{"id":100476,"date":"2026-01-22T04:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T09:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=100476"},"modified":"2026-02-15T18:02:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T23:02:25","slug":"dresden-part-1-targets-tangents-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2026\/01\/22\/dresden-part-1-targets-tangents-genocide\/","title":{"rendered":"Dresden Part 1 &#8211; Targets, Tangents &#038; Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vxVEmYk-oO0?si=ZdVeBtmsrQ2cuVQp\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>HardThrasher<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 20 Jan 2026<\/p>\n<p>Was Dresden a war crime or a late-war military decision made in cold blood? The firebombing of Dresden (13\u201314 Feb 1945) remains one of the most infamous episodes of the WW2 history: a firestorm, a shattered city, and a death toll that still sparks argument today.<\/p>\n<p>But most of what &#8220;everyone knows&#8221; about Dresden is wrong. In Part 1 of this two-part series, you and I will dig into the real reasons Dresden became a target. We also ask the uncomfortable questions: Was Dresden an &#8220;innocent&#8221; city? How Nazi was it? And what does Dresden reveal about the logic \u2014 and limits \u2014 of strategic bombing? And because this is my video and I&#8217;ll do as I damn well please, we&#8217;ll also do a quick overview of nearly 1,000 years of history, because why not. Thus in this you will also get the Northern Crusades, a discussion of pottery, a smattering of Central European history and long discussion of how the Nazis subverted power and used it to abuse people whilst being wildly incompetent at the basics<\/p>\n<p>00:00 &#8211; Start<br \/>\n04:39 \u2013 Part 1 \u2013 A Brief History of Everything in Central Europe<br \/>\n17:36 \u2013 Rise of the Nazis and the Nuremberg Laws<br \/>\n30:25 \u2013 Military and Industrial Dresden<br \/>\n34:03 \u2013 Failure to Prepare for War<br \/>\n40:37 \u2013 How did it become a target?<br \/>\n52:37 \u2013 Survivor&#8217;s Club<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Join the Hellfire Club here! &#8211; patreon.com\/LordHardThrasher<br \/>\nBuy Merch here! &#8211; hardthrasher-shop.fourthwall.com<br \/>\nEmail me here! \u2013 lordhardthrasher@gmail.com<br \/>\nShout at my Socials here! \u2013 Twitter @hardthrashe Bluesky @lordhardthrasher.bsky.social<br \/>\nInsta &#8211; www.instagram.com\/lordhardthrasher<br \/>\nTikTok &#8211; @lordhardthrasher<\/p>\n<p>i) <em>Dresden<\/em>, Taylor, Bloomsbury Books, 2004 (Electronic version 2011), p.19<br \/>\nii) Taylor, <em>Ibid<\/em>, p.53<br \/>\niii) Taylor, <em>Ibid<\/em>, p.87<br \/>\niv) <em>The Hitler Years \u2013 Holocaust \u2013 1933-1945<\/em>, Frank McDonough, Bloomsbury, 2025, p.24<br \/>\nv) Taylor, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.65<br \/>\nvi) McDonough, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.30 and on.<br \/>\nvii) McDonough, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.43 and on<br \/>\nviii) Taylor, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.68<br \/>\nix) Taylor, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.95-97<br \/>\nx) Taylor, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.100<br \/>\nxi) McDonough, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p. 371<br \/>\nxii) <em>Railways in Dresden 1939 to 1945<\/em>, Neutzner (1999)<br \/>\nxiii) <em>The Bombing War in Europe<\/em>, Overby, Penguin, 2014 p.35<br \/>\nxiv) Taylor, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.188 and on<br \/>\nxv) Taylor, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.188<br \/>\nxvi) Taylor, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.252-254<br \/>\nxvii) Overby, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.390<br \/>\nxviii) <em>Carl A Spaatz and the Air War in Europe<\/em>, Richard G. Davis, Centre for Air Force History, 1993, p.543<br \/>\nxix) Davis, <em>Ibid<\/em>, p.550<br \/>\nxx) Taylor, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.236<br \/>\nxxi) Davis, <em>op. cit.<\/em>, p.552<br \/>\nxxii) <em>Bomber Offensive<\/em>, Arthur Harris, Pen &#038; Sword Aviation, Kindle Edition p.315<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HardThrasher Published 20 Jan 2026 Was Dresden a war crime or a late-war military decision made in cold blood? The firebombing of Dresden (13\u201314 Feb 1945) remains one of the most infamous episodes of the WW2 history: a firestorm, a shattered city, and a death toll that still sparks argument today. But most of what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1118,7,5,13,663,230],"tags":[145,304,347,1614,457,1041,1197,1579,1447],"class_list":["post-100476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-germany","category-history","category-military","category-usa","category-weapons","category-ww2","tag-airforce","tag-antisemitism","tag-debunking","tag-dresden","tag-fascism","tag-holocaust","tag-interwarperiod","tag-lordhardthrasher","tag-strategicbombing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-q8A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100476"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100477,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100476\/revisions\/100477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}