Was the bombing of Dresden justified? The bombing of Dresden was one of the deadliest air raids carried out by the British Air Force during the course of WW2. It killed between 22,700 people to 25,000 people(Wikipedia, 2023). There have been many arguments about whether this civilian bombing was justified as many cultural sites were destroyed and most of the buildings destroyed were not industrial buildings. People also argue that it was unnecessary as Germany was almost beaten at the time. At the time, World War II had been going on for 6 years already. Germany had provoked the war by invading Poland on the 1st of September. It had faced turns in the tide of war after Stalingrad in 1943, and the Red Army was barely 40 miles away from Berlin(Frost, 2020). Hitler himself said "We can go down but we'll take a world with us"(Kershaw, 2023). This unwillingness to surrender was influenced by the defeat in WW1, where the myth that the German armies had been "stabbed in the back"(Wikipedia, 2023) and the German population did not want to suffer the punishing terms like they had under the treaty of Versailles. The RAF and the USAAF(United States Army Air Force) wanted to lower German morale to coerce a quicker surrender. Bomber command of the RAF under Arthur Harris also promoted the strategy of city bombing to allow for a quicker surrender. In this essay I will analyse the bombing from a political viewpoint, military viewpoint, economic viewpoint and social viewpoint to see if the bombing was justified. On the night of the 13th of February, 772 RAF bombers bombed the city of Dresden. In the morning, due to poor weather many USAAF planes that were originally planned to bomb the Ruhland oil refineries had to be diverted to Dresden, and 527 of them bombed the city. 7 bombers were shot down, but this was due to the bombs from other bombers hitting them. Air defences in Dresden were almost non-existent, due to the limited resources of Nazi Germany at the time, and there was little to no warning(Wikipedia, 2023). Political viewpoint This bombing was a failure from the political point of view. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, after visiting the city, inflated the death toll from 22,400 to 202,400 and published it in a neutral Swiss paper claiming Allied atrocities. This figure was believed and used by many people, including the East German government as late as 1954 where they were claiming “hundreds of thousands” had died in the raid. A book published in 1963 by David Irving, a Holocaust denier, exaggerated the death toll(The New Yorker, 2010). The leader of Bomber Command at the time, Arthur Harris was a proponent of city bombing and supported it. He believed that the war could be won by destroying city centres and using wide area bombing to destroy moral. The technology at the time was not sufficient for precision bombing to destroy smaller military targets such as oil refineries. Churchill also wanted to show the Russians and the Americans that he was making progress on the Western Front as the Yalta conference for the further division of Europe after the war was coming up. After the bombing Churchill began to draw back from city bombing and reprimanded Bomber Command(Biddle, 2023). Overall from these standpoints Goebbels succeeded in his propaganda campaign from the aftermath of the event as even Winston Churchill was forced to pull back from city bombing after first withdrawing from bombing strategic targets. Bomber Command Arthur Harris was reprimanded after this incident and city bombing was reduced. Military and economic viewpoint There were many difficulties with navigation in this bombing and in World War 2 in general.. Radar, the primary navigation tool, was very undeveloped at the time. It required special training and was very expensive to use, and in poor weather conditions military targets and small towns were unable to be identified. Here is a photo of what could be seen from the radar: (Connor, 2013) Pilots also required special maps to be able to navigate and determine what they could see. This lack of accuracy led Bomber Command of the RAF to make a decision to guide their planes towards cities as that was the only thing they could see on their maps with the technology available. Another point to take note of is that the amount of bombs dropped on Dresden over the course of the war was the lowest per capita. Cologne received the most tonnage per 100,000 inhabitants, with 5,819 tons of bombs. Dresden on the other hand received barely 1,160 tons for 100,000 inhabitants. In terms of overall tonnage it was also bombed less than the other cities. The extent of the destruction caused was mostly due to the wooden buildings and the continuity of the bombs - they continued for a total of 36 hours, leading to firefighters putting out buildings that had been set alight and them being set alight very soon after. (Wikipedia, 2023) Americans also considered Dresden strategically important as it had a rail and communication center and was the largest unbombed city. Munitions were also believed to be manufactured in Dresden. According to the USAFHD(United States Air Force Historical Division) there were 110 factories with 50,000 workers supporting the German war effort(Wikipedia, 2023). Dresden was furthermore the last built up city in Germany by this time. However the bombing was a failure as only 23% of the industrial buildings in the region were destroyed and most of the buildings bombed were residential buildings. A map from the BBC shows the extent of the destruction and how most of the buildings were not industrial: (BBC, 2015), black outlining industrial areas and green residential. Blue are the destroyed areas. From a military viewpoint it failed to destroy most of the industrial areas, leaving many untouched. It would’ve however damaged railway and communications between Dresden and other countries, therefore hampering Germany. Overall the bombing was a military success - Germany’s largest unbombed city was destroyed for the lowest amount of bombs in the entire campaign(1,106 tons). Essential munitions buildings were also targeted and hampered the remaining resistance of the German war effort. However it could’ve been more efficient due to the low percentage of the industrial buildings being destroyed. Social impacts The bombing of Dresden had a huge death toll on the civilians in the city. Around 300,000 refugees from eastern areas that the Soviets had overran were in the city and in total the death toll ranged between 22,700 to 25,000(Dawsey, 2020). Allied bombings over Germany had a noticeable effect on the German population’s morale in general - it affected productivity, loyalty to the regime and living standards of Germans. A third of the population was directly affected by bombings over Germany and many more feared them. One-fifth of the population was left without utilities and one-thirteenth were evacuated. Overall around 305,000 people were killed with up to 20 million people deprived of utilities in bombings(Overton, 2020). Dresden, since the start of the war, had been relatively unbombed compared to other cities. There had been only two bombings before this one - one in October 1944 and the other three months later, which killed many workers. However the city itself, with its cultural sites, were still mostly intact(there was a story of one of Churchill’s aunt’s living here which prevented the city from being bombed)(Dawsey, 2020). This lead to people believing that the city would not be bombed, which was a central reason for the amount of refugees flooding into the city. The bombing itself destroyed many cultural sites such as the Frauenkirche and was not rebuilt until after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many other buildings were destroyed in the bombing and some have still not been fully rebuilt(Noack, 2015). Overall the social effects of the bombing of Dresden were detrimental as it destroyed cultural sites. This effect was not limited to Dresden - in Germany itself many cities such as Hamburg and Cologne were affected by thousand-plane strong bombings and destroyed entirely(Blakemore, 2021). Conclusion The bombing of Dresden was overall justified due to the fact that Dresden was the last large remaining German city which was built up. It was directly helping the German war effort by being one of the largest cities which were still producing munitions, and it directly helped the Soviets. The death toll was a necessary evil, and the people that were killed were killed due to the bad radar technology at the time. BIBLIOGRAPHY Biddle, T., 2023. Churchill’s response to Dresden > Professor Tami Biddle > WW2History.com. [online] ww2history.com. Available at: <http://ww2history.com/experts/Tami_Biddle/Churchill_s_response_to_Dresden> [Accessed 31 March 2023]. Blakemore, E., 2021. The bombing of Hamburg foreshadowed the horrors of Hiroshima. [online] History. Available at: <https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-bombing-of-hamburg-foresha dowed-the-horrors-of-hiroshima> [Accessed 12 June 2023]. Bytwerk, R., 2022. Völkischer Beobachter Front Pages: September 1945. 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