Editing Bombing of Dresden (section)

===On the ground===
[[File:Fotothek df ps 0000047 Eine Mutter über dem Kinderwagen ihrer Zwillinge im Tode.jpg|thumb|Bodies, including a mother and children]]
 {{blockquote|"It is not possible to describe! Explosion after explosion. It was beyond belief, worse than the blackest nightmare. So many people were horribly burnt and injured. It became more and more difficult to breathe. It was dark and all of us tried to leave this cellar with inconceivable panic. Dead and dying people were trampled upon, luggage was left or snatched up out of our hands by rescuers. The basket with our twins covered with wet cloths was snatched up out of my mother's hands and we were pushed upstairs by the people behind us. We saw the burning street, the falling ruins and the terrible firestorm. My mother covered us with wet blankets and coats she found in a water tub."

"We saw terrible things: cremated adults shrunk to the size of small children, pieces of arms and legs, dead people, whole families burnt to death, burning people ran to and fro, burnt coaches filled with civilian refugees, dead rescuers and soldiers, many were calling and looking for their children and families, and fire everywhere, everywhere fire, and all the time the hot wind of the firestorm threw people back into the burning houses they were trying to escape from."

"I cannot forget these terrible details. I can never forget them."|Lothar Metzger, survivor.<ref name=Metzer>"Timewitnesses", moderated by Tom Halloway, ''[http://timewitnesses.org/english/~lothar.html The Fire-bombing of Dresden: An Eyewitness Account] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060926230058/http://timewitnesses.org/english/%7Elothar.html|date=26 September 2006}}'' Account of Lothar Metzer, recorded May 1999 in Berlin.</ref>}}

The sirens started sounding in Dresden at 21:51 (CET).{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=4}} Frederick Taylor writes that the Germans could see that a large enemy bomber formation—or what they called "{{lang|de|ein dicker Hund}}" (lit: a fat dog, a "major thing")—was approaching somewhere in the east. At 21:39 the Reich Air Defence Leadership issued an enemy aircraft warning for Dresden, although at that point it was thought Leipzig might be the target. At 21:59 the Local Air Raid Leadership confirmed that the bombers were in the area of Dresden-[[Pirna]].{{sfn|Taylor|2005|pp=278, 279}} Taylor writes the city was largely undefended; a night fighter force of ten [[Messerschmitt Bf 110]]Gs at [[Dresden Airport|Klotzsche airfield]] was scrambled, but it took them half an hour to get into an attack position. At 22:03 the Local Air Raid Leadership issued the first definitive warning: "Warning! Warning! Warning! The lead aircraft of the major enemy bomber forces have changed course and are now approaching the city area".{{sfn|Taylor|2005|pp=280}} Some 10,000 fled to the great open space of the Grosse Garten, the magnificent royal park of Dresden, nearly {{convert|1.5|sqmi}} in all. Here they were caught by the second raid, which started without an air-raid warning, at 1:22&nbsp;a.m.<ref>{{Cite web|title=a:\dresden.HTM|url=http://www.faem.com/edward/dresden.htm|access-date=2021-03-09|website=www.faem.com}}</ref> At 11:30&nbsp;a.m., the third wave of bombers, the two hundred and eleven American Flying Fortresses, began their attack.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-Z0309-310, Zerstörtes Dresden.jpg|thumb|Over ninety per cent of the city centre was destroyed.]]
{{blockquote|To my left I suddenly see a woman. I can see her to this day and shall never forget it. She carries a bundle in her arms. It is a baby. She runs, she falls, and the child flies in an arc into the fire.

Suddenly, I saw people again, right in front of me. They scream and gesticulate with their hands, and then—to my utter horror and amazement—I see how one after the other they simply seem to let themselves drop to the ground. (Today I know that these unfortunate people were the victims of lack of oxygen.) They fainted and then burnt to cinders.

Insane fear grips me and from then on I repeat one simple sentence to myself continuously: "I don't want to burn to death". I do not know how many people I fell over. I know only one thing: that I must not burn.|Margaret Freyer, survivor.<ref>Margaret Freyer, survivor, cited in Cary, John. "The Bombing of Dresden," in ''Eyewitness To History''. New York: Avon Books, 1987, pp. 608–11. Also see [http://www.spartacus-educational.com/2WWdresden.htm "Bombing of Dresden"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140709092153/http://spartacus-educational.com/2WWdresden.htm|date=9 July 2014}}, Spartacus Educational, retrieved 8 January 2008.</ref>}}{{Blockquote|text=Suddenly, the sirens stopped. Then flares filled the night sky with blinding light, dripping burning phosphorus onto the streets and buildings. It was then that we realized we were trapped in a locked cage that stood every chance of becoming a mass grave.|author=[[Victor Gregg]], survivor.|source=}}[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-60015-0002, Dresden, Denkmal Martin Luther, Frauenkirche, Ruine.jpg|thumb|left|Statue of [[Martin Luther]] with ruined Frauenkirche]]

There were few public [[air raid shelter]]s. The largest, beneath the main railway station, housed 6,000 refugees.{{sfn|Taylor|2004|pp=243–4}} As a result, most people took shelter in cellars, but one of the air raid precautions the city had taken was to remove thick cellar walls between rows of buildings and replace them with thin partitions that could be knocked through in an emergency. The idea was that, as one building collapsed or filled with smoke, those sheltering in the basements could knock walls down and move into adjoining buildings. With the city on fire everywhere, those fleeing from one burning cellar simply ran into another, with the result that thousands of bodies were found piled up in houses at the ends of city blocks.{{sfn|De Bruhl|2006|p=237}}
A Dresden police report written shortly after the attacks reported that the old town and the inner eastern suburbs had been engulfed in a single fire that had destroyed almost 12,000 dwellings.{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=408}} The same report said that the raids had destroyed the [[Wehrmacht]]'s main command post in the [[Taschenbergpalais]], 63 administration buildings, the railways, 19 military hospitals, 19 ships and barges, and a number of less significant military facilities. The destruction also encompassed 640 shops, 64 warehouses, 39 schools, 31 stores, 31 large hotels, 26 public houses/bars, 26 insurance buildings, 24 banks, 19 postal facilities, 19 hospitals and private clinics including auxiliary, overflow hospitals, 18 cinemas, 11 churches and 6 chapels, 5 consulates, 4 [[tram]] facilities, 3 theatres, 2 market halls, the zoo, the waterworks, and 5 other cultural buildings.{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=408}} Almost 200 factories were damaged, 136 seriously (including several of the Zeiss Ikon precision optical engineering works), 28 with medium to serious damage, and 35 with light damage.{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=409}}

An RAF assessment showed that 23 per cent of the industrial buildings and 56 per cent of the non-industrial buildings, not counting residential buildings, had been seriously damaged. Around 78,000 dwellings had been completely destroyed; 27,700 were uninhabitable, and 64,500 damaged but readily repairable.<ref name=USAFHD/>

During his post-war interrogation, [[Albert Speer]], [[Reich Ministry of Armaments and War Production|Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production]], said that Dresden's industrial recovery from the bombings was rapid.<ref>Robin Cross (1995) ''Fallen Eagle: The Last Days of the Third Reich''. London, Michael O' Mara Books: 106</ref>