[73] The 379th bombardment group started to bomb Dresden at 12:17, aiming at marshalling yards in the Friedrichstadt district west of the city centre, as the area was not obscured by smoke and cloud. "[154], According to historian Snke Neitzel, "it is difficult to find any evidence in German documents that the destruction of Dresden had any consequences worth mentioning on the Eastern Front. When they came back to the surface, the city was gone, remembered writer and social critic Kurt Vonnegutone of the American POWs who witnessed the bombing of Dresden. [citation needed], Marshall's tribunal declared that no extraordinary decision was made to single out Dresden (for instance, to take advantage of a large number of refugees, or purposely terrorise the German populace). WebBrowse 1,574 dresden bombing photos and images available, or search for world war ii to find more great photos and pictures. Despite Irving's eventual much lower numbers, and later accusations of generally poor scholarship, the figure popularised by Vonnegut remains in general circulation. Attacks there, where main railway junctions, telephone systems, city administration and utilities were, would result in "chaos". It also said there were barracks, hutted camps, and a munitions storage depot. [39], According to the RAF at the time, Dresden was Germany's seventh-largest city and the largest remaining unbombed built-up area. The idea was that, as one building collapsed or filled with smoke, those sheltering in the basements could knock walls down and move into adjoining buildings. [153] McKee further asserts "The bomber commanders were not really interested in any purely military or economic targets, which was just as well, for they knew very little about Dresden; the RAF even lacked proper maps of the city. The Hague Conventions, addressing the codes of wartime conduct on land and at sea, were adopted before the rise of air power. [29] Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, AOC-in-C Bomber Command, nicknamed "Bomber Harris", and known as an ardent supporter of area bombing,[30] was asked for his view, and proposed a simultaneous attack on Chemnitz, Leipzig and Dresden. We must see to it that our attacks do no more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy's war effort.[123][124]. He then added in an offhand remark that the raid also helped destroy "what is left of German morale". bombing In a 1965 letter to The Guardian, Irving later adjusted his estimates even higher, "almost certainly between 100,000 and 250,000", but all these figures were shortly found to be inflated: Irving finally published a correction in The Times in a 1966 letter to the editor[172] lowering it to 25,000, in line with subsequent scholarship. [16] An example can be found in the extremist nationalist party Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD). Warning! [27] The Soviet Army continued its push towards the Reich despite severe losses, which they sought to minimize in the final phase of the war. As the working day began early for the free citizens of Dresden, so too were their children making their way to their schools, finding out whether they were open that day, assiduous about studies even in the increasing chaos around them. The firebombing of Dresden was an American-British attack, and it happened during the last months of the war. The industrial plants of Dresden played no significant role in German industry at this stage in the war". [66] The German sirens sounded again at 01:05, but these were small hand-held sirens that were heard within only a block. If clouds obscured Dresden but Chemnitz was clear, Chemnitz was the target. In 1956, Dresden entered a twin-town relationship with Coventry. A grandmother from Ukraine has visited her daughter, grandchildren and son-in-law in Sussex, escaping the bombing of her native city for a few precious weeks. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our allies. On 8 February 1945, the Red Army crossed the Oder River, with positions just 70km (43mi) from Berlin. The unease was made worse by an Associated Press story that the Allies had resorted to terror bombing. How much guilt does this parasite not bear for all this, which we owe to his indolence and love of his own comforts. Around 8,100 residents had to leave their homes in the northern German city of Hanover as a British World War II bomb was blown up in a controlled explosion. [70] Taylor compares this 40 per cent mix with the raid on Berlin on 3 February, where the ratio was 10 per cent incendiaries. Similar rallies take place every year.[171]. after The tonnage and types of bombs listed in the service records of the Dresden raid were comparable to (or less than) throw weights of bombs dropped in other air attacks carried out in 1945. bomb bomb HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. At a press briefing held by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force two days after the raids, British Air Commodore Colin McKay Grierson told journalists: First of all they (Dresden and similar towns) are the centres to which evacuees are being moved. WebThe bombing of Dresden was a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. [152] Commenting on this, McKee says: "The standard whitewash gambit, both British and American, is to mention that Dresden contained targets X, Y and Z, and to let the innocent reader assume that these targets were attacked, whereas in fact the bombing plan totally omitted them and thus, except for one or two mere accidents, they escaped". [111], One of the journalists asked whether the principal aim of bombing Dresden would be to cause confusion among the refugees or to blast communications carrying military supplies. The raid did not use extraordinary means but was comparable to other raids used against comparable targets. February 1945. It was then that we realized we were trapped in a locked cage that stood every chance of becoming a mass grave. WebThe bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) between February 13 and February 15, 1945 remains one of the more controversial events of World War II.Historian Frederick Taylor said: The destruction of Dresden has an epically tragic quality to it. Dresden are popular slogans among the so-called "Anti-Germans"a small radical left-wing political movement in Germany and Austria. Why did we burn its people? He asserted in Dresden im Luftkrieg (1977) that only a few tales of civilians being strafed were reliable in detail, and all were related to the daylight attack on 14 February. May 2, 2015 Ian Smith You dont need to be a history hunt to know about the most obscure and surprise bombing of the WWII in the capital of the German state of Saxony -Dresden. On February 13-14, 1945, American and British forces began a massive bombing in Dresden that continues to be a controversial subject to this day. He concluded that some memory of eyewitnesses was real, but that it had misinterpreted the firing in a dogfight as deliberately aimed at people on the ground. So many people were horribly burnt and injured. [67] The bomber groups were protected by 784 North American P-51 Mustangs of the Eighth Air Force's VIII Fighter Command, 316 of which covered the Dresden attack - a total of almost 2,100 Eighth Army Air Force aircraft over Saxony during 14 February. Bottomley's list included oil plants, tank and aircraft factories and the cities of Berlin and Dresden. ", "I cannot forget these terrible details. of Dresden through rare photographs We strive for accuracy and fairness. To my left I suddenly see a woman. It is also truthful. [11] According to historian Donald Miller, "the economic disruption would have been far greater had Bomber Command targeted the suburban areas where most of Dresden's manufacturing might was concentrated". Although the city had been sealed off by the Wehrmacht to prevent looting, Rudolph was granted a special permit to enter and carry out his work, as he would be during the Russian occupation as well. The death toll for that night is included in the overall estimated total of 37,000 for the series of raids. I'm a historian. When plans for the rebuilding of Dresden's Frauenkirche became certain, the GHND began calls for the reconstruction of the historic buildings that surrounded it. Slaughterhouse-Five [68], Primary sources disagree as to whether the aiming point was the marshalling yards near the centre of the city or the centre of the built-up urban area. [9] These factories manufactured fuses and bombsights (at Zeiss Ikon A.G.),[146] aircraft components, anti-aircraft guns, field guns, and small arms, poison gas, gears and differentials, electrical and X-ray apparatus, electric gauges, gas masks, Junkers aircraft engines, and Messerschmitt fighter cockpit parts. Dresden was rebuilt by its citizens, after being bombed Leo McKinstry, "Attlee and Churchill: Allies in War, Adversaries in Peace", Atlantic Books, 2019, Ch 22. [76] In 2000, historian Helmut Schnatz found an explicit order to RAF pilots not to strafe civilians on the way back from Dresden. "[137] Similarly, British philosopher A. C. Grayling has described RAF area bombardment as an "immoral act" and "moral crime" because "destroying everything contravenes every moral and humanitarian principle debated in connection with the just conduct of war", though Grayling insisted that it "is not strictly correct to describe area bombing as a 'war crime'."[158]. [167] This provoked an outrage in the German parliament and triggered responses from the media. A grandmother from Ukraine has visited her daughter, grandchildren and son-in-law in Sussex, escaping the bombing of her native city for a few precious weeks. Below you can see the before & after pictures. 06/18/2023. of Dresden through rare photographs [44] According to the report, there were aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabrik Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); an optical goods factory (Zeiss Ikon AG); and factories producing electrical and X-ray apparatus (Koch & Sterzel[de] AG); gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke); and electric gauges (Gebrder Bassler).
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