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dresden the centuries a world renowned center of us 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 1000 the 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. this if you old town dressed in council this spring

a palace the found the church of our lady of attentional treasures that were jews to rubble in a matter of allies. this american news reel described one of the 2 british raids on dress and. it ended up one goes to march $653.00 bombs on transportation $187.00 far distant. but the german side reported things differently saying that the attack targets a cultural center that had no military value. the place you're supposed to speak with diabolical intent our enemies annihilated just flourishing city dressed in his dead it's beautiful rock landmarks a love by residents and visitors alike has been destroyed. a common i

might have i need to. and several of the british air attacks on germany during the war were carried out exactly as the planners had intended hamburg was one castle was one and also dresden height but such tactical perfection was the exception rather than the rule when the bombing of dresden was considered a masterpiece of military planning. perfect or. tradition just draw and mash the shock. these are among the very few photographs taken on the night of the attack a silhouette of the tracks addressed in the main railway station in the background blurred by the hate of flying. the pictures were taken by 15 year old hans joachim dixon who lived near the station at the time. plots the train station was on veena 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 partners with its fancy shops and leisure establishments. than 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 dresden 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. but those who were trapped for several hours in the basement in one of those buildings surrounded by dead bodies. and feeling.

more than 600 people were killed only the trying station alone 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 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 if those they 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 dressed in. were the specific intended targets. this

is the historic new mosque district which includes the famous found kisha. get how cinnamon was 14 when the church and his home nearby were destroyed in the attack. as children cinnamon and some of his friends had carved their nationals into the sandstone edifice of the art academy across the square this is jewish it's hard to siena that's me jeezy but some of the letters have faded. verses that's well contest and off good totn was here. that one of them lived in a house that was hit by a bomb. in the another lived in the ones. and neither survived. just think you know i was complete. fool. again had cinnamon and his family lived in a building behind this hotel within view of the fountain isha. 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. or it will and there was a space above the hallway where the call for heating was stored just imagine how well that coal burned in the fire after the bombing according to. this is happening i might 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 in a park not in need lesson. for decades much of the area lay in ruins but more recently a lot of new construction projects of filling in empty spaces but before these projects are realized archaeologists explore the cellars and foundations of the original buildings. susannah shona is leading an excavation near the found krisha in these ruins she often finds relics of life interest and before the bombing. in a 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 an art school and that's what i mean here are some shoulder boards from

a uniform that was probably made here. look as i see extant 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. build a common options in here you can face some of the beautiful original sandstone with that warm yellow color. when you do it but in high heat it starts turning orange and red doesn't. it or it was a mistake as it is or 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 ref. huge enticements only to die there. the 1st big allied attack on lot seek a nearby industrial sites took place in december $943.00 only option that did your thought is interest and start taking civil defense measures through 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 bureaucracies. police. a campaign of saturation bombing against german cities had 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. oh

a lot of people. never will know. well that never been tried yet and. 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 . 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 yalta to discuss their war strategy. prime minister churchill agreed to support the soviets fence into germany by stepping up its own cities the idea was to disrupt

germany's economy even further and to try to break the moran of the civilian population. churchill in herald square together at the weekly and then watch films of the bombing where it. and these attacks turned german cities and of smoldering funeral pyres. at that point bombs were been 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 over much of eastern germany but some clearing was predicted around interest and 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.

for the regular was finished and it was. clear that the real victor in europe was going to be stalin he had enormous military resources at that time the put in syria and if i 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 dresden 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 in the air by as it happened so often in recent

months. she hums in its crest and had so far been fairly untouched by the war from the seashore there were major bombing raids on leipsic but that didn't really raise fears among the people here near the field there were rumors circulating that churchill had an aunt living in reston so it would never be attacked do you know and you have need of us plus year old girl wouldn't. for me have of it in early january or so the woman who owned our apartment house had a new staircase put in and that's something that maoists for ration lassen the old sandstone steps were torn out and replaced with tara. and a few weeks later it was destroyed. it. credible couple that. christophe adam was 14 years old in february 945

he and his family lived in the district of your hunch that need to europe plants far from the city center and the main train station this way it was a popular meeting place for locals february 13th was a choose day and the day before one ash wednesday the highlight of the carnival season in germany lots of children pressed up in questions just like everybody else nor along was one of them that's. from dual plots 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 the 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 quite a. little dish my 1st line of this pond or sidecar. nor along and her

friend anita gong were both 12 years old like christophe adam 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 skull along by own 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 these were old houses. so each was required to have a container of sand and buckets for sand and water down there the whole. it son i am so rich in these restored in old disused bathtubs or other containers. because burden is a myth also. here and is exposed sellers in front of the front you

can see some of the city's rudimentary civil defense measures. as often as not whenever possible all 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 that i'm. going to be going. in. just before 10 o'clock on the night of february the 13th the civil air defense office reported that enemy aircraft to be spotted of the town of pan am a few kilometers southeast of dresden american bombers had struck the city's railway yards in october 1944 in january $945.00 but those raids were compassion of a small now the aircraft was targeting the same time the 1st british aircraft

dropped magnesium parachute flares referred to as christmas trees by the germans to illuminate the target area feel confident view of the sky became as bright as day as the planes drop those christmas tree and. there were cascades of light of. him. it was an amazing sight to see. what city or influence was your else that was the 1st time that any of us had seen a bombing raid of such magnitude of peaceful if you thought i was still. these reconnaissance photos of dresden were taken by the ira if in may 944. the target area clearly included the noirmont district and surrounding streets in this war neither side seemed that interested in cultural landmarks on monuments when it came to planning bombing raids. the

area warfare began with the german daytime attack on london in september 940 the last laugh 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 1940 the germans launched a devastating attack on the industrial city of coventry about a 3rd of the local factories were destroyed the residential areas were also cheat more than $500.00 civilians were killed in this attack. coventry's cathedral was reduced to rubble. in june $944.00 germany started firing missiles including the v 2 a targets in britain. then if of a 2 missile struck

a residential street $200.00 people would be killed instantly as in childhood mentioned after stroke took. the last of the 2 to hit britain landed on kent in late march 9455 weeks after the annihilation of tristen. the very man. to. even though it was clear that 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. for 2 getting. to the people of britain the men who flew for the royal air force bomber command we hear a casualty rates were high 57000 pilots and crew member killed during the. count

of the total of the entire force. but in the closing months of the conflict german defense systems no longer posed a serious threat aircraft fuel was in short supply and the anti aircraft guns to be moved east to counter the soviet offensive dresden stood alone against the british bombers. the raid that went horribly right. just got out of this 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 large train stations was an important transport tension 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 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 hamburg that began on july 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. monarch experimented 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 optimal lecture of explosives and combustible. goodenough experiment fires in a german city were burned different for you the notion of japanese where many of the buildings were neighborhood warden paper guns undersea daughter. ashley fantz recovered interest in the decades after the attack

a stored in the saxon estate archaeological archives. thousands of objects that bears silent witness to the devastation of the attack. there are glass bottles warped by the extreme hate plus coins books i glasses in 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. christoper adam was often given items like these for christmas. we should be a good choice if we start from 0 to replace war as a kind with for example we had toy artillery pieces that used contact fuselage. you'd load the cannon fire and a stream of flame came out before all of us were in the us on the other end or the

shell hit a target or it made a loud noise which i know you will assure her i also have toys soldiers and of course all and hitler figurine with attachable hair i had a lot of fun shooting hitler's head off more culpable charges. several weeks before the attack on tryst and hitler had moved into a heavily fortified bunker beneath the chancery in central berlin 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 environ all of a sudden there was this incredible roar. you can't even imagine the rocket. shock a doc 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. our hearts 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 a sharpie to rest on. 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 his apartment survived the 1st race nearly unscathed as the climate died down get hot cinnamon decided to leave the cellar. you have no idea 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 the north with the french for evil then i wanted to go to the train station to help. i was in the hitler youth. we all were. fortunately my big sister came after me and took me back called the north and then

the 2nd wave started it my sister hadn't done that i'd have been at the train station when it was wiped out in the 2nd attack but of for lucia to. nia vina plats 15 year old hans joachim dietz and his family had already moved down to the basement to sit out the 1st attack. dates are brought a camera with him he still had it 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 who i just wanted to take a picture of our apartment or if so i press the shutter release. that was the 1st picture and then others followed it. maybe i was just in shock at suddenly being confronted with the horror of what war was really like. it all in this creative.

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 a air raid wardens knew to round the area with portable sirens and told people to get off the streets. hilton views of 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 troy good . more than 500 lancaster aircraft now approached central tristen from the west over a period of just 24 minutes they dropped more than 1800 tons of bombs. on it washed the 2nd raid caught the people in a cell is completely by surprise it was too old and completely out of 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 and have to stop and plant because it's water. this footage was shot by a british and crowed entire sections of the city were in flames. the fires tore 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 its homes you

must but suppose you were sick and had asthma or young children with you but as horrific you were elderly or disabled. your chances of survival were pretty slim. in fully it. these again had zimmerman's family records show that he was baptized in the found. now both the church and his parents are fine. but there were flames everywhere. and there was so much smoke in the cellar that we could hardly breathe. when there was a barrel of water. it had been sitting there since 1939 and 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. it wouldn't feel good.

do 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 fire storm there are few buildings in your hunch that were left on skates by the 2nd attack. minimal to hide and my father and mother thought they could save us my father picked me up and i felt i had a mission of all but the fire storm was just too big too powerful it was my fault as of india if it hadn't been for him i wouldn't be here today a little. 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 great fire 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 to go on describes how her father tried desperately to save his family. but he says look you know i remembered ferry well when i was right in front of my parents. and i fell down and i just said i'm going to lie here. just let's give in the last i heard of my parents is when my father said to my mother anita wants to stay here. my mother replied then we will too and that was that this was. your last consciousness descent for laois she survives smoke poisoning or. thanks to a bomb threat she put her head. the thought about such and in the

shelters flames and smoke moved through the labyrinth of rooms at incredible speed survivors of the attack tell heartbreaking stories about some of the things i saw. for. 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 is where the fire is. and. the entire hall of the main train station was on fire the buildings are in framework was glowing red. i were those of a 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 wings 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 very marked barracks had survived the 2 air raids and 2000 soldiers from the facility was sent to help in the rescue and recovery efforts 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 dresden 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 realm yards in the free to that district in the western part of the city. over the next 30

minutes to be 17 strops 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 finding and the people of dresden had no experience with anything like it so they had no idea how to deal with the situation of the tools on. the script. 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 . of your bush but. now the main task for the civil defense authorities was to dispose of the dead. prisoners of war and forced laborers were brought in to carry out this gruesome

task. the corpses were brought out of the rubble and laid out in rows in the streets to be registered 12 year old niece who yon who had managed to pull herself out of the rubble now had to identify the bodies of her parents. and the long built 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 with their clothes on churn of the of on but i was able to identify them and that gave me some comfort. and she seemed 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 district up to 500 bodies at a time were piled onto the structure doused with petrol. by mid march a total of 18375 victims had been recovered dressed in police chief reported to officials in berlin that 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 the city. the hatten. by 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. sheen come. 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 tristen continues to generate

controversy to this day. many germans believe that there was no reason to attack the city the attack was unwarranted they say that dresden 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 khan a lot all for examples. after the war the myth of dresden continued to be propagated on both sides of the iron curtain the false consciously figures were repeated again and again the east german government used the anniversary of the bombings to denounce it as a war crime committed by the western allies getting cracked it's of we mourn the victims and condemn those who carried out this senseless mass murder in those must . be the kind of sort of

british and american aircraft attacked an open city full of refugees and wounded official reports say $45000.00 were killed but there were more many more. in 2004 the city of dresden commissioned a group of experts to carry out a systematic an 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 christian 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. a line of thought

will be here to trace news of the city of dresden that will always be unique in one regard of the events that took place there in february 1905 have been used to spread propaganda in east germany west germany or elsewhere in europe and around the world and of it. out for decades the ruins of the found cash is stored as a reminder of the bombing attacks. 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 'd he had meant of kind doc 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 an overt swaddle

foyle so. passengers here are in full was. the drivers here need nerves of steel. while passengers here can get an eyeful along the way. where taxis accommodate passengers all over the world. dr felix. read. the clue. to. be in

good shape for answers just not lost like aspirin is for us today it was a cure for many things. and that still holds true today. whether for cancer diagnosis. their blood transfusions i'll read the lips of life has many uses. good shooting. in 60 minutes on d w. is the world becoming less western what does it mean for the world if the west leaves the stage to others key questions and it disappears munich security conference to join us for our coverage of the security conference 2020 today on d

w. this is day w news live from is the west winning is it wake up well it depends on who you ask at the munich security conference happy to report that the death of the transatlantic alliance is grossly over exaggerated. when i look at the world as it's being shaped and that's the theme of your conference this year there is indeed a weakening of the west.