Dresden : Tuesday, February 13, 1945

After “...the German bombing of Coventry” the author, Frederick Taylor writes “The damage inflicted on the cities infrastructure had lasted far longer and caused more long-term difficulties for war production than the actual bombing of the industrial plants” This statement on page 188 of my copy was constantly on my mind while reading this very good book on the appalling tragedy that was the bombing of Dresden on 13th, 14th and 15th February 1945.

The thought of the allies learning from the destruction of various British home cities to me highlighted the general large scale bombing that was becoming the normal course of events in the later part of the war as the allies drove home their advantage over the Third Reich. Yes the destruction was brutal and, debatably with hindsight, maybe uncalled for in certain cities, Dresden being one of those cities. But at the back of my mind was the fact that Total War was being fought and let's recall that the Nazis themselves had evoked that chilling call back in 1943.

I am also reminded that the wholesale destruction of Warsaw with over 28,000 deaths and a reported 80% destruction of that city that had occurred as early as September 1939. With that one could go on in discussing atrocity after atrocity, man's inhumanity to man that was the 2nd world war. Was this a war crime? Yes but then war is a crime really. In my years of reading WW2 history I have tried hard to be pragmatic as to the actions of the protagonists in terms of military action. In the end I came out of the end of this book thinking that the bombing was considered just another military action taken by the allies and that the horrific consequences to the civilian population and the cultural obliteration was never particularly on their mind. Nazi Germany needed to be defeated. Ideologies as far apart as western capitalism and eastern communism cooperated to that end.

As to the book itself it is divided into 3 parts. Part 1 is entitled Florence on the Elbe and is a history of Dresden itself from the dawns of time to the lead up to the bombing. For me this made fascinating reading as it made me realise what Dresden meant to the German Saxon people. Part 2, Total War, covers wartime Dresden from approximately the time of the Battle of the Bulge and the third part, After the Fall, covers the aftermath and beyond. The author has done a wonderful job in putting together a chronological order of events from the earliest time to the bitter tragedy that was the bombing. Part 3 also discusses opinions, controversies etc from just after the event itself through to the turn of the century. David Irving for example gets short shrift from Taylor and rightfully so. What I tend to get from books such as this is that there are always interesting events and individuals discussed that get little mention in standard historical books that I tend to read. Artists Otto Griebel and Otto Dix come to mind and in Chapter 8 we received a very interesting brief history of aerial warfare and the “laws” of said subject. The eyewitness accounts from the civilians make fascinating but also painful reading. The military accounts are very informative and interesting.

In the end though, and to quote a Goodread friends final words in a very good review of this very readable book, “The lessons are there for us all”. Indeed!