Slaughterhouse Five Analysis Part 1

Continuing on with my assault on the world of literature today's analysis is Slaughterhouse Five.
       By Kurt Vonnegut, it is a novel loosely based on his experiences as a prisoner of war during the bombing of Dresden. Before I critique the book I believe a look into the context Vonnegut's book is quite in order. Slaughterhouse Five was released in 1969 one year after the battle of Khe San, generally believed to be the turning point of the Vietnam War as support for the war waned after the battle. The book's timing couldn't have been better, as it's decidedly anti-war stance favoured war protester's.
        How exactly is the book anti-war? well to quote Vonnegut in his upfront style of writing that contains the usual amount of wit for himself:
"....he raised an eyebrow and inquired,'Is it an anti-war book?'
'Yes,' I said. 'I guess.'
........'Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?'
What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that too."(p 3)
       He openly admits, and as it will become apparent, that Slaughterhouse Five is against war and so hence against the bombing of Dresden. Despite this he is realistic, something the hippy movement of the 1960's lacked, in stating that wars happen and continue to happen. This would, if he were a historian, place him under the Greek (Thucydides) concepts of the nature of humanity and that things SIMILAR in history will reoccur, but not in any deep, significant way.
       Vonnegut is very much so against Dresden being bombed, though he uses other texts, be it one he invented, to represent his feelings towards the raids. He mentions the book 'Gutless Wonder' by Kilgore Trout ( A fictional character in more than a few of his books). The book is called Gutless Wonder in an attack on the bomber crews of the the RAF/USAAF, calling the bombing of a civilian city, as he does in his forward manner. He continues his off-sided, be it frightfully witty, condemnation of the bombing;
       "....it (Gutless Wonder) predicted 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."(p 138)
       This is straight forward reference to Dresden, considering the mention of incendiary bombs in the raid and Vonnegut's mentioning of Napalm ("jellied gasoline"). Vonnegut consider's the crews that bombed the incapable of understanding the suffering those present in Dresden during the raids (including Vonnegut himself). This paragraph also alludes to the pain, both mentally and physically, that the bombings caused him. This is important because this bitterness is prevalent throughout the book.
       The referral of the bomber crews as robots parallels with the routine like approach to the raid the further callousness of the Air Ministry as the war dragged on, the thought of "Victory by Christmas" was found wanting after the Ardennes offensive.
       Cities as a military objective is also brought up bluntly in the book, be it hard to spot. Though it is a sight bit of an over-reach I still believe it is relevant.
       "Rumfoord was thinking in a military manner: that an inconvenient person, one whose death he wished very much, for practical reasons, was suffering from a repulsive disease."
       As is debated throughout the argument over Dresden, it's legitimacy as a military objective is questioned by Vonnegut. In this quote he is stating that during war, at the very least during the ending of World War Two, Military commanders will conjure up reasons to allow them to kill civilians simply because they were inconvenient to the military.
       David Irving is mentioned in Slaughterhouse Five, which is primarily the one of the reasons I read the book, the other being the first-hand perspective, despite it's absurdness. However, I believe that Irving in this book is a blog on it's own and so this will be all for now.

Moral Combat Analysis Part 2 (Dresden)

       Moral Combat mentions Dresden only briefly, from pages 512 to 514 to be exact. It proffers a militarily viable reason for bombing the city, 

       "Dresden also recommended itself, not only because it contained 130 war-related factories, but because it was already overcrowded with civilian refugees fleeing from further east."
Burleigh is stating quite directly that Dresden was a military target. The thought that such  large city, with it's hub of transport capabilities would go unnoticed for the entire length of the war, especially considering the dangerously, yet limited success of the Ardennes Offensive. Burleigh argues that Dresden did have factories producing materials for the war, a fact he no doubt garnered from the research of Frederick Taylor.  The claim of fleeing civilians as a military target is a rather more tenuous issue. It would be correct to say that Burleigh is arguing bombing a refugee laden city would cause transport and communication problems, hampering the Wehrmact's ability to rage war in the east and so morally bomb-able.
Burleigh estimates between 25,000 and 35,000 people perished in the combined RAF and USAAF raids, a far cry from a certain historians claims and much more in line with modern, conservative casualty figures. But enough of a single sentence.
Burleigh gives the pragmatic view of the old contemporary Arthur Harris in this fairly poignant sentence.
       "Harris thought the criticism the raid had attracted was due sentimentality of Dresden's Glorious past, as epitomised by Meissen porcelain - which the city did not, in fact, produce."
Dresden's illustrious past as the "Florence of the Elbe" is seen by most conservative military historians as a root to the Dresden debate. Non-conservative views of Dresden's bombing point that the extensive damage done to the city's cultural icons and old town centre can not be forgiven by a few proven facts and well sustained arguments of the raids legitimacy. These same people, more regularly referring to themselves as philosophers than historians, are more ready to accept that Dresden is famous for Meissen porcelain yet stalwartly deny that a single war factory could exist in this picture perfect, innocent city.
David Irving once again becomes embroiled in the telling of the Dresden story, which may be his long lasting legacy.
       "The raids on Dresden were not a war crime, since the relevant international laws on aerial bombardment were not codified or ratified until 1977, and they cannot be equated with Nazi crimes against humanity, though some historians have certainly endeavoured to do so with more or less malign intent."
To be colloquial, this is the crux, the nutshell if you will, of Burleigh's opinion, be it limited, of the Dresden raids. the raids can never be consider legally a war crime as they didn't exist in aerial bombing till 1977, and to parallel the bombing of cities to the malicious mass-murdering or the Jewish populations of Europe are as unfounded as they are ludicrous.  Burleigh's end to this statement is his personal opinion that anyone who tries to draw similarities between aerial warfare and a genocide rampage are doing so on the basis of some past prejudice.
I believe that to end this discussion on the Dresden aspects of Moral Combat is this appropriate quote from this book:
       "The brutal reality was that Dresden was just another name on the target board, to which much unjustified retrospective significance has been attached."

Moral Combat Analysis - Part 1 (introduction)

Michael Burleigh has written a rather interesting book on the Second World War. As much as I hate writing in a way to suggest that this is a book review but the occasion demands it. Burleigh aims at an historical view of the moral issues of fighting the Second World War, in fact he says so in his introduction:
       "A lawyer or philosopher would write a different, perhaps more prescriptive book, using the past to dictate present or future conduct in under the guise of writing history, This book is different in that it deals with on-the-spot behaviour, rather than how these things look in armchair-hindsight."
Key example right above here.
Possibly my favourite part of his intro is this rather cynical line where he presents his views on moral relativism (a form of revisionism, which I hate so very, very much).
       "......This exercise in moral relativism (and crude conspiracy theory) is sometimes excused on the grounds that the author is a novelist daringly experimenting with forms that resemble a child's scrapbook. In reality, any half-competent historian would have no difficulty assembling a small book in which Hitler appeared to be defending (German) human rights, or a directory of every leading Nazi's best Jewish friends."
I cannot pretend, neither can anyone else really, at this time that Burleigh is not making a jab, be it in literature, at the ever condemned David Irving. This can be noticed by his mention of Hitler as the directory of Jewish friends as Irving himself did call Hitler the Jews best friend, which is not the most accurate or profoundly intelligent statement made in the history of mankind, unless you are believe in the legitimacy of the Hitler Diaries (Not even I can resist the temptation to slander Irving). Attacking Irving's works and beliefs is not a tremendously hard task, it can be quite very easily likened to swimming down stream. Making a mockery of Irving is in my eyes an easy way to gain credibility for your own work by distancing it from Irving's cesspit of ignorance.
But why should I mention this at all when I'm talking about Dresden? Because Burleigh mention's the Allied bombing campaign one sentence over, and I like making fun of Irving.
".....,some German historians are 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."
This is Irving and his side of the Dresden argument's methodology.
To summarise this blog Hitler plus six million Jewish murders does not equal the Allied bombing campaign and it's five hundred thousand or so casualties.

Irving and Dresden:

David Irving is, I have and probably will continue to say this, very sympathetic to Germany between 1933 and 1945. This, I believe, is not due to just his biased views on certain subjects and his personal views of those subjects. One must also consider the way in which he collected his evidence and indeed the people who he attained it from, also keeping in mind the context of the time. the early sixties (the time her primarily did his research in) was a fairly tense time regarding Cold War politics, and it can be logically assumed that the Communist rulers of East Germany would jump at the chance to defame their western counterparts, and not giving Irving the necessarily correct information about the bombings and the death toll.

Moral Combat! Again...

To paraphrase Michael Burleigh: "Bombing Dresden wasn't a war crime"
enough said.

Moral Combat!

Hey sir I was wondering if you knew what chapter Michael Burleigh's specifically mentions Dresden in depth? It's preface is quite interesting however.

Slaughterhouse Five

Slaughterhouse Five is an odd book written by an odd man. Kurt Vonnegut uses his description of post bombed Dresden as the surface of the moon to emphasize the horror of the firestorm. he quotes Irving's book .................................................
He also states that 130,000 people died as a result of the bombing.

blah blah blah will update later.