Mar 23rd, 2016: Dresden, 1945

[xoxoxoBruce]

To this day, people debate whether the allied attack on Dresden for two days in mid-February of 1945, was right or wrong.

By the morning, some 800 British bombers had dropped more than 1,400 tons of high-explosive bombs and more than 1,100 tons of incendiaries on Dresden, creating a great firestorm that destroyed most of the city and killed numerous civilians. Later that day, as survivors made their way out of the smoldering city, more than 300 U.S. bombers began bombing Dresden’s railways, bridges and transportation facilities, killing thousands more. On February 15, another 200 U.S. bombers continued their assault on the city’s infrastructure. All told, the bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force dropped more than 950 tons of high-explosive bombs and more than 290 tons of incendiaries on Dresden.

So what happened to this woman?

..................

Her hair and clothes prove she didn't burn in a fire. I suspect she died from suffocation, breathing the extremely hot, oxygen depleted air, created by the firestorm following the bombing. I don't know how long after that raid this photograph was taken, but suspect the same searing air she died of, also desiccated her body.

I've read estimates of the body count ranging from 8,000 to 500,000, depending on the agenda of the estimator.
100,000 seems to be the most rational number, but we'll never know.

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