Was Dresden a mistake?

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mellenthin
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

Post by mellenthin »

phylo_roadking wrote: ]

In the future, pleae avoid "peekaboo" referencing.

What you SHOULD have said is Additional Protocol I of 1977, Article 51, Part 5(a)
5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:
(a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects
...but you're learning.
This subject should never have been put in this section as the discussion is not about Dreseden being a warcrime. The discussion is about it being necessary or not in the way it was done..
Actually, the OP's original post does NOT have anything to do with how it was carried out. I'm afraid the person who took the discussion in that direction was....you.
The RAF area bombing did not prevent german war production going up.
German war production did in fact go down through 1943; as a result of BOTH airforces' efforts. It rose again in 1944 after the Germans took a number of expensive measures to disperse manufacture - the "forest factories", underground factories etc.
It is raids like Dresden,Hamburg and Tokyo that are one of the reasons for the new rules made after the war.
Really? When it took them to 1977? Hmmm, only took them 32 years....
Areabombing was already incompatible with the protection you are supposed to give to civilians as formulated in the Fourth Geneva convention of 1949. Protocol I now states the prohibition explicitly
I was not the one who stated that the attack on Dresden was illegal. It was not. But there was certainly no reason for the type of attack that occurred,particularly at that time of the war. I say nothing new there. That argument has been around from immediately after the raid. Your condescension does therefore not really impress ,even more so as there are those who have much more extreme views on the subject.
michael kenny
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

Post by michael kenny »

The posting history of one here tells me this thread is going to end painfully.
The thread will descend into copious source posting by one side and a full repost of that rebuttal with a short dismissal of it all by the other.
The object here is not to reach a conclusion but to kep the thread going as long as possible.
Not wanting to feed the mythical Scandanavian creature I decline the opportunity to take any further part in the conversation.
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mellenthin
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

Post by mellenthin »

phylo_roadking wrote:
Are you seriousky trying to make me believe that Dresden needed to be firebombed just to hinder(not stop because that would not be possible) troop movements behind a sector of the eastern front?
No, not "just" - no matter what you choose to call it those industries/factories were still there and were still known to the Allies.
And I did not invent the controversy
No - but you brought it here to this thread.
Without Churchill's insistence raid would probably not haVe occurred
See Dick Davis' "Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945", page 491. The JIS' "German Strategy and Capacity to Resist", prepared for Churchill, said that if the Germans were allowed to effectively defend Silesia, Hitler's Germany could hold out until November at least. That's an extra seven months' of fighting and Allied troops dying. Churchill did indeed press the issue, but remember what Portal said...
"We should use available effort in one big attack on Berlin and attacks on Dresden, Leipzig, and Chemnitz, or any other cities where a severe blitz will not only cause confusion in the evacuation from the East, but will also hamper the movement of troops from the West".
It was about interdicting the potential as much as what was or was not actually happening on the night. Why wouldn't Churchill press for a series of attacks that would (in fact) shorten the war to April? Do you regard that chance of shortening the war as "not important"?
You are still spinning. The attack on Dresden as executed would not shorten the war by one day,let alone months. There were other factors(including the effect of other types of strategic bombing) which already seriously limited the ability of Germany to continue the war .
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Re: Was Dresden a mistake?

Post by phylo_roadking »

....and to which odds, given that the thread has ALREADY descended to that point, there is no further use to it. It will remain here for several hours, then be removed, as per the rules of this Section
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