During World War II, civilians were targetted deliberately from the air. In 1940, Britain’s capital, London, suffered 57 consecutive nights of bombing by the German Luftwaffe. The aerial attacks continued throughout the war with other cities being hit.
The allies did their share of bombing civilians as well, including one devastating raid on the German city of Dresden.
Huge Air Raid Triggers Firestorm
On the night of February 13-14, 1945, the almost 800 Royal Air Force Lancasters dropped 2,700 tons of bombs on the centre of the ancient city known as the “Florence of the Elbe.” Over the following two days, U.S. Air Force bombers carried out daytime raids on what was left of the community.
The bombing was so intense, that a firestorm started. The raid caused so many fires in a concentrated area that the air above them became superheated.
The very hot air rose rapidly and drew huge volumes of air into the fires at ground level. The roaring rush of heated air upwards had the power of a tornado, strong enough to pick up people and suck them into the flames.
Others sheltering underground were asphyxiated as all of the oxygen was sucked out of the bunkers by the fires raging above them.
Debate over Dresden Death Toll
Historians have argued over the number of people killed in the raid, some claiming the death toll was as high as half a million, although for many years the figure of 35,000 dead was accepted.
In 2004 a special commission of 13 prominent German historians was set up to examine the records of the attack. Bojan Pancevski of The Daily Telegraph reported (October 2, 2008) on the work of the commission and wrote that it “concluded that no more than 25,000 people died during the attacks, debunking the claims of many revisionist historians who wished to compare the bombing to the Holocaust.”
Was the Dresden Attack a War Crime?
Ever since the raid on Dresden questions have been asked about whether or not it constituted a war crime. The attack clearly broke Geneva Conventions about the protection of civilians.
Roy Akehurst was a wireless operator who took part in the raid on Dresden. At Spartacus-Schoolnet he is quoted as saying: “We seemed to fly for hours over a sheet of fire - a terrific red glow with thin haze over it. I found myself making comments to the crew: ‘Oh God, those poor people.’ It was completely uncalled for. You can’t justify it.”
Justification for the Dresden Attack
Air Marshall Arthur Harris was in charge of organizing the attack on Dresden after receiving orders to do so from Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Harris had introduced the tactic of area bombing cities, a system used earlier by the Germans and which they called terror bombing. Some have suggested the Dresden raid was payback for German terror bombing of Coventry, Rotterdam, Warsaw, and many other cities.
Harris himself, said Dresden was a significant military target. It was the largest unbombed city in Germany and was serving as a communication centre for the battle against the Soviet armies advancing from the east.
Warning to the Soviet Union
Writing in Workers World (February 23, 1995) John Black advanced the theory that Churchill used the raid to send a message to the Soviet Union.
Many senior war strategists, among them Churchill, concluded that after the defeat of Germany, the Western Allies were going to be facing a belligerent Soviet Union in Europe.
Black wrote that, “Churchill’s goal in Europe was not only to destroy the military machine of Britain’s imperialist rival - Germany - but to stop the advance of the Soviet Union. With the latter in mind, he decided to bomb Dresden.”
By this thesis, the destruction of the city was to show the Soviets just what allied bombing was capable of doing and make them think twice about any military adventures.
To reach this political goal, wrote Black “the U.S. and British rulers could easily sacrifice more than 35,000 non-combatants with the bombing of Dresden.”
Rupert Taylor - Rupert Taylor is the editor of a magazine that provides background to current events.
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