Just having a little fun at the expense of the left, not you per se Bahu. We heard that very same sentiment for the last eight years about the previous administration, now that this one does the same and more that rhetoric is awful quiet, but the hypocrisy it deafening. I actually support Obama on this, much more than he gave the last administration.

I have no sympathy for the people of Dresden in 1945. If they (and the other Germans) had stopped this war before 1939 (or better yet, before 1933) nothing would have happened. But they chose to follow Hitler and those that didn't remained quiet out of fear.

They paid for that sin. And those who were afraid learned that the danger did not go away because they remained quiet.

In an ideal world you can follow a mass murderer and he will fail and nothing will happen to either you or your intended victims. But in the real world the best result we can get is that the bad guys will suffer more than the good guys and there is a price to be paid for evil.

So you are right. The bombing of Dresden has to be seen in the context of the war.

I wonder how many lives were saved because the war ended a few days sooner because of the terror created by the bombing of Dresden. I wonder how many Chinese lives were saved because the nuclear bombs taught the Japanese that they too can become victims of their war.

And I wonder whether those who condemn the bombing of Dresden or Horoshima and Nagasaki have anything to say about the lives of Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, and Chinese that would have ended if the allies had not decided to let the Germans and Japanese feel the terror of war instead.

I find it difficult to reconcile acts of violence where innocent people are the victims with some greater good that was achieved because of it. The airraids killed tens of thousands inncoents as well, woman, children and elderly - I can't bring myself to not feel sorrow for the huge loss of life. This isn't me judging the allied bombings in general though or me negating the need for violence in certain situations.  I am just a very mellow person, I guess that's why

They often show documentaries about WW2 in german public television - recently they had one about the bombing of Hamburg 1943 and the firestorm it caused. They also revealed in that docu that the Nazi commanders had specialized bunkers and were well protected from the raids. The truly guilty ones weren't killed - unless you support the thesis of Daniel Goldhagen about "Hitlers willing executioners". I have to admit that I haven't read this book just about it, most recently a critical analysis/review from Ian Kershaw.

I agree with Leauki. The people of Germany chose their side. They made their bed, and many died in it.

Targeting innocents is never right, but the taking of the war to the civilians, when it became apparent that his policies and rhetoric were no defense against allied bombers, it went a long way toward turing the populace against Hitler.

Here, the capitulation in Stalingrad in February 1943 is generally referred to as the turningpoint and not the airraids per se. The ongoing war increasingly demoralized the population, and especially after Stalingrad it became clear that Germany wasn't victorious at all eventhough the regime steadfastly declared otherwise.

PS: If you want to read more about this from someone really qualified, I recommend Ian Kershaw. He is a renowned british historian on this issue. It is diifficult to keep up with all the research and theories about WW2 and the 3rd Reich because there are incredibly many published books, essays and also different schools of thought.
Ian Kershaw wrote an overview of different historic interpretations about different aspects called "The Nazi dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of Interpretation".

The bombings of Dresden didn't happen in isolation. They did not happen just, they happened in place of other violence.

The Germans had a choice. They had to choose between war and peace. They chose war.

The allies had a choice too. They had to choose between killing Germans and allowing Germans to kill everybody else. They chose to kill the Germans.

In war, if the defending side is stronger, the attacker decides IF people will be killed and the defender decides WHO will be killed. Basic morality tells us that the answer to the IF is "no". But what is the answer to WHO?

I find it weird that some people know that the answer is "not the people of Dresden".

And the destruction of Dresden began in 1938 when the first synagogue was burned down by the Nazis. At that point the city was condemned and it was only a question of time when the destruction started by the people would return to the people.

As for the idea that any Germans were in any way innocent, have a look at this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Soltau_Holocaust-Mahnmal.jpg

In 1945, when the war was already lost, a train transporting Jews to a death camp had an accident near the town of Soltau. The Jews escaped and were hunted down and murdered not only by Nazis but by the people of the town.

All they had to do was sit at home and pretend that they didn't know. That was all. Nothing would have happened to them.

Instead they decided to be more Nazi than the Nazis and they hunted down and murdered the escaped Jews.

The people of Soltau were not more evil than other Germans.

And they were not innocent.

It is a very complex problem to analyze. Who really chose the war - was it the people, or maybe it was big industry and their interests, was Hitler really in power or rather a weak dictator (thesis of Hans Mommsen) - there are many different interpretations of this very question.

I wasn't just referring to Dresden or war when I said that I found it difficult. I also said difficult and didn't use the word wrong or mistake or unjustified.

Personally, I don't comprehend how regular normal everyday people were able to be so cruel and turn into hateful murderers. This radicalization that caused so much brutality and in the end almost total selfdestruction is hard to understand.

My father was born in Berlin in 1939.

Your father and mine were children. But their parents made the world in which they would grow up.

I am sure there are many interpretations that conveniently allow us to pretend that we were innocent and that evil capitalists (i.e. big industry and their interests) were to blame. But they all rely on the principle that owners of big industry are quite naturally more evil than others. And that is something one just has to believe in.

The irony is of course that Hitler also blamed big industry (the evil Jewish capitalists in Wall Street) for all the bad things in the world. So we have a theory about why Germany was poor in the 1920s and a theory for why Germany attacked the world in the 1930s. And it turns out we cannot blame ourselves for either of it. Big industry did it all.

Now to me, this idea is historical revisionism at its most insidious and heinous.

Adolf Hitler was worshipped virtually as a god; he somehow convinced Germany that his views were the correct ones, and an overwhelmingly vast majority swallowed it whole, and asked for more. The rest didn't matter, because they were either rounded up and killed, or frightened into silence by the prospect of being rounded up and killed. Hitler ruled utterly, by personality, whim and decree, and he was not a weak dictator.

Big industry liked Hitler because his growing war machine brought them money, contracts and jobs, and even Jews and other undesirables, used as slaves to work in their plants, for nothing. Krupp was a great one for this, I understand.

Interperet it any way you wish; blame whoever you wish......but the fact is, Adolf Hitler ruled Germany--and ultimately the conquered Reich--for 12 years, and it took a 6-year world war, the first 3 years of which were more than touch-and-go for the Free World, to dislodge him.

That's the bottom line, and that doesn't sound like a weak dictator to me.

The point I tried to make is that acts of unspeakable violence does take palce during the course of a war. I am not, even for a moment moralising over it. But I am niot sure whether the people can be blamed for all that is done in their name. Collective guilt like Natioanlism can be a seductive doctrine.

A larger issue that I am trying to make is that in drone warfare there is an apparent disconnect between the decision makers the "pilot" who sits in the CIA headquarters and what happens on the ground. I would like to see a greater degree of control over the whole process involving (a) assessment of ground intelligence ( cross-checking with at least some local operatives (c) confirmation of the intendend target and then (d) decision to launce the strike.

It really does not matter. I am happy that you, like me do take that consequences of political decisions seriously enough to reflect over them.

Argue all you want, if I was in charge at the time I would not have bombed Dresden. It did little to end the war and provided propaganda value to the Nazis. Even if it only strengthened their resolve to fight one more day, how many Allied soldiers died for that one day?  The London Blitz didn't work for the Germans either. What was the cost to rebuild Dresden after the war? and who paid to do it?

As for the nukes in Japan, I agreed with it, however I would have chosen a military target for the first one and let the Japanese know the next would have more dire consequences. We did fire bomb Tokyo previously and that did not end the war.

Leauki, I agree with utemia, you over simplify the situation. If the elections were like anywhere else in the world, that swept Hitler into power, lucky if 50% of the population even voted. Also plenty changed in the 12 years that passed. Hell, how many people wish they didn't vote for Obama and its only been a year? I believe you're letting your faith and (understandable) feelings toward the Nazis cloud your judgment of what is right. If Iran and Israel went to war tomorrow and they set off a nuke in Tel Aviv would you still contend they all deserved to die, even if Israel pre-emptively started the war? They voted for Israel's leaders right? Somehow I think not.

War is hell and bad things happen, but if the act will do nothing to help or advance operations at best and gives a propaganda victory to the enemy at worst, I'm against it. I wouldn't want a friendly soldier killed by a civilian because we killed his family in a bombing, we have enemy combatants to deal with. All wars end eventually, history has taught us that hate often seeds the next war. IMO Germany paid it's penance, longer than most, some want them to continue paying everyday. Show me any peoples without blood on their hands.

Arty...when are you moving to Switzerland?

Did you read about Hans Mommsen's theory? Then you would know what he was meant  when he wrote "weak dictator". Scientifically, it is difficult to prove one or way or the other because there are very little documents and orders directly written or signed by Hitler and many documents had been deliberatedly destroyed in the last days of thte war as well. But a historian needs written documents or any other concrete material and not he-said-she-said or memories to base a theory on. You know if anything Mommsen's theory is even a worse verdict about Germany because it was possible here to allow for and create an administrative massmurder in which thousands were involved without ever making their own hands dirty.

Hans Mommsen is not a revisionist or wants to take away the blame at all. No serious (german) historian does that that I know of, if anything it is more like the opposite.