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Pillar of Salt

© Thomas James Martin

And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been [in Sodom and Gomorrah] . But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

I read a lot of science fiction, and years ago became enamored with the short stories and novels of Kurt Vonnegut, especially Mother Night, Galapagos, and Slaughterhouse Five. I noticed that he always included in the short biography at the end of his books the statement that he ". . . witnessed the destruction of Dresden."

Vonnegut was an infantry scout during World War II and was captured on December 22, 1944 by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. Taken to the city of Dresden as a prisoner of war, his captors put him to work in a plant that made malt syrup for pregnant women.

The firebombing of Dresden, Germany on the night of February 13, 1945 which Vonnegut references, is one of the most controversial acts of the Allies during World War II. Dresden manufactured no munitions, was not an industrial or commercial center for the Nazis. There were no anti-aircraft emplacements to speak of.

The city was not even defended by the Luftwaffe at the time, as the German airplanes in t he vicinity were grounded due to lack of fuel. Yet, on this city renowned as a center of German architecture and culture, the Allies unleashed one of the most relentless and destructive air raids of the war.

During three waves of attacks, over 1,300 British and U.S. bombers dropped more than 3,300 tons of bombs on Dresden. Many of these bombs were incendiaries, filled with highly combustible chemicals such as magnesium, phosphorus and napalm. These incendiaries started a firestorm that sucked the oxygen from the air, causing temperatures to soar as high as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

Strangely enough, the only likely military targets, some barracks in the city's north side and the rail yard (sometimes used to transport troops and materials to the Eastern Front) were left untouched.

Depending on whose version of the events you read, the raid killed anywhere from 35,000 to 135,000 civilians though some studies indicate the death toll may have been in excess of 250,000, more than were directly killed at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, more than were killed during the days of the Blitz in Britain. The influx of refugees that had fled into the city as the Red Army marched into Germany from the East in the months prior to the bombing had almost doubled the population and makes it difficult to derive a better estimate of civilian deaths.

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