Legende und Wirklichkeit (German Edition)

Polit-Kriminalfall Reichstags-Brand : Legende und Wirklichkeit

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Fachtagung Leonberg, Germany Physical Description p.

Series Schellingiana ; Bd. Liberty -- History -- 19th century -- Congresses.

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Transcendentalism -- History -- 19th century -- Congresses. Notes Includes bibliographical references and index. One contribution in English. View online Borrow Buy Freely available Show 0 more links Set up My libraries How do I set up "My libraries"? This single location in All: University of Sydney Library. Open to the public Conference Proceedings German Show 0 more libraries This single location in New South Wales: None of your libraries hold this item.

A reason for this strange situation might be that the raid on Dresden is connected with some tough legends even today.

One of these legends repeated over and over again is that the attacking planes deliberately machine-gunned the people fleeing from the firestorm onto the spacious areas along the Elbe river banks. It was claimed that British bombers descended to low level after dropping their bombs in order to use their defensive gun armament against the inhabitants of Dresden. And worse still, after the American bombers had turned away from their destructive daytime attack their escort fighters allegedly dived to tree-top height and persistently strafed the shocked and panicked people crowding the Elbe banks.

Up to 10, people - so it was and still is claimed - have been killed that way. On each anniversary of the Dresden bombing dozens of letters reach the offices of German newspapers, describing what their authors claim to have personally witnessed: The "Mustangs" made several firing passes, spreading bloodshed and destruction among the civilians, not sparing wounded, nurses, children, not even POWs of their own nationality, which by coincidence had been in the town. These authors are absolutely convinced about the authenticity of their written memories.

This event is repeatedly described as the point where the air war against civilians reached a new and most ruthless quality; the official Allied claim that not the people, but their homes are the bombing target, could not be upheld any longer, because it was clear that the civilians themselves where targeted. So may we consider something as historical truth if it is repeated over and over again? When Goetz Bergander, himself a survivor of the attacks on Dresden, published his book on the attacks in [1] , he used oral history sources only as far as they could be confirmed by documental proof in the archives.

At that point he found out that not a single document of British or American origin supported the stories about low-level strafing attacks in Dresden.

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When he wrote this, he was at once fiercely attacked by many people in Germany and even some politicians, accusing him of being ignorant to "facts". In subsequent editions Bergander elaborated his research and claimed that in fact the infamous attacks had never taken place. Instead he located low-level attacks on that day at least one hundred kilometres away from Dresden.

But the result of Bergander's writing was nil, as the same stories about the machine-gunning "Mustangs" circulated again, being quoted in TV shows and newspaper articles. Now Helmut Schnatz, who as a boy witnessed the bombing campaign against German cities in Koblenz, tries to shed light on the apparent contradictions between Bergander's research and the many eyewitness accounts subjecting every source to an in-depth analysis and critical examination.

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His book starts with a chronology of written treatments of the low-level attacks in the literature, and, most interestingly, he finds out that the German propaganda did not use these attacks, which by themselves would have proven formidable propaganda ammunition against the "inhuman and ruthless Anglo-American way of warfare".

The first stories about strafing attacks - sometimes claimed to have taken place at night, sometimes at daylight - appeared during the Fifties. But while most of these accounts were published in trivial books and magazines, it has to be credited to the British historian David Irving to supply the story with a scientific outfit.

Seemingly based on British and American documents he gave a detailed account on the American strafing attacks, quietly ignoring the often-published rumour of British low-level attacks at night, well aware of their technical impossibility.

Nearly at once Irving's writings were accepted as scientifically proved facts and adopted in nearly all later publications, including his figure of , bombing victims. Moreover, its scientific appearance made it a seemingly valid base for all later claims about the authenticity of the low-level attacks.

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And in spite of his later reputation as a historian with a unique view of documental proof, nobody - except the above-mentioned Bergander - questioned Irving's statements until today. Schnatz continues with an in-depth description of the tactics of low-level attacks and the technology of the planes and their armament, transferring this information onto the particular conditions at Dresden during and shortly after the massive bombing raids.

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He concludes that any low-level strafing attack during the night bombings would have meant to fly directly into the firestorm one has to consider that during the Tokyo raid the massive B bombers had serious problems to keep their course in 6, ft height due to the turbulences caused by the firestorm , through smoke and temperatures hot enough to melt parts of the plane, with virtually no sight on any obstacles, let alone individual people in the street. Therefore Schnatz states that nighttime strafing attacks in Dresden were technically impossible.

The situation was somewhat different the next day, since the firestorm had calmed down. But here also technical reasons made strafing attacks in the allegedly observed scale impossible:

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