 Critics say there was no military reason to bomb Dresden |
Because what is a Neo-Nazi if not a tragic victim?
Up to 25,000 people died in the Allied bombing of Dresden during World War II - fewer than often estimated, an official German report has concluded.
The Dresden Historians' Commission published its report after five years of research into the 13-15 February 1945 air raid by Britain and the US.
The study was aimed at ending an ongoing debate on the number of casualties in the German city.
Germany's far-right groups claim that up to 500,000 people died.
They say the bombing - which unleashed a firestorm in the historic city when Nazi Germany was already close to defeat - constituted a war crime.
Critics say there was no military reason for it, but others argue that Dresden was an important logistical point close behind German lines, as the Soviet Army approached from the east.
'Crux of argument'
The Dresden commission said it had used records from city archives, cemeteries and other official registries and compared them with published reports and witness accounts to reach its conclusion.
It also noted that fewer refugees fleeing the Eastern front were killed in the air raid then was previously thought, rejecting reports that many victims' bodies were never recovered.
"Remembering the Allied bombings of Dresden... still carries importance for the social-political understanding of how history is seen, how society is shaped, and how identities are formed," the commission said.
"In this debate, the number of people killed in the raids on Dresden has long been a crux of the argument that is key to certain views."
5 comments:
"They sowed a wind and will reap a whirlwind" vowed "Bomber" Harris, Chief of British Bomber Command after the Germans started bombing British cities. Coventry was wiped out in 1941 and the East End of London 1940-41 plus many other cities.
They got it back tenfold and deserved it all. The Brits were deploying 1,000 aircraft bombing raids on Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne etc even before the US entered the war.
I shed no tears for Dresden, call me callous if you will but as a small child I was deposited into air raid shelters by my mother. They started it, we finished it.
War is only won if it is conducted more savagely than the enemy.
Sherman's 3rd law
'This war differs from other wars, in this particular. We are not fighting armies but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war.'
I guess they should have considered what it all meant in 1933.
They are LUCKY FDR died, because unlike Truman he was leaning towards Morgethau's post war solution.
I'm with both of you on that. In war you have to punish the enemy until he either no longer has the will or ability to fight or simply is no more.
A mistake we are making now that we will pay for sooner or later.
MR,
Ultimately, it is not only we who will suffer. We will be forced to kill even more of our enemies ultimately, because we failed to kill enough now.
Actually I hope we get off so cheap as to only need to kill more enemy.
I feel we may have lost or are losing the favor of God, so I fear events may turn out differently this time around.
I hope I'm wrong, but I can't seem to quell that gut feeling.
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