Essay On Dresden Bombing

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Dresden Bombing The Allied bombing of Dresden was among the most destructive European bombings of World War II. Thousands of Germans died in a city completely void of military importance as the Allied Air Force mercilessly bombed Dresden for a span of days. Regardless of the brutality of the Dresden bombing, the United States government did not release the attack to the press as an event of significance. The press, as well as the American people, were led to believe that the episode in Dresden was nothing more than a typical military operation. In some cases the government of the United States even asked news sources to not report on the bombing, knowing the devastating effects it would have on the morale of the American people. Although there are now more reliable facts regarding the …show more content…

A piece that I will examine is Victor Klemperer’s diaries recounting his firsthand experience of the Dresden bombing. In this piece, Klemperer outlines the horrors of the bombing and the difficulties he was forced to face. The diaries of Klemperer are another example of authors bringing a personal perspective to events and showing the horror behind emotionless statistics. In this way, writing can not only help to understand and mourn terrible events like the bombing of Dresden but even prevent them as it reminds us of the horrors of war. I also plan to examine specific excerpts from the books Closely Observed Trains, by Czech author Bohumil Hrabal and the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer which address the bombing of Dresden. I will show these pieces of writing to individuals and ask them about the emotions that the literature evokes. Hopefully, this will allow me to display the emotional qualities that writing like this has and brings to events that may seem emotionless when looked at solely through a historical