Dresden

On the 13^th of February, 1945, 75 years ago, over 760 Brutish Avro Lancaster heavy bombers, flying from bases in England, bombed the German city of Dresden. Dresden, a city of minimal military importance, was in eastern Germany and directly in the path of the advancing Red Army. A city of cultural buildings, it was known as the Florence On The Elbe and, moreover, was swollen to the brim with refugees from the collapsing Eastern Front.

The Brutish air raid came in two waves. The first was preceded by Mosquito light bombers, dropping flares to mark the target for the Lancasters. These then inundated the city with a mix of high explosive bombs (called “cookies”, basically two ton steel drums packed with explosives, lacking fins or any other control surface and therefore completely unusable to target any specific objective) and incendiaries. Despite the later Brutish allegation that it was bombing a “strategic target”, a claim uncritically parroted by Wikipedia, the evidence of the ordnance itself (also reported by Wikipedia) proves it to be a lie. Cookies weren’t targetable bombs; they could not have been used to target specific installations, like the contemporary Grand Slam and Tallboy bombs the Brutish also used. Cookies were meant to blow the roofs off houses and destroy water mains (also something Wikipedia, operating on the principle that its readers lack critical thinking faculties, reports without attempting to create new “facts”, but give it time).

In fact, by 1945 the Brutish had turned city bombing into a highly “scientific” procedure, optimised to destroy as much civilian infrastructure as possible. The idea was that Mosquito light bombers would mark the target by flares, and guide in the first bombers, Pathfinder squadrons, which would then illuminate the targets by sticks of flares. The main force of bombers, arriving shortly thereafter, would then bomb the illuminated city with cookies, blowing off roofs (these, in 1945, were of slate and would be blasted off by concussion) to expose the interiors of the houses to the incendiaries, which would then set off mass fires. The cookies would also blow apart water mains, thus making the task of extinguishing the fires nearly impossible. As the fires built up, the geography of the city would decide what would then happen. If the surroundings were relatively flat and allowed free air movement, the heat of the fires would cause the air around them to rise, forming a low pressure area. Winds from outside would then rush into this low pressure area, acting exactly like a fan to the flames. This phenomenon could either cause a wall of flame to be blown across the city at storm wind speed (known as a firestorm) or drive fires together to create a single massive central fire (known as a conflagration). A firestorm, being blown across the city and igniting areas not directly struck by the bombing, would be more devastating than a conflagration. Like Hiroshima a few months later, Dresden was to suffer a firestorm, one of such magnitude that survivors talk of seeing others being blown by the winds into fires that they were in the process of escaping. This firestorm would also have the charming effect of consuming the breathable oxygen in the air, handily suffocating civilians cowering in air raid shelters who might avoid being blown to pieces by the cookies or incinerated by the firestorm. Afterwards, rescue teams would find cellars full of corpses suffocated to death and then turned by the heat into a formless slag.

If you think that was bad enough, we haven’t even started yet. Three hours after the first wave of bombers, a second wave of Brutish Lancasters turned up over Dresden for another bombing run. Why three hours? Actually, even that was a planned delay. The Brutish had calculated that in three hours the German air raid wardens, rescue teams from the TENO organisation, firemen and ambulance workers would be at their jobs attempting to save the survivors of the first wave who were buried under the rubble. Yes, exactly like Barack Hussein Obama’s and now Donald Trump's drones would later do in Yemen and Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan, Iraq and Whoknowswhereistan, the intention of this second wave was to deliberately murder rescue workers, and nothing else. Wikipedia, still imagining that nobody has any thinking ability, manages to report this in the same article that claims that the objective was to destroy a “strategic target”

The next day, and the day after that (14^th and 15^th February, 1945) – while the city was still burning – over 500 Amerikastani B 17 heavy bombers, with an escort of almost 800 Amerikastani P 51 fighters, bombed Dresden in more air raids. The B 17s could only carry about half the bomb load of the Brutish Lancasters, and  the city was covered in haze from the fires, so these raids did much less damage. However, German fighter opposition was nonexistent (only one B 17 was shot down by anti aircraft fire), so the P 51s expended their ammunition by strafing refugee columns fleeing the charred city. For some reason most accounts of the bombing omit this. Perhaps because said accounts are mostly from Amerikastani sources (or from Amerikastani vassals like modern day Germans, about whom I’ll have something to say in a little bit), and they want to portray the Brutish as the sole villains of the piece. At most they’ll grudgingly say that, yes, Amerikastani bombers did bomb Dresden, but they’ll leave out the psychopathic strafing of helpless refugee columns.

Despite the claims of it being a “strategic target”, the fact is that there never was any military necessity for the firebombing of Dresden. As this became clear, the Brutish, changing their stance, claimed that it was to help the Red Army by disrupting German troop movements to the Eastern Front. This is hogwash. The Red Army, which was taking cities without having to burn them to ash first, had made no such request for assistance. The reasons, as anyone who has read extensively about the bombing can tell you, were twofold:

First, pure bloodlust on the part of the Brutish, who wanted to kill Germans for the crime of being a threat to Brutish world domination. The Brutish Bomber Command head, Air Chief Marshal Harris (known to its aircrew as “Butcher Harris”) was such a psychopath that even the monstrous war criminal Churchill was disgusted by it. The bombing had nothing to do with defeating Hitler because Dresden was not a city in any way important to Nazism, like Berlin or Nuremberg for example (Hitler would probably have called its art and architecture "decadent", anyway). And I recall reading that one Brutish officer (who did not take part in the actual attack) told the aircrew to be sure to bomb the city's central square because he had once stayed in a hotel at the square and thought the management had cheated him. Such petty reasons were used to justify the incineration of tens of thousands of human beings.

In Len Deighton's novel Bomber, a brilliant book on the RAF bombing of German cities, a disillusioned Brutish bomber pilot makes a telling point: the bombing effort was always directed at the centres of German cities, which never had anything of military value. There were old buildings of wooden construction, narrow alleys, and civilian residential districts around it. The industrial section was always in the suburbs, which were never bombed. This, of course, wasn't unknown to the Brutish Bomber Command, which knew perfectly well that all it was doing was killing civilians. Incidentally, for some reason, Bomber has never been made into a film, despite being eminently filmable, with the Brutish bombing campaign against German cities being shown not just from the point of view of the aircrew but also of the German civilians on the receiving end. Total coincidence, I’m sure!

Second, Dresden was bombed as a warning to the Soviets of what the Amerikastanis and Brutish were capable of. It had nothing much that was vital in the way of military facilities or production, and even those that were, were not bombed. The one allegedly strategic purpose was to destroy the railway to prevent Germany moving forces to the front against the Red Army; and this railway was so untouched that three days after the bombing, while the ruins of the city were still on fire, German military trains were already moving down that same railway, quite unmolested. Therefore, far from helping the Red Army, the bombing was intended to scare it. In addition to that, Dresden was to fall in the pre-agreed Soviet zone of occupation and the Brutish and Amerikastanis wanted to destroy everything in it that they could in order to deny it to the USSR.

How many were killed in Dresden? This is not a small matter, because it’s become a major bone of contention. According to many, many amateur critics of the bombing, the number killed was 250,000, or, even more fancifully, 500,000. David Irving, who wrote an otherwise excellent book on the bombing, at first repeated this 250,000 figure. However, the Dresden city authorities at the time of the bombing itself cited 20-25000 dead, and Irving himself has now accepted those figures. However, like the Holocaust fetishists with their six million carved in stone figure, there are immense numbers of people who still insist, almost as a matter of holy writ, that 250000, or 500000, or maybe even more must have died in the bombing. Must have, they insist.

I don't see how it helps to insist that a particular - and evidence-free - number of civilians died in Dresden; whether the number was 2, 2500, 25000 250000, or 2.5 million, it was an equally vile war crime and the Brutish and Amerikastanis were trying to murder as many civilians as they could. That they didn’t murder more was not for want of trying.

However, there is a major problem with quoting David Irving's initial figures of 250000 dead in Dresden: Irving himself reduced those figures to 20-25000, saying that his initial estimate was based on wrong information. It gives an opening for apologists for the bombing to divert the question to the casualty figures while ignoring the central crime itself. Which, let me repeat, remains a vile war crime no matter whether two people or two hundred thousand were murdered.

This, however, does not seem to be something comprehensible to Germans of today, who have apparently been so systematically brainwashed by their Amerikastani overlords over the past 75 years that if you check any YouTube video of the activities of RAF Bomber Command, you’re sure to find Germans cravenly thanking the Brutish – and Amerikastanis, of course – for bombing their cities (not to mention their parents and grandparents) to “free them”. This despite the fact that Nazi Germany was in no shape or form a democracy, so, of course, the German civilians incinerated by the bombing bore no responsibility for the actions of their regimes. Unlike the Brutish, Amerikastanis, and Germans of today, who vote for war criminals who invade and occupy defenceless countries on the other side of the planet and murder their civilians exactly as the Brutish and Amerikastanis murdered the civilians of Dresden 75 years ago.

In commemoration of the 75^th anniversary of the bombing, I did this painting.

Title: Dresden

Material: Acrylic on wooden board.

After taking the above photo, I applied varnish on the painting, and then took another photo of the painting with the varnish just applied, totally wet, and gleaming in the room's lights. The reflections actually make it look as though the glare is part of the painting, an effect that goes rather well, though it does obscure some details. I suppose a combination of the two works best, so here you have both the wet varnish and, above, without. When it dries it will look like the unvarnished version, albeit slightly more gleamy.

The Living Undead

[Image Source]

    It was the End of Days.

    Civilisation had collapsed. Law and order were a distant memory. Chaos ruled the streets.

    It was the time so many had so long waited so eagerly for.

    The Zombocalypse had come at last.

******************************************** 

    Fanboy Number One leaned back in his chair and stared, gloating, up at the ceiling. In his imagination, through it, his gaze reached the hordes of Dead Fucks shambling along the streets. Sensually, like a lover, he stroked the sleek black M 16 rifle in his hands. The magazine was full of metal jacketed rounds, all ready to blast holes through the heads of any of Those Things that Fanboy Number One aimed at.

    Behind Fanboy Number One, leaned against the basement wall, piled on the table and chairs, and thrown on the bed, was the rest of his beloved arsenal; an M 1, an M 2, one M 3, an M 4, two M 6s, an M 7, one M 8, part of an M 10 (the stock was missing), an M 11, an M 14, an M 15, another M 16, an M 17, no less than three M 19s, an M 20, a couple of M 57s, one M 85, and an M 99. There was also an Armalite, a Legaheavy, a Winchester, a Losebacker, a Colt Special, a Horse General, a Desert Eagle, a Forest Pigeon, a Glock, a Gkey, a pump shotgun, and an aqueduct shotgun. Of course there was ammunition for all of them: piles of shotgun shells in 12 gauge, 21 gauge, 14 gauge and 23 gauge; bullets in 0.22, 0.25, 0.52, 0.32, 0.23, 0.44, 0.45, 0.53, 5.56mm, 6.55mm, 7.62 mm, 6.27 mm, 9 mm, 12.7mm, and 7.12 mm sizes, all thrown together in confusion.  Also there were cans of gun oil, slings, leather holsters, and posters on the wall of Arnold Schwarzenegger using all of those weapons, sometimes all of them at once. There was also a katana, a compound bow, another compound bow, yet another compound bow, an arrow, and, last but not the least, a Stinger surface to air missile loaded in a disposable portable launcher. Fanboy Number One intended to use this on any interfering helicopter that might threaten him with rescue.

    Fanboy Number One did not want rescue. Fanboy Number One was very happy right where he was.

    How long had Fanboy Number One waited for this day? How many years had he spent watching zombie movies, worshipping the Sainted George Romero, knowing him for the Holy Prophet that he was, instead of merely the maker of trash movies that everyone else took him for? How many hundreds of hours had he crouched over his keyboard, gnawing at sandwiches while reading zombie fiction on sites such as the Home Page Of The Dead and posting messages on zombie survival fora? He’d known, known, damn it, that this day would come! How he had planned for this, how he’d pined, hating the stupid fools who said he was an immature basement dwelling troglodyte with neither social skills nor any aptitude to make a living! How many times he had promised himself that when the day came, he would show them.

    The day, the glorious day, had finally arrived, and Fanboy Number One was ready.

    No, he did not want rescue, not at all.

    Turning back to his computer, Fanboy Number One brushed a few of the larger crumbs off the keyboard and turned on the machine. He grimaced slightly when he saw that the internet was still up. He had mixed feelings about this. If the net was up, he could gloat over all the losers who had mocked him and, obviously, had not prepared for this day. He, who had absorbed the teachings of Saint Romero, was chosen and would survive. They, who had mocked, would all die, and they deserved to. But not before they had to endure his gloating.

        Still, there was something he knew: absolutely everyone but he couldn’t be allowed to die. It was compulsory that at least a few needed to survive. Yes, there had to be a fairly stupid moron who was to act as a representative of all the imbeciles who had not Heard Romero’s Call, and who had better be abjectly grateful to Fanboy Number One for saving his pathetic life. There had to be a Fanboy Number Seventy or thereabouts – nowhere even close to Fanboy Number One, no threat to him at all, but useful to look out for any shambling Pus Buckets who managed to evade Fanboy Number One’s eagle eyes and eternal vigilance. And, of course, there had to be a Beautiful Woman. This was the most important of all. She would be beautiful, as beautiful as all those women on the internet who posed without any clothes on, and, unlike all the women who in real life avoided Fanboy Number One as though he’d got Coronavirus, she would be head over heels in love with him.

    Of course she would be head over heels in love with him. Fanboy Number One even knew exactly how it would happen. He would be out in the street; the broad avenues which he normally shunned, because of the crowds of people who were, for all their manifest inferiority, taller, cleaner, better looking, better dressed, and ignored him totally. Now, though, he would be the king of all he surveyed, with one of his M 16s in his arms, his sceptre of reign as well as his executioner’s sword. He’d also have his Winchester, or maybe his Losebacker, slung over his shoulder, and his Desert Special at his hip. The katana would be slung from his other hip, his pockets loaded with ammunition. He would fear nobody, not a Rotting Gut Bucket zombie nor any living human, because he would be the king.

    And he would hear them, the zombie hordes, slobbering and moaning as they searched for food. He would follow the groans and moans, because it would be fun to destroy them, one-line quips already forming in his head and trembling on his lips, eager to be uttered. Things like, “You thought you were dead, now you’re deader than dead.” Or, “Zombies? We don’t need no stinkin’ zombies. And you stink.” Or something else, he knew he would think of something absolutely fitting when the moment came. Anyway, he would find them, crowded around the building where she was trapped, slapping and clawing at the doors. And he would see her, peering down from an upper window, her terror not doing anything to mask her fantastic beauty, her immaculately made-up face framed by her perfectly coiffed hair. Maybe she would be naked...no, Fanboy Number One amended regretfully, that wasn’t likely when she was running from zombies. She’d probably be in torn jeans, a shabby jacket, and scuffed boots. No, she’d get naked later, when he’d got her to safety. He could wait that long.

    “Hold on,” he would shout up at her, where she waited at the window, her eyes suddenly filled with wild hope. “Hold on, I’ll save you.” And he would raise his M 16 and squeeze off shots, one by one, every one through a Dead Fuck’s decomposing braincase, the Pus Buckets falling like ninepins before his bullets. At first the survivors would turn, moaning and gibbering with hunger and hatred, but before his bullets they would learn fear. Even their rotted, flyblown ambulating carcasses would know fear of him, and they would slink off at last, just as he shot his way to the door, and they would leave him alone.

    “Oh god,” she would say, and fling herself sobbing into his arms, when he’d shot the lock off the door and made his way inside. “Oh god, I thought I was done for this time.” And she’d kiss his mouth. Fanboy Number One, who’d never kissed or been kissed by anything or anyone, licked his lips, anticipating how it would feel.

    “We’ve got to get away,” he’d say. “I got rid of Those Things, but they’ll be back.” And they would hear the moaning and shuffling as the zombie hordes, swollen with reinforcements, returned. “Here,” he’d say, handing her the katana, because women with swords were sexy. “Here, take this.” And she would take the sword and flourish it, the sun glinting along the edge, and her face would fill with grim determination.

    “Now let them come,” she would say, through gritted – yet impeccably clean, without a trace of plaque or caries – teeth. “Let them come, and we’ll show them.” And as the zombies came shuffling forward, she would swing the sword, and rotting heads would go tumbling off undead shoulders just as fast as Fanboy Number One’s bullets would smash other rotting heads like overripe pumpkins. Oh, those zombies would pay for their presumption. How they would pay!

    Then when they got back to his basement, she would push him down on the bed, take off all her clothes, take off all his clothes, put on a pair of stiletto heels, and then make love to him as expertly as all the women on the porn videos Fanboy Number One spent hours every day watching, every minute that he wasn’t on the zombie sites, that is. Afterwards, she would relax in his arms and tell him her sad story.

    “When those Dead Things rose,” she would say, “I found shelter with a group of Survivors, as they called themselves. They had made an armed camp in a mall, under a man called the Demon Kid. And he soon made all of us prisoners.” She would tell him all about the tortures the Demon Kid would have inflicted on her, but he didn’t bother to imagine that part. It didn’t matter. “At last I managed to escape, but I’d hardly got away when I was found and chased by those Dead Fucks. I ran for shelter into the building where you saved me Just In Time. And I’m afraid that the Demon Kid will be looking for me, and find me again.”

    “Not unless I find him first,” Fanboy Number One would grind out, reaching for a shotgun or two and springing to his feet. “Get the sword and come on.”

    “You’re so heroic,” the Beautiful Woman would say. “Nothing scares you at all.” And she’d make love to him all over again.

    Afterwards, they would go to the mall, which the Demon Kid would have turned into a fortress with barbed wire festooned with the heads of zombies. But the Beautiful Woman would know a secret back way in, by which she had escaped, and they would march right into the Demon Kid’s den. Fanboy Number One would look at the cowering Demon Kid, and would lift his lip in a sneer. “Consider yourself the Demonetised Kid,” he would say, and blow the Demon Kid’s head off with one shotgun blast.

    Then all the Demon Kid’s group would swear loyalty to Fanboy Number One, but he’d dismiss them all, except for Fanboy Number Seventy, who would be useful, and Fairly Stupid Moron, so he could be snivellingly grateful every day to Fanboy Number One. And if either of them even looked at Beautiful Woman, he’d shoot their heads off, too.

    Thinking about how this would all be, Fanboy Number One grinned savagely to himself and thumped away on his keyboard. “I’ll go out to bag me some Zombie Dead Pus Buckets,” he typed out. “And then I’ll come back and teach all you losers just how it should be done!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!”

    Then, picking up his M 16, he slung his Losebacker over one shoulder and slapped on his Forest Pigeon on one hip. He strapped the katana on his other hip, took one step, tripped over it, and fell flat on his face. His M 16 went off and a bullet crashed through his computer.

    “To hell with those losers anyway,” he said, wiping the blood from his nose. “They’ll be dead soon, and then I’ll shoot them all in the face.”

    Then he stomped out of his basement and up into the street, where a gang of cannibals immediately set on him, knocked him over the head with a bludgeon, barbecued and ate him over a campfire, and licked their fingers clean afterwards with delight.

    There never were any zombies, of course.

Copyright B Purkayastha 2020