'It must be emphatically stated that,with the exception of Essen, we never chose special industrial firms. Because of the rapidly shrinking nazi territory the marshalling yards even gained in importance.The USAAF, the American air force, already had attacked the marshalling yards several times.Īlthough strategically important objects were officially the target of the allies, the reality turned out to be much simpler. The tracks from Berlin, Prague, Breslau,Warsaw,Leipzig and Nuremberg crossed each other here. The railroad marshalling yard was the third largest in Germany. There were present, however, hundreds of thousands of refugees. Only the railroad marshalling yards had been attacked up until February, 1945.Īlthough residential areas had been bombed in other German cities and a firestorm had been created, by coincidence, in Hamburg in July, 1943, officially the targets remained weapon factories, U- boat yards, ammunition factories, synthetic oil plants, blast furnaces and oil refineries. The city, up until 1945, was spared the tragic fates of cities like Cologne, Essen, Hamburg and Berlin.There was not much industry and the industry that was present was not considered to be vital to the German war effort.

In the course of ages, the city became known as the Florence on the Elbe, Elbflorenz, an internationally renowned city of culture.In peacetime, the city had 630,000 inhabitants and ranked as the seventh city of Germany. Introductionĭresden is the capital of Saxony. 'In order to achieve the extirpation of nazi tiranny there are no lengths of violence to which we will not go.'Ĭhurchill, 21 September 1943. will be subjected to an ordeal the like of which has never been experienced by a country in duration, severity and magnitude.'

Journey to the savage planet bomb drop