CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC in 2015 issued two mini philatelic sheetlets to mark the 70th anniversary of the firebombing of Dresden during WWII. Only 1,000 copies were printed of each mini sheetlet.
As for the event, the bombing raid on Dresden occurred between 13 and 15 February 1945 in a bid to crush German morale in the final months of WWII. As a result, British and American bombers killed up to 25,000 people and more than 75,000 dwellings were destroyed, along with unique monuments of Baroque architecture in the historic city centre.
During 37 hours of bombing, the Allied forces dropped at least 3,900 tonnes of explosive and incendiary bombs, unleashing an inferno over 33 sq. km. that melted people and reduced vast areas of the “Jewel of the Elbe” to ash and rubble.
American author Kurt Vonnegut, who was a POW interned in Dresden, alluded to the event in his novel "Slaughter House 5". He was among the POWs who were confined in this underground meat locker and later enlisted to clear the debris and corpses. To summerise the horror that Vonnegut witnessed, he described what he thought was a charred log that turned out to be the stump of a body, gasping the words "Why me?".
The scale of the death and destruction, coming so late in the war, along with significant questions about the legitimacy of the targets destroyed have led to years of debate about whether the attack was justified, or whether it should be labeled a war crime.
Source: Reuters, The Atlantic and "Slaughter House Five"
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