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On the ground, however, the scale of death and devastation seemed beyond compare to witnesses like Vonnegut. The ruins of Dresden Frauenkirche, a Lutheran church. In the background is the dome of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. Observers noted early on that the bombing of Dresden did not only mean the death of civilians, but the destruction of a center of European culture and Baroque splendor.
Many Germans perceived a particular injustice in the late bombing of Dresden in February in —a sentiment that gained some international traction in the postwar years. Dresden was a densely crowded city in the winter of , filled with refugees fleeing the advancing Red Army. For most of them, the end of the war looked near and inevitable and a full-scale attack unnecessary.
So while the Dresden bombing was a terror campaign that dealt a devastating assault on civilians and cultural sites, it was part of a war in which such tactics had been widely—and grimly—deployed. But still the questions about the morality of the Dresden raid would not go away. Commentary: Despite the controversy surrounding the attack on Dresden, Allied bombing policy did not change. With the British, in particular, targeting German cities until the end of the war against the Nazis.
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It offers a splendid, new and stimulating way of exploring the most terrible war in history. The bombing of Dresden Why was the bombing of Dresden so controversial? Play Why did the British start bombing civilians? How did the Americans overcome the problems of daylight bombing? Why did the Americans use precision bombing in Europe and yet firebomb Japan?
Nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. Army Air Corps struck with more power. Allied bombers killed more than 1 million civilians in Germany and Japan, Miller has calculated. Even before the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the March firebombing of Tokyo left more than , dead. July sorties over Hamburg killed 43, These were controversial missions, noted Tom Reifer, an associate professor of sociology at the University of San Diego.
At the height of the war, an Anglican prelate — George Bell, bishop of Chichester — condemned British bombing raids on German cities. After Dresden, even Churchill expressed misgivings. Factories there produced gun sights, bomb fuses, poison gas.
A monstrous foe may justify ugly tactics, but how effective are raids on civilian centers? Do they encourage the victims to surrender? Recent history, Reifer argues, demonstrates the opposite. After all, innocent civilians were killed by the jets that were used as bombs on Sept. While British bombers normally flew at night, U.
If you hit a marshaling yard you are going to kill a lot of civilians. History records that Germany would surrender in May and Japan in August The aircrews, though, had no advance word of when peace would arrive.
The idea that Germany was completely down and out was really not the case. Ritter is familiar with these arguments, but cannot justify what she and her family endured at Dresden. Not even four when the war ended, Maria was surrounded by death. In school, the girl and her classmates were shown graphic photos from death camps. It was her introduction to the Holocaust, and she was shocked.
The air strike was designed to bring a conclusive end to the Second World War , but the humanitarian catastrophe that resulted from the attack has continues to bring up ethical questions that are debated to this day.
Criticisms of the attack include the argument that Dresden was not a wartime production or industrial centre. Yet an RAF memo issued to airmen on the night of the attack provides some rationale:.
The intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed front… and incidentally to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do. From this quote we can see that part of the reason for the bombing was rooted in anticipation of post-war hegemony. And while there was some industry and war effort coming from Dresden, the motivation seems to be punitive as well as tactical.
Targets in total war are not only military, but civilian and the types of weapons used are not restricted.
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