berlin wolfsburg beat off and i'm out of work and freiburg shared those spoils and as we saw dortmund down frankfurt now kicking off soon we will see dusseldorf against gladbach and on sunday cologne take on byron munich well minds meet shock watching news up next our documentary film the dresden legend i'll be back at the top of the hour with more. pics on all happening good job it coming. during linked in news from africa the world during 2 exceptional stories and discussions genuine will come to either of you suffocating program life from funny to me from the visit our website the deputy smash africa join us on facebook d.w. for africa.

dresden for centuries a world renowned center of art and culture destroyed in a single line it was on february the 13th 1945 just 3 months before the end of world war 2 and while every year groups continue to commemorate the event facts surrounding those dark days a still being debated just how many lives were lost that night was it several thousands or hundreds of thousands to the anglo american allies consider the city as strategically significant target if not what was the purpose of carrying out such a devastating attack. the city's old town dressed in council this spring a palace the found. the church of our lady of potential treasures that were reduced

to rubble in a matter of balance. this american news reel described one of the 2 british raids on tristen. it wanted to ask why 6550300 bombs on transportation lands in germany stop modestly. but the german side reported things differently saying that the attack targeted a cultural center that had no military value. the plotters ability to speak with diabolical intent our enemies annihilated us flourishing city christian is dead it's beautiful rock landmarks and a lot of by residents and visitors alike has been destroyed. a kind of i might have i knew go. and several of the british air attacks on germany during the

war were carried out exactly as the plan as had intended hamburg was one castle was one and also dresden height but such tactical perfection was the exception rather than the rule lynched the bombing of dresden was considered a must a piece of military planning to get perfect. gift wish and just walk. the stroke. these are among the very few photographs taken on the night of the attack a silhouette of the tracks addressed since main railway station in the background blurred by the heat of flames. the pitches were taken by 15 year old hans joachim dixon who lived near the station at the time. vino plots the train station was on vino plots. across the way on the corner there was an enormous building that housed rather ironically the offices of

the local fire insurance company. that was my neighborhood and hog with its fancy shops and leisure establishments. in which there were. been just a few doors down the city's gestapo headquarters which could be considered a legitimate target was also in this district it was from here that the deportation of tristen jews was organized large quantities of military supplies were also sent to the front from the railway station refugees who were fleeing the soviet offensive to the east pass through the station as well. as what happened. through the planes for direct hits on some of the buildings behind the train station. with those who were trapped for several hours in the basement in one of those buildings surrounded by dead bodies. and feel.

more than 600 people were killed only the trying to station a life suffocated. vanished the central issue was not the casualties it was the damage to the water mains the gas lines the electrical system and the streets that required a normal amount of personnel and material to repair. and that weaken the military effort. from a tactical standpoint it's much more effective to destroy a city's infrastructure than it is to wipe out of the barracks for example those that could get up and running again in 36 hours but when an entire city is torched takes time for the survivors to find shelter. so why did the americans and the british launch such a huge right on. were the specific intended targets. this

is the historic noirmont district which includes the famous found keisha. again how cinnamon was 14 when the church and his home nearby were destroyed in the attack. as children cinnamon and some of his friends have carved their nations into the sandstone edifice of the art academy across the square the situation it's hard to see now that's me jeezy but some of the letters have faded a bit of wind but if that's what the contest and offered totn was here. that one of them lived in a house that was hit by a bomb and then another lived in the ones. and neither survived. yes and you know i was compelled. to. get hard cinnamon and his family lived in a building behind this hotel within view of the fountain share. a

little hint of that in the 3rd back courtyard there was one corridor and then another the toilets were outside we had to walk a long way to get water. so there was always a bucket of water in the apartment room or it will and there was a space above the hallway where the coal for heating was stored just imagine how well that coal burned in the fire after the bombing according to. this is how the neumark district looked before the attack. behind splendid the rock facades working class families lived in modest quarters. there were no military or industrial targets here but noirmont was flattened anyway. as 1st as for the mine looked like only 3 children in my class at school survived the rest were killed. for us there's no such thing as a class reunion and

a pile. of mud. for decades much of the area lay in ruins but more recently a lot of new construction projects are filling in empty spaces but before these projects are realized archaeologists explore the cellars and foundations of the original buildings. susanna shona is leading an excavation near the found krisha in these ruins she often finds relics of life interest and before the bombing. in the machine we found a sewing machine and a sign saying this facility was authorized to make uniforms for all nazi party organizations so this was likely a tailor's workshop much like a game it's a nice wand but what i wanted to hear is some shoulder boards from a uniform that was probably made here. to water. the

artifacts include bottles and other glass objects that would have formed in the high heat generated by the fires on the night of the attacks. last starts to change shape at around $600.00 degrees centigrade. sandstone was often used in the construction of these buildings and it too shows traces of the intense heat. your common options in here you can see some of the beautiful original sandstone with that warm yellow color. on you but in high heels it starts turning orange and red doesn't it's all sharpness or it was a mistake as it is this sandstone was likely exposed to temperatures up to 1000 degrees and it's very red and some of it has broken away just. thousands of people took. enticements only to die there. the 1st big allied attack on light seek in nearby

industrial sites took place in december $943.00 only after that did the authorities in dresden start taking civil defense missions. of course there were no materials available to build a bomb shelters on that scale everything was reserved for the war effort civil defense wasn't a top priority as we can read in official documents from that time. some measures were taken but it was haphazard due to having to deal with the various responsible party and state bureaucracy is. a simple it's hard for you. with. a campaign of saturation bombing against german cities have been approved by the british government in 1942 the attacks were carried out by the royal air force bomber command headed by air marshal arthur house. now

a lot of people. well that never been tried yet. among us. a cynic might say it wasn't about trying to destroy the weapons factories which were very hard to hit but about killing the people who worked in those factories and destroying a city's infrastructure. which in turn would reduce its importance to the military . court and in that regard the plan proved successful concept or course and. in early february the leaders of britain the soviet union and the us met at yale to discuss their war strategy. prime minister churchill agreed to support the soviets fans into germany by stepping up air raids on cities the idea was to disrupt germany's economy even further and to try to break the moran of the civilian

population. as a church or inherit a scrap together at the weekend and watch films of the bombing where it was and these are tax return german cities and a smoldering funeral pyre. at that point bombs were being dropped on german cities almost daily dresden was considered a legitimate target but there were also specific technical reasons for the attack on the night of february the 13th. the weather forecasts call for cloudy skies at the much of eastern germany but some clearing was predicted around leipsic and dresden ideal conditions for a successful air strike. churchill not only wanted to make good on his promise to increase the number of bombing runs he also wanted to demonstrate to stalin the destructive power of the royal air force bomber command. was

for the letter was finished at it was. clear that the real victor in europe was going to be stalin as he had enormous military resources at that time did up what ensued in the fog didn't get but britain and the united states wanted to prove their own might only they had the power and ability to reduce cities to dust. evos this amounted to a struggle for post-war political power and it is in my opinion the reason behind the attacks on dressed in and later hiroshima. the people of dresden were completely unaware of the strategic political considerations when the 1st air raid sirens went off at 915 that night most thought that the attack would talk at an industrial center nearby as it happens so often in recent months.

she hunts in place dressed and had so far been fairly untouched by the war mostly sure there were major bombing raids on leipsic but that didn't really raise fears among the people here neither there were rumors circulating that churchill had an aunt living in reston so it would never be attacked under your and your both need of us by c.e.o. oracle wouldn't. for me though of it in early january or so the woman who owned our apartment house had a new staircase put in since then that's something that my was for the old sandstone and steps were torn out and replaced with tourette's oh and a few weeks later it was destroyed. it were. credible scuppered. kristoffer adam was 14 years old in february 19th 45

in his family lived in the district of your hunch that need to europe last far from the city center on the main train station the square was a popular meeting place for locals fiber the 13th was a choose day and the day before one ash wednesday the highlight of the carnival season in germany lots of children dressed up in questions just like every year norah long was one of them. and from dual flights i remember celebrating with my friends from the area. being i was holland all and i dressed up as a dutch girl because what if you had my mother and grandmother made the costume for me complete with a blue and white dress a starched white apron and the traditional hat. romford feel if we hung paper streamers and lanterns from the 4th floor window and i joked at the time that i wasn't going to take them down the next day i was just going to set a match to them that would be quick. little dish my 1st client of this pond or sidecar. nor along and her friend anita gone were both 12 years old like

christopher dodd and they and their families lived in your hunch that. when anita yawn heard the 1st air raid sirens she knew exactly what to do. she grabbed a suitcase and went down into the basement with her parents. just gullible but one snitched the air raid shelter wasn't really a room more like a corridor but even that was not finished with cement it was constructed out of cobble stones and these were all old houses. so each was required to have a container of sand and buckets for sand and water down there the whole. mit sudden i am so rich in these restored in old disused bathtubs or other containers. caused by old mr which was on. here and is exposed cellars in front of the front you can see some of the city's rudimentary civil defense measures. as

often as not whenever possible the basements here in dresden were connected to each other by a network of makeshift passageways that crossed over property lines. and spaces. that way if people found themselves trapped underground and couldn't get out they could escape by going through another building. so wouldn't look to go. in. just before 10 o'clock on the night of february 13th the civil air defense office reported that enemy aircraft are being spotted of the town of a few kilometers southeast of dresden american bombers had struck the city's railway yards in october $944.00 in january $945.00 but those raids were compassion of a small now the improper was targeting the same time the 1st british aircraft dropped magnesium parachute flares referred to as christmas trees by the germans to

eliminate the target area your. view of the sky became as bright as day as the planes drop those christmas trees in the law if. there were cascades of light off. they're not heard it was an amazing sight to see. city or influence last year of the else that was the 1st time that any of us had seen a bombing raid of such magnitude if you thought if you thought. these reconnaissance photos of dresden were taken by the r.a.f. in may 944. the target area clearly included the neuer markt district and surrounding streets in this war neither side seen that interested in cultural landmarks or monuments when it came to planning bombing raids. the area warfare began with the german daytime attack on london in september 19th

forcing the liftoff assume switched to night raids and targeted numerous other cities during this phase of the german air campaign which lasted until may 941 an estimated 43000 civilians were killed and more than 1000000 buildings destroyed. on nov 14th $940.00 the germans launched a devastating attack on the industrial city of coventry about a 3rd of the local factories were destroyed but residential areas were also heat more than $500.00 civilians were killed in this attack. coventry's cathedral was reduced to rubble. in june 944 germany started firing missiles into in the v. 2 a targets in britain. if of a 2 missile struck a residential street $200.00 people would be killed instantly as in childhood

mentioned after struggling to. the last of the 2 to hit britain landed on kent in late march 9455 weeks after the annihilation of dresden. we. do. even though it was clear the war was coming to an end it was difficult for the british government to make a case for stopping the bombing of germany out of concern for civilian casualties when v. 2 rockets were still hitting london. forts again. london . to the people of britain the men who flew for the royal air force bomber command we hear a casualty rates were high more than 57000 crewmen were killed during the. count of the total of the entire force. in the closing

months of the conflict german defense systems no longer posed a serious threat as a craft fuel was in short supply and the anti aircraft guns to be moved to counter the soviet offensive dresden stood alone against the british bombers. the raid that went horribly right. alice and sent the bomber crews had a clear view of the target area. there were no anti aircraft guns. the city was completely exposed and couldn't defend itself against this attack. so fred tried to get dressed and with its 3 train stations was an important transport haitian center and there were several large military barracks in the district all of these were targets but none was seriously damaged during the raid.

if you do via groups the planners had a specific strategy in mind and that was to disrupt the infrastructure and cause panic in the city center. and in that way that character of the attack on dresden was somewhat unique. and. similar tactics had been used by bomber command in a joint u.s. and british attack on the began on july the 24th 943 and continued for several days the devastation spread out over an area of more than 30 square kilometers during the course of the riots an estimated 250000 buildings were destroyed and a total of more than $42000.00 people killed at the time it was the most destructive attack in the history of aerial warfare. on the night of july 27 blazes started by

a massive bombing right on hamburg combined with hot dry weather conditions to create a tornado of flames known as a firestorm bomber command used similar techniques in attacks on darmstadt castle braunschweig and starting on february the 13th $945.00 tristen. $100.00 experiment to the u.s. military build replicas of german apartment houses in the utah desert and calculated the amount of things like books clothes toys found in a typical german home to determine the upcoming lecture of explosives and combustible. goodenough experiment fires in a german city were burned differently you can those in a japanese or many of the buildings on a go warden paper. and there's a cd or just of. artifacts recovered interest in the decades after the attack a stored in the saxony state archaeological archives.

thousands of objects that bears silent witness to the devastation of the attack. there of glass bottles warped by the extreme hate coins books i glasses and various documents. even toy tanks and other military toys evidence of the nazi regime's effort to promote the popularity of the german military among children. who started adam was often given items like these for christmas. tree should be a good choice if we start from 0 deeply shore as a country with for example we had toy artillery pieces that used contact fuselage. you would load the cannon fire and a stream of flame came out of 4 of us were in the us on the other end or the shell

hit a target it made a loud noise if you will assure i also have toys soldiers and of course all in hitler figurine with attachable hair i had a lot of fun shooting hitler's head off more culpable treason. several weeks before the attack on interest and hitler had moved into a heavily fortified bunker beneath the chancery in central belgrade in the residence of dresden on the other hand could only seek shelter in their basements nor along the course of the sound of the 1st bombs falling. school does of my invite all of a sudden there was this incredible roar you can't even imagine the racket. shop the dock i said to myself this is the end of the war and now the tanks will come and roll over us i was just a child i thought it was the end of the world or. us could die hards

and i thought will no one help us. if instead we haven't done anything wrong. this cash register was found in the ruins of his shop to trista. the coins are hardly recognizable. the 1st attack began at 10 13 pm over the next 15 minutes british aircraft dropped a total of $881.00 tons of high explosive bombs and in centuries. fires broke out everywhere as bombs lodged roofs and asks furniture balconies household objects everything was in flames in an area of about 2 kilometers long and 3 kilometers wide. a 2nd wave of bombers arrived about 3 hours later the flame

started by the 1st attack were visible up to 100 kilometers away the clouds of smoke rose more than 4000 meters into the night sky. both the hotel near the church and the zimmerman family's apartment survived the 1st rage nearly unscathed as the climate died down get hot cinnamon decided to leave the cellar. had not others i was the only boy living in a building what i was 14 years old at the time i covered all the windows with cardboard up into can all the difference for evil then i wanted to go to the train station to help. i was in the hitler youth. we all were wouldn't fortunately my big sister came after me and took me back. north and then the 2nd wave started if my sister hadn't done that i'd have been at the train

station when it was wiped out in the 2nd attack. for they should. have been a platts 15 year old hans joachim dietz and his family had already moved down to the basement to sit out the 1st attack. deets a brought a camera with him he still had when later he stepped out onto the street and was overwhelmed by the sight of the city engulfed in flames he captured the moment on film. should i inform those i just wanted to take a picture of our apartment go to have been so i press the shutter release to view that that was the 1st picture and then others followed it oh maybe i was just in shock at suddenly being confronted with the horror of what war was really like. it calling this previous. this is a function of the building at kristen's technical university dietz

a spent 2 hours taking pictures from 11 pm until 1 am when the 2nd attack began air raid wardens knew to round the area with portable sirens and told people to get off the streets. be a hilton he's a slice of the sirens made a soft whining sound we thought they can't be bombing us together cause fires were like a tornado and that's when we heard the rumbling noise of the planes again troika. more than 500 lancaster aircraft now approach central princeton from the west over a period of just 24 minutes they dropped more than 1800 tons of bombs. woodward and on about washed the 2nd raid called the people in a cell is completely by surprise it was too old and complicated the destruction of dresden was now complete the firestorm continued to spread there was no way to stop

it the fires were raging in so many parts of the city where you can flush in her fish not in part because of its border. this footage was shot by a british air crew entire sections of the city were in flames. the fire strolled through older densely built up housing blocks finding a way out was next to impossible. thus is. these are cut those people had one option and that was to find some way to escape this living hell. a huge notifier had fallen on the city and there was hardly any way for people to get out of it. and it's not easy. but suppose you were sick and had asthma or young children with you. but as

horrific were elderly or disabled. your chances of survival were pretty slim. it. would be in for the. these again had zimmerman's family records. show that he was baptized in the found. now both the church and his parents hymen are fine. there were flames everywhere. and there was so much smoke in the cellar that we could hardly breathe . there was a barrel of water. that had been sitting there since 1939 so you can imagine what the water was like. but we went our handkerchief held them to our mouths and ran out while bombs were still dropping. if you feel.

your hunch that district where i need to gone. and christoph adam lived was a residential area far from the city center. these pictures show the aftermath of the firestorm there are few buildings in your hunch that were left on skates by the 2nd attack. and for those minimal to hide my father and mother thought they could save us my father picked me up and i felt i had the most of all but the fire storm was just too big too powerful my own fault as of and if it hadn't been for him i wouldn't be here today a little so close to key ordered us to get back get back into the basement i. heard that was our attempt to escape but it didn't work. school there was so much wind and fire sparks were flying everywhere i remember that very well and we couldn't

get away up to. the intensity of such a breaking 5 can be seen in this footage of the humble fire storm it sucks up all the oxygen making it hard for people to breathe and they've gone describes how her father tried desperately to save his family. i remember it very well i was right in front of my parents. and i fell down and i just said i'm going to lie here. in the last i heard of my parents is when my father said to my mother. wants to stay here. my mother replied then we will too and that was the. lost consciousness as she survived smoke poisoning or. thanks to a. push for a head. siege and in the shelters flames and smoke moved through the labyrinth of rooms credible speed survivors of the attack

tell heartbreaking stories about some of the things i saw. a young woman and her child were pulled out of the cellar just before us. someone was shouting don't go to the right that's where the fire is. the entire hall of the main train station was on fire the buildings are and framework was glowing red. the fire storm was moving in that direction to the right of us for a walk through and i saw how that woman and her child did not crawl to the left like we did. they ran to the right wing's and suddenly the woman and her child were lifted off the ground like angels. and they just floated away from us all we saw was the glow of the flames and they were gone in vic water. on the

morning of february the 14th the city center was blanketed in heavy smoke the van marked barracks had survived the 2 air raids and 2000 soldiers from the facility was sent to help in the rescue and recovery effort it was dangerous work buildings weakened by fire could collapse at any time and unexploded bombs posed a serious threat. and then the residents of tristen once again heard the roar of aircraft engines shortly after noon more than 300 american b. 17 flying fortress a small watched a 3rd attack. the official target was the rally yards in the free to district in the western part of the city. over the next 30 minutes the b. seventeen's dropped more than $700.00 tons of bombs including in sentries but they

did not hit the main target. like under fire and there were 3 major bombing attacks in less than 24 hours of finding and the people of dresden had no experience with anything like it so they had no idea how to deal with the situation. the ships. and there's a limit to how much psychological stress people can handle. and i think that by the afternoon of february the 14th most of the people of dresden were beyond the limit . and traditionally bushwick bill. now the main task for the civil defense authorities was to dispose of the dead. prisoners of war and force librarians were brought in to carry out this gruesome

task. the corpses were brought out of the rubble and laid out in rows in the straights to be registered 12 year old anita yon who had managed to pull herself out of the rubble now had to identify the bodies of her parents. and while my parents were lying there as though they were asleep they weren't disfigured at all. it's on the hall of on if their hair was a little messy and so were their clothes on churn of the yvonne but i was able to identify them and they gave me some comfort. and she sent in principle schtick they basically suffocated when a man handed me their wedding rings that was the worst experience of my life. because in that moment i knew i was all alone. crews worked quickly to dispose of the corpses not least because of the fear that disease could spread

through the city. in early march troops set up huge metal grates in the out mark district up to $500.00 bodies at a time were piled onto the structures doused with petrol. by mid march a total of 18375 victims had been recovered dressed in police chief reported to officials in berlin the death toll could rise to 25000 but the propaganda ministry did not publicize these figures the government planned to use the bombing of dresden as part of a last ditch effort to fuel the moral indignation of the german people. nazi propaganda minister joseph goebbels encouraged the circulation of rumors that as many as 200000 people had lost their lives some foreign newspapers picked up and

also reported this wildly exaggerated claim. this was the beginning of the myth of tristen. kind of stuff but diabolical and criminal display of our enemy's intent to destroy this city. the hatten. early 1945 the propaganda ministry had almost nothing left in its arsenal to rally the german people so the ministry decided to spread fear and hope that this tactic would work until something miraculous could happen this. time. but that was not to be germany surrendered in may 945 during the war as many as 500000 german civilians were killed in allied bombing attacks few of the country's major cities was space but the destruction of dresden continues to generate

controversy to this day. and many germans believe that there was no reason to attack the city the attack was unwarranted they say that dressed in was a cultural center there was no involvement in s.s. war crimes no extermination of jews it had museums full of art by old masters like cattle out all for examples. after the war the myth of dresden into new to be propagated on both sides of the iron curtain the false consciously figures were repeated again and again in the east german government used the anniversary of the bombings to denounce it as a war crime committed by the western allies i'm good thank god it's a we mourn the victims and condemn those who carried out this senseless mass murder in those unless it's. cool i mean the kind of british an american aircraft attacked an open city full of refugees and

wounded official reports say 45000 were killed but there were more many more 1000000. in 2004 the city of dresden commissioned a group of experts to carry out a systematic and objective study of the casualty figures. the panel released its report in 2010. based on comprehensive research that relied on official documents the experts concluded that the number of people who died in the attacks on tristen was between 18025000. by comparison so she 5000 civilians died in the allied air rides on hamburg in july 943. but dresden remains a powerful symbol of the destructive power of modern warfare. that will be hated kristen's of the city of dresden will always be unique in one regard as the events

that took place there in february 1905 have been used to spread propaganda in east germany west germany elsewhere in europe and around the world in that it hot for decades the ruins of the foundations stored as a reminder of the bombing attacks 'd. it was not until 994 that reconstruction work began in the church which was completed in 2005. few of those who survived the bombing ever thought they would see the church restored to its former glory we had plenty of time to talk no one believed it would ever be rebuilt but people got organized i was moved to chicago and after years of work there or. the thought the ministry thought of them my daughter in law asked me what i thought of the reconstruction and i said it's beautiful. but then it always was on the fly also.

'd 'd a cycle called good 0 for america was. a fast industry goes slow. here is up for a trendsetter at 90 in. the roaring twenty's or being reloading. is fashion 2020 stock markets 21. in 30 minutes on t.w.

. is the world becoming less western what does it mean for the world if the west leaves the stage to others question at this year's munich security conference and join us for our coverage of the shooting conference 2022 day on d w. i was issued when i arrived here i slept with 6 people in a room. it was hard i was fair. i even got white hairs that. the german language head telling us this gives me and they help us to not being too in charge of saying you want to know their story lets her fighting and reliable information for migrants.

this is d.w. news live from berlin is the west winning bowler is it a week or well depends on who you ask at the munich security conference happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly over exaggerated causality on the moment when i look at the world as it's being shaped and that's the theme of your conferences see if there is indeed a weakening of the west us secretary of state my colleague pale and french president emanuel almost called very different pictures of the western alliance and about sank.