Paul
Wray
Two
Tales of One City: The Dresden Debate
A Discussion of the Perspectives on the Bombing
of Dresden.
With
reference to David Irving, Frederick Taylor and other relevant
historians and writers, discuss the different perspectives in the
debate over the Bombing of Dresden.
The
concept of Dresden as a contextual oddity stems from the belief that
by February 1945 World War II was over. Dresden was long considered a
target that was destroyed by just a single air raid. Chosen at a time
when the war was winding down. Irving makes the bold claim that
Dresden was “The Virgin Target” in The
Destruction of Dresden
as a chapter name. This is done to further highlight the contextual
contrast between the bombing of Dresden and the rest of the bomber
war. Irving
doesn't ignore other raids on the city but minimizes their impact and
severity,
stating, “The
local inhabitants unanimously agreed among themselves
that the bombing was the result of some unfortunate oversight by an
allied navigator.”1
Irving
argues in hindsight that Dresden was bombed in the last moments of
World War II. Irving forgets to mention the Ardennes offensive, one
of the main reasons for the renewed bomber offensive. The best he
mentions is that, “When Stalin had failed to launch his major
winter offensive during Hitler’s attack in the Ardennes, the Allies
had sent to Moscow Eisenhower’s deputy.”2
Irving downplays the seriousness of the war, acknowledging the
existence and impact of Schnorkel submarines, the ME-262 or the V.2
rockets but fails to see the affect they would have on the Allied
strategy.3
Irving understates the context of the time to fit his goal of
creating guilt in the British psyche whilst at the same time being
generating sympathy for Germany. This is seen in his many negative
portrayals of Arthur Harris, calling him at on point “'butcher'
Harris.”4
Dresden
is shown as an attack warranted by it's context in Frederick Taylor's
book, Dresden:
Tuesday 13 February 1945.
Frederick Taylor emphasizes the importance and magnitude of the
previous raids. Taylor recounts the previous raids to show that the
populace did in fact expect a raid and that the final bombing was
consistent with other cities. He describes the first raid on August
24th,
1944 as being the reason, “'Trust in the leadership is diminishing
rapidly.'”5
proposing that residents were beginning to suspect themselves as
targets, contrary to Irving. Taylor also describes the second raid on
the city in a similar manner to further his idea that the main attack
on Dresden was not a surprise for the populace as, “This was the
111th
raid alarm of the war... the trek down to into the shelter was not to
be in vain.”6
The much heavier raid on the January 16th
which killed over 300 people also illustrated that Dresden had been a
target for a much longer time than Irving suggested.7
Sebastian
Cox, in his article in Firestorm:
The Bombing of Dresden, 1945
titled 'The
Dresden Raids: Why and How' puts the raids into political and
military context. Cox offers interesting insights into the context of
the raid, describing the gloomy atmosphere of the Allied High Command
at the time and outlining potential reasons why.
"....the
heady hopes of optimism of the previous summer had been replaced by a
distinctly chill air of pessimism. This pessimism was the result of
the failure of the Arnhem airborne landings (Operation
Garden Market) and
the subsequent ability of the German Army to deliver a further
temporary, if at the time deeply worrying, reverse to the Allies
during the Ardennes offensive. These events suggested strongly that
the German capacity for resistance was as yet very far from being
overcome.”8
The
Allies
had to face the Wehrmacht's continued defiance despite the
inevitability of defeat. The notion that the war was to soon end in
Europe is dispelled by Cox. The Ardennes offensive, along with the
failure of Operation Garden Market, exasperated the frailty of Allied
High Command's hope in a quick victory.
Cox shows further problems faced by Allied High Command by
highlighting the “...the grave danger the jet fighters posed”9
and “a
renewed maritime threat, in the form of schnorkel-equipped submarines
had arisen.”10
These prospects of a new and reinvigorated war meant it was,
“possible that both air and naval supremacy might yet be challenged
by German technological ingenuity."11
Cox's argument against Irving places emphasis on sentient empathy to
understand the nature of the raid and why it occurred.
David
Irving made a poignant case in 1963 that Dresden was not a military
target, referred to by A.C Grayling as”seemingly arbitrary
attacks.”12
He presents Dresden as being a weakly defended city, economically
based on, “theatres,
museums, cultural institutions and home-industries.”13
and that they were impossible to spot by air, “...it would have
been hard to single out any one plant of major importance.”14
Irving's claim of an industry-weak Dresden is not as holistic as it
seems, as he relents and states that munitions as well as Junker and
V.2 manufacturing firms existed but assures that, “None of these
plants... was within three miles of the city centre, or within the
area marked out for R.A.F. Bomber Command’s two devastating night
attacks.”15
All of these claims were based on evidence from prior to 1963, which
were unreliable.
Irving
dismisses the official claims of the RAF that it was seen as a major
transport link. Irving believed that, “At the time of the attack,
however, the city’s strategic significance was less than marginal”16
He based his argument on selective evidence at the time which shows
that the raids had minimal impact on the city.
“Rail
transport through the
city – the ostensible target of the raids – had barely suffered,
confirmed the police chief. Although traffic had halted for a few
days, by the end of the month the trains were rolling through
again.23
Years
later, the east German (Soviet zone) history of the destruction and
reconstruction of Dresden stated: ‘The railroad lines were not
particularly seriously damaged; an emergency service was able to
repair them so swiftly that no significant dislocation of traffic
resulted.’ After referring to the devastation wrought on the city’s
architectural treasures the history continued that ‘in contrast to
these cultural monuments and the entire Dresden inner city, these
transport installations were not destroyed.....”17
Although
the initial damage had caused traffic to halt briefly the rail yards
were unscathed compared to the destruction that had been hoped
according to Irving. However several problems arise in these claims.
His information was based off unreliable Soviet sources and didn't
consider that the attack was still a legitimate target, as Bomber
Command had still aimed for them.
The
question of the city's vital infrastructure as being unaffected is
stressed by Alexander
McKee. McKee in his book Dresden 1945, The Devil's Tinderbox acknowledges that although the marshaling yards and train works were important they were not the target. “In my view Dresden had been bombed for political reasons and not military reasons; but again, without effect. There was misery, but it did not affect the war.”18 He insists that they could not have been the target because of the Nazi built Autobahns, “But the main road route to the Front was carried by the Hitler-built Autobahn which crossed the river Elbe outside the city limits entirely to the west.”19 He instead offers his view that, “What they were looking for was a big built-up area which they could burn, and that Dresden possessed in full measure.20 These show that McKee presents a sensationalistic view and his first words are “Dresden was a famous massacre from the start.”21 McKee's context as a Allied foot soldier is prevalent, “ I only saw a dozen or so buildings which were intact....there was a peculiar smell.....The smell of human flesh, long dead, decomposing in the heat.”22 This affects his argument as to whether it was a legitimate question as he is unable to consider the perspective of Bomber Command or the bomber crews.
McKee. McKee in his book Dresden 1945, The Devil's Tinderbox acknowledges that although the marshaling yards and train works were important they were not the target. “In my view Dresden had been bombed for political reasons and not military reasons; but again, without effect. There was misery, but it did not affect the war.”18 He insists that they could not have been the target because of the Nazi built Autobahns, “But the main road route to the Front was carried by the Hitler-built Autobahn which crossed the river Elbe outside the city limits entirely to the west.”19 He instead offers his view that, “What they were looking for was a big built-up area which they could burn, and that Dresden possessed in full measure.20 These show that McKee presents a sensationalistic view and his first words are “Dresden was a famous massacre from the start.”21 McKee's context as a Allied foot soldier is prevalent, “ I only saw a dozen or so buildings which were intact....there was a peculiar smell.....The smell of human flesh, long dead, decomposing in the heat.”22 This affects his argument as to whether it was a legitimate question as he is unable to consider the perspective of Bomber Command or the bomber crews.
The
theory of Dresden as an industrial target is currently lead by
Frederick Taylor who provides it as the reason Dresden was bombed. He
describes the work done by those before him as unjustly causing
“unmitigated shame”23
He redicles the perception that Dresden didn't have war industries in
Dresden:
Tuesday 13 February 1945
saying, “The notion that Dresden, a city of almost three-quarters
of a million hardworking human beings in one of the oldest industrial
regions of Europe, concerned itself only with harmless pottery.”24
Taylor provides evidence that Dresden was a target, “the city of
Dresden contained 127 factories that
had been assigned their own three-letter manufacturing codes,”25
and using the details of converted factories assumes that, “Dresden
quickly followed the rest of Germany into an integrated war
economy.”26
Cox
writes similarly that: Dresden was ranked at number twenty in the
list of the hundred German towns of leading economic importance to
the German war effort.27
Grayling
offers a philosophical approach to the legitimacy of the raid from a
moral view point. Grayling makes a clear point about bombing
civilians proffering the idea that, “Allied bombing in the Second
World War was on a whole or part morally wrong,”28
challenging the notion that war creates forgivable necessities.
Grayling uses the memo from Winston Churchill's minute on the 28th
of March that stated, “..I feel the need for more precise
concentration upon military objectives, such as oil and
communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than mere
acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.”29
He uses this to show the immediate reactions of Churchill to the
bombing of Dresden which shows that it was a moral issue from the
beginning, however this completely ignores the context of the from a
military view point.
The
bombing of Dresden is likened to the blockade of WWI in Hew
Strachan's article, “Strategic Bombing and Civilian Casualties”
in which he shows that both were a part of total war. As such, “It
defined not only what would be required of one's own population, but
what one could inflict on the enemy's.”30
He makes it clear that the WWI blockade was worse than the bomber
campaign as “600,000 died, fewer than were reckoned to have
succumbed to the navy's blockade in the First World War.”31
Hence Strachan concludes that Dresden is not
a war crime as contextually the blockade and air offensive had the
same objective of fighting an enemy engaged in total war, and offers
a legitimate opinion based on his work as a WW1 historian.
The
actual attack on Dresden was, according to Irving, specifically
significant and different from other bombings. The bomb load was,
“Unlike
most of the air raids on German targets at this stage of the war, the
force was
carrying about seventy-five percent incendiaries.”32
This is a phenomenal claim to make but with the restriction of
wartime documents relating to Dresden Irving couldn't be disproved.
Another claim he makes is that:
“Mustangs
concentrated on the river banks, where masses of bombed out people
had gathered. Another section took on the targets in the Grosser
Garten area. These strafing attacks were apparently designed to
perfect the task outlined in the air commanders’ directives as
‘causing confusion in the civilian evacuation from the east.’”33
Irving
is claiming that P-51 Mustangs deliberately attacked civilians after
the raids. More importantly he implies that they were under direct
orders from allied high command as they were following the “air
commanders' directives” in carrying out the attack. Irving
substantiates his claims with eye-witness testimonies such as, “The
fighter aircraft came right down and a woman near us suddenly
screamed out, shot in the stomach.”34
and of a Breslau refugee at the Leipziger Strasse rail bridge saying,
“We could hear the aircraft diving low and then they began firing
from all their guns. We
were
fortunate, we were able to crawl into a doorway.”35
Irving does consider the fallibility of memory however and adds as a
side note that “(U.S. Air Force historians have pointed out,
‘Nothing in the records can be found to substantiate such claims,’
and it is only fair to record this.)”36
Kurt Vonnegut in his surreal book
Slaughterhouse 5
exaggerates the heartlessness of the bomber crews stating that,
“...the
widespread use of burning jellied gasoline on human beings. It was
dropped on them from airplanes. Robots did the dropping. They had no
conscience, and had no circuits which would allow them to imagine
what was happening to the people on the ground."37
Vonnegut's book is heavily
influenced by his presence during the raids as a POW and by his
anti-Vietnam War stance. Vonnegut's context and trust in Irving's
book prevented him from considering other perspectives.
The
incendiary claims have been ridiculed by most modern historians as
being unsubstantiated. Cox counters Irving's claim of a higher
proportion of incendiaries as"Despite
claims to the contrary, the proportion of incendiaries carried as a
percentage of the bomb-load was by no means unusual for a Bomber
Command area raid."38
and
bases this off Air Historical Branch papers that show, “Dresden
ranked only tenth in terms of the percentage of incendiaries used
with 44 percent.”39
Cox can do this because of the release of Air Ministry documents
after the war's end, which were unavailable to Irving and so Cox is
correcting past histories.
The
P-51 strafing runs are attacked by Taylor who proves that they are
insubstantial. He shows that the strafing could not have happened
above Dresden as, “the Twentieth Fighter Group was....at the time
more than eighty miles away escorting the attack not against Dresden
but Prague.”40
Taylor continues to attack Irving's claims stating that, “...nor -
perhaps more significantly – in German accounts originating at the
time are such daylight strafing attacks mentioned.”41
This new information was discovered after the Soviet bloc fell and
allowed historians to reveal the true extent of the raids and
progress history on Dresden.
The
most controversial aspect of the debate is the casualty figures and
their implications. David Irving estimated in 1963 that 135,000
people had died in the raids based on a report from Hans Voigt.42
However Irving was forced to retract this statement in latter
editions as, “the author felt bound to submit to The Times an
immediate letter drawing attention
to these new documents...”43
In his 1999 edition he makes a final estimate of, “Sixty thousand
or more; perhaps a hundred thousand – certainly the largest single
air raid massacre of the War in Europe.”44
However Irving contradicts himself over the figures also stating,
“The night’s
death toll in Dresden was estimated to him at a quarter of a
million.”45
These figures allow
Irving to draw comparisons between Hiroshima stating, “(The
raid was thus comparable with...the atomic bombing of Hiroshima five
months later...”46
and more importantly the Holocaust so that he can place Dresden in a
'class' of it's own. This is so he can elicit sympathy for Germans
whilst depicting the Allies as monstrous.
In
his book Hitler's
War and the War Path,
Irving refers to Dresden as, “the
holocaust of Dresden”47
Irving deliberately uses his rhetoric describing the casualty figures
so that they can parallel the historical status of the Holocaust. In
a lecture in 1988 Irving states, “...the biggest lie that we
propagated as far as I can see was the gas chamber lie.”48
Irving at the end of The
Destruction of Dresden
refers to Dresden as “the
worst single massacre in European history.”49
Irving does this to highlight the 'holocaust' brought about on the
Germans in WW2, whilst systematically understating the actual
Holocaust.
Alexander
McKee states that the casualty figures, “...might easily be doubled
to 70,000 without much fear of exaggeration. But no one will ever
know for certain.” However this assessment of casualties does not
consider the administrative strain of dealing with a city that
the numbers of refugee equalled or exceeded the original population
(3 quarters of a million).
McKee's figures are based upon Irving's and are dismissed by Taylor
as, “McKee
simply decided to double the number because he didn't think it sound
like enough."
50
McKee's estimations are flawed as they are based upon a lack of
evidence, highlighting the need for empirical sources.
Most
modern historians believe in a much lower casualty figure for the
bombing of Dresden. The current and accepted figures are between
20,000 and 35,000, figures found due to the opening of East German
archives,
“the
definite figure in those documents, (the
Final Report and Situational Report) were between 18,000 and 22,000,
estimates of final numbers around 25,000...the figures were being
issued as an exceptional measure in order to scotch rumours of
gigantic casualties...”51
The
archives allowed for historians to correct the mistakes of past
writers with new evidence. Taylor describes the argument of other
historians as insisting, “in the face of the documentary
evidence...”52
Michael Burleigh is critical of revisionism on the bomber campaign
and summarises the methodology of Irving and other historians
supporting him, “"...bent on inculpating Allied bomber crews
in war crimes by the not very subtle method of allowing the German
terminology of mass murder to leach into this context."53
The debate over Dresden has had –
and still will have – an impact on the history of bombing in the
Second World War as well as histories of the Holocaust. This is
because it is a rallying point for those who condemn the Allies for
their questionable actions in the war. However new evidence used by
Frederick Taylor has played a great part in rewriting the history of
Dresden whilst David Irving's preconceptions have had a polarising
effect. The debate over the Bombing of Dresden shows that history
changes over time and that subjective history leads to errors in
history.
1D.
Irving, Apocalypse 1945 The Destruction of Dresden,
Focal Point, 1999, p. 90 (internet edition)
2Irving,
Apocalypse, p. 110
3Ibid.,
p.115 (jet and submarine
production)
4Ibid.,
p. 79
5F.
Taylor, Dresden
Tuesday 13 February 1945, Bloomsbury
, 2005, p. 167 (Quoting a Dresden police officer.)
6Ibid.,
p. 222
7Ibid.,
pp. 230-231
8S.
Cox, The Dresden Raids: Why and How in P Addison and JA Crang (ed.),
Firestorm: The bombing of Dresden, 1945,
Ivan R. Dee, 2006, p. 19
9Ibid.,
p. 20
10Ibid.,
p. 20
11Ibid.,
p. 20
12A.C.
Grayling, Amongst the Dead Cities the history and moral legacy of
the WWII bombings of civilians in Germany and Japan,
Walker & Company, 2006, p. 73
13Irving,
op. Cit, p. 91
14Ibid.,
p. 91
15Ibid.,
p. 92
16Ibid.,
p. 93
17Ibid.,
pp. 230-231
19Ibid.,
p. 70
20Ibid.,
p. 70
21Ibid.,
p. 10
22Ibid.,
p. 11
23Taylor,
op. Cit, p. xi
24Ibid.,
p. xii
25Ibid.,
p. 169
26Ibid.,
p.170
27Cox,
op. Cit, p. 53
28Grayling,
op. Cit, p. 5
29Ibid.,
p. 175
30H.
Strachan, Strategic Bombing and Civilian Questions in P Addison and
JA Crang (ed.), Firestorm: The bombing of Dresden, 1945,
Ivan R. Dee, 2006, p. 2
31Ibid.,
p. 17
32Irving,
op. Cit, p. 173
33Ibid.,
p. 237
34Irving,
op. Cit, p. 237
35Ibid.,
p. 238
36Ibid.,
p. 237
37K.
Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5,
Vintage, 2000, p. 138 (originally published 1969, New York)
38Cox,
op. Cit., p. 31
39Ibid.,
p. 223 (end notes)
40Taylor,
op. Cit, p. 491
41Ibid.,
p. 494
42Ibid.,
p. 504
43Irving.,
op. Cit, p.289
44Ibid.,
p.289
45D.
Irving, Hitler's War and the War Path,
Focal Point, 2002, p.789
46Ibid.,
p.289
47Irving,
HW at WP, op. Cit, p.
796
48http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTFDLYxh1KU,
viewed: 25/08/2012, 27:06
49Irving,
Destruction, op. Cit,
p. 324
50Taylor,
op. Cit, p. 507
51Ibid.,
p. 505-6
52Ibid.,
p. 506
53M.
Burleigh, Moral Combat: A history of World War II,
HarperPress, 2010,
pp. x-xi
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