Dresden's 1945 firestorm killed up to 25,000 people

The Allied bombing of Dresden on 13–15 February 1945 killed up to 25,000 people, according to a report the city of Dresden published in 2010. RAF Lancasters struck first at about 10 p.m. on 13 February, dropping 880 tons of bombs in roughly 15 minutes, before a second wave of 550 bombers and U.S. daylight raids followed.

The number has been argued over since 1945, partly because so many bodies were burned on pyres in the days after the raids, before they could be counted:

Estimate	Source
22,700–25,000 dead	City of Dresden commission report, 2010
Up to 25,000	Deutsches Historisches Museum
About 35,000	A “widely accepted” figure, per the National WWII Museum
Far higher	Rival claims, noted by the same museum

The scale is easier to feel against the population. Germany’s seventh-largest city had about 600,000 residents, and roughly 300,000 refugees from the east had crowded in as the Red Army advanced into Silesia. The firestorm destroyed about 80,000 homes, and historian Donald Miller notes that 70% of victims died not from flames but from carbon monoxide.

The other common claim, that Dresden had no military value, is also wrong. It was a rail hub carrying troops to the Eastern Front, and the Deutsches Historisches Museum lists the Zeiss Ikon works, the Paul Märksch company and aircraft factories at Klotzsche among its industries. The National WWII Museum says the raids were meant to weaken German resistance to the Soviet advance, which the Allied leaders had discussed days earlier at the Yalta Conference; the Deutsches Historisches Museum also places them within area bombing meant to break civilian morale.

That does not end the moral argument. The firestorm fell mostly on homes, not on rail yards, and even Churchill had doubts within weeks:

“The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombing.” — Winston Churchill, March 1945