At 9.51 p.m. on Tuesday 13th February 1945, Dresden’s air-raid sirens
sounded as they had done many times during the Second World War. But
this time was different. By the next morning, more than 4,500 tons of
high explosives and incendiary devices had been dropped on the
unprotected city.
At least 25,000 inhabitants died in the terrifying firestorm and
thirteen square miles of the city’s historic centre, including
incalculable quantities of treasure and works of art, lay in ruins. In
this portrait of the city, its people, and its still-controversial
destruction, Frederick Taylor has drawn on archives and sources only
accessible since the fall of the East German regime, and talked to
Allied aircrew and survivors, from members of the German armed services
and refugees fleeing the Russian advance to ordinary citizens of
Dresden.
