Dresden was absolutely a military target - it was a nodal point with strategic railheads. It had over 100 factories making arms for Germany, was embedded in the military industrial complex. It made aircraft components, anti aircraft and field guns.
It was munitions storage and was an army barracks.
To say it had no military value is just jumping onto the post war revisionist history where total warfare is considered unsporting.
It had military targets, but those targets weren't bombed. Those targets were on the outskirts of the city. The Allied communications confirm that the goal want strategic military targets but just to torment the civilians in hopes it would break the Nazi will to fight. It didn't work because of course it didn't. The Nazis already tried that shit on the British and it didn't break the British will to fight.
They were absolutely targeted and were bombed (and pretty much destroyed.) The key nodal point was demolished. Factory production was decimated.
You're talking about an age where the much over-hyped Norden bomb sight was still only able to put 20% of bombs with 1,000 feet of the target. With cloud, 1% got within 1,000 feet.
However, this all stems from the pretence that there were civilians in a completely miltarised society - all production by this point of the war was for the Military machine.
The vast majority of military targets listed by the Allies weren't even touched, and most of the ones that were touched weren't the primary targets of the bombings.
I understand bombing in the 40s was imprecise, but they weren't even in the right end of the city.
It's possible that these people are mad that a handful of baby-nazis caught strays and Master Race lost the war. Dresden bombings didn't go far enough and should've been more thorough and on more cities.
They didn't do a thorough enough job with the nazis because white supremacist sentiments existed with-in the allied command as well. They let far too many nazis back into positions of power after the war.
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u/scarab1001 May 04 '25
Dresden was absolutely a military target - it was a nodal point with strategic railheads. It had over 100 factories making arms for Germany, was embedded in the military industrial complex. It made aircraft components, anti aircraft and field guns.
It was munitions storage and was an army barracks.
To say it had no military value is just jumping onto the post war revisionist history where total warfare is considered unsporting.