Posted on 02/13/2013 9:04:00 AM PST by Kid Shelleen
It's the 68th anniversary of the Dresden bombing. In Britain, we don't think about it as much as, perhaps, we should. The bare facts. More than 1,200 RAF and USAAF bombers attacked the city between the 13th and 15th of February 1945, in four raids. They dropped 3,900 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs, killing between 22,000 and 25,000 people, almost all civilians. The city's anti-aircraft defences had all been moved to defend the industrial works of the Ruhr valley. The details are chilling.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
We’re talking about WW2 here. You put up a post saying God didn’t want women and kids being firebombed. Are you on the same planet? I went through all the posts and didn’t see anything by you talking about WW1. I saw some people putting up posts that had you pegged. Point of fact is no German cities were firebombed in WW1. You’re weird.
On the contrary: it made an enormous difference - once it was carried out in earnest. Speer himself admitted as much.
An example ~ there was a time in recent American history where traffic light systems were expensive and you'd almost have to have someone killed at an intersection to justify their installation. Roughly, in that period, a human life was literally worth a traffic light.
Through passage of time and advances in technology the light systems have gotten much cheaper. With that the highway engineers have begun a practice of installing them long before they even do traffic flow studies that will tell them what they need to know to time the lights.
When it comes to Freerepublic there's an age difference in those who appreciate traffic light systems and those who despise them ~ and it almost looks like the difference between Conservatism and Libertarianism.
The real difference is one of experience and age. I was the cause of a traffic light getting installed ~ a railroad crossing light in fact ~ we slid down an icy hill into the path off a speeding freight train! Nobody died but the railroad couldn't afford too much of that sort of thing ~ so in went the light.
In contrast, we have had folks here arguing that the yellow light timing is too short for them to stop at intersections so they hate the red light runner photo systems! They simply haven't been T-boned yet! It's coming though.
Age and experience ~ and a willingness to recognize that. Something you don't see over among the leftwingtards. Not only do they not have moral codes, they have no experience worth having.
I think that it’s called war and THAT’S the reason you think long and hard before YOU start one!
I think that it’s called war and THAT’S the reason you think long and hard before YOU start one!
After 9/11, I suddenly understood the decision to inter the Japanese!
After 9/11, I suddenly understood the decision to inter the Japanese!
I may indeed be weird, but consider my post:
It’s unfortunate that Germany bore the brunt of WWI and severely punished economically with totally unreasonable lreparations as a result of the cowardly French and the ignorant rulers of the United Kingdom.
They not only paved the way for a Hitler, but insured WWII and the Japanese entry into that war.
There are so many good histories that delve deeply into this that it would be good for us to read and understand how this catastrophe happened.
So many weasels in the equation like Stalin who murdered his own civilians by the millions far exceeding Herr Hitler’s tally.
We had to fight WWII. The U.S. didn't need to get involved with WWI. Had we kept our nose out, there would have been no need for WWII. And if you think about it, there's nothing about the way the European Union is run that is significantly different than the kind of government the Kaiser would have imposed - except that there would probably be a lot fewer muzzies in Europe right now, the economy would be sound, and the Bolsheviks would have never made it as far West because the Kaiser would have contained the Russians.
Woodrow Wilson goes down in my book as the most destructive U.S. president that ever was. He really screwed up the course of human history - globally - with our entry into that war and the creation of the Federal Reserve. He set the course for the destruction of our Freedom.
Well, I wouldn’t go that far. Britain’s two main contributing factors were:
1. Going along with the froggies in slapping Germany with an onorous reparations tab following the WWI armistice which completely devestated the nation and its people. There was no sense to this dastardly deed as the origins of the conflict were so damned convoluted as to escape reason.
2. Listening the United States. For decades Britain had a treaty with Japan that benefitted both sides and both enjoyed an amicable relationship. The US goaded Britain into arbitraily cancelling that treaty which miffed the Japanese big time. The Japanese knew that pressure was exerted by the US and it was from this point on that they knew they had two key enemies (besides the USSR, that is.).
Japan’s entry into WWII alongside Nazi German was a direct result of this treaty cancellation.
Oh, and Scotty, one more thing.
The action by the UK to sign a one-sided pact with Poland (which at that time had a contemptable president and foreign office) was indeed a trigger mechanism.
I’m not excusing the Nazis here who played Britain like a harp, as well as many other nations, but the starving, deprived Germans were ready to grasp at straws and, due to conivving, the Nazis arrived to ‘save the day.’ (Temporarily for the populace.)
Not remotely. The Kaiser and his allies wanted a quick victorious war. They seized upon the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand as a pretext to launch it. And they nearly got one by following the Schlieffen plan.
However the Schlieffen plan involved invading neutral Belgium. This brought Britain directly into the war (due to the strategic importance of the Scheldt as an invasion platform).
Also the atrocities performed in Belgium moved American opinion sharply against Germany: a fact which made America's entry into the war much more likely.
Finally: the French proved a harder nut to crack than the German high command expected. The BEF forced Kluck to abandon the Schlieffen plan, exposing his armies flank to the garrison of Paris: this in turn made possible the victorious Battle of the Marne that left the warring sides locked in trench warfare.
Be in no doubt. The Germans started the war. They wanted the war. They didn't (of course) want the war that actually developed: four years of trench warfare and a capitulation forced by blockade.
They could in time have paid the reparations. They chose instead to print money, destroying their own middle class, their common morality and their respect for property. They became infected by moral hazard. With a denuded middle class they rapidly fell prey to left-wing demagogues such as Hitler.
“Absolutely correct. Over 20,000,000 men, women and children were rounded up, transported and imprisoned by Germany with 12,000,000 of them being murdered, all without any inkling of the activity leaking out to the good German people.”
“I am astounded that so few people understand the true innocence of the German people and I am greatly thankful that you are around to remind us all of the truth.”
That’s a money post.
The Germans wanted Total War and they got it.
Not to mention the destruction to the French countryside and infrastructure! The French were hit horribly in WWI.
I read Slaughterhouse Five back in the early seventies while on a flight from NYC to Tucson. I was working for Hughes Aircraft company at the time and when that a$$hole Vonnegut said he wouldn't even let his kids play with kids of defense contractor workers, I threw the book away. The peaceniks in the universities at that time taught that book as great literature. I considered it nothing more than propaganda.
What was that old saying?......
‘Never a Nazi to be found in 1945’
The book discusses the British carpet bombing campaign against German cities. The book suggests that the only thing that won the air war was Mustangs attacking and defeating the Luftwaffe where the Luftwaffe had to fight. And the Luftwaffe had to defend its own fuel supplies even more than it needed to protect Berlin. The Germans, I recently learned, were using 87 octane gas in their airplanes! We were using 100 octane aviation gasoline; no wonder we did well!
- Freedom's Forge:
- How American Business Produced Victory in World War II
Arthur Hermanexplains the “miracle” of American production during WWII by giving the history of the vigorous efforts FDR made to keep Britain afloat after the fall of France in May 1940. The US was trying to supply Britain with war materiel (case in point, after Dunkirk the British Army had few weapons, and the US Army was in the process of adopting the Garand - so FDR sold Britain our entire inventory of bolt-action rifles) - and FDR bent every effort to use the British money for war materiel in a way to maximize future productivity. Result: we didn’t have much military inventory in December, 1941 - Britain had most of it - but we had factories and machine tools and the startup phase of production already well in hand. Pearl Harbor opened the funding spigot, and the planes and tanks and ships tumbled out.
- The New Dealers' War:
- FDR and the War Within World War II
by Thomas Flemingtreats of the politics of WWII.
One thing has to be said: Hitler savaged the Christian Church in Europe (formerly known as Christendom) - and the carpet bombing of the center cities of Germany, whatever the military justification may have been perceived to be, destroyed the old architecture of those cities. Including the churches. It was a radical act. I know, wars are radical. But I come down on the side of those who believe that bombing Dresden - and probably, most if not all carpet bombing of Germany - was substantially wasted effort and certainly didn’t help matters after the war. The same effort expended attacking fuel supplies would have done more damage to the Wehrmacht. Consider, if you will, the fact that Hitler’s Battle of the Bulge attack plan counted on capturing American fuel to sustain itself all the way to its objective. Intelligence confirmed that fuel limitation was the worst effect bombing had on the Wehrmacht - and yet Bomber Harris was fixated on bombing German cites instead of helping the American campaign against German fuel.On the flip side, consider that Patton had broken into the clear in France, and had the Germans on the run - but was prevented from continuing to obey the Principle of Pursuit by fuel starvation. IIRC that was due to diversion to the disastrous “Bridge to Far” plan and not due to lack of fuel arriving in Europe - but it illustrates the effect fuel supply has on your capabilities (and illustrates what I think is the intent of the “Global Warming” hoax).
It is also the case that Britain bombed German civilians first - and that Hitler’s response in attacking London actually gave the RAF a reprieve from attacks directly on the RAF which were perilously close to achieving their objective.
American bombing of Japan is an entirely different subject. Hard to justify, except that it did end the war with Japan, whereas historically carpet bombing in Germany is not what ended the war there. But that was really just the “shock and awe” effect of the A-bombs, without which the US would have had to fight on Japanese soil as in Germany. Or else settle for a negotiated peace short of that . . .
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