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Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II

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[edit] British/American losses

This page needs some archiving. Anyway, is there anything in the article about U.S. and UK losses duing the raids? I didn't see anything on a quick skim. Rmhermen (talk) 21:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see a section on US or UK losses either, but I'm not sure its really necessary. Bomber losses were extremely minimal due to the lack of anti-aircraft defenses in Dresden. Rumcoke (talk) 09:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

See:

RAF Bomber Command Campaign Diary February 1945

Dresden: 796 Lancasters and 9 Mosquitos were dispatched in two separate raids and dropped 1,478 tons of high explosive and 1,182 tons of incendiary bombs. ... Bomber Command casualties were 6 Lancasters lost, with 2 more crashed in France and 1 in England.

Combat Chronology of the US Army Air Forces February 1945, part of Combat Chronology of the USAAF on the United States Federal Depository Library Program Electronic Collection (FDLP/EC) Archive.

14 Febeuary: 461 B-17s are dispatched to hit the marshalling yard at Dresden (311); targets of opportunity are Prague (62), Brux (25) and Pilsen (12) in Czechoslovakia and other (25); they claim 1-0-0 aircraft; 5 B-17s are lost, 3 damaged beyond repair and 54 damaged; 4 airmen are KIA, 15 WIA and 49 MIA. Escorting are 281 of 316 P-51s; 3 are lost (pilots MIA) and 1 damaged beyond repair.
15 February: 224 B-17s are dispatched to hit oil targets at Ruhland; 210 hit the secondary, Dresden; targets of opportunity are Lingen (1) and the Ems-Weser Canal (1); 4 B-17s are damaged beyond repair and 8 damaged; 7 airmen are KIA and 8 WIA. Escorting are 141 of 158 P-51s; 1 is lost (pilot MIA).

--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:57, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Rumcoke, without including some mention of the numbers in the article we can't tell that the anti-aircraft defenses were, in fact, weak. Rmhermen (talk) 20:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Victor Klemperer

Victor Klemperer was to be transported to a KZ, together with 170 other Jews. He wasn't just living in Dresden. Henny Brenner was in the same group and also wrote a book. Xx236 (talk) 09:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Grayling interview

The Grayling interview is cited in support of this sentence: Against this, several researchers have argued that Dresden was a cultural landmark of little or no military significance, a "Florence on the Elbe," as it was known, and that the attacks were intended simply to terrorize the German people. - however Grayling makes no such argument in the interview. Don't get me wrong - it was an interesting interview, and I'm glad I read it, but it doesn't belong. It doesn't even really talk about the Dresden bombing except in passing. Dlabtot (talk) 02:16, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we should go back to my wording and replace "as it was known, and that the attacks were intended simply to terrorize the German people" with "and that the attacks not proportional for the commensurate military gains." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:20, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Well he doesn't say that in the interview either. Dlabtot (talk) 17:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I did not say that he did. He was not talking about Dresden even when the interviewer tried to draw a comment about the bombing of Dresden out of him he replied "This is a standard example of historical selectivity, the use of one iconic instance to do service for the whole truth. To be blunt, it is laziness and ignorance which combine to simplify things down to one case, leaving aside important and shocking other matters." Which is why it is not much use as a citation for the sentence.[1] --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:26, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed creation of debate over the bombing of Dresden

Currently editing this page it says "This page is 87 kilobytes long. It may be appropriate to split this article into smaller, more specific articles." so with the article Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki where the debate over the bombings has been moved into a new main article Debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I propose that we do the same thing and create and articles debate over the bombing of Dresden. What do other think? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:14, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the article is too long. Dlabtot (talk) 17:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
The article will be longer when it describes the fate of the 170 Jews to be deported and the fate of non-Germans.Xx236 (talk) 09:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] RAF memo

This quote:

“ 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. ”

is in the section on Dresden's industrial profile. It adds nothing about industry that isn't already there. It is, real time, immediately before the bombing. It also gives incite into how the RAF motivated its pilots, and the reasons they supplied at that time for the attack. Would it be better moved to Background? or to the first night's attacks? or somewhere else? I tried background, but was quickly reverted. Jd2718 (talk) 13:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It was in background at the start of the year then called "Reasons for the attack" and read:

Soviet military intelligence asserted that trains stuck in the main station were troop trains passing through Dresden to the front. This proved incorrect, as they were trains evacuating refugees from the east.[1] RAF briefing notes mentioned a desire to show "the Russians, when they arrive, what Bomber Command can do." The specific intent of this statement is now unclear, and there are different possible interpretations: a statement of pride in the RAF's abilities; or to show the Soviets that the Western Allies were doing all they could to aid the Soviet advance; or a demonstration of western strength as a warning or threat to the Soviets in the lead-up to the Cold War.

The reason for this is in the archives. Different authors have selectively quoted from this passage to make the point they wanted to. Note that the current quote does not include all of the text. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:17, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Dresden Aerial View - February 13 14 1945.jpg

Image:Dresden Aerial View - February 13 14 1945.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 20:50, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Goebbels

With reference to this extract from the article:

In the first few decades after the war, some estimates of the number killed were as high as 300,000,[6] in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda.[7] As a result, many charged that it was a callous slaughter of civilians comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with some historians arguing that it was a war crime.[8]

Is the suggestion that all those who believe that the bombing of Dresden was a war crime are dupes or supporters of the Nazi Goebbels? If so is that not a tiny bit POV? Colin4C (talk) 20:49, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

See Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Transcripts, Day 23: Electronic Edition P 162-200 (and the next few pages after that) --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I've read it. It doesn't prove that those who believe in a high number of casualities are necessarily Nazi dupes. Also - in order to exaggerate the figures of the dead we must we posit that Goebbels somehow knew how many had died in reality. Nobody knows. Logically it is impossible to exaggerate an unknown number. Colin4C (talk) 12:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Are you familiar with TB 47 forgery? ((A) Misattribution of authorship and responsibility (iv) The 'Final Report' of 15 March 1945. and (v) The real TB 47. ) according to Taylor Goebbels was well aware of the Dresden figures and that there is strong circumstantial that he ordered the increase by a factor of 10 (Taylor, Frederick. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 420-6.)

The wording does not say that those who believe in a high number of causalities are necessarily Nazi dupes. That is your reading of the words What it says is "In the first few decades after the war, some estimates of the number killed were as high as 250,000,[6] in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda." For example those who read the post war German figures were not to know that they were based on Goebbels figures and the general public had no idea that Irving was anything but what his publishers attributed to him in those days -- it was not until the Irving v. Lipstadt trial outcome that many people found out what he was. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

BTW is there any significance to you use of "those who believe in a high number" instead of "those who believed in a high number" as I assumed that we are talking about the numbers in the 20th century (specifically the two decades after WWII) and not in the 21st century. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Nobody was 'well aware' of the real number of those killed at Dresden, Goebbels included. A lot of bodies were destroyed in the bombing or in makeshift funeral pyres without record and there was an unknown number of refugees in the city. All numbers are estimates. Nobody knows the real number. Taylor is just the latest in a long line of pro-bombing and pro German war guilt propagandists. According to his rhetoric anyone who disgrees with his view that the bombing was justified is either a Nazi, a neo-Nazi, a Communist a liberal leftie or a dupe. According to those who support Taylor's version these are the very same terrible people who believe that invading Iraq was a crime: http://www.afa.org/magazine/oct2004/1004dresden.asp. Putting the Goebbels stuff in the intro is a not so subtle attack on those who for whatever reason believe that the numbers were higher than the pro-bombing propagandists would have us believe. Also I do not support Irving's position on this. He falsely claimed to have documentary proof of the exact number of dead. My point is that the true numbers of dead were and are unknown to Goebbels, Irving, Evans, Taylor or whoever. All we have are estimates. Also the numbers killed are not necessarily relevent as to whether or not the bombing of Dresden was a 'war crime' or are you saying that 250,000 dead is a war crime and 35,000 is not? How many have to be killed for a massacre to be classed as a 'war crime': 10, 100, 1000, 10,000, or a 100,000? Colin4C (talk) 16:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Taylor says on page 426 "According to testimony at Nuremberg by the chief of the Propaganda Ministry's press division, Hans Fritzche, Goebbels had already made his own private estimate of about forty thousand dead at Dresden ... Goebbels would have known , after almost three years experience as the guiding hand of the Reich Committee for Air Raid Damage, that the final casualty figures usually came out as a fraction of the initial estimates. ... Nevertheless it was in the interests of the regime to have apocalyptic estimates of casualties at Dresden in circulation". So by 1945 the Germans were becoming quite good at working out the likely casualties from raids such as that on Dresden and would have known approximately what the final figure was likely to be from initial estimates and as Goebbels ran the central committee it is likely he was better placed than most to be aware of what the magnitude of the attack was likely to be. Do you have a source that Taylor makes such accusations about anyone who disagrees with him and most other main stream historians? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:34, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Also according to McKee 'Das Reich' the German journal which published the supposedly exaggerated estimate of the dead was 'the German newspaper least favoured by Dr Goebbels' (Alexander McKee (1982) Dresden: The Devil's Tinderbox: 303) Colin4C (talk) 17:53, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

The real number give or take a thousand or two is well known. For example all the on makeshift funeral pyres were recorded and included in the dead (it is footnoted in the article) Further by this stage in the war thanks to lots of unwanted experience the German authorities were able to estimate the total number of dead quite accurately hence in TB 47. that the death figure was put at 20,204, the expected dead at 25,000, and the number cremated at 6,865. Further there are three separate ways of finding the true figure,

  • TB 47. and similar daily police reports.
  • The municipal cemetery office recorded 21,271 victims of the raids were buried in the city cemeteries, of which 17,295 were placed in the Heidefriedhof cemetery (a total that included the ashes of those cremated at the Altmarkt).
  • The estimate of those missing was put at 35,000 with 10,000 later found.

Included in the totals for the first two should be the bodies recovered after the reports were issued, again numbers that are know. All these tally at around 25,000 which is also within the likely statistical spread of causalities for such attacks worked out from the deaths in other such attacks. As Evans writes "In 1994 research by the Dresden historian Friedrich Reichert was published, using a previously unused source, which convincingly reduced Bergander's figure of 35,000 to 25,000. This figure can be regarded as close to definitive." (David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition, by Richard J. Evans Introduction)

The number of dead do not make a war crime, the murder of one person can be a war crime, while the killing of 20,000 Tommies on the first morning of the Battle of the Somme was not a war crime. But there is no doubt that Goebbels and Irving wished to exaggerate the numbers for their own political purposes and the fact that Dresden is was used and to an extent is sill used as an iconic example is proof of this. As Donald Bloxham has written

The Fact that the Dresden bombing became such a focus for German propaganda is another ingredient, especially as this gave rise top the earlier massive over overestimates of the Dresden dead. Belief in the propaganda figures tens or even hundreds of thousands higher than the actual total preserved in Germany and beyond well into the post war period and was nourished by David Irving's claims. (Firesotrm the bombing of Dresden Chapter "Dresden as a war crime" page 182)

He also says "Dresden is perfectly appropriate in the vital but narrow terms of illustrating lapses in British military morality during the Second World War. However, for the wider purpose of illustrating lapses the morality of the world war as a whole, Dresden's value is tightly circumscribed owing to the far greater and more variegated crimes committed by Nazi Germany."(Firesotrm the bombing of Dresden page 208) and A. C. Gayling has said "Until now, discussion of the Allied bombing campaigns has focused on a few egregious events, such as the attacks on Dresden and Hiroshima"[2] and in reply to the question "Why do you think massively destructive bombing raids like that on Hamburg, which you describe in violent detail, have largely been forgotten (presumably not by residents of Hamburg), while the raid on Dresden remains infamous? How many people now know, without studying the specific history of the war, that the bombing raids on Tokyo in March 1945 caused more direct deaths than the attacks on either Hiroshima or Nagasaki?" replied

This is a standard example of historical selectivity, the use of one iconic instance to do service for the whole truth. To be blunt, it is laziness and ignorance which combine to simplify things down to one case, leaving aside important and shocking other matters.( Page 2 of Bombing Civilians - WWII's 'moral crimes'. A.C. Grayling in interview. by Three Monkeys Online May 2006)

Neither Donald Bloxham when writing "Dresden as a war crime" or A.C. Grayling when writing "Among the dead cities" can be described as apologists for the RAF. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

But according to your POV edit those who argue that Dresden was a war crime are influenced by Goebbels:
In the first few decades after the war, some estimates of the number killed were as high as 250,000,[6][7] in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda.[8] AS A RESULT, many charged that it was a callous slaughter of civilians comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with some historians arguing that it was a war crime.[9]
Does this include witnesses like Kurt Vonnegut? Maybe Goebbels was in the bunker with him at Dresden telling him lies? But I'm forgetting that you discount the testimony of eye witnesses and would rather believe propaganda from right-wing apologists for mass murder. Colin4C (talk) 13:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

The result was that if 250,000 had died then it was comparable with Hiroshima and Nagasaki if "only" 25,000 died it was comparable with Hamburg and Pforzheim. The quotes from Donald Bloxham and A. C. Gayling support the text. We can discuss the altering of the final clause into a stand alone sentence if you like, but altering the whole paragraph and using the website of the discredited author David Irving's as a source is in my opinion not acceptable. BTW I'm confused who do you think are "right-wing apologists for mass murder"? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Er....I am not using David Irving's website...And is this article about the claims of Goebbels and Irving or about the Bombing of Dresden? If you read the literature 1945-2008 you will find that there are a variety of different estimates of the casualties only a few of which were derived from Goebbels and Irving. And Irving kept changing the figures, by the way, depending on what edition of his book you use. The USAAF report which you have quoted from extensively in the article has an estimate of only 8,200 dead. Why don't you mention that? You only quote those bits of it which suit your white-wash POV. If anything doesn't suit your argument: like the numerous eyewitness accounts of the Mustang fighter attacks on civilians you discount them. This article should be about the facts not your own personal propaganda outlet. The claim that everybody believed the Goebbels and or Irving figures before the current revisionists came along is just rubbish: a straw man argument for right wing rhetoriticians who want to fool people that targeting civilians is OK (unless when Saddam Hussein does it - when it is 'Evil' - or unless when dark-skinned people fly jets into Towers, when it is also 'Evil' - this is the double-think of our contemporary war-mongers). Colin4C (talk) 20:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
This is a quote from the 1978 USAAF report, showing the contemporary RAF whitewash:

"Contemporary British estimates were that from 8,200 to 16,400 persons were killed" (Quoted in Alexander McKee (1983) Dresden 1945: 312).

So - who is worse in your opinion - Goebbels for exaggerating or the British for minimising the casualties? To say that everybody believed Goebbels and/or Irving is just not true. And to say that it depends on the number of casualties as to whether something is regarded as a war crime is also not true: it is just tabloid news type illogical propaganda. Colin4C (talk) 21:08, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

This article is not my work it is a compilation put together by many editors and as such is a compromise, so pleas stop referring to it as "your own personal propaganda outlet" and similar such statements. If you look at the edit history you will see that I was not responsible for adding the paragraph we are debating.

With issues like the alleged strafing incident, it is not a matter of discounting information it is a matter of giving a balanced POV and not giving fringe or negationist theories too much weight. Primary sources (see WP:PSTS should be interpreted by experts and a number of respected historians have discounted what they thought they saw. Both the alleged strafing and the historians discounting of the strafing are mentioned in the article (complying with WP:NPOV).

This source (Stars and Stripes) is from Irving's website http://www.fpp.co.uk. "Contemporary" is presumably during the war and not post war, so you need a source that says post war 8,200 was believed to be correct post war and if you are going to put information into the article you must cite your sources and you did not cite the USAAF report. So how was I or anybody else to know that you got the figure 8,200 from a USAAF report? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that "To say that everybody believed Goebbels and/or Irving is just not true." BUT that is not what the passage you keep changing says what it says "In the first few decades after the war, some estimates of the number killed were as high as 250,000, in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda." Please read what is written carefully and do not make statements about the article that are not supported by the text in the article. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 18:31, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Your edit is POV. What about the RAF misinformation on the casualties, reported by the USAAF report? Why should Goebbel's supposed over-estimate be mentioned in the intro and the RAF underestimate ignored? And I just cited my source up above! If you somehow can't see it I will repeat it here: "Contemporary British estimates were that from 8,200 to 16,400 persons were killed". (USAAF Report - quoted in Alexander McKee (1983) Dresden 1945: 312). Can you see that? I don't understand your complaint about Irving's website. The citation refers to the Stars & Stripes London Edition, Saturday, May 5, 1945, Vol. 5, No. 156 which I don't think Irving wrote...Colin4C (talk) 20:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Taylor's book repays careful reading. It seems that the 'notorious article' with supposedly exaggerated figures attributed to Goebbels came out on March 4 (page 443) whereas the reported death figures from Dresden records were recorded on March 22 (page 445). The only way that Goebbels could exaggerate figures which came out 18 days after his supposed propaganda article was if he had precognition. Did Goebbels, using his x ray eyes perhaps, also know about the 1,858 bodies recovered from the wreckage of Dresden after his death (page 448)? How could he exaggerate what he didn't know? How is that possible? Was he a magician? Colin4C (talk) 21:14, 26 February 2008 (UTC)


See Evan's comments on Irving as a source. Irving can not be trusted. We can not be sure that is copy of the Stars and Stripes is authentic. Further it is a war time document not a post was document.

Please see what I wrote above "if you are going to put information into the article you must cite your sources and you did not cite the USAAF report. So how was I or anybody else to know that you got the figure 8,200 from a USAAF report?"

I am not sure which version of Taylor you are using because they do not correspond to the version of Taylor I am using (Paperback, Bloomsbury 2005). Please include the publisher and the date of the edition. The initial figures that circulated in Sweden towards the end of February early March were about 100,000-200,000. and that in late March the doctored version of the figures in TB.47 were circulated to the foreign neutral press. (Taylor 423-425)

But TB.47 did not appear from nowhere it was one of a string of police reports on the number of dead for example there is another one on 15 March, and probably one for every day so it is quite possible that by late February the estimated number of dead was being circulated with a reasonable degree of accuracy (Addison Firestorm page 75).

The first mention in the German press was in Das Reich on 4 March but it said "Tens of thousands" it did not name a specific figure. BTW Das Reich was a paper Goebbels had founded , so it is unlikely to be as you quote "the German newspaper least favoured by Dr Goebbels" and besides by 1945 do you think there were any publications in Germany publishing things that Goebbels disliked?

But all this chat about the war is only of secondary relevance to the discussion. The important point is that after the war there were a number of sources that published that used the inflated numbers put about by Berlin during the months before the end of World War II. One of the sources I included shows this (Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Transcripts, Day 23: Electronic Edition pages 196-200):

  • MR IRVING: It is page 12 or the paginated number is 154 and it is footnote No. 2.
  • [Professor Richard John Evans] Yes.
  • [Mr Irving] So, prima facie, or on the face of it we have a German government book with authority of the Chancellor himself alleging that the city of Dresden was filled with refugees and that there were 250,000 dead?
  • [Professor Richard John Evans] Yes. This is Dr. Goebbels' figure of course which he put out in propaganda, knowing full well it was not true and was taken over.
  • [Mr Irving] There is a distinction between Dr Ardenhau and Dr Goebbels, is there not?
  • [Professor Richard John Evans] Well, clearly whoever did this has taken that on trust.
  • MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that what you relied on, Mr Irving? Is that your case? That is where the figure of 250,000 came from?
  • MR IRVING: My Lord, your Lordship surely does not accept that that is the only source I would have used.

And it shows that people could find the source from secondary publications that did not acknowledge or did not know that the primary sources were tainted by Joseph Goebbels' propaganda ministry. In this case it is post WWII German government book

Colin4C I have provided sources that back up the paragraph from a number of historians and as I have mentioned the final clause "with some historians arguing that it was a war crime." should probably be changed, so why do you insist on wording like "In the post-war period estimates of the dead ran from a low of 8,200 to a high of 300,000 and have been the subject of distortion both upwards and downwards for varied ideological and nationalistic reasons and have been and still are the subject of extreme controversy" Where is you source for post war numbers and what do you think the sentence that you have written is trying to convey? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:20, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

So you are now saying that the supposed Goebbels propaganda paper Das Reich called the bombing of Dresden a war crime but only gave tens of thousands rather than 300,000 as the death toll? This makes your whole argument absurd both with respect Goebbel's propagandising that 300,000 had died and to your linkage of the 300,000 figure to any notion that the bombing of Dresden was a war crime. According to your testimony Goebbels had the ideal opportunity to score a propaganda coup by using Das Reich to promote his supposed estimate of 300,000 dead but muffed it. Everything you say is totally self contradictory. According to your own testimony Goebbels did not use Das Reich to promote his supposed 300,000 dead and that figure was not used to prove that the bombing was a war crime. Colin4C (talk) 13:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

As I pointed out Taylor says the doctored figures from TB 47 were circulated by Berlin in late March. Those figures were not in Das Reich (that was published in early March) and AFAICT the article does not say that they were. Also I corrected the number of 300,000, because it was from an unreliable source (and even if true a war time number), to 250,000 and provide a source indicating it was used in a post war book by the West German government and the secondary source says of that number it "is Dr. Goebbels' figure of course which he put out in propaganda". Here is another one that states that numbers between 100,000 and 400,000 were repeated post war. I have also pointed to the pages in Taylor where he asserts that Berlin almost certainly put out figures from a doctored TB 47 report. This source says "In 1977 TB 47, which had long been strongly suspected as a forgery, was conclusively proven to be so, and a last stone in the mosaic fell into place." I.e. before 1977 the numbers on TB 47 were suspected to be a forgery (in fact the numbers from TB 47 were all increased by a factor of 10 by adding a 0 to the end), but until evidence could prove they were a forgery one could not say for certain that the numbers were wrong. Since 1977 it has been clear from primary sources that the number was less than 40,000 and probably around 25,000. All these figures and statements can be confirmed by reliable secondary sources. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

So why didn't Goebbel's inflate the figures in Das Reich? Everything else you cite is just supposition and conjecture - with no hard evidence that Goebbel's inflated the figures. Does he mention it in his Diaries or any other document? Did someone who knew him mention it? You discount the hard evidence of eyewitnesses who saw the Mustang attacks but blithly accept rumour and conjecture whenever it suits your argument. There were lots of contradictory figures being cited at lots of different times by lots of different authorities. The USSAF reports that the RAF gave a minimum of 8,200. Das Reich called the bombings a war crime and didn't link that assertion with a figure of 300,000 or 250,000. Therefore it is not those numbers which make Dresden a war crime. To believe that Dresden is a war crime is not based on numbers of dead which it is rumoured, without hard proof, came from Goebbels. Using Goebbel's name in this argument is just a lame attempt to brand those who believe that Dresden was a war crime as neo-Nazis. It is the sort of propaganda of which Goebbels would be proud, but not all of us are so easily fooled by this POV. Colin4C (talk) 14:41, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:V the way information is included in Wikipedia is if a statement is made then it has to be backed up with reliable sources. Several reliable sources have been given stating that the alleged number of dead after the war was put at 250,000 due to Goebbels' propaganda. Several sources have said that this was a factor in making Dresden an icon and as Grayling says "This is a standard example of historical selectivity, the use of one iconic instance to do service for the whole truth. To be blunt, it is laziness and ignorance which combine to simplify things down to one case, leaving aside important and shocking other matters." That is not to say that it was or was not a war crime, but because many other towns were also bombed after September 1944 (when the Allies resumed their strategic bombing campaign against Germany after the Summer lull while the strategic bombers aided the Normandy invasion), if Dresden was a war crime so were many other air raids on other German cities. All that is being said here is that in part thanks to Goebbels' propaganda in fixing the figures in late March 1944 to ones so much larger than those for other cities, Dresden became a post war icon and shorthand for the campaign in general. Do you have any sources that refute this position because to date you have not produced any. You call modern historians who forward the generally accepted historical position "revisionists" who's history are they revising? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

So do you disavow your own statement that Das Reich, which you assert was a Goebbels propaganda paper didn't link the assertion that Dresden was a war crime with the number of 300,000 or 250,000 or whatever number you think makes it a war crime? You said that Das Reich counted the numbers of dead as 'tens of thousands'. If you read Taylor closely you will see all the weasel words he uses in his attempt to show that Goebbels was the source of the supposedly inflated figures which surfaced after he commited suicide 'PROBABLE manipulation by Goebbel's ministry' (page 370) 'MAY have originated in briefings from the propaganda ministry' (page 370). 'There is good reason to believe' [reason not stated] (page 370). Taylor produces no original documents by Goebbels or the Propaganda ministry testifying to the supposed manipulation of figures. Just later supposition, circumstantial evidence and hearsay. This is what you believe is conclusive evidence at the same time as you discount the several eyewitnesses who saw the Mustang attacks. Au contraire if there were the same number of witnesses to Goebbels talking about the subject you would hold them sacrosanct. You believe what you want to believe and what is conveniant for your own personal POV. If you want a good, well researched book on the subject read Alexander McKee' 'Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox' (2000). He actually went to Dresden and interviewed people there 1980-81, who gave long pages of testimony to the Mustang attacks. This was AFTER the books which 'prove' to you that this was a myth. Are you branding McKee's informants as liars? Unlike you and Taylor they were actually there. The Sunday Times review, not me, called Taylor a revisionist and was mostly scathing about his sickening apologia for the mass murder of mostly women, children and old men by the RAF and USAAF at Dresden: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1010980.ece. Just cos Dad was a Nazi doesn't mean that the kids have to die. Colin4C (talk) 12:35, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations you have found one review that calls Taylor a revisionist (although it is not clear what he is meant to be revising). Do you have one for the other modern historians who agree with him and you have not answered the question "who's history are they revising?" Further do you have any sources that say that the estimates of hundreds of thousands of dead originate from anywhere but German wartime propaganda? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:37, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Certain inflated estimates MAY have arisen from German wartime propaganda, though the evidence is all circumstantial. If Taylor was subject to the same sort of trial as the notorious Irving (whom I don't support) about his 'facts' he would be laughed out of court. The main issue is your attempt to link CONJECTURAL inflated German propaganda estimates of the dead with the notion that the bombing of Dresden was a war crime. As you have testified with regard to Das Reich, right from the start the notion that Dresden was a war crime is not tied to a specific figure. Lots of estimates of the dead were made by various people and people believed them or not. Very early in the DDR (by 1953 I believe) the estimate was given as 35,000 but they still believed it was a war crime. Goebbel's conjectural inflation of the figure of the dead was just one estimate. The RAF didn't believe it and nor did the DDR. As Kurt Vonnegut wandered round the ruins of the blitzed city and saw the corpses of the women and children being burnt on makeshift pyres did he need an estimate of the dead to believe it was a war crime? Jack the Ripper only killed 5 or 6 people. Does that make what he did a minor offence?Colin4C (talk) 10:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Taylor and Evans claim that the large numbers come from Goebbels you may think that the figures are not conclusively proven the be from Goebbels, but you need a verifiable reliable source that refutes their POV. If you do not have one, then you own personal POV is not enough to insert a construct of your own making. As to your question about war crimes. I have already answered that, but for some reason you do not seem to have read it:

The number of dead do not make a war crime, the murder of one person can be a war crime, while the killing of 20,000 Tommies on the first morning of the Battle of the Somme was not a war crime. But there is no doubt that Goebbels and Irving wished to exaggerate the numbers for their own political purposes and the fact that Dresden is was used and to an extent is sill used as an iconic example is proof of this. As Donald Bloxham has written
The Fact that the Dresden bombing became such a focus for German propaganda is another ingredient, especially as this gave rise top the earlier massive over overestimates of the Dresden dead. Belief in the propaganda figures tens or even hundreds of thousands higher than the actual total preserved in Germany and beyond well into the post war period and was nourished by David Irving's claims. (Firesotrm the bombing of Dresden Chapter "Dresden as a war crime" page 182)

--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Taylor says 'PROBABLE manipulation by Goebbel's ministry' (page 370) 'MAY have originated in briefings from the propaganda ministry' (page 370). He has nothing definate and admits it. YOU on the other hand are absolutely certain about it - but that is just your personal POV. Also, very high figures were not universally believed in post-war Germany. In 1955 the Communist politician Max Seydewitz published Die unbesiegbare Stadt about the Dresden bombings in which he quotes the official DDR figure of 35,000 dead (Taylor page 443). Goebbel's supposed propaganda figures were not believed by everyone in post-war Germany. I repeat 35,000 dead was the official DDR estimate, not 250,000 or 300,000. As for the Tommies, they were soldiers, most of the victims at Dresden were women, children and old and disabled men. The distinguished historian of the RAF John Terraine called it a massacre and that's what it was. From Terraine's obit: "Terraine's historical writing was not, however, confined to the land campaigns of the First World War. He also wrote Business in Great Waters: the U-boat wars 1916-45 (1989) and a definitive work on the RAF, The Right of the Line: the Royal Air Force in the European war 1939-45 (1985), which won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award. A senior RAF officer was heard to say about this book in the Royal United Services Institute that he had learnt the last one and a half pages by heart." And before you ask, Terraine did not believe Irving's or Goebbel's supposed estimate of the numbers of dead but accepted the circa 35,000 figure. Colin4C (talk) 18:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Evans also states the numbers were Goebbels (it is Evans I used as a reference). I am not certain about anything, I have been citing sources, that state the large numbers were from Goebbels. I also refer you to the Donald Bloxham quote in my last posting. If you think the numbers are not from Goebbels you need to produce a source that says that they were not. As to your comment on John Terraine comment I have already said that I am not wedded to the last clause and have already said "We can discuss the altering of the final clause into a stand alone sentence if you like," --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:14, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I just gave you my source: Taylor! The issue is you highlighting one very conjectural theory about where certain casualty figures came from in the intro and then using it to slur those who think that Dresden was a war crime as neo-Nazi dupes. Irving's figures diverge from the supposed Goebbels figures by the way. There were a whole range of estimates produced by different people, one of which is tenuously linked by circumstantial evidence to Goebbel's propaganda ministry. You want to highlight only this one estimate and have no mention of the RAF estimates, the DDR estimates etc. Minimising casualties is also propaganda. According to McKee:
"In both the UK and the USA a high level of sophistication was to be employed in order to excuse or justify the raids, or to blame them on someone else. It is difficult to think of any other atrocity - and there were many in the Second World War - which has produced such an extraordinary aftermath of unscrupulous and mendacious polemics" (McKee (1982) Dresden 1945: 304). Enter Taylor stage right...Colin4C (talk) 18:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
What figures for casualties does the Official History of The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany by Webster and Frankland (1961) quote? Do they mindlessly parrot supposed German propaganda figures? Was everybody who wrote about the subject in the post war era duped by these supposed figures? Just been looking at Taylor's book again. He quotes wholesale the eyewitness accounts from McKee's book, except if and when they mention Mustang attacks, when the sage Taylor - who wasn't there - judges that they are lying. He picks and chooses what evidence to use. If it doesn't suit his personal POV he doesn't use it. Colin4C (talk) 10:48, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

No historian I have read denies that some of the notoriety of Dresden bombing was down to the fact the city was better known in the English speaking world than most other German cities before and during WWII, and that the Associated Press story that the Allies had resorted to terror bombing increased the notoriety of the raids, however equally none of the diminish the contribution that German war time propaganda had on the controversy. To put it another way, why do you think that the bombing of Dresden was more controversial than the bombing of Pforzheim or any other German city that was bombed by the allied strategic bomber forces if it were not in part for the commonly held belief in the 50s, 60s and 70s that 10 times as many people died in Dresden as died in Pforzheim? Do you really think that Bloxham and Grayling would be dismissing the bombing as a "standard example of historical selectivity, the use of one iconic instance to do service for the whole truth" if it was still believed that the raid had killed three to five times more than any other single raid on a German city and more than the combined war time casualties of the two atomic bombings?--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

What I don't understand is why even the Nazi sympathiser Irving didn't use Goebbel's supposed figures. According to your illogical POV a 0 was added to to the 25,000 figure to boost the figure up to 250,000. So why then does the Fascist Irving claim that 170,000 died? Are neo-Nazis just crap at Maths? 10 x 25,000 = 170,000 Doh! You should add this to your edit: "Goebbel's supposed propaganda figures would have been shamelessly copied and believed if only the Neo-Nazi's had learnt Maths at school." Your POV reasoning is utterly absurd and an insult to the intelligence of even a 5 year old. Colin4C (talk) 18:42, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Please read Section 5.2 The Bombing of Dresden in 1945. from "David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition, by Richard J. Evans" (not just the fist page but the whole of section 5.2 it explains what Irving did with the figures. Also see above the quoted section of the trial that starts "MR IRVING: It is page 12". Why did you just ask a question in your last posting rather than reply to my questions? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:46, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Evans is not infallible. For instance this bit is utterly false:
"The most authoritative book on the Dresden raids is by Götz Bergander, published in 1977 after almost two decades of research.7 Amongst his aims was to combat the many myths and legends which had come to surround the attacks. One such myth was the strafing of civilians and refugees by Allied fighters during the attack, an act most people today would condemn as a particularly despicable or even as a criminal act of war. Bergander points out that although other authors have cited witnesses for such an attack, Irving's is the last account in which any credence is given to the story."
Alexander McKee interviewed survivors of Dresden in 1980-81 three years after Bergander's book came out and gives extensive transcripts of the eyewitness accounts of the Mustang attacks. McKee's book came out in 1982 with a new edition in 2000. And in case you wish to slur him with the accusation of being a neo-Nazi McKee fought the Nazis in WW2, unlike the apologist for mass murder Taylor - who from the comfort of his university tenure mocks the dead of Dresden and the testimony of the survivors. Colin4C (talk) 18:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
FYI his name is Goebbels not name Goebbel.

You do not seem to understand how wikipedia works. Please read WP:V you may have your own criticism of the historians Taylor and Evans and you can voice them on the talk page. But if they are to appear in the article page then you need a source that backs up the assertion. Currently you are editing into the article "in the post-war period estimates of the dead ran from a low of 8,200 to a high of 300,000" Yet the sources you give for this assertion are a wartime source from a discredited website so we have no way of knowing if it is true. The second sources do not support the statement and what is the line in the third that supports the assertion. You have removed a sentence which was supported by a cited source namely 250,000 from a German postwar publication and an assertion from Evans that it was based on Goeblels' propaganda figures.

Further you have still not answered my questions To put it another way, why do you think that the bombing of Dresden was more controversial than the bombing of Pforzheim or any other German city that was bombed by the allied strategic bomber forces if it were not in part for the commonly held belief in the 50s, 60s and 70s that 10 times as many people died in Dresden as died in Pforzheim?" Do you really think that Bloxham and Grayling would be dismissing the bombing as a "standard example of historical selectivity, the use of one iconic instance to do service for the whole truth" if it was still believed that the raid had killed three to five times more than any other single raid on a German city and more than the combined war time casualties of the two atomic bombings? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:26, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I am confused. I've started another section with a request. We should hammer this out. Relata refero (talk) 12:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I told you my source about three times above for the 8,200 figure: the USAAF report which is quoted from extensively, but selectively in the article. McKee also quotes from this source in his book The quote is: "Contemporary British estimates were that from 8,200 to 16,400 persons were killed and that similar numbers of persons may have been seriously injured." Here is a copy of the USAAF Report so you can check for yourself that what I say is correct: http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htmColin4C (talk) 13:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)


Regardless of the debate of numbers, the article currently reads "estimates of civilian casualties vary greatly, but recent publications place the figure between 24,000 and 40,000, While its footnote(3) reads "The consensus among historians is that the number killed was between slightly under 25,000 to a few thousand over 35,0000." Notice the comma is misplaced on 350,000. At any rate, The statement and the footnote seem mismatched. Either a newer, more specific footnote should be provided, or the "24,000 to 40,000" statement should be removed. I understand no consensus has been made on the figures yet, but footnotes need to match statements!!!! Cuvtixo (talk) 03:13, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Protection of the article

There seems to have been a slow-running edit war between Philip Baird Shearer and Colin4C. This is not the Wiki way. Although I wrote the paragraph in question, I was just documenting what had been said here on the Talk Page and so I have no access to the sources and no personal opinion about the paragraph itself. Please note that I have protected Colin4C's latest revision not because I agree with it but simply because it was the latest revision when I got here at the request of Philip Baird Shearer. See m:The Wrong Version for an explanation.

That said, it is disruptive to the project to have an edit war. Please observe WP:BRD and discuss rather than edit war. I don't have time to get into the details of the discussion right now. Let me just say that I am not personally wedded to the phrasing "in part due to misinformation from Goebbels". Please continue discussing and try to reach consensus. I'll try to join in later tonight.

--Richard (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Move to "Bombing of Dresden"

Considering Dresden was never seriously bombed outside of World War II, I'd like to move this page to just "Bombing of Dresden". Any objections? Oberiko (talk) 17:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes and there was a WP:RM on this issue in January 2008 (Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 15#Requested move) --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:32, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recent editwar

 This is not a forum for general discussion of Bombing of Dresden in World War II.
Any such messages will be deleted. Please limit discussion to improvement of the article.

OK, I'd like both PBS and Colin to spell out their concerns here. As far as I can tell from furrowing my forehead and reading the long section above, PBS wants a line in the lead implying that the high estimates after the war were "in part" because of Nazi propaganda. Colin objects to that, apparently because he thinks that violates NPOV, and the wording implies that those who think that Dresden was a "war crime" are thus following on from Nazi propaganda

Further arguments appear to have descended into exactly what Goebbels said. This isn't relevant, surely? What we need to know is: do we have a source that directly states that a number of accounts during the thirty or so postwar years where the consensus estimates stayed high kept those estimates high because they took Nazi propaganda at face value (WP:OR)? And, second, are those accounts sufficiently large in number to justify it being in the lead (WP:NPOV)? And third, is there any link directly sketched in a sufficient number of sources between Nazi propaganda and war crimes beliefs? Please keep it focused, and hopefully a quick compromise will allow speedy unprotection. 12:43, 14 March 2008 (UTC):SOME accounts of the casualties in the post-war era MAY have been influenced by the supposed influence of Goebbels' propaganda, but there is no direct proof and Taylor doesn't state there is. When given the chance to broadcast on the mass media high figures for the dead of Dresden the master propagandist Goebbels conspicuously failed to do so. According to the unproved theory of war crime apologists Evans and Taylor what happened was that high figures were leaked to neutral countries in an amazingly labyrinthine and implausible propaganda exercise. It would be the same thing as if, with respect to the war dead of Iraq instead of stating supposed inflated estimates up front we had a devilish plan to leak them to obscure papers in regional Bolivia. How cunning can you get when you are a master propagandist! It is this absurd theory that is promoted over and over again in the article. It is crude POV spin worthy of Goebbels himself designed to slur those that believe that Dresden was a war-crime with being Neo-Nazi dupes. This article as it stands is a startling illustration of how easy Goebbels like tactics of POV spins and slurs are perpetuated and the gullibility of those who accept them at face value - no matter how absurd they are. Colin4C (talk) 13:18, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

A small suggestion: more calmness, and stay on topic.
Could you restate your points: so far the only part directly relevant in the above statement is "there is no direct proof and Taylor doesn't state there is." Am I correct? If Evans and Taylor said that "high figures were leaked to neutral countries", what else do they say about the subsequent life of those figures? Relata refero (talk) 13:23, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
They are a bit hazy about this but making the best out of their odd story again it seems that the master propagandists buried doctored figures in the archives as some fiendish plot to exact post-mortem revenge of the RAF. Someone, possibly the evil Goebbels himself, possibly Adolf Hitler, possibly secret double-agents, possibly an anonymous prankster, possibly anyone at all, added a nought to the archive figures for the dead, turning 25,000 into 250,000. This weird bit of disinformation was recorded as true in the second edition of the Fascist Irving's book on Dresden and then almost immediately repudiated by him (within a year) as possible Nazi propaganda. This brief interlude in the spotlight for these figures apparantly proves that thinking Dresden is a war crime proves that you are a neo-Nazi or Nazi sympathiser (there is a whole section in this article devoted to this theme)! Other high figures wafting around are not related to this plot, but that is conveniently ignored by those who wish to link the name of Goebbels with those who think that Dresden is a war-crime. That is the ludicrous POV we are supposed to believe in this article! Colin4C (talk) 13:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, just to restate that minus the indignation, Colin believes that Irving repeated the Goebbels figure for a year before stating it was probably propaganda; that other high figures are unrelated to Nazi propaganda, etc. Colin, I suggest you take some time off from the page while we wait for PBS to answer these claims. Relata refero (talk) 14:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

A bit of background: until 1977 the version of TB 47 (one of a series of daily reports by the Police in Dresden) that was in circulation was a primary source indicated that the number of dead might be as hight as 250,000. Historians doubted the authenticity of the TB 47 that stated 250,000 may have died, but until 1977 it could not definitely stated that it was a forgery. (See David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition, by Richard J. Evans (v) The real TB 47.)

Much of the above is tangential to the sentences under dispute. The sentence Colin4C is complaining about is:

In the first few decades after the war, some estimates of the number killed were as high as 250,000,[6] in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda.

Reference [6] above is citaion for (Holocaust Denial on Trial, Trial Transcripts, Day 23: Electronic Edition pages 196-200):

  • MR IRVING: It is page 12 or the paginated number is 154 and it is footnote No. 2.
  • [Professor Richard John Evans] Yes.
  • [Mr Irving] So, prima facie, or on the face of it we have a German government book with authority of the Chancellor himself alleging that the city of Dresden was filled with refugees and that there were 250,000 dead?
  • [Professor Richard John Evans] Yes. This is Dr. Goebbels' figure of course which he put out in propaganda, knowing full well it was not true and was taken over.
  • [Mr Irving] There is a distinction between Dr Ardenhau and Dr Goebbels, is there not?
  • [Professor Richard John Evans] Well, clearly whoever did this has taken that on trust.
  • MR JUSTICE GRAY: Is that what you relied on, Mr Irving? Is that your case? That is where the figure of 250,000 came from?
  • MR IRVING: My Lord, your Lordship surely does not accept that that is the only source I would have used.

And it shows that people could find the source from secondary publications that did not acknowledge or did not know that the primary sources were tainted by Joseph Goebbels' propaganda ministry. In this case it is post WWII German government book

At least five or six other historians can be found that state that the higher figures originated in German war time propaganda -- and if they did not then Colin4C needs to come up with a reliable source that refutes Evans, Taylor et al. and explains where a figure five to ten times the generally accepted figures could have originated from if not from Goebbels's war time propaganda.

Colin4C wishes to replace that sentence with:

In the post-war period estimates of the dead ran from a low of 8,200 to a high of 300,000 and have been the subject of distortion both upwards and downwards for varied ideological and nationalistic reasons and have been and still are the subject of extreme controversy.

Citing:

  1. Regan, Dan."Air Raid on Dresden Killed More Than 300,000", Stars & Stripes (the official newspaper of the U.S. Armed Forces), May 5, 1945, Vol. 5, No. 156.
  2. Taylor, Frederick. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 423.
  3. Addison, Paul. Firestorm: The bombing of Dresden p. 75;
  4. Davis, Richard G. "Bombing the European Axis Powers. A Historical Digest of the Combined Bomber Offensive 1939–1945", Alabama: Air University Press, 2006, p. 500
  5. Alexander McKee ((1982) Dresden 1945: The Devil's Tinderbox: 312, 369-70</ref>
  • Source Regan is from David Irving's web site and is not acceptable. Further even if we assume it is true it is for a war time not post war number and it does not claim that the figures were subject to distortion.
  • Sources Taylor and Addison do not support the figures or the that the numbers were distorted downwards. They seem to be a cut and past job from somewhere else because Taylor's is a description of war time numbers in Swedish papers, and the Addison one is used in the article to explain in detail how a figure of about 25,000 is reached the page has nothing to do with this sentence.
  • Source Davis is on line and as can be seen is to do with the Feb 3rd raid on Berlin.
  • Source McKee -- I have no access to it so taking the quote Colin4C provided "Contemporary British estimates were that from 8,200 to 16,400 persons were killed and that similar numbers of persons may have been seriously injured." McKee is not talking about post war estimates but war time estimates.

--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Show me ANYWHERE where Goebbels claims that 250,000 died. I summit that such information doesn't exist and that behind your obfusaction you know it. Goebbels kept a detailed diary, wrote many documents and was in contact with many other people. None of these connect him with the figures. If the evil Dr Goebbels wanted to launch a posthumous propaganda coup against the RAF why didn't he mention the figures in his diary? You use circumstantial evidence as proof positive in this case but reject many other events extensively documented by eyewitnesses (including the attack of the Mustangs which Kurt Vonnegut saw with his own eyes, and whose book is widely available). I submit that you are willing to change the rules of evidence according to your personal POV. If it suits your POV you use it but if not not. For instance I have shown everybody here the unimpeachable evidence of the USSAF on the low figures used by RAF propagandists but you still disbelieve because it conflicts with the POV you are wedded to. Also I don't see the distinction you use between war-time and post-war estimates of dead. Both the supposed Goebbels figures and the RAF figures were produced during wartime. The only distinction is that one suits your POV and the other doesn't. Colin4C (talk) 21:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
That is not how Wikipedia works, all that is needed is to provide a reliable secondary source that say the 250,000 number came from Goebbels and Evans is such a source (see WP:PROVEIT). There is no need to provide a trail of evidence back to Goebbels only a reference that says 250,000 was his number. Even if I could provide a paper trail back to Goebbels it would not be possible to include it as references because unless a historian has published such a paper trail it would probably be original research. Colin4C, if you dispute Evans' assertion then please provide a reliable source that says that the 250,000 came from another origin. Colin4C you also write "Also I don't see the distinction you use between war-time and post-war estimates of dead" It is what is written in the disputed sentences both refer to post war, not war and post war. Also we are not currently discussing the Mustangs attacks, please keep focused on one thing at a time or this discussion will probably be endless.--Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 21:22, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, here's the problem. You both have reasonable points.
Colin, in order to back up your statements about "distortion" etc., you haven't provided reasonable citations. As PBS points out, the Stars and Stripes reference can't be acceptable, because its off Irving's website. If you or someone can independently verify it, it meets RS, but quoting it as evidence of "distortion" is still OR, as are the other references. You need to find something that specifically backs up the "Dresden numbers are a political football" thing. If it feels like its just jumping through hoops to demonstrate something that seems obvious to you, I apologise, but WP:NOR#SYNTH, while sometimes difficult to follow, is a core principle here.
PBS, two things. The source you cite is not a peer-reviewed book. Its' Evans' testimony under cross-examination, and for a point like this, I think you should find one of the other sources that you say are out there. In addition, when I read it I see Evans claiming that Konrad Adenauer took the numbers "on trust" - the implication being that he knew at the time they were Goebbels' numbers. That might well be true, but that's the sort of thing that requires additional citation. More to the point, a single obscure (by which I mean insufficiently clear) statement in cross-examination isn't sufficient for the lead here. I think you might need to find those sources, which might well exist, that the death toll came from Goebbels, that those sources that Goebbels influenced caused that inflated death toll to be generally accepted for some time after the war.

(Note: "There is no need to provide a trail of evidence back to Goebbels only a reference that says 250,000 was his number" isn't strictly true. You need to demonstrate that a couple of mainstream peer-reviewed sources agree that a sufficient number of the post-war inflated sources depended on Goebbels' numbers.)

No I don't an expert witness under oath is about as good as one can get as a reliable source. It does not matter whether it is defined as a primary or a secondary source (WP:PSTS and WP:SOURCES) as the context is clear in the transcript. But further evidence is from the chapter "Post war debate" by Richard Overy in Firestorm: the bombing of Dresden, P. Addison (ed). "TB47... which gave a figure of 202,040 dead and a probable final tally of 250,000. ... Thought the document was found to be a propaganda forgery a few years later ... The higher figures allowed critics of the raid to argue that Dresden was spectacularly different from other attacks. Wilhelm Berthold writing on Dresden in 1986 claimed that the 135,000 [(mentioned further up the page as Irving's earlier estimate)] made the operation 'the most murderous of the whole war, Hiroshima included'. Franz Kurowski wrote a book .... in which he reiterated the now discredited figures from the forged TB47..."(Addison pages 139,140). For the second part of the sentence not only is there the Addison book there is also Taylor 426 "The destruction of Dresden was bound to exercise an independent power ... However the extent of the wider long-lasting ripple of international outrage that followed the Dresden bombing represents at least in part Goebbels's final masterpiece." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:44, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I find it possible that both of you will find suitable sources, in which case, we can work on some suitable wording. Relata refero (talk) 12:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
My point is that a very dubious bit of circumstantial evidence is being used not for the benefit of truth but for POV reasons. I.e. linking the evil Nazi Goebbels IN THE INTRO with claims that those who were and are against the war are neo-Nazi dupes and that therefore we should all walk free and proud knowing that a mere 20,000 men, women and kids died. The Goebbels-Dupe spin is used on several web-sites justifying the Iraq war for instance. The implication is that we free democracies US+UK are good and always have been and the evil enemies are bad and always have been. It is Bush/Blairite spin. In the war of Good versus Evil it's always as well to know what side you are on. Dresden is still a political hot potato to those who approve of aerial bombardment of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan. (So is Guernica - which is why the war criminals Bush and Blair arranged to have Picasso's painting of the bombing of Guernica removed from the room in the UN buildings where the debate about the legality of the war was to be held. Blair and Bush had decided that Iraqi kids had to die in great numbers from aerial bombardment in the cause of freedom and people being reminded of the atrocity of Guernica on the world media would be un-helpful to their plan). I suggest that we DO NOT foreground dubious POV stuff in the intro. As I have said repeatedly there were many figures produced, most of which was misinformation rather than disinformation and have NOT been linked to Goebbels For instance in the first edition of Irving's book he claimed that 135,000 died. This was a high figure but as it is not linked to Goebbels it is not very useful to the POV polemicists who wish to get their spin across IN THE INTRO. Colin4C (talk) 13:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Earlier I suggested Colin4C you read "5.2 The Bombing of Dresden in 1945. from "David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial: Electronic Edition, by Richard J. Evans" (not just the fist page but the whole of section 5.2 it explains what Irving did with the figures (of particular not e with regards to you last posting see 5.2.3 --second from last section). As you criticised Evans I assumed that your read section 5.2 because it details when and what figures Irving used. But if you want a secondary source see the chapter "Post war debate" by Richard Overy in Firestorm: the bombing of Dresden, P. Addison (ed). "In 1964 Irving was given a copy of a report, TB47, ... which gave the figures of 202,040 dead and a probable final tally of 250,000, Irving grasped the new evidence to show that Dresden had been a crime quite unparalleled. ... found to be a propaganda forgery a few years later ... Irving remained committed to the idea that the figure of fatalities was massively greater ... In 1989, when releasing in Britain the Leuchter Report, ... Irving spoke of between 100,000 and 250,000 deaths in the Dresden raid." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
This article is about the bombing of Dresden not the vagaries of Irving. He is just one of several many authors who have written about it. Irving vs Lipstadt is no doubt a fascinating court case but has little relevence to what actually happened on that fatal day on 13 February 1945. The centre of a virtually undefended city, whose main industry was China dolls was obliterated in a matter of minutes with horrendous casualties. The stategic bridges over the Elbe were not even targeted. As Terraine, the RAF historian, says it was a massacre pure and simple and did nothing to hinder the Nazi war effort. It was Terrorism. That was the aim and that was what was admitted at the Press Conference soon afterwards before the long and continuing campaign of obfuscation was launched - continuing even into the wikipedia age. We criticise the Turks for not admitting responsibility for the Armenian genocide but absolve ourselves from the sin of the Dresden massacre. We are guilty. Colin4C (talk) 19:11, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Colin, please comment on the article, not on the act. I will have to redact some of your posts for readability of this section if you continue. Relata refero (talk) 21:15, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


(deindent) PBS, you have convincingly made a case that Irving saw TB47. However what you quote shows that even after he knew it was a forgery, he continued to believe casualties were higher. (This may well be because he is David Irving.)

Further, you have in my opinion demonstrated that at least one reliable source (Taylor) specifically links Goebbels and Nazi propaganda to concern over the scale of the bombing subsequently. Both the others make the link between higher figures and the TB47, but don't go on.

Given that, I don't believe you've yet made a case for inclusion in the lead. That of course is an opinion subject to change if more stuff turns up.

Colin, please concentrate on issues of sourcing. Look at your preferred version of the lead and demonstrate, if possible, that each chain is sourced and represents the consensus view on the subject. Relata refero (talk) 21:23, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

It is NOT appropriate to include ANY statement in the introduction that attempts to link higher casualty figures to Goebbels and Nazi propaganda. Colin4C is correct in saying that to do so would slant the article right from the start with a POV that is hotly disputed. Such comments belong in the appropriate section of the body of the article, and even then must be balanced by opposing opinions from other sources. I am keen to see this particular issue resolved soon so that the article can be unlocked.
I would also like to draw to your attention a distinct bias in the references used in this article - fully one third of the Notes (36 out of 115) come from Taylor. It is clear that PBS is very fond of Taylor (count the number of times he has written “Taylor says” or “according to Taylor” in the above discussions), however there are a few issues with the fidelity of Taylor’s book – (1) he downplays, discredits or ignores established facts that he doesn’t like (2) he makes several claims that are misleading (3) on occasion he relies heavily on anecdotes. I would like to see more balance in the article by including material from Hermann Knell [To Destroy a City] and Jorg Friedrich [Der Brand]. If I were to sum up Taylor’s book it would be “Dresden was not a big deal, and the Germans deserved it anyway”.
PBS may like to enlighten us, what does Taylor have to say about the fate of the hundreds of thousands of refugees in Dresden that night? It is impossible to count bodies that have been incinerated.... Logicman1966 (talk) 11:46, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


Personally I was against expanding the lead, because I said it would start POV disputes, but many editors were in favour of this expansion (WP:LEAD etc). It is a pity that those who wanted the lead expanded have not bothered to keep this page on their watch list and actively take part in the debates that were bound to follow.

Relata refero did you not notice the other quote I included that other authors such as Franz Kurowski (The. Massacre of Dresden) have used the forced TB47 figures. As it happens someone has put the Chapter The Post War Debate from Firestorm on the internet -- against the copyright so you can read the pages 139 and the start of 140 at your leisure.

As I pointed out earlier this dispute is about a specific sentence that can easily be sourced if anyone wishes one to be included for the wording "in part because of misinformation ..." as can be seen on this talk page.

In the first few decades after the war, some estimates of the number killed were as high as 250,000,[6] in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda.

Against a change of wording to:

In the post-war period estimates of the dead ran from a low of 8,200 to a high of 300,000 and have been the subject of distortion both upwards and downwards for varied ideological and nationalistic reasons and have been and still are the subject of extreme controversy.

This sentence has several problems. No source is given that post war estimates of "8,200 to a high of 300,000" were used. No source is given for "distortion both upwards and downwards for varied ideological and nationalistic reasons", indeed some Evans point out that the 250,000 was used by at least one source without that source necessarily the being aware that it was war time propaganda. "and still are the subject of extreme controversy." No source is given for this. The raids may still be controversial (that is not what the sentence is about) but the range for the dead is not controversial, higher up the article page it is shown that historians who have published in the 21st century agree that the figure ranges from slightly below 25,000 to above 35,000 but below 40,000.

Personally as I have already stated, I am not happy with the next sentence in the paragraph that reads:

As a result, many charged that it was a callous slaughter of civilians comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with some historians arguing that it was a war crime.

The sentence was removed by ColinC4. I think it should be reinstated but that the clause "with some historians arguing that it was a war crime." should be broken out into a separate sentence and altered to indicate that some historians think there is a case to answer that it may have been a war crime, as the war crime allegations can be made with or without inflated figures. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Here is my proposal for whether the following points should be mentioned in the intro. Note that all of these points should be included in the appropriate section of the body of the article, where there is sufficient room to discuss them fully, include differing views, and provide supporting evidence.
1. that higher casualty figures can be attributed to Goebbels and Nazi propaganda : NO
2. that some consider the bombing a war crime : YES (and in its own sentence, completely separate to casualty figures).
3. that the total death toll cannot be known with certainty : YES
4. that from the day of the bombing and for many years afterwards there were widely varying estimates for the number of dead : NO
5. that there is general agreement among most contemporary historians on the minimum number of dead (ie. body count) : YES
6. that casualty figures have been adjusted both updards and downwards for “varied ideological and nationalistic reasons…” : NO
I believe that this a somewhat more structured framework to facilitate discussion, as it captures all the issues that are causing so much heated debate. Please provide constructive feedback on this proposal. Logicman1966 (talk) 12:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Logicman1966 you wote "It is NOT appropriate to include ANY statement in the introduction that attempts to link higher casualty figures to Goebbels and Nazi propaganda. Colin4C is correct in saying that to do so would slant the article right from the start with a POV that is hotly disputed." Can you name one verifiable reliable source that attributes the high numbers (say >200,000) to another source? Can you name one verifiable reliable source that disputes that the high numbers do not originate from war time Nazi propaganda? If not then that POV (for which I have cited several historians) is not hotly disputed. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The point is that just one set of high figures has been attributed to Nazi propaganda and thus by implication with the head propaganda man Goebbels. Other high figures are not derived from this source and other medium and low figures are not. The only reason for mentioning Goebbels and the one set of figures in the intro and then linking this to questions of whether Dresden was a warcrime seems to me to be POV. Taylor's book is a POV goldmine in this and other respects. He tries to persuade us that:
1 The Dresden civilians were convinced Nazis (and thus, by implication deserved to die)
2 Despite all evidence to the contrary, like not targeting any of the bridges across the Elbe, Dresden was a prime military target
3 That the several eyewitnesses of allied Mustang attacks were lying (they were Nazis remember!)
4 That those who believe that high numbers of people died are Nazi dupes and/or supporters of Irving the Holocaust Denier
5 That 20,000 dead is not very serious
That Taylor's tendentious book is the main resource for this article suggests a deeply one-sided view of the issue. As I have indicated Alexander McKee takes a contrary view on all the points listed above. This debate as to the justification of bombing Dresden been going on for 63 years now, back and forward. To present one prejudiced book out of all that has been written about the subject is POV. Taylor was virtually lynched when he visited Dresden recently. No mystery why. Colin4C (talk) 21:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
The sentences under debate make none of the assertions that you are making. Please stay focused on these sentences.
In the first few decades after the war, some estimates of the number killed were as high as 250,000, in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda. As a result, many charged that it was a callous slaughter of civilians comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with some historians arguing that it was a war crime.
Your alternative
In the post-war period estimates of the dead ran from a low of 8,200 to a high of 300,000 and have been the subject of distortion both upwards and downwards for varied ideological and nationalistic reasons and have been and still are the subject of extreme controversy.
Please read WP:PROVEIT and what has been written above. You have not come up with one cited source for that supports your alternative sentence or one source that refutes the original sentences. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:35, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
PBS, could you address why you think the USAAF report which bases the British 8200 figure on "Air Ministry RE. 8, Area Attack: Dresden. Supporting Document No. 35." is not relevant as support for Colin's position? It seems to me that that paragraph in the USAAF report, written precisely to as part of a Cold War battle of propaganda, is particularly relevant. I note that that paper also attributes the 250,000 figure to "two former German general officers for the Historical Division, European Command (U.S.A.) in 1948," and does not mention the TB47 forgery at all, suggesting that they created the figure independently. Relata refero (talk) 10:47, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Also, the extract from Firestorm suggests that Kurowski mentioned several figures between 100,000 and 300,000, including the TB47's figure. Relata refero (talk) 10:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I see also that Kurowski is quoted in Firestorm specifically saying that there has been "game-playing with figures", including downwards.
I do see, however, that the "still the subject of controversy" is problematic. Relata refero (talk) 11:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
1) The proposed sentence says "estimates of the dead ran from a low of 8,200 to a high of 300,000" there has been source cited claiming that the 8,200 figure was used after the war. Certainly not the HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945 BOMBINGS OF DRESDEN that says "Contemporary British estimates were that from 8,200 to 16,400 persons were killed and that similar numbers of persons may have been seriously injured. Most of the latest German post-war estimates are that about 25,000 persons were killed ... Although the latest available post-war accounts play up the “terroristic” aspects of the Dresden bombings, it is significant that they accept much lower casualty figures than those circulated by the Germans immediately after the raids and, from time to time, in the years immediately following the war."
2)The sentence in HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945 BOMBINGS OF DRESDEN "In this account, the number of dead from the Dresden bombings was declared to be 250,000. That this figure may be the probable number of dead, multiplied by ten for the sake of exaggeration, becomes apparent by comparing the weight of the Dresden bombings of 14-15 February 1945 with the total tonnages expanded by the Allies against the six other largest German cities (see Chart A) and by comparing the various estimates of the Dresden casualties with the best estimate of the total casualties suffered by the Germans from all Allied bombings during World War II." So what did the "two former German general officers for the Historical Division, European Command (U.S.A.) in 1948"? If they did not make them up they must have got them from somewhere. See Evan's comments on this [3][4]. Note also what Evans has to say about Communist propaganda: "4. However, Irving did not accept 40,000 as the actual figure because Voigt had told Irving that he himself 'estimated that the final number would have been 135,000'.55 In 1995 Voigt remained Irving's favourite source for a higher death roll. According to Voigt the Russians closed down his offices and quite '"simply struck off the first digit"' to arrive at their own official figure of 35,000.56 Irving repeated this story to a reporter in 1963 as his own opinion, but with an elaboration: '"The Germans simply struck off the first digit to make the figure more acceptable to the Russians, who contended that Bomber Command was not a powerful weapon."' This does not seem to be a particularly strong motive for such a blatant act of falsification. Strangely Voigt wrote to Irving as early as September 1962, asking Irving to correct the passage: 'It was probably not the Soviet officials who struck off the first figure, rather Dresden officials (especially the then mayor and later Lord Mayor Weidauer) reduced the figure out of fear of the "Big Four," so as not to speak ill of them.'"[5]
3) Kurowski was writing using the false TB47 numbers. Given that presumably he though it true it is not unreasonable of him at that time to write such a thing (P140). It rather proves the point of historians being taken in by "some estimates of the number killed were as high as 250,000, in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda"/ One has to look at a more modern consensus that that which existed when the forged TB47 might have been true.
4) The number killed is not still open to controversy modern historians all agree on a range between 24,000 and 40,000. What is controversial is if raids such as Dresden was a military necessary this has nothing to do with the numbers killed as the lower end of the range at 25,000 would still qualify this raid as open to question under military necessity.
  • ) Finally please keep focused on the issue of the two alternative sentences and citations for them, and lets not get sidetracked --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:23, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, some good points here.
1)If no source can be found for a post-war estimate of lower than 24,000 from "Allied" sources, then the sentence should certainly be rephrased so that it doesn't apply only to post-war estimates.
2)It seems the two German medicos "made it up". But Evans himself says there is "nothing to link their statements to TB 47", according to the links you provide. I note Evans was aware of Angell's interpretation, and does not challenge it.
From Evans two points Angel was writing long before either the correct TB47 was found and as he says "There is no indication that they were in a position to do anything more than repeat rumour and nothing to link their statements to TB 47, other than of course to confirm that it was an effective propaganda figure."[6] The last clause supports the propaganda argument. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
That is was propaganda, certainly. That it was Goebbels/TB47 propaganda he effectively says he can't say. Relata refero (talk) 17:45, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
3)Kurowski, according to Firestorm, wrote in 1995 (so he should have known better, really), and put out a list of numbers and sources in a section of his book, including TB47. "he reiterated the now discredited figures from the forged TB47 document among a number of other very high estimates of casualties and concluded that the final figures for the dead lay between 100,000 and 300,000." No real implication that he used the TB47 to come to his conclusion, if you think about it.
4)I think that there appears to be some scholarly consensus on the numbers, and broadly agree that it appears your sources say that questions still being argued academically are those of justification. But then what do we make of the Telegraph article that Colin found which says "Another controversy surrounds the numbers who were killed on the night of Feb 13-14, 1945. The figure - estimated between 35,000 and 400,000 - has never been officially fixed, allowing extremists to manipulate it for their own means"?
5)Close focus on the wording and sources is what is needed, I 100% agree.

Relata refero (talk) 13:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

This quote from the USAAF report is quite revealing about the shifting ideological battleground on which this debate is fought:

"The reasons for and the nature and consequences of the bombing of Dresden, Germany, by Allied air forces on 14-15 February 1945 have repeatedly been the subject of official and semi-official inquiries and of rumor and exaggeration by uninformed or inadequately informed persons. Moreover, the Communists have with increasing frequency and by means of distotion and falsification used the February 1945 Allied bombings of Dresden as a basis for disseminating anti-Western and Anti-American propaganda. From time to time there appears in letters of inquiry to the United States Air Force evidence that American nationals are themselves being taken in by the Communist propaganda line concerning the February 1945 bombings of Dresden" (quoted in McKee (1982) Dresden 1945: 311) Colin4C (talk) 11:13, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
But what about pro-Allied propaganda? No direct support in this source, one would assume. Relata refero (talk) 13:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
As to the question of the numbers of dead still being a subject of extreme controversy, this article from 2005 states that the Mayor of Dresden, in response to the controversy, has appointed an international commission of historians to provide a definitive answer to the question: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/10/wdres10.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/02/10/ixportal.html
I think we will all here will be interested to see the results of this commission but until it reports I'm afraid that the controversy will remain unsettled. Taylor's book was published in 2004, by the way, one year before the Mayor's pronouncement, so is not the definitive historical statement on the issue. Colin4C (talk) 11:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Taylor does not claim to be "definitive historical statement on the issue" of numbers, instead he cites two German historian (Bergander and Reichert) and gives the range their research returned. It is Evans who give a definitive number: "In 1994 research by the Dresden historian Friedrich Reichert was published, using a previously unused source, which convincingly reduced Bergander's figure of 35,000 to 25,000. This figure can be regarded as close to definitive." However in the Wikipedia article, a range of numbers by recently publish historians is given, as is dictated by Wikipedia policies. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:23, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Definitive according to Evans but not to the Mayor of Dresden it seems. If somebody could find out more about the current Dresden historical commission into the numbers of bomb deaths I think that would be valuable information to include here. Colin4C (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
I've been doing exactly that. Here is the inquiry's reference: http://www.dresden.de/de/02/110/03/c_015.php - Also here are some more articles I've found:
http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,348304,00.html ::http://www.dresden-online.de/index.php3/5263_1_1.html
http://www.welt.de/kultur/article726910/Wie_viele_Menschen_starben_im_Dresdner_Feuersturm.html
http://www.welt.de/welt_print/article727751/Niemand_hat_Hunderttausende_von_Toten_wirklich_gesehen.html
http://www.welt.de/kultur/article712560/Niemand_stirbt_in_Deutschland_ohne_Registrierung_.html
The last article reads "Ihr Bericht soll allerdings erst 2008 veröffentlicht werden". Seems like one has to play the waiting game, none the less I hope these resources are helpful to you all. Regards, WilliamH (talk) 18:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that WilliamH. So to summarise those articles the preliminary findings of the eleven commissioners was about 25,000 with an error factor of 20%. So if one assumes the worst (and unlikely figure) then the number would rise to 30,000 at most. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:29, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I am willing to accept whatever figures the Commission comes up with. The point is that the very fact that there is a Commission indicates that the subject is still controversial. Colin4C (talk) 11:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Hi, no problem. The Niemand stirbt in Deutschland ohne Registrierung article reads that they could so far find substantially no higher than 25,000 victims, with a 20% area of ambiguity/uncertainty. So yes, I construe the same thing. The German instance of this article mentions this investigation too. As a third party, my suggestion would be that it might be fruitful to work around this, seeing as one can only wait until the report is released. Regards, WilliamH (talk) 12:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Colin4C, you wish to include in the article the following sentence "In the post-war period estimates of the dead ran from a low of 8,200 to a high of 300,000 and have been the subject of distortion both upwards and downwards for varied ideological and nationalistic reasons and have been and still are the subject of extreme controversy." Where are your sources for those comments? For example can you find one reliable academic source published in the last 10 years that has suggested a number that is far removed from the range suggested by Taylor 25-40K which itself was a number based on research in the 1970s and 1980s. If not where is the "extreme controversy" other than among right wing extremists? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:18, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
The Mayor's Commission was provoked due to the controversy over numbers just three years ago (2005) and still hasn't reported despite your second guessing the outcome. If there was no controversy and everybody agreed on the numbers why was the Commission set up? Evans's statement that numbers quoted in a book published in 1977 are 'definitive' is just plain false. If it was definitive why would 10 highly esteemed historians waste time and money investigating the matter. To please neo-Nazis? Colin4C (talk) 18:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Just looked at the German wikipedia Dresden article. It seems a lot less POV than this one. No mention of Goebbels deluding anti-bombing advocates in the intro for instance. Colin4C (talk) 18:49, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd have thought it was quite obvious why the commission was formed. Once its investigation is completed the city will accordingly have its own officially endorsed definitive death toll, and surely the idea of that is to render the neo-Nazis' statistics inconsequentially abstract. Let's face it, they're going to look a little odd if their statistics to vindicate/support Dresden are entirely and directly contradicted by the city itself. WilliamH (talk) 11:08, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
Let's wait till the commission reports before we start judging who will look odd. Maybe it will be 'Definitive' Evans and 'Killer' Taylor who end up with egg on their faces. Colin4C (talk) 21:31, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Keeping the talk page conversation on track. Colin4C, do you have any citations to support the contents of the sentence "In the post-war period estimates of the dead ran from a low of 8,200 to a high of 300,000 and have been the subject of distortion both upwards and downwards for varied ideological and nationalistic reasons and have been and still are the subject of extreme controversy."? What part of the sentence "In the first few decades after the war, some estimates of the number killed were as high as 250,000,[6] in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda." do you think has not had adequate citations provided? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:37, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I have given you the citation over and over again for the 8,200 number from the USAAF report. You are just being obtuse. The question is not about citations but highlighting selected speculative material from our friends Taylor and Evans in the intro and elsewhere for POV propaganda reasons. It's as if the vegetarianism article in the wikipedia foregrounded dubious info that Hitler was a vegetarian in the intro and kept on mentioning it in every paragraph thereafter. Colin4C (talk) 10:37, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
The source is not provided by a reliable URL further it is a WWII number not a "post-war period estimates of the dead". --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
So the official report of the United States Army Air Force is not to be trusted....Now you are being completely absurd. This report is quoted over and over again in the article. Your POV theory must be very precious to you indeed if you want to discard official armed services reports. Colin4C (talk) 12:48, 22 March 2008 (UTC)
As this discussion seems to be going nowhere why don't we just delete BOTH competing versions of the final paragraph of the intro. I'm beginning to feel that the whole thing is a such a POV minefield that it cannot be enscapsulated in a single paragraph in the intro, but would rather benefit from a more extended treatment in the body of the article. Colin4C (talk) 21:38, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
The USAAF report does not say that the RAF figure was in use post war. It says "Contemporary British estimates were that from 8,200 to 16,400 persons were killed and that similar numbers of persons may have been seriously injured. Most of the latest German post-war estimates are that about 25,000 persons were killed ..." --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 22:03, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

PBS please don't be so pedantic, and please stop pushing your POV; it's just not working. This debate has been going on for over a month now, and after > 12,000 words has not achieved anything. Your continued obfuscations do not show good faith. Do you accept Colin4C's suggestion to delete both sentences? Can we move on then? Logicman1966 (talk) 22:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Similarly (and partly why I presented the German version of this article for consideration), my suggestion would be to simply eliminate said competing versions/clauses in the intro. Presenting a heavily cut down version in the intro seemingly allows for a POV can of worms to be opened. I am of the opinion that here, what is left out might be more advantageous, amd instead offering a more detailed elaborate later in the article in a manner which POV cannot be (mis)construed would do more justice. WilliamH (talk) 23:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
OED: obfuscate "To cast into darkness or shadow; to cloud, obscure." pedantic-> pedantry "a. Mere academic learning, without judgement or discrimination; excessive reverence for or display of learning or technical knowledge; intellectual conceit." "b. Excessive or undue concern for petty details; slavish adherence to formal precision, rules, or literal meaning."
It is not I who "obfuscating" I have repeatedly asked that we only concentrate on the wording of the alternative sentences and not get sidetracked with other things. Now if that is pedantic, that is what WP:POINT demands and Wikipedia:Dispute resolution#Focus on content advises. Logicman1966, please explain why is it wrong to quote the USAAF report to show Colin4c that I do not see how it can be used to to justify his comment "Your POV theory must be very precious to you indeed if you want to discard official armed services reports."? In what way(s) have I not shown good faith Logicman1966?
"This debate has been going on for over a month now, and after > 12,000 words has not achieved anything." The debate is about 2 sentences. One of which is fully cited with reliable sources and an alternative which is not. I did not write the paragraph all I did was alter it so that the number 300,000 was changed to 250,000 and provide a reliable source for that number. For the second half of the sentence if Colin4C had added {{fact}} at the end I would have provided the citations that I have included here on the talk page. Instead he chose to replace the sentence with one of his own which despite repeated requests has not provided citations.
I was against the lead being made larger because I predicted that it would lead to these types of problems but I was over ruled by those who insisted on WP:LEAD being followed. One of the things that WP:LEAD includes is "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should establish context, summarize the most important points, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describe its notable controversies, if there are any." which is presumably why this paragraph was included and if the lead is to be followed then such a paragraph as the one under discussion is needed to comply with WP:LEAD.
There are 3 reasons why the bombing of Dresden is remembered something I have already pointed out in the "Goebbels" section above with the paragraph "No historian I have read denies ..." city was better known in the English speaking world than most other German cities before and during WWII a point Max Hastings and Bomber Harris make; The WWII Associated Press report that the Allies had resorted to terror bombing increased the notoriety of the raids and increased its war time exposure; but the third reason is that historians do not diminish the contribution that German war time propaganda had on the controversy. Dreseden at the time was a city within the forward communications zone of the theatre of operations or even the rear of the combat zone, yet the bombing of Dresden was more controversial than the bombing of Pforzheim. As Grayling says the bombing as the bombing of Dresden is "standard example of historical selectivity, the use of one iconic instance to do service for the whole truth" and in part that is due to figures based on German War time propaganda that during the 50s, 60s and 70s "made the operation 'the most murderous of the whole war, Hiroshima included' "(Richard Overy quoting Wilhelm Berthold).
In my opinion the sentence "In the post-war period estimates of the dead ran from a low of 8,200 to a high of 300,000 and have been the subject of distortion both upwards and downwards for varied ideological and nationalistic reasons and have been and still are the subject of extreme controversy." which has been put into the article by Colin4C without adequate citations does not cover this issue and is inaccurate. The replaced sentences may not cover this issue fully (and as I have said I think the second sentence needs work) but "In the first few decades after the war, some estimates of the number killed were as high as 250,000, in part because of misinformation spread just after the bombing by Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda. As a result, many charged that it was a callous slaughter of civilians comparable to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with some historians arguing that it was a war crime." is a more accurate summation of the situation than Colin4C's sentence. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I suggest we eliminate both competing versions of the offending paragraph in the intro and go into greater depth on the controversy in the body of the article. Colin4C (talk) 12:40, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
What aboutWP:LEAD? So far you have not produced a citation to back up the sentence you included in the lead, while the other sentence is fully cited so what is the point of "go[ing]] into greater depth on the controversy in the body of the article"? Can we now go back to the sentences that you replaced in the lead with one that you are now apparently willing to delete while we discuss whether the whole paragraph should be deleted or not? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
PBS, while I will assume good faith here and not accuse of any intentionality, your advocated summation states that "some historians argue that it was a war crime as a result of Hitler's minister of propaganda". This is clearly problematic and it must be made clear that to have the opinion that the bombing of Dresden was a war crime is not inherently a follow-on from Goebbels' figures and disinformation. To imply such a thing feels rather like Reductio ad Hitlerum. WilliamH (talk) 14:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I suggest we eliminate both competing versions of the offending paragraph in the intro and go into greater depth on the controversy in the body of the article. Colin4C (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
  • As long as one commentator's material in this article isn't inadvertently obscured with another's, and the prose is NPOV and meticulously does not allow for POV to be (mis)construed, then I have little more to say on this matter. WilliamH (talk) 14:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
As I said above I did not write this paragraph, and I have already said (several times the first time explicitly was on 29 February) that I think that the second sentence needs editing to break it up and make it more coherent. For example Donald Bloxham allegations (which I added to the section "Allegations that it was a war crime") are not based on the old war time propaganda nunbers. If sources could be found to support it I would be in favour of including a brief mention of the cultural significance of Dresden and the AP terror bombing report as well as Nazi propaganda (assuming that the advice in WP:LEAD is being followed). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
As a compromise I suggest we eliminate both competing versions of the offending paragraph in the intro and go into greater depth on the controversy in the body of the article. The German version of this article has no blame and shame numbers game POV paragraph in the intro. Stating the facts is fine, but getting into a POV blame numbers game is not. Colin4C (talk) 16:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm aware that you didn't author it PBS, I was just outlining why the aforementioned clause is problematic as I'm sure you understand.
You could do that Colin, but I had a go at the intro - this is my suggested prose for that third intro paragraph:
In the first few decades after the war, some gave the death toll as high as 250,000. A notable example of this figure is likely to have originated from the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda. However, regardless of whether they may or may not be intrinsic to this, estimates in the regions of hundreds of thousands are considered disproportionate, and today's historians estimate a death toll of between 25,000 and 40,000 with a further 30,000 injured, and an independent investigation commissioned by the city itself has released an interim death toll of around 25,000 people with the full report expected to be released some time in 2008. Post-war discussion of the bombing includes debate by further commentators and historians as to whether or not the bombing was justified, and whether or not its outcome constituted a war crime. Nonetheless, the raids continue to be included among the worst examples of civilian suffering caused by strategic bombing, and have become one of the moral causes célèbres of the Second World War.
  • It includes modern day findings of the death toll - Y
  • It documents both the interim report and anticipated release of the investigation by the city - Y
  • It mentions the notable presumed Nazi distortion - Y
  • It mentions the debates proposed by historians and other commentators - Y
  • It asserts that high death tolls are not necessarily intrinsic from claimed Nazi propaganda and prevents them from being misconstrued as such - Y
Surely this sets the roots for greater elaboration on such points later on in the article? WilliamH (talk) 17:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
I am in agreement with this proposed paragraph, with one exception : mentioning the current Dresden City investigation is fine, however I don't think it is appropriate to pre-empt the final report by mentioning the preliminary figures. Why not simply say something like "an independent investigation commissioned by the city itself is currently underway, and is expected to release a report some time in 2008". Logicman1966 (talk) 11:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I think that not all high estimates of bomb-deaths at Dresden can be attributed to foolish people falling for malicious Nazi propaganda. For instance figures of the dead for the Nazi bombing of Rotterdam in 1940 (which I believe to be a war crime) were put by non-Nazi newspapers across the world as 30,000, (See A.C. Grayling (2007) Among the Dead Cities: 34-5) though more recent estimates are of 900 dead. The 30,000 estimate was wrong but it was not malicious propaganda, as far as I am aware. See the wikipedia article Rotterdam Blitz where there is no suggestion in the intro that the initial 30,000 estimate was due to malicious propaganda, or that people were gullible to believe it, or that killing a lot less than the initial estimate means that anti-bombing proponents are gullible fools, or that it means you should therefore vote Nazi in the Dutch parliament. Incorrect estimates of battle deaths should not be used as a stick to beat anti-war activists or to suggest that the latter are gullible fools. That is POV spin whoever does it, whether their name is Taylor, Evans or Goebbels. I suggest that we place discussion of the POV numbers game in the body of the article rather than the intro. Colin4C (talk) 15:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Assuming good faith Colin, I completely understand your point but I must ask if you have completely grasped what I suggested in full - the prose states that estimates in the regions of hundreds of thousands are considered disproportionate, "regardless of whether if they may or may not be intrinsic to this (Goebbbels' figure).
I have tried to word this proposed section in such a way that any estimates cannot be misconstrued as a systematic/intrinsic follow-on from Goebbels' manipulation, and as myself and others have previously speculated, I have come to the conclusion that I think arguably the most effective way of preventing such a thing being implied is to simply not allow for it to occur in the first place, and accordingly not mention it in the intro. I thus propose this prose as the third paragraph:
In the first few decades after the war, some death toll estimates were as high as 250,000. However, figures in the regions of hundreds of thousands are considered disproportionate. Today's historians estimate a death toll of between 25,000 and 40,000 with a further 30,000 injured, and an independent investigation commissioned by the city itself has released an interim death toll of around 25,000 people with the full report expected to be released some time in 2008. Post-war discussion of the bombing includes debate by commentators and historians as to whether or not the bombing was justified, and whether or not its outcome constituted a war crime. Nonetheless, the raids continue to be included among the worst examples of civilian suffering caused by strategic bombing, and have become one of the moral causes célèbres of the Second World War.
  1. It includes modern day findings of the death toll - Y
  2. It documents both the interim report and anticipated release of the investigation by the city - Y
  3. It mentions the debates proposed by historians and other commentators - Y
  4. It maintains NPOV and prevents obfuscation/attribution of material with a political position because it doesn't mention any Y
  5. It does not prevent the discussion and elaboration of notable disinformation (e.g. Goebbels, Irving) in greater detail later on in the article - Y
Why do you think it is inappropriate to mention the interim death toll given by the commission? National German newspapers discuss it, it's clearly notable, and it backs up the rest of the lead section. WilliamH (talk) 16:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I accept that version. Colin4C (talk) 17:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The figure of 25,000 and 40,000 is already mentioned in the first paragraph of the article so it does not need to be mentioned again.

In the first few decades after the war, some histories and articles gave the death toll for the raids as high as 250,000, which is a figure likely to have its origins in Nazi wartime propaganda and fraud.(Evens, Taylor) Research that started in the 1970s have conclusively reduced that figure to a tenth of that number,(Evans, Addison) and an independent investigation commissioned by the city itself has released an interim death toll of around 25,000 people with the full report expected to be released some time in 2008.(www.welt.de) Post-war discussion and debate of the bombings were inevitably influenced the magnitude of the event with some commentators drawing comparisons with the atomic bombings in Japan. (Wilhelm Berthold cited in Addison) More recently A.C. Grayling and Bloxham have suggested that Dresden's iconic status has obscured the moral debate into the conduct of the Western Allies strategic bombing campaign, nevertheless Donald Bloxham and others have suggested that the bombing of Dresden may have been a warcrime.

This version explains why during the 1960s and 70s Dresden was an iconic example due to the overestimates of the dead, which WilliamH's the latest version does not. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

More of your POV. There were many post-war estimates, high and low with one possibly linked to Nazi propaganda. And the numbers of dead are not conclusive until the commission CONCLUDES. As I said above I accept William H's NPOV version.Colin4C (talk) 17:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I suggest one sticks to commenting on the content, not the editor Colin, but similarly, I must agree with you. This paragraph implicitly suggests that all historians who have suggested figures now considered disproportionate did so instrinsicly from Goebbels - that is simply not NPOV. WilliamH (talk) 19:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, the city's numbers will not be conclusive when it concludes; this is one investigation of many. They fall in the range 25,000-40,000 just mentioned, and should be left to a footnote or the fuller discussion. And how are we certain of the number of wounded? Surely that is also an estimate? This aside, William's draft looks good. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
The source for the 30000 injuries is this, as used in the German version of this article: https://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm The source for the statement about 100000+ estimates being disproportionate is Earl A. Beck, Under the Bombs: The German Home Front 1942-1945 (University of Kentucky Press, 1986): p. 179., cited here http://www.hdot.org/learning/myth-fact/dresden2//body/1023#note13 I really think the city's own commission is worth being in the intro though. Thanks for your feedback Pmanderson. Regards, WilliamH (talk) 20:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
We don't put things in because they "deserve to be"; but if they add something. I don't see what it adds to the intro, although (as a fact about the Bombing) it should certainly be lower down. I see the USAF report you cite says 25,000 dead and 30,000 wounded; presumably then the 30,000 is towards the low end of the possible scale. 21:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm aware of that, I just find it notable because it is the city's own findings that's all. Nonetheless, I really hope this paragraph provides a means to an end here. WilliamH (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I support your paragraph William. This edit war has gone on too long. Colin4C (talk) 10:13, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Where did numbers above 200,000 come from if not from war time propaganda and fraud? Two sources can be provided that the large figures come from wartime propaganda. We can also mention that the other figures over 100,000 were initially provided by the discredited research of David Irving. Is there any other source form any article or book that claims numbers over 100,000 from any other primary source? The figure 25K-40K is already mentioned in the first paragraph of the introduction do it does not need to be mentioned again. Further it is Taylor's number and the higher number is based on older research that Evans argues is out of date (and this would seem to be confirmed by the commision). The wounded should not be mentioned because it is a mine field as unlike dead it is not binary and as such is wide open to manipulation up and down. Further it is a figure that is of little use for comparison perposes because the wounded in most other raids are not mentioned. I think some explanation should be give as to why the large figures mattered, and that while historians took on good faith large numbers, that at more than three times the next biggest casualty rates in Europe, inevitably the bombing was an iconic symbol and compared by some with the atomic bombings. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:58, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
PBS I do not dispute that disproportionate figures haven't been used for sinister purposes or they weren't of illicit origin, but how can you not see that what you're suggesting is problematic? Please consider Auschwitz. The Soviet death toll estimates were never considered reliable and others have always maintained a distinctly lower death toll. Even though we know the Soviets notably manipulated it for their own purposes, if the prose were to suggest implicitly that all Western death toll estimates higher than 1.1 million relate to communist propaganda, don't you think that's a little bit POV? Far safer to discuss the politically motivated figures and why they're false in greater detail later on, rather than allowing for such things to be misconstrued in the intro. I really am at a loss as to how else to explain this. WilliamH (talk) 14:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I support your edit William. The intro is no place for a POV numbers game using just one estimate of deaths, possibly derived from Nazi propaganda, to slur those that believe that Dresden was a war crime with the charge of being Nazi dupes. As I have shown, there were many estimates of numbers of dead, both high and low after the bombings, only one of which is suspected to be Nazi propaganda (though nobody knows for certain). High estimates may be wrong but it doesn't mean you are a Nazi or a fool to believe them. The only reason I see why a certain editor wants just this one this estimate highlighted in the intro is for POV propagandist reasons - to slur anti-bombing proponents with the Nazi brush. Colin4C (talk) 19:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I think the short form, under protection, acceptable; if it is really useful to mention the ongoing study, something like There have been numerous studies, including one sponsored by the City of Dresden which is scheduled to publish final results in 2009. would be better than what we have been seeing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
"As I have shown, there were many estimates of numbers of dead, both high and low after the bombings, only one of which is suspected to be Nazi propaganda (though nobody knows for certain). " Where did you show this Colin4C? As I must have missed it please supply the references. Can you supply one citation for numbers >100,000 that do not originate from Irving and/or Nazi propaganda and any over 200,000 that did not originate in Nazi propaganda? If we have been writing this article 20 or 30 years ago many of the published articles and books that mentioned the raid did not do original research using primary sources, instead they relied on previously published works and as such they might well of included figures that are a lot higher than those published today. Some of them are mentioned in this section and others like Norman Longmate (The Bombers) made the judgement with the information that they had available which included taking Irving at face value. This does not make them "Nazi dupes" or "a fool to believe them", the were reporting figures and citing sources that they had available which is the correct and proper thing to do. But it does mean that the conclusions that they drew -- that Dresden was significantly different from other raids -- false and I see no reason not to mention that. The wording I have suggested above which includes the sentence "More recently ..." does not "slur anti-bombing proponents with the Nazi brush" --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:38, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
PBS may wish to rephrase significantly different from into killed significantly more people than. I see we mention the firestorm, which was unique in Europe. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:31, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
There were firestorms in a number of German cities. The first was Hamburg in July 1943 and the last that wikipedia has an article on was Pforzheim (Febuary 1945). It is difficult to know how many there were because some marginal ones are called firestorms by some historians and not by others but all agree on the big ones.
Apart from Dreden and Hamburg the RAF Bomber Command website listed these raids:
  • 29/30 May 1943 Wuppertal: "It is probable that this fire was so severe that the first, small form of what would later become known as a 'firestorm' developed."
  • 21/22 October 1943 Kassel: "The result was the most devastating attack on a German city since the firestorm raid on Hamburg in July and the results at Kassel would not be exceeded again until well into 1944. The fires were so concentrated that there was a firestorm, although not as extensive as the Hamburg one."
  • 22/23 November 1943 Berlin: "A vast area of destruction stretched from the central districts westwards across the mainly residential areas of Tiergarten and Charlottenbur to the separate suburb city of Spandau. Because of the dry weather conditions, several 'firestorm' areas were reported and a German plane next day measured the height of the smoke cloud as 6,000 metres (nearly 19,000 ft)."
  • 12/13 September 1944 Frankfurt "The attack was a success and local reports state that a firestorm occurred."
  • 4/5 December 1944 Heilbronn: "282 Lancasters and 10 Mosquitos of No 5 Group. 12 Lancasters lost. This was a crushing blow on Heilbronn which stood on a main north-south railway line but was otherwise of little importance. It was the first and only major raid by Bomber Command on this target. 1,254 tons of bombs fell in a few minutes and the post-war British Bombing Survey Unit estimated that 351 acres, 82 per cent of the town's built-up area, were destroyed, mainly by fire. Much investigation by various people resulted in the reliable estimate that just over 7,000 people died. Most of these victims would have died in fires so intense that there was probably a genuine firestorm."
I have included all the details of the last raid mentioned to show that by 1944 the industrial scale of the bombing operations were standard practise and that in this respect Dresden was nothing special. The raid on Heilbronn was not even the largest RAF daid that night that dubious privilege fell to Karlsruhe which was bombed by 535 aircraft. By March 1945 some German cities had been so devastated that the RAF did not use fire bombs any more because there was nothing left to burn -- for example the raid on Essen on 11 March 1945 when 1,079 RAF aircraft dropped 4,661 tons of bombs. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
The only figure which might associated with Nazi propaganda is the 250,000 estimate but there is no definate proof even of this and Taylor doesn't say there is. The only one who asserts it as undeniable fact that it came from the Nazis is Evans in a court case and you here. None of the other high figures is associated with Nazi propaganda and, needless to say, none of the low figures are. The RAF estimate, mentioned in the USAAF report was a mere 8,200. One speculative assertion in a court case is not solid evidence and far less should it be put in the intro of an encyclopedia as definitive. To be balanced we should mention each and every speculative estimate produced after the bombings in the intro, not just your favorite POV piece de resistance. For instance Dreden survivor Axel Rodenberger gives a figure of 350,000 to 400,000 dead in his Der Tod von Dresden, published in 1952. To be balanced we should quote each and every estimate, high and low, made after the bombings, not ones selected for max POV impact in the present day. Colin4C (talk) 17:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
"there is no definate proof even of this and Taylor doesn't say there is" No but Evans does. What was Rodenberger's source for those numbers or did he make them up? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:03, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
What was Evans' source for his definate proof of Nazi propaganda or did he make it up? Colin4C (talk) 18:56, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Colin4C Do you Rodenberger to be a historian? Rodenberge figures he says came from a report he overheard the figures being dictated by local official (in Dresden) of the Propaganda Ministry for a report sent to Berlin. No copy of this report has been found. (Taylor,503) so if Rodenberger did overhear the figures being dictated they originated from the Nazi wartime Propaganda Ministry. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 13:12, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
In The Times Atlas of World War Two (1989) edited by John Keegan, the Dresden dead are given as 135,000. Is Keegan a Nazi also? Or merely a Nazi dupe? Unlike your hero Evans, Keegan is actually a military historian. Colin4C (talk) 09:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I have read some of Keegan's work including the The Face of Battle and do not dispute that he an historian. However you are citing what could be considered a tertiary source. Does the work include its source for the number of 135,000? As I said above. "Can you supply one citation for numbers >100,000 that do not originate from Irving and/or Nazi propaganda and any over 200,000 that did not originate in Nazi propaganda? If we have been writing this article 20 or 30 years ago many of the published articles and books that mentioned the raid did not do original research using primary sources, instead they relied on previously published works and as such they might well of included figures that are a lot higher than those published today. Some of them are mentioned in this section and others like Norman Longmate (The Bombers) made the judgement with the information that they had available which included taking Irving at face value. This does not make them "Nazi dupes" or "a fool to believe them", the were reporting figures and citing sources that they had available which is the correct and proper thing to do. ..."
In the case of Keegan he is on record as stating in 1996 that "No historian of the Second World War can afford to ignore David Irving" something I doubt he would say today even though he appeared as a character witness for Irving at the Lipstadt trial.[7] In 2005, nine years after making the comment in the Telegraph Keegan wrote another article in the same paper and wrote "By the time the raids finished, much of historic and modern Dresden had been flattened and 35,000 people, mostly civilians, had been killed. As a result, Dresden became a catchword for all that the opponents of the strategic bombing campaign most detested. In the controversy that ensued, the casualty figure was inflated; a number as large as 200,000 was widely cited while the name of Dresden was used to brand Air Marshall Harris, head of RAF Bomber Command, a war criminal."[8] So given that the book you are referring to was published in 1989 it is likely that Keegan relied on what he thought at the time was reputable historian -- David Irving. Also note that Keegan -- as a good historian -- was using numbers in 2005 which rely on the reserach of other historians. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 14:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
So you are saying that Evans is a primary source in his assertion that the supposedly inflated figures are Nazi propaganda? Evans went into the archives and found undisputed evidence about this? Such documents don't exist and you know it. If Keegan's evidence is 'tertiary' then so equally is Evans's. Why don't you admit that there is no evidence, rather than relying on 'tertiary' speculation based on non-existent archival evidence? This article is not your personal POV propaganda outlet. Colin4C (talk) 17:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Also it seems weird to me that Goebbels would have thought that exaggerating the casualties the German people were suffering was going to me a great stroke of morale boosting propaganda. Wouldn't it rather demoralise the people to think that their government and airforce was incapable of defending them? In the corresponding V2 attacks on England, the British gov at first denied they were happening ('exploding gas-mains') than create terror and despair by exaggerating the numbers. Knowing you will be slaughtered with no effective defence is not a cheery morale booster, neither in the V2 attacks or in the Dresden attack, despite ludicrous myths about 'the spirit of the blitz'. Colin4C (talk) 18:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • It seems as though you have both clearly stated your case, now I suggest some effort to form consensus is made, perhaps around the prose I suggested or through other means. This discussion is going nowhere quickly and it hinders contributions to the article in other areas. WilliamH (talk) 11:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I accept William's suggested paragraph for the intro. As for the rest we can go into all the speculation about Goebbels and co. in the body of the article in as much detail as anyone likes. From what I have read of the literature the supposed Nazi propaganda effort in this regard was a stupendously Machiavellian plan involving remarkable precognition of what would happen after they were all dead. Needless to say there is no primary archival evidence about it at all: just a tissue of speculation by Taylor and an off-the-cuff blank assertion by Evans in a court case, based on no evidence whatsoever. Colin4C (talk) 15:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I also accept William's suggested paragraph. PBS it is now up to you, as the only dissenter, to show good faith and also accept it. This will finally allow us to resolve the issue and move on. There has been a lot of information revealed in the discussion above, much of which should actually be in the article itself, and I look forward to it being added once the article is unlocked. Can we PLEASE just settle this dispute now? Logicman1966 (talk) 20:55, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Colin4C you write "Also it seems weird to me that Goebbels would have thought that exaggerating..." do you dispute that the ministry that Goebbels oversaw did exaggerate the numbers? Colin4C you have yet to produce one source for numbers over 200,000 that historians do not attribute to war time propaganda and yet you claim that it is not a neutral point of view to state that that is the origin of those numbers, why is it not a neutral point of view when there do not seem to be any sources that contradict the assertion? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I suggest that we adopt William's paragraph for the intro and go into all this dubious POV stuff in the body of the article. The high figures came from neutral countries and were denied by Goebbels. This could of course all have been part of a highly sophisticated Machiavellian Nazi plot as Taylor suggests. However as there is no archival proof of this I suggest that we leave discussion of it for the body of the article where all the speculative issues can be thrashed out. Rotterdam also had initial highly inflated figures for bomb dead but nobody has made a big issue of it or even mentioned it in the wikipedia article as there is evidentally no present day POV mileage to be gained from naming and shaming the 'guilty' parties. Colin4C (talk) 15:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
What is your source for "The high figures came from neutral countries and were denied by Goebbels"? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:40, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Taylor, plus Robin Cross in 'Fallen Eagle: The Last Days of the Third Reich' (1995). According to the latter (page 105) on 23 March German media denied reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000. Taylor states his belief that this was all part of a devious propaganda by German spin doctors who leaked the 250,000 figure to the neutral press in Sweden and Switzerland, and then cunningly denied it when the neutrals broadcast it. What the propaganda benefit of creating terror and despair by broadcasting the failure of the Luffwaffe from preventing its population from being massacred is unclear. Taylor the historian, however, concludes that Goebbels must have forseen that the Third Reich was doomed quite soon and that the Dresden death figures would then become a posthumous political football and cunningly did the whole thing to fool posterity. IMHO Taylor has learned a lot from the master in the art of black propaganda, spin and denial, however if you read him closely you can see that his whole thesis is just arrant speculation. Taylor has no archival proof but trusts to his POV instincts. Colin4C (talk) 18:35, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Tami Davies Biddle in a chapter entitled "War time reactions" in "Firestorm:The bombing of Dresdent, 1945" (ed Addison (2006)) supports Taylor's views on Goebbels. He writes on page 117 "Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels did not present the full story of Dresden to his domestic audience right on the heels of the event. But he began passing information -- including high casualty estimates -- to the neutral press immediately. this helped heighten the stridency of stories appearing in Sweden and Switzerland which focused on the high death-toll and questioned the military necessity of the raids on the city. As Frederick Taylor has pointed out..." In the same book in a chapter called "the post-war debate" Richard Overy writes "The figure of approximately a quarter of a million deaths was supplied shortly after the raid by the German Ministry of Propaganda, for foreign journalists and was reproduced regularly by early condemnations of the raid published inside and outside Germany. The Dresden regional propaganda office suggested that the final figure might reach 300,000 to 400,000. The Dresden authorities themselves never made such exaggerated claims."(p. 136). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:39, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I can not find a statement in Taylor that supports the statement "The high figures came from neutral countries and were denied by Goebbels"? Nor does Taylor argue that "that Goebbels must have forseen that the Third Reich was doomed quite soon and that the Dresden death figures would then become a posthumous political football and cunningly did the whole thing to fool posterity" What Taylor says is:
The German people remain in ignorance. Naturally, rumors abounded and may have been spread, like those that informed the foreign press, by official sources. The endangered Nazi elite was eager to draw a picture of the evil fate that would await Germany if enemies as cruel as those who had bombed Dresden were to emerge victorious. If the German people could no longer be persuaded to fight for final victory, let them fight out of despair and terror. (p 424)
This line of argument is not new to Taylor it has also been used to explain the emphasis the Nazis put on the alleged Nemmersdorf massacre. Also Taylor writes:
Nevertheless, it was in the interests of the regime to have apocalyptic estimates of casualties at Dresden in circulation. There would modify the attitude of the neutral press in Germany's favor. and perhaps even at this late stage could mold neutral opinion. As Richard Stoke's speech in the House of Commons showed -- partly based on the material put out by Goebbels's own German Press Agency -- the British Parliament could also be influenced and even the British prime minister.(p 424)
I can not find any statement in Taylor's book that "Taylor the historian, however, concludes that Goebbels must have forseen that the Third Reich was doomed quite soon and that the Dresden death figures would then become a posthumous political football and cunningly did the whole thing to fool posterity." Which paragraph on which page can I find the assertion? What Taylor wrote in the final paragraph of the chapter was "... However, the extent of the wide, long-lasting ripple of international outrage that followed the Dresden bombings represents, at least in part, Goebbels's final, dark masterpiece.(page 426)", is not a statement that supports the assertion you make: that Tayolor writes that Goebbels intended his propaganda to outlive the regime he supported. As I do not have access to Robin Cross please quote what Cross writes about the German media on 23 March denying reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000 and what is his source and what was the figure put out on the 23rd of March by the Germans? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Note Taylor's weasel words:
"it was in the interests of the regime to have apocalyptic estimates of casualties at Dresden in circulation"...[er really Taylor?? You 'know' what the interests of the Nazi regime were? A sort of intuition you have maybe? Like when the Japanese were spurred on to fight to the last man when they heard about the apocalyptic Hiroshima casualties? Shurely shome mistake?]
Colin4C do you have a source that argues like this against Taylor or are these your own personal observations? Do you have similar observations to make about Tami Davies Biddle, Richard Overy, and Evans all of whom have published in the last few years making the same claim as Taylor that the German Ministry of Propaganda were the source for the large numbers? It seems to me that you are suggesting that we ignore a point made by a number of historians because you think it is a specific point of view but you have not produced any recent publications that criticise their collective position. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
"Naturally, rumors abounded and MAY have been spread, like those that informed the foreign press, by official sources." ["May" have been spread, Taylor? You mean you don't have any proof??? As Cross demonstates the rumors were also denied. But both confirmation and denial are grist to mill of Taylor's spin. He has a POV viewpoint to put across despite lack of evidence, contradictory evidence and contrary evidence.]
Colin4C do you have a source that argues against Taylor or are these your own personal observations? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I suggest that we adopt William's paragraph for the intro and put all this no doubt fascinating speculation as to who spread which rumour to who and what was in the best interests of the Nazi regime in the body of the article.Colin4C (talk) 14:46, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I would have thought that if the Germans had published a lower number on 23 March 1945 it would be widely reported. As I do not have access to Robin Cross please quote what Cross writes about the German media on 23 March denying reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000 and what is his source and what was the figure put out on the 23rd of March by the Germans? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
On the subject of Nazi propaganda, according to the historian Neil Gregor, (quoted on page 473 of 'Eighth Air Force' (2006) by Donald Miller) the assertion that bombing bolstered morale "is an invention of Nazi propaganda which has been absorbed uncritically by subsequent scholars"...So it seems that Taylor ("it was in the interests of the regime to have apocalyptic estimates of casualties at Dresden in circulation") is also a Nazi dupe along with the rest...The United States Strategic Bombing Survey came to a similar conclusion: "Bombing seriously depressed the morale of the German civilians...Its psychological effects were defeatism, fear, hopelessness, fatalism, and apathy. War weariness, willingness to surrender, loss of hope in a German victory, distrust of leaders, feelings of disunity, and demoralizing fear were all more common among bombed than unbombed people". This can't have been helped by Goebbels and co spreading rumors of mass casualties...(Taylor: Naturally, rumors abounded and may have been spread, like those that informed the foreign press, by official sources). Makes you wonder what Goebbels was up to...Possibly duping Taylor is also part of Goebbels' posthumous "dark masterpiece". Colin4C (talk) 20:11, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Interesting arguments, but it does not disprove the assertion made by several historians that the large figures all originate from Nazi propaganda sources. I would appreciate it if you would answer my request: As I do not have access to Robin Cross please quote what Cross writes about the German media on 23 March denying reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000 and what is his source and what was the figure put out on the 23rd of March by the Germans? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:42, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
You seem to assume that in the confusion of the last days of WW2 the Nazis knew exactly how many had died and then exaggerated it. Nobody knows how many died, even today. Military historian Donald Miller in 'Eighth Air Force' writing in 2006 (two years after Taylor's book) says (contra Evans) that there is still no definate answer (page 443) as to how many died at Dresden. Numbers may have been exaggerated like those of Rotterdam but there is no proof that this was a elaborate Machiavellian plot. Bodies were still being dug out of the ruins years after Goebbels died. How could he have known about them? The only reason for Taylor's numbers game is to slur those such as Stokes who stood up to be counted when men, women and children were being cruelly massacred. Taylor's Chapter 26 is aptly named 'Propaganda'. It is a tissue of conjecture, selective quotation, spin and deliberate omissions. If you read any history of the last days of the Reich (e.g books by Cross, Toland and Tissier) you will see that the Dresden massacre was a genuinely demoralising and terrifying attack and was felt to be such by both government and society of Germany. 9/11 is an obvious comparison. The numbers game is a sideline. The Germans thought that if such raids continued they would all be annihilated. Churchill and Harris thought so too. Churchill's secretary Colville managed to buttonhole Harris a few days later (Feb 22) and asked him what had happened to Dresden, to which Harris replied "There is no such place as Dresden". Later that day at Chequers Churchill expresed his fear that Harris' mass destruction of the cities of Central Europe would give the Russians a clean sweep through to the Atlantic (after which 'The PM said that the Hindus were a foul race "protected by their mere pullulation from the doom that is their due" and he wished that Bert Harris would send some of his surplus bombers to destroy them' Colville's Diary Friday, February 23rd). Colin4C (talk) 15:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I would appreciate it if you would answer my request: As I do not have access to Robin Cross please quote what Cross writes about the German media on 23 March denying reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000 and what is his source and what was the figure put out on the 23rd of March by the Germans? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 20:26, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Let me ask you a question. Do you think that those who accepted the initial estimates of 2-4 million killed at Auschwitz were misled as to it being a war crime? Colin4C (talk) 10:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Colin4C, I do not think that Auschwitz is relevant to this conversation (it seems a little close to Irving others' methodology to link them). However to humour you in the hope that you will then answer the Robin Cross question I have repeatedly put to you: I do not know anything about how many were killed at Auschwitz or anything about the initial estimates, so I can not give an informed reply to your question. You on the other hand have made a statement "plus Robin Cross in 'Fallen Eagle: The Last Days of the Third Reich' (1995). According to the latter (page 105) on 23 March German media denied reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000." and I would appreciate it if you would answer my request: As I do not have access to Robin Cross please quote what Cross writes about the German media on 23 March denying reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000, what is his source and what was the figure put out on the 23rd of March by the Germans? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Reitlinger wrote a book on the Holocaust in which he computed that circa one million were killed at Auschwitz. Earlier estimates ranged from 2 to 4 million. Bizarrely some of the overestimates were of Nazi origin: the Commandant Hoess gave his opinion that over 2 million had been killed there. Later research by Reitlinger, who wrote the pioneering book on the Holocaust, reduced it to about 1 million. Were those who condemned the extermination of the Jews on the basis of the earlier estimates misled as to it being a war crime? And were those who thought that 35,000 had been killed at the bombing of Rotterdam rather than the 900 that later research revealed misled as to the latter being a war-crime? Colin4C (talk) 16:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think the two questions are not relevant to this conversation, and if the questions are directed at me I have no comment to make as the sum of my knowledge about the figures you are presenting are those figures you are presenting, so presumably you are fore more qualified than I to answer them. Further AFAICT no one has suggested here that the number of dead at Dresden is relevant to whether the bombing was war crime or not (As I added the paragraph in the article that starts "Donald Bloxham has argued that there was a strong prima facie for trying Winston Churchill among others ..." no t I). However I look forward to you answering my request: As I do not have access to Robin Cross please quote what Cross writes about the German media on 23 March denying reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000, what is his source and what was the figure put out on the 23rd of March by the Germans? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 17:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Au contraire, you and Taylor both assert that Stokes was misled by Goebbels' supposedly inflated figures into believing that Dresden was a warcrime. He was a Nazi dupe. That is what you think isn't it? Generalising from that, it must also be the case that all those who thought that Rotterdam and Auschwitz were crimes based on misleading figures were sad dupes also. Colin4C (talk) 20:12, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Why do you keep insisting in that I am asserting things that I have not asserted and for that matter things that historians like Taylor have not asserted? I have specifically stated that I do not know anything about the debate over the figures for the deaths at Rotterdam and Auschwitz and I do not understand how one draw a meaningful generalisation as you do. However I do know a little more about the arguments put forward by Alfred Salter, Richard Stokes and Bishop George Bell and they held their views independently of the number of civilians killed. They believed strategic bombing to be morally wrong. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Instead of dragging in other points and extending this conversation please will you answer the request I have put to you several times. As I do not have access to Robin Cross please quote what Cross writes about the German media on 23 March denying reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000, what is his source and what was the figure put out on the 23rd of March by the Germans? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:40, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It is you who are dragging this debate out. I suggest that we adopt William's paragraph for the intro and put all the speculation and POV numbers game name and blame stuff in the body of the article. Just to reiterate: 1, nobody knows how many died at Dresden. 2, there is no archival evidence of Goebbels' involvement, just speculation. 3, Linking the numbers of dead with the question of whether Dresden was a war-crime is just disingenuous POV. How many people killed equals a war crime? Have you an exact number in mind? 20,000, 30,000? 40,000, 50,000, 60,000? More? Colin4C (talk) 09:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

A war crime like a municipal crime does not need to involve the death of a single person (war crimes are not the same as crimes against humanity or genocide where there significant numbers of victimes must be involved for an incident to qualify as a crime). As I do not have access to Robin Cross please quote what Cross writes about the German media on 23 March denying reports that the death toll at Dresden was 250,000, what is his source and what was the figure put out on the 23rd of March by the Germans? If you did not have access to Cross how do you know what he wrote? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 15:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I have done a Google book search on Robin+Cross+Fallen+Eagle:+The+Last+Days+of+the+Third+Reich It links to a H-Net Review by David Grier on Fallen Eagle Grier suggests that as it has no footnotes or endnotes and includes "the bibliography includes four books by Charles Whiting and two by the notorious David Irving. Aside from eight books in German, two in Russian and one in French, all other sources listed are in English, and none were published after 1991. Instead of notes, the author provides less than two pages of acknowledgments, noting some, but by no means all, direct quotations. Also listed on the acknowledgments page are two diaries and an unpublished manuscript from the Imperial War Museum. The overwhelming majority of Cross's information appears to come from older secondary sources and memoirs. ... In conclusion, the book presents a lively and interesting summary of the final phase of the war, but its use will be limited to the general reader. Scholars will continue to turn elsewhere for accounts of the end of the Third Reich." In fairness it was published in 1996 before the Irving v. Lipstadt libel trial, but this does not sound like a book which is much use as a source about the bombing of Dresden and specifically the details of the Nazi propaganda figures on Dresden. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

You two are incredibly irritating. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.42.216.244 (talk) 23:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Firebombing

{{editprotected}}

Hello all. Could an admin add this to the bottom of the page:

[[Category:Firebombing]]

Thanks. It will link to Category:Firebombing. --Timeshifter (talk) 10:30, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Y Done. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:25, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! --Timeshifter (talk) 13:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Please change the category to [[Category:Firebombing|Dresden]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by GrahamBould (talk • contribs) 16:57, 19 March 2008

[edit] Link to Dresden?

Shouldn't there be an actual link in the article to the city of Dresden? Nonagonal Spider (talk) 21:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

There is, it occurs in the first instance where Dresden appears that is not in the title, since as per the Manual of Style, it is undesireable to put links in titles and headers. WilliamH (talk) 23:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] "Scandal"?

Should it be in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_scandals ? You guys decide. --84.234.60.154 (talk) 14:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I say yes - although this would even be not enough. Dresden is far worse than just a "scandal". The intentional targeting and killing hundreds of thousands of refugees, mainly women, chilren and the elderly by a firestorm is unique in history. Let alone in a architectural and cultural heritage which is named in one line with Venice, Florence, Paris, Vienna and Rome, and that is irrevocably gone. What has been reconstructed in Dresden looks nice, but this is only a drop in the bucket compared to the legendary city it was before the intentional and senseless destruction.

Dresden is far more than just a "scandal", it shows the stupidity and hatred on BOTH sides of the war. And it shows, how cultural treasures are at stake, when insanity prevails rather than reason.

I am not saying, by the way, that bombing germany was wrong. To the contrary, i wish the people in charge like Harris or Churchill would have bombed far more german railway lines, german military sites, factories. All this had not taken place, they concentrated on housing areas, as we sadly know today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterBln (talk • contribs) 05:12, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that Wikipedia itself or authors have to appraise whether a war event was a scandal. The category is in strong conflict with Neutral point of view especially if the event is heavily discussed: Anyone just has to decide which side is right. And this would be very wrong. Geo-Loge (talk) 08:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Add clarification.

Michal Salomonovic, a survivor of the Łódź ghetto and Auschwitz concentration camp, told Radio Praha that he volunteered for a work detail and was sent to an SS-run cigarette factory in Dresden that was actually manufacturing dum-dum bullets.

Clarify the reason the factory was disguised. It was not only to protect against Allied bombing, but also because such munitions are illegal for military use, under Declaration III of the Hague Convention of 1899, which Germany signed. --70.131.117.219 (talk) 21:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

There are some improbablities with Salomonovic's story, and as far as I am aware his claims about the dum-dum bullet factory are uncorroborated. I would prefer to see more quotes from eye-witnesses of the attack, including descriptions of people being swept away by hurricane-force winds, and of large numbers of people being incinerated. I also want to mention that when the extent of the attack began to emerge in the media, Churchill turned gutless and tried to deny all knowledge of it; "I thought the Americans did it". Unfortunately, at the moment we cannot make ANY edits to the article until the above dispute is resolved and the article unlocked. Logicman1966 (talk) 22:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Amended Intro

Right, I have been bold and amended the third lead paragraph. Based on everything I understood from the previous discussion, I believe it meets the following criteria:

  1. It includes modern day findings of the death toll - Y
  2. It documents both the interim report and anticipated release of the investigation by the city - Y
  3. It mentions the debates proposed by historians and other commentators - Y
  4. It maintains NPOV and prevents obfuscation/attribution of material with a political position because it doesn't mention any - Y
  5. It does not prevent the discussion and elaboration of notable disinformation in greater detail later on in the article - Y

WilliamH (talk) 20:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Good. Colin4C (talk) 16:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

It does not maintain a Neutral Point of View as it does not explain why some historians in the 1960s compared the attack with the atomic bombings and it does not explain that all the larger figures are directly from German propaganda sources. Further "Post-war discussion of the bombing includes debate by commentators and historians as to whether or not the bombing was justified, and whether or not its outcome constituted a war crime." does not describe how the debate has changed over time. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 16:40, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

That is incorrect - the large numbers came from neutral countries which some POV historians have assumed, without proof, ultimately came from German propaganda sources or that German propaganda sources gave credence to by the devious method of denying them - no doubt playing both ends against the middle, encouraging resistence by spreading terror and depair amongst the populace or maybe for some other speculative self-contradictory reason which will justify contemporary POV pushers in promoting area bombing as an acceptable military tactic. Colin4C (talk) 17:14, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Name one historian who alleges that the large numbers originate from any where but German propaganda? As a number of historian state that is so and so I see no problem in mentioning this (and there is no need to qualify it unless there is a contradictory source). To date you have not provided one source that contradicts those historians that state the figures are from German propaganda. Why are you so wedded to a point of view for which you have not provided a source to back it up? Even Irving, who for his own political reasons distorts the figures upwards, acknowledges that the figures >200,000 come from German propaganda sources. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 23:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Tell me where in the documents of the German Propaganda Ministry or in Goebbels Diaries or in anything else written by Goebbels it says that they deliberately exaggerated the nembers of dead? The question absurd, anyway, for bodies were still being recovered from the ruins decades later. Goebbels died on May 1st 1945. Between May 8th 1945 and 1966, 1,856 bodies were recovered from the ruins of Dresden (Taylor: 448). Did Goebbels have supernatural X ray vision which made him able to see where all these bodies were buried in the ruins, count them and then multiply the figures by a factor of whatever? There is a currently, at this moment, an official commission in Dresden trying to find out how many died. At the moment nobody knows how many died: not me, not you, not Evans, not Taylor, not Goebbels. Nobody knows. Colin4C (talk) 04:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia relies on secondary sources. Please read WP:V. Wikipedia editors should not provide interpretation of events based on primary sources. If two or more experts in an area assert that something is so we can include such an interpretation and only need to provide an alternative point of view if it is one held by other experts. Hence my request that you provide a source that contradicts those historians who state that Goebbels's propaganda ministry did not inflate the figures (or that the inflated figures came from another source. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Goebbels

I have deleted this paragraph as it is not supported by the reference provided and even the page numbers are wrong:

Joseph Goebbels, head of the German Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, seized on the bombing's propaganda value, inflating the number of dead by a factor of ten, with German diplomats circulating the figures to neutral countries, along with photographs of the destruction, the dead, and badly burned children.[2] By coincidence, the day before the Dresden raid, a German foreign affairs paper had described Arthur Harris, head of Bomber Command, as "the arch enemy of Europe," and a leading proponent of "terror bombing."[3] On February 16, the Propaganda Ministry issued a press release that established the Nazi line — Dresden had no war industries; it was a city of culture.[3]
  1. ^ Berlin: the Downfall, 1945 by Antony Beevor, p. 83.
  2. ^ Taylor, Frederick. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 420-6.
  3. ^ a b Taylor, Frederick. Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945, HarperCollins, 2004, p. 421.

Taylor discusses Goebbels and German propaganda with respect to Dresden on pages 366-72 but nowhere categorically states that Goebbels inflated the numbers of dead by 10. The nearest he comes to it is on pages 370-1. Here - without giving any sources for his assertion - Taylor states that 'there is good reason to believe' (see weasel words) that in late March inflated figures of dead were circulated to the neutral press by Goebbels's Propaganda. This seems to be just Taylor's personal POV belief. He also states (on page 371) his bizarre conviction that German officials spread rumors of heavy casualties among the populace to persuade them to fight 'out of terror and despair'! IMHO it is Taylor who deserves the prize for being the championship rumour monger rather than Goebbels. Colin4C (talk) 06:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems that someone changed the publishers so the page numbering may be out it you are using a different edition of the book. Page 424 Paragraph one "there is also good... doctored with an extra 0". The page number 421 is the start of the paragraph it finishes on the next page, so I have fixed that. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Date removal

Richard Stokes MP, asked questions in the House of Commonson March 6. I removed the recent addtion because the given source does not give the date. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 11:10, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] From WP:RD/H

The inimitable Clio has shared with us some useful information about events leading up to the raid. I'm leaving it here for future reference, as some of it should perhaps be worked into the article. --Relata refero (disp.) 09:10, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wah?

Nice to see you guys removed my suggestion section here from a month ago. I see you guys still haven't resolved some moral aspects of this fine article. Let me help you: war has no moral aspects. Germany from 1914 has given itself to total war; and I don't see why, when those fighting against Germany have given equal measure back to them, it is newsworthy. Time to move along, guys. 01:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Your opinion, view, or whatever else you wish to call it constitutes original thought, which is not allowed. Your comments were thus removed because talk pages are not a forum. Hope this helps. WilliamH (talk) 16:10, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


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