Talk:Bombing of Dresden/Archive 16

message: Victor Klemperer was to be transported to a KZ, together with 170 other Jews. He wasn't just living in Dresden. Henny Brenner was in the same group and also wrote a book. Xx236 (talk) 09:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Victor Klemperer 

message: The Grayling interview is cited in support of this sentence: Against this, several researchers have argued that Dresden was a cultural landmark of little or no military significance, a "Florence on the Elbe," as it was known, and that the attacks were intended simply to terrorize the German people. - however Grayling makes no such argument in the interview. Don't get me wrong - it was an interesting interview, and I'm glad I read it, but it doesn't belong.  It doesn't even really talk about the Dresden bombing except in passing. Dlabtot (talk) 02:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we should go back to my wording and replace "as it was known, and that the attacks were intended simply to terrorize the German people" with "and that the attacks not proportional for the commensurate military gains." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well he doesn't say that in the interview either.  Dlabtot (talk) 17:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I did not say that he did. He was not talking about Dresden even when the interviewer tried to draw a comment about the bombing of Dresden out of him he replied  "This is a standard example of historical selectivity, the use of one iconic instance to do service for the whole truth. To be blunt, it is laziness and ignorance which combine to simplify things down to one case, leaving aside important and shocking other matters." Which is why it is not much use as a citation for the sentence. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grayling interview 

message: Currently editing this page it says "This page is 87 kilobytes long. It may be appropriate to split this article into smaller, more specific articles." so with the article Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the debate over the bombings has been moved into a new main article Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I propose that we do the same thing and create and articles debate over the bombing of Dresden. What do other think? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think the article is too long. Dlabtot (talk) 17:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The article will be longer when it describes the fate of the 170 Jews to be deported and the fate of non-Germans.Xx236 (talk) 09:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I read this as an outsider.  The article is not well-written.  The very first line starts off talking about the controversy of the event "Dresden bombing", rather than describing the bombing itself.  I can understand the current B rating. TelecomNut  (talk)  13:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed creation of debate over the bombing of Dresden

message: This quote:
is in the section on Dresden's industrial profile. It adds nothing about industry that isn't already there. It is, real time, immediately before the bombing. It also gives incite into how the RAF motivated its pilots, and the reasons they supplied at that time for the attack. Would it be better moved to Background? or to the first night's attacks? or somewhere else? I tried background, but was quickly reverted. Jd2718 (talk) 13:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Soviet military intelligence asserted that trains stuck in the main station were troop trains passing through Dresden to the front. This proved incorrect, as they were trains evacuating refugees from the east. Berlin: the Downfall, 1945 by Antony Beevor, p. 83. RAF briefing notes mentioned a desire to show "the Russians, when they arrive, what Bomber Command can do." The specific intent of this statement is now unclear, and there are different possible  interpretations:  a statement of pride in the RAF's abilities; or to show the Soviets that the Western Allies were doing all they could to aid the Soviet advance; or a demonstration of western strength as a warning or threat to the Soviets in the lead-up to the Cold War.
The reason for this is in the archives. Different authors have selectively quoted from this passage to make the point they wanted to. Note that the current quote does not include all of the text. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  RAF memo 

message: :Image:Dresden Aerial View - February 13 14 1945.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Dresden Aerial View - February 13 14 1945.jpg

message: There seems to have been a slow-running edit war between Philip Baird Shearer and Colin4C.  This is not the Wiki way.  Although I wrote the paragraph in question, I was just documenting what had been said here on the Talk Page and so I have no access to the sources and no personal opinion about the paragraph itself.  Please note that I have protected Colin4C's latest revision not because I agree with it but simply because it was the latest revision when I got here at the request of Philip Baird Shearer.  See m:The Wrong Version for an explanation.
That said, it is disruptive to the project to have an edit war.  Please observe WP:BRD and discuss rather than edit war.  I don't have time to get into the details of the discussion right now.  Let me just say that I am not personally wedded to the phrasing "in part due to misinformation from Goebbels".  Please continue discussing and try to reach consensus.  I'll try to join in later tonight.
--Richard (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protection of the article 

message: Considering Dresden was never seriously bombed outside of World War II, I'd like to move this page to just "Bombing of Dresden".  Any objections? Oberiko (talk) 17:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes and there was a WP:RM on this issue in January 2008 (Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 15#Requested move) --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to "Bombing of Dresden" 

message: Shouldn't there be an actual link in the article to the city of Dresden? Nonagonal Spider (talk) 21:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is, it occurs in the first instance where Dresden appears that is not in the title, since as per the Manual of Style, it is undesireable to put links in titles and headers. WilliamH (talk) 23:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to [[Dresden]]? 

message: Should it be in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_scandals ? You guys decide. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 14:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that Wikipedia itself or authors have to appraise whether a war event was a scandal. The category is in strong conflict with Neutral point of view especially if the event is heavily discussed: Anyone just has to decide which side is right. And this would be very wrong. Geo-Loge (talk) 08:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Scandal"? 

message: Michal Salomonovic, a survivor of the Łódź ghetto and Auschwitz concentration camp, told Radio Praha that he volunteered for a work detail and was sent to an SS-run cigarette factory in Dresden that was actually manufacturing dum-dum bullets.
Clarify the reason the factory was disguised. It was not only to protect against Allied bombing, but also because such munitions are illegal for military use, under Declaration III of the Hague Convention of 1899, which Germany 
signed. --70.131.117.219 (talk) 21:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There are some improbablities with Salomonovic's story, and as far as I am aware his claims about the dum-dum bullet factory are uncorroborated. I would prefer to see more quotes from eye-witnesses of the attack, including descriptions of people being swept away by hurricane-force winds, and of large numbers of people being incinerated. I also want to mention that when the extent of the attack began to emerge in the media, Churchill turned gutless and tried to deny all knowledge of it; "I thought the Americans did it". Unfortunately, at the moment we cannot make ANY edits to the article until the above dispute is resolved and the article unlocked. Logicman1966 (talk) 22:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add clarification. 

message: Right, I have been bold and amended the third lead paragraph. Based on everything I understood from the previous discussion, I believe it meets the following criteria:
:# It includes modern day findings of the death toll - 
:# It documents both the interim report and anticipated release of the investigation by the city - 
:# It mentions the debates proposed by historians and other commentators - 
:# It maintains NPOV and prevents obfuscation/attribution of material with a political position because it doesn't mention any - 
:# It does not prevent the discussion and elaboration of notable disinformation in greater detail later on in the article - 
WilliamH (talk) 20:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Good. Colin4C (talk) 16:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

text: That is incorrect - the large numbers came from neutral countries which some POV historians have assumed, without proof, ultimately came from German propaganda sources or that German propaganda sources gave credence to by the devious method of denying them - no doubt playing both ends against the middle, encouraging resistence by spreading terror and depair amongst the populace or maybe for some other speculative self-contradictory reason which will justify contemporary POV pushers in promoting area bombing as an acceptable military tactic. Colin4C (talk) 17:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Name one historian who alleges that the large numbers originate from any where but German propaganda? As a number of historian state that is so and so I see no problem in mentioning this (and there is no need to qualify it unless there is a contradictory source). To date you have not provided one source that contradicts those historians that state the figures are from German propaganda. Why are you so wedded to a point of view for which you have not provided a source to back it up? Even Irving, who for his own political reasons distorts the figures upwards, acknowledges that the figures >200,000 come from German propaganda sources. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Tell me where in the documents of the German Propaganda Ministry or in Goebbels Diaries or in anything else written by Goebbels it says that they deliberately exaggerated the nembers of dead? The question absurd, anyway, for bodies were still being recovered from the ruins decades later. Goebbels died on May 1st 1945. Between May 8th 1945 and 1966, 1,856 bodies were recovered from the ruins of Dresden (Taylor: 448). Did Goebbels have supernatural X ray vision which made him able to see where all these bodies were buried in the ruins, count them and then multiply the figures by a factor of whatever?  There is a currently, at this moment, an official commission in Dresden trying to find out how many died. At the moment nobody knows how many died: not me, not you, not Evans, not Taylor, not Goebbels. Nobody knows. Colin4C (talk) 04:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia relies on secondary sources. Please read WP:V. Wikipedia editors should not provide interpretation of events based on primary sources. If  two or more experts in an area assert that something is so we can include such an interpretation and only need to provide an alternative point of view if it is one held by other experts. Hence my request that you provide a source that contradicts those historians who state that Goebbels's propaganda ministry did not inflate the figures (or that the inflated figures came from another source. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Amended Intro 

message: I have deleted this paragraph as it is not supported by the reference provided and even the page numbers are wrong:
:Joseph Goebbels, head of the German Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, seized on the bombing's propaganda value, inflating the number of dead by a factor of ten, with German diplomats circulating the figures to neutral countries, along with photographs of the destruction, the dead, and badly burned children.Taylor, Frederick. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 420-6. By coincidence, the day before the Dresden raid, a German foreign affairs paper had described Arthur Harris, head of Bomber Command, as "the arch enemy of Europe," and a leading proponent of "terror bombing."Taylor, Frederick. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 421. On February 16, the Propaganda Ministry issued a press release that established the Nazi line — Dresden had no war industries; it was a city of culture.Taylor, Frederick. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 421.
Taylor discusses Goebbels and German propaganda with respect to Dresden on pages 366-72 but nowhere categorically states that Goebbels inflated the numbers of dead by 10. The nearest he comes to it is on pages 370-1. Here - without giving any sources for his assertion - Taylor states that 'there is good reason to believe' (see weasel words) that in late March inflated figures of dead were circulated to the neutral press by Goebbels's Propaganda. This seems to be just Taylor's personal POV belief. He also states (on page 371) his bizarre conviction that German officials spread rumors of heavy casualties among the populace to persuade them to fight 'out of terror and despair'! IMHO it is Taylor who deserves the prize for being the championship rumour monger rather than Goebbels. Colin4C (talk) 06:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems that someone changed the publishers so the page numbering may be out it you are using a different edition of the book. Page 424 Paragraph one "there is also good... doctored with an extra 0". The page number 421 is the start of the paragraph it finishes on the next page, so I have fixed that. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Goebbels 

message: Richard Stokes MP, asked questions in the House of Commonson March 6. I removed the recent addtion because the given source does not give the date. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Date removal

message: The inimitable Clio has shared with us some useful information about events leading up to the raid. I'm leaving it here for future reference, as some of it should perhaps be worked into the article. --Relata refero (disp.) 09:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  From [[WP:RD/H]] 

message: Nice to see you guys removed my suggestion section here from a month ago. I see you guys still haven't resolved some moral aspects of this fine article. Let me help you: war has no moral aspects. Germany from 1914 has given itself to total war; and I don't see why, when those fighting against Germany have given equal measure back to them, it is newsworthy. Time to move along, guys. 01:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wah? 

message: I have deleted this as it is not supported by by the either of the references given:
:"In the discussions which followed, the Western Allies argued that, unless Dresden was bombed, the Germans would be able to route rail traffic through Dresden to compensate for any damage caused to Berlin and Leipzig. Antonov agreed that Dresden be added to his list of requests.Taylor, Bloomsbury 2005, pp. 218-220Addison pp. 27,28"
Taylor and Addison claim that no such thing happened as described above and nothing like this appears in the official record of the conference. Maybe there has been some confusion here over the later unsupported claims by the British interpreter at the conference - Hugh Lunghi? If so I think editors here (mentioning no names...and comparing nobody to nobody else whether a Nazi or not...) should be careful not to misrepresent their sources in such a careless way. Colin4C (talk) 10:52, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Here is a source that states "The Russians wanted to begin a new phase of advance in February. To do so, Antonov wanted air forces to pin down German forces in Italy and to paralyze junctions in eastern Germany. That meant Leipzig, Berlin, and Dresden." Will that do for you? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:10, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That is a derivitive, biased and inaccurate source. Maybe we should stick to what Taylor says. Though IMHO Taylor is a master of POV I don't think that what he says is inaccurate, i.e. that Antonov explicitly mentioned just Leipzig and Berlin. The only mention of Dresden in this connection seems to be the unsupported testimony of the British interpreter - which Cox adduces might be Cold War spin. Colin4C (talk) 11:21, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You say it's derivative but the writer is a Rand analyst who has taken various high level sources and formed them into a cohesive whole. Looks good to me. Binksternet (talk) 15:51, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

text: So are Taylor and Cox (in Addison and Crang) wrong when they say that there was no mention of Dresden in the official record of the Yalta conference? According to Taylor and Cox the only one who claimed that Antonov etc had mentioned Dresden was the British interpreter later on. Cox mentions that this had something to do with Cold War polemics. My guess is that Rebecca the Rand analyst has not read Taylor hard enough and has misinterpreted what he says. I very much doubt she has done any original research on the matter. Colin4C (talk) 16:23, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: They are not wrong to say that there is no mention in the official record, but that does not mean that what Hugh Lunghi remembers is incorrect. It is an opinion and different historians differ on how credible a source Lunghi is. On balance Taylor seems to factor it in while on balance Cox factors it out. As we now mention Cox's doubts I do not see that you can state categorically "None of this is supported by the references given - its not just misleading it is false".  --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It is misrepresentation of the sources not mention that all the stuff about the Russians being aware or being made aware of the desirability of bombing Dresden come from the British interpreter and him alone. Both Tayor and Cox explicitly mention this. I have no objection to including the stuff which the interpreter alleges happened as long as it is explicitly mentioned as per Taylor and Cox that the interpreter is the source. But don't you think it strange that there is no mention of what the interpreter said in the official report of the conference? Do you think that the stenographers fell asleep at that point? And how come nobody else at the conference heard or reported what he heard? Hard of hearing no doubt...Very fishy...if I didn't believe in the sterling truth-telling habits of a British officer I would say that it was all Cold War propaganda....Colin4C (talk) 21:00, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  False information 

message: Colin4C I see no point to the paragraph you have added today
This message is already mentioned 2 paragraphs down in the Yalta paragraph "Sir Charles Portal, the Chief of the Air Staff, who was in Yalta, asked Norman Bottomley to send him a list of objectives to be discussed with the Soviets. Bottomley's list included oil plants, tank and aircraft factories, and the cities of Berlin and Dresden." And the point you seem to be trying to make is already covered by the Sinclar to Churchill note "... cities where severe bombing would not only destroy communications vital to the evacuation from the east but would also hamper the movement of troops from the west." and "Fredric Taylor mentions a further memo sent to the Chiefs of Staff Committee by Sir Douglas Evill on 1 February, and continues as 'Evill makes clear that disrupting mass movements of civilians in one element ..."
So Colin4C what additional information does the quote give to the reader that makes it worth including in this article? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So you think that "cause great confusion in civilian evacuation from the east" means exactly the same as "destroy communications vital to the evacuation from the east", even though the second quote does not contain the word 'civilian'? Maybe you think its best for the wikipedia readers not to know that civilians were targeted? Colin4C (talk) 20:33, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I fail to see what the addition quote adds over and above the two quotes already in the article "... cities where severe bombing would not only destroy communications vital to the evacuation from the east but would also hamper the movement of troops from the west." and Evill makes clear that disrupting mass movements of civilians in one element ...", please explain what is contained in the quote that you wish to add over the other two. Also do you not see that quoting the same telex in two different places is confusing? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: None of the other statements you have cited add up to 'evacuation of civilians from the east': by Aristotelian or any other logic. Colin4C (talk) 20:31, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

text: The first statement mentions 'evacuation' of unspecified entities from the east. The  second one mentions disrupting the mass movements of civilians. If you add these two statements together you do not get 'evacuation of civilians from the east' as it is not clear how whoever or whatever is evacuated from the east is related to the civilians whose mass movements are disrupted. In logic this is known as 'the law of the excluded middle'. Colin4C (talk) 15:42, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Bottomley message

message: The Times source you, Colin4C, have provided (Review: War: Dresden by Frederick Taylor) does not say Taylor is a revisionist it says:
it does not say that he is a revisionist.
Colin4C, if you think Taylor is a revisionist who's history is he revising, because AFAICT his history is very similar to those of other main stream military historians (number of dead, reasons for the attack and that "the saturation bombing campaign, which cost thousands of lives among allied air crew and civilians, might not have been a mistake". The reason why Jörg Friedrich considers himself a revisionist is because the is trying to create a new paradigm that "the saturation bombing campaign, which cost thousands of lives among allied air crew and civilians, was a mistake". Note that in neither case is anyone suggesting that the word being used here means "negationist" (such as has been used to describe Irving) --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:12, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I find it odd that on the one hand you think (above) that "cause great confusion in civilian evacuation from the east" means exactly the same thing as "destroy communications vital to the evacuation from the east" and on the other hand that "revisionism" and "revisionist" are two completely seperate things. You are indeed a great master of semantics...depending on circumstances...or what point you want to put across at any particular time...according to your convenience or your particular POV...whether black is white or white is black or whatever...Colin4C (talk) 20:43, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It say the "book can be called a reappraisal or revisionism" it does not say that Taylor is a revisionist, nor does the reviewer (Peter Millar) make clear which he thinks is the more appropriate term for the book. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:59, 20 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: So Taylor wrote a revisionist book without being himself a revisionist? Maybe this was in the same way that Bomber Harris killed a lot of people without being a killer? (just trying to help you out here...). As Friedrich seems to follow the same line as Max Hastings in Bomber Command in describing the strategic bombing campaign as a mistake why is Friedrich a revisionist and Hastings not? And as I recall there was a British historian in 1946 who also described the strategic bombing campaign as a mistake. Maybe Friedrich's great sin is in being born a German? Colin4C (talk) 20:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Friedrich source says he describes himself as a revisionist. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:02, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Revisionist Taylor

message: I'm going to be removing date autoformatting and implementing British dates throughout the article, per recent changes to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date autoformatting. Binksternet (talk) 16:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I will revert those changes. There is no consensus that autoformating is deprecated. And the MOS does not say that it is. Please see the discussion pages there. Rmhermen (talk) 16:50, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Rmhermen, dates should have auto-formatting, but  no reason that the date format should not be consistent  outside quotes for those not using auto-format --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:54, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: You've thrown out some of my non-date edits, including linking of the first instance of Frederick Taylor, the deletion of a redundant sentence, and linking of VIII Fighter Command. Binksternet (talk) 18:11, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I've brought my non-date beneficial edits back in and I'm signing off for the day. Binksternet (talk) 18:15, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about that,  it was only due to an edit clash :-(. If you had not put them back in , I would have done so. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:07, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

text: Some discussion of the topic is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history#Date formatting: change in Manual of Style here. My edit summary that said "deprecated" is indeed incorrect; the new Manual of Style is more noncommittal than that. If you have a lot of spare time, you can read the vigorous discussions about the new policy at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). At any rate, my work to align this particular article to the new policy is complete. Binksternet (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of date autoformatting 

message: Somebody still needs to write articles about Sir Douglas Evill and about Bomber Command's 83 Squadron of No. 5 Group. Those are the last two red links. Binksternet (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Red links

message: I remember reading in a history book that Nazis had built factories under schools, hospitals, and Churchs under a German town.
Was that Dresden? --71.143.6.210 (talk) 02:48, 13 August 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: No. Colin4C (talk) 17:30, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Question 

message: The image :Image:Goebbels.jpg is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here.  In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page.  Please check
:* That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
:* That this article is linked to from the image description page.
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --03:31, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Image copyright problem with Image:Goebbels.jpg

message: I`d suggest that The picture "Image:Dresden 130205 Fronttransparent.jpg" text changed from "far right" to "radical right" or "ultra-right". None of the people or partys described are popular in germany and the term far right might apply to normal german partys like CDU, although there is a huge difference between them. Some of the partys in the pictures are even under close surveillance by several german law enforcementparts. Those partys tend to use the dresden bombing to promote faschism  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.14.204.117 (talk) 14:47, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture text 

message: "after a four-year investigation, a panel of German historians has said that the true number of dead from the Allied air raids in January 1945 was between 18,000 and 25,000."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1078529/WW2-Dresden-bombing-killed-far-fewer-people-half-million-new-records-show.html  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobbozzo (talk • contribs) 01:02, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  New report from Germany on death toll 

message: At present we have "On 22 January, the RAF director of Bomber operations sent a memo to Air Commodore Buffton ..."  In 1945 Sidney Osborne Bufton (one "f") was a wing commander but did hold the title of RAF Director of Bomber Operations (see http://www.rafweb.org/Biographies/Bufton.htm). Greenshed (talk) 22:07, 20 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bufton 

message: Does anyone here think that this paragraph is POV?:
:"Taylor writes that this propaganda was effective, as it not only influenced attitudes in neutral countries at the time, but also reached the British House of Commons when Richard Stokes, a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) opposed to area bombing, quoted information from the German Press Agency (controlled by the Propaganda Ministry). It was Stokes' questions in the House of Commons that were in large part responsible for the shift in the UK against this type of raid. Taylor suggests that, although the destruction of Dresden would have affected people's support for the Allies regardless of German propaganda, at least some of the outrage did depend on Goebbel's massaging of the casualty figures.[94]"
It seems that a considerable effort has been made here to discredit Stokes anti-war credentials by presenting him as a dupe of Goebbels. Also all the above is just the opinion of Taylor, there is no documentary proof that Goebbels massaged the the casuality figures, just that the Germans benefited from exaggerated claims of deaths made in the neutral press (which neutral press had previously wildly exaggerated the number killed in the German air-raid on Rotterdam). I think Stokes deserves better than this shoddy insult to his memory. Colin4C (talk) 09:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It does not discredit Stokes who had long since taken a moral stand against strategic bombing and is in no way described as a dupe of Goebbels. Have you a reliable source that discredits Taylor's conclusions about Goebbel's? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:09, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Nowhere in Taylor's book does he produce hard documentary evidence that Goebbels massaged the figures. It is merely his opinion, based on supposition, which he no doubt entitled to, but to present it as fact and then berate Stokes for being duped for something about which there is no proof is POV. If you have documentary proof from the German archives that Goebbels massaged the figures I'd like to see it. The figures for Rotterdam were similarly exaggerated. Were those who believed in them also dupes? Colin4C (talk) 12:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV! 

message: I have restored deleted referenced material. Editors please do not intrude your own unreferenced POV, no matter how much you may disagee with a source, or delete referenced material. For instance this deleted material is found in the source given "Also no documentary evidence has been found to support Allied claims that the Russians requested the destruction of Dresden. It is also seems that most of those targeted were old men, women and children, with few German males of military age left in the City environs." Viz: http://www.vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/6/2/Lutton247-250.html . in which it states that:
:The Journal of Historical Review is not a reliable source. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:03, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Says who? Colin4C (talk) 13:22, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See the notes on the Wikipedia article. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:25, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

text: So the review of Alexander McKee is absolutely false? Alexander McKee does not say those things? I was trying to be helpful in case, like before, you requested a long quote for each and every statement made here for a book which you don't have. Anyway, fire away, if that is what you want to do. Colin4C (talk) 13:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I am replacing refs with ones direct from McKee's book. Colin4C (talk) 13:41, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

text: It does not mean that they were targeted. AFAICT the RAF targeted the centre of the city and the USAAF targeted the marshalling yards. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Should that be deleted from the article as well?::
"A 1953 USAAF report written by Joseph W. Angell defended the operation as the justified bombing of a military and industrial target, which was a major rail transportation and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers in support of the German war effort.[4]" Colin4C (talk) 13:07, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyway I have changed 'targeted' to 'killed' just to please you. Happy now? Colin4C (talk) 13:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

text: Is this a quote from somewhere as there is a quote after request? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

text: The statements I deleted did not carry citations in the text. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:00, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want a reference after every sentence I will provide one. Done. Colin4C (talk) 13:02, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  More POV pushing