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Unless correspondents ask us not to, this Website will post selected letters that it receives and invite open debate. |
Hermann
P. Jacobi writes from the Valley of the
Sun, Phoenix, Arizona, on October 23,
2001
Dresden air raid statistics
I
HAVE read your fascinating book "THE
DESTRUCTION OF DRESDEN" (1989 Reissue). For the
sake of an argument that I like to still, have you made a
revision to the total number of persons killed?
It seems to me that the figure of 135,000 should perhps be more like 35,000. I have recently ordered this book through "Barnes & Noble" (but not yet received); however, on second thought, I remember the salesman at first not finding it but then stating he could order it, in a similar version? Is it possible that what he ordered is now called Apocalypse 1945, The Destruction of Dresden? If so, have you changed your figures?
By the way, there are many doubters, concerning this book as well as your other book Hitler's War (both of which I have read with great interest!).
In fairness to you, it appears to me reading through the Internet, that most of your critics are of Jewish faith, background, or under the influence of these, and therefore critical of you no matter what you say or write.
As long as we (the USA) stand by Israel without any limitations, we will have ever greater problems on hand, (The World Trade Center in New York and anthrax, etc., etc.)!
DAVID
IRVING writes:
GOOD question. Yes, in "Apocalypse 1945: the Destruction of Dresden" I allow that new publications and documents suggest the figure should be revised downwards.
We can only speculate on how much. When Cambridge
professor Richard Evans (the highly
paid defence witness in the Lipstadt trial) suggested
the figure should be "only" twenty or thirty thousand
killed in two hours by the British that night, i.e.,
burned alive, I asked him how the police authorities in
March 1945 had managed to count all the bodies, when all
that was left of the victims in hundreds of shelters and
cellars was a pile of ash or slime, several inches thick.
He
dodged the question.
To appreciate this problem, read the Erfahrungsbericht (report) of the Police Chief of Hamburg after the 1943 raids there!
One report speaks of trucks loaded with fifteen tons (300 Zentner) of clothing and shoes taken off the victims at Dresden before burial.
David Irving (now writing in Key West, Florida)
Photo shows Dresden air raid victims lined up for cremation on the Altmark square, Feb 25, 1945 (copyright photo from Apocalypse 1945: the Destruction of Dresden)
David Irving