The Week 22Feb2020

Briefing NEWS 13

22 February 2020 THE WEEK

Whendidtheattackbegin?
Justafter10pmonthenightof
13 February 19 45,RAF“pathfinder”
bombersdroppedmagnesiumflares
knowntotheGermansas“Christmas
trees”overDresdentolightupthetarget.
Minuteslater,morethan2 50 Lancaster
heavybombersreleasednearlya
thousandtonsofbombsontothecityin
just 15 minutes.Asecondwave,ofmore
than 500 Lancasters,camethreehours
later,dropping1,800tonsofbombs.
Overthenexttwodays,theUnitedStates
ArmyAirForcealsomountedmajor
attacksonDresden–butineyewitness
accountsthesepaleintoinsignificance
withthehorroroftheRAF’sraid.

WhywastheRAFraidsohorrific?
BythispointintheWar,RAFBomber
CommandhadbecomeveryproficientatdestroyingGerman
cities,bycreatingfirestormsfromtheair.It hadrefinedand scaled
upthetechniquesfirst usedbythe NazisonRotterdam,London
andCoventry.Bombers droppedamixtureofhighexplosives–
suchas large “blockbusters”capable ofblowingup anentire city
block–and incendiarybombs.Thehighexplosives knocked
downwallsandrippedoffroofs,exposingbeamsandimproving
airflow fortheincendiaries.Thesewouldcreatehundreds ofsmall
fires whichweredesignedtoturnintoonehuge firestorm.Often,
asinDresden,asecondwave would come severalhourslater,
designedtohit astheemergencyresponse wasinfullswing.

Why was Dresden targeted?
Thecitywas,to some extent,alegitimatetarget. Itwasthecapital
of Saxony,Germany’sseventhlargest cityandamajorindustrial
andtransporthub.Its famousfactories,suchasthe ZeissIkon
opticalworks,had beenturned over towar industries. Itwas also
animportantrailwayjunction,withalargemarshallingyard.
Dresdenwas receivingvast numbers ofrefugees from the Eastern
Front,whichwasat thispointonly 155 milesfromthecity,and
sendingoutreinforcementstofighttheRed Army.For thisreason,
theSoviet Union hadspecificallyrequestedthe city’sbombing.

What was the effect on the city?
HistoricDresden,knownas“Florence
ontheElbe”or “the jewelbox”,on
accountofits baroquesplendour,had
only previouslysufferedminor raids.
Now itwasreduced to rubble.
The RAF effectively incineratedthe
Altstadt, themedieval oldtown, and
much ofthehistoriccity. Dresdenwas
unprepared,with almostnodedicated
air raidshelters. Much of the
populationsoughtshelter incellars
under theoldapartmentblocks,
whichwereentirely inadequate as a
vast firestormformed andsucked all
the oxygen out oftheair. Thousands
were suffocated, their bodies found
mummifiedbythe heat in theruins.

What did survivors witness?
“Thewholecitystartedburning. It
was an inferno,”remembered Roman
Halter,aPolishJewwhowas a17-
year-old slave labourerthere atthe
time. “One neversaw such carnage.

Explosions.Buildingscollapsing.People

jumpingfrombuildings.Peoplerunning

alongbeingonfire,screaming.”Itwas

likesomething“fromhell,inmedieval

pictures”.Thefirestormcreateda

vacuumatgroundlevel.Peoplewere

slowly“suckedintoavortexandthen,

withafinalwhisk,liftedupintothe

skywiththeirhairandclothingalight”,

rememberedaBritishPOW,Victor

Gregg.Othersdiedstuckinmolten

tarmacontheroads;ordrownedor

boiledalivehavingsoughtrefugeinthe

city’sreservoir.Some25,00 0 peopleout

ofapopulationof6 00 , 000 died.

Whatwasthereaction?

JosephGoebbelsweptatthenews,and

thenaddedazerotothedeathtollinhis

propagandareports.“Fromhorrific

reality,”writesthehistorianIanKershaw,hecreated“aneven

morehorrific –and long-lastingmyth” (see box).Amongthe

Allies,afterinitialjubilation therewasdisquiet,particularly

when the AssociatedPresscalledit a“terror bombing”.Winston

Churchill,whohadpushedfor the attack,wrotein amemothat

“themomenthascomewhen thequestionofbombingofGerman

citiessimplyfor the sakeofincreasingthe terror,though under

otherpretexts,shouldbereviewed”.He called theattackon

Dresden“aserious queryagainst theconductofAllied bombing”.

Afterpressurefrom the RAF the memowasredrafted,butthe

raidbrought intofocus the truth aboutthebombingcampaign.

Whatwas the truth about that campaign?

Since1942, the RAF,underArthur “Bomber” Harris,hadbeen

committedto the“area bombing” ofGermancities todestroy

industry by “de-housing” and demoralisingthe workforce.Dresden

wasonlyoneofmanyattacks.Some, arguably,wereworse.

About42,000 peoplewerekilled inHamburginJuly 1 943.Essen,

Berlin, Cologne,Darmstadt,Wesselandmanyothers were devas-

tated.TendaysafterDresden,Pforzheimwasdestroyed,killing

17,600 people.Between 300,000 and 600,000Germancivilians

werekilled byAllied bombers. Butin itssuddenness,scaleand

one-sidedness–the RAFlost justsixplanes –Dresdenstands out.

Was it justified?

By today’sstandards,it wasnodoubt

anatrocity. InDresden,theRAF

directly targeted civilians,destroying

14,000homes.The raidprobably did

littleto hastenthe endofthe War,

whichcame only three months later.

However, areabombing has to be

seen in context. Britain’s owncities

hadbeenravaged by the Nazis,and

until D-Day, ithadnootherway to

fight back in Europe.Areabombing

was effective,thoughindiscriminate

andhorribly costly;55,000 Bomber

Commandaircrewwerekilled during

the War, 44% of thetotal. In early

1945 ,the Germans were stillfighting

hard. Thecabinethad beenadvised

that without continued bombing, the

War could continue untillate 1945.

“I donotpersonally regard the whole

of theremaining citiesof Germany,”

Harris wrote after Dresden, “as worth

the bones ofoneBritish grenadier.”

The destruction of Dresden

Seventy-fiveyearsago,theRAFandtheUSAAFreducedthehistoriccityofDresdentorubble,killingtensofthousands

DresdeninFebruary 1945

Death tolls and warguilt

The firebombing has long beenabattleground in a

culture war over Germany’s past. Right-wing extremist

groups have co-opted the episode to push their own

agenda: using inflated death tolls first propagated by

the Nazi regime, they portray the bombing asawar

crime that killed up to 300,000 people, calling it a

Bomben-Holocaust,aholocaust by bombs –

relativising German guilt and suggesting that the Allies

rewrote history. Since 1999, there have been yearly

“funeral marches” by far-right groups on the

anniversary; about 1,200 marched in Dresden on

Saturday, opposed by around 1,500 anti-fascists.

The populist AfD treads more carefully, but has called

for less emphasis to be given to Germany’s wartime

history; its co-chairman Tino Chrupalla recently

claimed that some 100,000 people had been killed in

Dresden. This flies in the face of an officialinqu iry by

the city of Dresden, which in 2010 concludedtha tthe

initialofficial estimate of around 25,000 dead was

correct. Atamemorial last Thursday, President

Steinmeier called on Germany to remember both “the

suffering of the people in German cities, and the

suffering that Germans inflicted on others”. He added:

“We won’t forget the German guilt.”