Apocalypse 1945: The Destruction of Dresden [Hardcover]

Given the hype surrounding David Irving these days it's easy to forget that he forged his previously lauded reputation as a historian as far back as 1963.
The book was "Apocalypse 1945:The Destruction of Dresden" and it certainly stands the test of time.
Having read Frederic Taylor's impressive but justificatory "Dresden 1945" I found Irving's book more objective and to be frank, more humane.
Whether one tries to ease one's conscious by playing with casualty figures or finding imaginary "real" targets, the attack on Dresden was simply indefensible and criminal.
Irving throughout this magnificent read had no agenda other than to highlight the sheer horror of what had transpired and to finally bring the atrocity to the world's attention.
It's the finer details in the book that allow one to visualise the aftermath of the aerial massacre: a llama running through the streets, vultures and lions feeding on the bodies (the zoo was destroyed), bodies stuck to the asphalt in a final embrace, basements with children mummified in pools of boiled wine, the trains packed with refugees at the platform as the mass of incendiaries crash down through the station roof...etc.
Surprisingly Mr Irving comes to the defence of Arthur "Bomber" Harris portraying him as a loyal servant conveniently scapegoated by Churchill who wanted a "Dresden" to impress the Soviets.
It is Irving's willingness to say the unsayable, to give voice to the silent villified victims, to see the war from the other side, that has brought me back time and again to his books.
Noone else can match him when it comes to bearing the unpalatable truths of war.
All other WW2 writers, without exception, excuse the behaviour of the victors and condemn the vanquished as a matter of course.
Irving chose a different, less accomodating path and has paid a high price.
Don't let his reputation scare you away. The greater your antipathy the more likely you will be to be won over by his works.
There should be a statue to Mr Irving in Dresden for his service in piercing the veil of lies and propaganda that had hidden this war crime from the eyes of the public for nearly 20 years.
Not now perhaps, but in a later kinder age, when the shadow of persecutory PC has been banished forever, David Irving's books will be compulsory reading.

This book is mostly a reprint of Irving's classic 1963 THE DESTRUCTION OF DRESDEN. There is, however, an introductory paragraph which introduces the reader to the reaction after the 1963 book. Casualty figures are also explained and amended, including with information that has come to light since 1963. Irving, in this work, supports a figure of between 60,000 and 100,000 as the most probable death toll caused by the February 13-14, 1945 raids. He notes that official casualty figures of about 35,000 ignore large areas where the human remains were not removed from the bulldozed, paved-over ruins, nor those bodies incinerated without a trace.

The attack on Dresden consisted of three parts: The first two were by the British RAF, at night, and directed at the center of the city. The third part of the triple blow, by the United States Army Air Force, occurred during the following day, and was devoted to the industrial part of the city. Owing to the fact that the American attack was scattered and therefore unsuccessful, while the British attacks all too successful, the attack on Dresden thereby went down in history as one where the civilian-cultural center was destroyed and the industrial part was "spared".

Irving gives details about the firestorm, which he believes was more powerful than the one at Hamburg in 1943. Hurricane-force winds tore trees out by the roots, and overturned railroad cars. In the areas hardest hit by the firestorm, almost everything combustible was consumed. However, most of the victims perished not from heat but from carbon monoxide, as is the case with most peacetime fires.

Extensive details are given about the disposal of corpses. Thousands were taken out of the city and buried in individual and mass graves. However, about 10,000 corpses were burned in massive pyres at the center of the city. Irving describes these, and includes photos of the pyres. Although this work does not touch on Holocaust denial, the implications are there. Holocaust deniers keep telling us that bodies are very hard to burn, and it is almost impossible to burn thousands of bodies at a time, at least not without a massive outlay of fuel. In actually, thousands of bodies were burned without problem with only a small amount of straw placed between the layers of bodies, and a small amount of gasoline used to start the fires. [Note that, of the death camps, only Auschwitz-Birkenau and Maidanek used crematory ovens: The rest used open-air pyres. So did Birkenau when the crematories proved unable to keep up with the bodies].

This work is topical in another way. Jan T. Gross, in his FEAR and GOLDEN HARVEST, has depicted Poles as some sort of primitive people prone to steal from the dead (in this case, from dead Jews). In actuality, exploitation of the properties and bodies of the dead is hardly limited to certain Poles. It is, in fact, conducted by some members of virtually all nationalities. Irving describes how British and American POWs, and Germans, looted the bombed-out ruins of Dresden. A certain German had taken 150-180 rings from the bodies before getting caught. (p. 204).

I bought and read this book first time in 1973 when I was

living and working in Nairobi,Kenya.

Since then, I read a lot of English and American literature

on carpet bombing and many of those books were really

outstanding material, full of knowledge and understanding.

A big question remains unanwered: why the 'average' Anglo-

American people are,after so many years,still unaware of

what happened and ready to put all the blame on 'the other

side of the hill', so to repeat the same mistakes?