UK/US constantly firebombed civilians in Dresden 13 Feb 1945 – 15 Feb 1945 with 722 (RAF) and 527 (USAAF) heavy bombers dropping some 4,000 incendiary bombs over an unprotected city.
It was an appalling war crime but in the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949 UK/US stopped its investigation.
No real military reasons
The journalist Alexander McKee cast doubt on the meaningfulness of the list of targets mentioned in the 1953 USAF report, pointing out that the military barracks listed as a target were a long way out of the city and were not in fact targeted during the raid.[137] The "hutted camps" mentioned in the report as military targets were also not military but were camps for refugees.[137] It is also stated that the important Autobahn bridge to the west of the city was not targeted or attacked, and that no railway stations were on the British target maps, nor any bridges, such as the railway bridge spanning the Elbe River.[138] Commenting on this, McKee says: "The standard whitewash gambit, both British and American, is to mention that Dresden contained targets X, Y and Z, and to let the innocent reader assume that these targets were attacked, whereas in fact the bombing plan totally omitted them and thus, except for one or two mere accidents, they escaped".[139] McKee further asserts "The bomber commanders were not really interested in any purely military or economic targets, which was just as well, for they knew very little about Dresden; the RAF even lacked proper maps of the city. What they were looking for was a big built up area which they could burn, and that Dresden possessed in full measure."[140]
According to the historian Sönke Neitzel, "it is difficult to find any evidence in German documents that the destruction of Dresden had any consequences worth mentioning on the Eastern Front. The industrial plants of Dresden played no significant role in German industry at this stage in the war".[141] Wing Commander H. R. Allen said, "The final phase of Bomber Command's operations was far and away the worst. Traditional British chivalry and the use of minimum force in war was to become a mockery and the outrages perpetrated by the bombers will be remembered a thousand years hence".[142]
A memorial at cemetery Heidefriedhof in Dresden. It reads: "Wieviele starben? Wer kennt die Zahl? An deinen Wunden sieht man die Qual der Namenlosen, die hier verbrannt, im Höllenfeuer aus Menschenhand." ("How many died? Who knows the count? In your wounds one sees the agony of the nameless, who in here were conflagrated, in the hellfire made by hands of man.")
Military facilities in the north weren't bombed.
The Albertstadt, in the north of Dresden, had remarkable military facilities that the bombings failed to hit. Today they are officer's schools ("Offiziersschule des Heeres") for the Bundeswehr and its military history museum (from prehistoric to modern times).
A war crime
... ever since the deliberate mass bombing of civilians in the second world war, and as a direct response to it, the international community has outlawed the practice. It first tried to do so in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, but the UK and the US would not agree, since to do so would have been an admission of guilt for their systematic "area bombing" of German and Japanese civilians.
— A.C. Grayling.[143]
Frederick Taylor told Der Spiegel, "I personally find the attack on Dresden horrific. It was overdone, it was excessive and is to be regretted enormously," but, "A war crime is a very specific thing which international lawyers argue about all the time and I would not be prepared to commit myself nor do I see why I should. I'm a historian."[123] Similarly, British philosopher A. C. Grayling has described British area bombardment as an "immoral act" and "moral crime" because "destroying everything ... contravenes every moral and humanitarian principle debated in connection with the just conduct of war," but, "It is not strictly correct to describe area bombing as a 'war crime'."[144]
As a war crime
Though no one involved in the bombing of Dresden was ever charged with a war crime, some hold the opinion that the bombing was one.
According to Dr. Gregory Stanton, lawyer and president of Genocide Watch:
... every human being having the capacity for both good and evil. The Nazi Holocaust was among the most evil genocides in history. But the Allies' firebombing of Dresden and nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also war crimes – and as Leo Kuper and Eric Markusen have argued, also acts of genocide. We are all capable of evil and must be restrained by law from committing it.[145]
Historian Donald Bloxham states, "The bombing of Dresden on 13–14 February 1945 was a war crime".[146] He further argues there was a strong prima facie case for trying Winston Churchill among others and a theoretical case Churchill could have been found guilty. "This should be a sobering thought. If, however it is also a startling one, this is probably less the result of widespread understanding of the nuance of international law and more because in the popular mind 'war criminal', like 'paedophile' or 'terrorist', has developed into a moral rather than a legal categorisation".[146]
German author Günter Grass is one of several intellectuals and commentators who have also called the bombing a war crime.[147]
Proponents of this position argue that the devastation from firebombing was greater than anything that could be justified by military necessity alone, and this establishes a prima facie case. The Allies were aware of the effects of firebombing, as British cities had been subject to them during the Blitz.[d] Proponents disagree that Dresden had a military garrison and claim that most of the industry was in the outskirts and not in the targeted city centre,[148] and that the cultural significance of the city should have precluded the Allies from bombing it.
British historian Antony Beevor wrote that Dresden was considered relatively safe, having been spared previous RAF night attacks, and that at the time of the raids there were up to 300,000 refugees in the area seeking sanctuary from the advancing Red Army from the Eastern Front.[149] In Fire Sites, German historian Jörg Friedrich says that the RAF's bombing campaign against German cities in the last months of the war served no military purpose. He claims that Winston Churchill's decision to bomb a shattered Germany between January and May 1945 was a war crime. According to him, 600,000 civilians died during the allied bombing of German cities, including 72,000 children. Some 45,000 people died on one night during the firestorms that engulfed Hamburg in July 1943.
Today former allies UK and Russia consider themselves as islam's best friend.
The US has bullied the world financially with its oil tied dollar printing used as a world currency, while simultaneously used as a tool for parasiting on the rest of the world.
James Madison's take on the Second Amendment of the US Constitution: "A federal army could be kept in check by state militias. He contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he described as "afraid to trust the people with arms," and assured that "the existence of subordinate governments ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition".
Peter Klevius' take on the Second Amendment of the US Constitution: Change the 'federal' to 'global' and the 'state' to U.S., and you get the picture.
Now when China is surpassing US technologically and when the dollar is threatened by assassins, US is cornered and left with only its guns. And England seems to follow suite.
US used to be an English colony and also got the inspiration for the second amendment from England. However, today England is in practice turning into the very opposite, i.e. a 51st state of the US.
As a result we now have a US/UK/5Eyes/Saudi dictator family/Israel pact that constitutes a real global threat.
The d-day celebrators (who carefully avoided to mention the crucial sacrifices made by Russia, without which the d-day would have been impossible) have become the new militaristic global meddlers who instead of promoting peace and trade (like China) makes the world more unstable with their weapons noise.
In the 1980s Peter Klevius considered the women at Greenham Commons as his heroines.
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