Dresden marks anniversary of WWII bombings

[August]

Originally Posted by goldorak

No no no. Hindsight has nothing to do with it. In the pacific theater for instance , General LeMay knew perfectly well what he was doing when he ordered the strategic bombing raids against japanese cities. And when high altitude bombing raids didn't bring enough devastation he ordered low level flights during the night. The tokyo raid make 100 000 dead. Civilian dead. This is not war, this is massacre. He was so aware of this that he publicly stated that should the US lose the war he would have been convicted of war crimes.
The whole strategic bombing doctrine was born and developed in England and the US. Other countries used it with more or less success but the art of SB was taken to its extreme with the british and americans. Germany didn't even have a long range bomber force when it entered the war. All medium and light bombers. So yes Germany has it reponsabilities, but so do the Allies.
And winning the war is no excuse to put under the rug many "questionable" actions. Its as if after 60 years we still have this image of Germany as the empire of evil, and the Allies were the knights in shining armor fighting the dragon for truth and justice. Go beyond the propaganda and you see that the allies were every bit as ruthless and oportunistic as the germans.
And what about the japanese ? Eh they lost the war also, and yet even in 2010 they still don't aknowledge their responsabilities in the war. They negate everything, and lets not even go into the japanese occupation of china.

Now you're just swinging wildly hoping to connect with something. We're talking about Dresden, not Tokyo.

But yeah Curtis LeMay would certainly have been convicted of war crimes had we lost. So would have FDR, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Harris, Montgomery, Nimitz, Halsey and every other leader on the allied side and it wouldn't have stopped there either. The Germans and Japanese designated all kinds of people as war criminals including Privates and Corporals. I'm sure the show trials in the event of an Axis victory would have gone on for years. Does that fact make them actual war criminals? No it wouldn't.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by August

Now you're just swinging wildly hoping to connect with something. We're talking about Dresden, not Tokyo.

But yeah Curtis LeMay would certainly have been convicted of war crimes had we lost. So would have FDR, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Harris, Montgomery, Nimitz, Halsey and every other leader on the allied side and it wouldn't have stopped there either. The Germans and Japanese designated all kinds of people as war criminals including Privates and Corporals. I'm sure the show trials in the event of an Axis victory would have gone on for years. Does that fact make them actual war criminals? No it wouldn't.

Actually Dresden is but a case of Strategic Bombing. We can express regret for the bombing of Dresden, as that for any other city that was leveled between 1918 and 1945. I don't remeber who it was in this thread that correctly framed the issue. Its not about Dresden, or Tokyo or Guernica.
Its about the doctrine of strategic bombing and wether its use was justified or not. Doesn't matter if used in the pacific theater, the european theater or the spanish civil war. The act in itself has to be condemed, wether it was carried out by Allies or the Axis. The people in command, knew perfectly well the atrocities they were commiting. All justified in the name of war, and atrocities nonetheless. And the difference between a war criminal and a hero ? One belongs to the losing side, the other to the winning side.

[August]

Originally Posted by goldorak

And the difference between a war criminal and a hero ? One belongs to the losing side, the other to the winning side.

Oversimplification is the weakness in your argument. You can't compare the Allies (well maybe the USSR) with what the Axis did. What is the Allies equivalent to the rape of Nanking? What is the Allies equivalent to Auschwitz? Who started the deliberate bombing of civilians?

Who...Started...The...War?

I'm sorry but I just disagree with your attempt at making the Allies look as bad as the evil empires they fought and died defending themselves against. There is just no comparison.

[MH]

Originally Posted by goldorak

Actually Dresden is but a case of Strategic Bombing. We can express regret for the bombing of Dresden, as that for any other city that was leveled between 1918 and 1945. I don't remeber who it was in this thread that correctly framed the issue. Its not about Dresden, or Tokyo or Guernica.
Its about the doctrine of strategic bombing and wether its use was justified or not. Doesn't matter if used in the pacific theater, the european theater or the spanish civil war. The act in itself has to be condemed, wether it was carried out by Allies or the Axis. The people in command, knew perfectly well the atrocities they were commiting. All justified in the name of war, and atrocities nonetheless. And the difference between a war criminal and a hero ? One belongs to the losing side, the other to the winning side.

Strategic bombing of cities may be seen as ineffective today but you have to think in terms of ww2.
You have to consider the scope of the war and what was at stake.
It wasn't just a skirmish like Iraqi war or Vietnam it was a total conflict.

From Alias point of view it was real fight between good and evil on world scale where you had to use all means necessary to win or disappear from the map.
Strategic bombing was one of those many things that was belived and in fact did contribute to winning the war and made life easer for average allied solder as well.
I'm trying to justify it but you must think in terms of ww2.

I'm sure that in case of next global conflict when existence and resources of many couturiers would be at stake all the collateral damage thing would fly for most part out the window.
There is no such a thing as moral war especially world war.
We can sit now and debate all this in a part because of strategic bombing that was undertaken and sometime ruthless decision of allied generals.
At list they had not been engeged in mass destruction and enslaving of whole nations.
Look at Europe now and think what it might look if axis won before you say that US England and Rusia are just the powers which turned out to be victorious..

And the difference between a war criminal and a hero ? One belongs to the losing side, the other to the winning side.

For someone to be a criminal it has to be against the law.
Since the topic is WW2 and bombing then crimes are a difficult subject. Under a rough application of the other laws which could be sort of utilised then Dresden ticks all the boxes as a legitimate target.
The laws which should have applied were never drawn up and agreed and the provisional agreements went out the window in the invasion of Poland, that provisional agreement and any attempts to reintroduce any form of new agreement was killed outright with the bombing of Rotterdam.


As for the anniversary itself wasn't it good to see the people again turning the neo nazi nuts efforts in the city into a pathetic little side show.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

For someone to be a criminal it has to be against the law.

Well, in the Nuremburg trials the element of crime of "leading an aggressive war" was not yet invented, in a worldwide court. In all previous centuries Kings and Empires had done what they wanted, under the "right" of the strongest. The end of WW2 sees the first worldwide court to judge the action of a nation or its leaders, and to condemn such action.
Strange enough in the UN who should be just of all an internation organisation and also court, one veto is enough to not condemn the action of e.g. Mr. Mugabe, oder Idi-Amin back then.
Or anyone else.

As for the anniversary itself wasn't it good to see the people again turning the neo nazi nuts efforts in the city into a pathetic little side show.

Greetings,
Catfish

[Bilge_Rat]

To correct a misunderstanding, the object of strategic bombing in WW2 was not just to strike military targets, but also to break the morale of the population. So yes, factories were targeted, but also civilian population centers.

This was acknowledged policy by RAF Bomber Command, but even generals in the USAAF recognized this fact. The Tokyo firebombing raid in february 1945 was planned by general Lemay specifically to kill as many japanese civilians as possible.

Dresden was targeted, not because of a nefarious plot, but simply because the Allies were running out of targets! By early 45, the RAF/USAAF could put up 1,000 plane heavy bombing raids every day and had pretty much bombed out every city in Germany. Dresden was just unlucky to be next on the list.

Let us not forget that WW2 was the summum of the total war concept where civilians were considered legitimate military targets. German U-Boats and U.S. submarines sank thousands of civilian ships and killed tens of thousands of men, women and children.

Its unfortunate what happened to Dresden, but within the context of WW2, it was a legitimate military target.

Well, in the Nuremburg trials the element of crime of "leading an aggressive war" was not yet invented, in a worldwide court

Try again, think of cornflakes and then see the flaw in the packet.
Funnily enough that document is still US law.

[Freiwillige]

Dresden marks the first time that even Churchill himself questioned the effect of terror bombing as it did more damage to the Allies at this stage of the war than it did to the Germans.

What is unique about Dresden that keeps it at the forefront of German cities lost.

1. Timing of the attack (When the war was a forgone conclusion)
2. Method of attack (intentionally creating a firestorm)
3. length of attack (a continuous coordinated night day attack)
4. Target of attack (City center, as opposed to industrial, bridges etc)

All of those reasons alone could raise an eyebrow but combined had the effect of making even the allies second guess after the fact.

I think allot of the real root of Dresden was to show the Russians what allied air power could do, while not the sole reason it was definitely an influence, Much like the Atomic bombs in Japan.

[DarkFish]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Darkfish.
Rotterdam, London, Dresden.
One of those is different in many ways and shouldn't be used in your count

Rotterdam: bombing of civilians in order to force the Dutch government to surrender (not that we had any chance anyway).
London: bombing of civilians for whatever reason Hitler deemed necessary (both demoralizing the British and revenge)
Dresden: bombing of civilians supposedly targeting the German infrastructure and industry, even though not all of the infrastructure and almost no industry was targeted.

My list shows bombings of civilians for very weak and unmoral reasons. I think they all fit that list, but if you know some reason why one of them should be excluded, please tell.

Originally Posted by August

Only because you're looking at it with hindsight. Wonderful thing that hindsight. It allows you to make all sorts of moral judgments from the comfort of your living room without recognizing that things weren't all that clear at the time they were happening.

The answers to those questions in the beginning of 1945 with an UNdefeated Germany still months away from surrender is an unequivocal yes, just it would be for any other military action that might end the war sooner.

Like I said before. In a fight to the finish you keep punching until your opponent goes down. You don't ease up just because he's on the ropes.

I think anyone looking at it at the time should have come to the same conclusion, but in the end that doesn't matter. Even if there was a reason to bomb Dresden, I don't think killing this much civilians was justified. They could have instead easily targeted the industrial areas outside of town, killing less people and giving a possibly bigger blow to the local industry.

And to continue your analogy, in a fight, if the opponent is only one hit away from going KO, you don't grab your sword and slash his throat.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I'm not going to get into this argument, other than to say this:

August is correct about hindsight, but you are also correct with the "should be ashamed" comment. We should all have the grace to realize that yes, horrible things happen in war, and mistakes are made, but we should also determine not to use that as an excuse.

But you need to remember that part of the climate on a website like this is the occasional poster whose intent is not "we all have our bad side" but rather "no, you're the bad one, worse than I am". Sometimes a reply is made with that in mind, when the person replied to didn't mean that at all.

Sometimes we get defensive when we don't need to. And other times we need to.

The Germans did terrible things in the war. But we shouldn't forget that the Allies have done so as well. Denying either of them is just not in line with history. There is no such thing as a "universally good" side or a "universally bad" side. The Germans have done good things, and the Allies have done their share of war crimes. It's all too easy to say "the Germans were the bad guys so whatever we did they deserved it".

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Try again, think of cornflakes and then see the flaw in the packet.
Funnily enough that document is still US law.

You think of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 27 August 1928 ?

What is unique about Dresden that keeps it at the forefront of German cities lost.

Sorry but none of the 4 things you list was unique to Dresden.

Rotterdam: bombing of civilians in order to force the Dutch government to surrender (not that we had any chance anyway).
London: bombing of civilians for whatever reason Hitler deemed necessary (both demoralizing the British and revenge)
Dresden: bombing of civilians supposedly targeting the German infrastructure and industry, even though not all of the infrastructure and almost no industry was targeted.

which is the odd one out darkfish?

You think of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 27 August 1928 ?

Exactly, it screwed up on definitions though didn't it.

[August]

Originally Posted by DarkFish

And to continue your analogy, in a fight, if the opponent is only one hit away from going KO, you don't grab your sword and slash his throat.

I don't think any fighter in the history of human conflict has ever known for sure that his opponent is one punch away from being knocked out, but be that as it may, in a fight to the finish if slashing your opponents throat has a chance of ending the war more quickly then you have a moral responsibility to your own people to try it.

[Freiwillige]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Sorry but none of the 4 things you list was unique to Dresden.

True but the culmination of the four are, that was my point.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by DarkFish

Rotterdam: bombing of civilians in order to force the Dutch government to surrender (not that we had any chance anyway).
London: bombing of civilians for whatever reason Hitler deemed necessary (both demoralizing the British and revenge)
Dresden: bombing of civilians supposedly targeting the German infrastructure and industry, even though not all of the infrastructure and almost no industry was targeted.

Rotterdam was terrible, and there had been Warsaw before. Obviously the german Stukas and two-engined bombers were enough, not that Germany would not have used four-engined bombers maybe, but it did not have any. The idea of carpet-bombing civilian targets however was not developed by Germany.

Regarding London, it was not initially planned to bomb civilian targets, but it happened when a Heinkel crew accidentally dropped its bombs outside the target area (initial targets were the harbour and dock area). Udet even apologized, but next there was a bunch of Wellington bombers bombing civilian homes at Hamburg.
The governments did not speak to each other, and it is most unlikely that such a thing would not have happened anyway, sooner or later.
I guess with those new concepts of "total wars" getting the civilian population to its knees it was only a matter of time.

Greetings,
Catfish