Talk:Bombing of Dresden/Archive 6

message: :See previous Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 5#Data for comparison
In reviewing the changes to the "Was the Dresden bombing justified?" section, which described the Allied bombings as "far more numerous and ferocious", I immediately wondered what the actual casualty numbers were for the results of German attacks. Alas, despite the size of my WWII and aviation reference library, I have little that I can find on British losses (have yet to search for Warsaw, Hague, etc numbers).  Noel (talk) 18:24, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Data for comparison

message: :See previous Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 5#Moral Justification
Noel you migh like to weave a mention of Thucydides' dictum into this. What do people think about this as a first cut for a paragraph?
:The moral questions surrounding the raid arise because as"The Second World War is traditionally portrayed as a struggle between good and evil": Should the Allies have considered the civilian casualties when discussing targets at Yalta and have factored them into the decision making process? Should the RAF and USAAF commanders and the politicians above them, knowing the likely civilian casualty rates which resulted from the bombing tactics which had been developed during the war, have modified their bombing tactics minimise these casualties as the war in Europe drew to a close?
--Philip Baird Shearer 12:38, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moral Justification 

message: There is a (often seen as) scandal author named Fredrick Taylor who is wellknown for (most times boulvard) papers trying to give a scienific impression, and also for telling different research results on different places, but also - weirdly - even within the very same discussion within only five minutes. There is some bigger protest against him, but he still also has some misleaded (?) believers. Some of them are here and what I don‚t like (I like liberty of opinion and don‚t want to remove Taylor‚s point of view) is that they just use wikipedia text content (they keep it as it is, that‚s nice) but as reference they add "Fredrick Taylor". Please note that not all numbers in wikipedia, for example according destroyed flats, are directly from this person. He just uses them as we do, they are from the city administration and many other sources. Adding him as underlined and only reference makes him more important than he seems to be. If you want then add him as reference, but plese not for everything, especially no postum for "my" passages. Afer listening to him in a live talk I decided to not buy a book, so please believe me, I don‚t have those numbers from Taylor, because I never read his book, only small parts in newspapers.  
Examples for arguable Taylor phrases, to give you an idea. 
1. The bombing had the goal to start a civil war. In fact, it sometimes even strongly increased the willpower to keep on fighting against the claimed thread of an allied/communistic rule. Probably every militaric intelligence was able to see that before.n
2. (totally imcompatible with 1., told in the same room five minutes later, from the same author, January 2005 in Dresden, published in many newspapers also) It was not the goal to destroy the moral, but to help the East Front from the Soviets. via: 
a) destroy delivery ways
b) avoid that German soldiers can leave the east front (why should the Red Army have had wanted that ? I must admit, I am not an expert for miliaric tactics, maybe you see this as senseful explanation, I just don‚t get it, the less the more I try) 
3. It was not possible to train the bombers, that‚s why an area bombing was planned. My opinion: As it seemes, the bombers indeed had few information and were not very much trained in their majority, but in 1944, however, when the city still was defended and at worse weather conditions, other bombers managed even to hit exactly planned houses. 
4. There was not enough explotion material for the bombers, that‚s why fire bombing was used. My opinion: On the second day, however, there was enough. 
5. The second attack went onto the eastern parts of the city only because the center was aleady burning. This is proven to be wrong by historic telecommunication protocols, Taylor‚s exactly named special persons gave completely other radio instructions, minutes before the bombing. Again, it is shown that Taylor is not scientifically working, but a good story teller. By the way when saying east of the city then he probably means eastern part of the inner-city, because the east of the city were never attacked by air planes. Not well "researched". Nearly unbelievable bad. 
6. There were no deep flying airplanes, such tellings are caused by psychocally disturbed persons. He can be right, but there are more than some people who had seen such things. It is also possible that some few pilots made their own flight, not truly controlled by the head quarter.
7. Dresden was an important front delivery cross. I personally don‚t know if this is true, most (also scientific) people strongly disagree, I just don‚t know. What I know is that the big railway over the river was not destroyed at all, three days after the attacks the trains were driven again, the city‚s militaric base in the north of the city were not even hit, the large main oil delivery bases 60 kilometers in the north of Dresden were not attacked.
8. Dresden was the Euopean center of optical industries. I don‚t see this as important factor in this period of a war.
My conclusion is that Taylor is in best case just one of thousands of historicans dealing with the subject.
sources: Walter Weidauer: Inferno Dresden, Dietz-Verlag Berlin 1966; other books such as Das alt Dresden (the old Drsden), TV reportages (German stations and CNN); private talks; listening to Taylor in Dresden in 2005.
My personal opinion is that the attacks were not necessary that way (I of course accept other opinions), I just wanna point out that Taylor didn‚t find out anyhing new. Some of his guessings are just very plain wrong. 212.80.234.50
Two points 
* In your point (3): If you are talking about the previous Daylight raid(s) on Dresden. In 44/45 there was a big difference between USAAF bombing by day (when the target was no obscured by cloud) and RAF by night.
* In your point (5): In defence of Taylor, according to Norman Longmate in "The Bombers" (1983): "When the master Bomber --call sign Cheesecake-- arrived over the town to direct the second attack... he found the eastern part of Dresden obscured by smoke, making it impossible to identify the aiming point, the railway marshalling yards... after airborne consultation with his Deputy...dropped their flairs to the left and right of the area already burning". I am not sure what you were trying to say, but that would seem to confirm what Taylor writes. (NB "The Bombers", first published 1983, relies on Irving amoung others as a source for Thunderclap and Dresden which means he has to be read carfully) Philip Baird Shearer 13:02, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Soft advertising for Fredrick Taylor books (?) (more than links, prices and shopping codes, but also those things) 

message: A United States air force report declares that Dresden was considered a military target due to its role in the manufacture of war materiel and its importance as a transportation centre. The report defends the area bombing of the city as having killed only a fraction of a percent of the civilian population: an estimated 25,000 people dead out of 1,000,000 (including refugees who had flooded the city). The report claims that a higher percentage of civilians were killed in Hamberg and attributes to Communist propaganda the claim that 250,000 civilians out of 650,000 had been killed in the city.
The point of view that the percentage of civilians killed was on a par with other bombed cities really ought to be in the article. Leaving out this argument gives advantage to the "Dresden was a war crime" side.
Moreover, I had inserted this POV in a section which asked a question: was the bombing justified? The only answer in that section was NO - which is obviously one-sided. -- Uncle Ed (talk) 19:47, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)
:Have you read the article and the talk pages? The article already says this in a lot more detail:
:However the United States Strategic Bombing Survey listed at least 110 factories and industries in Dresden6. The city contained the Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory (both of which were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gunsights). The immediate suburbs contained factories building components of radar and electronics, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells. Other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters. An official 1942 guide described the German city as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich"2.
The source you give is already in the References and is used. It has also been discussed before in:
* Talk:Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II/Archive_5#Source reliabality => http://www.earth-lights.net/dresden/Dresden_Bombing_Document.htm
* Talk:Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II/Archive_5#Industry. => http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm
At the moment the statistical data is not in the article and it is likely to be criticized if it is because it makes assumptions which can not be proven. It is probably better to use it the other way around and say that if the loss of life was similar to Hamburg then the total population was ABC. Philip Baird Shearer 21:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Censored viewpoint

message: One weakness of the article stands is that the political cointext of the bombing, especially in Germany, is all but absent.  This isn't true of the German version, which has the section Luftangriff_auf_Dresden#Gedenken covering the politics surrounding the anniversary.  I've not really got time to translate this material, but maybe others do. ---- Charles Stewart 23:34, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have time either but perhaps we can find an English-language article about it. Thanks for posting that link Charles, because it gives us confirmation of the time the first bombs fell. The bells start ringing at 22:13 Feb 13. SlimVirgin 23:48, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
Check out this HHA article (it is, if not obvious, written by an NPD fellow traveller); I've also created the article Holger Apfel about the NPD Sachsen Fraktionschef. I'm probably not able to write much from an NPOV on this. ---- Charles Stewart 01:11, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Unfortunatly me too ;-(. The editwar still continues. But I think, the section "Gedenken" (memory) has less discussions then other parts. Surely also a simple Babel Fish helps in case of translation. Krtek76 09:13, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Thanks for responsing to the appeal!  Ability to polish english prose is not what we are short of here; sensitivity to the political context is what we lack.  A crude translation into Dinglish would be just what the doctor ordered. ---- Charles Stewart 09:49, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Political context

message: Here it comes, hope not too crude:
"Memory
On February 13th each year memory events take place in Dresden.  All Dresden church bells ring at 10:13 PM ? the exact time when the bombing started - that day. In 1995, on the 50th anniversary of the attacks a bell sinphony was performed including all bells of the city. In 2002 citizens of Dresden and its partnertown Coventry, which had been hit severly by German bombing in World war II,  came together. Following the motto ‹Build bridges ? live reconciliation (‹Vers?hnungñ)ñ they put up a sign against war and hate. They met at the Dresden ‹Frauenkircheñ (womans church) which had been totally destroyed by the attacks. In the meantime it has been restored almost completely. This rebuilding was succesful because of the activities of mainly British and German fundraising clubs.
Parallel to that old and new right wing extremists try to abuse the anniversaries of the bombings for their gatherings and revisionist propaganda. The number of demonstrators which follow the invitation of the ‹Junge Landsmannschaft Ostpreu¤enñ (young landfellows of east prussia) is increasing continuously. The date has developed to be one of the biggest regular events including Neonazis from all over Germany and other countries. Gouvernor Georg Milbradt (CDU-party) therefor has rejected to overtake the ‹leadershipñ for the event in 2005, which Holger Apfel (NPD-party) then accepted for himself. 
The prefered term of ‹bombing Holocaustñ is meant to relativate the Holocaust and to describe the complete warfare of the Allied coalition as a crime, in order to put the guilt for the war on them and to minimize or even deny the German guilt. They abuse some historical facts for that purpose, f.e. the planned and worked out mass destuction of the central city of Dresden which didnÇt make much military sense.  They want to describe Germanys former enemies, especially the US, as outstanding inhumane and cruel, comparing their behavior to German war crimes thus justifying these. This ideological abuse one cannot find in the National Democratic Party (NPD) only but it is also a widespread mentality. 
As a reaction, some Antifascists try to oppose this abuse with paroles like ‹German actors are no victimsñ, ‹No tears for Dresdenñ or ‹Bomber-Harris do it againñ. They fear the ‹breaking-a- tabooñ-approach of the historical discussion about German war victims will continously justify Nazi thought and behavior. Protesting this they celebrate the bombing of Dresden as necessary part of winning the military fight against Nazi-Germany. 
The city council of Dresden therefore forbids any demonstration in the center of Dresden on that day every year. 
But moreover, it tries to regain initiative for the way of celebrating the memory day with its own events.  A very important part of that are the partnership contacts with the city of Coventry and the Church work for reconciliation. 
Both try to build up understanding beyond national limits for the fact that German guilt of war cannot be weighed with others war crimes. There is no doubt possible that Germany started the war which cannot be relativated. What happened in the war was an increasing abstraction of the warfare from rational aims. This tendency cannot be looked at by isolating it from the criminal plans and actions of Nationalsocialism. But also, the Allied bombings of populated cities cannot be interpreted as a necessary and unevitable reaction to these Nazi crimes. 
Most of the survivors of the bombings who suffered unmeasurable pain and their relatives conclude from their terrifying war experiences: Remembering all the victims on both sides together, humanely, without accusations, is the best healing - instead of the undignified counting and comparing of victims and distributing guilt portions."
Greetings from Germany, Jesusfreund --217.83.44.117 21:07, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Translation of "Gedenken", German article, last section

message: Currently, the article lists number of victims "reputable estimates are 25,000-60,000". I dispute this formulation. What does "reputable" mean. Are Columbia encyclopedia and Encarta encyclopedia disreputable?? As much as I do not like Microsoft, I can't agree that they are. And Columbia is an elite US University, is its encyclopedia not reputable? They both list number of victims from 35,000-135,000. This figure was disucssed here extensively Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/ Archive 1, that was before this current edit war started, and the figure 35,000 - 135,000 was in the article for 2 years. I think it should clearly be listed as one of reputable source (or do not use reputable, but list the figure and the source, Wikipedia should not make judgements according to NPOV policy. User:MarkSop 05:47, 12 Feb 2005 (UCT)
: Numbers above 100K are almost certainly residue from the period when David Irving was giving them, and it wasn't realized that he was a mendacious pseudo-historian. No reputable and knowledgeable source that I'm aware of has ever gone above ~60K (and even that is way high). That some encyclopaedias haven't caught up with recent scholarship on the issue is sad, but not surprising.
: You will find an extensive discussion of the source of the current wording/numbers at Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 5#The death toll, which includes longish quotes from the main source, the report of Prof. Evans of Cambridge University, who relied heavily on two contemporary Dresden historians who did extensive research in original documentation there.
: I will go check in the article and make sure the numbers have proper citation. Noel (talk) 19:18, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number of victims 

message: I've started a copy edit. I'd appreciate it my changes were not reverted or deleted without prior discussion, as I'm now having to repeat a lot of the work that I did two days ago because it was changed. I've made the Friedrich claim about it being a war crime invisible until we establish whether he really did say that, because at the moment we link to a BBC piece that doesn't back up the claim. 
Regarding the use of these little footnote numbers, these are not a good idea, and the references linked to at the bottom of the page either don't back up the claims, or else it's not clear which part of a paragraph they're referring to. See Wikipedia:Cite sources for a discussion about why these footnotes should not be used. If you want to refer to a book please say. "According to John Smith, X, Y, Z" (and after the sentence (Smith, 2005) or else just "X, Y, X, (Smith, 2005)", then include Smith's 2005 book in the References section. Also, please write (Smith, 2005) after the sentence taken from Smith 2005 not just after the paragraph, unless the whole paragraph really is taken from him. SlimVirgin 07:56, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
I've changed the header of "were the attacks justified" to "controversy" which is more neutral. I've also found a couple of citations for the quotes in that section. For anyone wanting to pursue the war crimes issue, here is an interesting article  that says Chamberlain said it would be a war crime to do this, though he said that before the war. This might be a starting point for anyone wanting to pursue that angle. Here's the quote: "Many felt that the Germans deserved to reap the whirlwind they had sown. Yet Bomber Command's policy of targeting residential areas clearly contradicted Chamberlain's pre-war statement in parliament that it was 'against international law to bomb civilians as such and to make deliberate attacks on the civilian population'."  SlimVirgin 08:18, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
:What are you using as an editor? It seems to handle certain characters in an odd way and to change them. please see  . One of the Characters it does not seem to handle is  "´" as in I´ll inplace of I'll. In the first edit it replaced with "´" "«" it did somthing similar for "Eisenhower's" in the main article. At the moment all the German characters have been changed by these two edits. Of course if they look fine in your browser and you can not see what I mean then we have a problem:-( however you should still be able to see the red changes in the history diffrences though Philip Baird Shearer 09:34, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Citing sources