Holocaust Denial on Trial, or HDoT, makes a very interesting statement about the firebombing of Dresden. I ask that you to read the highlighted text and hold it in your pocket until the end of the article.
The remainder of HDoT’s statement is about David Irving’s death count for Dresden. I will not be getting into that. Whether the death count was 25,000 and 35,000, as the orthodox Holocaust historians say, or it was 35,000 and possibly as high as 250,000, as Irving claims, the firebombing of Dresden was still a war crime.
HDoT does not address the issue of the Dresden firebombing being a war crime, however. They do not address the controversy surrounding this unjustifiable military action. Instead they chose to attack the numbers of one historian like that is the only thing that matters. It’s not the only thing that matters.
An article from History.com even admits the purpose of the firebombing was to terrorize the civilian population:
Later on in the same article tells us that the destruction of Dresden did not only cause the death of innocent civilians, women, children, refugees and even POWs of the Allied army, it also caused massive cultural destruction.
What was the purpose for this mass-scale destruction? It is claimed that there was a fear that Germany would regroup, yet Germany was clearly losing the war. Did this really warrant attacking a defenseless city with no military operations?
An alternative, yet still unjustifiable, reason for the destruction of Dresden is that it was meant to be a warning to Stalin. Imagine the disregard for human life that would have been necessary to authorize the destruction of a city and its people for the purpose of posturing.
Just reading the table of contents of Alexander McKee’s book, Dresden 1945: The Devil’s Tinderbox, gives us a glimpse into the horrors of the bombings. There were four waves of attack. During the interval between the second and third attacks a rescue operation would have been mounted. Those efforts would have turned deadly for the emergency personnel as a third wave of attack was waged.
What was is like to be in the middle of a firestorm in a city that is on the receiving end of 1,400 tons of high-explosive bombs and more than 1,100 tons of incendiaries? An excerpt of Margret Freyer’s story from McKee’s book gives us an idea. Yes, I know the unreliable nature of witness testimony. However in the case of the Dresden firebombing there was tangible evidence left behind. Unlike the Holocaust it is uncontested because it obviously happened.
What the Allies did to Dresden was actually a holocaust in the literal meaning of the word. Holo being whole, entire, complete. Caust meaning to burn or fire. Yet despite all this HDoT only sees it fitting to only go on about the death count.
It’s time to take HDot’s words out of your pocket. Now I’m going to change around a few things to make a point: Orthodox Holocaust historians often use the alleged Holocaust as evidence of Axis war crimes. They do so to minimize the deliberate mass murder of civilians committed by the Allies.
Do you see what you’ve done, HDoT? You’ve accused others of what you, yourself, have done. You have minimized the firebombing of Dresden by making it only about the numbers.
This article is just scratching the surface of the tragedy that befell Dresden. I encourage you to watch these two documentaries to learn more:
Dresden 1945 The Real Holocaust
Firestorm Over Dresden Documentary, WWII Allied Bombing and Destruction of Dresden Germany
The figure of 250.000 comes from inflated propaganda produced by Joseph Goebbels, he added the extra 0 onto the 25.000 figure, the exact method he previously used for the Bromberg massacre where he inscribed from 5.800 killed into his 58.000 figure. For the source of Irving’s misleading, see Telling Lies About Hitler by Richard Evans
https://youtube.com/watch?v=voF7KCOm6eY
Doesn’t Kurt Vonnegut–admittedly not a historian but someone who was actually there and, as a novelist, one might assume fairly observant and literate–goes with the 250,000 figure? I could see him being off a bit but by a factor of 10?
Just like HDoT you missed the whole point. It’s not just about the numbers.
You don’t have to be a Nazi sympathizer to know that the firebombing of Dresden was a terror attack and condemn the Allies for doing it.
The fact that anyone would make excuses for it is beyond ghoulish.
The idea that 25,000 died in the dresden attack is absurd, hundreds of thousands of refugees crowded inside the city, the residential area was totally wiped out.
I seem to remember reading that civilians were also strafed (by American planes) in the parks where they gathered to escape the fires but also that this is disputed. What’s the truth here?
BTW, the video linked says nothing about the disparity in casualty estimates. It simply accepts the allied figure at face value.
Thanks for the comments! The point of this post was not to argue about the numbers but rather talk about the intention and outcome. The Allies intended to terrorize the civilian population and create maximum civilian casualties. HDoT is attempting to obfuscate these facts with making it about the death count.
As for civilians getting strafed in the parks I believe there was something about that in McKee’s book. I see no reason not to believe it. It may be impossible to know the details for sure, but we do know for sure that it happened, unlike some other alleged events of WW2.
The bombing of Dresden is one of those topics that makes me feel very sad and very angry at the same time.
The thought that otherwise good men with good mothers, wives and children followed the orders of the worst scum of the earth to bomb other good men’s mothers, wives and children… I don’t have a strong enough stomach to deal with it.
The Allies were engaging in a genocide of germans. The allies had already decided at the casablanca conference in 1943 that the war would only end with unconditional surrender, from that point on the fireboming of german cities started with hamburg a few months later. The war would end with mass expulsions from the east totalling almost 20 million germans ethnic cleansed and the mass firebombing of German cities in 1945, not to mention the mass rapes by the soviets encouraged by jews like Ihlya Ehrenberg, the morgenthau plan to essentially starve all of Germany was almost accepted. How this isn’t considered an actual genocide is beyond me, far more evidence than that of the holocaust.
No, they were not. And no, there is not
And now the shoe is on the other foot. According to Holocaust affirmer standards it is your duty to disprove the accusation that Harry is making about the Allied intentions for German genocide. So, go ahead, prove the negative. Just like you expect Holocaust revisionists/deniers to do.
Remember, you don’t have any Germans saying anything like this:
“The main task, therefore, laid upon the Command by the Air Ministry directive
letter numbered 5.46368/D.C.A.S., of 14th February, 1941, was “to focus attacks
on the morale of the enemy civil population, and, in particular, of the industrial
workers.” This was to be achieved by destroying, mainly by incendiary attacks,
first, four large cities in the Ruhr area and, then, as opportunity offered, fourteen
other industrial cities in Northern, Central and Southern Germany. The aim of the
attacks on town areas had already been defined in an Air Staff paper (dated 23rd
September, 1941) as follows:-
“The ultimate aim of the attack on a town area is to break the morale of the
population which occupies it. To ensure this we must achieve two things: first, we
must make the town physically uninhabitable and, secondly, we must make the
people conscious of constant personal danger. The immediate aim, is therefore,
twofold, namely, to produce (i) destruction, and (ii) the fear of death.””
-Arthur Harris’ 1945 account of the activities of the strategic bomber command of the objectives of the 1941 Area Bombing Directive.
Claiming the Allies were worse than Hitler is stupid
Considering the Holocaust narrative isn’t true it’s not stupid at all.
Even assuming the minimum “official” estimate is true, burning 25,000 civilians alive in a single city is far worse than what the Germans ever did.
Agreed!
The Germans more people at once at Babi Yar alone
You forgot the verb in your sentence and the physical evidence for your claim.
Your reply, just like HDoT’s statement, reveals the true reason for the creation of the holohoax myth: to overshadow and justify the war crimes of the Allies underneath the blanket of their Big Lie. You used the exact same tactic that they used.
I guess you just couldn’t avoid taking the bait, could you?