Quote:
Originally Posted by BRUTAL64
DRESDEN.
Ben, what are thoughts on the fire bombing?
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It's one of those other things we don't talk about much because the reality is pretty damned ugly. We intentionally inflected mass horror on that city with two primary purposes:
1 - punish Nazi Germany
2 - (Perhaps more importantly) trouble was already brewing with the Soviets. It was our way of letting them know (before we used a Nuke in Japan) that we could level cities at will inside a couple days. We knew the Soviets would be there soon and would be able to see first hand what we could do very quickly.
It was a time of war and it was a legitimate military target as a major industrial rail hub. But looking back one could argue that it wasn't a strategically necessary attack to achieve the goal of Nazi surrender but had more to do with pay back and sending a message. Like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the other fire bombed cities the real death toll is forever unknown, because a lot of people simply disappeared.
The Alllies in total incinerated millions of people, MANY of whom were only guilty of being born in a certain place at a certain time. I'm not saying it was the wrong approach, in fact sadly, it was probably the right approach, or at least the most effecient one to bring the enemy to their knees as rapidly as possible. It's damn clear the Japanese weren't about to surrender until it became crystal clear that they faced extermination with no hopes of winning . . . and even then there were some willing to go that far. But that's a different story.
