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Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden Hardcover – November 28, 2006

by Marshall De Bruhl (Author)

11 customer reviews

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On February 13 and 14, 1945, three successive waves of British and U.S. aircraft rained down thousands of tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs on the largely undefended German city of Dresden. Night and day, Dresden was engulfed in a vast sea of flame, a firestorm that generated 1,500-degree temperatures and hurricane-force winds. Thousands suffocated in underground shelters where they had fled to escape the inferno above. The fierce winds pulled thousands more into the center of the firestorm, where they were incinerated. By the time the fires burned themselves out, many days later, a great city–known as “the Florence on the Elbe”–lay in ruins, and tens of thousands, almost all of them civilians, lay dead.

In Firestorm, Marshall De Bruhl re-creates the drama and horror of the Dresden bombing and offers the most cogent appraisal yet of the tactics, weapons, strategy, and rationale for the controversial attack. Using new research and contemporary reports, as well as eyewitness stories of the devastation, De Bruhl directly addresses many long-unresolved questions relating to the bombing: Why did the strike occur when the Allies’ victory was seemingly so imminent? Was choosing a city choked with German refugees a punitive decision, intended to humiliate a nation? What, if any, strategic importance did Dresden have? How much did the desire to send a “message”–to Imperial Japan or the advancing Soviet armies–factor into the decision to firebomb the city?

Beyond De Bruhl’s analysis of the moral implications and historical ramifications of the attack, he examines how Nazi and Allied philosophies of airpower evolved prior to Dresden, particularly the shift toward “morale bombing” and the targeting of population centers as a strategic objective. He also profiles the architects and prime movers of strategic bombing and aerial warfare, among them aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell, RAF air marshal Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris, and the American commander, General Carl Spaatz.

The passage of time has done nothing to quell the controversy stirred up by the Dresden raid. It has spawned a plethora of books, documentaries, articles, and works of fiction. Firestorm dispels the myths, refutes the arguments, and offers a dispassionate and clear-eyed look at the decisions made and the actions taken throughout the bombing campaign against the cities of the Third Reich–a campaign whose most devastating consequence was the Dresden raid. It is an objective work of history that dares to consider the calculus of war.

Firestorm: Allied Airpower and the Destruction of Dresden

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

De Bruhl puts his experience as a book editor to good use in this narrative of the still-controversial bombing of Dresden in 1945. Making comprehensive, sophisticated use of archival records and published sources, De Bruhl reminds readers that although Dresden's museums, churches and porcelain factories made it one of Germany's loveliest cities, there was still a war on when Allied bombers targeted the manufacturing and communications center for the Nazi war machine. Recognizing what he calls "the fatal escalation" of the air war against German civilians, De Bruhl also demonstrates the time, effort and blood it cost to establish air superiority over Germany. He establishes the determination of the Third Reich's leaders to continue the war at all costs—a demand the German people accepted. He also examines the often-overlooked V-Weapons campaign mounted against Britain in June 1944, which silenced those Britons who questioned mass bombing of civilians. Certainly neither the British nor the American air forces had any compunction at mounting the raid De Bruhl describes as "theory put into flawless practice." When the last bombers left, Dresden was no longer a major producer of armaments. In a war begun by Germany, that was—and is—the bottom line. (Dec. 5)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

A comparison of Frederick Taylor's Dresden (2004) to this new history reveals the benefits of acquiring both titles. Dresden, Taylor makes plain, the city synonymous with -baroque music and architecture, was also a city of ardent Nazis and arms factories. Taylor, a specialist on the Nazi period, is better at depicting the city's political and military attributes, which defenders of the air raids seize upon. De Bruhl proves to be strong on the Anglo-American strategy of strategic bombing in World War II, personified by Arthur "Bomber" Harris, commander of the British effort. Harris did not have scruples about solving the inaccuracy of their airpower by bombing the whole area. De Bruhl underscores that Harris was not a loose cannon, and casts the actual Dresden attack as a culmination of the air war. One of WWII's most controversial military actions, Dresden and the debate about it can't be grasped without considering the arguments of both titles. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product details

Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Random House; 1St Edition edition (November 28, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679435344
ISBN-13: 978-0679435341
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.2 x 9.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 11 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,463,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3314 in Books > History > Military > Aviation
- #4910 in Books > History > Europe > Germany
- #13145 in Books > History > Military > World War II

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Destruction of a historic city.

ByTribandon July 11, 2013

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

A very fine review of the events leading to the destruction of Dresden. The book gives a good background on the air crafts and crews of the British and American bombers which took the war to the Nazis. It gave a very detail agony on the allies' attitude toward retaliatory bombing of civilian targets in Germany which lead to the horrors suffered by the countless women and children of this war torn city.

0Comment 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Satisfied customer. Thank you

ByViolyna Chew-Fernandezon August 29, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Item ordered was as described. Satisfied customer. Thank you!

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Spell binding

ByAl DiCensoon May 28, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Sometimes gets a bit off-topic with too much background and family info, but otherwise very informative and in some ways shocking.

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What a trip!!!!

ByDallas Rideron February 10, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I have long wondered why he icy of Dresden was bombed so extensively as it was especially so close to the end of the war . Unfortunately they did build more than good porcelain & paid a very heavy price for that. The seller provided in record time & in excellent condition.

0Comment 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Interesting but not thorough.

ByTony Thomason June 12, 2008

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This book is often discussed in argument as if it were a deeply researched major contribution to the discussion about Allied terror bombing in WWII. It isn't. It is a very popular book that uses the subject of Dresden to draw the reader through discussions about bombing strategy among American and British military leaders in the leadup to WWII and during the war itself and Germans responses to them.

Nothing new is added compared to more serious discussions of bombing and Dresden such as Frederick Taylor's _Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945_ or the great study of the impact of the boming politically, culturally, and in human terms _The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940-1945_ by Jörg Friedrich. These two books are where anyone seeking a serious study of the meaning of the bombing and the history should start, with Friedrich's book being a literary masterpiece as well.

Yet, this book is well written as an easy quick read. I finished it in a day. His interest seems to be on the cynicism and hypocrisy of Churchill and leaders of the USAAF in their later denial of terror bombing. He spends very little time discussing the impact of the bombing on Dresden and the world, although he does include a few good eye witness memories from German sources. His coverage of the post-war controversy is completely abbreviated except insofar as he documents how Irving's extravagent claim have been exposed as fraud.

Probably the most interesting and repeated contribution this book makes to the discussion that it argues that the bombing was a part of the normal political-military strategy of the USSR, Britain, and the US and justified by military strategy rather than some special act aimed at the USSR. As he and Taylor both point out, the bombing was part of a series of heavy bombings of cities in eastern Germany requested by the Soviet military to support their offensive into Germany. He discounts claims that the bombing was useless because the war was near an end by citing the Allied belief at the time that the war in Germany might last until the fall of 1945 and that the highest casualty rates of the war for the US and Britain had been suffered in the previous two months. He does not mention that hundreds of thousands of Soviet and German soldiers were yet to die.

Yet, De Bruhl seems dangerously complacent about the very horror of the bombing, the way it showed how the rulers of the capitalist goverments and the Stalin-led gang running the USSR are completely distainful and alienated from the ordinary people of Germany who were the real victims of Hitler. He says very little about how this and the terror bombing of Japan climaxed by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were part of a vain attempt by the US government to intimidate the world into accepting US dominance.

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STATISTICS My be in error

ByDM Borsandon May 31, 2013

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

NOT SURE ON SOME OF HIS STATS - FOR EXAMPLE, U.S DEAD DURING WW1 HE LISTS AS CASUALTIES 110,000 . MY RESEARCH INDICATES THAT WW1 WAS THE 35RD MOST COSTLY WAR FOR THE USA WITH CASUALTIES (DEAD, WOUNDED & MIA) AS 321,000

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A good look at the horrors of Dresden. Without missing the facts.

Bydrohan00on September 2, 2012

Format: Hardcover

This book is indeed a good read. One gets a fairly detailed overview of the philosophy of the people behind the bombing of Dresden. As someone new to the ideas of the Air commanders in World War II, this book provided an important primer for my interests. De Bruhl demonstrates the idea that the "bomber will always go through" as the first of the fanciful thought envisioned by the air commanders of the Great War. Men like Arthur Harris, Carl Spaatz, and Charles Portal attempted to make the bomber the force that would win the next war. Indeed, they felt that they could win the war in Europe by making the German cities into rubble. Of course, they never took into consideration the fact that the British never buckled under the bombs of the Nazis. Indeed the Germans did not capitulate to the Allies as a result of the bombing campaign, and the war was probably only shortened by the effects of Allied strategic bombing.

Much hue and cry is made about whether Dresden was a valid target for allied bombing raids. De Bruhl concludes that indeed the city was a valid target. Indeed the city was an important communications hub for the ever shrinking Reich. Communications and rail hubs are indeed valid targets, and the effect of bombing on those targets is moot, because they had a limited effect all the way through to the end of the war in all cities. The complaint is not useful to say that Dresden was not an important military target, indeed by 1945 it was one of the most important German cities. The cities of Germany had all nearly been destroyed in detail by the Reich. The question is to the severity of the raid. I think Harris and the others involved thought that by making one big push at that date, they could stop the Germans from fighting. The idea of a final blow to knock Germany out of the war is indeed important to consider. That it did not have its desired effect is not something that can be overlooked, but by 1945, the British were under severe manpower constraints, and any quick hit that shortened the war was welcome. To the Americans, the ideal of using air power to make the end of the war come quicker, would have made their claim to have an independent service more accepted.

This book gives good historical insight. It does not absolve anyone, but lays out all the facts and the run-up to the raid in February of 1945. For people who want an authoritative look into the uses and rationales behind the strategic bombing of Germany look no further than this entertaining and informative book.