Talk:Bombing of Dresden/Archive 6

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Data for comparison

See previous Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 5#Data for comparison

In reviewing the changes to the "Was the Dresden bombing justified?" section, which described the Allied bombings as "far more numerous and ferocious", I immediately wondered what the actual casualty numbers were for the results of German attacks. Alas, despite the size of my WWII and aviation reference library, I have little that I can find on British losses (have yet to search for Warsaw, Hague, etc numbers). Noel (talk) 18:24, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Moral Justification

See previous Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 5#Moral Justification

Noel you migh like to weave a mention of Thucydides' dictum into this. What do people think about this as a first cut for a paragraph?

The moral questions surrounding the raid arise because as"The Second World War is traditionally portrayed as a struggle between good and evil"[1]: Should the Allies have considered the civilian casualties when discussing targets at Yalta and have factored them into the decision making process? Should the RAF and USAAF commanders and the politicians above them, knowing the likely civilian casualty rates which resulted from the bombing tactics which had been developed during the war, have modified their bombing tactics minimise these casualties as the war in Europe drew to a close?

--Philip Baird Shearer 12:38, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Had the Allied commanders been charged ...

See previous Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 5#Had the Allied commanders been charged ...

Joerg Friedrich

Who is Joerg Friedrich? Does he hold an academic post? Do his views have much support among (German) historians? Philip Baird Shearer 17:44, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I just googled. Started as left winger in 1968 he later began to research ww2 history. His main message is that from late 1944 on the bombings had no longer mainly miliaric reasons. He is not occupied in any academic way, and never was, but he has rather much, not necessarily high, reputation, good and bad one, both also from acadmic experts. Sometimes there is bigger protest against him from today‚s left wingers. He writes for the Bertelsmann encyclopedia and partly disagrees with the wellknow Wehrmacht-Exhibition about the German army. He has many listeners and famous customers and also is often describd as not truly scientific from the other side.
I've written an article on Joerg Friedrich to begin with. Comments and fixes appreciated.

Soft advertising for Fredrick Taylor books (?) (more than links, prices and shopping codes, but also those things)

There is a (often seen as) scandal author named Fredrick Taylor who is wellknown for (most times boulvard) papers trying to give a scienific impression, and also for telling different research results on different places, but also - weirdly - even within the very same discussion within only five minutes. There is some bigger protest against him, but he still also has some misleaded (?) believers. Some of them are here and what I don‚t like (I like liberty of opinion and don‚t want to remove Taylor‚s point of view) is that they just use wikipedia text content (they keep it as it is, that‚s nice) but as reference they add "Fredrick Taylor". Please note that not all numbers in wikipedia, for example according destroyed flats, are directly from this person. He just uses them as we do, they are from the city administration and many other sources. Adding him as underlined and only reference makes him more important than he seems to be. If you want then add him as reference, but plese not for everything, especially no postum for "my" passages. Afer listening to him in a live talk I decided to not buy a book, so please believe me, I don‚t have those numbers from Taylor, because I never read his book, only small parts in newspapers.

Examples for arguable Taylor phrases, to give you an idea.

1. The bombing had the goal to start a civil war. In fact, it sometimes even strongly increased the willpower to keep on fighting against the claimed thread of an allied/communistic rule. Probably every militaric intelligence was able to see that before.n

2. (totally imcompatible with 1., told in the same room five minutes later, from the same author, January 2005 in Dresden, published in many newspapers also) It was not the goal to destroy the moral, but to help the East Front from the Soviets. via: a) destroy delivery ways b) avoid that German soldiers can leave the east front (why should the Red Army have had wanted that ? I must admit, I am not an expert for miliaric tactics, maybe you see this as senseful explanation, I just don‚t get it, the less the more I try)

3. It was not possible to train the bombers, that‚s why an area bombing was planned. My opinion: As it seemes, the bombers indeed had few information and were not very much trained in their majority, but in 1944, however, when the city still was defended and at worse weather conditions, other bombers managed even to hit exactly planned houses.

4. There was not enough explotion material for the bombers, that‚s why fire bombing was used. My opinion: On the second day, however, there was enough.

5. The second attack went onto the eastern parts of the city only because the center was aleady burning. This is proven to be wrong by historic telecommunication protocols, Taylor‚s exactly named special persons gave completely other radio instructions, minutes before the bombing. Again, it is shown that Taylor is not scientifically working, but a good story teller. By the way when saying east of the city then he probably means eastern part of the inner-city, because the east of the city were never attacked by air planes. Not well "researched". Nearly unbelievable bad.

6. There were no deep flying airplanes, such tellings are caused by psychocally disturbed persons. He can be right, but there are more than some people who had seen such things. It is also possible that some few pilots made their own flight, not truly controlled by the head quarter.

7. Dresden was an important front delivery cross. I personally don‚t know if this is true, most (also scientific) people strongly disagree, I just don‚t know. What I know is that the big railway over the river was not destroyed at all, three days after the attacks the trains were driven again, the city‚s militaric base in the north of the city were not even hit, the large main oil delivery bases 60 kilometers in the north of Dresden were not attacked.

8. Dresden was the Euopean center of optical industries. I don‚t see this as important factor in this period of a war.

My conclusion is that Taylor is in best case just one of thousands of historicans dealing with the subject.

sources: Walter Weidauer: Inferno Dresden, Dietz-Verlag Berlin 1966; other books such as Das alt Dresden (the old Drsden), TV reportages (German stations and CNN); private talks; listening to Taylor in Dresden in 2005.

My personal opinion is that the attacks were not necessary that way (I of course accept other opinions), I just wanna point out that Taylor didn‚t find out anyhing new. Some of his guessings are just very plain wrong. 212.80.234.50

Two points

  • In your point (3): If you are talking about the previous Daylight raid(s) on Dresden. In 44/45 there was a big difference between USAAF bombing by day (when the target was no obscured by cloud) and RAF by night.
  • In your point (5): In defence of Taylor, according to Norman Longmate in "The Bombers" (1983): "When the master Bomber --call sign Cheesecake-- arrived over the town to direct the second attack... he found the eastern part of Dresden obscured by smoke, making it impossible to identify the aiming point, the railway marshalling yards... after airborne consultation with his Deputy...dropped their flairs to the left and right of the area already burning". I am not sure what you were trying to say, but that would seem to confirm what Taylor writes. (NB "The Bombers", first published 1983, relies on Irving amoung others as a source for Thunderclap and Dresden which means he has to be read carfully) Philip Baird Shearer 13:02, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The neutrality of this article is disputed

I have just removed template {{NPOV}} "the neurality of this article is disputed" template

1) Because MarkSop had not discussed it on this talk page 2) The wording of the first paragraph was subject to a straw poll see Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 4#Straw poll. To change it without first reading the talk pages and discussing it is vandalism. --Philip Baird Shearer 19:30, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here I am to discuss it now. While I did not see the talk pages at the moment of my edits, this is certainly

not a basis of calling my edits vandalism. There is a clear definition of what simple vandalism means, and an edit which is not vandalism per se cannot become vandalism because of some straw poll. Also, not all the people have been involver, aware, or here at the time of straw poll. Does that straw poll fix the version forever? There is no policy like that, or is there? The versions should always be open to be challenged. While not talking on talk page can be considered annoying etc. it is not vandalism - some users, who are perhaps not aware of what goes on, might start just editing at first, and if they refuse to enter debate, then they might be considered problematic (if they only edit, dont answer etc - and I was talking to people even then, rherman for instance - and 151 who was reverting my edit did not even have a talk page), but hardly "vandals". -User:MarkSop 05:36, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

also, what does

{{Old peer review|archive=1}}

mean? does this refer to your straw poll? it explicitly says "edit article as you see fit". So you are implying that people are somehow bound while they are in fact not. Or perhaps this peer review is something else (I do not know what it is, I have just noticed this on top of the page and so I thought it might be the same as what you are reffering to) User:MarkSOp 06:35, 12 Feb 2005 (UCT)

If MarkSop is acting in good faith then why did you make this edit? Revision as of 16:09, 9 Feb 2005 MarkSop From

Reputable estimates vary from 25,000 to more than 60,000 dead

to

Estimates vary from 25,000 to more than 135,000

--Philip Baird Shearer 19:30, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, this was put from the previous version, which was there for 2 years. So what is the problem with that change? I have put some stuff from the previous version. The one which was stable for 2 years was much better ballanced, and it seems someone with an agenda stired an edit war here this october, trying to minimize the responsibility of the Allied side. The figure, on this very talk pages, were discussed at the time (yes I have checked the talk pages now) and many references were offered by people - it is a figure listed in both Columbia and Encarta encyclopedia.


You have called me (on some other page) a right extremist, which I find insultive - yet you should be aware that many people think Dresden bombing was henious. For your information, my political leaning is left (I would put my self centre-left), and I can clearly say what is my motivation for being opposed to rationalization and minimization of Dresden bombing. I believe that it has relevance to the present day involvement of US and Britain in wars, and I am against the feel-good approach about the previous war of US/Brit side. It reduces responsibility for the present day actions, and by pointing out the crimes (yes, I do think that fire bombing a city of low strategic importance flooded with refudgees is a crime) of the past and vowing disagreement we may avoid comitting the crimes today. Lullaby view of Dresden bombing may in fact be dear to the far right in the USA, who see US (and their allies Britain) as unmistakable, righteous fighters, good guys who can't make a mistake - and nothing repulses me more than this black/white view of the world. So, I am not afraid to admit my true motivation here. Will you admit yours??

-[[User::MarkSop]] 05:36, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)



Censored viewpoint

A United States air force report declares that Dresden was considered a military target due to its role in the manufacture of war materiel and its importance as a transportation centre. The report defends the area bombing of the city as having killed only a fraction of a percent of the civilian population: an estimated 25,000 people dead out of 1,000,000 (including refugees who had flooded the city). The report claims that a higher percentage of civilians were killed in Hamberg and attributes to Communist propaganda the claim that 250,000 civilians out of 650,000 had been killed in the city.[2]

The point of view that the percentage of civilians killed was on a par with other bombed cities really ought to be in the article. Leaving out this argument gives advantage to the "Dresden was a war crime" side.

Moreover, I had inserted this POV in a section which asked a question: was the bombing justified? The only answer in that section was NO - which is obviously one-sided. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:47, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

Have you read the article and the talk pages? The article already says this in a lot more detail:
However the United States Strategic Bombing Survey listed at least 110 factories and industries in Dresden6. The city contained the Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory (both of which were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gunsights). The immediate suburbs contained factories building components of radar and electronics, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells. Other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters. An official 1942 guide described the German city as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich"2.

The source you give is already in the References and is used. It has also been discussed before in:

At the moment the statistical data is not in the article and it is likely to be criticized if it is because it makes assumptions which can not be proven. It is probably better to use it the other way around and say that if the loss of life was similar to Hamburg then the total population was ABC. Philip Baird Shearer 21:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

David Irving: holocaust denier POV

I removed the holocaust denier label from David Irving in order to make this article more neutral. A holocaust denier may claim the bombing was overkill, a non-denier may do the same thing. The Dresden bombing and the holocaust are two different matters. They are logically unrelated. A holocaust denier may tell you the Earth is flat (false), snake oil cures cancer (false) and 1+1=2 (true). In these cases, you don't need to advertise their political belief to make your point. -- Toytoy 08:52, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

From my comments at your talk page:
Given that:
  1. The label is authoritatively justified by two court cases,
  2. the basis for the label is well-documented at David Irving, and
  3. The relationship betweeen holocaust denial and the bombing is an important issue in understanding the modern political context of the bombing in Germany,
I think the label is appropriate and cogent. I'm rving your edit.

I think the relevance of the label is justified by the modern political context of the bombing (ie. right-extremist groups like the NPD use the bombing to mimimise the significicance of the Holocaust, roughly saying "Oh the Jewish (sneer) Holocaust? If you want a real holocaust look at Dresden". David Irving is a patron saint to these people). ---- Charles Stewart 09:19, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

  • David Irving is a Homo sapiens
  • David Irving says "1+1=2".
  • David Irving eats three meals a day.
  • David Irving believes in general relativity.
  • David Irving ...
Now, Homo sapiens, mathematics-believer, food-user, Einstein-worshipper, David Irving says the bombing of Dresden in World War II killed one hundred zillion men, women and childern.
You may call the unproven, pointless and evil-minded over-exaggeration of the kills a strategy used by holocaust deniers. But this is your POV. Chances are, you may agree with David Irving in some cases, then would you still label him a "holocaust denier"?
When we talk about a number, we may hire accountants, mathematicians, logicians, historians, witnesses, all kinds of experts to prove or disprove the validity of that number. The fact that Mr. Blah-Blah-Blah used to be a liar or has some sort of bias is not a good reason to reject the number. That is POV. -- Toytoy 09:32, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

It is not just POV of Charles Stewart. The British trial judge said of Irving when he lost his libel case in Britain (and the emphasis of proof in a British libel trial is on the defendant not the plaintiff which is what Irving was):

"Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-semitic and racist and that he associates with right wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism."

See Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 5#Reverted Neo-Nazi contribution (and the follow on section "Neo Nazi?" as an example of what Charles Stewart meant in his initial posting to this section.

As the figure of 135,000 is widely published not only in Irving's initial works but in a lot of secondary works. I think that it is important that the original publication is mentioned here and nailed for the lie that it is. In the last 24 hours alone there has been one repetition (16:09, 9 Feb 2005 MarkSop) of this figure into this article Philip Baird Shearer 10:04, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As Philip points out, Irving was found to be a Holocaust Denier by the courts. And he himself has revised his numbers downwards in subsequent versions of his books. Jayjg (talk) 19:51, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but why the labels if you provide a link right then. Why not say "Anti-Semitic Nazi Propoganda Minister Joseph Goebbels"? It wouldn´t make sense because there is a link right there to another page telling the reader all about Goebbels.

Neutrality dispute

Article reads like, The Allies bombed it, and it was the most horrible war crime committed in the European Theatre.

I would like to have a 2-sentence summary of the Allied point of view, to balance the POV of the German historian.

  1. The civilian loss of life was not extraordinary, compared to other area bombings.
  2. The city was deemed a military target because it was helping the Nazi war effort.

I would like these 2 short points placed in the section which asks, rhetorically, Was it a war crime?

I want these sentences in - even if it repeats info already given in greater detail - because:

  • Without it, the article seems one-sided.
    • The section treating the ethical question of "was it wrong" gives only one point of view: i.e., that it was wrong.
    • Long, detailed sections can bury important points
    • Short, summary sections attract the eye and highlight important points
  • Wikipedia should neither say that the bombing was OKAY nor that it was BAD; it should fairly describe the ethical dispute.

Please allow these 2 sentences into the article. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 14:49, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Ed, I agree with you that that section is not balanced, but I wonder whether that's because there's little evidence that Dresden was a legitimate military target. Are the two points you want to insert correct? First, is it true that the loss of life was not extraordinary, compared to other area bombings? Second, is the expression "compared to other area bombings" weasel-worded? Because the question is whether an area bombing was justified. Third, is it true that the city was deemed a military target because it was helping the Nazi war effort? You're making two claims in your second sentence, namely (a) that the city was helping the Nazi war effort, which you'll need a good source for; and (b) that it was area-bombed because of that, which you'll also need a good source for.
I watched an excellent documentary some years ago about this and I recall papers being quoted, which I've tried without success to find for this article, where it was allegedly discussed in fairly open terms by the British govt prior to the bombing, that it was being carried out to show the Germans that the British would stop at nothing to win the war, and not because Dresden was helping the war effort. In this documentary, Churchill was quoted as saying, just before or after the bombing, words to the effect of: "What have we become?" The thrust of the documentary was that Churchill knew he was about to commit what might be seen as a war crime, but believed the British needed to show they were prepared to be ruthless. On a personal side note, a relative of mine took part in the bombing of Dresden. He spoke happily about other aspects of his war days, but would never speak of Dresden. If it was mentioned, he'd simply say "We knew about the camps," then he'd leave the room. SlimVirgin 16:04, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

No, Slim, I'm not asserting anything. I actually have no opinion on whether the fire-bombing of Dresden was justified.

I'm not saying the points are true but that they are the point of view of the USAAF. I'd like the "was it justified" section to provide a fair description of the dispute between the two main sides which have answered that question.

The two main sides seem to be:

  1. socialists like Friedrich and the other writer whose view I inserted
  2. contemporary US & British war planners

Wikipedia has not endorsed any particular POV of what constitutes a "war crime" yet, so opposing views should still be welcome. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 16:20, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Ed, I think you misunderstood me. I'm not saying you're personally asserting those points. I'm saying your proposed edits would make the assertions I listed, and so each of the points would need to be well-referenced.
I've made this part of the Friedrich sentence invisible: " . . . implying that those allied commanders who ordered the action and the airmen who carried it out should have been tried as war criminals," because the two links provided, [3] and [4], don't say that Friedrich stated or implied that allied commanders and airmen should have been tried as war criminals. A more explicit reference would be needed to support that, otherwise it's just our opinion. SlimVirgin 16:44, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

No it is not. The Nuremberg trials did not allow only obeying orders to be a defence. There for anyone involved with the planning of it or execution would be guilty of a war crime. Philip Baird Shearer 17:46, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If Friedrich actually said this, fine, but then you need a citation. If someone else said this of Friedrich, they should be named, and a citation given. Otherwise, you're offering your own legal opinion. SlimVirgin 18:58, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure why the justification of contemporary US & British war planners shouldn't be included, attributed to them, of course. Jayjg (talk) 19:45, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Needs a copy edit

Philip, I'm in the middle of a copy edit, and you're reverting my changes already, which is going to cause confusion. Please wait until I've finished, and discuss issues here first. This is not a well-written article, and it does need an edit. Please don't put short quotes in italics and place them inside quotation marks. This isn't done, and it makes the text hard to read. Also, you (or whoever inserted these quotes) need to find references for them. Ed's NPOV tag has to stay on the article until he agrees it can be moved to a specific section or deleted, because he has made a valid objection. SlimVirgin 17:41, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC

I could say the same to all the changes you have just made to my edits which I spent a long time putting totgher and you reversed them. Your comment on quotes is a matter of style. puting them in italics makes it clear. I will not discuss my changes to your edits first any more than you did mine. I will make changes and then we can discussit. For example it is not a good Idea to rely on the Socialist Worker party for a piece for an encyclopedia. Philip Baird Shearer 18:07, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I've finished an initial copy edit. I've inserted some invisible questions. The main problem, as I see it, with this article is that it jumps from one area to the next, without a strong narrative thread, which is probably an inevitable result of lots of editors adding bits to it.

A few points:

  • 1) The quotes need references.
  • 2) What's the difference between the References and Footnotes sections?
  • 3) I changed instances of American spelling to British spelling, because BE is the dominant spelling.
  • 4) The section "Criticism of these plans" is quite weak. E.g. "Soviet military intelligence asserted that trains stuck in the station were troops passing through Dresden to the front." Which trains? And "trains were troops" is odd English. Which station? It's assumed Dresden, but it needs to be explained what the issue is, and why it's an issue, because it just suddenly appears.
  • 5) The section "Number of dead": it says: "The number of dead bodies between February and April 1945 was 25,000, war related or not." The number of dead bodies what? Found, buried?
  • 6) The section "Was the bombing justified?" I deleted the Socialist Worker source because the article is written by a non-expert in a highly partisan publication, neither authoritative nor credible.
  • 7) Same section: I deleted from the Friedrich paragraph: "implying that those allied commanders who ordered the action and the airmen who carried it out should have been tried as war criminals" because the two links provided say nothing about him implying this. Editors shouldn't give their own opinions regarding what sources may have meant or implied. If someone else is saying he implied this, though, then it can stay, but that source must be cited.
  • 8) Forget which section - toward the end, it says: "An official 1942 guide described the German city as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich". 2 But the (2) doesn't seem to refer to an official 1942 guide. Can the guide be linked to, or named/described?

That's about it for now. Philip, please do discuss these and don't just revert. SlimVirgin 18:52, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Can someone explain what the current disputes are about here? I'm not getting a good sense of it from the Talk: page, and the article versions are rapidly diverging, and sections have moved a lot, so it's difficult to tell from diffs. Jayjg (talk) 19:09, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

My concern is about the writing and the lack of references for quotes, but that's not the dispute, and I'm doing a copy edit to try to iron out some of the problems. Ed's concern, which led to the NPOV tag, is that there is too much weight given to the view that Dresden may have been a war crime, and that the opposite view needs to be included. SlimVirgin 19:16, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
O.K., Ed invited me here, so I'll try to find where that discussion is going on. Jayjg (talk) 19:19, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Philip, regarding italics for quotes, this is what Wikipedia:Manual of Style says:

Longer quotations may be better rendered in an indented style by starting the first line with a colon. In a quotation of multiple paragraphs not using indented style, double quotation marks belong at the beginning of each paragraph, but only at the end of the last paragraph.
Since quotations are already marked by quotation marks or indentations, they need not be put into italics. SlimVirgin 19:16, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)


Slim and Philip, thanks for your hard work. Slim, thanks for the clarification of "who's making the 2 points" (yes, it was the USAAF). Philip, I understand why you took out the SW quote; it just echoes Friedrich, anyway. And it's a good idea to use either all American or all British spelling throughout; I'm a Yank, but I can read "British" if I squint hard enough ;-) -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:34, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

This is a farce. Philip, you won't let me edit the page. I had added a quote from Michael Burleigh to satisfy Ed's point, but then when I went to save it, I saw you had already reverted again, and now I no longer know which version I'm editing. SlimVirgin 20:00, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Nazi propaganda

Burleigh wrote:

Attempts to treat the bombing of Dresden as a war crime perpetrated against the innocent inhabitants of a historic cultural centre of no industrial or military significance began two days after the attack. This was the handiwork of the Nazi propaganda supremo Goebbels, whose "spin doctors" exaggerated the city's population by a factor of four to support the wild claim that two million refugees from the east had been caught by the raids, and who doctored the number of corpses publicly burned (with the help of the SS who had some experience of these tasks) by adding an extra nought to the actual figure of 6,856. A regime that had picked British targets from Baedecker guide books dilated upon the damage to Germany's own cultural heritage. [5]

Dates

Philip, do you even have the dates right? The first wave took off around 6 pm on Feb 13, not 14. SlimVirgin 20:10, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

It is not I who have the dates right or wrong, it is the article. The article is certainly confusing because of day has two meanings daylight and 24 hours. I have just tried to fix them, do they look better now? Philip Baird Shearer 22:12, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
My understanding is that there were two waves of British bombing, beginning at 6 pm (take-off from UK) Feb 13, 1945, with a second wave a few hours later carrying incendiary bombs, and these are the two raids that caused the bulk of the damage i.e. the night of Feb 13-14. Then I believe there was American daylight bombing on Feb 14, intended to hamper German rescue and fire-fighting efforts; and I believe a second American daylight raid on Feb 15, which attacked the railway. I am less certain of the American raids and of what else happened on Feb 15, but I am fairly certain about the dates of the two main British raids. However, the event referred to as "the bombing of Dresden" that is regarded by some as a war crime (because it was carpet bombing at night with poor visibility) took place the night of Feb 13-14. SlimVirgin 22:20, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
Here [6], a news report from the BBC, Feb 14, 1945 reporting the bombing. Here [7], a BBC report from 2000, stating: "The bombing of Dresden on the night of 13-14 February 1945 is regarded as one of the most notorious events of the war." It's senseless to have our intro state that it was Feb 14-15. SlimVirgin 22:37, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

The American bomb twice during daylight on the 14th and 15th. That is clear. I've just checked a source. It does not give the hour the first RAF raid started, but gives the planned start of the raid as 22:05 and that at the second wave would hit 3 hours later at 01:30 finishing at 02:00. It says that the last plane left at around 02:15 (15 minutes behind schedule). This is a British source so the times are probably GMT, German sources would have CET and be one hour latter. So to be unambiguous the days of the attack will depend on whether the first British plane arrived before 23:00 hours GMT. The probability is that they did in which case the dates of the article need to be altered. But it would be nice to have a definate time from an RAF source and another from a German source. As the bombing took place in/over Dresden we should realy use local time and dates. The RAF page http://www.raf.mod.uk/bombercommand/dresden.html does not give times :-( Does anyone have a source which states at what time the first raid took place? Philip Baird Shearer 23:01, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Here are the times. I have no online source I can link to for this information.

  • Ist raid, British, left UK around 6 pm Feb 13; first bomb hit Dresden 10 pm (German time) Feb 13
  • 2nd raid, British, left UK around 9 pm Feb 13; first (incendiary) bomb hit city just before 1:30 am (German time) Feb 14
  • The above was the "bombing of Dresden" Feb 13-14, night-time carpet bombing using incendiary devices, set the city on fire
  • 3rd raid, American daylight bombing; first bomb hit city 10 am Feb 14; intended to hamper rescue efforts
  • 4th raid, American, daylight bombing, Feb 15; railways hit.

I've changed the intro sentence to say between Feb 13 and 15, instead of 14-15. However, I am not sure that it is accurate to say that the Feb 15 bombing was a fire-bombing. Therefore, the sentence may still not be right. I have been looking for hours for a precise description of the Feb 15 raid, but can't find one. SlimVirgin 23:13, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,6121,1142632,00.html

Just before 10pm sirens sounded in Dresden, the historic Saxon capital known as "Florence on the Elbe"
At around noon on what was now Ash Wednesday, an armada of US B-17 bombers appeared to pulverise whatever parts of Dresden were not obscured by smoke.

What makes you think that the times are CET?

It is not the fire bombing of Dresden, it is the Bombing of Dresden. So I think that the raid on the 15th should be included. Some of the criticism has been alleged strafing of civilians and only the Americans day fighters could strafe. (see Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 5#The death toll and Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive_5#Strafing of US Mustang planes) Philip Baird Shearer 00:41, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The first sentence says "fire-bombed". It should be changed to bombed if you want to include Feb 15th. I"m not saying the 15th should be excluded. My argument was that I couldn't understand why you've been excluding the 13th from the intro, when the main raid took place on the 13th. The times given are local time. See below for Charles' link to the German article saying the bells are rung in Germany every year at 22:13 on Feb 13. SlimVirgin 01:18, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Political context

One weakness of the article stands is that the political cointext of the bombing, especially in Germany, is all but absent. This isn't true of the German version, which has the section Luftangriff_auf_Dresden#Gedenken covering the politics surrounding the anniversary. I've not really got time to translate this material, but maybe others do. ---- Charles Stewart 23:34, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't have time either but perhaps we can find an English-language article about it. Thanks for posting that link Charles, because it gives us confirmation of the time the first bombs fell. The bells start ringing at 22:13 Feb 13. SlimVirgin 23:48, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Check out this HHA article (it is, if not obvious, written by an NPD fellow traveller); I've also created the article Holger Apfel about the NPD Sachsen Fraktionschef. I'm probably not able to write much from an NPOV on this. ---- Charles Stewart 01:11, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Charles Stewarts notice on "Luftangriff auf Dresden" in German Wikipedia
Hello, for the moment the article on German Wikipedia isn't ready yet, we had some problems last days because of a started edit war. But there is hope, that all participants don't give up and find a solution about the question, witch historical facts are proofed and how the text should be like. If this problem is solved I think, you will be supported in the translation. Sorry, my English is bad - I am not the person, who ever could translate ;-) - Have a nice day, --Nocturne 07:26, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunatly me too ;-(. The editwar still continues. But I think, the section "Gedenken" (memory) has less discussions then other parts. Surely also a simple Babel Fish helps in case of translation. Krtek76 09:13, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for responsing to the appeal! Ability to polish english prose is not what we are short of here; sensitivity to the political context is what we lack. A crude translation into Dinglish would be just what the doctor ordered. ---- Charles Stewart 09:49, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Translation of "Gedenken", German article, last section

Here it comes, hope not too crude:

"Memory

On February 13th each year memory events take place in Dresden. All Dresden church bells ring at 10:13 PM ? the exact time when the bombing started - that day. In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the attacks a bell sinphony was performed including all bells of the city. In 2002 citizens of Dresden and its partnertown Coventry, which had been hit severly by German bombing in World war II, came together. Following the motto ‹Build bridges ? live reconciliation (‹Vers?hnungñ)ñ they put up a sign against war and hate. They met at the Dresden ‹Frauenkircheñ (womans church) which had been totally destroyed by the attacks. In the meantime it has been restored almost completely. This rebuilding was succesful because of the activities of mainly British and German fundraising clubs.

Parallel to that old and new right wing extremists try to abuse the anniversaries of the bombings for their gatherings and revisionist propaganda. The number of demonstrators which follow the invitation of the ‹Junge Landsmannschaft Ostpreu¤enñ (young landfellows of east prussia) is increasing continuously. The date has developed to be one of the biggest regular events including Neonazis from all over Germany and other countries. Gouvernor Georg Milbradt (CDU-party) therefor has rejected to overtake the ‹leadershipñ for the event in 2005, which Holger Apfel (NPD-party) then accepted for himself.

The prefered term of ‹bombing Holocaustñ is meant to relativate the Holocaust and to describe the complete warfare of the Allied coalition as a crime, in order to put the guilt for the war on them and to minimize or even deny the German guilt. They abuse some historical facts for that purpose, f.e. the planned and worked out mass destuction of the central city of Dresden which didnÇt make much military sense. They want to describe Germanys former enemies, especially the US, as outstanding inhumane and cruel, comparing their behavior to German war crimes thus justifying these. This ideological abuse one cannot find in the National Democratic Party (NPD) only but it is also a widespread mentality.

As a reaction, some Antifascists try to oppose this abuse with paroles like ‹German actors are no victimsñ, ‹No tears for Dresdenñ or ‹Bomber-Harris do it againñ. They fear the ‹breaking-a- tabooñ-approach of the historical discussion about German war victims will continously justify Nazi thought and behavior. Protesting this they celebrate the bombing of Dresden as necessary part of winning the military fight against Nazi-Germany.

The city council of Dresden therefore forbids any demonstration in the center of Dresden on that day every year. But moreover, it tries to regain initiative for the way of celebrating the memory day with its own events. A very important part of that are the partnership contacts with the city of Coventry and the Church work for reconciliation. Both try to build up understanding beyond national limits for the fact that German guilt of war cannot be weighed with others war crimes. There is no doubt possible that Germany started the war which cannot be relativated. What happened in the war was an increasing abstraction of the warfare from rational aims. This tendency cannot be looked at by isolating it from the criminal plans and actions of Nationalsocialism. But also, the Allied bombings of populated cities cannot be interpreted as a necessary and unevitable reaction to these Nazi crimes.

Most of the survivors of the bombings who suffered unmeasurable pain and their relatives conclude from their terrifying war experiences: Remembering all the victims on both sides together, humanely, without accusations, is the best healing - instead of the undignified counting and comparing of victims and distributing guilt portions."

Greetings from Germany, Jesusfreund --217.83.44.117 21:07, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Changes to the Introduction

Thank you for sending that[ranslation of "Gedenken"]; it's very helpful I just added to the intro the size of the area that was damaged and the number killed, because otherwise it wasn't clear from the intro why the bombing should be regarded as more controversial than any other. I'd also like to add something about it having been a carpet bombing at night, because that is really what the controversy is about - that there was no attempt to avoid so-called collateral damage, and that civilians were the actual targets. However, that gets us back into the business of dates. The raids of the 13th and early on the 14th were night-time carpet bombing, but the rest were targetted, daylight raids, though the American raid of the 14th was also aimed at civilians. As that's more controversial, I won't add it without prior discussion. Second sentence of intro currently reads:
The bombing of Dresden in World War II' by the Allies remains controversial after more than 50 years because of the legal and moral justification for the raids, which destroyed an area of 15 square kilometres and killed at least 25,000 people.
This is not why the attack is more controversial and the article needs to make clear that half a dozen other raids used more planes, more bombs and caused more casualties yet somehow this is the one remembered. Think propaganda. Rmhermen 22:10, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
Why do you believe it's more controversial then? SlimVirgin


IÇm not sure wether I should take part in your diskussion, but I do:

  • the controversy is about the ethical aspects of the whole aerial warfare, I think: not Dresden only.
  • J?rg Friedrichs is introduced as a "revisionist" historican in your article. In a German context this reads like right wing extremist supporter. It is true that they use some of his arguments. But he himself rejects to be called revisionist. He points out clearly in his book, that the German Luftwaffe started the carpet bombing of cities and used the "firestorm" method to burn whole city areas first. He is aware that the Allied reaction seemed to be necessary at that time.
  • But it is not quite easy to find the exact difference between "necessary" and "justified". ThatÇs probably the whole point of the ongoing controversy.

Greetings, Jesusfreund --217.83.33.153 00:13, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Something cannot both be necessary and unjustified. Perhaps there's a language conflict here, so by all means give the German if that would help. I agree that it's carpet bombing that's viewed as controversial, not just Dresden, but the intro should make clear what the controversy is, and it doesn't; that's my point. Friedrichs is called a revisionist historian by most of the sources I found on him, but I think it's meant in the proper technical sense, not that he's a Holocaust denier, for example (though he may be: I don't know, but I assumed not, though he's playing into their hands and appears not to mind). SlimVirgin 00:45, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
Jesusfreund the article on J?rg Friedrich says he now describes himself as a revisionist historian [8]. I put half the label into this article and will gladly remove it, if this turns out turns out to be false. There are of course two definitions for historical revisionism. Perhapse you should raise the point on the Talk:J?rg Friedrich page. You have summed up the controversy exactly 'difference between "necessary" and "justified"' Philip Baird Shearer 01:07, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

SlimVirginI am not happy with the extension you have put onto the introduction. As Rmhermen says there are lots of different reasons why it is controversial. As we had straw poll on this issue only two months ago Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 4#Straw poll. Whether to keep the introduction clean or to clutter it with NPOVs. You have had several people express doubts about your addition to the intro, so please will you remove it (or move it) and put it to a straw poll if you wish to make such an addition to the first paragraph? Philip Baird Shearer 01:07, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Philip, I don't mind what the addition to the intro is, but there needs to be something in the interests of good writing. Wikipedia intros are supposed to summarize, preferably in around three paragraphs (though the length is less important), what the main issues are. In this case, the issue is that the bombing is controversial. You say because of the "legal and moral justification". But what does that mean? These was no legal justification, which is not to say it was unjustified; simply that the issue of legal jurisfication didn't enter the picture. And as for the moral justification, it depends which system of morality you're using. Again, this is not to say it was morally unjustified; I'm simply saying these are meaningless, wasted words. We should describe in factual terms, not weasel words, what the issue is. As Rmhermen pointed out above, more bombs were dropped elsewhere, though I'm not sure he's right about more casualties having been caused elsewhere on one night. Even Churchill referred to the bombing as "terror." So the question remains: why was the Dresden bombing controversial? It was controversial at the time, remember, even for Churchill, not just after the fact. It was also controversial for the pilots. This article fails to explain why, so this is a big omission generally, and the intro doesn't even hint at it. I don't mind having a straw poll (though remember that consensus isn't the same as majority-rule), but then please let's discuss what we should ask first i.e. what the various options are. SlimVirgin 01:34, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
I think when he refers to "Legal Justification" what he really means is whether the raid broke any "laws". Now, I think problem #1 is that the "international laws" we have today, via the UN and such, weren't around back in 1945 as such. There were the Geneva conventions, I'm not sure how binding they are, but what I am pretty sure of is that they didn't say you can't bomb an enemy's cities or kill their civilians. They dealt mostly with the treatment of POWs, wounded, people in neutral zones, hospitals and such. I haven't read them *thoroughly* but the reading I did suggests that nobody back in 1945 (or even 1950 when the Korean War started) said that killing civilians in enemy territory was illegal (unless they were "protected", which applied to medical personnel and such, but it's arguable whether this mattered if you weren't actually targetting them specifically). Moral justification is more difficult and I think it's a question of proportionality - was the damage done really worth it, did this bombing really help win the war? That's a question that's almost impossible to answer because we can't know what would have happened if it didn't occur. I suggest this article should mention that the bombing is controversial and why, which I believe, as I said, is an issue of proportionality. I have a book with some articles written some time ago about the bombing of Dresden, perhaps I can read them again and spit out some facts about how people thought at the time etc. Nvinen 02:06, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I agree with you, Nvinen. Legal justification: not applicable. Moral justification: depends on the system of morality and the built-in premises. Therefore, we need something factual for the intro explaining why Dresden was different from, say, Essen. SlimVirgin 02:23, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
I think it's two main factors. In common with the other controversial bombings of WW2 (Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, perhaps others?) there were a lot of civilians killed in a short period. In other cases, almost entire towns were wiped out, but that was not the case with these raids, it was the total number killed, not the proportion, which was shocking. This seems to me to be typically what makes a bombing controversial. The other aspect, which it has in common with Tokyo and to some extent the other two, is the fire-storm aspect which lead to very heavy property damage, much worse than from your typical high explosive bombings (at least to residences). The thing which stands out most to me is the cultural significance of Dresden. I would like to go there and see the famous buildings but they're gone now. Of course, that's true of many other European cities, but Dresden is often said to have had little military significance when people complain about the loss of the cultural treasures (although, I'm not sure how much basis this has in fact after what I've read). So, to sum up, I'd say that the scale of the destruction and killing is mainly what makes it controversial, especially in proportion to the potentially small impact it had on the outcome of the war. Nvinen 02:49, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I agree. The intro did say fire-bombed, which explains that aspect of the contoversy, but then there was a problem with the dates. It originally said that Dresden was firebombed on Feb 14 and 15. That was wrong, because it was firebombed on the 13th and 14th; and bombed on the 15th, though not fire-bombed. So I changed it to between 13th and 15th. But that made the word "firebombed" incorrect, because I believe the bombing on the 15th was a regular targeted strike on a railway. Therefore I changed "firebombed" to "bombed", but that lost the point of the controversy. ;-) So each change brought an improvement and a deterioration. If anyone can think of an elegant way to get the dates correct and retain the issue of fire-bombing, that would do it. SlimVirgin 03:01, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • SlimVirgin While we discuss it will you please revert your change to to the introduction in line with the last straw poll until another one is done?
  • Once you have done that, I suggest that to get up to speed with what has already been discussed by reading all of the talk page and the archived talk pages.
  • Then put together an a NPOV paragraph about the moral justifications and moral objections to the bombing and either put it on the talk page for discussion or add it to the article in the "Was the Dresden bombing justified?" section.
  • Once that is done then, if there is no agreement, we can have a poll on what should or should not be added to the introduction.
  • But first please revert you changes to the introduction in line with the last straw poll. --Philip Baird Shearer 02:44, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Copy edit and references

I'd like to do a copy edit in case any of my previous changes were reverted. I'll be correcting grammar and punctuation errors if there are any. Also, the quotations need to be referenced, or they cannot stay in the article. We quote Churchill, but don't say where we took the quote from, or whether he said it or wrote it. I'll wait a few hours before starting the copy edit in case anyone objects. SlimVirgin 02:34, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

But first please revert you changes to the introduction in line with the last straw poll. [ [Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 4#Straw poll]]. --Philip Baird Shearer 02:44, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'll remove what I added to the intro. Will you find references for the quotes that you added or want to keep? Another thing I'm currently looking for is whether Joergen Friedrich is actually a historian. I've seen him described as such on many websites, but haven't found any that say in what sense. He's not at a university, but is currently a freelance writer in Berlin. Should we call him a historian? SlimVirgin 03:01, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
How about adding this to the intro: "The fire-bombing of the city by the RAF on the night of 13-14 February is regarded as "one of the most notorious events of the war". I like it, because (a) we're quoting the BBC [9], not saying it ourselves; (b) the statement is true without going into detail or taking sides; and (c) it makes it clear that it's the firebombing on the night of the 13th that was controversial, not the bombing as such. SlimVirgin 03:24, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
For some reason you removed what I wrote; an edit conflict you didn't notice perhaps? Here it is again:
How about it says something like "fire-bombed on the 13th and 14th and again bombed on the 15th".
In addition I propose a second paragraph something like this:
The controversy surrounding the bombing of Desden on the 13th-15th stems mainly from the number of civilian deaths and amount of property destroyed during these two days. In addition we can look back and see that the raids probably had little effect on the outcome of the war and thus it can be said that the suffering caused was disproportionate to the benefits of the attacks. Indeed, some (but not all) of those involved in making the decision to bomb Dresden later questioned whether they had made the right decision. However, it is worth remembering that at the time, they did not know when the war was going to end, how many civilians would die nor how badly damaged the German military apparatus was. In fact, the Germans fought bitterly to the end, crushed only by the might of the allied armies. It is therefore very difficult to judge whether the raids had a significant effect on the outcome of the war—we can only guess. The people of Dresden suffered horribly from the raids, but can the experiences of those in any other european city be said to be all that different?
You can strike the last sentence if you think it's unnecessary, but I think something along these lines would help explain the controversy. Nvinen 03:17, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I haven't removed anything that you wrote, Nvinen; perhaps there was an editing glitch, or maybe we pressed save at the same time. The problem with what you've written is that it's a POV not attributed to any published source. Also, it may not be true that it had no effect on the outcome of the war; in terms of morale, of nothing else, it may have had an effect. What did you think of adding the BBC quote to the intro? SlimVirgin 03:57, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

In our German introduction it reads "it was one of the most severe air attacks against german cities in the war." This is related to the absolute number of victims; in percentage it wouldn«t be true (like Pforzheim, Darmstadt, Swinemunde f.e. was much worse).
That leads me to the question above: What was special about Dresden? Death toll: partially true, as said. Cultural value: true, as said. Military relevance? Partially true, not special, questionable.
But another aspect has been missing here, as far I can see: the city had very little defense preparations, no bunkers, only cellars to protect the citizens. And it was stuffed with hundreds of thousands of refugees at the time, fleeing the Russians, hoping for security in a city that hadn«t been bombed so far. We had a big discussion about their numbers, because if they were high the death toll also must have been higher than 25.000. There«s only estimations, no verified documents on that.
Legal justification: We«ve had a discussion wether or not the La Haague international law of 1907 was relevant in 1945. We agreed that the bombings did violate at least the "spirit", if not the words, of the agreement of members of the "Všlkerbund" (english?) not to target civilians, although as far as I know there was no specific agreement to limit the airforces. According to the NŸrnberg trials, "crimes against humanity" was a new justifiable criteria which could have been applied to other crimes also...but that«s what Neonazis say all the time so we do not want to go into that too far...
Joerg Friedrich is indeed a historican. He worked on how German lawyers persecuted or not persecuted Nazis in the Fifties, being very critical about German Justice system then. Also he took part in editing a manual about the Holocaust. On the link given above he says clearly "he is not interested in making moral judgements, merely in what happened." He is also a journalist and wrote in a narrative style taking the perspective of the victims. But as I said he is aware of and pointing out that Germans started it all, including the method of the firestorm. That«s why he cannot be regarded as "revisionist" in the sense of changing the main historical views about Nazism. Some of his language indeed has been (ab-)used by Neonazis, f.e. he speaks of "crematoria" when people were burned in the cellars and "extermination" warfar. And it seems to be true that he has not opposed that abuse very loud in public, at least I didn«t find a statement of him on that so far.
In regard of his book "Der Brand" I tend to go with this reviewer: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=280291070845163
I think your article is quite good and we already learned from it. Greetings again, Jesusfreund --217.83.47.156 04:15, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'm washing my hands of this article. Initially I was trying to help clarify it, but it seems like some people are hysterical about the whole affair. You have to put it in perspective with the rest of the war. I have several articles in books here discussing it, but seeing as several people are unwilling to deal with any summary of them, it's irrelevant. I'll go work on something else. Nvinen 04:20, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Nvinen, I don't see anyone being hysterical about it, just offering different views. Jesusfreund, thank you, that's very helpful, as is the article you sent. Regarding Friedrich, he does call himself a revisionist. About his being a historian, do you happen to know in what sense he's an historian, as opposed to a writer who writes about the war? I can't find anything about his academic background. The refugees, there's a book review here [10] that indicates the claim that the city was packed with refugees was propaganada. Do you have a source that you would consider reliable? Also, I have another question about Friedrich. Does anyone know whether he actually says Dresden was, in his view, a "war crime"? The Guardian interprets what he says that way, but I found an article tonight claiming Friedrich doesn't say that, though he calls Churchill a "butcher." I haven't seen the book myself and so don't know. SlimVirgin 04:57, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

POV in article

This article is in my opinion not NPOV, and I will ad a notice. Here I will show why

  • Arguing to present lower death toll figures as more accurate:

from the text:

"The precise number of dead is not known. Estimates from reputable sources vary from 25,000 to more than 60,000, although the official German report (TB47) at the time refers to 25,000 expected dead, and historians now view around 25,000-35,000 as the likely range, with the latest research by a German historian pointing toward the lower part of this range. Contemporary official German records give a number of 21,271 registered burials, including 6,865 who were cremated on the Altmarkt."

what is a "reputable source" - this is a weasel word. What sources - we are here not JUDGE, but to REPORT in a neutral way. Name the sources, dont weight/judge them.
why the word "although". it indicates arguing in favor of the lower estimate. also it is an expected number, not final count (and can we have a reference to it, please). expected numbers of deatsh in the recent tsunami were as low as 40,000 in the first few days, compared to 300,000 that is what is put now. it is a selective use of information, to substantiate the claim, not an objective account. No discussion is given for the higher estimates (60,000 - that is said to be an estimate, but not discussed). Nothing is said in the end about the missing and those possibly burnt in the firestorms. All these concerns omitted, leaving a bad impression of one-sidedness

"The number of dead between February and April 1945 was 25,000, war related or not. There was no registration of burials between May and September 1945.3 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. 5 In recent years, the estimates have become a little higher in Germany and lower in Britain; earlier it was the opposite."

This paragraph starts with the number 25,000 as it is a fact, contradicting the uncertanty from the previous paragraph. It implies that all higher estimates are wrong (why then the discussion in the first place). The whole paragraph presents arguments for the lower estimates - that is very suspicious and one-sided sounding. Also, this is more something that should be relevant to the talk pages, than the article itself - it is a proper place for pesuasion, and article should merely report. All sides should be reported justly, not only one side or estimate with all the arguments supporting it. None of the arguments here is in fact conclusive, yet it might sound so to people who read the article - clearly this was put here by people with agenda to lower the estimates.

"Estimates are made difficult by the fact that the city was crowded at that time by many unregistered refugees and wounded soldiers. There have been higher estimates for the number of dead, ranging as high as a quarter of a million, but they are from disputed sources, such as the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, and controversial self-taught historical writer and prominent Holocaust denier David Irving, who has anyway retracted his higher estimates."

again, arguing rather than presenting; what does "anyway" stand for in the last sentence - it makes sense only

in an argument. These words give up the agenda, and add to a tone of onesidedness.

  • Issue of war crime

The existence of this issue is downplayed, if not entirely denied. There is no chapter discussing it, and it was all discussed in a suspiciously sounding chapter "was bombing justified". This is not an essay, but an encyclopedia article. So, reporting of facts, issues and views of people should be presented in a neutral way, not arguing and making judgements on our own (this is not a newspaper editorial either).

Therefore, I will add NPOV notice until these objections are settled (also, there is an edit war here going from October, and a note should be there for that very reason). User:MarkSOp of 06:28, 12 Feb 2005 (UCT)

Number of victims

Currently, the article lists number of victims "reputable estimates are 25,000-60,000". I dispute this formulation. What does "reputable" mean. Are Columbia encyclopedia and Encarta encyclopedia disreputable?? As much as I do not like Microsoft, I can't agree that they are. And Columbia is an elite US University, is its encyclopedia not reputable? They both list number of victims from 35,000-135,000. This figure was disucssed here extensively Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/ Archive 1, that was before this current edit war started, and the figure 35,000 - 135,000 was in the article for 2 years. I think it should clearly be listed as one of reputable source (or do not use reputable, but list the figure and the source, Wikipedia should not make judgements according to NPOV policy. User:MarkSop 05:47, 12 Feb 2005 (UCT)

Numbers above 100K are almost certainly residue from the period when David Irving was giving them, and it wasn't realized that he was a mendacious pseudo-historian. No reputable and knowledgeable source that I'm aware of has ever gone above ~60K (and even that is way high). That some encyclopaedias haven't caught up with recent scholarship on the issue is sad, but not surprising.
You will find an extensive discussion of the source of the current wording/numbers at Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 5#The death toll, which includes longish quotes from the main source, the report of Prof. Evans of Cambridge University, who relied heavily on two contemporary Dresden historians who did extensive research in original documentation there.
I will go check in the article and make sure the numbers have proper citation. Noel (talk) 19:18, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Issue of War crime

Do people dispute that there is an issue of War crime here? You might think that it was not a war crime, but do you dispute that there is a war crime issue? Do you dispute it is a relevant issue?

I think that a chapter in this article should be devoted to this issue, since it is an important one cocerning Dresden. User:MarkSop 05:47, 12 Feb 2005 (UCT)

MarkSop, could you date your comments in future. Your name and the date will be automatically added if you write four tildes after your comment, like this ~~~~ Many thanks. On another note, I'm changing that Friedrich is a historian, because even his Wikipedia page doesn't say that. SlimVirgin 06:43, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I did not know about the signatures. MarkSOp 06:45, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
That's better. :-) I wasn't sure whether I'd also moved old comments at the same time. If I did, sorry, and feel free to move them back. Regarding your comments, I agree with you that this article needs to be properly referenced. Figures aren't sourced, quotes aren't referenced. I also think we should stick to reputable sources, and not include people like David Irving, because his figures are very agenda-laden, and in fact he himself has restracted them, I believe. Regarding discussing it as a war crime, are there any reputable, authoritative sources that you know of who refer to it as a war crime, or suggest that it might be? Friedrich is quoted as saying that, but I haven't read his book and tonight I read online that, in fact, he didn't say it, so it's all a bit murky. I agree with you that we should characterize the dispute and not engage in it, as it were. I also agree that, as there has been an edit dispute since October, it would be good to do something to settle it. SlimVirgin 06:55, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
"People as diverse as the German socialist writer Gunter Grass and the former editor of the Times, Simon Jenkins have referred to the Dresden bombing as a war crime" - so indeed there are quite a few people who have referred to this as a war crime (which is hardly surprising). Now, it is a moral assesment, not a legal one, since at the time the international law did not function (and even today the international tribunal is not ratified by USA who opposes to it and most major countries like Russia, China; also Israel). A question can be asked if it is a war crimes by the standards of Geneva conventions, and a chapter about this can be added. Or not - just listing some people (as in this sentence I've added to the article) might help. The way it was stated, it sounded almost that this Friedrich is the first one who has suggested it, and that his suggestion was very odd and contraversial. This is misleading, since in fact this discussion goes for decades, much before Friedrich, Irving and present day debate. As for Irving, I think that his views/book as well as the views of far right should be mentioned, since it is a relevant part of the story. The view does not have to be reputable or true to be reported - if people burnt witches in middle ages, then the view of inquisition that those persons were witches should be reported, as it is relevant - VIEW is to be presented as such, based on relevance of the phenomenon (consequences of Dresden bombing for the present day people and their feelings) - and in fact that is all that we can do. A view of historic science community A (present day) is such and such, a view of BBC and other media is such and such, a view of historic community B (for instance Soviet historians) is such and such. And that is it - the criterion should be relevance, and we are not suppose to make judgements here which view is correct (though of course we all have them in private, but it should not show in NPOV article)MarkSOp 07:21, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • On Friedrichs historical background and quotes IÇll try to find out. His book "Der Brand" is mainly based on American military documents plus German city archives: the latter havenÇt been researched so much up to him. Other sources he neglects instead, so youÇre right to question his reliability. In some points he is plain wrong: He says Mannheim didnÇt have any military relevanc f.e. which is false.
  • On refugees: YouÇre right, some use higher estimations of refugees as propaganda. The figures range from 100.000 up to 600.000.
  • But that shouldnÇt keep us from taking a close look. There were evacuations going on for a while, f.e. in February 1945 all the people of Breslau (now Bonislaviec, Poland) were fleeing towards the west through Dresden which was considered to be safe.
  • The most serious source I know about the matter is G?tz Bergander: "Dresden im Luftkrieg", first edition 1977, new edition September 1998, 435 pages, Flechsig, ISBN: 3881892397. - Bergander is the German historican supposed to have written the most reliable factual book on the matter, dealing with a lot of "legends" around the attacks.
  • He is critical about the refugees: no wonder, because he was an administrator for refugees in Dresden at that time, so a time witness also. He is the only one of German historicans I know of that analyzes precisely every aspect from planning of the attacks up to the death toll numbers. In the new edition he also cares about many other books published since 1977. We rely on much of his in our article.
  • And he estimates the number of refugees "up to 200.000" (page 214): in February, not for the center of Dresden only but for the whole of the city area. He also stresses that the Nazis tried to make them leave the city as soon as possible, because it was crammed already and they feared attacks.

Hope this can help, I donÇt know wether thereÇs an english edition of Berganders book. If there is, try to get it! Greetings, Jesusfreund --217.95.58.123 06:53, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

On J?rg Friedrich:

  • 1982 he published his first historical book "Freispruch fÙr die Nazi-Justiz".
  • 1984 another one: "Kalte Amnestie". In both he dealt with the juridical prosecution of Nazis in Western Germany, f.e. Majdanek-trial.
  • 1993 he published "Das Gesetz des Krieges" (The law of war), 1000 pages, about the crimes of the Wehrmacht in Russia-war 1941-1945 and their prosecution in the NÙrnberg trials.
  • He also produced many radio and some TV pieces, together with another historican, Alexander Kluge, about world war II, NS-crimes and Allied war against Germany.
  • He now lives as free author and publishing historican in Berlin.
  • Hans Mommsen, famous conservative historican, has aknowledged his book "Der Brand" quite positively. Others have pointed out his lacking analysis of the political backgrounds of the air warfar.

More later about his "war crime" quotes. Jesusfreund --217.83.32.213 07:21, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't call him a historian just because he writes about history. That was one of the problems with David Irving being called a historian, when in fact he was a fraud. I'm not saying Friedrich is a fraud, but we should call him a writer if he isn't a qualified historian. SlimVirgin 07:24, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Marksop, the only way to sort out this dispute is to stick to facts and cite sources. You write above that people as diverse as Simon Jenkins and Gunter Grass have called it a war crime. That's a good example of what's wrong with this article. "As diverse as" is POV, and in what relevant way are they diverse (because one is left and the other right?) and these are TWO people, neither of them authorities on anything. I'm not saying their views don't matter, but just because those two people say something doesn't make it an issue. If this is really an issue, you'll be able to find multiple good sources. If you can't, that tells you something. Preferably, the sources should be war historians, law professors, or government documents (other than Nazi ones). We can't just add a section discussing whether it would be illegal under the Geneva Convention. We're not allowed to do original research and that includes no original analysis or synthesis. We may only refer to information and arguments that are in the public domain and have been published by credible, relevant publications. See Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Cite sources. SlimVirgin 07:33, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Citing sources

I've started a copy edit. I'd appreciate it my changes were not reverted or deleted without prior discussion, as I'm now having to repeat a lot of the work that I did two days ago because it was changed. I've made the Friedrich claim about it being a war crime invisible until we establish whether he really did say that, because at the moment we link to a BBC piece that doesn't back up the claim.

Regarding the use of these little footnote numbers, these are not a good idea, and the references linked to at the bottom of the page either don't back up the claims, or else it's not clear which part of a paragraph they're referring to. See Wikipedia:Cite sources for a discussion about why these footnotes should not be used. If you want to refer to a book please say. "According to John Smith, X, Y, Z" (and after the sentence (Smith, 2005) or else just "X, Y, X, (Smith, 2005)", then include Smith's 2005 book in the References section. Also, please write (Smith, 2005) after the sentence taken from Smith 2005 not just after the paragraph, unless the whole paragraph really is taken from him. SlimVirgin 07:56, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

I've changed the header of "were the attacks justified" to "controversy" which is more neutral. I've also found a couple of citations for the quotes in that section. For anyone wanting to pursue the war crimes issue, here is an interesting article [11] that says Chamberlain said it would be a war crime to do this, though he said that before the war. This might be a starting point for anyone wanting to pursue that angle. Here's the quote: "Many felt that the Germans deserved to reap the whirlwind they had sown. Yet Bomber Command's policy of targeting residential areas clearly contradicted Chamberlain's pre-war statement in parliament that it was 'against international law to bomb civilians as such and to make deliberate attacks on the civilian population'." SlimVirgin 08:18, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

What are you using as an editor? It seems to handle certain characters in an odd way and to change them. please see [12] [13]. One of the Characters it does not seem to handle is "´" as in I´ll inplace of I'll. In the first edit it replaced with "´" "«" it did somthing similar for "Eisenhower's" in the main article. At the moment all the German characters have been changed by these two edits. Of course if they look fine in your browser and you can not see what I mean then we have a problem:-( however you should still be able to see the red changes in the history diffrences though Philip Baird Shearer 09:34, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
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