On February 13, 1945 British aircraft launched an attack on the eastern German city of Dresden. In the days that followed, they and their US allies would drop nearly 4,000 tons of bombs on the city.
The resulting firestorm killed 25,000 people, ravaging the city center and sucked the oxygen from the air and suffocating people trying to escape the flames.
After the Dresden bombing bodies of the dead were burned in the street. The photo above shows the bodies of civilians piled up in a street in Dresden waiting to be burned where they lay.
The Dresden bombing has remained one of the most controversial aspects of World II as the city was not a contributor to the war as it had no factories or oil refineries that could have aided the Nazi war effort.
Another report said in the four raids in 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city. The incendiary bombs created so much fire that a firestorm developed. The resulting firestorm destroyed 40 square kilometers (15 square miles) of the city center. The more the city burned, the more oxygen was sucked in – and the greater the firestorm became. It is thought that the temperature peaked at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. The surface of roads melted and fleeing people found that their feet were burned as they ran.
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