guns. Fair enough considering the Russians were butchering refugees/civilians without pause in revenge. Soviet aircarft carried out the most indescribable slaughter.


The "Wilhelm Gustloff" was also the barracks for the 2nd u-boat training division. "918 officers NCOs and men of the 2.Unterseeboot-Lehrdivision, 373 female naval auxiliary helpers, 173 naval armed forces auxiliaries, and 162 heavily wounded soldiers"

Many allied seamens lives were saved since it sent to the sea the skill and trainned u-boat personal who would have been sent into action.



http://www.feldgrau.com/wilhelmgustloff.html
http://www.helikon.dk/frame.cfm/cms/id=442/sprog=1/grp=6/menu=1/

Actually, I think the boat in question here was the "Cap Arcona", which was sunk by British planes.

Incidentally, I was under the impression that more died on the "Goya" than the "Wilhelm Gustloff"

Incidentally, I was under the impression that more died on the "Goya" than the "Wilhelm Gustloff"
That is true. The "Goya" sinking has until now the highest death toll in seafaring history.

Both she and the "Gustloff" were sunk by Soviet submarines.

The "Cap Arcona" was sunk along with several other ships by allied planes in May 1945, killing thousands of concentration camp inmates on bord.

I think the 13000 death toll on the boats was a total for the above mentioned ships, not per boat.

Also all the mentioned ships were full of German refugees and to international law protected (the Germans didn´t attack these ships or even helped them when this happened accidentally (see Laconia)). So also this is a very good example of allied war crimes. But since there are some here who say it is okay to do if the own side does it and try to justify that with so good arguments that some of the pessengers were soldiers. Perfect. Then even the sinking of German hospital ships is justified. With such a behaviour one side looses many of the big morale advantage it had in the war. I did not mention the sinking of the Goya and other ships because it was a Soviet warcrime. But it is remarkeable that there are some guys here who try to justify even that.

Adler

I don't recall anyone justifying those events, only Dresden, which is another matter entirely :rolleyes:

2 questions:

(1) Why on earth, in a thread about whether or not the Dresden bombing was justified, are people arguing over Lidice and the Wilhelm Gustloff?

(2) Taylor claims Dresden had 120+ war machine factories. Assuming this is true, and also assuming the statistics from the USAF Historical Report are true, and bearing in mind we know the bombing was planned well in advance and was executed on a night with perfect bombing visibility... how come only 25per cent of factories were damaged relative to 80per cent of homes?

The next is bombing civilians. It is only excused if they are collateral damage. I think there we all agree.

You think wrong. In war, civilians are legitimate targets, as they provide the bread for the soldiers, work in the tank factories, and send their sons off to war.

In the case of WWII, they were the ones who cheered for empire, revenge, and war.

No Kafka's right. I got the Gustloff and the Cap mixed up(I watched a program on both of them at like 6am several months ago)

And I was just bring this up as another example of allied war crimes so we have something to compare it too

It's a war. THere is nothing "wrong" with bombing an enemy city. So what if it had very little strategic value? It was important to make the GErmans lsoe their will to fight.

2 questions:

(1) Why on earth, in a thread about whether or not the Dresden bombing was justified, are people arguing over Lidice and the Wilhelm Gustloff?

(2) Taylor claims Dresden had 120+ war machine factories. Assuming this is true, and also assuming the statistics from the USAF Historical Report are true, and bearing in mind we know the bombing was planned well in advance and was executed on a night with perfect bombing visibility... how come only 25per cent of factories were damaged relative to 80per cent of homes?

At a rough (though weak) geuss, it's harder to hit specific buildings in massed bombing raids, and if part of the main aim of the raid was to generally target the city in order to attack the likes of the large military presence it would increase that problem. It would also depend on the layout of these factories, for example if they were in one "district" or zone, or spread out throughout the city. If the latter, the chances of hitting them would be even lower.

Also any bomb landing withen 5 miles of the target was considered a "hit". The RAF bombed Switzerland by mistake and a Luftwaffe Ju88 complete with top secret rader accidently landed in England. Accuracy wasn't a strong point in those days.

Also any bomb landing withen 5 miles of the target was considered a "hit". The RAF bombed Switzerland by mistake and a Luftwaffe Ju88 complete with top secret rader accidently landed in England. Accuracy wasn't a strong point in those days.


The RAF couldn't even hit the airstrip in the Falklands in the 1980s. :blush: It's only with the introduction of lasers that bombers have become accurate.

But on the other hand, they were accurate enough able to plan and execute a deadly and deliberate firestorm.

And this firestorm wasn´t targeting industrial targets, but humans. Only for that a firestorm is good for. IF tey wanted to hit the industrial targets they would have given orders to aim at something. This didn´t happen...

Adler

Dresde is OK, Killing civilians is OK... I see many Bin Ladens in this forum. :rolleyes:

And this firestorm wasn´t targeting industrial targets, but humans. Only for that a firestorm is good for. IF tey wanted to hit the industrial targets they would have given orders to aim at something. This didn´t happen...

Adler

Obviously the intention was to hit a variety of targets and cause general damage. People have suggested that the reasons for the raid were due to the city having a military and economic value to the Reich, the specifics of how the raid was carried out are regrettable, but hardly unusual either for the time or the RAF overall.

Also all the mentioned ships were full of German refugees and to international law protected (the Germans didn´t attack these ships or even helped them when this happened accidentally (see Laconia)). So also this is a very good example of allied war crimes. But since there are some here who say it is okay to do if the own side does it and try to justify that with so good arguments that some of the pessengers were soldiers. Perfect. Then even the sinking of German hospital ships is justified. With such a behaviour one side looses many of the big morale advantage it had in the war. I did not mention the sinking of the Goya and other ships because it was a Soviet warcrime. But it is remarkeable that there are some guys here who try to justify even that.

Adler

At least your well aware of the conduct in which the war on the Eastern front was fought. I made no attempt to justify why refugee ships were sunk mearly stating the FACTS surrounding the sinking of "Wilhelm Gustloff" (I had not heard of the "Goya")

It shouldnt be to hard to figure out why the Russians carried out the crimes they did once they invaded Germany proper. The Russians came in wanting revenge and justices for all the atrocities carried out on the ost front. It dosnt mean it was justified or even right.

What did you expect ?

But on the other hand, they were accurate enough able to plan and execute a deadly and deliberate firestorm.

The whole city was a target. Hitting individual factories etc wasn't really possable.

The whole city was a target. Hitting individual factories etc wasn't really possable.

I disagree. I think the Allies were very accurate in their bombing of Dresden. The RAF Bomber Command website agrees with me: "The weather was clear and 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs with great accuracy."

You think wrong. In war, civilians are legitimate targets, as they provide the bread for the soldiers, work in the tank factories, and send their sons off to war.

In the case of WWII, they were the ones who cheered for empire, revenge, and war.

I can understand people arguing this way about WWII, but about war generally.. :eek:

So, it's still OK today? Is that what you're saying? :confused:

By that reasoning, any massacres of civilians would be excusable - Bosnians by Serbs, Tutsies by Hutus, 9/11... all excusable, because they're 'the enemy', right? :vomit:

I disagree. I think the Allies were very accurate in their bombing of Dresden. The RAF Bomber Command website agrees with me: "The weather was clear and 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs with great accuracy."

That's just ridiculous- bombing was VERY inaccurate back then, and usually simply resulted in murdered vast numbers of civilians with no real damage to enemy industry.

The best comparison I can make with bombing a specific factory in WW2is put a coke can at the bottom of a large cliff and see if you can hit it throwing stones at it. You'll miss alot. In total war there is no right or wrong only opinion and enemy civilians were a legitimate target in 1940's morality.

I can understand people arguing this way about WWII, but about war generally.. :eek:

So, it's still OK today? Is that what you're saying? :confused:

By that reasoning, any massacres of civilians would be excusable - Bosnians by Serbs, Tutsies by Hutus, 9/11... all excusable, because they're 'the enemy', right? :vomit:


Aggressive warfare is not oK. The US invading Iraq is not ok, and every person we kill over there is a "war crime" because the war is unjustified. IN other words, I believe the kidnappings, beheadings, car bombings etc. are justified.

Response to attack, however, should be as swift, as deadly, and as punishing as possible.

But I did not know this thread was about whether the United States entering WW II was just.... I thought it was about the bombing of Dresden. It is my opinion that if the war is just.... ALL TACTICS are just.

Every single American that died in WW II should not have had to... worse, they were all soldiers, who marched towards the fear and death, and a hero in their own right. Same with every Frenchman, Russian, Brit, Ethiopian etc....

millions of them were murdered by war worshiping empires. These evil empire's back had to be broken, by any means necessary.

War is total. It is not a game, it is not a trial, it is a life and death struggle. In war, one must live and one must die. And when attacked, I don't see how anyone can question the response.

Say a guy named holds a knife to your throat. Do you kick him in the testicles or not? Of course it is low, but rules be damned, he held a knife to your throat. Say you are walking down the street, and someone punches you upside the head. You may be unwise, and try to hit back. Me? I look for a large rock and cave his cranium, so he cannot get up. Why fight fair when they are the aggressor? They are the ones who brought unneeded violence to the conflict.

I disagree. I think the Allies were very accurate in their bombing of Dresden. The RAF Bomber Command website agrees with me: "The weather was clear and 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs with great accuracy."


The website agrees with you does it? Don't you mean you agree with the website?

The above quote sounds like B grade propaganda from some 1940s newsreel to me. Does the site define what the 'target' was? Coz if it was the city of Dresden in general it wouldn't be to hard to acheive accuracy.

While US bombers for the most time of the war tried to bomb only industrial targets and the civilians were in no way a primary target, the British bombed to terrorize the population. Industrial targets were only secondary ones. So the lack of precision was in that way not so important. They bombed simply the whole town/ city. The British wanted to destroy Dresden. And that´s a crime.

Adler

It is my opinion that if the war is just.... ALL TACTICS are just.
...
Say a guy named holds a knife to your throat. Do you kick him in the testicles or not? Of course it is low, but rules be damned, he held a knife to your throat. Say you are walking down the street, and someone punches you upside the head. You may be unwise, and try to hit back. Me? I look for a large rock and cave his cranium, so he cannot get up. Why fight fair when they are the aggressor? They are the ones who brought unneeded violence to the conflict.

This is where we disagree. I'll just quote my own post on the Holocaust Denial thread just now, which fits here as well:

'It all comes down to whether you believe in personal or collective responsibility.
If collective responsibility,then of course every German was to blame for any other Germans actions and deserved all they got.. Of course, this line of reasoning is right on the path to racism and extremism. Bin Laden no doubt justifies his actions against the US in exactly this manner.

Personally, I believe any person should be judged solely by his/her own actions, not those of others of his own nationality, race or religion'

To use your analogy: if a guy holds a knife to your throat, kick him in the balls by all means! I'd do the same... :D
If, on the other hand, he isn't using a knife but throwing rocks at you and is hiding in a crowd of civilians, you are not justified in using a flamethrower to wipe them all out just to get at him.

The question of Dresden all boils down IMO to whether the Allies were trying to hit military and industrial targets and the civilians were 'collateral damage', as in some other bombings, or whether killing as many civilians as possible to terrorize the survivors was the object, and destroying military/industrial resources was secondary.

If the first, it's justifieable, if the second, no way!

Edit: Also, I don't care for the argument that in a 'just' war all tactics are just. Every side in a war always believes it's own side 'just'. This kind of argument leads directly to war crimes.

To use your analogy: if a guy holds a knife to your throat, kick him in the balls by all means! I'd do the same.
If, on the other hand, he isn't using a knife but throwing rocks at you and is hiding in a crowd of civilians, you are not justified in using a flamethrower to wipe them all out just to get at him.


By rocks you mean bombs of course.
And he had, for no good reason, just killed your brother, mother etc.
And he was one of the most evil people the world has ever seen.
And after years of trying to kill him he refused to give in.
And the crowd he was hiding in was helping to make his bombs and feed him.
And by killing some of this crowd possibly saved many other lives by helping to bring the fight to an earlier end. etc etc
Is that justified?

This is a complete nonsense.

You declare the bombing of civilians for justified by declaring them helpers of Hitler or whatever.

Then again this argument, it possibly saved many other lives... rubbish. The bombing of Dresden had never ever the chance to save some lives anywhere.

The price you want to pay to shorten a war *possibly* - and it is and proved to be not to be possible at all with creating firestorms to kill whole cities! - is outrageous.


I consider killing all people thinking in this/your way, it is for the sake of humanity and ... only justifiable on the same way you are argumenting.

I also want to agree with Dragonlord:

"Also, I don't care for the argument that in a 'just' war all tactics are just. Every side in a war always believes it's own side 'just'. This kind of argument leads directly to war crimes."

"It all comes down to whether you believe in personal or collective responsibility.
If collective responsibility,then of course every German was to blame for any other Germans actions and deserved all they got.. Of course, this line of reasoning is right on the path to racism and extremism. Bin Laden no doubt justifies his actions against the US in exactly this manner."

I also read a bit about some persons that were rather keen to support the bombing of Dresden in this thread. Some lost relatives to nazi terror, this makes their motives more understandable.

But there are worse, their views what is justifiable in a war and their "reasons" are so condemnable that I did not reply anymore to this thread up to now.

And the crowd he was hiding in was helping to make his bombs and feed him.
And by killing some of this crowd possibly saved many other lives by helping to bring the fight to an earlier end. etc etc


This is just the point where we differ - I don't believe in killing people indiscriminately just on the off chance it may help your war cause!

If you selectively destroy the war industry and this includes the civilians working in those factories - OK, I can understand that.
But you want to kill the baker because he's making bread that possibly may be eaten by a soldier? And the baker's wife because she makes his meals? And his little children for... I can't even think of a farfetched reason for this!

Obviously the analogy with the rock-thrower was flawed, I was just attempting to use his analogy.

As I pointed out, the question is whether or not the German war industry was the main objective or not - that would qualify as shortening the war. Killing just anybody on the off chance... no, sorry! No way!

This is just the point where we differ - I don't believe in killing people indiscriminately just on the off chance it may help your war cause!
If you selectively destroy the war industry and this includes the civilians working in those factories - OK, I can understand that.
But you want to kill the baker because he's making bread that possibly may be eaten by a soldier? And the baker's wife because she makes his meals? And his little children for... I can't even think of a farfetched reason for this!
Obviously the analogy with the rock-thrower was flawed, I was just attempting to use his analogy.
As I pointed out, the question is whether or not the German war industry was the main objective or not - that would qualify as shortening the war. Killing just anybody on the off chance... no, sorry! No way!

You have some good points. Please remember, we didn’t even want to kill the man with the bombs/rocks, never mind about the people he is hiding behind! All we wanted was for the man with the bombs to stop fighting so we could all go home! Please understand that if nothing else.

We kept fighting and fighting hoping the Nazis would give in but they wouldn’t. So we sent some bombers to make sure cities could not function as war-machine-making-cities. At Dresden far more bombers got through than the norm. Far more bombs hit their targets than the norm. And so the damage and death was far more than ‘expected’. This is deeply regrettable but we did not set out to kill that many civilians (although some were bound to die of course). Most of them should have been in their (admittedly non-existent) bunkers. If they had, the death toll would have been far, far less.

Dresden was a truly awful thing, a bombing raid that went far too well and if somehow, I could change history that the raid never happened, I would do it. But in the thick of all out war. I believe it was a ‘fair’ military target and a reasonable thing to set out to do. (if only it hadn’t gone so ‘well’)