Horror on the streets of Dresden make possible to feel the stories of the eyewitnesses:
Two waves of 1299 “Lankasters” with the load of bombs into 4 kilotons departed from England in the daytime 13. This was Tuesday on the maslenichnoy week, and the streets of Dresden were filled by people in the holiday clothing, which walked on the stores or which simply went for a walk. In ten it is hour the evening above the city they appeared the first “christmas fir trees”, as at that time the signal bombs, which were being discarded before beginning bombing for target blip, called those being illuminating green light. Not there was any air defense whatever, only the sirens of air alert announced about the beginning of film. Inhabitants were fixed into the air-raid shelters and the cellars and remained there, until RAF lay out “carpet” from the incendiary bombs. After 15 minutes entire silence , but the people, which left the refuges, everywhere saw fire. City burnt, flame rapidly envelopped all blocks. From the charred remainders of buildings, which were deprived of roofs and of ceilings, upward shot up the sheaves of the flame, which began to be extended around the city horizontally, persecuted by western wind. Meanwhile, on the approach there was the second, where the more imposing wave of bombers. In 1:22 nights the sirens again howled. But by that time on the streets it was full people, which left their houses after the first raid. Prospectuses, parks, all open places were dammed by the inhabitants of Dresden, who were attempting themselves to somehow while away the remainder of night further from the fires ".
Recalls Sharlotta Mann, interview with which is brought by Aleksandr Makki in his book:
"impression was such, as if fire flowed directly from the skies. , where it was thus far dark, we saw the suddenly rocketed upward flame… when I it were examined and it looked in the center of city, then saw the there continuous sea of fire. And then all rushed in the outskirts in order to leave to the free space ".
Recollections of Margaret Frayer:
"because of the fallen from everywhere sparks and raged everywhere fiery hurricane i first anything I could examine. Present satanic boiler expected me there: there was street not, only obstructions from the stone into the meter by height, beaten of the glass-, collapsed beams, funnels. I attempted to bring down sparks from my coat, flapping on them by hand, but this it was uselessly. In the confusion I stopped, and here someone behind me shouted: “remove coat, it burns”. In this heat this I even it did not note. I tore away from itself coat and threw it. And here I again saw people directly before itself. They proceeded by cry and wave by hands, and then - with the horror and the consternation - I saw, as one after another they fell on. It seemed as if they shot down them, but my mind simply unable was to understand however, that it occurs in reality. Today I know that unhappy died of the shortage of oxygen. They lost consciousness, and then they became ashes…
Rabid heat… I cost, but something occurs with me, everything seems distant, and I cannot more normal see and hear. This there were also the consequences of oxygen starvation. Being loose, I poorly made with tens of steps, and it suddenly for me was possible to inhale fresh air ". Its Saviour is cold winter air, which was being striven for the replacement to the risen upward incandescent air masses. In the center of city the temperature of fire reached 2000 degrees, iron was melted and flowed along the streets, walls were converted from the heat into the sand and were scattered from the wind… Margaret frayer continues: Everywhere corpses, corpses and only corpses. Some completely black as coal. Others entirely tselekhon’kiye, as if in the sleep. Women in the holiday aprons, women with the children, that sit in the streetcars, as if they barely dozed off. Many women, many girls, many small children, the soldiers, whom could be recognized only on the metallic plates from the belts, and almost everything were exposed. Some corpses were brought down into the grouplets, as if this tseplyan’e for each other could save them from death. From some obstructions torchat of arm, head, leg, the crushed skulls… The majority of people appears, as if them they inflated, with the yellow and brown spots on the bodies. On some still rotted the clothing… my face it was the continuous mass of blisters, just as hand. Eyes could look only through the narrow chink, since the eyelids inflated from the burns, entire body was pited by small black dimples ". These “small black dimples” - the drops of napalm and phosphorus, which splashed incendiary bombs. These drops, falling on any surface, burnt it right through - as burnt to the bone the skin and muscles of man. It was not possible to extinguish incendiary mixtures by water, the part of the bombs was charged by mixtures, capable of burning and without the access of oxygen - it entered into their composition. Among the conventional incendiary bombs were discarded such, which began to burn exactly because of the contact with the water, the greater the water, the greater the flame. Above the city stood the wall of fire with a height of ten it was meter, and hot airflow rose to the kilometers upward. At a height of 7 kilometers the sky was seen to the crews of bombers in the form of the enormous turned pink cup, inverted upside down, and it began to throw their aircraft to the sides with the risen flows of incandescent air.
As this is similar in Hiroshima…
The glow of the blazing city was evidently on the earth at a distance into 80 kilometers. When the morning arrived, the light of the sun could not be opened through the smoke at dawn above Dresden it appeared the third wave of bombers, which consisted of 2000 American aircraft. To the ruins of residential sections again began to pour the fire…
Says Anna-Mary Vaemann:
"while we with difficulty overcame enormous obstructions from the collapsed walls and the roofs, the been charred building shells continued to fall around us. The nearer we approached the urban to center, the more terrible the destruction was. Locality resembled the landscape of crater, and then we saw corpses. Burnt or charred corpses, which were pressed to half of usual sizes. O, God Is gracious! … several men sat on the earth. But why they did not move? After approaching more closely, they everything became clear. They were dead. Their lungs broke from the shock wave ".
In the beginning of the following third, daylight raid already nothing it could notify people - all sirens of the air alert of burn or they were destroyed by bombs. However, they did not discard this time of incendiary bombs. Killers from the Pentagon thoroughly calculated the scenario of slaughter house. Now central objective was kill as much as possible those, who still Saviour. Then, in the evening, there was the fourth raid - the outskirts of city bombed already only. But again remained untouched railroad workshops, carriage depot, automobile bridge and industrial complex. Next day the rain, which converted the become depopulated ruins to the sea of mud and half sunk corpses, went. In the city there were 135 thousand dead bodies.
From the diary of the family Of Daniel’s:
"first corpses in the vans they transported for the burials in the outskirts of Dresden. Then remains they cremated in Al’tmarkte. Search and burials engaged several weeks, and all this time there was a danger of the appearance of epidemics. We survived simply miraculously. By what this was nightmare! Parents remained living, and their children perished, but more frequent orphaned children wandered in the searches of the corpses of parents. For them the life now lost any value ".
So, germans devised “gas chambers” , but our allies used “fire storm”.
What is more humane, that’s a question?
