I recently saw a declassified file from the Office of the Prime Minister [
PREM 19/841] which demonstrates how significantly the perception of the bombing of
Dresden has altered since the early 1980s.
In April 1980 the the Board of Deputies of British Jews approached the Environment Secretary Michael Helestine with the proposal that a national Holocaust memorial be created immediately next to the Ministry of Defence in Richmond Terrance, a very short distance from the Cenotaph—it was eventually
built in Hyde Park in 1983.
Numerous documents in the file mention a proposed design for the Holocaust memorial which prominently featured the inscription "
Dresden, Warsaw, and Hiroshima". The design is not found in the file and no document states who actually drew it, but it's clear that the proposed design was in the possession of Helestine when he first approached the Prime Minister and his fellow Members of the Cabinet with the BOD's proposal.
On 24.06.80 the Secretary for Defence Francis Pym wrote that he was puzzled by the proposal to mention
Dresden and Hiroshima on a Holocaust memorial before detailing his fears that any mention of Hiroshima would provide the anti-nuclear lobby with ammunition if the memorial was situated outside the MOD in Richmond Terrace. On 01.07.80 the Home Secretary William Whitelaw wrote that he shared Pym's concerning about the proposed location becoming a site of disquiet due to the memorial and the proposed references to
Dresden and Hiroshima, which he also felt were inappropriate on a memorial to the victims of nazism.
Neither Whitelaw or Pym voiced any complaint that the design equated
Dresden and Holocaust, nor argued that
Dresden was a legitimate military necessity; Pym even wrote:
It is a legitimate subject for debate whether the monument should refer to the victims of Allied bombing, but it is one which certainly needs to be discussed.
Heseltine's private secretary Jeff Jacobs claimed in a 24.07.80 letter that the Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington was prepared to agree to the memorial being placed in Richmond Terrace on the proviso it would "commemorate the victims of the Nazi Holocaust and that it does not bear references to
Dresden, Warsaw and Hiroshima", which he immediately followed with a citation to Pym's letter of 24.06.80. Later documents in the file show that Lord Carrington was actually completely opposed to any national Holocaust memorial.
A 30.07.80 memo to the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by her Private Secretary Michael Pattison mentions that the PM shared the reservations of Pym, Whitelaw, and Lord Carrington about placing the memorial in Richmond Terrace, but Heseltine had "a strong public commitment to the site".
On 01.08.80 Pattison wrote that Thatcher, Whitelaw, Pym, and Helestine had met previous day and Helesltine had assured them he had complete control of any wording on the memorial and "would ensure the references to
Dresden and Hiroshima could be removed."
Most of the later documents in the file are concerning the numerous sites that were considered for the memorial, and others show that Lord Carrington was opposed to erecting any national Holocaust memorial in Britain and especially the idea of placing it in a Royal Park or anywhere else on crown land.
No further mention is made of the suggestion that
Dresden and Hiroshima should feature on the Holocaust memorial until the PM's new Private Secretary Willie Rickett claimed on 11.09.81 that Thatcher thought "the original drawing for the memorial was very appropriate". As she'd been told by Helestine on 31.07.80 that he would ensure there was no mention of
Dresden and Hiroshima on the memorial it seems likely that she thought the design was "very appropriate"
only if they they weren't mentioned. But the new Defence Secretary John Nott wasn't sure that's what she meant. Nott's Private Secretary Nick Evans wrote to Downing Street on 04.01.82 objecting to any reference to
Dresden on Hiroshima on the memorial, because "not only are such references totally irrelevant to the Nazi holocaust of the Jews" the wording would provide ammunition to anti-nuclear campaigners regardless of where the memorial was situated.
Just like Pym and Whitelaw before him, Nott didn't detail any objection he might have had to the design equating
Dresden with Holocaust. Three senior members of the British government and not one of them claimed
Dresden was a justified attack, or mentioned that the design's implicit suggestion was even wrong, let alone absurd and offensive to their departmental predecessors who had fought the nazis.
Nott's letter prompted the following 05.01.82 letter from Thatcher's Private Secretary to Helestine's. It contains the final mention of "
Dresden and Hiroshima" as suggested inscriptions on the British national Holocaust memorial.