What is the effect of the bombing of dresden?

Answer 1

The short answer is that the factories producing goods for the German Armed Forces produced no more and when the Russians arrived there was no meaningful resistance to it`s capture.

The biggest problem with dealing with the matter of the bombing of Germany is that it is judged against modern morals and standards of behaviour.

The latest survey on how many died, done by a commission sponsored by the German Government found between 18 and 25,000 people died.

The bombing of an industrialised town from the air in an attempt to destroy its industry or cause such loss of morale amongst its inhabitants that they ceased to work was NOT a crime by the Rules of War in 1945. The bombing of Coventry, London and other British Cities in 1940 and 1941 was also NOT a War Crime.


In early 1945 the war was far from over. The Allies were still camped outside the borders of Germany, V2 rockets were still falling. The Allies had just fought the battle of the Bulge where the supposedly defeated Germans suddenly punched a huge hole in the Allied lines, German Rocket and Jet aircraft were coming off the production lines and proceeding to rip the hell out of the allied air fleets. It was an operation undertaken due to many reasons.

1. A request from the Russians at the Yalta conference in February
1945. General Antonov "We want the Dresden railway junction bombed"
Meeting between the Chiefs of staff as reported by an interpreter. Records kept at the Public Records office in Kew

2. It was a German base of operations against Marshall Koniev`s left flank as he advanced into Germany.
Captured German High Command documents from Berlin in 1945 state that "Dresden is to be fortified as a military strong point, to be held at all costs." These statements are also backed up by decrypts from Ultra at Bletchley Park.

3. Munitions storage in the old Dresden Arsenal.

4. Troop reinforcement and transport centre shifting an average 28
troop trains through the marshaling yards every day. Intelligence from Russian and other sources stored in the Public Records office in Kew

5. Communications centre. Most of the telephone lines connecting
High Command to the Eastern front went through Dresden.

6. Quote from The Dresden Chamber of Commerce 1944. "The work rhythm of Dresden is determined by the needs of our army."

There were 127 factories in the Dresden Municipal area. The most
famous of these was Zeiss the celebrated camera and optics maker. In 1945 it was turning out Bomb aiming apparatus and Time fuses. (If you think the Dresden China Works making those lovely shepherdesses are more famous, they are actually made in Meisen 12Km down the River and always have been.)

A factory that previously made typewriters and sewing machines was making guns and ammunition

The Waffle and Marzipan machine manufacturer was producing torpedoes for the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.

The Arts and Crafts workshops in the old town were using their woodworking skills to make the tail assemblies for V-1s.

Other factories were turning out such non warlike goods as searchlights, aircraft components, field telephones and 2 way radios.

Answer 2

That was an attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony that took place in the final months of the Second World War. 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. 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.

"You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr