What was dresden

In the days that followed, they and their US allies would drop nearly 4, tons of bombs in the assault. The ensuing firestorm killed 25, people, ravaging the city centre, sucking the oxygen from the air and suffocating people trying to escape the flames.

Dresden was not unique. Allied bombers killed tens of thousands and destroyed large areas with attacks on Cologne, Hamburg and Berlin, and the Japanese cities of Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the bombing has become one of the most controversial Allied acts of World War Two. Some have questioned the military value of Dresden. This story contains graphic images. Dresden is the capital of the state of Saxony. Before the bombing it was referred to as the Florence on the Elbe or the Jewel Box, for its climate and its architecture.

By February , Dresden was only about km miles from the Eastern Front, where Nazi Germany was defending against the advancing armies of the Soviet Union in the final months of the war. The city was a major industrial and transportation hub.

Scores of factories provided munitions, aircraft parts and other supplies for the Nazi war effort. Troops, tanks and artillery travelled through Dresden by train and by road.

Hundreds of thousands of German refugees fleeing the fighting had also arrived in the city. Air chiefs decided an attack on Dresden could help their Soviet allies - by stopping Nazi troop movements but also by disrupting the German evacuations from the east. RAF bomber raids on German cities had increased in size and power after more than five years of war. Planes carried a mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs: the explosives would blast buildings apart, while the incendiaries would set the remains on fire, causing further destruction.

Previous attacks had annihilated entire German cities. The resulting assault and unusually dry and hot weather caused a firestorm - a blaze so great it creates its own weather system, sucking winds in to feed the flames - which destroyed almost the whole city. The attack on Dresden began on 13 February Close to RAF aircraft - led by pathfinders, who dropped flares marking out the bombing area centred on the Ostragehege sports stadium - flew to Dresden that night.

In the space of just 25 minutes, British planes dropped more than 1, tons of bombs. As was common practice during the war, US aircraft followed up the attack with day-time raids. More than USAAF bombers flew to Dresden over two days, aiming for the city's railway marshalling yards but in reality hitting a large area across the city.

On the ground, civilians cowered under the onslaught. Many had fled to shelters after air raid sirens warned of the incoming bombers. But the first wave of aircraft knocked out the electricity. And this was not the finale. On February 15, a fourth raid hit Dresden. More than Bs, originally sent to destroy an oil plant close to nearby Leipzig, switched targets due to poor weather.

The marshaling yards were not hit. The same could not be said about residential areas. The Eighth Air Force returned on March 2 and April 17, again going after the rail yards and industrial districts. Dresden remained ablaze for weeks. Bergander recalled how unceremoniously the dead were treated. Fear of disease led the Germans to pile the corpses on top of iron grates, soak them with benzene, and cremate them.

SS personnel played a key role in creating these makeshift funeral pyres. The smell permeated everything. Allied prisoners of war were forced to help extract bodies from the rubble. We know of at least one case where an American POW was executed, purportedly for looting. Mass graves became the final resting places for thousands.

A widely accepted estimate is 35, killed during the 37 hours of terror. Rival claims go far higher. The German government, however, proposes 25, as a defensible guess. Since so many victims were immolated after the attacks, we will likely never know the precise number.

The photographs snapped by Richard Peter months after the firestorm have not lost any of their capacity to unsettle. Allied prisoners held in Dresden during the bombing, such as British rifleman Victor Gregg and the American Kurt Vonnegut, whose postwar novel Slaugherhouse Five vividly conveyed the resulting carnage, condemned the attacks.

Winston Churchill went so far as to write, "the destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, Translated by Allison Brown.

New York: Columbia University Press, Miller, Donald. Stargardt, Nicholas. New York: Basic Books, The idea was that civilians would be so traumatised by the continual threat to their lives, that they would stop believing they could win the war and would lose the will to fight. This had been practised on both sides already. Attacks on places such as London in , Coventry in and Hamburg in actually made the local people more determined.

The decision was made at a time when Britain had suffered the Blitz, as well as random bombarding by German rockets, and when Hitler had devastated cities such as Warsaw. British leaders also knew about the Nazi treatment of Jewish people in the concentration camps.

Photos of Coventry after bombing, 2. Report on Dresden as a target, February 3. Diagram showing the effects of strategic bombing 4. RAF aerial photos of Dresden, October 5.