The firebombing of Dresden - 60 year anniversary

[alva]

Whatever the reasoning, Dresden can hardly be called the allieds proudest moment.

I know I wouldn't want to have been there, so:

...

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Dresden hastened the end of the war.

How so, and you already said they lost the will to fight? Why do you say that? Obviously they already knew they couldn't win, but they kept taking orders.

[Provost Harrison]

It struck me as a demonstration to the Soviets of what the allies were capable of, there was no depth too low to achieve fear. It's what is known as terrorism...somewhat ironic don't you think?

[Provost Harrison]

The same goes for nukes. The letter issued to Japan was along the lines that they would totally and utterly destroy their country. Sounds rather perculiar wording. And then they nuked those two cities showing off their toys. If they wanted to drop them as a demonstration, did they have to do it on such densely populated areas twice? A thought for you...

[Alexander's Horse]

I said the German people lost the will to fight because of the bombing.

The ruin and defeat of Germany because of Hitler was plain for all Germans to see. This was crucially unlike WWI when the fact that Germany itself was relatively unscathed allowed extremists like Hitler to claim germany had never been defeated and was betrayed by defeatists.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Dauphin


Yeah! Cos we all know doodlebugs had to have pilots.

The Japanese tried it - Okha bombs

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
I said the German people lost the will to fight because of the bombing.

They had already lost the will. The allied forces were at the gate. Most Germans probably just wanted it to be over already.

[alva]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
All I'm saying is Germany terror bombed cities all over Europe from Guernica to Warsaw to London to Belgrade to Leningrad so the fact they got their own cities turned into smoking ruins at the end of the war should be no surprise and I find it hard to feel sorry for them.

Dresden hastened the end of the war.

If you can't feel sorry for the people involved - 60 years later - then I would say you may have some issues.

We no longer have to balance the moral issue now that Churchill and company did have to do.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
I said the German people lost the will to fight because of the bombing.

The ruin and defeat of Germany because of Hitler was plain for all Germans to see. This was crucially unlike WWI when the fact that Germany itself was relatively unscathed allowed extremists like Hitler to claim germany had never been defeated and was betrayed by defeatists.

Well, the problem is just that today extremists are using Dresden to relativize (sp?) German crimes of ww2......and while the bombings had indeed an effect on German morale (of course - who would think bombardmensts of this scale couldn't?) the main goal of the "moral bombing" - breaking combat morale - wasn't reached. So you have material destruction and loss of life on a grand scale for highly questionable results.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by alva


If you can't feel sorry for the people involved - 60 years later - then I would say you may have some issues.

We no longer have to balance the moral issue now that Churchill and company did have to do.

It was a shooting war. People got killed.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by Kidicious


They had already lost the will. The allied forces were at the gate. Most Germans probably just wanted it to be over already.

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Meanwhile, back in wartime, those of us who didn't have the convenience of a very large ocean to keep them at a healthy distance, were wondering if the next rocket coming in would be carrying something nastier than just boring old high explosives.

The message of Dresden was "Do it again and we'll slap you".

[Zulu Elephant]

I've always realised that atomic atomic bombs were used against Japan, at least to some extent, to demonstrate their the allies power to the USSR, but it never occured to me that Dresden could have been the same. But now that I think about it...

Also, Britain and France had spent about the last half century either fighting a war with Germany or worrying about fighting a war with Germany. Dresden, and other bomber command raids like it, set out to make sure that the Germans realised that this couldn't go on. I think AH made the point earlier on that they didnt want to allow the Germans think, as they did after WW1, that they could have won the war if it wasnt for the [Jews/Communists/Martian Conspiracy]. They wanted to make sure that the Germans realised that they were beaten fair and square, thus preventing another war.

Public opinion (rightly so) does not allow you to so completely defeat a nation (as opposed to a government) in a war nowadays. The continuing problems in Iraq are due to the fact that the Iraqis are not a defeated people. Though, obviously Im not saying we should have 'done a Dresden' in Iraq.

Im still not sure if this justifies the bombings though. Only explains them

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
I said the German people lost the will to fight because of the bombing.

Bombing alone doesn't do this - as the Germans themselves had to notice after having bombed London to ruins. Sure, in general, the bombings were needed to speed up the end of the war, break German industry and infrastructure and make the Germans prey for peace ASAP. Yet particularily the bombing of Dresden was intended to cause as many civilian death toll as possible. It was an act of revenge on the back of refugees - nonetheless many of them had been Nazis. Not feeling touched when thinking about 40.000 dead people - whoever they were and what they might have done - is surely a bad sign.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
The same goes for nukes. The letter issued to Japan was along the lines that they would totally and utterly destroy their country. Sounds rather perculiar wording. And then they nuked those two cities showing off their toys. If they wanted to drop them as a demonstration, did they have to do it on such densely populated areas twice? A thought for you...

They didn't plan on surrending after nuke #1... they were still going to try to hold out so they could negotiate from relative strength.

The emperor ***** slapped em after #2.

[Dinner]

A special I saw on PBS a few years back said that the British (and later the American) government had agreed to bomb Dresden to support the Soviet advance into that part of Germany. Stalin was constituently complaining that the western Allies weren't doing enough to support the Soviet front so bomber command decided this was a way they could make things easier for the Red Army. Right or wrong this was a gesture to appease the Soviets and prove the west was a good ally.