Good points, Tim. I agree, as I have stated before, that the tactic of firebombing (at least to me) was overkill. Either way, with or without firebombing, innocents were going to die. However, the bombing campaign as a whole was quite effective at strangling German industry, and their ability to transport troops and supplies to the various fronts.

EDIT: I did not intend for the effects of the bombing to appear as two choices. I believe then went hand in hand. Sorry for any confusion.

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Success is measured in blood; yours or your enemy's.

Where does he admit the bombing campaign was a terror campaign, and a terror campaign alone?

As I have stated before, I think the firebombing tactics were overkill. The same could have been accomplished with regular HE bombs. However, innocents were going to die either way.

__________________
Success is measured in blood; yours or your enemy's.

What about "bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed"? Nobody claims that bombing campaign was solely targeting civilians. Of course the main targets were the German military, industry and infrastructure. But it also was systematically targeting civilians ... not only in Dresden btw. ... in order to break the moral of the German people.

Harris' response to the original memo.
Bombing of Dresden in World War II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It would seem that the futher we get from the events the further some get from the facts, and NAZI propaganda seems to be having a resurgence in popularity.

From the City of Dresden official site
City of Dresden

Note
Not hundreds of thousands, not the two hundred thousand plus claimed by NAZI propaganda. I've seen figures as high as 350,000 claimed by some.

Of course the destruction of civil cities by USA and GB in the WW2 was one of the many similar genocides that those countries have used to do and still today do. This is MILITARISM - a religion which leans on the idea that destruction and slaughtering abroad is one of the tools to develop own economy. Dresden is a monument of western militarism (= Nazism by USA and GB).

Today we can see US militarism in operation in the oil countries - and the purpose is the very same - by destroying countries rich in natural resources the militarists believe that the resources belong to them.

The oil business in Iraq was sold to some other countries before the US invented war and now the industry is in US hands. This is something that the modern world should not tolerate. Criminals should be isolated from the global community even if that is difficult and costly.

How so?

I would ask you: please don't get him started. This is a serious thread about an important topic, and he will turn it into yet another "Americans are evil lunatics" thread. It has happened innumerable times, regardless of the original topic.

Please do not be offended by this. It is not directed against you at all. You are new here. I am saying this because this topic has a particualr significance for me and I have seen so many threads destroyed here.

__________________
"Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep; in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety."

Macbeth 3:1

can I ask why its significant tim?

I didn't mean that alone was the reason.

Alright, here's the explanation: I have very close German friends. They are like family to me, and to my family. I am very aware of the horrors of WWII and the evil crimes of the Nazis, and the complicity of so many Germans (and Austrians and others). I am also very aware of how hard the Germans that I know have worked at understanding their own past, and realizing and acknowledging the full evil of what happened.

I am also very aware, as an obvious outsider, of the full horror of the attack on Dresden. I began studying it when I was very young - about fifteen years ago. I started following the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche on the web and was able to contribute a small amount to it.

When I was finally able to visit the city, it was the fulfillment of a dream.

The rebuilding is a remarkable thing. It is one of the most encouraging things in the world today.

I do not pretend to have any idea of what the people went through. But I do know something about it.

I am NOT asking that anyone tone down their disagreements (and it is not my place anyway). That is what a forum is for.

But Analyst does not agree or disagree. He turns every thread into an attack on Americans and creates some weird conspiracy connection.

The mods do nothing about it because he is not breaking rules. I know he has a right to do it he wants - and then others jump in. I have done it myself.

In this case, I wanted to make my voice heard.

__________________
"Our fears in Banquo
Stick deep; in his royalty of nature
Reigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares;
And, to that dauntless temper of his mind,
He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
To act in safety."

Macbeth 3:1

I see...well as an amateur military historian, I have made it my biz to visit every battlefield I can ....I have been lucky enough to have visited Europe...I have been to Dresden....Berlin etc.....anyway...I have spoken at length with Germans and had stayed at their homes etc.....moving on from an event like ww2, with all the destruction wrought both physically and psychologically is not easy...engaging with them on this level is not easy, I never found ( except isolated incidents- young folks) an attitude that the events or that is the results were anyone’s fault other than the vicissitudes of the continent at large at that time..

and of course it depends on the ages of these folks...the older Germans seemed to feel they had to an extent the right to throw off Versailles, but also agreed that national socialism was not in the end the answer, not that they weren’t glad in the mid 30’s that they had seemed to find themselves again as a nation...but the slope became truly slippery...their overall attitude appeared to be a well worn ambivalence ..it became what it became and we paid the price...

the younger folks have had a harder time consigning what was with what is, and how that fits into that they feel is or maybe a right to feel regards a national pride....in short they feel they are being made to carry some of their fathers sins...some have a very hard time understanding why a Hitler would be able to control events to the extent he did...and why they, that generation, put up with it....

Well the very real threat of the Soviet Union did have a lot to do with it.
One of the few decent things the NAZI did was to honor the age old pact requiring they assist Finland in its war against Russia. Their interference in Spain was less forgivable , but would a Communist Spain have been any better than a Fascist Spain in those days?

When Hitler and Stalin temporarily Buddied up, then the world should have known that the feces would have to hit the fan.

The entire political situation world wide posed a near uncomprehensable mess.

IMHO its disgusting how the allies bombed civillian targets during WW2. They should only have bombed military/government targets even though it would have been less effective. If for nothing else, then at least to show the world that they had a higher moral than the germans. Seen in that light its hard to say that the brits and americans were the "good" guys.

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Jesus was a communist!

It's really simple when you step back and look at it.
As the war neared it's end, the Allied air forces had more planes, more fuel and more aircrew than ever before, for two reasons, the production of these things was up, and the destruction of allied aircraft by the Luftwaffe was down, because of severe fuel shortages, the Luftwaffe was operating on 7% of the fuel it required to be fully operational.
The second thing was that there were fewer and fewer targets as the front moved into Germany, and as targets were destroyed.

So a lot of targets that would never have been attacked earlier, were attacked now, because someone had to come up with more target assignments every day, and every day there were fewer targets available.

__________________
“The thought of his being president sends a cold chill down my spine.”

Senator Thad Cochran, Mississippi (R)
on McCain

“I decided I didn’t want this guy anywhere near a trigger.”
Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico (R)
on McCain

“My anger did not help my campaign ... People don’t like angry candidates very much.”

McCain on McCain

It wasn't always possible to hit purely military targets without hitting everything around them.
Daylight precision bombing was extremely costly when attacking the most heavily defended central war material factories, striking at the numerous smaller industries spread around the city could often do more to halt production of strategic materials than hits on the main factories.

The destruction of a small factory which produced an ecceptionally strong wood glue prevented the germans from deploying a highly advanced Wooden Wonder Bomber similar in design to the British Mosquito Bomber.
When the Germans tried a substitute glue the Bombers fell apart in the air.

Lack of the proper bearings forced the Germans to use solid bearings on their Tanks road wheels, shortening service time between major overhaul of the suspension and giving the Tank a distinctive sound which gave away its position in combat. The Tank factories were near immune to bombing but bombing the bearing plant reduced the number and effectiveness of their tanks.

Destroying Rail switching stations in cities hampered rail traffic hundreds of times more effectively than cutting rail lines. Tanks had to be moved by rail in order to reach the front with bearings intact.

Near as I can tell every strike on a German or Japanese city could be justified by the amount of war material production in that city, or presence of a Military command center.

The Mosquito Bomber I mentioned earlier was used with some success in bombing German Military targets in cities while avoiding civilian casualties, but that was a remarkable machine.