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.

The bombing was intended to suffocate families in their shelters.

No it wasn't. It was military target, just like any other town that was aerial bombed. It was a communications and railway centre, full of factories working for the German war effort.

However, the gas chambers certainly were intended to suffocate whole families who the Nazis just didn't like, and who were transported there for just that - to be murdered.

I've not had time to FTFT.

It may or may not (probably not?) be defined as a war crime under international law.

However, that is not to undermine what people in Dresden went through.

It reminds me of a tale my grandma would tell. They lived for a time in Germany, in the 60s it must have been.

There was a contemporary of my grandma's up at the school gates who simply would not have anything to do with my grandma. My grandma found out that this other lady was from Dresden. Never would she have wanted to have any sort of dealings with my grandma, who was British. Fair enough, my grandma accepted this.

I would leave it unchallenged if the remarks made in the OP were by someone who lived through it. They deserve respect and not to be quibbled with, whether it's people who suffered bombs in UK / Germany / anywhere else.

The OP saying she is right by means of superior argument is baffling considering the majority of posters have very well explained the reason why hers/his and your arguments don't stack up about Dresden not being a war crime.

Also just because it has not officially been declared a war crime does not mean that it should not be appearing on that list!

The term revisionism keeps being trotted out as if it is equivalent to holocaust denial. Holocaust deniers are revisionists but the overwhelming majority of revisionists are not holocaust deniers. Revisionism is what keeps history as a discipline living and breathing. It's a good thing that historical narratives can be questioned. If a revisionist offers poor evidence for their interpretation other historians will pull it apart quickly enough.
On a seperate point I disagree with those claiming that 'we' were as bad as 'them'. The holocaust was a sickeningly extreme act of evil that cannot be compared to Dresden IMO. That doesn't mean Dresden is not a war crime though. Murder is much worse than theft, doesn't make theft not a crime though.

I just read an article about the upcoming trial of Oskar Groning, the so-called "bookkeeper from Auschwitz." The writer of the article notes that in the immediate post-war years, many former Nazis who were responsible (in one way or another) for the Holocaust not only escaped any sort of prosecution but even worked in the civil service or held political office. Should they have been prosecuted for war crimes? At the time, the thinking was no (though personally I think the lack of prosecution was appalling). But now, there is a different understanding, that simply being part of the great machine of extermination means one is guilty. Even if, as Groning says of himself, he never gave anyone so much as a slap in the face. His trial will begin this spring.

In that context, it makes sense to reevaluate other actions that took place in the war. While the bombing of Dresden has not officially been labeled a war crime, I certainly think it meets the criteria.

just because it has not officially been declared a war crime does not mean that it should not be appearing on that list!

I agree livingzuid.

But things already on that list certainly should be considered war crimes - such as the invasion of Poland. Someone actually denied that - which is why I posted the list.

Hijk. You are saying some very strange things. I don't think anyone can take seriously talk of experimenting with suffocating a whole city by bombing.

It's very simple and as the Archbishop of Canterbury says.

"In the rage of war our hearts inevitably harden and increasingly brutal and devastating force is unleashed".

This is what sadly happened at the end of the war and a beautiful city and it's inhabitants and factories were destroyed because of it.

I think if we start apologising for individual acts committed in war we are playing into the hands of the holocaust deniers and allowing right wing activists and governments to come to the fore again, as hitlers government did.

I did a PhD in operations research, essentially a mathematical/statistical science of optimising business processes. Operations research was born as a science in WWI and drove the decision to do saturation area bombing rather than precision bombing.

Essentially the concept was to deliver a greater tonnage of bombs per unit time to deplete the manufacturing capacity of the enemy at a greater rate then the enemy could deplete yours. The greater the rate of enemy manufacturing depletion the smaller the number of enemy bombers could be manufactured and hence the lower the tonnage of bombs the enemy could deliver. The aim of this mathematical calculation is an exponential depletion of the enemy manufacturing capacity until it eventually approaches zero.

That is why Dresden occurred. There was no conspiracy to kill civilians. It was a pure mathematical calculation of total war and bomber command lost 50% of its planes and crews doing it. Germany was attempting to do the same in return. There was literally no choice and could only be one of two possible outcomes. Saturation area bombing was a strategically crucial war winning weapon far greater than allied land armies.

The USA also did it in Japan. The firestorms in Japanese cities from burning wood and paper houses from conventional saturation area bombing were more devastating than the nuclear bombs and killed many more civilians.

Rjae, by saying some very strange things, what I think you mean is i know more than you. The whole city suffocation exercise for example, is n't secret or new, it was in our school textbooks 30 years ago!

I don't think being a "dresden denier" is any better than being a "holocaust denier" Rjae. How can you condemn one, while being the other? double standards.

hilk can you tell me which textbook in which country please? It is quite simply not a fact that Dresden was an experiment in suffocating a town - I'd really like to see just one reference to it - I've tried googling and nothing comes up.

Revisionist historians don't count as a source, nor do your sixth form exchange students.

hijk, nobody's denied Dresden!

Read MoreBeta's post. Whether it was unjustified/barbaric/horrific or whatever (and it quite possibly was all of those things) it was an area bombing, a recognised military tactic.

Sabrina I said that. My father was Polish and my great uncle was the leader of the Polish Home Army (or Resistance). I didn't post that at the outset but franky if I, looking back at my surviving family's views, am able to take a non semantic view, as they would have done, then probably you should push the boat out and try to do so too.

This really is a very grim thread, and getting grimmer.

OP you think if we admit that Dresden is a war crime we play into the hands of Holocaust deniers? WTF how do you even get to that? It makes no sense whatever.

Germany's invasion of Poland was a war crime. Annexing of another countries was too. What is grim about saying that?

Morebetas explanation is an expansion on the sentence "?.....increasingly brutal and devastating force is unleashed. ^. And very well put.

Anyway thank you all for a very interesting debate. I have learned more than I already knew, and it did know quite a bit despite the accusations to the contrary. I have not changed my view so the arguments against haven't been convincing, quite the opposite in fact. The arguments in support have been far superior to the emotional hand wringing.

The whole city suffocation exercise for example, isn't secret or new

It is complete and utter rubbish, and you cannot, and indeed have not produced any evidence to claim otherwise.

You may be conflating Dresden with the attack on Lübeck a whole three years earlier, which was an experiment to see if it possible to burn down a German town. (It was)

Lübeck was never attacked again, as it was the port through which Red Cross parcels were distributed to Allied POWs.

If you have any evidence that Dresden was deliberate, premeditated plan to incinerate/suffocate civilians, and that was its primary purpose, please link to it.

I have studied the Combined Bomber Offensive in depth, both academically and not, and have NEVER come across even the suggestion that it was what you claim it was.

Except in one place. Neo-Nazi propaganda.

Why grim Sabrina? Just your complete obsession with needing to be right about a very minor matter of semantics, leaving aside the real stuff about right and wrong and the impact on those impacted by what actually happened. But if you're an armchair philosopher you can do that. As I say -privileged. To me that's grim.

It seems to me the label 'war crime' is only being attached to Allied (and only British) saturation area bombing of one city - Dresden.

This has occurred because the ultimate mathematical outcome of the strategy was precisely what happened in Dresden. Total systematic destruction of an entire urban manufacturing area by overwhelming bomber forces unopposed by the enemy who had no remaining defensive capability.

The same would have happened to a British city had German bombers achieved strategic dominance.

Leave it out molio. You said 'starting the fucking war was not a war crime.' I pointed out that it actually was, according to the Hague/Nuremburg. It's not an insignificant point when discussing war crimes.

More Beta- that's because the thread is about Dresden. I also consider the blitz, Coventry etc to be war crimes along with a great number of other war crimes committed during WW2. Most were committed by the Axis powers but some, Katyn, Dresden etc were committed by Britain and our allies. Senseless killing of civilians is always wrong and always a criminal act IMO.

" It was no more and no les abhorrent than the bombings of London, the holocaust, the death marches and shooting an innocent man in the back of the head"

So why not just step the fuck up and say - all these things were wrong?

All. These. Things. Were. Wrong.

I really can't see the reason for the prevarication. What is there to lose?

On the contrary Sabrina it's an utterly mindless point made by a shallow thinker. If you're correct on the semantic/ legal definition then I concede completely, obviously, but it's fairly contemptible in the larger scheme I think. I'll leave out what I want, you leave out what you want. It is actually totally insignificant, given the huge scale of the matters under discussion.

Molio, I don't see how you can possibly argue that the invasion of another country is not a war crime, but there you go. You go ahead if it makes you happy. Keep on digging.

Hang on Fuzzy. Katyn wasn't Britain's doing. Also, these were military people shot at Katyn.