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

[JonLP24]

121. I don't know the details of this -- but similar examples are the problem with war

the noble intentions can be marketed very well, rescuing the people from the Viet Cong who were fighting leaders who seized power with a corrupt referendum. Operation Iraqi Freedom. ETC.

Elements of the military campaign take things to far. Distant Land of My Father tells a story about an American business in Shanghai and the book really sells Shanghai as like the greatest place on earth pre-war that never was the same, even in the 80's when it isn't like it was. He was locked away in a harsh prison by the Japanese, released than detained for years in harsh prison conditions by the Communists.

It didn't mention politics of the international & civil conflicts, just mentions rumors of Japanese aggression, bombs dropping, Japanese troops on what grounds they locked him away for.

Then mentions Communist take over, the grounds he was locked away over in brutal inhumane conditions. I can't oversell the vivid picture of pre-war Shanghai, the conditions, to how the prison was ran and guarded. Just offers a perspective not only of Shanghai & the prisons nearby before and since but also of LA during and post war because his daughter & wife were living there. Basically it tells a story of loss that can never be returned.

Massive unemployment & WWI resentments were key to Hitler's rise in power. While these debates reportedly rage on, I'm interested on the perspectives from those bombed and this is closest it comes in the article

Not everyone was convinced by city bombing. Numerous military and church leaders voiced strong opposition. Freemason Dyson, now one of Britain’s most eminent physicists, worked at Bomber Command from 1943-5. He said it eroded his moral beliefs until he had no moral position at all. He wanted to write about it, but then found the American novelist Kurt Vonnegut had said everything he wanted to say.

Like Gregg, Vonnegut had been a prisoner in Dresden that night. He claimed that only one person in the world derived any benefit from the slaughterhouse — him, because he wrote a famous book about it which pays him two or three dollars for every person killed.

Germany’s bombing of British cities was equally abhorrent. Germany dropped 35,000 tons on Britain over eight months in 1940-1 killing an estimated 39,000. (In total, the UK and US dropped around 1.9 million tons on Germany over 7 years.)

Bombing German cities clearly did have an impact on the war. The question, though, is how much. The post-war US Bombing Survey estimated that the effect of all allied city bombing probably depleted the German economy by no more than 2.7 per cent.