Dresden Bombing. Holocaust?

Hi Chandernagore,

Thank you for replying so fully.

What is your definition of "monster"? If you mean that Harris was a hard, ruthless individual prepared to sanction operations that were certain to cause the deaths of large numbers of enemy civilians, then, yes, perhaps he was a monster, but a monster who operated within the restraints of international law - just. I only thank heaven that this particular "monster" was on the right side.

"God's Law"? Which "God"? Which "Law"? The Ten Commandments? "Though shalt not Kill"? All war breaks that particular "God's Law". Indeed, it even breaks the normal moral code of those who don't believe in God at all! Is your "absolute moral judgement" that all killing is wrong? If you are advocating a pacifist position, I can respect that. However, the moment one agrees that any killing is morally justified one is starting to make the same moral compromises that had to be made by Harris and every other man who has ever commanded in war.

If we are talking in purely moral terms and have dropped all the "criminal" stuff, then, yes, there is a respectable moral argument to be made against area bombing - as I have always said. I am just waiting for it to be made.

I am glad you have noticed. Indeed, Nazi Germany "didn't give a damn about... western democratic concepts of law". However, the Western Allies did. That is an important distinction.

You haven't read Taylor. Your opinion on him therefore has no value until you have. I have no intention of abandoning the most authoritative, up to date and widely available source on the subject merely because you still haven't got a copy. The responsibility is yours to get a copy, not on me to pretend that Taylor's book doesn't exist. (If I remember rightly, we had exactly the same conversation a year ago on Feldgrau).

Do you want me to do all your research for you? Stop being so idle. Get off your backside and get Taylor, or Probert, or Bottomley, or vist the PRO. I have told you before and I will repeated here: I can lead you to sources, but I cannot read them all for you. Sometimes we just have to do things for ourselves.

Let me get this right - you are now citing yourself as a source? That is indeed a "gentle mockery"!

Yup. There is indeed a single "stinking" fact that I recognise. The cemeteries of Dresden contain the bodies of nearly 25,000 largely blameless civilians.

What you actually wrote was, "Harris's choice fell on Hamburg for.... "it's symbolic value", as if that was the only reason he had to bomb it. Is this not deeply misleading, especially as you now agree that Hamburg was both a major port and don't express disagreement with its targetting?

I see. So the Germans should have been free to engage in the use of 127 Dresden factories for war work, use its major rail lines to supply the front with men, munitions and armaments, maintain some 20 army depots in the city and administer about 8% of Reich military manpower from it and the Allies should not have been allowed to target Dresden?

In effect, you are by default approving the use of civilian populations as human shields by their own government.

Cheers,

Sid.

















You posted: "The Germans didn't break any German law when they sent 6,000,000 Jews to oblivion: they obeyed their law". This was untrue.

P.S. It would help if you could give details of the posts you quote, so that I could check my replies.

The second question I certainly answered in my post at 10:13PM on May 28 2005. It began with "I don't know......." Commendably honest, I thought.

Sid.

I think it's a sad situation we're engaged into: praising a monster for being on our side. Maybe Churchill or Roosevelt had their reasons to accept Harris or Stalin in their camp, we, on the other hand, after 60 years, should not accept this with an easy heart. If war is only a continuation of state policy by other means, the kind of behaviour the Nazi, the Communists, Harris or Truman (aka Hiroshima) envolved into is merely a continuation of an immoral, intolerant and murderous instinct. A monster never operates within the restraints of "international law", but within the restraints of his own capabilities, this is why some can kill 1 person, some 10 or others a couple millions.

My particular opinion is that everyone that participates in the act of killing, directly or indirectly, with or without knowledge, successfully or otherwise, is a sinner and rightfully deserves to reach the all-mighty Hell. But, as in so many things in life, Hell has a degree scale and, to tell you the truth, Harris would certainly rank below many of the WW2 actors. Moral compromises should be blamed, but we should at least trust the human reason not to transform this immoral act into a monstrous act.

The civilian populations should be used as a shield. It's not very hard to press that red button when you have nobody innocent to think about. What else should we care about? Resources, buildings, gold deposits? The problem is not that the Allies wouldn't have been allowed to target Dresden, but that nobody could have stand against this decision. Well, if the responsability falls in your own court, you'd better be damn sure that what you do is the best thing for the "human factor". Otherwise, you are just monster 2 that got attacked by the fast-pacing monster 1 and retaliates in the same manner. The "freedom" banner of the West side is not just a pretty name, it's not about the liberty of doing what you want, is about believing that your own freedom is linked with other people's freedom. This is biblical, as well as reasonable.

There is a thing I don't understand. Chandernagore brought forward, in the past as well in the present, excellent points, even making sure he doesn't exceed the normal quota of boredom that is permitted in a historical post. I like his posts because he is successfully employing the "personal remark" tehnique to make his point memorable. Of course, these things never come up in a moderator intervention. Let's tar and feather him just because he seemed to insult someone and let's ignore the rest of the conversation.

I know that the ideal poster should be an intelectual that always starts with phrases like "With my limited knowledge...", "I don't want to offend anyone...", "Everyone is right...", but let's not enforce this through administrative regulations. Why? Because it's silly. We are not part of a state, I don't pay taxes to Victor or dragos, we can always walk away. Maybe the moderators don't understand that in the case of internet forums, people are important enough not to boot them any time they cross some real-life boundary. Controversy is always fun! Try it!

As I already said several times before: nobody is keeping you here by force. If you don't like it, you can always go somewhere else. You can even create your own forum and do whatever you please there. Btw, if we were to suspend you every time you crossed the line, you would not be here anymore. As for "paying taxes" I need to remind you that you have accepted on your free will to respect the forum rules, when you joined. You seem to have free time on your hands.

As I already said several times before: nobody is keeping you here by force. If you don't like it, you can always go somewhere else. You can even create your own forum and do whatever you please there. Btw, if we were to suspend you every time you crossed the line, you would not be here anymore. As for "paying taxes" I need to remind you that you have accepted on your free will to respect the forum rules, when you joined. You seem to have free time on your hands.

uuuhhhhh

that one about having free time is tough...

we unemployed people hate our situation really

The line dividing what? The realm of and the realm of ? Or, worse, the world of as opposed to the world of ? If the line consists of some forum rules which translate into words the obscure will of the moderators, I prefer to keep my mind open and retranslate them into my own. But I am in luck, because the only charge that could be brought against me would be rule number four: The users also agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, racist, xenophobic, sexually-oriented or any other material that may violate applicable laws.

Abusive? Nope. Obscene? Can't do it succesfully. Vulgar? Oh, please. Slanderous? Let's not believe that being self-centered is the same thing. Hateful? Only for good reasons and used mostly to enhance a point. Threatening? Yea, I'll come with a chainsaw at my enemy's house. Racist? I dispise PC, therefore I must be racist....hmmm. Xenophobic? I love everyone in the world . Sexually-oriented? If this means porn, nope, if this means "misogin", I could be mistaken for one.

I don't need to work at this moment.

Oh, and to close up my defence.... It seems that while trying to keep me informed of the possible results of a misconduct, you were also off-topic. My original post was aimed at a dragos-type "I have my eyes on you, Chandenagore" phrase, inserted in the middle of a nice discussion. Chandernagore did not break any rules, therefore the intervention was quite unnecessary. And neither did I.

May I remind you rule number 6? Off-topic posts, spam or advertising of any kind are forbidden. They will be deleted immediately and their author will be banned temporarily or permanently. It doesn't specify exceptions, therefore, like in any legal document, everyone is entitled to be banned based on this argument. While dragos' post may be considered an administrative announcement, yours cannot (because it would have been more appropriate as a personal message). But we forgive you, because we are good, yet unemployed, guys...

And to be sure that I stay on-topic:

Not true. In the german legal system, the Fuhrer was the law (see Funk or Carl Schmitt). Therefore, any of his decisions became a lawful decision. Schmitt supervised a project to conform all German law to Nazi theory. The overall Reich now consisted of three elements, according to Schmitt: state, Nazi movement, and people. The state represented the administrative apparatus; the movement represented the political leadership which acted on behalf of the people; and the people, or civil society, lived free of governmental interference, under the shadow and protection of the higher political order. To the extent that orders of the Führer needed democratic legitimacy, they could be voted upon in referenda or plebiscites by the people.

Schmitt's description was altered by the Nazis in only one respect. They found his frank admission that the people were to play a completely passive role politically unacceptable, and substituted the populist myth that the people represented the “vitality” of the Reich. Hitler did, in fact, submit various measures to the population for votes.

This post has been edited by Alexandru H. on June 02, 2005 05:00 pm

While in other circumstances I wouldn't find necessary to respond to such claims, the "unnecessary" intervention was a warning addressed to Chandernagore after name-calling Sid in two posts (one of them deleted as double post). No matter how you feel about that, name-calling, insults or abusive personal remarks will never be allowed here, and those who regularly resort to them, be sure the moderators "will have the eyes on them". I'm not against conflict of opinions, not even flaming ones, but the ability of making sharp remarks without resorting eventually to name-calls seems to be lacking to some of the forum members.

Now let's get back to the topic.

To resume the original topic, here is an excerpt from "Macmillan Dictionary of the Second World War" second edition, London, 1997, at the entry "Strategic Bombing Offensive":

In the last three months of 1944, the Allies enjoyed complete air supremacy in Northwestern Europe. Purely military targets could now be destroyed almost at will and the German economy began to atrophy. By this time Portal and the Air Staff preferred the precision tactics used by the Americans yet Harris, at the height of his prestige, still directed much of his effort against cities - over 40 per cent of the 344,000 tons of bombs dropped on Germany by the RAF between October 1944 and the end of the war. From February 1945, raids on cities were carried out by both air forces at the Soviets' request to block German troop movements. Berlin, Chemnitz, Leipzig and Dresden were among selected targets. On 3 February, 1,000 US bombers killed an estimated 25,000 Berlin civilians in a single day. In raids on Dresden from 13-15 February, the RAF and USAAF combined to create a firestorm which killed between 30,000 and 60,000 civilians. The morality of the Allied massacre of German civilians - particularly late in the war by the RAF - has been subject to vigorous criticism ever since.

Hi Sid !

Ask any human being on this one. You don't need to concentrate on me, here.

You have no idea if I have read Taylor. And I never put my nose on Feldgrau.
I have read enough of Taylor to know that he is only "authoritative" among people already convinced that the Dresden morale case needs to be flushed down the toilet like a Koran.

Look, I asked you once to cite me Harris over a protest you pretended he made to Churchill. You cited the source. But I'm still waiting for what Harris said. If you keep dodging the issue I will begin to suspect that you're just throwing names around collected on Amazon.com.

Otherwise I already explained to Curioso (your alter ego) that I was more interested in your own analysis (for which you need only primary sources) than a dumb duel of secondary sources. You can't always hide behind Taylor.

Sid, do you want me to do all the analysis for you ?

It is simple and very usefull to understand Bomber Harris. There was more than enough valid military reasons to select Hamburg. But in Harris' mind the "symbol" was more important than the military facilities. And later the non-combattants would be more important than the production centers.

Boy, was that sick...

But.. but... didn't Taylor (your authoritative source) fail to assess the outcome of the 127 factories ? I thought it was an important factor for the raid. I keep asking but you don't seem to be able to confirm that a single one was destroyed.

Did Taylor tell you what each of them was producing ? If he knows precisely that there were 127 (no one more, no one less) I suppose that he also knows wether they were producing toothpickers or panzerfausts.

You never fail to attack people over sources, but when asked yourself you artfully skeedaddle away.

Take care, Sid.

This post has been edited by Chandernagore on June 03, 2005 12:47 am

You know Dragos, there wasn't any name calling from my part. It's just that the heat level that we accept is apparently higher than what you're willing to allow. I hope Sid will confirm that. We like a good brawl. There were several things rather corrosive that Sid wrote all around this that you willfully choosed to ignore, I don't wonder why. But I'm not bothered by it.

This post has been edited by Chandernagore on June 03, 2005 01:05 am

Hi Dragos,

Encyclopedia's and dictionaries are necessarily compilations of other peoples' earlier research. They are therefore prone to follow trends in publishing. In the case of Dresden, there was a tradition of over high estimates of deaths. This is probably why it offers a slightly high range of 30,000 to 60,000 fatalities. However, all that can be confirmed are about 25,000 burials by the Dresden authorities themselves. There were undoubtedly some more who were never recovered, but based on experience from other air raids, it is unlikely that over half the bodies were not found. That is why the range 25,000-40,000 seems more plausible. In any event, whichever we settle on, the basic points of argument remain the same.

According to Taylor (p.405): "The figure of twenty-five thousand victims of the Berlin raid of February 3, 1945 - eight times what now appears the real number - still finds currency more than half a century late."

Cheers,

Sid.

Very true. These "traditions" tend to be revised as new data or better investigation tools become available.

I can illustrate this point with the Hun campaign in Gaul, that was eventuallly stopped cold at the Catalauni fields. Ancients authors give usually very high numbers as much 500,000 for the Hunnic coalition of eastern and Germanic tribes.

Then we have a wave of modern historians analysing the data from a supply point of vue and they say. No way that multitude could have been fed, nor Barbarians move in such concentrated columns. Impossible from a logistical point of vue. Numbers were 50,000, not 500,000. Pretty evident !

And then, a few years ago, when everybody seemed to agree on the low figure, come a new batch of historians demonstrating that it was very possible that the numbers were much higher : 200,000 and challenging the previously low numbers with new dynamic views.

Pretending that you have the last word is a rather futile excercise. All you can do is present your arguments and hope they win the day until the next batch.

Lets' notice however that Taylor was interviewed and asked if he thought that Dresden was a warcrime.

His authoritative answer was "I dont know"

This post has been edited by Chandernagore on June 03, 2005 12:35 pm

Hi Alexandru,

If a monster never operates within the constraints of international law, that would mean that Harris was not a monster.

The very nature of war means that hard, ruthless men have to command if victory is to be won. Harris was one of these. He was probably not a particularly nice, warm, likeable, approachable man, but none of these are qualifications for command in war.

I very much agree that, having decided not to be a total pacifist, it is up to humanity to show restraint when defining the limit of the moral compromises it is prepared to make in killing. It is in this area that Dresden is most open to question. All successful war il overkill, because you cannot, by definition kill too few people in achieving victory. However, there is a case to be made that Drseden was excessive overkill.

In 1945 the Allies were legally allowed to target Dresden and its like because the necessary international legislation predated the invention of aerial bombardment. After the war it was outlawed, presumably because it was judged that the likes of area bombing were beyond tolerable moral compromise. The development of "smart" bombs is the terchnological response to this. Today one could hit downtown Dresden's factories, barracks and railway stations with only a fraction of the surrounding civilian casualties of 1945.

Controversy can be fun. However, it doesn't necessarily require a personal aspect. (I write this in the full knowledge that I have not always been entirely blameless in this area on other sites). The real problem for Chandernagore is that he has decided on a very strong position on the Dresden issue without either being in command of the latest facts or showing any real willingness to research them himself. Indeed, he completely dismisses Taylor's book, the very latest on the subject, without ever having read it. As a result, entertaining though his posts may or may not be, they are often inaccurate. It is when this is pointed out that he loses his cool. This does not do his argument any favours.

Cheers,

Sid.

I agree with you, but I find more important in the excerpt presented not the estimated number of killed civilians, but the claims that:

"Purely military targets could now be destroyed almost at will and the German economy began to atrophy. By this time Portal and the Air Staff preferred the precision tactics used by the Americans yet Harris, at the height of his prestige, still directed much of his effort against cities"

and

"The morality of the Allied massacre of German civilians - particularly late in the war by the RAF - has been subject to vigorous criticism ever since."

My sources on foreign (non Romanian) military history are rather limited, and Chandernagore, I did not intend to have the last word, just to bring back the discussion on topic.

Hi Sid

Ahhh....why, oh why did we have the Nurnberg trials or the post-Yugoslavian trials? Just to show that war is a bloody affair anyway and a few extra thousand victims mean nothing when the man that commited the murders is a dedicated commander? Please reconsider these matters....

You know that the Nurnberg trials were possible because of a piece of legislation that appeared after the events in question? I say legality doesn't matter, only the outcome of the conflict. The allies won, therefore Ribbentrop died and Harris lived. It would be quite absurd to place ethical tags on this whole affair, since one criminal died, and the other one lived.

I admit, I have yet to try this Taylor and his apparent "extraordinary" arguments. What am I concerned is not about the factual realities but about the moral stance involved here and the fact that we still divide our heroes between the "good" and "bad" camps because of questionable and subjective arguments.