Dresden and the Second World War

Project #4: Did Allied Strategic Bombing become more effective over time?

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As mentioned in a previous post, the use of new technology such as White Phosphorus likely did increase the damage dealt by fire raids in later years of the war. Could we see a clear improvement in effectiveness over time with total damage as well?

For this post, I am comparing two specific HE and IB raids. The first raid on Hamburg is split in four parts and occurred between the fourth of June and the third of August 1943. The second was a major strike on the city of Darmstadt on the 11th and 12th of September 1944. While only occurring a bit over a year later, it occurs close to the end of the war and only a few months before Dresden was bombed. To be clear, Hamburg is a much larger city than Darmstadt, so it would take far fewer bombs to damage heavily than it would to damage Hamburg, thus, the comparison will be made between the two based on population numbers. The U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey gives a population estimate for 1943 of 109,000 people.1 As also mentioned in a prior post, these claims about population are likely close, but not accurate, as several U.S. military sources have used the the same numbers for different years for Dresden and other cities. This estimate is likely close, however, based on prior findings, so we will trust this number for now. Hamburg is estimated to have had a population of 1,760,000 in 1943 and even though we cannot trust that number truly either, it is consistent with other U.S. sources from the time.2

In total, for the selected 1943 raids on Hamburg, 5010 tons of bombs were dropped including both Incendiaries and High Explosives.3 Interestingly, at Hamburg, a majority of the bombs dropped during this period were HE bombs with the bombers dropping 2,664 tons of HE.4. At Darmstadt, the majority of bombs dropped were IBs. The Allies dropped 571.7 tons of incendiaries and 398.5 tons of HE totaling at 970.2 tons.5. Given that Hamburg is a much larger city, it makes sense logically that more bombs were dropped to destroy a larger area. The purpose of strategic bombing is to destroy industry, disrupt logistics, and to “dehouse” German workers, as the British called, it to break their morale and disrupt workers.6 What is interesting between these two bombings is the population per ton ratio between the two bombings.

If we take the estimated population of both cities and divide them by the total tonnage of bombs dropped on the city, we get an interesting statistic. In the chart, I have added Dresden, both from the 14th-15th raid, and in total as a further comparison for this point. The most devastating fire raids have the lowest number of bombs per person. The USSBS estimated that between 55 and 60 percent of Hamburg was destroyed or severely damaged by these raids.7 They also state that around 70 percent of Darmstadt was destroyed or severely damaged.8. The 1953 US Airforce Historical Division gives several estimates for Dresden's damage, the first being that around 80% of the city's dwellings received at least "some damage," and that 56 percent of non-residential buildings were completely destroyed along with around 50 percent of the residential buildings of the city.9 This data is not truly conclusive, since the USAF does not give much information about the total damage to the city by itself, however, they also state that in early reports, the center of the city "Altstadt," or Old Town was completely destroyed and that 85 percent of the city was severely damaged or destroyed.10

Even if we estimated that the 14th-15th of February raid on Dresden destroyed 75 percent of the city to strike a balance between the early estimates and the later data the USAF Historical Division compiled, we can clearly see that over time, the Allies became more efficient with their bombings of German cities. If we take all of the bombings of Dresden between October 1944 and April 1945, we get the lowest number yet at almost 80 people per ton dropped on the city. While we need to be careful in assuming that every single person who is not counted in a later population estimate died only to strategic bombing, there is a clear correlation between population loss, city damage, and a low number of people per bomb ton. To explain this warning further, the USSBS has the population loss of 77.1 percent in Darmstadt from 1943 to the end of the war.11 While this is a terrifyingly high number, we need to remember that many of these people fled the city and did not return, were drafted to fight on the Eastern or Western fronts and died or were captured there, or moved elsewhere after the war since the USSBS states that around 48,000 people lost their homes in the raid.12 As another warning to both myself and you, we must remember that these were not data points, but humans who lived and died in a very real war. They lost their homes, their friends, and families, as did many people in Great Britain, The United States, The Soviet Union, and elsewhere.

Bibliography

Moeller, Robert G. “On the History of Man-Made Destruction: Loss, Death, Memory, and Germany in the Bombing War.” History Workshop Journal 61, (2006): 103-134. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25472839.

USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute. “Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden.” 13 April 1953. Air University. https://web.archive.org/web/20130218171142/http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-110208-030.pdf. Accessed 23 November 2024.

United States Strategic Bombing Survey. “Fire Raids on German Cities.” 1947. https://aul.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01AUL_INST/u9e6on/alma995580593406836, Accessed 23 November 2024.

“Wikipedia: Dresden.” Wikimedia Foundation. last modified 22 November 2024. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden#.

  1. United States Strategic Bombing Survey, “Fire Raids on German Cities,” 1947, 22, https://aul.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01AUL_INST/u9e6on/alma995580593406836, Accessed 23 November 2024. [↩]
  2. Ibid, 9. [↩]
  3. Ibid, 12. [↩]
  4. Ibid, 12 [↩]
  5. Ibid, 23 [↩]
  6. Robert G. Moeller, “On the History of Man-Made Destruction: Loss, Death, Memory, and Germany in the Bombing War,” History Workshop Journal 61, (2006): 107, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25472839. [↩]
  7. United States Strategic Bombing Survey, "Fire Raids," 16. [↩]
  8. Ibid, 24 [↩]
  9. USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute, “Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden,” 13 April 1953, Air University, 35, https://web.archive.org/web/20130218171142/http://www.afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-110208-030.pdf, Accessed 23 November 2024. [↩]
  10. Ibid, 18-19. [↩]
  11. United States Strategic Bombing Survey, "Fire Raids," 25. [↩]
  12. Ibid, 25. [↩]