The firebombing of Dresden - 60 year anniversary

[Heresson]

By intention, lenght of the action, conduction, and losses.

[Provost Harrison]

I was actually being sarcastic, but, well...

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
The idea that Dresden was a non military target seems to have grown up after the war. It was never decalred an open city. At the time the nazis were turning cities into fortresses and many, like Breslau, held out months after they had been overrun.

It was also the nazis who refused to evacuate civilians leaving them to face the bombing raids. Dresden was never declared an open city and was important base for German forces. Ironically as allied forces got closer to it, its military importance increased.

Was it regrettable and a tragedy? Of course it was. But the real tragedy was nazism which most Germans enthusiastically embraced.

I just heard German man on the radio tearfully saying how he suffered during the bombing and how it made it him determined to fight fascism. Never again.

Yeah, it was a tragedy that the Nazis came to power (and very probably history would have anothewr face if they hadn´t been (or if Hitler would have even been deported or executed after his first attempt at a coup).
But I doubt that most of the Germans during WW2 were steadfast Nazi supporters.

Hitlers NSDAP AFAIK was elected with 37%.
As soon as he was able to seize power by a plot (using a terrorist attack on the Reichstag [where no one knows for sure if the fire wasn´t even laid by his own SA for just this purpose])
he began to systematically incarcerate or kill all people who openly opposed him (for example members of the communist and socialist parties).

Therefore I really doubt that most germans supported the Nazis.
Most of them didn´t dare to resist, that´s for sure (and the example of the Scholl-siblings [who founded the "white rose" showed what too often happened to those who dared to oppose the regime and were caught)
But between people who keep quiet just because they fear that they, too, could get victims of the regime if they dare to oppose it and those who were convinced followers of the regime there are many nuances.
It may be good for you to calm your conscience if you imagine that you just killed a bunch of Nazis in these cities.
But it is for sure that this is far from the truth.
The Firestorm of Dresden made no differences in who it killed,
it killed Members of the Nazi Party who believed in Hitler as well as those who resisted him, it killed old men and women as well as it killed small babies who never had done harm to anyone.

As for the citizens of Dresden not being able to flee,
well they could flee.
And you can hear many stories of survivors who just survived because they fled the city a few days before the Firestorm.
But most poeple stayed in Dresden.
Why?
It may be that the City wasn´t officially declared an open city, as you say.
But it had no important industry and was to date unharmed by Bombing raids (contrary to other large cities througout the remnants of germany)
So it gave the refugees a false feeling of safety to set up camp in this city. (and the RAF High Command knew that the city was overcrowded with refugees as it decided to bomb the city).

Harris started his bombings when the Sowjets and the Allied troops where still miles away, this is the real inexcusable tragedy.
Especially as there were examples of sane military commanders who rather choose to surrender their city than to let the citizens there suffer (Aachen for example).
Would an unharmed Dresden have surrendered if given the chance?
We´ll never know.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Heresson

Still, the scale of atrocities on both sides was not equal.
You can not put Dresden and Holocaust in one row.

I think nobody does.
The Holocaust was an atrocity of a much larger scale,
but it doesn´t excuse another atrocity like the bombings of Dresden.

[Sava]

War itself is an atrocity.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Sava
War itself is an atrocity.

[Patroklos]

Also rememebr that those resisting in the end were not so much fighting for the present, but for what was to come.

After the Ruhr pocked surrended the Western Allies rain into very little resistance. Most Germans had been believing in a myth that peace with the west to jointly fight the Soviets was a real possibility. They did not fear western occupation once defeat was emminent.

The eastern part of Germany, however, was a different story all together. The knew they were going to be occupied by a brutal revenge bent CULTURAL/IDEOLOGICAL enemy. Nazism and capitalism are not so dire of enemies as far as systems go, and the underlying culture of Germany that Nazism was built from was not much different than France and Britian. The populations, and especially the miltary, on the Eastern front knew life as they knew it was over. There would be nothing to return to. Survival just ment 20 years in the prison camp to maybe come home to find Prussia no longer exists and what little of the past remains is dominated by the hated Bolsheviks.

Thats why you can have most of Germany just waiting for it to end while at the same time V2s are hitting London. There was a good bit of fatalism going around.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Sava
War itself is an atrocity.

I strongly disagree. Blind pacifism is a naive and dangerous doctrine.
Tell me, was war against Hitler an atrocity?

[KrazyHorse]

I don't think that area bombing of cities did much to hasten the end of the war. It certainly didn't do enough to be worth the hundreds of thousands of lives it cost.

But I find it hard to condemn the Allies for doing it while bombers and later V1 and V2s were still hitting London.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by Sava
War itself is an atrocity.

Very easy to say from the sidelines but when faced with the survival of a nation or people very hard to avoid if you are a leader faced with a foe bent on such reckless hate.

[Patroklos]

later V1 and V2s were still hitting London.

From a cost to benefit ratio the allies shoud be glad they spend so much in the way of resources on those programs. The V weapons did not kill to many peole relative to what was invested in them. Had they built more bombers with those materials...

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
The idea that Dresden was a non military target seems to have grown up after the war. It was never decalred an open city. At the time the nazis were turning cities into fortresses and many, like Breslau, held out months after they had been overrun.

The link Bebro posted was very interesting. It said that after the war the DDR tried to play up the Desden bombing, claiming it was a war crime, as a way to anger the east German population and alienate them from NATO. Basically, for half a century people in eastern Germany were feed a steady diet of this without any context.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Heresson

Tell me, was war against Hitler an atrocity?

You can't really blame just Hitler can you?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
When you suggest that the Germans had effectively given up, ignoring the fact that hundreds of V2's were still hitting British cities, you forfeit any right to be taken seriously on this topic.

There's something wrong with your thinking. Of course I didn't imply that the Germans had surrendered and the Allies bombed them anyway. My point is that the bombing did not break their moral (it was already broken), and it did not force a surrender. It served no purpose.

[Patroklos]

Those who who had there will broken had been in that state long before Dresden, and those that were determined to fight untill the bitter end were of that mindset long before Dresden.