# Was the bombing of Dresden a war crime? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 17, 2010, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475 "2010-12-17T04:34:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/21 "2010-12-17T07:46:33Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > It can (and has) been argued that the bombing of Dresden had no tactical or strategic utility regarding winning the war. > > It has also been claimed that the Russian soldiers were “let loose” on German women by their high command, as a reward, as revenge for the abuse and murder of Russian civilians, and as some kind of object lesson to the German people. I don’t recall how much evidence there was for the rapes as a matter of policy. I just want to note that I in no way meant to claim otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/22 "2010-12-17T15:45:03Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > If Germany had bombed NY City in 1945 and killed 25,000, would that have been justifiable? Yes. Kind of odd to see the Germans complain about tactics they pioneered because we did it better. Dresden was a legitimate target if Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin, Essen were legitimate targets. Also if Coventry, Liverpool, London, Birmingham etc were. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/23 "2010-12-17T15:58:41Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Yes. Kind of odd to see the Germans complain about tactics they pioneered because we did it better. > > Dresden was a legitimate target if Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin, Essen were legitimate targets. Also if Coventry, Liverpool, London, Birmingham etc were. “The Nazis did it, so it was justified when _we_ did it” isn’t really an argument I’d care to make, personally. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/24 "2010-12-17T15:58:51Z")
> [@Sandwich](#): > > That would be a crime, rather than a war crime? > > Anyway, you’ll notice that the Germans have stopped waging genocidal wars to devastate Europe every thirty years or so. So perhaps Allied tactics in WW2, including the firebombing and rape, were more appropriate than those adopted in WW1? Actually, the better explanation is probably that the Allied tactics _post_ WW2 were more appropriate than those adopted _post_ WW1. The Marshall Plan, NATO, and the emergency of the European Community (later the EU) all helped to ensure that West Germany recovered as a prosperous and secure state whose prosperity and security were entirely dependent upon peaceful cooperation with the rest of Europe. ---
**Author:** ![GreenHell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ea666f/32.png) [@GreenHell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenHell)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/25 "2010-12-17T15:59:37Z")
The reality of that exceptionally brutal war was that “killing civilians” WAS accomplishing a military goal. Civilians that could be pressed into service. Civilians that may be processing raw material into warfighting capability. Also, perhaps not incidentally, civilians that may see their leaders as leading them into oblivion and rise up against them (by various methods and with varying degrees of vigor) to prevent being bombed into the stone age. I’m not saying this is absolutely correct, but if this stance is defensible, then the intent of the Dresden bombing campaign could be said to have a legitimate military objective and thus not be deemed a war crime. ---
**Author:** ![Laudenum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Laudenum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laudenum)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/26 "2010-12-17T16:00:55Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I take the position that when you kill Nazis, it’s not a war crime; that any actions taken against the Germans during World War II by the allied powers was justifiable. Except that most of the people killed were _innocent_ civilians. The Nazi’s had to lie about what they were doing to the Jews to the German citizenry, because even they weren’t sure if they would get the population’s support. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/27 "2010-12-17T16:03:23Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > “The Nazis did it, so it was justified when _we_ did it” isn’t really an argument I’d care to make, personally. And yet that’s not the argument I was making. Neither were a war crime. Bombing NYC wouldn’t have been either. Waging a war of aggression on the other hand was. Not everything the Nazis did was a war crime, by the way. I find it utterly ridiculous that people will view bombing as a war crime, when shelling units of 14 year old conscripts is sound military tactics. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/28 "2010-12-17T16:05:00Z")
Inawciadi ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/29 "2010-12-17T16:05:14Z")
> [@GreenHell](#): > > I’m not saying this is absolutely correct, but if this stance is defensible, then the intent of the Dresden bombing campaign could be said to have a legitimate military objective and thus not be deemed a war crime. Dresden wasn’t just about killing civilians. It was about tying up resources (in fact, this was a key and very successful element of the whole bombing campaign) and about disrupting one of Germany’s main communication points between their East and West forces. And it did that bloody well too. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/30 "2010-12-17T16:07:11Z")
9/11 wasn’t just about killing civilians, it was about attacking the financial and military centers of the US. The attack on Ft. Hood was also a completely legitimate attack on a military target and military personnel. It’s easy to rationalize thse things. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/31 "2010-12-17T16:11:39Z")
In the documentary, _Fog of War_, Robert McNamara is on record saying we committed war crimes in WWII, including the bombing of Dresden, and the only reason we didn’t get prosecuted is because we won. That is the way of the world. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/32 "2010-12-17T16:14:10Z")
Which is why I don’t think the division between terrorism and military actions is always a clear one. Is it your position that no risk of killing civilians may be undertaken regardless of the military objective? Or is it that a woman in Dresden is more innocent than her 14 year old son and 60 year old father, conscripted into the Hitler Youth and Volksturm respectively, handed a WW1 surplus rifle, and left to huddle in shell holes under the weight of Allied bombardment? Yes it is easy to rationalize these things. But war is a shitty, nasty thing. Shitty nasty things happen in it, and we shouldn’t make every shitty nasty thing a war crime. Ah yes, I remember now - you called members of Bomber Command cowards last time on this… ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/33 "2010-12-17T16:18:04Z")
Yes it was a war crime. Go call the war police. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/34 "2010-12-17T17:49:28Z")
The destruction of many other European cites, not just in Britain, probably was justification enough. There would almost certainly have been a feeling that Germans started it, and got what they deserved, with interest. It’s oh so easy to gloriously justify some moral position based upon distance in time and space, lack of direct experience. As for turning Germany into a glass car park, if we had the bomb, hell why not. War has consequencies, open the box and don’t complain when you suffer at the wrong end, when it all drops out the bottom. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/35 "2010-12-17T17:52:16Z")
> [@casdave](#): > > As for turning Germany into a glass car park, if we had the bomb, hell why not. Because it would be genocide. Worse genocide than what the Germans did; for all their crimes, they didn’t _kill France_. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/36 "2010-12-17T17:58:28Z")
It really comes down to efficacy. Not defeating the Germans would clearly have been worse than just about any other outcome, so the question is whether bombing Dresden helped to win the war. I happen to think it did (for much the same reasons as **villa** ), though I’m no fan of Bomber Harris. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/37 "2010-12-17T18:05:13Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it would be genocide. Worse genocide than what the Germans did; for all their crimes, they didn’t _kill France_. They didn’t want to kill France. They would have killed a country they didn’t want. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/38 "2010-12-17T18:10:49Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because it would be genocide. Worse genocide than what the Germans did; for all their crimes, they didn’t _kill France_. It would be genocide, and it would have been a bad thing. Had we had a bomb or two in time, using them on German cities to end the war would have been a different matter. Dresden would almost certainly have been a target, being a military target, relatively untouched, and in the east. And it’s true. Germany didn’t kill France, but France was by no means the site of Germany’s worst crimes. They did, however, attempt to kill Poland, and only didn’t because they were stopped, including by the brave men of Bomber Command & the USAF. As Himmler said in March 1940, “All Polish specialists will be exploited in our military-industrial complex. Later, all Poles will disappear from this world. It is imperative that the great German nation considers the elimination of all Polish people as its chief task.” So, I am not sure it could be considered worse than what the Germans did and tried to do. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/39 "2010-12-17T19:05:17Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > It really comes down to efficacy. Not defeating the Germans would clearly have been worse than just about any other outcome, so the question is whether bombing Dresden helped to win the war. I happen to think it did (for much the same reasons as **villa** ), though I’m no fan of Bomber Harris. No, the question would be weather it was necessary to win the war. > [@TriPolar](#): > > ``` > Yes it was a war crime. Go call the war police. > > ``` And that would be us! ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2010, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475/40 "2010-12-17T19:17:12Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No, the question would be weather it was necessary to win the war. No, the question would be whether its contribution to winning the war outwieghed the negative consequences. In hindsight, they probably didn’t with Dresden, but that has two major problems: (a) It’s hindsight. Dresden was a legitimate target as a critical communications center, the war was still going on, and we didn’t know then what we know now. (b) I don’t so much like viewing individual operations in isolation. Dresden was only one episode in the strategic bombing campaign. With the benefit of hindsight, switching from strategic bombing to focusing on oil would probably have been a better course. And some people were calling for it at that time. But many others weren’t, and it was by no means a clear cut thing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-crime/564475.md?page=3)