Apocalypse (1945)

In 1963 Alexander McKee wrote: David Irving produced his book The Destruction of Dresden. This created a tremendous furor. Undoubtedly there were still some sensitive nerves about. However, Mr. Irving's approach was so historically balanced and precise that I felt he had failed to bring out to the full the terrible truths of the story. I had understood it. But even so, some of his many critics accused him of writing at length of horror for horror's sake, particularly as regards the aftermath of the raids.

To me, this reaction seemed to show either that the critics had failed utterly to realize what had actually happened in Dresden or, alternatively, that the spectacles it conjured up were simply too shocking to be borne.

“What happened there is not for the squeamish to read, although the worst naturally enough will never be told. The people who could have told it died that night: not quickly, and not kindly, but in the most horrible ways..."

My involvement Dresden dated back to March 1960. Having left London University I was a steelworker in Mülheim, in the Ruhr, working up my knowledge of the Germans and their language; one night, resting in the steelwork dormitory, I read in an illustrated magazine an article about how British bombers had killed an estimated quarter of 9 million Germans in one fire-raid in 1945. I was dismayed. “The first attack alone,” the article continued, “should have sufficed to destroy Dresden and to murder tens of thousands of unprotected refugees who were camped on the banks of the Elbe. However in the same night the bombers came a second time... That was still not enough: at noon the next day the enemy flew against Dresden a third time, completing the work of destruction.”

Until this time I had no knowledge whatever of the atrocity; nor, I was convinced, had most of my fellow countrymen. A room-mate in the dormitory told me it was true; a native Dresdener, he had survived the air raid. I decided to investigate.

Three years later, on April 30, 1963 my book The Destruction of Dresden was published around the world.

Contents of the book Apocalypse 1945: The Destruction of Dresden

Part One DRESDEN: THE PRECEDENTS

• Chapter 1 - They Have Sown the Wind
• Chapter 2 - Bomber Command gets its Teeth
• Chapter 2 - Fire-Storm
• Chapter 3 - A Second Fire-Storm
• Chapter 4 - The Sabre and the Bludgeon

Part Two: THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

• Chapter 1 - Dresden the Virgin Target
• Chapter 2 - Thunderclap

Part Three: THE EXECUTION OF THE ATTACK

• Chapter 1 - The Plan of Attack
• Chapter 2 - The Plate-Rack Force Arrives
• Chapter 3 - A City on Fire
• Chapter 4 - The Triple Blow Complete

Part Four: THE AFTERMATH

• Chapter 1 - Ash Wednesday
• Chapter 2 - The Victims
• Chapter 3 - “Abteilung Tote”
• Chapter 4 - Anatomy of a Tragedy
• Chapter 5 - They Shall Reap the Whirlwind