 | Firestorm- Bombing of Germany 1/ 5 Bombing of Germany! From the beginning of the war the Luftwaffe engaged in massive air raids against Polish cities, bombing civilians, hospitals, and refugees. Cities like Warsaw, Wieluń, Frampol and many others were devastated by indiscriminate German air bombardments, often targeting civilians. In the case of Frampol, the city was destroyed as a test case to determine the effects and accuracy of bombardment. The first bombs released on Germany during World War II were dropped by a single Polish PZL.23 Karaś of the 21st squadron on a factory in the Silesian town of Ohlau, today Olawa. Even though the Polish Air Force had a small fleet of modern medium-range bombers such as the PZL.37 Łoś, before the full scale of German war atrocities became known, Polish officers were reluctant to order strategic bombardment of targets in Germany for humanitarian reasons. Shortly after, in a period of a few days, Luftwaffe numerical and technological superiority took its toll on the Polish Air Force and such operations were impossible The bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF) between February 13 and February 15, 1945, 12 weeks before the surrender of the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) of Nazi Germany, remains one of the most controversial Allied actions of the Second World War. The raids saw 1,300 heavy bombers drop over 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices in four raids, destroying 13 square miles (34 km²) of the city, the baroque capital of the German state of Saxony, and causing a firestorm that consumed the city centre. Estimates of civilian casualties vary greatly, but recent publications place the figure between 24,000 and 40,000. The Allies described the operation as the justified bombing of a military and industrial target, which was a major rail transportation and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers in support of the German war effort.[4] 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 the attacks were indiscriminate area bombing and not proportional for the commensurate military gains. 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 an independent investigation commissioned by the city itself 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. |
 | Devastation of cities in world war II In World War II, strategic bombing destroyed a lot of cities, cultures, killed about 60 000 British, 450 000 German , and 400 000 Japan civilians. |
 | 1945 BOMBING DRESDEN on an AVRO-LANCASTER Col/Snd http://www.webalice.it/romanoarchives/ In 1941 Charles Portal of the British Air Staff advocated that entire cities and towns should be bombed. Portal claimed that this would quickly bring about the collapse of civilian morale in Germany. Air Marshall Arthur Harris agreed and when he became head of RAF Bomber Command in February 1942, he introduced a policy of area bombing (known in Germany as terror bombing) where entire cities and towns were targeted. One tactic used by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Force was the creation of firestorms. This was achieved by dropping incendiary bombs, filled with highly combustible chemicals such as magnesium, phosphorus or petroleum jelly (napalm), in clusters over a specific target. After the area caught fire, the air above the bombed area, become extremely hot and rose rapidly. Cold air then rushed in at ground level from the outside and people were sucked into the fire. In 1945, Arthur Harris decided to create a firestorm in the medieval city of Dresden. He considered it a good target as it had not been attacked during the war and was virtually undefended by anti-aircraft guns. The population of the city was now far greater than the normal 650,000 due to the large numbers of refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army. On the 13th February 1945, 773 Avro Lancasters bombed Dresden. During the next two days the USAAF sent over 527 heavy bombers to follow up the RAF attack. Dresden was nearly totally destroyed. As a result of the firestorm it was afterwards impossible to count the number of victims. The bombing of Dresden remains one of the most controversial events of World War II. Although the Allies considered Dresden a military target, several historians regard Dresden more as a cultural landmark than anything else and assert that the number of civilians killed (over 150.000) was excessive to a criminal degree. (In the first few decades after the war, some death toll estimates were as high as 250.000...) The raids saw 1.300 heavy bombers drop over 3.900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices in four raids, destroying 13 square miles (34 km²) of the city, the baroque capital of the German state of Saxony, and causing a firestorm that consumed the city centre. Filmed on board of the Avro-Lancaster RAF British bomber we see lifting-off at the beginning of the video, this rare find comes with the original captured soundtrack of radio communications between the bombardier and the rest of the crew. Recently declassified RAF footage. Editing by ROMANO-ARCHIVES. "SUBSCRIBING to this Channel is a MUST for researchers and RARE HISTORICAL FOOTAGE fans!!!" V. Romano This is a clip from the ROMANO-ARCHIVES' new website-"Unknown World War 2 in Color"-"WW2 Europe" section. At: http://www.webalice.it/romanoarchives/ Visit also: http://romanoarchives.altervista.org/ Or: http://digilander.libero.it/romanoarchives/ A better quality version of this clip is available. Hi-Res videos from our Collections are available on DVD, CD or directly in your inbox. Clips and movies can also be downloaded from our servers using a PW or uploaded by us to your FTP. |
 | "Dresden Bombed to Atoms" Why? The bombing of Dresden in February 1945 has remained one of the more controversial aspects of World War Two. Dresden, a city unaffected by bombing up to that point in the war, lost many thousands of civilians in the firestorm that was created by the Allies. As the Russians advanced to Berlin from the east and the Allies from the west, why was Dresden bombed when it did appear that the war would be ended in the near future? No-one knows how many people were in Dresden when the city was bombed. Officially, the city's population was 350,000, but with the number of refugees there, it would have been a lot higher than this. Between February 13th and February 14th 1945, between 35,000 and 135,000 people were killed by Allied bombing in Dresden. Historians still argue over the number of deaths. However, there were so many refugees in the city at the time that the real figure will almost certainly never be known. So why was Dresden chosen as a target? Arthur Harris, head of Bomber Command, had always held the view that any city that had anything to do with the Nazi war effort was a target. A number of theories do exist as to why Dresden was chosen so late in the war. 1) The city was in Nazi Germany and for this reason was a legitimate target for attack as the Allies were at war with Nazi Germany. 2) The city was not simply a cultural centre -- there were factories there producing weapons and equipment for the Nazi war effort. Therefore, the city was a legitimate target. It was also a rail base to send troops to the war front with the Russians. 3) Though the Russians were allies, Churchill and Roosevelt had already decided that Stalin would be a major problem after the end of the war. Therefore, as the Red Army advanced against an army that was effectively defeated, it had no idea as to what an equal and possibly superior military force could do. Therefore, Dresden was bombed to show the Russians the awesome power of the Allies and to act as a warning to them not to stray from the agreements they had made at the war conferences. An internal RAF memo spreads some light on the reason for the bombing: "Dresden, the seventh largest city in Germany and not much smaller than Manchester, is also far the largest unbombed built-up the enemy has got. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westwards and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium. The intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed front, to prevent the use of the city in the way of further advance, and incidentally to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do." RAF January 1945 The Allied air superiority meant that many of the 1,300 bombers got through to their target. The RAF spearheaded their attack with Lancaster bombers while the USAAF used their B-17 Flying Fortresses. In all, over three waves of attacks, 3,300 tons of bombs were dropped on the city. Many of the bombs that were dropped were incendiary bombs. These created so much fire that a firestorm developed. The more the city burned, the more oxygen was sucked in -- and the greater the firestorm became. It is thought that the temperature peaked at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The surface of roads melted and fleeing people found that their feet were burned as they ran. Some jumped into reservoirs built in the city centre to assist firefighters. However, these were ten feet deep, smooth-sided and had no ladders - many drowned. Very few of those in the city centre survived -- those that did provided a vivid picture of what it was like to be in a firestorm. "There were no warning sirens. We were completely surprised and rushed back down to the cellars of the hospital. But these quickly became hopelessly overcrowded with people who could no longer find shelter in their own burning buildings. The crush was unbearable, we were so tight you could not fall over." "Apart from the fire risk, it was becoming increasingly impossible to breath in the cellar because the air was being pulled out by the increasing strength of the blaze." "We could not stand up, we were on all fours, crawling. the wind was full of sparks and carrying bits of blazing furniture, debris and burning bits of bodies." "There were charred bodies everywhere." "The experience of the bombing was far worse than being on the Russian front, where I was a front-line machine gunner." Rudolph Eichner After the raid had finished, SS guards brought in from a nearby camp, burnt the bodies in the city's Old Square (the Altmarkt). There were so many bodies that this took two weeks to complete. A vast amount of the city was destroyed and when the Red Army took it over, the city had all but ceased to exist. Much of the city centre remained rubble into the 1950's, when the Russians who remained in the city during the Cold War, put their effort into rebuilding destroyed cities in Russia itself, rather than rebuild eastern Germany. |
 | Dresden / Unter dem Doppeladler Marsch Dresden is the capital city of the German Federal Free State of Saxony. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area. Dresden has a long history as the capital and royal residence for the Electors and Kings of Saxony, who for centuries furnished the city with cultural and artistic splendour. The controversial bombing of Dresden in World War II by the British Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force, plus 40 years in the Soviet bloc state of the German Democratic Republic as well as contemporary city development has changed the face of the city broadly. Considerable restoration work has settled the damage. Since German reunification in 1990, Dresden has emerged as a cultural, political, and economic centre in the eastern part of Germany. |
 | Bomber Command WW2 [History Project] Bomber Command World War 2 Bombing of Dresden Germany By: Kevin & Kyle |
 | Felicitas Woll - in Dresden - talking about a real story Felicitas Woll, the leading actress of the film "Dresden", learns from her grand aunt Rosemarie, while visiting the city of Dresden, that her own family barely escaped alive from the World War 2 bombings in that city. This film is so deep, it had a great impact on me. Felicitas is absolutely brilliant in this one |
 | Peace on a Poster Inspired by the book, "Slaughterhouse-Five," by Kurt Vonnegut, this video addresses the issue of war and its negative effects it has on individuals, families, and societies as a whole. In Vonnegut's classic novel, the main character, Billy Pilgrim becomes a prisoner of war in Dresden during World War II. Witnessing the bombing in Dresden and the aftermath of it all, Pilgrim's life is later greatly influenced because of his experiences of the war. War is and has always been an issue worldwide. In this video, we chose to show some of the negative effects through a big painting. As the painting is looked at a broader sense, there is a peace sign with two hands shaking, suggesting that peace is the better option. The peace sign engulfs the good (peace) while it shuns the bad (war). To help present anti-war and peace, we chose to incorporate the song, "Imagine" by John Lennon. Released in 1971, the lyrics were inspired by Lennon in hopes of having a more peaceful world saying that "we are all one country, one world, one people." From this video, we hope that it will send a message that war is ineffective and that it is not the solution for peace So, please, "Give peace a chance." |
 | Bomber Command WW2 [History Project] (FIXED) Bomber Command World War 2 Bombing of Dresden Germany By: Kevin & Kyle |
 | SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE - version 2008.1 (part 1) "Slaughterhouse five-version 2008.1" took place in Belgrade (September 4th). It was well-received in Belgrade, and later on at the conference in Cambridge. This attention-grabbing digital performance was directed by Fahrudin Nuno Salihbegovic. The sound quality is quite bad, accordingly if you would like to take notice of high-quality, make use of these links: http://vladimirvanjabojovic.webs.com http://www.myspace.com/vanja87b http://vanjab87.hi5.com ACTORS: Janos Bus, Vahidin Prelic, Andrijana Lubina, Imer Mushkolaj, Jovana Rakic. DIRECTOR and DIGITAL STAGE DESIGNER: Fahrudin Nuno Salihbegovic ORIGINAL MUSIC: Vladimir Bojovic VIDEO BY: Marko Tesovic, Danilo Stojic GRAPHIC DESIGN: Milos Miletic, Monika Lang, Mad Marx COSTUME DESIGNER: Ranka Delic TECHNICAL DIRECTOR/light and sound engineer: Boris Butorac ENGINEERS: Fahrudin Nuno Salihbegovic, Vladimir Bojovic, Boris Butorac, Mensur Salkanovic TECHNICIANS: Milomir Dzuver, Ramiz Vejsilovic CAMERA: Tatjana Krstevska POSTPRODUCTION: Vladimir M. Jovic ORGANISATION: Aleksandra Zupan, Bojana Karajovic PROJECT DIRECTOR & PRODUCER: Aleksandar Djeric PROGRAMME DIRECTOR/ARTISTIC DIRECTOR: Fahrudin Nuno Salihbegovic http://setlab.eu - Studio for electronic theater (Belgrade-London-Amsterdam) http://www.actheatre.nl - Amsterdam Cyber Theater (Amsterdam-Cambridge) In "Slaughterhouse Five", or "The Children's Crusade", Vonnegut delivers a complete treatise on the World War II bombing of Dresden. The main character, Billy Pilgrim, is a very young infantry scout who was captured in the Battle of the Bulge and quartered in a Dresden slaughterhouse where he and other prisoners were employed in the production of a vitamin supplement for pregnant women. During the February 13, 1945, firebombing by Allied aircraft, the prisoners take shelter in an underground meat locker. When they emerge, the city has been leveled and they are forced to dig corpses out of the rubble. The story of Billy Pilgrim is the story of Kurt Vonnegut who was captured and survived the firestorm in which 135,000 civilians perished. Summing up the theme of "Slaughterhouse Five", Robert Scholes wrote: "Be kind. Don't hurt. Death is coming for all of us anyway, and it is better to be Lot's wife looking back through salty eyes than the Deity that destroyed those cities of the plain in order to save them"... - taken from http://www.openarcfest.org - |
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