Hell arrived in the city of Dresden on February 13, 1945, at exactly thirty seconds past 10:10 PM.  At that moment a squadron of British de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bombers dropped bright red targeting flares over the German city.  Two and a half minutes later, with the Mosquitos already bound for home, the first wave of British Lancaster heavy bombers began releasing their massive loads of high explosives and incendiary bombs.  Before that night, Dresden had remained virtually unscathed by five and a half years of war.  After that night, the beautiful city became a lasting symbol of the brutality of twentieth century warfare.

It may become desirable in the immediate future to apply the whole of the strategic bomber effort to the direct attack on German morale… 

Immense devastation could be produced if the entire attack was concentrated on a single big town other than Berlin and the effect would be especially great if the town was one hitherto relatively undamaged. 

Sir Charles Portal, Marshall of the Royal Air Force

As the capital of Saxony, Dresden was a city rich in culture, but poor in military targets.  So impressive were its baroque architecture and world-class museums that the city was called the Elbeflorenz, Florence on the Elbe River.  To be sure, there were a few potential military targets.  That was to be expected in any large German city.  It was a railroad hub.  The Gestapo maintained a regional headquarters there.  British and American intelligence officials claimed a poison gas plant existed on the outskirts of the city.  But unlike Berlin or Hamburg or Munich or the great cities of the Rhine and Ruhr valleys, there were no great weapons manufacturing facilities, no oil refineries, no obvious targets for Allied bombs.  Consequently, Dresdners were almost complacent in their assumption that they would be immune to the apocalypse that greeted them that night.

The first wave of bombing ended just eight minutes after it commenced.  But the terror was only beginning.  254 Lancasters had dropped 875 tons of explosives, including 375 tons of incendiary bombs.  The combustible stew of magnesium, phosphorus, and petroleum jelly quickly turned Dresden’s timbered Old Town into an inferno.  The fire’s intensity grew, and temperatures over the flames approached 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.  The heat caused the air to rise quickly, forcing cooler air nearby to rush into the vacuum.  Oxygen was sucked out of the basement bomb shelters where the terrified populace sought cover.  Soon, hurricane force winds were blowing into the fires from all directions. 

We saw terrible things: cremated adults shrunk to the size of small children, pieces of arms and legs, dead people, whole families burnt to death, burning people ran to and fro, burnt coaches filled with civilian refugees, dead rescuers and soldiers, many were calling and looking for their children and families, and fire everywhere, everywhere fire, and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm threw people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape from. I cannot forget these terrible details. I can never forget them. 

Lothar Metzger, recalling in 1999 his experiences as a child in Dresden  

As breathing became more and more difficult in the oxygen-deprived shelters, civilians covered themselves in blankets and jackets doused in water, and emerged into the raging firestorm.  Some were sucked into the flames by the high winds.  Others collapsed from the carbon monoxide laden air.  The lucky ones made it to the Elbe, where they waited out the inferno caused by that first wave of bombers.  Only a few made it that far, however, before the next wave of Lancasters arrived.

 It was my practice never to leave my seat, but my skipper called me on this occasion to come and have a look.  The sight was indeed fantastic.  From some 20,000 feet, Dresden was a city with every street etched in fire. 

Navigator from No. 3 Lancaster Group 

This time, target sighting flares were unnecessary.  Crews aboard the second bomber group noticed a vague orange glow on the horizon while they were still 200 miles away. Slowly, the realization dawned that the distant glow was in fact their target.  60 miles away the flames themselves were visible from 20,000 feet.  At 1:30 AM the next round of explosives and incendiaries hit the burning city.  This time, incendiaries comprised 75% of the tonnage dropped.  The planes passed over obvious targets, like the railroad yards and the industrial outskirts of town, but they did not drop their load there.  Just as was the case three hours earlier, the target was the Altstadt and its environs, the historical inner city where the bulk of the population lived.

The elephants gave spine-chilling screams. The baby cow elephant was lying in the narrow barrier-moat on her back, her legs up in the sky. She had suffered severe stomach injuries and could not move. A cow elephant had been flung clear across the barrier moat and the fence by some terrific blast wave, and stood there trembling. I had no choice but to leave these animals to their fate.

I had known for one hour now that the most difficult task I could ever bring was facing me. "Lehmann, we must get to the carnivores," I called. We did what we had to do, but it broke my heart.

Otto Sailer-Jackson, Dresden Zoo Keeper

The flames were still raging out of control as the second raid dropped its lethal load.  Those who had fled the oxygen starved shelters were caught outdoors as the explosions resumed.  Among the city landmarks indiscriminately hit was the renowned Dresden Zoo.  Panicked animals, many badly burned and injured, joined the throngs of panicked civilians struggling to escape the firestorm.  Police shot and killed what suffering animals they could, while the zoo keepers stayed behind to kill the large carnivores that had not yet escaped from their enclosures.  The disaster that hit Dresden that night was not limited to human inhabitants.

A third wave of bombers arrived at noon on February 14.  This time it was American B-17’s and B-24’s, but the payload was similar.  If the resulting devastation was less, it was only because there was much less left of the city to destroy.  Because of the thick cover of smoke, it was also difficult for the Americans to spot their targets, but their bomb bays were nevertheless emptied as planned.  The Dresden fire spread northward to areas of the city that had been spared the previous night.

Building after building was a burnt out ruin.  Down here by the river, where many people were moving or resting on the ground, masses of empty, rectangular cases of stick incendiary bombs stuck out of the churned up earth.  Fires were still burning in many of the buildings.  At times, small and no more than a bundle of clothes, the dead were scattered across our path.  The skull of one had been torn away, the top of the head was a dark red bowl.  Once an arm lay there with a pale, quite fine hand, like a model made of wax…Crowds streamed unceasingly between these islands, past the corpses and smashed vehicles, up and down the Elbe, a silent, agitated procession. 

Victor Klemperer, Jewish resident of Dresden  

A small number of Jewish residents still lived in Dresden, awaiting their deportation to the concentration camps.  The Nazi block wardens knew who the Jews were within their jurisdiction.  Jews were forbidden entry into the bomb shelters.  In the chaos of the firestorm many Jewish residents tore the yellow Star of David from their clothing and fled to neighborhoods where they would not be recognized.  If they survived the conflagration, they could blend into the general population, and take shelter wherever possible.

No one knows how many died in Dresden on February 13-14.  Initial German reports claimed Allied “terror bombs” had killed more than 200,000.  This was likely an exaggeration publicized for propaganda.  Contemporary British reports claimed the number was closer to 20,000.  That figure is probably too low.  Most current historians say the death toll was at least 25,000, and possibly as much as 135,000.

The mutilated and charred corpses whose heads had been burnt off or crushed could be counted just as little as those who had been cremated alive in the firestorm, and of whom nothing remained but a scattered heap of ashes. 

Chief Gardener of the Heide-friedhof cemetery 

There are several reasons for the uncertainty over the death toll.  First, no one really knows how many people lived in Dresden at the time of the attack.  The city was flooded with homeless refugees fleeing the Soviet army, less than 100 miles to the east.  Others had come to Dresden from cities like Berlin and Hamburg, after their homes had been destroyed by Allied bombs there.  Close to 30,000 prisoners of war were housed in the city.  Before the war, Dresden was home to about 650,000 residents.  By early 1945, the population may have been close to 1 million, but no one knows for sure.

Of course, the other reason for uncertainty regarding the actual death toll is the fact that many bodies were so dismembered or incinerated that they simply were not identifiable as individual human remains.

Dresden was not the only city to suffer a firestorm during the war.  Much of Hamburg was destroyed the previous year in a similar firestorm.  Lesser conflagrations hit Berlin and Cologne, and one as deadly as any in Europe hit Tokyo the following month.  What sets Dresden apart from these other catastrophes is the fact that its firestorm was not the result of collateral damage.  In Dresden, the firestorm was the objective.  It was a punitive strike to wreak havoc and break the spirit of the civilian population.  It was also a message intended for Soviet leaders that British and American air power was capable of delivering massive destruction deep into what was becoming a new Soviet sphere of influence.  The Dresden strike achieved little, however, from a strictly military perspective.  Before long, the devastation it wreaked became a useful propaganda tool employed by the Soviet Union and its East German allies to discredit Western claims of moral superiority during the Cold War.

It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, should be reviewed.  Otherwise we shall come in control of an utterly ruined land. 

Winston Churchill, March 1945 

In all the years of World War II, civilian deaths in the United Kingdom resulting from German air strikes totaled about 65,000.  That is the total for the entire war.  It is conceivable that an equal number or more were killed in a single 24 hour period in Dresden, just ten weeks before Germany’s capitulation. 

World War II has been called “The Good War” for its clarity of purpose.  There were clear “good guys” and clear “bad guys” (although one of the bad guys was on our side).  But there is no such thing as a “good war.”  There may be just wars, and there may be necessary wars, but there are no “good” wars.  The events of February 13-14, 1945 prove that.