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.

Not entirely sure what he means- Dresden was in the last few months of WW2 so didn't escalate or cause anything- it wasn't as though hitlers attempts to take over the world
Were in response to it!

OP, would you support a Dresden-style bombing of Raqqa if you thought it would stop ISIS?

IMO it was a war crime by every definition I've ever come across. There are no special clauses that make deliberate and excessive slaughter of civilians not a war crime so long as their government started the war or committed war crimes themselves. I also think that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes too. Their were only the flimsiest of military reasons to target those cities and I don't war crimes are justified if you think they'll shorten a war and make sure you win either. Besides, there is some evidence that the japanese were already close to surrender before the bombings and I can't see any justifiable reason to have dropped the second bomb so soon after the first.

seriouslyffs you don't do history then? What a narrow life you must lead.

But did it end the horror sooner? It's doubtful it did.

And you knowing one person who made an unpleasant comment doesn't mean that 35,000 people deserved to die.

What ANDHARRY said.

No it didn't end the horror sooner, but it might have as Hiroshima did. Would it still have been a war crime if hitler had surrendered the next day?

I didn't say I agreed with bombing Dresden. Just I don't think it's a war crime unless you agree all war is a crime but the biggest criminals are those who initiate it.

OP, would you support a Dresden-style bombing of Raqqa if you thought it would stop ISIS? If we are talking hypotheticals, a more interesting question might be, would you support a Dresden-style bombing of Liverpool if you thought it would stop ISIS? Because people tend to see the 'other' as scary rather than as normal people swept up in an impossible situation. You sometimes need to separate the ends and the means.

There were normal families, babies, children, teens and older people, all fire-bombed and burnt to death in Dresden. They are not responsible for the camps any more than we would be if UKIP end up doing what they would secretly like to if they are voted in.

When the atom bombs were dropped, the Japanese were fighting on: they intended to make the Allies struggle for every island they took. Nagasaki was a naval city: iirc, it was pretty important.

All over the parts of Asia controlled by Japan, civilians were dying of hunger, POWs were being worked to death and so were pressganged civilian workers. Troops were killing each other in the Pacific, on Borneo, in Burma and China. The British were fully expecting to have to fight the Japanese in Malaya next.

Those two bombs brought the war to a very rapid close; on balance, I suspect they saved a lot of lives. They were bloody horrible, but there were no good choices by that stage: carry on with the truly hideous fighting (even with hindsight, that is expected to have lasted until November at the earliest) while the civilians suffer, or bring it all to a quick close?

try doing some reading on the subject and then apologise for being an I'll informed fool op.

dresden was entirely a war crime. totally unnecessary and disgusting behaviour by the allies but you carry on in your bubble

Rjae several people have explained that the deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime.

It would be great if the entire population had some grasp of logic.

'The Germans started it/did worse things, so Dresden couldn't be a war crime' completely defies logic. It's perfectly possible for Dresden to have been a horrific war crime and for the Nazis to have committed their own, numerous, war crimes. Similarly, dropping atomic bombs on civilians was an absolutely appalling act (indeed, acts); the fact that you support the end to which those acts contributed doesn't change that.

Admitting that Dresden was a horrific war crime does don't in any way lessen the atrocities of the holocaust or the blitz or anything else.

tobyjugg I think it is important to discuss this stuff. History is all about how you interpret your past based on your present. You can talk about the same event over and over again because the present is ever changing. Morality has little to do with history. But discussion of history in the context of morality is a good thing as it encourages us to examine our own mores.

I didn't say 25,000 people deserved to die either (not 35,000 according to the news).

We did not live through it or any war.

If I'd asked this question in 1944 (ie would the bombing of Dresden be a war crime) I think the response would be very different.

We are lucky to be able to take such a lofty moral stance when our parents aren't being sent to concentration, or our husbands called up to die for their country.

YAB very very U. Dresden was a war crime.

It's so easy for us to judge with hindsight and apply the rules of today. Much more different for those living through it.

That is exactly why judgements on war crimes are made in tribunals under very clear, strict guidelines.

Living in daily terror of losing our lives and our families would not have made us better judges.

I disagree the bombing of Dresden was a war crime. It was an unjustifiable military error, but undoubtedly based on military reason not revenge.

Certainly it was designed to damage morale. It was a war, that was the point. The population increase due to refugees fleeing from the East had swollen the numbers of people in the city at the time. The Red Army requested assistance and Britain provided it.

It was a coarser time then than it is now. I do not think such tactics (carpet bombing) would ever be used again.

All carpet bombings were designed to ruin the cities, to damage morale, people are an inevitable casualty of war, it is unavoidable. What wars have there been which have not seen civilian casualties?

If the bombing of Dresden is a war crime, then what of Hamburg in 1943? Or Tokyo in July 1945? The fire bombing killed more people in its first instance than Hiroshima did the following month.

Whilst I do not see Dresden as a war crime,I do see it as a very human tragedy and one of the events that symbolises the terrible suffering caused by war.

No it's not comparable to say it 'might have ended it sooner' like Hiroshima.

The Allies knew that it was not something which would have a massive decisive effect but they did it anyway.

The Allies always knew Hiroshima was a shock and awe operation that was intended to end the war in the Pacific and they weighed up how necessary it was.

Put it this way, no nuclear bombs were used in Europe, they didn't do it because it wasn't necessary like it was in Japan. There is a very strong argument that Dresden wasn't either. If a nuclear bomb had been used on a weakened Germany that was close to surrender anyway it might have been a war crime. But using it on a Japan which had no intention of surrender and was intent on a long and bloody drawn out war is far more justifiable.

If Dresden was a war crime, so was Nagasaki and Hiroshima. So were the UK blitz, the bombing of Coventry. Any place where innocent civilians were targeted. War is evil, no matter which side of the fence you're on, and you're dragged into them by irresponsible governments.

Ds is studying the history of WWII at the moment. A lot of the Germans had no choice but to go along with things because they were also placed in concentration camps and/or executed if they spoke up. They were routinely brainwashed by their leader and bombarded with propaganda. They and the Jewish/Romany/Disabled paid the ultimate price for a government that was evil beyond words.

War crimes are not just or even mostly about revenge - they are a means of terrorising a population for political ends (eg to force a capitulation).

It was an unjustifiable military error, but undoubtedly based on military reason not revenge

But that's not what defines a war crime. It was a war crime on any current definition of the term.

"Agree 2 wrongs don't make a right, but it's not a war crime [...] The reason I don't believe it was a war crime is because it was a war we didn't start or want and there were appalling things done on both sides."

Do you understand the definition of a war crime? There's nothing in international law saying that atrocities are OK so long as you weren't the side who started the war and the other side has done bad things too.

The London Charter (which was the basis for the Nuremberg trials) specifically states that war crimes include "wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity". I've looked it up just to check and can confirm that the article in question doesn't say anything about "...unless appalling things have been done by the other side".

If you're going to quibble over whether Dresden was a war crime or not, you can focus on the "justified by military necessity" part. But who started the war and what the Germans did has nothing to do with it.

There are arguments to be made that dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima was necessary. However, there was absolutely no need to bomb Nagasaki too, three days later.
The message had already been received loud and clear by the Japanese.
Nagasaki was absolutely a war crime.

yabu
dresden was a war crime.
i decided that, age 14 in school .

By legal definition it was a war crime.

By moral definition it was a war crime.

The question is not whether it is a war crime OP, but whether you think ultimately war crimes are permissible to win against another party committing war crimes. And that is certainly a debate worth having.
Do you (or any of us) think the ends justify the means?

Which would be a reason to put a man as utterly ruthless as Churchill in charge. He has no qualms in sanctioning horrific brutality for victory.