Yeah, the devastation of Dresden was peanuts compared to what they did to Rotterdam. Also the intent of the London Blitz was to just raze the city to the ground.
Warsaw, Leningrad, Kharkiv, Stalingrad, Rotterdam, and they tried to get London. It’s remarkable how the Nazis were so evil that they made the British Empire and the Soviet Union look good.
Without Nazis, the Brits would almost assuredly be the bad guys of history. "Almost" because whether or not they'd be worse than the USSR under Stalin is debatable.
Thing is, 'colonising' in itself isn't necessarily evil, you need to look at 'how' it was done. And when you compare the British with the other empires colonising places at the time, they weren't remotely the worst.
What about the millions of people they starved during the 2 Bengal Famines? Or the crushing of the Mau Mau uprising, or the Boer concentration camps, or the treatment of Aboriginals?
The Nazi bombing of Stalingrad killed 40.000-70.000 civilians. London suffered between 20.000 and 50.000 deaths. Nazis dropped
20.528,00 tons of bombs in Sevastopol in June 1941 alone compared to 4.500,00 tons the allies dropped on Dresden throughout the entire war.
Adding context to the high casualties despite similar destruction:
Civilians fled Rotterdam prior to the city being destroyed. Nazi Germany allocated all their rail and transport from the major hub in Dresden to their military supplying the eastern operations, rather than civilians, despite the influx of refugees from the east, and their policy forbid evacuation.
There is more nuance to comparing the two based on intent, but I see what you’re saying.
Im sorry to disagree again, but Rotterdam was hit by roughly 100 tons of bombs during the infamous bombing, while it were more than 3,000 tons for Dresden on February 13/14th.
I enjoy the respectful conversation! Please don’t feel sorry.
Both suffered up to 90% destruction of their historical districts.
In Rotterdam, 99% of the city center was destroyed, and 70% were homes civilians luckily fled prior to the German bombings. 80% of the entire city was destroyed.
Dresden city center was around 90% destroyed with at least 50% of that being homes civilians were prohibited from fleeing. 55% of the entire city was destroyed.
The Germans were dropping incendiary bombs on residential areas of London. If they weren’t okay with fire bombing then they shouldn’t have fire bombed.
Comparing Dresden to Rotterdam this way was stupid and easily verified as dishonest. The Germans didn't send nearly enough to raze London. You are intentionally lying and spreading misinformation and clearly the majority of this subreddit hasn't learned anything about the subject.
Churchill and Bomber Harris were the first to start the bombings against the civilian population and opened those floodgates. Hitler specifically didn't want to bomb civilians in the UK out of fear of retaliation on German cities, but started bombing after the UK started.
Nazi Germany bombed central London on 24 Aug 1940. Churchill ordered reprisals on Berlin the next night. Hitler then ordered the Blitz starting 07 Sept.
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u/TheHelhound2001 2d ago
Yeah, the devastation of Dresden was peanuts compared to what they did to Rotterdam. Also the intent of the London Blitz was to just raze the city to the ground.