Dresden : Tuesday, February 13, 1945

Rating:
Summary: A respectable job at an impossible task
Review: 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').