All is Fair in Love and War

13 February 1945 saw the large scale bombing of Dresden close to the end of World War II by 1249 combined RAF and USAAF bombers.

60 years later these German ladies chose a topless protest in Dresden in support of "Bomber Harris" the British Air Marshall who orchestrated the campaign.

This was a dark day for Dresden, destroying over 1600 acres of City center and killing an estimated 25,000 civilians, but could have exceeded 100,000, many of them refugees trying to escape the advancing Russian army. Locals have been appalled by the protest, Kai Schulz the City spokesperson said "Nice breasts but a really stupid message."

But these days we are more used to protests against Bomber Harris. The Queen Mother was surprised by jeers during the unveiling of a statue of Harries in London's Strand in 1992. Subsequently the statue was guarded 24 hours per day for three months.

Harris received high decorations from British, Russian, and American authorities at the end of the War in regard of his efforts having substantially shortened the War and therefore the suffering for many millions of people. Others see him as a blood thirsty War Criminal. The mass 'area-bombing' attacks indiscriminately included civilians in the targeted areas, as 'casualties of war.' This was distasteful to Churchill, but reluctantly he condoned it as part of the policy of 'Total War.' There is some evidence that not avoiding civilian casualties during strategic bombing was started as an accident by lost German bombers, and German command having realised that the gloves were off continued with it deliberately, and that Allied bombing of German civilian targets was just tit-for-tat. I am not sure how much of that is true, the idea of 'area-bombing' was conceived by Churchill's scientific advisor Professor Frederick Lindemann in 1942, and approved by the British war Cabinet. However the German 'Blitz' over London started in September 1940, where subsequent fatalities were also high.

The bombing of Dresden can be likened to that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but without the nuclear weapons: intended to demoralise the fighting populating into accepting an inevitable defeat, and thus speeding the end of the war. It was known that German atomic research was ahead of the allies at the start of the war, so the sooner it was ended without atomic bombs on European soil the better for all.