After listening to Pastor Manfred Bahman speak to 120 vets at last night's LV Vet Roundtable, I don't know how the hell the Germans lost WWII. He was smart, charming and one of the most thoughtful speakers I've ever heard. Most of all, he's one of the lucky ones to survive the Allied firebombing of Dresden during the waning days of the war. "If I had my druthers at that time and had a machine gun, I would have killed you," he bluntly stated.
This former member of Hitler Youth was just fifteen years old when the RAF and Americans firebombed Dresden. His Nazi father had died four years earlier in Berlin. His older brother was in the German Navy. So Manfred was the man of the house.
On February 13, 1945, it was Mardi Gras in Dresden. Although that City was known as the Florence of the Elbe, the celebration was subdued. "The war was practically over and everbody knew it," explained Dr. Bahman.
So when the sirens began wailing at 10 PM, Manfred refused to take it seriously. This City had absolutely no military value. German officials were so certain the city was safe they never even bothered to build air raid shelters. Bahman lounged in bed like any teenager until a neighbor pounded on the door to tell them that planes were just ten minutes away.
Everyone sought safety in the basement of his five-story apartment building. Little did they know that this would become a death trap for many of them.
With the scientific efficiency you might expect from a Hitler acolyte, Dr. Bahman explained how firebombing works. First, high explosive bombs are dropped, preferably in a star pattern, and those create air drafts. They are followed by phosphorus bombs, which consume the oxygen in those air drafts and result in a firestorm with howling winds. Basements become tombs because the people hiding in there are asphyxiated, after which their bodies are carbonized.
With the humanity you might expect from any human being, Dr. Bahman explained his own reaction. "Holy shit!" he said. "The horror does not stop." He talked about time stopping, and seconds seeming like hours.
As buildings around them erupted into flame, Manfred told his mother and sister they must leave. Another family came with them. They dodged falling debris in the ghost light created by the fires and continually made their way to the outskirts of the City, where he thought they'd be safe. Unknown to him, the bombing started in the center of the City and made its way to the outskirts. After two harrowing nights in Dresden, Bahman and his family were refugees, heading West.
As Dr. Bahman tells it, nobody really knows how many people were killed in this City of 600,000. Official counts place the loss at 30,000, but it might be twice that number, especially since Dresden was at that time sheltering refugees fleeing from the Russians in the East.
Dr. Bahman and his family left Dresden, but my father was there as an American POW. He and fellow POW Kurt Vonnegut, who later wrote Slaughterhouse Five, hid in the meat lockers underneath a slaughterhouse during this incineration. Years later, Vonnegut said that one POW blurted out, "I wonder what the poor people are doing tonight." I can't help but think that was my dad. That was his humor.
Soon after their escape, Bahman's family ran into the Americans, swaggering down the streets with their helmets cocked to the side. "They were nice guys, offering chocolate," Bauman remembers, but he refused to let his sister get near them. "Don't you dare take anything from them," he told his sister. "Don't you know they're our enemies?"
This Hitler Youth would later marry one of his "enemies" and become a naturalized U.S. citizen.
Despite the horrible tragedy of Dresden, it probably saved Bahman's life. He was scheduled to report for service in the Volkssturm in the next week. "My dreams of military glory went to ashes in the firestorm of Dresden."
Although Bahman feels there was no military reason for this attack, he conceded that Germans had done the same thing in London, with equal failure. "Once you get that kind of treatment, your spine stiffens, and you say, 'No! You bastard.'" He also mentioned that he met a British pilot a few years after the war, and over a bottle of Scotch, this pilot told him they know their targets were all civilians. "I was sick to my stomach," the pilot told him. "I got drunk for a whole week."
Because he spent so much time talking about Dresden, Bahman had no time to discuss his activities as a member of Hitler Youth, but has promised to come back and discuss that topic in a separate lecture.
He did mention that, as a fifteen year old, he "had no idea of the incredible horrors going on under his nose." He also thanked the WWII vets in the room. "Had it not been for you, we would not have been liberated from the horror of Nazism."
After his speech, I spoke briefly with the Reverend. I stupidly had thought he might have seen my father or Vonnegut, but their paths never crossed.
The LV Vet Roundtable meets at the Lehigh County Senior Center on the final Thursday of every month, and always features entertaining speakers who share their oral history.
Before last night's speaker, Debbie Garlicki of the Lehigh County DA's office made a plea for combat vets to volunteer as mentors to combat vets suffering the depression that often follows a soldier when he returns home. She reported that combat soldiers understand other combat soldiers better than anyone else, and many returning soldiers "don't know where to turn."
If you are a combat vet and would like to help, you can reach Debbie at (610) 782-3230, or you can email Paul Fiske.
26 comments:
nice report
thanks
btw, heard anything form harrisburg?
Yes, they will be hearing the case en banc next Wednesday. I think the signature challenge as a related case must be included in that. It is nice to see that this appeal has the attention of the entire bench, but I have no idea what that means.
perhaps as a youth he didn't know about those horrors , but the adults did. it's a clue when your neighbor goes away in a boxcar, but it's a conclusion when you're told you can have his house and business.
as a jew it also speaks volumes to me that he changed the stated agenda to speak of one of the few incidents that victimized the germans, as opposed to their multiple atrocities throughout europe
bernie, because of your father, you have a unique interest in dresden, as does the minister from his first hand experience. but, you should also know;
The bombing of Dresden has been manipulated by Holocaust Denial and pro-Nazi polemicists—most notably by the British writer David Irving in his book The Destruction of Dresden—in an attempt to establish a moral equivalence between the death toll of Jews in German concentration camps and the indiscriminate killing of German civilians by Allied bombing raids.
i certainly do not mean to imply that the minister is a holocaust denier. dresden has become a poster child for this issue. deniers put the toll as high as 250,000. most historians put the death at 22 to 25thousand, less than died in the hamburg bombings. let me be clear that the number is horrendous, and that the bombing may well have been a war crime.
Lions 1. Christians 0.
Nice try Bernie. The deck was stacked against you. Here comes the tax increase to pay for Gracedale's continued bleeding. Thank you for trying.
MM,
I have no interest in your attempted condemnation of a man you did not hear, who was a 15 year-old boy and younger during these Nazi atrocities, and who made it very clear that he was more than willing to discuss his stint with Hitler Youth, and in detail. He mentioned that several times during a lecture you did not attend. He answered every question posed, including one from a person who spoke about what was happening to the Jews. I am willing to listen to what he says before I condemn him.
He will be invited back, and I suggest that if you want to make accusations, go to the next lecture and make them.
"deniers put the toll as high as 250,000. most historians put the death at 22 to 25thousand, less than died in the hamburg bombings"
This is a point that Dr. Bahman mentioned last night, at the meeting you did not attend. He added that the official count is somewhere around 30,000, and he believes it was twice that number bc of the number of refugees in the City at that time. He made no attempt to exaggerate what happened, nor did he attempt to minimize it.
it was not a condemnation or a accusation, but a reaction to the post. i was told that it was he who changed the topic from hitler youth to dresden. that he was he who answered the jew question by saying that as a 15 year old boy he didn't know. the only condemnation and accusation is being made by you, against me, no surprise.
You commented on a meeting you did not attend about a bombing you did not witness, and certainly suggested that Rev. Bahman was reluctant to discuss his experience as a Hitler Youth.
That is untrue. Dr. Bahman is more than willing, but his account of Dresden alone had people riveted to their seats for over an hour.
I am no Holocaust denier, but am unwilling to blame a 15 yo boy for what happened.
bernie, i don't blame a 15 year old boy for what happen, what a twist of my words. i observed that a 84 year old man, who was suppose to speak of about hitler youth, instead chose to speak about the firebombing.
That's not accurate, either. He as supposed to talk about both, and decided that they deserve separate lectures. You are insinuating he has something to hide, when he's been completely up front. Finally, YOU WEREN'T THERE. I have allowed you to comment here because as a Jew, you have a perspective that I lack. But you have no right to make insinuations about a man at a meeting you did not attend, and about an event you did not witness. If this mattered to you so much, you should have been there. I have said all I can say to you on this topic, and don't wish to continue meaningless exchanges. From this point, you'll be talking to other readers, but not to me.
bernie, you're intolerable, as usual. it's not necessary to attend meetings to have an opinion. btw, if german historians put the toll at 25,000 or less after much controversy, yes, saying it could have been 60,000 is an exaggeration. btw, there supposedly were military targets in dresden, and i wasn't there either.
US Air Force Dresden Report
M. Molovinsky is a sad reminder of why there is and will be an unfortunate Holocaust "blowback" by otherwise decent people.
No rational person denies the Holocaust occurred. It was a blot on human history and a lesson that even so-called modern civilized societies must always be on guard against irrational hatred taken to psychotic ends.
Yet here we have a man, a young survivor of a horrible air raid, who gives his honest tale on the incident. What happens? Old MM comes on and pisses on the guy because how dare a "German" ever complain about any Allied actions because of the Holocaust.
The firebombing of Dresden was pure psychological terror warfare meant to break the spirit and punish German civilians for the war. It was a totally unnecessary evil act. The Brit's were big time advocates of payback. The US unfortunately acquiesced.
MM please try to repress your martyr syndrome and maybe more people will take the Holocaust seriously and not just another attempt by someone to piss and moan because "no other human suffering may be compared". It also showcases your continued irrational and deep seated "German" hatred.
Remember, most of Europe did not have to have their arms twisted when it came time to remove Jews from nations. In fact, many of the European nations gave them up quite willingly.
Sadly the Germans were the vehicle that showed the deep seated anti-semitism that was rampant across all of Europe at that time.
Lets all try to live and learn from the past. Not condemn all to wallow in your anger.
anon 3:37, your comment maybe more people will take the Holocaust seriously says it all about you. i had more to say than i intended because of bernie's nonsense that i wasn't at the meeting. he wasn't at the republican committee meeting, but that didn't stop him from misquoting wayne woodman. i was told by someone else at veteran group meeting that the gentleman was scheduled to address the group because of his experience in the hitler youth, but instead spoke of dresden. for your information i do not have a "deep seated hatred of germans" i can tell from your comment, that nobody would had to twist your arm very hard.
I'm not a Jew and I think the current Pope gets an unfair shake for a similar past. Something tells me the guy doesn't return to talk about his Hitler Youth past.
He leaves, an accidental hero ...
And so goes history.
I am leery of comments posted between 1 and 4 M, especially on weekends, but 3:37 has a good point. Anti-Semitic behavior is by no means exclusive to Germans. I would have to say that, growing up in Hellertown, I was inundated with both racism and anti-Semitic behavior. Blacks were not allowed to swim in out pools because they smell funny in the Summer. When one kid cheated us in a deal, we would say he jewed us.
And we were the people who stopped the Holocaust!
Anon 8:25, Dr. Bahman mentioned returning several times. He never once hesitated about talking about his Hitler Youth training or attitude when it was relevant to his story about Dresden.
In fairness, as I think about this, a topic like that should be the subject of a separate lecture with lots of questions.
bernie, you may want to read all the comments again, without your speed reading technique. if attending the meetings you post about is a prerequisite for also commenting, you should state that in your comment policy. in regard to comment 3:37 am; there is no moral equivalent between anti-semitism or prejudice and mass genocide.
Christ, MM. I read anon 3:37's post twice. I guess if you want to wallow in that pool of self-pity and anger you could take a line out of context and slam the guy. The idea that somehow you can read the man's soul is what can diminish the events you idiot.
You are so focused on finding fuel for your rage and hate, you miss the larger points.
The writer made it clear the Holocaust was a monstrous act that can not be compared to a city being bombed. That being said the "idea" that a certain group of people must suffer because of a political policy fueled by hate is wrong regardless of who commits the act and how many people suffer.
Unfortunately, people don't like to face facts they don't like. The holocaust is so horrific that some people know its there but look for ways to rationalize it.
This elderly gentleman who was taken as a child and brainwashed with a political philosophy and hate, now tells his story. You decide to go after him and diminish his personal history.
I agree, and if you think I am anti-semitic, I am sure my late Jewish grandmother could give a shit like myself, of the fact that you think anyone who tries to have an intelligent conversation about WWII era history is anti-semitic.
My father who was of German American heritage fought as a combat infantryman across Germany to rid the world of Nazism.
So kiss my ass. You do more harm than good.
Sorry Bernie but I found the man's story interesting and MM out of line. I apologize for my anger.
Chris Bachmann
chris, perhaps you should read my comments again. although bernie said i went after the pastor, i said that dresden paled compared to german actions, not even first mentioning the holocaust or jews. keep in mind bernie finds fault with all my comments, and also dresden is very unique to bernie, in that his father also survived that firestorm. we must disagree about 3:37am comments. sorry i managed to diminished your compassion for the holocaust.
Chris, No apology needed. MM is an asshole, but that has nothing to do with the fact that he is a Jew. He gets to me, too, and is ordinarily banned from this blog bc he turns everything into a personal argument. I allowed his commentary here bc of his Jewish background, which I lack.
But to be clear, and contrary to MM's suggestion, Dr. Bahman did not avoid his own past. To the extent it was relevant to Dresden, he discussed it. He ducked no questions, and made very clear his desire to come back and discuss being a Hitler Youth. He is by no means proud of it, given that he discussed the "horrors" of Nazism, as he himself put it.
As for MM's claim that we did not stop the Holocaust and his attempt to lay the blame for that at the feet of FDR, my understand is that the Holocaust was intended to rid the world of all Jews. MM is still here, so I think it's safe to say somebody stopped it. I thought it was advancing American and Russian armies, but MM has corrected us. We did not stop the Holocause. Maybe he did.
bernie, what I said was that there was more FDR could have done. in my opinion, you are now the third commentator here to trivialize the holocaust. i don't say that with rancor, as my comments about dresden were received, but for your edification.
If anyone has trivialized the Holocaust, it is you. You are the person who ridiculously suggests that we did not stop it. You are the one who throws it up in a discussion about Dresden. You are the one who made insinuations about a person you don't even know and didn't even hear.
When you bring it up so lightly, you yourself trivialize it. That's the point made by Mr. Bachmann.
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