Was Dresden a mistake?

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mellenthin
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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ljadw wrote:1) that this type of raids is illegal today ,is irrelevant:today PC is reigning
2) there was no possibility in WWII to choose between a precise bombardment,and area bombings:both could result in massive civilian losses
3) No one did care about enemy civilian losses :you can't wage war without killing enemy civilian losses :without British civilian losses,Coventry was not possible
4)Enemy civilian losses were justified :if the crew of a Panther was a legitimate target,why should one spare the civilians who were producing the Panthers,the railway personnell that was transporting the Panthers,ammunition and supplies,the farmers who were producing food for the workers and the crew of the Panther,etc....
5)If one allied/German soldier was spared by the death of 100 German/allied civilians,then it was legitimate to attack/no to spare these civilians .
6)As no one (German or allied )was condemned for air attacks,the air attacks were legitimate .
7)As it was impossible to destroy marshalling-yards,without spare the inner cities,saying that the marshalling yards of Dresden could be destroyed without damaging/destroying the city,is nonsens .As you know,the allies were not able to destroy the marshalling-yards of Kortrijk,Merelbeke,Leuven ,etc,without incurring the risk of damaging these cities.In fact,these cities were damaged/destroyed,but the damage to the marshalling-yards was insignifiant .The same happened in Dresden,Rouen,etc.
The distinction ,in wartime,between civilians and military,is a theoretical and Jezuitical one .
1) Besides the question. It may be mentioned.
2) Precision bombardments were done by the US Airforce and they certainly kill less civilians than an area attack
3) Killing civilians is acceptable but that does not mean that one has to kill more than absolutely necessary
7) The attacks specifically directed against marshalling yards would never kill the amount of people as in Dresden
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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phylo_roadking wrote: Kindly prove with references to convention-establishing legal cases and international treaties that this is in fact true.
Simply,google on the conventions of Geneva ,particularly protocol I of 1977 and you will will learn quickly that area bombing is illegal now.
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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phylo_roadking wrote:
In addition, there was no important movement from the western front to the eastern front through Dresden that absolutely had to be stopped. That is an invention.
Kindly prove that with sources. Remember - and all posters have ALREADY been warned - there is a VERY different standard of evidence required in the War Crimes Section of Feldgrau, any statements like that that cannot be supported WILL be deleted.
Anybody discussing on a military history forum can be supposed to have a basic knowledge. The only important movement from west to east was the movement of the 6th SS Panzer army(a wellknown fact of history to any ww2 fan) and that had already taken place and did not move over Dresden. Actually, the movement of this army proved that you need much more than destroy one railhub to make movement by rail impossible.
This subject should never have been put in this section as the discussion is not about Dreseden being a warcrime. The discussion is about it being necessary or not in the way it was done.
Last edited by mellenthin on Fri Nov 11, 2011 9:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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mellenthin wrote:
2) Precision bombardments were done by the US Airforce and they certainly kill less civilians than an area attack
7) The attacks specifically directed against marshalling yards would never kill the amount of people as in Dresden
The US AAF did do area/'terror' bombing.
They just used the term 'Marshalling Yards' to hide the fact.
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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Anybody reading up on the raid on Dresden (on the internet and in books)will quickly notice that the decisionmaking process leading to it did not mention the military targets within the city(except its role as a transport hub). It was mainly about shattering morale and creating chaos. That is also visible in the way the RAF executed its part of the raid.
All the stuff about the military targets in the city came up afterwards when the protests started. It is raids like Dresden,Hamburg and Tokyo that are one of the reasons for the new rules made after the war.
Anybody will have a hard time making a case for the type of attack executed against Dresden,also taking into account when it took place and the situation of Germany at that time.
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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michael kenny wrote:
mellenthin wrote:
2) Precision bombardments were done by the US Airforce and they certainly kill less civilians than an area attack
7) The attacks specifically directed against marshalling yards would never kill the amount of people as in Dresden
The US AAF did do area/'terror' bombing.
They just used the term 'Marshalling Yards' to hide the fact.
You may not like it but the US Airforce executed the only raids that really worked. Particularly the attacks on the oil targets were the ones that really affected the german war effort. The RAF area bombing did not prevent german war production going up.
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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The only important movement from west to east was the movement of the 6th SS Panzer army(a wellknown fact of history to any ww2 fan) and that had already taken place and did not move over Dresden. Actually, the movement of this army proved that you need much more than destroy one railhub to make movement by rail impossible.
Is this supposed to disprove Col. Cook's witness statement?

And the "importance" of a military movement/deployment is not necessarily directly related to its size. ANY enemy movement that its opponents have the capacity and the ability to attack is a target; it does not have to be...."important". Are you seriously saying that the Allies should have left German troop movements smaller than "army" sized to pass un-interdicted? :shock:

Now, don't forget...
kindly prove with sources that none of the military targets in Dresden existed...
Simply,google on the conventions of Geneva ,particularly protocol I of 1977 and you will will learn quickly that area bombing is illegal now.
In the future, pleae avoid "peekaboo" referencing.

What you SHOULD have said is Additional Protocol I of 1977, Article 51, Part 5(a)
5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:
(a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects
...but you're learning.
This subject should never have been put in this section as the discussion is not about Dreseden being a warcrime. The discussion is about it being necessary or not in the way it was done..
Actually, the OP's original post does NOT have anything to do with how it was carried out. I'm afraid the person who took the discussion in that direction was....you.
Particularly the attacks on the oil targets were the ones that really affected the german war effort.
Once again - Albert Speer does not agree with you.
The RAF area bombing did not prevent german war production going up.
German war production did in fact go down through 1943; as a result of BOTH airforces' efforts. It rose again in 1944 after the Germans took a number of expensive measures to disperse manufacture - the "forest factories", underground factories etc.
It is raids like Dresden,Hamburg and Tokyo that are one of the reasons for the new rules made after the war.
Really? When it took them to 1977? Hmmm, only took them 32 years....
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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mellenthin wrote: You may not like it but the US Airforce executed the only raids that really worked. Particularly the attacks on the oil targets were the ones that really affected the german war effort. The RAF area bombing did not prevent german war production going up.
There was little difference in the tonnage dropped on oil targets by the USAAF and the RAF.


RAF Tons
Industrial Towns..............................430,747
Troops and defences.......................122,532
Transportation................................137,793
Naval..............................................46,728
Oil..................................................97,914
AC factories/Airfields........................25,977
Specific Industries...........................19,964
Military Instalations.........................64,522
Misc................................................9,137
Total..........................................955,044
from:
http://www.lancaster-archive.com/bc_stats4.htm



US European and Mediterranean Theater of Operations

Marshalling Yards......................315,307
Oil Installations..........................126,191
Airdrome and Airfields...............117,727
Railroads, Roads and Bridges.....70,569
Military Installations....................70,171
Other Specific Industries..............70,126
Aircraft Factories .........................58,763

Total ........................................1,096,794


from:

http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t142.htm


The term 'Marshalling Yards' is the US euphemism for area bombing of city centres.


US Tonne = 100 lbs

UK Ton = 112 lbs

so UK tons x 112 then divide by 100 for US ton

Direct comparison for Oil target tonnage

USAAF................126,191
UK....................109,663 (87% of US total)
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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michael kenny wrote: Ill informed bicycle riding posters with agendas are the problem.
You can try to change history but the difference between the US Airforce bombing practices and that of the RAF is welknown to any informed person. It is a subject about which I say nothing new. Actually,I have made much less nasty comments about area bombing than those that are massively against it on moral grounds.
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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The term 'Marshalling Yards' is the US euphemism for area bombing of city centres
At Dresden, however, things happened a tad "arse-about face"...

The first Americans to arrive, the 379th Bombardment Group, aimed at the marshalling yards in the Friedrichstadt district west of the city centre as that area was not obscured by smoke and cloud! Whereas....they'd been briefed to attack the city centre :shock:
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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Moderator's Note - All, I'm sure you all notice the several deletions in the last few posts.
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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mellenthin wrote: the difference between the US Airforce bombing practices and that of the RAF is welknown to any informed person.
I know they are.
That is why I posted the facts from these 'informed persons'
Hopefully this information may help educate educate the 'not so well informed persons' as to their errors.
I place you in the latter category.
But at the back of my mind I always remember 'you can lead a horse to water...........'
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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phylo_roadking wrote:
The only important movement from west to east was the movement of the 6th SS Panzer army(a wellknown fact of history to any ww2 fan) and that had already taken place and did not move over Dresden. Actually, the movement of this army proved that you need much more than destroy one railhub to make movement by rail impossible.
Is this supposed to disprove Col. Cook's witness statement?

And the "importance" of a military movement/deployment is not necessarily directly related to its size. ANY enemy movement that its opponents have the capacity and the ability to attack is a target; it does not have to be...."important". Are you seriously saying that the Allies should have left German troop movements smaller than "army" sized to pass un-interdicted? :shock: ....
Are you seriousky trying to make me believe that Dresden needed to be firebombed just to hinder(not stop because that would not be possible) troop movements behind a sector of the eastern front? The relatively quick movement of the sixth SS Panzer army rather confirmed that even with all the disruption large units could still be moved by rail.
You know pretty well that the main objective was completely different.All the stuff about military facilities in the town is justification after the fact because of all the controversy. And I did not invent the controversy.
Without Churchill's insistence raid would probably not haVe occurred.
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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michael kenny wrote:
mellenthin wrote: the difference between the US Airforce bombing practices and that of the RAF is welknown to any informed person.
I know they are.
That is why I posted the facts from these 'informed persons'
Hopefully this information may help educate educate the 'not so well informed persons' as to their errors.
I place you in the latter category.
But at the back of my mind I always remember 'you can lead a horse to water...........'
I have invented nothing in this discussion. The discussions about the effect of area bombing have been around a longtime.
The controversy about the morality of it also. Therefore you do not really impress me.
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

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Are you seriousky trying to make me believe that Dresden needed to be firebombed just to hinder(not stop because that would not be possible) troop movements behind a sector of the eastern front?
No, not "just" - no matter what you choose to call it those industries/factories were still there and were still known to the Allies.
And I did not invent the controversy
No - but you brought it here to this thread.
Without Churchill's insistence raid would probably not haVe occurred
See Dick Davis' "Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945", page 491. The JIS' "German Strategy and Capacity to Resist", prepared for Churchill, said that if the Germans were allowed to effectively defend Silesia, Hitler's Germany could hold out until November at least. That's an extra seven months' of fighting and Allied troops dying. Churchill did indeed press the issue, but remember what Portal said...
"We should use available effort in one big attack on Berlin and attacks on Dresden, Leipzig, and Chemnitz, or any other cities where a severe blitz will not only cause confusion in the evacuation from the East, but will also hamper the movement of troops from the West".
It was about interdicting the potential as much as what was or was not actually happening on the night. Why wouldn't Churchill press for a series of attacks that would (in fact) shorten the war to April? Do you regard that chance of shortening the war as "not important"?
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