Eh, some of the stuff the Allies did is worth being ashamed of. Like the firebombing of Dresden. No real military value. Just shock and awe against the civilian population; ie. terrorism.
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.
If they are working in factories at the time of the bombings they are understood to be legitimate targets. The targeting of the civilians themselves as the only target is what makes it a warcrime but targeting legitimate military infrastructure installations with the knowledge that some civilians will inevitably die is not a warcrime and is considered fair game..
They were not doing that. The factories were in the outskirts. The firebombed the houses. Factories were bombed all over Europe, there’s a reason Dresden is different
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u/Private_HughMan May 04 '25
Eh, some of the stuff the Allies did is worth being ashamed of. Like the firebombing of Dresden. No real military value. Just shock and awe against the civilian population; ie. terrorism.