Dresden, February 13, 1945

Today, February 13, is the anniversary of the allied air raid on Dresden in 1945 that effectively demolished the capital of Saxony, about halfway between Berlin and Prague. 

Image: akg-images/picture alliance and Deutche Welle

No one denies that the event occurred but there is an ongoing argument over the number of civilian casualties. For years the GDR, the communist entity that governed East Germany, maintained that between 100,000 and 200,000 people were killed on that fateful day but extensive research by the current German Federal Republic seems to indicate that the death toll was more likely to be in the neighborhood of 25,000. The discrepancy is blamed on the motives of GDR apologists (many thousands of dead) and the FDR (the equivalence of a small city). 

Why the exact number of dead and wounded should continue to be a matter of controversy can only be related to post-war political issues. 

It turns out that Germany's Nazi era roughly coincides with the anti-bellum US Confederacy. Very roughly, since in the US there was no effort to exterminate black chattel slaves, while the National Socialists initiated an industry of death for Jews and others deemed genetic inferiors. This shouldn't and won't be forgotten but, as in the US, its effects will be felt for generations to come.

So the current citizens of Dresden will make a point of solemnly honoring those uninvolved victims of a bombing on February 13, 1945. Americans, on the other hand, won't remember the battle of the Washita River on November 27, 1868 when a US Cavalry force attacked and destroyed Black Kettle's Cheyenne camp.