I don't think people would believe the scale of these things unless there was video and/or photographic evidence (which there thankfully is)

Not all Europeans, just Germans.

The Dresden firebombing is very well known outside of Germany. And if you've seen the 'before' and 'after' pictures of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden you won't be surprised that people consider them to be on the same scale.

Bombing of Dresden is well known, of course, but it doesn't compare to a single bomb that can level cities when it comes to deterring your enemy. I'm not trying to diminish the scale of destruction in Dresden, but there are many cities other than it that got destroyed in similar, "conventional" way (like Warsaw, Breslau or Tokyo), so I don't see why it should be treated in a special way.

Robert McNamara points out that the firebombing of Tokyo killed 100,000 civilians. In "The Fog of War" he also says that if the Allies had lost, he and Curtis "Bombs Away!" LeMay would have been treated as War Criminals, because they were.

> Bombing of Dresden is well known, of course, but it doesn't compare to a single bomb that can level cities when it comes to deterring your enemy.

It does actually. The only difference is how long it took and arguably Dresden was in worse shape than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

> I'm not trying to diminish the scale of destruction in Dresden

Well, forgive me.

> but there are many cities other than it that got destroyed in similar, "conventional" way

No, there aren't. That's exactly why Dresden stands out.

> I don't see why it should be treated in a special way.

You really should go and have a look at those before and after pictures then. They are nothing short of incredible.

Warsaw, Breslau or Tokyo (and Rotterdam, for that matter) do not compare even though the destruction there was widespread.

> No, there aren't. That's exactly why Dresden stands out.

I don't think it should be treated as a "most destroyed city" contest, but you should really research the scale of destruction in the cities I've mentioned. [1] looks quite comparable to [2], [3] looks arguably worse.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_destruction_of_Warsaw#...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_Wa...

[3] https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2d/10/af/2d10af195da2779dbd4c31ddf...

Those cities are larger. But the reason Dresden is used as an example in these conversations is not because such a huge number of people died (< 50K iirc) but because of the whole town very little was left standing. Those other cities are much larger, and even if in total more was destroyed also much more was left standing. Dresden was pretty much gone.

From [1]: "In total there were 222,000 apartments in the city. The bombing affected more than 80 percent of them with 75,000 of them being totally destroyed, 11,000 severely damaged, 7,000 damaged, and 81,000 slightly damaged."

From [2]: "By January 1945, between 85% and 90% of the buildings had been completely destroyed; this includes up to 10% as a result of the September 1939 campaign and following combat, up to 15% during the earlier Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 25% during the Uprising, and 40% due to systematic German demolition of city after the uprising"

It's not me underestimating the scale of destruction of Dresden, but rather you underestimating the scale of destruction in other cities.

[1] http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Bombing_of_Dresden...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_destruction_of_Warsaw

> Warsaw, Breslau or Tokyo (and Rotterdam, for that matter) do not compare even though the destruction there was widespread.

It really must have required special kind of ignorance to write this sentence.

Dresden only stands out due to relatively short time in which all the destruction was done - it was just a few nights of heavy bombing.

If you compare overall damage then Dresden had less than 50% of its building destroyed, while Warsaw had been destroyed in 80%-90%.

It was what stopped the British led allied bombing which had escalated out of the Blitz. Dresden was not a military target and its destruction killed so many civilians that they stopped night time bombing raids.

> It was what stopped the British led allied bombing which had escalated out of the Blitz. Dresden was not a military target and its destruction killed so many civilians that they stopped night time bombing raids.

No. Dresden was bombed on 15 February 1945 [0]. The British continued night raids until the end of the war, peaking in March, and with the last raid on Berlin on the night of 21/22 April (76 Mosquitos) and the final raid on the night of 25/26 April [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden#Second_World_War

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Bomber_Command#Strategic_b...

Have you any source for that? It certainly raised questions but the war was winding down and destroying things the allies would need wasn’t in their interest.

Bigger raids happened after Dresden as well and Harris gave his opinion: “I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier.” Luckily he alone didn’t make describe I guess.