Dresden - War Crime or Justified?

Site Issues 2006 Archive Room
#81

Hi Chevan,

Civilians are here:

Removed by Dani. Lancer, calm down.

OFF TOPIC: Moderators, please remove if you consider inappropriate.

Chevan, I appreciate your avatar! Stirlitz rulez!!!

(For members which cannot know: Stirlitz, sturmbannfuehrer, alias Colonel Isayev - top soviet spy in WWII; he managed to climb as high as RSHA and co-operated with Kaltenbrunner and Muller.)
Chevans avatar is a face of Tikhonov, good soviet actor which played Stirlitz in 12 parts series “Seventeen blinks od spring”.

In Poland and Russia, Stirlitz become a topic of hundreds of jokes.
I want to tell you one:

“Stirlitz completely drunk was walking through the maze of corridors in RSHA building. His fly was undone, his SS tunic unbuttoned, his vomits were on his lap… This was a day of Red Army Holiday. Stirlitz wanted to look and feel like proper soviet officer!”

I just guess that what you said to Kovalsky, “Shout your mouth!” is something similar - acting as pure breed soviet. Old lessons never die!

Cheers,

Lancer44

Edited by Dani. Stop with off-topic posts. I give you an informal warning.

#82

Dani ,please make an effort and cease to give the councils to me.
I value the information, which you to me give. But if you please do not reach the absurdity.
I use that AltaVista translator, but sometimes it gives this nonsense.
And i already exercise for learning a foreign language .
Cheers.

#83

Allright Chevan, I understand you. Please accept my apologies.
Cheers!

#84

Please accept my apologies too.

#85

Accepted mate!:wink:

#86

OFF-TOPIC:

Chevan, please do not consider this post as offensive or insulting. If you feel so, please let me know and I’ll remove instantly. Apologies.
Cheers!

Sometimes AltaVista gives funny translations. I think Yoda said that.:wink:

#87

Chevan,

Please accept my apology, too.
Shake hands. I had been too emotional.

I have something interesting for you. It is loosely connected with Dresden but basically is about soviet bombardment of Breslau.

http://www.nasz.wroclaw.pl/festungbreslau/zniszczenia.htm

Here you can find relation of phosfor bombardment of centre of Breslau.
It is provided as comment by Polish historian. He is not blaming anyone but without emotions trying to describe destruction of 1000 years old town.

“Rosjanie bombardowali bez litości mimo wcześniejszych zapowiedzi emitowanych z głośników w południowych rejonach miasta i z latających kukuruźników. W Niedzielę Wielkanocną nalot trwał praktycznie 10 godzin. Bombardowano systematycznie Wyspę Piaskową, śródmieście a w Poniedziałek Wielkanocny zaczęło się piekło. Rosjanie używać zaczęli na ogromną skalę bomb fosforowych. W południe płonął cały Wrocław.
Prawie całkowicie zniszczono ulicę Świdnicką, Oławską, Piotra Skargi, W. Stwosza, północną, wschodnią i południową pierzeję Rynku, Pocztę Główną, Muzeum Sztuk Pięknych. Ucierpiał Uniwersytet Wrocławski. Ogród Botaniczny przestał istnieć po eksplozjach bunkrów z amunicją. Pożar szalał w budynkach pomiędzy Traugutta i Aleją Słowackiego.
Z powierzchni ziemi znikneły domy przy Nowym Targu, domy z Ostrowa Tumskiego, kuria arcybiskupia, kościoły Św. Wincentego, Maurycego, Michała, Mikołaja, Wojciecha. Do nawy katedry runęła jedna z płonących wież .Ocalały trzy kaplice: Elektorska, N.P.M.,
Św. Elżbiety. Płonął plac Katedralny, Szpital Św. Józefa, kościół
Św. Idziego (najstarszy).
Rosjanie bombardowali składy amunicji, zakłady wojskowe i rusznikarnie (przy ulicy Witosa).
Miasto z wolna zaczynało umierać.”

I will try to translate to English:
"Russians bombarded without mercy despite earlier warnings emited from loudspeakers in southern quarters of town and from low flying Po-2’s.
Easter Sunday bombardment lasted for 10 hours.
They bombed Sand Island and City Centre - Easter Monday the hell breake loose. Russians started using phospor bombs on a large scale.
By noon the whole Breslau (Wroclaw) was on fire.
Following streets were almost completely destroyed: Swidnicka, Olawska, Piotra Skargi, Wita Stwosza, northern, eastern and southern side of the Old Market Place. Central Post Office, Fine Art Museum. Breslau University was damaged. Botanic Garden ceased to exist after explosions of ammunition dumps. Between Traugutta Street and Slowacki Avenue large fires.
Old Town between New Market Place, Tumski Ostrov, Archbishop Residence and churches: St. Wincent, St. Maurycy, St. Michael, St. Nicolas,
St. Wojciech.
One of the main towers of the Cathedral collapsed.
Only three chapels survived - Electoral, Virgin Mary and St. Elizabeth.
Cathedral Plaze, Hospital of St. Joseph and St. Idi Church (the oldest in town) were on fire.

Russians also bombarded ammunition dumps, military factories and arms factories in Witos Street.
City slowly started to die."

German readers - please forgive me that I used modern names of streets - they were obviously different this time.

And to Chevan: - now you undesrtand something?
Again, I don’t question legitimacy of the targets.
If you read about bombing of Monte Cassino Abbey, you’ll leearn that this Allies decision was hardly justified from the moral point of view. From military point of view - Allies lost nearly 60,000 soldiers and their commanders were afraid that massive fortress can be taken by German forces and they will have no time to prepare bombardment at later stage due to 6-th of June landing. They decided to bomb undefended abbey full of Italian refugees.
Regretteble…
But not a war crime!

Accusing Allied forces of committing war crimes, anyone have to proof that soviet forces throw lollies, teddy bears and lollipops from they Shturmoviks and PE-2’s, soviet artillery used just enlarged pea shooters and soviet tanks were just converted street sweepers.
We all know that this would be bulllshit.

Than let’s look at war in the right perspective.

(Shooting POWs either in Malmedy, Chambois or Katyn is a different story).

Lancer44

#88

Nice to see that you all are playing nicely now. Always nice to see the kids grow up. :wink: Just kidding. :mrgreen:

#89

I think you rights, this can appear ridiculously from the side.

#90

OK. Its all right , because I sufficient well know your impulsive character . but you are normal fellow in essence.

Unfortunately, you inattentively read my posts. Therefore I write this for the second time.

I already noted to you that to compare Breslau with Dresden is incorrect. Breslau was “city - fortress”. There was there a large quantity of different German military units which very fanatically battled. Inside the city were bloody combat for each house.
This was similarly to combat in Stalingrad, Berlin or Kharkov. German aviation completely burnt and destroyed Stalingrad, but this was not war crime. Because, from the point of view of Germans (although this it sounds immorally) this was the military necessity for the air strikes before the German assault of Stalingrad.
In Dresden there WAS ENTIRELY ANOTHER SITUATION. There never were of the accumulations of troops, not there were fortified areas, which would prevent the Red Army from taking city, there not there was even AIR-DEFENSE ( city never did bomb till 13 feb 1945).
Dresden BECAME THE FIRST VICTIM OF THE TERROR TACTICS OF THE CITIZEN OF GERMANY. This was the conscious evil, which, as allies considered, will help “to break down resistance” and to choke morally German population. This inhuman tactics reached its apogee in Japan.
Strategic aviation of allies was terrible and effective weapon. However, on not only my oppinion, its application on the practically unarmed cities was monstrous war crime.

And ,if you please do not move away from the thread.
P.S. If you want to explain relations, to show some nasty pictures or simple to insult me, write to me personal . It is not necessary to show this opened on the forum.
Peoples laugh.

Cheers.

#91

OK. Dani
I only wanted to say to you that "It was interesting the information, which you give to me ".
If I will write erroneously, I will be glad if you show my errors. But if you please write personal posts to me. I think not nessesary to clog forum by uninformative posts.

#92

Well we are all here to have fun and learn. Even if that is learning/improving english or other languages. So dont be afraid to post and sometimes you might be misunderstood but we can take that in to account.

#93

Chevan, no offence was intended. Anyway, as promised, my post will be deleted.

Edited: Done.

#94

By this stage Germany largely relied on regional or national air defence systems such as the Kammhuber line. As such, there were no cities in Germany undefended from the air.
In any case, my reading of the Hague convention is that a city only needs to be defended on the ground (which Dresden was) for a bombardment to be legitimate.

#95

Some of the newer members may be interested in this Thread, which is about the same thing.

http://www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3103

Top Tip to some of the newr guys, its worth your while reading through some of the many Threads here to see if your subject has already been covered and you can add to the debate there rather than starting a new Thread.

Cheers.

#96

Thanks for the link, Firefly.
Dani ,where you looked when created this thread

#97

My bad FF.
I’ll merge the threads instantly.
Thanks and cheers.

#98

I was looking at my back watching if someone is approaching with a knife.That’s why I didn’t saw it in front of my eyes.:smiley: :smiley:

Now seriously. I accepted my mistake. And threads will be merged. Is there any problem?

#99

Interesting point, pdf27
…National air defence system ?!!
Dani, please find the information how many combat-ready aircraft remained in germany on 13 February 1945. Its seem to me about 300 for all Luftvaffe.
And please, how many of them protected the Dresden ?

#100

Are you kidding?:smiley: :smiley:

Edited: Sorry mate, not right now. As soon as I can.