"THERE can be few operations of war as causeless, as
purposeless, and as brutal as the attack on Dresden
during the night of February 13, 1945. In The
Destruction of Dresden Mr. David Irving has
analysed in an objective manner the causes and results of
this gratuitous act. As Air Marshal Sir Robert
Saundby comments in his foreword, the bombing of
Dresden was 'a great tragedy' the purposes of which are
'difficult to determine. He agrees that Mr. Irving 'tells
dispassionately and honestly, the story of a deeply
tragic example, in time of war, of man's inhumanity to
man'. We should be grateful to the author for having
devoted long study to this question and for having now
provided us with as accurate an account of what actually
happened as we are likely to obtain. It was in fact an
operation unworthy of our history. Nobody could contend
that Dresden was a legitimate strategic target; nobody
could contend that this terror raid shortened the war or
satisfied our Russian allies. I am not surprised that
most Englishmen should strive to forget about Dresden."
-- Sir Harold Nicolson in The Observer
"IN devoting a book to this one violent moment of the
war, with its antecedents and something of its aftermath,
Mr. David Irving has rendered the British people a great
service. They have to know. The Dresden event is a part
of British (as well as of German, and European, and
human) history. It is a piece of the mosaic that makes up
the British character and a brush-stroke, out of many, in
the image that Britain presents to foreign peoples -- an
image the British are at best imperfectly aware of, and
that has consequences which they often find it difficult
to understand. Dresden also has lessons necessary to an
understanding of the nature of war. What is necessary is
to know what happened and to understand how it came to
happen, and the only way is to read Mr. Irving's
excellent and terrible book." -- The Economist
"A superb deadpan narrative." -- Richard
Crossman in The New Statesman
