사용자:밥풀떼기/번역장

폭격 후의 드레스덴

드레스덴 폭격 (영어: bombing of Dresden, 독일어: Luftangriffe auf Dresden)은 제 2차 세계 대전의 유럽 전선에서 마지막 몇 달 동안 연합국인 미국과 영국이 독일 작센 주의 주도인 드레스덴 시를 대규모 폭격한 사건이다. 1945년 2월 13일에서 15일까지 네 번의 공습에서 영국 공군 (RAF) 소속 중폭격기 722대와 미국 육군 항공대 (USAAF) 소속 중폭격기 527대가 드레스덴 시에 3,900톤 이상의 고폭탄 및 소이탄을 투하했다. 폭격과 그로 인해 발생한 화염폭풍으로 드레스덴 도심의 40km²가 파괴되었으며, 22,700명에서 25,000명이 사망한 것으로 추정된다. 미국 육군 항공대의 공습은 이후로도 세 번 더 이어졌는데, 각각 3월 2일과 4월 17일 두 번의 공습은 철도 차량 기지를, 적은 규모였던 4월 17일 공습은 산업 구역을 표적으로 삼았다.

공격이 벌어진 직후의 반응과 종전 후 공격이 정당했는지에 관한 논의는 드레스덴 폭격이 전쟁에 관한 도덕적 '유명 소송'의 일례가 되기까지 이어지고 있다. 1953년 미국 공군 보고서는 이 작전을 독일의 전쟁 총력을 지원하는 110개의 공장과 50,000여명의 노동자를 수용하는, 독일의 군사 및 산업시설 표적 (주요 철도 교통시설 및 통신센터로 주장)에 대한 정당한 폭격이라고 옹호했다. 일부 연구자들은 다리를 폭격한 점과 같이 통신 기반시설 전부를 표적으로 삼은 것은 아니며, 도심 외부의 대규모 산업 구역을 삼은 것도 역시 아니라고 주장했다. 폭격을 비판하는 측에서는 '엘베 강의 피렌체 (Elbflorenz)'라고도 언급되던 드레스덴은 군사적으로 중요성이 크지 않거나 전혀 없는 문화명소였으며, 드레스덴 폭격은 무분별한 지역폭격이자 전과에 상응하는 비례가 아니라고 주장한다.

주장되는 바에 따른 사망자수의 큰 차이는 논란을 더욱 부채질했다. 1945년 3월 나치 정권은 드레스덴 공습의 사상자 수를 200,000명으로 조작하여 언론에 발행하도록 명령했고, 추정된 통계에 따라 사망자수가 500,000명까지 늘기도 한다. 당시 시 당국은 희생자를 25,000명에 불과한 것으로 추정했는데, 2010년 시의회가 의뢰한 조사를 비롯한 여러 차후조사가 이를 지지한다.

배경

1890년대의 드레스덴의 모습을 찍은 사진. 드레스덴의 대표적인 명소인 드레스덴 성당, 아우구스투스 다리, 그리고 가톨릭 궁정 교회가 보인다.

1910년 마을회관에서 바라본 알츠타트 (Altstadt →구시가)의 전경

새해 첫날에 루프트바페 소속 주간전투기 부대의 전투비행단 11단이 전투에 나선 루프트바페의 처참한 작전을 비롯해 독일 측의 공세가 힘을 잃고, 붉은 군대가 전쟁 전 독일 영토 내로 실레지아 공세를 개시하고 난 뒤인 1945년 초, 독일군은 모든 전선에서 퇴각하고 있었지만 아직까지는 굳건히 견뎌내고 있었다. 1945년 2월 8일 붉은 군대는 베를린에서 불과 70km밖에 떨어지지 않은 오데르 강을 건넜다. 서방 연합국들은 동부와 서부 전선이 점점 좁혀져가면서, 전략폭격기 대대를 이용하여 소련 측을 지원할 수 있는 방안을 고려하기 시작했다. 이 계획은 독일군 병력과 난민에게 혼란을 일으키고 서부 쪽 독일군의 병력 증강을 방해하기 위해서 소련 측의 전진과 함께 베를린과 그 외의 여러 동부 도시들을 폭격한다는 것이었다.

윈스턴 처칠만 읽도록 준비된 영국 특수 공동 정보 소위원회의 보고서 〈독일 전략 및 저항능력〉(German Strategy and Capacity to Resist)은 소련 측이 독일 동부 방어전선에서 독일군을 괴멸시킬 경우, 이르면 4월 중순에 독일이 무너질 수도 있다고 예측했다. 그 대신 소련이 실레지아를 점령하는 것을 막아낼 경우 독일이 11월까지 저항할 것이라고 보고서는 경고했다. 이런 이유로 인해서 동부 전선에 있는 소련에게 어떤 것이든 지원을 제공해야 전쟁을 빨리 끝낼 수 있었다. 폭격이 이뤄지는 당시 소련 측은 저실레지아 공세를 진행하고 있었다.

베를린과 다른 동부 도시들에 대한 극도의 대규모 공중폭격 관련 계획들은 1944년 중반에 천둥소리 작전이란 암호명을 달고 논의된 적이 있었지만 그해 8월 16일 무기한 연기된 적이 있었다. 이제는 이 계획들을 재검토하고 좀 더 제한된 작전을 세운다는 결정이 내려졌다.

1월 22일 RAF의 폭격기작전국장 시드니 버프턴 공군 준장은 공군참모부장인 노먼 보텀리 경 공군 준장에게 메모를 보내, 독일군의 사기에 불리한 영향을 줄 소련의 현 공세를 지원하기 위해서 RAF가 동격 공습을 벌이는 것이 어떻겠냐고 제안했다. 공동 정보 위원회는 1월 25일, 서부에 배치된 독일군 열두 사단이 동부 전선을 보강하기 위해 이동하고 있으며, 이러한 부대이동을 차단하는 것이 우선순위가 되어야 한다는 울트라를 통해 알아낸 첩보와 병행하면서 이 방안에 지지를 표했다. 공군 사령관이자 폭격 사령관인 아서 해리스 (영국 언론에서는 '폭격기' 해리스란 별명이 붙었으며, 지역폭격의 열렬한 지지자로 잘 알려짐)는 견해를 구하고 켐니츠, 라이프치히, 드레스덴에 동시 공격을 하자고 제안했다. 그날 저녁 처칠은 아처볼드 싱클레어 공군장관에게, 이러한 제안들을 실행하기 위해 어떤 계획들이 세워졌는지 물었다. 싱클레어는 처칠의 요청을 찰스 포털 경 공군참모총장에게 전달했고, 포털은 "우리는 베를린에 한차례 대규모 공격과 드레스덴, 라이프치히, 쳄니츠, 아니면 그 외 다른 도시들의 여러 공격에 할 수 있는 노력을 다해야 합니다. 이들 도시에서 극심한 공세는 동부에서 퇴각하는 데 혼란을 불러올 뿐만 아니라 서부에서의 병력 이동도 방해하게 될 것입니다."라고 답했다. 하지만 그는 이러한 공습에 전투기를 전용하는 것이 석유 생산시설, 제트기 공장, 잠수함 조함장을 파괴한다는 현 우선과제에서 벗어나서는 안 된다고 거론했다.

처칠은 이런 응답에 만족하지 않았고, 1월 26일 싱클레어에게 작전 계획을 강조했다. "난 [어젯밤] 베를린인지 여부를 물어봤고, 독일 동부의 다른 큰 도시인지 의심할 여지도 없으며, 지금은 특별히 매력적인 목표를 생각해선 안 된다.... 무엇을 할 계획인지 내일 내게 제발 보고하도록."

처칠의 질의에 응한 싱클레어는 달빛과 날씨가 허락하는 한 빨리 베를린, 드레스덴, 라이프치히, 켐니츠에 공격을 시작하자고 해리스에게 요청한 바 있었던 보텀리에게 "러시아 측의 성공적인 진격이 이뤄질 동안 위에서 언급된 도시들에서 벌어졌을 수도 있는 혼란스런 환경을 이용한다는 바로 그 목적으로" 말을 걸었다. 이런 움직임 덕에 싱클레어는 처칠에게 직사 지침에 따른 다른 표적에 대한 "최우선 요구 대상"인 1월 27일자 공군 함모 협정을 알리게 되었다. 이 협정은 동부에서의 민간인 피난과 이뤄질 수도 있는 서부에서의 부대 이동을 방해하기 위해서 이들 도시 내 통신수단을 타격한다는 내용이었다.

1월 31일, 보텀리 준장은 포털에게 서신을 보내, 드레스덴과 타 도시에 큰 공격을 하면 "동부전선에서는 민간인 피난에 큰 혼란을, 다른 전선에서는 병력 증강 움직임에 방해를 끼치게 될 것"이라고 말했다. 영국의 역사학자 프레드릭 테일러는 2월 1일에 더글라스 에빌 경이 참모부 장관들에게 메모를 하나 더 보내, 도심 폭격 결정에서 중요하고 핵심적이기까지 한 요소는 민간인의 대규모 이동을 방해하는 것이라 했다고 언급했다. 주요 철도 접속역들과 전화망, 시 행정기관, 공공시설이 소재한 이들 도시를 공격하면 대혼란을 불러 일으킬 것이었다. 영국은 이러한 사실을 군수공장 공격보다 이런 필수 기반시설 소실이 더 오랜 영향을 끼쳤던 코번트리 대공습을 겪은 뒤 알게 되었다.

2월 4일 얄타 회담이 진행되던 중 소련 참모차장인 알렉세이 안토노프 장군은 베를린과 라이프치히 간 연결을 공중 폭격으로 무력화시켜 서부전선의 독일군 병력 증강을 방해하는 방안을 문제로 제기했다. 얄타에 있던 포털은 그에 대한 응답으로 소련과 논의할 목표 대상 목록을 자신에게 보내달라고 보텀리에게 요청했다. 보텀리의 목록에는 석유 공장, 탱크 및 항공기 공장, 베를린과 드레스덴 시가 포함됐다. 한 영국 통역가는 나중에 안토노프와 조지프 스탈린이 드레스덴 폭격을 요청했다고 주장했으나, 회담 공식 기록에 이러한 요청을 했다는 언급은 없으며 이 주장은 냉전 시기 프로파간다일 수도 있다.

군사 및 산업 프로필

드레스덴 폭격 당시 유럽 전선의 상황. 흰색은 독일이 점령한 지역, 장미색은 연합국이 점령한 지역, 선명한 적색은 전선 내 연합국의 전진이다 The white areas were held by Germany, the rose ones by the Allies, and the bright-red were the Allied advances in the fronts

드레스덴은 독일에서 일곱 번째로 가장 큰 도시였으며, 당시 RAF에 따르면 폭격받지 않고 남아있는 시가지가 가장 넓은 도시였다. 테일러는 드레스덴에 관한 1942년도 공식 안내서가 시를 "제국의 일류 산업 소재지 중 한 곳"으로 묘사했고, 1944년에는 독일군 최고사령부 무기국이 군수품을 공급하는 중대형 공장 및 작업장 127곳을 일람했다고 썼다.. 단 독일의 전쟁 지원에 기여한 정도는 계획자들이 생각했던 것만큼 중요치 않았을 수도 있다는 의견도 있다.

미 공군 역사국은 폭격에 대한 국제사회의 우려에 대응하여 보고서를 작성했는데, 1978년 12월까지 기밀로 분류된 이 보고서는 공습 당시 시내에는 독일의 전쟁 물자를 지원하는 공장 110곳과 5만여 명의 노동자가 있었다고 적고 있다. 보고서에 따르면 드레스덴에는 항공부품 공장들과 독가스 공장 (헤미셰 파브리크 고이에 컴퍼니), 방공 야포 공장 (레흐만), 광학품 공장 (자이스 이콘 주식회사)과 더불어 전기 X선 장치 (코흐 운트 스테르첼 주식회사), 기어와 차동장치 (작소니스베르케 공장), 전기 궤도 (게브뤼더 바슬러 공장)를 생산하는 공장이 있었다. 그 밖에도 병영과 임시 막사, 군수품 저장 보급소 한 곳이 있었다고 전하고 있다.

USAF의 보고서는 드레스덴에 군사적으로 중요한 교통로가 두 가지 있다고 거론하기도 했는데, 독일과 체코슬로바키아를 잇는 남북간 도로와 중앙유럽 고지대를 잇는 동서간 도로였다. 드레스덴 시는 뮌헨-브라슬라우 선과 함부르크-라이프치히 선은 물론이고, 베를린-프라하-빈 선을 잇는 철도 접속점에 자리했다. 공격 전날 밤 프리드릭스타트 조차장에 미군 포로로 붙잡혀 있던 해롤드 E. 쿡은 나중에 이렇게 전했다. "나는 드레스덴이 하나의 무장 군대였던 것을 내 두 눈으로 보았다. 수천에 달하는 독일군 병력에 탱크와 포," Colonel Harold E. Cook, a US POW held in the Friedrichstadt marshaling yard the night before the attacks, later said that "I saw with my own eyes that Dresden was an armed camp: thousands of German troops, tanks and artillery and miles of freight cars loaded with supplies supporting and transporting German logistics towards the east to meet the Russians".

An RAF memo issued to airmen on the night of the attack said:

Dresden, the seventh largest city in Germany and not much smaller than Manchester is also the largest unbombed builtup area the enemy has got. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westward and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium, not only to give shelter to workers, refugees, and troops alike, but to house the administrative services displaced from other areas. At one time well known for its china, Dresden has developed into an industrial city of first-class importance.... The intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed front... and incidentally to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do.

In the raid, major industrial areas in the suburbs, which stretched for miles, were not targeted. According to Donald Miller "the economic disruption would have been far greater had Bomber Command targeted the suburban areas where most of Dresden's manufacturing might was concentrated".

폭격

공중

모스키토 경폭격기는 붉은 빛으로 폭격기들에게 떨어뜨릴 타겟의 위치를 알려 주었다.

2월 13일/14일 밤

드레스덴의 공격은 1945년 2월 13일, USAAF 소속 미국 제8공군의 폭격과 함께 시작되었다. 제8공군은 이미 도시 부근의 벌판에 있는 철도를 두 번이나 폭격해서 공격한 상태였다: 1944년 10월 7일에 70톤의 고폭발성 폭탄으로 400명을 사살했고, 그런 뒤 1945년 1월 16일에 다시 한 번 133대의 폭격기로 279톤의 고폭발성 폭탄과 41톤의 방화 폭탄으로 폭격했다.

1945년 2월 13일, 유럽에 나쁜 날씨가 닥치면서 USAAF의 모든 활동을 방해했고, RAF 폭격 지휘대가 처음 공습을 시작할 수 있는 기회가 찾아오게 되었다. It had been decided that the raid would be a double strike, in which a second wave of bombers would attack three hours after the first, just as the rescue teams were trying to put out the fires. Other raids were carried out that night to confuse Nazi air defences. Three hundred and sixty heavy bombers (Lancasters and Halifaxes) bombed a synthetic oil plant in Böhlen, 60 마일 (97 km) from Dresden, while de Havilland Mosquito medium bombers attacked Magdeburg, Bonn, Misburg near Hannover, and Nuremberg.

The first of the British aircraft took off at around 17:20 hours CET for the 700-마일 (1,100 km) journey. This was a group of Lancasters from Bomber Command's 83 Squadron, No. 5 Group, acting as the Pathfinders or flare force, whose job it was to find Dresden and drop magnesium parachute flares to light up the area for the bombers. The next set of aircraft to leave England were the twin-engined Mosquito marker planes who would identify the target areas and drop 1,000-pound target indicators (TIs), known to the Germans as "Christmas trees," which gave off a red glow for the bombers to aim at. The attack was to be centred on the sports stadium, next to the city's medieval Altstadt (old town), with its congested, and highly combustible, timbered buildings.

The main bomber force, called "Plate Rack", took off shortly after the Pathfinders. This was a group of 254 Lancasters carrying 500 tons of high explosives and 375 tons of incendiaries, or fire bombs. There were 200,000 incendiaries in all, with the high-explosive bombs ranging in weight from 500 pounds to 4,000 pounds — the so-called two-ton "cookies", also known as "blockbusters," because they had the power to destroy a city block. The high explosives were intended to rupture water mains, and blow off roofs, doors, and windows, creating an air flow that would feed the fires caused by the incendiaries that followed.

The Lancasters crossed into French airspace near the Somme, then into Germany just north of Cologne. At 22:00 hours, the force heading for Böhlen split away from Plate Rack, which turned south east toward the Elbe. By this time, ten of the Lancasters were out of service, leaving 244 to continue to Dresden.

The sirens started sounding in Dresden at 21:51 (CET). Wing Commander Maurice Smith, flying in a Mosquito, gave the order to the Lancasters: "Controller to Plate Rack Force: Come in and bomb glow of red target indicators as planned. Bomb the glow of red TIs as planned.". The first bombs were released at 22:14, the Lancasters flying in low at 8,000 피트 (2,400 m), with all but one Lancaster's bombs released within two minutes, and the last one releasing at 22:22. The fan-shaped area that was bombed was one-and-a-quarter miles long, and at its extreme about one-and-three-quarter miles wide.

The second attack, three hours later, was by Lancaster aircraft of 1, 3, 6 and 8 (Pathfinder Force) Groups, 8 Group being the Pathfinders. By now, the thousands of fires from the burning city could be seen more than 60 마일 (97 km) away on the ground, and 500 마일 (800 km) away in the air, with smoke rising to 15,000 피트 (4,600 m). The Pathfinders therefore decided to expand the target, dropping flares on either side of the firestorm, including the Hauptbahnhof, the main train station, and the Großer Garten, a large park, both of which had escaped damage during the first raid. The German sirens sounded again at 01:05, but as there was practically no electricity, these were small hand-held sirens that were heard within only a block. Between 01:21 and 01:45, 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs.

2월 14–15일

On the morning of 14 February 431 bombers of the 1st Bombardment Division of the United States VIII Bomber Command were scheduled to bomb Dresden at around midday, and the 3rd Bombardment Division were to follow the 1st and bomb Chemnitz, while the 2nd Bombardment Division would bomb a synthetic oil plant in Magdeburg. The bomber groups would be protected by the 784 P-51 Mustangs of VIII Fighter Command which meant that there would be almost 2,100 aircraft of the United States Eighth Air Force over Saxony during 14 February.

There is some confusion in the primary sources over what was the target in Dresden, whether it was the marshalling yards near the centre or centre of the built up area. The report by the 1st Bombardment Division's commander to his commander states that the targeting sequence was to be the centre of the built up area in Dresden if the weather was clear. If clouds obscured Dresden and if it was clear over Chemnitz, then Chemnitz was to be the target. If both were obscured then the centre of Dresden would be bombed using H2X radar. The mix of bombs to be used on the Dresden raid was about 40% incendiaries, much closer to the RAF city busting mix than that usually used by the USAAF in precision bombardments. This was quite a common mix when the USAAF anticipated cloudy conditions over the target.

316 B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed Dresden, dropping 771 tons of bombs. The rest misidentified their targets. Sixty bombed Prague, dropping 153 tons of bombs on the Czech city while others bombed Brux and Pilsen. The 379th bombardment group started to bomb Dresden at 12:17 aiming at marshalling yards in the Friedrichstadt district west of the city centre as the area was not obscured by smoke and cloud. The 303rd group arrived over Dresden 2 minutes after the 379th found that the their view was obscured by clouds so they bombed Dresden using H2X radar to target this location. The groups that followed the 303rd, (92nd, 306th, 379th, 384th and 457th) also found Dresden obscured by clouds and they too used H2X to locate the target. H2X aiming caused the groups to bomb inaccurately with a wide dispersal over the Dresden area. The last group to bomb Dresden was the 306th and they had finished by 12:30.

According to an RAF webpage on the history of RAF Bomber Command, "[p]art 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." Historian Gotz Berganger asserted in Dresden Im Luftkrieg (1977) that tales of civilians being strafed by the Mustangs were untrue. However, British historian Alexander McKee in Dresden 1945 (1982) quotes eyewitnesses (Gerhard Kuhnemund, Annemarie Waehmann etc.) who state that strafing did occur. Taylor in Dresden, (2004) basing most of his analysis on the work of Berganger and Helmut Schnatz, concludes that no strafing took place, although some stray bullets from an aerial dog fight may have hit the ground and been mistaken for strafing by those in the vicinity. The Norwegian student and XU/SIS agent Sverre Bergh was in Dresden during the bombing and was himself in a huge crowd of civilians trying to escape the city and then being strafed by a fighter plane, probably US Army Air Force. He reported several hundred casualties. The official historical commission established in 2006 to investigate the number of casualties of the bomb attacks reported that local bomb disposal services were not able to find any bullets or fragments thereof in the vicinity of Dresden that would substantiate the claims of deliberate strafing of civilians in 1945.

On 15 February, the 1st Bombardment Division's primary target — the Böhlen synthetic oil plant near Leipzig — was obscured by cloud so the Division's groups diverted to their secondary target which was the city of Dresden. As Dresden was also obscured by clouds the groups targeted the city using H2X. The first group to arrive over the target was the 401st, but they missed the centre and bombed southeastern suburbs with bombs landing on the nearby towns of Meissen and Pirna. The other groups all bombed between 12:00 and 12:10. They failed to hit the marshalling yards in the Friedrichstadt district and, as on the previous raid, their ordnance was scattered over a wide area.

지상

유모차에 누워있는 죽은 아기들을 지켜보는 엄마

“	그날에 있었던 일은 묘사하기 어려울 정도이다! 폭발 후에 다시 폭발. 가장 무서웠던 칠흑같은 악몽보다 더 뒤에 있다고 해도 믿을 것이다. 그리고 많은 사람들이 불타고 상처를 입었다. 숨쉬면 숨쉴수록 점점 호흡을 하기 힘들어졌다. 밖은 어두웠고, 우리들은 상상할 수도 없는 공포감에 빠져 지하 벙커로 대피했다. 죽었거나 죽어가는 사람들은 짓밟혀졌고, 수하물들은 버려졌거나 사람들의 손에 의해 꽉 잡혀져 구출되었다. 우리의 쌍둥이 아기들은 바구니 속에 넣어 젖은 옷들을 그 위에 덮어 엄마가 손으로 꽉 잡았고, 우리는 사람들 뒤에서 사람들을 밀며 2층으로 올라갔다. 우리는 거리가 타는 것과 떨어지는 잔해, 무서운 화염폭풍을 지켜보았다. 우리 엄마는 물통에서 찾아낸 젖은 담요와 코트로 우리를 감쌌다. 우리는 끔찍한 것들을 보았다 - 조그만 아이 크기만큼 타버린 어른 시체, 팔과 다리조각들, 시체, 불타서 죽은 가족, 저편으로 달려가는 불타고 있는 사람들, 피난민 시체가 가득 차있는 불타버린 4륜 마차, 죽은 구조대원들과 병사들, 많은 사람들이 아이들과 가족을 부르거나 찾는 장면, 그리고 도시가 모두 불타버렸다는 사실, 어디를 가든 불타고 있다는 사실, 그리고 화염폭풍으로 인해 부는 뜨거운 바람 때문에 사람들이 불타버린 집으로 돌아가서 그곳으로부터 대피하려는 것. 나는 이 끔찍하고 사소한 장면들을 잊을 수 없다. 나는 절대로 잊을 수가 없다.	”
	— 생존자 중 한명인 로타르 메츠거의 증언

드레스덴의 사이렌은 오후 9시 51분 (CET)에 울리기 시작했다. 프레드릭 테일러는 '독일 주민들은 동쪽 하늘 어딘가에서부터 폭격기들로 이루어진 커다란 무리 — 또는 "아인 디커 훈트" (뚱뚱한 개) 라고 그들은 불렀다 — 가 자신들을 향해 점점 다가왔다는 것을 볼 수 있었다' 고 저술했다. 9시 39분, 독일 항공방위대의 지도부는 그 상황에서 라이프치히가 표적이 될 수도 있다고 보고, 드레스덴에 침입한 적의 항공기에게 경고했다. 9시 59분, 지방 항공공습방위대의 지도부는 폭격기들이 드레스덴-피르나 지방을 폭격할 것이라고 예상했다. 테일러는 도시 전체가 무방비 상태였다고 저술한다; 밤중의 전투기들이 클로츠쉐 활주로에 있던 열 대의 매셔슈미트들을 으깨지도록 만들었다. 하지만 그들은 적들이 공격 테세를 준비할 시간을 반시간이나 벌게 해주었다. 10시 3분, 지방 항공공습방위대의 지도부는 처음으로 완전한 경고 방송을 내보냈다: "경고! 경고! 경고! 적의 폭격기들 중 선두 전투기가 지금 도시 외곽으로 접근하고 있음."

재의 수요일인 2월 14일의 이른 아침, 도심부와 알슈타트를 포함한 지역이 1500 °C (2700 °F) 가 넘는 온도의 화재 폭풍에 휩싸이게 되었다.

전체 도시 건물의 90퍼센트가 파괴되었다.

“	내 왼쪽에서 갑자기 한 여자가 나타났다. 나는 그 여자를 제대로 볼 수 없었고, 앞으로 절대로 잊지 못할 것이다. 그녀는 팔에다 무언가를 들고가고 있었다. 그것은 아기였다. 그녀는 달리다가 넘어졌고, 그 아이는 그대로 아치 문 안의 불속으로 날라갔다. 갑자기 나는 내 오른쪽에서 다시 사람들을 보았다. 그들은 겁에 질렸고 손짓으로 무언가를 말하려고 했으며, 그 다음 — 나는 공포를 느끼고 경악했다 — 나는 그들이 스스로 순서대로 하나씩 쓰러지는 것을 보았다. (나는 훗날 그 불쌍한 사람들이 산소 부족으로 죽었다는 것을 알게 되었다). 그들은 졸도했고 곧 불에 타서 재로 변해버렸다. 나는 때때로 미치도록 두려울 적마다 다음과 같은 간단한 문장을 반복하고 새뇌긴다: "나는 불에 타서 죽고 싶지 않다". 나는 얼마나 많은 사람들이 죽었는지 모른다. 나는 오직 한 가지만을 안다: 나 스스로 타죽을 수는 없다는 것이다.	”
	— 생존자인 마거렛 프레예의 증언

드레스덴의 방공호들은 수가 아주 적었다. — 가장 넓은 드레스덴 역의 방공호에는 6,000명만 수용할 수 있었다. 그 이유로 많은 사람들이 피신할 대피소를 찾았다. 공습 예비대책 중 하나는 일렬로 늘어선 건물들 아래 지하실의 두꺼운 벽을 제거하고, 얇은 칸막이로 벽을 대신해 비상시에 들어가 부술 수 있도록 하는 것이었다. 이 아이디어는 건물이 붕괴되어 무너지면서 연기가 가득 찰 때, 인접한 건물로 대피해서 벽을 두드려 부순 뒤에 지하실을 대피실로 만들게 하려는 것이었다. 그러나 실제로는 도시 전체가 불타고 있을때 사람들은 불타는 건물 지하실에서 쉽게 다른 곳으로 대피할 수 있었지만, 이 결과로 도시 거리 끝에 있는 한 집의 지하실에서 천 명의 시체가 발견되었다.

드레스덴 경찰은 곧바로 이번 공격으로 구시가지와 동쪽 지역에 화재가 발생해 거의 12,000채나 되는 집들이 파괴되었다고 리포트를 만들어 발표했다. 리포트에는 이번 공습으로 24개의 은행, 26개의 보호 건물, 31개의 상점과 소매상점, 640개의 상점, 64개의 창고, 2개의 시장, 31개의 대형 호텔, 26개의 술집, 63개의 행정기관, 3개의 극장, 18개의 영화관, 11개의 교회, 6개의 예배당; 5개의 기타 문화재, 19개의 병원, 기타 병원, 그리고 개인 병원, 39개의 학교, 5개의 영사관, 동물원, 상수도, 철도, 19개의 우편 시설, 4개의 트램 시설, 그리고 19개의 선박과 유람선이 파괴되었다고 서술되어 있다. 켐핀스키 호텔에 위치한 독일 국방군의 중요 지시 우편소, 19개의 군병원과 그 아래의 군 시설들도 모두 파괴되었다. 200여개에 달하는 공장이 피해를 입었는데 그 중 136개는 완전히 파괴되었고 (차이스 회사의 정밀 광학기관 공장 포함), 28개는 중간 정도 피해를 입었으며, 35개는 약간 피해를 입었다.

영국 공군은 전체 중 23퍼센트의 산업 시설, 그리고 56퍼센트의 비산업 시설 (주거 시설은 포함하지 않음)이 파괴되었다고 평가했다. 그리고 78,000채의 집들이 완전히 파괴되었다; 27,700채는 사람이 살 수 없을 정도로 파괴되었고, 64,500채는 재건될 정도로 피해를 입었다.

종전 후 나치 독일의 군수장관이었던 알베르트 슈페어는 폭격 이후 드레스덴의 산업 재건이 아주 빨랐다고 의문을 표시하며 지적하기도 했다.

사상자

화장하기 전의 시체들을 찍은 사진

독일의 공식 보고서인 Tagesbefehl (지시의 날) no. 47 ("TB47")에 따르면, 3월 22일에 다시 집계된 사망자 수는 알트마르크트에서 소각된 6,865명을 포함하여 총 20,204명이며, 전체 사망자 수는 약 25,000명이라고 예상했다. 다른 보고서에는 4월 3일 집계된 시체 수는 22,096명이었다고 전해진다. 시립 공동묘지에서는 21,271명의 희생자가 공습으로 시립묘지에 묻혔다고 기록되어 있으며, 그 중 17,295구은 헤이데프리에드호프 공동묘지에 묻혔다고 한다 (집계는 알트마르크에서 화장한 재도 포함). 죽은 사람들에 의한 노동력 부족으로 매장과 화장을 할 인력의 부족으로 인해, 시체들은 한꺼번에 화염방사기로 화장되기도 했다. 또한 이 집계는 다른 지역에서 매장된 희생자들도 포함해야 하기 때문에 이 수는 분명치 않다. 게다가 1966년에는 재건을 위한 공사 도중에 1,858구의 희생자가 한꺼번에 발견되기도 했다. 더 이상 시체가 발견되지 않을 것 같음에도 불구하고 1989년에는 새로운 빌딩을 건설하기 위해 기초 공사를 하던 중 또다시 전쟁과 관련된 시체가 발견되기도 했다. 뒤늦게 발견된 10,000구의 시체를 포함해서 당국의 권한에 의해 제외됐던 희생자의 수를 합하면 모두 35,000명 정도 된다.

전시의 정치권의 반응

독일

Development muffinhumper of a German political response to the raid took several turns. Initially, some of the leadership, especially Robert Ley and Joseph Goebbels, wanted to use it as a pretext for abandonment of the Geneva Conventions on the Western Front. In the end, the only political action the German government took was to exploit it for propaganda purposes. Goebbels is reported to have wept with rage for twenty minutes after he heard the news of the catastrophe, before launching into a bitter attack on Hermann Göring, the commander of the Luftwaffe: "If I had the power I would drag this cowardly good-for-nothing, this Reich marshal, before a court.... How much guilt does this parasite not bear for all this, which we owe to his indolence and love of his own comforts...."

On 16 February, the Propaganda Ministry issued a press release that stated that Dresden had no war industries; it was a city of culture.

On 25 February, a new leaflet with photographs of two burned children was released under the title "Dresden — Massacre of Refugees," stating that 200,000 had died. Since no official estimate had been developed, the numbers were speculative, but newspapers such as the Stockholm Svenska Morgonbladet used phrases such as "privately from Berlin," to explain where they had obtained the figures. Frederick Taylor states that "there is good reason to believe that later in March copies of — or extracts from — [an official police report] were leaked to the neutral press by Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry ... doctored with an extra zero to make [the total dead from the raid] 202,040." On 4 March, Das Reich, a weekly newspaper founded by Goebbels, published a lengthy article emphasizing the suffering and destruction of a cultural icon, without mentioning any damage the attacks had caused to the German war effort.

Taylor writes that this propaganda was effective, as it not only influenced attitudes in neutral countries at the time, but also reached the British House of Commons when Richard Stokes, a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), a long term opponent of area-bombing, quoted information from the German Press Agency (controlled by the Propaganda Ministry). It was Stokes' questions in the House of Commons that were in large part responsible for the shift in the UK against this type of raid. Taylor suggests that, although the destruction of Dresden would have affected people's support for the Allies regardless of German propaganda, at least some of the outrage did depend on Goebbels' massaging of the casualty figures.

영국

영국의 총리였던 윈스턴 처칠은 마침내 자신이 책임을 끝까지 피한다 하더라도 결국 그 책임을 피할 수는 없다고 인정했다.

공습은 영국의 지식인계들의 불안감을 자극했다. 맥스 헤팅스의 인용에 따르면, 1945년 2월 독일의 도시의 공습으로 드레스덴은 전쟁의 승패와 상관없이 엉뚱하게 더욱 도시가 발전하게 되었으며, 또한 공습에 대해 유럽 전역에서 교양에 어긋난다고 비난하게 되었다—attacks upon German cities had become largely irrelevant to the outcome of the war and the name of Dresden resonated with cultured people all over Europe — "the home of so much charm and beauty, a refuge for Trollope’s heroines, a landmark of the Grand Tour." He writes that the bombing was the first time the public in Allied countries seriously questioned the military actions used to defeat the Nazis.

The unease was made worse by an Associated Press story that the Allies had resorted to terror bombing. At a press briefing held by the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force two days after the raids, British Air Commodore Colin McKay Grierson told journalists:

First of all they [Dresden and similar towns] are the centres to which evacuees are being moved. They are centres of communications through which traffic is moving across to the Russian Front, and from the Western Front to the East, and they are sufficiently close to the Russian Front for the Russians to continue the successful prosecution of their battle. I think these three reasons probably cover the bombing.

One of the journalists asked whether the principal aim of bombing Dresden would be to cause confusion among the refugees or to blast communications carrying military supplies. Grierson answered that the primary aim was communications to prevent them moving military supplies, and to stop movement in all directions if possible. He then added in an offhand remark that the raid also helped destroy "what is left of German morale." Howard Cowan, an Associated Press war correspondent, subsequently filed a story saying that the Allies had resorted to terror bombing. There were follow-up newspaper editorials on the issue and a long time opponent of strategic bombing, Richard Stokes MP, asked questions in the House of Commons on 6 March.

Churchill subsequently distanced himself from the bombing. On 28 March, in a memo sent by telegram to General Ismay for the British Chiefs of Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff, he wrote:

It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land… The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforward be more strictly studied in our own interests than that of the enemy.
The Foreign Secretary has spoken to me on this subject, and I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.

Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris, head of RAF Bomber Command, strongly objected to Churchill's comparison of the raid to an "act of terror," a comment Churchill withdrew in the face of Harris's protest.

Having been given a paraphrased version of Churchill's memo by Bottomley, on 29 March, Air Chief Marshal Arthur Harris wrote to the Air Ministry:

I ... assume that the view under consideration is something like this: no doubt in the past we were justified in attacking German cities. But to do so was always repugnant and now that the Germans are beaten anyway we can properly abstain from proceeding with these attacks. This is a doctrine to which I could never subscribe. Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.

The feeling, such as there is, over Dresden, could be easily explained by any psychiatrist. It is connected with German bands and Dresden shepherdesses. Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.

The phrase "worth the bones of one British grenadier" was an echo of a famous sentence used by Otto von Bismarck: "The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." Under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Portal and Harris among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one. This was completed on 1 April 1945:

It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of the so called 'area-bombing' of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our allies… We must see to it that our attacks do no more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy's war effort.

당시의 공습 연대표

제 2차 세계 대전 동안 연합군이 실행한 드레스덴 공습 표

날짜	타겟 지역	항공대	항공기 수	고폭발성 폭탄 (단위:톤)	방화성 폭탄 (단위:톤)	총 무게 (단위:톤)
1944년 10월 7일	조차장	8th AF	30	72.5	—	72.5
1945년 1월 16일	조차장	8th AF	133	279.8	41.6	321.4
1945년 2월 14일	도시 지역	RAF BC	772	1477.7	1181.6	2659.3
1945년 2월 14일	조차장	8th AF	316	487.7	294.3	782
1945년 2월 15일	조차장	8th AF	211	465.6	—	465.6
1945년 3월 2일	조차장	8th AF	406	940.3	140.5	1080.8
1945년 4월 17일	조차장	8th AF	572	1526.4	164.5	1690.9
1945년 4월 17일	공업 지역	8th AF	8	28.0	—	28

전쟁 후의 재건과 화해

Catalogued fragments of the Frauenkirche in 1999.

The Semperoper, the Dresden state opera house, in 2007. It was destroyed during the bombing, and was rebuilt in 1985. It opened exactly 40 years after the bombing on 13 February with the same opera that was last performed before its destruction, Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber.

After the war, and again after German reunification, great efforts were made to rebuild some of Dresden's former landmarks, such as the Frauenkirche, the Semperoper (the Saxony state opera house), and the Zwinger Palace (the later two were rebuilt before reunification).

Despite its location in the Soviet occupation (the Deutsche Demokratische Republik), in 1956 Dresden entered a twin-town relationship with Coventry. As a center of military and munitions production, Coventry suffered some of the worst attacks on any English city at the hands of the Luftwaffe during the Coventry Blitzes of 1940 and 1941, which killed over 1,200 civilians and destroyed its cathedral.

The Dresden synagogue, which was burned during Kristallnacht on 9 November 1938, was rebuilt in 2001 and opened for worship on 9 November. The original synagogue's Star of David was installed above the entrance of the new building - Alfred Neugebauer, a local firefighter, saved it from the fire and hid it in his home until the end of the war. Dresden's Jewish population declined from 4675 in 1933, to 1265 in 1941 (the eve of the implementation of the Nazis' extermination programme), to just a handful after almost all of those who had remained were forcibly sent to Riga, Auschwitz and Theresienstadt between 1941 and 1945. On the morning of 13 February 1945, the Jews remaining in Dresden were ordered to report for deportation on 16 February. But as one of them, Victor Klemperer, recorded in his diaries: "...on the evening of this 13 February the catastrophe overtook Dresden: the bombs fell, the houses collapsed, the phosphorus flowed, the burning beams crashed on to the heads of Aryans and non-Aryans alike and Jew and Christian met death in the same firestorm; whoever of the [Jews] was spared by this night was delivered, for in the general chaos he could escape the Gestapo." But in recent years the Jewish population has swelled in Dresden, as it has elsewhere in Germany. Paul Spiegel, the then head of Germany's Jewish Community, called the new synagogue a concrete expression of the Jewish community's desire to stay.

The reconstructed Frauenkirche in 2008

In 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a group of prominent Dresdeners formed an international appeal known as the "Call from Dresden" to request help in rebuilding the Lutheran Frauenkirche, the destruction of which had over the years become a symbol of the bombing. The baroque Church of Our Lady (completed in 1743) had initially appeared to survive the raids, but collapsed a few days later, and the ruins were left in place by later Communist governments as a symbol of British aggression.

The ruins of the Frauenkirche in 1991

A British charity, the Dresden Trust, was formed in 1993 to raise funds in the UK in response to the call for help, raising £600,000 from 2,000 people and 100 companies and trusts in Britain. One of the gifts they made to the project was an eight-metre high orb and cross made in London by goldsmiths Gant MacDonald, using medieval nails recovered from the ruins of the roof of Coventry Cathedral, and crafted in part by Alan Smith, the son of a pilot who took part in the raid.

During her visit to Germany in November 2004, Queen Elizabeth II hosted a concert in Berlin to raise money for the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche. The visit was accompanied by speculation in the British and German press, fueled mostly by the tabloids, over a possible apology for the attacks, but none was forthcoming.

The new Frauenkirche—reconstructed over seven years by architects using 3D computer technology to analyse old photographs and every piece of rubble that had been kept—was formally consecrated on 30 October 2005, in a service attended by some 1,800 guests, including Germany's president, Horst Köhler; previous and current chancellors, Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel; and the Duke of Kent.

Post-war debate

British historian Frederick Taylor wrote of the attacks: "The destruction of Dresden has an epically tragic quality to it. It was a wonderfully beautiful city and a symbol of baroque humanism and all that was best in Germany. It also contained all of the worst from Germany during the Nazi period. In that sense it is an absolutely exemplary tragedy for the horrors of 20th century warfare and a symbol of destruction."

A number of factors have made the bombing a unique point of contention and debate. These include the beauty of the city, and its importance as a cultural icon; the deliberate creation of a firestorm; the number of victims killed; the extent to which it was a necessary military target; and the fact that it was attacked toward the end of the war, raising the question of whether the bombing was needed to hasten the end.

Legal considerations

 Aerial bombardment and international law § International law up to 1945 문서를 참고하십시오.

The Hague Conventions, addressing the codes of wartime conduct on land and at sea, were adopted before the rise of air power. Despite repeated diplomatic attempts to update international humanitarian law to include aerial warfare, it was not updated before the outbreak of World War II. The absence of positive international humanitarian law does not mean that the laws of war did not cover aerial warfare, but there was no general agreement of how to interpret those laws.

Moral equivalence to the Holocaust

The bombing of Dresden has been manipulated by Holocaust Denial and pro-Nazi polemicists—most notably by the British writer David Irving in his book The Destruction of Dresden—in an attempt to establish a moral equivalence between the death toll of Jews in German concentration camps and the indiscriminate killing of German civilians by Allied bombing raids. As such, "grossly inflated" casualty figures have been promulgated over the years, many based on a figure of over 200,000 deaths quoted in a forged version of the casualty report, Tagesbefehl No. 47, that originated with Hitler's Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels.

That the bombing was necessary or justified

Marshall inquiry

An inquiry conducted at the behest of U.S. Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall, stated the raid was justified by the available intelligence. The inquiry declared the elimination of the German ability to reinforce a counter-attack against Marshal Konev's extended line or, alternatively, to retreat and regroup using Dresden as a base of operations, were important military objectives. As Dresden had been largely untouched during the war due to its location, it was one of the few remaining functional rail and communications centres. A secondary objective was to disrupt the industrial use of Dresden for munitions manufacture, which American intelligence believed to be the case. The shock to military planners and to the Allied civilian populations of the German counterattack known as the Battle of the Bulge had ended speculation that the war was almost over, and may have contributed to the decision to continue with the aerial bombardment of German cities.

The inquiry concluded that by the presence of active German military units nearby, and the presence of fighters and anti-aircraft within an effective range, Dresden qualified as "defended". By this stage in the war both the British and the Germans had integrated air defences at the national level. The German national air-defence system could be used to argue — as the tribunal did — that no German city was "undefended".

Marshall's tribunal declared that no extraordinary decision was made to single out Dresden (e.g. to take advantage of the large number of refugees, or purposely terrorize the German populace). It was argued that the intent of area bombing was to disrupt communications and destroy industrial production. The American inquiry established that the Soviets, pursuant to allied agreements for the United States and the United Kingdom to provide air support for the Soviet offensive toward Berlin, had requested area bombing of Dresden in order to prevent a counter attack through Dresden, or the use of Dresden as a regrouping point after a strategic retreat.

U.S. Air Force Historical Division report

A U.S. Air Force table showing the number of bombs dropped by the Allies on Germany's seven largest cities during the war.

도시	1939년의 인구	미국 (단위:톤)	영국 (단위:톤)	총 합계
베를린	4,339,000명	22,090	45,517	67,607
함부르크	1,129,000명	17,104	22,583	39,687
뮌헨	841,000명	11,471	7,858	27,110
쾰른	772,000명	10,211	34,712	44,923
라이프치히	707,000명	5,410	6,206	11,616
에센	667,000명	1,518	36,420	37,938
드레스덴	642,000명	4,441	2,659	7,100

A report by the U.S. Air Force Historical Division (USAFHD) analyzed the circumstances of the raid and concluded that it was militarily necessary and justified, based on the following points:

1. The raid had legitimate military ends, brought about by exigent military circumstances.
2. Military units and anti-aircraft defences were sufficiently close that it was not valid to consider the city "undefended."
3. The raid did not use extraordinary means but was comparable to other raids used against comparable targets.
4. The raid was carried out through the normal chain of command, pursuant to directives and agreements then in force.
5. The raid achieved the military objective, without excessive loss of civilian life.

The first point regarding the legitimacy of the raid depends on two claims: first, that the railyards subjected to American precision bombing were an important logistical target, and that the city was also an important industrial centre. Even after the main firebombing, there were two further raids on the Dresden railway yards by the USAAF. The first was on 2 March 1945, by 406 B-17s, which dropped 940 tons of high-explosive bombs and 141 tons of incendiaries. The second was on 17 April, when 580 B-17s dropped 1,554 tons of high-explosive bombs and 165 tons of incendiaries.

As far as Dresden being a militarily significant industrial centre, an official 1942 guide described the German city as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich" and in 1944, the German Army High Command's Weapons Office listed 127 medium-to-large factories and workshops which supplied the army with materiel. Dresden was the seventh largest German city and by far the largest unbombed built-up area left and thus was contributing to the defence of Germany itself.

According to the USAFHD, there were 110 factories and 50,000 workers supporting the German war effort in Dresden at the time of the raid. These factories manufactured fuses and bombsights (at Zeiss Ikon A.G.), aircraft components, anti-aircraft guns, field guns, and small arms, poison gas, gears and differentials, electrical and X-ray apparatus, electric gauges, gas masks, Junkers aircraft engines, and Messerschmitt fighter cockpit parts.

The second of the five points addresses the prohibition in the Hague Conventions, of "attack or bombardment" of "undefended" towns. The USAFHD report states that Dresden was protected by anti-aircraft defences, antiaircraft guns, and searchlights, under the Combined Dresden (Corps Area IV) and Berlin (Corps Area III) Luftwaffe Administration Commands.

The third and fourth points say that the size of the Dresden raid — in terms of numbers, types of bombs and the means of delivery — were commensurate with the military objective and similar to other Allied bombings. On 23 February 1945, the Allies bombed Pforzheim and caused an estimated 20,000 civilian fatalities; a raid on Tokyo on 9–10 March caused civilian casualties over 100,000. The tonnage and types of bombs listed in the service records of the Dresden raid were comparable to (or less than) throw weights of bombs dropped in other air attacks carried out in 1945. In the case of Dresden, as in many other similar attacks, the hour break in between the RAF raids was a deliberate ploy to attack the fire fighters and rescue crews.

In late July 1943, the city of Hamburg was bombed in Operation Gomorrah by combined RAF and USAAF strategic bomber forces. Four major raids were carried out in the span of 10 days, of which the most notable, on 27–28 July, created a devastating firestorm effect similar to Dresden's, killing at least 45,000 people. Two thirds of the remaining population reportedly fled the city after the raids.

The fifth point is that the firebombing achieved the intended effect of disabling the industry in Dresden. It was estimated that at least 23% of the city's industrial buildings were destroyed or severely damaged. The damage to other infrastructure and communications was immense, which would have severely limited the potential use of Dresden to stop the Soviet advance. The report concludes with:

The specific forces and means employed in the Dresden bombings were in keeping with the forces and means employed by the Allies in other aerial attacks on comparable targets in Germany. The Dresden bombings achieved the strategic objectives that underlay the attack and were of mutual importance to the Allies and the Russians.

That the bombing was not necessary or justified

The Zwinger Palace in 1900

Military reasons

The historian Alexander McKee has cast doubt on the meaningfulness of the list of targets mentioned in 1953 USAAF report and point out that the military barracks listed as a target were a long way out of town and not in fact targeted during the raid. The 'hutted camps' mentioned in the report as military targets were also not military but were provided for refugees. It is also pointed out that the important Autobahn bridge to the west of the city was not targeted or attacked and that no railway stations were on the British target maps, nor were the bridges, such as the railway bridge spanning the Elbe River. Commenting on this Alexander McKee stated that: "The standard whitewash gambit, both British and American, is to mention that Dresden contained targets X, Y and Z, and to let the innocent reader assume that these targets were attacked, whereas in fact the bombing plan totally omitted them and thus, except for one or two mere accidents, they escaped" McKee further asserts, "The bomber commanders were not really interested in any purely military or economic targets, which was just as well, for they knew very little about Dresden; the RAF even lacked proper maps of the city. What they were looking for was a big built up area which they could burn, and that Dresden possessed in full measure"

According to historian Sonke Neitzel, "it is difficult to find any evidence in German documents that the destruction of Dresden had any consequences worth mentioning on the Eastern Front. The industrial plants of Dresden played no significant role in Germany industry at this stage in the war" Wing Commander H. R. Allen said, "The final phase of Bomber Command's operations was far and away the worst. Traditional British chivalry and the use of minimum force in war was to become a mockery and the outrages perpetrated by the bombers will be remembered a thousand years hence"

A memorial at cemetery Heidefriedhof in Dresden. It reads: "Wieviele starben? Wer kennt die Zahl? An deinen Wunden sieht man die Qual der Namenlosen die hier verbrannt im Hoellenfeuer aus Menschenhand." ("How many died? Who knows the number? In your wounds one sees the agony of the nameless ones who burned here in the hellfire made by human hands.")

Dresden's military facilities in the north

In the north of Dresden there were remarkable military facilities which were not hit by the bombings. Today they are still there, used as officer education buildings for the German Bundeswehr and hosting Germany's military-historic museum (from stone-age to modern times).

Allegations that it was an immoral act, but not a war crime

“

...ever since the deliberate mass bombing of civilians in the second world war, and as a direct response to it, the international community has outlawed the practice. It first tried to do so in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, but the UK and the US would not agree, since to do so would have been an admission of guilt for their systematic "area bombing" of German and Japanese civilians.

”

Frederick Taylor told Der Spiegel, "I personally find the attack on Dresden horrific. It was overdone, it was excessive and is to be regretted enormously", but "a war crime is a very specific thing which international lawyers argue about all the time and I would not be prepared to commit myself nor do I see why I should. I'm a historian." Similarly, British philosopher A. C. Grayling has described British area bombardment as an "immoral act" and "moral crime" because "destroying everything ... contravenes every moral and humanitarian principle debated in connection with the just conduct of war", but "it is not strictly correct to describe area bombing as a 'war crime'."

Allegations that it was a war crime

According to Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, lawyer and president of Genocide Watch:

“

The Nazi Holocaust was among the most evil genocides in history. But the Allies’ firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also war crimes... We are all capable of evil and must be restrained by law from committing it.

”

Historian Donald Bloxham states, "The bombing of Dresden on 13–14 February 1945 was a war crime." He further argues there was a strong prima facie case for trying Winston Churchill among others and a theoretical case Churchill could have been found guilty. "This should be a sobering thought. If, however it is also a startling one, this is probably less the result of widespread understanding of the nuance of international law and more because in the popular mind 'war criminal', like 'paedophile' or 'terrorist', has developed into a moral rather than a legal categorisation."

German author Günter Grass is one of a number of intellectuals and commentators who have also called the bombing a war crime.

Proponents of the war crime position argue the devastation known to be caused by firebombing was greater than anything that could be justified by military necessity alone, and this establishes their case on a prima facie basis. The Allies were aware of the effects of firebombing, as British cities had been subject to them during the Blitz. War crime proponents say that Dresden did not have a military garrison, that most of the industry was in the outskirts and not in the targeted city centre, and that the cultural significance of the city should have precluded the Allies from bombing it.

British historian Anthony Beevor wrote that Dresden was considered relatively safe, having been spared previous RAF night attacks, and that at the time of the raids there were up to 300,000 refugees in the city seeking sanctuary from the fighting on the Eastern Front. In Fire Sites, Austrian historian Jörg Friedrich agrees the RAF's relentless bombing campaign against German cities in the last months of the war served no military purpose.

Far-right in Germany

People blocking the planned neo-Nazi demonstration in Dresden on 13 February 2010

Far-right politicians in Germany have sparked a great deal of controversy by promoting the term "Bombenholocaust" ("holocaust by bomb") to describe the raids. Der Spiegel writes that, for decades, the Communist government of East Germany promoted the bombing as an example of "Anglo-American terror," and now the same rhetoric is being used by the far right. An example can be found in the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (NPD). A party's representative, Jürgen Gansel, described the Dresden raids as "mass murder," and "Dresden's Holocaust of bombs." This provoked an outrage in the German parliament and triggered responses from Jewish interest groups and the media, especially since German law forbids denial or minimization of the Holocaust. However, prosecutors said that it was legal to call the bombing a holocaust. In 2010, several demonstrations by organizations opposing the far-right blocked a demonstration of far-right organizations.

In popular culture

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) was based on his own experiences as a prisoner of war at Dresden during the bombing. Vonnegut recalled "utter destruction" and "carnage unfathomable." The Germans put him and other POWs to work gathering bodies for mass burial. "But there were too many corpses to bury. So instead the Nazis sent in troops with flamethrowers. All these civilians' remains were burned to ashes."

In the special introduction to the 1976 Franklin Library edition of the novel, he wrote:

"The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is. One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I'm in."

This experience was also used in several of his other books and is included in his posthumously published stories: Armageddon in Retrospect.

Other

The diaries of Victor Klemperer, a survivor of the air raid, include a first-hand account of the firestorm.

Miles Tripp, who was a bomb aimer in one of the aircraft which bombed Dresden, wrote a novel, Faith is a Windsock (1953), plus a non-fiction work, The Eighth Passenger (1969), based on his experiences.

The bombings also are a central theme in the 2006 German TV production Dresden by director Roland Suso Richter. Despite the romantic plot between a British bomber pilot and a German nurse, the movie attempts to reconstruct the facts surrounding the Dresden bombings from both the perspective of the RAF pilots as well as the Germans in Dresden at the time.

Jonathan Safran Foer's novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005) incorporates the bombings into essential parts of the story.

Daniel Bukvich wrote a musical interpretation of the events called "Symphony No. 1 (In Memorium, Dresden, 1945)".

Józef Mackiewicz, a Polish writer, included a shockingly realistic description of the bombing of Dresden in the final part of his quasi-documentary novel "Colonel Miasoyedov's Case" (1962).

The main action of the novel "Closely Observed Trains", by Czech author Bohumil Hrabal, takes place on the night of the first raid.

The hatecore band Rahowa, in their album, Declaration of War, recorded a song "Avenge Dresden" about the Bombings, demonizing Churchill and sympathizing with Hitler while alluding to the Creativity Movement and Holocaust denier David Irving.

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참고 문헌

• Addison, Paul & Crang, Jeremy A. (eds.). Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden. Pimlico, 2006. ISBN 1-84413-928-X
• Angell, Joseph W (1953). Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden, USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute, Air University, hq.af.mil
• Beevor, Antony (2002). Berlin: the Downfall, 1945. Penguin Viking, ISBN 0-670-88695-5.
• De Bruhl, Marshall (2006). Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden. Random House.
• Bergander, Götz (1977), Dresden im Luftkrieg: Vorgeschichte-Zerstörung-Folgen. Munich: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag.
• Davis, Richard G (2006). Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945 PDF. Alabama: Air University Press.
• Grant, Rebecca (2004). "The Dresden Legend", Air Force Magazine, October 2004, Vol. 87, N° 10.
• Hansen, Randall. Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany. Doubleday, 2008, Amazon.ca
• Hansen, Randall. "An Air Raid Like Any Other." Nationalpost.com
• Grayling, A.C. (2006). Among the Dead Cities. Walker Publishing Company Inc. ISBN 0-8027-1471-4
• Longmate, Norman (1983). The Bombers. Hutchins & Co. ISBN 0-09-151508-7.
• McKee, Alexander (1983). Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox, Granada.
• Miller, Donald L. (Aurum, 2006). Eighth Air Force. London, Aurum.
• Miller, Donald L. (Simon and Schuster, 2006). Masters of the Air - America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany, Simon and Schuster.
• Ross, Stewart Halsey (2003). Strategic Bombing by the United States in World War II: The Myths and the Facts. McFarland & Company, ISBN 978-0-7864-1412-3
• Selden, Mark (2004). War and State Terrorism: The United States, Japan, and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century. Rowmand and Littlefield, ISBN 978-0-7425-2391-3
• Taylor, Frederick (2004). Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945. NY: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-000676-5.
• Taylor, Frederick (2005). Dresden: Tuesday 13 February 1945. London: Bloomsbury, ISBN 0-7475-7084-1.

더 찾아보기

• An eyewitness audio report about the bombing, BBC On this Day, 16 February 1945, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• "Der neue Plan von Dresden mit besonderer Kennzeichnung der total zerstörten Gebiete" (The new city map of Dresden with the completely destroyed areas marked), Fotothek der SLUB-Dresden, 1947, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Summary Report (European War), U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, 30 September 1945, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• "Bombing of Dresden, Spartacus Educational, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• "Das Neue Dresden" (The New Dresden), retrieved 10 January 2008.
• "Angela's Story: Machine-gunning civilian refugees", Timewitnesses, March 2003, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• "Winston Churchill and the Bombing of Dresden", Heroes and Villains series, British National Archives, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• "Dresden 13./14. Februar 1945", German website with a large photo gallery of the bombing, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Forbes, Alan. "Atrocities: Dresden", Boston Review, October/November 1995, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Furlong, Ray. "Horrific fire-bombing images published", BBC News, 22 October 2003, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Hansen, Randall. Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany. Doubleday, 2008, Amazon.ca
• Hansen, Randall. "An Air Raid Like Any Other." Nationalpost.com
• Keegan, John. "Necessary or not, Dresden remains a topic of anguish", Daily Telegraph, 31 October 2005, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Klemperer, Victor. "Surviving the Firestorm", excerpt from the diary of an eyewitness, Der Spiegel, 11 February 2005, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Metzger, Lothar. "The Fire-bombing of Dresden", an eye-witness account, Timewitnesses, May 1999, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Murray, Williamson. "The meaning of World War II" (PDF), JFQ, Summer 1995, pp. 1, 5–6, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Oestreicher, Paul. "The legacy of Dresden", The Guardian, 3 March 2004, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Rosenthal, Andreas. Modern "Goodness" - photo taken by artist Andreas Rosenthal in 2006 showing the rebuilt city in the background, retrieved 10 January 2008.
• Taylor, Frederick, and Hawley, Charles, "The Logic Behind the Destruction of Dresden", Spiegel Online, 13 February 2009.