51.1°N 13.7°E Central Europe Bombing of Dresden
Briefing
Over the nights of 13-15 February 1945, RAF and USAAF bombers created a firestorm that destroyed the historic centre of Dresden and killed around 25,000 people. The raid has been debated ever since as a symbol of the moral cost of area bombing — witnessed firsthand by a young American POW named Kurt Vonnegut.
Books Covering This Event (9)
Historical Fiction
Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, drifting between his experiences as a POW in Dresden and an alien zoo.
Popular History
The mass tunnel breakout from Stalag Luft III in March 1944 — 76 airmen out, 50 murdered by the Gestapo on recapture.
617 Squadron, the bouncing bomb, and the breaching of the Ruhr dams in May 1943.
The RAF's night offensive against Germany — 55,000 aircrew dead, German cities in ashes, and the question of what it achieved.
The B-24 crews over Germany, told through the squadron of a young pilot named George McGovern.
The Eighth Air Force's bomber war over Germany — the deadliest American campaign of the war.
A German ace escorts a crippled American bomber to safety over the North Sea — and the two pilots meet again fifty years later.
Academic
An analytical answer to the war's biggest question — production, technology, morale, and the sea lanes.
The making and breaking of the Nazi economy — the war explained through fuel, steel, grain, and labor.