dresden and iraq

[prozak at anus.com]

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20030213_639.html

Dresden Marks WW2 Firestorm Amid Anti-War Protests

Feb. 13 — DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) - Church bells sounded across 
Dresden
on Thursday to mark the anniversary of the night British and American
warplanes fire-bombed the city and killed 40,000 people near the end 
of
World
War II.

Accompanied by anti-war demonstrations, Dresdeners placed flowers on
graves, watched wreath-laying ceremonies and stood by silently as 
church
bells
rang out to mark the February 13, 1945, bombing that ranks as one the 
most
deadly attacks ever.

"The emotions are just too much," Lothar Weber, 58, told MDR 
television.
He
was a day-old infant who survived in a hospital bomb shelter even 
though
his
mother and father perished in the flames along all but 15 of the 74
infants at
the hospital.

The U.S. ambassador to Germany, Daniel Coats, and the head of 
Britain's
consulate in nearby Leipzig Fletcher Burton joined Saxony state 
premier
Georg
Milbradt in laying wreaths at a silent and somber cemetery earlier on
Thursday
where many victims were buried.

This year's 58th anniversary has taken on significance because of a
looming
war in Iraq, which Germany firmly opposes.

It also comes as Germans are taking a new and controversial 
examination of
the British-U.S. bombing of Germany during World War II aimed at 
civilians
to
demoralize the war effort. Some 635,000 civilians were killed and 130
cities
destroyed.

"The 'old Europe' has learned from history," read one banner held by 
an
anti-war demonstrator, a rebuke of Secretary of Defense Donald 
Rumsfeld's
recent jibe at Germany and France.

"Never again war," read a sign carried by a 77-year-old man whose 
parents
and three sisters were killed. He was a soldier at the time and not 
in
Dresden
when the city burned.

"The bombs may be getting smarter but there is no question civilians 
will
also suffer if bombs are dropped on Iraq," historian Joerg Friedrich 
told
MDR.
His recent book "The Fire" about the firestorms has become a runaway
bestseller but sparked criticism for downplaying the fact that 
Germany
started
the war.

On February 13, 1945, three waves of British and American bombers 
dropped
a
total of 3.4 tonnes of explosives -- first high-explosive bombs to 
pound
buildings into rubble and tinder and then incendiary bombs to set it 
all
ablaze.

The first wave of 243 British Lancaster bombers struck shortly after 
10
p.m. and a second wave of 529 more came three hours later. Shortly 
after
noon
on February 14, 311 American B-17 bombers flew a final raid over the
incinerated city.

The firestorm stoked air temperatures to over 1,000 degrees 
Fahrenheit,
creating an updraft that sucked air toward the center of the blaze so
violently that the winds swept many people into a fiery death.

An estimated 40,000 people were burned or suffocated in the raid on 
the
city known as the "Florence of the Elbe" which had hardly any 
military
significance at all and came less than three months before Nazi 
Germany
surrendered.

There were also several hundred British and U.S. prisoners of war in
Dresden, including American author Kurt Vonnegut who recounted his
experiences
in the book "Slaughterhouse Five."

Copyright 2003 Reuters News Service. All rights reserved. This 
material
may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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