Dresden Germany

Dresden Germany somehow does not get bombed during WW2. Does it become a regional or even national capital (or a tourist trap!)?
 

Anderman

Donor
Dresden was the capitol of the Kingdom of Saxony und the later free state of Saxony in the Weimar Republic. After Word War 2 and until 1952 the GDR was made up by Länder and Saxony was one of them and the capitol was Dresden.
After the disbandment of the Länder the GDR was divided into Bezirke districts named after their capitol and one was Dresden.
And that was with the bombing but without it wouldn´t be different the east germans had Berlin and for the west the logical choice would have been Frankfurt.
But this guy from the Rhineland had other plans.
 
A german city that is just not going to escape bombing for the whole war. Well, unless you stop bombing of cities completely, but that would have a lot more butterflies than what youve asked.
 
A german city that is just not going to escape bombing for the whole war. Well, unless you stop bombing of cities completely, but that would have a lot more butterflies than what youve asked.

There really was no reason for Dresden to be bombed. There were hundreds of POW's there as well, which just shows that either the Allies' spys were horribly wrong or there really was something so bad there that even 60 years later there is no real "official" reason for the bombing other than "there be bridges and factories there".

Also if it doesn't get bombed we don't get the crazy (but good) Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut
 
There really was no reason for Dresden to be bombed. There were hundreds of POW's there as well, which just shows that either the Allies' spys were horribly wrong or there really was something so bad there that even 60 years later there is no real "official" reason for the bombing other than "there be bridges and factories there".

Also if it doesn't get bombed we don't get the crazy (but good) Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut
Was any capital of any of the laender not bombed? Was any other city that size left unbombed?
 
I believe that some of the biggest German cities that didn't have too much bombing were some in Thuringia like Erfurt and I believe Bamberg in Bavaria.
 
Dresden Germany somehow does not get bombed during WW2. Does it become a regional or even national capital (or a tourist trap!)?

1. Dresden has always been and is a regional capital (state capital of Saxony). But it stands no chance to become national capital. First of all, it is outside of the FRG, and the GDR will not let the chance down to make Ost-Berlin its capital.

Only if for some reason the Western powers can deny the GDR the use of Ost-Berlin, Dresden stands a chance (though I could imagine that the SED might decide to go to nearby Potsdam and wait until they can move back to Berlin). This would have its own set of implications, though. Due to Ulbricht's strong Saxon accent, this dialect was seen as a kind of "Communist rule language" (which is a bit mean). Pushing the capital into Saxony might reinforce regional antagonism and rivalries within the GDR.

2. In 1939, Dresden had 629,000 inhabitants. This dropped below 500,000 and it remained around this number until recent years when it rose above 520,000.
Demographically, it has suffered from WW2, without the bombardment, it might have maybe more inhabitants. With so much intact living space, there might be an urge to put a lot of refugees into the city.

Mind you: most of the ten thousands of people killed during the bombardment were not natives, but refugees from the East which had just poured into the city. Also, not all of the lost population between 1939 and 1950 is due to bombardment; there are also killed soldiers, killed Jews and evacuees which chose not to return.
And: not being bombed doesn't safe Dresden from finding itself in the Soviet zone resp. GDR. That itself has a demographic negative effect. Low birth rates. Lots of migration towards the GDR.

OTL, Dresden is #11 among Germany's most populated cities. I think an unbombed Dresden would at least be at 630,000 (assuming only a slight drop from 1939-50 and henceforth assuming similar growth/stagnation), that would carry her to a #6 position (and what is more, clearly ahead of its local rival Leipzig)....but certainly not to more than 700,000. Then it would today be German's largest non-million city, 5th after Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Cologne, ahead of Frankfurt and Stuttgart.

3. Dresden is a major tourist destination due to the reconstruction efforts in GDR times and afterwards (they still work to make parts of the inner city ressemble the pre-war architecture more), but as a major city it is definitely not a tourist trap. It is a city definitely worth seeing and whenever you get the chance, I urge you to see it. However, as most major landmarks stand again, there wouldn't be much more of an appeal than OTL by now.

A larger city might even be detrimental to its appeal. The GDR had a habit of destroying stuff it disliked, or to let historic houses decay. Also, a larger Dresden would suffer more suburban spread into the very attractive landscape around the city.
 
Going by current sizes, dresden is eleventh. Every single one of the twentyfive largest cities, down to aachen, was bombed. For dresden not to be bombed is wildly improbable.

Note, i only checked the top 25, i dont know how much further youd have to go to get a relatively untouched city.
 
There really was no reason for Dresden to be bombed. There were hundreds of POW's there as well, which just shows that either the Allies' spys were horribly wrong or there really was something so bad there that even 60 years later there is no real "official" reason for the bombing other than "there be bridges and factories there".

Bomber Harris believed killing as many German civilians as possible by creating fire storms in civilian population centers was the way to win the war and he was backed up by people who wanted revenge for the rocket attacks and bombings on British cities. Churchill didn't really honor Bomber Harris and his team after the war and it wasn't until this year that they put up a monument in London to them... which some Germans weren't happy about.

http://www.spiegel.de/international...to-british-wwii-bombers-to-open-a-840858.html

I know what drove Bomber Harris, but as for those who backed him alot of it I think was just anger. They knew after the war what they had done wasn't good or justifiable from a military standpoint, but in war people get angry and do things they regret like Julius Caesar getting mad at the people in a city resisting his seige and ordering every last one of them killed (40,000 men, women and children). Of course he didn't regret or feel bad about that afterword because they were 'just' barbarians therefore a little above animals in his view. A common view members of our species have had since the dawn of time that some other group is less human then their group and therefore its ok to use them as slaves or kill them all.

Its just a good thing Churchill was stopped by others from dropping the anthrax after he got really mad after a certain bombing. Tens of millions of Germans and other Europeans would have died in those attacks and hundreds of thousands to perhaps a million or two dead Brits from the German counter attack with their advanced nerve gasses they developed along with other chemical agents.

Revenge and anger are not good decision making tools. Bomber Harris wasn't motivated by revenge though he was motived by a real belief that Germany and the UK should try to fire bomb the hell out of each other and the one whose civilian will breaks first wins. Those who ok'ed his missions to burn German civilian centers to the ground though often I think were motivated by revenge.
 
Last edited:
Top