Putin criticizes Allies for Dresden bombing

[malmapus]

Putin criticizes Allies for Dresden bombing
West ‘didn’t abound with any special humanity,’ Russian says

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 2:59 p.m. ET May 5, 2005

BERLIN - Russian President Vladimir Putin told a German newspaper that Allied forces can’t be absolved of blame for horrors during World War II, and he noted in particular the massive bombing of Dresden in the final months.

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Ahead of this weekend’s 60-year commemoration of Victory in Europe Day, Putin, in a joint interview with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, told Bild that the Western forces deserved to be criticized for attacking civilians.

“The Western allies didn’t abound with any special humanity,” the Russian leader said. “It’s incomprehensible to me to this day why Dresden was destroyed. There was no military reason for it.”

The wave of attacks over the city on the banks of the Elbe in mid-February, 1945, killed thousands of Germans in a deadly firestorm. Within weeks, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill distanced himself from the tactic of blanket-bombing German cities, and right-wing groups in Germany have argued the bombing was a war crime.


************More***********
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7749312/


EDIT fixing link

I'm sorry, I know it was a dark time that we did some of those things but for Putin to say that the West did this when Russia was doing far more horrible things to the German civilian populace is about laughable.

[Wright Patman]

1. To be more accurate,

the article should say "hundreds of thousands."

Russians have done their fair share of killing civilians, but they suffered the loss of at least 20 million people, most of them civilians, in World War II.

I think the Anglo-American war machine won the prize for most people killed in just about any category you could name during the 20th Century.

That's why our side "won" so to speak.

One of these days, there will be a war so horrific that the "winner" will envy all those he just killed.

[tabasco]

11. There is no "but" ....

Stalin's armies killed more civilians than the other allies in WWII, despite the "buts". Not a defense of the Dresden bombings, simply a rejection of revisionist history.

Lest we forget the secret protocol between the Germans and the Soviets prior to Barbarossa. Who knows how many Poles died in Stalin's half of Poland.

edit spelling

[HuckleB]

68. Indeed.

[atreides1]

2. Putin is just trying to point out the facts

It's only fair to point out that some of the allied targets, were to promote terror, more then to hit a militarily important target.

Dresden was just one.

As for what the Russians did to the German people, well it was payback for what the German military did to the Russian people.
Besides, I don't recall hearing any speeches given by Stalin where he stated that the Germans were subhuman, unlike Hitler and his little terms of endearment for all Eastern Europeans, the Jews, Gypsies, the mentally disabled, and the list goes on.

This is the problem with the American education system, we refuse to list all of the crimes that our government committed in its existence, and we still refuse to tell the truth. Just look at Iraq!

[Skeptic_All]

9. When Putin acknowledges the wholesale slaughter

of the Polish Officer Corps and other Polish intellectuals in the Katyn Woods, committed by Soviet troops in 1940, then I'll give him an ounce of credibility. For those who are excusing the behavior of the Russian troops during their conquest of eastern Germany, let me ask you this?

What ills did the Polish people inflict on the Russians prior to 1940 that warranted such action?

Yes, the fire bombings of Dresden and Hamburg and the conventional bombings of Cologne and Berlin were barbaric......no argument there. What must be remembered is WWII and the wars fought before that did not include language such as heard today. During these past wars there was no such thing as "innocent civilians", only non-combatants of the enemy.

[RaleighNCDUer]

31. On the contrary, prior to WW2 war was always conscious of the

plight of civilians. With the exception of the Hundred Years War, wars in Europe were almost exclusively waged between armies, leaving the civilians alone. Why do you think the German bombing of Guernica made such a stir in the Spanish Civil War? Because for the first time, aircraft were specifically targetting a civilian populace. Total war is a 20th century invention (or re-discovery -- I guess Gengis Khan was pretty good at it, too).

I agree that the Katyn Woods was a war crime of the worst sort, and it was a politically driven crime, not something that just happened in the excesses of combat. There is no excusing it, and I would never want to. I make no excuses for anybody's war crimes. Even ours.

[atreides1]

64. You know what

No one is excusing what the Russians did to the German people, in the course of their invasion of Germany, but the Russians were not any more barbaric then the Germans were. The result, the taking of vengeance for the millions of Russians killed by the Germans.

Plain and simple, an eye for an eye, Old Testament Justice, as some would call it. If the Japanese had invaded parts of the US, and inflicted the same barbarism on Los Angeles, as they did to Nanking, do you really believe that US troops would not have done the same to them?

What ills did the Polish people inflict on the Russians prior to 1940?:

1937-1938
"Tensions between Russia and Germany heat up, and Baltic governments
feel more sandwiched between the two than ever. Germany, in collaboration with POLAND, begins to apply pressure on Lithuania."

Yes, it's small, and almost a non-starter, but knowing the kind of person that Stalin was, that's all it took. We are talking about a man who would have you shot for an imagined slight. How do you think he would react to what he saw as another Slavic people in cahoots with the hated Germans.

And when he got his chance to exact revenge for what only he could see as betrayal he took it.

You want a reasonable excuse, with men like Hitler and Stalin, they don't need a reason, they do what they want, for whatever reason they want.



By the way Russia already acknowledged that they were responsible for the Katyn Forest massacre in 1989.

[Book Lover]

47. Putin is doing a lot of things with his statement

Merely "trying to point out facts" is not one of them, no matter how accurate his statement may be.

For the record, I agree with the assertion that there was no military reason (that I can ascertain at this distance in time) for the firebombing of Dresden. It was a psychological attack, and was unfortunately for our collective humanity, successful.

[VTMechEngr]

3. Hypocritical doesn't even begin for this....

Mass raping, shooting civilians, shelling surrendering troops. Why Russia has lots to say on war crimes... :eyes:

[makhno]

36. Who's left to speak on war crimes, then?

The Swiss? Oh, but there was this little crusades business. Perhaps, as Americans, we really shouldn't discuss war crimes on DU either, since our country has been responsible for a fair share of them.

Soviet war crimes in no way absolve the other allies of atrocities committed during WWII.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

4. Pot calls kettle n/t

[DiverDave]

67. Yep, Pot, Kettle, Black.

That was my 1st thought when I read this trash.

[DrDebug]

5. It's because of *'s critism

Putin just hit one back at him. It's MAD all over again...

[malmapus]

7. MAD - Mutually Assured Dissing =) N/T

...

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. I don't get what your criticism is.

As the Red armies moved into Germany the Nazis fought a desperate, house to house defense. As a result, town after town was leveled. There were stories of atrocities and wholesale rape, many of which were exaggerated because of who the enemy was. No doubt, many of the stories were true, because the Russians lost 20 million people during that war, and it was payback time.

How does that very personal, vengeance driven assault on the German homeland by the soviets compare with the cold-blooded leveling of a city which had no military significance, no military targets, no military production. Germans considered it as 'safe' city, because they knew that we knew there was nothing there that warranted an attack. But we did attack it, and inflicted more casualites than did the bombs on Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

What the soviets did was war. The bombing of Dresden was a war crime.

[malmapus]

10. I think the Russians went out of their way against the German civilian

populace. I'm not defending what the Germans did to the Russians but the Russians didn't exactly take the high road when they came back in on the Germans either.

So my criticism comes from that. They did more than wage war in alot of cases, and went way out of their way to get revenge by taking it out on German women and civilians who couldn't escape in time before their towns were surrounded / overrun by the Russians.

[RaleighNCDUer]

27. And I'm not defending the soviets. I'm just saying that rape and

massacre was not policy, it was an outgrowth of the atrocities committed on the Russians by the Nazis. It was reactive.

The bombing of Dresden, however, was a cold-blooded war crime, committed at the highest levels of the British and American military. It was inexcusable.

As a caveat, the Brits might get a pass, as it could be retaliatory for the bombing of Coventry, but even that was years earlier and by this time Berlin was in ruins, in far worse condition than any English city, so I'd suggest that they'd already gotten their payback on that one.

And I don't doubt for a minute that we were on the side of right against the Nazis. But Dresden was still a war crime.

[malmapus]

29. I agree with you there, didn't think you were defending them

lol didn't want to sound like I'm defending the bombing of Dresden either, but to come from Putin who represents a country that did about as bad as the Germans...thats what I found laughable about his comments. Espicially coming from him.

Thats about like Bush trying to sound human

[makhno]

37. About as bad as the Germans, eh?

Care to point me to a Soviet Mein Kampf? The ignorance on threads touching upon Soviet history is appalling.

[malmapus]

42. Ignorant? Sure a few poles would think they were about as bad

As well as many of the former Republics that they occupied, of course I just read where the Kremlin denied that it occupied the Baltic States, they had a mutual agreement of having Soviet forces there.

EDIT: Its not hard to make a list of Soviet atrocities, just look it up

[HuckleB]

45. Oh, please. Enlighten us.

:popcorn:

Meanwhile, a couple of fine tomes for your own perusal:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/3718657392/qid=1115344569/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl14/103-9458152-8473403?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FQP/is_4721_134/ai_n11850107

[makhno]

48. Tell me something new

I don't see how acknowledging political repression in the Soviet Union can lead one to equate it with the genocidal racial policies of Nazi Germany.

Your strongest case is probably the well-known and well-documented oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union, which didn't end until the fall of the regime. Anti-semitism was (and sadly still is) deep-seated in Russian culture, and provided a convenient foil for political persecution of all kinds.

Enjoy your popcorn.

[HuckleB]

49. Ah, so as long as its not racially motivated...

its ok? Simple political "oppression" (to be nice and use your descriptor) is OK by comparison.

Whatever gets you through the night.

Mmm. Goooooood.

:popcorn:

[makhno]

51. At least read the thread you're replying to

No one's saying political oppression is OK, only that equating Soviet history with that of Nazi Germany is as tenuous as claiming that American troops in Iraq are the modern equivalent of the SS.

[HuckleB]

53. Blah. Blah. Blah.

You say its tenuous. I see no big difference at the end of the day. And your defense seems to hang on some small technicalities and focus on a few statements that may have been a bit overboard. Those differences are more like genetic variation than anything.

When it comes to the comparison itself, sure the means were somewhat different, the propaganda different, the forms of violence different, but the ends?

Not so different.

(And, please, don't bother responding if you can't avoid making false assumptions. Thanks.)

[makhno]

54. The motivation was different

As were the ends. The means, as a matter of fact, were sadly very similar. If you want to keep pretending that Soviet policy was primarily motivated by an obsession with racial purity, there is indeed little to discuss as I'm not interested in fantasy.

[HuckleB]

66. Please stop responding to imaginary posts.

First, how were the ends different? I can't wait to read the response to that question, since I've no idea what imaginary post will be derived in order to foment a response.

It's funny. I think I asked for honesty in my last post, and this is what I read as a response. Just to clarify, motivation is part of the means. You're not going to accomplish anything without it.

And please don't pretend that thousands didn't die at the hands of "relocations" of entire ethnic peoples during USSR rule. And one of the oddities of USSR history is that, despite its obsession with victory in international sporting events, a number of ethnic minorities who rightfully earned spots on USSR teams were kept at home anyway. I could go on and on, but I really don't think I need to do so. Again, I never said the Soviets were "motivated" by racial purity, so why pretend tht I did?

:eyes:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

60. Definite ethnic persecution under the Soviets

After annexing the Baltic States, they pursued a policy of moving ethnic Baltic peoples out and Russians in.

Several small ethnic groups in Central Asia (the Crimean Tartars, the Kalmyks, the Tannu Tuvans, and others were deported from their ancestral lands.

[tabasco]

14. Did you forget about the "Secret Protocols?"

The Soviets and Germans were partners in the destruction of Poland before Barbarossa.

Don't try to make the Soviets look like angels when they had buckets of blood on their hands before the US even entered the war.

[HuckleB]

25. Thank you for pointing this out.

It's forgotten far too often.

[brentspeak]

15. What the Soviets did in 1945 was not simply 'war'

It was definitely one big war crime. Needless to say, the mass rapes and killing of the German civilians by the Soviets had as little military significance as did the bombing of Dresden. And the atrocities did in fact happen; even Stalin at Potsam admitted as such, justifying them on the grounds of "boys will be boys".

And we'll never know exactly how many Soviet civilians were executed during the war for phony charges of "cowardice" and "espionage" by the Soviet military and Stalin's secret police.

[makhno]

38. Mass rapes

"Mass rapes" keep coming up on this thread time and time again. Would someone please provide a link to a scholarly work that touches upon this subject, as it's not something I've encountered outside of russophobic threads such as this one.

[achtung_circus]

43. Will this do?

<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/24/wbeev24.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/01/24/ixworld.html>

There is indefensible behaviour on all sides, but to call the rape, the Gulags, the purge of the Red Army officer corp, Katyn, the artificial famines in the Ukraine, etc, etc, etc "Russophobic" is indefensible, as well.

[makhno]

44. I've read parts of "Berlin"

The ones I remember were full of conjecture and extrapolation - rape clearly did occur, but Beevor's attempts at portraying this as some kind of official Soviet policy were strained. His naked anti-Russian bias - romanticization of the German military contrasted with an emphasis on the amoral, drunken beast strereotype of the Soviet soldier - doesn't help his credibility, and was the reason I didn't bother finishing the book.

I'll take another look at it, though. It's an important topic.

[The Magistrate]

65. To My Mind, Sir

You rather misjudge Mr. Beevor. A look at his work on Stalingrad might prove a useful corrective for you on his attitudes.

There really is no room for real doubt about the widespread misconduct of Soviet soldiery in that period and placxe, or of its encouragement by propaganda organs, just as there is no real doubt that it was a normal human response to the character of the Nazi invasion and occupation of the western Soviet Union. The entire war on that front was a criminal enterprise on colassal scale, so far as civilians and prisoners of war were concerned.

[Skeptic_All]

17. Obviously you need someone to expound on the exploits

of the country you are attempting to defend. The Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were initially allies in a war that absorbed the whole world. Were it not for the German/Soviet collusion that resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Poles and the rape of the country as a whole, WWII very well may never have happened. Want to talk about war crimes? Where was Molotov and his cronies during the Nuremburg tribunals? They should have been sitting right next to Goring, Von Runstedt and the rest of the Hee Haw gang.

Please........quit trying to defend the indefensible.

[tabasco]

32. I think it's a bit of a stretch ...

to say the war would not have happened if not for the secret protocols. Hitler tried to have a one-front war, but in the long run, it didn't matter. He would have launched against Poland and/or France with or withut the deal with the Soviets. After all, the deal was only a temporary expedient as far as Hitler was concerned.

[Violet_Crumble]

71. Yeah, it's a pretty stretchy stretch....

Especially considering Hitler had already discussed invading the Soviet Union prior to the non-aggression pact being signed. And yr right about Hitler only wanting a war on one front, and keeping the Soviets at bay until he was ready to invade them was the preferred option for him. Stalin's behaviour at the time was one of denial. He made himself believe that Hitler would honour the pact and that the Soviet Union was safe from invasion, despite the intelligence he was getting from many sources that warned him of Hitler's plans to invade the Soviet Union....

War was inevitable, and the causes for the war probably go right back to the Versailles Treaty. Whether or not there'd been a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany, the war would still have happened...

Violet...

[makhno]

39. People just can't help forgetting Poland

:)

[Journeyman]

41. If you see Soviet excesses as simply "payback" for German attrocities. . .

can't the same be said of Dresden: It was simply payback for the Nazi terror bombings of Coventry and Rotterdam?

Indeed, we uncover a morass when we attempt to justify or even understand the behavior, actions, and motivations of the combatants in World War 2.




Coventry Cathedral 1940



Rotterdam - 1940



Statue symbolizes the bombing of Rotterdam in the Second World War. The hands in the sky against the bombs falling down and a hole in the body to show the center was bombed out of the city.

[RaleighNCDUer]

46. You misunderstand. The payback of the soviet armies was

the payback of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who had slogged through the bitterest fighting in the entire war. The surprise is not that there were excesses, but that the excesses were not greater than they were. All ground war is fought on the squad level, and when you come right down to it the upper echelons have only limited control over what happens.

The soviet soldiers fought across a thousand miles of Russia, Poland and Germany to reach Berlin, and every step of the way was contested. And also, every step of the way they saw evidence of Nazi atrocities which they naturally took very personally.

On the other hand, a mass fire bombing raid is not conceived in the heat of the moment. It is planned for weeks as the plans are drawn up, materials gathered, aircraft and crews assembled. It is all strategic decisions, and in the case of Dresden it was a decision to commit a war crime.

That is a world away from thousands of small ground units running amok, which I must note only happened occasionally -- the soviet armies were generally extremely well disciplined. They had to be to take on the Germans. But how many incidents are needed to give the impression that the atrocities were the norm? You have a million+ soldiers on the move. If just 10% commit crimes against the civilians, that's a hundred thousand incidents. And that would spawn a million stories.

As I said elsewhere on this thread, there undoubtedly were crimes committed by soviet soldiers, thousands of them, but I think they were inflated by the Germans' terror of the Red army and that the inflation was accepted because of US hatred of the 'red menace'. The soviet war crimes were the thousands of individual crimes. Dresden was a war crime of the Allied governments. Neither can be excused, but IMO the latter is the worse for being cold-blooded policy.

[pnb]

8. The things Stalin did to the Germans?

Shit, the things Stalin did to Russians!

The whole pot and kettle routine.

[Pacifist Patriot]

26. More Russians died at Stalin's hands than at Hitler's.

More Americans have died at American hands than by foreign wars. Maybe this is what bugs me about this. We all live in glass houses.

[UpInArms]

12. I am acquainted with a Dresden survivor

and here are her words of that time:

The first few years of my life where orderly and very good. Then
all hell broke loose, due to the second world war. I lost my Father, we
lost our homes more than once, we spend many hours buried in an air raid
shelter until we almost ran out of air. We were rescued by some
wonderful miracle workers. I had no youth , no teen years. I spent a
number of school years in makeshift classrooms in air raid shelters. I
could go on forever talking about my baggage, but that would do no good
for no one.

[KurtNYC]

16. Kurt Vonegut was a POW in Dresden while it was being bombed

He talks about it 'Slaughterhouse 5'

I went to Dresden last year and it was deeply disturbing. The city is known for porcelain and had no military targets. The interiors of buildings were full of wood carvings from 17th century. The British bombed it with phosphorous specifically to burn it all. Horrible.

But do I think any group of humans can point the finger at another group over acts like this? No. All war is terror. God help us all.

[HuckleB]

21. Yes, I met a wonderful Dresden survivor a few years ago.

She was in her teens at the time of the bombing, but has never been able to bring herself to return. She lives in BC, where she emigrated in the '50s. I'll never forget her, as her attitude toward life was wonderful and infectious. We spent a week with her and a crew of Canadians, kayaking near Kingcome Inlet along the BC coast (about half way to Alaska), and she kicked everyone's butt despite being the elder stateswoman. I truly hope that I have that kind of zest for life when I am her age.

[Frederik]

13. Putin is right about this,

incidentally, but he's just saying it to annoy Bush and to endear himself to the Germans. He's a sly old fox, pooty-poot.

[Pacifist Patriot]

18. He's right, but can we focus on the present rather than dwell on the past?

This just seems like intentional divisive posturing intended to divert attention from contemporary issues that beg for solutions. I don't mean to dismiss the crimes of history by any means, but I'd be more impressed with real solutions to current problems.

[K-W]

22. If America would deal honestly with its own history,

then it wouldnt be something Putin could use against us.

I think we have only ourselves to blame that we refuse to aknowledge our history of terror.

[Pacifist Patriot]

23. I can't disagree with you.

America's policy decisions have routinely been disasterous. I do not advocate either ignoring history or revising it. I just can't put my finger on why I find Putin's comments disingenuous.

[HuckleB]

24. Perhaps...

because the USSR/Russia hasn't dealt honestly with its own history, and perhaps because Putin did his own bombing of civilians in Grozny and other towns in Chechnya only a few short years ago?

[K-W]

28. Right, Putin obviously isnt a humanitarian,

and obviously isnt saying this out of his sorrow over the suffering of German civilians.

But Putin's seeming lack of charecter and questionable motives dont discredit his argument.

[democracyindanger]

30. Good point, although the comments were made

in a joint interview with Schroeder about this weekend's Victory in Europe commemoration, not just a general comment to the press.

In no way am I suggesting Putin's continuing destruction of Chechnya doesn't matter. But the context the comments were made in were regarding WWII. That's why he's talking about the past.

[HuckleB]

19. Hmm.

But what Russia did to Grozny under Putin is A-ok? Nevermind the USSR's unjustified "relocation" of the entire Ingush and Chechen population, among others. This "relocation" kept these people away from their ancestral Caucausus for 13 years. Etc... etc... etc...

Vlad may be right, but where's the context? Bombing innocent Germans is bad, but bombing innocent Chechens 50 plus years later is OK?

[daleo]

20. I am no supporter of the Dresden bombing

But I don't think Stalin was against it at the time. In fact, I rather think he encouraged anything that would help break the back of the Nazi regime, even if it was mostly gratuitous.

[Selatius]

33. Putin is only doing this because of Bush's actions

If he and his buddies wouldn't twist the knife so much such as calling France and Germany "Old Europe," for instance, we would not be back here opening up old wounds about that war and talking about atrocities that cannot be undone. I don't think any major power on earth today could point the finger at anyone else without first looking in the mirror at itself.

[Karenina]

40. He's taking a well-aimed shot

at American "exceptionalism." Murikka wants to hold everyone else accountable yet CONTINUALLY refuses to acknowledge her own nassy warts.
My neighborhood was BOMBED TO SHIT in WW2. Kids were hanged across the street. I wasn't born when that happened, but DAMN STRAIGHT, even as an immigrant, I feel it DAILY. That shit stays in the air.

Anybody read Solly Mack's account of visiting the camps?

America is like a teenager who ain't yet hip to Frank Zappa's "It Can't happen Here."

[HuckleB]

50. He's taking a shot, I'll grant that.

But I don't think Putin's aim has ever been "well." He sure seems to leave a lot of collateral damage behind, anyway.

Salud.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

34. hey everybody seems to have forgotten Barbary coast Moroccans

I'm still pissed at them Pirates for all their treacherousness on the high-seas in the 1700's! Never forget AMERICA WAKE UP MORANS!!! That was hugh and yet THE EAGLE SLEEPS!!




it's a freep thang you wouldn't understand.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

35. and. . like a good Christian nation America will ask for forgiveness

as any decent Christian nation living under the caring hand of a very humble, wrathless, Christ-like ruler.



:rofl:

[Rex]

52. War is insane

What do you expect when the State sanctions and rewards it's citizens for murdering other citizens from other nations? War crimes? War is a crime! IMNSHO anyone who goes to war suffers the wrath of the victor. Morals have no place in war because murder is immoral no matter how you try and justify it.

Putin is just puffing up his airsack.

[gulfcoastliberal]

55. And the Red Army represented the epitome of compassion, eh?

I've been watching the History channels coverage of VE week, and one thing is clear: when the Reds invaded Germany, they took revenge on civilians and Nazi infantry alike. I usually like it when Putin says something controversial but this is plainly hypocritical.

[ladeuxiemevoiture]

56. On the 50th anniversary of Dresden's bombing,

a German minister (I THINK it was a Dresden minister - can't remember, though he was German, I remember that), they held a ceremony in Dresden and the sermon went something like, "when the flames of war are lit, it burns everything it touches. And so Dresden had to die."

That is, the war and death and destruction which the Germans started simply came back to strike them, as well, kind of like karma. Very sad and tragic, but that's what happens in war. Which is a reminder of why they shouldn't be started lightly.

I read a good book about it a few years back - "Crossing the Bridge" or something like that, written by a woman who survived (miraculously). She didn't complain that they were treated unfairly; she merely said wars are started by men and it's the women and children who end up paying worst for them.

[cyr330]

57. And Berlin?

What did he have to say of Russia's role in the destruction of Berlin at the end of the war (the parts that weren't already demolished from air raids)?

[Rex]

58. What about the condition of East Berlin after the wall came down.

Why doesn't he try and explain away how miserable it was to live on the Eastside. How Germany stood torn apart by 50 years of Cold War. And for what? Putin and Bush are birds of a feather. It infuriates me that these people are in power!

[makhno]

59. Urban fighting would do that

Edited: unnecessary sarcasm

[Kellanved]

69. ahem

Personally I don't see any use in condemning any of these attacks. It boils down to making a victim out of Germany, which it just never was. Germany and the Germans demanded total war and they (we) got total war.
Individual stories from the time are almost always tragic; but I do not see any point in shifting the guilt to countries who were treacherously attacked and had to fight for their very survival.

As a citizen of Berlin I will attend the SPASIBO demonstration on May 8th to thank the Russian liberators. I am no less grateful to the Allied soldiers who defended the western city for forty years, but I will pay respect where respect is due.

BTW (really): unlike Dresden, Berlin had bunkers.

[Violet_Crumble]

72. The US was not treacherously attacked + did it have to fight for survival

Germany didn't attack the US, and the US was never in the position that Britain was of having to fight for its survival. It's that simple...

I don't think anyone can even begin to argue in any serious way that Germany itself was a victim of the war - Germany was the aggressor and was completely expansionary prior to and during the war. The German people, however, did not 'demand' total war - the Nazis demanded that and through propaganda and hitting on the patriotism of normal Germans, got the cooperation of *ordinary Germans. What happened to Dresden was what I'd consider to be a war-crime. There's no rule that says the civilians of the aggressor country shouldn't be protected the same way as any other civilians. People who read about the Blitz and speak in outrage about what a warcrime bombing civilians was have no leg to stand on when they believe that same thing doesn't apply to Dresden. What I think makes Dresden so terrible is that there was prior knowledge that the firestorms would happen and so many civilians would die in the inferno. And those who died are victims, regardless of who won the war and gets to paint the final picture on how humane and caring they themselves were during the war...


* ordinary as meaning Germans who didn't happen to be Jews, Communists, homosexuals, or anyone openly opposed to the ideology of the Nazi Party...

Violet...

[HuckleB]

74. Well...

granted, by the benefits of geography, the US wasn't attacked by Germany as the UK was. But let's remember that Germany declared war on the US first, not the other way around. And let's remember that Germany's ally attacked and declared war on the US first, as well. None of this excuses the actions at Dresden, of course. But the US certainly had little choice but to enter the war. Geography kept the US with little to no damage at home, but to say that US survival wasn't at stake does underplay the reality of the situation, IMHO.

[Kellanved]

76. if it were only as easy as that

You see, the Nazis would have sent me to a concentration camp - and that is not even considering my politics, just on the basis of my ancestry. I would probably not exist, had the war went any other way.

That said, as a German citizen, I am unable to read a text about it or watch a Dresden documentary without shedding tears.

I am in no position to pass judgment, but I am against victimizing Germany.

[Miss Chybil]

61. Maybe you should read, or watch "Slaughterhouse Five"

It's a novel, but it's Kurt Vonnegut's attempt at dealing with the very real horrors he suffered as an American POW being held in Dresden during that bombing. He depicts a lot of the events as he actually experienced them.

[bemildred]

62. The allies did do this.

Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. And they worked
hard at it too, there was a lot of effort put into getting the
Dresden firestorm started. It was considered that the Hamburg
effort didn't work right.

Putin is not claiming moral superiority, he's just pointing
out we are not particularly better, and he is right.

For sheer numbers, it's between Stalin and the Japanese in Manchuria
as near as I can tell.

Here's a decent summary:

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatx.htm

[eridani]

63. This jackass is responsible for flattening Grozny

He has a hell of a lot of gall. We can add Grozny and Fallujah to the list, after Dresden, Coventry, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and of course the opening move in this style of modern warfare, Guernica.

[JDPriestly]

70. Putin's statement is significant,

not because it does or does not accurately reflect history, but because it strikes a chord around the world. Twenty years ago, even six years ago, no one in the West would have paid any attention to what a Russian leader said about the bombing of Dresden because people everywhere viewed the U.S. as the moral beacon -- as the leader of the world in terms of fairness, the rule of law, democracy, openness. But, thanks to Bush, our image in the world has so deteriorated, our reputation for integrity, goodwill and trustworthiness so diminished that Putin's negative comments about our previous military actions -- over 50 years ago in WWII no less -- are heard, taken seriously, questioned, repeated and discussed -- even on this forum.

The real significance of Putin's statement is that, as a nation, we no longer hold the moral high ground. I never thought I would see such a day. What a shame. Our Founding Fathers must be crying up there in heaven.

[Che_Nuevara]

73. We never held the moral high ground to begin with.

Trail of Tears? Spanish-American Cuban War? Internment of Japanese-Americans? The slavery birth clause, not to mention segregation and Jim Crowe.

What Putin is doing is saying, "My country is drawing flak for being unjust and undemocratic ... let's talk about something else now."

[JDPriestly]

75. We were viewed as having the moral high ground

after WWII. We may not have been perfect, but compared to other nations, we held the moral high ground. It's all relative, you know.