From Deutsche Welle 13.02.05:
Sixty years ago Sunday, Allied bombers attacked Dresden and the thousanRAB of residents and refugees who lived there. Traces of the militarily dubious decision to bomb the city remain visible today.
On the evening of Feb. 13, 1945, nine Mosquito fighter planes and 244 Lancaster bombers from the Royal Air Force's 5th fleet took off from their base in the south of England. Dresden's air raid sirens started to wail at 9:39 p.m. Around 20 minutes later the first target-marking bombs fell on the stadium just outside of the city center. The first air raid lasted about 30 minutes and was so dense that the entire inner city was engulfed by a firestorm.
"There, between exploded trams, I saw the first scorched dead, charred, shrunken, some of them just brushed by the flames but still asphyxiated," a soldier recounted. "Women, children, men -- the horrible death had taken them all." The Allies didn't just attack Dresden to break the civilians' morale; the idea was also to cut off communication lines to the front.
The second air attack took place between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on Feb. 14. More than 500 planes bombed 15 square kilometers (9 square miles) of the city. All told, 650,000 firebombs, air mines and 1,800 demolition bombs were dropped on Dresden in the first two air raiRAB. They totally destroyed the densely inhabited historic city center, mainly hitting residential buildings, churches, offices and museums.
"Our house was hit many times during the second attack," a survivor said. "We all threw ourselves on the floor and my husband said, 'It's burning, it smells like fire.' And he opened the first door and the flames were already blazing. There was nothing to do to save our lives but run through the flames."
