La seconde guerre mondiale
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The bombing of Dresden 
(February 13^th, 1945) 

Par Thomas McDermott

The bombing of Dresden is one of the most controversial issues from the Second World War. It is a topic that is debated today along with the whole Bomber Offensive campaign of the Second World War. Dresden was on the target list as with any other German city during the Second World War, it had military targets that need to be attacked. Dresden was one of the great cities of Europe with a lot of historical and cultural aspects to the city. On the night of February 13^th, 1945 it all came to an end, with the Royal Air Force bomber attack that destroyed most of the city. Dresden became a military target for its communications and rail system that was aiding the German Army retreat from the eastern front. The Russians also asked for the Allies help in early February of 1945, they wanted the Allies to attack German cities to disrupt and confuse the German retreat. Harris answered the call for help by destroying the city just as he had done with all the other German cities. The raid on Dresden destroyed the city and killed thousands of people in the process. The issue is so highly debated because Dresden was bombed so late in the war and it killed so many people. No matter the time period, Dresden became a military target in February of 1945 that need to be attacked.

The bombing of Dresden occurred on the night of February 13^th, 1945. It was a bombing mission that was led by the Royal Air Force with elements of the 8^th United States Army Air Force delivering the daylight attack on the city. The news reports of the day were not hostile at all about the attack on Dresden, compared to fifty years later. The London Times wrote "Dresden which has been pounded on Tuesday night by 800 of the 1.400 heavies sent out by the Royal Air Force and was the main objective for 1.350 Fortresses and Liberators on the following day" Dresden was not the only target that was bombed during that period, one other city was also attacked as a secondary target to try to divert the German air defenses. The Allied Bomber Force also dropped incendiaries on the city of Chemnitz. The force was composed of 1.300 attacking bombers with 22 reported missing in action. "The majority were used for a double attack on Chemnitz, one of the biggest industrial cities in Saxony, which had been heavily bombed in the day light on Wednesday". For both attacks, Royal Air Force Bombers dropped 730.000 incendiaries along with high explosive bombs in the attack on both German cities as part of Operation Thunderclap. The Bomber Command attacked a number of German cities on the eastern front that the Air Ministry determined as targets to disrupt the German communications of the area. The city of Dresden was put on the target list as a city important for its communications. The city also had a number of refugees that had been gathering in the city, as they were trying to avoid the Red Army.

The raid on Dresden on the night of February 13^th came in two different attacking waves. The first wave of bombers’ orders were to start the fires on Dresden aiming mainly at the area around the stadium. The second wave of bombers’ orders were to start new fires, but also to worsen the fires that were already started by the first wave. The second wave was aiming for the marshalling yards. 796 Lancaster’s and Mosquitoes were dispatched in two separate raids and dropped 1.478 tons of high explosive and 1.182 tons of incendiary bombs. The first attack was carried out entirely by 5 Group, using their own low-level marking methods. A band of cloud still remained in the area and this raid, in which 244 Lancaster’s dropped more than 800 tons of bombs, was only moderately successful. The second raid, 3 hours later, was an all Lancaster attack by aircraft of 1,3,6 and 8 Group. Canadians took part on the Dresden Raid, but their size was only a fraction of the force. 67 Canadian Bombers from 419, 424, 428, 431, 433 and 434 squadrons were a part of the second wave of bombers attacking the city. The Canadian formation only made up 10 % of the total force attacking Dresden that night. Another Canadian force flew in part with another formation whose job was to attack the oil plant at Bohlen near Leipzig, as a diversionary measure to try and spread the German air defense out over the total area. The German air defenses were very weak because they did not have the resources available to try to attack the raiding force of Lancasters. The Luftwaffe only had enough fuel for a few aircraft to get airborne during that February night. "The German defenses where ‘negligible’, the crews declared. There was little flak and few searchlights. It is a measure of the desperate state of Germany’s fuel supplies that on that night only twenty-seven German fighters were airborne, and they were spread all over the eastern and central Germany" (1). The bomber force losses were at a minimum because the Germans did not have the resources to put up a real defense, all they could do was put a token defense with fighters all over the place, trying to disrupt the attacking RAF Bombers. The Germans suffered high losses from the attack. Most of the Germans killed were civilians and most of the city was destroyed from the incendiaries that were dropped that caused a huge firestorm just like the one that occurred in the city of Hamburg in the summer of 1943. The estimates range from 30.000 to 150.000 people killed, the real numbers of how many were actually killed will never be known because Dresden had a large number of refugees in the city at the time of the bombing.

Dresden was not treated any different from other German city in the war; it was a city that was deemed to be a vital military installation. Dresden had a number of vital military targets in and around the city like a production factory and a great rail system which aided the German Army. The attack on Dresden was done for both military and political reasons in the case of coming to the aid of the Soviets. The Soviets did request assistance from the air force to attack the German communications on the eastern front. "When the Russians had appealed in general for an Allied air attack on communication centers, a map was produced indicating some of the communication centers which might be included in this request. One of the towns listed on this communications map was Dresden" (2). The Soviets made a formal request for Allied air attacks at the Yalta Conference in early February. "On 4^th February, at the Yalta Conference, the Russians asked for attacks of this kind to take place, but their involvement in the process only came after the plans had been issued. So, Bomber Command was specifically requested by the Air Ministry, Churchill’s encouragement to carry out heavy raids on Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig" (3). The Yalta Conference proves that Churchill and the Air Ministry were on the side of attacking Dresden, despite the later attempts of Churchill and others in the Air Ministry to distance themselves from the attack. Churchill sent a memorandum out to all the senior staff members after the raid on Dresden. Churchill tried to explain the actions of Bomber Command and he goes on to explain that from that point on in the war Bomber Command is restricted from bombing some targets in Germany. Churchill writes, "The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied Bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforward be more strictly studied in our own interest rather than that of the enemy". The large destruction of the city and the huge death toll of Dresden did not go over well in the public. Churchill had to do some damage control over the attack because the Royal Air Force caused so much destruction with the end of the war in sight. Harris had plans to attack Dresden early as a strategy to bring war to places that have not truly felt the impacts. Harris was hoping that one heavy attack would bring the war to an end that much sooner.

By February of 1945 both western and eastern fronts were inching closer to each other as the Germans in between were on a full-scale retreat, but the Germans were still putting up resistance as they retreated. "In February of 1945, with the Russian Army threatening the heart of Saxony, I called upon to attack Dresden; this was considered a target of the importance for the offensive on the eastern front. Dresden had become the main center of communications for the defense of Germany on the southern half of the Eastern front and it was considered that a heavy air attack would disorganize these communications and also make Dresden useless as a controlling center for the defense" (4). Dresden had a number of factories that were producing items for the war effort. Dresden had an aircraft repair facility along with two factories that were producing aircraft. Along with these two aircraft facilities, there were also a number of companies that manufactured a number of military related items. At this time the German force may or may not have been able to use these items, but an advancing Soviet Red Army would have found a use for them, to the dislike of the Allies. Dresden was no different from any other German city. Dresden had a number of vital military targets in and around the city. Dresden also had a very good rail system, which had lines that led to cities such as Berlin, Prague, and Vienna. The Royal Air Force was targeting the rail yards so as to cause more confusion on the ground for the Germans. With the rail lines out of use the German retreat would be slowed. A key point is that Dresden would fall under Russian control, because Dresden was located in the Soviet sector once Germany was divided into four. "Massive bombing attack would thus serve two purposes: they would assist the by disrupting German troops and supply movements and, perhaps even more importantly, they would demonstrate to the Russians the awesome strength of the Allied Force" (5). The Allied force wanted to show their strength, by what Bomber Command can do to the Soviet once they finally advanced into the city of Dresden and seen the destruction. Once the war was over, it would be the Western Allies and the Soviets in control of Germany. The Allies showed the Soviets that they were a powerful force that could cause massive destruction in a short period of time, just as in the case of Dresden.

The bombing of Dresden is a touchy subject, because the Allies attacked the city in the closing months of the war. Spencer Dunmore writes that "few Historians have defended the bombing of Dresden, claiming that there was no good reason for attacking the city, indeed no need for area bombing in the winter of 1944 –45 with the end of the war in Europe only a matter of weeks away". The war was not over in February of 1945 and would not end for another three months. People were still dying on the battlefields on both fronts, they were also still dieing in concentration camps and in prisoner of war camps. The Dutch were starving because the German were not giving them any food. The Canadian Army was still fighting in North-West Europe to liberate the Dutch people. Harris was hoping that one large air attack might bring a sooner end to the war, but it did not. The German people should not have been spared because the Germans had not surrender and people were still dying. Harris said "that the destruction of such a large and splendid a city at this late stage of the war was considered unnecessary even by a good many people who admit that our earlier attacks were fully justified as any other operation of the war. Here I will only say that the attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by much more important people than myself". Harris was not the only man involved in the decision to attack Dresden in 1945. Dresden became a military target in the winter of 1945 and had to be destroyed. The war was not over until May 8^th 1945 and not in February of 1945.

It has been over fifty years since the destruction of the city of Dresden. The bombing of Dresden is still debated by people and historians in Canada, Britain, Germany and the United States. People in Germany believe Arthur Harris is a criminal for ordering the destruction of German cities and killing so many German civilians in the process of trying to win the war. "Many Germans see the attack as a war crime perpetrated by Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris" (6). The British view is the opposite from the German viewpoint; the British people believe that Harris did exactly the same as the German did during the war. Harris is not a criminal; he was just doing his job. "Many Britons defend Air Marshal Harris and counter that Hitler’s Luftwaffe laid waste to Coventry and numerous other British cities" (7). Air Force veterans are classed as murders, by so people because they killed civilians when they attacked German cities. The Valour and the Horror, produced by the CBC portrayed the Canadian Air Force veterans as if they were the bad guys and the German civilians were the innocents and the German civilians were killed for no reason. The fliers from Bomber Command had a job to do and they did it to the best of their ability. As one Canadian veteran put it, "We are made to appear as moronic mass-murders and nut cases". People should not call Bomber Command fliers murderers until they have looked at the whole picture. Bomber Command made great contributions to the victory in Europe and their contribution should not go unrecognized. "It seems that, with hindsight, the politicians saw that Bomber Command’s destruction of Germany might later prove to be an embarrassment, and that therefore it would be convenient for its collective bravery, dedication and sacrifice to be unrecognized and unrewarded" (8). The bombing campaign took over a million German soldiers off the front line to protect German cities; along with the manpower they also took military resources such the 88’s out of the front to protect cities. It was that much less that the Allied Armies had to fight against during the ground war. The men should not be classed as murderers but as heroes. "Harris may have wondered if, after his death, a statue would be erected to him which would promptly be daubed with red paint by ignorant protestors" (9). Harris is viewed as a man who ordered the death of hundreds of thousands of German civilians during his time as head of Bomber Command. Harris had a job to do and he did it very well and should not be remembered as a man who put millions of Germans to their deaths. It was war and the Allies had to do everything possible to win the war, including bombing German cities like Dresden. During the 50^th Anniversary the Duke of Kent gave a gift to the citizens of Dresden. It was "a gift from the British People" it was to go to help rebuild the city. It was a show that the British were sorry for what they did in destroying the city of Dresden. The British have no reason to be sorry, it was war and in war you do everything to win because there is no second place in war.

The British should never apologize for their actions on the night of February 13^th, 1945. The war was not over yet and it would not be over for another three months, yet it has been viewed that Dresden should not have been bombed so late in the Second World War, because it had no real military value as a target. Dresden was a military target for a few reasons it was a communication center and had a central rail system that aided the Germans in their retreat. Dresden also had a number of factories and production facilities that manufactured military related items that may have been helpful to the retreating German Army, but also could have been of some value to the advancing Soviet Army after the war. The Russians also asked for the Allies to bomb German cities as a way of aiding them in their advance towards Germany. It was not only Harris who had a decision to attack Dresden, Churchill and the rest of the senior staff officers also had a hand in the decision and were the ones who gave Harris the go ahead to attack the city. Yes, it was a sad thing that tens of thousands of German civilians were killed during the raid, but that is war. Harris was hoping that one bigger raid over German cities would bring the war to a sooner end, but it did not. Harris treated Dresden no different then any other German city that was bombed during the war. The only difference was that the raid on Dresden claimed more lives than any other raid of the war and it also came near the close of the war. The Allies should never say sorry for their actions, it was a war that the Allies did not start, but it was a war that they had to win at all cost. Arthur Harris and Bomber Command did so much to aid in the victory. The bombing campaign kept a million German soldiers and resources off the front line. That was a victory all of itself, because it meant that one million less German soldiers had to be fought on the front line. We must remember that people were dying in constration camps and prisoner of war camps, soldiers were still dying on the front line and the Dutch people were starving because the Germans gave little or no food to eat. Harris tried to end the war with one bigger raid, which although it did not end the war any sooner, was worth a try. Harris or any other member of Bomber Command is not a murder, they were men who had a job to do and did it very well.

*****

Notes : 

1 - Spencer Dunmore and William Carter, Reap The Whirlwind : The Untold Story of 6 Group, Canada’s Bomber Force of World War II, Toronto, McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1992.

2 - David Irving, The Destruction of Dresden, Yorkshire, The Elmfield Press, 1963.

3 - Martin Middlebrook and Chris Everitt, The Bomber Command War Diaries: An Operational Reference Book, 1939-1945, Toronto, Viking, 1987.

4 - Arthur Harris, Bomber Offensive, Toronto, Stoddart Publishing, 1990.

5 - Spencer Dunmore and William Carter, Reap The Whirlwind : The Untold Story of 6 Group, Canada’s Bomber Force of World War II, Toronto, McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1992.

6 - Reuters News Agency, "Leftists disrupt memorial service for Dresden dead", in Globe and Mail , February 14, 1995, A2.

7 - Reuters News Agency, "Leftists disrupt memorial service for Dresden dead", in Globe and Mail , February 14, 1995, A2.

8 - John Golley, So Many : A Folio Dedicated To All Who Served with RAF Bomber Command 1939-45, Toronto, Macmillan Canada, 1995.

9 - John Golley, So Many : A Folio Dedicated To All Who Served with RAF Bomber Command 1939-45, Toronto, Macmillan Canada, 1995.