Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 13:12:29 -0500 Reply-To: H-GERMAN EDITOR Dan Rogers Sender: H-NET List on German History From: H-GERMAN EDITOR Dan Rogers Subject: Re: Victimization There are two messages: 1) Submitted by: Michael J. Sauter Re: David Neal Miller's response to Roland Wagner I find David Miller's judgments on the subject of Dresden's destruction appalling. Mr. Miller evidently believes that when we recognize the moral ambiguities involved in obliterating an entire city we dissolve the stigma attached to Nazi Germany's crimes. I argue, however, that recognizing those ambiguities is exactly what makes us superior to the Nazis and gives us the moral high ground necessary for judging them. Even if convined Nazis were skulking about Dresden the indiscriminate destruction of a city that also harbored thousands of non-combattants remains morally dubious. It was as wrong for the allies to fire bomb a city that had no military value as it was for the Nazis to bomb indiscriminately. Admitting that the United States made bad moral choices in pursuing a just war does not denigrate the memory of the Nazis' victims, it makes true remembrance possible. If too many Germans forgot that morality must guide each individual irrespective of the political conditions, we should not repeat their errors through self-righteous recollections of our own. If we are not willing to subject ourselves to moral scrutiny then we have little foundation upon which to judge others. That war can have a vicious logic should not overthrow the moral codes the allies were supposedly fighting to uphold. Moreover, even if Dresden's firestorm was condign punishment for the Nazis does Mr. Miller assume that everyone in Dresden was a party fanatic? One would hope that historians have moved beyond the sort of rigid "us vs. them" characterizations that were also at the root of the Nazi world view. (You lived in Dresden? Too bad. Burn.) Evidently, Mr. Miller has not. Nonetheless, I was still mildly encouraged to see him note that the immolation of the "not-yet-corrupted young" should be a minor exception to the glee that wells up in him at the thought of Dresden's flames. There is hope. Michael J. Sauter 2) Submitted by: Mary Ann Coyle Re: David Neal Miller's remarks Such sentiments are appalling and totally inappropriate even for victors. I am currently living in Dresden and hearing firsthand accounts from people who lived here in 1945. Would Mr. Miller really condone the bombing after hearing stories of the total destruction of Women's hospitals with all patients killed? That means pregnant women, women in the midst of childbirth, infants. Burned or crushed to death. The question of responsibility for the gruesome war waged by the Germans against Jews, against the East, and against the rest of Europe should not blind us to the mistakes and regrettably brutal acts of the victors. And certainly we should not revel in the vindictive, misguided attempt at psychological warfare that the destruction of Dresden represents. .