Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945

by Paul Addison (Editor), Jeremy A. Crang (Editor)

Firestorm assembles a cast of distinguished scholars to review the origins, conduct, and consequences of the World War II U.S. and British raids on Dresden. Here is a panoramic reassessment of the evidence and the issues, including the question of whether the bombing of the city constitutes a war crime. Firestorm cogently demonstrates the reasons why Dresden has come to symbolize the military and ethical questions involved in the waging of total war.

Genres: History, Germany, War, Nonfiction, World War II, Military History

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 25, 2006

About the author

Paul Addison was a British author and historian, specializing in the British experience in the Second World War and its effects on post-war society. After graduating from Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1967, Addison became a Lecturer at Edinburgh University and subsequently a Reader, for 23 years.

Reviews

[Christine]

Had to read for class. Dreadfully dull

[Paul W · Rating 3 out of 5]

The bombing of Dresden, conducted by both the British and US air forces, has been both condemned as a war crime and defended as a justifiable military operation. Addison and Crang bring together six views from notable historians which were presented at a colloquium in Edinburgh in May 2003 together with three perspectives exploring whether or not the attack legally constituted a war crime and the post-war reconstruction of Dresden.
Cox’s chapter on the decision making and the raid is the most engaging. Cox highlights that while Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris has historically been vilified for his order to bomb Dresden, the decision was taken or endorsed by a number of senior British and American military and political figures including Arnold, Bottomley, Marshall, Spaatz and Tedder. Biddle notes that the "euphemistic phrases" in their orders "created a space in which moral dilemmas could be avoided". Above these, the decision was instigated by Churchill who needed a symbol of Britain’s forceful prosecution of the war for his meeting with Stalin at Yalta. Churchill’s ‘direct and forceful intervention" sealed Dresden’s fate. At the time of the attack Dresden was crowded with refugees fleeing the atrocities of the Red Army. Rather than dissuading the decision makers on humanitarian grounds, this perversely was seen as "an additional factor which would assist in causing confusion and demoralisation", a view endorsed by all of the British Chiefs of Staff. Having so strongly criticised German attacks on civilians in 1940, the Allies had by 1945 accepted there was at least a tactical advantage in bombing civilians. US General Arnold commented, after the Dresden bombing that "war must be destructive… inhuman and ruthless". However Churchill sought to distance himself from the decision requesting that "the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror though under other pretexts, should be reviewed." Despite having been instrumental in the decision to bomb Dresden, Churchill sanctimoniously stated that "the destruction of Dresden remain a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing". Cox describes the horrific impact of the firestorm caused by the bombing: the heat was so intense it melted the tar, trapping people attempting to escape the fire, and incinerating them; fierce gale-force winds literally sucked people into the inferno; people asphyxiated as the fire consumed all the available oxygen; and people boiled to death while trying to escape the inferno in water tanks. Cox balances this by noting that the attack had a strategic purpose and was "not merely wanton": Dresden was number 20 on a list of 100 economically important German cities, adding that the attack also disrupted Germany’s ability to move men and material through Dresden to the Eastern front.
Neitzel’s chapter explores how decisions made by German forces to ground night fighters due to "bad fighting conditions" and to withdraw 88mm AA guns to serve as anti-tank guns on the Eastern front, exacerbated the damage. However Neitzel concludes that "it is difficult to find any evidence….that the destruction of Dresden had any consequence…for the defence of the Eastern Front." Neitzel also comments on German resilience: although the main military target was the Dresden station, within a few days of the raid it was running again; And in just 72 hours, 600,000 hot meals a day were being delivered to Dresden residents (something, incidentally, that the US in peacetime was unable to do after Hurricane Katrina).
Although Cox and Biddell are more nuanced, Bloxham’s chapter is categorical in its conclusion that the bombing of Dresden on 13-14 February 1945 was a war crime with "no convincing ethical or legal justification for the bombing…elided by the use of a strong of pseudo-justifications", with the tacit point that war crime trials are only ever conducted by the victors.
Although there is significant variation in each authors contribution, there is enough here to make this an engaging and informative read for those interested in this era of military history.

[Sav · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book, first and foremost, is VERY informative. There is lots of new information and interesting opinions. However, the writing style constantly changed with each chapter due to them all being written by very different people.
The first few chapters were quite dull and seemed to literally just rattle off facts. There were some more interesting sections that dealt with the actual raid. Chapter four was by far the best. It told the story of a Jewish man who lived in Dresden at the time. Really beautifully written and it made me cry. The last official chapter (not including Addison's retrospect) was really tough to read. The whole thing seemed to be written in insurance jargon and it was so difficult to understand, which was a real shame because it was dealing with a really interesting topic and idea.
The actual content and ideas brought up in this book are really interesting and enlightening but I can't give it higher than 3 stars because it's so inaccessible.

[EC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this book seems to minimize the immediate death toll from the war crime committed by the Allied forces, it is an otherwise accurate depiction of the carpet bombing of Dresden, Germany, in the latter part of WWII. The actual death toll is closer to 100,000 people who died as a direct result of the bombing campaign. In the following months, many more people perished. Almost all who died were civilians and refugees from the East. War is disgusting!! I hate not-sees like any other real punk rock hardcore kid! But I also hate war and I hope the adults never start any other wars!! This is a great but sad book that contains nine essays by nine different authors. To get a fuller picture of what our country did to German civilians in Dresden, check out "Hellstorm: The Death of Not-See Germany" by Thomas Goodrich, a bloody fantastic and highly gifted writer!! Let's Go Brandon!

[Jamie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very informative book, but I didn't learn anything new. I've read so much material concerning WW2 and the pre- and post-war years that it would be difficult to find a book containing entirely new information. I had high hopes of picking up new details or reading a different perspective, but I was disappointed.

I certainly didn't question 'everything I thought I knew' about WW2. Honestly, ridiculous claims of overturning 'everything you thought you knew' and other such sensationalism are usually forewarnings of an agenda someone is pushing. Written works that truly aim to present information in a balanced manner and let readers draw their own conclusions do not make such claims. To be fair, none of the authors associated with this book did make those claims. Reviewers and readers decided sensationalism was appropriate.

One aspect of the bombing of Dresden that didn't get much attention from the authors. It was touched on briefly, but it wasn't emphasized. Several hundred Jews were still alive in Dresden. They were 'privileged' Jews married to good 'Aryan' Germans or had special skills or war veteran status. That protection had run its course and the Gestapo and SS had ramped up their mass murder efforts by the time Dresden was targeted. The remaining Jews had already received 'work assignments' and 'relocation orders.' Victor Klemperer was the most famous of these Jews. He mentions the allied bombing of Dresden as a miracle in his memoirs. For him, it was a miracle. It saved his life, and the lives of many other Jews. Some of them were killed along with others in the city, but many were able to escape and survived until the end of the war.

People killed in Dresden far outnumbered Jews that escaped death, but I don't see it as a straight comparison. Those dear innocent, helpless civilians in Dresden were still looking the other way as remaining Jews in their city were arrested and 'deported.' Jews in hiding still had to worry about being denounced, and German civilians certainly weren't standing up to save them. Of course, there were some exceptions, but Jews alive in Dresden hadn't been hidden or assisted by other Germans. They had protected status until the authorities got around to murdering them too. I've only ever read two books that really emphasized Jewish survivors in Dresden saved by the bombing raids, and both of those books were written by Jewish survivors. Every other time I've seen it mentioned, if its mentioned at all, has been a few paragraphs, or a few pages in exceptional cases.

Strategic reasons for bombing Dresden may not have justified the destruction and loss of life, but there were legitimate targets. Those targets could have been taken out without destroying the entire city. I don't doubt that at all, but how much sympathy should I feel for 'innocent civilians' that didn't lift a finger to save innocent Jews murdered by their government, even during 1945 when they knew the war was lost and certainly knew that Jewish 'deportees' weren't ever coming back. Numerous death camps had already been discovered by that point, so Germans pretending they hadn't known anything didn't even have that excuse by the time of the Dresden bombing raids.

Those 'innocent civilians' were definitely familiar with slave laborers forced to work in the Reich and the brutal treatment and random slaughter of those laborers. Did they attempt to save or help those people? If there was ever an organized effort by the civilian population to stop brutality towards captured foreign slaves, I never heard or read a word about it. Civilians in Dresden certainly didn't try to save the last remaining Jews. If it wasn't for the raid, those Jews would have been rounded up and killed too. Their numbers were very small compared to deaths caused by the bombs, but they still matter and should not be ignored in discussions of alleged 'war crimes' against Dresden.

[Richard Muller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a first rate collection of essays examining the controversial fire bombing of Dresden in February 1945. Anyone wanting to understand what happened can benefit from the various perspectives presented in this edited volume.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

All but one of the "articles" (aka chapters) was informative and enlightening. The one that was unnecessary was the by Alan Russell which was just a Dresden Trust propaganda piece.

[Kirk Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of ten essays from a symposium on the bombing of Dresden, the book perhaps suffers from its general agreement on the issues but benefits from its organization, in which each writer covers a different aspect of the history and the controversy. Eight of the essays are solid though not spectacular. One, by the chairman of the Dresden Trust, which helped finance the book, is an insipid and intolerable advertisement for his organization; and the remaining essay, by Donald Bloxham, serves as the summarizing ethical exploration - it stands out as being a bit thrilling in its philosophical explorations, but sadly flames out at the end when it skates away from directly addressing the most pertinent argument in support of allied bombing. But in its sum, this is quite a worthwhile book.

[danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book challenges what you thought you knew about the WWII allied bombing of Dresden (and the evolution of the allies's strategic bombing philosophy). Marvelously written based on interviews with survivors, previously recorded interviews, and relatively recent historical data obtained from Soviet archives. It turns out that the Soviet claims of damage and casualties were something less than accurate. Who saw that coming...?

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found much of this hard going. However the authors do present both sides of the argument for the bombing of this beautiful city, together with the background and vivid accounts of the actual bombing.The post war rebuilding of some of the most iconic buildings is also covered. Ultimately, however distasteful, it WAS total war, and there was often no distinction between civilian and military. Let us all hope and pray that there will never be another conflict such as this.

[Miranda Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good companion to Frederick Taylor's study on the same subject (read Taylor first, ideally), this is a collection of essays well worth reading. Included are a remarkable account of a Jewish couple's survival and eventual return, and an account of the Communist postwar history of the city, leading up to the reconstruction of the Freuenkirkhe and other significant buildings.

[Patti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrifying

[Michael Greening · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fine book about horrific events in Dresden. Not for the faint of heart...