The Albertstadt is a neighborhood of Dresden , Germany. It was named after Albert of Saxony , who initiated the construction of this suburb. At that time it was the largest garrison in Germany.
95-625: Today, the Military History Museum of the German Federal Armed Forces is located in one of the former military arsenals. Although the major military center of the region, the district was not specially attacked in the 1945 allied bombings and it suffered only marginal destruction. Albertstadt is located in Northern Dresden, is around three kilometres from the city center, Innere Altstadt . It
190-515: A munitions storage depot. The USAF report also states that two of Dresden's traffic routes were of military importance: north-south from Germany to Czechoslovakia , and east–west along the central European uplands . The city was at the junction of the Berlin - Prague - Vienna railway line, as well as the Munich - Breslau , and Hamburg - Leipzig lines. Colonel Harold E. Cook, a US POW held in
285-588: A synthetic oil plant in Magdeburg . Another 84 bombers would attack Wesel . The bomber groups were protected by 784 North American P-51 Mustangs of the Eighth Air Force's VIII Fighter Command , 316 of which covered the Dresden attack – a total of almost 2,100 Eighth Army Air Force aircraft over Saxony during 14 February. The smoke plume over Dresden by now reached 15,000 ft (4,600 m) and
380-480: A "high priority". Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur Harris , AOC-in-C Bomber Command , nicknamed "Bomber Harris", was known as an ardent supporter of area bombing ; when asked for his view, he proposed a simultaneous attack on Chemnitz , Leipzig and Dresden. That evening Churchill asked the Secretary of State for Air , Sir Archibald Sinclair , what plans had been drawn up to carry out these proposals. Marshal of
475-608: A Mosquito, gave the order to the Lancasters: "Controller to Plate Rack Force: Come in and bomb glow of red target indicators as planned. Bomb the glow of red TIs as planned". The first bombs were released at 22:13, the last at 22:28, the Lancasters delivering 881.1 tons of bombs, 57% high explosive, 43% incendiaries. The fan-shaped area that was bombed was 1.25 mi (2.01 km) long, and at its extreme about 1.75 mi (2.82 km) wide. The shape and total devastation of
570-695: A Western plan, but the Soviets were told in advance about the operation. According to the RAF at the time, Dresden was Germany's seventh-largest city and the largest remaining unbombed, built-up area. Taylor writes that an official 1942 guide to the city described it as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich " and in 1944 the German Army High Command 's Weapons Office listed 127 medium-to-large factories and workshops that were supplying
665-476: A block. Between 01:21 and 01:45, 529 Lancasters dropped more than 1,800 tons of bombs. On the morning of 14 February 431 United States Army Air Force bombers of the Eighth Air Force 's 1st Bombardment Division were scheduled to bomb Dresden near midday, and the 457 aircraft of 3rd Bombardment Division were to follow to bomb Chemnitz , while the 375 bombers of the 2nd Bombardment Division would bomb
760-570: A chronological tour. Additionally, the museum showcases the history of Military Technology, Handguns, Uniforms and Insignia, Order, Art, an Image Archive, Records, and a Library. The museum houses a vast collection of military history, from technology and handguns to artistic renderings of war. Traditionally, military museums focus primarily on weapons technology and the glamorous representation of national armed forces; they impress visitors by shows of military power and display wars in isolation from other historic events. The museum has made an effort to be
855-498: A different kind of military museum . It displays war and the military as being interwoven in the general history of a nation, and showcases the ramifications of war in the political, cultural and social history. The focus, instead of being on the greater good or the military whole, is always on the individual who exercises violence or suffers from it. Eleven themed tours are offered and three chronologies: 1300–1914, 1914–1945 and 1945–today. Among historically significant items displayed
950-565: A falsified casualty figure of 200,000, and death tolls as high as 500,000 have been claimed. These inflated figures were disseminated in the West for decades, notably by David Irving , a Holocaust denier , who in 1966 announced that the documentation he had worked from had been forged and that the real figures supported the 25,000 number. Early in 1945, the German offensive known as the Battle of
1045-505: A moral cause célèbre of the war. Nazi Germany's desperate struggle to maintain resistance in the closing months of the war is widely understood today, but Allied intelligence assessments at the time painted a different picture. There was uncertainty over whether the Soviets could sustain their advance on Germany, and rumours of the establishment of a Nazi redoubt in Southern Germany were taken too seriously. The Allies saw
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#17327649794631140-503: A synthetic oil plant in Böhlen , 60 mi (97 km) from Dresden, while 71 de Havilland Mosquito medium bombers attacked Magdeburg with small numbers of Mosquitos carrying out nuisance raids on Bonn , Misburg near Hanover and Nuremberg . When Polish crews of the designated squadrons were preparing for the mission, the terms of the Yalta agreement were made known to them. There
1235-612: A total of at least 21,895 buried bodies from the Dresden raids, including those cremated on the Altmarkt . Between 100,000 and 200,000 refugees fleeing westward from advancing Soviet forces were in the city at the time of the bombing. Exact figures are unknown, but reliable estimates were calculated based on train arrivals, foot traffic, and the extent to which emergency accommodation had to be organised. The city authorities did not distinguish between residents and refugees when establishing casualty numbers and "took great pains to count all
1330-480: A vast firestorm below. During the first phase, 244 Lancaster bombers dropped high explosive and incendiary bombs aimed at the center of the city. American B-17 bombers followed the next morning, to destroy the city's railroad marshaling yards. While much of the city was in ruins, the museum and most of the other military buildings in the Albertstadt survived the bombing of Dresden because of its location on
1425-451: 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
1520-649: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bundeswehr Military History Museum The Bundeswehr Military History Museum ( German : Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr (MHMBw) ) is the military museum of the German Armed Forces, the Bundeswehr , and one of the major military history museums in Germany . It is located in a former military arsenal in the Albertstadt which
1615-686: Is also an audio component of this section which plays extensive interviews with eyewitnesses to military life. These give personal perspective into the political communication strategies and social values of the times in which they occurred. The museum library not only serves as a way to showcase the museum collection, but is also a center for research, scientific work, and teaching. It includes over 45,000 documents, including 1,000 historic and valuable books and magazines. The books range from subjects of military affairs, general history, military history, military technology, hand and fire weapons, medals, uniforms, photography and art, and conservation efforts. Inside
1710-456: Is also reflected in the logo of the museum. Libeskind's studio states that "the openness and transparency of the new façade, representing the openness of democratic society , contrasts with the rigidity of the existing building, which represents the severity of the authoritarian past". The silver arrowhead protrudes from the center of the traditional Neo-Classical building and provides a five-story, 29 meter high viewing platform which overlooks
1805-599: Is an accepted version of this page The bombing of Dresden was a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden , the capital of the German state of Saxony , during World War II . In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on
1900-477: Is considered one of the most important collections in Germany's museum landscape. This is especially due to the large proportion of Saxon weapons on display. Included in the museum are 4,250 firearms spanning from rifles , carbines and machine guns , as well as 3,250 handguns such as pistols and revolvers that make up the collection of Feuerwaffen. Additionally, several experimental weapons are included in
1995-437: Is going to be done". In response to Churchill's inquiry, Sinclair approached Bottomley, who asked Harris to undertake attacks on Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, and Chemnitz as soon as moonlight and weather permitted, "with the particular object of exploiting the confused conditions which are likely to exist in the above-mentioned cities during the successful Russian advance". This allowed Sinclair to inform Churchill on 27 January of
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#17327649794632090-421: Is part of Dresden . After a long history of switching titles and approaches to military history, the museum was re-opened in 2011 with a new internal and external concept. The museum focuses on the human aspects of war, while also showcasing the evolution of German military technology. Lieutenant Colonel Dr Rudolf J. Schlaffer heads the museum as director since October 2021. From 2004 onwards and in addition to
2185-477: Is surrounded by Radeberger Vorstadt , Antonstadt and Leipziger Vorstadt in the south, and Dresdner Heide , as well as Heller in the north. Albertstadt has 3,269 inhabitants (2020). With 7,55 km², it is one of the largest neighborhoods in Dresden, and it has a low population density of 351 people per square kilometre. 51°04′48″N 13°45′27″E / 51.08000°N 13.75750°E / 51.08000; 13.75750 This Saxony location article
2280-744: Is the ship's bell from SMS Schleswig-Holstein , a pre-dreadnought battleship that fired what are generally regarded as the first shots of World War II (in Europe) when on Sept. 1, 1939, it shelled Polish positions at Westerplatte in the then- Free City of Danzig . In the Military Technology section of the museum, objects are displayed which have been assigned to three main groups. These are: Large Equipment and ammunition, Device and Equipment and Scale-based Replicas and Models. Over 800 land, air and sea vehicles, along with over 1,000 guns, hand guns , rockets and flamethrowers have been collected for
2375-699: The Coventry Blitz , when loss of this crucial infrastructure had supposedly longer-lasting effects than attacks on war plants. During the Yalta Conference on 4 February, the Deputy Chief of the Soviet General Staff, General Aleksei Antonov , raised the issue of hampering the reinforcement of German troops from the western front by paralyzing the junctions of Berlin and Leipzig with aerial bombardment. In response, Portal, who
2470-522: The Friedrichstadt marshaling yard the night before the attacks, later said that "I saw with my own eyes that Dresden was an armed camp: thousands of German troops, tanks and artillery and miles of freight cars loaded with supplies supporting and transporting German logistics towards the east to meet the Russians". An RAF memo issued to airmen on the night of the attack gave some reasoning for
2565-785: The Royal Saxon Army Museum, and in 1923 became the Saxon Army Museum. After 1938, the museum became the Army Museum of the Wehrmacht, and in 1972 the Army Museum of the GDR . Seven months before the reunification of Germany, the museum was renamed the Military History Museum in Dresden. On February 13 and 14, 1945, British bomber planes commenced an air attack against Dresden , creating
2660-542: The Air Staff's agreement that, "subject to the overriding claims" on other targets under the Pointblank Directive , strikes against communications in these cities to disrupt civilian evacuation from the east and troop movement from the west would be made. On 31 January, Bottomley sent Portal a message saying a heavy attack on Dresden and other cities "will cause great confusion in civilian evacuation from
2755-791: The Bulge had been exhausted, as was the Luftwaffe 's failed New Year's Day attack . The Red Army had launched its Silesian Offensives into pre-war German territory. The German army was retreating on all fronts, but still resisting. On 8 February 1945, the Red Army crossed the Oder River , with positions just 70 km (43 mi) from Berlin . A special British Joint Intelligence Subcommittee report, German Strategy and Capacity to Resist , prepared for Winston Churchill 's eyes only, predicted that Germany might collapse as early as mid-April if
2850-429: The Dresden operation as the justified bombing of a strategic target, which United States Air Force reports, declassified decades later, noted as a major rail transport and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers supporting the German war effort. Several researchers later asserted that not all communications infrastructure was targeted, and neither were the extensive industrial areas located outside
2945-464: The Friedrichstadt district west of the city centre, as the area was not obscured by smoke and cloud. The 303rd group arrived over Dresden two minutes after the 379th and found their view obscured by clouds, so they bombed Dresden using H2X radar. The groups that followed the 303rd (92nd, 306th, 379th, 384th and 457th) also found Dresden obscured by clouds, and they too used H2X. H2X aiming caused
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3040-523: The German military and police. He asserted in Dresden im Luftkrieg (1977) that only a few tales of civilians being strafed were reliable in detail, and all were related to the daylight attack on 14 February. He concluded that some memory of eyewitnesses was real, but that it had misinterpreted the firing in a dogfight as deliberately aimed at people on the ground. In 2000, historian Helmut Schnatz found an explicit order to RAF pilots not to strafe civilians on
3135-473: The German radar system was also degraded, lowering the warning time to prepare for air attacks. The RAF also had an advantage over the Germans in the field of electronic radar countermeasures. Of 796 British bombers that participated in the raid, six were lost, three of those hit by bombs dropped by aircraft flying over them. On the following day, only a single US bomber was shot down, as the large escort force
3230-506: The German state in exhibitions. The collection includes almost 70,000 field uniforms. In addition to outerwear, underwear, shoes, headgear, and military equipment are on display, along with badges, musical instruments and banners. One remarkable piece within the collection is the Spencer jacket from 1805 which belonged to Queen Louise , the "Sissi Prussia", mother of the first German Emperor Wilhelm I . Along with relics of military history,
3325-564: The Germans could see that a large enemy bomber formation—or what they called " 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
3420-626: The Royal Air Force Sir Charles Portal , the Chief of the Air Staff , answered: "We should use available effort in one big attack on Berlin and attacks on Dresden, Leipzig, and Chemnitz, or any other cities where a severe blitz will not only cause confusion in the evacuation from the East, but will also hamper the movement of troops from the West." He mentioned that aircraft diverted to such raids should not be taken away from
3515-533: The Soviets on the Eastern Front could shorten the war. A large scale aerial attack on Berlin and other eastern cities was examined under the code name Operation Thunderclap in mid-1944, but was shelved on 16 August. This was later reexamined, and the decision made to pursue a more limited operation. The Soviet Army continued its push towards the Reich despite severe losses, which they sought to minimize in
3610-526: The Soviets overran its eastern defences. Alternatively, the report warned that the Germans might hold out until November if they could prevent the Soviets from taking Silesia . Despite the post-war assessment, there were serious doubts in Allied intelligence as to how well the war was going for them, with fears of a "Nazi redoubt " being established, or of the Russian advance faltering. Hence, any assistance to
3705-430: The area of Dresden- Pirna . Taylor writes the city was largely undefended; a night fighter force of ten Messerschmitt Bf 110 Gs at 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
3800-499: The area was created by the bombers of No. 5 Group flying over the head of the fan ( Ostragehege stadium) on prearranged compass bearings and releasing their bombs at different prearranged times. The second attack, three hours later, was by Lancaster aircraft of 1 , 3 , 6 and 8 Groups , 8 Group being the Pathfinders. By now, the thousands of fires from the burning city could be seen more than 60 mi (97 km) away on
3895-404: The army with materiel . Nonetheless, according to some historians, the contribution of Dresden to the German war effort may not have been as significant as the planners thought. The US Air Force Historical Division wrote a report, which remained classified until December 1978, in response to international concern about the bombing. It said that there were 110 factories and 50,000 workers in
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3990-475: The attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed front, to prevent the use of the city in the way of further advance, and incidentally to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do. In the raid, major industrial areas in the suburbs, which stretched for miles, were not targeted. According to historian Donald Miller , "the economic disruption would have been far greater had Bomber Command targeted
4085-532: The bombings was rapid. According to the official German report Tagesbefehl (Order of the Day) no. 47 ("TB47") issued on 22 March, the number of dead recovered by that date was 20,204, including 6,865 who were cremated on the Altmarkt square, and they expected the total number of deaths to be about 25,000. Another report on 3 April put the number of corpses recovered at 22,096. Three municipal and 17 rural cemeteries outside Dresden recorded up to 30 April 1945
4180-406: The building has served as a Nazi museum, a Soviet museum and an East German museum which reflected the region's shifting social and political positions over the last 135 years. In 1989, the museum was closed because the newly unified German state was unsure how the museum would fit into the history being created. By 2001, feelings regarding the museum had shifted and an architectural competition
4275-478: The city area". Some 10,000 fled to the great open space of the Grosse Garten, the magnificent royal park of Dresden, nearly 1.5 square miles (3.9 km ) in all. Here they were caught by the second raid, which started without an air-raid warning, at 1:22 a.m. At 11:30 a.m., the third wave of bombers, the two hundred eleven American Flying Fortresses, began their attack. To my left I suddenly see
4370-515: The city centre. Critics of the bombing argue that Dresden was a cultural landmark with little strategic significance, and that the attacks were indiscriminate area bombing and were not proportionate to military gains . Some claim that the raid was a war crime . Nazi propaganda exaggerated the death toll of the bombing and its status as mass murder , and many in the German far-right have referred to it as "Dresden's Holocaust of bombs". In
4465-529: The city supporting the German war effort at the time of the raid. According to the report, there were aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabrik Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); an optical goods factory ( Zeiss Ikon AG); and factories producing electrical and X-ray apparatus ( Koch & Sterzel [ de ] AG); gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke); and electric gauges (Gebrüder Bassler). The report also mentioned barracks, hutted camps, and
4560-437: The city's outskirts. The building withstood World War II attacks on Germany and continued to be used as a military museum until it was closed in 1989. It re-opened again in 2011 and provided a new way of presenting military history. The exhibition concept and design was developed by HG Merz . The museum has made an effort to distance itself from the usual presentations of military history. Instead of glorifying war and armies,
4655-403: The city. The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed more than 1,600 acres (6.5 km ) of the city centre. Up to 25,000 people were killed. Three more USAAF air raids followed, two occurring on 2 March aimed at the city's railway marshalling yard and one smaller raid on 17 April aimed at industrial areas. Postwar discussions about whether the attacks were justified made the event
4750-486: The city. The platform provides views of modern Dresden while pointing towards the area where the fire bombings of Dresden began. The redesigned Dresden Museum of Military history has become the main museum of the German Armed Forces . The building itself is 14,000 square meters and has an inside and outside exhibition area of about 20,000 square meters, making it Germany's largest museum. In every aspect,
4845-399: The collection. There are also cutting and stabbing weapons in this section. The collection includes roughly 1,700 sabers , swords and broadswords ; almost 1,100 bayonets , 800 daggers , 400 Faschinenmesser and 400 polearms . Military uniforms are influenced by the politics of the time, along with culture, ideology, and the economy. Examining the story of uniforms helps one understand
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#17327649794634940-410: The current primary tasks of destroying oil production facilities , jet aircraft factories, and submarine yards . Churchill was not satisfied with this answer and on 26 January pressed Sinclair for a plan of operations: "I asked [last night] whether Berlin, and no doubt other large cities in east Germany, should not now be considered especially attractive targets ... Pray, report to me tomorrow what
5035-485: The dead, identified and unidentified". This was largely achievable because most of the dead succumbed to suffocation; in only four places were recovered remains so badly burned that it was impossible to ascertain the number of victims. The uncertainty this introduced is thought to amount to no more than 100 people. 35,000 people were registered with the authorities as missing after the raids, around 10,000 were later found alive. A further 1,858 bodies were discovered during
5130-443: The decades since the war, large variations in the claimed death toll have led to controversy, though the numbers themselves are no longer a major point of contention among historians. City authorities at the time estimated that there were as many as 25,000 victims, a figure that subsequent investigations supported, including a 2010 study commissioned by the city council. In March 1945, the German government ordered its press to publish
5225-451: The directors, historians are appointed as academic leadership and to design the permanent exhibition. Since September 2020, historian Dr Kristiane Janeke has held this position and is the head of the museum's exhibitions, collection and research department. The original building, the armory , was built between 1873 and 1876 and became a museum in 1897. Originally the Saxon armory and museum,
5320-545: The east and hamper movement of reinforcements from other fronts". British historian Frederick Taylor mentions a further memo sent to the Chiefs of Staff Committee by Air Marshal Sir Douglas Evill on 1 February, in which Evill states interfering with mass civilian movements was a key factor in the decision to bomb the city centre. Attacking main railway junctions, telephone systems, city administration and utilities would result in "chaos". Britain had ostensibly learned this after
5415-508: The final phase of the war. On 5 January 1945, two North American B-25 Mitchell bombers dropped 300,000 leaflets over Dresden with the "Appeal of 50 German generals to the German army and people". On 22 January 1945, the RAF director of bomber operations, Air Commodore Sydney Bufton , sent Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Sir Norman Bottomley a minute suggesting that if Thunderclap
5510-623: The ground – the second wave had been able to see the initial fires from a distance of over 90 mi (140 km). The Pathfinders therefore decided to expand the target, dropping flares on either side of the firestorm, including the Hauptbahnhof , the main train station, and the Großer Garten , a large park, both of which had escaped damage during the first raid. The German sirens sounded again at 01:05, but these were small hand-held sirens that were heard within only
5605-482: The groups to bomb with a wide dispersal over the Dresden area. The last group to attack Dresden was the 306th, and they finished by 12:30. No evidence of strafing of civilians has ever been found, although a March 1945 article in the Nazi-run weekly newspaper Das Reich claimed this had occurred. Historian Götz Bergander, an eyewitness to the raids, found no reports on strafing for 13–15 February by any pilots or
5700-399: The high-explosive bombs ranging in weight from 500 to 4,000 lb (230 to 1,810 kg) —the two-ton "cookies" , also known as "blockbusters", because they could destroy an entire large building or street. The high explosives were intended to rupture water mains and blow off roofs, doors, and windows to expose the interiors of the buildings and create an air flow to feed the fires caused by
5795-562: The incendiaries that followed. The Lancasters crossed into France near the Somme , then into Germany just north of Cologne . At 22:00 hours, the force heading for Böhlen split away from Plate Rack, which turned south-east toward the Elbe. By this time, ten of the Lancasters were out of service, leaving 244 to continue to Dresden. The sirens started sounding in Dresden at 21:51 (CET). The 'Master Bomber' Wing Commander Maurice Smith, flying in
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#17327649794635890-636: The library are 36,000 volumes of monographs from 1851 to the present, 1,000 rare books from the 16th century to 1850, about 7,500 service regulations from the Prussian and Saxon army, as well as newspapers and magazines both past and present. Use of the library is available to military personnel and library employees. Non-military members are granted access to the reading room if they apply ahead of time via telephone or through written application. Bombing of Dresden in World War II This
5985-516: The museum contains a fairly extensive art collection, the foundation of which was laid in 1857 by Officer Ludwig Georg von Wurmb who brought together images depicting the history of the Royal Saxon Army . Nearly 1,100 paintings, 500 sculptures, 12,000 drawings and prints have been added to the early collection by an eclectic group of artists including Jacques Callog, William Campenhausen, Max Liebermann , Lea Grundig and Bernhard Heisig . All
6080-478: The museum is designed to alter the public's perception of war. The original armory building was completed in 1876 as an armory for Kaiser Wilhelm I . The Arsenal main building in the center of Dresden's Albert City served as an armory for roughly twenty years, until it was transformed into a museum in 1897. Since then, the main building of the arsenal has housed the Royal Arsenal Collection,
6175-419: The museum tries to present the causes and consequences of war and violence. The focus is placed on the human component of war, on the hopes, fears, passion, courage, memories and aspirations of those involved. The museum seeks to inform visitors about the military history while encouraging them to ask questions and seek new answers. Visitors can go through the museum through two approaches: thematic sections, and
6270-408: The museum. Additionally, this section includes a large collection of military space technology. While the collection in this section focuses on devices used by the military, with over 45,000 objects belonging to the military, there are also witness accounts to accompany the display. Witnesses describe the life and suffering of civilians during wartime. The valuable and extensive collection of firearms
6365-854: The old town and the inner eastern suburbs had been engulfed in a single fire that had destroyed almost 12,000 dwellings. 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,
6460-702: The pieces include the theme of war and military. The image archive houses a collection of preserved paper photographs , pictures, photo postcards , photo albums, picture negatives, and slides of German and international military history. Nearly one million artifacts are housed in this section which focuses on everyday life of the German armed forces. The images archive the formation, equipment and training of armed forces past and present. While professional images are showcased, so are amateur photographers from both world wars. Particularly noteworthy in this section are photographs of Dresden by Willy Rossner and Soviet war photographer G. Samsonov. The records collection showcases
6555-465: The previous raid, their ordnance was scattered over a wide area. Dresden's air defences had been depleted as anti-aircraft guns were requistioned for use against the Red Army in the east, and the city lost its last massive flak battery in January 1945. The Luftwaffe was largely ineffective, with planes that were unsafe to fly due to lack of parts and maintenance and a critical shortage of aviation fuel;
6650-529: The raid: Dresden, the seventh largest city in Germany and not much smaller than Manchester is also the largest unbombed builtup area the enemy has got. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westward and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium, not only to give shelter to workers, refugees, and troops alike, but to house the administrative services displaced from other areas. At one time well known for its china , Dresden has developed into an industrial city of first-class importance ... The intentions of
6745-412: The reconstruction of Dresden between the end of the war and 1966. Since 1989, despite extensive excavation for new buildings, no new war-related bodies have been found. Seeking to establish a definitive casualty figure, in part to address propagandisation of the bombing by far-right groups, the Dresden city council in 2005 authorised an independent Historians' Commission ( Historikerkommission ) to conduct
6840-580: 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." The sirens started sounding in Dresden at 21:51 (CET). Frederick Taylor writes that
6935-511: 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. There were few public air raid shelters . The largest, beneath the main railway station, housed 6,000 refugees. 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
7030-480: The suburban areas where most of Dresden's manufacturing might was concentrated". In his biography of Attlee and Churchill, Leo McKinstry wrote: "When Churchill arrived at Yalta on 4 February 1945, the first question that Stalin put to him was: 'Why haven't you bombed Dresden?' His enquiry reflected the importance that the Soviet Union attached to an attack on the city, following intelligence reports that Germany
7125-516: The target for the bombers to aim at. The attack was to centre on the Ostragehege sports stadium, next to the city's medieval Altstadt (old town), with its congested and highly combustible timbered buildings. The main bomber force, called Plate Rack , took off shortly after the Pathfinders. This group of 254 Lancasters carried 500 tons of high explosives and 375 tons of incendiaries ("fire bombs"). There were 200,000 incendiaries in all, with
7220-538: The thinking of a certain era. Within the Bundeswehr Military History Museum, the display of uniforms is considered one of the most meaningful exhibitions. This section includes mostly German uniforms, especially those from the late 19th century to present due to the state of preservation. Also included are some uniforms, insignia and regalia of foreign forces, particularly of other European nations. These are also used to represent allies to
7315-468: The vicinity. The official historical commission collected 103 detailed eyewitness accounts and let the local bomb disposal services search according to their assertions. They found no bullets or fragments that would have been used by planes of the Dresden raids. On 15 February, the 1st Bombardment Division's primary target—the Böhlen synthetic oil plant near Leipzig —was obscured by clouds, so its groups diverted to their secondary target, Dresden. Dresden
7410-404: 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. Suddenly, the sirens stopped. Then flares filled the night sky with blinding light, dripping burning phosphorus onto
7505-413: The way back from Dresden. He also reconstructed timelines with the result that strafing would have been almost impossible due to lack of time and fuel. Frederick Taylor in Dresden (2004), basing most of his analysis on the work of Bergander and Schnatz, concludes that no strafing took place, although some stray bullets from aerial dogfights may have hit the ground and been mistaken for strafing by those in
7600-405: The written history of the military from the 17th century to the present. Almost 150,000 objects which reference the military are held in the collection. These include the personal documents of soldiers such as military passports, diaries , or letters and provide a comprehensive review of military life. Emphasis is placed on the collection of posters, cards, leaflets , newspapers and magazines. There
7695-760: The zoo, the waterworks, and 5 other cultural buildings. 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. 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. During his post-war interrogation, Albert Speer , Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production , said that Dresden's industrial recovery from
7790-472: Was a common mix when the USAAF anticipated cloudy conditions over the target. 316 B-17 Flying Fortresses bombed Dresden, dropping 771 tons of bombs. The remaining 115 bombers from the stream of 431 misidentified their targets. Sixty bombed Prague , dropping 153 tons of bombs, while others bombed Brüx and Pilsen . The 379th bombardment group started to bomb Dresden at 12:17, aiming at marshalling yards in
7885-569: Was a group of Lancasters from Bomber Command's 83 Squadron , No. 5 Group , acting as the Pathfinders , or flare force, whose job it was to find Dresden and drop magnesium parachute flares, known to the Germans as "Christmas trees", to mark and light up Dresden for the aircraft that would mark the target itself. The next set of aircraft to leave England were twin-engined Mosquito marker planes, which would identify target areas and drop 1,000-pound (450 kg) target indicators (TIs) that marked
7980-542: Was a huge uproar, since the Yalta agreement handed parts of Poland over to the Soviet Union. There was talk of mutiny among the Polish pilots, and their British officers removed their side arms. The Polish Government ordered the pilots to follow their orders and fly their missions over Dresden, which they did. The first of the British aircraft took off at around 17:20 hours CET for the 700-mile (1,100 km) journey. This
8075-413: Was able to prevent Luftwaffe day fighters from disrupting the attack. "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
8170-415: Was also obscured by clouds, so the groups targeted the city using H2X. The first group to arrive over the target was the 401st, but it missed the city centre and bombed Dresden's southeastern suburbs, with bombs also landing on the nearby towns of Meissen and Pirna . The other groups all bombed Dresden between 12:00 and 12:10. They failed to hit the marshalling yards in the Friedrichstadt district and, as in
8265-413: Was clear, Chemnitz was the target. If both were obscured, they would bomb the centre of Dresden using H2X radar . The mix of bombs for the Dresden raid was about 40 per cent incendiaries—much closer to the RAF city-busting mix than the USAAF usually used in precision bombardment. Taylor compares this 40 per cent mix with the raid on Berlin on 3 February, where the ratio was 10 per cent incendiaries. This
8360-662: Was held for an extension which would cause visitors to reconsider the way they think about war. Before opening in October 2011 as the Bundeswehr Military History Museum, the building underwent six years of extensive construction. Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind added a transparent arrowhead to the façade of the building, creating, according to the Dresden Tourism board, "an outwardly visible expression of innovation". This new element
8455-463: Was in Yalta, asked Bottomley to send him a list of objectives to discuss with the Soviets. Bottomley's list included oil plants, tank and aircraft factories and the cities of Berlin and Dresden. However, according to Richard Overy , the discussion with the Soviet Chief of Staff, Aleksei Antonov, recorded in the minutes, only mentions the bombing of Berlin and Leipzig. The bombing of Dresden was
8550-399: 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
8645-433: Was left to RAF Bomber Command to carry out the first raid. It had been decided that the raid would be a double strike, in which a second wave of bombers would attack three hours after the first, just as the rescue teams were trying to put out the fires. As was standard practice, other raids were carried out that night to confuse German air defences . Three hundred and sixty heavy bombers ( Lancasters and Halifaxes ) bombed
8740-694: Was moving large numbers of troops towards the Breslau Front . Churchill assured Stalin that an Allied attack was imminent." The Dresden attack was to have begun with a USAAF Eighth Air Force bombing raid on 13 February 1945. The Eighth Air Force had already bombed the railway yards near the centre of the city twice in daytime raids: once on 7 October 1944 with 70 tons of high-explosive bombs killing more than 400, then again with 133 bombers on 16 January 1945, dropping 279 tons of high-explosives and 41 tons of incendiaries . On 13 February 1945, bad weather over Europe prevented any USAAF operations, and it
8835-421: Was plainly visible to the approaching raid. Primary sources disagree as to whether the aiming point was the marshalling yards near the centre of the city or the centre of the built-up urban area. The report by the 1st Bombardment Division's commander to his commander states that the targeting sequence was the centre of the built-up area in Dresden if the weather was clear. If clouds obscured Dresden but Chemnitz
8930-418: 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. A Dresden police report written shortly after the attacks reported that
9025-582: Was timed so that it appeared to be a coordinated air attack to aid the current Soviet offensive, then the effect of the bombing on German morale would be increased. On 25 January, the Joint Intelligence Committee supported the idea, as Ultra -based intelligence had indicated that dozens of German divisions deployed in the west were moving to reinforce the Eastern Front, and that interdiction of these troop movements should be
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