Dresden is one of those topics that I hate talking about, because most of the "issues" folks will bring up about the bombing campaign are just made up Nazi bullshit. It obfuscates the fact that there are very real and legitimate concerns about how the bombing campaign was conducted, and what the actual intentions of the attack were.
Broadly, the main issue is the intentional targeting of civilians, specifically to both break the citizens' morale, and for Bomber Command to puff their chests at the advancing Red Army. While the rail yards near the city center were a valid military target, the attack only ended up destroying most of the non-industrial buildings in the core, and killing about a quarter of the city's population (~20,000 to ~25,000 people). Nearly all of those deaths were non-combatants, who were not involved in any wartime industry (i.e. women and children). Less than a fifth of the city's industry was seriously damaged, and over half wasn't even hit at all.
There's a massive amount of study that's gone into breaking down the bombing of Dresden. I can't possibly do it justice in a post, and frankly, my scholarship on the topic is decades out of date now. I wouldn't even know who to ask nowadays.
This tracks with what I know. Bombing wasn't as precise as it is now, but with Dresden the Allies decided to go "let's just drop as many as possible so that even when we miss, we don't miss." This resulted in a lot of dead civilians and not as much disruption of military infrastructure.
Of course, neo-nazis ran away with the narrative as some kind of ethnic cleansing campaign used in conjunction with the siege of Berlin to equivocate the Allies to the Axis.
Dresden is one of those topics that I hate talking about, because most of the "issues" folks will bring up about the bombing campaign are just made up Nazi bullshit. It obfuscates the fact that there are very real and legitimate concerns about how the bombing campaign was conducted, and what the actual intentions of the attack were.
Just out of curiosity, what sort of real issues are there that you're familiar with offhand?
Broadly, the main issue is the intentional targeting of civilians, specifically to both break the citizens' morale, and for Bomber Command to puff their chests at the advancing Red Army. While the rail yards near the city center were a valid military target, the attack only ended up destroying most of the non-industrial buildings in the core, and killing about a quarter of the city's population (~20,000 to ~25,000 people). Nearly all of those deaths were non-combatants, who were not involved in any wartime industry (i.e. women and children). Less than a fifth of the city's industry was seriously damaged, and over half wasn't even hit at all.
There's a massive amount of study that's gone into breaking down the bombing of Dresden. I can't possibly do it justice in a post, and frankly, my scholarship on the topic is decades out of date now. I wouldn't even know who to ask nowadays.
This tracks with what I know. Bombing wasn't as precise as it is now, but with Dresden the Allies decided to go "let's just drop as many as possible so that even when we miss, we don't miss." This resulted in a lot of dead civilians and not as much disruption of military infrastructure.
Of course, neo-nazis ran away with the narrative as some kind of ethnic cleansing campaign used in conjunction with the siege of Berlin to equivocate the Allies to the Axis.
Thanks, I appreciate your insights nonetheless