24 Jul
Firebombing of Dresden
February 1945
the city was choked with refugees:
women, children, elderly.
RAF and American planes strafed and firebombed
for three days a city that
had zero value as a military target
WW2 : The Bombing of Dresden
Night-Attack at 13.02.1945: 773 RAF-Bomber droped 2.659 tons of bombs at the german town “Dresden”.
Day-Attack at 14.02.1945: 1350 USAF-Bomber droped 771 tons of bomb.
Number of victims: somwhere between 35.000 (unknown source), 253.000 (source: City of Dresden) 275.000 (Red-Cross-Sources) up to 400.000 (Source: J. Goebbels). Nobody knows the real number of victims, because the town was filled with 600.000 unregistered refugees from east-germany.
Churchill´s Directives:
.
Directive no. 22 / 04.02.1942: “The efforts are to be concentrated on The
moral of the civilian population of the enemy.”
.
Directive to Chief of air Staff / 05.02 1942: “I think it is clear that The
target are residential areas, not dockyards or airplane factories.”
. *= Report of the Joint Relief Commission of the International Red Cross 1941-1946, Genf 1948, S. 104: “At Dresden, where 275 000 people were reported to have been killed during the bombing attack…....”
.
= The “Propaganda”-Ministry internal counts 350.000 – 400.000 victims. Official Goebbels just talk about 40.000 victims to “don´t demoralize the civil-population.”
Gallery
