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

5 Group Attack

I don't like editing other people's articles, but, as no one took any notice of my talkpage correction a couple of years ago, I've now corrected the article's misstatement of 5 Group's bombing times. Someone had taken a source that only referred to 49 Squadron and imagined that it applied to 5 Group as a whole. The previous claim about the Lancasters flying at only 8,000 feet is also a mistake. That didn't happen. Despite having written a whole Wikipedia article on a Bomber Command topic by myself a while ago, I cannot recall the bizarre hieroglyphic system of keystrokes required for inline citations, but the cite in this case is Taylor 2005 (it's already in the bibliography), p.296.

Incidentally, I notice the article doesn't explain why such an enormous death toll arose from such a routine attack. Frederick Taylor explains this at some length and in considerable detail. The Reich government's official advice was 'the air-raid shelter is the best protection' and that people should stay down in the cellar. Berliners were bomb-wise and knew that this was foolish. Someone had to run upstairs every few minutes and check the building for incendiaries. If they found them, they should call for help to douse the things or throw them out of the windows on shovels. Or, if they saw the fires getting out of control in the neighbourhood, they should warn everyone to evacuate and not stay in the cellars. Dresdeners were not, on the whole, bomb-wise. After the 5 Group attack, the fires were already getting quite dangerous and a lot of people defied government 'advice' and saw what was happening and just walked away from the central area and advised their neighbours to do the same. There were many hours available to get away, and to walk to the city outskirts, before the second attack and long before the firestorm brewed, and a great many people did just that -- some in pyjamas, because the night was unseasonally warm for February. But about 25,000 people, of a more Nazi cast of mind, simply obeyed government advice, stayed in their cellars, didn't check upstairs for incendiaries, didn't check to see if the fires were out of control, and those people died peacefully in their sleep as the fires overhead ate all the oxygen in the local atmosphere. In fact Taylor remarks that Dresdeners were more passive, Nazi and obedient than Leipzigers, never mind Berliners: 'In the case of the RAF's incendiary attack on Leipzig just over a year earlier, the surprisingly low casualty rate had been due to the disobedience of the city's population. Instead of staying in their shelters until the official all-clear, the Leipzigers quickly emerged and took an active part in extinguishing fires before these could spread and become unmanageable. The Dresden population was more passive and more obedient, perhaps more trusting of the authorities. It would pay dearly for this.' (Taylor 2005, pp.296-7 -- but consider pp.289-314 as a whole.) Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Many of the other German cities had been bombed on a smaller scale on numerous occasions earlier in the war and so there had been time for the inhabitants to become gradually accustomed to the attacks and to find the best way of surviving them, however the people of Dresden had had no such chance, instead they had the full-force of a typical 1944-45 RAF Bomber Command attack sprung on them suddenly in one night. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.186 (talk) 11:47, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Leipzig had only had one serious but weather-scattered and wholly ineffective raid (by 358 Lancasters on 20-21 October 1943) before the one Taylor refers to, the most effective attack on Leipzig during the war, by 307 Lancasters and 220 Halifaxes, with one of 619 Squadron's Lancasters carrying the American war correspondent Ed Murrow, on 3-4 December 1943. In that second attack, despite severe damage to industrial facilities, a German police report compiled a week later states that just 614 people were killed. (Martin Middlebrook & Chris Everitt, The Bomber Command War Diaries, Midland Publishing, Leicester, 2000, ISBN 1-85780-033-8, pp. 439, 457.) Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:54, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

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)</smallh >

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 (UTC)