Dresden 1945

[tonyh]

>>Sorry but it was no different or more special then bombing Shanghai or Moscow<<

Then why did Churchill himself call into question the policy of the Dresden attack and indeed area bombing itself, afterwards?

Tony

[tonyh]

>>I have listed earlier the factories located within Dresden and their contribution to the German war effort.<<

The point is that Bomber command and the USAAF did not set out to bomb these "targets". They set out to deliberately start a firestorm in the heart of an extremely overpopulated city, with the intent to destroy as many civilian homes and civilians themselves. The "military target" excuse doesn't wash, because they weren't actually targeted. In fact the most pressing millitary target was the nearby main train station which was used for shipping troops to the Eastern front, which also escaped the bombing.

Tony

[Roberto]

Roberto,

I won't bother to quote everything in your post, as this is becoming a ridiculous habit now.

What you say about Knopp's findings may well be correct, I don't know for sure, but that is not the point. I'm not haggling over thousands of deaths here and there; Hamburg lost 40,000 in the terror raid of 30 July 1943, that is generally accepted. The issue is about whether these raids were legitimate attacks or manifest war crimes - I put it to you that they were the latter.

That indeed it the issue, as Knopp also points out. And guess what, he concludes that the Dresden bombing was a war crime.

I can see little difference between attacks designed to kill as many people as possible and factories of death like Auschwitz.

I can. The purpose of the latter was not bringing a military enemy to its knees, but killing as many people as possible for no other reason than their belonging to an undesirable ethnicity.

It was 'Bomber' Harris himself who stated that the 'whole German people are not worth the bones of a single British grenadier'. If this isn't the language of genocide, I don't know what is.

Harris' message in this statement borrowed from Birmarck was "Let's bring Nazi Germany to its knees by killing huge numbers of civilians rather than waste the lives of valuable British troops".

But it was not "Let's kill as many Germans as possible so that the bloody German people disappears from the face of the earth", was it?

[scatcat]

That indeed it the issue, as Knopp also points out. And guess what, he concludes that the Dresden bombing was a war crime.

I can see little difference between attacks designed to kill as many people as possible and factories of death like Auschwitz.

I can. The purpose of the latter was not bringing a military enemy to its knees, but killing as many people as possible for no other reason than their belonging to an undesirable ethnicity.

I too see a distinct difference between death-factories and acts of war (even callous ones). Please Oswald let us not try to bring the "final solution" into this, it doesn't stick...
Even so there is no point in denying that terror bombing is at best a questionable way to wage war. Otherwise we'll risk backing ourselves into a corner with inconsitent and hair-splitting arguments - in a way that I'd normally associate with "revisionists".

It was 'Bomber' Harris himself who stated that the 'whole German people are not worth the bones of a single British grenadier'. If this isn't the language of genocide, I don't know what is.

Harris' message in this statement borrowed from Birmarck was "Let's bring Nazi Germany to its knees by killing huge numbers of civilians rather than waste the lives of valuable British troops".

But it was not "Let's kill as many Germans as possible so that the bloody German people disappears from the face of the earth", was it?

No but the callous disrespect for human life stems from the same source. While by no means all germans were innocent, neither were they all guilty. So, in a certain light, the comment is kind of ethnocentric - british troops beeing more valuable than german civilians (not exactly an unusual tendency at the time - ethnocentricity).

/Scat

[Gott]

Caldric says the raping of German women was not promoted by Soviet high command or Stalin.. He obviously has not heard of Ilya Ehrenburg's exhortations to the victorious Red Army, on the occassion of that army's entering East Prussia. Surprising, since Ehrenburg was Stalin's chief propagandist. I cannot quote him in entirety, but phrases such as "break the spirit of the proud Germanic womanhood" left no doubt in the minds of Soviet soldiery as to what they should do. I understand Ehrenburg moved on to a peaceful retirement in Israel.

Ehrenburg also said, "Soldiers of the Red Army! German women are all yours!"

[Roberto]

Caldric says the raping of German women was not promoted by Soviet high command or Stalin.. He obviously has not heard of Ilya Ehrenburg's exhortations to the victorious Red Army, on the occassion of that army's entering East Prussia. Surprising, since Ehrenburg was Stalin's chief propagandist. I cannot quote him in entirety, but phrases such as "break the spirit of the proud Germanic womanhood" left no doubt in the minds of Soviet soldiery as to what they should do. I understand Ehrenburg moved on to a peaceful retirement in Israel.

Ehrenburg also said, "Soldiers of the Red Army! German women are all yours!"

He sure said something like that, but Ehrenburg was neither "Stalin's chief propagandist", nor did he represent the policy of the Soviet government and high command. His hate speech was tolerated because it was seen as useful to fire up the troops, until the Soviet government realized the "inexpedient" nature thereof:

By the middle of April, with the Russians deep inside Austria and Czechoslovakia and the Western Allies sweeping across Western and Southern Germany, and Zhukov, Konev and Rokossovsky holding the Oder Line, the time was ripe for the final attack on Berlin.
A short digression is called for, however, on the tricky subject of Russian policy towards Germany when the Red Army began to occupy German territory. After all that the Germans had done - and horrors like the destruction of Warsaw and the extermination camps at Maidanek and Auschwitz were still fresh in every soldier’s memory - there was no sympathy at all for the German people. No doubt, there was much respect for the German soldier, but that was different. Having fought the Germans for nearly four years on Russian soil, and having seen thousands of Russian towns and villages in ruins, the Russian troops could not resist their thirst for revenge when they finally broke into Germany.
Ever since Russian troops had been on German soil, some rough things had been going on. In the first flush of the invasion of Germany, Russian soldiers burned down numerous houses, and sometimes whole towns - merely because they were German! (I was to see this later, for instance in a large East Prussian town like Allenstein. The Poles who had taken over the city - now re-christened Olsztyn - were furious at all the repairing and rebuilding they had to do in a town which had originally fallen almost intact into Russian hands). There was also a great deal of looting, robbery and rape. The rape no doubt included many genuine atrocities, but as a Russian major later told me, many German women somehow assumed that “it was now the Russians’ turn”, and that it was no good resisting. “The approach,”, he said, “was usually very simple. Any of our chaps simply had to say: ´Frau, komm,´ and she knew what was expected of her ... Let’s face it. For nearly four years, the Red Army had been sex-starved. It was all right for officers, especially staff officers, so many of whom had a ´field-wife´ handy - a secretary, or typist, or a nurse, or a canteen waitress; but the ordinary Vanka had very few opportunities in that line. In our liberated towns, some of our fellows were lucky, but most of them weren’t. The question of more or less ‘raping’ any Russian woman just didn’t arise. In Poland a few regrettable things happened from time to time, but, on the whole, a fairly strict discipline was maintained as regards ‘rape’. The most common offense in Poland was ‘daí chasy’ - ‘give me your wrist-watch.’ There was an awful lot of petty thieving and robbery. Our fellows were just crazy about wrist-watches - there’s no getting away from it. But the looting and raping in a big way did not start until our soldiers got to Germany. Our fellows were so sex-starved that they often raped old women of sixty, seventy or even eighty - much to these grandmothers’ surprise, if not downright delight. But I must admit it was a nasty business and the record of the Kazakhs and other Asiatic troops was particularly bad.”
The posters put up in Germany, during the first weeks of the invasion, such as: “Red Army Soldier: You are now on German soil; the hour of revenge has struck!” did not make things any easier. Moreover, the press propaganda of Ehrenburg and others continued to be very ferocious indeed.
Here are some samples from Ehrenburg’s articles during the invasion of Germany:

Germany is a witch... We are in Germany. German towns are burning. I am happy.
The Germans have no souls... An English statesman said that the Germans were our brethren. No! it is blasphemy to include the child-murderers among the family of nations...
Not only divisions and armies are advancing on Berlin. All the trenches, graves and ravines filled with the corpses of the innocents are advancing on Berlin, all the cabbages of Maidanek and all the trees of Vitebsk on which the Germans hanged so many unhappy people. The boots and shoes and the babies’ slippers of those murdered and gassed at Maidanek are marching to Berlin. The dead are knocking on the doors of the Joachimsthaler Strasse, of the Kaiserallee, of Unter den Linden and all the other cursed streets of that cursed city...
We shall put up gallows in Berlin... An icy wind is sweeping along the streets of Berlin. But it is not the icy wind that is driving the Germans and their females to the west... 800 years ago the Poles and Lithuanians used to say: “We shall torment them in heaven as they tormented us on earth”... Now our patrols stand outside the castles of the Teutonic Knights at Allenstein, Osterode, Marienburg...
We shall forget nothing. As we advance through Pomerania, we have before our eyes the devastated, blood-drenched countryside of Belorussia ...
Some say the Germans from the Rhine are different from the Germans on the Oder. I don’t know that we should worry about such fine points. A German is a German everywhere. The Germans have been punished, but not enough. They are still in Berlin. The Führer is still standing, and not hanging. The Fritzes are still running, but not lying dead. Who can stop us now? General Model? The Oder? The Volkssturm? No, it’s too late. Germany, you can now whirl around in circles, and burn, and howl in your deathly agony; the hour of revenge has struck!...

And, after visiting East Prussia, Ehrenburg wrote: “The Niezschean supermen are whining. They are a cross between a jackal and a sheep. They have no dignity ... A Scottish army chaplain, a liberated prisoner of war, said to me: '‘ know how the Germans treated their Russian prisoners in 1941 and 1942. I can only bow to your generosity now.’”

It did not take very long for both the Party and the Command of the Red Army to realize that all this was going too far. The troops were getting out of hand, and, moreover, it was clear that, before long, the Russians would be faced with a variety of political and administrative problems in Germany which could simply not be handled on the “anti-Marxist” basis that “all Germans are evil”. The alarm, not so much over “atrocities” as over the totally unnecessary destruction caused by the Red Army in the occupied parts of Germany, was first reflected in the Red Star editorial of February 9, 1945:

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is an old saying. But it must not be taken literally. If the Germans marauded, and publicly raped our women, it does not mean that we must do the same. This has never been and never shall be. Our soldiers will not allow anything like that to happen - not because of pity for the enemy, but out of a sense of their own personal dignity ... They understand that every breach of military discipline only weakens the victorious Red Army ... Our revenge is not blind. Our anger is not irrational. In an access of blind rage one is apt to destroy a factory in conquered enemy territory - a factory that would be of value to us. Such an attitude can only play into the enemy’s hands.”

Here was a clear admission that factories - and much else - had been burned down by Russian troops - simply because they were “German property”.
On April 14, Ehrenburg’s hate propaganda was stopped by a strong attack on him in Pravda by G.F. Alexandrov, the principal ideologist of the Central Committee. According to Ehrenburg’s postwar Memoirs this attack was launched on direct instructions from Stalin. Alexandrov’s article, “Comrade Ehrenburg os Over-simplifying”, took him up on two points: first of all, it was both un-Marxist and inexpedient to treat all Germans as sub-human; “Hitlers come and go, but the German people go on forever”, Stalin himself had said in a recent speech; and Russia would have to live with the German people. To suggest that every German democrat or Communist was necessarily a Nazi in disguise was absolutely wrong. The article clearly suggested that there were now certain Germans with whom it would be necessary for the Russian authorities to co-operate. Secondly, Alexandrov objected to Ehrenburg’s Red Star article two days before, called “That’s Enough!” in which he had raged against the ease with which the Allies were advancing in the west and the desperate resistance the Germans were continuing to offer the Russians in the east. Ehrenburg had said that this was so because, having murdered millions of civilians, in the east, the Germans were therefore scared of the Russians, but not of the Western Allies, who were being deplorably “soft”. They had, he claimed, even ordered Russian and Ukrainian slaves to go on working on German estates during the spring sowing.
While agreeing with some of this, Alexandrov still said that Ehrenburg was “oversimplifying” the issue:
“At the present stage the Nazis are following their old mischievous policy of sowing distrust among the Allies...They are trying, by means of this political military trick, to achieve what they could not achieve by purely military means. If the Germans, as Ehrenburg says, were only scared of the Russians, they would not, to this day, go on sinking Allied ships, murdering British prisoners, or sending flying bombs over London. “We did not capture Königsberg by telephone,” Ehrenburg said. That is quite true; but the explanation he offers for the simple way in which the Allies occupy towns in Western Germany is not the correct one.”
This sop to the Allies was no doubt still intended to be in the good Yalta tradition, but it was perhaps not meant to be overwhelmingly convincing. For, although there was to be genuine rejoicing, especially among soldiers and officers on both sides, when, on April 27, the Russian and American forces met at Torgau on the Elbe, and cut the German forces in two, and although there were friendly demonstrations outside the American Embassy on VE-Day in Moscow on May 9, there continued to be considerable distrust of the Western Allies. True, the Allies did not fall for Himmler’s (or any other) “separate peace” offer, but no sooner had the Germans capitulated than the Russian press was already full of angry screams about “Churchill’s Flensburg Government” - a government which, they later asserted, was not liquidated until the Russians themselves had taken a very strong line about this “outrageous business.”
But that is a different story. The most significant part of Alexandrov’s attack on Ehrenburg concerned the new official line on “the German people”. Very suddenly the hate propaganda against “the Germans” was stopped. Ehrenburg was no longer allowed to write - at least not on Germany. His hate propaganda had served its purpose in the past, but now it had become inexpedient.

Source of quote:

Alexander Werth, Russia at War 1941-1945, 2000 Second Edition Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, pages 963 to 968

[Oswald Mosley]

That indeed it the issue, as Knopp also points out. And guess what, he concludes that the Dresden bombing was a war crime.

I can. The purpose of the latter was not bringing a military enemy to its knees, but killing as many people as possible for no other reason than their belonging to an undesirable ethnicity.

Harris' message in this statement borrowed from Birmarck was "Let's bring Nazi Germany to its knees by killing huge numbers of civilians rather than waste the lives of valuable British troops".

But it was not "Let's kill as many Germans as possible so that the bloody German people disappears from the face of the earth", was it?

I take your point Roberto, but I wasn't referring to the ultimate aim of the murderous action, but the method with which it was carried out. I apologise if I did not explain this. Of course, you cannot compare the enormity of the final objective of the death camps to the carpet bombing of civilians, but the two are indeed comparable in method. The end result is death on a large scale. And the quote from Harris is quite clear: if the Germans cannot be beaten militarily, then genocide is an option, even if this is not the intention from the start.
And this approach is both criminal and intolerable, from a humanitarian and legalistic point of view.

[Richard Murphy]

Roberto,
You cite Knopp as saying Dresden was a War Crime. Does he specifically state that Dresden, and Dresden alone, was a crime, or that all area bombing was? If he singles out that one occassion, why?

As far as I can see, either all area bombing is wrong (Though, significantly, not illegal.) or, regardless of individual cases, it is not. I don't see how you can pick and choose.

Regards from the Park,

Rich

[Caldric]

I talked to my father about this, and he gave you five simple words for you, Caldric.

A war is a crime.

Get over it. I don't think I am replying anymore of our senseless crap.

Get over what?

As far as I can see, either all area bombing is wrong (Though, significantly, not illegal.) or, regardless of individual cases, it is not. I don't see how you can pick and choose.

I agree 100% Richard. Why pick one out of all the area bombing's that went on?? It makes no sense, Dresden was a crime but Stalingrad is not? Leningrad? London? Berlin?

Is insane to claim one then say well the wars almost over or whatever. I will not say it was needed but it was never a Crime.

[Oswald Mosley]

As far as I can see, either all area bombing is wrong (Though, significantly, not illegal.) or, regardless of individual cases, it is not. I don't see how you can pick and choose.

You're right - all bombing that is designed to kill civilians for its own sake is morally wrong, but you're also wrong when you say that it is not illegal:
Article 52 (I) of the Geneva Convention protocols expressly forbids attacks on civilian targets. And before you say that the Germans were devils who bombed babies in Russia, bear in mind that who actually started the bombing of civilians was Winston S. Churchill; he ordered a raid on Berlin in response to a few bombs dropped as a mistake by a German plane in the Summer of 1940. The Germans then retaliated with an attack on London, thereby initiating the 'Blitz'. The rest is history.

[Oswald Mosley]

Get over what?

I agree 100% Richard. Why pick one out of all the area bombing's that went on?? It makes no sense, Dresden was a crime but Stalingrad is not? Leningrad? London? Berlin?

Is insane to claim one then say well the wars almost over or whatever. I will not say it was needed but it was never a Crime.

Get over what? Get over your obsession with trying to argue what cannot be argued, that's what. Just face the truth!

I've already explained why Dresden was much more of a war crime than the others (although they were also crimes). It has nothing to do with how many were killed, but the rationale and motives behind the action.

I don't agree that a war is a crime. On the contrary, even a limited war of aggression is justifiable if a country has been badly wronged and is unable to find redress for injustices inflicted upon it.

[Caldric]

Article 52 (I) of the Geneva Convention protocols expressly forbids attacks on civilian targets

Actually you are not reading it correctly. Yes there is protection of civilian targets, unless they are in a fortified defended city, which Dresden was. If the German's would have called for it to be an "Open City" such as Italy in Rome, and France in Paris then it would have no longer been a defended and fortified city if they pulled the military out of it.

And the protocols were added to the Geneva convention in 1977.

Do not get the modern Geneva Convention mixed up with the Hauge signed in 1907. The first real city bombings were done by Japan in China, then the Italians in Ethiopia in 1936, and the German's bombed Guernica 1937.



The Hauge of 1907 which covered WWII stated:
The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.

Note the point "undefended". All of the Cities in Germany were heavily defended.


It is very interesting that the United States and few others in 1923 tried to pass laws in the Hague against aerial bombing. No one wanted it.

Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare, The Hague, February 1923

RULES OF AERIAL WARFARE
The Hague, February 1923

[Although drafted as the basis for an international treaty, the enactment of which was supported by the United States, these rules were never formally adopted]

[excerpts]

ARTICLE XXII

Aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing the civilian population, of destroying or damaging private property not of military character, or of injuring non-combatants is prohibited.

ARTICLE XXIII

Aerial bombardment for the purpose of enforcing compliance with requisitions in kind or payment of contributions in money is prohibited.

ARTICLE XXIV

(1) Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective, that is to say, an object of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent.

(2) Such bombardment is legitimate only when directed exclusively at the following objectives: military forces; military works; military establishments or depots; factories constituting important and well-known centres engaged in the manufacture of arms, ammunition or distinctively military supplies; lines of communication or transportation used for military purposes.

(3) The bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings not in the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces is prohibited. In cases where the objectives specified in paragraph 2 are so situated, that they cannot be bombarded without the indiscriminate bombardment of the civilian population, the aircraft must abstain from bombardment.

(4) In the immediate neighborhood of the operations of land forces, the bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings is legitimate provided that there exists a reasonable presumption that the military concentration is sufficiently important to justify such bombardment, having regard to the danger thus posed to the civilian population.

(5) A belligerent state is liable to pay compensation for injuries to person or to property caused by violation by any of its officers or forces of the provisions of this article.

ARTICLE XXV

In bombardment by aircraft, all necessary steps must be taken by the commander to spare as far as possible buildings dedicated to public worship, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospital ships, hospitals and other places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided such buildings, objects, or places are not at the time used for military purposes. Such buildings, objects, and places must by day be indicated by marks visible to aircraft. The use of marks to indicate other buildings, objects, or places than those specified above is to be deemed an act of perfidy. The marks used as aforesaid shall be in the case of buildings protected under the Geneva Convention the red cross on a white background, and in the case of other protected buildings a large rectangular panel divided diagonally into two pointed triangular portions, one black and the other white.

A belligerent who desires to secure by night the protection for the hospitals and other privileged buildings above mentioned must take the necessary measures to render the special signs referred to sufficiently visible.

Then in September 1939 the U.S. President appealed to the warring nations not to bomb Civilian targets. It was ignored of course. He got no reply's.

The President of the United States to the Governments of France, Germany, Italy, Poland and His Britannic Majesty, September 1, 1939

The ruthless bombing from the air of civilians in unfortified centers of population during the course of the hostilities which have raged in various quarters of the earth during the past few years, which has resulted in the maiming and in the death of thousands of defenseless men, women, and children, has sickened the hearts of every civilized man and woman, and has profoundly shocked the conscience of humanity.

If resort is had to this form of inhuman barbarism during the period of the tragic conflagration with which the world is now confronted, hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who have no responsibility for, and who are not even remotely participating in, the hostilities which have now broken out, will lose their lives. I am therefore addressing this urgent appeal to every government which may be engaged in hostilities publicly to affirm its determination that its armed forces shall in no event, and under no circumstances, undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations or of unfortified cities, upon the understanding that these same rules of warfare will be scrupulously observed by all of their opponents. I request an immediate reply.


FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

So the point is before people start looking for a witch to burn for WWII city bombing, they are going to be hard set to find one more guilty then the other. If anything the United States should be considered a champion of anti-city bombing, even if it came to nothing. Dresden was just one more bombed city, it was a horrid event in history, but far from setting a precedent.

[Caldric]

I've already explained why Dresden was much more of a war crime than the others (although they were also crimes). It has nothing to do with how many were killed, but the rationale and motives behind the action.

No you explained your opinion of why it was a crime, you have not proven it a crime, because it was not one. And how can a crime be much worse then the same crime? A crime is a crime.

[viriato]

Caldric wrote:

If the German's would have called for it to be an "Open City" such as Italy in Rome, and France in Paris

Than why have the allies bombed these two cities too?

[kelty90]

So, lets see, killing "civilians" is bad..."area bombing" of cities is bad...and that makes the Allies as bad as the Germans, so we really cannot critisice the Germans for their policies and actions.
Fine!.
The area bombing of German cities and the resultant killing of "civilians" was a very sensible thing, for several reasons:
Area bombing DID disrupt German industry and inhibit production. FACT.
Area bombing forced the Germans to locate thousands of guns in Germany instead of facing the Red Army or the British or the Americans on the ground were it mattered.
Area bombing forced the Germans to keep hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Germany manning all those guns instead of facing the Red Army...
Area bombing forced the Germans to locate much of their fighter strength in Germany, facilitating their destruction by the US Air Force, instead of protecting their armies facing the Red Army...
Area bombing highlighted the fact that the Germans could not defend their own country or protect their own people from attacks, encouraging people occupied by the Germans and emphasising that they were in due course going to lose the war.
Area bombing was about all that the Allies could do to bring the war to Germany untill their armies entered Germany itself.