10 – He ordered the bombing of Dresden, even though everyone knew it was unnecessary

“It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed.”

The bombing of Dresden is still discussed as one of the worst excesses of the Allied forces during the Second World War, and as evidenced by the quote above, one of the few that made Churchill sit back and think that he might have gone too far. Bombing of civilian cities was something that was elevated to commonplace status in the destruction of World War Two, and there is no doubt that it played a vital role in the conflict, but by the time the bombers appeared above the Saxon city of Dresden in the middle of February 1945, it was winding down.

The war was in its death throes: on the Eastern Front, the Soviets had crossed the Oder river and entered into modern-day Germany, less than 100km from Berlin, with the Nazi forces in total retreat, while in the West, American and British forces were winning the Battle of the Bulge and pushing towards the Rhine. With cities in the East – namely Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden – now within range, Churchill canvassed opinion on whether he should engage them. Cheif of the Air Staff Charles Portal wrote a memo that read “We should use available effort in one big attack on Berlin and attacks on Dresden, Leipzig, and Chemnitz, or any other cities where a severe blitz will not only cause confusion in the evacuation from the East, but will also hamper the movement of troops from the West,” and another that advocated a bombing on Dresden, claiming that it “will cause great confusion in civilian evacuation from the east and hamper movement of reinforcements from other fronts.”

The civilian evacuation mentioned might better be read as a concentration of refugees. Dresden had once been a city of importance to the Nazi war effort, but was thronged with civilians escaping from the East. An attack was conceived to deliberately target these people, but the industrial suburbs that housed the factories were left untouched. A further memo noted the propaganda power of an attack on Dresden, stating that the British could “show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do.” Dresden might well be considered an early battle of the Cold War.

When the bombers arrived, they were merciless. The entire historic city centre was destroyed and an estimated 25,000 people killed over the course of 3 nights, partly by bombs and partly by the firestorm that ensued. “The final phase of Bomber Command’s operations was far and away the worst,” wrote Wing Commander H.R. Allen of the Royal Air Force. “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”.

Many later classified it as a war crime and even a genocide. There were an estimated 300,000 refugees in the city centre, the city held little military significance and the tactic of firebombing, which the Allies knew would have hardly any strategic effect and cause maximum casualties, was devastating. Churchill’s actions replicated those of the Nazis that he had seen first hand during the Blitz, but they were far from the first time in which tactics more commonly associated with his enemy would be attributed to him…