X-Message-Number: 16717
Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 17:03:44 -0700
From: Olaf Henny <>
Subject: OFF TOPIC Bombing Civilians
References: <>

?In Message #16675
IGGY <> wrote

>WHY this happened, that's important - we can agree to
>disagree and that's the beauty of it. Russians, British, and Americans
>bombed Germany and occupied Europe very heavily, however I don't believe
>there was rational calculations to "killing civilians" over "hitting
>military targets." Japan is somewhat a different story - civilians were
>targeted, not armories, tanks, or vessels. This is a thing to ponder over.
>II am sure that this idea was ripe for its time - again, one of the
>paradoxes.

WRONG!
Sir Arthur Harris developed the strategy to concentrate bombing
raids on civilian targets in order to demoralize the German army.
This was fully supported by Churchill and executed by all Allies.
Case in point the bombing of Dresden on February 14, 1945, the
biggest killing of civilian population in one night in world
history.  There were no military targets other than Hospitals
in Dresden.  German figures (still during the war) put the
casualties of indigenous Dresdeners at 225,000 with an estimated
equal number of refugees from the eastern parts of the country,
who had camped in the parks along the Elbe river for a total of
over 400,000.-.  Soviet reports after the war basically jived
with those figures.  However in the western press they were
quoted at 125,000 to 150,000.-.  The truth lies probably
somewhere in between, although I see little strategic purpose for
the Germans in inflating these figures, since impact on the moral
of Germans had become an issue in those last days of the war.

However the Soviets clearly *had* an interest in inflating the
figures, while the West had one in deflating them.

Bombing raids by the soviets were negligible and almost
exclusively limited to support for their ground troops

Best,
Olaf

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