Product Description

For decades it has been assumed that the Allied bombing of Dresden -- a cultured city famous for its china, chocolate, and fine watches -- was militarily unjustifiable, an act of retribution for Germany's ceaseless bombing of London and other parts of England.

Now, Frederick Taylor's groundbreaking research offers a completely new examination of the facts and reveals that Dresden was a highly militarized city actively involved in the production of military armaments and communications. Incorporating first-hand accounts, contemporaneous press material and memoirs, and never-before-seen government records, Taylor proves unequivocally the very real military threat Dresden posed -- and how a legacy of propaganda shrouded the truth for sixty years.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #542534 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-01
• Released on: 2005-01-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 560 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780060006778
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
The allied bombing of Dresden created a massive fire that swept the city center, killing thousands of people and destroying its medieval heart. Debate began almost immediately: Was the destruction of this seemingly civilian city necessary militarily, or was it, some asked, equivalent to a war crime? Not just another in an endless parade of books on Dresden, Taylor's account may go a long way toward putting such questions to rest. It opens with the start, by British bombers, of the nighttime attack, and immediately turns to the past, meandering through several centuries of Dresden history, from its founding in the Middle Ages to the 20th century and the rise of the Nazis. Taylor, translator of The Goebbels Diaries, also covers the history of aerial bombardment and its international laws; gives glimpses of life under the Nazi regime; details the Allied bombing campaign against Germany; and, most excitingly, puts forth new information concerning Dresden's part in the German war effort, which turns out to be much greater than postwar information generally portrays. Five chapters of 30 describe the actual bombing of the city by the British and American air forces, and they do so effectively, weaving first-person accounts of the aircrews with those of the terrified German soldiers and civilians. The aftermath of the raid is concisely dealt with, in the process correcting common perception about the numbers actually killed (approximately 25,000, not up to 250,000, as often cited), and he offers a review of the postwar debate on the morality of the bombing. An afterword describes the author's experience at a recent ceremony for the dead of Dresden, and further corrects some longstanding misinformation that includes the alleged strafing of civilians by American aircraft. Taylor has used a variety of German, as well as Allied, sources to write an account not previously accomplished to this extent in English.
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From Booklist
Of all the cities destroyed in World War II, Dresden rivals Hiroshima as a symbol of the war's cruelty. The rationale for the bombing of Dresden has been clouded by distortion of what happened there and has been interpreted as a perfidious British and American war crime by the last gasps of Nazi propaganda; that interpretation was continued by the East German communist regime until its collapse in 1989. Newly opened archives, therefore, presented Taylor with an opportunity to research anew the obliteration of the "Florence on the Elbe." Touching on assertions about the air attack that have made it controversial--that the city was of negligible military significance, or that its destruction was without purpose because the war was almost over--Taylor advances contrary evidence about the mounting of the attack and the cataclysmic firestorm it ignited. Cautious about drawing a particular moral conclusion, Taylor takes care to keep before readers details about the Nazi rule in Dresden, hinting at his own opinion in this professional, accessible review of the controversy over the city's fate. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
'In narrative power and persuasion, he has paralleled in Dresden what Antony Beevor achieved in Stalingrad' Independent on Sunday 'A well-written, scholarly account' Guardian 'Well-researched and unpretentious ... fascinating ... Taylor skilfully interweaves various personal accounts of the impact of the raids' Michael Burleigh, Guardian 'Impressive ... Taylor weaves a chilling narrative from eyewitness accounts and painstaking documentary research, particularly with German sources. He explains the conceptual and strategic background with admirable clarity. His account of the air operation itself is quite superb' The Times

Customer Reviews

A respectable job at an impossible task
Writing a perfect book on the massive bombing raids against Dresden on February 13-14, 1945, is an impossible task. First of all, the two people in my mind most responsible for it--Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Air Marshal Arthur Harris--are long dead and while alive were far from forthcoming about their motives for the attack. So that avenue is closed forever.

Next, there is the eternal question of 'Was this raid militarily justified?' Here, I give Frederick Taylor a passing grade, but not much more. In my judgment, he is not interested in looking panoramically and in detail at the arc of the war in early February 1945. Admittedly, this is an immensely complicated issue. But for this book, I think a closer assessment of the dynamics of the European war as of dawn on February 13, 1945, would have been desirable.

Then, there is the second eternal question of 'Was this raid morally defensible?' Here, I think Taylor does a journeyman's job, but doesn't go as deep as would be expected in a book that seeks to re-assess the import and legitimacy of the raid. I think the book would have benefited from greater scrutiny of this question.

Three areas of the study, however, are revelatory and worth a careful read. The first is a roughly 50-page-long, very rich description of the founding and development of the city of Dresden. While some other reviewers were less enthused about it, I think this part of the book is fascinating. Second, the actual nuts-and-bolts description of the aerial raid is as fascinating as it is chilling. Finally, the personal, eyewitness face that Taylor puts on the bombing is remarkable, as it gives a horrifying 'you are there' drama to the event.

I'm disappointed in a few things. First, at times I detect an inappropriately breezy, know-it-all tone in Taylor's narrative style. Also, at times he goes heavy on the footnoting and documentation (which I commend), and at times, at least in my assessment, he does the opposite, as major points are made with few accompanying references.

In the end, this is a very powerful read, and one that will make readers examine a time in world history that both is and isn't far away from us today.

As another reviewer has mentioned, this book would best be read in the company of other works on the subject of the Allied bombing of Germany during the Second World War. The best is 'Wings of Judgment' by Ronald Shaffer, sadly out of print. Surprisingly, I did not find it in Taylor's bibliography. Also worth a look are Kurt Vonnagut's 'Slaughterhouse-Five,' Hermann Knell's 'To Destroy a City,' and, if you read German, Joerg Friedrich's 'Der Brand' ('The Fire').

Military logic - or military minds run amok?
`Dresden' - the book - is Taylor's contribution to the revived controversy surrounding the 1945 firestorm bombing of the city of Dresden. While extremely interesting and recounted in great detail, I still had mixed feelings about some of his conclusions. Taylor who is out to dispel the "myths" surrounding the notorious saturation bombing totes a questionable fine line as to whether he is arguing a case for military target legitimacy... or for complete annihilation.

He spends much time building a case for why Dresden was a legitimate military target. Nearly every German city had by this time been conscripted to the war effort, and yes, Dresden may have had legitimate targets, but the destruction inflicted upon the civilians was so ferociously excessive contrasted with the relatively minor damage done to military infrastructure, that it makes the argument almost moot.

The first RAF bombing raid excluded the Marshalling yards, Hauptbanhof, Marienbrücke railway bridge and troop barracks... obvious military targets if you are bombing to disable troop movement. It was -only- during the 2nd bombing raid, seeing that the Altstadt was completely engulfed in flames, that the RAF bomber leader made a snap decision - on his own - to target the fringes, otherwise the second target drop would have been exactly as the first.. the Altstadt itself. This is as much of an admission as you are ever going to get that the 1st and 2nd RAF raids were sent not so much for its military targets but for sheer chaos or "dehousing" as it was called.

The author however, does an excellent job revealing the lack of preparedness for a possible all out air raid, and shows how Dresden was truly undefended that night. When the author, who in no way seeks to minimize the horrors, is finished recounting the devastation inflicted on the inhabitants (told mainly through survivor first hand accounts), and you realize that there is still more come by way of the USAAF,... you are in disbelief.

Taylor is less successful at dispelling the "myth" of strafing. His method is to give credence to anyone who did not witness strafing, and to dismiss accounts of those who did as being "confused and traumatized" people. Yet there is documentation of an order to strafe and Taylor even prints it in his book. There are far too numerous recollections of this happening ( in many cities ) to dismiss out of hand. The official RAF Bomber Command web site page for Dresden 1945... still reads:

"Part of the American Mustang fighter-escort was ordered to strafe traffic on the roads around Dresden to increase the chaos and disruption to the important transportation network in the region."

Anyway, what Taylor spends most of his time on is counting the dead .. and since no one ever went to jail for reducing the number of Dresden victims, his final number is far lower than the 100 to 200 thousand often claimed.Taylor's final number of 30,000 seems low considering the number of refugees in the city, but it appears he has covered every angle on this based on documents that are known to exist.

The dense writing style of the book comes across as impenetrable but it is not without it flaws or manipulations.There are several carefully crafted statements throughout the book which while true on their face, are given in a near vacuum without addressing coherently the history of the economic and political turmoil of not only Germany but all of Europe in the years prior to Hitler. Statements such as "Dresden was a Nazi stronghold even before Hitler" are simply torn from their essential historical and political context, insinuating that in Dresden the early Nazi party rose to power on a wave of anti-Semitism rather than being the counter-revolutionary byproduct to massive destabilizing movements by communist/socialist forces.

While most people regard WWII as a `just war' it is also a war filled with mutual slaughter and atrocities with each nation bearing the weight of its own moral transgressions. To call it `strategic bombing' is merely a label and if a nation were to commit such an atrocity against a civilian population today that nation's leaders would surely be branded as war criminals.

Taylor may have been successful at some things, but he is by no means that last word on the subject. His greatest contribution is showing us how military minds run amok. Dresden was neither the first nor the last German city to be firebombed with devastating civilian casualties - but the Saxony city still manages to arouse both controversy and curiosity and Dresden still holds its place in history as a symbol of wars devastation and ruthlessness.

Flawed justification
Fredrick Taylor's book sets out to interject itself in the morally difficult issue of the Allied air raid of Dresden on February 13, 1945. With the European War almost finished, this horrific "fire bombing" of a major cultural capital has garnished much negative attention and been labelled an atrocity or even a war-crime. Taylor attempts cleverly to justify the attack by pointing out premise after premise to lead the reader to understand the milieu of the time and place depicted.

As a Jewish American, I set out wanting to believe in the justification of this military action. Slowly, Taylor set out his case: That Dresden was a Nazi town, that it was cruel to its prewar Jewish population, that its industry was connected the German war effort, that the Allied nations were unaware of the inevitablity of victory,etc. He even set out to show contributory negligence of the Dresden regime toward their own fate- no anti-air, poor ventilation of shelters, and overpopulation.

It all builds a stunning case justifying a bombing raid on Dresden: Just not this one. When Taylor gets to the personal accounts of the attack, the reader is only presented with the individual desperate struggle of many unconnected with the ongoing war: Refugees killed at bomb stations: Small children surviving with wet blankets. The overkill of the attack is shown. Air Marshall Harris chosing civilian "terror bombing" over attacks on oil facilities. But most importantly, the decision to bomb first the center of town rather than the industrial suburbs.

In the end, the moral ambiguities that Taylor attempts to show seem strangely enough to be crystal clear. Two wrongs don't make a right and this was where the Allies won the war, but lost the moral highground.