Editing Bombing of Dresden (section)

==Wartime political responses==
===German===
Development of a German political response to the raid took several turns. Initially, some of the leadership, especially [[Robert Ley]] and [[Joseph Goebbels]], wanted to use the raid as a pretext for abandonment of the [[Geneva Conventions]] on the [[Western Front (World War II)|Western Front]]. In the end, the only political action the German government took was to exploit the bombing for propaganda purposes.{{sfn|Taylor|2005|pp=420–6}} Goebbels is reported to have wept with rage for twenty minutes after he heard the news of the catastrophe, before launching into a bitter attack on [[Hermann Göring]], the commander of the Luftwaffe: "If I had the power I would drag this cowardly good-for-nothing, this Reich marshal, before a court. ... How much guilt does this parasite not bear for all this, which we owe to his indolence and love of his own comforts.{{nbsp}}...".<ref>Victor Reimann (1979) ''Joseph Goebbels: The Man Who Created Hitler''. London, Sphere: 382–3</ref> On 16 February, the [[Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda|Propaganda Ministry]] issued a press release that claimed that Dresden had no war industries; it was a city of culture.{{sfn|Taylor|2005|pp=421–422}} On 25 February, a new leaflet with photographs of two burned children was released under the title "Dresden—Massacre of Refugees", stating that 200,000 had died. Since no official estimate had been developed, the numbers were speculative, but newspapers such as the [[Stockholm]] ''Svenska Morgonbladet'' used phrases such as "privately from Berlin", to explain where they had obtained the figures.{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=423}} Frederick Taylor states that "there is good reason to believe that later in March copies of—or extracts from—[an official police report] were leaked to the neutral press by Goebbels's Propaganda Ministry ... doctored with an extra zero to increase [the total dead from the raid] to 202,040".{{sfn|Taylor|2004|p=370}} On 4 March, ''[[Das Reich (newspaper)|Das Reich]]'', a weekly newspaper founded by Goebbels, published a lengthy article emphasising the suffering and destruction of a cultural icon, without mentioning damage to the German war effort.{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=424}}<ref>Evans, Richard. ''Telling Lies about Hitler: The Holocaust, History and the David Irving Trial'' p. 165.</ref>

Taylor writes that this propaganda was effective, as it not only influenced attitudes in neutral countries at the time, but also reached the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]], when [[Richard Stokes (politician)|Richard Stokes]], a [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]], and a long term opponent of area-bombing,<ref>Max Hastings (1980) ''Bomber Command'': 171–2</ref> quoted information from the German Press Agency (controlled by the Propaganda Ministry). It was Stokes's questions in the House of Commons that were in large part responsible for the shift in British opinion against this type of raid. Taylor suggests that, although the destruction of Dresden would have affected people's support for the Allies regardless of German propaganda, at least some of the outrage did depend on Goebbels' falsification of the casualty figures.{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=426}}

===British===
[[File:Churchill portrait NYP 45063.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Winston Churchill|Churchill]], who after Dresden spoke of fewer attacks affecting civilians.]]
The destruction of the city provoked unease in intellectual circles in Britain. According to [[Max Hastings]], by February 1945, attacks upon German cities had become largely irrelevant to the outcome of the war and the name of Dresden resonated with cultured people all over Europe—"the home of so much charm and beauty, a refuge for [[Anthony Trollope|Trollope's]] heroines, a landmark of the [[Grand Tour]]." He writes that the bombing was the first time the public in Allied countries seriously questioned the military actions used to defeat the Germans.<ref>''RA Magazine'', Vol 78, Spring 2003. Retrieved 26 February 2005.</ref>

The unease was made worse by an [[Associated Press]] story that the Allies had resorted to [[terror bombing]]. At a press briefing held by the [[Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force]] two days after the raids, British Air Commodore [[Colin McKay Grierson]] told journalists:
{{blockquote|First of all they (Dresden and similar towns) are the centres to which evacuees are being moved. They are centres of communications through which traffic is moving across to the Russian Front, and from the Western Front to the East, and they are sufficiently close to the Russian Front for the Russians to continue the successful prosecution of their battle. I think these three reasons probably cover the bombing.{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=413}} }}

One of the journalists asked whether the principal aim of bombing Dresden would be to cause confusion among the refugees or to blast communications carrying military supplies. Grierson answered that the primary aim was to attack communications to prevent the Germans from moving military supplies, and to stop movement in all directions if possible. He then added in an offhand remark that the raid also helped destroy "what is left of German morale". Howard Cowan, an Associated Press war correspondent, subsequently filed a story claiming that the Allies had resorted to terror bombing. There were follow-up newspaper editorials on the issue and a longtime opponent of strategic bombing, Richard Stokes [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]], asked questions in the House of Commons on 6 March.{{sfn|Longmate|1983|p=344}}{{sfn|Taylor|2004|p=363}}

Churchill subsequently re-evaluated the goals of the bombing campaigns, to focus less on strategic targets, and more toward targets of tactical significance.{{sfn|Longmate|1983|p=345}}<ref name="Churchill HMSO">"The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany" (SOA), HMSO (1961) vol 3 pp. 117–9.</ref>{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=431}} On 28 March, in a memo sent by telegram to [[Hastings Lionel Ismay|General Ismay]] for the British Chiefs of Staff and the Chief of the Air Staff, he wrote:
{{blockquote|It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land ... The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing. I am of the opinion that military objectives must henceforward be more strictly studied in our own interests than that of the enemy.
{{pb}}
The Foreign Secretary has spoken to me on this subject, and I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectives such as oil and communications behind the immediate battle-zone, rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive.<ref name=Siebert>Siebert, Detlef. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/area_bombing_01.shtml "British Bombing Strategy in World War Two"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120107001658/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/area_bombing_01.shtml|date=7 January 2012}}, 1 August 2001, BBC, retrieved 8 January 2008.</ref>{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=430}} }}

[[File:Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris.jpg|thumb|upright|Air Chief Marshal [[Arthur Harris]], head of [[RAF Bomber Command]], strongly objected to Churchill's description of the raid as an "act of terror", a comment Churchill withdrew in the face of Harris's protest.]]

Having been given a paraphrased version of Churchill's memo by Bottomley, on 29 March, Air Chief Marshal [[Arthur Harris]] wrote to the Air Ministry:{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=432}}

{{blockquote|...in the past we were justified in attacking German cities. But to do so was always repugnant and now that the Germans are beaten anyway we can properly abstain from proceeding with these attacks. This is a doctrine to which I could never subscribe. Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.
{{pb}}
The feeling, such as there is, over Dresden, could be easily explained by any psychiatrist. It is connected with German bands and Dresden shepherdesses. Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.{{sfn|Longmate|1983|p=346}} }}

The phrase "worth the bones of one British grenadier" echoed [[Otto von Bismarck]]'s: "The whole of the [[Balkans]] is not worth the bones of a single [[Pomerania]]n grenadier".{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=432}} Under pressure from the Chiefs of Staff and in response to the views expressed by Portal and Harris among others, Churchill withdrew his memo and issued a new one.{{sfn|Longmate|1983|p=346}}<ref>Harris quotes as his source the Public Records Office ATH/DO/4B quoted by Lord Zuckerman "From Apes to Warlords" p. 352.</ref>{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=433}} This was completed on 1 April 1945:

{{blockquote|...the moment has come when the question of the so called 'area-bombing' of German cities should be reviewed from the point of view of our own interests. If we come into control of an entirely ruined land, there will be a great shortage of accommodation for ourselves and our allies. ... We must see to it that our attacks do no more harm to ourselves in the long run than they do to the enemy's war effort.{{sfn|Longmate|1983|p=34}}{{sfn|Taylor|2005|p=434}} }}

===American===
[[John Kenneth Galbraith]] was among those in the Roosevelt administration who had qualms about the bombing. As one of the directors of the [[United States Strategic Bombing Survey]], formed late in the war by the American [[Office of Strategic Services]] to assess the results of the aerial bombardments of Nazi Germany, he wrote: "The incredible cruelty of the attack on Dresden when the war had already been won—and the death of children, women, and civilians—that was extremely weighty and of no avail".<ref>{{cite book|author=Paul, Clara M.|title=Dresden's Frauenkirche|publisher=[[Sächsische Zeitung]]|location=Dresden, Germany|year=2004|isbn=3910175163|page=21}}</ref> The Survey's majority view on the Allies' bombing of German cities, however, concluded:
{{blockquote|The city area raids have left their mark on the German people as well as on their cities. Far more than any other military action that preceded the actual occupation of Germany itself, these attacks left the German people with a solid lesson in the disadvantages of war. It was a terrible lesson; conceivably that lesson, both in Germany and abroad, could be the most lasting single effect of the air war.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080528051903/http://aupress.au.af.mil/Books/USSBS/USSBS.pdf US Strategic Bombing Surveys (European War, Pacific War),(Air University Press, 1987), pages 3 and 12]</ref>}}