Customer Reviews

Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

`Dresden' - the book - is Taylor's contribution to the revived controversy surrounding the 1945 firestorm bombing of the city of Dresden. While extremely interesting and recounted in great detail, I still had mixed feelings about some of his conclusions. Taylor who is out to dispel the "myths" surrounding the notorious saturation bombing totes a questionable fine line as to whether he is arguing a case for military target legitimacy... or for complete annihilation.

He spends much time building a case for why Dresden was a legitimate military target. Nearly every German city had by this time been conscripted to the war effort, and yes, Dresden may have had legitimate targets, but the destruction inflicted upon the civilians was so ferociously excessive contrasted with the relatively minor damage done to military infrastructure, that it makes the argument almost moot.

The first RAF bombing raid excluded the Marshalling yards, Hauptbanhof, Marienbrücke railway bridge and troop barracks... obvious military targets if you are bombing to disable troop movement. It was -only- during the 2nd bombing raid, seeing that the Altstadt was completely engulfed in flames, that the RAF bomber leader made a snap decision - on his own - to target the fringes, otherwise the second target drop would have been exactly as the first.. the Altstadt itself. This is as much of an admission as you are ever going to get that the 1st and 2nd RAF raids were sent not so much for its military targets but for sheer chaos or "dehousing" as it was called.

The author however, does an excellent job revealing the lack of preparedness for a possible all out air raid, and shows how Dresden was truly undefended that night. When the author, who in no way seeks to minimize the horrors, is finished recounting the devastation inflicted on the inhabitants (told mainly through survivor first hand accounts), and you realize that there is still more come by way of the USAAF,... you are in disbelief.

Taylor is less successful at dispelling the "myth" of strafing. His method is to give credence to anyone who did not witness strafing, and to dismiss accounts of those who did as being "confused and traumatized" people. Yet there is documentation of an order to strafe and Taylor even prints it in his book. There are far too numerous recollections of this happening ( in many cities ) to dismiss out of hand. The official RAF Bomber Command web site page for Dresden 1945... still reads:

"Part of the American Mustang fighter-escort was ordered to strafe traffic on the roads around Dresden to increase the chaos and disruption to the important transportation network in the region."

Anyway, what Taylor spends most of his time on is counting the dead .. and since no one ever went to jail for reducing the number of Dresden victims, his final number is far lower than the 100 to 200 thousand often claimed.Taylor's final number of 30,000 seems low considering the number of refugees in the city, but it appears he has covered every angle on this based on documents that are known to exist.

The dense writing style of the book comes across as impenetrable but it is not without it flaws or manipulations.There are several carefully crafted statements throughout the book which while true on their face, are given in a near vacuum without addressing coherently the history of the economic and political turmoil of not only Germany but all of Europe in the years prior to Hitler. Statements such as "Dresden was a Nazi stronghold even before Hitler" are simply torn from their essential historical and political context, insinuating that in Dresden the early Nazi party rose to power on a wave of anti-Semitism rather than being the counter-revolutionary byproduct to massive destabilizing movements by communist/socialist forces.

While most people regard WWII as a `just war' it is also a war filled with mutual slaughter and atrocities with each nation bearing the weight of its own moral transgressions. To call it `strategic bombing' is merely a label and if a nation were to commit such an atrocity against a civilian population today that nation's leaders would surely be branded as war criminals.

Taylor may have been successful at some things, but he is by no means that last word on the subject. His greatest contribution is showing us how military minds run amok. Dresden was neither the first nor the last German city to be firebombed with devastating civilian casualties - but the Saxony city still manages to arouse both controversy and curiosity and Dresden still holds its place in history as a symbol of wars devastation and ruthlessness.

Writing a perfect book on the massive bombing raids against Dresden on February 13-14, 1945, is an impossible task. First of all, the two people in my mind most responsible for it--Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Air Marshal Arthur Harris--are long dead and while alive were far from forthcoming about their motives for the attack. So that avenue is closed forever.

Next, there is the eternal question of 'Was this raid militarily justified?' Here, I give Frederick Taylor a passing grade, but not much more. In my judgment, he is not interested in looking panoramically and in detail at the arc of the war in early February 1945. Admittedly, this is an immensely complicated issue. But for this book, I think a closer assessment of the dynamics of the European war as of dawn on February 13, 1945, would have been desirable.

Then, there is the second eternal question of 'Was this raid morally defensible?' Here, I think Taylor does a journeyman's job, but doesn't go as deep as would be expected in a book that seeks to re-assess the import and legitimacy of the raid. I think the book would have benefited from greater scrutiny of this question.

Three areas of the study, however, are revelatory and worth a careful read. The first is a roughly 50-page-long, very rich description of the founding and development of the city of Dresden. While some other reviewers were less enthused about it, I think this part of the book is fascinating. Second, the actual nuts-and-bolts description of the aerial raid is as fascinating as it is chilling. Finally, the personal, eyewitness face that Taylor puts on the bombing is remarkable, as it gives a horrifying 'you are there' drama to the event.

I'm disappointed in a few things. First, at times I detect an inappropriately breezy, know-it-all tone in Taylor's narrative style. Also, at times he goes heavy on the footnoting and documentation (which I commend), and at times, at least in my assessment, he does the opposite, as major points are made with few accompanying references.

In the end, this is a very powerful read, and one that will make readers examine a time in world history that both is and isn't far away from us today.

As another reviewer has mentioned, this book would best be read in the company of other works on the subject of the Allied bombing of Germany during the Second World War. The best is 'Wings of Judgment' by Ronald Shaffer, sadly out of print. Surprisingly, I did not find it in Taylor's bibliography. Also worth a look are Kurt Vonnagut's 'Slaughterhouse-Five,' Hermann Knell's 'To Destroy a City,' and, if you read German, Joerg Friedrich's 'Der Brand' ('The Fire').

Except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I think what happened to Dresden on February 13 and 14, 1945 comes as about as close as possible to a vision of hell on earth.

My opinion is that this book is a deeply moving piece of scholarship that clears away the myths surrounding the doom that came to the "Florence on the Elbe" at the end of World War II. Yet it does so without diminishing one bit the horror of it all.

The book's best parts are the chapters dealing with the firestorm that swept through the city. However, the sections that address the history of "area bombing" and the "science" of burning a city are also highly informative.

My only criticism is that on page 171, the author makes no less than three factual errors about the 1944-45 Ardennes Campaign:

1. Sepp Dietrich did not command the "SS Panzer Division." He commanded the "Sixth SS Panzer Army" (consisting of a mix of SS units and Volksgrenadier divisions).

2. Hasso Von Manteuffel did not command the "Fifth Panzer Division." He was the commander of the "Fifth Panzer Army."

3. General Patton did not rescue the "First Airborne Division at Bastogne." He relieved the "101st Airborne Division." This error is particularly surprising since the author makes a correct reference to that fact on the same page.

Now, I want to close with a few words about revisionist reviews like the one that I've seen here which gave the book one star.

The Germans and Japanese (with Italy in a supporting role) started a war of unprecedented viciousness which killed tens of millions of people. As the author points out, it is laughable for revisionists to condemn the Allies for fighting back with everything at their disposal. Some of the things that were done to Germany and Japan were wrong or excessive and caused considerable loss of innocent life. Yet they shrink into relative insignificance compared to the deliberate, "stare in your victims' faces when you kill them" genocide that the Germans and Japanese perpetrated.

This being said, I weep for the people incinerated in Dresden, Berlin, Hamburg, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and many other places. However, I feel much more pity for the entirely innocent victims of Auschwitz, Belsen, Treblinka, Nanking, and scores of other places where Germans and Japanese dishonored their nations by stooping into previously uncharted depths of evil.

No one deserves the terrible fates that many German and Japanese cities endured. The deaths of individual Germans and Japanese are tragedies. But on a grand scale, what happened to those two countries is a classic example of sowing the seeds and reaping a whirlwind of destruction. After what those two nations did to the rest of the world, they had it coming.

So I don't regard Dresden as a sin or mistake. It was one of terrible necessities of war, which advances in technology have made obsolete.

The 60th anniversary of VE Day and VJ Day has been in the news a lot lately. In both theatres, Allied bombing tactics were essentially the same in the final stages of the war. As a visitor to Dresden and Berlin in the fall of 2004, and having lived in Nürnberg in the 1960s, I still find the subject matter in Frederick Taylor's "Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945" to be compelling and worth further examination.

Other reviewers have summarized Taylor's book quite thoroughly. Rather than revisiting the book's contents in depth, I will focus my remarks on how Taylor covers key questions that seem to surface most often about the Dresden attacks (note: references below to "Allies" and "Allied commanders" are to British and U.S. decision-makers, respectively).
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The crux is this: in light of the war situation known to exist in February 1945, did Dresden's contribution to Germany's war economy and did its status as a rail center justify selecting the city as the target of a major air attack?

The first key to answering these questions is to consider what information Allied decision-makers had about these subjects - war situation, war economy, rail center - at the time they planned the air attacks for February 1945. The second key is to frame one's response within the context of Allied war ethics, as they existed in wartime 1945. In discussing the attacks, it's important to assess whether they were justified by what Allied commanders knew at the time; and then clearly differentiate that assessment from facts (and analysis) that emerged later.

WHAT ALLIED COMMANDERS KNEW ABOUT THE WAR SITUATION: Commanders knew that, on any given day, scores of Allied soldiers and airmen were dying in combat. On the other hand, they knew that hundreds, often thousands, of allied aircraft flew sorties over Germany daily, virtually unopposed. On many days, the Luftwaffe was effectively grounded, without fuel. They knew, too, that Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS combat formations had become effectively static because of critical fuel shortages. When road and rail transport could move, it was exposed to relentless air attack, visibility permitting. U-boats had declined from a dangerous threat to virtual impotence. Soviet forces had entered Reich territory. Refugees from the east were pouring into Germany, in full flight. Berlin would be physically overrun very soon. The war would be over - soon.

WHAT ALLIED COMMANDERS KNEW ABOUT DRESDEN'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE WAR ECONOMY: They knew that Dresden was Germany's sixth (or seventh) largest city and that Zeiss-Ikon manufactured high-tech optical equipment there. They also assumed that Dresden manufactured other items of military value. They knew there was lot rail traffic through Dresden. That's about it. Taylor doesn't indicate they actually knew anything else.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS THAT GUIDED ALLIED COMMANDERS: When Allied forces overran Reich territory, they did not systematically uproot, rape, or murder the population. When they took German prisoners, they did not systematically murder or abuse them. That said, there were no ethical standards to speak of. Cities were manufacturing centers to be destroyed. City residents were perceived to contribute to the war effort in some measure, so the policy was to burn down the cities to de-house and disrupt them. It was no secret to Allied decision-makers that unrestricted, massive incendiary attacks on German cities effectively carried out this policy. The resulting deaths of thousands of civilians was a side-effect.
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Taylor concludes that the February air attacks were amply justified in light of knowledge available to 1945 planners and from information that came to light after the event. The framework he constructs to support this viewpoint is explicitly or implicitly based on the following hypotheses, in order of importance: Dresden was (1) an important center for arms-related production;(2) an important rail hub and transit point for German soldiers;(3) an armed camp; (4) pro-Nazi; and (5) anti-Semitic.

Upon closer examination, it's apparent the facts (or more frequently anecdotes) Taylor adduces to support his conclusions were either unavailable to Allied decision-makers at all, were not relevant to target selection, or cannot be proved to be true today, even with the benefit of hindsight. Following is a comparison of the reviewer's own observations (which do benefit from hindsight) about these subjects with what Taylor writes:

1. DRESDEN'S IMPORTANCE AS AN ARMAMENTS PRODUCTION CENTER. To prove the contention that Dresden was highly important, Taylor devotes a full chapter to anecdotes. But that's all they are - anecdotes with little or no supporting substantiation. He provides no statistics. Examples: one anecdote is a self-congratulatory phrase that appeared in an official city publication in 1942, citing Dresden's contributions to the Reich war effort. Another anecdote describes a phone conversation between Taylor and a woman about her experience making cartridges. Yet another refers to one facility that manufactured machine guns. If Dresden was a significant site for producing machine guns or cartridges, however, we don't hear any more about it.

Taylor's major focus is on Dresden's role in producing higher technology items, such as Zeiss-Ikon optical products, radios, fuses, electrical components, and other engineered elements of complex weapons systems that required assembly for use in conjunction with other components. Taylor accepts the proposition that this production was critical to Germany's war effort.

It would be very useful to inquire about the contribution of these products to Germany's actual military requirements in February 1945. For example: Were the military organizations (Wehrmacht, Navy, Luftwaffe, and Waffen-SS) and weapons systems for which Dresden's output was intended actually capable of using the weapons at that point in time? Were they being effectively transported, distributed, and assembled? And after assembly: What was the value of in destroying bomb fuses if the planes supposed to drop the bombs cannot fly? Or a high-quality lens used in a submarine periscope, when the submarine literally can't come to periscope depth? Or communications equipment, if the military unit that uses it has been destroyed, with its operators dead, wounded, or captured?

The foregoing questions are important if one is justifying decision-makers' actions by including hindsight information that was unavailable or irrelevant to them. At the time of the February attacks, Allied planners knew only that Dresden produced arms-related materials. We still have no idea how much was made or what practical value these materials had. Taylor doesn't inquire.

2. DRESDEN WAS A MAJOR RAIL HUB FOR THE MOVEMENT OF TROOPS, MUNITIONS, ETC. Taylor provides solid statistical data about rail movements to support his argument that Dresden's marshaling yards were a legitimate target. Let's assume these yards were critically important. But Allied planners did not consider them to be sufficiently important to include them as a target in the RAF's crushing attack of February 13th - which concentrated on the city's residential quarter. When the USAAF attacked rail facilities the next day, there was no follow up then or later, even though the yards were quickly returned to full operation. It's apparent that much of the "communications hub" argument was added later on as a justification - after the attack took place.

3. DRESDEN WAS AN ARMED CAMP. Literally true, but not too important to planners selecting targets. By mid-February 1945, virtually every German male over the age of 14 was in uniform and carried a weapon, if one was available. Certainly there were thousands of soldiers and airmen in Dresden at the time of the attacks. But there's a major distinction between unorganized bodies of military age men in transit, on leave, or recovering from wounds (such as were found in every major German city) and soldiers organized into cohesive, effective combat formations. Although enemy forces of any kind are always a legitimate target, attacking unorganized groups of soldiers in Dresden would have been a low priority. The "armed camp" argument for attacking Dresden seems to be an ex-post facto justification.

4 DRESDEN WAS A PRO-NAZI CITY. It's highly unlikely that Allied decision-makers would have considered this as a relevant factor in target selection if they had known it. Moreover, it's debatable whether Dresden was more or less pro-Nazi than other cities. Pose this question: if Dresden had been anti-Nazi, would the Allies have skipped the attack? For example, if there had been a free election in January 1945 and the Nazi candidates had been defeated, would Dresden have been removed from the target list?

5 DRESDEN WAS A CITY THAT TREATED JEWS POORLY. This has the same validity for target planning as the "Dresden was pro-Nazi" rationale. It's highly unlikely that Allied decision-makers would have considered treatment of Jews as a relevant factor either, if they had known it. It would be difficult to prove any German city treated Jews much better or worse. Ask yourself: if Dresden had had a reputation for treating Jews nicely, would Dresden have been removed from the target list?
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Allied decision-makers operated in the climate of an exceptionally brutal war culture, with unconditional surrender as an explicit goal. They wanted to end the war quickly, with as few allied casualties as possible. They believed that air attacks on cities - using highly developed incendiary techniques - were effectively contributing to this end. These were the only justifications they needed for targeting Dresden.

By early 1945, attacks on cities had developed a powerful momentum, logic, and a life of their own. Planners certainly weren't going to leave RAF or USAAF bomber forces idle. Decision-makers may have seen bombing of cities as a way of assisting the Russian cause (or even demonstrating Allied airpower to "send a message"), but this was no obsession. Essentially, Dresden was just another target for them, not special or unique. At best, decision-makers were indifferent to the consequences of bombing for civilian populations.

Based on information available at the time and available today, attacks on Dresden's rail hub were certainly justified. Based on information available at the time and available today, both the strategic and tactical justifications for targeting densely populated areas of the city are dubious at best.

Taylor's book provides a useful survey of Dresden's history up to an after 1945. His coverage of the planning, execution, and effects of the air attacks is comprehensive. His discussion of casualties has particular merit. However, the conclusions he draws from both established facts and anecdotes from individual participants don't support a compelling additional justification for the attacks - if any such a justification is really necessary - and don't add significantly to the historical literature of the Second World War.

" The mix of motives, the moral obtuseness, and the ragbag of excuses express perfectly the mentality..." (p.410) -a quote in this book describing the hypocrisy of the Nazi Gauleiter of Dresden. The same could be said of this book- a sly, lawyeristic, almost evil defense of what can only be called TERROR BOMBING by the RAF in WW2. Every trick in the book is used in this book to distract the reader from understanding what the RAF did to German cities at the end of WW2. I absolutely did not buy that Dresden was an industrial city vital to the German war effort- a couple of camera factories and a cigarette factory making bullets do NOT an industrial center make! The book describes in detail what can only be described as MASS MURDER from the air and then, just as "Bomber" Harris did 60+ years ago expects us to understand that it wasn't terrorism. Every possible angle is covered: Dresden was an industrial center, it wasn't full of refugees (I didn't buy that one), people who are victims of bad things aren't reliable witnesses (a page from the Holocaust denier's book!), Dresden was full of bad Nazis who were bad to Jews, it goes on and on so hopefully the reader comes to the conclusion: THEY DESERVED IT!! This may even be so but then why all this energy spent explaining that Dresden was a worthy target militarily? Because we here in the democratic, capitalist, "free world" don't like to admit we were often just as bad as those totalitarian bad guys. What's the difference between shooting children in a ditch or burning them up from on high?

I am in the (arduous) process of reading this book...I may end up putting it down for a bit (forever?) or skipping ahead...it is a tough read for me and I love to read! The Book is titled "Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945", so one would think that the majority of the book would be about that day or the direct aftermath...well, I am almost 1/2 way through the book and it is now in 1943.

My area of interest is the air campaign in WWII from both sides of the fence. So far anything WWII related in the book, he at least gives the illusion of being unbiased although barely. You can tell there is the old pro-Allied bias that has been what 90% of the books we've read in the past 60 years have been. I get the impression as I read like this; the British did bomb German cities, killing women and children, creating & perfecting firestorms, but it was only because the evil German's did "X".

If I wanted to read about Saxon history, I would buy a book on that topic.

If I wanted a book on German treatment (mistreatment) of Jews, yes also in this book, I would buy one of those many titles.

I wanted a book about the bombing of Dresden...so far after 200+ pages I am still about 18 months away (in the book). I also do not think he documents his source material well. He supplies a bibliography but it is just chapter notes. You do not know if you are reading his opinion or something he actually has data to back up his claims.

If you want a fair account of the bombing campaign in WWII, I cannot recommend highly enough Hermann Knell's "To Destroy a City". Read this book and it'll give you a gauge on what "Fair & impartial" is all about. He tells the story where both sides actually look as guilty as the other (if the case warrants it). Two thumbs WAY up. Very well documented!

Save your money on the Frederick Taylor attempt at Dresden...wait until it's on the discount rack or yard sale...then you will not feel as if you over- paid for what it is (as I do).

I am very interested in the bombing of Dresden and have read many books about it.

I liked that Mr. Taylor putting the bombing in the perspective by looking at it against all the Nazi bombings and destruction. BUT after reading the entire book I do not think he makes a clear case for Dresden being an over hyped propaganda that showed Nazi as victims. The book's underlying theme seems to be that the German victims deserved their fate. Mr. Taylor needs to remember that innocent children also burned in these firestorms.

After reading this book the questions remains "Why was Dresden chosen as a target?"

It seems to bother Mr. Taylor that when one hears the word "Dresden" one often thinks of the senselessness of war. That to me is the one positive outcome of the bombing.

This book is the result of thorough historical research combining all the strategic, economic,and social, factors that led to the devastating bombing of Dresden in February 1945. That much is obvious from the wealth of details provided by the author,Frederick Taylor. He starts by providing a historic background of Dresden, capital of the kingdom of Saxony, under Augustus the Strong, who turned Dresden into a beautiful Baroque monument in the XVII century and brings it to the 1930s. The thriving antebellum art and cultural center, the Mecca of wealthy and cultivated foreigners on their Grand Tour, Dresden illustrates the contradiction of Nazi Germany itself: that magnificent heritage did not prevent the city from embracing Nazism and, consequently, share its fate. Victor Kemperer, a Jew who lived through it all, an author in his own right, witnessed the extent to which his beloved city turned against him and the civilized world, while cherishing its brilliant reputation as a showcase of art and refinement.

Although Taylor does not imply that Dresden deserved its awful fate, he simply points out that the city had become a hub of Germany's military activities for its war in the east. A center of communication and transportation, its importance was bound to attract Allied attention, especially as the Red Army approached it its gates. In an attempt to facilitate the Russian's conquest, the strategists of the Allied Bomber Command targeted it for destruction and on February 13, hundreds of Lancaster and B-17 bombers crowded the skies above the jewel on the Elbe and practically bombed it into oblivion. As appalling as the death toll was the manner in which innocent civilians perished in the holocaust. Many asphyxiated in crowded inadequate shelters; others were cooked alive in garden fountains where they had sought relief from burns; yet others were sucked into the raging firestorms that uprooted trees. Afterward charred skeletal remains of men, women, and children littered the streets of Dresden.

After weighing the evidence in Taylor's account that made the bombing plausible from a purely strategic point of view, the reader is left with some uncomfortable questions that indicate ulterior motives on the part of the Bomber Command planners. Why were the three waves of planes spaced in such a way as to make sure that survivors of the first wave would come out of their shelters and be caught outdoors? Why the incendiary bombs that created the inferno where people were incinerated, when conventional bombs would have sufficed? What was he point of sending a third wave after the devastation brought on by the first two? How come that only a few days later the trains of Dresden were running and its transportation system restored, if the original objective had been merely a strategic one? I believe it was there that Taylor's book falls short of expectations. The scorching of Dresden was, in spite of all arguments to the contrary, a vendetta that victimized the innocent and the not so-innocent. After all, Churchill himself coined it "terror bombing," a label Taylor first dismisses and then rejects as detrimental to Bomber command. To be sure pure vengeance for the Nazi bombing of Coventry in 1940 was not the only reason for bombing Dresden, but it was one of the reasons.

Dresden remains a stain in the Allied record in the Second War, a stain that appears "justified" if put in the context of the much larger Nazi crimes. "They asked for it." As another British historian Max Hasting states, the Allied powers "lost the high moral ground" in the bombing of German cities. Given the fact that more than six decades have passed since the end of WWII, one cannot help thinking that it is about time to revise the conventional approach in the study of that tragedy.

Taylor's book is disappointing and tendentious. He has a lasser-faire attitude towards facts.Under the mantle of having done serious research, he goes to great length to discredit and/or disprove facts he does not like e.g. the strafing of civilians by the allies. As one who survived the air raid on Dresden and who survived two strafing attacks (gunning down civilians by low flying aircraft) one close to the Augustus bridge immediately after the air raids, we (my mother and myself) were able to hide very effectively in the recesses of the retaining walls along the Elbe, the planes were approaching us from Blasewitz along the Elbe and another attack when we were in a tram going to Weinboehla from Radebeul.
He also attempts to prove that Dresden was a city of military and industrial importance, again a rather transparent and misleading presentation. Another missed opportunity to get to the bottom of the various issues: Was it necessary? who was ultimately responsible? The book by Herman Knell(To destroy a City), in contrast, is a genuine attempt to come to terms with these issues. It is a passionate, intelligent, well researched and honest book.
Taylor also attempts to re-assess the number of fatalities, also by selective reporting.

Taylor says 30-40 thousand dead and Irving claims upward of 500,000. I believe the numbers are somewhere in between, yet perhaps we are too fond of quantifying metrics. Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris perfected area bombing to specifically flatten German cities and kill as many German civilians as possible. The culmination of the firestorms of Hamburg, Luebeck and Cologne, was to be the leveling of Berlin in 1943. But with 10-12% losses in each raid on Berlin, Bomber Command could not sustain such a protracted campaign against determined German night-fighter resistance. By 1945, such fighter resistance had been broken and most military targets of any significance had already been devastated. The Dresden raid was supported by Churchill and was the brainchild of Harris. The Dresden raid was to be the epitome of the allied strategic bombing campaign against the civilian population of Germany, but the British prime minister had second thoughts afterwards, and a few weeks later, the Allies halted all area bombing against Germany. Taylor's description of the tactics and techniques employed to deliberately incinerate German cities is well worth the reading. Taylor's research should have also found that Bomber Harris was so successful at killing a large amount of the German population in the bomber campaign specifically designed to terrorize and demoralize the German population, he was thus instrumental in the development of the post WWII Nuclear tactic of mutual destruction of populations. The assertion that Dresden was a target of vital military significance that would have affected the outcome of WWII is preposterous. Germany was in full retreat on both fronts by the time Dresden was destroyed. There was nothing produced in Dresden that would have, or could have affected the outcome of the war. The 3 day raid, which used British bombers at night and US Bombers during the day was meant to do one thing, kill as many Germans as possible. I've read some reviews on this site that say the Germans deserved it, that they deserved to be burned to death in firestorms because of the crimes of the Nazis. This makes a strong emotional agrument, but the Taylor book does not address this point of view. Regardless, the fact remains that the city of Dresden and the people inside the city were chosen for deliberate and methodical destruction; the results of which are still being debated today.