What was left in the center of Dresden after the bombing. Bombing of Dresden. Dresden: four air attacks and a firestorm

Many sad and terrible pages of human cruelty. It was during this war that the tactics of carpet bombing cities became widespread. As the well-known proverb says, he who sows the wind will reap the whirlwind. This is exactly what happened with Nazi Germany. Beginning in 1937 with the bombing of Spanish Guernica by the Condor Legion, continuing with raids on Warsaw, London, Moscow and Stalingrad, from 1943 Germany itself began to be subjected to Allied air strikes, which were many times more powerful than the raids carried out by the Luftwaffe in the initial period of the war. . So one of the symbols of the tragedy of the German people was the Allied air raid on Big City Dresden in February 1945, which led to huge destruction of the city's residential infrastructure and great sacrifices among the civilian population.

Even after the end of the war for more than 60 years, there are calls in Europe to recognize the destruction ancient city Dresden by war crime and genocide against its inhabitants. Many in Europe and the United States are of the opinion that the bombardment of German cities in the final months of the war was no longer dictated by military necessity and was militarily unnecessary. Recognizing the bombing of Dresden as a war crime is now being demanded by the Nobel Prize in Literature winner German writer Günter Grass and the former editor of the English newspaper The Times Simon Jenkins. They are supported by an American journalist and literary critic Christopher Hitchens, who believes that the bombings of the last months of the war were carried out only for the purpose of practicing bombing techniques by young pilots.

The number of victims of the bombing, which the city was subjected to from February 13 to 15, 1945, is estimated at 25,000 - 30,000 people, while many of the estimates crossed the mark of 100,000. During the bombing, the city was almost completely destroyed. The area of ​​the zone of continuous destruction in the city was 4 times the area of ​​the zone of complete destruction in Nagasaki. After the end of the war, the ruins of churches, palaces and residential buildings were dismantled and taken out of the city, on the site of Dresden there was only a site with marked boundaries of the streets and buildings that were here. The restoration of the city center took 40 years, the rest of the parts were restored earlier. At the same time, a number of historical buildings of the city located on Neumarkt Square are being restored to this day.

Bombardment

Before World War II, Dresden was recognized as one of the most beautiful cities in Europe. Many tourist guides called it Florence on the Elbe. There were many objects of great cultural significance here: the famous Dresden Gallery, the second largest porcelain museum in the world, the opera house, which competed in acoustics with the La Scala theater, the Zwinger palace ensemble, many churches built in the Baroque style. By the end of the war, a large number of refugees flocked to the city. Many residents were confident that the city would not be bombed. There were no large military factories here. There were rumors in Germany that after the war it was Dresden that could become the new capital.

During the entire war, the allies bombed the city only twice, not perceiving it as a military target. Bombs fell on the city on October 7, 1944, when about 30 B-17 Flying Fortresses, which had failed to bomb the main target, struck Dresden, the former secondary target of the flight. And also on January 16, 1945, when 133 "Liberators" bombed the sorting railway station.

Corpses on the streets of Dresden

The air defense of the city was rather weak, the air raid signal was given just a few minutes before the start of the bombardment. And there was nothing special to bomb in the city. There were 2 large tobacco factories that produced a significant part of Germany's tobacco products, a soap factory and a number of breweries. There was also a Siemens factory for the production of gas masks, a Zeiss company specializing in optics, and several small enterprises for the production of radio electronics for the needs of the aviation industry. At the same time, they were all on the outskirts of the city, while the historical center was bombed.

Before the war, Dresden had about 650,000 inhabitants; by February, at least 200,000 more refugees arrived in the city, their exact number cannot be calculated. By 1945, the British and Americans were already great specialists in the destruction of German cities. They developed special techniques that increased the effectiveness of the bombing. The first wave of bombers dropped high-explosive bombs that were supposed to destroy the roofs of houses, knock out windows, expose wooden structures, after which the second wave of bombers dropped incendiary bombs on the city. After that, high-explosive bombs were again dropped on the city, which were supposed to complicate the work of fire and rescue services.

Around 10 pm on February 13, residents of the outskirts of Dresden heard the rumble of approaching aircraft. At 2213 hours the first bombs were dropped on the city, the city was bombed by the first wave of British heavy bombers - 244 Lancasters. In a matter of minutes, the entire city was engulfed in flames, which was visible at a distance of more than 150 km. The main blow to the city was dealt between 1:23 and 1:53 am, when the city was bombed by 515 British heavy bombers. After the impact of the first wave, nothing prevented the spread of fires in the city, the high-explosive bombs of the second wave only contributed to the expansion of the zone covered by fire and interfered with the fire brigades. In total, on the night of February 13-14, about 1,500 tons of high-explosive and 1,200 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. The total number of incendiary bombs dropped on the city was 650,000.

The bodies of the inhabitants of Dresden piled up for burning

And this was not the last air strike. In the morning, 311 American B-17 bombers took off, escorted by 72 P-51 Mustang fighters, divided into 2 groups. One of them constantly covered the bombers, and the second, after the bombing, was supposed to start attacking targets of the pilots' choice. Bombs fell on the city at 12:12, the bombardment lasted 11 minutes, during which time about 500 tons of high-explosive and 300 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. After that, a group of 37 Mustang fighters began to storm the roads leading out of the city, which were clogged with refugees and civilians. The next day, the city was again bombed by 211 American bombers, dropping 465 tons of high-explosive bombs on the city.

One of the RAF pilots who participated in the raid recalled: “The fantastically bright light became brighter the closer we got to the target, at an altitude of about 6,000 meters, it was possible to distinguish details of the terrain that had never been seen before; For the first time in the history of the operation, I felt sorry for the people who were downstairs.” Another participant in the bombardment, the navigator-scorer, noted: “When I looked down, I saw a wide panorama of the city, which was burning from one side to the other, you could see thick smoke that was drifting to the side. My first reaction was to think that the carnage below coincided with the evangelistic sermons I had heard before the war.”

As a result of the bombing of Dresden, it was planned to create a fiery tornado on its streets, and these plans came true. This tornado occurs when scattered pockets of flame are combined into one fantastic fire. The air above it warms up, its density decreases, and it rises. The temperature in the fiery tornado that engulfed the city reached 1500 degrees.

English historian David Irving described the fire tornado that arose in Dresden in this way. The fiery tornado that formed as a result of the bombing, based on surveys, absorbed more than 75% of the entire territory of destruction in the city. Its strength allowed it to uproot giant trees, crowds of people trying to flee were picked up by this tornado and thrown directly into the fire. Torn roofs of buildings and furniture were thrown into the center of the blazing historical part of the city. The tornado reached its peak in the three-hour interval between air raids, at the moment when the residents of the city, who had taken refuge in basements and shelters, tried to escape to its outskirts. Asphalt melted on the streets of Dresden, and people falling into it merged with the road surface.

A railroad worker who was hiding near Postal Square saw a woman with a baby carriage dragged down the street and thrown into the flames. Other residents of the city, who tried to flee along the railway embankment, which was not blocked by debris, saw how railway cars on open areas simple ways were blown away by a storm.

According to a report by the Dresden police, which was compiled after the raids, 12,000 buildings burned down in the city. 3 theaters, 5 consulates, 11 churches, 60 chapels, 19 hospitals and 19 post offices, 50 cultural and historical buildings, 24 banks, 26 insurance companies, 26 brothels, 31 hotels, 31 trading shops, 39 schools, 63 administrative buildings were destroyed , 256 trading floors, 640 warehouses, 6470 shops. In addition, the fire destroyed a zoo, a waterworks, a railway depot, 4 tram depots, 19 ships and barges on the Elbe.

What was it for?

Formally, the Allies had reason to bombard the city. The USA and England agreed with the USSR on the bombing of Berlin and Leipzig, there was no talk of Dresden. But this large 7th largest city in Germany was indeed a major transportation hub. And the allies claimed that they bombed the city in order to make it impossible for traffic to bypass these cities. According to the American side, the bombing of Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden was of great importance and contributed to the removal of these transport hubs. Indirectly, the effectiveness of the bombing was confirmed precisely by the fact that near Leipzig, in Torgau, on April 25, the advanced units of the allied forces met, cutting Germany in two.

However, even the memorandum, which was read to the British pilots before flying out on a bombing raid on February 13, revealed the true meaning of this military operation: Dresden, Germany's 7th largest city... on currently the largest area of ​​the enemy still not bombed. In the middle of winter, with refugees heading west and troops having to be quartered somewhere, housing is in short supply as workers, refugees, and troops need to be accommodated, as well as government offices evacuated from other areas. At one time widely known for its production of porcelain, Dresden has developed into a major industrial center ... The purpose of the attack is to strike the enemy where he feels it the most, behind a partially collapsed front ... and at the same time show the Russians when they arrive in the city what they are capable of Royal Air Force.

In February 1945, Germany was already on the verge of a catastrophe, which nothing could delay. The task of defeating Germany was completely solved, the Western allies of the USSR looked to the future, preoccupied with their post-war relations with Moscow.

Before the Second World War, the USSR, in modern terminology, was still considered a pariah country. The USSR was not invited to Munich, where the fate of Czechoslovakia and, as it turned out later, the whole of Europe was decided. They were not invited to the London and Washington conferences. At that time, Italy was recognized as a great power, but the USSR was not. However, by 1945 in power Soviet Union Few doubted. And although the USSR did not have a strong navy and did not have strategic aviation, no one doubted the offensive capabilities of its tank armies. They were quite capable of reaching the English Channel, and hardly anyone could stop them.

The flames from the fire in Dresden were visible at a distance of 200 km. from the city on the Soviet sector of the front. More than half of the residential buildings in the city were destroyed, many architectural monuments, while large marshalling yards were not seriously damaged, one of the railway bridges across the Elbe was intact, and the military airfield located in the vicinity of the city was also not damaged. Great Britain and the United States needed to show their power, to impress Stalin, which is why a city that was practically not affected by the bombing was chosen for the demonstration. The lives of its inhabitants became for the Anglo-American strategists only a bargaining chip in their political game.

Dresden. Chronicle of the tragedy (Alexey Denisov)

The film by Alexei Denisov is dedicated to the events of February 13, 1945 - the bombing of Dresden by Anglo-American aircraft during the Second World War. This action was interpreted by the allies as an act of assistance to the Soviet troops advancing from the east, allegedly in confirmation of the Yalta agreements.
The barbaric bombardment was carried out in three passes by forces of almost three thousand aircraft. Its result is the death of more than 135 thousand people and the destruction of about 35,470 buildings.
One of the main questions that the authors of the film tried to answer was whether there really was such a request from the Soviet side and why to this day the former allies from England and America are trying hard to shift the blame for the senseless bombardment of one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, which, moreover, does not have military value, to Russia.
German and Russian historians, American pilots and eyewitnesses of this tragedy take part in the film.

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Noticed osh s bku Highlight text and click Ctrl+Enter

Dresden was destroyed by Anglo-American aircraft.
The first bombs were dropped by British planes on February 13, 1945 at 22:14 CET. On February 14, new air strikes were carried out. As a result of the bombardments, alternately high-explosive and incendiary bombs, a giant fiery tornado was formed, the temperature in which reached 1500 ° C.
By February 15, "Florence on the Elbe" turned into a city of ruins, sharing the sad fate of hundreds of Soviet, Polish and German cities.

Dresden shared, one of the most recent, the fate of all the large and medium-sized cities in Germany that came under carpet bombing. But it was the name "Dresden" that became a household name for the senseless destruction of civilians and cultural values, just as "Hiroshima" is forever associated with the atomic apocalypse.
Why Dresden? Obviously, as the most egregious example: the very end of the war, a hospital city, a huge number of civilian casualties, and also because Dresden is one of the cultural symbols of Europe. "Florence on the Elbe", the brilliant capital of the Saxon kingdom, sung in the paintings of Bellotto. Everything that had been built there for centuries was erased in a few hours of targeted bombing.

For those who need more details, there is a very informative Wikipedia article on "Dresden Bombing".

The Allies almost did not bomb industrial facilities, and those minor damages that were almost accidentally inflicted on some factories were quickly eliminated, workers were replaced by prisoners of war if necessary, thus the military industry functioned surprisingly successfully. “We were furious,” recalls Forte, “when, after the bombing, we came out of the basements into the ruined streets and saw that the factories where tanks and guns were produced remained untouched. In this state they remained until the very surrender.

This is a mystery that we, perhaps, will never discover - why the Anglo-American aviation for a long time refused to strike at the Nazi Reich in its most vulnerable spot- to bomb the equipment of the oil industry, which supplies fuel to the hordes of German tanks driving across the Russian expanses. Until May 1944, only 1.1 percent of all bombing fell on these targets. The clue may be the fact that these facilities were built with Anglo-American funds, capital was involved in the construction Standard Oil of New Jersey and English Royal Dutch Shell . Last but not least, the interest Western allies wishing to provide german tanks enough fuel to keep the Russians away from their borders long enough.

Main station, 1944

Frauenkirche, the bell church, a baroque masterpiece, a symbol of the city. Around 1940-44:

She also:



1943, Hofkirche:

1940s:

1944 The owner of the slide scratched Nazi symbols from the flags:




Old Market (Altmarkt):

Dresden Castle:

Another view of the castle through the Zwinger:

New Town Hall:

View of the city from the Elbe:



Dresden tram line 25:

All this lived out its last days ...

*****
... At the beginning of 1945, Allied aircraft sowed fromdeath and destruction over all of Germany - but the old Saxon Dresden remained an island of calm amidst this nightmare.

Famous as a cultural center that did not have military production, it was virtually unprotected from strikes from the sky. Only one squadron was located at one time in this city of artists and artisans, but even that was gone by 1945. Outwardly, one might get the impression that all the belligerents gave Dresden the status of an "open city" in accordance with some kind of gentleman's agreement.

By Thursday, February 13, the flood of refugees fleeing the advance of the Red Army, which was already 60 miles away, had increased the city's population to more than a million. Some of the refugees went through all sorts of horrors and were brought to a near death, which forced later researchers to think about the proportions of what Stalin knew and was subject to, and what was done without his knowledge or against his will.

There was a carnival. Usually these days the carnival atmosphere prevailed in Dresden. This time the atmosphere was rather gloomy. Refugees arrived every hour, and thousands of people were camped right on the streets, barely covered in rags and shivering from the cold.

However, people felt relatively safe; and although the mood was gloomy, the circus performers gave performances in crowded halls, where thousands of unfortunate people came to forget for a while about the horrors of war. Groups of well-dressed girls tried to strengthen the spirit of the exhausted with songs and poems. They were greeted with half-sad smiles, but the mood rose ...

No one at that moment could have imagined that in less than a day these innocent children would be burned alive in a fiery tornado created by "civilized" Anglo-Americans.

When the first alarm signals marked the beginning of the 14-hour hell, the Dresdeners obediently dispersed to their shelters. But - without any enthusiasm, believing that the alarm is false. Their city had never before been attacked from the air. Many would never have believed that a great Democrat like Winston Churchill, along with another great Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, would decide to execute Dresden with an all-out bombing.

this is what Dresden looked like shortly after the bombing.

1946:

Altstadt, the old town, has become like this...

The ruins of the famous Frauenkirche in 1946:

After the bombing, the huge bell church still stood for several hours, radiating unbearable heat for dozens of meters around it. But then it still collapsed.

The GDR authorities acted very wisely by conserving these ruins as a monument to the victims of the war.

When the time came, this symbol of the city was restored, yes,
that every surviving stone returned to its place.
Although the monument is 80% recreated from new materials, its language does not dare to call it a "remake".

All the ruins, except for valuable architectural monuments, were dismantled in the 1950s.




Surprisingly, in the most destroyed cities of Europe, ancient temples turned out to be the most intact. Probably, then they built stronger. It seems to be the Hofkirche tower:




The whole castle burned out and these ruins began to be restored, it seems, only in the late 1980s:




A tram among the ruins, very reminiscent of the post-war Koenigsberg-Kaliningrad:

Railway station:




Vienna Square:

These ruins will stand for a long time yet:

The restoration of the historic center of Dresden has been going on for more than 60 years
and will probably take several more decades.
In the 2000s, the authorities moved from restoration individual monuments to the reconstruction of entire neighborhoods. The largest project was the construction "from scratch"
the historic district of the New Market (Neumarkt) around the restored Frauenkirche.

This post is about how and why Dresden was bombed.

On February 13, 1945, the Royal Air Force of Great Britain and the US Air Force began the bombing of Dresden, which lasted two days and claimed the lives of at least 20 thousand people. Whether the bombing of Dresden was due to military necessity is still a matter of controversy.

A few days later, it was decided that the best help could be the bombing of German oil plants, as well as the bombing of large German cities for "psychological pressure", including Dresden. An RAF memorandum on the eve of the bombing stated: "The purpose of the attack is to strike the enemy where he feels it most, behind a partially collapsed front ... and at the same time show the Russians when they arrive in the city what the RAF is capable of"

It was originally planned that the operation would begin with a US Air Force raid. However, due to bad weather American planes were unable to take part in the operation that day. As a result, on the evening of January 13, 796 Avro Lancaster and 9 De Havilland Mosquito aircraft took off in two waves and dropped 1478 tons of high-explosive and 1182 tons of incendiary bombs on Dresden. Three hours later, 529 Lancasters dropped 1,800 tons of bombs.

The next day, February 14, the bombing continued with renewed vigor and with the participation of the US Air Force: 311 American Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers dropped 771 tons of bombs. On February 15, American aircraft dropped 466 tons of bombs, and for the first time "targets moving along the roads" were attacked. Thus, the number of victims among civilians who tried to get out of the city increased. And although the carpet bombing was completed on the evening of February 15, the US Air Force carried out two more bombings - on March 2 and April 17

Dresden resident Margaret Freyer about the bombing of the city: “Moans and cries for help were heard in the firestorm. Everything around turned into a continuous hell. I see a woman - she is still before my eyes. In her hands is a bundle. This is a child. She runs, falls, and the baby, having described an arc, disappears in a flame. Suddenly, two people appear right in front of me. They shout, wave their hands, and suddenly, to my horror, I see how one by one these people fall to the ground (today I know that the unfortunate ones became victims of lack of oxygen). They lose consciousness and turn to ash. Crazy fear seizes me, and I keep repeating: "I do not want to burn alive!" I don't know how many other people got in my way. I only know one thing: I must not burn.”

In two days of bombing, the city was almost burned to the ground. The fact is that at first high-explosive bombs were dropped, which destroyed the roofs. They were followed by incendiary bombs and again high-explosive ones to make it difficult for the firefighters. This bombardment tactic ensured the formation of a fiery tornado, the temperature inside of which reached +1500°C.

Wolfgang Fleischer, historian at the Bundeswehr Museum of Military History in Dresden: “The Grossen Garten, which extended all the way to the city center, was damaged on the night of February 13-14. The inhabitants of Dresden sought salvation from the fiery tornado in it and the zoo adjacent to it. An English ace bomber, circling over the target, saw that a large area immediately near the center of the city was not on fire, like all its other parts, and called in a new column of bombers, which turned this part of the city into flames. Numerous residents of Dresden who sought refuge in the Grossen Garten were killed by high-explosive bombs. And the animals that escaped from the zoo after their cages were destroyed - as the newspapers later wrote about it - wandered around the Grossen Garten.

The exact number of people killed in the bombings is unknown. Official German reports report a figure of 25,000 to 200,000 and even 500,000 dead. In 2008, German historians spoke of 25,000 deaths. The fate of some refugees is unknown because they could have been burned beyond recognition or left the city without informing the authorities.

12 thousand buildings were destroyed in the city. Local resident O. Fritz: “I also remember very well what was in the minds of the inhabitants of Dresden - it was a completely unnecessary, meaningless raid, it was a museum city that did not expect anything like this for itself. This is fully confirmed by the memories of the victims at that time.”

Goebbels decided to use Dresden for propaganda purposes. Brochures were distributed with photographs of the destroyed city, burned children. Released February 25 new document with photographs of two burnt children and with the headline "Dresden - massacre of refugees", which stated that the number of victims was not 100, but 100 thousand people. Much has been said about the destruction of cultural and historical values.

The UK responded to Goebbels' propaganda with a statement by RAF spokesman Colin McKay Grierson, seen as an attempt at justification: “First of all, they (Dresden and other cities) are centers where evacuees arrive. These are centers of communications through which movement is carried out towards the Russian front, and from the Western front to the Eastern, and they are located close enough to the Russian front in order to continue the successful conduct of battles. I believe that these three reasons probably explain the bombing."

The bombing of Dresden has been reflected in films and literature, including Kurt Vonnegut's anti-war novel Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children's Crusade, which took part in clearing the city's rubble. The novel was not accepted in the US and was censored

According to the memoirs of a radio operator of the British Air Force, who participated in the raid on Dresden: “At that time, I was struck by the thought of women and children below. It seemed that we flew for hours over the sea of ​​fire that raged below - from above it looked like an ominous red glow with a thin layer of haze above it. I remember I said to the other crew members, "Oh my God, those poor fellows downstairs." It was completely unfounded. And it can't be justified."

The Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945 is still one of the most recognizable episodes of World War II, thanks in no small part to Vonnegut's book Massacre Five, or the Children's Crusade. I wanted to bring together some of the data I have and express my opinion about the causes and results of this raid. This post is quite long, mind you.

Part I. Dresden and the Nazi war economy

At the beginning of World War II, 642,000 people lived in Dresden. This made it the seventh largest German city - after Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Leipzig and Essen.

The city was an extremely important transport hub, where three major railway lines converged: Berlin-Prague-Vienna, Munich-Breslau and Hamburg-Leipzig. The importance of Dresden to the German transport network is clear from the fact that in 1939 Saxony was the seventh largest German state in terms of area and length of railways, and third in terms of total freight tonnage. Here is a map of German railways in 1932 (click for larger resolution):

Here is another card. It reads better than the previous one, but only those railway junctions that were bombed by Allied aircraft are shown (click for larger resolution):

According to the USAF, by 1945 there were up to 110 important factories and industrial facilities in the city. Up to fifty thousand people worked at factories related to the production of military products. In particular, in Dresden there were: distributed aircraft production, chemical weapons production (Chemische Fabric Goye & Company), X-ray machine manufacturer (Koch & Sterzel A.G.), anti-aircraft and field artillery production (Lehman), perhaps the most important optical factory in Germany (Zeiss Ikon A.G.), and electrical and mechanical engineering companies (eg Gebruder Bassler and Saxoniswerke). Also in the city there was an arsenal and barracks.

Part II. Causes of the February raid on the city

First, let's take a look at the situation on the Soviet-German front in early 1945 (click for a larger resolution):

And now let's pay attention to an excerpt from the protocol from the materials of the Yalta Conference.

Crimean conference. Recording of the meeting of heads of government
February 4, 1945, 5 p.m., Livadia Palace
Roosevelt, asks someone to report on the situation on the Soviet-German front. Stalin replies that he can propose that the report be made by the deputy chief General Staff Red Army General of the Army Antonov.
Antonov: "1. From January 12-15, Soviet troops went on the offensive on the front from the Neman River to the Carpathians, stretching 700 kilometers.
<...>
7. Probable actions of the enemy:
a) The Germans will defend Berlin, for which they will try to delay the advance of Soviet troops at the line of the Oder River, organizing defense here at the expense of retreating troops and reserves transferred from Germany, Western Europe and Italy.
For the defense of Pomerania, the enemy will try to use his Courland grouping, transferring it by sea across the Vistula.
b) The Germans will cover the Vienna sector as firmly as possible, reinforcing it with troops operating in Italy.
8. Transfer of enemy troops:
a) On our front have already appeared:
from the central regions of Germany - 9 divisions
from the Western European front - 6 divisions
from Italy - 1 division

16 divisions
Are in transit:
4 armored divisions
1 motorized division
________________________________________
5 divisions.
b) Probably, up to 30-35 divisions will be transferred (at the expense of the Western European front, Norway, Italy and reserves located in Germany).
Thus, an additional 35-40 divisions may appear on our front.
I will add on my own that
9. Our wishes:
a) Accelerate the transition of the allied forces to the offensive on the western front, for which the situation is now very favorable:
1) the defeat of the Germans on the eastern front;
2) the defeat of the German group advancing in the Ardennes;
3) the weakening of the German forces in the west due to the transfer of their reserves to the east.
It is advisable to start the offensive in the first half of February.
b) By air strikes on communications, to prevent the enemy from transferring his troops to the east from the western front, from Norway and Italy; in particular, to paralyze nodes Berlin and Leipzig.
c) Do not allow the enemy to withdraw their forces from Italy."
(The text of Antonov's message was delivered in writing to Roosevelt and Churchill.)

Western sources mention that Antonov's request for air strikes was the end result of negotiations between Stalin and Tedder on January 15, 1945, during which, among other things, the use of Allied strategic aviation for the joint purposes of the Red Army and the Western powers was discussed. Unfortunately, I could not find the minutes of this meeting on the Internet, so if someone has the text "Memorandum of Conference with Marshal Stalin, 15 January 1945" or "22378, U.S. Military Mission Moscow, 16 January 1945" - it would be very grateful. On January 31, 1945, Tedder signed a directive that made Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden the second priority target for Allied strategic bombers, in order to "make it difficult to transfer reinforcements from other fronts."

The attentive reader, of course, has already noticed that Dresden did not appear in Antonov's request. But if you look at the train maps and information on rail transport in Saxony from the first part of this post, the inclusion of Dresden in the list of targets seems quite logical from the British side. After all, the essence of Antonov's request is the desire "by air strikes on communications to prevent the enemy from transferring his troops to the east from the western front," and not "in particular, to paralyze the Berlin and Leipzig nodes." All three cities, Leipzig, Dresden and Berlin, are key and vital centers of railway communications in the eastern part of Germany. Knock them out and the ability of the Germans to transfer cargo will be dealt a tangible blow.

It is still unclear to me whether the Soviet side specifically asked for the bombing of the city of Dresden in addition to Leipzig and Berlin - I have no documents confirming this. But the fact that this city was included in the list of three priority goals as part of the cooperation of allies in anti-Hitler coalition, in my opinion, is obvious. Would Dresden have been bombed in the first months of 1945 without the request of the Red Army to strike at German communications? Don't know. It is quite possible that yes. In any case, it's already alternative history. In real history, on February 8, 1945, Allied High Command informed Bomber Command and the United States Strategic Air Forces that Dresden was one of the targets chosen because of its importance to Eastern Front.

Let me briefly note that other reasons for the bombing of Dresden are often mentioned (especially in Soviet historiography). One of them is an attempt to deprive the USSR of the reparations due to it. The other is "intimidation" of the Soviet leadership by demonstrating the capabilities of strategic bombers. These versions seem unconvincing to me, and below, in the fifth part of the post, I will explain in more detail why.

Part III. Plaque

The raid on the night of February 14-15 was carried out by 1299 strategic bombers: 527 American and 722 British. 3906.9 tons of bombs were dropped. The Americans dropped 953.3 tons of high-explosive and 294.3 tons of incendiary bombs, trying to get into the Dresden marshalling yards using the H2X radar. The British dropped 1,477.7 tons of high-explosive and 1,181.6 tons of incendiary bombs on urban areas, euphemistically called "industrial areas" in documents of that time. Here is a map of the city, for understanding:

1 - the Heinz-Steyer stadium, which the British bombers went out to as a landmark, and began to fan out and bomb.
2 - marshalling yard Dresden-Friedrichstadt‎
3 - train station Dresden-Neustadt‎
4 - Central Station
5 - Parliament of Saxony, town hall, etc. - city center.

How exactly the fan of British bombers was moving is not very clear. I came across such a picture, but in my opinion this is not official data, but the memories of one of the pilots.

An interesting detail: in Dresden at the time of the raid, it seems that there was not a single anti-aircraft artillery battalion at all. Back in 1944, it was all transferred to the protection of synthetic gasoline plants (for example, Leuna) and hydrogenation plants (for example, Pölitz and Böhlen). As a matter of fact, it was thanks to the absence of anti-aircraft artillery fire that a very good concentration of bombs was obtained. After all, the fire of anti-aircraft artillery forces the bombers to climb higher, worsening their accuracy; well, the anti-aircraft maneuvers of the pilots and the general jitters of accuracy do not improve.

Separately, it is worth noting that at the same time, in February, after an almost year-long break, the Americans carried out two raids on Berlin: on February 3 by forces of 1003 B-17s and on February 26 by forces of 1184 B-17s. Also, on February 27, they also carried out a raid on the railway junction in the center of Leipzig with the forces of 756 B-17s. I don't have such accurate data on the British, but I suspect that they also participated in the raids on Berlin and Leipzig.

Part IV. The consequences of the raid on Dresden

The exact number of victims of the bombing will never be known. According to the German police, on March 22, 1945, 18,375 people were found dead in the city as a result of the bombing. Between the bombings and 31 March 1945, 22,096 people were buried. By 1970, another 1,900 corpses had been found during construction work. The modern German estimate of casualties is approximately 25,000. In particular, quite recently, after six years of work, the commission of historians, established in 2004 at the insistence of local authorities, came to the same figure (report in German). It is worth mentioning that for a long time another estimate of the number of victims was called - 250,000 people. For the first time, this estimate, as far as I understand, appeared during the war - this figure was announced by the Goebbels Propaganda Ministry. Then she appeared in Irving's book and was mentioned in Soviet literature for a long time. In the fifth part of the post, I will try to explain why such a number of victims seems unlikely to me.

The raid destroyed or seriously damaged 23% of industrial buildings, 56% of non-industrial buildings (not including residential) and approximately 50% of housing units (ie apartments, single-family houses, etc.). 78,000 housing units were destroyed; 27.7 thousand units turned out to be uninhabitable with the possibility of repair; 64.5 thousand units were damaged.

USAF estimates that Dresden's military production capacity fell by about 80% in the first days after the raid. Majority railway stations, cargo terminals, depots and warehouses were either completely destroyed or damaged with varying degrees of severity. The Carolabrücke bridge over the Elbe is no longer passable. Other railway bridges (notably the firebombed Marienbrücke) were closed for one to several weeks. Traffic on the bridges was considered unsafe, plus many of the bridges were already mined, and the Germans feared an accidental explosion.

Part V. Myths

"Dresden was bombed to deprive the USSR of reparations"

The USSR received reparations not from specifically agreed objects, but on the principle of "what I want." And whether or not a specific Dresden would have been bombed, it didn’t play any role. In Yalta and Potsdam, the "share" of the USSR (from which it was shared with Poland) was determined in the amount of 10 billion dollars. Along with the army trophy teams, they also attracted specialists in the "dismantling" of enterprises, where specialists from the relevant industries were involved. Not only every People's Commissariat of Industrial Profile, but also many large Soviet enterprises, as well as various institutions that had nothing to do with industry, sent their own "dismantlers" to Germany. It got to the point of a madhouse - for example, the State Committee for Physical Culture and Sports instructed its teams to dismantle swimming pools. The atmosphere was well described by Chertok in Vol. 1 "Rockets and People". If anyone is interested, good job on this occasion - this is M. Semiryaga, "How we ruled Germany." There is a download online.

In principle, the figure of 10 billion dollars was taken from the ceiling by the chairman of the Reparation Commission, Ambassador I.M. Maisky, who recommended this amount to Stalin, and, in the opinion of all experts, did not cover the losses of the USSR (and even taking into account the fact that much more than 10 billion were actually taken away in reparations, they still did not cover the losses from the war even close). But, on the other hand, the value of the property available in Germany many times exceeded this amount. Therefore, the Allies bombed the economy of the Reich "a lot" or "little"; Soviet reparations in absolute numbers (and in physical volumes) were not affected at all.

In general, the USSR was completely indifferent to the fact that Germany was being torn apart. Yes, and he acted accordingly. To take the same assault on Koenigsberg, which was not even particularly necessary from a military point of view, where a month before the end of the war, about half of the housing stock was smashed by artillery. Did the military worry that this city would then enter the Soviet zone of occupation? Hardly.

"Dresden was bombed for the purpose of intimidation"

This version is simply incomprehensible to me. What a thousand strategic bombers could do to the city became very clear after Hamburg in 1943. The Soviet leadership had all the British data on the results of that raid. Dresden was nothing new here.

"250 thousand people were killed in Dresden"

This is extremely unlikely. The fact that modern German estimates are different, I have already mentioned. As additional circumstantial evidence, take a look at this table. This is Dresden, along with four other cities that have the highest percentage of deaths as a result of a single raid. In Dresden, the number of inhabitants is listed as one million due to the influx of refugees from the eastern regions of Germany. As you can see, 250 thousand victims would be extremely out of the general range.

City	Population at the time of the raid	Killed during a raid	Share of the total number of inhabitants
Darmstadt	109 000	8,100	0,075
Kassel	220 000	8 659	0,039
Dresden	1 000 000	25 000	0,025
Hamburg	1 738 000	41 800	0,024
Wuppertal	400 000	5 219	0,013

"Dresden is the most affected city in the entire Second World War"

B O a larger percentage of the population than in Dresden was killed in one raid in Darmstadt and Kassel; large quantity victims were killed in Hamburg. This is not counting the bombings in Japan, Tokyo alone is worth something.

Regarding the area of ​​destruction, here is a list of cities in which the area of ​​destruction was 50% or more of the total area of ​​buildings (i.e. more than in Dresden):
50% - Ludwigshafen, Worms
51% - Bremen, Hannover, Nuremberg, Remscheid, Bochum
52% - Essen, Darmstadt
53% - Cochem
54% - Hamburg, Mainz
55% - Neckarsulm, Soest
56% - Aachen, Münster, Heilbronn
60% - Erkelenz
63% - Wilhelmshaven, Koblenz
64% - Bingerbrück, Cologne, Pforzheim
65% - Dortmund
66% - Crailsheim
67% - Giessen
68% - Hanau, Kassel
69% - Düren
70% - Altenkirchen, Bruchsal
72% - Geilenkirchen
74% - Donauwörth
75% - Remagen, Würzburg
78% - Emden
80% - Prüm, Wesel
85% - Xanten, Zulpich
91% - Emmerich
97% - Julich

Also, the bombing of Dresden was not exceptional either in terms of the bomb tonnage dropped or in terms of the number of aircraft involved. Here, for example, data on raids on Dresden during the war:

Number	Number of aircraft	Tons of bombs: total (high explosive/incendiary)
October 7, 1944	8th A.F. 30	72,5 (72,5 / 0)
January 16, 1945	8th AF 133	321,4 (279,8 / 41,6)
February 14, 1945	RAF BC 772	2659,3 (1477,7 / 1181,6)
February 14, 1945	8th AF 316	782 (487,7 / 294,3)
February 15, 1945	8th AF 211	465,6 (465,6 / 0)
March 2, 1945	8th AF 406	1080,8 (940,3 / 140,5)
April 17, 1945	8th AF 572	1690,9 (1526,4 / 164,5)
April 17, 1945	8th A.F.8	28,0 (28,0 / 0)

But the raids on Munich by the US Air Force in the summer of 1944:

In addition, the total number of bombs dropped during the war

City	Population in 1939	Tonnage of bombs dropped during the war
Berlin	4 339 000	67 607,6
Hamburg	1 129 000	38 687,6
Munich	841 000	27 110,9
Cologne	772 000	44 923,2
Leipzig	707 000	11 616,4
Essen	667 000	37 938,0
Dresden	642 000	7 100,5

"The British and Americans deliberately bombed residential areas instead of pinpoint strikes on depots and military enterprises"

This is a difficult question in general.

In short, it was not out of innate sadism that the British set fire to German cities. The fact is that daytime raids in the first half of the war turned out to be practically impossible due to too high losses of bombers. At first, the Americans also honestly tried to bomb point targets during the day, but after terrible losses in the period from August to October 1943 (Regensburg, Schweinfurt, Stuttgart, Bremen-Wegesack-Wanzig-Marienburg-Anklam, the second Schweinfurt) they realized that daytime point raids without fighter cover end very badly, and also switched to night raids.

And at night, on a four-engine strategic bomber of that era, even getting into the city was a relatively difficult task. In June-July 1941, the British conducted a study of the real effectiveness of night bombing (then they still bombed point targets). It turned out that:
1) Only one of the three aircraft that reported a successful attack on the target bombed within a radius of 8 kilometers from it.
2) For French ports, this proportion was 2 out of 3, over Germany 1 out of 4, over the Ruhr 1 out of 10 (!).
3) On a full moon, this proportion (over the Ruhr) became 2 out of 5, on moonless nights - 1 out of 15.
4) These figures refer only to aircraft that reported attacking the target (see (1)); there were less than a third of those in each raid.

By the way, during the night raids on the cities of the enemy, the Soviet military aircraft had the same problem: " raids on Helsinki in February 1944 (2120 sorties in total) failed not so much because of losses, but because of the low accuracy of hits. In the first raid, 2100 bombs were dropped, of which only 331 fell on the city. In the second out of 4200, only 130 bombs fell on Helsinki, in the third out of 9000 bombs only 338 hit the city. As a result, only 134 people were killed in Helsinki. 800 bombs were dropped on Kotka, of which only 35 fell on the territory of the city. During the bombing of Oulu, most of the bombs generally fell on Swedish territory, during the raid on Turku, some of the aircraft mistakenly dropped bombs on Stockholm (!) etc.."

In general, at the beginning and even in the middle of the war, the tactics of night carpet bombing were quite justified due to the low effectiveness of high-precision raids. I recommend Murray's book "Strategy for Defeat: The Luftwaffe 1933-1945", it is available on the Internet. But by the end of the war, when there were horns and legs left from the Luftwaffe and there were effective escort fighters, the British had to abandon this tactic. Unfortunately, they were influenced by the inertia of the early war years, plus the peculiar personality of Harris. Casualties during the night bombing of the Dresden railway junctions located in the city center could not be avoided - the then strategic bombers were not very accurate when bombing on the radar. However, the fact that the British, unlike the Americans, did not even try to carry out bombing on the radar, but deliberately directed their bombing stream to the residential areas of Dresden, can and should be blamed on them.

Bombing of Dresden

Destroyed Dresden. Photo from German archives, 1945

The charred corpses of the dead inhabitants. Photo from the German archives, February 1945

Bombing of Dresden(German Luftangriff auf Dresden, English Bombing of Dresden) - a series of bombings of the German city of Dresden, carried out by the Royal Air Force of Great Britain and the United States Air Force on February 13-15, 1945 during World War II. As a result of the bombing, about a quarter of the city's industrial enterprises and about half of the remaining buildings (urban infrastructure and residential buildings) were destroyed or seriously damaged. According to the US Air Force, traffic through the city was paralyzed for several weeks. Estimates of the number of dead varied from 25,000 in official German wartime reports to 200,000 and even 500,000. In 2008, a commission of German historians commissioned by the city of Dresden estimated the death toll at between 18,000 and 25,000. On March 17, 2010, the official report of the commission, which has been operating since 2004, was presented. According to the report, the bombing of Dresden by Allied aircraft in February 1945 killed 25,000 people. The official report of the commission was made publicly available on the Internet.

Whether the bombing of Dresden was due to military necessity is still a matter of controversy. The bombing of Berlin and Leipzig was agreed with the Soviet side; according to the explanation of the Anglo-American allies, Dresden, as an important transport center, was bombed by them in order to make it impossible for traffic to bypass these cities. According to the US Air Force, which carried out the bombing, the significance of disabling the transport hubs of Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden is confirmed by the fact that it was near Leipzig, in Torgau, on April 25 that the advanced units of the Soviet and American troops met, cutting the territory of Nazi Germany in two. Other researchers call the bombing unjustified, believing that Dresden was of low military importance, and the destruction and civilian casualties were highly disproportionate to the military results achieved. According to a number of historians, the bombing of Dresden and other German cities retreating to the Soviet zone of influence was not aimed at helping the Soviet troops, but exclusively for political purposes: a demonstration of military power to intimidate the Soviet leadership in connection with the planned Operation Unthinkable. According to historian John Fuller, it was enough to continuously bomb the exits of the city to block communications, instead of bombarding Dresden itself.

The bombing of Dresden was used by Nazi Germany for propaganda purposes, while the death toll was inflated by Goebbels to 200 thousand people, and the bombing itself seemed completely unjustified. In the USSR, an estimate of the victims was 135 thousand people.

Causes

December 16, 1944 German troops on the Western Front, they launched an offensive in the Ardennes, the purpose of which was to defeat the Anglo-American forces in Belgium and the Netherlands and free up German units for the Eastern Front. In just 8 days, the Wehrmacht offensive in the Ardennes as a strategic operation ended in complete failure. By December 24, the German troops advanced 90 km, but their offensive fizzled out before reaching the Meuse River, when the American troops launched a counteroffensive, attacked from the flanks and stopped the German advance, and the Wehrmacht, defeated in the Ardennes, finally lost the strategic initiative on the Western Front and started to recede. To facilitate their retreat, on January 1, 1945, the Germans launched a local counteroffensive, carried out by small forces, this time in Strasbourg in the Alsace region, in order to divert the Allied forces. These local counterattacks could no longer change the strategic situation on the Western Front, moreover, the Wehrmacht was experiencing a critical shortage of fuel caused by strategic bombing by Allied aircraft, which destroyed the German oil refining industry. By the beginning of January 1945, the position of the Wehrmacht on the Western Front, especially in the Ardennes, became hopeless.

In connection with these events, on January 12-13, the Red Army launched an offensive in Poland and East Prussia. On January 25, in a new report, British intelligence noted that “the success of the current Russian offensive will apparently have a decisive influence on the duration of the war. We consider it expedient to urgently consider the issue of assistance that can be provided to the Russians by the strategic aviation of Great Britain and the United States over the next few weeks. In the evening of the same day, Winston Churchill, having read the report, addressed the Secretary of the Air Force Archibald Sinclair (Eng. Archibald Sinclair ) a dispatch asking what can be done to “how the Germans should be treated during their retreat from Breslau” (200 km east of Dresden).

On January 26, Sinclair noted in his reply that “the best use of strategic air power seems to be the bombing of German oil refineries; German units retreating from Breslau must be bombed by front-line aircraft (from low altitudes), and not by strategic ones (from high altitudes)”; noting, however, that “under favorable weather conditions, bombing of large cities can be considered East Germany such as Leipzig, Dresden and Chemnitz" . Churchill expressed dissatisfaction with the restrained tone of the response and demanded that the possibility of bombing Berlin and other major cities in East Germany be considered. Churchill's wish for the development specific plans strikes on the cities of eastern Germany, Sinclair redirected the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Charles Portal (Eng. Charles Portal ), who in turn forwarded it to his second in command, Norman Bottomley. Norman Bottomley ).

On 27 January, Bottomley sent the Chief of RAF Bomber Command, Arthur Harris, an order to bomb Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz, as soon as allowed weather. Sinclair reported to Churchill on the measures taken, noting that "a sudden massive bombardment will not only bring confusion to the evacuation from the east, but will also make it difficult to transfer troops from the west." On January 28, Churchill, having read Sinclair's reply, made no further comments.

Memorandum of the Royal Air Force, with which English pilots were acquainted on the night before the attack (February 13), reported that:

Dresden, the 7th largest city in Germany... by far the largest enemy area still un-bombed. In the middle of winter, with refugees heading west and troops having to be quartered somewhere, housing is in short supply as workers, refugees, and troops need to be accommodated, as well as government offices evacuated from other areas. Once widely known for its porcelain production, Dresden has developed into a major industrial center... The purpose of the attack is to strike the enemy where they feel it most, behind a partially collapsed front... and at the same time show the Russians when they arrive in the city what the Royal Air Force is capable of. .

bombing

Tonnage of bombs dropped by the Allies on 7 largest cities Germany, including Dresden, is shown in the table below.

Moreover, as the table below shows, by February 1945, the city was practically not bombed.

date	Target	Who spent	Participated aircraft	Tonnage of bombs dropped
				high-explosive	incendiary	Total
07.10.1944	Sort Facility	USAF	30	72,5		72,5
16.01.1945	Sort Facility	USAF	133	279,8	41,6	321,4
14.02.1945	Through city squares	Royal Air Force	772	1477,7	1181,6	2659,3
14.02.1945	Sort Facility	USAF	316	487,7	294,3	782,0
15.02.1945	Sort Facility	USAF	211	465,6		465,6
02.03.1945	Sort Facility	USAF	406	940,3	140,5	1080,8
17.04.1945	Sort Facility	USAF	572	1526,4	164,5	1690,9
17.04.1945	industrial zones	USAF	8	28,0		28,0

The operation was supposed to begin with an air raid by the US Air Force's 8th Air Force on February 13, but bad weather over Europe prevented the participation of American aircraft. In this regard, the first blow was delivered by British aircraft.

On the evening of February 13, 796 Avro Lancasters and 9 De Havilland Mosquitos took off in two waves and dropped 1,478 tons of explosive and 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs. The first attack was carried out by the 5th RAF Group, which used its own targeting methods and tactics. Guidance planes marked the stadium Ostragehege as a starting point. All bombers passed through this point, fanning out along predetermined trajectories and dropping bombs after a certain time. The first bombs were dropped at 22:14 CET by all but one bomber, which dropped the bombs at 22:22. At this point, clouds were covering the ground, and the attack, during which 244 Lancasters dropped 800 tons of bombs, was a moderate success. The bombed zone was fan-shaped, 1.25 miles long and 1.3 miles wide.

Three hours later, a second attack took place, carried out by the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 8th RAF groups, the latter providing guidance by standard methods. The weather had improved by then, and 529 Lancasters dropped 1,800 tons of bombs between 01:21 and 01:45. .

After that, the US Air Force carried out two more bombing raids. On March 2, 406 B-17 bombers dropped 940 tons of explosive and 141 tons of incendiary bombs. On 17 April, 580 B-17 bombers dropped 1,554 tons of high explosive and 165 tons of incendiary bombs.

The bombing was carried out according to the methods adopted at the time: first high-explosive bombs were dropped to destroy the roofs and expose the wooden structures of buildings, then firebombs, and again high-explosive bombs to hamper the work of firefighting services. As a result of the bombing, a fiery tornado was formed, the temperature in which reached 1500 ° C.

Destruction and casualties

Type of destruction. Photo from German archives, 1945

According to a Dresden police report compiled shortly after the raids, 12,000 buildings burned down in the city. The report stated that "24 banks, 26 insurance company buildings, 31 trading shops, 6470 stores, 640 warehouses, 256 trading floors, 31 hotels, 26 brothels, 63 administrative buildings, 3 theaters, 18 cinemas, 11 churches, 60 chapels, 50 cultural and historical buildings, 19 hospitals (including auxiliary and private clinics), 39 schools, 5 consulates, 1 zoological garden, 1 waterworks, 1 railway depot, 19 post offices, 4 tram depots, 19 ships and barges. In addition, the destruction of military targets was reported: command post in a palace Taschenberg, 19 military hospitals and many smaller military service buildings. Nearly 200 factories were damaged, of which 136 suffered major damage (including several Zeiss optics factories), 28 moderate damage and 35 minor damage.

The US Air Force documents say: “British estimates ... conclude that 23% of industrial buildings and 56% of non-industrial buildings (not counting residential buildings) were seriously damaged. Of the total number of residential buildings, 78,000 are considered destroyed, 27,700 are considered unfit for habitation, but repairable, 64,500 are considered slightly damaged and repairable. This later assessment shows that 80% of the city's buildings suffered damage of varying degrees and 50% of residential buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged", "heavy damage was caused as a result of raids on the city's railway infrastructure, which completely paralyzed communications", "railway bridges over the Elbe River - vital for the movement of troops - remained inaccessible to movement for several weeks after the raid.

The exact number of deaths is unknown. Estimates are difficult to make due to the fact that the population of the city, which in 1939 numbered 642 thousand people, increased at the time of the raids due to the arrival of at least 200 thousand refugees and several thousand soldiers. The fate of some refugees is unknown because they could have been burned beyond recognition or left the city without informing the authorities.

Currently, a number of historians estimate the number of victims in the range of 25-30 thousand people. According to the American Air Force, from these estimates it would be clear that the losses during the bombing of Dresden are similar to the losses during the bombing of other German cities. Higher figures were reported by other sources, the reliability of which was questioned.

A chronology of claims by various sources on the number of deaths is given below.

On March 22, 1945, an official report was issued by the municipal authorities of the city of Dresden Tagesbefehl no. 47(also known as TV-47), according to which the number of deaths recorded by this date was 20,204, and the total number of deaths during the bombing was expected to be about 25 thousand people.

In 1953, in the work of German authors “Results of the Second World War”, Major General of the Fire Service Hans Rumpf wrote: “It is impossible to calculate the number of victims in Dresden. According to the State Department, 250,000 people died in this city, but the actual number of casualties is, of course, much less; but even 60-100 thousand civilians who died in the fire in one night can hardly fit in the human mind.

In 1964, US Air Force Lieutenant General Ira Eaker ( English) also estimated the number of victims at 135,000 dead .

In 1970, the American magazine Time estimated the number of victims from 35,000 to 135,000 people.

In 1977, the Soviet Military Encyclopedia listed the death toll at 135,000.

In 2000, according to the decision of the British court, the figures given by Irving for the number of deaths in the bombing of Dresden (135 thousand people) were called unreasonably high. The judge found no reason to doubt that the death toll differs from the 25-30 thousand people indicated in official German documents.

In 2005, an article on the official website of the British Air Force noted that, according to accepted estimates, the death toll was at least 40 thousand people, and possibly more than 50 thousand.

In the encyclopedias "Columbia" ( English) and Encarta provides data on the death toll from 35 thousand to 135 thousand people.

In 2006, Russian historian Boris Sokolov noted that the death toll from the Allied bombing of Dresden in February 1945 ranged from 25,000 to 250,000 people. In the same year, in the book of the Russian journalist A. Alyabyev, it was noted that the number of deaths, according to various sources, ranged from 60 to 245 thousand people.

In 2008, a commission of 13 German historians commissioned by the city of Dresden estimated the death toll to be between 18,000 and 25,000. Other estimates of the number of victims, reaching up to 500 thousand people, were called by the commission exaggerated or based on dubious sources. The commission was created by state bodies after the right-wing National Democratic Party of Germany, having won seats in the Saxon parliament in the 2004 elections, began publicly comparing the bombing of German cities with the Holocaust, citing figures of up to 1 million victims.

The tonnage of bombs dropped on Dresden was less than in the bombing of other cities. However, favorable weather conditions, buildings with wooden structures, passages connecting the basements of adjacent houses, as well as the unpreparedness of the city for the consequences of air raids, contributed to the fact that the results of the bombing were more destructive. In late 2004, an RAF pilot who took part in the raids told the BBC that another factor was the weak barrage of air defense forces, which made it possible to hit targets with high accuracy. According to the authors of the Dresden Drama documentary, the firebombs dropped on Dresden contained napalm.

According to the US Air Force, which carried out the bombing, in the post-war period, the bombing of Dresden was used "by the communists for anti-Western propaganda."

The total number of victims of the Allied bombing among the civilian population of Germany is estimated at 305-600 thousand people. Whether these bombings contributed to a speedy end to the war is debatable.

Anglo-American aviation losses

The losses of the Royal Air Force during two raids on Dresden on February 13-14, 1945 amounted to 6 aircraft, in addition, 2 aircraft crashed in France and 1 in England.

Available sources provide details of the loss of 8 aircraft (including five British, one Australian, one Canadian, one Polish):

During the raid on Dresden and additional targets, American aviation irrevocably lost 8 B-17 bombers and 4 P-51 fighters.

eyewitness accounts

Dresden resident Margaret Freyer recalled:

“Moans and cries for help were heard in the firestorm. Everything around turned into a continuous hell. I see a woman - she is still before my eyes. In her hands is a bundle. This is a child. She runs, falls, and the baby, having described an arc, disappears in a flame. Suddenly, two people appear right in front of me. They shout, wave their hands, and suddenly, to my horror, I see how one by one these people fall to the ground (today I know that the unfortunate ones became victims of lack of oxygen). They lose consciousness and turn to ash. Crazy fear seizes me, and I keep repeating: “I don’t want to burn alive!” I don’t know how many other people got in my way. I know only one thing: I must not burn.

The dancer and dance teacher Grete Palucca founded a modern dance school in Dresden in 1925 and has since lived in Dresden:

“Then I experienced something terrible. I lived in the center of the city, in the house where I lived, almost everyone died, including because they were afraid to go out. After all, we were in the basement, about sixty-three people, and there I said to myself - no, you can die here, because it was not a real bomb shelter. Then I ran straight into the fire and jumped over the wall. Me and another schoolgirl, we were the only ones who got out. Then I experienced something terrible, and then in the Grossen Garten (a park within the city) I experienced an even greater horror, and it took me two years to overcome it. At night, if in a dream I saw those pictures, I always started screaming.

According to the memoirs of a radio operator of the British Air Force, who participated in the raid on Dresden:

“At the time, I was struck by the thought of the women and children below. It seemed that we flew for hours over the sea of ​​fire that raged below - from above it looked like an ominous red glow with a thin layer of haze above it. I remember I said to the other crew members, “My God, those poor fellows are downstairs.” It was completely unreasonable. And it can't be justified."

Reaction

Ruined opera house. Photo from German archives, 1945

On February 16, a press release was issued, where the German side stated that there were no military industries in Dresden, it was the location of cultural property and hospitals. On February 25, a new document was released with photographs of two burnt children and with the title "Dresden - a massacre of refugees", which stated that the number of victims was not one hundred, but two hundred thousand people. March 4 in the weekly newspaper Das Reich published an article devoted exclusively to the destruction of cultural and historical values.

Historian Frederick Taylor notes that German propaganda was successful, not only forming a position in neutral countries, but also reaching the British House of Commons, where Richard Stokes ( English) operated on the reports of the German news agency.

Churchill, who had previously supported the bombing, distanced himself from them. On March 28, in a draft memorandum sent by telegram to General Hastings Ismay, he said: “It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the bombing of German cities, carried out under various pretexts for the sake of increasing terror, should be reconsidered. Otherwise, we will get a completely ruined state under our control. The destruction of Dresden remains a serious pretext against Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that henceforth military objectives should be determined more strictly in our own interests than in the interests of the enemy. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has informed me of this problem and I believe that it is necessary to focus more carefully on such military targets as oil and communications immediately behind the war zone, rather than on clear acts of terror and senseless, albeit spectacular, destruction.

After reviewing the contents of Churchill's telegram, on March 29, Arthur Harris sent a reply to the Air Ministry, where he stated that the bombing was strategically justified and "all the remaining German cities are not worth the life of one British grenadier." After protests from the military, on April 1, Churchill wrote a new text in a relaxed form.

The issue of war crimes

Square Altmarkt before destruction. Photo taken in 1881., Library of Congress

There are different opinions as to whether the bombing should be considered a war crime.

The American journalist and literary critic Christopher Hitchens expressed the opinion that the bombing of many German residential areas that served as human targets was carried out solely so that new aircraft crews could work out the practice of bombing. In his opinion, the Allies burned German cities in 1944-1945 only because they were able to do it.

In his book, the German historian Jörg Friedrich ( English) noted that, in his opinion, the bombing of cities was a war crime, since in the last months of the war they were not dictated by military necessity. In 2005, Friedrich noted that "it was an absolutely unnecessary bombing in the military sense", "an act of unjustified terror, mass destruction of people and terrorization of refugees" . The German historian Joachim Fest also believes that the bombing of Dresden was not militarily necessary.

Representatives of right-wing parties at a demonstration on February 13, 2005. The inscription on the banner "Never again bombing terror!"

Nationalist politicians in Germany use the expression bombenholocaust("bomb holocaust") in relation to the bombing of German cities by the allies. The leader of the National Democratic Party of Germany, Holger Apfel, called the bombings "a cold-bloodedly planned industrial-mass destruction of the Germans."

The question of classifying the bombing of Dresden as a war crime does not make sense without considering, together with the facts of the bombing of cities such as Würzburg, Hildesheim, Paderborn, Pforzheim, which had no military significance, committed according to an identical scheme, and also almost completely destroyed. The bombing of these and many other cities was carried out after the bombing of Dresden.

Reflection in culture

Memory

On February 13, 2010, on the Day of Remembrance for those killed in the bombing, between 5,000 and 6,700 neo-Nazis (3,000 less than expected) who were planning to demonstrate in Altstadt - the historical center of Dresden, were blocked on the opposite bank of the Elbe by left-wing demonstrators. According to the newspapers Morgen Post and Sächsische Zeitung, between 20,000 and 25,000 residents and visitors took to the streets of Dresden to oppose the far right. The "human chain", which stretched around the historic center of the city, where the Dresden synagogue is located, consisted, according to various sources, of 10 to 15 thousand people. To maintain order, the Ministry of the Interior of Saxony (as well as other federal lands) deployed about seven and a half thousand policemen (originally planned six thousand) with armored vehicles and helicopters.

Some facts

The area of ​​the zone of complete destruction in Dresden was 4 times the area of ​​the zone of complete destruction in Nagasaki. The population before the raid was 629,713 people (excluding refugees), after - 369,000 people.

Notes

1. German historians have established the exact number of victims of the bombing of Dresden (March 18, 2010). Archived
2. Official report on the victims of the bombing, published 03/17/2010 (German) (PDF). Archived from the original on May 21, 2012.
3. Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden(English) . USAF Historical Division, Research Studies Institute, Air University. Retrieved March 14, 2009.
4. “The history of the raid by Gotz Bergander, first published in 1977…, provided the most balanced account of the attack, but Bergander, though he thought there were grounds for regarding the city as a completely legitimate bombing target, found the means used were "bizarrely out of proportion" to any expected gain." Addison, Paul & Crang, Jeremy A. (eds.) Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden. - Pimlico, 2006. - p. 126. - ISBN 1-8441-3928-X
5. Shepova N. Bomb Germany out of the war. Military Industrial Courier, No. 21 (137) (June 07-13, 2006). Archived
6. Fuller J.F.C. World War II 1939-1945 Strategic and Tactical Review. - M .: Foreign Literature, 1956.
7. “Following the deliberate leaking oa TB-47 by Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry, a third Swedish paper, Svenska Dagbladet, wrote on 25 February 1945 that… according to the information compiled a few days after the destruction the figure is closer to 200,000 than to 100,000” Richard J Evans(((title))) = Telling Lies about Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial. - Verso, 2002. - S. 165. - 326 p. - ISBN 1859844170
8. Soviet military encyclopedia. - T. 3. - S. 260.
9. Taylor, p. 181: "The degree of success achieved by the present Russian offensive is likely to have a decisive effect on the length of the war. We consider, therefore, that the assistance which might be given to the Russians during the next few weeks by the British and American strategic bomber forces justifies an urgent review of their employment to this end”, quoted from the report “Strategic Bombing in Relation to the Present Russian Offensive" prepared by the Joint Intelligence Committee of Great Britain on January 25, 1945
10. Taylor, p. 181
11. Taylor, p. 184-185
12. Taylor, p. 185. Churchill's reply: “I asked whether Berlin, and now doubt other large cities in East Germany, should not now be considered especially attractive targets. I am glad that this is "under consideration". Pray report to me tomorrow what is to be done.
13. Taylor, p. 186
14. Taylor, p. 217-220
15. Addison (2006), p. 27.28
16. Ross (2003), p. 180. See also Longmate (1983) p. 333.
17. RAF: Bomber Command: Dresden, February 1945 ((on English language)). Archived from the original on May 21, 2012. Retrieved March 14, 2009.
18. Gotz Bergander.= Dresden im Luftkrieg: Vorgeschichte-Zerstörung-Folgen. - Munich: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1977.
19. Richard J. Evans.= The Bombing of Dresden in 1945: Misstatement of circumstances: low-level strafing in Dresden.
20. Taylor, p. 497-8.
21. Taylor, p. 408-409
22. Taylor, p. 262-4. The number of refugees is unknown, but some historians put it at 200,000 on the first night of the bombing.
23. "Following the deliberate leaking oa TB-47 by Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry, a third Swedish paper, Svenska Dagbladet, wrote on 25 February 1945 that … according to the information compiled a few days after the destruction the figure is closer to 200,000 than to 100,000" Richard J. Evans.= Telling Lies about Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial. - Verso, 2002. - S. 165. - 326 p. - ISBN 1859844170
24. p. 75, Addison, Paul & Crang, Jeremy A., Pimlico, 2006
25. Taylor, p. 424
26. Another report, prepared on 3 April, put the number of dead bodies at 22,096 - See p. 75, Addison, Paul & Crang, Jeremy A., Pimlico, 2006
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31. cm.
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44. , With. 125.
45. 463 SQUADRON RAAF WORLD WAR 2 FATALITIES
46. List of dead members of the Royal Australian Air Force in World War II, p. 248.
47. KNIGHTS, P/O John Kingsley; Air Force Association of Canada
48. Lost information on the Pathfinder Squadron RAF website
49. Lost Bombers Fiskerton Airfield Database - PD232
50. Crash du Avro Lancaster - type B.I - s/n PB686 KO-D
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55. Taylor, p. 420-6.
56. Taylor, p. 421.
57. Taylor, p. 413.
58. Longmate, p. 344.
59. Longmate, p. 345.
60. Taylor, p. 431.
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62. Taylor, p. 430.
63. Taylor, p. 432.
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76. Olaf Sundermeyer (Der Spiegel, 13. Februar 2010): Bomben-Gedenken in Dresden: Neonazis scheitern mit Propagandamarsch
77. Morgen Post. 25,000 zeigen Gesicht gegen Rechts(German)
78. "Sachsische Zeitung", Dresden hallt zusammen gegen Rechts. February 15, 2010 (German)