The Bombing of Dresden Scott Abel April 16, 2008 In February 1945, both American and British bombers

flew from their bases with the intent of destroying the relatively well-off German city of Dresden. Although the damage done was absolutely devastating, it was doubtful that the bombing contributed to the shortening of the conflict in Europe. This document depicts the perspective of a resident from Dresden named Gtz Bergander, who witnessed an apocalypse occur in his hometown and described the horrors of the carpet bombing of urban areas. Despite this destruction and death, he portrays how his people managed to continue with their lives despite the annahilation of their homes. Dresden had a pre-war population of 640,000 inhabitants, but the war had brought refugees into the city and brought the population to around one million inhabitants. The residents thought that perhaps the citys cultural significance or large amounts of people in hospitals made Allied commanders to decide to spare the city. These hopes were completely false and were destroyed when a British Mosquito aircraft marked an area for an air raid only 500 yards from Berganders home. This attack was followed by twentyfive minutes of bombing, which was followed by attempts by civilians to put the fires out with buckets of water and sand. Then another bombing raid occurred and forced the civilians back in their cellars for protection. Eight hundred British bombers had attacked Dresden and that was just in the night-time. During the daytime the American 8th Air Force dropped their bombs for around fifteen minutes. The destruction of Dresden had been devastating to its inhabitants, many of whom had lost their homes.

Berganders observations show us how the war was brought to Germany and what it was like for the people who had to endure the many sufferings of total war. Human life was often taken with little regard during the war by both sides, because the Allies decided to attack city of limited strategic importance and in that the Germans moved their flak anti-aircraft guns to the Ruhr region. Dresden and its residents must have been considered expendable or at least an unlikely target. Despite the horror of the bombing that caused the sky over Dresden to turn red, people in the city continued to attempt to put the fires out with what little firefighting equipment they had. The inhabitants panicked when the second raid came, and they fled into relative safety, but panic turned to fear and despair. The destruction was described as being on the biblical level as the sky turned from red to yellowish-white that produced a single large cloud. Some residents left the city, but some sought to live in structurally stable buildings still left despite such destruction. With much of the city left in ruins, Germans still managed to continue as close to life as normal. Workers still went to the baked goods factory Berganders father managed to see if they the factory was still intact. The factory continued to operate, because it provided its own water and power, and the manager decided that the factory needed to be kept open to provide its essential goods to the city. This demonstrated that the people of Dresden were still resolved to continue their lives, even when their world around them collapsed, literally. By the third air raid, Bergander had to fit around four to five times more people in his cellar than in the previous raids. By this point people were too disheartened to panic, but they could just wait until the raid was over. After a few close calls and during 15 minutes of terror, someone exclaimed, Calm down, calm

down, nothings happened. These instances of people surviving demonstrated that people, despite being afraid and anxious, did not turn to chaos. These survivors just continued to live to the best of their ability, because that was what they had to do. The survivors would come out of the cellar and witness what was left of their city and their homes, but rather than giving up life when finding out they had nothing left, they would have to just move on.1 The Allied bombing of Dresden left the city devastated and in ruins with a much larger homeless population than the night before. Such destruction was common throughout the war, but the attack on Dresden is often remembered as an unnecessary raid. Whether or not this is the case, the people of Dresden had to endure much fear, anguish, pain, and suffering, but still decided to persevere for as long as they could.

Honor Code:

85: The Bombing of Dresden, Sax and Kuntz, Inside Hitlers Germany: A Documentary History of Life in the Third Reich (Lexington: DC Heath, 1992) 259-363 Remember Kurt Vonnegut!