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Talk:Bombing of Dresden/Archive 5

Archive

 * Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/ Archive 1
 * Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/ Archive 2
 * Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 3
 * Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 4

'and people were sucked into the fire.'
Any evidence for this? Unless windspeeds exceeded ~150mph, unlikely. Rather sensasionalist. Dan100 18:34, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)

The firestorm sucks all the oxygen from the area. People are literally picked up and hurled down the street. Then the flesh melts from their bones. How anyone can even pretend this isn't a "war crime" is beyond me. Then again, the allies won the war, so they wrote the rules. The things the axis did were war crimes and they hung for it. But everything the allies did was hunky dory. Even the brutal rape of a million German women and girls by the Red Army. --203.221.110.57 19:37, 21 Dec 2004

your source? Philip Baird Shearer 13:31, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The book: The Downfall, Berlin 1945 details the rape of German women and girls by the Red Army. There are many other sources.
 * I meant a source for the fire storm. The rape issue with several references (which I supplied) is covered in the Battle of Berlin. Philip Baird Shearer

If you want a source for the war crimes thing, just check the Nuremberg trials page. Surely the allies committed war crimes too, but none of them hung from a noose for it. What does that tell you?

 * Have you a source that shows that any Axis person was tried for participating in the decisions on, or execution of, assault by aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory? Philip Baird Shearer 23:06, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I remember reading somewhere that the Rusians proposed including charges related to the German bombing of cities. It was we (I writing here as British) who were against.Dejvid 15:30, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * This is a silly argument. The allies killed massively more people by air than the Axis. The German Luftwaffe mainly operated to support ground operations. They fought their campaigns on the ground with their Panzers and stormtroopers, they didn't indiscriminately drop tonnes and tonnes of bombs on residental areas like the allies. If you want to talk about Pearl Harbour or Convetry or whatever, those were clearly military targets. Those don't constitute war crimes (death toll was comparitively low, and death toll of civillians almost non existant). Dresden, Hamburg etc. completely different scenario. -- Merrick 11:54, 23 Dec 2004

 * Coventry was a "military target", and Dresden wasn't? That's an interesting distinction to make. May we hear your reasoning on this point? (This comment should not be taken as conveying any opinion on whether cities were legitimate military targets; it merely questions classing one city as such, but not another.) Noel (talk) 16:58, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * PS: Your claim that the Germans didn't drop "drop tonnes and tonnes of bombs on residential areas" is factually incorrect. Yes, the Allied tonnage was considerably greater, but if that's what you meant, you need to say that. Noel (talk) 16:58, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Back on topic, do we have any source material for the 'sucked into' claim, or is hyperbole (and thus out of place in an encyclopedia)? Dan100 15:26, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

Isn't it in the firestorm page? It's a phenomenon caused by the saturation bombing. You wouldn't want to experience it, I can't think of many more painful ways to die. "A firestorm is caused when hundreds of smaller fires join in one vast conflagration. Huge masses of air are sucked in to feed the inferno, causing an artificial tornado. Those persons unlucky enough to be caught in the rush of wind are hurled down entire streets into the flames. Those who seek refuge underground often suffocate as oxygen is pulled from the air to feed the blaze, or they perish in a blast of white heat — heat intense enough to melt human flesh."

 * This quote does not come from the Wikipedia Firestorm page.
 * External links -- Quotes from accounts and sources regarding the bombing --- (4) Margaret Freyer was living in Dresden during the firestorm created on 13th February, 1945.
 * The firestorm is incredible, there are calls for help and screams from somewhere but all around is one single inferno. To my left I suddenly see a woman. I can see her to this day and shall never forget it. She carries a bundle in her arms. It is a baby. She runs, she falls, and the child flies in an arc into the fire. Suddenly, I saw people again, right in front of me. They scream and gesticulate with their hands, and then - to my utter horror and amazement - I see how one after the other they simply seem to let themselves drop to the ground. (Today I know that these unfortunate people were the victims of lack of oxygen). They fainted and then burnt to cinders. Insane fear grips me and from then on I repeat one simple sentence to myself continuously: "I don't want to burn to death". I do not know how many people I fell over. I know only one thing: that I must not burn.
 * Which, from another web source, may come from "The Faber Book of Reportage", John Carey (ed), Faber London 1987. Not quite sucked into the fire but see http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWfirestorm.htm Number 3, Major-General Kehrl, report on the firestorm in Hamburg in August, 1943:
 * Before half an hour had passed, the districts upon which the weight of the attack fell were transformed into a lake of fire covering an area of twenty-two square kilometres. The effect of this was to heat the air to a temperature which at times was estimated to approach 1,000 degrees centigrade. A vast suction was in this way created so that the air "stormed through the streets with immense force, bearing upon it sparks, timber and roof beams and thus spreading the fire still further and further till it became a typhoon such as had never before been witnessed, and against which all human resistance was powerless." Trees three feet thick were broken off or uprooted, human beings were thrown to the ground or flung alive into the flames by winds which exceeded 150 miles an hour. The panic-stricken citizens knew not where to turn. Flames drove them from the shelters, but high-explosive bombs sent them scurrying back again. Once inside, they were suffocated by carbon-monoxide poisoning and their bodies reduced to ashes as though they had been placed in a crematorium, which was indeed what each shelter proved to be.
 * I Could not find the source where this quote came from --Philip Baird Shearer 23:06, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Interesting that the second quote mentions windspeeds of 150mph (as I did), but that's probably just co-incidence. I'm not immensely fond of personal accounts as they often seem to be exaggerated in the details (for example, just how plausibe is the "baby flew into the fire" incident?). Furthermore, fires don't "suck the oxygen from the air" per se - they just pull in air, not oxygen selectively. They do, of course, release toxic smoke and gasses but that wouldn't be of immeadiate concern to people outside the fire, as the hot smoke rises away above the fire. People close to the fire front would quite possibly have passed out from the radiant heat though. However I guess in light of the fact its widely accepted to have occured, the "people sucked into the fire" line is fair enough. Dan100 23:36, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)

A couple of years ago there was a fire at a large straw-bale storage yard near Winkler, Manitoba, Canada. A man was killed when his pickup truck was tossed by winds generated by the intense fire, described as a flame tornado (I can't find a reference, but it was in the news here). So it's definitely possible. —Michael Z. 00:01, 2004 Dec 24 (UTC)

Reverted Neo-Nazi contribution
as was the link to a British Holocaust denier which includes an introductory quote from Harold Nicolson and sentences like The following account, taken from the Feb. 1985 issue of the NS Bulletin, tells us what a REAL holocaust is like. So I have reverted all the changes --Philip Baird Shearer 13:31, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * The range 30,000--50,000 is taken from a source [1] which is from "Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945". By Frederick Taylor; 135,000 is an Irving number mentioned below.
 * link changed from "Holocaust denier" to "historical revisionist" David Irving was found guilty in a English court of being a "Holocaust denier".
 * In the external links The David Irving letter to the times where he published a correction to the number he quoted was removed (correction)
 * The "British Dipolmat" Harold Nicolson was an early supported of Oswald Mosley.
 * This link was added http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/usgenocide/DresdenHolocaust.html

 * I'm going to tweak two of your reversions. One, it's factually incorrect to describe Irving as an "amateur"; he's been writing books about WWII history as a profession for decades (even if the latest ones are loony). "Self-taught" was fine there. Second, your link to www.holocaustdenialontrial.org, which you labelled "a British Holocaust denier" is only semi-germane to the article (we discuss Irvine's problems at great length on his linked page). A far better link is to this page on that site, which is a lengthy and detailed critique of Irvine's Dresden book by Richard J. Evans, which is obviously totally on-point (not to mention completely devastating - I'd always had the impression that his earlier books were OK, but that is clearly not so). Noel (talk) 15:53, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mine was just a revert I do not take credit for all that has been written here! I thought about keeping "self-taught" which is defiantly better than amateur, because amateur has more than one meaning. I took that in this context it meant not a "recognised (qualified) professional" rather than unpaid. But I thought it was less ambiguous just to revert all of it. I think that it mentioning that Irvine in a Holocaust denier is valid in this context because many revisionist like to minimise the Holocaust and other horrors whilst exaggerating the Axis suffering. As the numbers he put forward are suspect, that he is a Holocaust denier is one explanation for that and should be mentioned in this article because so many people still think there is validity in his original numbers. That you have put in links to better sources, is fine by me. Philip Baird Shearer 18:29, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I have since changed the description of him to "historical writer" because I am sympathetic to Evans' claim that Irving doesn't deserve to be called a "historian". As to Irving's motivation, yes it's worth mentioning, and the reference to Irving in the text does do so - I felt that doing so in the list of references was what was un-needed.
 * The Evans report (he was comissioned by the trial in London as an expert witness, and produced a 700+ page report, which I've spent most of the day reading) is pretty eye-opening. Evans wrote this about Irvine:
 * Not one of his books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about.
 * and alas, after reading Evans' report, I have to agree.
 * When all is said and done though, the Irvine controversy is really a sideline on the Dresden debate, IMO. Whether it's 25,000 or some considerably large claim, it's still a very large number of civilians killed. Noel (talk) 20:27, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Neo Nazi?
Not everyone who questions "facts" about the war or is willing to hear all versions of events, rather than just one, is a "neo nazi" thank you very much! I find the constant revising down of numbers of dead in Dresden no different from revisionists/deniers doing the same to the holocaust victims.

At least you didn't revert that removal of "Disgraced pro-nazi" or whatever it was after the David Irving book link, that was a bit much. And a guy with several best selling and widely acclaimed books (before he was "disgraced", ahem) can't really be described as an "amateur". In fact, self taught historians who seek to learn history for themselves, rather than simply taking in someone else's version, I think those are the most valuable.

Apologies for removing the "correction" link, I stupidly thought you were correcting the URL, rather than it being a seperate article.

To be honest, in regards to WWII articles, I find NPOV to be severely stretched in wikipedia. Every Jewish/allied POV is given, and when German POV is given it's followed up with something like "but this is doubted". I have to say the way pages on revisinism blatantly adhere to the "all revisionism is really denial" point of view rather disappointing.

I find it amazing that if you can somehow link one person to another person and so on and you eventually reach an obvious Nazi sympathiser or whatever, that automatically invalidates everything they say. If you applied that to the "other side" as well, then frankly nobody's opinion would be worth anything. Everybody knows a bigot, or was friends with a bigot, or has even been influenced somehow by a bigot. Everyone! That doesn't make your own opinions or your own research invalid.

In the Third Reich, if you questioned the Nazi dogma, you were automatically labelled a communist. These days, if you question Jewish or allied versions of events (which let's face it, in certain areas is sketchy to say the least) you are automatically labelled an anti-semite or a holocaust denier or (God forbid) Neo-Nazi.

Freedom of opinion, freedom of belief. Ring any bells? -- User:203.221.110.57 14:09, 22 Dec 2004

 * Alas for your views, but the latest figure of 25,000 is from Dresden historian Friedrich Reichert, a German. (See my coming note below on numbers and sources.) So I'm afraid your entire line of debate there is mistaken.
 * As to Irvine's qualities as a historian, you need to read the Evans report. I always felt that Irvine's later work was kind of bonkers, but thought I could rely on the earlier stuff, like Mare's Nest and Virus House. I was therefore pretty stunned to read what Evans found out about Irvine's earliest book, the Dresden one. I will now have to check anything I use from any of those books. Which is sad, because he did an immense amount of work, but I just don't think I can rely on any of his work anymore. Noel (talk) 20:39, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * One historian cannot disprove another, he can merely propose an alternate viewpoint. Saying you can't rely on any of his work is silly. Perhaps after learning several truths about the war he became sympathetic to the Third Reich, but that's not the same as starting with an agenda. And I'm sure many historians have their own agenda ("the Nazis were evil, and we'll prove it") - does hatred of Germans discredit historians and people the same way disbelief or criticism of Jewish versions does? It's just a very disappointing state of affairs.

 * It seems to me Evans had an agenda of his own, to discredit Irving. I'm sure he took every opposing viewpoint with any kind of plausibility and ran with it. So this as being the source for the fact the strafing of survivors didn't take place is completely dismissive, in my opinion.

 * Perhaps Evans did have such an agenda. I would be very interested to know if his report mis-represents anything (e.g. has mis-reported on any of the recent German historical studies by Bergander or Reichert). If you could check all the things Evans reports on (those German histories, plus the original German civil records he reports on), and let us know if he made any mistakes, I would welcome that. Noel (talk) 16:45, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The death toll
In redoing the death toll numbers, I have relied very heavily on the relevant section (The Bombing of Dresden in 1945) of the Expert Witness Report by Richard J. Evans, who is Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge. He describes himself in it as:

 * a recognized authority on modern German history and have been teaching and researching it for the last thirty years

and his bio (given here) bears that out. That, plus his institutional affiliation, lead me to believe that he is trustworthy, and that his reports on both the raw data, and the conclusions of other historians, can be trusted without viewing them myself.

The report section contains detailed discussion of the original German civil records, plus reports on the latest research of German historians - whom I think we can rely upon not to perpetrate a whitewash of the Allies. So I think all that gives us a fairly reliable picture. Here are some relevant excepts from Evans' writings:

 * The most authoritative book on the Dresden raids is by Götz Bergander, published in 1977 after almost two decades of research. Amongst his aims was to combat the many myths and legends which had come to surround the attacks. One such myth was the strafing of civilians and refugees by Allied fighters during the attack .. Bergander points out that although other authors have cited witnesses for such an attack, Irving's is the last account in which any credence is given to the story. He then proceeds to disprove Irving's assertion that such low-level strafing of civilians took place, either by night or by day.

and:

 * In 1977 Bergander's book appeared, which after painstaking research and sound reasoning came to the conclusion that the number which "came nearest to the truth" was 35,000, even if he did not exclude the possibility of it being a few thousand more. .. Many historians accept the 35,000 figure. .. : In 1994 research by the Dresden historian Friedrich Reichert was published, using a previously unused source, which convincingly reduced Bergander's figure of 35,000 to 25,000. This figure can be regarded as close to definitive.

I was relying on these, plus Evans' reports of the German civil records (to be found in the same section) when I re-wrote the paragraph on the death toll. Alas, his report is structured for the purpose of commentary on Irvine's book, so it's not organized well for the purposes of producing this article, but the data is there nonetheless if one takes the time to read the entire section.

I have gone with the figures of 25,000-35,000 for the current historical "likely range" as a result of considering the research quoted above. Richeirt's number is what I was referring to in preferring "the lower part of this range". I consider that 25,000 may possibly be a bit low (which is why I used the "lower part" language, rather than baldly saying "lowest number"), when considering that the registered burials (21.3K) plus bodies found post-war (1.9K) reach almost this number, without considering those whose bodies were totally consumed in fires (whose numbers we can only guess), etc. Equally, the final tally of missing (25,000) will undoubtly not include some refugees who were not reported as missing, and who were also killed. However, it is also possible that the number of "totally destroyed" or "never found" bodies is small, and that Reichert is completely correct in his calculations. If I had to pick one or the other, I would go with Reichert, actually.

I close with the following excerpts from Evans (at the end of that section):

 * Few would now wish to defend the Allied bombing raids on Dresden on 13/14 February 1945. No-one would want to underestimate the terrible cost they wrought in terms of human life and suffering, or ignore the wanton destruction of some of Europe's most beautiful and significant buildings, whose reconstruction is still not complete more than half a century later. But the way to reach a reasoned judgement on these events is not to falsify the evidence, which is already horrifying enough: all that does is to obscure the issues. Irving's manipulations and exaggerations have merely got in the way of a proper discussion of these events, rather than assisting it.

with which I completely agree. The truth is troubling enough, there's no need to exaggerate it. Noel (talk) 21:16, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Source reliabality
I would be careful with that RAF page on Dresden. It claims that:

 * it is accepted that the number was greater than the 40,000 who died in the Hamburg firestorm and the Dresden figure may have exceeded 50,000

but this is almost certainly incorrect (see above). It may have been put together from consulting various secondary sources, rather than carefully researched. Noel (talk) 21:35, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * ''Bomber Command casualties were 6 Lancasters lost, with 2 more crashed in France and 1 in England.

I think you can rely on RAF figures for tonnage of bombs dropped etc, but as you say they have to rely on secondary sources for victim numbers. I think the article http://www.earth-lights.net/dresden/Dresden_Bombing_Document.htm (one of the sources in the References section) is interesting because it looks at the number killed as a %age against other German cities and the numbers come out similar to the ones your are suggesting. Philip Baird Shearer 23:47, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Strafing of US Mustang planes
Something that confuses me. No source is needed for "this is doubted" part of the Dresden survivors testimony that US planes flew overhead machine gunning survivors. Considering the rest of the carnage done, I find this believable - and to insinuate the survivors would make it up is very disrespectful. It is doubted for no other reason than it makes the American pilots look sadistic. But what do you call the bombing in general?

Do Dresden survivors have less credibility then concentration camp survivors for some reason? They had nothing to gain by lying or exaggerating, unlike the latter. Dresden survivors never claimed for reparations for one.

I just get a nasty taste in my mouth reading some of these articles. - User:203.221.110.57 04:52, 23 Dec 2004

 * Alas, Bergander's book [Dresden im Luftkrieg:Vorgeschichte-Zerstörung-Folgen (Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich, 1977)] doesn't seem to be available in English, so I can't tell you exactly all the detail of how he came to the conclusion that these stories are not viable, merely that he apparently did.
 * Perhaps you could obtain a copy and translate the relevant passages for us?
 * (Again, I hope I don't need to point out that this is a German historian who is making this point.) Noel (talk) 12:18, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Unless you were there, or the historian was there, you couldn't say it didn't happen. Dresden survivors say it did. Whether it's from a German historian or not is irrelevant, do you think it's in Germany's best interests to start accusing the Allies of war crimes? -- Merrick 11:58, 23 Dec 2004

 * Since you presumably weren't there, you can't say it did happen. All I know is that a German historian has apparently looked into this issue, including the accounts attributed to survivors, in great detail, and has concluded that the reports are not true. If you could obtain his book, and show us where he had made errors, that would be very desirable. Noel (talk) 16:42, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Industry
I find it strange that there would be a (probably unsubstantiated or simply speculation) quote saying that Dresden was a munitions centre, but nothing mentioning the real industry of Dresden, mainly art and china production (cups and saucers). The argument seems to be made to justify the bombing and little argument to say it wasn't. -- Merrick 12:09, 23 Dec 2004

Did you follow the link ? which points to the HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE 14-15 FEBRUARY 1945 BOMBINGS OF DRESDEN (http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm) Prepared by USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University, II. Section ANALYSIS: Dresden as a Military Target, paragraph 9.
 * 9. In addition to its geographical position and topography and its primary importance as a communications center, Dresden was, in February 1945, known to contain at least 110 factories and industrial enterprises that were legitimate military targets, and were reported to have employed 50,000 workers in arms plants alone.8 Among these were dispersed aircraft components factories; a poison gas factory (Chemische Fabric Goye and Company); an anti-aircraft and field gun factory (Lehman); the great Zeiss Ikon A.G., Germany’s most important optical goods manufactory; and, among others, factories engaged in the production of electrical and X-ray apparatus (Koch and Sterzel A.G.), gears and differentials (Saxoniswerke), and electric gauges (Gebruder Bassler).9
 * 8 Dresden, Germany, City Area, Economic Reports, Vol. No. 2, Headquarters U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, 10 July 1945; and OSS London, No. B-1799/4, 3 March 1945, in same item.
 * 9 Interpretation Report No. K. 4171, Dresden, 22 March 19145, Supporting Document No. 3.

Unfortunatly the full "Strategic Bombing Survey" does not appear to be on line, but in the links at the bottom of the article, there is a link to the summary. Your comments reflect what Harris wrote in the memo of which the third sentence appears as a quote at the end of the article:
 * "The feeling, such as there is, over Dresden could be easily explained by a psychiatrist. It is connected with German bands and Dresden [china] shepherdesses. Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation centre. It is now none of those things."

--Philip Baird Shearer

Aerial bombardment
However as no Axis personnel were tried at the post-war Nuremberg Trials for participating in the decisions on, or execution of, assault by aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory, it is not possible to state categorically that that aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory during World War II was a war crime.

 * This argument is tenuous though, as the Allied air attacks were far more numerous and ferocious than those of the Axis; the Luftwaffe was typically used to aid ground campaigns. Moreso, whether the Allies were guilty of indiscriminate bombing of German residential areas is the true question, not whether air bombardemnt in general constituted a war crime. Merrick 16:17, 23 Dec 2004 -- Moved from article for discussion

How was the bombing of inland British cities anything to do with a ground campaign? What about the V1 and V2 attacks waged on London and later on Antwerp when there was no chance of a German land counter attack? The number and ferocity of the attack has nothing to do with the legal question of if aerial bombardment on defended enemy towns was a war crime. (see Hague IV; October 18, 1907 Art 25,26,27).

Germans who committed war crimes were tried and found guilty of them even if the Allies had performed similar acts. The most notorious example of this was the conviction of Karl Donitz, who was tried and found guilty of of waging unrestricted submarine warfare for which no one in the US Pacific submarine campaign was ever tried. However the fact that there were no prosecutions, for aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory, suggests that legal opinion of the time was that it was not a crime during World War II. Philip Baird Shearer 20:43, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Data for comparison
In reviewing the changes to the "Was the Dresden bombing justified?" section, which described the Allied bombings as "far more numerous and ferocious", I immediately wondered what the actual casualty numbers were for the results of German attacks. Alas, despite the size of my WWII and aviation reference library, I have little that I can find on British losses (have yet to search for Warsaw, Hague, etc numbers).

Hough and Richards Battle of Britain gives (pp. 304) "By the end of the month [of October 1940, I think - it's not certain from the text], over 13,000", but it's not clear from when they started counting - the start of the Battle, the start of the London attacks, or what. And I have nothing for November, up until the end of the Blitz with the withdrawal of the Luftwaffe for the Russian invasion. Barker, The Thousand Plan (pp. 22, paperback) mentions "over 40,000" for British civilian air raid casualties, but doesn't say over what period. Anyone know of any source with detailed and full numbers? I've checked all my general WWI histories, but no luck.

Interestingly, Walter Boynes, Clash of Wings (pp. 88) records that the numbers of German bombers on the November, 1940 raids were quite sizeable (and considerably larger than I would have guessed): 469 on Coventry, and 700 on Birmingham; the May, 1941 raid on London used 550. It's true that these were all He-111 and their similarly-sized sisters, whereas the Dresden raid was 4-engine bombers, but in the first British "thousand-bomber raid" (Cologne; May, 1942), 2/3 of the force (about 910 total) were roughly similar 2-engine machines (principally Wellingtons (496), but a few Hampdens (71) and Whitleys (23)).

Also, I haven't considered the V-1/V-2 offensive (which killed quite a few people, particularly the V-1 offensive against the Dutch ports), as those follow the Allied raids. Noel (talk) 18:24, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Moral Justification
I think that the war crime aspect is a red herring. What is needed is a paragraph on the moral justifications and criticisms. By this stage in the war, thanks to Ultra the Allied air forces would have known the likely number of casualties that a raid like this would inflict. Should that have been taken into account when discussing targets at Yalta? If so why wasn't it? Philip Baird Shearer 22:18, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree that the war crime aspect is a red herring, so I'm not sure why there is resistance to admitting it is a war crime. The moral question is more important, because it helps us understand why it might happen again.  The leaders knew exactly what they were doing and can be presumed think they were making the right decision at the time.  The bombing of innocent civilians was easy and justified at that point in the war because the decision had already been made, earlier.  The bright moral line was the decision to engage in total war, the primary component of which is conscription.  Once the leaders are already responsible for having coerced millions of their own innocent civilians, resulting in more than a million casualties and hundreds of thousands of their deaths, frankly what do enemy civlian lives mean?  Of course, our total war was justified by their total war, conscription justifying conscription.  So, to not go too far back in revisionist history, such as the Treaty of Verseilles, the original moral failing may have been in the late 1920s when leaders failed to sign on to Gandhi and Einstein's attempt to eliminate conscription, or in the 1930s when there was a failure to pre-emptively strike at Hitler when he violated the treaty and started building the most destructive WMD in history, a large conscript army.--Silverback 22:46, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Was the bombing justified section
I saw this on peer review and have come over to look at the section. Here's my thoughts as a disinterested party:

''Some have suggested that the bombing of Dresden may have been a war crime and that those allied commanders who ordered the action and the airmen who carried it out should be tried as war criminals. However as no Axis personnel were tried at the post-war Nuremberg Trials for participating in the decisions on, or execution of, assault by aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory, it is not possible to state categorically that that aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory during World War II was a war crime.''

 * Get rid of the weasel words. "Some have suggested that the bombing of Dresden may have been a war crime" Who?
 * Don't argue the point. Get rid of the "However" bit. This slants the article in favour of those disagree that it was a war crime. Remember we don't take side and we are a neutral observer. That needs to be fixed. The reader should make up their own mind.

 * If the first sentence goes then the second sentence can go. BUT there would be strong resistance to removing it the first sentence. The second sentence is a balance for the first sentence hence a NPOV. Philip Baird Shearer

''Dresden was widely considered by Germans to be a city of little war-related industrial or strategic importance. Dresden itself was mostly seen as a cultural centre, with noted architecture in the Zwinger Palace, the Dresden State Opera House and its historic cathedral (the Frauenkirche) and other churches. It was also called "Elbflorenz", i.e. Florence of the Elbe, due to its stunning beauty. By February, the city was crammed with refugees fleeing from the advancing Red Army. Dresden, having been spared from previous RAF night attacks, was considered to be relatively safe. Before the war it's main industries were china production, cups and saucers, as well as cigarettes. However the United States Strategic Bombing Survey listed at least 110 factories and industries in Dresden6. The city contained the Zeiss-Ikon optical factory and the Siemens glass factory (both of which were entirely devoted to manufacturing military gunsights). The immediate suburbs contained factories building components of radar and electronics, and fuses for anti-aircraft shells. Other factories produced gas masks, engines for Junkers aircraft and cockpit parts for Messerschmitt fighters. An official 1942 guide described the German city as "one of the foremost industrial locations of the Reich".''

 * Source for claim that Dresden wasn't considered militarily significant?
 * "stunning beauty" - seems to be a POV. Who's is it?
 * Many sources but I have put in Antony Beevor, "Berlin: the Downfall, 1945." Page 83 as a source. Philip Baird Shearer

 * That guide: what's the reference to it?
 * Frederick Taylor "Dresden: Tuesday, February 13, 1945" I'll change the text to reference it. Philip Baird Shearer

 * More howevers. Get rid of it. The section that starts: "However the United States Strategic Bombing Survey listed at least 110 factories and industries in Dresden..." should go directly after the first sentence. That's just an organisation thing. Again, get rid of the "however" business.

 * ''Air Marshal Harris wrote to the Air Ministry on March 29 1945
 * Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.
 * In reality, the city's production was more devoted to lighter equipment, e.g. precision engineering and controls. By contrast the rail traffic was continued just 3 days after the bombing.''

 * Source for that "in reality" claim?
 * This was added recently but does not say anything which was not already said in the article so I am going to remove it. Philip Baird Shearer 11:15, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Churchill, who approved the targeting of Dresden and supported the bombing campaign prior to the event, in face of public disquiet at the results later distanced himself from the bombing of Dresden. On March 28 A few weeks before the end of World War II in Europe, Winston Churchill drafted a memorandum to the British Chiefs of Staff:
 * It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed ... The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing.

Seems OK.

I hope this helps a bit. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:37, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Where is the straw poll? Perhaps the issues should be separated.

 * Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 4

On the Hiroshima site, we found it helpful to separate the war crime and justified issues. Technically all strategic bombing of cities is a war crime. However, this does not preclude it from being justified. A lot of the language in the current article seems to accept that strategic bombing of cities can be justified, since it points to weasel points such as the relative unimportance of manufacturing in Dresden or its beauty. I pity the poor city these people don't like.

I suggest that each side grant the other as many points as possible to make the article as informative as possible. What about the bombing makes it technically a war crime? What was used to justify it anyway at the time? What were the contemporaneous arguments against it? Perhaps there can even be a revisionist thought section (clearly noted as such), both pro and con, we don't want to be as dry as world book here, but without sacrificing accuracy or mixing fact and opinion in a way which obscures facts.

It is a shame that people who thought these actions were justified at the time, did not follow through and codify their justifications, correcting international law. Perhaps they were only justified if you were fighting on the right side? --Silverback 01:34, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Talk:Bombing of Dresden in World War II/Archive 4 The straw poll was to do with the introductory section. Not the section "Was the Dresden bombing justified?" other than the vote implied that a section "Was the Dresden bombing justified?" ought to exist.

 * You state "Technically all strategic bombing of cities is a war crime." What was the war crime committed during World War II within the laws and customs of the time?
 * Looking at the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and placing the same questions in the Dresden context:
 * "Willful killing of civilians", Property and infastucture was targeted. Not civilians.
 * "wanton destruction of cities". Bombardment of defended towns is not a war crime.
 * "and use of poisonous weapons". Explosive and fire (bombs) have been acceptable weapons of war for hundreds of years so this prohibition does not apply to the use of these weapons.

 * "What about the bombing makes it technically a war crime?" I look forward to your explanation. Here is a more detailed explanation of why it can on be stated not to be "technically a war crime": The legal defence for stratigic bombing during World War II can be found in Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907
 * 25 The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.
 * 26 The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities.
 * 27 In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.
 * It was a bombardment of defended towns because countries had air defences. It was an arial assault so no warning need be given and all necessary steps as far as possible were taken. There were a number of legal arguments against this view, but unlike Karl Donitz, who was tried and found guily of of waging unrestricted submarine warfare for which no one in the US Pacific submarine campaign was ever tried, (which is often cited as a case of Victors justice), as no Axis personnel were tried at the post-war Nuremberg Trials for participating in the decisions on, or execution of, "assault by aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory", it is not possible to state categorically that that aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory during World War II was or was not a war crime. However the fact that there were no prosecutions, suggests that legal opinion of the time was that it was not a crime during World War II.

 * (I am using three colons to try to get inside the bullets and keep things readable) The town was "not defended" in the sense of international law, because the attackers were not trying to take it, they were just trying to destroy it. The "not defended" applies to towns that decide to become a point of resistance to an advancing army.  Your earlier mention that only property and infrastructure were targeted, is spin, it was a city that was known to have civilians and additionally to be swollen with refugees.--Silverback 22:04, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * On the victors Justice, there is prosecutorial discretion and these are also political decisions, so the fact that there were no prosecutions on these grounds does not mean they weren't illegal, whether done by the allies or Axis. Goering had plenty of other grounds to be prosecuted upon, and when there is a selection of charges, it is natural to prefer ones that don't make you look like hypocrits.  Perhaps there was no other possible charges in the case of Donitz.  In the Pacific war, there were possible defenses for U.S. actions, such as Japanese abuse of hospital ship markings, etc.--Silverback 22:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Your argument does not hold water (excuse the pun) Hague X ARTICLE 8
 * Hospital-ships and sick-wards of vessels arc no longer entitled to protection if they are employed for the purpose of injuring the enemy.'
 * Treaty of London 1930 Article 22
 * (2) In particular, except in the case of persistent refusal to stop on being duly summoned, or of active resistance to visit or search, a warship, whether surface vessel or submarine, may not sink or render incapable of navigation a merchant vessel without having first placed passengers, crew and ship's papers in a place of safety. For this purpose the ship's boats are not regarded as a place of safety unless the safety of the passengers and crew is assured, in the existing sea and weather conditions, by the proximity of land, or the presence of another vessel which is in a position to take them on board.
 * This is one of the clause used against Donitz at Nuremberg Philip Baird Shearer

 * "What was used to justify it anyway at the time?" Try the section Bombing of Dresden in World War II
 * This section addresses why Dresden was chosen as a target, not how the attack was justified, but understandably, that had to come earlier when strategic and night time bombing were "justified", because if the bombing of Dresden was a war crime then so were many earlier bombings, the difference was quantitative, not qualititive.--Silverback 22:04, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * "What were the contemporaneous arguments against it? I will most interested to see them discussed on this talk page, particularly as many of them were Nazi propaganda.
 * "Since it points to weasel points such as the relative unimportance of manufacturing in Dresden or its beauty." Please read that paragraph again and see if you still think this is what it says, because it is an attempt at NPOV. (Before and after the "However").

 * Also pleasese see above. Philip Baird Shearer 11:52, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See above for my comments on unrestricted submarine warfare. "I killed him in self defence" may be spin, but it is also a legal defence. Aerial bombardment by aeroplanes of an air force, my not even be covered by these land treaties for example there is a separate hague naval bombardment treaty. But lets assume that it was covered by Hague IV. There is nothing in the treaties that say that the object of an assault is to take a town. However the demand for unconditional surrender by the Allies shows that they did intend to take the Dresden along with the rest of Germany. If it was not defended, what shot down the British planes taking part in the raid? Bomber command on Dresden
 * You have repeatedly said that it was a "war crime". Please state what the specific war crime was that you think was committed by the RAF and USAAF? Philip Baird Shearer 11:59, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Geneva conventions do not make it a warcrime to undertake an action that might cause civilians to die but that any such action must be dictated by military necesity. Hence, if there are military reasons to attack an armed force in a city then it is not a war crime to attack them even if some civilians are killed in the crossfire. But the Germans only had AA guns in Dresden because they feared it would be bombed. It was not the case that the attack was undertaken to destroy those AA guns. The aim of the attack was to kill civilians because Harris believed that was the way to break German morale.

Even if the aim had been to destroy those guns it would still hav been illegal because the loss of life was far too great to justify the military gain. It violated the principle of proportionality.

I agree tho that there needs to be a proper section examining the laws of the war as they stood at the time rather than a "some consider it a warcrime". Dejvid 22:08, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Had the Allied commanders been charged ...
the following conventions would have come into play. Laws of War : Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV); October 18, 1907

 * "Laws and Customs of War on Land" (Hague IV); October 18, 1907 may not apply as it was an aerial attack. There is for example a different treaty Hague treaty "Bombardment by Naval Forces in Time of War" (Hague IX). What is your evidence that Hague IV does apply to aerial bombardment? Philip Baird Shearer
 * Where is your evidence that it didn't. How is lobbing a shell at city different from a legal point of view from flying a plane over a city and dropping the same quantity of explosives
 * The "lobbing a shell at a city" from a ship is different from lobbing one from land from a legal point of view (Hague IV, Hague IX). So do you have a source which states that dropping a bomb from a aeroplane is the same from a legal point of view as a shell from a land based artillery piece? Philip Baird Shearer 12:10, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

From Art 23 To destroy or seize the enemy's property, unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively demanded by the necessities of war;

 * At Yalta it was agreed by all of the big 3 Allied powers that the destruction of Dresden was a necessities of war. Where is your source and who said that it was not a necessity? Philip Baird Shearer
 * What kind of evidence is that? Two of them are the accused.  The wording is not merely necesity but imperative.  What kind of imperativ necessity existed for destruction on this scale?

The main aim was to destroy homes and property of no military value and thus this clause applies.

 * Source and evidence that "The main aim was to destroy homes and property of no military value"? Since September 25 1944 RAF primary mission was "attacks on enemy oil production and other approved target systems within the current directive". There is nothing in the section "Reasons for the attack" to support this statement, so what are you basing it on? Philip Baird Shearer

Art. 25. The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.

''A technical defense could be made on the grounds that some German AA guns had deployed even tho these guns were no military threat to ally forces except as defense against bombardment. Hence it was a defended city. Tho the attack was against the spirit of this clause it is uncertain how judges might have viewed such a defense. Later conventions have plugged this loop hole''

 * Germany had an integrated air defence system (see for example the The Kammhuber Line). It was far more complicated than a couple of triple-A guns at a target. It relied on lines of aerial defence, many near the coast, ground based radars, searchlights, lines of triple-A guns and night fighters in designated hunter boxes. Germany was not undefended, of the 126,000 RAF Bomber Command aircrew who took part in the battle over Europe 44% did not return. So it is more than a technical defence to say that Germany was defended. Later conventions are not applicable. Philip Baird Shearer
 * This would be only relevant if, say, that Dresden was attacked because it formed a key point in the air defense system and that the reason that they wanted make such a breech was that they, say, wished to send air support to the Russians.

Essentially the air defense system diverted AA guns which could otherwise have been in war zones instead.
 * Your statement is not true. It is relevant, Dresden along with the rest of Germany was defended (Hague IV, Art 25 -- if Hague IV is binding on aerial bombardment or an indication of custom). The reasons that the Allies wanted to assault Dresden are laid out in the article section "Reasons for the attack". Philip Baird Shearer

These judges might well have given weight to this from the introduction : Until a more complete code of the laws of war has been issued, the High Contracting Parties deem it expedient to declare that, in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience.

 * The usage by the USAAF and the RAF were withing the laws of war at the time. You have not mentioned one specific article in any treary which was broken. Philip Baird Shearer

The prosecuters would also have drawn attention to Declaration of St. Petersburg; November 29 1868

That the only legitimate object which States should endeavor to accomplish during war is to weaken the military forces of the enemy;

 * The clause you have qouted is an odd one because it is part of a sentence which ends "The Contracting Parties engage mutually to renounce, in case of war among themselves, the employment by their military or naval troops of any projectile of a weight below 400 grammes, which is either explosive or charged with fulminating or inflammable substances." It was superseeded by Article 23 (e) of the Hague Regulations on land warfare of 1899 an 1907 .  Do you have a list of countries who signed it and was it a treaty? I am not sure how this declaration is relevent to the legal position over the aerial bombardment of Dresden. Philip Baird Shearer
 * It is a statement of the principles on which the laws of war are based. The Haugue convention specifically says that the principles and usage would continue to apply and that the Hague convention was merely a clarfication of specific points.  The wording explicitly rejects any notion that all is legal unless specifically forbidden.

The aim of the attack on Dresden was not to weaken the military forces

Dejvid 01:13, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * The reasons for attacking Dresden is layed out in the section "Reasons for the attack" what is your source that it was anything diffrent? Philip Baird Shearer 18:00, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * The only military forces that were there were the AA guns. This isn' a case like how Husein intentionally put artillery in the middle of Basra.  They were only in the city to protect it and allies would have been more not less likely to have attacked if the Germans had withdrawn them.
 * If an enemy interferes with the lines of communications, and production or supply of war material, of military forces they are weakening those military forces. For example the attacks on the German's primary oil supply and distribution network was a major factor in weakening German military forces. "When the Germans launched their counter-offensive on December 16, 1944, their reserves of fuel were insufficient to support the operation. They counted on capturing Allied stocks. Failing in this, many panzer units were lost when they ran out of gasoline". So weakening military forces does not necessarily mean a direct attack on those forces. Philip Baird Shearer

A question: If you could take off your defense lawyer#s hat for a moment, can tell me if you think an action like Dresden should be permited by the laws of war? Dejvid 00:03, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have not seen one source which can credibly claim that the bombing of Dresden or any other similar action by any side in World War II was a war crime. If Dresden was then so were all such assaults. Why is Dresden a raid around which controversy still surrounds it 60 years after the fact? It may be partly because of residual Nazi propaganda, or because it is the most famous controversial European raid during WWII thanks to the Associated Press syndicated news story. But that is not the full story. Why is it that Dresden tends to be the raid which some people who perhaps have not looked into the subject in any detail say "it was a war crime"? By the Dresden raid the RAF had had a new directive, September 25, 1944. Earlier 1000 bomber raids had been just as destructive bombing of Hamburg in World War II and targeted not only to destroy infrastructure (the motive for Dresden) but with the added intention to sap enemy moral. I suspect what they mean is that unlike earlier raids, when victory was still in the balance, Dresden was not morally justified because it was an unnecessary "butchers bill". That is a completely different question and I think a much more interesting one, but please discuss that in the section of this talk page. Moral criticisms does not make the aerial assault on Dresden a war crime and it does not help the credibility of Wikipedia to propagate such statements using weasel phrases with no credible sources naming the laws of war which were allegedly broken. Philip Baird Shearer 11:16, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * All such assaults were war crimes. By "such" I mean, bombing of cities, usually at night where selective targeting of military targets is not possible, at least with their technology at the time.  Of course, with the atomic bomb, even hitting a military commander on the head is not very selective, if he is in a city.  What is residual Nazi propaganda about it?  Frankly, though, given the current and past abomination that is international law, it is far more relevant whether it is moral or consistent with just war theory, rather than whether it is a war crime.--Silverback 11:50, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

 * Reply to Philip: First of the legal point. Lets imagime the legal situation had the Germans not attempted to protect Dresden from airial bombardment.  The wording of the relevant convention is "The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited".  There is nothing in there about saying "except when the said town contains military significant communications infrastructure".  So the legal justification rests solely on what the Hague convention meant by defended.   That clause was clearly intended to cover cases where a city was being used as a strong point in a defense line.  It was accepted that an advancing army had the right to bombard the forces defending the town.  Atacking those troops would be the aim of the bombardment and damage (even destruction) of the city an unfortunate side effect. Do you claim that the reason for the attack was to destroy its air defenses?
 * I claim that the reason for the attack is in the section reason for the attack. If any significant sourced reasons have been left out then please add them Philip Baird Shearer
 * My question was whether the reason for the attack was to attack the AA guns. I see no mention of that in the reasons page.  Hence I take that as a No.
 * Can I ask is your real objection "originality" To us it is obvious but if you are really saying "hit those books" then this argument is by the by.  Are you saying that you will have no objection to a claim that it was a warcrime so long as it is backed up by a good reference but not otherwise?
 * Yes. But idealy the reference should also explain what the war crime was with the legal reasoning behind claiming it was one. Philip Baird Shearer
 * OK but how strong is that "ideally". Would you not accept a legally authorative source which was light on explanation?  Ideally it would hav a full explanation - I'll see what I can find.Dejvid 15:17, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Finally I agree that Dresden is in some sense a symbol and many of the issues apply to the entire campaign. The "unecessary" butchery argument is not simply a moral one tho. The laws of war  accept that civilian casualties may be the consequences of military action but must be justified by military necessity.  Less military necessity less legal justification.

Dejvid 20:16, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

IMHO it is a moral one not a legal one. As there were no trials of anyone for "assault by aerial bombardment on defended enemy territory" after World War II the debate of "was it a war crime" can not be resolved. I think statments that it was hinders rather than helps the debate on the moral position. Philip Baird Shearer 12:01, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC) Just keep an eye out. Proportionality is used in war crimes trials as a legal not just a morale concept.Dejvid 15:17, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, there were not any post WW II war crimes trials where allied soldiers were the accused, in so far it is a bit of a propaganda exercise to specify for exactly which potential war crimes allied soldiers weren't tried (also referring to the main text). And the defintion of war crimes has more or less stayed the same since the Nuremberg Trials, anything the respective victors did ( who usually make up the rules after the fact), cannot be a war crime, bombing Hiroshima wasn't one, but the Nanking massacres was. As the defintion of what constitutes a war crime in which context is pretty arbitrary, having a debate on whether or not the Dresden bombing was on, is completely subjective, and therefore pointless. T Jacob (from the aformentiend city ;) 26 Jan 2005

title: Talk:Bombing of Dresden/Archive 5


text:
JJ Redick

Jonathan Clay "JJ" Redick (born June 24, 1984) is an American professional basketball coach and former player who is the head coach for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He most recently served as an analyst for ESPN. He played college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils, winning many individual awards. He was selected 11th overall by the Orlando Magic in the 2006 NBA draft and subsequently played for 15 seasons in the NBA, with six different teams.

Throughout college and his professional career, Redick was known for his excellent three-point and free-throw shooting. He set ACC records during his career for most points and most career ACC tournament points at the time. Redick is the all-time leading scorer for Duke. He continues to hold a few NCAA free throw percentage records and several ACC records. He also set several other Duke records, including most points in a single season.

After being drafted by the Magic, he played for seven seasons in Orlando, followed by a short spell with the Milwaukee Bucks, then four seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers. In 2017, he signed a one-year contract with the Philadelphia 76ers and re-signed with them on a one-year deal the following year. In 2019, Redick signed a two-year deal with the New Orleans Pelicans. He was traded to the Dallas Mavericks in 2021. After 15 seasons in the NBA, Redick retired on September 21, 2021. Redick holds franchise single-season three-point field goal records for several of the teams he played for.

Redick became the first NBA player and the second active professional athlete to start a weekly podcast during the regular season. It was started in 2016 at Yahoo! Sports. He moved his podcast to media company Uninterrupted,  then continued his podcast episodes on The Ringer in 2017. In 2020 he left The Ringer to start his own YouTube channel, and he co-founded the media company ThreeFourTwo Productions. He occasionally appeared on First Take.

High school career
Redick was a McDonald's All-American at Cave Spring High School in Roanoke, Virginia, winning the 2002 McDonald's All-American Game MVP. He scored 43 points as a senior in the Virginia High School League (VHSL) Class AAA state championship game, a game in which the Knights defeated George Wythe High School of Richmond. Redick's total was a VHSL championship-game record for all classes, standing until Mac McClung scored 47 for Gate City High School in the 2018 Class 2A final. Redick played Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) basketball with the Boo Williams team, playing against Dwyane Wade in a July 1999 tournament in Orlando.

Considered a five-star recruit by Scout.com, Redick was highly recruited and listed as the No. 2 shooting guard and the No. 13 player in the nation in 2002.

College career
In his first year at Duke University, Redick led his team with 30 points in their victory over NC State in the ACC Tournament championship game. He put up 26 points against Central Michigan in the second round of the NCAA tournament. However, he struggled in Duke's Sweet Sixteen loss to Kansas, hitting only two of 16 shots.

Redick served as co-captain in his junior year, along with senior point guard Daniel Ewing. He also served as captain his senior year, along with fellow seniors Shelden Williams, Sean Dockery and Lee Melchionni.

In the 2004–05 season, Redick led Duke in scoring with 21.8 points per game. He won the ACC Player of the Year award, and the Adolph F. Rupp Trophy for national player of the year. Redick's victory in the Rupp voting spoiled the consensus for Utah's Andrew Bogut, who won every other major player of the year award. In 2006, after facing close competition all year from Gonzaga's Adam Morrison, Redick won the major player of the year awards.

Redick set a record for the most consecutive free throws made in the ACC with 54. This record began on March 20, 2003, and ended on January 15, 2004. It was broken on January 22, 2012, by Scott Wood from NC State. Redick entered his final postseason with a chance to go down as the NCAA's all-time leading free-throw shooter. The record, 91.3% (minimum 300 made and 2.5/game), was held at the time by Gary Buchanan of Villanova. In an otherwise triumphant visit to Greensboro Coliseum for the 2006 ACC tournament and early NCAA tournament games, Redick struggled at the line, lowering his career free-throw percentage by about 0.5% and finishing his career with 91.16% (660 out of 724).

On February 14, 2006, in the first half of a game against Wake Forest, Redick broke Virginia alumnus Curtis Staples's NCAA record of 413 career three-pointers made. Keydren Clark of Saint Peter's College subsequently surpassed Redick's mark in the MAAC tournament. However, Redick returned the favor by hitting 15 three-pointers in the ACC Tournament and 12 in the NCAA Tournament to finish ahead of Clark. Redick finished his career with an NCAA-record 457 three-point field goals shooting 40.4% from three-point range. His career three-pointers record was broken on February 2, 2014, by Oakland University's Travis Bader.

In the game after breaking Staples' record, Redick scored 30 points on February 19, 2006, against Miami to become the all-time leading scorer at Duke, with 2,557 points scored in his career. On February 25, in a game versus Temple, Redick passed Dickie Hemric's 51-year-old ACC scoring record of 2,587 points with a pair of free throws in the waning minutes of the game. His record was topped in one of the opening round games of the 2009 NCAA tournament by North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough. Redick finished his career with 2,769 points.

On March 10, 2006, in an ACC Tournament quarterfinal against Miami, Redick scored 25 points, setting a Duke record for points in a season with 858. Redick ended the season with 964 points. Redick came up just short of the ACC record for points scored in a season, which was set by Dennis Scott with 970 points in 1990. Redick also finished his career as the leading scorer in ACC tournament history. His total of 225 points eclipsed Wake Forest's Len Chappell, who scored 220 points in the tournament from 1960 to 1962.

As the marquee player of the Blue Devils, Redick was the target of abuse by fans of rival teams. Clay Travis, of CBS Sports, called him the "most hated current athlete in America." After students from rivals Maryland and North Carolina discovered his cell phone number, Redick estimated that he received 50 to 75 hate calls per day from opposing fans. He was often the target of obscenity-laced tirades from fans. Redick was so often a target from rival fans that even his family members were harassed. Opposing crowds went as far as telling him during the game that "they had sex with his little sister" and that "your little brother is gay". Comments with which crowds antagonized Redick involving his underage siblings weren't addressed. JJ almost quit basketball his sophomore year because of how much hate he received for no specific reason from so many people. He turned to writing poetry as an outlet.

He had 36 double-figure scoring games in a single season, tied as of March 28, 2010, for 5th-most in Duke history with Jon Scheyer, Shane Battier, and Jason Williams.

J.J. Redick was chosen as the cover athlete and official spokesman for College Hoops 2K7. The game was released on Xbox, Xbox 360 & PlayStation 2 at 2006 and PlayStation 3 at 2007.

On February 4, 2007, Redick's no. 4 jersey was retired at Cameron Indoor Stadium at a special halftime ceremony. Redick became the 13th Duke player to have his jersey retired.

of the NCAA Record book, Redick was listed for two NCAA records (career FT%, min 600 attempts – 91.2%; Sophomore season FT%, 95.3%) and among nine other all-time leaders listings.

Orlando Magic (2006–2013)
Redick was selected with the 11th pick in the 2006 NBA draft by the Orlando Magic. Pre-draft scouting reports praised Redick's perimeter shooting and basketball intelligence, but questioned his defensive ability and speculated that he might not be tall or athletic enough to create his own shots in the NBA. This scouting report was highlighted when Duke played LSU in the 2006 NCAA tournament. LSU's Garrett Temple, a 6'5" guard known for his athleticism and a large wingspan, chased Redick throughout the game. Taken out of his normal rhythm, Redick—the number two scorer in the nation at the time—had one of the worst shooting performances of his college career, shooting 3-for-18 from the field and scoring 11 points in a Duke loss.

In a 2005 interview with the Charlotte Observer, Redick said, "I think I'll be a role player like 80 percent of the players in the league are. I don't expect to be a star, I'll just shoot, be a team player." He moved up into the backup shooting guard position behind well-known veteran and Duke alum Grant Hill.

Redick competed against Trevor Ariza and Keith Bogans for the starting shooting guard spot in 2007–08. He was pulled from playing more than once for his lack of defense during the preseason. He came into the season as a third-string player and saw limited action due to back spasms, but moved into limited rotation after Ariza was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers early in the season. In January 2008, Redick posted on his personal blog that "it's been proven that even if I play well in the limited minutes I get that not much is going to change." On January 31, 2008, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Redick had asked his agent, Arn Tellem, to inquire about a possible trade. "We want to see what's out there," Redick said. "I want to stay here, but it's been frustrating." Magic coach Stan Van Gundy responded: "Right now it would be very hard to fit him in. I know it's also hard to keep sitting him on the bench... Should we be playing him? Right now we're going good so we probably won't disrupt things." The Orlando Magic confirmed Van Gundy's comments by stating that Redick would not receive more minutes or a trade before the February 21, 2008 trade deadline.

In the 2008–09 season, Redick averaged 17.4 minutes per game instead of the previous season's 8.1; he played in 64 games instead of the previous season's 34. He averaged six points per game. The Magic made it to the NBA Finals, but lost to the Lakers in five games. Redick started all seven games in the Eastern Conference Semifinals in place of regular starter Courtney Lee.

On March 28, 2010, Redick set career highs in rebounds (7), assists (8) and minutes played (46). Vince Carter was injured just 95 seconds into the game; backup swingman Mickael Pietrus was also injured, leaving Redick to play the entire game.

On July 9, 2010, the Chicago Bulls signed Redick to a three-year, $19 million offer sheet. The Magic matched this offer on July 16, 2010, retaining the rights to Redick. On April 25, 2012, Redick achieved a career high with the Magic, scoring 31 points against the Charlotte Bobcats.

Milwaukee Bucks (2013)
On February 21, 2013, Redick was traded from the Magic to the Milwaukee Bucks along with guard Ish Smith and forward Gustavo Ayón for guard Beno Udrih, guard Doron Lamb, and forward Tobias Harris. Redick had difficulties in Milwaukee and his performance suffered.

Los Angeles Clippers (2013–2017)
On July 10, 2013, Redick was acquired by the Los Angeles Clippers via a three-team sign-and-trade deal that also involved the Bucks and the Phoenix Suns. Redick reportedly signed a four-year, $27 million contract. Redick started 218 of the first 219 games he played for the Clippers, becoming a "full-fledged starter" in the NBA. On January 15, 2014, Redick scored a then career-high 33 points in a 129–127 win over the Dallas Mavericks.

On January 18, 2016, Redick scored a career-high 40 points in a 140–132 overtime win over the Houston Rockets. He connected on his first five attempts behind the arc and finished 9-of-12 on three-pointers, tying Caron Butler's franchise record for three-pointers made in a game. He later competed in the Three-Point Contest during the 2016 NBA All-Star weekend.

On November 5, 2016, Redick increased his streak of consecutive games with a made three-pointer to 62, in a 116–92 win over the San Antonio Spurs. He also completed a four-point play against the Spurs, the 26th of his career. On April 12, 2017, Redick made three 3-pointers against Sacramento in the regular-season finale to finish with 201, breaking his career high and single-season franchise record of 200. The Clippers went on to lose in the first round of the NBA playoffs in seven games to the Utah Jazz.

Philadelphia 76ers (2017–2019)
On July 8, 2017, Redick signed a one-year, $23 million contract with the Philadelphia 76ers. On November 3, 2017, Redick scored 31 points on 11-of-19 shooting with 8-of-12 from 3-point range in a 121–110 win over the Indiana Pacers. On November 25, 2017, he hit eight 3-pointers and scored 29 points in a 130–111 win over the Orlando Magic. Redick missed seven games in January 2018 with a leg injury.

On July 6, 2018, Redick re-signed with the 76ers. Redick was moved to the bench for the start of the 2018–19 season and on October 20, he had his best game since moving to the bench, scoring 31 points on 10-of-20 shooting, including eight 3-pointers, in a 116–115 win over the Magic. On December 19, in a 131–109 win over the New York Knicks, Redick scored his 10,000th career point. On February 8, he scored a season-high 34 points in a 117–110 win over the Denver Nuggets. On March 19, he was two assists shy of his first NBA triple-double in 761 career games, finishing with 27 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in a 118–114 win over the Charlotte Hornets. In April 2019, Redick set the franchise record for most 3-pointers in a season, surpassing Kyle Korver's mark of 226 set in 2004–05.

New Orleans Pelicans (2019–2021)
On July 15, 2019, Redick signed with the New Orleans Pelicans. After finishing the pandemic-shortened season with a record of 30–42, the Pelicans missed the playoffs, marking the first time in Redick's career that he missed the playoffs. He was reunited with his former Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy in his second season in New Orleans.

Dallas Mavericks (2021)
Redick was traded to the Dallas Mavericks on March 26, 2021. He made his debut with the Mavs on April 12.

On September 21, 2021, Redick announced his retirement from playing basketball.

Coaching career
Redick served as volunteer head coach for the 4th Grade Boys Team at the Brooklyn Basketball Academy, where his son Knox played.

Los Angeles Lakers (2024–present)
Redick was announced as the 29th head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers on June 24, 2024.

National team career
Redick was a member of the 2003 USA Men's Junior World Championship Team. In 2005, he competed with the USA Basketball Under-21 Team, in Frisco, Texas, which won gold medals at the World Championship and the Global Games. In 2006, Redick was named to the 2006–2008 USA national team program. He competed for a spot with the team for the 2008 Olympics, but was not placed on the final roster. A recurring back injury kept him from competing in the 2007 FIBA Americas Championship.

Podcasting
In January 2016, Redick launched a podcast on Yahoo! Sports. He was the first active NBA player and the second active professional athlete to host a podcast. Redick said that he did not get any pushback from the organizations about doing the podcast and attributed that to focusing on getting the basketball work done first.

He began in 2016 at Yahoo! Sports, hosting The Vertical. In July 2017, he moved his podcast to Uninterrupted, under the title The Chronicles of Redick. After meeting producer and writer Tommy Alter, Redick decided to continue his podcast on The Ringer in 2017. Redick hosted three seasons on the Ringer: two as a solo host, and the third with Alter as co-host.

In 2020, he left The Ringer to own his content and start his own media company, co-founding ThreeFourTwo Productions with Alter, a reference to the 342 shots he would take every Sunday during the off-season. He currently hosts "The Old Man and the Three" along with Alter. The podcast premiered August 5, 2020, inside the NBA bubble in Orlando, Florida with Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard as the first guest. Redick's The Old Man and the Three has over 320 million views on YouTube and 4.8 stars on Apple Podcasts.

In March 2024, Redick and LeBron James launched a podcast called Mind the Game, co-produced by Redick and James' respective production companies, ThreeFourTwo Productions and Uninterrupted, where the two have "pure conversations about basketball." In June 2024, Redick announced that he would be going on an indefinite hiatus from podcasting due to becoming the new head coach for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Broadcasting
Following his retirement, Redick became an on-air sports analyst for ESPN. Redick made his debut on November 3, 2021, as a studio analyst for coverage of the Brooklyn Nets-Atlanta Hawks game.

In August 2023, Redick was included in the second core broadcast team of ESPN, along with Ryan Ruocco and Richard Jefferson. In February 2024, he was moved to the lead team of Mike Breen and Doris Burke, replacing Doc Rivers who became head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. In June 2024, Redick left ESPN to become the new head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Awards and honors

 * Consensus College Player of the Year (2006)
 * 2× consensus first-team All-American (2005, 2006)
 * Consensus third-team All-American (2004)
 * Associated Press First Team All-American:: 2005, 2006
 * Associated Press Player of the Year: 2006
 * The Sporting News National Player of the Year: 2005, 2006
 * United States Basketball Writers Association's Oscar Robertson Trophy College Basketball Co-Player of the Year: 2006
 * Naismith College Player of the Year National Player of the Year: 2006
 * John R. Wooden Player of the Year Award: 2006
 * John R. Wooden All-American Team: 2006
 * United States Basketball Writers Association(USBWA): 2006
 * NABC Player of the Year: 2006
 * 2x ACC Tournament MVP (2005, 2006)
 * Ten-time ACC Player of the Week
 * Lowe's Senior CLASS Award (2006)
 * National Association of Basketball Coaches Co-Player of the Year: 2006)
 * James E. Sullivan Award (2005)
 * Anthony J. McKelvin Award (ACC Athlete of the Year for all sports): (2006)
 * 2× Adolph Rupp Trophy (2005-2006)
 * 2× ACC Player of the Year (2005, 2006)
 * 2× First-team All-ACC (2005, 2006)
 * 2× ACC tournament MVP (2005, 2006)
 * Adolph Rupp Trophy (2004-2005)
 * Third-team All-American (2004)
 * Second-team All-ACC (2004)
 * 3x All-ACC (2003, 2003, 2004)
 * 3x All-ACC tournament (2003, 2005, 2006)
 * ACC All Freshman (2002, 2003)
 * Second-team Parade All-American (2002))
 * Virginia Mr. Basketball (2002)
 * Virginia's all-time AAA leading scorer with 2,215 career points and shot more than 44 percent from 3-point arc during his career.
 * Was named the 2002 A.P. Virginia Player of the Year
 * Three-time Gatorade Virginia Player of the Year
 * 2002 Virginia Mr. Basketball
 * Parade Magazine All-America second team and USA Today All-USA second team.
 * Won the 2002 McDonald's 3-point shooting competition.
 * Played on two AAU teams (Hampton's Boo Williams All-Stars) that won national championships.
 * No. 4 retired by Duke Blue Devils (2007)
 * Won Virginia AAA state title championship at Cave Spring High (2002)
 * McDonald's All-American Game MVP (2002)
 * 2x AAU first team All-American (2002)
 * Inducted in VHSL hall of fame (2021)

NCAA

 * Career FT%, min 600 FTM – 91.2%
 * Sophomore season FT%, 95.3%

ACC
Source:

 * Career ACC Player of the Week (12, tied Antawn Jamison)
 * Single-season three point shots made (139)
 * Career three point shots made (457)
 * Single-season free throw percentage (95.3%, also 2nd and 3rd)
 * Freshman-season free throw percentage (91.9%)
 * Junior-season free throw percentage (93.8%)
 * Career free throw percentage (91.2%)

ACC Tournament

 * Career points (225)
 * Tournament MVPs (2, tied Len Chappell, Tommy Burleson & Larry Miller)

ACC Championship game

 * single-game three point shots made in regulation (7, tied Hunter Cattoor)

Los Angeles Clippers

 * single-season 3-point field goal percentage (.475, 2015–16)
 * single-season 3-point field goals made (201, 2016–17)

Philadelphia 76ers

 * single-season 3-point field goals made (240, 2018–19)

New Orleans Pelicans

 * single-season 3-point field goals percentage (.453, 2019–20)

Personal life
Redick was born in Cookeville, Tennessee, the son of Jeanie and Ken Redick. His father played basketball for two seasons at Ohio Wesleyan University, and his older twin sisters, Catie and Alyssa, both played for Campbell University. His younger brother, David, was a tight end for the Marshall University's football team until he decided not to play due to injury. He then moved to Orlando with JJ before going back home and attending Virginia Tech. His youngest sister, Abigail, played basketball for Virginia Tech and Drexel University. Redick was nicknamed "JJ" as a toddler because his twin sisters repeated his original nickname of "J". His father's background as a stoneware potter led to his middle name, "Clay." Redick graduated from Duke University with a major in history and a minor in cultural anthropology.

Redick is a Christian. Redick has four tattoos of Bible verses: Isaiah 40:31, Joshua 1:9, Psalm 40:1–3, and Philippians 4:13, as well as a tattoo sleeve of the Virgin Mary.

On June 13, 2006, Redick was arrested and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol in Durham County, North Carolina. His blood-alcohol level was 0.11, while the legal limit in North Carolina is 0.08. Redick was released on a $1,000 bond shortly after being arrested. Redick pleaded guilty.

On June 26, 2010, Redick married longtime girlfriend Chelsea Kilgore. They have two children together, Knox and Kai.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: JJ Redick


text:
Farres

Farres (Φαρρές) is a former municipality in Achaea, West Greece, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Erymanthos, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 241.848 km2. The municipality of Farres existed between 1835 and 1912, and again between 1998 and 2011. Its seat of administration was in the town Chalandritsa. Farres is situated in the centre of Achaea, on the upper courses of the rivers Peiros and Parapeiros. Towards the southeast (Mount Erymanthos) and northeast (Panachaiko) the terrain is increasingly mountainous. It is located about 15 km south of Patras and 30 km west of Kalavryta. The Greek National Road 33 (Patras - Tripoli) runs through western Farres.

Subdivisions
The municipal unit Farres is subdivided into the following communities (constituent villages in brackets):
 * Chalandritsa (Chalandritsa, Kydonies, Mastoraiika-Stamaiika)
 * Chrysopigi (Chrysopigi, Ano Chrysopigi)
 * Elliniko (Elliniko, Agia Eleousa, Koumani, Neochori, Chrysavgi)
 * Fares (Fares, Prevedos)
 * Isoma
 * Kalanistra (Kalanistra, Rodia)
 * Kalanos
 * Kalousi
 * Katarraktis
 * Kritharakia (Kritharakia, Asteri, Toskes)
 * Lakkomata (Lakkomata, Tsapournia)
 * Mirali
 * Neo Kompigadi (Neo Kompigadi, Micha, Platanos)
 * Platanovrysi (Platanovrysi, Agia Paraskevi, Kato Platanovrysi, Koimisis)
 * Starochori (Ano Starochori, Dafnoula, Kato Starochori, Trousas)
 * Vasiliko (Vasiliko, Agrilia, Kydonies, Sterna, Stefani)

History
Near Chalandritsa, a Mycenaean settlement was excavated in 1985. Pharae was one of the cities of the Achaean League. After the Roman conquest, it belonged to Patras. During the Frankish rule (13th-14th century) the Barony of Chalandritsa was established. The barony was ruled by the French Dramelay (or Trémolay) family and later the Genoese Zaccaria family. The remains of the Frankish castle have been preserved. Ottoman rule lasted until the Greek War of Independence, in which the area was liberated in 1821–1822. Two earthquakes, measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale, struck the municipality on February 5, 2008, causing little damage.

title: Farres


text:
Asynchronous System Trap

Asynchronous System Trap (AST) refers to a mechanism used in several computer operating systems designed by the former Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) of Maynard, Massachusetts.

Mechanism
Various events within these systems can be optionally signalled back to the user processes via the AST mechanism. These ASTs act like subroutine calls but they are delivered asynchronously, that is, without any regard to the context of the main thread. Because of this, care must be taken:
 * to ensure that any code that is shared between the main thread and the AST must be designed to be reentrant, and
 * any data that is shared must be safe against corruption if modified at any time by the AST. Otherwise, the data must be guarded by blocking ASTs during critical sections.

ASTs are most commonly encountered as a result of issuing QIO calls to the kernel. Completion of the I/O can be signalled by the issuance of an AST to the calling process/task. Certain runtime errors could also be signalled using the AST mechanism. Within OpenVMS, Special Kernel-Mode ASTs are used as the standard mechanism for getting relatively convenient access to a process context (including getting the process paged into physical memory as may be needed). These types of ASTs are executed at the highest possible per-process priority the next time the scheduler makes that process current, and are used among other things for retrieving process-level information (in response to a $GETJPI "getjob/process information" system call) and for performing process deletion.

The following operating systems implement ASTs:
 * RSX-11 (including all of the variants)
 * RSTS/E
 * OpenVMS

ASTs are roughly analogous to Unix signals. The important differences are:
 * There are no "signal codes" assigned to ASTs: instead of assigning a handler to a signal code and raising that code, the AST is specified directly by its address. This allows any number of ASTs to be pending at once (subject to process quotas).
 * ASTs never abort any system call in progress. In fact, it is possible for a process to put itself into a "hibernate" state (with the $HIBER system call), or to wait for an event flag by calling e.g. $WAITFR, whereupon it does nothing but wait for ASTs to be delivered. When an AST is delivered (triggered by an IO completion, timer, or other event), the process is temporarily taken out of the wait to execute the AST. After the AST procedure completes, the call that put the process into hibernation or the event flag wait is made again; in essence, the reason for the wait is re-evaluated. The only way to get out of this loop (apart from process deletion) is to execute a $WAKE or $SETEF system call to satisfy the wait. This can be done by the process itself by invoking $WAKE or $SETEF within the AST, or (if a global event flag is used) $SETEF within another process.

VAX/VMS V4 and later implemented an interesting optimization to the problem of synchronizing between AST-level and non-AST-level code. A system service named $SETAST could be used to disable or enable the delivery of ASTs for the current and all less-privileged access modes (the OpenVMS term for ring-based security features). However, if the critical section needing protection from ASTs was only a few instructions long, then the overhead of making the $SETAST calls could far outweigh the time to execute those instructions.

So for user mode only (the least privileged ring, normally used by ordinary user programs), a pair of bit flags was provided at a predefined user-writable memory location (in per-process "P1" space). The meanings of these two flags could be construed as "don't deliver any ASTs" and "ASTs have been disabled". Instead of the usual pair of $SETAST calls, the user-mode code would set the first flag before executing the sequence of instructions during which ASTs need to be blocked, and clear it after the sequence. Then (note the ordering here, to avoid race conditions) it would check the second flag to see if it had become set during this time: if so, then ASTs really have become disabled, and $SETAST should be called to re-enable them. In the most common case, no ASTs would have become pending during this time, so there would be no need to call $SETAST at all.

The kernel AST delivery code, for its part, would check the first flag before trying to deliver a user-mode AST; if it was set, then it would directly set the ASTs-disabled bit in the process control block (the same bit that would be set by an explicit $SETAST call from user mode), and also set the second flag, before returning and leaving the AST undelivered.

The asynchronous procedure call mechanism in the Windows NT family of operating systems is a similar mechanism.

title: Asynchronous System Trap