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The bombing of Dresden was a UK/US aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, that took place during the Second World War in the European Theatre. Germany would surrender three months later. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city.〔 *The number of bombers and tonnage of bombs are taken from a USAF document written in 1953 and classified secret until 1978 . * Taylor (2005), front flap, which gives the figures 1,100 heavy bombers and 4,500 tons. * Webster and Frankland (1961) give 805 Bomber Command aircraft 13 February 1945 and 1,646 US bombers 16 January – 17 April 1945. . ("Mission accomplished" ), ''The Guardian'', 7 February 2004.〕 The bombing and the resulting firestorm destroyed over of the city centre. An estimated 22,700〔 to 25,000〔 people were killed. Three more USAAF air raids followed, two occurring on 2 March aimed at the city's railroad marshaling yard and one small raid on 17 April aimed at industrial areas. Immediate German propaganda claims following the attacks and post-war discussions〔Norwood, 2013, page 237〕 on whether the attacks were justified has led to the bombing becoming one of the moral ''causes célèbres'' of the war.〔: Cites Ronald Schaffer. Note: The casualty figures are now considered lower than those from the firebombing of some other Axis cities; see Tokyo 9–10 March 1945, approximately 100,000 dead, and Hamburg July 1943, approximately 50,000 dead 〕 A 1953 United States Air Force report defended the operation as the justified bombing of a military and industrial target, which they claimed was a major rail transport and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers in support of the German war effort.〔.〕 Several researchers have asserted that not all of the communications infrastructure, such as the bridges, was targeted, nor were the extensive industrial areas outside the city centre. Critics of the bombing argue that Dresden was a cultural landmark of little or no military significance, and that the attacks were indiscriminate area bombing and not proportionate to the commensurate military gains. Large variations in the claimed death toll have fueled the controversy. In March 1945, the German government ordered its press to publish a falsified casualty figure of 200,000 for the Dresden raids, and death toll estimates as high as 500,000 have been given. The city authorities at the time estimated no more than 25,000 victims, a figure that subsequent investigations, including a 2010 study commissioned by the city council, support. ==Background== Early in 1945, after the German offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge had been exhausted — including the disastrous attack by the Luftwaffe on New Year's Day involving elements of eleven combat wings of the Luftwaffe's day fighter force — and after the Red Army had launched their Silesian Offensives into pre-war German territory, the German army was retreating on all fronts, but still resisting strongly. On 8 February 1945, the Red Army crossed the Oder River, with positions just 70 km from Berlin. As the Eastern and Western Fronts were getting closer, the Western Allies started to consider how they might aid the Soviets with the use of the strategic bomber force. They planned to bomb Berlin and several other eastern cities in conjunction with the Soviet advance—to cause confusion among German troops and refugees, and hamper German reinforcement from the west. A special British Joint Intelligence Subcommittee report titled ''German Strategy and Capacity to Resist'', prepared for Winston Churchill's eyes only, predicted that Germany might collapse as early as mid-April if the Soviets overran them at their eastern defences. Alternatively, the report warned that the Germans might hold out until November if they could prevent the Soviets from taking Silesia. Hence any assistance provided to the Soviets on the Eastern Front could shorten the war. At the time of bombing, the Soviets were conducting their Lower Silesian Offensive. Plans for a large and intense aerial bombing of Berlin and the other eastern cities had been discussed under the code name Operation Thunderclap in mid-1944, but it had been shelved on 16 August. These were now re-examined, and the decision made to draw up a more limited operation. On 22 January, the RAF director of bomber operations, Air Commodore Sydney Bufton, sent a memo to the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir Norman Bottomley, suggesting that what appeared to be a coordinated air attack by the RAF to aid the current Soviet offensive would have a detrimental effect on German morale. On 25 January, the Joint Intelligence Committee supported the idea—as it tied in with the ULTRA-based intelligence that dozens of German divisions deployed in the west were moving to reinforce the Eastern Front, and that interdiction of these troop movements should be a high priority. Arthur Harris, AOC Bomber Command (nicknamed "Bomber" Harris in the British press, and known as an ardent supporter of area bombing) was asked for his opinion, and proposed a simultaneous attack on Chemnitz, Leipzig and Dresden. That evening Churchill asked the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, what plans had been drawn up to carry out these proposals. He passed on the request to Sir Charles Portal, the Chief of the Air Staff, who answered that "We should use available effort in one big attack on Berlin and attacks on Dresden, Leipzig, and Chemnitz, or any other cities where a severe blitz will not only cause confusion in the evacuation from the East, but will also hamper the movement of troops from the West". He mentioned that aircraft diverted to such raids should not be taken away from the current primary tasks of destroying oil production facilities, jet aircraft factories, and submarine yards. Churchill was not satisfied with this answer and, on 26 January, pressed Sinclair for a plan of operations: "I asked (night ) whether Berlin, and no doubt other large cities in east Germany, should not now be considered especially attractive targets.... Pray report to me tomorrow what is going to be done". In response to Churchill's enquiry, Sinclair approached Bottomley, who asked Harris to undertake attacks on Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, and Chemnitz, as soon as moonlight and weather allowed, "...with the particular object of exploiting the confused conditions which are likely to exist in the above mentioned cities during the successful Russian advance." This activity allowed Sinclair to inform Churchill on 27 January of Air Staff agreement, "subject to the overriding claims" on other targets under the Pointblank Directive, strikes against communications in these cities to disrupt civilian evacuation from the east and troop movement from the west would be made. On 31 January, Bottomley sent a message to Portal saying a heavy attack on Dresden and other cities "will cause great confusion in civilian evacuation from the east and hamper movement of reinforcements from other fronts". British historian Frederick Taylor mentions a further memo sent to the Chiefs of Staff Committee by Sir Douglas Evill on 1 February, in which Evill states interfering with mass civilian movements was a major, even key, factor in the decision to bomb the city centre. Attacks there, where main rail junctions, telephone systems, city administration, and utilities were located, would result in chaos. Britain had learned this after the Coventry Blitz, when loss of this crucial infrastructure had longer-lasting effects than attacks on war plants. During the Yalta Conference on 4 February, the Deputy Chief of the Soviet General Staff, General Aleksei Antonov, raised the issue of hampering the reinforcement of German troops from the western front by paralysing the junctions of Berlin and Leipzig with aerial bombardment. In response, Portal, who was in Yalta, asked Bottomley to send him a list of objectives to discuss with the Soviets. Bottomley's list included oil plants, tank and aircraft factories, and the cities of Berlin and Dresden. A British interpreter later claimed that Antonov and Joseph Stalin asked for the bombing of Dresden, but there is no mention of these requests in the official record of the conference and the claim may be Cold War propaganda. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bombing of Dresden in World War II」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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