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Bombing of Dresden

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The bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) between February 13th and 15th, 1945 remains one of the most controversial events of World War II, even after 60 years.

Although the Allies considered Dresden (the capital of the German state of Saxony) a military target, several historians regard Dresden more as a cultural landmark than anything else and assert that the number of civilians killed was excessive to a criminal degree.

According to British historian Frederick Taylor:

"The destruction of Dresden has an epically tragic quality to it. It was a wonderfully beautiful city and a symbol of baroque humanism and all that was best in Germany. It also contained all of the worst from Germany during the Nazi period. In that sense it is an absolutely exemplary tragedy for the horrors of 20th Century warfare . . ."[1]

Reasons for the attack

Early in the year 1945, the higher Allied Western political-military leadership started to consider how they might aid the Soviets with the use of the strategic bomber force. The plan was to bomb Berlin and several other eastern cities in conjunction with the Soviet advance. The discussions were codenamed Operation Thunderclap. In the end the initial plan was shelved and a more limited plan was made. Sir Charles Portal, the Chief of the Air Staff, noted on January 26 1945, that "a severe blitz will not only cause confusion in the evacuation from the East but will also hamper the movement of troops from the West".[2] However he mentioned that aircraft diverted to such raids should not be taken away from the current primary tasks of destroying oil production facilities, jet aircraft factories and submarine yards. Sir Norman Bottomley, the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff requested Arthur "Bomber" Harris, C-in-C of RAF Bomber Command and an ardent supporter of carpet bombing, to undertake attacks on Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz as soon as moon and weather conditions allowed, "with the particular object of exploiting the confused conditions which are likely to exist in the above mentioned cities during the successful Russian advance"[3].

On the same day, Winston Churchill pressed the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair: "I asked [yesterday] whether Berlin, and no doubt other large cities in East Germany, should not now be considered especially attractive targets. Pray report to me tomorrow what is going to be done"[4]. On January 27 Sinclair replied:

"The Air Staff have now arranged that, subject to the overriding claims of attacks on enemy oil production and other approved target systems within the current directive, available effort should be directed against Berlin, Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig or against other cities where severe bombing would not only destroy communications vital to the evacuation from the east, but would also hamper the movement of troops from the west."[5][6]
File:Dresden1945.jpg
View from the city hall tower, which remained standing.

The Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) had come to the conclusion that the Germans could reinforce their eastern front with up to 42 divisions (half a million men) from other fronts and that, if the Soviet advance could be helped by hindering that movement, it could shorten the war. They thought that the Germans could complete the reinforcement by March 1945. The JIC's analysis was backed up by Ultra Enigma-code intercepts, which confirmed that the Germans had such plans. Their recommendation was:

"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. ... Attacks against oil targets should continue to take precedence over everything else,...""[7]

The Soviets had had several discussions with the Allies on how the strategic bomber force could help their ground offensives once the eastern front line approached Germany. The US ambassador to Russia, W. Averill Harriman, discussed it with Joseph Stalin as did General Eisenhower's deputy at SHAEF, British Air Marshal Arthur W. Tedder in January 1945, when he explained how the strategic bomber could support the Soviet attack as Germany began to shuffle forces between the fronts. On January 31 after studying the JIC recommendation which was contained in a document entitled "Strategic Bombing in Relation to the Present Russian Offensive" and consulting with the Soviets, Tedder and his air staff concurred and issued a recommendation that Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, and associated cities should be attacked. The intention to use the strategic bomber forces in a tactical air-support role was similar to that for which Eisenhower had employed them before the Normandy invasion in 1944. He was counting on strategic airpower in 1945 to "prevent the enemy from switching forces back and forth at will" from one front to the other.[8][9]

When the Allies met the Yalta Conference on February 4, the decision to target Dresden had already been taken by the Western Allies. The Deputy Chief of the Soviet General Staff, General Aleksei Antonov raised two issues at the conference relating to the Western Allied strategic bomber force. The first was the demarcation of a bomb-line running north to south, where to avoid accidentally bombing Soviet forces, Western Allied aircraft would not bomb east of the line without specific Soviet permission. The second was to hamper the movement of troops from the western front, Norway and Italy, in particular by paralysing the junctions of Berlin and Leipzig with aerial bombardment. In response to the Soviet requests, Portal (who was in Yalta) sent a request Bottomley to send him a list of objectives which could be discussed with the Soviets. The list sent back to him included oil plants, tank and aircraft factories and the cities of Berlin and Dresden. In the discussions which followed the Western Allies pointed out that unless Dresden was bombed as well, the Germans could route rail traffic through Dresden to compensate for any damage caused to Berlin and Leipzig. Antonov agreed and requested that Dresden was added to his list of requests. Once the targets had been agreed at Yalta, the Combined Strategic Targets Committee, SHAEF (Air), informed the USAAF and the RAF Bomber commands that Dresden was among targets selected to degrade German lines of communication. Their authority to do this came directly from the Western Allies' Combined Chiefs of Staff.

The documents written by the RAF Air Staff state that it was their intention to use RAF bomber command to "destroy communications" to hinder the eastwards deployment of German troops and to hamper evacuation, not to kill the evacuees. The priority list drafted by Bottomley for Portal, so that he could discuss targets with the Soviets at Yalta, included only two eastern cities with a high enough priority to fit into the RAF targeting list as both transportation and industrial areas. These were Berlin and Dresden. Both were bombed after Yalta.

Soviet military intelligence asserted that trains stuck in the main station were troop trains passing through Dresden to the front. This proved to be false, as they were trains evacuating refugees from the east[10]. RAF briefing notes mention a desire to show "the Russians, when they arrive, what Bomber Command can do.". Whether this was a statement of pride in the RAF's abilities, or to show the Soviets that the Western Allies were doing all they could to aid the Soviet advance, or an early cold war warning, is not clear.

The attacks

File:Dresden1945-3.jpg
The former city plan of Dresden with the amounts of destruction
Black = total destruction; checkered = damages

The railway yards, near the centre of Dresden, had been targeted and bombed twice before the night of February 13 by the USAAF Eighth Air Force in daytime raids. The first time was October 7 1944 with 70 tons of high-explosive bombs. The second with 133 bombers on January 16, 1945 which dropped 279 tons of high-explosives and 41 tons of incendiaries.

The fire-bombing campaign should have begun with an USAAF Eighth Air Force raid on Dresden on February 13 but bad weather over Europe prevented any American operations. So it fell to RAF Bomber Command to carry out the first raid. During the evening of February 13 796 Avro Lancasters and 9 De Havilland Mosquitoes were dispatched in two separate waves and dropped 1,478 tons of high explosive and 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs by the early hours of February 14. The first attack was carried out entirely by No. 5 Group, using their own low-level marking methods, which allowed the first bombs to be released over Dresden at 22:14 (CET?) with all but one bomber releasing all their bombs within two minutes. This last Lancaster bomber of No 5 group dropped its bombs at 22:22. A band of cloud still remained in the area and this attack, in which 244 Lancasters dropped more than 800 tons of bombs, was only moderately successful.

The second attack, 3 hours later, was an all-Lancaster attack by aircraft of 1, 3, 6 and 8 Groups, with 8 Group providing standard Pathfinder marking. The weather was now clear and 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs with great accuracy between 01:21 and 01:45. Later on 14th from 12:17 until 12:30 311 American B-17s dropped 771 tons of bombs on Dresden, with the railway yards as their aiming point. "Part of the American Mustang-fighter escort was ordered to strafe traffic on the roads around Dresden to increase the chaos"[11]. There are reports that civilians fleeing the firestorm engulfing Dresden in February 1945 were strafed by American aircraft, but these claims have been refuted by recent work by the historian Götz Bergander. [12][13] The Americans continued the bombing on February 15 dropping 466 tons of bombs. During these four raids a total of around 3,900 tons of bombs were dropped.

The fire-bombing consisted of by-then standard methods; dropping large amounts of high-explosive to blow off the roofs to expose the timbers within buildings, followed by incendiary devices (fire-sticks) to ignite them and then more high-explosives to hamper the efforts of the fire services. This eventually created a self-sustaining 'fire storm' with temperatures peaking at over 1500 °C. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area became extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire.

There were two further raids on the Dresden railway yards by the USAAF. The first was on March 2 by 406 B-17s which dropped 940 tons of high-explosive bombs and 141 tons of incendiaries. The second was on April 17 when 580 B-17s dropped 1554 tons of high-explosive bombs and 164 tons of incendiaries.

Impact of the attack

Out of 28,410 houses in the inner city of Dresden, 24,866 were destroyed. An area of 15 square kilometers was totally destroyed, among that: 14,000 homes, 72 schools, 22 hospitals, 19 churches, 5 theaters, 50 bank and insurance companies, 31 department stores, 31 large hotels, and 62 administration buildings. In total there were 222,000 apartments in the city. 75,000 of them were totally destroyed, 11,000 severely damaged, 7,000 damaged, 81,000 slightly damaged. The city was around 300 square kilometres in area in those days. Although the main railway station was destroyed completely, the railway was working again within a few days.

The precise number of dead is difficult to ascertain and is not known. Estimates are made difficult by the fact that the city was crowded at that time with wounded soldiers and refugees. The fate of some of the refugees is not known as they may have been killed and incinerated beyond recognition in the fire-storm, or they may have left Dresden for other places without informing the authorities. Earlier reputable estimates varied from 25,000 to more than 60,000, but historians now view around 25,000-35,000 as the likely range[14][15] with the latest (1994) research by the Dresden historian Friedrich Reichert pointing toward the lower part of this range.[16]

Contemporary official German records give a number of 21,271 registered burials, including 6,865 who were cremated on the Altmarkt.[17] There were around 25,000 officially buried dead by March 22, 1945, war related or not, according to official German report Tagesbefehl (Order of the Day) no. 47 ("TB47"). There was no registration of burials between May and September 1945.[18] War-related dead found in later years, from October 1945 to September 1957, are given as 1,557; from May 1945 until 1966, 1,858 bodies were recovered. None were found during the period 1990-1994, even though there was a lot of construction and excavation during that period. The number of people registered with the authorities as missing was 35,000; around 10,000 of those were later found to be alive.[19] In recent years, the estimates have become a little higher in Germany and lower in Britain; earlier it was the opposite.

There have been higher estimates for the number of dead, ranging as high as 300,000. They are from disputed and unreliable sources, such as the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels, Soviet historians, and David Irving, the once popular, but now discredited self-taught historian who retracted his higher estimates[20]. Both the Columbia Encyclopedia and Encarta Encyclopedia list the number as "from 35,000 to more than 135,000 dead", the higher figure of which is in line with Irving's retracted "authoritative" higher estimates.

The Nazis made use of Dresden in their propaganda efforts and promised swift retaliation. The Soviets also made propaganda use of the Dresden bombing in the early years of the Cold War to alienate the East Germans from the Americans and British.

The destruction of Dresden was comparable to that of many other German cities, with the tonnage of bombs dropped lower than in many other areas[21]. However, ideal weather conditions at the target site, the wooden-framed buildings, and "breakthroughs" linking the cellars of contiguous buildings, conspired to make the attack particularly devastating. In late 2004, an RAF man involved in the raid said in an interview on the BBC's Radio 4 that another factor was the lower-than-expected level of anti-aircraft fire, which allowed a high degree of accuracy on the part of the bombers.

Points of view

File:Dresden1945-2.jpg
View over the Altmarkt square (the old market)

Was the bombing a war crime?

The nature of the bombing of Dresden has made it a unique point of contention and debate. Critics of the attack come from across the political spectrum, from far left to far right. Günter Grass, the German novelist and Nobel laureate for literature, and Simon Jenkins, the former editor of The Times, have both referred to the Dresden bombing as a "war crime" [22][23]. The historian Max Hastings said in an article subtitled 'the Allied Bombing of Dresden':

"I believe it is wrong to describe strategic bombing as a 'war crime', for this might be held to suggest some moral equivalence with the deeds of the Nazis. Bombing represented a sincere, albeit mistaken, attempt to bring about Germany's military defeat"[24]. Harald Jaehner, a German literary critic stated: "Look at the bombing of Dresden, which was really an assault on the civilian population."

Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, wrote:

"The Nazi Holocaust was among the most evil genocides in history. But the Allies' firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also war crimes - and as Leo Kuper and Eric Markusen have argued, also acts of genocide"[25].

Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn write in their book "The History and Sociology of Genocide" (page 24) that "[the] definition of genocide also excludes civilian victims of aerial bombardment in belligerent states. In this we differ from Jean-Paul Sartre and Leo Kuper."[26]

Far right politicians in Germany also use Dresden as a symbol, holding rallies on the anniversary of the bombing, and arguing that Dresden represents moral parity between the allies and the Axis. They promote the term Bombing Holocaust for the Allied areal bombings, especially for the Dresden raids. By using this term in a speech to the parliament of Saxony on January 22, 2005, the leader of the National Democratic Party of Germany caused a new discussion in public of how to deal with the right wing extremists. Many German mainstream politicians consider their using of fire bombing as an attempt to advance neo-Nazi causes by exploiting the intense sentiment surrounding the bombing: not only for the purpose to win votes in elections, but also as a propaganda to relativate Nazi crimes, especially the Holocaust. Some consider the term as a violation of German law which forbids the Holocaust denial. Nevertheless, the results of bombing in several German cities can be compared with other mass destructions of lives in war like Guernica, Coventry, Stalingrad or Tokyo.

Some of the critics of the bombing of Dresden argue that there should have been prosecutions brought against RAF Bomber Commander Arthur Harris, and even Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. These critics argue that if Japan and Germany had won the war, bombings like that of Dresden would certainly have been prosecuted as a war crime. They argue that bombing of German cities was intended as a deliberate strategy to terrorize the German people not only to win the war, but also in preparation for the post-war occupation. In fact, no alleged war crimes of the Allies were ever tried after World War II.

Both the view that Dresden's bombing was a war crime, and the view that there should have been prosecutions for it, even if it did not rise to that level, are strongly disputed. Critics of both views argue the necessities of war, and the danger and horror of the Nazi regime were reasons for the attacks. They further argue that even if the bombing of Dresden did violate the laws of war against excessive civilian casualties, that military decisions about where and when to attack were not prosecuted at war crimes trials after World War II, and therefore the bombing of Dresden should not have been prosecuted either, since it is a decision of the same type.

The controversy over area bombing

Because of the larger political issues, and the gravity of the charges leveled, discussions of whether the bombing of Dresden constituted a war crime are extremely contentious, and were so even at the time: the destruction of the city provoked unease in some circles in Britain. According to Max Hastings by February 1945, many believed the war was as good as over and the name of Dresden possessed a resonance for cultured people all over Europe — "the home of so much charm and beauty, a refuge for Trollope’s heroines, a landmark of the Grand Tour." He argues that the bombing of Dresden was the first time when Allied populations questioned the military actions used to defeat the Nazis.[27]

The purpose of the area bombing of cities was laid out in a British Air Staff paper, dated September 23, 1941:

"The ultimate aim of an attack on a town area is to break the morale of the population which occupies it. To ensure this, we must achieve two things: first, we must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore, twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction and (ii) fear of death."[28]

The bombing of Dresden, while it was one of the more devastating conventional attacks of the war, was part of a policy of leveling cities and breaking the civilian ability to resist. That destruction of civilian morale was the intent of area bombing is not under dispute: the doctrine of destroying civilian morale through bombing, an extension of Karl von Clausewitz who argued that total war's aim was to break the opponent's will, was also approved in principle by the American Joint Chiefs of Staff CCS 166/1/D, 21 January 1943, and formally inaugurated in June of 1943.

Within British high command, the use of bombing in this manner was a retribution for the Blitz of London, and other cities. During the week before the Desden attack, Germany launched 180 V-weapons against England[29]. In the backs of their minds, the Allied war leaders and senior officers approached the question of bombing with a mind set of their own century. They had seen in their own adult lifetimes, how the First World War had been won. There, the strategy had been containment of the Central Powers’ expansion combined with a blockade to starve them of the means of continuing the war. Indeed, the purists may have seen the containment as part of the blockade.

One outcome of this strategy had been that in effect, the fighting, with all its misery and destruction, had been fought largely outside the Central Power’s own territory. This was particularly true of Germany. As a consequence, it was possible for people who were so inclined, to claim that the German army had been betrayed by the civilians back in Germany. This sort of sentiment was then easily turned onto communists, trades unionists and Jews. By persuading enough people that the loss of the First World War was not the fault of the German army and that the subsequent miseries of monetary inflation and so on, were someone else's fault, the National Socialists had come to power and precipitated another war.

In early 1945, it was seen as desirable that on the present occasion, the war should be conducted in Germany and that the German people should see what war was really like, with the aim of persuading them to keep away from wars in future. Bombing was also regarded as a means of breaking the connection between Germans and the Nazi Party, which seemed, to the Allied leadership, to have an almost unbelievable degree of control over the minds and attitudes of the citizens of the Reich.

One of the rare public critics of area or strategic bombing at the time was Bishop George Bell, a member of the House of Lords. In November 1939 already he published an article stating that the Church in wartime should not hesitate

"...to condemn the infliction of reprisals, or the bombing of civilian populations, by the military forces of its own nation. It should set itself against the propaganda of lies and hatred. It should be ready to encourage the resumption of friendly relations with the enemy nation. It should set its face against any war of extermination or enslavement, and any measures directly aimed to destroy the morale of a population." (quoted in Paul Johnson, A History of Christianity, Macmillan Press, 1976, p. 493).

In 1941 in a letter to The Times he called the bombing of unarmed women and children "barbarian" which would destroy the just cause for the war. On February 14, 1943 - two years ahead of the Dresden raids - he urged the House of Lords to resist the War Cabinets decision for area bombing. As a close friend of the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer Bell knew precise details of German plans to assassinate Adolf Hitler. So in 1942 he asked Anthony Eden to declare publically the British would make a distinction between the Nazi regime and German people. After July 20, 1944, he harshly criticised the British gouvernment it had doomed German resistors against Hitler to fail. That year, during debate, he again demanded the House of Lords to stop British area bombing as a crime against humanity and asked:

"How can the War Cabinet fail to see that this progressive devastation of cities is threatening the roots of civilization?"

International law in 1945

In the post war environment, a series of treaties governing the laws of war were adopted starting in 1949. These Geneva Conventions would come into force, in no small part, because of a general reaction against the practices of the Second World War. However, the question of whether Dresden was a war crime in 1945 rests on the treaties of 1864, 1899, 1907 which constituted the definition of War Crimes at that time. The most relevant of these treaties are the Hague Conventions of 1907 because they were the last treaties ratified before 1945 which specify the laws of war on bombardment. Of these treaties there are two which have a direct bearing on this issue of bombardment. These are "Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907"[30] and "Laws of War: Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War (Hague IX); October 18, 1907"[31]. It is significant that there is a different treaty which should be invoked for bombardment of land by land (Hague IV) and of land by sea (Hague IX), Hague IV which reaffirmed and updated Hague II (1899)[32] contains the following clauses:

Article 25: The attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations or buildings which are not defended, is prohibited.
Article 26: The Commander of an attacking force, before commencing a bombardment, except in the case of an assault, should do all he can to warn the authorities.
Article 27: In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps should be taken to spare as far as possible edifices devoted to religion, art, science, and charity, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not used at the same time for military purposes.
The besieged should indicate these buildings or places by some particular and visible signs, which should previously be notified to the assailants.

In 1923 a draft convention, promoted by the United States was proposed: The Hague Rules of Air Warfare, December, 1922-February, 1923"[33], There are number of articles which would have directly affected how nations used aerial bombardment and defended against it; these are articles 18, 22 and 24. It was, however, never adopted in legally binding form[34].

In response to a League of Nations declaration against bombardment from the air[35], a draft convention in Amsterdam of 1938[36] would have provided specific definitions of what constituted a "undefended" town, excessive civilian casualties and appropriate warning. This draft convention makes the standard of being undefended quite high - any military units or anti-aircraft within the radius qualifies a town as defended. This convention, like the 1923 draft, was not ratified, nor even close to being ratified, when hostilities broke out in Europe. While the two conventions offer a guideline to what the belligerent powers were considering before the war, neither document was legally binding.

The argument over the status of Dresden as a war crime, and whether there should have been prosecutions, and if so, of whom, rests then on the language of 1899 and 1907, from a time before aerial mass bombardment was possible — language which, despite repeated diplomatic attempts, was not updated in the immediate run up to the conflict.

After the war the judgement of the Nuremberg Trials[37], the records the decision that by 1939 these rules laid down in the 1907 Hague Convention were recognised by all civilised nations, and were regarded as being declaratory of the laws and customs of war. Under this post-war decision, a country did not have to have ratified the 1907 Hague conventions in order to be bound by them[38].

The case for the bombing being a war crime

While the idea that the bombing of Dresden represented a regrettable or excessive attack is widely held, the case that it rises to the level of a war crime is less widely subscribed to. The case rests first on the cultural significance of Dresden, a factor which was expressly included in the Hague conventions. Public declarations of this view began shortly after the scale and scope of the attack became known.

Dresden was known as Elbflorenz, or Florence on the Elbe, regarded as a beautiful city and a cultural centre, with noted architecture in the Zwinger Palace, the Dresden State Opera House, and the Frauenkirche, its historic cathedral. Before the war, the city's main industries had been china production, cups and saucers, and cigarettes. British historian Anthony Beevor writes [39] that having been spared previous RAF night attacks Dresden was considered relatively safe and that at the time of the raids there were up to 300,000 refugees in the city escaping from the fighting in the east. There were an unknown number of refugees in the Dresden, so the historians Matthias Neutzner, Götz Bergander and Frederick Taylor have used historical sources and deductive reasoning, to estimate that the number of refugees in the city and surrounding suburbs was around 200,000, or less, on the first night of the bombing [40].

The absence of direct military presence in the centre of the city, and the devastation created by firebombing, is regarded by advocates of the position that the bombing represented a war crime as establishing this "on its face". For many, there is no need to argue any further than the absence of military necessity, the civilian death toll, and Dresden's cultural significance.

In his work, Der Brand, controversial German historian Joerg Friedrich documents the available evidence that the large scale bombing campaign, the "bombenkrieg", constituted atrocities, and that, because the Nazi forces were in full retreat by February of 1945, that Dresden represents a war crime because the military goal was disproportional to the destruction to civilians. He argues that because the Allies intended to cause as many civilian casualties as possible, that even under the legal standards of the time, that the attack on Dresden counts as a war crime.

He also argues that previous bombing attacks, rather than providing a defense, show that the Allied forces knew the destructive potential of incendiary bombs, and knew that because of the collapse of German air defense and improvements in bombing precision, that future attacks were likely to cause more and more civilian deaths. He spends a great deal of time documenting the oral history and local records from Dresden, and the memories by local people of what happened and how they felt.

Friedrich is careful to distance himself from Neo-nazi sympathizers, saying that the use of the word "holocaust" to describe bombing is wrong, because it blurs the distinction between total warfare, and outright genocide.

Friedrich's case is, however, disputed, even by historians that regard Dresden as regrettable, specifically they dispute the crucial part of his case: namely the state of the German army in February of 1945 - and his willingness to place credibility on the post-war narrative of Dresdeners as to their level of complicity in the National Socialist government. Joerg Arnold of the University of Southampton asserts that Friedrich's work is "seriously deficient" as an analytical text, despite its tremendous value in documenting the German experience of the air war.

The case against the bombing being a war crime

The United States military lays out the following historically based case that bombing of Dresden did not constitute a war crime[41]

  1. The raid had a legitimate military end, brought about by exigent military circumstances.
  2. That there were military units, and anti-aircraft defense within a sufficiently close perimeter to disqualify the town as "undefended".
  3. The raid did not use extraordinary means to achieve this end, but was comparable to other raids used against comparable targets.
  4. The raid was carried out through the normal chain of command, pursuant to directives and agreements then in force.
  5. The raid achieved the military objective established without "excessive" loss of civilian life.

The first point has two parts, the first in reference to the American precision bombing of the railyards, which rests on the assertion that there was an exigent military circumstance that made the railyard an important military target, beyond its usual value as a communication centre, and the second that Dresden was an industrial and military target, which would make the attack on the city centre an object of legal military action.

In reference to the first an inquiry conducted on the direction the American Secretary of War, General George C. Marshall affirmed that the military necessity of the raid was established by the available facts. The inquiry would establish that, in the view of American military planners, that cutting the ability of the German ability to either reinforce a counter attack against Marshall Konev's extended line, or to retreat and regroup using Dresden as a base of operations. That Dresden had been largely untouched during the war left it as one of the few remaining working rail and communications centres. A secondary objective was to disrupt the industrial use of Dresden for munitions manufacture, which American intelligence believed to be the case. The fear of a Nazi break out, as had so nearly happened during the Battle of the Bulge, which ran from December 16, 1944 to January 25, 1945, less than three weeks before the bombing of Dresden, was present on the minds of Allied planners.

The second part is in reference to whether Dresden was an militarily significant industrial centre. An official 1942 guide described the German city as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich" and in 1944, the German Army High Command's Weapons Office listed 127 medium-to-large factories and workshops which supplied the army with materiel[42].

The United States Strategic Bombing Survey listed at least 110 factories and industries in Dresden[43]. The city contained the Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory, both of which, according to the Allies, were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gunsights. The immediate suburbs contained factories building radar and electronics components, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells. Other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters[44].

Because of this concentration of industry, made even more important by the relatively undamaged nature of Dresden at the time of the raids, the allied planners had reason to believe that Dresden was a crucial prop in the German effort to maintain supply for the defense of Germany itself.

The second point is crucial for meeting the standards of prohibitions, in place since 1899, and reaffirmed in 1907 and 1938, against use of bombardment against "undefended" towns. Since no specific convention was in place at the time of Dresden, in part because of German opposition to the 1938 draft convention, the defense against charges of war crimes for Dresden asserts that the presence of active Germany military units in the area, and the presence of both fighters and anti-aircraft near Dresden are sufficient to qualify Dresden as "defended" under the Hague II.

The third point is that the size of the Dresden raid, in terms of numbers of bombs, their type, and the means of delivery were commensurate with the military objective. On February 3rd, 1945, the Allies bombed Berlin, and caused an estimated 25,000 civil fatalities, other raids in Japan caused civilian casualties over 10,000. The tonnage and types of bombs listed in the service records show that the raid was of comparable throw weight to other raids carried out in early 1945.

The fourth point is that no extraordinary decision was made to single out Dresden, or to take advantage of the large number of refugees for the purpose of "terrorizing" the German populace. The intent of area bombing was to destroy the morale of workers in industrial production, not to kill dislocated, and therefore not involved in the war effort, civilians. The American inquiry established that the Soviets, pursuant to allied agreements for the United States and the United Kingdom to provide air support for the Soviet offensive into Germany to Berlin, had requested area bombing of Dresden in order to end the threat of either a counter attack through Dresden, or a German retreat and regroup using Dresden as a regrouping point.

The fifth point is that the firebombing achieved the intended effect of destroying, crippling, or disabling, a substantial fraction of industry in what was one of Germany's last centres of industrial production. American estimates had over 25% of industrial capacity disabled or destroyed, and it prevented the use of Dresden by the Germany military to launch any counterstrikes to check the Soviet advance.

A sixth point is that, insofar as Europe has been at comparative peace for sixty years, and Germany has actively played a part in fostering that peace, it may be that the underlying policy of carrying the war into Germany in 1945 has worked. It is notable that Dresden, the cultural city, has more obviously kept this subject alive than has Dortmund for example. The policy may have saved many more lives than the number lost in the Dresden raid.

Responses to the bombing

Dresden rapidly became a potent symbol of the effects of area bombing, and the ability of military technology to inflict death and devastation beyond that which had been possible even a short time before. There were inquiries mounted by both American and British military authorities, questions raised in the British House of Lords. This would culminate in a directive from Prime Minister Winston Churchill to rethink the policy of area bombardment. Longer term responses to Dresden would include adoption of more specific restrictions on the use of bombing against civilian centres as an instrument of war, reflected in the language of later conventions. It would also remain an embodiment of the nature of modern warfare, and a lens through which discussions and debates on the morality of warfare and its means could be conducted.

According to the Oxford Companion to the Second World War, at an off-the-record press briefing held by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force two days after the raids, British Air Commodore Grierson told journalists that the aim of Operation Thunderclap had been to bomb large population centres and prevent relief supplies from getting through. Howard Cowan an Associated Press war correspondent subsequently filed a story saying that the Allies had resorted to terror bombing. There were follow up newspaper editorials on the issue and a long time opponent of strategic bombing Richard Stokes MP asked questions in the House of commons[45].

The destruction of the city provoked unease in informed circles in Britain. According to Max Hastings, by February 1945, attacks upon German cities had become largely irrelevant to the outcome of the war and the name of Dresden possessed a resonance for cultured people all over Europe — "the home of so much charm and beauty, a refuge for Trollope’s heroines, a landmark of the Grand Tour." He argues that the bombing of Dresden was the first time Allied populations questioned the military actions used to defeat the Nazis[46].

File:Dresden,Churchillletter.jpg

Churchill, who approved of the targeting of Dresden and supported the bombing prior to the event, distanced himself from it[47][48]. On March 28, in a memo sent by telegram to General Ismay for the British Chiefs of Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff he wrote:

"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land … The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforward be more strictly studied in our own interests than that of the enemy.
The Foreign Secretary has spoken to me on this subject, and I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive."[49][50]

Having been given a paraphrased version of Churchill's draft memo by Bottomley, on March 29, Harris wrote to the Air Ministry (the words "worth the bones of one British grenadier" was a deliberate echo of a famous words of Bismarck "worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier")[51]:

"I [...] assume that the view under consideration is something like this: no doubt in the past we were justified in attacking German cities. But to do so was always repugnant and now that the Germans are beaten anyway we can properly abstain from proceeding with these attacks. This is a doctrine to which I could never subscribe. Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as the tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.
The feeling, such as there is, over Dresden, could be easily explained by any psychiatrist. It is connected with German bands and Dresden shepherdesses. Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things."[52][53]

On reflection, under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Portal and Harris among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one[54][55]. This final version of the memo completed on April 1, 1945, stated:

"It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called 'area-bombing' of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our allies… We must see to it that our attacks do no more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy's war effort."[56][57]

Allied experiences of the attack

There are anecdotes of the pilots and crew having problems years later. Some had nightmares, some thought they would go to hell as war criminals, some had unshakable visions of the fires and the burning cities. Other veterans, however, doubt these anecdotes, noting that their briefings included details on what they were hitting, and that no one in their recollection had any misgivings about the mission.

Bad dreams after battle experience are by no means confined to those who have raided Dresden.

Post-war reconstruction and reconciliation

After the war, and especially after German reunification, great efforts were made to rebuild some of Dresden's former landmarks, such as the Frauenkirche, the Semperoper or the Zwinger. A new synagogue was also built. Despite its location in the Soviet occupation zone (subsequently the DDR), in 1956 Dresden entered a twin-town relationship with Coventry, which had suffered the worst destruction of any English city at the hands of the Luftwaffe, including the destruction of its cathedral. Groups from both cities were involved in moving demonstrations of post-war reconciliation. During her visit to Germany in November 2004, Queen Elizabeth II hosted a concert in Berlin to raise money for the reconstruction of the Dresden Frauenkirche. The visit was accompanied by speculation in the British and German press, fuelled mostly by the tabloids, over a possible apology for the attacks, which did not occur. On February 13, 2005, a cross made from medieval nails, which were recovered from the ruins of the roof of the cathedral in Coventry after the bombing in 1940, was presented to the Lutheran Bishop of Saxony.

Influences on literature

Author Kurt Vonnegut had been captured during the Battle of the Bulge and was a prisoner of war held in Dresden during the bombing. He later wrote about his experiences and feelings in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five.

Science fiction novelists Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle placed the general who ordered the bombing of Dresden in hell in their novel Inferno.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Dresden Bombing Is To Be Regretted Enormously", interview with Frederick Taylor, Spiegel Online, February 11, 2005
  2. ^ "The Bombers" by Norman Longmate", page 332, see bibliography
  3. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 212, see bibliography
  4. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 212, see bibliography
  5. ^ "The Bombers" by Norman Longmate", page 332, see bibliography
  6. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 213, see bibliography
  7. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, pages 206-208, see bibliography
  8. ^ HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945 BOMBINGS OF DRESDEN Prepared by USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University, II. Section ANALYSIS: Dresden as a Military Target, paragraph 9 (backup site) pages 14,15 and 16.
  9. ^ AIR FORCE Magazine Online: The Dresden Legend October 2004, Vol. 87, No. 10
  10. ^ Berlin: the Downfall, 1945. by Antony Beevor page 83, see bibliography
  11. ^ Official RAF site: Bomber Command: Dresden, February 1945
  12. ^ Dresden im Luftkrieg: Vorgeschichte-Zerstörung-Folgen. by Götz Bergander, see bibliography
  13. ^ The Bombing of Dresden in 1945, by Richard J. Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, a detailed critique of problems with David Irving's book.
  14. ^ Dresden im Luftkrieg: Vorgeschichte-Zerstörung-Folgen. by Götz Bergander, see bibliography
  15. ^ The Bombing of Dresden in 1945, by Richard J. Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, a detailed critique of problems with David Irving's book .
  16. ^ Friedrich Reichert, Verbrannt bis zur Unkenntlichkeit - Die Zerstörung Dresdens 1945, Dresdner Museum, Dresden, 1994
  17. ^ The Bombing of Dresden in 1945, by Richard J. Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, a detailed critique of problems with David Irving's book .
  18. ^ Luftkriegslegenden in Dresden von Helmut Schnatz
  19. ^ The Bombing of Dresden in 1945, by Richard J. Evans, Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, a detailed critique of problems with David Irving's book .
  20. ^ The Dresden Raids letter to the Editor from The Times 1966/07/07 a correction to "The Destruction of Dresden". By David Irving Pub: William Kimber; London 1963; In this letter Irving, who had previously used figures as high as 250,000 admitted the confirmed casualty figures were actually 18,375, expected to rise to 25,000 including when those not registered in the city were taken into account. Despite the admission of his mistake contained in the letter, he has still used figures as high as 100,000 in articles and books on his own web site fpp.org some written as late as 2004.
  21. ^ Official RAF site: Campaign Diary March 1945 Note 11 March, Essen (1,079 aircraft) and 12 March, Dortmund (1,108 aircraft)
  22. ^ Eyes Open to the Past, RA Magazine, Spring 2003, Verified 2005/02/26 from http://195.172.125.151/03SPRING/grass.htm. N.B. this source appears to be a personal workstation and not the official online version of the magazine which was non-functional at the time of verification
  23. ^ Europe: Then And Now, Michael Elliott, Time Magazine Europe, 2003/08/10, retrieved 2005/02/26 from http://www.time.com/time/europe/etan/story.html
  24. ^ How we can prevent gonocide by Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, president of Genocide Watch.
  25. ^ The History and Sociology of Genocide" by Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, page 24
  26. ^ Still Explosive, RA Magazine, Spring 2003, Verified 2005/02/26 from http://195.172.125.151/03SPRING/grass.htm. N.B. this source appears to be a personal workstation and not the official online version of the magazine which was non-functional at the time of verification
  27. ^ Still Explosive, RA Magazine, Spring 2003, Verified 2005/02/26 from http://195.172.125.151/03SPRING/grass.htm. N.B. this source appears to be a personal workstation and not the official online version of the magazine which was non-functional at the time of verification
  28. ^ Was Churchill Responsible?, author unknown, UK National Archives, verified 2005/02/26 N.B. this material also quotes without comment numbers of dead six times the official numbers.
  29. ^ Berlin: the Downfall, 1945. by Antony Beevor page 83, see bibliography
  30. ^ Laws of War : Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907 available from The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, entered into force: 1910/01/26.
  31. ^ Laws of War: Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War (Hague IX); October 18, 1907, available from The Avalon Project at Yale Law School,
  32. ^ Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague II); July 29, 1899, available from The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, entry into force 1900-09-04
  33. ^ The Hague Rules of Air Warfare, 1922-12 to 1923-02, this convention was never adopted'.
  34. ^ Rules concerning the Control of Wireless Telegraphy in Time of War and Air Warfare, from the International Committee of the Red Cross's section on international humanitarian law verified 2005/02/26
  35. ^ Protection of Civilian Populations Against Bombing From the Air in Case of War, Unanimous resolution of the League of Nations Assembly, 1938/09/30, verified 2005-02-26
  36. ^ Draft Convention for the Protection of Civilian Populations Against New Engines of War. Amsterdam, 1938, verified 2005/02/26
  37. ^ "Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Vol. 1 Charter of the International Military Tribunal", proceedings of the Nuremberg Trials, available from The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, verified 2005/02/26.
  38. ^ Judgement : The Law Relating to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, available from The Avalon Project at Yale Law School, verified 2005/02/26.
  39. ^ Berlin: the Downfall, 1945. by Antony Beevor page 83, see bibliography
  40. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 262-266, see bibliography
  41. ^ Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden Prepared by USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University, II. Section ANALYSIS: Dresden as a Military Target, paragraph 9 (backup site) pages 14,15 and 16.
  42. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 169, see bibliography
  43. ^ Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden Prepared by USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University, II. Section ANALYSIS: Dresden as a Military Target, paragraph 9 (backup site) pages 14,15 and 16.
  44. ^ AIR FORCE Magazine Online: The Dresden Legend October 2004, Vol. 87, No. 10(PDF) (Google Cache)
  45. ^ "The Bombers" by Norman Longmate", page 344, see bibliography
  46. ^ Still Explosive, RA Magazine, Spring 2003, Verified 2005/02/26 from http://195.172.125.151/03SPRING/grass.htm. N.B. this source appears to be a personal workstation and not the official online version of the magazine which was non-functional at the time of verification
  47. ^ "The Bombers" by Norman Longmate", page 345, see bibliography Churchill quote source: "The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany" (SOA), HMSO (1961) vol 3 pp 117-9
  48. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 431, see bibliography
  49. ^ British Bombing Strategy in World War Two, Detlef Siebert, 2001-08-01, BBC History, verified 2005/02/26
  50. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 430, see bibliography
  51. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 432, see bibliography
  52. ^ "The Bombers" by Norman Longmate", page 346, see bibliography
  53. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 432, see bibliography
  54. ^ "The Bombers" by Norman Longmate", page 346, see bibliography Harris quote source: Public Records Office ATH/DO/4B quoted by Lord Zuckerman "From Apes to Warlords" p.352
  55. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 433, see bibliography
  56. ^ "The Bombers" by Norman Longmate", page 346, see bibliography
  57. ^ Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor, page 432, see bibliography

Bibliography

  1. Taylor, Frederick. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. By Frederick Taylor;
    • US review, Pub (NY): HarperCollins, ISBN 0060006765.
    • UK review, Pub (Lon): Bloomsbury. ISBN 0747570787.
  2. "The Bombers" by Norman Longmate, Hutchins & Co, (1983), ISBN 0091515087,
  3. Götz Bergander, Dresden im Luftkrieg: Vorgeschichte-Zerstörung-Folgen (Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, 1977)
  4. Antony Beevor, Berlin: the Downfall, 1945. ISBN 0670886955


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