Firestorm [The bombing of Dresden]

Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden
By Marshall De Bruhl
Random House, $27.95.

One of my favorite talk radio hosts recently interviewed a member of the evangelical Christian left who expressed sentiments -- to call them arguments would be an overstatement -- against the war in Iraq. The conversation, fairly typical of such exchanges, went something like this:

“When have you been in favor of the United States actually using military force?”

“Well, I guess you would have to say World War II was what you would call a good war."

“What about Dresden? You bring up Abu Ghraib all the time, are you OK with Dresden?”

“Well, horrible things happen in every war, I guess. That’s the problem with Just War theory."

And on it went. Somewhere along the line, majorities on both the right and left have accepted the notion that the Allied bombing raid on the German city of Dresden in February 1945 was tantamount to a war crime. This, in turn, works for the rhetoric on both sides. Conservatives can skewer liberals who use a small incident to justify their opposition to recent wars by throwing Dresden in their faces; while the Left is all too willing to believe the worst of Western militaries in every case.

Even many conservatives who defend the nuking of Hiroshima — and not just those in the Buchanan Brigades — accept that Dresden was an atrocity. Over the years, the politically correct version of Dresden has nearly become the official story.

The rationale behind the conventional wisdom of the Dresden raid as a war crime usually rests on the following assertions:

1. Dresden was not a military target; the bombing solely targeted the civilian population. Critics note the number of museums and cultural treasures of the “Florence of the Elbe,” as if the city were an island of peace and culture in a sea of Nazism. Often mentioned is the number of refugees who had flooded into a city largely ignored by bombers.

2. The war was all but won by the time of the raid, and thus was completely unnecessary. This assumes that Winston Churchill, Arthur “Bomber” Harris and Gen. Spaatz just wanted to kill a large number of German civilians while they still had an excuse.

3. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died. Taking a page from some discredited German bestsellers of the 1950s, novelist Kurt Vonnegut-- who witnessed the bombing as a POW-- famously claimed that more people died in Dresden than in atom-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together. The raid, indeed, played a key role in his best-selling Slaughterhouse Five.

4. The Dresden raid was a unique event. Despite the Blitz and the “around the clock” bombing of German cities, critics contend that this was a cold-blooded experiment in incendiary bombing that removes it from the context of the raging “total war.”

But Marshall De Bruhl begs to differ. In his forcefully argued and remarkably clear-eyed Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden. De Bruhl sifts through mountains of primary sources to vividly recreate the mission and, most importantly, puts the event in its proper context.

De Bruhl spends most of his book detailing the escalation of the air war in Europe that led to the Dresden raid. Ironically, the first blow was struck when German bombers got lost and mistakenly hit London. Churchill ordered that Berlin be struck in retaliation. Ironically, Churchill’s action led to Hitler ordering the Luftwaffe to concentrate on London rather than airfields, which probably saved the Royal Air Force and its ability to defend home turf in the Battle of Britain.

This, however, does not mean that cities were not valuable military targets. As De Bruhl points out, German industry was located in cities, and the so-called “precision bombing” of targets -- with American assertions that a B-17 could put a bomb in a “pickle barrel” -- was mere posturing. In reality, American daylight bombing was only marginally more accurate than British night bombing, though it bore a far greater cost in airmen’s lives.

America's celebrated Norden bombsight and advances in technique over the period of the air war merely meant that progress was made from less than one out of five bombs hitting near the target to just under half.

In short, the only way to stop war-supporting manufacturing in a German city was to bomb in such a way that the whole city paid a heavy price.

1. Dresden was a manufacturer of armaments and a communications center for the Nazis. Yes, the city was filled with refugees and museums. However, it also had many factories of war material. The chaos from the Dresden raid pulled German troops away from the Eastern and Western fronts, and no armaments were manufactured in Dresden after Feb.14, 1945.

2. The war was still on when Dresden was bombed. It’s easy to say in hindsight that the Germans were all but defeated, but the Dresden raid came a few short months after the Battle of the Bulge. Before that surprise setback, “Christmas in Berlin” had been a common battle cry.

3. Civilian deaths, while numerous, are greatly exaggerated by the activists. The chaos of war makes counting difficult, but casualties have been “estimated” at up to 250,000. De Bruhl argues that 25,000 is a more realistic figure, with 35,000 the maximum. At least 50,000 residents worked in producing war material.

4. The Dresden raid was the deadly culmination of a steadily escalating air war against cities by both sides. The Dresden raid was only unique in its effectiveness, not its methodology. The Allies’ air superiority had led to such a pounding of German cities that debate had begun in some quarters over the morality and necessity of “morale” bombing. However, the German V-rockets and the terror they brought ended that debate. In fact, Churchill considered “morale” bombing the only appropriate response as the German rockets had no other purpose than civilian deaths.

Far from being the cold and calculating experiment painted in some accounts of Allied generals seeing how many civilians they could kill for the sheer hell of it, De Bruhl writes that the targeting of Dresden was partially a quirk of the weather.

Operations had been planned for massive bombing to support the Soviets on the Eastern Front on the day of Feb. 13. These missions were scrubbed because of weather — but skies cleared over Dresden long enough to allowed for a rare one-two punch of American daylight and British night bombing. This doomed Dresden, which had seldom been bombed because it was in the eastern part of Germany and was known as “Germany’s bomb shelter” by many of the refugees from the Red Army who were streaming into the city.

De Bruhl illustrates the uncertainties of precision bombing, and undercuts the notion that Dresden was a premeditated atrocity. For instance, the commander of the second wave of British bombers widened the target area on his own because the first wave had been unusually — and unexpectedly -- effective.

So while the wave of American B-17s, which hit the next day, might seem like overkill in hindsight, knowledge in wartime 1945 was not exactly comparable to the instant satellite reconnaissance we take for granted today. In fact, 150 of the B-17s bound for Dresden bombed another city on the bend of a river, the Czech capital of Prague by mistake.

Of course, De Bruhl reminds us that even as Lord Haw Haw’s propaganda broadcast accused Gen. Spaatz of war crimes for the Dresden raid, thousands were being systematically exterminated in concentration camps in the Reich. But then as now, liberal elements in British Parliament and press picked up on enemy accusations and began wringing their hands. Their tears were shed over the abandonment of “precision bombing” — an outcry that led Churchill to begin to backtrack in private memos until Harris brought him back into line.

Bomber Harris remained publicly unapologetic. He was convinced that the bombing helped to shorten the war and save the lives of Allied soldiers.“I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British grenadier,” he defiantly declared.

The mythology of Dresden was solidified by Vonnegut in the liberal mind. Witnessing the awful firestorm and slaughter was a defining moment in his life -- though leftist Vonnegut ironically draws on “The Destruction of Dresden,” a 1963 book by Holocaust denier David Irving. De Bruhl effectively deconstructs both writers.

To add injury to injury, De Bruhl concludes, Dresden fell into Soviet hands, and Germany’s most beautiful city was rebuilt very slowly, often with “ugly socialist architecture” (what P.J. O’Rourke calls “Commie concrete”) with much of the city left in rubble.

That is changing today, De Bruhl writes, as freedom is finally alive in Dresden, with surprisingly little antipathy to outsiders. On the 50th anniversary of the raid, Dresden’s mayor said it best, putting the blame where it really belongs: “We started the fire, and it came back and consumed us.”

I tend to believe that the criticism of the Allied bombing of Dresden was valid -- primarily because the U.S. military denied any involvement in it for some years after the war was over. That's a curious stance to take if Dresden were a legitimate military target.

I will never apologize for any act of the Allies during WWII. I believe the use of escalated terror bobming against Japan and Germany was entirely justified. I believe we need to return to that philosophy today if we want to win this war against Islamic totalitarianism.

Sadly, I don't think we ever will. The west has lost its spine, its will to fight a war for survival. Only those nations willing to defend themselves ruthlessly will survive. Who will it be?

Sadly, I don't think we ever will. The west has lost its spine, its will to fight a war for survival. Only those nations willing to defend themselves ruthlessly will survive. Who will it be?

The ironic thing is that the reason for the west's guilt complex is the crimes of Nazi Germany. Then liberal westerners exonerated the Japanese (for being a non-western people who can't be judged by western standards); then they exonerated the Italians (I vividly recall many years ago a PBS documentary whitewashing Mussolini--not that he was anywhere near as evil as Hitler--and a more recent History Channel documentary on the treatment of Italians in the US during the war). And now because we have assumed the guilt of Nazi Germany, we feel guilty for bombing Nazi Germany!

No wonder today's "philo-Semitic" liberals have adopted David Duke's pal Ahmadinejad as their poster boy!

Read the book "Dresden" by Frederick Taylor.

It was only written in the last 5 years or so. He makes many of the same points that Marshall de Bruhl made.

Though Germany was on the ropes, the Allies felt that Dresden still possessed a significant military-industrial capacity. The Allies also wanted to destroy the rail lines leading in and out of Dresden to keep the Germans from transferring troops from one front to the other.

I think that an argument could be made that the use of incendiary bombs was over-kill (no pun intended). The use of high explosives to accomplish the destruction of the rail lines and smaller factories should have been enough.

But then again, if you were a dead civilian, you probably didn't care whether you were killed by fire or bomb blast.

Thanks for posting this.

You're most welcome.

My own late father was a WWII veteran, having served in North Africa (though after fighting there had ended), Italy (took part in the invasion of Salerno), and back stateside guarding German prisoners.

Don't overlook the fact Hitler declared a "scorched earth" policy. The Dresden bombing was correct.....old news reels
show the people of Dresden with tears in their eyes heiling Hitler as he passed by.....To hell with all revisionists.

3. Civilian deaths, while numerous, are greatly exaggerated by the activists. The chaos of war makes counting difficult, but casualties have been “estimated” at up to 250,000. De Bruhl argues that 25,000 is a more realistic figure, with 35,000 the maximum. At least 50,000 residents worked in producing war material.

Sounds like he's engaging in the same kind of rationale that holocaust skeptics are. Except I don't hear any Germans screaming "Never again"!

I saw a sort little bit of the History Channel's "mail Call" and they were talking about the Air force and LeMay(sp?).

I guess he got frowned upon for firebombing Toyko and a bunch of other cities too. (Toyko firestorm was 12 miles wide and 4 miles deep they said). LeMay's proper response to the cricism was "Then they shouldn't have attacked us".

I might have a problem with Dresden against a less barbaric enemy, but I just can't bring myself to regret any horrible deed that was inflicted upon Nazi Germany. Yes, it was horrible, but Germany didn't seem to have any problem with starving out Leningrad or turning Warsaw to rubble.

Some years back, while I was driving a cab, one of my favorite passengers was a little old German lady. Very reticent and reserved but we got along. She noticed that I always had a book with me, history often as not, and usually military history. One day she poked at the cover of a book I was reading and said "Vor, vor, vy are you always reading about vor? I sort of casually remarked, "What have you seen of war?" She said "Dresden!" I said, "You win." If you have seen the footage on the History or Military channels you've seen the "snowflake" incendiaries. She described seeing them from a railroad underpass and watching the city burn. She had some great stories. She was a Luftwaffe veteran, and married a US artilleryman after the war. She always wanted to go home, she and her family were thrown out shortly after the war started, and was cut off after the war when her hometown was on the wrong side of the "Wall". It was a little town called Penemunde. She passed away just about a year before I stopped driving the cab. One of my greatest regrets in life is that I was never able to get her in contact with an author. She said nobody would be interested anyway. I think she was wrong.

What is missing is that as distasteful as bombing civilians might seem it is those same civilians who back their regimes. Hitler came to power with the popular support of the German people (some of his ideas mirror those held by modern democrats).

Sure there was a secret police. But America of the 1700's threw off an empire that spanned the globe. The Soviet Union ended at the hands of Russians tired of waiting in line for toilet paper.

My point is that these empires only thrived because their people endorsed the despot. This modern notion of engaging hostile governments while holding the people supporting those governments blameless is just absurd.

Just like in that war; until someone with the stones to order bombings against Arab cities; the strongholds of terrorism, the home of their supporters, there is no point in fighting.

I did a paper on this in college a long time ago. From what I was able to discern, it was an experiment to see if a firestorm could be created: first wave was high explosives followed by a second wave that were incendiary. The idea was to blast the wood frame buildings apart, then set them on fire. The huge fire would then create fantastic winds which would feed oxygen into the conflagration, somewhat like what oxygen does for acetylene. Having said that, the Germans had it coming in a BIG way. There was a large ball bearing plant there as well, IIRC.

Sounds like he's engaging in the same kind of rationale that holocaust skeptics are. Except I don't hear any Germans screaming "Never again"!

The bombing of Dresden may be compared to our bombing of Japan or Germany's bombing of Britain, but to compare it to the Nazis' systematic attempt to annihilate an entire people (civilians, women, children) who were not at war with them is absolutely obscene. And I'm far from being a "holocaust liberal."

Shame on you.

During WWII it was considered common sense to bomb large population centers. You wanted to lower the population. That's where the soldiers and their support systems

It also insured fewer people to control during the occupation and rebuilding.

Before I get flamed; I didn't make the rules. I'm just telling it the way it was.

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