Cataclysm: 8 Cities That Were Nearly Wiped Off the Face of the Earth

Cataclysm: 8 Cities That Were Nearly Wiped Off the Face of the Earth

Kurt Christopher - October 9, 2017

Cataclysm: 8 Cities That Were Nearly Wiped Off the Face of the Earth
A view of Dresden from the top of the city’s town hall following the February 1945 bombings. BBC

Dresden

The Allied strategic bombing campaign against Germany during the Second World War started quite slowly. Due to the short rage of allied fighters early in the war, the strength of the German defenses, and the difficulties of navigating at night without radar guidance (which also did not have the range to reach much of the Reich) early air raids were confined largely to the northwestern region of Germany. But eventually the Royal Air Force, and also the American Eighth Air after the United State joined the war, Force would overcome these problems one by one.

In May 1942 the RAF demonstrated the scale of organization that was possible in carrying out the first thousand bomber raid on Cologne. The bombing intensified in 1943, and in July of that year, an attack on Hamburg would create a firestorm, in which many small fires from incendiary bombs merged into one. The intensity of the blaze drew in oxygen from the surrounding region to feed the fire, creating hurricane-force winds and literally sucking the air out of people’s lungs. After this attack, the objective of the British Bomber Command became the “Hamburgization” of other major German cities.

Replication of the Hamburg firestorm proved to be difficult. Cities that had already been hit by major air raids no longer contained enough timbered buildings to allow for a sufficient number of fires. By 1945 few such cities remained in Germany, but Dresden, situated in the southeast of the country and out of range of Allied bombers for much of the war, remained mostly intact. Built on the Elbe in the twelfth century, Dresden had been the capital of Saxony and the city center boasted a number of impressive baroque structures including a number of cathedrals and an opera house.

Prior to the war, Dresden had been the home to over 600,000 people, but by early 1945 German refugees fleeing from the Soviets advancing in the East had swollen the city’s population to twice its previous size. In February 1945 the Allies would finally target Dresden with a major bombing raid. Between February 13 and February 15, 1945, the RAF and the Eighth Air Force hammered Dresden with high explosive and incendiary bombs. The high explosives cratered the roads and destroyed water mains, making firefighting more difficult, while the incendiaries touched off a firestorm. The ensuing blaze obliterated the city center, killing as many as 25,000 inhabitants.

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