The Fourth IAP

I would blame Stalingrad primarily on Hitler, and to a lesser extendt, Manstein and Goring. Hitler chose the objective, and then Manstein and Goring came up with their failed ideas for Stalingrad. Manstein couldn't break Paulus out, while Goring failed to stop Jeschonnek (thanks, Gerd von Rundstedt , for the video, but it really doesn't change my mind: Jeschonnek comes up with the idea and tells Hitler, von Richthofen tells Jeschonnek that they can't do it, Jeschonnek promptly tells Hitler that it's a bad idea, Hitler probably says, "lol no get rekt" in German, then Goring shows up late to the party, hears about the plan, knows in his head that it's a bad idea because the Luftwaffe has no capability to do it, and says, "Ja, mein Fuhrer.").

I agree on Goring's promise at Stalingrad. It was a disaster.

Well, I presume that you are talking about Dresden, as it it the most famous. Goring's battered Luftwaffe could do nothing for Bomber Command's (British RAF members in charge of bombing stuff, headed by Arthur "Bomber" Harris) FURTHEST RAID INTO GERMANY at that time. When they arrived at Dresden, the put the markers on the Altstadt, the Old Town (you can see that it was old, so it has a lot of history). Why didn't they aim it at the train stations, or factories, I have no idea.

But let's backtrack: Why weren't they shot down? AA exists, right? Well, a majority of Dresden's AA was moved to the front. The Nazis and Dresden's citizens thought that Dresden was safe. It had culture and history. It was a place where Westerners would stay in the interwar years. It (supposedly) had Churchill's aunt living there (a lie that Dresdeners told themselves). It was so "safe" that German refugees fled there. Really, before February 13-14, 1944, it was because that the Allied Lancasters didn't have the capacity to hit it.

When the air raid signals fired off, nobody took it seriously at first. Again, they thought that Dresden was safe. Then, they realized that the sirens were real. People ran from their homes and to the streets. They went down to the city's one main air raid shelter. Let's talk about air raid shelters. Only a few were built. Obviously, the mayor and party leaders had them for themselves (private use only), but as they thought Dresden was safe, they neglected to build more besides the one main one. If you didn't have a shelter close by, the Nazis advised people to head to their cellars.

By now, we have gotten a bit into the bombing. There were 3 waves of bombs. The first two were British, the third was American. On the first wave, they used bombs the blow off buildings' roofs, and then incendiary bombs to light them on fire. After it stopped, firefighters rushed to put them out and citizens flocked to any shelters left. They ran to the park and to the river. The second wave then began. The Allies had giving firefighters just enough time to get to the scene, and then boom: more incendiary bombs drop. Then the third wave hit. The smoke from the fires scattered the American planes, with one even hitting Prague instead of Dresden. They dropped bombs inaccurately. By now the fires were rampant. But luckily, there were no more waves. You may be thinking that the tactics designed to get the firefighers up and running and then blasting them was cruel. Well, they got the tactics from Goring's own Luftwaffe.

Let's talk about the fires. They were first inside of the buildings. Fires take fuel, oxygen, and heat to maintain their fiery form. They sucked the oxygen in from inside of the buildings, so sometimes children would be sucked into the raging fires whilst trying to flee. When it got outside, it could drag adults into the fire was well. The convienient wind in Dresden helped carry the fire. You may recall the main air raid shelter. When the Nazis got to it after the raid, it took 7 hours to breach. They found 1000 bodies in the form of colored liquids, all melted by the heat of the fire. Nazi guards and officers were burned at their posts, and the scene was chaos. Now, you may recall that some fled to the park or the river, or followed Nazi advice to head to their cellars. The park was also burned, and so the people there died. The river became so hot that the people seeking safety there boiled, and died. Those in their cellars were like those in the shelter, but this time with a chance of carbon monoxide poisoning (poisoning killed more than roasting). Civilians' only chances to live was to run. The question was then, 'Run where?"

The Nazi elite in Dresden decided to flee into the mountains. A wise choice, as to not get scorched. A bad PR choice for the surviving citizens to say the least. But wait! How many died? 200,000? Erm, no. 25,000. No, that isn't a mistake. The hight 200,000 number was fabricated by the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. He disregarded the Nazi findings after the bombing that the death toll was ~25,000, which is the accepted number today. After fabricating the death toll, he then spread it to the press. The German press and the neutral press, who then reported the false deaths. The Allied press had initailly been happy with the results of Dresden, but when the neutral press leaked it to the Allies, the mood quickly changed. Allied press soon began printing out Goebbel's propaganda. The Americans, who initially took their share of the credit for Dresden, spun it to blame the British RAF Bomber Command. Bomber Command (and as a result, Arthur Harris) were snubbed and disregarded, even by Churchill, who was (even before Dresden) questioning are bombing's morality. In Churchill's speech congratulating almost every branch of the British, he "forgot" one: Bomber Command. It took over 50 years for Bomber Command to get a memorial in London.

So, basically Dresden was a perfect storm for the Allies. And then Goebbel's masterpiece after the storm. But I wouldn't blame Arthur Harris. Dresden was of enormous importance to the Nazi war effort. It was Germany's 7th largest city, was a major railway hub, and had a load of industrial capability. But it wasn't Harris' fault that conditions were so perfect. He can't control the Luftwaffe response, he can't control Dresden's rumours of safety, he can't control the number of air raid shelters and AA guns, he can't conrol where people flee, he can't control Nazi advice, he can't control the weather. 

But you can't forget that Goring's Blitz killed nearly twice the people in Britain 3 years prior.