The Destruction of Dresden

The Destruction of Dresden

On February 13, it marked 80 years since the beginning of the massive bombings of the German city of Dresden by the air forces of the Western Allies. These raids became some of the most devastating during World War II.

At the very beginning of the war, the German Luftwaffe carried out indiscriminate attacks on cities, including the bombing of Warsaw on September 1, 1939. A particularly catastrophic raid took place on May 14, 1940, in the Dutch city of Rotterdam, where the entire central part was destroyed. The unprecedented destruction and human casualties at that time were also caused by German air raids during the Battle of Britain from July to October 1940. In response, the British government approved operations by the Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber Command not only against purely military targets in Germany but also against civilian enterprises involved in supporting the Nazi war machine.

However, for quite a long time, even massive air raids did not yield the desired results—German industry continued to increase arms production. Against this backdrop, the idea arose to strike not only at production facilities but at entire cities. Thus, on September 23, 1941, the RAF headquarters issued a directive stating:

“The ultimate goal of attacking a city is to destroy the morale of its population. To achieve this, we must accomplish two things: first, we must make the city physically uninhabitable; second, its inhabitants must realize their constant personal danger. Thus, the immediate goal is twofold: destruction and the fear of death.”

On February 22, 1942, Arthur Harris was appointed head of Bomber Command, and he is associated with a significant increase in the intensity of the bombings of Germany. In March of that year, he openly expressed his attitude toward the enemy:

“The Nazis entered this war with the rather childish illusion that they would bomb everyone else, and no one would bomb them. In Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and fifty other places, they put their rather naive theory into practice. They sowed the wind, and now they are reaping the whirlwind.”

The RAF indeed intensified its offensive, but their raids were almost always conducted at night. However, in the summer of 1942, U.S. bomber aviation joined the air war in Europe, carrying out attacks during the day. The most intensive Allied operations took place from the summer of 1944 to the spring of 1945, one of which was the series of raids on Dresden, the capital of Saxony.

Throughout the war, this city had remained largely intact. However, on February 13, 1945, at 10:00 PM, nine British “Mosquito” aircraft dropped illuminating bombs over the Ostragehege stadium. This became a target marker for the 254 heavy Lancaster bombers that followed. They fanned out and dropped nearly 900 tons of high-explosive and incendiary bombs on the western part of the city.

In addition to industrial facilities and a strategically important railway hub with a station, there were many residential areas. The dropped bombs not only destroyed buildings but also caused numerous fires that consumed the surrounding air, creating a true firestorm. The inferno absorbed more and more oxygen, and people began to suffocate even in basements converted into shelters.

At 1:23 AM, the second, much more powerful wave of bombers arrived. A total of 529 British and Canadian Lancasters dropped over 1,800 tons of bombs. Among the victims were many firefighters, whose equipment was also destroyed. Effective firefighting became impossible, and the city burned for four days.

The destruction of Dresden was completed by daytime raids of American B-17 “Flying Fortresses” on February 14 and 15, as well as on March 2 and April 17. More than 1,500 bombers participated in these attacks. In total, the Allies dropped 7,100 tons of bombs on Dresden—making it only the seventh-largest Allied bombing raid on a German city.

As a result of the bombings, the central part of Dresden was completely burned down. Many other districts also suffered damage. Out of 222,000 apartments, up to 75,000 were completely destroyed, and about 100,000 were damaged. Nearly 200 factories and plants were also hit, 136 of which could not be restored in the following months, including enterprises of the world-famous optics manufacturer Zeiss. Several late Baroque architectural landmarks were lost forever, while those that could be restored took decades to rebuild after the war.

German newspapers, followed by the press of neutral countries, initially reported 100,000 victims, the vast majority of whom were civilians. In early March, Nazi propaganda doubled this number. A large-scale scientific study to determine the true number of casualties was conducted only in the early 21st century. A respected commission of historians worked for nearly six years, examining numerous documents, eyewitness testimonies, and the results of studies of basements where Dresden residents had sought shelter in 1945. The commission concluded that the maximum number of victims did not exceed 25,000.

Rostyslav Maraiev