75 years ago today....

Zebra3

CrankyHaus wrote: »

What alternative to strategic bombing do you propose they should have done?

The Soviets didn't bother with strategic bombing but the advance of their forces across Europe was hardly any less horrifying in its effects on the civilian population.

You basically claimed “the world” had to bomb Dresden, I just pointed out that “the world” didn’t.

Two countries that committed most of the same crimes as Germany did.

And those two countries would commit many of the same crimes again.

sameoldname

The Dresden bombings have always been to me a really interesting moral discussion.

I mean, on an individual level it's very hard to countenance what amounts to the indiscriminate destruction of a city and it's population in what was basically an overwhelming display of force aimed squarely at sending a message to the German people.

On the other hand, on a strategic level this was "total war". The entire economies of many countries were completely dedicated to supporting the war effort, Germany and the UK being 2 of them. Under this doctrine there wasn't much discrimination between civilian and military. So if strategists thought that breaking the will of the German people was going to shorten the war and bring victory sooner then it was a logical thing to do. And if those same planners had any concerns over the innocents in Dresden I'm sure they eased their conscience by telling themselves that if the Germans had the same capability, they'd bomb an allied city to dust without any such regard. And who am I to second guess them when all I've ever known in my lifetime is peace?

CrankyHaus

Zebra3 wrote: »

You basically claimed “the world” had to bomb Dresden, I just pointed out that “the world” didn’t.

Two countries that committed most of the same crimes as Germany did.

And those two countries would commit many of the same crimes again.

But since the thread is about Dresden, and my comment you were responding to was about Dresden, surely you can give your own opinion about Dresden without hiding behind dubious moral equivalences between the USA, UK and Nazi Germany?

Zebra3

CrankyHaus wrote: »

But since the thread is about Dresden, and my comment you were responding to was about Dresden, surely you can give your own opinion about Dresden without hiding behind dubious moral equivalences between the USA, UK and Nazi Germany?

“Dubious”?

You really know how to insult the victims of genocide, and when it come to British genocide, over a million Irish people.

Tony EH

JayZeus wrote: »

Great pictures and I genuinely take some satisfaction from knowing that many German civilians suffered terrible deaths during those bombings. They had plenty of blood on their hands as a people by then and very few were innocent or had no role to play in their war effort, or the suffering of those sent to their deaths in the camps.

Spectacular stuff.

This has to be a contender to take the prize for the "dumbest comment ever" award on Boards.

Absolute cretinism of the highest order indeed.

Tony EH

Blaze420 wrote: »

What’s wrong with what he said? If they could do the same to ISIS these days would you be hand wringing as well?

It's moronic.

archer22

sameoldname wrote: »

The Dresden bombings have always been to me a really interesting moral discussion.

I mean, on an individual level it's very hard to countenance what amounts to the indiscriminate destruction of a city and it's population in what was basically an overwhelming display of force aimed squarely at sending a message to the German people.

On the other hand, on a strategic level this was "total war". The entire economies of many countries were completely dedicated to supporting the war effort, Germany and the UK being 2 of them. Under this doctrine there wasn't much discrimination between civilian and military. So if strategists thought that breaking the will of the German people was going to shorten the war and bring victory sooner then it was a logical thing to do. And if those same planners had any concerns over the innocents in Dresden I'm sure they eased their conscience by telling themselves that if the Germans had the same capability, they'd bomb an allied city to dust without any such regard. And who am I to second guess them when all I've ever known in my lifetime is peace?

The Germans never built a strategic bomber force and never showed any desire to possess such.In fact no nation in the conflict apart from the UK and America had any interest in such a murderous city destroying civilian slaughtering weapon.

Tony EH

inforfun wrote: »

5 years earlier. Rotterdam May 1940. My dad was 7 and living there when that happened. And then came the hunger winter of 44\45
Dont expect sympathy from me for germans. Never had it, never will have.

Allied bombing did more damage to Rotterdam than the Germans.

Bodhidharma

I read an interview with Kurt Vonnegut recently, he was in Dresden at the time of the bombings as a POW, nightmarish quality to his writing about it.

“Every day we walked into the city and dug into basements and shelters to get the corpses out, as a sanitary measure. When we went into them, a typical shelter, an ordinary basement usually, looked like a streetcar full of people who’d simultaneously had heart failure. Just people sitting there in their chairs, all dead. A fire storm is an amazing thing. It doesn’t occur in nature. It’s fed by the tornadoes that occur in the midst of it and there isn’t a damned thing to breathe. We brought the dead out. They were loaded on wagons and taken to parks, large open areas in the city which weren’t filled with rubble. The Germans got funeral pyres going, burning the bodies to keep them from stinking and from spreading disease. 130,000 corpses were hidden underground. It was a terribly elaborate Easter egg hunt. We went to work through cordons of German soldiers. Civilians didn’t get to see what we were up to. After a few days the city began to smell, and a new technique was invented. Necessity is the mother of invention. We would bust into the shelter, gather up valuables from people’s laps without attempting identification, and turn the valuables over to guards. Then soldiers would come with a flame thrower and stand in the door and cremate the people inside. Get the gold and jewelry out and then burn everybody inside.”

Tony EH

sameoldname wrote: »

The Dresden bombings have always been to me a really interesting moral discussion.

I mean, on an individual level it's very hard to countenance what amounts to the indiscriminate destruction of a city and it's population in what was basically an overwhelming display of force aimed squarely at sending a message to the German people.

Dresden wasn't just filled with its own population. There were 100,000's of refugees from eastern Europe also packed into its streets, many of whom remain unaccounted for in the standard death tolls that get floated about.

Also, as far a messages are concerned, I don't know what message the allies were trying to send to the German people at that stage of the war, when in less than 12 weeks the war would be over.

I think their message might have been more aimed at the Russians, tbh, who were coming to the end of their usefulness as allies.

sameoldname wrote: »

On the other hand, on a strategic level this was "total war". The entire economies of many countries were completely dedicated to supporting the war effort, Germany and the UK being 2 of them. Under this doctrine there wasn't much discrimination between civilian and military. So if strategists thought that breaking the will of the German people was going to shorten the war and bring victory sooner then it was a logical thing to do. And if those same planners had any concerns over the innocents in Dresden I'm sure they eased their conscience by telling themselves that if the Germans had the same capability, they'd bomb an allied city to dust without any such regard. And who am I to second guess them when all I've ever known in my lifetime is peace?

Strategic bombing played little part really in bringing the war to an end. German production actually went up in 1944, after a whole year of round the clock bombing.

Merely tipping bombs on the centre of cities (the allies didn't even bother trying to target the Zeiss factory in Dresden) wasn't going to anything to end the war. It just terrorised civilians. Civilians who had no say in the direction of the war at any point during it.

sameoldname

archer22 wrote: »

The Germans never built a strategic bomber force and never showed any desire to possess such.In fact no nation in the conflict apart from the UK and America had any interest in such a murderous city destroying civilian slaughtering weapon.

So the Luftwaffe just accidentally leveled 85% of Warsaw in the first month of the war?!

sameoldname

Tony EH wrote: »

Dresden wasn't just filled with its own population. There were 100,000's of refugees from eastern Europe also packed into its streets, many of whom remain unaccounted for in the standard death tolls that get floated about.

Also, as far a messages are concerned, I don't know what message the allies were trying to send to the German people at that stage of the war, when in less than 12 weeks the war would be over.

I think their message might have been more aimed at the Russians, tbh, who were coming to the end of their usefulness as allies.



Strategic bombing played little part really in bringing the war to an end. German production actually went up in 1944, after a whole year of round the clock bombing.

Merely tipping bombs on the centre of cities (the allies didn't even bother trying to target the Zeiss factory in Dresden) wasn't going to anything to end the war. It just terrorised civilians. Civilians who had no say in the direction of the war at any point during it.

I'm not defending the bombings and I'm not attacking them either.

Wibbs

archer22 wrote: »

The Germans never built a strategic bomber force and never showed any desire to possess such.In fact no nation in the conflict apart from the UK and America had any interest in such a murderous city destroying civilian slaughtering weapon.

There are multiple reasons for that, none of them "moral". The luftwaffe was seen as a arm of the army, their bombers army directed flying artillery. Hence their near obsession with dive bombers, a precision tactical weapon. The majority of their thinking was land and army based. Short sharp shock to overwhelm opposing forces, which they did extremely well, making a route of the armies of Europe. They didn't think much beyond that oddly enough. Though they were both surprised at their rate of success and before being bogged down by the Soviet Union thought the war would be a short run thing and nations like Britain would sue for peace(and the Americans would keep out of it). A good example of this thinking would be before the Battle of Britain their pilots were banned from flying over more than 10k of water and their "invasion fleet" was mostly made up of canal barges. There were calls for strategic bombers but they came to nought(IIRC their main advocate died before the war).

As for city killers the Germans were most certainly open to that as the war progressed had they the technology and if they'd had a crystal ball they most certainly would have pursued it. They tried with the V weapons and they had plans for long rage strategic bombers. The Amerikabomber for example.

Tony EH

sameoldname wrote: »

So the Luftwaffe just accidentally leveled 85% of Warsaw in the first month of the war?!

The Luftwaffe were incapable of doing this to Warsaw. They didn't have the aircraft to do such a thing. While the Germans bombed the city from the air, it was the running battles within the cities by ground forces that did most of the damage and the vast majority of the damage happened when the Germans and Russians were fighting in 1944/45.

sameoldname

Tony EH wrote: »

The Luftwaffe were incapable of doing this to Warsaw. They didn't have the aircraft to do such a thing. While the Germans bombed the city from the air, it was the running battles within the cities by ground forces that did most of the damage and the vast majority of the damage happened when the Germans and Russians were fighting in 1944/45.

Yeah, I picked a wrong percentage from a wrong date there so I'll hold my hands up on that one.

Skylinehead

Tony EH wrote: »

The Luftwaffe were incapable of doing this to Warsaw. They didn't have the aircraft to do such a thing. While the Germans bombed the city from the air, it was the running battles within the cities by ground forces that did most of the damage and the vast majority of the damage happened when the Germans and Russians were fighting in 1944/45.

This is incorrect, Warsaw was levelled by the Germans during and after the Warsaw Uprising. The Soviets sat a few miles back and pretty much watched.

Tony EH

sameoldname wrote: »

Yeah, I picked a wrong percentage from a wrong date there so I'll hold my hands up on that one.

It's a relatively long war. It's easy to misplace info on it.

Tony EH

Skylinehead wrote: »

This is incorrect, Warsaw was levelled by the Germans during and after the Warsaw Uprising. The Soviets sat a few miles back and pretty much watched.

Sure, the Warsaw uprising and the subsequent German response accounted for a lot of damage. But that was from August to October.

The battle for Warsaw took place afterward as part of the Red Army's Oder offensive and ended in the Germans having to evacuate the city in January, leaving the majority of it in ruins.

Padre_Pio

CrankyHaus wrote: »

What alternative to strategic bombing do you propose they should have done?

The Soviets didn't bother with strategic bombing but the advance of their forces across Europe was hardly any less horrifying in its effects on the civilian population.

Strategic bombing wasn't strategic. It was meant to break the will of the populace to fight. They weren't targeting factories or military complexes. They just bombed the sh*t out of everything.

Regarding the Soviet advance across eastern Europe, there are harrowing stories of women and girls who were repeatedly raped by German soldiers as they moved through Poland, only to be repeatedly raped by Soviet troops pushing the Germans back.

archer22

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Strategic bombing wasn't strategic. It was meant to break the will of the populace to fight. They weren't targeting factories or military complexes. They just bombed the sh*t out of everything.

Regarding the Soviet advance across eastern Europe, there are harrowing stories of women and girls who were repeatedly raped by German soldiers as they moved through Poland, only to be repeatedly raped by Soviet troops pushing the Germans back.

Rape was extremely rare in the German army and was punishable by death...the Germans great strength was their iron discipline.

The stories of the Germans committing mass rapes are fake news....if they had done so you can be damn sure they would have tried for it at Nuremburg, yet none were and there was no mention of such.

CrankyHaus

Padre_Pio wrote: »

Strategic bombing wasn't strategic. It was meant to break the will of the populace to fight. They weren't targeting factories or military complexes. They just bombed the sh*t out of everything.

Regarding the Soviet advance across eastern Europe, there are harrowing stories of women and girls who were repeatedly raped by German soldiers as they moved through Poland, only to be repeatedly raped by Soviet troops pushing the Germans back.

The British model was to target workers housing to cripple war production. It was insufficiently effective due to the depth of the target class and morally questionable. But in the context of WW2 and particularly the capabilities of 1941 to 1943 when night bombing was necessary and accuracy was far too poor to target anything smaller than a city it was IMO appropriate. Harris should have moved to more precise bombing as capabilities improved but civilian casualties would still have been terrible, the US experience with ostensibly more precise daylight bombing proved that.

Tony EH

archer22 wrote: »

Rape was extremely rare in the German army and was punishable by death...the Germans great strength was their iron discipline.

The stories of the Germans committing mass rapes are fake news....if they had done so you can be damn sure they would have tried for it at Nuremburg, yet none were and there was no mention of such.

Whilst rape was punishable by death in the Wehrmacht, it would be a mistake to think it didn't happen.

spurious

The firestorm sucked the oxygen from the basements where the civilians were sheltering. Horrific and at a time when it was clear the war in Europe would be over in a few months. The Russians were already through Poland.

seamus

While one can accept the evils that may be necessary to end a war and restore a peace, what tells you most about a man is whether he considers it a success for his people or a loss for humanity.

Tony EH

CrankyHaus wrote: »

The British model was to target workers housing to cripple war production.

Well, that's what Bomber Command wrote to smother any accusations of terror bombing. But the reality was that they dumped their bombs on city centres and killed civilians, often neglecting to hit the factories they were claiming to be interested in, which were often located away from towns and cities.

These days the conscience salving phrases like "targeting civilian morale" don't work quite as well.

Skylinehead

Tony EH wrote: »

Sure, the Warsaw uprising and the subsequent German response accounted for a lot of damage. But that was from August to October.

The battle for Warsaw took place afterward as part of the Red Army's Oder offensive and ended in the Germans having to evacuate the city in January, leaving the majority of it in ruins.

The German response was to level the place. 85% was gone by the time the Soviets arrived.

Of course, they planned to destroy it and remodel it in a "German" way at the start of the war.

Tony EH

Skylinehead wrote: »

The German response was to level the place. 85% was gone by the time the Soviets arrived.

Of course, they planned to destroy it and remodel it in a "German" way at the start of the war.

Well, change Russians for Poles in my original post. I have to type this stuff quick. I supposed to be working. :pac:

The point, however, was that the Luftwaffe wasn't in a position to destroy 85% of Warsaw. It didn't have the aircraft in number or type to do such a thing.

archer22

archer22 wrote: »

Rape was extremely rare in the German army and was punishable by death...the Germans great strength was their iron discipline.

The stories of the Germans committing mass rapes are fake news....if they had done so you can be damn sure they would have tried for it at Nuremburg, yet none were and there was no mention of such.

Not strictly true. It was the "race laws" that reduced much of the rape by the military since to have sex with those of lesser "quality" was a death sentence. However, the Germans did rape women across Europe, especially when you look at the "administrators" or camp officers who abused those under their control. It could also be argued that the women in occupied zones who became mistresses often had little choice in their situations, and that could be an argument about rape.

Saying that though, Soldiers from all the nations did the same. The French and American forces were highlighted on a number of occasions for the amount of rape during and after offenses. Naturally the Russian conscripts were the worst.

Wibbs wrote: »

There are multiple reasons for that, none of them "moral". The luftwaffe was seen as a arm of the army, their bombers army directed flying artillery. Hence their near obsession with dive bombers, a precision tactical weapon. The majority of their thinking was land and army based. Short sharp shock to overwhelm opposing forces, which they did extremely well, making a route of the armies of Europe.

Agreed. Hitler loved the Stuka, especially once the siren was mounted, because of the demoralising effect it had on enemy troops and civilians. The Luftwaffe never built a strategic bomber force for two main reasons. They didn't have resources (materials/metals) or the industry to spare. A lot of people forget that Germany was short on raw materials, and many of the places they invaded were done so to acquire further resources to fuel their militarization/economy. So, they focused on short range bombers, and to a limited extent, medium bombers which had greater range, but didn't carry much actual capacity for bombs.

Though they were both surprised at their rate of success and before being bogged down by the Soviet Union thought the war would be a short run thing and nations like Britain would sue for peace(and the Americans would keep out of it). A good example of this thinking would be before the Battle of Britain their pilots were banned from flying over more than 10k of water and their "invasion fleet" was mostly made up of canal barges

Hitler hoped and believed that Britain would sue for peace after the fall of France, and so, never fully prepared for the invasion. He wanted Britain to be his ally in his ultimate military objective.. the destruction of Russia. He admired the British people above all others...

As for city killers the Germans were most certainly open to that as the war progressed had they the technology and if they'd had a crystal ball they most certainly would have pursued it. They tried with the V weapons and they had plans for long rage strategic bombers. The Amerikabomber for example.

And yet, he had other means to destroy/damage Allied cities. German scientists called for the use of gas to be released from rockets targeted at British cities, and yet, there's no record of such an attack (that I can find). The Germans had large stocks of chemical weapons and the means of delivering them to Allied cities. They didn't use them.

Ultimately though, the German industry was not geared for strategic bombing or even logistical bombing. They had plans for many things, but they never got past their short term needs, and even the rocket development was more aimed at jet fighters than long range rockets. That objective changed with the shift towards "punishing" the allies. It's often conveniently ignored that Hitler changed his bombing of British Airfields to the cities because of British bomber attack on German cities. Disastrous for Germany though.

Tony EH

Tony EH wrote: »

Well, that's what Bomber Command wrote to smother any accusations of terror bombing. But the reality was that they dumped their bombs on city centres and killed civilians, often neglecting to hit the factories they were claiming to be interested in, which were often located away from towns and cities.

These days the conscience salving phrases like "targeting civilian morale" don't work quite as well.

It's interesting to watch McNamara's documentary on US wars. He goes into detail about the statistical aspect of bombing which he was involved for the pacific theater, but with references to the European theater. One of the points for early bomb drops on civilian areas, was that pilots dropped their bombs early to get away from the flak and fighter defenses. Which was the driving force behind the B-17 to give it the altitude to allow them to get past the defenses, and not return early.. however the greater altitude greatly lowered accuracy, with them eventually being told to bomb at lower altitudes again... and being threatened if they dropped their bombs too early. Nerves...

While in later stages of the war, there was a definite plan of creating terror and demoralizing the population, in the early/medium stages of the bombing campaigns, a lot of the bombs dropped were due to pilot error, problems finding the targets and fear in the crew/pilots.

SeanW

CrankyHaus wrote: »

They knew plenty about Kristallnacht and over a decade of persecution and dispossession of the Jews and other groups based on their race. They knew plenty about Germany's murderous wars of aggression where normal members of the Wehrmacht committed ample war crimes. In fact they enthusiastically engaged in and supported all of these things until they started losing the war.

Perhaps, but AFAIK the Nazis did try to hide some of what they were doing, some of the camps and so on. But I'll admit I don't have a lot of details.

The bombing of Dresden is a rallying cry for Nazi apologists. In fact it was a legitimate and necessary, albeit horrific, operation to win a murderous war Germany had begun and would not surrender in when it was clearly losing.

:eek: I think you might have been reading "between the lines" to find something that was not there.

I most certainly am not trying to cover for any of evil of the Nazis. Nor was I taking a position on whether or not it was warranted to bomb Dresden. My only point was that the Nazis did not just come out of nowhere - they were enabled by the conditions of life in interwar Germany. Thusly, it is inappropriate to take pleasure in the suffering of civilians.

The bombing of Dresden may or may not have been justified. That doesn't change the fact that civilians suffered enormously.