Hello all. I read a lot of Mr David Irving's work. I regard him as one of the finest historians in the world today. One of the most important books I have ever read was by him called "Hitler's war and the warpath". A 100% unbiased account of the second world war as seen from the German armed forces. Highly recommended people and available for free download. Please donate what you can, if you can to his website. Please see link.

http://www.fpp.co.uk/

I like some of his work but he does come across as a bit of a Nazi apologist.

Fair one Monty . Each to their own but he has carried out all his research and work with the full weight of the media against him. He even had his print works burnt down by communists. Censorship at it's most ugly.

True but if you look at his work on the bombing of Dresden, it is well written and well researched but the numbers have been grossly inflated it is the sort of book I thoroughly recommend reading but where ever he mentions a number you need need to halve it for more accuracy.

Further to this his desire to deny the Holocaust is not endearing him to anyone it does not make him a bad writer nor does it preclude him being knowledgeable about his topics but it does make you wary of what he accepts as fact.

Yes, it's hard to figure out who's lieing and who isn't. I can imagine the latter months in the Reich being horrific. With the mass exodus of people fleeing the Russian advance, it is hard to imagine how they could get even rough estimates of victims.

I understand that Dresden had millions of refugees from the east has the Russians had just encircled Breslau (Wroclaw) adding more to the situation.

Never the less as an Englishman I am deeply ashamed of this dark secret of our history that they always manage to hide from TV documentarys and school text books.

The US Air Force Historical Division wrote a report in response to the international concern about the bombing, which was classified until December 1978. This said that there were 110 factories and 50,000 workers in the city supporting the German war effort at the time of the raid. According to the report, there were aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabrik Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); an optical goods factory (Zeiss Ikon AG); as well as factories producing electrical and X-ray apparatus (Koch & Sterzel AG); gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke); and electric gauges (Gebrüder Bassler). It also said there were barracks, hutted camps, and a munitions storage depot.

The USAF report also states that two of Dresden's traffic routes were of military importance: north-south from Germany to Czechoslovakia, and east-west along the central European uplands. The city was at the junction of the Berlin-Prague-Vienna railway line, as well as the Munich-Breslau, and Hamburg-Leipzig. Colonel Harold E. Cook, a US POW held in the Friedrichstadt marshaling yard the night before the attacks, later said that "I saw with my own eyes that Dresden was an armed camp: thousands of German troops, tanks and artillery and miles of freight cars loaded with supplies supporting and transporting German logistics towards the east to meet the Russians."

There will always be controversy regarding the bombing of Dresden by the RAF and the USAAF, whether the attack necessary. If the above report is indeed correct, then yes, it was necessary.

Originally Posted by Michael86

Yes, it's hard to figure out who's lieing and who isn't. I can imagine the latter months in the Reich being horrific. With the mass exodus of people fleeing the Russian advance, it is hard to imagine how they could get even rough estimates of victims.

I understand that Dresden had millions of refugees from the east has the Russians had just encircled Breslau (Wroclaw) adding more to the situation.

Never the less as an Englishman I am deeply ashamed of this dark secret of our history that they always manage to hide from TV documentarys and school text books.

I see no reason to be ashamed, I doubt that the Luftwaffe felt bad about bombing Warsaw, London or anywhere else it was war.

I think it is more important that people understand that the Allies were not the choir boys that history paints them as they were just as ruthless and just as guilty of crimes as those they tried at Nuremberg but in the end the Allied cause was the right one even if its methods weren't all that different.

An American POW,???? Come on now Monty, you sound like an intelligent man. The saturation bombing of Europe's most beautiful cities was orchestrated by unscrupulous, corrupt scum, Churchill, Cherwell and Harris. Fire bombing women and children while the men was at the front.

Very honorable??

Originally Posted by BritinAfrica

The US Air Force Historical Division wrote a report in response to the international concern about the bombing, which was classified until December 1978. This said that there were 110 factories and 50,000 workers in the city supporting the German war effort at the time of the raid. According to the report, there were aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabrik Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); an optical goods factory (Zeiss Ikon AG); as well as factories producing electrical and X-ray apparatus (Koch & Sterzel AG); gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke); and electric gauges (Gebrüder Bassler). It also said there were barracks, hutted camps, and a munitions storage depot.

The USAF report also states that two of Dresden's traffic routes were of military importance: north-south from Germany to Czechoslovakia, and east-west along the central European uplands. The city was at the junction of the Berlin-Prague-Vienna railway line, as well as the Munich-Breslau, and Hamburg-Leipzig. Colonel Harold E. Cook, a US POW held in the Friedrichstadt marshaling yard the night before the attacks, later said that "I saw with my own eyes that Dresden was an armed camp: thousands of German troops, tanks and artillery and miles of freight cars loaded with supplies supporting and transporting German logistics towards the east to meet the Russians."

There will always be controversy regarding the bombing of Dresden by the RAF and the USAAF, whether the attack necessary. If the above report is indeed correct, then yes, it was necessary.

All that may have been true but the fact that almost none of those targets were hit leads me to believe they were not the primary reason the bombers were there, the marshaling yards, rail lines, barracks, industry and bridges all suffered light to no damage.

The allies went out of their way to white wash and distance themselves from the Dresden attacks and that tells me that they knew they had gone too far.

However this would be a far better discussion in a thread of its own.

I do apologise Monty. I thought I was speaking to you. I've gone red, haha.