Archbishop apologises for Dresden bombings
 

Archbishop Justin Welby 'says sorry' for bombing the Nazis in Dresden raids | Daily Mail Online

Discuss.

Personally I feel that with the greatest of respect that His Most Reverend should get back in his box on this one instead of standing on it.

Deep sorrow, yes.
Regret?..regret that it was necessary, yes.
Diminished all our humanity? Absolutely not.

I think he's interpreting Donne* (also a cleric) here.

but I don't agree with the interpretation. To risk one's earthly life to put a stop to evil, as the bomber crews did, is one of the highest human virtues.
The necessity of fighting and killing, for any legitimate action by armed forces, diminishes one's happiness (which is another sacrifice made by fighting personnel), but not their humanity.


*For whom the bell tolls a poem by John Donne

So was he a bomber pilot?

All such war losses are tragic and regrettable, but at the end of the day, it was us or them. Actually, it was us and them.

Was this before or after they apologised for starting it?

Sins of the fathers
The Archbish did not use the word apologise. To do so would imply he had been guilty of an inhuman act. The argument over the act is irrelevent; the iniquity of the previous generation (if such were true) only leads to the punishment of later generations by God if those generations continue to abhor God, which he doesn't.

https://carm.org/bible-difficulties/...fathers-or-not

Where's Keef when you need him?

Peter Hitchens, from a very quick skim read, takes a pretty anti position in this Mail article published 20 mins ago. I'll have a full peruse later as I'm heading off out but thought it might be of interest to others in the interim.

The Bombing Files - Arguments against the RAF bombing of German Civilians summed up - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog

Horrible formatting BTW.

Dresden Bombing
 

I came across this some while ago: sadly, I have forgotten where! Could even have been on these august forums...thought it worth posting, after the BBC did it's usual hatchet job.

Since 1945, Dresden has been used to beat the RAF about its conduct of "terror bombing" during WW2. Many sources claim that Dresden was merely a quiet peaceable little medieval town going about its business and waiting for the war to end. In fact it was a major industrial centre and rail junction. As it was stated in the Dresden City Council Yearbook of 1942 - “Anyone who knows Dresden only as a cultural city would be very surprised to be made aware of the extensive and versatile activity that make Dresden one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich”.

There were 127 factories in the Dresden municipal area, most of which were converted to war production from their former peace time use. Some examples: Zeiss turned out bomb sights, u-boat periscopes and time fuses. A former typewriter and sewing machine factory made guns and ammunition and a catering machine factory switched to producing torpedoes for the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. Arts and crafts workshops in the old town were making tail assemblies for V-1s. Other factories were turning out searchlights, aircraft components and field communications equipment. From the Dresden Chamber of Commerce in 1944 - "The work rhythm of Dresden is determined by the needs of our army." (The famous “Dresden” China was, as it always has been, made 12 mile away in Meisen).


During the Yalta conference in February 1945, at the Chiefs of Staff meeting, General Antonov specifically asked that the Dresden railway junction be bombed. Records held at the Public Records office in Kew confirm this request. General Antonov wanted Dresden attacked because it was a German base of operations against Marshall Koniev`s left flank that stood in the way of his advance into Germany. The troop reinforcement and transport centre shifted 28 troop trains a day through the marshalling yards. This is also confirmed in intelligence reports held in the Public Records office in Kew. Besides the physical contribution to the Eastern front, Dresden was a communications centre through which most telephone and telegraph lines connecting High Command to the southern flank of the Eastern front passed.

Finally, and most convincingly, captured German High Command documents from Berlin in 1945 state that "Dresden is to be fortified as a military strongpoint, to be held at all costs." British wartime records that were only recently de-classified reveal that this was known to the British and Russian commanders, as the orders to the German local defence commander were intercepted and deciphered by Ultra at BletchleyPark.

They did something naughty and took over the Poles' bit of the playground, so we told them off and hit them with a stick. They didn't like that and pushed us back.In the meantime they've occupied the French, Belgian and Dutch bits of the playground too.

Then they thought they would come into our bit of the playground and started throwing stones at us. We didn't like that, and it turned out that our stone throwing was better than their stone throwing, so they kept in their bit.

The next year, one of our mates in the next school over got kidney-punched by the Japs, so they joined us. That was a big mistake by the Japs, the mate in question is a really big lad. We helped them in their playground, and they helped us in ours. By that stage, we'd got a damned sight better at throwing much bigger rocks at the Germans in their part of the playground. But then again, they'd managed to do a number on a couple of areas in our bit; Coventry, Liverpool, London etc.

Well the time came and we said enough of this, and gathered up a lot of our blokes and crossed into their bit. We kicked their asses all the way back to their borders, and into their territory. In the meantime, to weaken their resolve and ability to fight back, we threw some almighty stones at them, and completely wiped out a couple of their areas (Hamburg, Dresden).

But they were bullies and needed to be stopped. They'd done the same thing 25 years earlier, and got off with a few lines rather than damned good caning. So this time, they were going to be fixed once and for all.

And they were. So fück 'em (and the Japs, who got a couple of meteors dropped on them).

Does he think that if the Germans had the heavy bombers ie: Lancs or Halifaxes they would not have done the same to allied cities ??? :{:{:{

I quite liked Welby and his approach - IMHO he just shot himself in the foot. We will be apologising for Trafalgar and Waterloo next!

Despite all the subsequent words we won! IMHO the greatest war crime is to lose.
Most writers were not there and do not understand the pressures upon our leaders at the time.
No one has started another European war since.

COVENTRY.

Where my father was nearly killed defending the city with his barrage balloon,

Archbishop apologises for Dresden bombings
 

A comparison with Trafalgar is not very precise one - can you imagine Navy shooting at passenger ship knowing that they are sinking mostly civilians?

From Welby's own Blog:

'What a sadness then that late in the evening someone showed me a headline in the Daily Mail saying that I had apologised for the RAF bombing the Nazis. No honest reading of what I said in the church and on the BBC afterwards could come anywhere near such an idea. Contrary to the Mail's report, on the BBC I spoke clearly of the bombing of British cities, mentioning especially Coventry and London. I also spoke of the terrible losses of the heroic crews of Bomber Command.'

Looks like the Daily Fail (the UK paper which supported Fascism and was owned by an admirer of Mussolini and Hitler) is having another go at getting people wound up by trying to twist somebody's words.

The problem occurred because who "them" were. The target for that night wasn't tactical against the Wehrmacht .

GR4
No, Dresden wasn't a tactical target against the Wehrmacht. It was a strategic blow against the infrastructure that permitted the Wehrmacht to operate against the Russians. The liberal yoghurt weavers don't understand the difference.

By the standards of the time Dresden was a legitimate target. I believe the Geneva Convention has now changed in this respect but those in Syria and Ukraine and elsewhere may have missed the change

ihg:-
um, well I will if you don't mind...

Wokafans, many thanks for the link to the Peter Hitchens blog, which shares the state of the curate's egg. Like other gainsayers, he thinks that the policy of area bombing, that is bombing cities rather than factories, was made by choice. It wasn't, it was made by the simple fact that Bomber Command could find cities at night (well most of the time), but couldn't find factories (well most of the time). In contradiction of that he cites the Dam Busters, who practiced hard for that one raid, the targets of which were lightly defended or completely undefended, that required favourable met and moonlight conditions, and that still suffered a high loss rate, and Peenemunde that was itself the size of a small city, albeit its power station was its Achilles heel and thus the IP.

I don't blame Hitchens for not grasping the fundamental point that main force was turned against cities simply because they could find them at night to bomb. It needs an aviator to assess the abilities of inexperienced crews (because they weren't around long enough to be otherwise) with little more than DR to fall back on (the later nav aids helped to find the cities, but scarcely the factories).

Those who have that knowledge but who still feel free to cast moral judgements on the events of 70 years ago should ask what, prior to D-Day, the Army or Navy could do to take the fight to Germany other than in defence, which is essentially what the Desert and Atlantic campaigns were about.

As to Harris, he believed in what he was doing. If he were my commander I would prefer he believed in what he was doing. If he issued blood curdling statements against the enemy in order to encourage me and my fellows to go out night after night to face 50% odds of not returning I would feel that he was trying to do his duty, by me, my country, and our Service.

As to Churchill, I have nothing to express other than utter contempt in relation to Harris, Bomber Command, and Dresden.

As to Dresden, it was just another German city. It was of course a pretty one. So what? This was a war that had yet to be won, and as quickly as possible. Dresden stood in the way of the Red Army, whose advance was essential to the ending of the war. It was fortified. It was now its turn to suffer the fate of its fellow cities. What makes it so special?

A war crime? All war is a crime. There is no such thing as a good war, they are all bad. The German people appear to have learned that lesson, but some of our liberal thinkers appear not to have .

Undestand where Britain was at the time of the Hamburg raids and you will undrstand that targetting the will of the German people by killing thousands of civilians and questioning their superiority complex was not only right but was completely necessary. Knowing they were not safe and allies had the ability to delete entire German cities was a key to winning the war. The only limitation back then of course was the effectiveness and accuracy of a strategic bombing campaign.

He can apologise all he wants. It's all about winning, which we did. And stopped millions more being liquidated and being sent up a chimney. I've never quite understood why Dresden has been viewed as a special case, we did far worse to other German cities and populaces. Let's also not forget the Russians had 2 major population centres flattened by German air power, but lacked the ability to retaliate using strategic bombing, not having a significant bomber force. Stalin was pretty fed up at the relative sacrifice of Russian vs allied forces and wanted to see the fight get taken to the Germans. We turned wurzburg to dust, despite it being a pretty city with far less in the way of military industry other then the uni that developed the German equivalent to RADAR

By flattening Dresden, we placated Stalin meaning we didn't have defend the political situation by engaging in a ground war with huge potential losses for our land based forces

Chugalug2, Very good post. I laud Chuchill as a war leader but share your distaste for his political manoeuvering after the war.
Nevertheless, we must remember that, following WW2, the threat changed and we needed Germany onside. Operation Unthinkable proposed 100,000 Wermacht troops fighting alongside the Allies against Russian forces.
We rapidly needed to be seen as 'the good guys'.
In the immediate aftermath of WW2 things were not great for Germans. I recollect an uncle castigating my young cousin for refusing to eat, saying that he'd seen people starving in Germany.

The same judgement still applies to strategic bombing, as there are no specific rules on aerial bombardment in the Geneva Conventions. The principles for judging legality are military necessity, distinction, and proportionality. The GC do put the obligation on the defenders not to deliberately place troops, weapons factories, etc. in densely populated areas.

Thus, I think Dresden would still be legal today.

It's a pity the commentators who attack Welby don't read for themselves what he actually said. He did not apologise and he did mention what the Luftwaffe did to London and Coventry. This is a typical distorted DM headline that just stirs up trouble, which is what journalism seems to be about these days. Read what Welby really said, which was balanced and reasonable.

Pali - such an action does indeed have a precedent. Also, kindly note the significant date when this civilian ship was sunk.

SS Athenia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seconded that Genstabler and Mal Drop. Unlike anybody on the Daily Mail it appears, and unfortunately a lot of those who have posted on here, I actually listened to the Archbishop, and noted that he carefully did not apologise for the bombing, and has subsequently made that clear in the light of ill-judged criticism of his words. Certainly reference to it as a horrific event is not a statement that can be argued with, any more than the description of hundreds of other incidents during the war. War is horrific, acknowledgement of the fact does not involve ascribing blame or apologising.

Personally I think it is nonsense to apologise for events for which you were not responsible. Since nobody is left alive who was in a position of responsibiilty in any of the participating nations, nobody can be expected to take it upon themselves to apologise for Dresden, Coventry, Hiroshima, the Burma Railway or anything else.

Well that is jolly good. Take back what I said. And someone mentioned "Athenia"before I typed a similar comment. Hey ho, back to the Rugby

From what I understand, Dresden suffered a 'perfect storm' on the night with the cloud opening up over the city as the bombers arrived. This allowed all the bombers to see and find the target, something that was not usually the case for most night raids and so the city took the full force of all the bombs.

I stayed in Dresden one night, right next to the cathedral. The re-building from the ruins is quite impressive, as was the support from around the world that helped fund it.

I hadn't and that is why I refrained from comment about him.

Getting back to general means comment; we are not nice people with whom to go to war. If we were, we'd have all been killed millennia ago.

Someone said, on another thread, that, were we all vegetarians, we would live a peaceful life. Not so; we'd fight over the vegetables.

Perhaps the title of the thread should be changed to "did not" apologise............... Or change to "Newspaper lies about Archbishop........"

Like Tankertrash I can't get excited about all these "apologies"

the only people who can apologise for ANY act are those who carried it out (or ordered it or facilitated it)

anyone else can only say how much they dislike what was done

it's time to put this passion for apologising about history back in the box

the important thing is

A. Not to forget

B. Don't do it again

Why no mention of the Hamburg raid in the summer of 1943 when more people were killed?

Why no mention of the USAAF who also attacked Dresden during the day?

Personally as an "After the War" kid I am just very grateful for the sacrifice of the young men of RAF Bomber Command in securing my future, a fact I shall commemorate later next month when I lay a wreath at the site of RAF Snaith in East Yorkshire on the 71st Anniversary of the Nuremburg Raid when RAF Bomber Command lost 108 heavy bombers in one night, each aircraft carried 7 young men who were the flower of the youth of Britain and her Commonwealth.

They truly were "The Greatest Generation" and I for one am very grateful for their passing.

I was only an Erk during my time in service, never rising to the cerebral ranks of Commisioned life. I honestly believe that whatever the members of our armed forces did during WW2, was necessary for the good of the whole of Europe. We, the British, owe a lot to our friends from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa and many more allies who flocked to our shores to stop the Nazi threat. It seems that the "guilt complex" is easily worn by modern political thinkers, like Blair and others, often quick to apologise on our behalf, for actions taken by our forbears. Not in my name I say, compared with the blitzkrieg inflicted on Warsaw, Civentry, Liverpool and other cities across Europe by the Germans, the "whirlwind" that they ultimately reaped was fitting and proportional. I really suspect though that current "forelock tugging" is designed to gain favour with the National Socialist EU, rather than apportion blame where it truly lies.

Smudge

Well, I was speaking about any ROYAL NAVY surface vessel - I would bet admiral Nelson wouldn't sink such a ship even if it would be a direct order.

But let's talk about Dresden bombing. Interesting thing is that both sides of conflict overrated the impact of such raids. Hitler thought that with the "Blitz" he would put inhabitants of London into panic who would flee from the city and put the production of London industry into halt. Also psychologists in England thought the same but nevertheless we know that opposite was true. Brave nation stood tall and it was impossible to break the will of Londoners.

But the same is valid to Germans. Inhabitants of bombed cities suffered the hell of bombing but their readiness to continue to live there and work never ceased. I've studied quite a lot about the subject and although German cities turned to rubble the industrial production under Albert Speer raised into the late 1944. The belief of Bomber command was simply wrong. It was unable to destroy German industry by bombing raids aimed at factories nor by killing workers and wiping out their homes. Though there were shortages (the most important effect impeding Nazi regime was lack of fuel after raids at Ploesti, Schwechat and Leuna) it is rather surprising to watch how Germany kept their production intact so long.

It must be very sobering for anybody involved to realise that bombing raids with intention to spread terror into civilian inhabitants missed the declared goal. In this respect it was unnecessary and sort of dark spot in the history of war.

However in all the fairness this raids helped to end the war in a way which was not considered in the beginning. Luftwaffe was desperate to stop allied heavy bombers and in attempt to do it they lost too many pilots and their fighter squadrons were bitterly decimated. Though they were able to build aircrafts to the very end there was lack of trained pilots and due the lack of fuel their training was more than insufficient.

Look at the German opposition in the air during the D-day and to the very end of war. Where were all the fighters gone? They were lost in an futile attempt to defend Reich and shoot down the bombers. Bomber Harris was wrong and his strategy to cut the industrial production and make workers flee from cities didn't work as expected. But the campaign knocked down Luftwaffe's resources up to the point when it became a marginal force. Another important issue was air defence (FLAK). Imagine the amount of resources needed to defend German cities...

It may be bitter to recognise that to attack civilians and cause so much suffering was merely ineffective. I feel the same, there were many countrymen of mine in RAF too.

I spoke to a friend of mine - German mountaineer I used to climb with near Dresden who was 12 years boy at the time of the raid and who spent the fateful night in a deep basement in the centre of the city. In about 1987 when I raised the topic he was unable to talk about it. Even if he tried. Then he started to speak about the moment when they finally could get out to the streets and he stopped to talk again. I looked into his face and saw something I didn't see ever and I didn't insist anymore. No, it is not the best thing for a bombing crew to think about this. Crew members were heroes who did their duty and died in attempt to win the war. I am not sure if I would use the same words for all the top rank commanders and politicians but this is completely different issue.

I am not trying to blame anybody nor I am liberal pacifist. I think it was a different world in 1940's. Also I am quite sure that an attempt to use the same strategy in a war today would end up in Hague.

World is not black or white. I am silently remembering young men who died when defending their country but allow me to give a long thought to people who died in Dresden that night. You may fight the worst evil but in doing so you better don't lose the values of being human.

And one final thought I seldom see in discussions like this. Some German units ended in Russian hands just due Dresden raid which paralysed the whole area and stopped the transports which headed to the west in order to end in American hands. I've read heartbreaking stories about desperate attempts of Germans to avoid Russian captivity. Why? Most of POWs went to gulags and majority of them died there and came back 8-10 years after the war. Read the story of Erich Hartmann and you will understand better. Add few thousands of dead German soldiers in Russian gulags to the victims of Dresden raid.

I know this has been said before and, in a small way, I'm sorry to have to say this.

Seventy years after the event it is all too easy to draw on the luxury of a lot of time and 20/20 (6/6) hindsight. It's also all too easy to forget or not understand just badly Britain's back was to the wall.

I know a lot of folk here have been talking about "they started it", but that isn't really right. Neither the War nor the bombing of cities. But Britain's leadership, including that of the RAF, were simply doing the only things they could in order not to be overrun by the worst and cruelest regime for centuries.

Question them all you like after all this time. But you might be careful about pointing fingers, at least before you're sure you completely understand and consider all the issues Britain and her leaders were facing.

Pali,

Good post. I would counter your point about PoW transport, in allied eyes it also prevented a freedom of movement which would have re-enforced german front lines.

The difference today of course is that although Harris was unable to prevent the growth of industry in Germany then, today with modern capability its unlikely the same would be true in an environment of air superiority or supremacy.

So is the lesson here is don't try to rewrite history - it is what it is - but if you do, consider the Daily Mail as a first rate example of Nazi propoganda?

Pali, thank you for such a thoughtful and considered post. You make a number of good points, not the least of which was the absence of the Luftwaffe over the D-Day beaches because they were defending the skies over Germany or resisting the Soviets in the east. I would suggest that was an effect that was very much in the minds of the senior commanders with which you have such reservations.

Eisenhower was able to reassure those facing the fearful odds of storming a well defended coast that any aircraft that they saw or heard would be ours. Even with such Air Superiority it was a close run thing. If they had been repelled who knows if and when another invasion would be attempted? The Liberation of Europe might then have been completed by the Red Army. In which case the entire population, military and civilian, Axis or subjugated, would have suffered the terrible fate that you so movingly relate in your final paragraph.

Of course there was terrible suffering in Germany, as there was in Poland, Russia, Holland, Britain, and everywhere else that fell under the dark shadow of WWII. Since then there has been continual suffering in further wars, up to and including the present. The concept, if it were ever true, that somehow the civilian populations should be spared the carnage of the battlefield, was certainly debunked well before Dresden, just as it is in the cities of East Ukraine. The only way to prevent it is to prevent war itself.

There is the rub. We know what doesn't prevent war; ladies with wire cutters outside NATO bases, United Nations resolutions, German Chancellors bearing papers promising peace in our time. The problem is we don't really know what does prevent it, other than to carry a big stick and speak softly. As an old Cold War warrior I found that to be quite effective, but that doesn't fit in with the world of today it seems.

We have paid war reparations twice and now the Germans still rule Europe! How the hell can we be having this conversation after what they did in WW2?

The raid on Dresden was just one of the raids which achieved a result!

Forget all the fluffy rhetoric about war crimes etc.

This was a result!

Move on and by all means remember those who suffered but do not turn this anniversary into a crusade for the Nazi Party!

Regret at the killing of so many civilians? Yes
Pride that the Allies were able to destroy the Nazi regime? Again yes
Two different arguments.

Ahem, who voted Hitler into power - Oh, sorry, aren't we supposed to ask that one.