Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945

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More About This Book

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

Atlantic Monthly
“Compelling ... [Taylor] puts the assault in its proper context to reveal the inherent moral tangle of total war.”
Calgary Sun
“Groundbreaking … [shines] new light on that fateful day and the resulting myths.”
More Reviews (13) Fewer Reviews
Chicago Sun-Times
“The enigmatic past and the patient muse of history are brilliantly served ... by this blockbuster of a book.”
Christian Science Monitor
“A major contribution to the story of Dresden.”
Houston Chronicle
“Fascinating....a fine, revealing work of revisionist history. He has also given us a deeply haunting human drama.”
New York Times Book Review
“Taylor carefully debunks .... the ‘pervasive postwar myth’ ... What emerges is a picture markedly different from conventional accounts.”
People
“Deeply affecting ... a bracing rebuke to the myths and propaganda that have painted over the memory of this tragedy.”
Salon.com
“A riveting narrative account.”
The Independent (London)
“[An] authoritative and moving account …. Impeccably documented.”
The Literary Review (London)
“Genius...an absolutely magnificent work both of scholarship and of narration.”
Washington Times
“Compelling ... Mr. Taylor makes a persuasive case that Dresden was not an innocent bystander in the tragedy that was WWII.”
Gabriel Schoenfeld
What emerges is a picture markedly different from conventional accounts. To begin with, though a great many innocent civilians perished in the firestorm, the city itself had hardly been a model of innocence. Rather, it was a Nazified redoubt; the bulk of its citizens passionately supported Hitler's war of aggression. Those who did not actively persecute the small Jewish community within their midst quietly stood by while it was physically eliminated.
— The New York Times
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. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
The destruction of Dresden, Germany, by the British and American air forces just a few months before the end of World War II has long been a source of controversy. Most people probably know about it through Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Was it an act of revenge, a demonstration of strategic bombing to intimidate Stalin, or a justified military action? Taylor, who previously translated The Goebbels Diaries, 1939-1941, has conducted archival research to make his point that the Saxon city was in fact a viable military target because of its industrial output and railway transportation routes. There was also the matter of supporting the Russian winter offensive that was relieving pressure on the Western Allies and the resulting psychological blow to war-weary German citizens. Taylor uses selected personal accounts to detail and flavor this interesting history. He refutes sensationalist stories of American fighter planes strafing civilians and tries to clarify the number of casualties-which is probably closer to 50,000 than 350,000. The only thing missing are maps of the city and the surrounding area. A strong and provocative work of World War II scholarship, this is suitable for all collections.-Daniel K. Blewett, Coll. of DuPage Lib., Glen Ellyn, IL Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Was Dresden an innocent city smashed into dust by Allied perfidy Allies, as the Vonnegutian legend has it? Or was it a legitimate target? The answer is yes, writes English novelist/translator Taylor (The Kinder Garden, 1991), and with lots of qualifications. The Saxon city of Dresden, renowned for its sumptuous architecture, for china and glassware, for great works of art, invited destruction. The Nazis argued otherwise, holding that the Allied bombing of the city in February 1945-at first by 796 Lancaster bombers that dropped "more than twenty-six hundred tons of high explosives and incendiary devices on the target city, utterly destroying thirteen square miles of its historic center," then by subsequent raids-was a crime against humanity such as the world had never seen. But Dresden was no innocent haven, Taylor argues, echoing Robin Neillands's argument in The Bomber War (2001): Dresden served as an important rail center that brought reinforcements and supplies to the Eastern Front (though by that time the Russians were only 70 miles away), and it manufactured important war materiel, including aircraft engines and optical equipment. By Taylor's account, the Allied raid still seems excessive: Why else were so many of the British bombs designed to blow apart streets, "thereby causing access problems for firefighters and other emergency services"? And why did the second wave of bombing follow the first by a full two hours, if not to lure sheltered Dresdeners out of hiding and into the open? Taylor allows that the second scenario may have been a matter of deliberate policy on the part of the vengeful RAF, which visited even greater devastation on less important targets in the closing daysof the war. Interestingly, he revisits an old fire: namely, the thought that Dresden was so thoroughly destroyed simply to deny it to the Soviets at the gates. A sure-to-be controversial argument that the bombing of Dresden "was not irrational, or pointless."

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780060006778
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 1/18/2005
  • Edition description: First Edition
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 560
  • Sales rank: 357,463
  • Product dimensions: 5.31 (w) x 8.00 (h) x 0.89 (d)

Meet the Author

Frederick Taylor studied history and modern languages at Oxford University and Sussex University. A Volkswagen Studentship award enabled him to research and travel widely in both parts of divided Germany at the height of the Cold War. Taylor is the author of Dresden and has edited and translated a number of works from German, including The Goebbels Diaries, 1939-1941. He is married with three children and lives in Cornwall, England.

First Chapter

Dresden
Tuesday, February 13, 1945

Chapter One

Blood and Treasure


"The English were treasured. I think it was only after the raid that there was a hatred of the English in Dresden, not before."

Pastor Karl-Ludwig Hoch, Lutheran man of God, architectural historian, and community leader, is in his early seventies now. A profoundly spiritual man, he is saved from otherworldliness by a wry, almost cynical sense of humor. His patrician features are folded in a sad smile as he describes his fellow citizens' lost love affair with England.

"People just knew that the British and the Americans loved Dresden so much ... St. John's was the English church on the Wiener Platz, and the American church was All Saints."

In the garden of the Hoch family's suburban waterside villa is a stone monument, from which it is possible to look downriver and view the skyline of Dresden two or three miles distant. It was built by some long-ago Francophile to commemorate the afternoon when Napoleon, on headlong retreat from Moscow and considering where to make a stand, was led to that same height, at that same spot, so that he too could examine Dresden from a distance. The year was 1813. Saxony was one of the few allies Napoleon had left. The French emperor was thinking of having a battle on its territory. In the event, he liked the idea so much, he had several. The Saxons, as the pastor often points out, have never been especially clever in their choice of friends.

In 1945 Pastor Hoch's family were spared the total destruction visited upon the inner city. Isolated stray bombs scarred their leafy neighborhood, but the Hochs and their lodgers and neighbors just took refuge in the shelter in the garden until the raid was over. Then -- when the roar of aircraft engines had faded -- they emerged, to be presented with a grandstand view of their native city, two miles or so distant, being devoured by flame. A woman who lived up the hill, a fervent Nazi, spotted them out on their balcony and called out, "So, Frau Hoch! Was Goebbels right or not? Are the English criminals or not?"

Josef Goebbels. In many ways, the legend of the destruction of Dresden was the dark, agile Nazi propaganda minister's last and grimmest creation. For Goebbels the city's near-annihilation was both a genuinely felt horror and a cynical opportunity.

Most Germans had realized at the time of the fall of Stalingrad that talk of victory was hollow. By the winter of 1944–45, even Nazi fanatics realized that to all practical intents the war was lost. Ever resourceful, Goebbels now made a characteristically bold and cunning decision: Instead of putting a positive gloss on the German position, he would hammer home the horrors in store if the Third Reich was defeated. The Bolshevik hordes pressing from the east, raping and looting as they advanced into the neat, untouched towns of East Prussia and Silesia; the treacherous, hypocritical Anglo-Americans with their pitiless bomber fleets and their cosmopolitan (read Jewish) contempt for Germany's unique cultural heritage. These were the threats to German -- and European -- civilization.

The only answer was to nobly resist these enemies, totally and to the end -- and wait for the miracle that might come any day from the new wonder weapons that Germany's scientists and engineers would soon bring to devastating application, or from the growing cracks in the impossible, artificial alliance between communism and capitalism. Meanwhile, the worse the crimes that could be laid at the door of the Reich's enemies, the more powerful the spell this twilight masterpiece of Goebbels's black art would cast. Failing the élan of everlasting victory, Germany must summon up the courage of temporary despair.

Therefore no attempts were made to minimize the atrocities being committed by the advancing Russians. On the contrary, unsparing accounts of the horrors that German forces had discovered during brief reoccupations of East Prussian towns during the ebb and flow of battle were broadcast and rebroadcast on the radio. Refugees still in shock were interviewed, and horrifying atrocity articles appeared in the thin newssheets that had now replaced the Reich's once-voluminous press. The newsreels showed devastation and ruin -- and the brave determination of those still eager to resist the enemy. It was a grim route to final victory, Endsieg, but (so the propaganda implied) that route remained open despite all the setbacks.

So, in the early days of 1945, Dresden waited; but for most of the city's people, the arrival they feared was not that of Allied air forces, but of the Soviet Red Army. A hundred and more miles to the east, the capital of the neighboring province of Silesia, Breslau, had been all but encircled by the Russians. From the air base at Klotzsche just north of Dresden the Luftwaffe was running an airborne supply shuttle to the beleaguered Silesian metropolis. The eastern defenses of the Reich were threatening to crack, and after Breslau the next major German city in their path was Dresden.

Camera in hand, on February 13, 1945, Karl-Ludwig Hoch met his brother, and together they took a number 11 tram to Postplatz, in the heart of the Altstadt, the old town. Their plan was to snap photographs of the proud city of Dresden to remember it by. This was because their mother had said that, as an aristocratic family, they might soon have to flee the Communist advance, and so might never see Dresden again. The weather was wintry-mild under slight cloud. The brothers wandered through familiar streets and alleys, passing landmarks they had seen most days of their lives. They returned to their suburban home late that same afternoon, as the twilight crept over the valley of the Elbe, not knowing that they had just seen Dresden for the last time in its historic form ...

Dresden
Tuesday, February 13, 1945. Copyright © by Frederick Taylor. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted June 18, 2005

    Useful account of the bombing of Dresden

    This is a useful study of the bombing of Dresden in 1945. Taylor shows that Dresden was an important military, political and industrial centre, contributing significantly to the Nazi war effort. Taylor also puts the US/British bombing raid in context, showing how it was a major part of their war effort, even though it was less significant than the Soviet Union's heroic struggles. For example, in late 1944, after D-Day, 91 Allied divisions were facing 65 German divisions across a 400-kilometre front, while 560 Russian divisions were facing 235 German divisions across a 3,200-kilometre front. Nor should it be forgotten who started the War and what kind of a war it was. In 1939 Hitler told the Wehrmacht high command, ¿Poland will be depopulated ¿ the fate of Russia will be exactly the same.¿ It was indeed a `war of annihilation¿, as he called it. After the Allies¿ bombing of Dresden, the Final Report by the Dresden Police and the SS, dated 15 March 1945, estimated 25,000 dead. Goebbels added an extra zero, making the publicised total 250,000. He did the same with the number of bodies later cremated in the Altmarkt ¿ thus 6,856 became 68,560. Goebbels lied in similar fashion about the numbers of people killed in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. All too many authors have let themselves be taken in by Goebbels¿ lies that about 20 million people were killed. Again, Goebbels had added an extra zero. All in all, this is a fine book, stripping away the Nazi myth that the Allies committed war crimes on a par with the Nazis¿ crimes.

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