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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

By an Elderly German saying Dresden was a war crime.

763 replies

Rjae · 13/02/2015 19:48

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.

OP posts:
Pooka · 13/02/2015 21:11

YABU

There was an elderly British man on R4 earlier. He was an ears tender, prisoner of war, doing hard labour in Dresden.

He said it was an evil act. He acknowledged hitlers evil but made the point that we stooped far too low in deliberately firebombing indiscriminately, killing civilians.

AndHarry · 13/02/2015 21:11

There's an emphasis on Dresden today because it's the 70th anniversary of the bombings. It's singled out in schools because the Allies had a pretty clean record as far as fighting the war in accordance with international war went and Dresden is an appalling example of how we/they were also capable of terrible acts against civilians.

I really don't follow your argument TBH. The Nazis were sadistic murderers, the last thing we should have done was try to be like them. Looking at the same scenario today, should we round up a few suspected Jihadists returning from Syria along with a random bunch of Syrian civilians and burn them in cages? Would that stop IS in its tracks?

Original poster
Rjae · 13/02/2015 21:12

I've said all along that it's a tragedy and horrifying but no less so than acts of atrocities committed by the Nazis. As such I don't feel it is a crime itself but another appalling incident in a catalogue of appalling acts. I do think (with hindsight) it was misjudged but faced with over 4 years of carnage in Europe, good judgement and moral certitude was in short supply.

OP posts:
Pooka · 13/02/2015 21:12

Eastender. Not ears tender!

mousmous · 13/02/2015 21:12

yabu
the brits and americans used weapons of masz destructions during the air raids of hamburg and dresden and other major cities.

that doesn't excuse the german war crimes at all.

Pooka · 13/02/2015 21:14

2 wrongs don't make a right. Yes, nazi atrocities appalling and oft remembered. Doesn't mean that our actions are above reproach.

MagratsHair · 13/02/2015 21:14

The bombing of Coventry was a war crime. In that one night in 1940 we lost 15,000 civilians. We lost our cathedral, we lost our medieval town centre that was irreplaceable ( the best preserved medieval town centre in Europe) and yes our schools teach peace and reconciliation but there is still a massive wound for those who lived through that night. If you walk through the city centre the scars are still there in the ruins and architecture. My grandma had some horrifying stories that she told us and in our museum you can sit in an air raid shelter and listen to the memories of those who survived as they have been recorded.

Yes Dresden was a war crime but so was Coventry and every other city in either side where civilians lost their lives.

Original poster
Rjae · 13/02/2015 21:15

For folk who can't read I have never once said it was right or justified. I have said it shouldn't be labelled a war crime for the reasons I have stated.

OP posts:
uglyswan · 13/02/2015 21:15

Toad, I agree with your hypothetical case. But can you give me one historical example where that is precisely what happened? Because while war may theoretically be confined to just that, fighting off a foreign invasion, in most cases, at least since the development of aerial warfare, most wars do involve the killing of civilians on all sides.

RobinHumphries · 13/02/2015 21:15

So when are Bush and Blair going to be put on trial then?

uglyswan · 13/02/2015 21:17

OP, it wasn't an "appalling incident". It didn't just "happen". It was an intentional part of Churchill's war strategy.

Alisvolatpropiis · 13/02/2015 21:18

Given that Blair is now the Middle East Peace Envoy (a perverse appointment in my opinion), Robin, I'd wager never. Same with Bush.

Original poster
Rjae · 13/02/2015 21:19

Magrat. To me the whole war was a crime.

OP posts:
Duckdeamon · 13/02/2015 21:19

Weird logic: it wasn't a war crime because the other side's war crimes were worse.

And it wasn't a war crime because the intention was to shorten the war.

Duckdeamon · 13/02/2015 21:20

Your arguments don't make sense OP.

sonjadog · 13/02/2015 21:21

February 1945 the war was in it's final throws and the Allies knew Hitler had lost. They had met just the week before at Yalta to discuss the pot-war partition of Europe.

Dresden was unnecessary. That is what singles it out from other bombings.

Lazaretto · 13/02/2015 21:22

Of course it's a war crime. Targeting innocent civilians is a war crime.

uglyswan · 13/02/2015 21:22

Robin and Alis - Cheney, then. I'll settle for Cheney.

orangeyellowgreen · 13/02/2015 21:22

Fire bombing Dresden was an act of revenge. Burning 25000 civilians to death and flattening the most beautiful city in Europe was barbaric and makes me ashamed to be British.
Yes, it was a war crime.

sonjadog · 13/02/2015 21:22

Its not it's. I do know the difference.

Also post-war.

AndHarry · 13/02/2015 21:23

None of the reasons you have given have anything to do with whether Dresden was a war crime or not. Plenty of posters have defined what a war crime actually is and pointed out that none of the definitions have clauses excusing perpetrators if the other side did something first or worse.

fizzycolagurlie · 13/02/2015 21:25

YABU. Just because we are English and they are German does not mean that we were incapable of committing a "war crime" against them. War goes both ways, sadly, not just "goodies and baddies". Its deeply unsophisticated and nationalist to think otherwise.

AndHarry · 13/02/2015 21:25

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush and Blair. When I read the autobiographies of ministers in Blair's cabinet it is blatantly obvious that Iraq was his own pet project. I'd happily see him answering for it in The Hague.

Original poster
Rjae · 13/02/2015 21:26

Incident does not equal accident.

Of course it was intentional. It was part of a failed strategy to destroy morale and end the war.

My argument is you cannot single out one catastrophic incident of bombing without looking at other cases of bombing in this country. Civilians died in their millions, mostly at the hands of the Germans in the early part of the war. Civilians are often the first targets in wars. Silly to say otherwise. Look at Africa and the Middle East. It was then and is now.

OP posts:
AndHarry · 13/02/2015 21:28

And what has that got to do with Dresden? If the Allies lined up 10 German civilians against a wall and machine gunned them, that would have been a war crime. It doesn't matter about what the other side were up to.