Posted on 02/13/2020 7:17:08 AM PST by C19fan
During the final months of World War II, from February 13 to 15, 1945, Allied forces bombed the ancient, cathedral city of Dresden, in eastern Germany.
The bombing was controversial because Dresden's contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities — though it was a key transport junction and used by German forces to defend the country against Soviet forces approaching from the east.
Before the huge air raid, it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, however, it was a smouldering ruin — 2,400 tons of high explosives and 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. An unknown number of civilians, somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000, were dead.
British rifleman Victor Gregg was one of hundreds of men being held as a PoW in the city by the Germans. On the 75th anniversary of the start of the bombing, this is his eyewitness account of the devastation he left behind.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“You think the bombing of infrastructure has no military purpose?”
The war was over
Dresden had no military significance
The raid was specifically designed to kill as many civilians as possible
It might be a good idea for you to go find a forum with no historians and no Veterans on it so that your level of ignorance on the topic doesn’t grate on people.
As you have the same logic and mindset as those who join ISIS.
Seriously.
The book Hellstorm describes some of the many horrors and atrocities experienced by German civilians as WW2 drew to a close.
I am NOT apportioning or assigning blame, guilt, criminality, etc; I am simply promoting an avenue of information.
We can't keep falling back on the position, "But we're the good guys."
The standard Leftist accusation for the Dresden bombing was that there were no military targets, except the rail network. Of course, that was the target and the transportation system was the major target for air forces at this point in the war. Much of manufacturing had either been destroyed or moved underground. However, transportation could not be hidden and the Germans were moving troops and supplies to defend against the Soviets and the Western allies who were closing in on the Reich. The Russians had specifically asked for an attack on Dresden because troop movements and supplies were pouring through Dresden to reinforce the Eastern Front. The Brits and the Americans accomodated their request. Legitimate target. Perhaps Hitler should have surrendered as the eventual outcome was well known even to this lunatic.
Dresden also served as an offering to Stalin. Stalin was complaining about the lack of Allied support in attacking targets supporting German forces going against the Soviets.
So I guess Coventry was fair game after all. Carry on.
Not ranting. Telling the truth. The bombing was in multiple waves, and those waves were designed to kill civilians. The biggest give away being following incendiary runs with high explosive runs an hour later to kill the people trying to put out the fires. That is targeting non-combatants.
A well known factoid.
The Dresden bombing raid was specifically designed to kill as many civilians as possible.
And you do nothing but defend it or even make jokes about it.
So don’t complain when ISIS uses the exact same logic. Maybe on a city you live in.
The jokes will be really funny then.
Facts!? How DARE you bring facts into this?!!
Take it up with Churchill. He felt the raid went too far.
So save your breath, as what I said was correct. Only a knuckle dragging mouth breather would argue against that fact.
“The raid on Coventry had been avenged long before Dresden, my FRiend; the firebombing of Hamburg alone in July of 1943 killed more people than the British had lost during the entire Blitz.”
I was thinking the same thing too.
The firebombing of Hamburg created significantly worse casualties and more damage.
Of course, the bombing of Hamburg in ‘43 was in the midst of the war and Dresden was near the end when Germany’s war capabilities were waning - so there’ll always be the eternal question of whether Dresden was necessary or not.
Then why didn’t the Germans declare Dresden an open City, announce that it was only full of civilians and they were evacuating. And no military activity would happen there?
And that’s utterly stupid to say the war was over in February 45, there was one heck of a lot of bitter fighting still to go. And it wasn’t going to end if you started pulling your punches. This is just Nazi sympathy porn, trying to deflect away from what they did in the east.
They would have hung Bomber Harris from the Brandenburg Gate. Just as the Japanese would have executed Douglas MacArthur and Curtis LeMay. But fortunately they lost.
Sorry sport, the guys in 1945 didn’t have the benefit of having watched the ending on History Channel. There were a lot of people in February of 45 not knowing exactly how it was all going to come to an end. Everyone was confident we were going to win, but they had been confident eight weeks earlier when the Battle of the Bulge was Unleashed in a surprise.
I see none. As you said war is hell. Anything that can be done to shorten the war, even if by only one day, should be done.
Troll.
The war was not over.
The Germans didn’t surrender until the second week in May. And had Dresden and other transportation hubs not been totaled so completely the Nazis might have been able to hold out another month or so.
I have coffee five mornings a week with a bunch of Veterans at the VFW hall. We have two guys who fought in that war and who stayed in through Vietnam. One just turned 94 and the other is 96.
To you, more weeks or months of fighting is some esoteric point. These guys lived it.
Even more true of the fire-bombing of Tokyo.
And you seem to think basically over means if we would have let up and coasted that everything would have had the same outcome. The fact is, if we would have let up an inch the industrious Germans would have taken advantage of that as they always did, and collapsed into a very hard to attack pocket. The only answer was to pound them until they collapsed.
And if it was basically over, where were the German negotiations to surrender in February of 45?
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