Berlin warns fascists over Dresden

[Freedom_from_Chains]

Well Bush may still be able to make Germany a partner in the coalition of the willing. Seems like he has some support in Germany.

Sunday, February 13, 2005 Posted: 1:40 AM EST (0640 GMT)

DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) -- Sixty years after the Dresden bombings, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pledged to stop far-right groups exploiting the anniversary and portraying Germany as a war victim while ignoring Nazi atrocities.

A planned march by thousands of far-right activists in the eastern German city threatens to upstage Sunday's official commemoration of U.S. and British bomber raids that devastated what had been known as the Florence of northern Europe.

"We will use all means to counter all attempts to re-interpret history," Schroeder told Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

"This is our obligation to all the victims of the war and Nazi terror, especially and also the victims of Dresden."

Dresden, famed for its baroque architecture and untouched by bombing just three months before the end of World War Two, was nearly destroyed by two waves of British bombers on the night of February 13, 1945.

(con't)http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/12/dresden.60.years.ap/index.html

[Zuni]

1. Dresden was a hideous example of terror bombing

it was a city of relativly little military value. Stalin asked the allies to bomb it to aid soviet offensive moves to the east, but British Air Marshal Harris, the founding father of terror bombing, decided to firebomb the city with thousands of tons of napalm. The US Air Force, in it's very first attempt at real indiscriminate bombing (for most of the war, the Bombers of the USAAF at least tried to hit military targets) hit Dresden again, on Valentines Day after the city was virtually melted the night before.

I have seen estimates from between 25,000-135,000 killed in the raid. The high estimates may be the result of David Irving, a well known British Nazi sympathizer --- unfortunately, Irving is one of the foremost experts of Nazi archives and for too long he hid his pro-Nazi sympathies---it wasn't until 1988 that he fully came out as a fascist holocaust denier and anti-semite (even though he seemed to want to cover up Hitler's role in some of his earlier books). Before then he held respect as being perhaps the top expert on Nazi archives.

[UL_Approved]

2. Yes, Dresden was our own little sin

The fire bombing was something that came out of the end of WWII. We began committing war crimes of our own, and this was not really acceptable.

Nobody is moral in war. It drags us down to all depths of depravity when faced with defeat. This is not something that should be taken lightly.

War does not decide who is right, it decides who is left.

[puddycat]

10. And always remember the victors always write the history

Just like in Iraq, the Buschco govert is busy re-writing history. Suddenly all the reasons for Bushco going into Iraq are wiped from memory and we are all supposed to "rally around the dear troops" who fought for Iraqi freedom! And many at DU have fallen into this same trap, in the name of supporting the dear troops. Well, never forget, these dear troops are the same ones who massacred innocent Iraqi children and women and old people, in the name of Bush.

[Griffy]

14. ...that was when only scribes could write.

Now we have multiply sources of news an information, we will NOT let bushco's lies go into history as fact. We are the scribes of the new century, and Our words will live on (not to mention pics, "new" to history). For most of history only a small % of ppl could read and write! History will show how a group of people saw the truth and wouldnt let go... we will win, the facists will be exposed and the US will return to the hands of the reality based society.

[Sandpiper]

3. Dresden was probably our most inexcusable act of WWII

One can reasonably debate the merits of Hiroshima, but our motives for carpet bombing Dresden were purely vindictive.

[reprobate]

15. Dresden was an atrocity, but so was hiroshima. And nagisaki.

The stories of hundreds of thousands of american casualties from an invasion of japan are no more than propaganda. Our military knew that they had no oil, few arms, almost no ammunition or aircraft, and no men of fighting age. It would have been a REAL cakewalk.

Truman approved the use of nukes against japan for just one reason: To scare Stalin away from his intenions in europe. It didn't work.

And it's legacy is that the United States is know the world around as the only nation to EVER use nukes agains another nation. What a legacy.

[DoNotRefill]

4. That's such a shame....

Dresden can be a very beautiful city, and the "Castle" is exquisite. They have one of the coolest armories I've ever seen.

[depakid]

5. For the sake of "balance" here's a contrary view

from Air Force Magazine.

The Dresden Legend

It's an interesting piece, in terms of strategy and tactics- WW II buffs will like it. Just remember to keep your BS detectors set to "high."

[puddycat]

11. Just another example of how the victors re-write history

I guess this Air-force magazine whore considers the animals at the Dresden Zoo as participants in manufacturing munitions--because the the Dresden Zoo was fire-bombed, and the reports of the burning animals is horrific enough to make even a stone-cold zombie cry.

[depakid]

19. I agree with your assessment

I suspect the article was designed to help allay the consciences of airmen who participated in the raid and others like it over the years.

Still, it's interesting- and not just as a military assessment but as an exercise into understanding the rationalizations for atrotious acts of war.

[cire4]

6. Prior to bombing, Dresden was one of the worlds jewels

As the article mentioned, it was known as the Florence of Northern Europe, and ranked up there with Paris and Rome as one of Europes most culturally fascinating cities in terms of art, music, architecture, etc. The bombing completely destoryed it, but the city has recovered remarkably and still maintains a culturlaly vibrant atmosphere.

Kindal makes you wonder about all the wonderous ancient cities that Herr Bush is destroying in Iraq...

[Divernan]

7. Dresden has left some skeletal, bombed out sites untouched.

I visited there several years ago. While many magnificent buildings have been restored according to the original architectural design, and salvaging original stones when possible, some are located next to sites that have been left untouched - so that one gets the grim impact of the horror of bombing an urban area.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. so that one gets the grim impact

The grim impact of turning this
into this.... crazy

[Freedom_from_Chains]

9. Great pictures - Thanks

[tlcandie]

13. A larger version of Fallujah?

I'm sure it wasn't as developed, but it still reminds me of the bombings there. :cry:

[JohnOneillsMemory]

12. Japan was also fire bombed. McNamara said 'we were war criminals.'

Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara (1961-1968) admitted this in his interviews which comprised the movie 'The Fog Of War' in 2003.

He said that the destruction of civilian cities with fire bombing and the two nukes was totally disproportionate and unnecessary to Allied victory.

He is very contrite about his role in US war crimes.

[Turbineguy]

16. The Dresden lesson

for all of us is that the German people suffered terribly for getting Hilter as their boss.

Hitler did not do this alone, he had plenty of help. Would there have been other ways to bring Germany out of the financial collapse of the 1920's? Probably.

The PNAC formed a cabal to take over this country and succeeded with lots of help. We have to know that at least 54 million Americans actually voted to keep Bush and what he represents.

Many of those who helped Hilter could not have known what their future would hold.

Here, those who helped Bush seem to be blind to the future consequences which are obvious to many.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

17. seem to be blind to the future consequences

Probably aren't much on history as well.... otherwise they "might" start to see the similarities... too bad for all of us. America needs enemies so that it has an excuse to project imperial military power wherever it needs to. Notice I said NEEDS TO. It is the nature of capitalism to go foraging for people places and things that it can devour.

Don't get me wrong, it's not the capitalism I have a problem with, its the wholesale stripping of other peoples' resources, way of life, hopes and dreams, etc that annoys me and annoys others enough so that they begin to "hate us for our freedom".

[bhikkhu]

18. It was much worse in Japan...

Marshall had the idea in 1941 to torch the wood-built areas, the poor areas, of Japan's large cities. A long "death-list" was put together, though it was March, 1945, before this program was implemented.

1665 tons of incendiaries were dropped on Tokyo, 85 thousand died in one night and a million were made homeless.

Following this first strike, 66 other cities were treated similarly, each losing about half of their residential areas to fire-bombs. The estimated number of civilian casualties was 672,000, but this could easily be a low estimate.

This was all common knowledge at the time, but quickly forgotten. The day before the Hiroshima nuke the Atlanta Constitution's page one headline was "580 B-29s RAIN FIRE ON 4 MORE DEATH-LIST CITIES." Good luck trying to find this in any history textbook.

[NNN0LHI]

20. Far-Right Protest on Dresden Bombing Anniversary Prompts Schroeder Warning

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/df8cfbf8-7deb-11d9-ac22-00000e2511c8.html

Thousands of German right-wing extremists on Sunday marched through Dresden on the 60th anniversary of the city's destruction in allied bombing raids, overshadowing official commemorations of the wartime attacks that killed at least 35,000 people.


Police said approximately 4,000 from the far right, many waving black flags and carrying fire torches, mounted a mock funeral march. March organisers and observers said at least 6,000 took part, making the demonstration one of the largest in Germany by far-right groups since the second world war.

Thousands of police with water cannons stood by as the march, which drew participants from across Germany, moved slowly through the city, accompanied by loudspeaker trucks playing funeral music. As well as hundreds of shaven-headed men, many local people from Dresden also joined in, observers said.

The large turnout, and the broadly peaceful nature of the highly disciplined demonstration, are likely to add to concerns among mainstream parties over the revival of the far right, especially in eastern Germany.

more

I bet these right wing wackos really like Bush. They are his kind.

[solinvictus]

21. I bet these right wing wackos really like Bush. They are his kind.

Not really, they seem to be mainly interested in German nationalism rather than expansion. The East has reeled under the economic ruin of it's former Warsaw Pact status, which left it a legacy of ecological ruin and inefficient Communist era heavy industry. Germany's large corporations are no better than American: either outsource the job or import cheaper workers. They resent the loss of jobs and the continued use of foreign guest workers.