Bombing of Dresden, Germany during WWII - Atrocious War Crime? Or "Necessary Evil"

[Rostov Papa]

"Necessary Evil" of war? And completely justifiable, and acceptable - both in the context of the war (at the time), and also stands up to historical scrutiny.

IMO, it was nothing short of a war crime. It was completely unnecessary. Unlike the arguments (and damn good ones) you can make for nuking Japan.

[1bad65]

Of course it was justified. Well before Dresden was bombed the Germans bombed their fair share of cities. London and Warsaw being just two examples. Actually it was the Germans who first conducted large scale bombing of civilians in a city, at Guernica. Despite world outrage (Picasso painted one of his most famous works as a reaction to that bombing), the Germans continued to bomb cities all over Europe. The only reason they stopped this was because their war machine became unable to do so.

[sleazyfellow]

Nobody was "the good guy" in ww2, especially russia. Every major power executed pows.

Look how Russia treated countries after it took over, if you were suspected of helping the other side not only you, but your family would be shipped off to Siberia.

[El-blanco]

Of course it was justified. Well before Dresden was bombed the Germans bombed their fair share of cities. London and Warsaw being just two examples. Actually it was the Germans who first conducted large scale bombing of civilians in a city, at Guernica. Despite world outrage (Picasso painted one of his most famous works as a reaction to that bombing), the Germans continued to bomb cities all over Europe. The only reason they stopped this was because their war machine became unable to do so.

Great painting, saw it in Madrid

[paulf]

Of course it was justified. Well before Dresden was bombed the Germans bombed their fair share of cities. London and Warsaw being just two examples. Actually it was the Germans who first conducted large scale bombing of civilians in a city, at Guernica. Despite world outrage (Picasso painted one of his most famous works as a reaction to that bombing), the Germans continued to bomb cities all over Europe. The only reason they stopped this was because their war machine became unable to do so.

Annnndd we're done here.

[New England]

Nobody was "the good guy" in ww2, especially russia. Every major power executed pows.

Look how Russia treated countries after it took over, if you were suspected of helping the other side not only you, but your family would be shipped off to Siberia.

did every major power try and take over the world, systematically kill jews, communists, foreigners, the disabled and old?

[New England]

Great painting, saw it in Madrid

cubism, bro. i didn't get cubism until i spent some time learning about art.


the idea was to move away from the painting as a representation of a three dimensional space, an idea popularized in the renaissance.

paintings are two dimensional. cubism embraced that.



this is a matisse

and here's a cezanne, "the father of us all."




the final painting is the background on my comp. i can't freaking handle how much i love that painting.

[Barn]

Of course it was justified. Well before Dresden was bombed the Germans bombed their fair share of cities. London and Warsaw being just two examples. Actually it was the Germans who first conducted large scale bombing of civilians in a city, at Guernica. Despite world outrage (Picasso painted one of his most famous works as a reaction to that bombing), the Germans continued to bomb cities all over Europe. The only reason they stopped this was because their war machine became unable to do so.

Civilians should pay the price for their government's prior military decisions? That's terrible logic.

I'm not sure about this one to be honest. It seems that they thought it was a strategic bombing from the classified response to the criticism of the bombing. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe they didn't target the right areas. Maybe it was for sheer intimidation or revenge. From what I can tell it wasn't just done to massacre people and there was some strategic merit to it. It's just how necessary it was at this point in the war which is my biggest problem with it. All in all I think it shouldn't have happened but I can understand why it did.

However I think it speaks volumes that there was a lot of outrage about it at the time from both the press and allies, despite it not being hugely catastrophic. It's nice to know that by speaking out people can make rulers stop doing this stuff as it's a PR nightmare.

[Adamjr91]

Nobody was "the good guy" in ww2, especially russia. Every major power executed pows.

Look how Russia treated countries after it took over, if you were suspected of helping the other side not only you, but your family would be shipped off to Siberia.

I have a hard time believing there is ever a good side in any war.

did every major power try and take over the world, systematically kill jews, communists, foreigners, the disabled and old?

Coming from the side that won.

[Barn]

did every major power try and take over the world, systematically kill jews, communists, foreigners, the disabled and old?

No, but the U.S.S.R was probably in the same ball park as the Nazi's and probably did more more harm to communism.