Dresden

World War II

Main article: Bombing of Dresden in World War II

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Dresden was not the only German city devastated by World War II bombing, but the bombing of Dresden in 1945 has become one of the most controversial events of that war. It was bombed in February 1945 when with hindsight it is clear that the end of the war was approaching. However at the time Allied forces had only recently recovered from a German counteroffensive.

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The city was not particularly well defended, because it had been too far and too dangerous for the Allied bombers to reach early in the war and although it had been bombed before, as well as cities even in southern Germany, the majority of Dresden's anti-aircraft defences had been redeployed elsewhere in Germany, and later evidence shows that Germany's Anti-Aircraft batteries were armed "a flak militia of Juveniles" (Fuhrer-Order 20/90/42)

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Dresden's reputation for culture is better known than its highly developed optics industry (Carl Zeiss later Praktica), which produced precision aiming devices during the war. In addition many peacetime factories, such as the cigarette factories, had been converted to ammunition factories as part of the policy of "total war". These factories employed mainly local workers but also used Jewish slave labour. However these targets were not the main reason for the city being bombed. The Red Army were approaching from the East and Dresden was one of two key rail routes with marshalling yards. Although key industrial facilities were destroyed by the bombing (much of their capacity was quickly restored), the main goal of the "area bombing" was to create a fire storm (an objective inspired by the Luftwaffe's raids on Coventry, Bath and London but refined by Britain's Royal Air Force).

Related Topics:
Carl Zeiss - Praktica - Total war - Red Army - Marshalling yards - Fire storm - Luftwaffe - Coventry - Bath - London - Britain - Royal Air Force

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Civilian death estimates vary wildly largely as a result of propaganda figures which received widespread publicity at the time, however the most recently available evidence from Friedrich Reichart of Dresden City Museum points to 25,000 deaths, which is less than the number that died in Hamburg, but Dresden was a smaller city. Numbers between 25,000 - 140,000 have been used in official statistics with the communist authorities of Dresden increasing their estimates across time; estimates in Nazi Germany by the Ministry of Propoganda varied between 350,000 and 400,000. At that time, Dresden's population was 600,000, but hundreds of thousands of refugees were living in and passing through Dresden as the Russians were now only fifty miles away. The entire inner city (15 square kilometres) was utterly devastated, and other quarters were damaged to some degree, the many villa quarters, however, on average much less than others.

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Many of the higher estimates are based on a fake TB47 report (which has been visibly altered). However the West German Federal Archive in Koblenz discovered a genuine copy of TB47. The official "Final Report and Situation (TB47)" produced by Reich Commander of the Order Police a month after the bombings. "TB47" is probably a reasonable guide to the order of casualty numbers. It states definate figures of between 18,000 and 22,000 with estimates of final numbers of 25,000 and includes the interesting sentence "Since rumours far exceed the reality, open use can be made of the actual figures."

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While some think that the bombing of Dresden was a tragic occurrence that Nazi Germany brought upon itself, others feel it should be treated as a war crime. Others see it as a military necessary action taken to support the Red Army. Fortunately, much of the city's beauty has been restored, thanks to the zeal of the populace in recreating the architecture of ?old Dresden'. Today Dresden has a strong partnership with the English city Coventry, which was heavily damaged by German air attacks. The partnership is deeply supported by the populace in both cities.

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