The GERMANS want apologies for what went on during WWII? The GERMANS?
Posted on 02/10/2005 6:48:36 PM PST by NCjim
Sixty years after the destruction of Dresden, the British public still believes the massive death toll was a result of the excess of the notorious "Bomber" Harris, and the idea of an apology to Germany revolts a tabloid press bordering on the xenophobic.
"Harris and Bomber Command are still the black sheep of the British popular memory of the Second World War," said Mark Connelly, a history professor at the University of Kent and the author of a study on the role of the Royal Air Force in the destruction of the picturesque capital of the German state of Saxony.
Deprived of special medals and brushed aside for official ceremonies at the end of the war, Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris and his men never enjoyed the status of hero reserved for most of their colleagues.
The Daily Express, a right-wing tabloid not known for its fondness of Germany, allowed itself on Harris's death in 1984 to speak of a "crime against humanity," Connelly recalled.
No apology
However, this harsh editorial was an isolated one, as the British press generally rejects any idea of an apology.
When activists insulted those erecting a statue to Harris in central London in 1992, the Daily Mail newspaper denounced them as "peace idiots".
When Queen Elizabeth II paid a state visit to Germany in November last year, just ahead of the anniversary, British tabloids again expressed their opposition to any apology for the bombing campaign that razed about 75% of Dresden and killed at least 35 000 people.
In response to Bild, a popular Germany daily which asked "Will the Queen say sorry?," the Daily Mail and Daily Express led the tabloids in accusing Germany of trying to rewrite history.
"Sorry, the Germans must never be allowed to forget their evil past," wrote Simon Heffer in the Mail.
"Krautrage," ran the front-page headline of the Daily Star, blending the pejorative English word for Germans "Krauts" and outrage.
The queen stopped short of offering an apology, speaking only of "the appalling suffering of war on both sides".
Fanned by several British newspapers which drape themselves in the Union Jack whenever World War II is mentioned, the debate over the attitude of the RAF and the government of Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the bombing is not known to the wider public.
And "Bomber" Harris remains the ideal "scapegoat," Connelly said.
"Modern popular opinion holds it as truth that Harris devised and carried out the bombing war according to his own ruthless desires without reference to the British government or people," Connelly said.
It is true that Harris never expressed the least regret, unlike Churchill who one month later had described the bombing as "wanton destruction".
Harris said: "The whole of the remaining cities are not worth the bones of one British Grenadier."
The GERMANS want apologies for what went on during WWII? The GERMANS?
Um, who started the war? Yeah that's what I thought
Right. If you've got stuff you don't want broken, you don't anger the people who can break it.
Screw 'em.
http://opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/02/10/do1001.xml
"The historiographical trend, culminating in Frederick Taylor's superb recently published study, dispels any lingering notions about Dresden's innocence. It was an early convert to Nazism. Its factories pumped out high-tech war materials and, alongside the refugees, its buildings were crammed with administrators organising the last-ditch resistance. The railways running through it could funnel troops to the East to block the Russian advance - hence the Soviet request nine days earlier for an Allied attack.
"Dresden, then, was a legitimate target within the context of the war as it was being fought, and Bomber Harris set about attacking it in conventional fashion. The 796 Lancasters he dispatched were, by that time, not an outstandingly large force. The fate of the city was ultimately sealed by a combination of the weather (which cleared, giving good bombing conditions), the use of incendiaries and the absence of serious anti-aircraft defences or bomb shelters."
> ... Bild, a popular Germany daily which asked
> "Will the Queen say sorry?, ...
The Germans and the whiny Brits need to thank their
lucy stars that the Manhattan Project ran late. There
were reportedly Silverplate B-29s earmarked for
deployment to England, for use against Germany.
To avoid the excesses of war: don't provoke one.
And if you must start one: don't lose it.
Sure, there were lessons from Dresden, but they
don't include apologizing to aggressor losers.
How about the Germans apologize for every SINGLE, INDIVIDUAL crime IT did, and THEN they can expect a lot of meaningless "apologies".
It's over, get over it.
Dresden has enough on it's plate with their growing Muslim population and doesn't deserve apologies from anyone.
So, instead, they undertook to employ the instrument for what it could do -- fire bombing large targets (which is to say cities) at night.
It was a war, which makes for bad choices. In this case, the RAF could choose to bomb Dresden, et al, at night -- or they could choose to bomb not at all.
As a consequence, Bomber Command did what it could do and did not attempt what it could not do. As it was, the casualty rate for Bomber Command was the highest of all the British branches of service in WW II. In fact, I believe Bomber Command may have suffered more deaths in total during WW II than the British Army in the European theater.
-ccm
Bomber Harris was only following orders.
I thought that the Germans had bombed London. Many times. Over the course of months if not years. With bombers, buzz-bombs, and missiles.
What did they expect would happen to their cities if their enemies should prevail? It sounds like some of these people may choose to fight this war again. Perhaps they have never heard of Carthage.
How should the apology be worded? "We're sorry we were more effective destroying Dresden than you were in destroying London"?
Maybe the USA should apologize for developing the atomic bomb before the Nazis could drop one on Washington, DC.
ping
Bomber Harris also did a smashing job on the 1921 Iraqi uprisings.
" Wing-Commander Sir Arthur Harris (later Bomber Harris, head of wartime Bomber Command) was happy to emphasise that "The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means in casualties and damage. Within forty-five minutes a full-size village can be practically wiped out and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured." "
Winners don't apologize. At least, they didn't used to....
Silly Krauts.
Apologize for Coventry and we're even.
By the way the Dresden fire storm was a fluke. No one knew at the time that incendiaries could trigger a fire storm which is essentially a weather effect.
The Germans used incendiaries over Coventry in order to destroy Englands best preserved Medieval city in order to demoralize the British.
The Brits learned the lesson, probably too well.
The Germans reaped that which they sowed, a whirlwind.
Oh? They brought it up? EF 'em...
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