People need to be reminded of stuff every now and then!
I'm writing this because things seem to be getting out of hand on the International scene lately and before things get worse... maybe we should have another look at what fighting a war looks like!!!!!!)
The old adage says: “History is written by the victors!”
I would like to add my own saying and it goes like this: The winners always downplay their own sins by a factor of up to ten.. and exaggerate the loser's sins by up to a factor of ten.
One of the misconceptions of WW11 is the death toll of Dresden by Allied bombers and the death toll of Hiroshima by the A-bomb!
First Dresden: It was a culture and art city of 750,000 people with little military value, and there was another approx. 500,000 refugees fleeing the advancing Russian army.
This gave it a population of between one million to 1 1/2 million women, children and old men. (Since the young men were off fighting the war!)
Twelve weeks before the end of the war the Allies fire-bombed the entire city and burned it to the ground as this picture shows:
(Taken from the top of city hall)
Now, although original estimates put the death toll at half a million people.. the allies claimed it was closer to 35,000 and just in the past few years lowered it further to 25,000.
Now Hiroshima:
It was a city of up to half a million and Allied estimates of casualties were a little more accurate since they claimed about 100,000 deaths but you have to remember that after the bomb only concrete buildings remained standing since all the houses we made of flimsy wood and practically the whole city burned to the ground.
To the victor goes the spoils!