Talk:Bombing of Dresden/Archive 19

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Incomplete references to Dresden Historians Commission claiming maximum 25,000 killed

The article addresses the Final Report given by a Historians Commission in Dresden in 2010 (individual pages cited as ref. [16], [70] and [86] by article version 832318440) as the today one document which can be acknowledged to provide correct casualty numbers of the air attacks of Feb.13-15 1945. My Talk does no question this view in general. In Detail, however, the report's message of a total maximum of 25,000 people killed is not as unambiguous as the article teaches. Controversial disputes are beyond the scope of wiki articles, but regarding the prominent position of this source a revised article version should portray its existing inner uncertainties and address the associated conclusive options.
Remarkable original research results are given by the Final Report on pages 38-40 based on individual burial documents (which are classified in comparison with other data bases as most complete and reliable on p. 37). These listed burial data can be read and summarized quite differently:

(i) Reading as adopted by the present article: In four subsections on p.38-40 for four groups of burial locations the Final Report counts (A) up to about 21.000 killed victims with reference to two big cemeteries Heidefriedhof and Johannisfriedhof Dresden until April 30 (p.38), plus (B) on "Other Cemeteries Within the City Limit of Dresden" for "March and April 1945 ... almost equally many burials on the cemeteries in the city as, in the same frame of time, summarized for Heidefriedhof and Johannisfriedhof together", followed by a formulation of "more than 2.600 individual proofs" (in German: "Einzelnachweise"), plus for (C) "Cemeteries Around Dresden and Beyond" and (D) "Improvised Burials" another number of close to 1.000 burials. Summarizing gives slightly below or close to 25.000 as claimed by the Final Report's Summary on p.40/41 and cited by the article. -- By this way of reading we accept, however, the number of 2.600 casualties for (B) as "almost equal" to the share of burials in (A) that took place during March and April - in conflict with a much higher number on p.38 teaching that "On Heidefriedhof the ashes of 6.865 casualties cremated on Altmarkt arrived on March 5" - a position which is outside of any doubt since it is known as reliably documented for decades of years.

(ii) However, the above contradiction is dissolved if the reader, in analogy to other parts of this Final Report, understands the two statements above about "Other cemeteries ..." (called (B) here) as contributions to the Commissions efforts to distinguish upper and lower limits: With this view, the number of 2.600 "individual proofs" on p.39 for the (B) locations represents a lower minimum of the total of burials there, whereas the ashes of 6.865 victims that arrived on Heidefriedhof on March 5 (p.38) are understood as included in the commission's reference of about "almost equally many burials on the cemeteries in the city as, in the same frame of time, summarized for Heidefriedhof ..." in March and April (p.39). In total the subset (B) becomes, then, 6.865 instead of 2.600 and increases the final sum of documented burials by more than 4.000 to about 29.000 instead of 25.000. -- (in fact, with this reading the final total may increase to even more than 29.000 since other Commission's remarks on p.38/39 indicate that the real share of March/April burials in the two locations of group (A) among the total of 21.000 burials there was probably higher than 6.865; unfortunately, the Commission's Final Report does not distinguish which of the other 14.000 burials on Heidefriedhof and Johannisfriedhof documented until April 30 took place in February already and which in March and April)

Thus, details of the presentation of basic casualty data in the Final Report are equivocal, and a revised article should point it out. Such revision seems the more appropriate since M. Neutzner (editor of the Final Report) addressed some political pressure writing in a separate Report published on March 17, 2010 on p.22: "Since 1990 the administration of the city of Dresden" (which organized the Dresden Historians Commission) "was ... confronted with the request to correct the former number of 35,000 casualties ... An important argument had been that the official statistics were falsified by the GDR administration by political reasons which revision became, with the changed [political] conditions, possible now." (in German: "Seit 1990 sah sich die Dresdner Stadtverwaltung ... mit der Aufforderung konfrontiert, die bislang vertretene Zahl von 35.000 ... zu korrigieren. Ein wesentliches Argument dabei war, dass die behördliche Statistik von der DDR-Administration aus politischen Gründen verfälscht worden wäre, was nun unter veränderten Bedingungen aufgedeckt und revidiert werden könnte."). Again Neutzner remains vague with details and does not tell the reader, which of the groups who "confronted" the post-1990 administration (and, thus, the Commission) with opposite requests he addresses. In fact, Irving's self-correction of his thesis of 135.000 or more Dresden casualties was included in issues of Weidauer's Inferno Dresden long before 1990 (e.g. p.123/124 in) and had removed reputable arguments for such high numbers. On the other hand, since 1990 the local discussion in Dresden was and is significantly influenced by groups criticizing the former GDR-Administration for "canonizing" (p. 18 in Final Report) the number of 35.000 by "assailable testimony" ("nicht belegbaren Zeugenaussage" - ). For these groups, the presentation of casualty numbers significantly below 35.000 was and is an essential target. Thus, regardless of Neutzner's vague note in his separate Report from March 17 2010 it is clear that the Commission had to act under pressure by politically based requests, and a revised version of the article should take this background into account when prominently citing the Commission's Final Report.

Few minor issues refer to two Citations, in article version 832318440 numbered [3] and [4]:

[3] should be omitted in a future edited version of this wiki-page since it is a secondary (citing others) source without own original input.

[4] is a published book based on the Final Report of the Dresden Historians Commission 2010 without new own research results different from or additional to the data of the Final Report. The global availability of [4] and of this Final Report is, however, quite different with only the latter present on-line; probably this was the reason why [4] was not included into the Article's Bibliography (but could be shifted to it). For an edited version of the wiki-page it is, thus, recommended to substitute [4] throughout by the link to the Final Report (of course, with reference to the individual pages addressed).

References

--DocumentReader (talk) 16:23, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

[Comment edited/amended] --DocumentReader (talk) 13:29, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

@DocumentReader, I do not fully understand the logic by which you come to the conclusion that the number may be about 30,0000. I think you may be double counting, but I can not tell from your description above. There are several other points:

• the burials may also include people who died of reasons other than the bombings, or died later of injuries sustained in the bombings either of which alters the figures.
• There are other independent secondary sources for the numbers, which were used in the article before the inclusion of the official report see the section Casualties from the version of 21 December 2011.
• As mentioned in the Wikipedia article both back in 2011 and currently a calculation can also be done from the number reported missing which comes out at about 25,000. This correlates quite closely with the number of burials. If this were any country but Germany under a dictatorship that these numbers might be widely inaccurate, but I think it reasonable to assume that the figures are probably quite accurate as the chaos of the closing weeks of the war more than 2 months away.

I think before the numbers are questioned in the way you are suggesting, you would need to come up with a modern secondary source that questions the numbers in the way you have done in this section, before adding any questioning of the numbers currently displayed in the article. -- PBS (talk) 12:50, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

PBS (talk) I apologize for my delay - I'm still a greenhorn with wiki processes.

Apparently, there is some misunderstanding: I am not contra, I am pro commission's data in the Report of 2010! As a physicist I think that when "real data" are presented after huge efforts, we first have to address these data. Based on burial evidences, the numbers of casualties given by this Report are
( i) "more than" about 21.000 on Heide (6.865 [after March 5] + additional 10.430 until April 30) and Johannis ("more than 3.700") cemeteries (p.38+39), plus
( ii) "more than" 2.600 on further cemeteries within the city of Dresden (p.39, l.25), plus
(iii) "about" 860 on cemeteries around Dresden (p.40, l.20), plus
(iv) "several dozens" of improvised burials (p.40, l.14).
Formal summarizing gives an upper total of "more than" about 24500 in agreement with the report's summary of "a maximum of about 25.000" on p.41/p.67. All seems fine.
The one question mark I pose is on a detail in the above position (ii), and my request of complete citation of this report addresses this detail: The number of "more than 2.600" given in this paragraph is formally classified there (p.39, l.23/24) as the number of "relevant individual [burial] evidences" ("Bestattungen ... relevante Einzelnachweise"). However, exactly this same term "Einzelnachweise" is used on the last line of page 38 stating that such "individual" evidences cover only one third (a footnote on p.59 says: "slightly more than a half") of the total of 17.295 (6.865+10.430) which is accepted by the commission as "absolutely probable" (p.39, l.4) for Heide cemetery burials; reducing this share on Heide cemetery to the one third covered by "individual" evidences would remove any basis for the commission's final conclusion of "a maximum of about 25.000". If, now, the number of individual evidences covers just one third up to one half of the "absolutely probable" total in group (i) - how can we assume that it covers 100% of the total number for group (ii)? Thus, what is the quantitative meaning of the report's term "more than" 2.600 in (ii)? The question leads us to l.12-18 on p.39 where the total for group (ii) burials is described as "almost equal to the total number of Heide plus Johannis cemeteries burials in the same frame of time" (p.39, l.16-17). Unfortunately, any specification of this verbal statement by numbers (based on data provided for group (i)) is difficult an delivers, depending on (speculative!) assumptions, totals for (i)-(iv) between about 30.000 or up to 40.000.
You may ask me: If the one open question is about this one detail for position (ii) - why did I, living in Dresden, not ask one of the report's authors for their explanation?? The problem is: I did it several times by e-mail and using Neutzner's www site, I am on the mailing list of the Dresden History Museum - but from the closed (though living with public money) community around the 2010 Report I did never receive any response.

---

DocumentReader (talk) 12:44, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

I have commented before, so I will shortly note that evidently the article has been written from a perspective sympathetic to the Allied cause, and in my view too much so. In the introductory summary, for example, a figure of those killed at between "22,700 and 25,000" is far too precise given the uncertainties involved here, and seemingly makes light of, or is generally dismissive about, the broader debate. This conclusion goes as well for use of the term "causes celebres": being an unfortunate and improper term not to be used in *this* discussion... Further, the conjecture that those killed died humanely in their sleep [e.g. see below, Group 5] appears to be a straightforward speculation, and defense, of the Allied perspective regarding the general and widespread use of incendiaries. (John G. Lewis (talk) 20:48, 14 December 2018 (UTC))

5 Group Attack

I don't like editing other people's articles, but, as no one took any notice of my talkpage correction a couple of years ago, I've now corrected the article's misstatement of 5 Group's bombing times. Someone had taken a source that only referred to 49 Squadron and imagined that it applied to 5 Group as a whole. The previous claim about the Lancasters flying at only 8,000 feet is also a mistake. That didn't happen. Despite having written a whole Wikipedia article on a Bomber Command topic by myself a while ago, I cannot recall the bizarre hieroglyphic system of keystrokes required for inline citations, but the cite in this case is Taylor 2005 (it's already in the bibliography), p.296.

Incidentally, I notice the article doesn't explain why such an enormous death toll arose from such a routine attack. Frederick Taylor explains this at some length and in considerable detail. The Reich government's official advice was 'the air-raid shelter is the best protection' and that people should stay down in the cellar. Berliners were bomb-wise and knew that this was foolish. Someone had to run upstairs every few minutes and check the building for incendiaries. If they found them, they should call for help to douse the things or throw them out of the windows on shovels. Or, if they saw the fires getting out of control in the neighbourhood, they should warn everyone to evacuate and not stay in the cellars. Dresdeners were not, on the whole, bomb-wise. After the 5 Group attack, the fires were already getting quite dangerous and a lot of people defied government 'advice' and saw what was happening and just walked away from the central area and advised their neighbours to do the same. There were many hours available to get away, and to walk to the city outskirts, before the second attack and long before the firestorm brewed, and a great many people did just that -- some in pyjamas, because the night was unseasonally warm for February. But about 25,000 people, of a more Nazi cast of mind, simply obeyed government advice, stayed in their cellars, didn't check upstairs for incendiaries, didn't check to see if the fires were out of control, and those people died peacefully in their sleep as the fires overhead ate all the oxygen in the local atmosphere. In fact Taylor remarks that Dresdeners were more passive, Nazi and obedient than Leipzigers, never mind Berliners: 'In the case of the RAF's incendiary attack on Leipzig just over a year earlier, the surprisingly low casualty rate had been due to the disobedience of the city's population. Instead of staying in their shelters until the official all-clear, the Leipzigers quickly emerged and took an active part in extinguishing fires before these could spread and become unmanageable. The Dresden population was more passive and more obedient, perhaps more trusting of the authorities. It would pay dearly for this.' (Taylor 2005, pp.296-7 -- but consider pp.289-314 as a whole.) Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:07, 16 November 2018 (UTC)

Many of the other German cities had been bombed on a smaller scale on numerous occasions earlier in the war and so there had been time for the inhabitants to become gradually accustomed to the attacks and to find the best way of surviving them, however the people of Dresden had had no such chance, instead they had the full-force of a typical 1944-45 RAF Bomber Command attack sprung on them suddenly in one night. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.186 (talk) 11:47, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Leipzig had only had one serious but weather-scattered and wholly ineffective raid (by 358 Lancasters on 20-21 October 1943) before the one Taylor refers to, the most effective attack on Leipzig during the war, by 307 Lancasters and 220 Halifaxes, with one of 619 Squadron's Lancasters carrying the American war correspondent Ed Murrow, on 3-4 December 1943. In that second attack, despite severe damage to industrial facilities, a German police report compiled a week later states that just 614 people were killed. (Martin Middlebrook & Chris Everitt, The Bomber Command War Diaries, Midland Publishing, Leicester, 2000, ISBN 1-85780-033-8, pp. 439, 457.) Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:54, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

War crime

The most recent HarveyCarter sock is blocked
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Multiple sources state the raid was a war crime. (86.149.119.184 (talk) 10:02, 10 June 2019 (UTC)) A key point, mentioned in my edit summary, is WP:LEAD which describes the lead as a summary of information from the article. New claims and their references need to be first added to the article before they can be in a summary at the start. Please search the article for "war crime" to see a more thoughtful and better sourced treatment of the topic. Johnuniq (talk) 10:52, 10 June 2019 (UTC) It needs to be included in the lede. (86.149.119.184 (talk) 11:44, 10 June 2019 (UTC))

Soviet operational goals

Hi,

in the article "Eastern Front", section "Foreign support and measures", first paragraph, states that "/.../ some bombings, such as the bombing of the eastern German city of Dresden, /were/ being done to facilitate specific Soviet operational goals. /.../". With that sentence as a theme, so to speak, it is easy to see how points in e.g. the Background section, or some points in the Marshall inquiry line up with this idea, but given the controversy wrt. this tragic event, would not the article profit from bringing this out more clearly, for instance as a separate section? T 88.91.200.88 (talk) 05:41, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

So only "far right" describe the burning of 20,000 civilians in one night as a mass murder? What about other western Allied terror bombings (Berlin, Hamburg, Koln) and their characterization as war crimes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:1370:811B:33C6:25AE:1667:3E1B:9154 (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2019 (UTC)

Strafing of civilians most likely did take place

At least according to Dr Manuel Wolf, author of Airwar over Europe.

https://www.luftkrieg-ueber-europa.de/en/what-happened-on-14th-february-1945-to-the-south-of-dresden/

He quotes an after action report of the US Airforce 20th fighter group, that has up til now mostly been overlooked by other researchers. This information should be added, since it explains the over 100 witness reports about low level strafing.

Actually, it seems rather inconclusive after reading the source, which doubts the assertion on several counts. In any case, one source doesn't establish due weight. Acroterion (talk) 21:12, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

While the web page isn't all that useful as a reference by itself as it is a blog, the same information should be in the author's book (Air War over Europe 1939 - 1945, isbn 978-3000554605). - NiD.29 (talk) 20:35, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

The article actually admits that Dresden lay well to the north of 20th Fighter Group's return route from Prague, so 20th FG's Mustangs could not have appeared there. They might have strafed 'targets of opportunity' (this would usually mean road vehicles) quite some distance away in the outlying province, but they could not have appeared over Dresden as claimed. The supposed witness accounts of Mustangs strafing at Dresden are, as far as we know, false. (Frederick Taylor mentions a supposed witness who claimed she escaped the firestorm by floating down the Elbe on an ice floe. The weather was unseasonally warm. Large numbers of people walked away from the fire zone in their pyjamas. There were no ice floes on the Elbe.) Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:01, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

In regards to floating on ice to escape: this is middle Europe here, and close to the Alps, in the middle of winter. The fact that it was evidently warm may have increased the probability of an ice flow being present. (John G. Lewis (talk) 03:03, 28 October 2019 (UTC))

It was -1°C in the morning and 11.6°C at noon with light rain in the day before the bombing started and so any river ice would have been very slushy and weak at best, and far too weak to support someone. Anyone attempting to swim or ride one would probably have died from hypothermia with as little as 10-15 minutes of immersion though. It is far more probable that oxygen deprivation caused by the fire consuming it all resulted in hallucinations from some (very lucky) survivors. Wood debris would have been blown into the water too, providing a more likely vehicle for escape than ice floes. - NiD.29 (talk) 06:54, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Disgraceful article

The Left have got together here to produce a disgraceful article where they bring in the Holocaust and cite each other and known violent anti-Nazi "historians" like Richard Evans et al (including ex-communist Mayors etc) to try and instill "balance" into what most decent people regard as a war crime. Even Churchill said this was a step too far. No-one considers the over 100,000 refugees from the East known to be in the city most living rough, on the railway station, and in a loco-less train. All were incinerated. Playing down this atrocity and suggesting a mere 20,000 died is simply monstrous and shows up Wikipedia as a vehicle of The Left. 2A00:23C4:B63A:1800:59F2:E64B:CDA9:FAF8 (talk) 08:49, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

See above. 25,000 is the original figure reached by the Nazi authorities themselves at the time and confirmed by a subsequent commission of inquiry. Khamba Tendal (talk) 16:21, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

That is just untrue. The Nazi authorities considerably over-inflated the figures. My comment stands. Playing this down is monstrous. 2A00:23C4:B607:CF00:903:3DA:2F4:B92F (talk) 15:35, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't like it. ... Let me say also (I have commented previously above) that using the euphemistic phrase "moral cause celebres" in the introduction as a sort of euphemism is improper and out of place. No matter what you think of the Germans, or of their state, this was still a city of human beings, of farmers, watchmakers, bankers, businessmen, lawyers, candy-makers, scientists, academicians, & etc. and of their families, homes and pets that met a terrible end that mid-February night of 1945. (John G. Lewis (talk) 16:01, 7 January 2021 (UTC))

"Fails to meet any legal definition of a war crime"

This seems to me to be an inaccurate and overreaching statement to be making in wikivoice as it appears to contradict other parts of the article* which are more nuanced. Additionally, its placement at the start of the section detailing the views of scholars who consider it be a war crime inappropriately passes judgement on validity of the views that are subsequently explained. I don't see anywhere in the article that the statement "[it] fails to meet any legal definition of a war crime" is explicitly made and supported, so I added a citation needed tag, which was originally reverted by NiD.29.

If it can be sourced, I think the statement should be amended to "although the bombing is widely considered to have not met contemporary legal definitions of a war crime by historians/although the consensus view among historians is that the bombing did not meet contemporary legal definitions of a war crime, some hold the opinion that the bombing was one." I'm obviously not an expert of this topic so I don't know whether such a statement reflects the consensus of historians, but it seems more compatible with the overall message the article coveys, and I expect there'd be an overview of the historiography somewhere that effectively says as much, if it's the case. It might be helpful in this case to spell out that the conclusion of the US inquiry & report, that the city's anti-air defences meant it could be considered as "defended" under the existing humanitarian laws, has been accepted by the majority of historians/treated as valid by most scholars. Perhaps editors familiar with the topic know an appropriate source?

Otherwise, I suggest removing the statement entirely. It's is basically saying those who hold the opinion the bombing was a war crime are wrong, even though it opens the section that lists a series of reputable-looking experts who have this very view. If the statement represents one argument within a valid historical controversy, rather than it being the clear consensus view of scholars, it should be attributed rather than stated in wikivoice, and would be inappropriate to include in the section covering the views of the opposing camp as it'd then be an unnecessary case of MOS:EDITORIALisation (and non-neutral).

*Unless I'm misreading something, my understanding from reading the article is this: although air warfare wasn't explicitly covered by existing humanitarian law, it was still covered; the exact boundaries of what made an aerial bombardment a war crime were unclear because of the ambiguities of pre-existing laws, and it mostly depended on whether the city could be considered "defended"; an inquiry and a report conducted by the US Air Force absolved itself by arguing that as German cities were defended by AA units, none were "undefended"; the report also emphasised the military ends of the raid as justification; the report's argument about the military aims has been disputed by a notable journalist, a British bomber pilot and a historian; a number of historians have called the bombing immoral, one is quoted as saying it wasn't "strictly" a war crime, another is quoted as saying they weren't qualified to make such a judgement; several historians and a lawyer have argued that it was a war crime, particularly as they considered a lack of military necessity to have established a prima facie case. Pro-Nazis have tried to inflate the number of deaths to create a false moral equivalence with Nazi atrocities. Jr8825 • Talk 09:15, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

I suspect that the point the original editor was trying to make is that no competent court has been asked the question, or given the answer, on whether this bombing was a war crime. It is very easy to find philosophers making the point that it was a war crime, but they are not the lawyers and jurists who would actually decide, in a court, if it were. There is a comparison with the way the torpedoing of passenger ships without warning (which was illegal before WW2 started) was dealt with, as there were prosecutions of German naval officers over this, but Allied submarine commanders came to their defence: the nature of war had changed. This was never tested for air warfare, as no comparable situation existed. Therefore, for the article, though it can say that some claim the bombing of Dresden was a war crime (easy to find references for that) - can the article say "it has never been legally established to have been a war crime" (or something like that)? Is there a reference that actually says this? If the latter point cannot be made, there is a problem of balance in stating just the views of those who think it was a war crime. I do not think it right for the article to do anything other than leave the war crime issue to the reader to decide - so it has to be left an open question.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 16:00, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry Jr8825, I misunderstood the point you were making originally (a longer first edit summary would have helped clarify) - I took the cite needed tag as an attempt to undermine only one part of the claim, giving it undue weight to the claim of it being a war crime. The entire statement should be tagged as cite needed, or as suggested, removed. Given the number of fights with Nazis trying to push their agenda here, I erroneously assumed that as the intent but didn't have the time for a fight. Good luck on finding a source stating it was never explicitly listed as a war crime though - it is much harder to prove a negative. - NiD.29 (talk) 07:09, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

No need to apologise, NiD.29, I appreciate the difficulty dealing with articles subject to disruptive POV pushing. I've done some more reading on the topic and I'm going to go ahead and remove that sentence, as I don't think it reflects a consensus among historians. I don't think it will have a negative impact on the rest of the article. Mostly a note to myself for future reference, but in case anybody finds it useful, here's a helpful review of the post-war historiography: The Post War Debate (a chapter by Richard Overy from Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden 1945, eds. P. Addison & J. Crang). Jr8825 • Talk 13:13, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The cited chapter by Overy is an interesting read - especially since he talks a lot about those who consider the bombing of Dresden to be a war crime, but based on an inflated death toll given by Irving or Nazi propaganda. Interestingly, the chapter could also be used (at a stretch, perhaps) as a citation to support the deleted sentence. For instance, page 124: "International agreements to protect civilians from attack from the air did not exist in 1945 when the city of Dresden was partially destroyed." (I am not arguing that the sentence should be reinstated.)
Because Overy does not give a consensus of legal opinions (you can always find at least one lawyer to agree with you, however unlikely you are to win in court), I presume that there is no such consensus. Though the views of philosophers and historians have relevance in the debate, surely the ideal RS to use has to be legal. This has to be the reason why the article must leave the judgement to the reader (which I think it does).ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:25, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

25,000 is the lower bound of casualties.

In the most recent attempt at disclosing the truth, from 2004, one of the leaders of the Dresdner Historikerkommission explicitly stated that the 25,000 was the lower bound of their estimates (https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/zeitgeschichte/interview-zu-dresdner-bombenopfern-die-schwierige-suche-nach-der-zahl-x-a-341655.html - first answer), as it is the official data on the dead obtained from the cemetery burial office found in the state archive of Dresden. Since the number of refugees cannot be established and there is no guarantee that all victims were identified, the number can only be higher. The commission came to the rather illogical conclusion that the lower bound is also the upper bound, although they did specify a 20% margin of error upwards. Therefore, in faith of objectivity, I propose the casualties indication as: "At least 25,000 killed, possibly more".Ddelete013 (talk) 11:29, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

The cited newspaper report is of the beginning of the work of a commission set up in 2004. That is 17 years ago. What was this commission's final conclusion? Without any reference to the contrary, it is highly likely that this is the commission referred to in Richard Overy's The Bombing War (publ. 2013), where he says (pg 395) "Recent estimates from a historical commission in Dresden have confirmed that the original figure suggested by the police president of Dresden in March 1945 of approximately 25,000 dead is the best available estimate." (bold added) ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:22, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

The report of this commission says (in part)([1]):
"Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse Im Ergebnis der von der Kommission vorgenommenen Untersuchungen wird festgestellt: Bei den Luftangriffen auf Dresden vom 13. bis 15. Februar 1945 wurden bis zu 25.000 Menschen getötet."
Which translates (electronically) as "summary of results As a result of the investigations carried out by the Commission, it is found: During the air strikes on Dresden from February 13th to 15th, 1945 up to 25,000 people were killed."
Note the words "up to 25,000". This appears entirely consistent with the article. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:59, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

@ThoughtIdRetired: thanks for clarifying this. I thought this was the case, not just because of the existing text and inline refs, but also because I'd noticed any estimates above 25,000 appearing in reliable sources (which previously went up to ~35,000, such as Evans, 2008) date from prior to the report's publication in 2010. The commission's report looks to have been received as a definitive examination of the evidence. Jr8825 • Talk 16:09, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

I just explained that their conclusion makes no sense. It is out there obvious to see. They started with 25,000, established that they cannot determine the number of people in the city and then all of those simply relocated to safety during the bombing runs? Numbers cannot be merely "up to 25,000" in any way. Otherwise none of the refugees died or all bodies were accounted for. Nobody in his serious mind would claim that when witnesses and forensic logic go against it. Mind you, about 1.2 million Germans are still missing since their ethnic clensing from Eastern Europe.

Knowing the context in which such investigations are made in Germany, it is very likely that political pressure was exerted out of fear that higher numbers might fuel support for the nationalist and anti-nazi movements. The quoted historian himself estimated 30,000 to 40,000 a year into the investigation and after decades of research already conducted. The then suddenly fall on an absolute claim of up to 25,000 and not a person more has no rational base.

This is without even mentioning that such numbers would represent an unusual outlier compared to other bombings of cities better prepared for such event.

If you have no better arguments then you have no choice but to do what I suggested. So bring them, otherwise you risk relativising crimes and doing history injustice. Ddelete013 (talk) 22:04, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Sorry Ddelete013, but this line of reasoning is not going to get anywhere on Wikipedia. It's not our job as editors to second-guess the experts. Again, I point to the essay I linked in our conversation on my talk page (WP:MAINSTREAM). You might feel it's obvious they're wrong and it was all a whitewash, and you're entitled to that view, but that view will not get reflected in this article because there's no weight of reliable sources saying it. Even if you were an expert historian who had read the report in its entirety and still held the same belief about its conclusions being wrong, you would not be able to include that view here unless it was written in a reliable, published source. Wikipedia is not the place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Jr8825 • Talk 02:49, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

I understand. I suppose there is no other way.Ddelete013 (talk) 11:29, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Missing

The attacks on april 2 with 406 bombers and 17 april with 580 bombers are missing. However, they are included in the table.--Falkmart (talk) 10:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Total war

Current lead sentence:

The bombing of Dresden was a British-American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II.

Proposed lead sentence:

The bombing of Dresden was a British-American total war aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II.

Just a passing thought, passing by.

In my own casual contact with history, the two bombings on Germany and the bombing on Tokyo are rarely discussed without first at least a mention of how rapidly escalating air power tilted the entire balance toward total war.

If not the lead sentence, perhaps elsewhere in the lead? — MaxEnt 03:25, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Total war was a term coined by Ludendorff and most notoriously used by Goebbels in his Sportpalast speech in February 1943. For that speech, the words 'Totaler Krieg' were written up in huge letters around the hall. Goebbels' attribution of the expression to the British was, obviously, a lie. He asked the audience if they wanted total war and, of course, they said yes, quite loudly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRmHOSnehTk Since it is a Nazi propaganda term, it shouldn't be employed as a neutral description. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:04, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

It was von Clausewitz who first mentioned total war as warfare that includes any and all civilian and associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs. So as it was the British who first introduced this in WWII, particularly targeting and incinerating civilians, Goebbels was quite correct to attribute the idea of total war to them and to ask his audience do they effectively wish to retaliate along the same lines. Once again you are wrong. Really, leftists like you should get out of Wikipedia with your lies.2A00:23C4:B607:CF00:903:3DA:2F4:B92F (talk) 15:42, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

To a Nazi, I imagine practically everyone appears to be a 'leftist'. Khamba Tendal (talk) 17:57, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

So I guess it wasn't the Germans who were the first to bomb civilians in BOTH world wars (The German bombing of Antwerp, 24–25 August 1914 was the first urban area to be bombed by anyone, btw), as well as over Spain? Regardless of who the Nazis (and their bootlickers) attribute it to (and they aren't known for their honesty, moral values, integrity or even knowledge), the notion of intensive bombing of civilians was a German one. Zeppelins and Gothas just got replaced with Heinkels and Dorniers which were then vastly outdone by Lancasters and Flying Fortresses. The Nazis aren't upset over the deaths of some civilians, only that the British (and Americans) showed the Germans up for being incompetent at something they had invented. Those that sow the wind reap the whirlwind. - NiD.29 (talk) 18:22, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

A few Talk Pages back I posted a link to The Blitz article just in case those expressing moral outrage wished to make the same point about the bombing of London on its Talk Page but as far as I know few, if any, did. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.8.128 (talk) 08:49, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Your 'first to do it deserves no pardon' argument is rich, NiD.29; what about the UK's concentration camp history and gassing civilians, not to mention strangulation blockades against the German people? Based on what you're saying, the Germans would have had the high ground to do all of those things to the British because the British did it first or did it to the Germans first. Instead, everything the British did gets pardoned as 'ok' in some way or another, because the rules always get topped with some new excuse. (I suppose there is some excuse as to why you get to break the Wiki rules to use this page as a soapbox for your screed, too. Why is that?) The same apologist energy finds its way into the article, trying to pardon what the UK and US did to Dresden by what changed for the better. Where is that argument when we talk about the bombing of Guernica (Spain), since it was a critical turning point in the Spanish Civil War? Nope. Guernica only becomes that which excuses every bomb the UK ever dropped on German civilians from that point on, under any circumstance. But of course. Yeahcoolstorybro (talk) 03:37, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

1) the concentration camps were intended as a way of isolating the civilian Boer population from the Boer fighters as the civilian population were supporting the Boer guerrilla army with food and other supplies. That conditions inside the camps became so bad was almost entirely due to the shortage of supplies of food etc., which were transported to the camps via rail, which the Boer guerrillas were repeatedly blowing up the rails of.

I should also perhaps point out that the purpose of the concertation camps in South Africa was not the killing or working-to-death of their inhabitants, which was most certainly the express purpose of a number of Nazi ones.

2) the bombing of civilians in Iraq was not any indiscriminate form of bombing but was carried out to discourage Iraqi villagers in isolated villages which could not be policed by normal means from giving support to rebels. Prior to any bombing of such villages an aircraft would be flown over the offending village and leaflets dropped announcing that the village would be bombed as a punishment sometime within the next day or so. The leaflets, printed in the local language, would get picked up and passed to the village headman who in most villages could read, and he would then inform the villagers. It was then up to the villagers themselves whether they remained in the village or temporarily left for the surrounding area. Usually they left. Once the bombing was over they would return and their time would then be occupied re-building their dwellings instead of supporting any rebels. This technique of dropping leaflets warning or impending attacks and advising the inhabitants to move elsewhere was also applied in the period 1939-41 over Germany, with less successful results.

3) no Iraqis were gassed, to the best of my knowledge the RAF has never (except see below) used any form of chemical weapon in action, and that includes napalm, which it had in small stocks in 1944, although possibly some may have been used against the Japanese in Burma and Malaya, this is unlikely.

BTW, in 1982 when Argentinian stocks of napalm were discovered on the airfield at Port Stanley there was talk among the liberating troops of summarily executing any Argentinian personnel involved in its use if the weapon had been used against British forces.

If however gas HAD been used in Iraq by local RAF units, it would almost certainly have been used against the wishes of both the Iraqi and British governments and so would have been ordered to be discontinued as soon as its use had become known to them. The RAF units in Iraq were intended to be a policing force, and so such extreme measures as using gas woud have been considered too extreme and inhumane. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.8.170 (talk) 10:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Much of the above has wandered away from the principle that a talk page is to discuss what the article says rather than forming a discussion of the subject itself.

Using the term "total war" seems to be entirely redundant, as it can be applied to many events in World War 2. As a technical term, it is not widely used by the general audience for whom this encyclopaedia intended. If it were to be included, what would it actually add to the article? I suggest very little.ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:17, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

This is a good point. I think historians would agree that the strategic bombing campaign was an aspect of WW2's "total war" (as in, targeting of civilians became acceptable/widespread), but I don't think the term is necessary in a factual description of a specific event, as we're then making an editorial choice to apply it to this event but not others. It's more appropriate in broader articles covering assessments and analysis of the wider campaign/conflict, and the phrase does appear in the prose of Strategic bombing during World War II to describe British area bombing. Also, to include "total war" in the lead it would need to be considered crucial context to the bombing by RS and supported by the article body (MOS:LEADREL). That argument (which I'm guessing is part of the original proposer's thought process) is more understandable, but it's not mentioned in the article body and I'm not keen on the term anyway, as it comes with a degree of moral relativism. Jr8825 • Talk 14:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Background to planning as a target

I listened to Tami Davis Biddle on a podcast the other day, and the issues of "war weariness" in the Allies (following a bad winter) and the coming focus on the war in the Pacific were factors. Also that Dresden was not just a junction for troop movements to and from the Eastern Front but also for movements south towards the Italian front (and Balkans?) where fighting continued. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

One has to remember that the Dresden raid was over a month before the crossing of the Rhine. This was an operation that was viewed with some trepidation by the Western allies - hence the massive artillery bombardment and the large air landing operation (record for size of a one-day, one-location air landing). It was only after the Rhine was crossed that it was totally clear that Germany was beaten. This is perhaps best summed up by Overy:
"The story of the last months of desperate German resistance is now well known, but at the time the intelligence picture for the Allies was less coherent and full of potential menace. Persistent rumours of German plans to build a ‘redoubt’ in southern Germany or the Alps were taken more seriously than they deserved. The capacity of the Red Army to complete its victory on the Eastern Front was regarded as more imponderable than it should have been. These uncertainties help to explain the decision that led on the night of 13–14 February in the Saxon city of Dresden to the third major firestorm of the war, which killed approximately 25,000 people in a few hours." (Overy, Richard. The Bombing War, p. 391)
Then we have:
"[Eisenhower] greatly over-estimated the fighting power of the German armies facing him, which were in fact crippled by fuel and ammunition shortages." [this is in February 1945) (Beevor, Antony. The Second World War p. 954)
Also in February you have the American operation to cross the River Sauer and Montgomery's attack southeast from Nijmegen - both of which were difficult and costly. History is, of course, a sort of hindsight, which it is why it is important to consider the views of the decision-makers at the time they took their decisions. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:13, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Total Fatalities Much Higher

Fatalities were much higher than stated. Sources quoted are simply fraudulent, which is obvious & can be seen by checking a few facts that are readily available on Wikipedia herself. Does Wikipedia have a rule to reject published so-called research when it is obviously stating falsehoods? Such a rule should complement the "NO INDEPENDtT RESEARCH" rule, in this case correcting the 20,000 to read 900,000. Also, documents readily available show Stalin asked Western Allies for the bombings because he was furious over the many refugees fleeing the Red Army who had gathered in Dresden, not for any strategic goals. hgwb 06:26, 9 September 2019 Malfunctioning sinebot. This has been my signature from the earliest days. hgwb 08:01, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

The numbers provided are from the Germans themselves (both internally and from the commission) rather than the propaganda values provided by the Nazis and their sympathizers postwar - which have been shown repeatedly to be the ones that are fraudulent. - NiD.29 (talk) 15:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct, the German numbers that you are quoting are from their fraudulent publications. But I am not referring to data from Nazi sympathizers, being a miraculous German born WWII survivor despite Jewish ancestry now aged 84. My own mother asked my dad to kill me because I looked too Jewish, scaring her. Rather, I am referring to Wikipedia data of population numbers before and after the bombing. Subtract the numbers and you get 900,000. The 20,000 is so low in view of the city being dead by Kurt Vonnegut's account. Dresden had 500,000 refugees who camped in the Elbe parks and were strafed. –– Simply take the evidence and admit the awful truth. hgwb 17:12, 9 September 2019 (UTC) hgwb 17:12, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

We will take the evidence we have, which supports the 25,000 figure - NOT your grossly overinflated 900,000 number. Read the page again - 25,000 was arrived at by counting both the number of missing ration cards (and everyone needed one to get food), and the number of bodies, and both matched, and that is the number arrived at internally by the Nazis and more recently by a commission of historians. The only source for the higher numbers was the Nazi public claims, by which they hoped to paint the Allies as the villains. There is not a single shred of evidence supporting any number significantly higher. Kurt Vonnegut's account is of one man in one small part of the city. Nothing more. As a POW, he did not get to travel around to see the big picture so he lacked the means to come to any reasonable estimate. He also did not have access to ANY official documentation or estimates, either Allied or German other than the Nazi claims, so nothing he can add could ever affect the actual counts. Nor is your supposed ancestry relevant to the discussion, other than to make achieving a neutral point of view much more difficult. Looked "too Jewish" indeed. - NiD.29 (talk) 05:26, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

aren't you a charmer, NiD.29. 65.95.193.14 (talk) 17:49, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

"Too Jewish" was meant for not causing Nazi persecutions.

Here below, from German Wikipedia, "Einwohnerentwicklung_von_Dresden," not the best source (inspect "history" files for more):

     December....1944......571,641 
     Refugees (est)........500,000
     ------------------------------
     February....1945.....1,071,641
     May.........1945.......397,676  
     -------------------------------
     Killed.................673,965
     = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

hgwb 07:27, 10 September 2019 (UTC) hgwb 07:27, 10 September 2019 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skeptiker (talk • contribs)

No clue what you are attempting to count, but those numbers are certainly not referring solely to Dresden bombings, and while the German wiki page for Dresden has some serious POV issues, not least suggesting that the Jews were only expelled or deported, with no mention of them being rounded up and murdered wholesale. Even then, they still have the 22,700 - 25,000 figures - not the much higher numbers that emanated from Nazi propaganda, and the Dresden bombing page repeats the same information - neither repeats those bogus numbers you pulled out of a hat. - NiD.29 (talk) 02:58, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

What annoys me about this article, and which I think is unacceptable for Wikipedia, is that the given figure for the supposed deaths as being so precise and bounded. This therefore gives the impression that the casualties are known, viz. the boundary of deaths being 22,700 to 25,000. [Based on what might be a chance correlation of bodies found and food ration cards missing.] We all have axes to grind, I suppose, ... but still, given that many learned people believe the fatalities may be considerably higher, to therefore introduce three significant figures into the death total is not appropriate and certainly not for a Wikipedia article that is supposed to be un-polemical and even-handed. Therefore merely say 25,000 as the death toll, that is, if you are to give the lower figure? (...) One other issue here is that just a little ways down in this opening section higher figures are thrown out, largely off the cuff, with these being 200,000 and 500,000. This makes it appear the claims that we might make, of higher casualties, as being odd and unjustified, possibly even ridiculous (in comparing it to the initial boundary just given). So then, the opening section should be re-written even if it be from the perspective of a lower figure supporter, in deference to the uncertainties of the situation, the work done by academicians to support higher totals, and a fair presentation of the facts - which is what Wikipedia is supposed to be about. (John G. Lewis (talk) 15:26, 27 October 2019 (UTC))

The higher numbers were not removed "off the cuff", and they belong strictly within the realm of conspiracy theories. As such, they are mentioned in the proper section, which, had you actually read that far, you would have learned that they were the deliberate result of a very successful propaganda campaign and are not based on any actual facts or evidence, while the 22,700 to 25,000 range is consistent with both the internal Nazi German government figures (not for public consumption), and those arrived at by careful research by the city, which had no reason to falsify the numbers, unlike almost all of the other actors in this little drama. Most of these intended smearing someone - and that includes the Nazi propaganda people, the British MPs, the Soviets, writers trying to convey the horrors of being on the receiving end of a bombing raid (and without any means of seeing the bigger picture), pseudo-historians repeating nonsense without any fact checking, and neo-Nazis trying to downplay the evils of the system they espouse. There are no legitimate recognized academicians supporting the higher numbers. - NiD.29 (talk) 05:47, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Dresden was in the former GDR and during the Cold War casualty figures were inflated by the Soviet propaganda machine in order to embarrass the West. That's why these figures stopped being officially trumpeted after the Berlin Wall came down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.140 (talk • contribs) 09:04, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

In his book "The Destruction of Dresden" (Ballantine, 1963) David Irving gives an estimate of those killed at 135,000. In a more recent book, "The Fire" (Columbia Univ. Press, 2006) Jorg Friedrich estimates the dead at over 100,000. There was much obfuscation and outright lying done on the behalf of the western allies in the days of the fire bombings, and afterward, so that relying on statements is not easy if possible at all. During the firestorm which erupted over Dresden in the early hours of Feb. 13, 1945, very strong hurricane force winds developed of unknown strength, with heat approaching 1000 C. Dresden was at that time a place for German refugees from the East, and it is estimated that as many as 800,000 to a million people might have resided in the city at the time. The heat was so intense that many bodies were completely incinerated to ash. Some of the ash was no doubt left in the rubble, yet authorities tried to move it out of the cellars in which it was found. (...) Mr. Irving reports that the numbers of bodies bulldozed into mass graves alone at more than 30,000. (pg. 246) At another place in the book (pg. 214) he writes that the German authorities came up with an index of those who died at 39,773, and that this would so constitute an absolute minimum. (John G. Lewis (talk) 20:27, 21 January 2020 (UTC))

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center Irving's most famous legal battle came when he sued Penguin Books and American scholar Deborah Lipstadt over Lipstadt's portrayal of him in her 1994 book. Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory. Irving brought the suit against the British division of Penguin once the book was circulated in that country because British common law states that in a libel suit, the burden of proof rests with the defendant rather than the plaintiff (American libel law shifts the burden of proof to the plaintiff and is far easier on writers' unintentional reporting errors). Still, the London judge sided with Penguin and Lipstadt, roundly denouncing Irving in his judgment and ordering him to pay Lipstadt's court costs — an estimated $5 million. The judge concluded that Irving "displays a distinctly pro-Nazi and anti-Jewish bias" and went on to call him "an active Holocaust denier" who "deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence." Ultimately, the trial had the effect of wiping out Irving's dwindling finances and battering his credibility. https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/david-irvingTheSunofman (talk) 00:06, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

Even better, Irving publicly admitted in a letter to the editor that he had discovered that he had worked from forged documents and the numbers he has been using were in fact wrong anyway - which means literally nothing he wrote to that point is of any use as a source - and that specifically excludes the bogus 135,000 figure the neo-Nazis like to quote. - NiD.29 (talk) 05:28, 22 January 2020 (UTC)

I was not aware of the suits against Irving. But conceding the existence of the law suits, even the success of them, hardly will this mean everything David Irving wrote is fallacious or suspect. James Bacque reports that after his initial book documenting related fields in WW2, "Other Losses", the U.S. government would occasionally send agents around to 're-educate' people about what truly happened. (...) I know and understand that this area, of bombings, treatment of prisoners, and of possible war crimes, is very controversial and can get people upset. So then let us try not to introduce finger pointing and name calling, but rather dispassionately attempt to examine the truth of what happened back then? You are no doubt right, I suppose, giving what you say regarding Irving. It therefore seems like Mr. Jorg Friedrich will be a better source. Perhaps we can also keep in mind that if there was some war guilt, or crimes, on our side, this will not excuse the crimes of the Germans. (John G. Lewis (talk) 16:15, 5 February 2020 (UTC))

A search of the reliable sources noticeboard will show how little regard David Irving has as a historian. His proven falsifications have made him unusable as a historical source. (Hohum ^@) 18:46, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Here are some figures from sources (they all state the figures are approximate):

• 18,000+ (but less than 25,000) The Second World War by Antony Beevor
• 20,000 The Storm of War by Anthony Roberts
• 25,000 The End by Ian Kershaw
• 25,000–30,000 Moral Combat by Michael Burleigh
• 35,000 The Third Reich at War: 1939-1945 by Richard J. Evans

  // Timothy :: talk  19:15, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

fyi they are from Kindle, so I don't have page numbers available.   // Timothy :: talk 

added efn to include above figures.   // Timothy :: talk  06:02, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Richard Overy in The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945, Penguin, London, 2014 (ISBN 978-0-141-00321-4), p.395, has: 'Recent estimates from a historical commission in Dresden has confirmed that the original figure suggested by the police president of Dresden in March 1945 of approximately 25,000 dead is the best available estimate.' Khamba Tendal (talk) 16:19, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

In regard to David Irving's credibility, see the actual High Court judgement here. http://www.fpp.co.uk/trial/judgment/Lipstadt_judgment.pdf The learned judge's discussion of Irving's persistently inflated claims about the casualty toll at Dresden, including false claims about what his supposed German sources actually told him, will be found at pages 106-112. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:29, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

I have a correction for everyone. Mr. Jorg Friedrich in his book "The Fire" did not claim the death toll was over 100,000 as I wrote prior. I'll leave that comment up, as it is too far back in the conversation to correct at this point. The book was translated out of its original German and Mr. Friedrich's style is at times a bit difficult. In his section on the main Dresden bombing of WW2, February 13 - 14, 1945, and a double strike using the 'fan' technique (of the British), he did not give a death toll at the end of the section (as was his custom) but introduced it at the beginning and gave a rounded figure: 40,000. In the other cities that experienced bombing and fire-bombing the death toll given by Friedrich was also often very precise, possibly uncomfortably so: frequently down to the single digits. Yet for Dresden he gave a figure rounded out in the thousands, or possibly tens of thousands, place. My mistake was of reading ahead and too quickly, of not taking the time. Sorry about that. (see pg. 310) (John G. Lewis (talk) 21:17, 15 March 2020 (UTC))

The number of Americans killed in car accidents in 1950, just five years after this and years before the Interstate System was begun was 33,186 (WP). But one of the worst fire bombings in history, consisting of what, 1200 or so bombers in three waves killed 25,000. Well, if that's the number, then that's the number...and compared to the KIAs in many large WW II battles, a huge one to be sure. But, it defies credibility. I searched "Dresden casualties" and 135,000 pops up on top on Google (with a picture even!) which is historylearningsite.co.uk. To their credit, they go on to say that the actual number is in dispute among historians. If it's important enough, WP should contact Google and get their page on top as that what kids doing reports and people mildly interested in the subject will see first. According to a Daily Mail article, the new, new number appears to be a low end of 18,000. I suppose a decade from now it will drop to 2500.RRskaReb talk 18:28, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

A lie gets half way around the world before the truth gets its pants on. All this tells me is that historylearningsite.co.uk is another garbage site regurgitating crap without actually checking anything they write. There is no "dispute" since those repeating the inflated numbers have done no research whatsoever, and/or have an agenda that compromises whatever they may claim. Keep in mind that the Germans had a lot of experience by 1945 with bombing raids, and most people were safe in bunkers. The toll was mostly due to the small number of people who could not be accommodated in the properly prepared bunkers, and were simply in the basements of houses that offered little or no protection. - NiD.29 (talk) 20:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Goetz Bergander wrote that Dresden had rather poor air-raid precautions, and in particular very few deep reinforced bomb shelters. He was in 1945 the teenage son of the technical director of the Bramsch distillery in the Friedrichstadt district, which had a reinforced ferro-concrete shelter right under it, with gas filters and everything. But in any case the distillery was on the western edge of the 5 Group attack, receiving few bombs, and was well outside the area of the main attack a few hours later. Most people just went down to the cellars of their houses or apartment buildings. This was usually good enough, and most people in the area of the main attack survived it, at least while the bombers were overhead. However, those who kept watchfully going upstairs to check on their building and their neighbourhood soon noticed that the fires were getting out of control and they walked out of the fire zone and escaped the firestorm. Those who simply obeyed the government advice to 'stay in shelter' remained where they were and died of asphyxiation in large numbers as the firestorm ate all the oxygen in the atmosphere. (It would be quite a peaceful death preceded by drowsiness and unconsciousness.) The firestorm only took hold several hours after the bombers departed. Dresdeners had little experience of air attack, were not as 'bomb-wise' as Berliners and did not know that it was a bad idea to 'stay in shelter' without regularly checking upstairs. Those who used their initiative and left the area survived. Those who didn't died. This is all detailed in, for instance, Frederick Taylor's book. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:37, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Your point is? You not only contradict yourself, you rely on the problematic recollections of an uninformed teenager that is at odds with German records. As for "government advice", (which sounds like a false equivalence to the anti-masking nonsense being spouted currently) it made little difference since we know that those that did surface also died. There was little to stop the fires once they had gotten into the apartment blocks but these made up a small share of the shelters available, most of which were far better, as can be seen by who survived. The authority's priority was the soldiers and workers, and these were unaffected. Those who died were mostly refugees from territories to the East that the Germans had attempted to settle (after murdering most of the prior populations) - and these people failed to access the main shelters, either by not getting on the rolls, or being unable to find them, as is stated in the article. - NiD.29 (talk) 22:38, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

What do you mean, 'Your point is?' I just stated my point. I have not contradicted myself. Goetz Bergander is not 'an uninformed teenager', he is a witness of the raid and one of its principal historians, due to his much-referenced book Dresden im Luftkrieg (1998 edition ISBN 3881892397 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dresden-Luftkrieg-Vorgeschichte-Zerst%C3%B6rung-Folgen/dp/3881892397, though the book first appeared in 1974). His account is not 'at odds with German records.' The 'government advice' in question, which has nothing to do with anti-maskers, can be found cited on p.297 of Frederick Taylor's book (Dresden Tuesday 13 February 1945, Bloomsbury edition 2005, ISBN 0 7475 7084 1):- 'But less than two months before the big air raids on Dresden, an article in the party newspaper, chirpily entitled "Air Raid Shelter the Best Protection", had provided its readers with frankly contradictory counsel: [contradictory, that is, to a previous article in the same Nazi Party paper, Der Freiheitskampf, 23 October 1943, in which citizens were warned to leave shelter regularly to check upstairs for incendiaries, as Berliners and Londoners did] "The air raid shelter is the best protection. The number of those killed in such shelters is small to the point of nonexistence compared with those whose lives and possessions have been saved by them. Instead of fleeing thoughtlessly into the open, we should rather put all our energy into turning our cellar into a really secure refuge." ' (Source, 'Tagesspiel: Luftschutzkeller Bester Schutz', Der Freiheitskampf, 21 December 1944, cited Taylor, op.cit., notes p.536.) There were few purpose-built shelters in Dresden. People relied on the cellars of their houses or apartment blocks. It is a matter of record that very large numbers of people went upstairs to check, saw the fires getting out of control and walked out of the fire zone, either after the 5 Group attack or after the Main Force attack. There were hours available in which to do this before the firestorm, and everyone who did it survived, and those who stayed in the cellars, if they were in the fire zone, died as the fires ate the oxygen in the air. It is absurdly untrue to claim that 'Those who died were mostly refugees.' They were mostly Dresden residents. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:39, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

A teenager uninvolved with planning, on the outskirts, who wasn't a journalist (not a historian) until 16 years later, with personal ties and therefore unable to be completely balanced, and who was in a purpose built shelter - one of many. None of which supports the veracity of his claims. His books also have numerous factual errors (mostly minor points) that point to him being more journalist than historian, even if the book is very important at debunking a lot of nonsense. Were there enough? Obviously not. Were their locations made known to refugees? Probably not. Was advice consistent? Nazis, then or now, are not known for consistency. I am not sure how this relates to the death claims though. The types of bombs used would not have required deep shelters to survive as they were designed to shred wood buildings into kindling, and set fire to them, rather than blowing big holes in the ground. Do you have a source for the dead being mainly residents? Because I have seen multiple references for them being mostly refugees - but then there is a lot of bad sources for this topic, and much still to learn thanks to decades of Nazi obfuscation. - NiD.29 (talk) 20:30, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Any city has finite resources that limit the number of people, (e.g., refugees), it can accommodate, such as food, water, housing, etc., and so the maximum number possible of people actually in Dresden at the time of the bombing ought to be able to be estimated, allowing for emergency usage of office space for accommodation, and of tentage in open areas such as parks, and other additional means of temporary housing, and assuming the city's administration still had some organisational capabilities. As the time was winter then few if any refugees would have been sleeping out in the open, so some form of housing, even if only a tent, would have been essential. Thus there will be a figure for Dresden above-which any quoted figures will be implausible simply because the city is not physically large enough to house and feed that many more people over-and-above its normal population. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.148.8.128 (talk) 07:48, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

"According to the former general staff officer of the military district of Dresden and retired lieutenant colonel of the Bundeswehr, D. Matthes, 35 000 victims were fully and another 50 000 partly identified, whereas further 168 000 could not be identified at all.”(Die Welt, 12 February, 1995, page 8)

German chancellor Konrad Adenauer said: "On 13 February 1945, the attack on the city of Dresden, which was overcrowded with refugees, claimed about 250 000 victims.” (Deutschland Heute, edited by the press and information service of the federal government, Wiesbaden 1955, page 154)

the city of Dresden gave the following answer to a citizen who had inquired about the death toll: "According to reliable information from the Dresden police, 202040 dead, most of them women and children, were found until 20 March. Only about 30% of them could be identified. If we take into account those who are missing, a figure of 250000 to 300000 victims seems realistic.” (Letter by Hitzscherlich, Sign: 0016/Mi, date: 31 - 7 - 1992)Yeahcoolstorybro (talk) 03:45, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Except you just added another 0 to what the City of Dresden ACTUALLY said, just as the Nazis did in WW2, so, no, those are NOT reasonable, and why do you keep lying? In fact the 22,000 number comes from two independent sources - actual bodies found, and ration cards not being used after the bombing, the latter being possible since every person needed a ration card to get food. No significantly higher number is in the least way reasonable, regardless of how many people lie about it, or how often. - NiD.29 (talk) 23:42, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Those commenting on this thread should bear in mind the official historical commission organised by the City of Dresden in 2004. The findings of this commission are validated by being cited by respected WW2 historians, such as Richard Overy. The report of this commission says (in part)([2]):
"Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse Im Ergebnis der von der Kommission vorgenommenen Untersuchungen wird festgestellt: Bei den Luftangriffen auf Dresden vom 13. bis 15. Februar 1945 wurden bis zu 25.000 Menschen getötet."
Which translates (electronically) as "summary of results As a result of the investigations carried out by the Commission, it is found: During the air strikes on Dresden from February 13th to 15th, 1945 up to 25,000 people were killed."
(See also: [3] which gives the date of the report as 17 March 2010.)

I strongly suggest that a reference to the commission's findings and subsequent use of these findings is pinned at the top of this talk page, rather than being continuously archived and having to be raised again in later discussion. Unless a respected historian, working later than the date the commission reported, comes up with a well argued alternative figure, the commission's findings have to be taken as the final word on the subject. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 07:26, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Numbers of people saved

Victor Klemperer and his wife were saved by the bombing. How many Jews were to be deported together with them? How many of them survived? 25,000 dead and 2 saved is something different than 25,000 dead.Xx236 (talk) 06:18, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

Problem explanation with "See also" link to Coventry blitz

The link to Coventry Blitz in the "See also" section has a misleading explanation that does not really fit with the sources. It says:
"The German bombing of Coventry, to which the bombing of Dresden was in some measure a response"
This seems to imply that the bombing of Dresden is specifically linked to the attack on Coventry – seemingly with a suggestion of revenge. This is not bourn out by the sources. I can find no suggestions that the Dresden raid is particularly linked to Coventry in a detailed search of Beevor's The Second World War or of the analysis of bombing in Overy's The Bombing War. Looking at the latter source in particular, it is Germany that repeatedly talks about revenge attacks. For the air forces of the British, and later the Americans as they worked alongside the RAF in the campaign to bomb Germany, revenge was not really a component of the development of area bombing. Whilst Harris may have made comments like "They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind", area bombing was actually developed as a concept before Harris was in post. It's relation to Coventry and the other attacks on British cities was the technical analysis of the effect of German raids. This gave estimates of the how air raids might reduce Germany's war production and assisted in the decision-making over attacks on civilian housing. It was all about disrupting German war production, though with the added political factor that Stalin was pressing for the Western Allies to do more against Germany – and this was really all that they had to offer at the time.

By late in the war, with the raid on Dresden, the RAF and USAAF had fully developed techniques for destroying German cities – the raid on Hamburg being the first major example. The motivation of the planners of the raid was to assist the advancing Russian troops by causing chaos and disruption in a city full of refugees, through which German supplies and troops were also trying to move. There is no mention of revenge or, specifically, Coventry in Overy's detailed analysis. He considers more the war-weariness of the British and the intelligence position available to the Western allies at the time: that Germany was not beaten, the Russian advance might falter and that the Nazis might retreat to a mountain redoubt. Later study shows all these fears to be overstated, but they were very real at the time decisions were taken.

Consequently the quotation from the article (given above) is misleading. I marked it with a citation needed template, but this was removed without any sources being given. I attempted to substitute it with something that better fits the facts, but this was reverted by the editor who wrote it. There are clear arguments here for the current text to be changed, supported by the two authoritative and relatively recent sources discussed above. Without detailed reasoning to support the current text, it cannot stand.

Incidentally, one could argue that the Coventry Blitz should not be listed in the "See also" section at all, as it is linked in the article twice in separate sections (WP:NOTSEEALSO). ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:10, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

On consideration, WP:NOTSEEALSO is the over-riding point, so, in absence of any comment to the above, I have deleted the link. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 21:01, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Air raid sirens

Most of the German air raid sirens I have read about were powered by Daimler-Benz aircraft engines, not public electrical systems, which the Germans were well aware could easily be disrupted. That isn't to say the sirens were working or even available, but it is highly doubtful that a disruption in electrical power was the cause. - NiD.29 (talk) 09:26, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

The cited source simply refers to an eyewitness talking about hand-held sirens being used in the street outside. This does not mean that electrically powered sirens were not working - the reference is silent on that point. I think this is a case of the text in Wikipedia drawing conclusions from a source that are not there to be drawn. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:58, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks - I will rewrite that to reflect that. - NiD.29 (talk) 12:14, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

Alpine Redoubt

There is an interview with Arthur Harris and towards the end there is talk about Dresden bombing in there he talks that the City was on the route of the rumored "Alpine Redoubt" and that it was Eisenhower's order to bomb it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCWK-O7cKvc V8 16:23, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Youtube isn't even close to being a reliable or credible source as it is so thoroughly full of nonsense, so we'd need a real source stating this. Additionally, the credibility of this claim is doubtful as the Alpine Redoubt (Alpenfestung) wasn't a route, it was a last ditch fortification for cornered rats to hole up at, and far from being rumoured, it was the subject of deliberate Nazi propaganda, but was never seriously considered and it was confirmed by multiple high level Nazis that it never in fact existed. Dresden was too much in the direct line of advance of Soviet troops for it to have been a part of such an endeavour in any case, but Dresden was one of the last major transportation hubs in operation, so any retreat to the Alpenfestung would likely have passed through Dresden, not because it was on some even more mythical route, but because most of the German army's movements had to pass through the city anyway, as already stated in the page. Since it doesn't seem to have been mentioned in any of the sources pertaining to the planning of the bombing raids (when the reasons for the attack were discussed), it probably isn't relevant here. - NiD.29 (talk) 06:48, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Agreeed that a random Youtube video is not an RS. However, Arthur Harris is a source that the article can use. He is a primary source, so can only be used with caution, and ideally with a supporting secondary source to validate what he is saying. But writing this off as something that might be of use to the article is like ruling out a good RS because you found it on a bookshelf that was otherwise laden with works that are not acceptable. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 17:00, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Overy as a source/redoubt/potential faltering of Russian advance.

The article has seen two versions of the effect of Allied intelligence on the decision-making prior to the raid:
(1) Despite the current understanding of the ability of Nazi Germany to continue the war, at the time, Allied intelligence assessments gave undue emphasis to fears of the Russian advance faltering or the establishment of a Nazi redoubt in Southern Germany (see Alpine Fortress).
This was changed to the following in this edit[4], which had did not explain the part of the changes shown below in the edit summary.
(2) Despite the current understanding of the ability of Nazi Germany to continue the war, at the time, Allied intelligence assessments emphasized the danger of the Russian advance faltering or the establishment of a Nazi redoubt in Southern Germany (see Alpine Fortress).
In reverting back to version (2), the edit summary says No, the source does NOT say that, and its statement is from 20/20 hindsight. Source (which seems to be more of a hit piece than anything) is also wildly wrong on multiple counts (indeed every single section I read to find that had MAJOR factual errors), so isn't reliable. I think we should examine this bit by bit.

(a) No, the source does NOT say that What does the source say? A direct quote from Overy's book, the Bombing War (p 391) says:
"The story of the last months of desperate German resistance is now well known, but at the time the intelligence picture for the Allies was less coherent and full of potential menace. Persistent rumours of German plans to build a ‘redoubt’ in southern Germany or the Alps were taken more seriously than they deserved. The capacity of the Red Army to complete its victory on the Eastern Front was regarded as more imponderable than it should have been. These uncertainties help to explain the decision....[to bomb Dresden]"
Breaking this down, Overy first calls the readers mind to what we now know about the German resistance in the closing stages of the war. Then he describes the "intelligence picture" as "less coherent" and "full of potential menace". I suggest that this shows that the author fully understands that military intelligence rarely gives anything more than probabilities and even where you have a full understanding of one thing, you might be missing big pieces of the rest of the situation. That is what I infer from "less coherent".
The examples of "potential menace" that he gives are "persistent rumours" of a redoubt and the doubts over the ability of the Red Army being "more imponderable than it should have been". (bold added)
I really do not think the source supports version (2) saying "...Allied intelligence assessments emphasized the danger...". This suggests that it was presented as a headline issue. Overy can surely be better interpreted as stating that these two fears were mentioned, but given too much prominence among all the other items included in the intelligence reports. Hence, version (1) "...Allied intelligence assessments gave undue emphasis...".

(b) its statement is from 20/20 hindsight. I find this rather strange. All history is hindsight. Both the source and the article are trying to address the hindsight criticism of the raid by putting the reader in the mindset of the decision-makers who authorised the raid. So a comparison is made between what we know now and what was known at the time. This is an important explanation for anyone trying to give a rounded explanation of the subject.

(c) Source (which seems to be more of a hit piece than anything) is also wildly wrong on multiple counts (indeed every single section I read to find that had MAJOR factual errors), so isn't reliable Such a statement needs some very clear explanation. Firstly this is a relatively recent book (2013) written by a well respected military historian. If you feel there are major factual errors, you need to say what they are and how you can prove that they are errors. Do you have reviews of this book in academic works that mention errors? Can you demonstrate that where there are differences between Overy and other sources, it is Overy that is wrong? If Overy really is not a reliable source (which I doubt), then this work should not be used by the article. This would remove a number of supporting references, so is a decision not to be taken lightly.

This may be only a matter of a few words in the article, but it is important to get this right. At the very least, we need an explanation greater than the edit summary quoted above. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 13:33, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

User:NiD.29, I was wondering if you had any comment to the above. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:32, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

TLDNR. No need for the wall of text. You persist in trying to read more into that than he actually said - and the source chosen is both heavily biased AND riddled with errors.

When I searched for your page number in my digital copy, I found him discussing four-engine bombers, where he claimed the Sterling was the only British four engine bomber of the war designed as such. However, while the Lancaster and Halifax both started off technically as twins, they used siamesed engines that was really two engines in one, so they were also really fours, and the Vickers Windsor was ALSO designed from the start as a four engine bomber, utterly refuting his claim, and yet he is unaware of these matters, or how irrelevant his claims are, and that wasn't even political. In the same section he also completely misunderstands and misattributes the long-term problems with the Sterling, which used the already dated (low aspect-ratio thick-section) wings from the Short Empire to speed development, and which was saddled with the requirement to be convertible to a transport once obsolete as a bomber. Additional insoluble problems included the bomb bay design that would have required substantial structural changes to handle any of the new, larger bombs - none of which represented teething problems, and none of the problems it had on service entry were in any way unusual for a new type. I looked at several other chapters before searching for Dresden, and in each section, I found yet more factual errors of a similar nature. If he has a reputation as a good historian (I am wondering with who), it is undeserved.

In chaotic situations threats will always be poorly estimated, but that doesn't mean we can say it was "undue" which implies that there was no basis for the concern. From the dictionary, undue means unwarranted or inappropriate. It was neither. The Nazis were building fortifications, and there was a possibility of them doing so in the mountains, so it fails to meet the definition of the word, hence my rewording. There is a big difference between saying intelligence findings were flawed, and that they had no reason for even existing. Whether the Nazis had any real plans for these is also irrelevant, as the intelligence was pointing as much as what they Nazis were doing, and what they could do. - NiD.29 (talk) 10:58, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

reputation as a historian: "Richard Overy's magnificent survey, based on extensive research into the archives of a large number of countries, must now be regarded as the standard work on the bombing war, not just in Britain and Germany, but in the rest of Europe, too. It is probably the most important book published on the history of the second world war this century, and historians will have to revise many of their long-accepted facts and figures in taking account of it."[5], "The Bombing War should be in the hands of every scholar interested in the Second World War and every library."[6], Richard Overy, etc., etc.

Nitpicking over details that plane spotters might argue over (and there are arguments to what you say) are not relevant to the issue: Overy is commenting on the subject on which he is best, the high command decisions that dictate the progress of war.

The issue is about undue emphasis being given to bits of intelligence reports. This is a matter of using the English language to convey what the source says. It is highly preferable to the current "... Allied intelligence assessments emphasized [sic] the danger ...", which is not what the source says at all. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 12:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Move to "Bombing of Dresden"

I think this article should just be titled "Bombing of Dresden". Normally, battles and such are not titled <event> in <war>, but just <event>, especially if there's only one event. Other examples: Bombing of Tokyo, Attack on Pearl Harbor, Battle of Iwo Jima, etc. None of these are titled "<event> in World War II". Just a thought. TheForgottenKing (talk) 04:04, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

United States and Israel showing as belligerents on the side of Germany?

As of May 20, 2023 the belligerents on the side of the Germans include the United States (with a swastika in place of the stars) and Israel (with a swastika in place of the Star of David), which seems incorrect. 04 soccer.relic (talk) 01:51, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

How article handles number of deaths

I get the feeling that the article has some "fossilised" bits of text that deal with the number of deaths. The most intensive study on this number was the historical commission that reported in 2010 (see pinned post, above). Yet we have Richard Evans' The Third Reich at War (published in 2008) providing a number (35,000) in the lead. I don't think that we are doing Evans any favours by quoting a number that predates the 2010 report. (Does anyone have access to any of his later books? If so, does his current thinking persist with the number cited in the first para of the lead?)

The footnote on the subject in the first paragraph lists the figures from a number of historians: but the higher numbers come from works written before the Historical Commission published (Burleigh's Moral Combat was published just a couple of months after the Commission's report – not enough time to make changes to a book that was in press.) Add to this the view of Overy (The Bombing War), and we seem to have the Historical Commission's report accepted by historians as the best estimate.

Even the final paragraph of the lead disagrees with the higher and lower numbers given in the first paragraph of the lead. The best interpretation that a reader can put on this is that the article is a little confused on the point.

At a minimum, the somewhat confused lead needs fixing.

Going further, I suggest that the article should use the Historical Commission findings as its best estimate. This is validated by both Beevor and Overy using those numbers. Do we have any historians using a different number after 2010?

There is already some discussion in the article of why there are varying numbers – this should certainly be mentioned in the lead. That discussion may need to be reviewed, but it should sit well alongside the article using a single best estimate figure. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 22:35, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

Number of dead

The 25-30k figure is the lowest estimate by the soviets, and it is completely unknown what it is based on. More than 30000 bodies had been recovered, even though a lot could have been obliterated and many buried. The source here settles on about 60k. It is from the USAFE, who as the legal descendent of the USTAF, are interested in keeping the numbers low. And even they accept a 60k figure. Which also lines up better with the higher area said to have been burning. This should be corrected. https://media.defense.gov/2013/May/23/2001329959/-1/-1/0/Dresden%20again.pdf 2001:4C4C:1EE6:5000:11AD:AA4F:3684:30B1 (talk) 20:28, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

No, 25,000 is the approximate number established by the Historical Commission in 2010. In March 1945 the Dresden police gave an estimate of 20,204 bodies recovered. Goebbels' propaganda ministry released this to the neutral press with a zero crudely added to give 202,040. The Dresden police gave an estimate of an eventual 25,000 dead once recovery was complete (this turned out to be correct -- about 5,000 bodies were later recovered), and the propaganda ministry press release again added a zero to give 250,000. The police figure for corpses incinerated in the Altmarkt, on the notorious pyres, was 6,856, but the propaganda ministry inflated this to 68,560. (Frederick Taylor, Dresden 1945, p.424.) This is where all the disinformation stems from. It is not a good idea to rely on Josef Goebbels, or for that matter David Irving. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:11, 6 August 2023 (UTC)