WWII the bombing of Dresden Germany?

Question

Can someone please give me some brief info on the bombing of Dresden, germany and was it considered a war crime???

Answer 1

The bombing of Dresden is often held up by Nazi apologists as an example of an Allied war crime - the dropping of the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Japan too.

Essentially, the argument goes like this: The bombing of Dresden was aimed solely at civilian destruction and was particularly horrific because the Allied bombers were dropping incendiary bombs, designed to create massive firestorms in the city, which was a base for large numbers of German civilians fleeing from the East. The main proponent of this argument is David Irving a well known Nazi apologist who famously claimed that Hitler didn't know about the gas chambers and death camps.

The flipside is that we are dealing with a time of total war. The Germans had done their best to bomb England into submission, destroying the city of Coventry in a night's aerial bombing years before Dresden. Nobody refers to that as a war crime. While German and Japan still fought on, the Allies would be forced to batter them into submission - and bombing major cities was a completely legitimate tactic. The civilian populations still engaged in war work, helping the German military to fight, thus they were legitimate targets. The dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not unique in terms of the death tolls from the attacks, nor was Dresden. As many, if not more died in bombings of Tokyo. The shock came from the ease with which the cities were destroyed - thus the effect on the Japanese Emperor which caused him to sue for peace.

Unfortunately for Germany, Hitler was completely insane and near the end wanted the entire nation to fall with him into an abyss. Once Germany surrendered the bombing stopped, which is evidence in and of itself that these Allied attacks were not war crimes, but rather tactics (harsh, yes) in a total war for the future of humanity - one that I think most of us are glad we won.

Answer 2

If the Germans would have won the war (very unlikely after February 1945 :)) Air Marshal Arthur 'Bomber' Harris and Churchill,as well as the commander of the US 8th Air Force, would definitely have been convicted of war crimes. Not just the bombing of Dresden, but the systematic bombing of civilian targets (Hamburg, Berlin, Lübeck, Nurnberg and so on) because that's exactly what they did and very much purposely so. Harris even said that the bombing of cities -which is by the way is a lot easier than bombing relatively small targets such as factories- would cause German morale to collapse and the nazi regime would subsequently implode. Which of course didn't happen. The bombing of Dresden was a terrible thing. The exact number of fatalities is still not known because a lot of corpses were maimed beyond recognition -often simply evaporated- and the city was full of refugees from the East, who had run away from the Red Army and therefore a bodycount was (and still is) impossible. In short: I do think it was a crime because a) Dresden had no military significance whatsoever, even though it was an important (rail) road junction. b) they decided to bomb it for two reasons. First of all: they had simply run out of targets. Almost every other urban center is Germany had already been pounded to rubble and there's no point bombing rubble. Secondly: Churchill -who never liked the communists one bit- ordered the bombing because there was already a lot of friction between the Western allies and the Russians at that time ; as Germany was almost finished their 'marriage of convenience' was coming to an end and each party started to pursue its own agenda again. Churchill decided to show the Soviets just what the Western allies were capable of. So bombing Dresden was a bit of a deterrent towards the Russians. By the way, the latter intended to do the very same thing. A Red Army memo reads: "When we meet the sojoeznichi ('little allies', e.g. US and UK armies) it would be a good idea to let them taste a bit of our artillery." So yes, I do think bombing Dresden was a crime. The raid (in fact there were three of them) didn't achieve anything. Of course it wasn't as 'bad' as the systematic murder of the Jews, homosexuals, Russians,... but then again: the wanton killing of civilians is bad enough as it is.

Answer 3

Dresden was bombed by the British and the American at the request of the Soviets who had determined that its railway yards were vital to the German Army's defense against the Soviet army's advance.

The British attacked at night and used firebombing because with the technology of the time a city was the smallest sized target that could be attacked at night. The next day a American air raid attempted to attack the rail yards. Again - due to the technology of the day even during a 'precision' daylight raid an individual bomb had a 50% chance of landing within 1000 feet of its intended target.

As a result - the city got plastered.

One thing to remember is that these types of attacks on cities were considered to be the standard tactics of war at the time and were used by every side during WWII.

In the 1970s an additional protocol to the Geneva Conventions was proposed that forbids these sort of attacks. However - not enough countries have signed the addendum to the treaty and it is not considered to be a 'law of war.'

Trivia note: Although the US has refused to sign this protocol we have implemented it as part of official Air Force doctrine. As a result the United States is being criticized for setting a 'de facto' standard that no other nation is capable of meeting.

Answer 4

The fire bombing of Dresden was intentional. Parts of the city were broken up by high explosives (kindling) and later incendiaries were dropped to set the kindling on fire. High explosive bombs were dropped again because engineers had determined that the affect would be a fire storm. They were right. You can argue about why or was it a war crime but the affect was intentional. History of the Eighth Air Force.

Answer 5

Dresden was an enemy city, a major rail network center a major production center for war supplies.

Nobody mentions: LONDON BIRMINGHAM COVENTRY MANCHESTER, LEEDS, PORTSMOUTH, BELFAST, etc
and WAR CRIMES,

Nobody mentions: ANTWERP, LIEGE, WARSAW, KRAKOW, STALINGRAD, LENINGRAD, and the thousands of other places indiscriminately bombed & shelled by the NAZI War Machine.

And lets not forget the Spanish city of GURNICA where the Nazis perfected their tactics in the Spanish Civil War.

So you really want us to feel sorry for DRESDEN??

the Nazis started the war and they got there a s s kicked, end of story.

Answer 6

War is a crime, just as payback is hell. Dresden was turned into the surface of the moon.

Answer 7

it was fired bombed and destroyed, by the allies.
no there was no war crime in it's firer bombing and destruction

Answer 8

War crime?

The SOBs were putting women and children into freaking OVENS ALIVE, they deserved a HELL of alot worse than any of them got.

Answer 9

Where do you guys keep getting this "war crime" stuff from?