Dresden- Justified or Not?

[Hitro]

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.

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.

 

[Provolution]

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.

 

[Hitro]

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...

 

[Provolution]

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.

 

[FriendlyFire]

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.

 

[Adler17]

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

 

[privatehudson]

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.

 

[Benderino]

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

 

[Immortal]

Meh, has no affect on me.

 

[Boleslav]

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

 

[TrailblazingScot]

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?

 

[Boleslav]

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.

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

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

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.

 

[Boleslav]

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?

 

[Benderino]

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.

 

[FriendlyFire]

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."

 

[Longasc]

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.

 

[Provolution]

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.

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

 

[FriendlyFire]

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.