The smoldering outskirts of Dresden during the attack. Two protestors from the Just Stop Oil group have run onto the field at Lords and briefly disrupted play about five minutes after the start of the second Ashes cricket test between England and Australia. Mr. Steinmeier urged Germans to push back against efforts to contradict or play down their countrys responsibility for the crimes of World War II. In March 1945, Churchill wrote, "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed.". The logistics of such slaughter is really unbelievable.. Commemorations are taking place in Germany to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. Should May 8 be a public holiday celebrating Germany's WWII surrender? At this time the Germans would not be rebuilding anything as they were toasted and on there last piece of bread. [4] This later estimate is considered authoritative by many sources. The incineration of large numbers of people in Dresden is also indicated by estimates of the extreme temperature reached in Dresden during the firestorm. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westwards and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium, not only to give shelter to workers, refugees and troops alike, but also to house the administrative services displaced from other areas[13]. Since when did 25,000 people killed be a good thing in any stretch of the imagination? The raids that began on Feb. 13, 1945, left the city littered with corpses, and tens of thousands of Dresdens buildings had been turned to rubble, including its famous opera house and museums in the historic old city. Mourning all of the wars victims has been central to Germanys remembrance efforts since reunification in 1990. Richard Peter Senior/Deutsche Fotothek, via Getty Images. This ensured that the Dresden raids were particularly concentrated and thus particularly effective. He said scientific analysis had debunked the claim that a firestorm that tore through the city could have reached temperatures of up to 2,000 degrees Celsius (3,600F), cremating tens of thousands of bodies without a trace. These cities also lacked sufficient air-raid shelters for their citizens. [1] The result was a high death toll and the destruction of one of Europes most beautiful and cultural cities. The Dresden waterfront photographed in 2014 after reconstruction projects were completed. It blew the thick oak door off the shelter where the family had taken refuge, slamming him and his mother to the ground. If you are tempted to counter that this is an extreme, lone example in history, I would again invite you to do some academic-level reading on Pol-Pot, The Khmer Rouge, every fascist regime ever, ISIS ah, what's the point. They were there, they did the counting. On the evening of February 13, 1945, a series of Allied firebombing raids begins against the German city of Dresden, reducing the "Florence of the Elbe" to rubble and flames, and killing roughly. She was sent there because it was a safe city and because it had the biggest maternity hospital after Berlin and the most hospital still intact. Read more:To understand Saxony, look at its history. Like Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five, I wrote as I witnessed. Yet more bombing raids followed, including by 311 U.S. Boeing B-17 planes (pictured) the following day. Commuters boarding a tram amid the ruins in 1946. As the incendiaries fell, the phosphorus clung to the bodies of those below, turning them into human torches. A record 6,000 extremists took to the streets there to mark the anniversary of the bombings in 2009. This strategy was very popular with Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris, 1st Baronet, Marshal of the Royal Air Force, RAF Bomber Command. From being regarded as some form of hero on the one hand, to a Nazi supporter on the other, has taught me that there are so many sides to any question. The German government regarded the acceptance of Germans from the east as an essential duty. His arm had been jammed between two stones, where shreds of his grey suit remained. These cellars proved to be death traps in many cases. Dresden is located in Germany's east, in the territory that was part ofthe Soviet-aligned German Democratic Republic (GDR), which existed from 1949 to 1990. If the 25,000 death-toll estimate in Dresden is accurate, we are left with the odd result that Allied air power, employed for textbook purposes to its full measure and with no restrictions, over an especially vulnerable large city near the end of the war, when Allied air superiority was absolute and German defenses nearly nonexistent, was less effective than Allied air power had been in previous more-difficult operations such as Hamburg or Berlin. To understand Saxony, look at its history, Germany far-right extremists handed hefty jail terms, Bus driver sacked for displaying 'I am German' sign, Seventy-five years ago, Allied bombers reduced Dresden to rubble. On the night of February 13, 1945, hundreds of RAF bombers descended on Dresden in two waves, dropping their lethal cargo indiscriminately over the city. At the end of World War II, Allied forces destroyed the baroque German city on the Elbe. During that time the official casualty figure for the bombing was 35,000. Read more:Should May 8 be a public holiday celebrating Germany's WWII surrender? Fleeing the Russians was not a valid justification for seeking and maintaining residence in Dresden. The Dresden bombings created a massive firestorm of epic proportions, and were in no way a failed mission with only a fraction of the intended results. [31], Historians also differ on whether or not large numbers of bodies in Dresden were so incinerated in the bombing that they could no longer be recognized as bodies. Victor Klemperer was an eyewitness to the Dresden bombings at the end of World War II, on February 13 and 14, 1945. Der Freiheitskampf, the official German organ for Saxony, urged citizens to offer temporary accommodation: There is still room everywhere. That is the nature of war. The Associated Press is an independent global news organization dedicated to factual reporting. 'Kriegsverbrechen' like many others at the time from both sides. I have learned to try to understand those who disagree with my outlook. Sign up here. The fire made superheated air rise rapidly, creating a vacuum at ground level that produced winds strong enough to uproot trees and suck people into the flames. The shapes suggested human corpses. They just bombed the densest populated parts of the city. I think the extensive ruins left in Dresden suggest a degree of complete destruction not seen before in Germany. Can you image if those countries were to rise up for revenge based on their death toll? Three hours after the first air raid, as Dresden's firefighters were battling the blazes and surviving civilians were clambering out of their shelters, a. I suggest you to read a book named "Das Ende der Tabus" (the end of the taboos) by Rudolf Czermin if you can speak German. They plunged the world into war and killed more than 7 million innocent people (just during the "Final Solution." [10], However, Taylor states that it was general policy in Dresden to have refugees on their way to the west to continue onwards within 24 hours. Another dumbass "student" of Jewish lies. Many conflicting estimates have been made concerning the number of deaths during the raids of Dresden on February 13-14, 1945. A flower lies on a grave at the Heidefriedhof cemetery during a memorial to mark the 68th anniversary of the bombing of Dresden. In the days after the bombing on Feb. 13, 1945, the Nazi propaganda ministry declared the Dresden bombing a terror attack, circulating reports that up to 200,000 people had perished. That it was a holocaust and war crimes is indisputable. BERLIN Germans on Thursday marked 75 years since Allied bombs destroyed the eastern city of Dresden, with national leaders emphasizing atonement and the universal mourning of the wars victims even as the far right has promoted a revisionist view of the Nazi state. We must not question one narrative from British, US, or Israeli sources coz if we do we get called Nazis, or Putin Bots or H Deniers. And how was it imaginable that 200,000 bodies could have been recovered from out of the ruins in less than a month? The whole city is flattened. As a Berliner, 13 years old at the time of the bombing and occupation etc., I easily can get myself to justify both sides of the comments here. I beg you to do some real, academic research into the Blitz. These are the reasons my anger has refused to subside. To sacrifice 25,000 woman and children, innocent people for that? Dresden was a civilian target. Also, Dresden was undefended: no searchlights, no bursting flak. There were so many bodies that this task took two weeks to get completed. After neo-Nazis began inflating the figure further, talking of 500,000 to 1 million victims of a bombing Holocaust, the city established an expert commission to investigate. Some 200,000 Silesians and East Prussians were living in tents or shacks in the Grosser Garten. The body structure was recognizable and the shape of the skulls, but they had no clothes. I had enlisted two years prior to the outbreak of the second world war and by the time I was 21 I had taken part in one major battle and various smaller ones. Then the bomb fell into Renners backyard. The. See also DeBruhl, Marshall, Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden, New York: Random House, Inc., 2006, p. 255. Many of these refugees would have been living in quarters away from the targeted center of Dresden. I do believe that this is most likely a case of spitting into the wind. Foto Frost/ullstein bild, via Getty Images. Center of German art and culture caused a tremendous backlash and protest by British and other leaders. Ethically, the German's were killing people in concentration camps in order to achieve ethnic cleansing. Perhaps I should be more realistic and knuckle down to the concept of the brutality of the human race, but I have always been a stubborn individual. Hitler had ordered that over 3,000 air-raid bunkers be built in 80 German towns and cities. Well, I did. The church and statue are pictured before the bombing earlier in this gallery. I found a tin and put their ashes in it. But Dresden is . 2:05 Dresden, Germany Soviet troops were pressing into Germany from the east and the other Allies from the west, but for 12-year-old schoolboy Eberhard Renner the war seemed far away. Some were completely carbonized and buried in this pyre, but nevertheless they were all burnt here because of the danger of an epidemic. As evening fell on Thursday, residents stood in the rain and joined hands in a human chain that snaked through the wet streets, encircling the heart of the city, a tradition that began several years ago when the tactic was used to block a neo-Nazi march. He succeeded in convincing the people and the powers that be that it was worth a try. The air raids killed 25,000 people. As for "children and women are usually more in favor for life than for war, I would again invite you to read up on the Hitler Youth, the thousands of children who turned their parents over to the SS for the smallest perceived infractions, and the female teachers who daily told them that this was their moral & patriotic duty to so do. A raid that closely resembles that onDresden was carried out 10 days later on February 23, 1945 at Pforzheim. It is suggested that such an attack resulting in so many deaths, the great proportion of which will be key personnel, cannot help but have a shattering effect on political and civilian morale all over Germany.[22], The destruction of Dresden was so complete that major companies were reporting fewer than 50% of their workforce present two weeks after the raids. My statistics and quotes are backed up by cited material, unlike ALL of you. Historian Richard J. Evans estimates that approximately 25,000 people died during these bombings. I now have a completely different view of things. The British commander of the raid on Dresden, Bomber Harris was going to be awarded with a Knighthood after the raid, and all the necessary checks were made to ensure it was appropriate, and as a final check, the British Airmen who had to carry out the raid were asked their opinion of the award, and they refused to endorse it. It was rebuilt after reunification and consecrated in 2005. Meanwhile, in the city center, hundreds of neo-Nazis gathered to the sound of Wagner to .
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