Was Dresden bombing ?

Under the Hague Convention (Hague IV, Laws of Land Warfare) of 1907 the bombing was completely legal and totally justified.

The Convention makes it clear that any *defended* city is a legitimate and legal target. Dresden had AA defences and was, therefore, a defended city.

It also makes it clear that, while civilians should not be deliberately targetted, the targetting of militarily important facilities is legitimate and, if civilians are, unfortunately, killed in the process of targetting those militarily important facilities, well, that's just unfortunate.

You'll hear a lot of whining from certain sections of the world that Dresden had no significant industry and was full of refugees fleeing the Russians ... what such segments of usenet conveniently ignore is that Dresden was an important transport hub for that part of the East Front (railways etc.). Which makes it a legitimate target.

Was it moral to bomb Dresden knowing that doing so would kill civilians?

Well, certain segments of the populations will whine that it was immoral. Of course, those same segments will conveniently ignore who started the war, how those people fought the war, and whether they gave a damn about 'morality' or not.

War is hell.

writes

I seriously doubt the relevance of the Hague Convention, preferring to use the 'Hitler Convention' which seemed to be 'Bomb anything you can to rubble and don't worry about it too much'.

Germany picked a fight and lost big time, they could have avoided it but chose not to do so. They inflicted severe damage and many thousands (millions?) of deaths to many countries, towns and cities without a second thought.

The bombing was totally justified, the question of legality doesn't worry me.

I get tired of these threads, tired of the seemingly endless arguments over what's legal in war, what's illegal and picking out various incidents. It was war, bad things happen in war, don't start one if you can't deal with the consequences (but just remember the other guy might be bigger than you).

Europe today is a completely different situation, the only result that matters today is the footie: Germany 1 England 5

me.

The mantra of terrorists everywhere. Here too. The definition of the 'legitimate target' becomes whatever I target is a legitimate target...

And that's why the opposing nation will be justified in deliberately dropping high explosive on children? That's more than just a 'bad thing'. Funny, you can spend the rest of your life in jail, rightfully, for abusing a child, but get a medal for blowing one to bits...

Damn right, Ireland 1 England 0 when last I looked!

Sophistry, hard-hearted cold sophistry. The bombing campaign of which Dresden was just one example, was aimed fairly and squarely at civilians, there is no doubt of that, and very little argument that it was anything but that.

You might have also heard a lot more whining from the thousands of poor unfortunates who were killed in Dresden.

what such segments of usenet conveniently ignore is

No it doesn't, it makes the railway a legitimate target.

Even if you consider that military expediency outweighs moral justification - no, it wasn't in this case.

Christians probably. What was that commandment again?

Of course, those same segments will conveniently ignore who

In the context of Allied/Axis conflict I seem to recall that it was Britain that declared war on Germany? Facetious I know, but at no higher a level than your level of analysis. As for how each side fought the war, I see little difference between taking out whole populations and killing them by hand as opposed to killing them in their homes by air, neither group had any say or control over the matter and ended up just as dead whether at the hands of the good guys or the bad guys. Some of the good guys, the Soviets, were to end up killing over 60 million people overall, leaving the Nazis as rank amateurs in the game...

My understanding of Dresden is this:

German troops and supplies were going through Dresden on their way to the Russian front. The Russians asked that Dresden be bombed - the western allies were happy to oblige.

The marshalling yards were therefore the target of the bombing. The yards were situated in the middle of Dresden - which means the bombs will fall in the middle of a populated city.

The RAF bombed at night - some called it area saturation bombing. Since they could not discern the marshalling yards in the dark they dropped on everything in an effort to hit something. As such civilians were bound to be hit - but there was a war on.

Eighth Air Force bombed during the day and used the marshalling yards as the aiming point. Obviously some bombs could have fallen on civilians. In those days they didn't have laser guided bombs.

I don't think the bombing took place just to kill as many Germans as possible.

There was a military purpose in mind - that of stopping or at least slowing German reinforcement to the Russian front.

No. Once the allied planes appeared over Dresden and the first burst of flak appeared, the planes were now in a defensive mode. Every bomb dropped over Dresden was then dropped in self defense. If you shoot at an enemy, don't complain about the results of your aggression.

Arthur Kramer Visit my WW II B-26 website at:

To extend this, Art, to *get* to Dresden, didn't those selfsame planes have to pass through belts of flak in Germany and occupied France etc? And also dodge nightfighters (for the RAF) and dayfighters (for the USAAF)?

And those flak belts and fighters were not merely asking politely that they turn back to base without doing any mischief, were they?

In other words, to even *get* to Dresden, the bombers had to pass through heavy defences where they were repeatedly attacked by the Germans.

*LAYERS* of defences.

Which makes Dresden a 'defended city' by the standards of Hague IV (1907)

Phil

Author, Space Opera (FGU), Rigger Black Book (FASA), Armageddon (PGD).

I don't think terrorism, at least as we see it today, could exist in WW II. This is because that war was a declared war, all of the participants were known, and the war aims were clear (to get the enemy to surrender and out of the way).

In writing this, at first I thought the V-2 was terrorism because it didn't really have military value and basically was just to 'terrorize' the population. But if that effort (moral or not, which is another issue), caused the British to surrender, the weapon did its job.

I see terrorism as something very different. Unlike a war which is waged by a defined political entity (usually a country, or a group holding a land area), terrorism is waged by vague anonymous groups. A war has specific objectives, basically to force the enemy. There's such a thing as 'guerilla war', but that is still war.

In contrast, terrorists are often anonymous

Irrelevant, really, since both Warsaw and Rotterdam had already been subjected to what any reasonable person would call 'terror bombing'.

Not to mention Nanjing, Hankou, and Chongqing.

Given the state of bomb-aiming technology in the 1940s, navigation, intelligence, and indeed knowledge of bombing effects, it's probably inevitable that any bombing campaign would end in terror bombing. The Americans made the best effort to avoid indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets, but in the end did it more effectively than anyone else.

What was horrific in 1937 was no longer horrific in August 1945. The only reason Dresden gets a big press is that it came about midway on the horror scale. After Dresden, nobody could deny that killing great masses of the enemy was the purpose or at least the outcome of the bombing campaign.

all the best

It was a payback from the british for bombing London. Dresden was not a military target, it was home of the bigest doll factory in Germany.

David Thornley skrev i meddelelsen ...

Not during the war, but you can take a look at the 'Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I), 8 June 1977.'

Art. 51 section 4 states that indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. section 5 then says: 'Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: [snip] (b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated'