Recent anniversaries have brought together consideration of the Nazi Concentration Camp at Auschwitz, liberated in 1945, and the RAF bombing of Dresden in 1945. Some have put then in the same status as war crimes. But are they not very different? Auschwitz was part of the long-term Nazi plan to eliminate certain peoples, chiefly but not only Jews, simply because conflicted with Nazi ideology of racial purity. A crime against humanity if ever there was one. By contrast, the bombing of Dresden was an act of Total Warfare, which the city had so far escaped, despite its importance in manufacture of war products and as transport hub. And most people did not have proper air-raid shelters. The best estimate is that 35 thousand were killed that night of 13/14th February (not the much higher figure claimed by holocaust deniers). A tragedy, but not an Auschwitz-style War Crime.
Posted by Richard Hall at February 24, 2005 02:18 PM