By an Elderly German saying Dresden was a war crime.

[Rjae]

He said, yes, Germany started the war but the bombing of Dresden was a war crime.

AIBU to be outraged by this.

Exterminating Jews, gipsies, and prisoners of war was a war crime.
Invading half a dozen European countries and murdering it's citizens was a war crime.
Bombing Londoners and other british cities long before Dresden was a war crime
Starting the fucking war was a war crime.

Dresden was horrific of course, but not a war crime, unless you consider everything a war crime. It shouldn't have happened, but neither should the war. I'm sorry so many people were killed and a beautiful city destroyed. They were civilians but they supported Hitler wholeheartedly.

No doubt it didn't do much except kill civilians in the long wrong, but that still doesn't make it a war crime.

No, it wasn't directed at you, Sabrina, just generally at some comments on here.

Dresden is in the news at the moment because of the anniversary. Do you really think on average, it gets more attention than the Blitz? Personally, I don't think so. Nor should it.

Sabrina I agree with you.

But the trend of self-flagellation and apologism means that we will be beaten down by force of numbers. Someone was actually stupid enough to say that Britain "started" the war by declaring war on Germany, as if Britain's desire for territorial expansion was the cause of the war.

Please go to your local library and lend a copy of Slaughterhouse 5.

To all those who believe that the German people were complicit in National Socialism as they benefitted from food etc produced by Polish/Jewish slave labour, can I ask about Oscar Schindler?

He was a factory owner who benefitted from Jewish slave labour, he was also a member of the Nazi party which brought him business advantages and standing in society. At the end of the war he was in danger of arrest as a war criminal.

However as we know he actually saved many, many Jewish lives. So what was he- Nazi baddie or lifesaving goodie? The Jewish state recognises him as the latter. But he was an initial supporter of NS and benefitted from it. Perhaps he was a bit of both- playing a game of going along with the NS party which benefitted him but also meant he was in a position to save more lives. So was he a mix of good/bad?

To turn that around, the allied victors were seen as the good guys but were clearly also capable of bad things.

If Germany had surrendered before the raids on Dresden, nobody would have thought to go on from Germany. They would've been too busy celebrating. But the Jews who went to the concentration camps were no threat to Germany of any consequence. And the Chinese women and babies raped, beheaded, and murdered by the Japanese troops in Nanking were of no threat. I noticed there has still been no mention of the latter.

From = bombing

What do you want us to say about Nanjing? It was a horrific war crime and nobody disputes this. That doesn't mean it was legal to firebomb Toyko and kill 100,000 civilians either.

ALL of these atrocities were war crimes. I don't understand why there is resistance to this idea. Saying they were all war crimes doesn't mean everyone was equally responsible for starting the war or committed equal horrors.

Penelope is right, it's not as simple as putting all the good guys in one box and all the bad guys in another.

And Hitler was not voted in by a majority, he seized power by undemocratic means.

Nope. He was lawfully elected Chancellor. It's true that he then removed the means for voting him out, but the fact remains that there was no coup by which he seized power.

What do you want us to say about Nanjing? It was a horrific war crime and nobody disputes this. That doesn't mean it was legal to firebomb Toyko and kill 100,000 civilians either.

Yes , they do dispute this - high-profile Japanese politicians and much of the Japanese public do indeed deny that it ever happened, as they do with the experiments that Unit 731 carried out on Chinese people.

I suppose Im bringing it up because I can't understand why Hiroshima and Nagasaki - acts clearly intended to bring a swift end to WW2 are brought up on a thread about Dresden, but the rape and murder of civilians and children - far more numerous than the fire-bombing of Tokyo - is not mentioned at all.

I do think it is too simplistic to view war in terms of "goodies" and "baddies". Terrible things occur during wars, on all sides.

I strongly disagree with the attitude that German civilians got what they deserved merely because they were German/because they didn't do enough to stop Hitler. They were just people, some good, some bad, mostly just average, all trying to survive as best they could. I couldn't say with any certainty that I wouldn't turn a blind eye to bad things going on if I was living under such an oppressive regime and was in fear of my own life, the lives of my family, my children. I would like to say I wouldn't but it is easy to do so, from the position I am currently in.

Nanking has been mentioned a few times but not really discussed, it is a hole in my historical knowledge I admit. I have of course heard of it but merely reading some of the details other posters have provided has educated me. I had no idea of the scale and sheer horror.

Two wrongs and all that, Dresden was a war crime, I don't see how anyone can deny it.

because, badlad we are talking about Dresden. It doesn't matter what else has happened where.

Dresden was an horrific war crime.

Please read about Nanking if you didn't already know. An indiscriminate rape and murder of Chinese civilians, women, children, elderly alike, including a race to behead 100 Chinese covered by Japanese newspapers. Now disputed at best and totally denied at worst by most Japanese politicians. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bomb museums are quite objective, giving a balanced view, but the Yasukuni Shrine war museum in Tokyo bangs on about how the atomic bombs were a terrible crime against Japan's defensive war to liberate East-Asia.

I will do, BadLad. I'm quite shocked I know so little detail about it, laziness on my part.

because, badlad we are talking about Dresden. It doesn't matter what else has happened where.

Great, so why are you not contradicting any of the people who brought up Hiroshima and Nagasaki for their irrelevant contributions to this thread?

Don't feel bad, Alis, it gets nowhere near the profile it deserves. As is proven by its lack of mention here .

If anyone wants a rather more measured perspective, please look at Richard von Weizäcker's speech on 8th May 1985.
War is war, it is not pleasant or enjoyable for either party. There is, mostly, nothing personal in strategic or tactical decisions.

Sabrina, Coventry was a target because of the munitions factories etc that were located in the city.

I am sorry, I spelled the late, great man's name wrongly.
Richard von Weizsäcker

Actually that's true, some people in Japan deny the full extent of Nanjing for nationalist/political reasons (not sure it's a majority of people today but yes, including high-profile politicians). But there is generally an international consensus that it was a war crime. It's the same point as earlier, individual people can believe something is not a war crime, but the principle of proportionality mean that generally any time you wipe out an entire city of tens of thousands of civilians, this is most likely a war crime by objective criteria.

I think people are talking about Tokyo instead of Nanjing because it's more analogous to Dresden (ie Allies bombing an aggressor nation).

No amount of post-war liberal guilt, or retrospective hindsight has convinced me that the attack on Dresden was a) a war crime or b) that the victims & survivors of Dresden were any more or equally deserving of sympathy than any other person in Europe in 1945.

The context of Nazi counterattacks in winter 1944-1945, (Undertakings Wacht am Rhein/Nordwind/Bodenplatte, the Battle for Budapest, the Battle for Aachen, Hürtgen forest et al) is all you need to know to find the justifications for Dresden, and attacks like it.

Many others were planned

The Nazis and Germans had opted for deluded beliefs in final victory, and a war of annihilation. The German people, unsurprisingly, sided with the Wehrmacht and the Führer.

If the Allies were such ogres for doing what they did to Dresden, why was the self-same aircraft, aircrews, and technology used in that raid were also used to supply the Dutch with food aid,the victims of Wehrmacht crimes in the Nazi blockade of that country?

Feel free to disagree with me all you want, I will not change my mind.

Nor I yours, I suspect.

Sabrina, in Coventry 568 people died, against 25,000 in Dresden.

That said, I agree with those who say we did not start it and we did not want the war. Math is right to say that a lot of Germans did not resist when they could have done. Another interesting book on the subject of people volunteering for death squad work is Goldhagen's HITLER'S WILLING EXECUTIONERS, which puts the case for saying that people who refused to carry out atrocities were not, in fact, subjected to harsh punishment.

It was a war crime. Not the only one by a long long way, but it was one nonetheless.

The idea that because other similar war crimes were committed by others or that the side that committed this specific war crime also did good things somehow changes things is totally infantile.

It's the same level of intellect that had people saying Jimmy Saville "did so much for charity though" when it turned out he was a massive rapist of children.

I said in an earlier post that I don't believe the Allies actually wanted to wipe out a load of German civilians. If Germany had surrendered before the Dresden raids, nobody would have wanted to go and bomb Dresden. I think the same is true of the blitz over London - the Germans would rather the war had stopped and it had not been necessary.

That's why I don't think these raids are comparable to the Nanking massacre or the killing of six million Jews, which were not part of going for military victory. By the standards of the times, air raids to hasten military victory were an acceptable tactic, used by both sides. Fortunately we have moved on since then; hence the move to try to keep civilian casualties to a minimum in more recent wars.

Yes, it was a war crime. I will never understand why so many people in this country think that we Brits and infaliable and have never commited any wrongs throughout history.

Get real please.