Product Description

At 9.51 p.m. on Tuesday 13 February 1945, Dresden's air-raid sirens sounded as they had done many times during the Second World War. But this time was different. By the next morning, more than 4,500 tons of high explosives and incendiary devices had been dropped on the unprotected city. At least 25,000 inhabitants died in the terrifying firestorm and thirteen square miles of the city's historic centre, including incalculable quantities of treasure and works of art, lay in ruins. In this portrait of the city, its people, and its still-controversial destruction, Frederick Taylor has drawn on archives and sources only accessible since the fall of the East German regime, and talked to Allied aircrew and survivors, from members of the German armed services and refugees fleeing the Russian advance to ordinary citizens of Dresden.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135881 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Review
'In narrative power and persuasion, he has paralleled in Dresden what Antony Beevor achieved in Stalingrad' Independent on Sunday 'A well-written, scholarly account' Guardian 'Well-researched and unpretentious fascinating Taylor skilfully interweaves various personal accounts of the impact of the raids' Michael Burleigh, Guardian 'Impressive Taylor weaves a chilling narrative from eyewitness accounts and painstaking documentary research, particularly with German sources. He explains the conceptual and strategic background with admirable clarity. His account of the air operation itself is quite superb' The Times

Guardian
‘A well-written, scholarly account’

Michael Burleigh, Guardian
‘Well-researched and unpretentious ... fascinating ... Taylor skilfully interweaves various personal accounts of the impact of the raids’

Customer Reviews

Valuable history of the bombing of Dresden in 1945
This book is a detailed account of the bombing of Dresden by the RAF and the USAAF on February 13-14th 1945. The attack, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians, has been regarded by many people as the most shameful episode in the Allied prosecution of the war. Others argue that the bombing was justified by the city's critical position close to the eastern front and because of the many Dresden based arms manufacturers. Interviews with survivors of the bombing and the bomber crews themselves are used to create a vivid picture of the events before, during and after the bombing. This book has the same quality as Antony Bevor's brilliant histories "Stalingrad" and "Berlin" and is a valuable re-assessment of one of the most controversial events of World War 2.

The sleep of reason brings fourth monsters
This is a quote from the concluding chapter of Frederick Taylor's excellent, well researched and highly readable account of the events leading upto, the execution of, and the aftermath of the allied bombing raid on Dresden of 13 and 14 February 1945.

Like Taylor, much of my knowledge of the Dresden raid stemmed from Kurt Vonnegut's semi-autobiographical novel "Slaughter House 5", based on his experience of the Dresden raid as an American prisoner of war there. In the introduction to Vonnegut's novel he recounts how for many years he would tell people that he was working on a big book, perhaps multiple volumes, on what happened in Dresden in those twentyfour hours, but nothing ever came. For Vonnegut, he ultimately found that there was "nothing intelligent to say about a massacre" and that the only things left alive were the birds, and all they would say was "po-to-weet".

Vonnegut had experienced the horror of the raid first hand, and his account remains a powerful, intelligent, if subjective testimony to the horror of Dresden, but Vonnegut was not a historian, and it was left to historians to create a more whole picture of the raid from razor fragments such as Vonneguts, and the cutting and blunt papers of the archives, of course.

Considering the events cultural importance on the European consciousness, as the icon of airborne slaughter in the European war, it is surprising that so little has been published on it. David Irving's 'The Destruction of Dresden' was an important book but was undermined by the authors alleged neo-nazi connections and the subsequet absence of a mass market reprint.

Taylor's book fills this void admirably, bringing together a narrative of the European bomber war with archive and eye-wittness accounts of the Dresden raid itself, and the place that the raid assumed in post-war consciousness. If there is one dissapoitment I would say it is the sparcity of interviews with surviving bomber crews, though this is perhaps inevitable since the passage of time and a half century of implicit blame have hardened the attitudes of airmen who dropped their bombs from an inevitably impersonal altitude.

This book is not a polemic, that is it does not attempt to exonerate the allies, bomber command or key figures like Arthur Harris or Winston Churchill, but neither does it narrate Dresden as the senseless victim of excess in an otherwise just war. Instead Taylor allows a balanced re-telling of the facts to speak for themselves. Myths are debunked in this process, particularly regarding the astronomical casuality figures circulated as propoganda against the allies, but despite this a strong Clauswitzian message booms through the memoirs and data - that war, once unleashed, spirals out of control and will ultimately serve itself, it moves toward an all consuming totality. "Total war".

When Taylor refers to "the sleep of reason" he is referring to the failure of Europe, and by extension humanity, to remain rational, to think through the consequences of its emotions and ambitions, rather than applying such irrational prejudice into policy.

As another war spins into a vortex of self serving violence, it would appear that we have learned very little in the intervening sixty years.

Dresden 1945: hell on Elbe
The destruction of Dresden has come to symbolise the horror of war. A beautiful city laid to waste, with tens of thousands dead, in less than 24 hours. Frederick Taylor's book recreates life in Dresden in the months and years leading up to February 1945. His approach is admirably even-handed: most readers will finish the book mourning the loss of the city and its people rather than taking sides in a pointless debate about whether the raids could be justified. Many will want to visit Dresden to see how the city has risen from the ashes while reflecting on the horror of war.

Just one small criticism: the American spellings used in the book are very distracting. It comes as a surprise to read in a British book that the 'Labor' party won the 1945 British general election, and to learn of people 'immigrating' to the USA.