Dresden was a civilian town with no military significance. Why did we burn its people?

[Pooka Fey]

86. 26 German and 1 Polish assination attempts on Hitler over 10 years - this was a Resistance

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_attempts_on_Adolf_Hitler

To add to the discussion tonight, I must ask also why many villages in Normandy, those with no strategic significance, were equally bombed to rubble by the Allies, since the French civilians were not our enemies, and certainly NOT wartime accomplices to the Nazis.

There are many elderly French still alive today in Normandy who lived through this. The French people are eternally grateful to the allies, I hope no one questions this. To this day, French schoolchildren place flowers on the graves in the American cemetery in Colleville, and that will never stop. Look at the splendor of the 70th Anniversary of D-Day celebrations in Normandy, attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, I might add.

The French are grateful to the Allies for their liberation.

I just finished reading the memoirs of a downed American pilot, Ted Fahrenwald, called "Bailout over Normandy". Great book. He speaks of how much he admired the French civilians who welcomed the Allies while trying their best to hide their tears and grief over the bombings of their towns and their families.

French resistors risked their lives and that of their families to help the Allies. But many of the Normandy towns bombed by the Allies had NO strategic significance. The French Resistance was so horrified by this, that they started to question what was happening.

The French are a very practical people, they say "C'était la guerre" (It was war). But after 70 years, historians are finally daring to examine this question.

Cheers