Bombing of Dresden - "It's impossible to justify. The bombing of Dresden - memories of hell Dresden was bombed at the request of the Soviet command
What about Dresden??? Well, that's what everyone is wearing with Dresden ???
Allies bombed EVERYTHING in a row, all cities
Hamburg - 37,554 people died as a result of that grandiose operation of the allies in late July - early August 1943. Of every thousand people in the population, an average of 22.1 people died then. 25,965 people, or almost 70% of those who died, lived in the Grossbezirk Mitte, located in the city center. The casualty ratio in the area was 59.6 per thousand of its inhabitants. In the Grossbezirk Mitte area, the death toll of women was 45% higher than that of men. And the number of people who died in Grossbezirk Mitte residential buildings turned out to be even higher compared to the average data for the central areas. Losses here amounted to 18,500 people, that is, more than half of the officially recorded total number of deaths.
So, for example, in the Hammerbrook area, the average losses were 361.5 people per thousand, that is, one in three found their death in the flames of fires. In the other two districts, these figures are 267.2 and 160 people per thousand inhabitants, respectively.
The death toll from the Allied bombings in Hamburg exceeds the death toll in the whole state of Bavaria. But even this figure of 37,554 does not reflect the exact number of victims. After a number of years of research, it became clear that at least 17,372 more people should be added to this.
What happened during the large-scale air strikes with the use of a huge number of incendiary bombs was beyond all previous practice of city services and the population.
While firefighters and civil defense officials tried to fight the first fires and dig out the first victims from under the ruins, with every chance of saving people, a second powerful blow hit the densely built-up residential areas of the eastern part of the city. Numerous fires arose, which soon grew into a fiery sea that flooded entire neighborhoods, destroying everything and everyone in its path.
The third and fourth wave of bombers completed the destructive work. The fire fell on those areas of the city that were spared by the previous bombardments. At the same time, two neighboring small towns of Elmshorn and Wedel were bombed, where a stream of refugees from Hamburg flocked. These operations, carried out by the RAF under the cover of night, were clearly terror raids. In the daytime, US Air Force bombers attacked military and industrial facilities in the dock area, primarily shipyards where warships and submarines were being built. The Americans used mainly high-explosive bombs.
Bold attempts to fight the fire in the city itself, which in the early stages of the bombing were made by fire brigades with the help of civil defense forces and the population, were soon stopped by more and more streams of incendiary bombs falling on the roofs, and then from the roofs. New fires sprang up all over the place. Finally, due to an acute shortage of water, fire extinguishing work was completely paralyzed. Some idea of the intensity of the air raids can be given by the fact that 65 incendiary bombs, four containers of phosphorus and one high-explosive bomb were dropped on one of the sites measuring approximately 75 by 45 meters. The British dropped 155 incendiary bombs on one of the medium factories. These figures reflect not only the extent of the catastrophe that the city had to endure. They give an approximate ratio between the weight of incendiary and high-explosive bombs dropped on Hamburg.
The city's water supply system received 847 direct hits from high-explosive bombs, and very soon the water supply system was no longer able to provide even the basic needs of the population. This greatly hampered the work of city fire brigades. Firefighters received so many calls that they were simply not able to cope with them. The city authorities counted on receiving outside help, but what could be done when the fires simultaneously engulfed 16,000 buildings, and city blocks heated up to terrifying temperatures (more than 800 degrees Celsius), when not individual houses, but entire areas were engulfed in flames? The heat led to the fact that the flames covered more and more buildings, and this happened so quickly that hundreds of men, women and children who tried to escape were burned alive right in the streets and squares.
In many places, the burning ruins exuded such heat that even after the flames themselves had been knocked out, several days passed before one could simply try to get into these streets. In areas of fire only 30 hours after the end of the raids, it was possible to see at least something in natural light. Before that, dense clouds of black smoke mixed with dust completely obscured even the cloudless sky.
In the same way, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are good, but there was Tokyo, where the Ami also worked with land mines and lighters on the Yap huts made of paper and wood, and where the losses were greater than in X and N.
AND MOST IMPORTANTLY - the bombing of Murmansk and Stalingrad - where is the regret and worries about the killed civilians ???
The Germans just got a response - and yes, Guernica, conceived by Speerle was the first - so "I will repay"
The bombing of Dresden is probably the most terrible picture of the Allied bombing of German cities.
But as the facts show, in fact, this particular case is for some reason strongly made the main one.
Official chronology of events
On January 16, 1945, the British and American Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) predicted that the likely worst-case scenario was that the Soviet winter offensive and the Allied spring offensive in the west would not lead to decisive success, after which coordination of the offensive in the west in August 1945 would be required. with the Soviet summer offensive of 1945. (Biddle)
On January 21, the US Air Force Strategic Intelligence Committee concluded that the Western Allied armies had lost the initiative on the Western Front, and that the Luftwaffe had been able to recover to a degree not considered possible by Allied intelligence 8 months earlier.
On the same day, the JIC called for an urgent review of the use of bomber forces, admonishing that the degree of success achieved by the current Soviet offensive would in all likelihood be decisive for the duration of the war, and that timed strikes against Berlin would help the Russians, especially if they would be coordinated with the isolation of East Prussia and the capture of Breslau.
It was emphasized that the disruption of the German railway communication would prevent the orderly movement of German troops to the eastern front and the operation of the German military machine.
On the same day, further discussion at RAF command led to the conclusion that the bombing of key German transport hubs along the eastern front—Berlin, Leipzig, Chemnitz, and Dresden—would be an important aid to the Soviet offensive.
In particular, the Dresden junction was the center of Germany's transport and logistics network on the eastern front. Three bundles of Reich routes converged into it and passed through it in the directions west-east and north-south.
Dresden provided transportation to the eastern front of German forces and military supplies from the west of Germany, from Italy and Norway and their transportation along the eastern front line
On January 25, in a new report, British intelligence noted that “the success of the current Russian offensive will apparently have a decisive influence on the duration of the war. We consider it expedient to urgently consider the issue of assistance that can be provided to the Russians by the strategic aviation of Great Britain and the United States over the next few weeks.
In the evening of the same day, Winston Churchill, having read the report, addressed the Secretary of the Air Force, Archibald Archibald Sinclair had a dispatch asking what could be done to "how the Germans should be treated as they retreated from Breslau" (200 km east of Dresden).
On January 26, Sinclair noted in his reply that “the best use of strategic air power seems to be the bombing of German oil refineries; German units retreating from Breslau must be bombed by front-line aircraft (from low altitudes), and not by strategic ones (from high altitudes)”; noting, however, that
"under favorable weather conditions, one can consider the bombing of large cities in eastern Germany, such as Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz."
Churchill expressed dissatisfaction with the restrained tone of the response and demanded that the possibility of bombing Berlin and other major cities in eastern Germany be considered.
Churchill's wish for concrete plans for strikes against the cities of East Germany was forwarded by Sinclair to Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Portal, who in turn forwarded it to his deputy Norman Bottomley
On 27 January, Bottomley sent Arthur Harris, Chief of the RAF Bomber Command, an order to bomb Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz as soon as the weather allowed. Sinclair reported to Churchill on the measures taken, noting that "a sudden massive bombardment will not only bring confusion to the evacuation from the east, but also make it difficult to transfer troops from the west."
On January 28, Churchill, having read Sinclair's reply, made no further comments.
The first myth is about the request of the USSR
On February 4, on the first day of the Yalta Conference, the First Deputy Chief of the Soviet General Staff, General A. I. Antonov, raised at the conference the question of the need to hinder the transfer of German troops to the eastern front by delivering air strikes on Berlin and Leipzig. Charles Portal, also at Yalta, asked Bottomley to send him a list of targets to discuss with the USSR.
The list sent to Bottomley included oil refineries, tank and aircraft factories, as well as Berlin and Dresden.
However, there is no mention of Dresden by the Soviet side in official documents.
On February 8, the High Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe informed the RAF and the US Air Force that Dresden was included in the list of targets for bombing. On the same day, the US military mission in Moscow sent an official notification to the Soviet side about the inclusion of Dresden in the list of targets.
An RAF memorandum which was made known to British pilots the night before the attack (13 February) stated that:
" Dresden, the 7th largest city in Germany ... at the moment the largest enemy area still not bombed.
In the middle of winter, with refugees heading west and troops having to be quartered somewhere, housing is in short supply as workers, refugees, and troops need to be accommodated, as well as government offices evacuated from other areas.
Once widely known for its porcelain production, Dresden has developed into a major industrial center... The purpose of the attack is to strike the enemy where they feel it most, behind a partially collapsed front... and at the same time show the Russians when they arrive in the city what the Royal Air Force is capable of. ."
He was proposed as a target by the Chief of Staff of the Royal Air Force, Sir Charles Portal, on the basis of a list presented by his deputy, Sir Norman Bottomley.
The practical planning of the operation began, which was joined by the command of the US Army Air Forces in Europe, led by General Karl A. Spaats.
Already on February 7, Spaats informed Major General J. R. Dean, chief of the American military mission in Moscow, about the priority targets of the 8th Air Force (in descending order of importance): Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Chemnitz. Several other less important cities were mentioned.
Thus, there were no requests and demands regarding Dresden from the Soviet side. The Soviet allies were informed of the upcoming bombardment.
Myth two - Dresden was not bombed before
Ka time bombed and did it at the request of the USSR. But in 1944.
The chronology of the main events is as follows:
- 1942-1944: Stalin receives assurances from the Western Allies that the USSR can count on the help of Western strategic aviation to support the Soviet offensive in Germany.
- June-July 1944: The Soviet command sends through Novikov requests to the Western Allies to bombard Dresden in support of the Soviet offensive.
- October 7, 1944: The USAAF bombs the Dresden railway junction.
In German sources, the events look like this:
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Dresden erleidet zwischen 12:34 und 12:36 Uhr den ersten Luftangriff. 29 US-amerikanische Bomber werfen 290 Sprengbomben zu je 250 kg auf den Stadtteil Friedrichstadt ab. Ziele sind der Bahnhof, der Rüstungsbetrieb Seidel & Naumann und der Hafen. Insgesamt 270 Menschen sterben bei diesem Bombenangriff |
Those. the allies bombed the railway junction for 2 minutes and damaged it. They knew exactly where the railway lines were and they didn't have to bomb the city to do it.
Everything was done right.
Myth three - there was no military production in Dresden
Now there is a myth that there was no military production there - but this is not so.
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five, wrote:
“All the other big cities in Germany were terribly bombed and burned. In Dresden, not even a single glass cracked. Every day, sirens howled like hell, people went to the basements and listened to the radio there. But the planes always went to other places - Leipzig, Chemnitz, Plauen and all sorts of other points.Things like that.
The steam heating in Dresden was still whistling merrily. The trams rang. The lights came on when the switches were flipped. There were restaurants and theaters. The zoo was open. The city mainly produced drugs, canned food and cigarettes."
In Historical Analysis of the 14-15 Feb. 1945 Bombing of Dresden Prepared by: USAF Historical Division, Research Studies Institute, Air University says:
Vonnegut fought in the American army, was captured by the Germans and became an eyewitness to the bombing. The book, written by him 23 years after the war, is still popular today. And, accordingly, it has an impact on public opinion.
There are such facts.
"As of February 1945, there were at least 110 industrial establishments in Dresden that were legitimate military targets *.
Only 50 thousand people were employed in the production of weapons. Among these enterprises are various facilities for the production of components for the aircraft industry; poison gas factory (Chemische Fabric Goye); plant of anti-aircraft and field guns Leman; Germany's largest opto-mechanical enterprise Zeiss Ikon A.G.**; as well as enterprises producing X-ray apparatus and electrical equipment (Koch u. Sterzel A.G.), gearboxes and differentials (Saxoniswerke) and electrical measuring instruments (Gebruder Bassler)."
In a word, the city was a powerful military production
Dresden was defended by anti-aircraft batteries, which were partly administered by the Dresden, partly by the Berlin District Commands of the Luftwaffe. In addition, the Germans did not declare Dresden an open city.
So the capital of Saxony was a legitimate military target, that's right. But in such a case, strikes need to bomb military production, and not residential areas.
There were many military and military-industrial installations in Dresden, but such installations were located in huge numbers throughout Germany, significantly more than could be covered by the combined capacity of British and American aviation.
Therefore, the categories of targets had to be strictly prioritized (depending on changing conditions, the priorities shifted: for example, after the revival of the Luftwaffe, the power grid moved down the list, and the aircraft industry plants moved up) and it was possible to target only the highest priority targets - which still remained a very large number throughout Germany, including its western part.
At the same time, Dresden was at the limit of the Allied aviation range, its bombardment was dangerous and difficult (pilots only spent 8 hours on oxygen in the "there" direction) and required exceptional complexity of execution (creation of multiple distracting forces, etc.).
By the combination of these factors, in view of the Dresden military-industrial targets alone, Dresden would probably have avoided massive bombardments.
Myth four - Dresden suffered the worst losses
Bobmarting Dresden is very much promoted, that's why.
RAF Commodore Colin McKay Grierson once said at a press briefing on 16 February:
"First of all, Dresden and cities like it are centers of gravity for refugees. In addition, through these cities there is movement to the Russian front, from West to East, and they are quite close to the front line. I think all this justifies the bombing."
In response to further questions from reporters, Grierson said (off the record):
"Our goal is to destroy all that is left of the German fighting spirit."
The Associated Press spread his words around the world, neutrals started talking about the allies heading for terrorist bombings - and as a result, Grierson's stupid behavior, combined with the efforts of Goebbels' propagandists, led to Dresden becoming a "special attention zone."
As if it was the first city destroyed by British aircraft. As if 40,000 people didn't die in Hamburg. As if other German cities were not affected at all by the bombing.
For example, the percentage of destruction of houses in Dresden barely reached 50%.
And here, for reference, a list of German cities destroyed by more than 50%:
50% - Ludwigshafen, Worms
51% - Bremen, Hannover, Nuremberg, Remscheid, Bochum
52% - Essen, Darmstadt
53% - Cochem
54% - Hamburg, Mainz
55% - Neckarsulm, Soest
56% - Aachen, Münster, Heilbronn
60% - Erkelenz
63% - Wilhelmshaven, Koblenz
64% - Bingerbrück, Cologne, Pforzheim
65% - Dortmund
66% - Crailsheim
67% - Giessen
68% - Hanau, Kassel
69% - Düren
70% - Altenkirchen, Bruchsal
72% - Geilenkirchen
74% - Donauwörth
75% - Remagen, Würzburg
78% - Emden
80% - Prüm, Wesel
85% - Xanten, Zulpich
91% - Emmerich
97% - Julich
The raid on Dresden was not unusual. In July 1943, a British air raid on Hamburg caused a similar firestorm that destroyed 56 percent of the city's buildings and 40,000 residents.
In Dresden, 25,000 people died, 15,000 fewer than in Hamburg.
In fact, the allies destroyed almost completely cities that often had no strategic importance at all.
And those strategically important cities that were attacked, first of all, the civilian population died, and military production suffered minimal losses.
Wesel suffered much more than Dresden
General Dwight Eisenhower inspects the citadel of the city of Jülich, this small city was completely destroyed, in the truest sense of the word
It was not a military or industrial center, just a city. But today only Dresden is remembered.
Summing up, we can say the following
- The USSR did not ask for the bombing of Dresden in January
- Dresden was a military target
- Dresden was bombed in October 1944 and the strike was chiseled on the railway junction, in order to strike at the transport junction it was not necessary to burn the city
- The scale of the bombing is greatly exaggerated, other, less significant cities suffered much more
Dresden was destroyed by Anglo-American aircraft.
The first bombs were dropped by British planes on February 13, 1945 at 22:14 CET. On February 14, new air strikes were carried out. As a result of the bombardments, alternately high-explosive and incendiary bombs, a giant fiery tornado was formed, the temperature in which reached 1500 ° C.
By February 15, "Florence on the Elbe" turned into a city of ruins, sharing the sad fate of hundreds of Soviet, Polish and German cities.
Dresden shared, one of the most recent, the fate of all the large and medium-sized cities in Germany that came under carpet bombing. But it was the name "Dresden" that became a household name for the senseless destruction of civilians and cultural values, just as "Hiroshima" is forever associated with the atomic apocalypse.
Why Dresden? Obviously, as the most egregious example: the very end of the war, a hospital city, a huge number of civilian casualties, and also because Dresden is one of the cultural symbols of Europe. "Florence on the Elbe", the brilliant capital of the Saxon kingdom, sung in the paintings of Bellotto. Everything that had been built there for centuries was erased in a few hours of targeted bombing.
For those who need more details, there is a very informative Wikipedia article on "Dresden Bombing".
The Allies almost did not bomb industrial facilities, and those minor damages that were almost accidentally inflicted on some factories were quickly eliminated, workers were replaced by prisoners of war if necessary, thus the military industry functioned surprisingly successfully. “We were furious,” recalls Forte, “when, after the bombing, we came out of the cellars into the ruins of the streets and saw that the factories where tanks and guns were produced remained untouched. In this state they remained until the very surrender.
Therein lies a mystery that we, perhaps, will never discover - why the Anglo-American aircraft for a long time refused to strike at the Nazi Reich in its most vulnerable place - to bomb the equipment of the oil industry, which supplies fuel to the hordes of German tanks driving across the Russian expanses. Until May 1944, only 1.1 percent of all bombing fell on these targets. The clue may be the fact that these facilities were built with Anglo-American funds, capital was involved in the construction Standard Oil of New Jersey and English Royal Dutch Shell . Not least of all was the interest of the Western Allies, who wanted to provide the German tanks with enough fuel to keep the Russians away from their borders long enough.
Main station, 1944
Frauenkirche, the bell church, a baroque masterpiece, a symbol of the city. Around 1940-44:
She also: 
1943, Hofkirche:
1940s:
1944 The owner of the slide scratched Nazi symbols from the flags:
Old Market (Altmarkt):
Dresden Castle:
Another view of the castle through the Zwinger:
New City Hall:
View of the city from the Elbe:
Dresden tram line 25:
All this lived out its last days ...
*****
... At the beginning of 1945, Allied aircraft sowed fromdeath and destruction over all of Germany - but the old Saxon Dresden remained an island of calm amidst this nightmare.
Famous as a cultural center that did not have military production, it was virtually unprotected from strikes from the sky. Only one squadron was located at one time in this city of artists and artisans, but even that was gone by 1945. Outwardly, one might get the impression that all the belligerents gave Dresden the status of an "open city" in accordance with some kind of gentleman's agreement.
By Thursday, February 13, the flood of refugees fleeing the advance of the Red Army, which was already 60 miles away, had increased the city's population to more than a million. Some of the refugees went through all sorts of horrors and were brought to a near death, which forced later researchers to think about the proportions of what Stalin knew and was subject to, and what was done without his knowledge or against his will.
There was a carnival. Usually these days the carnival atmosphere prevailed in Dresden. This time the atmosphere was rather gloomy. Refugees arrived every hour, and thousands of people were camped right on the streets, barely covered in rags and shivering from the cold.
However, people felt relatively safe; and although the mood was gloomy, the circus performers gave performances in crowded halls, where thousands of unfortunate people came to forget for a while about the horrors of war. Groups of well-dressed girls tried to strengthen the spirit of the exhausted with songs and poems. They were greeted with half-sad smiles, but the mood rose ...
No one at that moment could have imagined that in less than a day these innocent children would be burned alive in a fiery tornado created by "civilized" Anglo-Americans.
When the first alarm signals marked the beginning of the 14-hour hell, the Dresdeners obediently dispersed to their shelters. But - without any enthusiasm, believing that the alarm is false. Their city had never before been attacked from the air. Many would never have believed that a great Democrat like Winston Churchill, along with another great Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, would decide to execute Dresden with an all-out bombing.
1946:
Altstadt, the old town, has become like this...
The ruins of the famous Frauenkirche in 1946:
After the bombing, the huge church-bell still stood for several hours, radiating unbearable heat for dozens of meters around it. But then it still collapsed.
The GDR authorities acted very wisely by conserving these ruins as a monument to the victims of the war.
When the time came, this symbol of the city was restored, yes,
that every surviving stone returned to its place.
Although the monument is 80% recreated from new materials, its language does not dare to call it a "remake".
All the ruins, except for valuable architectural monuments, were dismantled in the 1950s.
Surprisingly, in the most destroyed cities of Europe, ancient temples turned out to be the most intact. Probably, then they built stronger. It seems to be the Hofkirche tower:
The whole castle burned out and these ruins began to be restored, it seems, only in the late 1980s:
A tram among the ruins, very reminiscent of the post-war Koenigsberg-Kaliningrad:
Railway station: 
Vienna Square:
These ruins will stand for a long time yet:
The restoration of the historic center of Dresden has been going on for more than 60 years
and will probably take several more decades.
In the 2000s, the authorities moved from the restoration of individual monuments to the reconstruction of entire neighborhoods. The largest project was the construction "from scratch"
the historic district of the New Market (Neumarkt) around the restored Frauenkirche.
The Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945 is still one of the most recognizable episodes of World War II, thanks in no small part to Vonnegut's book Massacre Five, or the Children's Crusade. I wanted to bring together some of the data I have and give my opinion on the causes and results of this raid. This post is quite long, mind you.
Part I. Dresden and the Nazi war economy
At the beginning of World War II, 642,000 people lived in Dresden. This made it the seventh largest German city - after Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Leipzig and Essen.
The city was an extremely important transport hub, where three major railway lines converged: Berlin-Prague-Vienna, Munich-Breslau and Hamburg-Leipzig. The importance of Dresden to the German transport network is clear from the fact that in 1939 Saxony was the seventh largest German state in terms of area and length of railways, and third in terms of total freight tonnage. Here is a map of the German railways in 1932 (click for a larger resolution):
Here is another card. It reads better than the previous one, but only those railway junctions that were bombed by Allied aircraft are shown (click for larger resolution):
According to the USAF, by 1945 there were up to 110 important factories and industrial facilities in the city. Up to fifty thousand people worked at factories related to the production of military products. In particular, in Dresden there were: distributed aircraft production, chemical weapons production (Chemische Fabric Goye & Company), X-ray machine manufacturer (Koch & Sterzel AG), anti-aircraft and field artillery production (Lehman), perhaps the most important optical factory in Germany (Zeiss Ikon AG), and electrical and mechanical engineering companies (eg Gebruder Bassler and Saxoniswerke). Also in the city there was an arsenal and barracks.
Part II. Causes of the February raid on the city
First, let's take a look at the situation on the Soviet-German front in early 1945 (click for a larger resolution):
And now let's pay attention to an excerpt from the protocol from the materials of the Yalta Conference.
Crimean conference. Recording of the meeting of heads of government
February 4, 1945, 5 p.m., Livadia Palace
Roosevelt, asks someone to report on the situation on the Soviet-German front. Stalin replies that he can propose that the report be made by the Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, General of the Army Antonov.
Antonov: "1. From January 12-15, Soviet troops went on the offensive on the front from the Neman River to the Carpathians, stretching 700 kilometers.
<...>
7. Probable actions of the enemy:
a) The Germans will defend Berlin, for which they will try to delay the advance of Soviet troops on the line of the Oder River, organizing defense here at the expense of retreating troops and reserves transferred from Germany, Western Europe and Italy.
For the defense of Pomerania, the enemy will try to use his Courland grouping, transferring it by sea across the Vistula.
b) The Germans will cover the Vienna sector as firmly as possible, reinforcing it with troops operating in Italy.
8. Transfer of enemy troops:
a) On our front have already appeared:
from the central regions of Germany - 9 divisions
from the Western European front - 6 divisions
from Italy - 1 division
16 divisions
Are in transit:
4 armored divisions
1 motorized division
________________________________________
5 divisions.
b) Probably, up to 30-35 divisions will be transferred (at the expense of the Western European front, Norway, Italy and reserves located in Germany).
Thus, an additional 35-40 divisions may appear on our front.
I will add on my own that
9. Our wishes:
a) Accelerate the transition of the allied forces to the offensive on the western front, for which the situation is now very favorable:
1) the defeat of the Germans on the eastern front;
2) the defeat of the German group advancing in the Ardennes;
3) the weakening of the German forces in the west due to the transfer of their reserves to the east.
It is advisable to start the offensive in the first half of February.
b) By air strikes on communications, to prevent the enemy from transferring his troops to the east from the western front, from Norway and Italy; in particular, to paralyze nodes Berlin and Leipzig.
c) Do not allow the enemy to withdraw their forces from Italy."
(The text of Antonov's message was delivered in writing to Roosevelt and Churchill.)
Western sources mention that Antonov's request for air strikes was the end result of negotiations between Stalin and Tedder on January 15, 1945, during which, among other things, the use of Allied strategic aviation for the joint purposes of the Red Army and the Western powers was discussed. Unfortunately, I could not find the minutes of this meeting on the Internet, so if someone has the text "Memorandum of Conference with Marshal Stalin, 15 January 1945" or "22378, US Military Mission Moscow, 16 January 1945" - it would be very grateful. On January 31, 1945, Tedder signed a directive that made Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden the second priority target for Allied strategic bombers, in order to "make it difficult to transfer reinforcements from other fronts."
The attentive reader, of course, has already noticed that Dresden did not appear in Antonov's request. But if you look at the train maps and information on rail transport in Saxony from the first part of this post, the inclusion of Dresden in the list of targets seems quite logical from the British side. After all, the essence of Antonov's request is the desire "by air strikes on communications to prevent the enemy from transferring his troops to the east from the western front," and not "in particular, to paralyze the Berlin and Leipzig nodes." All three cities, Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin, are key and vital centers of railway communications in the eastern part of Germany. Knock them out and the ability of the Germans to transfer cargo will be dealt a tangible blow.
It is still unclear to me whether the Soviet side specifically asked for the bombing of the city of Dresden in addition to Leipzig and Berlin - I have no documents confirming this. But the fact that this city was included in the list of three priority goals as part of the cooperation of the allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, in my opinion, is obvious. Would Dresden have been bombed in the first months of 1945 without the request of the Red Army to strike at German communications? Do not know. It is quite possible that yes. In any case, this is already an alternative history. In real history, on February 8, 1945, Bomber Command and the United States Strategic Air Forces were informed by Allied High Command that Dresden was one of the targets chosen because of its importance to the Eastern Front.
Let me briefly note that other reasons for the bombing of Dresden are often mentioned (especially in Soviet historiography). One of them is an attempt to deprive the USSR of the reparations due to it. The other is "intimidation" of the Soviet leadership by demonstrating the capabilities of strategic bombers. These versions seem unconvincing to me, and below, in the fifth part of the post, I will explain in more detail why.
Part III. Plaque
The raid on the night of February 14-15 was carried out by 1299 strategic bombers: 527 American and 722 British. 3906.9 tons of bombs were dropped. The Americans dropped 953.3 tons of high-explosive and 294.3 tons of incendiary bombs, trying to get into the Dresden marshalling yards using the H2X radar. The British dropped 1,477.7 tons of high-explosive and 1,181.6 tons of incendiary bombs on urban areas, euphemistically called "industrial areas" in documents of that time. Here is a map of the city, for understanding:
1 - the Heinz-Steyer stadium, which the British bombers went out to as a landmark, and began to fan out and bomb.
2 - marshalling yard Dresden-Friedrichstadt
3 - train station Dresden-Neustadt
4 - Central Station
5 - Parliament of Saxony, town hall, etc. - city center.
How exactly the fan of British bombers was moving is not very clear. I came across such a picture, but in my opinion this is not official data, but the memories of one of the pilots.
An interesting detail: in Dresden at the time of the raid, it seems that there was not a single anti-aircraft artillery battalion at all. Back in 1944, it was all transferred to the protection of synthetic gasoline plants (for example, Leuna) and hydrogenation plants (for example, Pölitz and Böhlen). As a matter of fact, it was thanks to the absence of anti-aircraft artillery fire that a very good concentration of bombs was obtained. After all, the fire of anti-aircraft artillery forces the bombers to climb higher, worsening their accuracy; well, the anti-aircraft maneuvers of the pilots and the general jitters of accuracy do not improve.
Separately, it is worth noting that at the same time, in February, after an almost year-long break, the Americans carried out two raids on Berlin: on February 3 by forces of 1003 B-17s and on February 26 by forces of 1184 B-17s. Also, on February 27, they also carried out a raid on the railway junction in the center of Leipzig with the forces of 756 B-17s. I don't have such accurate data on the British, but I suspect that they also participated in the raids on Berlin and Leipzig.
Part IV. The consequences of the raid on Dresden
The exact number of victims of the bombing will never be known. According to the German police, on March 22, 1945, 18,375 people were found dead in the city as a result of the bombing. Between the bombings and 31 March 1945, 22,096 people were buried. By 1970, another 1,900 corpses had been found during construction work. The modern German estimate of casualties is approximately 25,000. In particular, quite recently, after six years of work, the commission of historians, established in 2004 at the insistence of local authorities, came to the same figure (report in German). It is worth mentioning that for a long time another estimate of the number of victims was called - 250,000 people. For the first time, this estimate, as far as I understand, appeared during the war - this figure was announced by the Goebbels Propaganda Ministry. Then she appeared in Irving's book and was mentioned in Soviet literature for a long time. In the fifth part of the post, I will try to explain why such a number of victims seems unlikely to me.
The raid destroyed or seriously damaged 23% of industrial buildings, 56% of non-industrial buildings (not including residential) and approximately 50% of housing units (ie apartments, single-family houses, etc.). 78,000 housing units were destroyed; 27.7 thousand units turned out to be uninhabitable with the possibility of repair; 64.5 thousand units were damaged.
USAF estimates that Dresden's military production capacity fell by about 80% in the first days after the raid. Most railway stations, cargo terminals, depots and warehouses were either completely destroyed or damaged to varying degrees of severity. The Carolabrücke bridge over the Elbe is no longer passable. Other railway bridges (notably the firebombed Marienbrücke) were closed for one to several weeks. Traffic on the bridges was considered unsafe, plus many of the bridges were already mined, and the Germans feared an accidental explosion.
Part V. Myths
"Dresden was bombed to deprive the USSR of reparations"
The USSR received reparations not from specifically agreed objects, but on the principle of "what I want." And whether or not a specific Dresden would have been bombed, it didn’t play any role. In Yalta and Potsdam, the "share" of the USSR (from which it was shared with Poland) was determined in the amount of 10 billion dollars. Along with the army trophy teams, they also attracted specialists in the "dismantling" of enterprises, where specialists from the relevant industries were involved. Not only every People's Commissariat of Industrial Profile, but also many large Soviet enterprises, as well as various institutions that had nothing to do with industry, sent their own "dismantlers" to Germany. It got to the point of a madhouse - for example, the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports instructed its teams to dismantle swimming pools. The atmosphere was well described by Chertok in Vol. 1 "Rockets and People". If anyone is interested, a good work on this subject is M. Semiryaga, "How We Ruled Germany." There is a download online.
In principle, the figure of 10 billion dollars was taken from the ceiling by the chairman of the Reparation Commission, Ambassador I.M. Maisky, who recommended this amount to Stalin, and, in the opinion of all experts, did not cover the losses of the USSR (and even taking into account the fact that much more than 10 billion were actually taken away in reparations, they still did not close the losses from the war). But, on the other hand, the value of the property available in Germany many times exceeded this amount. Therefore, the Allies bombed the economy of the Reich "a lot" or "little"; Soviet reparations in absolute numbers (and in physical volumes) were not affected at all.
In general, the USSR was completely indifferent to the fact that Germany was being torn apart. Yes, and he acted accordingly. To take the same assault on Koenigsberg, which was not even particularly necessary from a military point of view, where a month before the end of the war, about half of the housing stock was smashed by artillery. Did the military worry that this city would then enter the Soviet zone of occupation? Unlikely.
"Dresden was bombed for the purpose of intimidation"
This version is simply incomprehensible to me. What a thousand strategic bombers could do to the city became very clear after Hamburg in 1943. The Soviet leadership had all the British data on the results of that raid. Dresden was nothing new here.
"250 thousand people were killed in Dresden"
This is extremely unlikely. The fact that modern German estimates are different, I have already mentioned. As additional circumstantial evidence, take a look at this table. This is Dresden, along with four other cities that have the highest percentage of deaths as a result of a single raid. In Dresden, the number of inhabitants is listed as one million due to the influx of refugees from the eastern regions of Germany. As you can see, 250 thousand victims would be extremely out of the general range.
| Town | Population at the time of the raid | Killed during a raid | Share of the total number of inhabitants |
| Darmstadt | 109 000 | 8,100 | 0,075 |
| Kassel | 220 000 | 8 659 | 0,039 |
| Dresden | 1 000 000 | 25 000 | 0,025 |
| Hamburg | 1 738 000 | 41 800 | 0,024 |
| Wuppertal | 400 000 | 5 219 | 0,013 |
"Dresden is the most affected city in the entire Second World War"
B O a larger percentage of the population than in Dresden was killed in one raid in Darmstadt and Kassel; a larger number of victims were killed in Hamburg. This is not counting the bombings in Japan, Tokyo alone is worth something.
Regarding the area of destruction, here is a list of cities in which the area of destruction was 50% or more of the total area of buildings (i.e. more than in Dresden):
50% - Ludwigshafen, Worms
51% - Bremen, Hannover, Nuremberg, Remscheid, Bochum
52% - Essen, Darmstadt
53% - Cochem
54% - Hamburg, Mainz
55% - Neckarsulm, Soest
56% - Aachen, Münster, Heilbronn
60% - Erkelenz
63% - Wilhelmshaven, Koblenz
64% - Bingerbrück, Cologne, Pforzheim
65% - Dortmund
66% - Crailsheim
67% - Giessen
68% - Hanau, Kassel
69% - Düren
70% - Altenkirchen, Bruchsal
72% - Geilenkirchen
74% - Donauwörth
75% - Remagen, Würzburg
78% - Emden
80% - Prüm, Wesel
85% - Xanten, Zulpich
91% - Emmerich
97% - Julich
Also, the bombing of Dresden was not exceptional either in terms of the bomb tonnage dropped or in terms of the number of aircraft involved. Here, for example, data on raids on Dresden during the war:
| Number | Number of aircraft | Tons of bombs: total (high explosive/incendiary) |
| October 7, 1944 | 8th A.F. 30 | 72,5 (72,5 / 0) |
| January 16, 1945 | 8th AF 133 | 321,4 (279,8 / 41,6) |
| February 14, 1945 | RAF BC 772 | 2659,3 (1477,7 / 1181,6) |
| February 14, 1945 | 8th AF 316 | 782 (487,7 / 294,3) |
| February 15, 1945 | 8th AF 211 | 465,6 (465,6 / 0) |
| March 2, 1945 | 8th AF 406 | 1080,8 (940,3 / 140,5) |
| April 17, 1945 | 8th AF 572 | 1690,9 (1526,4 / 164,5) |
| April 17, 1945 | 8th A.F.8 | 28,0 (28,0 / 0) |
But the raids on Munich by the US Air Force in the summer of 1944:
In addition, the total number of bombs dropped during the war
| Town | Population in 1939 | Tonnage of bombs dropped during the war |
| Berlin | 4 339 000 | 67 607,6 |
| Hamburg | 1 129 000 | 38 687,6 |
| Munich | 841 000 | 27 110,9 |
| Koln | 772 000 | 44 923,2 |
| Leipzig | 707 000 | 11 616,4 |
| Essen | 667 000 | 37 938,0 |
| Dresden | 642 000 | 7 100,5 |
This is a difficult question in general.
In short, it was not out of innate sadism that the British set fire to German cities. The fact is that daytime raids in the first half of the war turned out to be practically impossible due to too high losses of bombers. At first, the Americans also honestly tried to bomb point targets during the day, but after terrible losses in the period from August to October 1943 (Regensburg, Schweinfurt, Stuttgart, Bremen-Wegesack-Wanzig-Marienburg-Anklam, the second Schweinfurt) they realized that daytime point raids without fighter cover end very badly, and also switched to night raids.
And at night, on a four-engine strategic bomber of that era, even getting into the city was a relatively difficult task. In June-July 1941, the British conducted a study of the real effectiveness of night bombing (then they still bombed point targets). It turned out that:
1) Only one of the three aircraft that reported a successful attack on the target bombed within a radius of 8 kilometers from it.
2) For French ports, this proportion was 2 out of 3, over Germany 1 out of 4, over the Ruhr 1 out of 10 (!).
3) On a full moon, this proportion (over the Ruhr) became 2 out of 5, on moonless nights - 1 out of 15.
4) These figures refer only to aircraft that reported attacking the target (see (1)); there were less than a third of those in each raid.
By the way, during the night raids on the cities of the enemy, the Soviet military aircraft had the same problem: " raids on Helsinki in February 1944 (2120 sorties in total) failed not so much because of losses, but because of the low accuracy of hits. In the first raid, 2100 bombs were dropped, of which only 331 fell on the city. In the second of 4200, only 130 bombs fell on Helsinki, in the third of 9000 bombs only 338 hit the city. As a result, only 134 people were killed in Helsinki. 800 bombs were dropped on Kotka, of which only 35 fell on the territory of the city. During the bombing of Oulu, most of the bombs generally fell on Swedish territory, during the raid on Turku, some of the aircraft mistakenly dropped bombs on Stockholm (!) etc.."
In general, at the beginning and even in the middle of the war, the tactics of night carpet bombing were quite justified due to the low effectiveness of high-precision raids. I recommend Murray's book "Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945", it is available on the Internet. But by the end of the war, when there were horns and legs left from the Luftwaffe and there were effective escort fighters, the British had to abandon this tactic. Unfortunately, they were influenced by the inertia of the early war years, plus the peculiar personality of Harris. Casualties during the night bombing of the Dresden railway junctions located in the city center could not be avoided - the then strategic bombers were not very accurate when bombing on the radar. However, the fact that the British, unlike the Americans, did not even try to carry out bombing on the radar, but deliberately brought their bombing stream to the residential areas of Dresden, can and should be blamed on them.
The end of World War II was nearing. Hitler and Goebbels cheerfully proclaimed words of endurance and resilience, while the Wehrmacht was less and less able to deter the Allied attacks. The Luftwaffe was less and less able to protect the German population from Allied bombs, as the bombing returned to the country, which at the beginning of the war devastated the cities of opponents. On the night of February 13-14, Dresden was practically destroyed to the ground.
Ruins of Dresden
Stefan Fritz is a priest of the restored church of St. Mary in Dresden: the bell that sounds every mass is the bell of peace, it bears the name of the prophet Isaiah and there is an inscription on it: "... and they will beat their swords into plowshares" (the book of the prophet Isaiah 2: 2-4 ).
Since February 1, 2005, the upper platform directly under the golden cross on the tower has been open to visitors. Whoever stands here has a beautiful view of the old and new part of Dresden, which on February 13 and 14, 1945 became the target of bombings.
The date of the raid was determined by weather conditions. On the night of February 13, meteorologists predicted clear skies over Dresden. The command of the British bomber aviation informed the Soviet Army, whose front line was 150 kilometers from the capital of Saxony. On the afternoon of February 13, 245 Lancaster aircraft of the fifth bomber squadron took off from British airfields for a night raid. Resistance was not expected. The city was darkened, there was no street lighting, but some cinemas and cafes were still open - it was the day of the carnival. At 21.40, an air raid began, and twenty minutes later the first bombs fell on the city.
Götz Bergander, the historian and chronicler of those events, was at that time seventeen years old and he lived with his parents in Friedrichstadt, an area located west of the old part of the city. He recalls: “The so-called “illuminator” aircraft were the first to appear over Dresden. They were high-flying bombers that parachuted with brightly glowing white and green illuminating aircraft bombs. They illuminated the city so that the bombers flying behind them could see the city below very well and could descend at a peak up to 300 m above the ground, dropping bombs directly at the intended targets.
After the targets were illuminated and marked, the lead bomber circling over Dresden was ordered to attack at 22.11. Carpet bombing has begun.
The strategy behind it had been developed in great detail three years earlier. On February 14, 1942, a so-called "moral carpet bombing" directive was issued to the British Air Force, which declared the destruction of populated areas essentially a primary objective. This decision provoked a rebuff from British politicians: "Of course, the Germans started it all, but we must not become worse than them." But these considerations had no effect on the increased intensity of air raids. The first target of the new strategy was the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, which was destroyed on Palm Sunday 1942.
From August to October, the commander-in-chief of the British bombers, Arthur Harris, ordered 4 million leaflets to be dropped from aircraft with the following content:
Why are we doing this? Not out of a desire for revenge, although we have not forgotten Warsaw, Rotterdam, Belgrade, London, Plymouth, Coventry. We are bombing Germany, city by city, stronger and stronger, to make it impossible for you to continue the war. This is our goal. We will pursue you relentlessly, city after city: Lübeck, Rostock, Cologne, Emden, Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Duisburg, Hamburg - and the list will be longer. If you want to let yourself be plunged into the abyss along with the Nazis, that's up to you ... In Cologne, Ruhr, Rostock, Lübeck or Emden, they may believe that with our bombing we have already achieved everything we wanted, but we have a different opinion. What you have experienced so far will be incomparable to what is yet to come, once our bomber production has gained momentum and the Americans have doubled or quadrupled our power."
At midnight from February 13 to February 14, 1945, a column of 550 Lancaster bombers moved for a second raid on Dresden, stretching for 200 km. This time, the target could be found easily.
Bergander: “The crews reported that already at a distance of 150 km a red glow was visible, which became more and more. These were fires that their planes were approaching."
Dresden, 1945
During two night raids, 1,400 tons of high-explosive bombs and 1,100 tons of incendiary bombs fell on Dresden. This combination caused a fiery tornado that devastated everything in its path, burning the city and people. The cellars could not provide shelter as before, as the heat and lack of oxygen left no chance for life. Those who still could fled from the city center to the outskirts, or at least to the banks of the Elbe or to the Grossen Garten - a park with an area of about 2 square meters. kilometers.
The dancer and dance teacher Grete Palucca founded a modern dance school in Dresden in 1925 and has since lived in Dresden: “Then I experienced something terrible. I lived in the center of the city, in the house where I lived, almost everyone died, including because they were afraid to go out. After all, we were in the basement, about sixty-three people, and there I said to myself - no, you can die here, because it was not a real bomb shelter. Then I ran straight into the fire and jumped over the wall. Me and another schoolgirl, we were the only ones who got out. Then I experienced something terrible, and then in Grossen Garten I experienced an even greater horror, and it took me two years to overcome it. At night, if in a dream I saw those pictures, I always started screaming.
Wolfgang Fleischer, historian at the Museum of Military History of the Bundeswehr in Dresden: “The Grossen Garten, which extended all the way to the city center, was damaged on the night of February 13th-14th. The inhabitants of Dresden sought salvation from the fiery tornado in it and the zoo adjacent to it. An English ace bomber, circling over the target, saw that a large area immediately near the center of the city was not on fire, like all its other parts, and called in a new column of bombers, which turned this part of the city into flames as well. Numerous residents of Dresden who sought refuge in the Grossen Garten were killed by high-explosive bombs. And the animals that escaped from the zoo after their cages were destroyed - as the newspapers later wrote about it - wandered around the Grossen Garten.
Dresden after the bombing
The third raid took place on the afternoon of February 14th. Still painful memories of carpet bombings of people who tried to hide in the Grossen Garten and on the banks of the Elbe are associated with them. The reports of witnesses contradict the opinions of historians. 35,000 people died in the Dresden fire. (edited by other sources 135.000 people) For the inhabitants of the city, it remained incomprehensible: in a few hours their city was turned into a pile of ruins and ceased to exist. Then no one knew that this could happen in an instant. The shock experienced then left its mark in biographies, messages and oral stories, which were passed on by parents to children and grandchildren.
The last phase of the war demanded an even greater number of casualties. In this last phase, Dresden was neither the first nor the last German city to be destroyed by carpet bombing. The spread of this strategy has raised the doubts that British politicians had. In 1984, noted physicist Freeman Dyson, who worked during World War II at a bomb research center, admitted: name. But I didn't have the courage to do so."
O. Fritz: “I also remember very well what was in the minds of the inhabitants of Dresden - it was a completely unnecessary, meaningless raid, it was a city-museum that did not expect anything like this for itself. This is fully confirmed by the memories of the victims at that time.”
Church of St. Mary
The inhabitants of Dresden have long been proud of their city of art with its baroque castle, the famous art gallery, the museum of the art industry, the church of St. Mary, the choir and opera, the world famous technical university. They expected a milder fate for their magnificent city. But the deadly war unleashed by Germany did not guarantee this to them. In the memories of the older generation about the sufferings personally endured, the bitterness from this unfulfilled hope and the death of the victims they saw are still mixed.
The church of St. Mary, restored today, with burnt fragments of the former building included in its walls, is both a reminder and, at the same time, a symbol of reconciliation.
O. Fritz: “I think our memories should be aimed at giving place to historical truth. We must appreciate that, sixty years after the end of the war, we live in a recreated city, that the greatest efforts have been made for this. We are not in the state we were in after the bombings, and with the peoples with whom Germany used to wage war, we live in European neighborhood and friendship. And this is the greatest blessing that we do not want to lose. The temple we are in is surmounted by a cross given as a gift from the British people.”
Translation from German: Natalia Pyatnitsyna
Editorial material: priest Alexander Ilyashenko
Note from the editor:
As a result of the Anglo-American Air Force total bombing of Germany and Japan, civilians were killed, cities were destroyed, historical and cultural values \u200b\u200bvanished from destruction and in the flames of fires.
“The war was distinguished by two main features: it was surprisingly mobile and unprecedentedly cruel. The first feature was due to the development of science and industry, the second - the decline of religion and the emergence of what, for lack of a generally accepted name, can be called "cadocracy" (from cadocracy - the power of an uneducated crowd, mob). The age of outstanding people has passed, and instead of it the age of the mob has come. The gentleman - a direct descendant of the idealized Christian knight, a model for many generations - is supplanted by a rude, uneducated person. The peoples of the United States and England were inspired that they were waging war "in the name of justice, humanity and Christianity." In reality, however, the Allies returned "to methods of war which civilized nations have long ago cast aside".
In the fires, people were burned alive. As a result of the barbaric bombing in Dresden, 135,000 people died, mostly Germans, of course, but among the dead were prisoners of war: Russians, British, Americans. (J.F.S. Fuller World War II 1939-1945. Foreign Literature Publishing House. Moscow, 1956, p. 529)
In specially designated quarters of the southern suburbs of Dresden in the 2nd half of the 19th century. settled numerous foreigners. Since at the same time they did not integrate into the Evangelical denomination of Dresden, but retained their religion, between 1869 and 1884. four foreign churches were erected. The Anglican, American and Scottish Presbyterian churches were destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1945. Only the Russian Orthodox Church, built in 1872-1874, has survived. for the Russian Mission in the Principality of Saxony.
