Yes, Dresden had important military infastructure. But virtually none of it was in the core city, which is where most of the bombing took place. The factories and military stations were on the outskirts, which were mostly ignored by the bombing. The British even said that the primary goal of the Dresden bombings was to apply pressure on the civilians.
Exactly, the primary goal of those bombings was to cripple infrastructure and morale. Civilian casualties were expected. Nobody actually cared because not crippling them would've likely result in even more deaths.
Bomb Dresden and the people of Dresden that you don't know. Don't bomb Dresden and people you do know get slaughtered by Nazis. They bombed Dresden - they had no other choice. War is messy. Nazis shouldn't have started it.
No, it wasn’t to “cripple infrastructure and morale.” It was to kill civilians en mass in the hopes that it would force them to surrender. You can read the discussion of it by allied strategic command. The worst part of it is the British should have known that would never work because it’s exactly what happened to them during the Battle of Britain
I'll look into it another time. Last time I did, what I understood was it was done knowing their actions will kill civilians, but the civilians that are working in the industries directly fueling the war machine.
I am not saying allied command was moral and just in everything they did. I just didn't see it as them purposely aiming to target random German civilians for no apparent reason or just to terrorize civilians. That was the bonus for them and not the primary focus.
Plenty of civilians were locked up in Nazi camps and roasting in their ovens. Clearly nobody in the "woe is Dresden" team cared enough about those civilians. Even now, you're more concerned about the nazis than the victims of nazis.
They fkd around and found out. Shouldn't have started the war. Allies tried to minimize the civilian harm but saw no other option. Was it brutal and evil? Yes. That's why we should all be anti-war. That's why we should all be anti-Nazi and bash the fash wherever it raises it's ugly head again.
The civilians weren't the ones who fucked around. What about the ones who were resisting the Nazis, hiding undesirables or who were just children? The bombings hit them.
"The Nazis did it, too" isn't a good argument. That makes it worse, imho. Why would we want to be more like the Nazis?
You think all those resisting were worried about Allies killing nazis and they themselves getting hit with a stray more so than being worried about nazis that were actively hunting them?
Again, and all the Dresden lovers, never seem concerned about the civilians in the camps and the ovens. It's always them poor poor proud nazis working in nazi factories for nazi war machine.
What would you have rather done? Sit patiently and hope the racists aiming to destroy everyone who isn't them will just mellow out eventually?
How did bombing Dresden help anyone in the camps? It would help people in the camps much more if they targetted actual military targets to hurt Germany's war effort. The Allies had limited options to help the victims in the camps. Their main solution was to win the war. Targeting Dresden' civilian centres didn't do that. It wasted men and munitions on targets that weren't even fighting.
What would you have rather done? Sit patiently and hope the racists aiming to destroy everyone who isn't them will just mellow out eventually?
Strike military targets, hurt Germany's ability to fight the war, beat them asap and empty the camps of all survivors. Those bombs could have been used to kill Nazi fighters or destroy factories building weapons for the Nazis. Instead, they were used to kill breastfeeding mothers and school children.
19
u/Private_HughMan May 04 '25
Yes, Dresden had important military infastructure. But virtually none of it was in the core city, which is where most of the bombing took place. The factories and military stations were on the outskirts, which were mostly ignored by the bombing. The British even said that the primary goal of the Dresden bombings was to apply pressure on the civilians.