[Reez]

This is for a debate i have this Saturday. Kinda antsy about it, cuz it's provincial level, and I want the trophy and the money, so I can buy an acoustic guitar and get some lessons during the summer. The topic is Be It Resolved That the Allied bombing of Dresden during the Second World War was necessary and justified.

I'm the Opposition, saying it was unjustified. Some fast facts about Dresden is that it was Germany's 7th largest city. It was fire-bombed, which was the allied equivalent of the German Luftwaffe. It was a major centre of arts in Germany, had of history and culture. It also had very little military placements, which is strange, cuz it's the capital of Saxony. It's estimated that up to 150 000 people died, which would put it above Hiroshima on the War Crimes. Churchill said in his memoirs that it had "strategic communications centres", but in a RAF statement, it clearly says "Show the Russians what Bomber Command can do". The Russians were coming through the East, and since was near the end of the war, tensions between the USSR and the rest of the Allies were friggin high. Also, the Germans were already retreating at this time, and the war was pretty much over. I know the negative better than the affirmative, because it's what I'm involved on. But from what I understand, there were troops moving through that General area to get to the Eastern front to reinforce the German troops against the Soviets.

That's about all I know. Any web pages you can add for me are great, and both sides of the case are awesome. I have four sites so far:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm
 http://learningcurve.pro.gov.uk/heroesvillains/churchill/default.htm
http://www.informationheadquarters.com/War/World_War_2/Bombing_of_Dresden.shtml

Any help is appreciated!

[Rictor]

you actually get money and prizes for debating poltics and/or history? my god, where do you live, and how can I get in on the deal?

if you want to get an emotional response, just mention how the bombing killed more people than the A-Bombs. That'll get them...

[Reez]

it will get them somewhat. but not enough. I have to bash Churchill here, in front of the Churchill society. And they're judging. So this is gonna be difficult. I'd like to completely avoid it if it can be helped. I won the city debate for this, so I got invited to the banquet of the churchill society. These guys are all fanatics, Churchill is their god. Me and the other debate teams that were invited came up with the theory that they meet once a week, drink of Scotch, dress up as Brits and Nazis, and re-enact their favorite world war scenes. They're freaky people.

[Sandwich]

You have to win to get the trophy and money, I assume? THat sucks, because a topic could be one that obviously has a right side and a wrong side. They should judge you on presentation and effectiveness, not win or lose.

That said, I don't know much about WWII history, so I'll quietly back out now...

[Rictor]

Originally posted by Reez
it will get them somewhat. but not enough. I have to bash Churchill here, in front of the Churchill society. And they're judging. So this is gonna be difficult. I'd like to completely avoid it if it can be helped. I won the city debate for this, so I got invited to the banquet of the churchill society. These guys are all fanatics, Churchill is their god. Me and the other debate teams that were invited came up with the theory that they meet once a week, drink of Scotch, dress up as Brits and Nazis, and re-enact their favorite world war scenes. They're freaky people.

then you've come to the right man. Miserable gits and their Anglosphere BS.

Churchill for Dummies

some choice quotes from the man

I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poison gas against uncivilised tribes.

This [revolutionary] movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky [Russia], Bela Kun [Hungary], Rosa Luxemburg [Germany], and Emma Goldman [the United States] ... this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing.

The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate ... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed.

[Viper1000]

Fire bombing was largely ineffective on german cities...

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Viper1000
Fire bombing was largely ineffective on german cities...

Aside from flattening them, you mean?

[an0n]

It was unnecessary from the viewpoint that killing hundreds of thousands of civillians wouldn't stop the German army.

If it were me, I'd play the angle that slaughtering civillians as a method of phsychological warfare can be neither 'necessary' no 'justified' no matter the circumstances.

And that the entire point of the war was to stop genocide and that wiping out entire populations simply because they're German is blatant genocide.

Then there's the whole thing about it being nothing more than an opportunity for Bomber Command to show off (they even said so, many times) so they could get the go-ahead for attacking Berlin, but that they completely ignored the fact that if Dresden were a 17 century wooden fort, Berlin would be Cheyenne Mountain.

[an0n]

Y'know, a better way to have done this woulda been to have just started a thread about "Man, they kicked Dresden's ****en ass" and let nature take its course.

[karajorma]

Personally I reckon Dresden was an attempt to pay Germany back for Coventry.

[an0n]

Definitely.

The RAF was itchin' to **** them up for that.

[vyper]

The object of the exercise was to horrify the Germans, making the consequence of continued resistance against the Allied invasion so horrific (i.e. another city loses a couple of hundred feet in height) that it'd be impossible to contemplate.

[vyper]

And Rictor, I still like Churchill.

[Janos]

You just lost.

Shortly:
1) Show of power
2) Vengeance
3) Attempt to demoralize population
4) Attempt to crush what little military stuff the city could have had (this is highly controversial, I wouldn't use it).
5) LET'S ROLL

Firebombing of Dresden was maybe the biggest mistake the Western Allies did in the entire ETO (after the war Soviets used it in their own propaganda) and has been subject to ~thousands of debates. Try the fallacious "appeal to emotion", and say that because WAs fought for freedom blah blah blah and were enraged cause of Hitler's decision to bomb civilian targets (Luftwaffe had continued to attack on military targets instead), following Hammurab's law could only result in more resistance. Expect to get flamed for this. The bombing had little to do with war effort, since Germany was already moving troops to Eastern Front and basically trying to make the WAs get to Berlin before the Soviets.

Also, be aware that no really accurate details of civilian casualties of Dresden exist. All numbers are propably exaggerated in one way or another. Estimations vary from 20 000 to 220 000. Go figure.

[Rictor]

Quotes from Sir Arthur [“Bomber”] Harris (1892-1984) - British Air Marshal and Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command

“In Bomber Command we have always worke on the assumption that bombing anything in Germany is better than bombing nothing.”

“I would not regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British grenadier.”

“The aim of the combined Bomber Offensive . . . should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany.”

[an0n]

Damn right, too.

WW1 ****ed up war as a thing of heroes and WW2 ****ed up the concept of genocide being a good idea.

In the space of 20-30 years, thousands of years of military, social and cultural doctrine went out the window because some moron said "Hey, why not build big ditches to hide in?".

Up until WW1 the unrelenting slaughter of enemy civillians was common practice. Maybe not as a battle tactic, but if they started ****ing with the occupying troops, armies used to just fire into the crowd.

[Rictor]

and how wonderful it was! the blood, the power, the sheer sense of being God almight over these helpless peasants!

don't worry, you'll grow up one day. And if not, you can always get a cushy job at some American think-tank, they're filled to the brim with people just like you.

[an0n]

It's times like these that I wonder why they bother wasting money teaching kids history.

I'll put this as simply as I can without using an excessive amount of custom smilies and 15-pt Comic Sans:

Every civilization in history has, at some point, engaged in offensive practices such as razing populated towns to the ground as a matter of course.

The colonials that founded America butchered hundreds of thousands of natives and use biological warfare against them.

The Aztecs and Incas made slaughter a part of their everyday lives.

The Romans...well, they used them as slaves, but they were like thousands of years ahead of everyone else.

Beginning to see a pattern?

[Rictor]

Oh no, I'm not denying it hasn't been a pattern throughout history, what I am asking is, is that the best way? Its stupid to base your idealogy on historical observations alone. If everyone did that, women would have no right, neither would anyone of colour, the working class would be virtual-slaves (you among them), politics would be controled by a narrow elite (oh wait) and 85% of the population would be perpetually on the verge of starvation.

There is no reason at all why it is impossible to break the chain, if you will. I refuse to be governed by what happened before I was even born. I choose to live my life a certain way, and I'll be damned if the ghosts of history are going to tell me otherwise. You can cite examples till you're blue in the face, but you don't come a single step closer to proving that the idealogy is worth pursuing.

[an0n]

Hows about this: It is logistical and morale suicide to support defeated opponents.

It's a drain on resources, presents a potential for latter uprisings, rebellion and sabotage at critical moments during the war and essentially dumps an extra million people into your "Have to guard" column while you're struggling not to have your tanks blown to **** by the enemy, whom the captured citizens are probably feeding information to.

Dead people need no guards.

, you don't even need to kill them. You just need to destroy the city. The goal should be to cause as much damage as possible regardless of casualties. Doing so absolutely destroys enemy morale and dumps a million people into their 'have to guard' column while wiping out ****loads of their resources and making sure they can never retake the city and its supplies.

If you say that bombing civillians is a no-no, you prolong the war and force yourself into a war of attrition, which will probably cause more suffering across a wider area than killing a few hundred thousands civillians and a few million homes to force an early conclusion.