WAR CRIMES

Today, February 13, is the anniversary of the Allied firebombing of Dresden Germany. 65 years ago on February 13, 19445 the Allied forces, led by the British Royal Air Force, night bombed Dresden with high explosives and incendiary devices. The result was a fire storm that burned 15 square miles in the city center of Dresden and, by some estimates, killed over 250,000 civilians and refugees. The actual death count is unknown due to thousands of refugees who had fled to Dresden so as to avoid bombing in Western Germany.

For many, the Bombing of Dresden remains a little known example of Allied War Crimes in which the military bombed civilian populations with little or no value as a military targets. At the time of the Dresden bombing, Germany was near defeat and the war ended on May 5, 1945. Among the refugees in Dresden were US Army prisoners of war. The book Slaughter House 5, written by Kurt Vonnegut, tells of living through the bombing. In the introduction to his book he writes; "The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is. One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I'm in." Kurt Vonnegut

TODAY
German protesters stop neo-Nazi march in Dresden
By Dirk Mueller-Thederan 2-13-2010
DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) – At least 10,000 Germans formed a human chain in Dresden on Saturday and stopped neo-Nazis staging a funeral march to remember victims of the Allied air raid that flattened the city 65 years ago. About 5,000 neo-Nazis, clad in black, had gathered at Dresden's Neustadt station -- where Nazis once packed trains with Jews bound for the Auschwitz concentration camp -- hoping to stage Germany's biggest far-right march since 1945. In the past few years, the February 13 anniversary of the destruction of Dresden, in which 25,000 people were killed, has become a focus for neo-Nazis who describe the blanket bombardment as a "bombing Holocaust."

Eine Deutchland, eine Welt, Deutschland uber alles.