Talk:Bombing of Dresden

Incomplete references to Dresden Historians Commission claiming maximum 25,000 killed

The article addresses the Final Report given by a Historians Commission in Dresden in 2010 (individual pages cited as ref. [16], [70] and [86] by article version 832318440) as the today one document which can be acknowledged to provide correct casualty numbers of the air attacks of Feb.13-15 1945. My Talk does no question this view in general. In Detail, however, the report's message of a total maximum of 25,000 people killed is not as unambiguous as the article teaches. Controversial disputes are beyond the scope of wiki articles, but regarding the prominent position of this source a revised article version should portray its existing inner uncertainties and address the associated conclusive options.
Remarkable original research results are given by the Final Report on pages 38-40 based on individual burial documents (which are classified in comparison with other data bases as most complete and reliable on p. 37). These listed burial data can be read and summarized quite differently:

(i) Reading as adopted by the present article: In four subsections on p.38-40 for four groups of burial locations the Final Report counts (A) up to about 21.000 killed victims with reference to two big cemeteries Heidefriedhof and Johannisfriedhof Dresden until April 30 (p.38), plus (B) on "Other Cemeteries Within the City Limit of Dresden" for "March and April 1945 ... almost equally many burials on the cemeteries in the city as, in the same frame of time, summarized for Heidefriedhof and Johannisfriedhof together", followed by a formulation of "more than 2.600 individual proofs" (in German: "Einzelnachweise"), plus for (C) "Cemeteries Around Dresden and Beyond" and (D) "Improvised Burials" another number of close to 1.000 burials. Summarizing gives slightly below or close to 25.000 as claimed by the Final Report's Summary on p.40/41 and cited by the article. -- By this way of reading we accept, however, the number of 2.600 casualties for (B) as "almost equal" to the share of burials in (A) that took place during March and April - in conflict with a much higher number on p.38 teaching that "On Heidefriedhof the ashes of 6.865 casualties cremated on Altmarkt arrived on March 5" - a position which is outside of any doubt since it is known as reliably documented for decades of years.

(ii) However, the above contradiction is dissolved if the reader, in analogy to other parts of this Final Report, understands the two statements above about "Other cemeteries ..." (called (B) here) as contributions to the Commissions efforts to distinguish upper and lower limits: With this view, the number of 2.600 "individual proofs" on p.39 for the (B) locations represents a lower minimum of the total of burials there, whereas the ashes of 6.865 victims that arrived on Heidefriedhof on March 5 (p.38) are understood as included in the commission's reference of about "almost equally many burials on the cemeteries in the city as, in the same frame of time, summarized for Heidefriedhof ..." in March and April (p.39). In total the subset (B) becomes, then, 6.865 instead of 2.600 and increases the final sum of documented burials by more than 4.000 to about 29.000 instead of 25.000. -- (in fact, with this reading the final total may increase to even more than 29.000 since other Commission's remarks on p.38/39 indicate that the real share of March/April burials in the two locations of group (A) among the total of 21.000 burials there was probably higher than 6.865; unfortunately, the Commission's Final Report does not distinguish which of the other 14.000 burials on Heidefriedhof and Johannisfriedhof documented until April 30 took place in February already and which in March and April)

Thus, details of the presentation of basic casualty data in the Final Report are equivocal, and a revised article should point it out. Such revision seems the more appropriate since M. Neutzner (editor of the Final Report) addressed some political pressure writing in a separate Report published on March 17, 2010 on p.22: "Since 1990 the administration of the city of Dresden" (which organized the Dresden Historians Commission) "was ... confronted with the request to correct the former number of 35,000 casualties ... An important argument had been that the official statistics were falsified by the GDR administration by political reasons which revision became, with the changed [political] conditions, possible now." (in German: "Seit 1990 sah sich die Dresdner Stadtverwaltung ... mit der Aufforderung konfrontiert, die bislang vertretene Zahl von 35.000 ... zu korrigieren. Ein wesentliches Argument dabei war, dass die behördliche Statistik von der DDR-Administration aus politischen Gründen verfälscht worden wäre, was nun unter veränderten Bedingungen aufgedeckt und revidiert werden könnte."). Again Neutzner remains vague with details and does not tell the reader, which of the groups who "confronted" the post-1990 administration (and, thus, the Commission) with opposite requests he addresses. In fact, Irving's self-correction of his thesis of 135.000 or more Dresden casualties was included in issues of Weidauer's Inferno Dresden long before 1990 (e.g. p.123/124 in) and had removed reputable arguments for such high numbers. On the other hand, since 1990 the local discussion in Dresden was and is significantly influenced by groups criticizing the former GDR-Administration for "canonizing" (p. 18 in Final Report) the number of 35.000 by "assailable testimony" ("nicht belegbaren Zeugenaussage" - ). For these groups, the presentation of casualty numbers significantly below 35.000 was and is an essential target. Thus, regardless of Neutzner's vague note in his separate Report from March 17 2010 it is clear that the Commission had to act under pressure by politically based requests, and a revised version of the article should take this background into account when prominently citing the Commission's Final Report.

Few minor issues refer to two Citations, in article version 832318440 numbered [3] and [4]:

[3] should be omitted in a future edited version of this wiki-page since it is a secondary (citing others) source without own original input.

[4] is a published book based on the Final Report of the Dresden Historians Commission 2010 without new own research results different from or additional to the data of the Final Report. The global availability of [4] and of this Final Report is, however, quite different with only the latter present on-line; probably this was the reason why [4] was not included into the Article's Bibliography (but could be shifted to it). For an edited version of the wiki-page it is, thus, recommended to substitute [4] throughout by the link to the Final Report (of course, with reference to the individual pages addressed).

References

Strafing of civilians most likely did take place

At least according to Dr Manuel Wolf, author of Airwar over Europe.

https://www.luftkrieg-ueber-europa.de/en/what-happened-on-14th-february-1945-to-the-south-of-dresden/

He quotes an after action report of the US Airforce 20th fighter group, that has up til now mostly been overlooked by other researchers. This information should be added, since it explains the over 100 witness reports about low level strafing.

Actually, it seems rather inconclusive after reading the source, which doubts the assertion on several counts. In any case, one source doesn't establish due weight. Acroterion (talk) 21:12, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

While the web page isn't all that useful as a reference by itself as it is a blog, the same information should be in the author's book (Air War over Europe 1939 - 1945, isbn 978-3000554605). - NiD.29 (talk) 20:35, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

The article actually admits that Dresden lay well to the north of 20th Fighter Group's return route from Prague, so 20th FG's Mustangs could not have appeared there. They might have strafed 'targets of opportunity' (this would usually mean road vehicles) quite some distance away in the outlying province, but they could not have appeared over Dresden as claimed. The supposed witness accounts of Mustangs strafing at Dresden are, as far as we know, false. (Frederick Taylor mentions a supposed witness who claimed she escaped the firestorm by floating down the Elbe on an ice floe. The weather was unseasonally warm. Large numbers of people walked away from the fire zone in their pyjamas. There were no ice floes on the Elbe.) Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:01, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

War crime

The most recent HarveyCarter sock is blocked
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Multiple sources state the raid was a war crime. (86.149.119.184 (talk) 10:02, 10 June 2019 (UTC)) A key point, mentioned in my edit summary, is WP:LEAD which describes the lead as a summary of information from the article. New claims and their references need to be first added to the article before they can be in a summary at the start. Please search the article for "war crime" to see a more thoughtful and better sourced treatment of the topic. Johnuniq (talk) 10:52, 10 June 2019 (UTC) It needs to be included in the lede. (86.149.119.184 (talk) 11:44, 10 June 2019 (UTC))

Soviet operational goals

Hi,

in the article "Eastern Front", section "Foreign support and measures", first paragraph, states that "/.../ some bombings, such as the bombing of the eastern German city of Dresden, /were/ being done to facilitate specific Soviet operational goals. /.../". With that sentence as a theme, so to speak, it is easy to see how points in e.g. the Background section, or some points in the Marshall inquiry line up with this idea, but given the controversy wrt. this tragic event, would not the article profit from bringing this out more clearly, for instance as a separate section? T 88.91.200.88 (talk) 05:41, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

So only "far right" describe the burning of 20,000 civilians in one night as a mass murder? What about other western Allied terror bombings (Berlin, Hamburg, Koln) and their characterization as war crimes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:1370:811B:33C6:25AE:1667:3E1B:9154 (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Total Fatalities Much Higher

Fatalities were much higher than stated. Sources quoted are simply fraudulent, which is obvious & can be seen by checking a few facts that are readily available on Wikipedia herself. Does Wikipedia have a rule to reject published so-called research when it is obviously stating falsehoods? Such a rule should complement the "NO INDEPENDtT RESEARCH" rule, in this case correcting the 20,000 to read 900,000. Also, documents readily available show Stalin asked Western Allies for the bombings because he was furious over the many refugees fleeing the Red Army who had gathered in Dresden, not for any strategic goals. hgwb 06:26, 9 September 2019 Malfunctioning sinebot. This has been my signature from the earliest days. hgwb 08:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

The numbers provided are from the Germans themselves (both internally and from the commission) rather than the propaganda values provided by the Nazis and their sympathizers postwar - which have been shown repeatedly to be the ones that are fraudulent. - NiD.29 (talk) 15:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct, the German numbers that you are quoting are from their fraudulent publications. But I am not referring to data from Nazi sympathizers, being a miraculous German born WWII survivor despite Jewish ancestry now aged 84. My own mother asked my dad to kill me because I looked too Jewish, scaring her. Rather, I am referring to Wikipedia data of population numbers before and after the bombing. Subtract the numbers and you get 900,000. The 20,000 is so low in view of the city being dead by Kurt Vonnegut's account. Dresden had 500,000 refugees who camped in the Elbe parks and were strafed. –– Simply take the evidence and admit the awful truth. hgwb 17:12, 9 September 2019 (UTC) hgwb 17:12, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

We will take the evidence we have, which supports the 25,000 figure - NOT your grossly overinflated 900,000 number. Read the page again - 25,000 was arrived at by counting both the number of missing ration cards (and everyone needed one to get food), and the number of bodies, and both matched, and that is the number arrived at internally by the Nazis and more recently by a commission of historians. The only source for the higher numbers was the Nazi public claims, by which they hoped to paint the Allies as the villains. There is not a single shred of evidence supporting any number significantly higher. Kurt Vonnegut's account is of one man in one small part of the city. Nothing more. As a POW, he did not get to travel around to see the big picture so he lacked the means to come to any reasonable estimate. He also did not have access to ANY official documentation or estimates, either Allied or German other than the Nazi claims, so nothing he can add could ever affect the actual counts. Nor is your supposed ancestry relevant to the discussion, other than to make achieving a neutral point of view much more difficult. Looked "too Jewish" indeed. - NiD.29 (talk) 05:26, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

"Too Jewish" was meant for not causing Nazi persecutions.

Here below, from German Wikipedia, "Einwohnerentwicklung_von_Dresden," not the best source (inspect "history" files for more):

     December....1944......571,641 
     Refugees (est)........500,000
     ------------------------------
     February....1945.....1,071,641
     May.........1945.......397,676  
     -------------------------------
     Killed.................673,965
     = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

hgwb 07:27, 10 September 2019 (UTC) hgwb 07:27, 10 September 2019 (UTC)