Out Of The Ashes

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2951279/Seventy-years-Britain-dropped-3-900-tonnes-explosives-city-pictures-reveal-Dresden-recovered-near-obliteration-German-cultural-centre.html

Amazingly clever before and after pictures of the devastation that was inflicted upon the German city of Dresden.

[Peter Pedant]

// No, they did not. I'm so sorry that you have to live through that. I can't accept, however, that the one justifies the other. //

unrestricted bombing of cities wwas included in the list of Nazi war Crimes and Goering strongly argued - oho so you are going to prosecute the allied commanders as well are you ?

and somehow the charges were dropped

History is busy re writiing all sorts of things
The mortality was thought to be easily in excess of 100 000 for a long time but they now only count 20 000. For a long time an argument raged about whether you could vapourise people ( here it would be 80 000 or more) and it now agreed at 1000'C the answer is no ....

The majority in QM's kiddie class would be blast injuries. The kids would look normal only they would be dead. Very few would be burnt or blown up. Firestorms ( Hamburg and Dresden) alot suffocated. [sorry wandered into the pathology of bomb njuries]

[Zacs-Master]

Thought provoking list AOG. Whatever one feels about the rights and wrongs, the rebuilding is testament to man's resilience and skill.

[retrocop]

Hope this link works OK it was the one I mentioned earlier re D-Day then and Now

http://interactive.guim.co.uk/…/image-opacity-s…/index.html…

[retrocop]

Mmmmmm. Apparently not. Can't help here. Sorry

[tonyav]

Are these the pictures, retrocop ?.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/d-day-70th-anniversary/then-now-photographer-revisits-d-day-sites-n122396

[retrocop]

Thanks tonyav
I appreciate your interesting contribution.
The first picture (then and now) on the website above, which is not working, was a few LCVP's and LCP's loaded up with American crew and soldiers in a what looks like a S. Coast estuary, maybe Newhaven. I won't be beaten. "I will return". :-) Thanks again.

[tonyav]

Good luck, retrocop.

[retrocop]

That was quick. Perseverance pays off. Hope this site can be opened on this attempt. Your link shows a lot of photos but didn't, it seems, show the LCVP's etc in Newhaven that,hopefully this link will show
http://thebrigade.com/2014/06/05/d-day-then-and-now-55-hq-photos/

[tonyav]

Yep, that link works, retrocop.

[retrocop]

Stand corrected,on the main :-), them was Mainly LCA's

[vetuste_ennemi]

For those of you interested in rational discourse on the subject I recommend the historian A.C. Grayling's "The Dead Cities" which examines the political and strategic background to, and the moral issues raised by, the bombing of the German cities by Bomber Command and the same campaign by the Americans against Japan's industrial centres (preceding and culminating in Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Grayling's own assessment is obvious, but (as far as a layman like me can judge) his presentation of the facts is lucid and fair.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Thanks, Divebuddy. Before I wrote the post I had actually walked over to the bookshelf, checked the title and returned to the laptop. Some memories (like some wines) don't travel well.

[Peter Pedant]

atomic bomb and Dresden
well the German atomic scientists seemed to have believed it
this is from the Farm Hall transcripts [ the which transcripts ? ]

Heisenberg three times tells a story about being contacted from someone in the German Foreign Office about uranium questions:

HEISENBERG: About a year ago, I heard from Segner [probably Sethke] from the Foreign Office that the Americans had threatened to drop a uranium bomb on Dresden if we didn’t surrender soon. At the time I was asked whether I thought it possible, and, with complete conviction, I replied: “No.”


Later, when Heisenberg tells another version of the story (this time making his answer that it was “absolutely possible”), he specifies it was in July 1944 and that it was “a senior SS official” who had asked him about the bomb.


And given a choice between believing Heisenberg ( he doesnt seem to have been uncertain about that ) or Divebuddy I would of course tip DB

[Peter Pedant]

...ever since the deliberate mass bombing of civilians in the second world war, and as a direct response to it, the international community has outlawed the practice. It first tried to do so in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, but the UK and the US would not agree, since to do so would have been an admission of guilt for their systematic "area bombing" of German and Japanese civilians.
— A.C. Grayling

Similarly, British philosopher A. C. Grayling has described British area bombardment as an "immoral act" and "moral crime" because "destroying everything ... contravenes every moral and humanitarian principle debated in connection with the just conduct of war", but "it is not strictly correct to describe area bombing as a 'war crime'."

Oh Look DB even someone called A C Grayling concludes it is not a war crime. I think I will vote with him.

[Peter Pedant]

Thank you DB - er aren't you arguing my point that Dresden was pencilled in as a possible target ?

I agree that the fact that the Germans Who Knew, thought it was, doesnt mean that the Americans thought it was ... [ Dresden as a target ]

I first heard it in the sixties at school - Dresden was a target
I didnt think the idea was contentious let alone 'tosh'

all the post war inquiries struck me as obvious apologies ( in a technical sense that the course of events was inevitable and therefore not blameworthy )

but as you know -today's tosh is tomorrows obvious unalloyed truth


The Germans have a much more sanguine view of 'that is how you win wars'. No one seems to have commented that after Nagasaki the Japanese were slow to surrender so Lemay arranged for Tokyo to be flattened a bit more