German Intelligence Confirmed Jewish Involvement

Another significant example of the link made by Irving between world Jewry's alleged threat of war against Germany and Hitler's decision to escalate the anti-Jewish measures, was Hitler's meeting with the Hungarian regent Mikllos Horty in April 1943. Irving could not disregard the murderous language that Hitler used in that meeting concerning the fate of the Jews; however, he claimed that Hitler was deeply influenced by the Allied bombing of German cities.
 

The Jews Ordered The Total Destruction

In 1961, during his research "into the causation of the bombing of Dresden," Irving wrote provocative letters concerning alleged Jewish involvement in this operation to the curator of the Wiener Library. Based on dubious German testimony, he requested confirmation of the claim that the World Jewish Congress had demanded the liquidation of Dresden in reprisal for the crushing of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the destruction of the ghetto."  7
 

WW2's Greatest Historian

Documents and target maps found at bomb sites, Irving wrote, proved that British aircrews were instructed to aim only at residential areas, convincing Hitler that this was mainly the Jewish retaliation. Again, the fact that Irving refrained from any comment, left the impression that Hitler's belief might have been realistic. It should be noted that years before the publication of Hitler's War, Irving had already raised the possibility that Jewish pressure had been one of the main factors behind the Allied decision to bomb and devastate German cities.
 

 

 

Bombing of Dresden in World War II - Impact of the attack

Out of 28,410 houses in the inner city of Dresden, 24,866 were destroyed. An area of 15 square kilometres was totally destroyed, among that: 14,000 homes, 72 schools, 22 hospitals, 18 churches, 5 theatres, 50 bank and insurance companies, 31 department stores, 31 large hotels, 62 administration buildings as well as factories such as the Ihagee camera works. In total there were 222,000 apartments in the city. 75,000 of them were totally destroyed, 11,000 severely damaged, 7,000 damaged, 81,000 slightly damaged. The city was around 300 square kilometres in area in those days. Although the main railway station was destroyed completely, the railway was working again within a few days.

The precise number of dead is difficult to ascertain and is not known. Estimates are made difficult by the fact that the city and surrounding suburbs which had a population of 642,000 in 1939^[20] was crowded at that time with up to 200,000 refugees^[21], and some thousands of wounded soldiers. The fate of some of the refugees is not known as they may have been killed and incinerated beyond recognition in the fire-storm,

There have been higher estimates for the number of dead, ranging as high as 300,000. They are from disputed and unreliable sources, such as the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda headed by Joseph Goebbels, Soviet historians, and David Irving, the once popular, but now discredited self-taught historian who retracted his higher estimates^[29].

The Nazis made use of Dresden in their propaganda efforts and promised swift retaliation. The Soviets also made propaganda use of the Dresden bombing in the early years of the Cold War to alienate the East Germans from the Americans and British.

The destruction of Dresden was comparable to that of many other German cities, with the tonnage of bombs dropped lower than in many other areas^[30]. However, ideal weather conditions at the target site, the wooden-framed buildings, and "breakthroughs" linking the cellars of contiguous buildings and the lack of preparation for the effects of air-raids by Gauleiter Martin Mutschmann^[31], conspired to make the attack particularly devastating. For these reasons the loss of life in Dresden was higher than many other bombing raids during World War II. For example Coventry, the English city which is now twinned with Dresden, and is often compared and contrasted with it, lost 1,236 in two separate raids in 1940. In late 2004, an RAF man involved in the raid said in an interview on the BBC's Radio 4 that another factor was the lower-than-expected level of anti-aircraft fire, which allowed a high degree of accuracy on the part of the bombers.

Overall, Anglo-American bombing of German cities claimed around 400,000 civilian lives. Whether these attacks hastened the end of the war is a controversial question. As acts of retaliation, they were at best vicarious (even if entire nations are seen as morally competent agents).