Posted on 08/29/2007 9:17:38 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian War Museum has bowed to pressure from veterans and agreed to change a controversial exhibit critical of Allied bombing of German cities in World War Two.
The decision had some historians crying foul that a public outcry could force a change but others said the exhibit had given an inaccurate impression of the bombing campaign, which killed 600,000 Germans.
The exhibit refers to how the value and morality of the bombing campaign remains bitterly contested. The museum in Ottawa is still deciding how to revise it, a spokeswoman said on Wednesday.
"Although Bomber Command and American attacks left 600,000 Germans dead, and more than five million homeless, the raids resulted in only small reductions in German war production until late in the war," the display reads.
Veterans complained that it made them look like indiscriminate bombers directly responsible for the deaths. It is a raw topic with them since 10,000 Canadian airmen -- 140 times the entire Canadian death toll in Afghanistan since 2002 -- were killed in the campaign.
A Senate subcommittee also weighed in to recommend changes, and the museum, which put up the exhibit when it moved into new facilities in 2005, has now decided it could be worded better.
"I think it's shameful. It's a terrible surrender by a public institution to public pressure," said University of Toronto history professor emeritus Michael Bliss.
He said it was important to include a question about the effectiveness of the campaign because of a tenacious belief, especially in the United States, that bombing works.
"Your judgments about wars ... have huge consequences for the future," he said.
However, one of the military historians who recommended a change, the University of Calgary's David Bercuson, said to refuse to correct errors as a matter of principle was simply stubbornness.
"I don't see it as giving in. I see it as correcting something that was unfortunately and badly placed in the first place, and I don't see why anyone shouldn't be given leeway to correct errors," he said.
He said he thought the bombing campaign actually had a significant impact on the war, and that rather than showing a picture of burned Germans near the text the museum could have shown a destroyed refinery or a field of German aircraft grounded for lack of fuel.
Bercuson said that the museum even contradicted itself on the military effects of the raids, diminishing it in the exhibit in question but speaking about its effectiveness in another display across the room.
That other exhibit says the Allied bombing raids "diverted German resources from other fronts and damaged essential elements of the German war effort."
Museum spokeswoman Christina Selin said the panel in question would be revised but "we have not yet determined how the new text will read."
Ploesti bump
How about, "Bad sh!t happens in war. Get over it."?
So, are the educrats in every western country a bunch of communists? I didn’t know Canada was infected by the same unpatriotic anti-war communist cancer that is rotting the US education system? How sad. Put another way...
We’re doomed.
History is one of the most important social subjects a child can learn and the communists are in a full-scale war — no pun intended, but perfect word for it — to destroy any vestige of national pride or patriotism from every western country’s history.
We’re doomed.
“He said it was important to include a question about the effectiveness of the campaign because of a tenacious belief, especially in the United States, that bombing works.”
Hey, guess what - bombing really does work.
Just ask the Japanese about what happened to them.
FWIW, I certainly hope that on one side of this display is one showing the terror attacks on British civilians using the V1 and V2 rocket, and on the others side of this display is another showing the carnage from Hitler’s Nazi concentration camps. Just for balance.
But then, the communist school professors don’t want to balance their lies with the truth when they can brain-wash children instead.
II. ANALYSIS: Dresden as a Military Target
5. At the outbreak of World War II, Dresden was the seventh largest city in Germany proper.2 With a population of 642,143 in 1939, Dresden was exceeded in size only by Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Leipzig, and Essen, in that order.3 The serial bombardments sustained during World War II by the seven largest cities of Germany are shown in Chart A.
6. Situated 71 miles E.S.E. from Leipzig and 111 miles S. of Berlin, by rail, Dresden was one of the greatest commercial and transportation centers of Germany and the historic capital of the important and populous state of Saxony.4 It was, however, because of its geographical location and topography and as a primary communications center that Dresden assumed major significance as a military target in February 1945, as the Allied ground forces moved eastward and the Russian armies moved westward in the great combined operations designed to entrap and crush the Germans into final defeat.
7. Geographically and topographically, Dresden commanded two great and historic traffic routes of primary military significance: north-south between Germany and Czechoslovakia through the valley and gorge of the Elbe river, and east-west along the foot of the central European uplands.5 The geographical and topographical importance of Dresden as the lower bastion in the vast Allied-Russian war of movement against the Germans in the closing months of the war in Europe.
8. As a primary communications center, Dresden was the junction of three great trunk routes in the German railway system: (1) Berlin-Prague-Vienna, (2) Munich-Breslau, and (3) Hamburg-Leipzig. As a key center in the dense Berlin-Leipzig railway complex, Dresden was connected to both cities by two main lines.6 The density, volume, and importance of the Dresden-Saxony railway system within the German geography and e economy is seen in the facts that in 1939 Saxony was seventh in area among the major German states, ranked seventh in its railway mileage, but ranked third in the total tonnage carried by rail.7
9. In addition to its geographical position and topography and its primary importance as a communications center, Dresden was, in February 1945, known to contain at least 110 factories and industrial enterprises that were legitimate military targets, and were reported to have employed 50,000 workers in arms plants alone.8 Among these were dispersed aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabric Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); the great Zeiss Ikon A.G., Germany’s most important optical goods manufactory; and, among others, factories engaged in the production of electrical and X-ray apparatus (Koch and Sterzel A.G.), gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke), and electric gauges (Gebruder Bassler).9
10. Specific military installations in Dresden in February 1945 included barracks and hutted camps and at least one munitions storage depot.10
11. Dresden was protected by antiaircraft defenses , antiaircraft guns and searchlights, in anticipation of Allied air raids against the city.11 The Dresden air defenses were under the Combined Dresden (Corps Area IV) and Berlin (Corps Area III) Luftwaffe Administration Commands.12
Strategic Objectives, of Mutual Importance to the Allies and the Russians:
12. As early as 1943, the Allies and Russians had begun high-level consultations for the conduct of the war against Germany; in essence, for combined operations designed to defeat Germany by Allied bombardment from the air, by Allied ground operations against Germany from the west, and by Russian operations against the Germans from the west, and by Russian operations against the Germans from the East. At the Tehran Conference (28 November-11 December 1943) between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, the grand strategy for these combined operations was outlined and agreed upon by the three powers.13 Details for executing the grand strategy were not considered at the conference, but were to be worked out by the individual forces in keeping with the fortunes and progress of the war.14
13. In the closing months of 1944, Allied land advances in the west and Russian advances from the east, coupled with the ever-growing devastation from aerial attacks by the Allied heavy bomber forces, made it apparent that early in 1945 Germany proper could be invaded from both fronts and that the Allied strategic air forces would be more and more called upon to give direct support to these vast land operations. In September and October 1944 the Allies and the Russians began the exchange of information on their specific plans for operations designed to bring the war to a close in 1945.15 Simultaneously, the Allies and the Russians laid the general groundwork for closer cooperation and assistance in their forthcoming operations.16
14. On 14 December 1944, the American Ambassador to Russia, Mr. Averill Harriman, personally stated to Marshal Stalin that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF), “was very anxious to operate in concert with the Russians and to help the Russian armies whenever such support might be needed.”17 Ambassador Harriman specifically discussed with Stalin the use of Allied air forces in the Mediterranean in support of Russian land operations in the Balkans.18 While there was no direct mention, in the 14 December conversations between Stalin and Harriman, of the employment of the massive Allied strategic air forces operating from the west, it was to be assumed that these forces would be used to support Russians operations on the Eastern front.
15. On 23 December 1944, President Roosevelt informed Stalin that--given the Marshal’s permission General Eisenhower would be instructed to send a representative to Moscow to “discuss with you the situation in the west and its relation to the Russian front in order that information essential to our efforts may be available to all of us.”19 On 26 December Stalin stated his acceptance of President Roosevelt’s proposal.20 The officer designated to confer with Stalin was Marshal of the RAF, Sir Arthur Tedder, Deputy Supreme Commander, SHAEF, and immediately responsible to the Supreme Commander for all Allied air operations. Among the topics discussed by Stalin and Tedder at their meeting on 15 January 1945 was the employment of the Allied strategic air forces in the forthcoming combined operations. Tedder outlined to Stalin the “application of the Allied air effort with particular reference to strategic bombing of communications as represented by oil targets, railroads and waterways.”21 There was also specific discussion of the problem that would face the Russians if the Germans attempted to shift forces from the west to the east and of the necessity of preventing this possibility.22
16. Therefore, on 25 January 1945, the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee of the British War Cabinet, which was responsible for preparing such analyses for the Allied air forces, presented to Marshal Tedder, through appropriate channels, a working paper entitled “Strategic Bombing in Relation to the Present Russian Offensive.23 The findings of this authoritative body were as follows:
The degree of success achieved by the present Russian offensive is likely to have a decisive effect on the length of the war. We consider, therefore, that the assistance which might be given to the Russians during the next few weeks by the British and American strategic bomber forces justifies an urgent review of their employment to this end.24
It is probable that the Germans will be compelled to withdraw forces, particularly panzer divisions, from the Western Front to reinforce the East . . . . To what extent air bombardment can delay the move eastwards of these or other divisions destined for the Eastern Front is . . . an operational matter. It is understood that far-reaching results have already been achieved in the West by disruptive effect of Allied air attacks on marshalling yards and communications generally. These have hitherto been aimed at assistance to the Western Front and should now be considered in relation to delaying the transfer of forces eastwards.25
For the next several days these recommendations were carefully studied and evaluated by the appropriate authorities in the Supreme Commander’s staff, particularly among those immediately responsible to him for planning and authorizing air operations. On 31 January, the decision was made by the Deputy Supreme Commander Tedder and his air staff that the second priority for the Allied strategic air forces should be the “attack of BERLIN, LEIPZIG, DRESDEN and associated cities where heavy attack will . . . hamper movement of reinforcements from other fronts.”26 As of 31 January 1945, the Allied decision to establish Dresden as a second priority target, because it was a primary communications center and in support of the Russian armies, was by no means unilateral. The decision was founded on basic and explicit exchanges of information between the Allies and Russia and was clearly a strategic decision of mutual importance to the Allies and the Russians.27
The Russian Request for Allied Bombing of Communications in the Dresden Area:
17. The Allied-Russian interchanges that had begun in the closing months of 1944 and had become, with the passing of time, more frequent and more specific, culminated in the ARGONAUT Conferences of January-February 1945. On 4 February, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Marshal Stalin, together with their foreign secretaries and military advisors, assembled at Yalta to present definitive and specific plans, and requests, for bringing the war against Germany to a victorious conclusion, by the summer of 1945, if possible (Other considerations involved in the ARGONAUT deliberations are not pertinent or relevant here). At this meeting, Marshal Stalin asked Army General Antonov, Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff, to outline to the Conference the situation existing on the Eastern Front and to describe Russia’s plans for subsequent operations. At the conclusion of his extended presentation, General Antonov made three specific requests for Allied assistance to the Russians: 27
Our wishes are:
a. To speed up the advance of the Allied troops on the Western Front, for which the present situation is very favorable: (1) To defeat the Germans on the Eastern Front. (2) To defeat the German groupings which have advanced into the Ardennes. (3) The weakening of the German forces in the West in connection with the shifting of their reserves to the East (It is desirable to begin the advance during the first half of February).
b. By air action on communications hinder the enemy from carrying out the shifting of his troops to the East from the Western Front, from Norway, and from Italy (In particular, to paralyze the junctions of Berlin and Leipzig).
c. Not permit the enemy to remove his forces from Italy.
18. It was the specific Russian request for bombing communications, coupled with the emphasis on forcing troops to shift from west to east through communications centers, that led to the Allied bombings of Dresden. The structure of the Berlin-Leipzig-Dresden railway complex, as outlined in paragraph 8 above, required that Dresden, as well as Berlin and Leipzig, be bombed. Therefore Allied air authorities concluded that the bombing of Dresden would have to be undertaken (1) in order to implement strategic objectives, of mutual importance to the Allies and the Russians, and now agreed upon at the highest levels of governmental authority, and (2) to respond to the specific Russian request presented to the Allies by General Antonov to “paralyze the junctions of Berlin and Leipzig.”
The Recommendation and Authority for the Allied Air Forces’ Bombing of Dresden:
19. On 8 February 1945 SHAEF (Air) informed the RAF Bomber Command and the United States Strategic Air Forces that Dresden was among a number of targets that had been selected for bombing because of their importance in relation to the movements of military forces to the Eastern Front.28 This action, based upon the authoritative recommendation of the Combined Strategic Targets Committee, SHAEF (Air), and in turn based upon the recommendations of the Joint Intelligence Committee (see paragraph 16 above), was in keeping with the procedural structure and authority set up in SHAEF for the conduct of aerial operations by Allied forces.29
20. Allied aerial operations were ultimately the responsibility of the Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower, though normally he delegated the immediate authority for employment of Allied air forces to his Deputy Supreme Commander, Marshal Tedder. The latter, in turn, relied upon the commanders of the RAF Bomber Command and the United States Strategic Air Forces (General Carl Spaatz, Commanding) for the actual conduct of specific strategic aerial operations. The top commanders of the Allied strategic bomber forces were required to conduct all of their operations within the framework of bombing directives laid down to them by the Combined Chiefs of Staff (the British Chiefs of Staff and the American Joint Chiefs of Staff). In February 1945, when SHAEF (Air) directed the bombing of Dresden in immediate support of the Russians and in keeping with strategic objectives of mutual interest to the Allies and the Russians, the strategic objectives of mutual interest o the Allies and the Russians, the strategic bomber forces were operating under the authority of the Combined Chiefs of Staff (CCS) “Directive No. 3 for the Strategic Air Forces in Europe,” dated 12 January 1945.30 The second priority, after bombing of the German petroleum industry for the Allied strategic air forces was, in that directive, listed as the bombing of “German lines of communications.”31 The authority for and the ordering of the bombing of Dresden by Allied strategic air forces and the steps taken to carry out these orders were therefore within the framework of the existing basic CCS Directive No. 3 governing the operations of the Allied strategic air forces in Europe.
Information Officially Given to the Russians by the Allies Concerning the Intended Date of and the Forces to be Committed to the Bombing of Dresden:
21. Although the exact procedures for maintaining day to day liaison between the Russians and the Allies on Allied bombing operations was for a long time the subject of negotiation between the Allies and the Russians, certain procedures for such liaison were nevertheless in effect prior to the Allied bombings of Dresden.32 Therefore, the following actions were taken by Allied authorities to notify the Russians that in accordance with their expressed wishes as to actions and timing, stated at the ARGONAUT Conference on 4 February 1945, Allied strategic air forces would bomb Dresden during the first half of February.33
22. On 7 February 1945, General Spaatz, Commanding General, United States Strategic Air Forces, informed Major General J. R. Deane, Chief of the United States Military Mission, Moscow, that the communications targets for strategic bombing by the Eighth Air Force were, in the order of their priority, Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Cheanitz (and others of lesser importance).34 On the same date, General Spaatz also notified General Deane that a 24-hour advance notice of the intention to conduct actual bombing operations against Dresden (and the other targets of mutual concern to the Russians and the Allies) would be forwarded in order that General Deane might so notify the Russians.35 Moscow notified the proper Russian authority that Dresden was among the targets selected for strategic bombing by the American Eighth Air Force.36 On February, General Spaatz informed the United States Military Mission that, weather permitting, the Eighth Air Force intended to attack the Dresden Marshalling Yards with a force of 1200 to 1400 bomber planes on 13 February.37 On 12 February, therefore, the Russians were informed of the Americans’ intention to bomb Dresden.38 Weather conditions did not permit the Eighth Air Force to carry out its attack against Dresden on 13 February.39 Accordingly, on 13 February by similar procedures the Americans informed the Russians, that the Eighth Air Force would attack the Dresden Marshalling Yards on the 14th.40 Subsequently, the Russians were informed by the Americans that Dresden, together with the other high priority communications centers targets, would be subject to attack whenever weather conditions permitted.41
The Forces and Means Employed by the Allies in the Bombing of Dresden:
23. In the Dresden bombing attacks of 14-15 February 1945 the American Eighth Air Force and the RAF Bomber Command together employed a total of 1299 bomber aircraft (527 from the Eighth Air Force, 722 from the RAF Bomber Command) for a total weight, on targets, of 3906.9 tons. Of this tonnage, 1247.6 tons were expanded by the Eighth Air Force, 2659.3 tons by the RAF Bomber Command. The Americans employed 953.3 tons of high explosive bombs and 294.3 tons of incendiary bombs--all aimed at the Dresden Marshalling Yards. The British employed 1477.7 tons of high explosive bombs and 1181.6 tons of incendiary bombs--all aimed against the Dresden city area.42 The American aircraft used H2X (radar) bombing method, with visual assists, and the British used the marker and visual method.43
Specific Target Objectives in the Dresden Area:
24. As related in paragraphs 5-11 above, Dresden became a military target as (1), and of overriding importance, a primary communications center in the Berlin-Leipzig-Dresden railway complex; (2) as an important industrial and manufacturing center directly associated with the production of aircraft components and other military items, including poison gas, anti-aircraft and field guns, and small guns; and (3) as an area containing specific military installations. The night raid by the RAF Bomber Command was intended to devastate the city area itself and thereby choke communications within the city and disrupt the normal civilian life upon which the larger communications activities and the manufacturing enterprises of the city depended. Further, the widespread area raid conducted by the British entailed bombing strikes against the many industrial plants throughout the city which were thus to be construed as specific targets within the larger pattern of the area raid.44 The Eighth Air Force raids, which were by daylight and followed, on the 14th and 15th February, the night raid of the British (13/14 February), were directed against rail activities in the city.45
Thanks for the info and link.
You’re very welcome!
bump for later
When the HELL are these people going to get it.
We were not in a Queensbury rules match, we were at WAR! From the start, WWII was going to be a fight to the death between nations, and we knew from experience what life was going to be like living under Japanese or Nazi rule. We had seen it early on, and it was confirmed by the concentration camps in Germany and the POW camps in the Japanese empire.
People who live today and judge the prosecution of WWII by circumstances today fifty years after the fact deserve ridicule and condemnation.
BTW, an Alberta Nazi (10 years old in Germany before his Nazi parents moved to Canada along with the rest of the Nazi horde) told me about what he vividly remembered from the age of 10.
He said that each time a US or British plane went down in the area around his German home, all of the neighborhood civilians would pick up crude weapons (shovels, hammers...whatever) and run to the crash sites to kill any surviving crewmen.
Why did I ever discuss anything with him? He didn’t reveal his Nazi and anti-American attitude at all for several years before 9/11. After 9/11, he sent a torrent of hatred to our political e-mail list (family rights, conservative). ...turned out that he had something to do with the IHR bunch (Nazi revisionists).
History revisionists among us, who view events through the enemies' eyes are no better than traitors. That's why the vanquished enemies can create their own version of reality if they so wish.
This doofus Bliss seems unaware that the director of the Smithsonian had to resign and go back to flipping burgers for attempting a similar outrage with the nuclear bombing of Japan.
The war with Germany ended. Indiscriminate bombing of England and France had been ongoing for years. Germany could simply not continue with a civilian populace totally demoralized by --- continuous bombing.
What might have happened is completely speculative, subjective and totally at the mercy of the logic and ignorance of the person promoting the speculation.
I would rather discuss what actually happened.
Just saying.
I guess they want the next war to be bloodless...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I read a very interesting book by Adolph Galland, the commander of the fighter wing of the Luftwaffe and also an ace with something like 200 victories.
The book is really interesting, giving the inside view of the war from their perspective. He in no was tries to minimize German atrocities, but he did mention a couple of times that the allies were bombing civilian centers quite puposely. He said all higher officers in all air forces knew the difference between industrial and civilan areas.
I agree the Germans (nor the Japanese) have an moral ground to complain but I still think the deliberate bombing of civlians was not only wrong but a war crime. Also it didn’t break German morale, it just made them more determined.
That was about to happen to my brother when members of the German Army showed up and stopped the civilians from killing him. One of the other crewmen was not as lucky. In my brothers case they had pitchforks. Now if the SS had found him first he would have wished he were dead. He is alive and well? in Fresno...
The key point in your post.
As recently as 10 years ago, folks in Dresden held ill will toward the British, but not the Americans, for the bombing.
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