Talk:Bombing of Dresden

Edit explanation

See previous discussion Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 16#Edit explanation

Company of Heroes (video game)

The 2006 real-time strategy game Company of Heroes has "This one is fresh off the assembly line in Dresden" as one of the comments when a player selects a PaK 38 anti-tank gun crew. It's memorable in the game and alludes to the idea that Dresden was arguably a military target. I don't think it meets criteria for overall significance, though, even in an "In Popular Culture" section. Roches (talk) 16:04, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

The 'war crime' section still has a neutrality tag from January 11. Is this tag still necessary? Manning (talk) 02:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

The complete discussion was archived see: [1]

COPY OF ARCHIVED SECTION:

We have at least one section that is not neutral, and overpromotes the bombing as war crimes. --User:The Founders Intent|THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^{User talk:The Founders Intent|PRAISE} 14:41, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

• I am neutral on the issues and came here from the NPOV dispute resolution link. I realize that there are some very emotional and inflammatory topics discussed and people are going to have strong emotional reactions.

It seems to me that the section discussing the necessity of the bombing and/or military justification, including references to existing opinions that the bombing constituted a war crime, meets the Wikipedia NPOV guidelines. The one comment I would have is that there seems to be a section missing, citing opinions (other than official US military sources) that the bombings were justified. (There is some of this in the introduction which needs to be moved to the appropriate section.)

As for the section "Moral equivalence to the Holocaust", what is there seems rather interesting, but it really needs to be set into some sort of context. The argument is stated as if it were a fact, rather than attributed, so it does not meet NPOV standards for that reason alone. You can't just say something like "The bombing of Dresden has been manipulated by Holocaust Denial and pro-Nazi polemicists" unless there is overwhelming agreement about it, which seems very unlikely. It also needs to be set into a discussion of the number of deaths and the opinion needs to be at least attributed, and preferably quoted.

I would also suggest that the initial section be reduced drastically (to a single summary paragraph) and that any mention of the ethical or moral issues in the introduction be reduced to a single sentence, stating that there is a debate or wide difference of viewpoint among commentators as to whether the bombing was justified. User:Masonbarge|Apollo (User talk:Masonbarge|talk) 22:11, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that the section meets the NPOV guidelines. It doesn't seem to state anything besides the opinions of certain historians. There is a broken link for the first quote, however. --User:Catonsunday|Catonsunday (User talk:Catonsunday|talk) 22:44, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

END COPY

Not much of a discussion, two people saying the section is ok. I don't see a problem either, so I'll remove the tag. WP:TAGGING#Removing_tags : And If there is no reply within a reasonable amount of time (a few days), the tag can be removed.

DS Belgium (talk) 03:56, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Tonnage??

What do you mean by writing "Tonnage" in the table of the section U.S. Air Force Historical Division report?? I'm asking because I'm interested in transferring this table in the Greek article. Thank you!--GeoTrou (talk) 20:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

• The amount of bombs dropped by weight in tons. Tonnage usually refers to cargo, though its use with ship cargo can mean different things. In the case of aircraft though it has to do with the weight of the cargo, in this case the payload of bombs.--Doug.^{(talk • contribs)} 21:22, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you Doug!--GeoTrou (talk) 21:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

But be carful as the tonnage varies depending on source between long (RAF) and short (USAAF) tons . Better to use tonnes -- PBS (talk) 03:38, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

First paragraph, first source

The first source in this document should at the very least be wrapped up as a proper citation so that it is not just a raw URL.

• "Triple raid on Dresden Blows by Over 3,600 R.A.F. & U.S. 'Planes Ahead of the Red Army (Thursday 15 February 1945)". The [Manchester] Guardian. 14 February 2005. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)

But that is only a minor point. It is an old contemporary newspaper article from 15 February 1945 and as such it can not include the numbers for the bombing of the 15th (which is what the headline makes clear), and so it only covers 3 of the 4 raids.

Here is the current sentence from the Wikipedia article that relies on this citatin:

In four raids, altogether 3,600 planes, of which 1,300 were heavy bombers, dropped as many as 650,000 incendiaries, together with 8,000 lb. high-explosive bombs and hundreds of 4,000-pounders, all resulting in the deaths of some 25,000 civilians.

The 1945 article says:

• "Dresden and Chemnitz" "and Magdeburg" "main targets for devastating blows by the R.A.F. on Tuesday night and the Eighth United States Air Force in daylight yesterday." -- So this article is not just about the Dresden raid.
• "Altogether over 3,600 'planes took part" -- but that is for all three towns (and include fighters --From the rest of the paper 1400 RAF +1350 Bombers +900 Mustangs =3,650)
• " Air Ministry communiqué said that the R.A.F. ... 1,400 sent out" --but that number also includes small raids on Bohlen, Magdeburg, and Nuremberg
• "Nearly 650,000 incendiaries, together with 8,000 lb. H.E. bombs and hundreds of 4,000-pounders, were dropped;" -- that is by the RAF and does not include USAAF numbers.
• "450 heavy bombers attacked Dresden and the same number were over Chemnitz" -- so before any other numbers are analysed the number of bombers in the three raids was less than 1,850 working from the numbers in that article.

Therefore the numbers copied from it in the lead are incorrect an I am going to remove them. The change was made by this edit [2] and I am going to revert it out and put the paragraph back as it was before the change was made. -- PBS (talk) 04:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Falsification of evidence

This edit removed a whole section without any prior discussion on the talk page. I think without it the debate section on the debate is the "dog that didn't bark" (Arthur Conan Doyle).

I think that the deleted section is important because it was thanks to David Irving's very popular book that the Bombing of Dresden because a causes célèbres in the 1960's and 1970's. With what we know now, it is difficult to appreciate that, until his work was widely publicised to be false and that he is a charlatan, many people believed his figures. This made the bombing of Dresden the worse single aerial bombardment in history and, based on his figures, to have had a greater death total that the two atomic bombing put together. His distorted figures gave credence to the Nazi's figures, because although people were willing to dismiss those as propaganda, they were less willing to dismiss figures produced by what was popularly believed to be a genuine British historian.

It is Irving's legacy that has led to need for the "Dresden Historical Commission", without his distortions, that the figure of 25,000, which was widely known to be accurate by the end of the 1970s would have moved from the German academic historical research into popular books on the subject a quarter of a century before it did.

Without this section we have an incomplete article. I do agree with that the title "Moral equivalence to the Holocaust" (because although those are now widely seen as his motivation) is not the best so I am going to restore the section but give it a new heading "Falsification of evidence". -- PBS (talk) 05:26, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Removed historical context

I would like to protest the removal of this section:

Historical Context

The Germans had bombed many cities and civilian targets throughout England throughout the war, in addition to many other cities throughout Europe in the opening invasions. The British Bomber Command began a policy of Area Bombing, or targeting cities to demoralize the population, disrupt the infrastructure, and as a method of taking revenge for the bombing of British cities. The Nazis were widely popular, and encountered no resistance from non Jews, non Communists, or any other Germans who were not exterminated by the Nazis. The use of incendiary bombs was also similar to the burning of Jews in concentration camp ovens, which the Germans had given their consent to.

--Anonymiss Madchen 18:53, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

None of the several contentious points was referenced. Wikipedia should reflect reliable sources. Please acquaint yourself with the requirements for inclusion. (Hohum ^@) 19:30, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this is far too one sided and ignores the tremendous carnage caused by German forces. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vumba (talk • contribs) 00:43, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Lipstadt vs Irving

Lipstadt acusses Irving "The forged evidence on which Irving is said to have relied is Tagesbefehl (Order of the day) No 47 ("TB47"). The majority of the Defendants' criticisms relate to or are connected with the way in which Irving dealt with this document." More in the trial report and in a few books.

And Irving says that "Cope uncritically swallows Evans' bald statement that my Dresden deaht-roll figure was based on a document [namely "Tagesbefehl No.47"] that I knew to be a forgery. There is no evidence of this in any edition of The Destruction of Dresden; in fact I gave a wide range of possible casualties, and selected as the best on the available evidence the 135,000 figure that was suggested to me by Hanns Voigt, who headed the Deathroll Division of the bureau of missing persons after the Dresden air raid and who lived in West Germany as a schoolteacher in the 1960s. When other documents became available, after my book appeared, I was the first to publish them in a letter to The Times (what other historian would act that way!) The notorious Tagesbefehl No. 47 on which Evans and the Court lingered for so long played no part whatever in my assessment of the death roll, as readers of my book know."

So now on the wiki we have only "one" version, David Irving might be a nazi, might be political incorrect and even might be a liar, or not. There's no benefit for the doubt? I tought wikipedia was about information and free speech.

See WP:Undue. Rmhermen (talk) 00:13, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

We need to include the number of Jews killed in the bombings...not just Gentiles.

220.233.131.62 (talk) 10:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any distinction in the article's statistics between Jews and Gentiles; what am I missing? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:49, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

A good encyclopaedia would eschew emotional arguments

According to this article, people were wafted through the air to meet their deaths by immolation. Any qualification of this kind of act must, by all human precepts, be condemned. Please remove the sections on moral equivalence. Unless there is a Wikipedia entry on the relative value of one life to another, there is no basis for the argument of moral equivalence in any Wikipedia entry. This isn't an emotional issue; it happened, and it behooves us all to know what happened. But changing the subject by charging who deserved it most is not logic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.102.59.64 (talk) 00:55, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Could you be more specific where you think this occurs without the proper attribution? For instance, neither the word "lofted" nor "immolation" occurs in the article. And "moral equivalence" occurs only in a section named "Falsification of evidence". Rmhermen (talk) 02:11, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Wafted, not "lofted:" "and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm threw people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape from." I apologize if immolation is an obscure term. It means destruction by fire. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.102.59.64 (talk) 02:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Never said I didn't understand it. I said it isn't used in this article. And neither is "wafted". I am trying to understand what you object to in this article. Direct quotes from witnesses? We can't rewrite those. Rmhermen (talk) 03:04, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

My bad. I've got multiple computers going and must've conflated this article with something else I'm reading. Sorry, people being burnt to a crisp tend to send me into a lather. Good luck with your attributions.