Dresden- Justified or Not?

[General Brown]

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?

 

[Stapel]

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.

 

[tossi]

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

 

[King Alexander]

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

 

[Longasc]

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.

 

[luiz]

It was a war crime for sure.

 

[Zardnaar]

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

 

[Hitro]

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...

 

[privatehudson]

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

 

[Red Threat]

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

 

[Persia_Immortal]

It's a crime agianst humanity

 

[Esckey]

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

 

[Longasc]

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

 

[echinococcus]

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?

 

[Esckey]

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

 

[Adler17]

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

 

[Edward Yee]

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 )

 

[Zardnaar]

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

 

[naervod]

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.

 

[Edward Yee]

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*