What German city was bombed into oblivion in early 1945 that created a major firestorm?

Answer 1

Dresden, Germany bombed by the Allies(US/GRBRT) on 13-14 Feb 1945. 135,000 killed. According to Air Marshall Arthur Harris (autobiography) he ordered the bombing of Dresden due to the fact that the city had become the main center of communications on the southern half of the Eastern Front and the purpose was to disrupt Germany's communication network. Other reasons may have been that Dresden was unbombed and that the Brits may have wanted to show the Russians what a bomber command could do in the way of destruction. Dresden was again the focus of a bombing 16 April 1945 by a joint effort of RAF/Russian aircraft. The target was a train on the outskirts of the city. Dresden, the capital of Saxony, was bombed in two waves of about 650 bombers each by the RAF on the night of 13-14 February 1945 and by a third, smaller wave of US bombers around 12 noon on 14 February. Dresden had no military targets of any significance at the time. Scholarly studies now put the number of people killed at 25,000 or slightly more. The very high figure above can be found in many general encyclopedias, but it is well known that on matters like this general encyclopedias tend to give extremely high figures. The scholarly figures are based on the number of bodies found and the human remains recovered. There was no justification whatsoever for the raid.