The Bombing of Dresden by the RAF

Corpses in the street after the RAF attack

It is not possible to describe! Explosion after explosion. It was beyond belief, worse than the blackest nightmare. So many people were horribly burnt and injured. It became more and more difficult to breathe. It was dark and all of us tried to leave this cellar with inconceivable panic. Dead and dying people were trampled upon, luggage was left or snatched up out of our hands by rescuers. The basket with our twins covered with wet cloths was snatched up out of my mother's hands and we were pushed upstairs by the people behind us. We saw the burning street, the falling

ruins and the terrible firestorm. My mother covered us with wet blankets and coats she found in a water tub.

We saw terrible things: cremated adults shrunk to the size of small children, pieces of arms and legs, dead people, whole families burnt to death, burning people ran to and fro, burnt coaches filled with civilian refugees, dead rescuers and soldiers, many were calling and looking for their children and families, and fire everywhere, everywhere fire, and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm threw people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape from.

I cannot forget these terrible details. I can never forget them. ”—Lothar Metzger, survivor

In 1945, Albert Speer, who was in charge of the German economy, gave a presentation to army corps commanders in a camp near Berlin. According to Speer, Allied bombing had not destroyed German industry. He pointed out that German industry had produced 218,000 rifles in December 1944 alone, nearly double the monthly average in 1941. The production of automatic weapons was up by four times and tank production was up by nearly five times. In addition, the tanks produced were much heavier.

Alexander McKee, Dresden 1945: the Devil's Tinderbox (1982)

From a firestorm there is small chance of escape. Certain conditions had to be present, such as the concentration of high buildings and a concentration of bombers in time and space, which produced so many huge fires so rapidly and so close together that the air above them super-heated and drew the flames out explosively. On the enormous scale of a large city, the roaring rush of heated air upwards developed the characteristics and power of a tornado, strong enough to pick up people and such them into the flames.

Members of the RAF bombing crews became increasingly concerned about the morality of creating firestorms. Roy Akehurst was a wireless operator who took part in the raid on Dresden.

It struck me at the time, the thought of the women and children down there. We seemed to fly for hours over a sheet of fire - a terrific red glow with thin haze over it. I found myself making comments to the crew: "Oh God, those poor people." It was completely uncalled for. You can't justify it.

John Black, The Truth about the 1945 Bombing of Dresden (23rd February 1995)

Dresden was a center of cultural and architectural wonders, including the famous Zwinger Museum and Palace and the cathedral, the Frauenkirche. There were no military objectives of any consequence in the city - its destruction could do nothing to weaken the Nazi war machine. U.S. and British air warfare had left Dresden intact until that point.

Paul Oestreicher, The Guardian (3rd March, 2004)

The RAF quickly learnt what the German air force had not: to create a firestorm that would destroy city centres and kill all who lived there. In Hamburg, two years before Dresden, at least 40,000 died.

Britain was fighting for its very existence. Nevertheless, George Bell, the most astute and morally courageous of the English bishops, rose in the House of Lords to brand the mass killing of civilians a war crime. A lonely voice, yes, but not the only voice. The debate has gone on ever since. City by city, Germany was laid waste. The cost to bomber command was high. Many crews felt they were on suicide missions. Taylor destroys the myth that Dresden was a special case; it was simply the last major city left intact.