Dresden World War Two?

Question

What was the significance of the air raid in Dresden? Weren't air raids commonplace during the war? There seemed to be some significance to the air raid in Dresden.

Answer 1

Here we go again. The reason that Dresden is significant is that people claim it was a war crime.
I am not in any way denying the fact that what happened in Dresden was horrific and appalling. I do deny that the men who undertook the mission have any crime to answer for.

The bombing of Dresden has been used since 1945 as a tool to beat the RAF about its conduct of "terror bombing" during WW2.

Dresden burned so heavily for several reasons.
It was a medieval city with many wooden buildings.
There had been a dry winter in the region which meant many buildings were tinderboxes.
The population were not used to air raids and did not therefore have the knowledge that you need to put incendiaries out quickly
The raid had little opposition because its Anti aircraft defence had been taken away by the Germans for use on the Eastern front. Therefore the bombers were able to put their loads in a concentrated space with little or no opposition.

Dresden was not "chosen for destruction". This was a raid on an industrial centre which went exactly right with horrifying consequences due to many circumstances some of which I have listed above.

Why did so many people die?
The 25000 people that died (absolute top number using all available, reliable sources) did so because of the reasons above and the fact that Dresden`s Air Raid Precautions were appallingly bad. There were few, if any, properly constructed public shelters despite money having been allocated for them which was spent by the local burghers on Air Raid shelters for their homes in the suburbs.
People therefore sheltered in basements of houses which, due to the firestorm above filled with noxious fumes and killed the occupants before the houses collapsed onto them and burned their corpses.

As to the claim that this was a War Crime. The Geneva convention signed by both Germany and Britain DID NOT prohibit the bombing of industrial centres located in residential areas. Many people have claimed in the last 62 years that Dresden was a quiet peacable town going about its business and waiting for the war to end. Read the letter below which is taken from research by myself and many others for the truth about "quiet, peacable, nothing to do with the war" Dresden.

I have copied my standard Dresden Defence Letter below for the reasons why the raid took place.

The bombing of Dresden by RAF Bomber Command AND the USAAF was NOT a mistake or a War Crime.

In early 1945 the war was far from over. The Allies were still camped outside the borders of Germany, V2 rockets were still falling. The Allies had just fought the battle of the Bulge where the supposedly defeated Germans suddenly punched a huge hole in the Allied lines, German Rocket and Jet aircraft were coming off the production lines and proceeding to rip the hell out of the allied air fleets.

It was an operation undertaken due to many reasons.

1. A request from the Russians at the Yalta conference in February
1945. General Antonov "We want the Dresden railway junction bombed"
Meeting between the Chiefs of staff as reported by an interpreter.

2. It was a German base of operations against Marshall Koniev`s left flank as he advanced into Germany. (See above)
Captured German High Command documents from Berlin in 1945 state that "Dresden is to be fortified as a military strongpoint, to be held at all costs."

3. Munitions storage in the old Dresden Arsenal.

4. Troop reinforcement and transport centre shifting an average 28
troop trains through the marshalling yards every day.

5. Communications centre. Most of the telephone lines connecting
High Command to the Eastern front went through Dresden.

6. Quote from The Dresden Chamber of Commerce 1944. "The work rhythm of Dresden is determined by the needs of our army."

There were 127 factories in the Dresden Municipal area. The most
famous of these was Zeiss the celebrated camera and optics maker. In 1945 it was turning out Bomb aiming apparatus and Time fuses. (If you think the Dresden China Works making those lovely shepherdesses are more famous, they are actually made in Meisen 12Km down the River and always have been.)

A factory that previously made Typewriters and sewing machines was making Guns and ammunition

The Waffle and Marzipan machine manufacturer was producing
torpedoes for the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.

The arts and crafts workshops in the old town were using their
woodworking skills to make the tail assemblies for V-1s.

Other factories were turning out such non warlike goods as
Searchlights, Aircraft components, Field Telephones and 2 way radios.

Yet another quote, "Anyone who knows Dresden only as a cultural
city would be very surprised to be made aware of the extensive and
versatile activity that make Dresden ONE OF THE FOREMOST INDUSTRIAL LOCATIONS OF THE REICH. (My Capitals)

Sir Arthur Harris? A Post war exponent of the bombing campaign?
Nope both wrong.
It comes from the Dresden City Council Yearbook of 1942.

Ray Wells.

Answer 2

Up to October 1944, Dresden was not considered a military target. What had changed for it to be the lasting legacy of allied carpet bombing?

Dresden was an old cultural medieval and picturesqe city and had hardly been touched by air raids. For the most part, it was undefended, with no anti-aircraft guns.

In early 1945, German troops were moving through Dresden. This may have been to fight the advancing Soviet Army or to reinforce fighting elsewhere. Dresden was a key transport junction. To Churchill and his war cabinet, this made Dresden a strategic target. Bombing the city might halt the flow of German troops and speed the advance of the Soviet army into Germany. Bombing Dresden might help the Russian war effort.

It was clogged by civilian refugees fleeing the dreaded Red Army.

There may have been another reason for choosing Dresden as a target. Bombing was believed to have an effect on morale. The idea was that civilians would be so traumatised by the continual threat to their lives, that they would stop believing they could win the war and would lose the will to fight. (This had been practised on both sides already. Attacks on places such as London in 1940-41, Coventry in 1941 and Hamburg in 1941 actually made the local people more determined.)

The decision was made at a time when Britain had suffered the Blitz, as well as random bombarding by German rockets, and when Hitler had devastated cities such as Warsaw. British leaders also knew about the Nazi treatment of Jewish people in the concentration camps.

Therefore, in short there were two reason: the train stations were a key hub in the german war effort and Air Marshall "bomber" Harris & others wanted retribution for the bombing of Coventry and other cities. (btw, the trains were up an running several weeks after the attack) The use of incendiaries, the resulting fire storm and death of civilians (mostly women and children), hospitals, churches, schools, etc, made Dresden stand out and on the same pedestal as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Answer 3

I think the Dresden raid was significant because it signalled a new type of warfare that disrespects the cultural and artistic heritage of mankind. From the time of the Geneva Convention down to this tragic air raid, the pretention that war could be civilized and the tendency for man to descend to barbarity in the face of inter-human conflicts be prevented by international legalese flourished and was even abetted by Social Darwinists who taught that enlightenment is the inescapable future of mankind.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

A couple of thoughts. Air power meant that cities away from the front lines could be attacked. In WW 1 attacks were pretty much restricted to the range of artillery pieces. The second is that WW 1 was a static war, fought in relatively fixed positions that civilians were evacuated from. WW 2 was a war of movement, and battles were fought over entire countries, so civilians could not easily avoid the fighting.

Answer 6

the answers here are fantastic and i dont expect a best answer because all the facts have been pretty well touched on, I just figured I would throw a piece of nazi, german mentality even in this point in the war,
"When interviewed after the war, 1945, 1946, citizens in dresden and in germany considered the bombing of dresden to be the worst war crime of the war"
HAHA WHAT We were fighting a people whose mentality and hate was so great they considered the loss of 60000 nazi civilians for strategic value to be a worse war crime then the 6 million jews and millions of prisoners killed by the SS Nazis. They deserved what they got. But it has been proven time and time again in history that strategic bombing ( factories, petrol plants ball bearing factories) to be of significant value but the bombing of civilian targets actually has the reverse effect of pissing off and hardening the civilians to such a fury to actually make them want to hold on even longer, example, the bombing of london actually raised moral and brought people together more while if the nazis would have continued to concentrate on strategic targets they would have had much more devastating effects on the infrastructure of britain,

Answer 7

Dresden Germany/ you have to make clear where you are referring too?
Dresden Germany was where the Airplanes were made for Germany air force, Ball bearing factory's(Tanks) use a lot of them.. ball bearing were loads for ammo too. in big bombs like shrapnel in them..

Answer 8

allies were bombing mostly military targets but it was decided to target a civilian town to hurt the moral of the german people
also to show support to the russians attacking from the east
edited to add
also the total destruction of dresden with fire bombs some would say "overkill" since it was mostly a refugee city for germans and held civilians

Answer 9

Read "Slaughter House Five", by Kurt Vonnegut.

Answer 10

http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lothar.html