"7,000 bodies were incinerated in the Altmarkt - one pyre a day, 500 corpses to a pyre. Experts from Treblinka were brought in to carry out the tasks."
Well, the citizens of Dresden and others throughout Germany allowed the experts at Treblinka to do their work for 5 years before they got a taste of it themselves.
For me it was this line - "Griebel had arrived back in his hometown of Dresden on 31 January 1945, and on the night of 13 February had taken a tram into town for drinks with friends."
The idea that Germans, of any sort, could blithely socialise 5 years into such a war seems shocking. In the shadow of the camps and Generalplan Ost. I feel it helps me to understand the needfulness of those forced tours around the Death Camps which the Germans were put to.
Was it Adorno who pointed out that grotesque irony that Buchenwald was only a few miles from Geothe's Weimar. The sheer obscenity of that moral complacency is brought out, but only in glimpses, here.
Contrast the sentiments of the Germanist and professional historian Frederick Taylor (who has perhaps spent too long in the primary sources of the guilty) -
‘It now seemed that the British were bombing the dispossessed and the homeless,’
With the perspective of the half-Jewish Miss Wolf
‘For us, however, macabre as it may sound, the air raid was our salvation, and that was exactly how we understood it.’
'However macbare it may sound', Lord have mercy on me, it brought to mind the terrible warnings contained in Luke 16:24.
I think one would do well, while reading this, to keep a copy of 'Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust' by Daniel Goldhagen at their bedside.
I like these individual stories. They remind me that Germans weren't all alike and probably very few in Dresden deserved the fate they suffered.
Sometimes I can see the attraction of Christianity: the idea that at least someone up there is aware of precisely who was to blame and who wasn't, even if the bombs couldn't distinguish them.
I'm not qualified to say whether this was justified or not. What seems strange is that a lot of people who say it was a bad idea are (often without knowing it) influenced by figures from David Irving - who was NOT a reliable source.
that is the subject for the final bit. remember being surprised to read Slaughter house Five and mentioning Irving. By that stage he was a somewhat discredited figure!
Well there were more than 1M allied casualties between January and May 1945 with about 400,000 KIA. So, the idea that the war was essentially over when Dresden was bombed is a revisionist fantasy.
Please don’t misunderstand me i would have bombed Dresden and nuked the Japanese cities. My point is we do not act in accordance with our purported “principles”. I think in war you do whatever it takes to win. The constraint on nuclear weapons is that you will be destroyed as well. MAD.
By February of 1945 the Third Reich was already quite doomed. The Eastern Front is mentioned above. The Soviets were approaching the core Reich homeland and Dresden's destruction was not needed for them to reach Berlin.
"7,000 bodies were incinerated in the Altmarkt - one pyre a day, 500 corpses to a pyre. Experts from Treblinka were brought in to carry out the tasks."
Is a line that brought me up short.
yeah me too.
Well, the citizens of Dresden and others throughout Germany allowed the experts at Treblinka to do their work for 5 years before they got a taste of it themselves.
For me it was this line - "Griebel had arrived back in his hometown of Dresden on 31 January 1945, and on the night of 13 February had taken a tram into town for drinks with friends."
The idea that Germans, of any sort, could blithely socialise 5 years into such a war seems shocking. In the shadow of the camps and Generalplan Ost. I feel it helps me to understand the needfulness of those forced tours around the Death Camps which the Germans were put to.
Was it Adorno who pointed out that grotesque irony that Buchenwald was only a few miles from Geothe's Weimar. The sheer obscenity of that moral complacency is brought out, but only in glimpses, here.
Contrast the sentiments of the Germanist and professional historian Frederick Taylor (who has perhaps spent too long in the primary sources of the guilty) -
‘It now seemed that the British were bombing the dispossessed and the homeless,’
With the perspective of the half-Jewish Miss Wolf
‘For us, however, macabre as it may sound, the air raid was our salvation, and that was exactly how we understood it.’
'However macbare it may sound', Lord have mercy on me, it brought to mind the terrible warnings contained in Luke 16:24.
I think one would do well, while reading this, to keep a copy of 'Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust' by Daniel Goldhagen at their bedside.
I like these individual stories. They remind me that Germans weren't all alike and probably very few in Dresden deserved the fate they suffered.
Sometimes I can see the attraction of Christianity: the idea that at least someone up there is aware of precisely who was to blame and who wasn't, even if the bombs couldn't distinguish them.
The Bible also documents horrific violence that we continue to be capable of
Features in maybe my favourite ever poem:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v11/n01/tony-harrison/the-mother-of-the-muses
Excellent read, Mr. West.
thank you!
Priceless piece of history. Thank you for the research and writing.
I'm not qualified to say whether this was justified or not. What seems strange is that a lot of people who say it was a bad idea are (often without knowing it) influenced by figures from David Irving - who was NOT a reliable source.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destruction_of_Dresden
Including I just learnt Kurt Vonnegut!
that is the subject for the final bit. remember being surprised to read Slaughter house Five and mentioning Irving. By that stage he was a somewhat discredited figure!
Was he discredited in 1969? Read this archive from 1983
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/05/02/Historian-believes-Hitler-diaries-mostly-genuine/1075420696000/
"Irving, whose interpretation of Nazi history is often challenged by fellow historians but whose research is respected,"
No, I meant when I read it. Late 1990s. That's why it seemed odd.
Im not sure what “qualifies” you to judge this act. If we had lost it would have been a “war crime”.
Well there were more than 1M allied casualties between January and May 1945 with about 400,000 KIA. So, the idea that the war was essentially over when Dresden was bombed is a revisionist fantasy.
Please don’t misunderstand me i would have bombed Dresden and nuked the Japanese cities. My point is we do not act in accordance with our purported “principles”. I think in war you do whatever it takes to win. The constraint on nuclear weapons is that you will be destroyed as well. MAD.
Well there are some people who say, "Unnecessary we could have won anyway," others "it was vital to the war."
I'm not a military historian so I don't know who is right, sorry for not knowing the answer to something.
By February of 1945 the Third Reich was already quite doomed. The Eastern Front is mentioned above. The Soviets were approaching the core Reich homeland and Dresden's destruction was not needed for them to reach Berlin.