H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-German@h-net.msu.edu (March, 2007)
Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Crang, eds. _Firestorm: The Bombing of Dresden, 1945_. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006. x + 260 pp. Maps, notes, index. $16.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-56663-713-8.
Reviewed for H-German by Andy Spencer, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Ohio State University.
Dresden Redux
Towards the end of the tenth and final contribution to this collection of essays, derived initially from a colloquium hosted by Edinburgh University in May 2003, co-editor Paul Addison notes that "the debate over Dresden is likely to end in a stalemate" (p. 217). By this he means that some will always defend the actions of the Allied air commanders who ordered the Dresden raids in February 1945, just as some will always condemn them. In his contribution to the present volume, Donald Bloxham succinctly fleshes out this state of affairs, writing of the other essays collected here: "Besides revealing the deliberate targeting of civilians, they have pinpointed Churchill's leading role, showing that the campaign was not just a question of Arthur "Bomber" Harris getting carried away. On the other side of the ledger they have shown that, in the light of the Ardennes offensive, the Allies were far from complacent that the war was already won in early 1945; that in terms of its industries and transport links Dresden contained legitimate military-related targets, if they were not of the front rank; and that the mixture of high explosive and incendiary used in the Dresden bombing was not unusual. Overall, they have illustrated that from the side of the bombing powers, there was little unique about the Dresden attack within the renewed bombing campaign of 1944-5, and that the city was selected as one target among many for rather mundane military and
political reasons" (p. 183) ...
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