Who asserted this?
Just to be clear here, if the Germans had destroyed any of the many US embassies in Europe during their various excursions over the continent, would THAT have been an attack against the US?
I have defended the atomic bombs many times here and IRL but I can’t really defend Dresden. It seems horrific and served no real military reason.
By WWII standard it might not rise to a top 10 list of senseless horror but it was one.
At this point, you are trolling.
Knock it off.
[ /Moderating ]
ETA: The whole “Germany never attacked the U.S.” is a hijack and everyone who really thinks there is a point to that discussion will take it to a new thread.
Do not call other posters names in Great Debates.
[ /Moderatng ]
= = =
And before someone decides to make some pointless comment about my earlier post, I will note two things:
I have not called Dio a troll, only pointed out that his actions on this occasion fit the description of “trolling,” and
My remarks were in the context of a Mod action telling him to modify that behavior.
I’m willing to cut the members of the German resistance and children a break. Other than that, no.
How about those in concentration camps, or forced work programs, or those incarcerated in some way for being undesirable or actively working against the state?
Ok, I’m willing to cut political prisoners a break too.
This is still just a distraction, because it was not practical to carry out any military action against Germany without involving those who were not direct Nazi party members, not only that, there were many in the Nazi party who only joined it as a form of self protection from Nazi authorities, and the means of industrial production was kept going by all those who worked within them, Nazi or not.
To imagine any scenario where targets could be seperated with any accurracy out is astonishingly fanciful thinking and has no place in any debate.
The best that might be hoped is that targets would be differentiated to some degree, and they were, but when the likely hit rate is rather less than 1 in 40, even this is not exactly a perfect solution.
Why do people still talk about this issue? Its never as if any of the debating participants had any input or even lived to see these events, but most of all, the main defect is the faulty reasoning, lack of evidence from the decision bearing documents, all this from nicely warm, well fed and comfortable individuals living thousands of miles away, and who have not the smallest idea of what it was like to live through the most brutal and largest conflict in human history.
What we do have is contemptable little people who falsify facts, distort and twist information without every being properly informed, merely to prop up an unfeasible argument for personal ego
Knock it off.
[ /Moderating ]
My understanding is that deliberate German attacks on U.S. ships prior to the outbreak of war between the two countries were because the American navy was being used to help protect British merchant shipping. There’s at least one instance of an American vessel depth-charging a German U-boat before war was declared.
I agree it’s nonsense to allege that Germany never attacked the U.S. They declared war on us, and carried it out to the best of their ability, including ravaging American shipping along the East Coast until we wised up and instituted convoys and effective anti-sub warfare.
It wasn’t a “war crime” in the context of the times, but it’s very difficult to justify a large-scale firebombing of a heavily civilian target like Dresden, especially since the Allies had earlier piously (and justifiably) condemned German bombings of cities which were also horrific but on a smaller scale.
The Nazis did attack the US directly in Operation Pastorius. That it failed is of little consequence.
ENOUGH!
Take all arguments about whether Germany or the U.S. attacked the other first to a new thread.
[ /Moderating ]
I’m curious about this, and I may have missed a post somewhere, but I’m not aware of how the law in place at the time would have classified Dresden as a war crime. The bit about wanton destruction (quite different from wonton destruction and nowhere near as tasty) came from the Nuremberg proceedings, and those were pretty much the imposition of post facto law, albeit justified, in order to punish the Nazis.
The 4th GC dates, IIRC, from roughly four years after the close of hostilities in WWII. There were some treaties, again IIRC for the protection of military personnel only, that were in place before WWII. It seems to me that it was primarily the horrors of the second world war, on the heels of the first, that brought about our modern (and post-modern, I suppose) understandings of how war should be conducted and how civilians are to be treated.
But I’m not at all aware of how, at the time, Dresden would have been a grave violating of existing laws. It may very well have been, and I may have missed a cite to that effect, but this thread’s topic seems to be, in essence that Dresden should have been considered a war crime or would have if it was carried out today.
:rolleyes: The above is true only because of your definition of “right-thinking person.”
I think Germany should currently be glad that it still exists as a separate country and is not just a big burned spot on the map of Europe. They fucked up fairly severely. I would have been in favor of nuking them from orbit (if that were possible at the time).
It’s hard to avoid any post-trolling/non-trolling/troll related trivia when addressing who attacked whom first. The bombing of London with V1 and V2 weapons represented a first strike use of terror weapons (indiscriminate use of weapons).
Hitler cashed in his queensbury-rules-of-war chip with these attacks. Dresden’s war machinery became a broader target because of this. Call it what you want.
I am speaking as a Germanophile who was just in Dresden learning German. I saw how much of that beautiful city was destroyed (and how much the Germans have rebuilt. . . .they are an amazing people.) I found the people there lovable and kind, and I get the creeps every time I think of their parents and grand-parents dying roasted to death or from lack of oxygen in that horrible night.
But I still agree with the quote I heard in a TV special on wartime bombing. The ultimate war crime would have been to let the Nazis win.
The (justifiable) area bombing of German cities started way before V1 and V2 weapons were ever used.
I believe the bombing of Dresden was an entirely justifiable attack on a major communications centre.
The shock felt as a result is likely due to the fact that the attacks were pretty much out of the blue as far as the city’s residents were concerned, as Dresden had previously had only two small, ineffective raids by the USAAF, rather than the regular repeated attacks suffered by other cities. This is likely because the city was near the eastern border of Germany, thus not much of a direct concern to those Allies who actually had a strategic bombing force. The reaction was also intensified by a major German propaganda effort targeting the press in neutral countries after the Feb 13-15 raids.
Some points to be aware of:
[ul]
[li]Dresden was a communications hub. This meant that any attack on communications was necessarily aimed at the city centre, where the major rail and road routes were most vulnerable.[/li][li]While the attack is usually blamed on “Bomber” Harris and the RAF, the RAF made only one of the eight attacks on the city (albeit the largest single one). The other seven were by the USAAF, including two consecutive raids on Feb 14-15 as part of the combined attack and independent major raids 2 and 4 weeks after the attacks of Feb 13-15. In total, the RAF dropped about 2,600 tons of bombs on the city, and the USAAF dropped about 4,400 tons. [/li][li]While the USAAF continued to claim that their attacks were “precision” bombing throughout the war, in effect they had long since given up on any real attempt at precision bombing as impossible to achieve under wartime conditions and were using essentially the same area bombing techniques as the RAF. Thus any bombing attack on German cities was going to destroy a lot more than purely military targets due to the inherent inaccuracy of the method.[/li][li]The Dresden attack was largely the result of a request by the Russians for attacks on 7 or 8 communications centres that were feeding troops and supplies to the German armies on the Eastern Front, and was one of several cities which were bombed as part of this particular bombing plan.[/li][/ul]
I dunno… I would have thought the key word was “necessity”.