Rating: 
Summary: A good book on a difficult subject
Review: Sadly it appears that a few apologists for the Nazis have posted their revisionist views about the bombing. Fair enbough - I suppose free speech is what we were fighting for.
However, I don't know if they have read the book and doubt they would agree with its conclusions anyhow - that yes the bombing was a tragedy, as there are many tragedies in war, but also that it came about as a result of a war and mode of fighting that was initiated by the Germans.
The idea that 'Germans were victims too' is a la mode in Germany at present, as is a resurrenge of the racist-right. But what this book does not do is provide these cheerleaders for Hitlerism with the moral equivalence that enables them to submerge their national sins - while it properly tells the story of the innocent German civilians caught up in the bombing and the horrors of that night, it also movingly recounts the story Dresden's Jewish population, the few survivors of which were granted an an almost-miracle deliverance by the falling bombs.
The author makes it clear that Dresden was a beautiful, but rather pro-Nazi town. It was also a transport hub. No, it probably did not 'need' to be destroyed, but it was, largely as a sop to the Russian allies who asked for any help possible in frustrating the German defence to the east. Given that the Germans had torched most of Europe by this time, killed millions of Russians, destroyed 250,000 buildings in London alone and pursued a policy of targeting centres of age and beauty in the UK, thereby forever defacing much of our heritage, I personally find it difficult to feel much sympathy.
Rating: 
Summary: Sloppy - Hobby Historian
Review: Sloppy history --- with basic inaccuracies such as those cited by the 5 star reviewer (???), how can the analysis be trusted as sound? Dissapointing book all around. When one sets out to challenge (dare I say "revise") history, and Taylor is the revisionist here, one would expect better all around scholarship. Even from its promotional "Editorial Review" - the book is designed to stir controversy rather than add to serious historical scholarship.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent account of what happens in a war
Review: Taylor has written a very serious book that attempts to sift through the propaganda and get at the facts of this horrible episode. Minor factual errors do not dull or inhibit the value of this book. For too long, the words of Joseph Goebbels were readily believed by those that wanted to tar the Allies with war atrocities. I've always found it grimly amusing that a lot of those people took Goebbels word for it about Dresden. Did they trust what he said about anything else? I doubt it. I hope not. But what he said about Dresden fit into their distorted world view, so...we have to have a book like this to set it straight.
Rating: 
Summary: Read This Book and The Read The Irving Book
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: After reading this book the bitterness is understandable.
Review: Taylor writes clearly and covers the many aspects of the wartime bombing of Dresden well. Some commentators have thought that his vision was too expansive, that his chapters in Part One were unnecessary and that the scope of Dresden was too encompassing. To my mind, however, I found his early chapters on Dresden's history and the city's military significance during WWII and integral part of the story of Dresden and the role it plays in modern 20th century history.
In Part Two from page 251 through page 332 the reader is given as full an account as possible of what happens on the ground when the bombing crews "get it right." I have not read any other books about the Allied air offensive against the Axis powers during WWII and after reading this book there is little likelihood that I will-one is enough and Dresden is that one.
Taylor's final chapters in Part Three cover the propaganda made by, particularly, Goebbels after the full extent of the city's destruction became known. Taylor also takes time to discuss the mistakes, his words, made by the Allied Air Command in reporting the raid and it's significance to the war effort. Taylor believes it was at this point where the allies made bad mistakes- mistakes that have heavily contributed to the far-right use of this raid on Dresden for it's own propaganda purposes in our contemporary world.
If you have any interest in the Second World War and beyond that, in that war's impact on our world 66 years after, then I would urge you to read this wonderful history.
Rating: 
Summary: Another denial of American/British war crimes and atrocities
Review: Taylor's 're-assessment' of the casualty figures resulting from the worst incident of calculated, mechanized murder of civilians by carpet-bombing during WWII is nothing more than another way of denying that Americans (and our English-speaking cousins) are capable of committing war crimes. Americans must finally recognize that Americans can commit, and have committed just as hideous atrocities as any other people. Even if one were to accept Taylor's figures as even near accurate, how can anyone NOT equate with mass murder having caused the deaths of thirty- to forty-thousand civilians? What is really the difference between dropping incendiary bombs on unseen people and lining them up to be shot in the head or gassed to death? Does not being able to see the agonizing death that the soldier 'doing as ordered' causes his victim somehow make it 'cleaner' or perhaps less criminal? Such books as Taylor's serve no purpose other than to try to clear the names of the American and British military and government personnel who carried out this atrocity, war criminals who should be remembered as mass murderers.
Rating:
Summary: The truth will ultimately surface
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Another apologist effort
Review: There's a lot of info here, most of it interesting, but really it just avoids the obvious. The Allies had a bombing policy in WWII that was openly designed to kill civilians (or rather non-combatant workers). Kill as many as you can and you will break their will to fight on. The book clouds the fact Dresden was a good target because it had some military importance, but what made it a great target was the fact it was packed with fleeing refugees. It was the perfect terror bombing. A strategic bomber's dream. Had the Allies lost the war, it would certainly have been a war crime, much like the highly questionable bombing of Nagasaki or the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff and dozens of other German refugee ships in 1945. A much better read is W.G. Sebald's "On the Natural History of Destruction." Read that and then decide whether fire bombing civilians is ever justified. This book is just not worth the money. You'll find the same type of arguments in any number of old 1960-1970's pro-Bombing books that litter used books stores.
Rating:
Summary: Too chatty but interesting
Review: This book deals too much with the personal lives of many of the Dresden residents. The reader is more interested in their descriptions of the event than their life stories. However, the author does a good job of demonstrating that this bombing was no different than any other WWII area bombing. A good portrait of Sir Arthur Harris, who tried to protect his nation as he knew best, and got far less credit than he deserved. British officers made far more mistakes than Harris and received more honor after the war.
Rating:
Summary: Justifying war crimes by cowardly RAF Bomber Command
Review: This ia unadulterated rubbish from the cowardly Brits (who espoused nighttime terror bombing of civilians since they were trounced by the Jagdwaffe) who tried to justify their unspeakable crimes with the nonsense about Dresden being a key tranportation net, when it was packed full of refugees from the maurauding Red hordes in the last weeks of the war. Anyway, what would you expect from hypocrites of high sounding morality who pioneered the world's first concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War ( in the process killing off tens ot thousands of women and children)and the first colonial empire financed totally with slaves and opium.
|
