Talk:Bombing of Dresden/Archive 3

message: I uploaded :Image:Dresden1945.jpg, :Image:Dresden1945-2.jpg and :Image:Dresden1945-3.jpg (city destruction map)
Most recent official number of killed people: 35.000, official numbers changed between 25.000 and 160.000 in western Germany.
The east nearly always used 35.000. destroyed inner-city: 15 square kilommeters with 90% and more destroyed completely.
city population not significantly warned by bommber warning sound signals because that technology was no longer working.
The radio warned anyway. There were 222.000 flats in total. 75.000 of them totally destroyed, 11.000 strongly hit, 7.000 hit, 81.000 slightly damaged. Source: altes-dreesden.de (in German, private website) The many villa quarters (some of them situated in the most expensive 
living area of Europe in those times) were hit much less than bigger inner-city houses of the plain working class population. NetguruDD (sig added by Sam [Spade] 10:34, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Who do you think warned the refugees? Get-back-world-respect 23:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

text: Nobody warned the refugees from the east more than any other population. With "told to quickly leave the city" I only meaned that they could not stay too long in such huge amounts because they maybe would have needed too much resources, room etc., don´t know why, I just read that the administration didn´t want to keep too many of them. NetguruDD 18:11, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Had civilians been warned the life of many innocent could have been saved. But it was intended to kill them. Get-back-world-respect 20:23, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Amount of destruction and new pictures (not used yet)

message: The militaric facilities in the north of the city can be watched at any time today. They were not really hit. The main station in the southern city center was destroyed completely. However, three days later rains went again through the city. Sorry, I don´t know a source for the second claim, it´s just popular guessing. I have no and had no relatives who lived here in those days, my knowledge is just from reading and watching. NetguruDD 16:41, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: main station and militaric facilities

message: At the time, the city was crammed full of refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army. Dresden, having been spared from previous attacks, was considered to be very safe. There are eyewitness reports that civilians fleeing the firestorm engulfing Dresden in February 1945 were strafed by American aircraft, though it is doubted.
I have moved the fist sentence of this paragraph to the top of the section. I have moved the second sentence into the the section The attack.
I think that the first paragraph "Dresden was widely considered..." should be moved to the top of the section called "Dresden compared with other bombing targets in Germany". Any one disagree and if so why? Philip Baird Shearer 11:29, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: DonePhilip Baird Shearer 09:54, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reasons for the Attack 

message: As is shown in the section "reasons for the attack", many senior people in all three of the major allied nations were involved in the principle of attacking cities because they were major communication nodes and to do so would help stop German troop movements between fronts.
The Air Staff short-listed Dresden and Berlin because not only were they rail transport centres, but they were also industrial targets as well (two targets in one).
Harris did not order the bombing of Dresden as part of an overall bombing policy. It was the The British Air Staff commanded by Sir Charles Portal who according to the British Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair in his memo to Churchill on 27 January 1945 recommended the attacks on "Berlin, Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig" over and above those already under way under the "current directive" which is what Harris was following.
Harris could not order the USAAF to attack Dresdon (nor could the Air Staff) that had to come from higher up in one of the Allied Joint Commands or from a Senior American commander.
So the sentences:
* "British Air Marshal Arthur Harris, inventor of area bombing, ordered the action"
* "Some think that Air Marshal Arthur Harris and others should have been held accountable for war crimes or crimes against humanity."
are misleading because they put Harris too far up the chain of command. (also the first is wrong because Harris was not the "inventor of area bombing").
I suggest that the sentences are modified to read:
* "The Allied commanders who ordered the action,[some ...]"
* "Some think those who in the Allied commands approved and ordered the attacks and others who carried them out, should have been held accountable for war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Does anyone object to this and if so why?
--Philip Baird Shearer 12:21, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I object not mentioning those who carried the actions out because as was rightly noted during the Nuremberg Trials, having received an order is no excuse for war crimes. Get-back-world-respect 20:09, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I object to not mentioning Harris as he is well known as a main character in the attacks. Feel free to add more names. Get-back-world-respect 19:09, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: I did not write he was the main character. I wrote he was a main character. I also told you to feel free to add more. Get-back-world-respect 12:54, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Harris is one of the main characters in this context. If you think he is being singled out, add others rather than striking him out. He is mentioned in the introduction for a long time, and it was not me who put his name there. Get-back-world-respect 22:33, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bomber Harris 

message: :As this article is highly controversial I would welcome very much if you did not rewrite it all the time without discussion. This leads to serious errors as for example your edits about Nuremberg were factually wrong given that the Trial was set up such that only Nazi crimes could be dealt with. Get-back-world-respect 22:32, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I added it to Nuremberg Trials. Sec II Art 6 of the London Charter defined them as "trial and punishment of the major war criminals of the European Axis countries". It certainly would have been awkward to try Nazis for aerial bombings the Allies had copied so well. I was told that it was argued that the Hague Convention applied only to war "on land", allegedly there were no rules for aerial warfare. I do not know if that is true. As the crimes fit so well with the crimes defined by the Hague Convention, and as the damages occurred on land, I am not sure if this is true. At least crimes against humanity fits perfectly: "a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population". Get-back-world-respect 14:02, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: As you could have seen easily from the article crime against humanity, the term existed before the war, but its interpretation was only done by the Nuremberg Trial, one reason why some speak of victor's justice. In my eyes it is perfectly reasonable to call the holocaust a crime against humanity under whatever definition. Same holds for the deliberate mass killing of other civilians. Get-back-world-respect 11:47, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Hague II