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Fire-Bombing of Dresden

Fire-Bombing of Dresden. "You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Dresden Background. Feb. 13 1945 What was Dresden?

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Fire-Bombing of Dresden

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  1. Fire-Bombing of Dresden "You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

  2. Dresden Background • Feb. 13 1945 • What was Dresden? • Military hospital city • NO military units in the city • There were 6000 refugees in Dresden from other German cities • Population: 1.2 Million • What is a firestorm? • Several fires join together = conflagration • Air is sucked in to the swirling fire • Air feeds fire = NOT GOOD COMBO • People can’t go underground, b/c the air is swooped up into the fire

  3. Dresden Before

  4. Dresden Pre-1945

  5. What Happens • There were military locations just outside of Dresden • Allied troops COULD have bombed those • The bombing begins: • Lasts 24 minutes • Wait 3 hrs, and deliver second round • 700,000 phosphorus bombs unloaded on Dresden • This accounts for ONE bomb for every TWO people • The average temp: 1600 centigrades (celcius) • This means it was 2912 degrees F in the town • Eyewitness Acct: "young women carrying babies running up and down the streets, their dresses and hair on fire, screaming until they fell down, or the collapsing buildings fell on top of them."

  6. Slaughterhouse 5 Quotes • “It wasn’t safe to come out of the shelter until noon the next day. When Americans and their guards did come out, the sky was black with smoke. The sun was an angry little pinhead. Dresden was like the moon now, nothing but minerals. The stones were hot. Everybody else in the neighborhood was dead.” • “Dresden was destroyed on the night of February 13, 1945…He told her about the stockyards with all the fence posts gone, with roofs and windows gone-told her about seeing little logs lying around. There were people who had been caught in the firestorm. So it goes”

  7. Experiencing Dresden • “The detonation shook the cellar walls. The sound of the explosions mingled with a new, stranger sound which seemed to come closer and closer, the sound of a thundering waterfall; it was the sound of the mighty tornado howling in the inner city.“ • “Others hiding below ground died. But they died painlessly--they simply glowed bright orange and blue in the darkness. As the heat intensified, they either disintegrated into cinders or melted into a thick liquid--often three or four feet deep in spots.”

  8. Outcome • Two Weeks Later: Swiss soldier account: • "I could see torn-off arms and legs, mutilated torsos and heads which had been wrenched from their bodies and rolled away. In places the corpses were still lying so densely that I had to clear a path through them in order not to tread on arms and legs." • 260,000 bodies/residue of bodies were counted • Most are not found b/c they were incinerated • 500,000 women, children, elderly, wounded soldiers slaughtered

  9. Why Dresden? • Churchill and FDR decide Dresden would be a great spot • Why? • No military value • No economic value: no industry other than china/cigarette factories • More of a political statement • Was this act justified by Allied forces?

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