February 13, 1945
War crime or necessity? Why the air raid on Dresden is so controversial
View of the almost completely destroyed city center of Dresden
© Picture Alliance
On February 13, 1945, the Allies began the bombing of Dresden. Almost three months before the end of the Second World War, British and American bombers reduced the city to rubble. A controversial decision to this day.
On the afternoon of February 13, hundreds of British Lancaster bombers took off from British airfields. Your goal: Dresden. In the following two days they dropped 1,478 tons of explosive bombs and 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs on the city. US airmen take part in the bombing. They dropped 711 tons of bombs on Dresden. On February 15, a final wave of attacks followed by 210 US B-17 bombers, which dropped a further 463 tons of high-explosive bombs.
Dresden is in ruins after the bombings. Magnificent cultural and historical buildings such as the Semper Opera, the Residenzschloss or the Zwinger have been destroyed. The Frauenkirche collapses. Only ashes remain of the Renaissance and Baroque buildings in the old town.
How many people died in the air raids has long remained controversial. A commission of experts convened in 2004 ultimately came to the conclusion that around 25,000 people died.
Churchill himself spoke of it as a “pure act of terror.”
But shortly after the devastating bombing, the question arose as to whether the Allied attack could be justified as a military necessity. The USA urged the British to abandon the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) strategy of so-called “area bombing”. But the RAF had no other means at its disposal because it was primarily equipped and trained for area bombing.
In March 1945, Winston Churchill still considered stopping the air war against German cities. In a draft telegram to General Ismay and the British Chiefs of Staff and Chief of the Air Staff, he distanced himself from its orientation: “The moment seems to me to have come when the question of bombing German cities is simply for the purpose of increasing terror, even if we other pretexts should be checked, otherwise we will take control of a totally devastated country. […] The destruction of Dresden remains a serious question for Allied bombing policy. “I believe there is a need for us to focus more on military objectives such as oil storage facilities and communications centers beyond the immediate combat zone, rather than on pure acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.”
These sentences fuel the suspicion that the bombings were not intended to destroy military targets, but rather to demoralize the population. Historians are still debating today whether the air raid on Dresden should be considered a war crime. Especially since archived files from the Royal Air Force show that Dresden’s historic old town was to be destroyed.
The purpose of the attack was also clearly stated in the briefing of the bomber crews on the afternoon of February 13th: “The objectives of the attack are to hit the enemy in a place where he will feel it most and, at the same time, to show the Russians if they reach the city, what the Bomber Command can do.”
Dresden and its military importance
But the British and Americans didn’t just destroy the old town. Even though Dresden was never a center of the armaments industry, the city had factories that – like everywhere else – were at least partially converted for war production. Numerous factories supplied ammunition, aircraft components and other supplies for the war.
Dresden was also the third largest rail hub in the German Empire. Railway lines to Berlin, Prague, Breslau, Warsaw, Leipzig and Nuremberg crossed here. Transports of troops and material to the front and of prisoners to the extermination camps were carried out via Dresden.
In his controversial book “Dresden. Tuesday, February 13, 1945”, the British historian Frederick Taylorn demonstrated the war economic importance of Dresden’s industry and emphasized the importance of the city for the German plans on the Eastern Front.
But the strategic targets, such as the airport, the factories and barracks in the north of the city, were not hit nearly as badly as the old town. Since the drop points for the target markers were in the center of Dresden, historians doubt that the attacks were primarily aimed at the military infrastructure. The German historian Gerd R. Ueberschär therefore assessed the bombing of Dresden as a breach of the international law of war at the time. It didn’t decide a battle for the city and didn’t hasten the end of the war, he wrote in the work “War Crimes in the 20th Century.”