In der Nacht vom 13. auf den 14. Februar 1945 bombardierten britische und amerikanische Streitkräfte Dresden mehrere Tage lang mit rund 1.100 Flugzeugen, und schätzungsweise 35.000 Tote wurden wegen der Seuchengefahr in den riesigen Gittern auf dem Altmarkt verbrannt.

During the night of February 13-14, 1945, British and American forces bombed Dresden, a city of art overflowing with refugees from the Soviet Union, for several days with a total of about 1,100 bombers. The main objective of the Allies was the destruction of the German people. The number of casualties was so great that the bodies were collected in public places and burned with gasoline. The dead, estimated at about 35,000, were burned in huge grates on Altmarkt due to the danger of contagion.

　　From the beginning of February 1945, the Russians asked the Western Allies to bomb key points of the German transport system, including Berlin, Chemnitz, Leipzig, and Dresden, etc. On the following days during the Yalta talks of February 4-11, the Russians stressed bombing German lines of communication and sympathy, especially Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden, with an emphasis on bombing via Dresden. Hitler's request for reinforcements of Silesian troops to halt the Soviet Red Army's advance on Berlin led directly to the bombing of Dresden two days after the conference ended.

　　The massive attack on Dresden began shortly after 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, February 13, 1945, with raids by 259 Lancaster bombers from RAF Sinderby and other nearby airfields in Lincolnshire. Many people were killed and the attack was believed to be unrelated to any military objective. The attack on the beautiful medieval city of Dresden, known as Florence on the Elbe, was a devastating air raid.

　　The 2,680 tons of bombs dropped devastated more than 21 square kilometers of the city, killing mostly women, children, and the elderly. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the Soviet Red Army just 96.5 kilometers to the east were also killed. Those killed were suffocated, burned, and boiled. Not necessarily only burned to death, but suffocated as the storm sucked all the oxygen out of the atmosphere. Piles of corpses were dragged out of huge fire-fighting cisterns. People fleeing the flames jumped into the cisterns and were boiled alive. The true death toll was estimated at about 20,000 or more than 50,000 other totals.