Some quotes from Irving.

Not endowed with any one capital industry like those of Essen and Hamburg, even

though Dresden was of a comparable size, the city’s economy had been sustained in

peacetime by its theatres, museums, cultural institutions and home-industries. Even

by the end of 1944 it would have been hard to single out any one plant of major

importance, apart from the Ruhland oil refinery twenty-five miles to the North. Pg 91.

‘The importance of

Dresden as a railroad centre, which was considerable,’ declared Hampe later, ‘was

not diminished by more than three days as a result of these three air raids.’

This observation must seem surprising when viewed in the light of the Allied claims

that the attack on Dresden’s transportation installations had been a success. These

claims could hardly have been expressed in stronger terms: the official American

history of the U.S. Army Air Forces operations in the European theatre, while referring

sceptically to how the R.A.F.’s post-raid report ‘went to unusual length to explain

how the city had grown into a great industrial centre and was therefore an

important target,’ itself then continued with the palliative, but no less dubious report

that ‘if casualties were exceptionally high and damage to residential areas great,

it was also evident that [Dresden’s] industrial and transportation establishments had

been blotted out.’21 Pg.230

Of the other industrial installations none was totally destroyed, 136 were badly

damaged, twenty-eight less seriously damaged, and thirty-five slightly damaged. Typical

of the first category was the Saxon Serum Works, which had been knocked out of

production for the time being, others, reported the police chief, were expected to

resume fifty to one hundred percent operations within three to six weeks.10 Pg. 276

None of these plants, it should be added by way of anticipating what will be said below, 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. Pg. 92

At the time of the attack, however, the city’s strategic significance was less than

marginal, and it is questionable whether at that stage of the war Dresden was likely

to become a second Breslau; it was not until April 14, 1945 that the Gauleiter of

Saxony, Martin Mutschmann, declared Dresden formally a fortress. Pg. 93

Tragic and

even pathetic though they may appear in retrospect, the rumours were nevertheless

believed not only by the 650,000 permanent residents of Dresden, but by the city’s

own officials; and they were impressed in turn upon the million or more evacuees Pg. 94

As it is of some significance to consider whether the city was in February 1945 an

undefended city within the meaning of the 1907 The Hague Convention, it will be

necessary to examine the establishment and subsequent total dispersal of the city’s

flak batteries, before the date of the triple blow. Pg. 95