The firestorm, which reached temperatures of 1600 Degrees Celsius (2900F), engulfed 21 square kilometres (8 square miles) and was focused on the city centre - where the most refugees were hopelessly crammed in. The Allies went so far as to also target a column of rescue vehicles, leaving Dresden and any trapped survivors to burn for days. There were more than three bombing waves in all, through to the 15th February.
February 14th, 1945, was also Ash Wednesday.
‘It may be Inconvenient History but England rather than Germany initiated the murderous slaughter of bombing civilians thus bringing about retaliation. Chamberlain conceded that it was “absolutely contrary to International law.” It began in 1940 and Churchill believed it held the secret of victory. He was convinced that raids of sufficient intensity could destroy Germany’s morale, and so his War Cabinet planned a campaign that abandoned the accepted practice of attacking the enemy’s armed forces and, instead made civilians the primary target. Night after night, RAF bombers in ever increasing numbers struck throughout Germany, usually at working class housing, because it was more densely packed.’ The Peoples’ War, Angus Calder. London, Jonathan Cape, 1969.*
Radio Reel (audio) shows raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city.
All German towns and cities above 50,000 population were from 50% to 80% destroyed. Hamburg was totally destroyed and 70,000 civilians died in the most appalling circumstances whilst Cologne was likewise turned into a moon-scape. As Hamburg burned the winds feeding the three mile high flames reached twice hurricane speed to exceed 150 miles per hour. Trees three feet in diameter on the outskirts of the city were sucked from the ground by the supernatural forces of these winds and hurled miles into the city-inferno, as were vehicles, men, women and children.
"Three-hundred times as many people died in Hamburg during the ten-day blitz as died in Coventry during the entire course of the war… Not even Hiroshima and Nagasaki, suffering the smashing blows of nuclear explosions, could match the utter hell of Hamburg."
- Martin Caidin, The Night Hamburg Died, Ballantyne Books, NY, 1960.
Arthur Harris (1892-1984), one of history's single worst psychopaths, was the architect of an air campaign that specifically targeted and killed around two million civilians. He had another nickname within the Royal Air Force: Butcher Harris.Unlike the Germans who strove to restict their air-assaults to military targets and factories, the drunken cigar-chomping beast Churchill and his boy Arthur Harris (aka 'Bomber Harris') carried out a campaign of deliberate extermination against the German populace. The fire-massacre of Dresden was their crowing achievement.
Source:
Impartial Truth
