I just watched a movie called Dresden (2006).It's a very good movie.But why in the h**l did the UK bomb it????

Question

Shame on you Great Britain!!!!! for the unnecessary bombing of a beautiful baroque Capital of Saxony. Bad...very Bad.It was a cultural city not a military target. I was in Dresden in Oct 2003. Its a beautiful city....however, there is still great anger towards the UK for doing what they did. You deserve a serious *** Beating!!!!!!

Answer 1

Why do you isolate one city from the entire war? What happened there was a direct result of Hitler's aggression. World War II was not a series of surgically precise attacks. The very existence of England and other countries hung in the balance. The Allies were throwing every thing they had against the n***s.You could take the position that all war is wrong but you should not focus on just Dresden.

Answer 2

It seemed like a good idea at the time. However, there are substantial reasons to believe that it wasn't especially justified on military grounds, nor especially successful militarily, but it did kill many thousands and destroyed one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

Actually, the Brits attacked German civilian targets before the Germans attacked British civilian targets during the Battle of Britain and that led Hitler to demand attacks on British civilians in retaliation. Shifting from airfields to cities lost the Battle of Britain for the Germans. But Germans continued to target cities in Britain long after they lost the ability to send bombers. Britain was losing more people at home from rocket attacks in 44 than they were in the field to military action. And the Germans did attack plenty of non-British civilian targets before then and after. But the Allies were much better at it, and had bigger and better heavy bombers. And, yes, the US was involved in attacking Dresden as well as the Brits.

Attacking civilian targets was a far more accepted military practice during WW ll than now. But, the Germans in particular are hardly in a position to take the moral high ground on the war and no one owes or will give them any particular apologies for the results. But 60 years later, we're all pretty much friends on most days and we're all the better for it.

edit: Ray, I know that and said as much, although without as much detail in my comment above. The Germans held off precisely because they knew the Brits could and would retaliate by attacking their civilians. The Hitler's decision to attack the cities effectively lost them any chance to launch an attack against Britain.  I would say though that the Allied strategic bombing campaign was not all that effective either, especially when you consider all the resources poured into it, including Allied lives, Bomber Harris and Curtis Lemay notwithstanding. As for Dresden, yes there was some war production there and the rail yards, but I've seen little evidence to suggest the attack made any difference in the war.

Answer 3

Sorry, but the city's beautiful baroqueness did not keep the Germans from using the city as a center for troops and military hardware, hence it was a legitimate target.  

Dresden has been a popular rallying point for the culture of hindsighters since the '60s, when bashing the "good guys" became a fashion that still exists today.

Answer 4

Standard answer follows.

Here we go again.

Some people in Dresden and elsewhere claim that the Bombing of Dresden by the RAF AND the USAAF is a war crime. In my opinion it was not

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 peaceable 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, peaceable, 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 h**l 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.

One final comment to George. Yes the British dropped bombs on German civilian targets before the Germans dropped them on Great Britain. Please do remember small instances like Warsaw, Rotterdam and Guernica which occured in 1936, 1939 and early 1940. We didn`t start it.

Ray Wells

An addition to Gerges comment about the Air war making little difference to the war`s progress.

The first directive that Arthur Harris followed, issued by the Joint Chiefs of Staff from Great Britain and America in June 1943, was “The Pointblank Directive”. This stated that Harris` aim was to, and I quote “to accomplish the progressive dislocation and disruption of the German military, industrial and economic system and the undermining of the German people”

The RAF and USAAF continued this campaign to such an extent that German production was reduced by and I quote again “I would say thirty percent”. This quote comes from the records of an interview with Hitler’s armament minister, Albert Speer. These interview transcripts are held in the Imperial War Museum London.

I don’t know where your particular interest lies in WW2 but it is very well known how close run a thing D-Day was.

Can you imagine the calamity if the Germans had had 30% more Guns along that beach?

How much difference would 30% more German guns and tanks have made on the Eastern Front?

These, of course, are only the guns, tanks, U-Boats et al. that were not produced. The best artillery piece of the war was, without a doubt, the German 88mm weapon yet 75% of these weapons were used to defend the Reich against the bombers, both British and American. How much difference would these have made in the campaigns mentioned above used in their original artillery mode?

To quote Albert Speer again after the bombing of Hamburg in 1943. “Six more raids like that in quick succession would have crippled the will to sustain armament manufacture and war production and bought about a rapid end to the war.”

If Harris had had the resources to do that (which he didn’t) and end the European war in two months would we still see him as a butcher? Or would we see him as a man who, although willing to attack the enemy hard, managed to end Germany’s resistance so that “our boys” didn’t have to invade and take hundreds of thousands of casualties?  It is an interesting conundrum.

George if you send me a message via Yahoo answers I will cheerfully send you my email address and, if you wish, we can discuss this in much more detail.

Ray.

Answer 5

Pretty sure it wasn't only the British who bombed it but the US too....Also if memory serves me right, and it does, the Germans had been bombing British towns and cities for 4 or 5 years!

Answer 6

You shouldn't get your history from a movie, it makes you look dumb.

Hitler started this bombing campaign by carpet bombing London to terrorize the public after England bombed th capitol Berlin.  Hitler was upset and ordered London bombed to the ground.  The only time england bombed was at night because the US was bombing during the day.  The English would use incinderary bombs because there was no targeting ability at night.

The fact of the matter is Hitler started WWII and he is reposible for the destruction of european architecture and history.  So get the ****in' story right.

England Good

Hitler BAD

Any questions?