February 13, 1945, saw the destruction of Dresden, Germany, in the final months of World War II. Dresden was Germany’s seventh largest city with a population of 350,000 and was filled with refugees from the east, fleeing the advancing Red Army. As many as twenty-five thousand people died in the firestorm that resulted. In the decades that followed, the debate arose whether the bombers were criminal.
The book begins with a historical overview before the bombing. The cultural life of Dresden, noted for its architecture and museums, is examined. War background is covered even in the Great War, when the Luftwaffe dropped as many incendiaries on London as possible. During WWII, the Germans bombed as a deliberate sacrilege, destroying beautiful cities that had three stars in the German Baedeker guidebooks, such as Exeter, Bath, York, and Canterbury.
By December, 1944, a German resurgence brought the Battle of the Bulge. After five years of vicious war, both sides were desperate to make the other side stop. That led to Allied city bombings to destroy the German war machine.
The Soviets had asked for a Dresden mission to hamper German movement to the east. British intelligence informed Bomber Command that the German armored division the Soviets wanted cleared out Dresden was actually in Bohemia. Plans weren’t changed. American General Carl Spaatz was informed, and he concluded the mission should be called off. Air Marshall Arthur Harris remained adamant, and Spaatz was unwilling to stand aside if the Brits were insistent on going ahead.
The American mission, which took place during the day of February 14, after two waves of British night attacks, was supposed to go first, but did not because of weather. The Americans aimed for transportation targets and factories supporting the war effort, but there was always collateral damage.
Postwar, the communist authorities of East Germany left the ruins of the Frauenkirche as a reminder of the “wickedness of imperialist America and Britain. Only in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet-bloc was the church rebuilt. Reconciliation took root between England and Germany, Coventry and Dresden. Many Germans acknowledge their nation’s guilt in starting the war. As an eight-year-old Dresdener later said, “A fire went out from Germany and went around the world in a great arc and came back to Germany.”

Very good book about a part of history not too many people know about. I'm a huge history buff and didnt even know a few details in this book. Very well done and researched by the author.

This is a novel of historical grandeur and the oblivion of the city of Dresden. It contains snippets of people who lived to tell the tale of the horrors they experienced. Many cities in England and other European countries suffer the same destruction but were not mourned as deeply as Dresden. A well documented story.

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Terrible, truthful, and tenacious; that is a description of this story. Fact checked and full of truth it reminds the American in the day of drones and "red lines" just how terrible war is and how innocence is lost and established by the victors. A great read for all who want to know the truth about the history of WW2.

I would recommend this and any recent book on the murder bombing of Dresden to the general blather about it. This book comes a bit closer to situating the murder bombing in the triad of collapse of the British idea that murder bombing enough Germans (though perhaps hundreds of thousands of other Europeans were also murdered this way) the war would end, with the Soviet request for the bombing of the city given that it was near the front lines. It is rather weak on the more German-centric issues involved such as how the corruption of Dresden's Nazi party officials gobbled up funds for air raid safety and paralyzed action until the war meant supplies for shelters etc could be obtained. It needs to be a bit more clear rebutting the campaign actually launched by Goebbels that exaggerated the number killed by a factor of 10. Still the reasoning behind it, and the way the disaster is described, more from the point of view of the pilots alone, is quite chilling.