What People get Wrong about the Bombing of Dresden

[@KnowingBetter]

Since H3H3 have been doing more unscripted content in the last few months with their podcast, Ethan has let slip a lot of rather questionable views. I hadn't heard his take on Dresden before this but I'm almost baffled at how someone could get it so wrong. Great explanation and detailed analysis, definitely going to be watching your channel a bit.

[@hk-4738]

His reciting of literal nazi propaganda is especially ironic, given his Ashkenazi-Jewish heritage. Wait. Ashkenazi Jewish. Ashkenazi. Ashke *nazi* ...! DUN DUN DUUUN!

[@rndmcmmnt]

Ethan is the perfect example of the dichotomy of "liberal" in the U.S.- and european understanding. He seems to think himself the U.S.-liberal, standing for (supposedly) an altruistic "everyones' freedom" , but from his statements and view points, he actually seems to be more of the european-liberal, wich is the selfish "my freedom above all" world view. However he did two videos in whiteface claiming there was a war on white people...and nobody raised eybrows over that? I mean, sure suppose he is right in his outrage about that MTV video it was about back then... he mocks scorn with black face, which was a real thing in the US, and was intended to demean african americans, by inventing white face... wich was never a thing... and that's what? A well thought out satire on black people who are offended by black face, wich was intended as an insult to them? I can understand when you tell a black friend " don't let them get to you with that, it's what racists want", but that H3H3 vid wasn't about that, it was about creating a victimization that never happened. And the fact that he had to make up "white face" is kind of a proof of white privilege, because there is no white version of black face. Unless you count Eddie Griffin's routine as that, in which case, thanks for proving me right.

[@mito88]

@@hk-4738 are you germ? :)

[@hk-4738]

@@mito88 No.

[@moodist1er]

Aren't you the dood who denies Columbus was the first transatlantic slaver? Gtfo, you're in no position to verify anything as authentic or not, even when it's obviously not.

[@sharkboy85]

Wow Ethan, terrible moves, cut it out, I'm disappointed.

[@akselyoder1205]

same

[@maek234]

@Tony Wilson I think what you're getting at is that there are a lot of people in America and it's actually really hard to categorize everyone into one box. Also I think most Americans can find the us on a map, I'm not sure where you got that idea from.

[@thepulle4722]

Love the fact he’s reciting bullshit made up by people who would hate him just for his Jewish heritage

[@jamesoconnor8985]

@@SonOfHashut He is oversimplifying the truth that the US is remarkably uneducated for a developed country. The US bucks the trend that the more developed the country the less fundamentalist it is.

[@one5e]

Never thought I’d see someone who is Jewish defending WW2 Germans, kinda odd

[@teucer915]

I like how they literally don't notice that Slaughterhouse-Five, a book with space aliens and time travel, is fiction.

[@WarReport.]

Well yes, but the author Vonnegut was there as a pow in Dresden during the fire bombing.

[@TheMrVengeance]

It's almost like none of them actually read the book. 🤔

[@brianremington6049]

@michael reboot So... was he able to count each death as it happened? Because of, like, his proximity?

[@ossapinhosfazemhumah]

to be very clear. Vonnegut has the 135000 figure in his book because thats the information he had at the time. his portrail of the bombing at no point tries to paint the germas as innocent victims. he was there as a POW during the bombing, as were many English and American soldiers who did not survive it. He and the few survivors of the POW camp in the slaughter house walked out to see only devastation and in the book that is portrayed in the most bleak and objective way. the book is half science fiction, dealing with a character who experiences time in a non-linear manner. but the period marked by war in the characters life is the first hand account of the author himself. and it paints noone as heroes. you dont finish slaughterhouse 5 with the sense that the Dresden bombing was an uncharacteristic act of villainy, you leave the book with a sense of the horror inherent to war itself. Vonneguts main thing in the writing of this book was to show how young and unprepared the american soldiers were. his firsthand account in war was brief and filled with needless suffering. there is no trying to recontextulize the dresden bombing in the book. just a bleak chapter in a mans life.

[@jehaert]

Kurt Vonngut on Dresden : “Near as anybody knows, it was the largest massacre in human history. I mean Auschwitz was a slow killing process. In order to qualify as a massacre there has to be the killing of a whole lot of people in a very short time.”

[@zenosAnalytic]

He thinks Dresden was AFTER the war???? Wikipedia is, like, Right There :T

[@ArchNME]

It was very close to the end of the war, and after Germany proper had already been invaded by both the US and Soviet Armies. It was only two months before the Armies would meet each other, Berlin would be captured and Hitler would be dead. What happened at Dresden wasn't necessary to win the war, because at the point it was already all but over for Germany.

[@pauligrossinoz]

ArchNME - I wasn't _necessary_ to win the war, *but it definitely shortened the war* - thus saving the lives of Allied soldiers and also some Jews in concentration camps. At the time of the bombing the Germans were withdrawing troops from the West to try to counter the Red Army in the East, which was within only 70km of Berlin. The troops and their equipment had to move through the central switchpoints at Dresden via the railroad, and the destruction of those central rail points was an excellent tactical move by Britain and the US in support of the Red Army's immediate objective: Berlin. The inability of Hitler to effectively counter the Red Army at his door directly lead to their quick success and the end of the war. The deaths of less than 25,000 civilians was an ugly reality, but the destruction was the correct tactic at that time to end the war faster.

[@ArchNME]

You don't use firebombs to take out railroad tracks. The allies also would have no motivation to help the soviets advance into Germany faster than them. Also, how would anything other than the will of the guards save the lives of Jews in concentration camps? They could have slaughtered every last person in there anytime they felt like.

[@pauligrossinoz]

ArchNME - no. Just the previous week the Allies had concluded an agreement in the Crimea - the famous *Yalta conference* - where the post-war carve up of Germany was agreed to, concluded _before_ Dresden was bombed. The whole point of Yalta was to promote both strategic and tactical cooperation among the allies to shorten the war, avoiding exactly those kind of delaying tactics by any of the Allies that might slow down their inexorable progress. The bombing of Dresden was an interdiction tactic by the British and US with the explicit aim of supporting the Red Army's progress toward Berlin and hasten the Nazi collapse. The inability of Nazi troops to move through our even billet in Dresden was the primary aim of those bombing raids on Dresden. The troops stationed there were destroyed, the blockbuster bombs put the railroad out of commission, and the firebombs destroyed any chance of Nazi troops getting respite as they rushed to meet the Red Army, which was fighting only 70km away from Berlin. The Red Army was then able to consolidate its gains at a position only 60km from Berlin, virtually unopposed, building their strength to 2.5 million soldiers over the next two months. Berlin was then crushed by the Red Army in a week, ending the war by easily overwhelming the 750,000 defenders. The tactical actions after the Yalta conference, including the firebombing of Dresden, left the Nazis scattered, demoralized and completely unable to counter the Red Army's progress to Berlin - thus ending the war as quickly as possible. The ugly aspect of the raids was the deliberate targeting of civilian areas to prevent any possibility of the Nazi troops rushing to Berlin getting any respite in Dresden, causing the deaths of more than 20,000 civilians. *But it is without any doubt that the sooner the end of the war, the greater the number of lives saved in the Nazi concentration camps.* And, of course, the quicker the Red Army destroyed Berlin, the fewer British and US lives would be lost too.

[@ArchNME]

You are correct about Yalta. So perhaps that wasn't a factor. Please explain your assertion about the concentration camps. The Germans guards could have killed everyone in the camp in a single day if they wanted to exterminate them. I suppose some lives may have been saved by bringing in supplies and medical care, and so saving the few that were dying off each day from starvation and disease. I don't understand how you could be okay with the killing of German civilians in the war but not Jewish ones though.

[@meric2]

Lol Ethan using Slaughterhouse 5 as a historical reference. The book with the plunger aliens and the human zoo. Great

[@celladoor9696]

The Wreckoning dude it’s based on a true story ..read it

[@Andrew-fi1sd]

@@celladoor9696 Something being based on a true story doesn't make it historically accurate source you can cite. Kurt Vonnegut is a fiction writer.

[@Andrew-fi1sd]

@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan He's still a fiction writer. Actual historical records clash with the numbers he gave. Anecdotal experiences don't trump actual data.

[@clicheguevara5282]

Yes, but also LOL at anyone using Wikipedia as a source for the truth about war.

[@Andrew-fi1sd]

@@clicheguevara5282 Wikipedia sources things most other credible places would source anyway.

[@andyiswonderful]

Ethan says that Dresden was bombed after Germany had surrendered. WTF? Dresden was bombed in Feb 1945. Germany did not surrender until May. Kind of an important boo boo there, Ethan.

[@aumann0452]

@@generalsecretaryxijinping5473 You mean, the president never surrendered. The rest of Germany did.

[@justcurious7614]

Marc where did you get this bollocks from? The Reich government continued to operate for several weeks from its seat of government in Flensburg after the unconditional surrender in May 1945. This state of affairs was finally put an end to 2weeks later around 23 May 1945 by the British Army under whose auspices that it was originally left to operate. All key figures were placed under arrest and removed from its government buildings under armed military guard. Additionally Jodl Keitel and co were empowered by Dönitz to sign the surrender document: they did not assume this authority by themselves. The first documents dealt with were those confirming that the signatories were duly authorised to sign the surrender document by Dönitz the legal head of the German State at that time.

[@justcurious7614]

Markus Laurila I apologise. As everybody knows two geezers dressed in German uniforms just blew in with the wind to sign the surrender documents. Then after a furious bit of heel clicking and Sieg Heiling just blew back out again drawing to a close WW2. All German soldiers just already knew that at a given day at a given hour that they could just stand up and go home. There was no need for the rudiments of a governmental arrangement to maintain some semblance of law and order.

[@staliniumprojectile]

@@generalsecretaryxijinping5473 Reichsbürger?

[@Trhrha]

yeah and Hitler died in April

[@MCMickG]

Is it just me who finds it pretty funny that of all the people that Ethan’s having this discussion with, he’s talking to Post Malone?

[@georgechatzidakis4969]

haha i came from ethans show to see this.

[@vercingetorix5708]

That shining beacon of academia that he is.

[@electricVGC]

I think they were talking about Nazis because they're both Jewish?

[@luiysia]

first time postie has appeared in a threearrows vid. but possibly not the last 🤔

[@glue6143]

@@luiysia post is a secret alt-right racist. we should expect a video exposing him soon

[@soiboi4497]

Don’t worry Ethan, you were off by a *couple hundred thousand*

[@FFM0594]

1200% off, to be anal about it.

[@rembrandt972ify]

And about 5 months...

[@jurtra9090]

Knowing Better?

[@joootooobboosheet2486]

@@InqWiper Don't forget about the 800K at Treblinka!

[@InqWiper]

@@joootooobboosheet2486 I don't think they have changed that one officially, though.

[@topcat8804]

The greatest crime of all is that the war ended on February 11th 1945 and nobody told the armies involved until three months later.

[@NuNaKri]

🤣

[@mihaicraciun8678]

tbh the war was settled much earlier

[@Siamzero1994]

@@mihaicraciun8678 oh good if only the allies told the Wehrmacht that

[@colemanlifting5995]

Yea because the Germans didn’t surrender until may

[@davidgaskin5417]

I think you might find the greatest crime of that war was the nazis beginning their war of conquest and annihilation.

[@Oddant1]

So he was a POW in Dresden after Germany had already surrendered. . . Right. . . And the Germans made him clean up corpses. . . After they had already surrendered to the Allies. . . Right. . .

[@sigmascrub]

Yeah, in a completely innocent city with zero military presence, what's so hard to understand about this?

[@yeahok1839]

"We cried tears of joy when we saw the red glow in the sky, Dresden is burning, allies are not far away" - Ghetto survivor That one hit me

[@Zones33]

You are a psychopath. "Bombs and fire indiscriminately annihilated both guilty and innocent, party members and small children, war criminals and nuns, guards and forced labourers, combat soldiers and refugees who had left their homes to save their lives and believed themselves to be in a safe place."

[@alfredpeasant5980]

Too bad the ghetto wasn't liquidated first.

[@mirquellasantos2716]

Only the some Germans are bitching about it and playing the victim card but many slave prisoners and prisoners in concentration camps were happy to see and hear those bombings.

[@easterworshipper730]

What ghetto? From dresden ?

[@caesargaming42]

Makes it harder to sympathize with their race if they are happy when innocents die

[@blackmoon2128]

"Weekly dose of depressing topics" -How german. That´s why I love it.

[@romansongen6284]

Well, as a german thats right where i belong ;D

[@Otterpawp]

I liked h3h3 when they kept things light. Their podcast has been a loud speaker for misinformation and bad jokes.

[@karlmarx809]

Otterpawps Everybody wants to be Joe Rogan now

[@JAMES-ig2gk]

Troy Barnes : at least Rogan has some talent

[@justinusberger3933]

@@JAMES-ig2gk Rogan is literally Grug IRL, made for the low IQ crowd.

[@Kimmaline]

@ThisIsMyRealName Just wanted to back you up. It happened that the first two Rogan episodes I listened to weren't problematic at all; I mean one of them was with Paul Staments, the mushroom scientist. (I don't remember who the other was) Then I saw one where he was SUCH a racist asshole. Then transphobic and passing dangerous stereotypes about the LGBTQ+ community. I was blown away, but then I started asking around and realized that Joe Rogan is the very definition of a cishet abled white dude who will NEVER get it, because there is nothing in it for him.

[@Proph3t3N]

@@Kimmaline da fuck did I read lol

[@daviddevries8242]

I was misinformed on this as well. Thanks for setting me straight.

[@haselni]

8:29 My money is on "the people affected negatively were not white enough for Lauren Southern to know about it." Which, admittedly, used to be true of me as well, until I looked it up just now.

[@Finebert]

Who is this Victor guy and why does he write so many books?

[@linkofvev]

Must be a family thing, he seems to have been around for thousands of years.

[@ottavva]

the bombing occurred 13-15 February 1945 and this was not ''two days after the war ended'' 0:56 sorry for the innocent victims

[@Euan_Miller43]

Nothing innocent about them

[@alexanderchristopher6237]

@@Euan_Miller43 the Nazi regime exploited the weaknesses of the German society and German democracy to build their fascist state. The Germans didn't realized that there were concentration camps exterminating Jews until the Allies showed them the horrors of the concentration camps. They don't have much a say in Nazi war crimes.

[@yosoyysoyyo]

Euan Miller Children died in this bombing

[@Cemtexify]

@@alexanderchristopher6237 They did know the holocaust was taking place, they even had an issue of soldiers taking genocide selfies and sending them home (if you go to the holocaust museum in Israel Yad Vashem you can even see a couple).

[@aumann0452]

He already said that several times.

[@ernestoacosta7918]

That quote at the end seriously made me tear up man, WW2 and it’s casualties is the greatest tradgedy in human history

[@TSZatoichi]

Mao says hi.

[@ajae...]

No, it s not.

[@kaisarion6668]

The biggest human tragedy is the entire thing. That’s why we should have learned by now that there are no winners in war. Only losers.

[@dannyzero692]

@@ajae... a WW2 denier, now that's a new specie.

[@ajae...]

@@dannyzero692 Yet another transatlantic slave trade denier. Low estimates are 100 million people died. Low estimates. Africa's recovery is still somewhere on the distant horizon. No Marshall plan.

[@petersmythe6462]

It is interesting to note that the bombing of Tokyo was far more fatal.

[@Calvin_Coolage]

Peter Smythe And even more pointless than the Dresden bombings, for that matter.

[@noize8148]

Bombing a city where civilians are going to die is not a good thing to do, but it was the status quo from WW1 to Vietnam. It was just an accepted part of warfare that all sides committed. It only stopped once people began criticizing the US for it in Vietnam. We saw that you cannot bomb a country into submission. People can say it was a shit thing to do, and they are right, but don't sit there and act like they should be tried and executed for it. Just stop it from happening in the future.

[@HaloFTW55]

Japan can’t complain, not when they bombed out Shanghai and violated Nanking themselves.

[@poego6045]

admittedly, the bombing of nagasaki and hiroshima were only done to end a war that was already over. Basically, america decided "instead of dragging out the war and letting our soldiers die, we'd best just kill a bunch of their civilians to end the war now instead of in a few months. Honestly, bombing a military base would have had a similar effect without being quiet as lacking in humanity. (though in general it was all just awful)

[@wigglewaggle4110]

@@HaloFTW55 Japan was ruled by a totalitarian monarchy during WW2. Are you really stupid enough to believe that civilians deserve to be slaughtered by the thousands for the crimes of a non representative government and military, even worse, AFTER that government has already surrendered?

[@yjkoh3399]

"We cried tears of Joy when we saw the red glow in the sky, Dresden is burning, allies are not far away" -Ghetto survivor Man, fucking tear jerking. The sympathy I have for those in the camps, as well as those being bombed. Love I have for German people and culture as well as the sadness of the butchery of the Holocaust. I'm glad I found this channel, because it makes you think and reevaluate.

[@6Shooter28]

I would love to cite this quote if I could find a single corroborating source other than Reddit. This isn't sarcasm, I would sincerely love if Three Arrows could tell us where this quote comes from. I'm loath to assume that it's as apocryphal as it is poetic

[@br3669]

@@6Shooter28 I couldn't find a corroborating source for this particular quote either, but what I could find was a historian's blog post who found a very similar one by a young woman by the name Eva Benda, who said in principle the same "From our windows we watched Dresden burning only a short distance away. For us it was an exhilarating sight. The whole horizon was aflame, and our dormitory was lit as if by daylight, except the light was red. We knew that the Allies had bombed Dresden. We stood at the windows all night, delighting in the spectacle. To us it was proof that the end of the war and liberation could not be far off." (Eva Benda: From Prague to Theresienstadt and Back, in: Martin Ira Glass, Robert Krell (Hrsg.): And Life is Changed Forever. Holocaust Childhoods Remembered. Detroit 2006, pp. 251-276, here: p. 264.) Eva Benda was in Oederan (ca 30 miles form Dresden) at the time, not in Theresienstadt but she had been brought to Oederan from Theresienstadt a few months earlier. The statement in the video could originate with Eva Benda's in however many rounds of slight misquoting.

[@Blitzenpferd]

I didn't find a definitive or specific source, but I did manage to find the full quote in the original German: "Wir weinten vor Freude, als wir den roten Schein am Himmel sahen. Dresden brennt, die Alliierten sind nicht mehr weit! Das war psychologisch ungeheuer wichtig für uns."

[@easterworshipper730]

Which ghetto?

[@sawyernorthrop4078]

Total American fatalities for the entire war: 407,316 I think 300,000 is a little high for a literal single strategic bombing raid

[@Staenhus]

@Sakusha Durante You're literally commenting on a video debunking that statement and the 300,000 number. I suggest you watch it.

[@cookingwithtool159]

Sakusha Durante it wasn’t revenge so much as it was breaking the Germans back. With the destruction of these cities came the destruction of war industry, workers, and morale, things had had to be crushed to force Germany to surrender. It was because of the actions of men like Harris and the bombing crews that served under him that the German war industry flatlined in 1943, which brought the war to a faster end. The idea that it was pointless revenge bombs is born of out of modern ignorance of the fact that Germany refused to surrender, and that bombing was the only way for the western allies to truly strike at Germany for most of the war.

[@darth0tator]

@Sakusha Durante the necessity of any target in war is always debatable, there won't be a definite answer, so saying it was only revenge fantasy is too simple. one might argue, that it was so late in the war, that Nazi-Germany woul've lost soon anyways. Another point is the method of carpet bombing. Why didn't the allies use more precision bombing runs to precisely destroy military, industry and infrastructure instead of bombing civilians. But your challenge doesn't prove a point. You don't need proof of a soldier or SS dying in Dresden because of all the terrible things that were going on: Churchill already had declared the war against civilians as necessary, so bombing civs "was fine" for the allies (especially since it was in no way worse than what the Nazis did to other civilians), while the Nazi-Volkssturm ordered everyone to defend the Vaterland, effectively turning every German into a "soldier" at least from the perspective of the führerbunker. So is that proof of soldiers dying there? So many germans surrendered at the sight of the enemy at the late war period, because they knew it was over. Sadly you cannot surrender during a bombing run or while a V2 rocket lands on your head. War is shit and war against civilian is even shittier Edit: The point is: there is a way to argue against the bombing of civilians (in general) and especially in Dresden. But none of those should be used to defend a Nazi-Ideology or to rewrite history. We should take it as what it is. It is an atrocity of war. Calling those who committed atrocities heroes is wrong, but saying the victims were free of any guilt is also wrong.

[@saudade7842]

@@darth0tator Sometimes people commit atrocities in an attempt to save more lives later down the road by ending a war quicker (example Sherman's March, the atomic bombings of Imperial Japan, and the bombings of major cities). While I do believe that the allies intentions were just when they bombed cities we can sadly never objectively say whether or not the ends can ever justify the means.

[@darth0tator]

@@saudade7842 isn't this, what I said? It's always debatable, because we don't know how things would have gone if those atrocities weren't committed...I just think that if we acknowlegde those acts as atrocities we can't call the people who comitted them heroes, even if it was done in good intent. I think there's always a better option. I hope we just work hard enough to prevent a conflict of that magnitude from happening again

[@asteroidrules]

I'm very curious just how Ethan even got a number as ludicrous as 300,000, not even David Irving overstated it that much.

[@asteroidrules]

Argentarii Homini Well the estimates based on research put the number as somewhere between 22 and 25 thousand, not even a tenth of what he claimed. David Irving used forged documents claiming it was 135 thousand, still less than half the number.

[@Demo5]

Chinese whispers

[@battleofwills7189]

David Irving stated the maximum death toll of 250,000. He isn't a holocaust denier either. There's too much of a desire here to trivialise the death toll because of the pathological fear of being labelled a Nazi sympathiser.

[@battleofwills7189]

The official death toll from the bombings of Syrian cities isn't known and will probably never be known. There's a good chance that a large percentage escaped. There are over one million Syrian refugees in Lebanon alone.

[@SvenTviking]

mayrana2 The cities in Syria didn’t have the “fire storm” that occurred in Dresden and Hamburg before it. This is when the fires cover such a large area that it starts to draw air in from the surrounding areas, causing high winds and making the centre area of the fire like a furnace. People were picked up by the wind and thrown into the blaze.This is an unfightable fire, one that the RAF had perfected in lighting, by dropping a mixture of 4000 lb “Blockbuster” light case bombs that blew off roofs and blew in doors, opening up the buildings for the tens of thousands of incendiary bombs that followed. Dresden was unlucky in that there had been a period of dry weather for several weeks before the raid, and on the night a fire feeding wind blew, creating the perfect fire storm.

[@ToastyMcGrath]

So Ethan never thought to, you know, Google the date of the bombing mission?

[@ethanpappas2502]

Some people are just dumb

[@AdamCHowell]

I remember when I first read Slaughterhouse 5 (Magnificent book). I read it in one sitting and immediately after looked it up online. I had no problem getting basically the info on the events and the report saying it was no more the 25,000 deaths (Still a lot) within a few minutes of reading Wikipedia. I also got a basic overview of the politically motivated claims around the event both at the time and later. I know Wikipedia isn't perfect but you would think people would do just a few minutes fact-checking before enlightening their audience with these amazing "facts".

[@misspiggy9647]

Wikipedia gets edited by people with special interests.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

@@misspiggy9647 special interests like not being wehraboos

[@GorgyCL]

The final quote struck a chord. Imagine such a hideous act being seen as an uplifting moment, with that teming sense of revenge and justice. Absolutely understandable, yet so troubling.

[@Smudgie]

I live in Germany and have done for many years and one thing I have noticed over recent years is the change in how the memory of WWII has shifted. There seems to be more attention granted to German victimhood than German crimes. Sophie Scholl, Dresden, Staufenberg and others are more often mentioned and celebrated than specific war crimes.

[@saltking2715]

well its kind natural that germans are looking for some light in the dark, especially when you think about how banal, conservative and passive most of the Nazis and germans civilians were in that time. So its easy to kling onto these few "good" germans to assure themselves that they were not all this bad. The sad thing is that this could just about happen in every country, and nazi germany for good reason gets pulled up all the time when you see countries having authoritarian shifts. In general i wouldnt call it white washing, more of a kind of trying to redeem your past, which is fruitless cocidering the magnitude of crimes against humanity

[@mirquellasantos2716]

Finally the voice of reasoning. What about the Jews and millions of children killed by the Nazis.

[@Mrslapicasserina]

As somebody who's from Dresden, I have to say, I loved your video, keep up the good work. On a side note: there's a sign attached to the Zwinger, a historical building that got destroyed jn the bombings, talking about destruction by imperialist forces. The sign dates back to when Dresden was part of the GDR. Also, the remembering of the bombings was back then done by the broader public. In my opinion, the GDR tried their best to keep up the myth in their own interest of vilifying the US and Britain. Als Dresdnerin: super gutes Video, weiter so. Eine Anmerkung vielleicht noch, am Zwinger hängt eine Plakette, die zu DDR-Zeiten dort aufgehängt wurde, die von einer Zerstörung durch die imperialistisch-kapitalistischen Amerikaner und Briten spricht. Auch wurde das Gedenken bis '89 jedes Jahr von der Bevölkerung abgehalten und ist erst (logischerweise) nach der Wende zu Naziprotesten geworden. Mein Eindruck ist hier, dass sich die DDR aus eigenem Interesse große Mühe gegeben hat den Mythos aufrecht zu erhalten. Nur so als interessante Randnotiz :)

[@beethovenjunkie]

Danke für die Info! Die DDR hat es mit der Entnazifizierung definitiv nicht so ernst gemeint, wie es immer propagiert wurde. Ich hab erst vor Kurzem gelernt, dass ein großer Teil dieser "weltlich" umgedichteten Weihnachtsliederversionen, die hier im Osten heute immer noch viel gesungen werden, aus der Nazizeit stammen...

[@daxasd3270]

​@@beethovenjunkie Ich würde behaupten, dass man das mit Liedern prinzipiell immer differenziert betrachten muss. Die meisten Lieder stammen nicht aus der Nazizeit, sondern aus dem 19.Jh. und früher. Auch werden Fackelzüge primär mit NS assoziiert, obwohl sie originär mit NS zu tun haben. Der historische Kontext kennen allerdings viele nicht. Ein gutes Beispiel ist "Wenn alle Untreu werden...". Ist ein Lied von 1814, welches im Kontext der napoleonischen Befreiungskriege entstanden ist. Anderseits ist es auch möglich, dass ein Lied aus dem dritten Reich auch keine NS-Propoganda enthält oder ggf. umgedichtet wird . Wenn also Entnazifizierung = verschwinden jeglicher Teile des kulturellen Lebens aus der NS-Zeit bedeutet, dann ja, kann man das natürlich anprangern. Das ist meiner Meinung nach aber nicht Zielführend Die DDR war ein totalitärer Staat mit einer eigenen stark ausgerpägten Ideologie. In der Ideologie ist das "faschistische" NS-Regime auch nur eine Extremstufe der bürgerlichen Herrschaft, während der "imperialistisch-kapitalistische" Westen die vorstufe dazu bildet. Diese Tendenzen findet man häufig bis heute im linken Gedankengut, auch wenn man sich heute öffentlich lieber von solchen Formulierungen distanziert. In Sachen Entnazifizierung kann man sich streiten, ob die DDR endgültig entnazifiziert wurde oder nicht. Es fand keine tiefe Auseinandersetzung mit dem dritten Reich im heutigem Sinne statt - ein totalitäres Regime wurde mit einem anderem ersetzt. Der personelle Ersatz der Elite durch Exil-Parteikader fand definitiv statt. Im Lichte der BRD, wo Teile der Elite sogar ganz gut entkommen konnten, kann man sich daher streiten, ob die DDR-Entnazifizierung wirklich so oberflächlich war.

[@brucetucker4847]

Didn't Stalin actually ask the western Allies to bomb Dresden to block German supplies and reinforcements going to the eastern front?

[@benignentity]

This was a pretty good video. Only criticism I have is to maybe adjust your audio levels in future, it was a little quiet haha. Other than that, fantastic stuff

[@fulcrum2951]

Your computer had volume control?!

[@DavidSmith-ss1cg]

fulcrum 29 - I have noted that the volume of videos that don't conform to the usual view of history get lowered sometimes. It's annoying and unpleasant, and helps steer people away from non-mainstream views. I consider augmenting the volume an annoying price worth paying to get non mainstream information. Napoleon said that history is a fable that everyone agrees upon. Keep viewing, and adjust the volume if necessary.

[@fulcrum2951]

Three arrows was being efficient with his audio

[@MegaJolaus]

The confidence with which some people speak about topics they know nothing about is astounding. Btw Dresden is the most beatiful city I've ever seen.

[@juno6624]

Dude, is it really tho? Like, Dont get me wrong, If you lived in the airport of toronto all your life maybe but... Prague? New York? London? Come on.

[@juno6624]

@MGTOW Life It is, my dude, it is! May not be for everyone but I love it and my point still stands. Also, yikes that username.

[@williamcooper8806]

Like the guy in this video who offers very little in way of citations? I can refute every "fact" he states, and I did.

[@aumann0452]

@@juno6624 Well, London and New York are mostly big, grey skyscrapers, I understand, that some people don't like that.

[@MacCoalieCoalson]

Aprongirl London is a shithole. Germany today is too, but not as bad as the rat colony that is Britain and the commonwealth.

[@joemcsilver8098]

Anglo-saxons are bombing saxony. What an irony.

[@neurodermatitis]

normans*

[@Siamzero1994]

Lower Saxony is more accurately the homeland of Anglo-Saxons.

[@CarrotConsumer]

@François Miville That's an oversimplification of a complex topic.

[@roryschmidt5776]

@François Miville if you're gonna say that it's either the saxons or the normans. Vikings were a historically transient presence in the UK. Outside of a few place names and DNA they didn't leave much behind

[@fermintenava5911]

The original tribe of Saxons resided in Northern Germany (roughly Lower Saxony), while the Kingdom was the last remaining territory of the Lord Elector of Saxony-Wittenberge.

[@paulkerrigan9857]

An actual German debunking claims and stories about Germany? Sounds good! :-)

[@billt7283]

Paul Kerrigan yeah who is deeply biased and hasn’t a clue...

[@onespiker]

ww2 colorizer how biased? And if that was so much the case he would have supported a much higher estimate most likely.

[@MS-pd7fc]

onespiker the dudes name is ww2colorizer. Chances he came to his conclusion with good faith are little to none

[@onespiker]

Mark Sneed indeed should have read the name( tries to often ignore names)

[@billt7283]

Mark Sneed how did you come to that conclusion? I collect and colorize ww2 photos for history books. Your statement was hypocritical. You judged me without context. He’s biased because look at his post history. All his videos are anti alt right, anti Nazi, praise communism, anti white, praise the left type bullshit. I’m not from the right, but prefer open discussion as opposed to listening to people with an agenda. A lot of these Germans were brainwashed into their beliefs, much like we are in the US. Anyone who calls the Dresden bombings justified is an asshole. Wonder if he’d feel differently if he lost his family there.

[@misanthropicservitorofmars2116]

"History is written by the victors" isn't entirely correct. And I wish people who didn't know history could understand that.

[@merrittanimation7721]

History is written by the people who write it down. Might seem obvious, but there's a reason our view of the Mongols is so negative.

[@haleme9244]

@@merrittanimation7721 that and the mass murder

[@fulcrum2951]

History wasn't always written by the victors, an example would be most of the information regarding the Eastern front was mainly written by ex nazi officers

[@qwertyiuwg4uwtwthn]

Someone's been playing too much mw2.

[@topcat8804]

EXACTLY - vide Josephus. Junger, Remarque et al

[@joytee4967]

If you want the truth, ask those who were there. My mother, a ‘Nicht Völlwort’ German, told me about the bombing. It was in February-she remembered because her birthday is in February. And it wasn’t as bad as the wrong numbers bandied about now-what was bad was that she couldn’t wait for the war to end and to no longer be suspected of being a Mischling, even after marrying an ethnic German from upper Silesia. She couldn’t understand why the Allies weren’t as ruthless as the Nazis, who killed her 2 week old son for being a possible Mischling himself. Emphasis on ‘possible’. There is nothing, including 2 atomic bombs, that the Allies did that can even come close to the evils carried out by the Nazis, and misinformation by those who don’t know enough about the facts nor about when to keep quiet is both irresponsible and painful to those who disagreed with the Nazis but had to live through the war pretending that they were completely onboard for fear of dying themselves. Seriously messed up and adds to the intragenerational trauma that carries on in my life.

[@addoinatrum4339]

10:24 "Y'know, It's possible to discuss these things without falling into the extremes of opinions." Aaaaaaaaand subscribed.

[@misterporpelz9136]

4 bombing raids on a Rot Kreuz Stadt with 100 thousands of Refugiés is a huge War crime. Wuppertal, Berlin, Hamburg and the list goes on

[@FreeIsraelll]

Eye for an eye

[@mito88]

@@FreeIsraelllthat's all you can come up with.

[@itsanschlusstime5376]

Womp womp nigga try winning next time

[@Mischkovonik]

Came here from the "Deutschland by Rammstein: An Analysis"-Video, stayed for more. Damn, your videos are great! Really, love your videos, keep it up :)

[@Finebert]

Same

[@servenomasters4523]

Same

[@seasidescott]

Now I know where some friends were getting their "facts". They've been interjecting historical and other out-of-character information into discussions and at first I wondered about their newfound interest in studying these issues. They seemed quite satisfied with themselves "knowing" things usually only expected of those of us who read. I did point out some of their misinformation and referenced Wikipedia which they then said was bullshit until I showed them how to use the footnotes to find the sources of information...and that degraded into "can't trust things on the internet"... which is exactly where they got the information they trusted without looking at their sources. The truly disturbing part is that they felt so smug, so powerful, being able to quote something, as if they'd found the magic shortcut to being as smart as anyone else. One actually said "now I know as much as you" even after his info was disproved. Wow. That alt-crap is a powerful drug. I actually felt sorry for him and pulled back a bit because obviously he was experiencing a new source of self-worth that was so intertwined with his "facts" that disputing them would be attacking his self-worth. We don't talk so much lately.

[@jthunders]

That Ethan Klein and his gang could be so self assured asserting something they knew nothing about, and relied on a science fiction novel is par for the course these days. But if you are looking for any argument the "Anglo-Saxons" are just as bad as the NSDAP I guess you pick up every stick and stone you can.

[@pinkovega9212]

I’ve had a similar problem with a friend over the same thing and other things. It’s a massive pain in the ass and sort of gross when it starts to influence their beliefs.

[@GalacticNovaOverlord]

Look at the "holodomor". Wikipedia messed that up HORRIBLY. Look at bad empanada on this. Historians are questionable too. They need to be analyzed.

[@maximanimo]

0:56 2 days after the Germans surrender they bomb Dresden ?? -_- why is this guy on a radio xD

[@niall6255]

maximanimo he isnt on radio

[@AtomekKotalke]

He have his podcast but he is not on the radio but youtube and SoundCloud.

[@maximanimo]

Ah oke =)

[@bazmondo]

maximanimo even more disturbing is that some of the morons in the comments section seem to have swallowed the claim of Dresden being bombed two days after the war ended as fact.

[@Drownedinblood]

You don't have to be correct to be on Radio. It's kinda considered one of the easier jobs, all you gotta do is keep the audience entertained so you can get sponsors and money.

[@Snommelp]

It's amazing to me how often amazingly false statements will be accompanied by "this is all true, you can look it up." I'm tempted to say that the people making these statements know that their audience won't look it up, as long as they assert that the information exists.

[@addledhead]

Yeah I wish Ethan could see this

[@hitchhiker8798]

Why? Do you think he cares? The guy does not care about anything other than turning something into a meme. He's the kind of guy who would call out someone for their crappy behavior, and then invite them to his show and make friends with them. The guy is a prick

[@dantheman6441]

he's too busy making a 304th "TRIGGERED FEMINIST SJW" video

[@nekrataali]

I wish Ethan would shut the fuck up entirely. He always punches left and agrees with/is convinced by the alt-right, despite being a """"""""radical centrist.""""""""

[@sorcererCermet]

@@nekrataali lil late to the party, but that's EXACTLY what the modern "centrist" does

[@juno6624]

Hi, German Student here. I can confirm everything three arrows said in this video. I live in Dresden, my grandfathers mother fled Dresden during/close before the bombings and thus he was technically born thüringen, a region close to dresden. Here, in Dresden, this is still a very important topic and it is getting worse. We have a movement in Germany that started in Saxony/Dresden called „PEGIDA“ (patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the western world) And they’re marching here every monday, they built fake gallows dor famous opposing politicians and a friend of our family got horribly beaten up and had to move across the country to protect his family because a group of nazis saw him taking off nazi-stickers from a playground. A right-wing party, the AFD is on the rise and and our youth is split in either disinterested brats or FFF-Activists. I actually despise living here and will move soon because this is getting dangerous. Amercians, i know Trump is shitty too but there is something off in the state of germany and Its honestly scary. Lastly, to prove my Identity: Ja, ich bin wirklich deutsch und leben in Dresden. Hier ein Paar Dresdener Fakten: Der einzig wahre Weihnachtsmarkt ist der an der Frauenkirche. Hier ein Deutscher Fakt: Oliver Welke is physisch nicht imstande zu altern. So, bewiesen? Hoffentlich.

[@viniciusdesouzamaia]

I just want to emphasize a quote from the video: its possible to discuss the tragic consequences of warfare without giving in to extremist ideas. It's also necessary considering the wheels of far right extremism turned violent terrorism seem to be gaining ever more traction.

[@williamcooper8806]

Please produce references to every "fact" he stated in the video before preaching because the only one that can be substantiated is the total number of Dresden citizens which only accounted for Dresden citizens because it was a Dresden city commission that didn't account for the refugees that were in Dresden at that time (which has been substantiated by many sources including the U.S. Army War College in the paper "Dresden 1945: Reality, History, and Memory"), nor can his statement that there was a ban on refugees in Dresden be substantiated, nor his statement that the Colonel General Heinz Guderian ordered 25,000 German troops to Dresden, nor proof of 25,000 German troops in Dresden can be found, nor proof of concentration camps around Dresden. The closest one was over an hour away in the Czech Republic and Lichtenburg about 2 hours away, and Buchenwald over 2 hours away.

[@nekroneschwartz2013]

Where are examples of 'far right extremism turned violent terrorism'? Every time I see violence being called for to silence people with different views it's coming from the left

[@Foxtrop13]

"How many people does it take before it becomes wrong? A thousand? Fifty thousand? A million? How many people DOES IT TAKE, admiral?"- Captain Picard

[@dandre3K]

Peter O lmao

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

Right and wrong? Nope, just truth and untruth.

[@justinokraski3796]

561,281

[@LeftIsBest]

that movie is hilarious

[@MacCoalieCoalson]

Foxtrop13 No death toll is large enough for the Anglo degenerate.

[@shiroikiba0102]

Here for the reactionaries offended by your debunking of incorrect statements

[@thomashackney9356]

None more than the ludicrous death toll of 25,000 everyone there who lived through it disagrees. easily 100,000+

[@bblvrable]

@@thomashackney9356 Yes, over 70,000 corpses just vanished into thin air.

[@fulcrum2951]

@@thomashackney9356 yes, a 100 page report detailing about how the city got to the number of 35000 casualties is less credible than a novel size book about the casualties of 100000

[@fds7476]

@@fulcrum2951 A novel-sized _sci-fi novel_ about _aliens._

[@fulcrum2951]

@@fds7476 yes

[@cybersean3000]

Thank you for correcting the record.

[@lukejohns5900]

“History is written by the victors” No Ethan, it’s written by historians.

[@Massolgy]

Aka victors

[@kyledonahue9315]

Sea Monkey I’m not sure where you live, but the area around Detroit-Windsor is full of Ukrainians that never seem to stop talking about the Holodomor. Hell, there was even a recent book about the subject that made the NYT Best Seller list called “Red Famine.” Of course, this comparison is a bit disingenuous, because the Holodomor was a (largely) incidental byproduct of collectivization, whereas the Holocaust was the deliberate, industrial extermination of eleven million people. The former is bad, but you’re crazy if you believe that it’s morally comparable to the planned genocide of tens of millions of people.

[@Massolgy]

@@kyledonahue9315 wait did you just said 11 million wow the jews get rising the numbers up

[@adnanc9363]

@@Massolgy Or, if your peanut brain could comprehend, jews were not the only victims of Germans.

[@invayde7902]

@Sea Monkey Firstly I looked up the ww2 census by the Red Cross and it turns out that the document lists criminals and not Jews. Also when the Nazi government decided to exterminate millions of their labour force for ideological reasons you have to remember that Nazi's aren't rational people. Thirdly, the fact that you call the Nazi's a 'moral regime' I just have no words for it. Sure they treated Western soldiers 'nicely' (nicely in a loose sense of the term) but they gave orders to Wehrmacht and SS soldiers to kill POW's and commit other such war crimes in the USSR.

[@christopherellis2663]

Thank you. Lies, continuously repeated, make emotion overthrow the need for thought. As Orwell pointed out

[@SSofIreland]

One thing a lot of people seem to be forgetting is that WWII followed a doctrine known as "total war." What this means is that a nation's entire industrial output, both military and civilian, is focused on the war effort. As a result, both military and civilian infrastructure were considered legitimate targets. Dresden was no different.

[@corso_blu]

Nobody hates Nazis like a modern German. Thank you for this excellent video, comrade.

[@InqWiper]

No one has been more indoctrinated to hate his history than the modern German.

[@johnxina5126]

@@InqWiper I know I am 3 years late. But the few Germans I have conversed with are extremely proud of the many German states while simultaneously having the most responsible approach to the crimes of their ancestors.

[@TheCirclekeeper]

I've never heard of this bombing until now. It shows I still have a lot to learn about history. Thank you for this video sir I'm glad there are people like you on the left. We have to be willing to look at are selves and not just the opposition. In a time of deceit being truthful is itself a revolutionary act- George Orwell.

[@frelal4659]

Thank you so much for clearing that up, when I first heard Ethan mention that I had to double check, but couldn't definitively contradict him. Subscribed with pleasure.

[@fulcrum2951]

The Axis has bombed cities multiple times even before the 'official' ww2 Japan in China combined with their deliberate war crimes The Condor Legion in Spain has too bombed cities as well They have no excuse to call others for war crimes when they themselves has deliberately done so

[@asnekboi7232]

fulcrum 29 that’s what I hate about the alt right because they call any nazi Crimes Jewish brainwashing while exaggerating all allies crimes

[@bycreay3647]

What kind of argument is that? Two wrongs don't make a right. All of these actions were war crimes and everyone should be held accountable for it. I mean the germans who did it were killed while the american and british troops received medals.

[@fulcrum2951]

@@bycreay3647 you know what's funny, non of the german officers were punished for bombing cities They were punished for something else, maybe i don't know industrializing genocide but a significant number of them were prevented from being punished Neither is equating war crimes as if they're both the same

[@richardvernon317]

@@fulcrum2951 The bombardment of defended enemy cities was not a War Crime at the time, but a legitimate military tactic. The only protection a city got was if it declared itself an "open city" at which point an enemy force was not allowed to attack it. This rule was of course to do with land attack from Artillery as when the international treaty covering it was written, Military Aviation did not exist. The Germans had attacked British towns and Cities in WW1 (with Naval Gunfire, Zeppelins and Gotha Bombers without the British hitting back.

[@fulcrum2951]

@@richardvernon317 i know aerial bombardment at the time didn't violate any rules that the Convention has made at the time. Problem is many people forget that rules regarding aerial bombardments and cities didn't exist at the time or the fact the axis powers did bombed cities or even areas where there's little to no presence of combatants

[@PyrrhosHans]

the way Ethan is constantly looking to Hila for confirmation really bugs me...

[@James-pt7yh]

Bro that ending quote. Not gonna lie, it had me in tears...

[@BG-rx6ts]

If I remember what I read in slaughterhouse 5 it is DEFINITELY not a true story, but a strange reflection on his experience.

[@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat]

Well it features toilet plunger aliens and time travel so...

[@crabidi]

I love how Lauren Southern makes a snarky point about removing statues over the Dresden bombing in some kind of gotcha moment when we have already had this discussion about this exact topic with Arthur Harris's statue 30 years ago...

[@brettobannon7965]

Thank you for this incredibly useful contribution. It's remarkable how effective Goebbels' propaganda was, and still is. Though I study contemporary civil wars, mainly in Africa, I am a Conflict Studies scholar. And how did I come to hear of this video? After mentioning Dresden in my lecture this week in the context of our discussion of Michael Barnett's book "Empire of Humanity," in which he traces the post-war search for atonement in one of those moments of "ethical awakening" that occur and that have driven the evolution of what he terms the "International Humanitarian Order," a student commented on the pervasive misperceptions about Dresden. I asked him to send me this link, and indeed, I am guilty of advancing Goebbels' message! Thanks to my student Palden Phuntsok and to you for this illuminating video. New subscriber!

[@WarReport.]

Good quote at the end from near Dresden, one person's hope is another's tragedy. Dresden casualty feb 13 15 45': "ahhhhhhhhhh" Or "choking" I hate the bombing of civilians on all sides to this day.

[@TheOrangeDuke01]

Really great video, although I was aware of the problems around the history of the Dresden bombing, I was not aware that people were getting it so completely wrong. Excellent job.

[@PhinfanUK]

A necessity that was also a tragedy. The perfect description of not just Dresden, but Bomber Command in general. This is a fantastic video that deserves far more than the 94k views it's got just now.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

I'd say that Bomber Command were too wedded to early 1930s technical capabilities - that they had too low an opinion of the abilities of their aircrews in hitting point targets if they operated in small numbers, underestimated how fast bombers could be, and didn't allocate enough material away from bomber production to long-range twin-engine fighter escorts. That's hindsight and not issues easy to change once training and production lines are running, but it could have been done.

[@Pretermit_Sound]

@@williamchamberlain2263they also put too much faith in the new technology of the time. A good example of this is the Norden Bomb Sight. It was an incredibly complex analog computer that allowed the bomber crew to accurately calculate the trajectory the bomb needed to take in order to hit their targets accurately enough to be effective. They were incredibly advanced for the time, and were so precise, and were capable of such a high level of accuracy that they were actually classified top secret until after the war. The problem was, their capabilities, and operating procedures were all based on testing conducted in controlled, laboratory conditions, and it was discovered after the war that the Norden Sights had been rendered all but useless when they were used in real world combat conditions that were experienced on the bombing missions. They had been essentially dropping their bombs blind, not realizing they had no idea where they would land. This resulted in countless unnecessary, and preventable civilian casualties. 😞

[@Zones33]

The suburbs of Dresden where were the majority of the industry was, yet they focused solely on the urban area itself. It's pretty clear what their intentions were due to the ferocity of non-stop bombing for 3 days. 1. The hope was the decrease German citizen morale, which had the complete opposite affect. This is particularly tone deaf given that the people in London experienced the same solidarity after the battle of Britain. 2. The western allies did not want the soviets to establish any more presence in the south of Germany according to Richard Overy. So to try and say it was morally ambiguous is a pretty sleazy statement given that 25k people still died in 3 days. Saying bullshit like "you reap what you sow" or any other type of nonsense doesn't change that. Also lol @ quick war is a humane one. Can't really say that for a 6 hour nuclear war can we?

[@harmdallmeyer6449]

Dresden was still the major transport hub to Support the eastern front. It had one of the largest still intact Railway Networks, and housed Up to 20.000 troops a day in their way eastward. Also, the Soviets asked for more German Transportaktion Hubs to be destroyed in the Yalta Conference

[@terraformthesun2896]

Ethan doesn’t know what he’s talking about? What else is new?

[@DrCruel]

"Large variations in the claimed death toll have fuelled the controversy. In March 1945, the German government ordered its press to publish a falsified casualty figure of 200,000 for the Dresden raids, and death toll estimates as high as 500,000 have been given. The city authorities at the time estimated up to 25,000 victims, a figure that subsequent investigations supported, including a 2010 study commissioned by the city council." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II The problem with determining the exact death toll is due to the accumulation of refugees in the city at the time.

[@pablosampedroruiz564]

When you not only get your Information from a fiction novel (Slaughterhouse 5 is a masterpiece, but Vonnegut was wrong about the death toll), but you also haven't read the novel.

[@ralphparker4757]

Pablo Sampedro Ruiz my thoughts exactly. It’s one of my favorite books ever but definitely shouldn’t be cited as a historical source lol

[@sigmascrub]

@@ralphparker4757 really? Aww, man. Should have known... birds don't say poo-tee-weet...

[@combly7]

Great video and thanks for the information. Once thing I would recommend would be to bump up the volume on the audio clips, both you and other materials. This video just seems drastically quieter than other videos.

[@QuannanHade]

My Grandfather was one of the refugees escaping the Red Army - a German national from what is now just over the border in Poland. His story is that he and his family were instructed that they couldn't camp in the city itself, and to move along. It was this instruction that he attributes to his survival - as "My brother and I woke up to fireworks, and the city was gone in the morning." Unfortunately for my Great-grandmother, Dresden also held the only surviving copy of her marriage certificate, which meant she couldn't enter East Germany after the war to visit her family alongside my Great-grandfather.

[@haroldbridges515]

It is cheering to see a reasonable and balanced attempt to understand the events of the war. That said, criticisms of Allied war conduct, when better informed, are important even when they do not establish a moral equivalence with Nazi crimes. The American belief in their own blamelessness during the war unfortunately persists to this day when the US has become the most dangerous, rogue nation in the world.

[@brucetucker4847]

If you think the US is the most dangerous rogue nation in the world you must have been living under a rock for the last 15 months, or else you're an extremely dishonest bad actor.

[@fk2926]

I was so sure about this I wrote that shit into my history exam ffs Ethan I hate you for that. But then again, I’m stupid for believing everything I see on KZbin...

[@nathanrobbin6341]

My father was the lead navigator of the fireball outfit and was flying lead during the Dresden campaign. My father being a Jew, felt very good about during the war. After the war however, he was haunted by the campaign, how unnecessary it was.

[@Greasyspleen]

Damn, I gotta stop getting history lessons from Vape Nation

[@Stand_By_For_Mind_Control]

"By Jove it would appear I've missed a spot or two" - Arthur Harris

[@joezingher4770]

I have not heard such an excellent analysis of the issues outside of a law school classroom. Thank you.

[@50043211]

I love USAmericans, they are so cute and simple and never heared of fact checking.

[@Izzrules]

I read that as “United States of Americans” which was a brain twister haha, but you’re 100% right, you should see the history textbooks in our schools!

[@MacCoalieCoalson]

50043211 Ok Anglocuck. If by facts you mean Anglo propaganda, then you'd be right, us Americans like to believe actual facts and not whitewashing genocides.

[@stephenwright8824]

@@MacCoalieCoalson To be fair, as I see it, the only people who the British have ever wanted to eradicate, where the world gave them a chance to do it, were their next door neighbours the Irish. Prove me wrong.

[@MaximilienRobespierre1]

Isn't the idea that there wasn't enough death certificates negated by the fact that the entire country was at the edge of collapse? 25k seems very small and I am not saying that number is false but considering that the German state was focused on the war effort and close to absolute destruction, isn't it easy to accept that they weren't issuing death certificates?

[@merry6671]

The number by that nature is underrepresentative of what happened, and I doubt that this youtuber is too stupid to know.

[@peterd440]

Germany, and the UK for that matter, had been keeping very good public records for over 100 years before the Dresden bombings. Historical analysis would easily debunk inflated death tolls and it did. Dresden was not an example of Britain at her best but it happened towards the end of a very tiring war against an enemy that had shown itself, repeatedly, to be highly inventive and effective. Compared to the protracted bombing of Essen and Hamburg by Britain and the US its notability was the the very short time span of its execution. It was the most terrible war the world has ever known and bad things happened but what happened to Dresden should not be elevated into the realm of the far more serious and despicable wrongdoing perpetrated by Germany.

[@spakes6561]

Elberiver11 These happened before WWII not During which makes them mostly irrelevant to the conversation, englands colonial acts and Churchills opinions were surely disgusting and fucked. But bringing them into WWII is like referencing slavery in america and comparing the Hatred of Blacks to use bombing the middle east. Now to Dresden, it was an important military target in the late war since it had been barely touched throughout it and 2/3 of german manpower on the eastern front was supplied through Dresden railway lines, even allied POWs in the city have talked about all the material and manpower that went through it. Destroying the City definitely helped the Soviets in the closing months by destroying rail lines and supplies. But youre probably gonna go "but they Fire Bombed Civilians" yes they did fire bomb civillians, but both sides of the war did this and fire bombing can be considered more effective than traditional bombs, since fire burns and doesnt just explode and leave things to easy repair, its also difficult to target small areas in this time period, unless you wanted the entire bomber fleet to fly really low every city with military value got destroyed even if it was only the outer parts of the city with industry. You couldnt hit a fucking mouse on the nose with a 2,000 pound guided bomb from 20,000 feet in WWII you needed hundreds if not thousands of bombers to be effective, even with a huge bomb load in every bomber.

[@mikedelhoo]

@Elberiver11 Dude you broke the irony meter. And went full what-about, to boot.

[@businessgoose6057]

I know a guy who was there. His family ran through melting sreeets. Bodies where dehydrated by the fire. Luckily his family lived outside the city propper. It scarred him for life. He was just a small boy. RIP K.P.G.😔

[@YensR]

What the fuck! I thought I had heard all major bullshit about WWII, how have I missed this one? When listening to Ethan, my finger nails rolled up. And that shit is written in the legendary and revered book by Vonnegut? Angry and disappointed. Thanks for the video!

[@Falstaff0809]

I can’t get over the excellence of your work, especially it’s clarity and simplicity: just do the research and teach the history.

[@johnscurr2501]

A good, non-hysteria induced summary. Thank you. I've been to Dresden several times and it still is a beautiful city, one can only imagine what it must have been before February '45 (as you correctly point out months before the war ground to a halt) Much has been written concerning the horror of that night and the following day and much of it has been total hogwash. The best account I've read (note I am not saying there were not inaccuracies - there may be but for sure there are fewer than in anything else i've read) is Dresden by Frederick Taylor. I had the pleasure of spending some time with a survivor on one of my trips who showed me round the Altstadt and the Nuestadt. As a young boy his mother took firstly him out to the street to take charge of the family as she found them and brought them out then went back to the cellar which was filling with water to get others from the family. He never saw her, his siblings or others from his family sheltering the cellars again. I can't even begin to imagine that scenario but he lived it. Now I am no apologist for whatever it took to bring the Nazis to their knees and I replied, somewhat crassly really because what can one say to somebody who has that horror in his personal history, that it was a shame that which fell upon Dresden and his family. He stopped me with the following, "Hey it was Germany which started that whole business, those who brought it to an end cannot be blamed for it just because they ended it so completely, Germans caused this to happen nobody else". Though at one level I could not argue the logic of that it did not alter the simple fact that it was a shame. Not a thing to be ashamed of as total war means total war but it was something to regret both his personal loss and the loss of such beauty to a world quite short of beauty at the time its destruction. Until fate decreed otherwise I had a plan of retiring to Meissen and even purchased property, so have a deep feeling for the area and many lovely people who I met there. I will return for sure before it's my time to jump off this mortal coil. However I will never disparage Bomber Harris or the horror of what he was tasked to do. The Russians in particular needed those marshalling yards at the train station ruined as any resupply/reinforcement of the German Army still fighting them would come through there. Although bombing accuracy had improved in the years from the early bombings of Germany it could in no way ever be termed precision bombing. Bomber Harris and his crews just did what they were tasked to do which was destroy German cities - not pretty, not particularly moral, not particularly ethical but it was total war and nobody should point the finger at anyone simply because they fought that total war more totally in the long run than their opponents. Nobody forced Germany into a warlike tour of Europe in 1939. Germany and the German populace made that decision, nobody else. Do not attack a dog and then act surprised when that dog bites back! I lived in Germany for a total of eight wonderful years, 2 of them in Berlin itself and I see Germany as my second home in particular I love the whole area of Sachsen and whilst I view the long since cleared up destruction as regrettable brought about by human folly I will never feel the need to apologize for my forefathers having brought the horror of the Nazi era to a halt by any and all means open to them. If I were German I would probably view it in much the same way. It seems there are some amongst the current generation of Germans who view it differently and would be happy to resurrect the whole notion once more. We can only hope the sane majority prevail but we have to keep an eye on the simple fact the sane majority stood by and allowed Adolf Hitler and his psychopaths to hoodwink and silence them in equal measure and took them down a one way road to the horror and destruction brought to them which they had wished to inflict on others. Don't sleep walk into that abyss again please Germany, you should be admired for your positive traits and natural beauty not the aberrations you cause.

[@johnscurr2501]

bill from nanaimo Yes bill, of course they did. Imbecile.

[@mattom1796]

Oh man. You're doing such a great job. Germans like you uphold my belief in the future of Europe, literally. Grüssen aus Polen!

[@difruntanguls]

Germans like this will have Europe turned into a divided dystopian Islamic enclave ridden shithole in no time. Your naivity is something to behold

[@mattom1796]

Paul Murray yeah yeah, been hearing about the downfall of Europe for ages now. Let me know when it finally happens. What’s funny is that militant Islam didn’t even kill a fraction of Europeans which died due to militant nationalism.

[@difruntanguls]

Where do you live Soren?

[@mattom1796]

Paul Murray Poland. Used to live on Germany, UK and Denmark as well for while.

[@justinusberger3933]

@@mattom1796 Future of Europe? You mean a multicultural shithole overseen by jews where whites have no self determination?

[@patrickmike2524]

The whole city was leveled and then he jumped through time

[@johnwarner4809]

Germany's V1 rocket attack on London lasted from June 1944 to March 29th, 1945. 8,000 rockets were launched, 2,400 of which hit their mark. Dresden was firebombed on the nights of February 13th-15th, 1945. Even with the devastation that was rained on Dresden, Germany didn't stop bombing England. They continued their rocket attacks on London for 6 more weeks.

[@KK-rg1wz]

Indeed, ... and they also kept on sending V1 and V2 to Antwerp, till March 1945....

[@EQOAnostalgia]

Hitler tried to avoid war with England and was denied. Don't bullshit me son.

[@johndoe6298]

@@EQOAnostalgia While invading Poland. Don't bullshit the world, you Nazi freak.

[@KK-rg1wz]

@@EQOAnostalgia Hitler invaded 11 countries, he only brought flowers to the local population, and especially the jews got extra's; grants, more holiday, no taxation, ...

[@theMoporter]

The Allies dropped 2 nukes on Japan and THIS is the villainous thing?

[@disappointingperson9162]

don't you know that white people matter more than asian people?/s

[@Bj-yf3im]

Both were villainous.

[@MaartenvanRossemLezingen]

Yes it was awful, just don't reinterpret history, that's wrong and dangerous. About 25.000 people died, not half a million. It was before Germany surrenedered, there was strategic merrit, it wasn't just killing civilians for fun.

[@oikmijnloly6033]

Maarten van Rossem Lezingen civilian bombings are normal its war. Both sides are always horrible in war but in ww2 it was clearly the axis that were a lot a lot worse

[@oikmijnloly6033]

@Tsar Caesar Cough cough fire bombings of tokyo, pretty much got redpilled on the jewish question after that comment so pretty outdated lmao

[@domcasmurro2417]

@Tsar Caesar Are you insane? The only civilians in germany were the children. The rest were nazis. Bombing nazis is not war crime.

[@moritzscholz9325]

@@domcasmurro2417 I do hope that's a joke Sir 😂😂

[@Siamzero1994]

@@domcasmurro2417 People in hiding from the nazis or fleeing the war in the east are not considered civilians anymore?

[@johndix1820]

I was in Bayreuth, Germany in 1992 with the US Army. An elderly lady I became friends with told me she remembered the Dresden bombing because it was from before to after Valentine’s day. She recalled hearing the wind rushing, roaring on its way to the Northeast. They didn’t know why but the wind roared in that same direction for three days. From 150 miles away they could tell something must be very wrong! Later, I visited a friend who was working in Dresden & lining in Pirna, about 12 miles upstream. The East Germans hadn’t had the money to rebuild Dresden & Russia had no sort of Marshall Plan at all. Tho older parts of the city were still destroyed. All rubble had been removed but it was flat open land. Maybe half a dozen trees were growing per former city block. The old street were still easy to notice, maybe because the old cobblestone was of different material? Maybe it was because they had had nothing protecting the surface unlike where buildings had once stood. It appeared the ground had been affected so greatly that very little would grow there. All around the former city Stalin era prefabricated apartment buildings had been constructed to house the common people. There was even an open GUM store! Only three buildings survived the building and they were made from limestone. A Catholic Church, Museum or Opera house and reportedly part of the old castle across the river. It was incredibly sad but I really couldn’t apologize. Bombing Dresden demonstrated clearly to all Germans the war was absolutely over! Allied planes could & were flying almost if not completely unopposed and devastate any location chosen. The bombing only stopped with the surrender. It amazed me later to realize in 1938 V-1 buzz bombs were considered a War Crime but less than eight years later we were fire bombing entire cities, using flame throwers in close quarters & every other device that could be imagined but poison gas to kill as many, as quickly as possible! I’ll mention here that at least 2/3 of the Germans I met were immigrants themselves or children of immigrants that had been rejected from other countries after the war because they were German & came there as refugees. Every little town had a memorial to the dead. A town of 150 may have lost twenty or more. Sitting in the city square of Amberg near Hohenfels, I noticed the side of the City Hall had carved into it something like 800 names of dead sons from WWII. The wall took up one entire side of the square. Took the warmth out of the summer thinking of all the families who lost their sons.

[@jmzsil]

I’m SOOOO glad “Knowing Better” referenced. Your name. I have a general understanding of propaganda and historical revisionism. Sadly I’m 51 and since 9/11 I’ve been trying to find solid sources for the truth that the mainstream media is twisting.

[@lorensims4846]

Thank you for this. I've been a huge fan of Kurt Vonnegut most of my life and have been fascinated with the bombing of Dresden ever since I read his description of it. Dresden seems to have been a uniquely beautiful city, just like the other great cities in Europe. I mourn for the dead from Dresden, just as I do for those from Berlin, Frankfort, Hamburg, Coventry, London, Stalingrad, Kobe, Tokyo, Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor, Hanoi, Inchon, Guernica, Londonderry, New York, Bagdhad, ...will it never end?

[@danzervos7606]

Dresden was a major supplier of optics for Germany's guns (cannons, used for example in their tanks). The Western Allies were being pressured by Russia to do something to reduce the German forces fighting their forces. Dresden was a major supply junction to the East. Clearly terror (area) bombing did not cause the German people to rise up against their leadership as was hoped. It didn't work in Japan either. However it did weaken Germany and Japan ability to continue the battle. At the very least it tied up tens of thousand of Axis soldiers manning AA guns and fighters.

[@markharrison2544]

The AA guns were manned by civilians.

[@j03cool]

Thank you, Thank you! I was watching a documentary called "Hellstorm" that was alarming. Your facts helped clear things up for me.

[@Massolgy]

Three arrow is wrong and very basied

[@bythefireside9447]

Bringing up Bomber Harris to a Wehraboo is like splashing holy water on a demon

[@DavidJGillCA]

The English language page on Wikipedia titled "Bombing of Dresden" does not include anything about the 2009 historians report.

[@staylowdubz]

50,000 people used to live here.. now it’s a ghost town.

[@lyliandubost2491]

No it's not, 550.000 people live there today

[@rubencollegeabq]

While Dresden should never be used for Nazi apologism, I really doubt that the bombing was a necessary evil. The Nazis could have been stopped without killing all those children.

[@onewhovlogs]

Total war and modern war is hell. Especially when the countries are ready to arm kids. It's scary

[@jimmu8689]

Rubi de la Huerga it was, it saved countless Russian lives.

[@livethefuture2492]

it was a justifiable military target as he literally said in the video and helped shorten the war. what wasn't justifiable was the ruthless genocide and ethnic cleansing by the nazis.

[@onewhovlogs]

@@livethefuture2492 in total war, everything is a justifable military target. Any civilian death should be mourned no matter what the reason was for the death

[@CarrotConsumer]

@@livethefuture2492 You're oversimplifying a complex situation to the point of no longer adding anything useful to the discussion.

[@richardzellers]

I lived in Dresden for years and used to give tours. Occasionally, someone would want to see the slaugherhouses from Vonegett's book. They are still there, and also a large grass covered, treeless mound where they dumped most of the debris after the bombing. The football field where the flare was dropped by a scout plane for reference for bombadiers is still there an active too. Sometimes construction is stopped because they'll find a bomb. I love that city.

[@ComradePhoenix]

To be entirely fair, accurate bombing of specific targets was incredibly difficult at the time. Even in daylight, US bombers could only hope to get 20% of their bombs within 300m of the target. British bombers, at least after the US entered the war, almost exclusively flew at night, and the H2S radar (which was developed to help identify targets) could really only be used to identify a city, not to pinpoint a specific target within it. Essentially, carpet bombing was a necessity driven by technological limitations. Precision bombing was only viable under certain conditions that simply did not exist over most of German territory, and especially not over Dresden.

[@PixelatedAstronaut]

I visited Dresden a couple of years ago and if you go to (I think it was) the Green Vault there's an audio tour. Everyone was laughing while listening to their audio guides except my girlfriend and I. We couldn't figure out why. When we asked our German friends, it's apparently because they put jokes in the audio guide. We didn't have any jokes in our English one, only a few lines once in a while reminding us that the collection would be much more impressive had it not been bombed by the allies. Anyway, thought it was a silly little story that's somewhat related that I could share. Love these videos and this group of similar people debunking idea's with fact. Keep it up!

[@DJAlGE11]

your statement on cologne is simply wrong

[@DJAlGE11]

Are you from Germany? Cause here in Germany it was discussed. A lot.

[@difruntanguls]

ALGEZockt I know it was. After it became public knowledge. Your media did not report on it for days. The British media does exactly the same and much of the ‘progressive’ media does not report these things at all and if they do they usually are apologetic or focus on the ‘racist’ reaction. People are taking about the nation wide Muslim peadophile grooming gangs here now. But they were not talking about it for years because the media, police and local ‘progressive’ labour politicians covered it up. The EU recently passed laws to punish journalists or politicians who publish negative stories about migrants for fuck sake. The agenda is blatant

[@DickiHoppenstedt]

dude this constant brining up of 1984 with everything people don't like is annoying as hell. come back when you've read the fucking book and understood it because this is not what it's about. Cologne was reported on from day one, just slowly. sure, you can criticize the way police behaved and media reported, but this is nowhere close to 1984.

[@markthomas5101]

Found your channel after your Rammstein Deutschland analysis, really enjoying your FACTUAL take down of some of the miss information that is currently out there. I am neither left or right (maybe slightly leaning to the right) but find your reasoning and evidence really informative. You work has caused me personally to evaluate my position on some of your topics. Can you give us your take on the ECB and the Euro for a future video.

[@stealthcone]

Even as a conservative I appreciate this channel’s drive to get the truth out there.

[@anonym1168]

Nice, even though I don't like conservatism, I think it's great if conservatives actually debate and are open for facts, unlike many other people on the right.

[@levihuerta9393]

Anonym 1 Its the same on both sides. Don’t act as if it’s solely a “conservative” problem.

[@leakycheese]

War is hell. Total war is total hell. Dresden is no more a war crime than the London Blitz was or any other area bombing that occurred in WW2. Shives makes an absolute ass of himself in the clip with his utter ignorance of history and lack of understanding of the realities of WW2. Good video, although your equivalance arguments are somewhat flawed for Harris and Churchill. The USAAF heavy bomber aircrews sustained not dissimilar high casualties to the RAF. Flying strategic bomber raids over the length of WW2 was very dangerous and bomber crews experienced the highest loss rates of any service arms on the Allied side. As for Churchill, all national leaders in WW2 had a lot of blood on their hands, but like I said at the start, total war is total hell.

[@harrisonduncan8367]

leakycheese it’s a part of war

[@robbieshand6139]

This is an excellent and informative look at the topic. As a Brit, I'm interested to see how it is perceived in Germany, given that it was undoubtedly our most controversial action of the war. The Americans had Hiroshima, we had Dresden.

[@PatrickCoble]

"Allies were fighting a genocidal regime which would have never stopped in it's brutal quest for power" Folks love creating alternate worlds where everybody wants to get along and sing happy songs, but given another 9-11 those same folks scared and angry will obliterate half the world. Videos like this are important.