[images and captions added by this website] David Irving has many of the qualities of the most creative historians, he is certainly never dull, Professor Lipstadt by contrast seems as dull as only the self-righteously politically correct can be, few other historians had ever heard of her before this case, most will not want to hear from her again. -- John Keegan in The Daily Telegraph after the Lipstadt trial, April 2000   Tuesday, November 1, 2005 [ Our website illustrations are selected from our Dresden photo gallery, pictures reproduced in the new edition of David Irving, "Apocalypse 1945: the Destruction of Dresden" ] Necessary or not, Dresden remains a topic of anguish By John Keegan THE rededication of the Frauenkirche in Dresden is meant to signify an English apology to the Germans for the most savage of all acts of the strategic bombing campaign of the Second World War. In February 1945, Dresden, historically the capital of the old kingdom of Saxony and a famous cultural and aesthetic centre, was devastated by a joint Anglo-American bombing raid, the British by night, the Americans by day. Until the raid, Dresden remained almost the last of Germany's large cities not to have been laid waste. By the time the raids finished, much of historic and modern Dresden had been flattened and 35,000 people, mostly civilians, had been killed. As a result, Dresden became a catchword for all that the opponents of the strategic bombing campaign most detested. In the controversy that ensued, the casualty figure was inflated; a number as large as 200,000 was widely cited while the name of Dresden was used to brand Air Marshal [Sir Arthur] Harris, [seen below, with David Irving in 1961] head of RAF Bomber Command, a war criminal. As the event receded into history, attempts were made to establish an objective account and above all to explain why so late in the war an undamaged German city, often described as a civilian target, was subjected to an all-out attack. The official explanation was that Dresden was a major communications centre, close behind Germany's eastern frontier which the Red Army was about to cross in its final offensive from Poland towards Berlin. The raid was intended to disrupt the German defence and to lend support to the Russians, who, it was alleged, had specifically requested it. In the days before the raid, when it was being planned, Churchill was at Yalta agreeing with Stalin and Roosevelt on the future of Europe. It is said that Stalin asked for the bombing of Dresden at Yalta, though in conversation, not on paper. It is still difficult to identify who gave the critical order. Air Marshal Saundby, Harris's deputy, admits to approving it "with a heavy heart". Harris said later: "The attack on Dresden was at the time considered a military necessity by people more important than myself." The truth seems to be that both Saundby and Harris approved, but when the controversy arose, sought to distance themselves from it. The fact is that, after an abortive [sic. aborted, the USAAF planes never took off] American daylight attack, 800 RAF Lancasters flew across Europe to their distant target and devastated it for the loss of only six aircraft. In fortuitous weather conditions, they created a fire storm, the largest ever achieved after Hamburg in 1943, so that many of the victims were asphyxiated in the cellars where they had taken refuge. Almost immediately, those responsible started to have second thoughts. Churchill himself penned a minute which read: "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror though under other pretexts should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land. The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of allied bombing. I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives rather than the mere acts of terror and mass destruction, however impressive." Under the protests of RAF leaders, the note was eventually withdrawn and another less critical substituted. Churchill had, as early as 1943, expressed his horror of area bombing. After seeing photographs of the destruction wrought, he burst out to his intimates: "Are we beasts?" Yet Churchill knew all the arguments: that before D-Day the only means that Western allies had of striking back at Germany was by bombing, that Germany was responsible for starting the bombing of cities, that it was necessary to demonstrate to the Russians, who were bearing the main effort, that Britain and America were doing something to advance victory. David Irving comments: A GOOD article (because it relies in part on my book on the raid).    Sir John Keegan does make minor errors, as don't we all? No doubt this would entitle him in Lipstadt's eyes to be called a falsifier of history and denier.    The American raid on Dresden was due to precede the British, but was called off at the last hour, and in fact followed the RAF attack.    And Richard Stokes was a Labour (i.e. a Socialist) Member of Parliament, an oratorical firebrand, who held out against terror-bombing with such ferocity during the war that when he was instructed by Clement Attlee, the post-war prime minister to visit Harris and apologise, Harris -- enthroned in his toilet at the time -- told his servants to receive the MP with the words, "Tell him I can only handle one sh*t at a time."    The story is possibly apocryphal, but it helps to illustrate why Harris is regarded as one of the great commanders of all time. In the circumstances of early 1945 there were pressing reasons for persisting in the bombing. The Germans were still hitting London with pilotless weapons, the prospect of victory, apparently so close at hand in the autumn of 1944, had sharply receded after Hitler's great December [1944] offensive in the Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge, which had caused more American casualties than any other battle in the west. Moreover, it was strongly believed -- and not only by the bomber barons -- that bombing severely damaged and might soon break German morale. By April 1, under pressure from Churchill and protests such as that of Richard Stokes, a Conservative MP who asked in the Commons if "terror bombing" was now British policy, the RAF terminated attacks on cities, though Harris insisted on keeping the decision secret lest it simplify German defensive policies. The end of the war in Europe was in any case only five weeks distant and there was little left to bomb. All 60 of Germany's largest cities lay in ruins. The Russians were outside Berlin. Hitler was already contemplating suicide. Several of his senior commanders had already taken that step. Dresden however would not go away. The story returned to haunt Churchill's government and Bomber Command, as it still does. Can there ever be a final verdict? None has been reached among the wartime generation, who prefer not to dwell on what Bomber Command did to Germany during the war. Even the most blinkered survivors of the war years know that the strategic bombing campaign achieved results from which they shrink, 600,000 civilian casualties, the majority women and children, many burnt to death. In the last, remembering Dresden forces one to recognise that there is nothing nice or admirable about any war, and that victory, even a victory as desirable as that over Nazi Germany, is purchased at the cost of terrible human suffering, the suffering of the completely innocent as well as of their elders and their parents in arms. It is right to remember Dresden, but chiefly as a warning against repetition of the mass warfare that tortured Europe in the 20th century.     Our dossier on the Dresden raid

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