Oswald Mosley wrote:Roberto wrote:Oswald Mosley wrote:Richard Murphy wrote: Just because they were not as "badly hit" does not make Dresden any less of legitimate target. The Luftwaffe targetted civilians, so did the Allies (Though the latter were rather more effective at it, from the air at least.).
BTW Mr. Justice Gray, in the The Irving Judgement put the death toll in Dresden within the bracket of 25-30,000.
60,000 British civilians died in aerial bombardments, 148 were killed by cross-channel shell-fire and 30,248 died whilst in the service of the Merchant Navy*
So attacking civilian targets at sea is okay, but not on dry land? I don't see the logic in that argument. Surely the targetting of the workforce (Hence the concentration on working class districts.) is just as legitimate as targetting the raw materials? Of course, if you don't agree, then the targetting of shipping (With no knowledge of what is on those ships.) must also be wrong.
Oswald Mosley wrote:What evidence does Judge Gray have have that 25-30,000 were killed at Dresden? He seems to have plucked a figure out of the air just because it sounds plausible (to him). Most reliable estimates point to between 50,000 and 80,000 killed.
What estimates are those?
Standard military arguments, coupled with the demonstration of alliance solidarity and a show-off presentation of [the Bomber Command’s] capacities, cost the lives of about 25,000 people in the night from the 13th to the 14th of February, 1945. This figure results from recent investigations of the Dresden city archive and is based on documents, assessed for the first time, of the departments of the city of Dresden which had been in charge of recovery and burial of the victims at the time. The city administration continued to function even after the attack, the recovery and burial of the dead was by no means carried out in a chaotic manner, there was accurate registration. The number mentioned includes 6,865 dead who were burned on the Altmarkt in order to prevent the spread of diseases. Former rescue workers consider it a myth that dead should have been burnt to ashes in cellars with flame throwers. The figure also includes 1,557 dead bodies which were found in 1957 under the ruins during construction works in Dresden. These data coincide with other official documents which in March of 1945 had contained detailed listings of the dead, but thereafter been crudely manipulated and thus lead to confusion after the war - a forger had added a naught to all the figures.
When discussing the total balance of the horror, the question is often put how many refugees were in the city at the time of the attack. It is widely maintained that these people, unknown in Dresden, died in their tens of thousands in the firestorm. Yet no eyewitness confirms that caravans of refugees crossed Dresden in the middle of February on horse carriages. Neither could massive lodgings in Dresden households be established. Only such a measure would have made it possible to accommodate hundreds of thousands of externals in a city that still had about 600,000 inhabitants. Great numbers of refugees could be seen, however, in the vicinity of the railway stations; many were also lodged in restaurants, hotels, schools and other centers of reception. Serious estimates consider that, including the about 30,000 prisoners of war and forced laborers, there were about 100,000 externals inside the city; other sources mention 200,000 people
from abroad in the city itself and in the surrounding area.
Some controversies about the number of victims in the past took the form of macabre technical considerations. It was considered possible, for instance, that many people were burned in the firestorm into heaps of ash so small that they could not be found. Fire department experts and forensic medics have in the meantime responded to this question very clearly – hardly a human body burns completely to ashes. This means that six digit numbers of victims that have been talked about for decades must be seen as pure speculations.
The above I translated from: Guido Knopp,
Unser Jahrhundert -Deutsche Schicksalstage, 1998 C. Bertelsmann Verlag, München, page 258.
Oswald Mosley wrote:Ah, the lawyer is back with his 'evidence'! What do you think you are trying to prove by posting quotes carefully chosen from historians who reflect your own views and prejudices?
What is it, Mosley?
Knopp is referring to a recent study of the Dresden city archives, based on documents of the departments of the city of Dresden which had been in charge of recovery and burial of the victims at the time. This is not a matter of "views and prejudices", but of elementary reasoning: Who would know better than the people who carried out the ghastly task of pulling out the the bodies from under the ruins and burying or burning them?
Oswald Mosley wrote:You don't prove anything.
Considering the quality of my sources, I would at least say I'm a lot closer than Mr. Mosley to an accurate rendering of events.
Oswald Mosley wrote:It is well known that there are differing views on the number of casualties at Dresden. David Irving famously pointed to a possible 135,000 deaths (probably an exaggeration)
"Probably" sounds nice, considering that Irving himself acknowledged to have been way off. This he wrote in a letter to the editor of the
Times
on 7 July 1966:
_The Times_ of London, July 7, 1966, p. 13. Letter to the Editor.
THE DRESDEN RAIDS
From Mr. David Irving
Sir, -- Your newspaper has an enviable reputation for accuracy, and
your readiness to correct the smallest errors from one day to the
next is an inspiration to your readers; but how can a historian
correct a mistake, when once he finds himself to have been wrong? I
ask the indulgence of your columns.
The bombing of Dresden in 1945 has in recent years been adduced by
some people as evidence that conventional bombing can be more
devastating than nuclear attacks, and others have sought to draw
false lessons from this. My own share of the blame for this is
large: in my 1963 book _The Destruction of Dresden_ I stated that
estimates of the casualties in that city varied between 35,000 and
over 200,000.
The higher figures did not seem absurd when the circumstances were
taken into account. I had tried for three years to bring to light
German documents relating to the damage, but the east German
authorities were unable to assist me. Two years ago I procured from
a private east German source what purported to be extracts from the
Police President's report, quoting the final death-roll as "a quarter
of a million"; the other statistics it contained were accurate, but
it is now obvious that the death-roll statistic was falsified,
probably in 1945.
The east German authorities (who had originally declined to provide
me with the documents) have now supplied to me a copy of the 11-page
"final report" written by the area police chief about one month after
the Dresden raids, and there is no doubt as to this document's
authenticity. In short, the report shows that the Dresden casualties
were on much the same scale as in the heaviest Hamburg raids in 1943.
The document's author, the _Hoehere SS- und Polizeifuehrer Elbe_,
was responsible for civil defence measures in Dresden, it should be
noted.
His figures are very much lower than those I quoted. The crucial
passage reads: "Casualties: by 10th March, 1945, 18,375 dead, 2,212
seriously injured, and 13,918 slightly injured had been registered,
with 350,000 homeless and permanently evacuated." The total
death-roll, "primarily women and children," was expected to reach
25,000; fewer than a hundred of the dead were servicemen. Of the
dead recovered by then, 6,865 had been cremated in one of the city
squares. A total of 35,000 people were listed as "missing".
The general authenticity of the report is established beyond doubt,
because within a very few days of receiving the first, a second
wartime German report was supplied to me, this time from a western
source. It repeats _exactly_ the figures listed in the above report,
upon which it was evidently based.
The second report, a Berlin police summary of "Air Raids on Reich
Territory", dated March 22, 1945, was found, quite by chance,
misfiled among the 25,000 Reich Finance Ministry files currently
being explored at the west German Federal Archives. It was forwarded
to me by one of their archivists, Doctor Boberach.
I have no interest in promoting or perpetuating false legends, and I
feel it is important that in this respect the record should be set
straight.
I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,
DAVID IRVING.
25 Elgin Mansions, W.9.
Source of quote:
http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/places/ft ... ualties-01
Oswald Mosley wrote:and all you need to do is read through various articles in encyclopedias to find different estimates. For example, the book 'Chronicle of the Twentieth Century' quoted 80,000 dead.
Which means that the sources of this "Chronicle" are not the most accurate.
Oswald Mosley wrote:Are you now going to argue that this book is written by neo-Nazis?
No, I'm just saying that it's sources are not the most accurate.
Oswald Mosley wrote:Anyway, although Guido Knopp states that the high death estimates are pure speculation (quite correctly), why should his own estimates not also be considered as pure speculation?
Because he is not estimating at all, but referring to a study carried out by the Dresden city archive. See above.