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Soon the fireworks began. Free Sign Up. The allied bombing of Dresden, Germany, from February 13 th, 1945, to February 15 th, 1945, epitomizes Werrell's statement. As it was so close to the raging flames, we were accompanied by a water truck with bags of wet rags and towels. None of our guards seemed to take any notice. The flames became more intense. The whole place caught fire and the building collapsed in a crescendo of smoke and flames. Coming towards us, a small group of survivors tried to cross what had once been a road, only to get stuck in molten tar. Syria's tiny victims: These harrowing images of children hit... Father-of-three, 32, who battered a man with a WRENCH claims... Farm Heroes Saga, the #4 Game on iTunes. Many Dresden residents died of collapsed lungs. As the noise of the planes died away, people started to appear from the few houses that were still intact, while other survivors clawed their way up through huge mounds of rubble, Once in, it was impossible to climb back up the smooth-faced concrete sides, and men and women were trapped in water that slowly rose to boiling point. One by one, these unfortunates sank to the ground and died in a pyre of smoke and flame. Elisabeth, who was a young woman of around 20 at the time of the Dresden bombing, has written memoirs for her children in which she describes what happened to her in Dresden. In Monday's Style section story on the bombing of Dresden, the city should have been described as being in eastern Germany, and the city of Leipzig was misspelled. In papers discovered by his son after his death last year, he provides a searing eyewitness account of the ‘obscene brutality’ that inspired his novel Slaughterhouse-Five We found ourselves faced with a still-smouldering, 20ft-high heap of rubble. The raids that began on February 13, 1945, left the city littered with corpses, and tens of thousands of Dresden’s buildings had been turned to rubble, including its famous opera house and museums in the historic old city. The heavy metal door opened slowly to reveal a horrific sight. We were both condemned men, awaiting our turn for execution. The framework has proved its mettle, but will the country coalesce into a governable entity whose members will find a way to cooperate for the common good? Everything that could burn was alight — even the roads were burning rivers of bubbling and hissing tar. Middlebrook draws on personal accounts by participants, witnesses and survivors from both sides and from as many different kinds of involvement as possible: flight and ground crew, anti-aircraft gunners, radar operators, controllers, air raid wardens, night fighter pilots, civilians. What saved me were the clogs I'd been given me to wade through snow to the soap factory. Harry suggested to me and the Yanks that it might be a good idea for us to kick some of the other prisoners away from the wall and get down as low as we could to give us a better chance of survival. We trudged into the embers and started shovelling masonry in the hope of uncovering cellars where people had sheltered. Q&A: How is the COVID vaccine rollout unfolding around the world? Having survived the bombing attacks due to being held in the outskirts of the city, he was pressed into service by the Dresden fire brigades searching for survivors. What follows is Victors graphic account of the fate of Dresden, Dresden the city with no defences, there are accounts of what Victor found whilst helping to find survivors and his accounts of seeing people sucked into fires, three bombing raids followed each other, nationality means nothing when you are helping to find civilans hopefully trapped in their cellars where they might have escaped the firestorm Renner remembers the streets still being littered with bodies a week after the attack and coming across the corpse of a woman in a square. After half an hour, the second wave of bombers started to thin out. Finally, we found ourselves in open fields, and followed a railway line towards a station, from which a huge column of smoke and fire was climbing into the sky. The bombing was controversial because Dresden's contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities — though it was a key transport junction and used by German forces to defend the country against Soviet forces approaching from the east. British rifleman Victor Gregg (pictured) was one of hundreds of men being held as a PoW in the city by the Germans. Seeking shelter in the basement of the house she lived in she writes, “Then the detonation of bombs started rocking the earth and in a great panic, everybody came rushing down. So now we have a request. It was never about whether being Republican was OK. Play it now. I have every respect for the brave lads of the RAF who flew those bombers. We ended up in a German work camp to the south of Dresden. Dresden is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and is the largest city on the River Elbe after Hamburg.Its origin was as a Slav settlement on the north bank called "Drezdzany", meaning “Forest Dwellers on the Plain.”. After some hot soup, black bread and coffee made from acorns, I joined a team of 40 men — all selected by the German officer. Dresden's old timber-framed houses were, one by one, succumbing to the fire, and most of the wreckage was landing on top of the cellars that people were using as shelters. 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. About two months later, they dropped him off at a transit camp, where he was told to board the next plane to 'Blighty'.Â. A whole string of them hit the ground, one after the other in rapid succession — like a drum roll. I joined the rest of my group again for the heart-rending job of opening the cellars, dragging out what was left of the people inside and piling them up for burning with oil and petrol. The city was now a mass of flame rising into the night. Rifleman Victor Gregg recalls the firestorm left behind when Allies attacked the city in 1945 Later that day when the survivors made their way out of the smoldering city, the U.S. air force began bombing on Dresden’s roads, bridges, railways, and homes and killed thousands more. 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Victor Gregg remained above ground throughout the firebombing. It was while I was being attended to by a German doctor that the sirens started yet again. Day three. In spite of all our back-breaking toil, this was the only time I found anyone alive. It was February 13, 1945. The Allied decision to firebomb Dresden — immortalized in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse Five” — has long been a source of controversy. My first reaction was: 'Good, can't wait to get back to my own mob.'. By February 15, Dresden, in eastern Germany, was a smouldering ruin — 2,400 tons of high explosives and 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. The first three shelters we uncovered were empty, but further examination of the third revealed a tunnel leading to another shelter. Download for offline reading, highlight, bookmark or take notes while you read Dresden: A Survivor's Story, February 1945. After reading this account it is clear why the raids on this city have not received a lot of attention by authors of WWII history. Eyewitness Götz Bergander Recalls the Bombing of Dresden (Retrospective Account) From February 13-15, 1945, British and American warplanes bombed the city of Dresden. More than 1,600 acres (6.5 sq km) within the city were either flattened or gutted, and a final death toll was tallied only in 2010, by the Dresden Historians’ Commission.. More than seven decades on from the Allied bombing, one of the event’s survivors, a former paratrooper, describes the late night blitz as “more than” a war crime. The Fire-bombing of Dresden An eye-witness account Since the facts of the combined USAF and RAF raids on Dresden became known, mostly through the novel 'Slaughterhouse Five' by Kurt Vonnegut, there has been great controversy as to why this appalling raid was considered necessary. They were trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the advancing Red Army. He was dead. A couple of Yanks there told us that the Germans took 30 men away every morning, and that was the last anyone ever saw of them. Some historians, however, said the destruction was a tragic waste of human life and cultural patrimony — with little to no effect on the outcome of the war. The phosphorous clung to their bodies, turning them into human torches. Dresden had no defences, no anti-aircraft guns, no searchlights, nothing. Even so, our bodies shook as the ground vibrated. British rifleman Victor Gregg was one of hundreds of men being held as a PoW in the city by the Germans. “To sacrifice 25,000 woman and children, innocent people for that? We are no longer accepting comments on this article. When I came to, I managed to free myself from some fallen beams and lumps of stonework, and stumbled over the debris towards where I'd last seen Harry. Nazi propaganda from 1945 put the death toll at 200,000 and after the war some scholars estimated as many as 135,000 were killed — more than the combined total of those immediately killed by the nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As the noise of the planes died away, people started to appear from the few houses that were still intact, while other survivors clawed their way up through huge mounds of rubble.Â. Biden says 'that's one of the few things we agree on' after Trump snubs his inauguration, but insists he would be 'honored' if Mike Pence comes, Does the US have its own mutant super strain of COVID? As the morning grew lighter, it seemed the whole of Germany was on the move. I didn't mind: even if he was the hated enemy, he represented order among the chaos. On the third day of his trek, Victor was picked up by the Russians, who tended the blisters on his back and gave him new clothes. Dresden's old timber-framed houses were, one by one, succumbing to the fire, and most of the wreckage was landing on top of the cellars that people were using as shelters. I covered Harry up with his coat and stumbled out of the building — now shaking and slowly collapsing — and found myself at the centre of a huge bonfire. The author Kurt Vonnegut was a prisoner of war in Dresden during the allied bombing raids and was later forced to dig out bodies from the ruined city. It was then that we realised we were trapped in a locked cage that stood every chance of becoming a mass grave. City in flames: the bombing of Dresden Seventy years ago, near the end of the second World War, British planes dropped 1,400 tonnes of bombs on the German city. There was no longer any need for flares to guide these bombers to their target: the whole city had become a gigantic torch. There were no complete bodies, just bones, fat and scorched articles of clothing. I sneaked out before dawn the next morning, making my way towards the north side of Dresden. It usually took a couple of hours to force our way in. Even the railway line was a mass of twisted steel. Day five. Without warning, around four incendiaries burst through our glass roof, shredding the men underneath.Â. That’s a war crime,” he said. Through the glass cupola, the sky changed from bright white to a dull red glow that danced, getting brighter and brighter before fading and dying. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community. “She was burned to a cinder, had become very small, but her hand was held up and on it was her gold wedding band, shining, not blackened at all,” said the 82-year-old retired architecture professor. Adapted from Dresden: A Survivor's Story, February 1945 by Victor Gregg with Rick Stroud, published by Bloomsbury at £5.99. In the days to come, he would see many more. They directed us to a small square that was now a bed of ash at least four inches thick.Â. Instead, we ended up fixing bits of wood to our picks and shovels to turn them into stretchers for the injured. Soon the sirens started their terrible wailing again, and I heard the throb of hundreds of heavy aircraft bearing down on us. We stumbled along the remains of a wide avenue, surrounded by fires and mountains of red-hot wreckage. 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Renner’s family made it safely to the home of one of his dentist father’s patients. 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', United joins American, Delta and Alaska airlines in refusing to allow emotional support animals on flights for free and will make passengers pay up to $125, Trump-supporting Air Force vet who was shot dead after storming the Capitol 'harassed and chased' her husband's ex on a highway and rammed her three times in a fit of jealousy, Ivanka is 'surprised and hurt' after sister-in-law Karlie Kloss slammed her for calling MAGA mob 'patriots' - as friend says First Daughter thinks the supermodel 'publicly positions herself as an activist' but fails to push any causes, Trump tweeted video calling for peace after White House counsel Pat Cipollone warned him he faces criminal charges for inciting riot - but still called supporters 'wonderful', Joe Biden tells Senate Republicans to confirm his top cabinet picks immediately after weeks of obstruction warning Pentagon, Homeland Security, State Department and Treasury roles need filled, Dancing on edge: Don Jr. shares behind-the-scenes look at Trump getting hyped up before his rally speech as his giddy girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle rocks out to Laura Branigan's Gloria - hours before Capitol riot, MAGA mob rioters smeared their own feces throughout the Capitol and 'tracked brown footprints', Hope Hicks joins the exodus saying she is leaving the White House next week but is NOT resigning in disgust - leaving Ivanka as one of the only 'Trump whisperers' left, Trump supporter protects black woman after angry MAGA mob 'shoved her, ripped off her wig, and called her the N-word' when she walked past a Stop the Steal rally in LA, Dominion sues Donald Trump's loony lawyer Sidney Powell for $1.3 BILLION in damages after hinting they'll sue president tooÂ, During the final months of World War II, from February 13 to 15, 1945, Allied forces bombed the ancient, cathedral city of Dresden, in eastern. After that, we were marched in front of the officer in charge of Dresden police, who told us there were strict penalties for sabotage: we were to be taken to a place where we'd wait to be executed. Flares were still making their way to the ground when the first of the bomber streams flew over the city, dropping thousands of incendiaries and the first of the bombs. By that stage of the war, my mind was conditioned to accept that killing was normal. Did my colleagues at the Pentagon think I was a security risk because this man raised that specter of dual loyalty? Only a few bombs landed in the burning city centre; most of their 1,000lb bombs were targeted at railway yards. And it did. The sheer horror of what I witnessed remains burned into my memory, impossible to extinguish, and sometimes still wakes me at night.Â. “We started the war, but it is a war crime.”. Dresden bombing still fresh for survivor, 70 years later Eberhard Renner, who was a 12-year-old boy in 1945, recalls his experience of the controversial allied assault … As more buildings collapsed, we were enveloped by a new, huge blast of heat, and the air became so hot it was painful to inhale. Finally, a German officer told me, 'Come Tommy', and handed over a 5ft crowbar. My mate Harry and I had to work each day in a soap factory, about eight kilometres from the camp. That evening, I was told I'd be joining a batch of British PoWs, unless I wanted to continue the rescue work for another day. Dresden bombing survivor Ursula Elsner, who was 14 when her mother dragged her to safety past burning buildings, told Spiegel she was tired of the anniversary being misused for political gain. The third man started running as fast as he could to catch up with us. Many people climbed into huge concrete water containers erected by the city authorities. Even as air-raid sirens started screaming 70 years ago Friday, Renner’s father dismissed the attack as another reconnaissance mission. Again, I joined the crews unearthing shelters under tons of rubble. 'Victor Gregg is the most remarkable spokesman for the war generation' Dan SnowIn Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut fictionalised his time as a prisoner of war in Dresden in 1945. This time, it was the Americans. Sadly, this was a one-off event. The heat was ferocious. Only 500 yards of open land separated us from the heart of the city, yet not one bomb landed on us. About 30 of us, armed only with picks and shovels, marched back towards the flames. We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month. Financial institutions urged to invest NIS 20 billion in green infrastructure, Biden to give out vaccine reserves in bid to speed up lagging US campaign, Tesla CEO Elon Musk overtakes Amazon’s Bezos to become world’s richest person, Biden to pick Orthodox Jewish woman for White House cybersecurity post — report, Former mayor seriously injured amid spate of shootings among Arab Israelis, Cleantech startup UBQ converts used face masks into ecofriendly material, When we group Trumpists together with real Nazis, we blind ourselves to pain they feel – which we must see before we can expect them to see the pain of others. “I will never forget this scene.”. When three of our group refused to follow, he pulled a pistol from his holster and shot two of them at point-blank range. Then I thought: what if the Germans found out that I was condemned to death? They must have known Dresden had no defences, because their fighters flew down almost to street level. 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