Thucydides
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The population of Dresden was 642,143 in 1939 and it held an estimated 200,000 refugees during the time of the bombing, according to the USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University's Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden.The Truth-Bringer said:
Let it be stressed beforehand that Dresden represented a legitimate military target under Hague II and that the Nazis had no one to blame but themselves for refusing to attend the draft conventions of the Hague in 1938. Active military units within and near the city, along with fighter planes and anti-aircraft batteries on location were sufficient to qualify Dresden as an 'open' or 'defended' city and hence not subject to the prohibitions against bombardment of undefended towns in international military law. Moreover, as is made clear by Javier Guisández Gómez in his essay on The Law of Air Warfare in the International Review of the Red Cross no 323, p.347-363, "In examining these events in the light of international humanitarian law, it should be borne in mind that during the Second World War there was no agreement, treaty, convention or any other instrument governing the protection of the civilian population or civilian property, as the Conventions then in force dealt only with the protection of the wounded and the sick on the battlefield and in naval warfare, hospital ships, the laws and customs of war and the protection of prisoners of war"
Now that is has been esablished that Dresden was both a legitimate and legal military target, we may discuss why it was bombed. According to Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air in Britain, in a reply to Churchill on 27 January 1945 regarding the bombing of East German cities, "The Air Staff have now arranged that, subject to the overriding claims of attacks on enemy oil production and other approved target systems within the current directive, available effort should be directed against Berlin, Dresden, Chemnitz and Leipzig or against other cities where severe bombing would not only destroy communications vital to the evacuation from the east, but would also hamper the movement of troops from the west." Emphases mine. As the Soviet juggernaut was by then preparing to advance into the German heartland itself, myriad discussions between Western Allied and Soviet diplomats and military officials took place and concluded 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. ... Attacks against oil targets should continue to take precedence over everything else,.." Two weeks later, Arthur Harris, Commander-in-Chief of RAF Bomber Command sent out the despatch with official details concerning the Dresden bombing:
February 13–14, 1945
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, circa 1944: A/C/M Arthur Treacher Harris at Bomber Command Headquarters.
RAF
In Britain, Bomber Command of the Royal Air Force is starting Operation THUNDERCLAP, a campaign in east Germany in support of the Soviet advance. The idea is to deprive the German forces of materiel by destroying factories and rail systems, and then to wreck the resort towns and residential areas where refugees gather and combat troops go to rest and recuperate.
The main target for tonight is Dresden, where the aiming point is a large sports stadium. A secondary raid against Böhlen will demolish a synthetic-oil plant while diverting air defences from Dresden.
As is plain to see, no intent or consideration was ever given to the thought that Dresden should be singled out because of its population, architecture, or anything else for purposes of either retaliation or terrorisation of civilians (much less the farcical claim of 'genocide'). The USSB Survey lists 110 operational factories in Dresden which were producing material meant to prosecute the war effort. In 1944, the German Army High Command's Weapons Office (itself!) listed 127 medium-to-large factories and workshops which supplied the army with materiel in the city. The extent to which these factories were a significant impetus of the bombing raid is attested to by the fact that the bombing was considered a success after having disabled approximately 25% of the city's industrial capacities and rendered it useless as a base from which to launch German counter-attacks against Soviet forces.
Dresden is simply used as a convenient talking-point for Nazi sympathisers who wish to equate Allied 'war crimes' with those of the holocaust, anti-Western agitators, disgruntled German patriots and the like. You hear no mention of the firebombings of Hamburg at the time, which were - all told - far more devastating. Why is that? Because Hamburg lacked the gorgeous Baroque architecture of Dresden, which fires in the imagination of the simple-minded and easily seduced the notion that it was chosen as a target especially to punish Germany and its citizens out of cruelty.
The hilarious 300,000 figure has only ever been put forward by two figures: Nazi Minister for Propaganda Joseph Goebbels and Holocaust Denier David Irving. Some clarification on the origins of this lie:MiamiFlorida said:
3. Irving’s own estimates of the numbers of dead have varied widely over time, and
have changed from one edition of his book to the next and in his public speeches:
• In the 1966 edition of The Destruction of Dresden the triple blow was ‘estimated
authoritatively to have killed more than 135,000 of the population...’,311 but the
‘documentation suggests very strongly that the figure was certainly between a minimum
of 100,000 and a maximum of 250,000.’312
• In the 1971 edition the triple blow was ‘estimated authoritatively to have killed
more than 100,000 of the population...’313
• In 1989 Irving told journalists whilst launching the ‘Leuchter Report’ in Britain
that: ‘There were one million refugees in the streets of Dresden at the time that we
burned Dresden to the ground, killing anything between 100,000 and 250,000 of
them.’ 314
• In 1992 Irving told the Institute of Historical Review that ‘a hundred thousand
people were killed [in Dresden] in a period of twelve hours by the British and Americans.’
315
• In 1993, in a publicity video made for the Australian public, Irving stated that ‘over
130,000 people died in that particular air raid.’ 316
• In the 1995 edition of The Destruction of Dresden the figure was no longer authoritative
and the attack had ‘cost the lives of between fifty and one hundred thousand
inhabitants.…’317 Elsewhere he dropped the lower figure and said the attack cost
‘up to a hundred thousand people their lives.’318
• In 1996 Irving had changed this figure yet again in his Goebbels: The Mastermind of
the ‘Third Reich’, where he notes of the Dresden raids that ‘Between sixty and one
hundred thousand people were choked to death or burned alive...’319
Most disturbing is not the changing nature, or the clearly inflated estimates, but the manner in which Irving distorted and supressed evidence to reach these estimates.
As the Evan's report noted:
4. As will be demonstrated, these erratic fluctuations in Irving’s figures are entirely
arbitrary and have never accorded to the changing state of research (either his own
or that of others) into the Dresden death roll. The only consistency in his figures is
that they have resolutely remained far in excess of the most reliable and agreed figures
(i.e. those based on the most solid research and which command the most
general assent). We shall now see how he has arrived at these inflated estimates, and
what evidence that they are indeed far above the likely number.
[...]
1. In 1966 Irving wrote that the ‘competent authority in Berlin for air raid relief and
welfare services accepted an estimate of between 120,000 and 150,000...’ There is
no source given for this.420 In 1966 Irving wrote further that ‘according to the
Federal Ministry of Statistics in Wiesbaden immediately after the attacks the local
authorities were estimating the figure as 180,000 to 220,000.’ The source runs simply,
‘Dr. Hans Sperling, Federal Ministry of Statistics’. Without Dr Sperling’s letter
to see what these estimates consist of the reader is hard put to comment on their
provenance. Irving does not care to enlighten us further. In 1995 we are no nearer
the source. Again he attributes the figure 180,000 to 220,000 to ‘official sources in
Berlin’ and this time a lower figure of 120,000 to 150,000 to ‘the authority responsible
for relief measures in blitzed cities’. Dr. Sperling’s letter is still quoted.421 This
figure of 120,000 to 150,000 makes a reappearance in the 1995 edition, again attributed
to ‘the Berlin authority for responsible for welfare in blitzed cities’. Bizarrely the
upper figure of 150,000 cited in 1966 has become ‘half a million’ by 1995, while still
being attributed to the same source as previously. 422
[con't]
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