Ruth MottramJun 25, 2023

Reading #Slaughterhouse5 on the beach in #Copenhagen, where we've taken refuge from the #heat is a bit of a mindbender, must be said...

Perhaps #Europe needs these kind of reminders though, our lives are maybe too comfortable?
#Drought #ClimateDiary #Ukraine
#SummerReading #SummerReadingChallenge

https://fediscience.org/@Ruth_Mottram/110601339802856723

Ruth Mottram (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image Well. That's my summer reading sorted. How's everyone else doing? #SummerReading #Bookstodon #Shelfie #summerReadingChallenge

FediScience.org
Show threadRuth Mottram

I fell down a bit of a #wikipedia rabbit hole reading up on #Dresden after finishing #Slaughterhouse5 yesterday. I'd always assumed the #Firestorm was almost accidental, but they knew *exactly* what they were doing.

And they'd already practiced on #Hamburg.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II

Bombing of Hamburg in World War II - Wikipedia

Jun 26, 2023 at 7:59amWeb
Show threadRuth MottramJun 26, 2023

I consider myself well-informed and I know Hamburg well and now I wonder how I'd missed the ~37,000 people killed by allied bombers in 1943?
Many of the bodies were never identified.
In some cellars they could only work out how many had died by the quantity of ash on the floor.

Europe is a graveyard

Show threadRuth MottramJun 26, 2023
And this was nothing compared to the great losses in Japan.
The #Tokyo #Firebombing probably led to as many dead as #Hiroshima... An estimated 100,000 people killed and a million homeless. What a disaster.
Show threadLoukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️Jun 26, 2023
@Ruth_Mottram so criminal and so forgotten. They even killed 15,000 people in Caen in bombing preparation for D-Day.
Show threadChrono MatthiasJun 26, 2023

@Ruth_Mottram This is my source for the Hamburg aerial #WWII photos of Hamburg. Yes Tokyo bombing is also online.
https://catalog.archives.gov/search?availableOnline=true&q=tokyo%20bombing&typeOfMaterials=Photographs%20and%20other%20Graphic%20Materials

#nowar nowhere

National Archives NextGen Catalog

The online portal to the records held at the National Archives, and information about those records.

Show threadChrono MatthiasJun 26, 2023
@Ruth_Mottram New old WWII map :: Tokyo bombing https://mprove.de/chrono?m=SUjx217xm7539&s=1
Chronoscope World 3D

mprove.de
Show threadPepijnJun 26, 2023

If you want to read more about the ww2 firebombing of Hamburg this book provides a broad historical account. It includes accounts from both the victims as well as the soldiers in the planes.

"Inferno: The Fiery Destruction of Hamburg, 1943" by Keith Lowe

@Ruth_Mottram

Show threadRhymerJun 26, 2023

@Pepijn @Ruth_Mottram

@chronohh has just tooted about a mapping work of #Hamburg aerials of the time:
https://norden.social/users/chronohh/statuses/110609255055924626
https://mprove.de/chrono?m=NA204902932&o=0.9&d=1&s=1&c=-2,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,a

Chrono Matthias (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image air raid over #Hamburg #WWII #Chronolink animation https://mprove.de/chrono?m=NA204902932&o=0.9&d=1&s=1&c=-2,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,w,a

norden.social
Show threadRuth MottramJun 26, 2023
@rhymer @Pepijn @chronohh huh, I did not know about #Chronoscope before - what a fascinating site.
Show threadMatthias MProveJun 26, 2023
@Ruth_Mottram @rhymer @Pepijn @chronohh My pleasure 🥰 https://mprove.de/chronolab/index.html
Chrono Research Lab @mprove

mprove.de
Show threadChrono MatthiasJun 26, 2023

@Ruth_Mottram @rhymer @Pepijn 🖖
5 min quick tour of Chronoscope World

[youtube] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38ltIdCvTTU

[no tracking] https://piped.video/watch?v=38ltIdCvTTU

Chronoscope World Overview

YouTube
Show threadTobias MerkendorfJun 26, 2023

@Ruth_Mottram the bombing campaign is still very much present in many if not most cities of Germany.

There is a graveyard with bombing victims age 3 to 90 directly behind our back yard (and one with slave workers and POWs executed in April 1945 nearby).

Also every project that involves excavation of some sort needs probing for duds.

It is very common for whole quarters to be evacuated for bomb defusal.

Show threadRuth MottramJun 26, 2023
@t_mkdf I regularly run through one of the graveyards in CPH where a few thousand German civilian refugees are buried - also ranging in age. I think I read about 20,000 died in the aftermath in Denmark alone - mainly from disease and malnutrition in refugee camps here as there wasn't enough food + medicine to go around or doctors to treat them..
Show threadRuth MottramJun 26, 2023
@t_mkdf I was discussing this with colleagues at a meeting (Germans Swedes Danes Estonians, Ukrainians + Belgians...)
The Belgian guy was telling me that he had given up metal detecting because all he found was shrapnel and bullets and debris left behind both wars. He was worried he'd accidentally dig up something and kill himself... The Germans were so used to being evacuated it was part of normal life practically.
Europe is really quite a mad place when you think about
Show threadTobias MerkendorfJun 26, 2023
@Ruth_Mottram we are living on a pile of history. And not everything is nice. And quite a lot gruesome.
Show threadAlex Vierod 🌳🛰️Jun 26, 2023
@Ruth_Mottram One of the world's saddest songs, Adagio in Gm was reconstructed from burnt remnants picked from the rubble of Dresden library after the atrocities that were committed.
Show threadRuth MottramJun 26, 2023
@AlexV I must look it up!
Show threadAlex Vierod 🌳🛰️Jun 26, 2023
@Ruth_Mottram Have to say that when I look this up now it turns up all kinds of accusations of fraud, so that may be a romantic tale not reality, it's a nice piece but it's origins seem to be contested!
Show threadAlex Vierod 🌳🛰️Jun 26, 2023
@Ruth_Mottram https://youtu.be/GTFF91CElP4
Adagio in G Minor

YouTube
Show threadTobias MerkendorfJun 26, 2023

@Ruth_Mottram and Hamburg was probably the more devastating one.

Dresden received only it's prominence due to the timing (late in the war), being exploited for propaganda (Nazi and Soviet) and Vonnegut...

("Do it again, Harris!" is a meme among German anti-fascists since at least the early nineties, since Saxony and Dresden are still seen as a Nazi and/or reactionary bastion.)

Show threadRuth MottramJun 26, 2023
@t_mkdf yes that was very much the impression I got from the Rabbit Hole. It's terrible and terrifying to think how easily it was carried out. And really very recent. Well within living memory even now.
Show threadSellaTheChemistJun 26, 2023
@t_mkdf @Ruth_Mottram Worth mentioning that Jacob Bronowski was one of the analysts who used operations research methods to maximise the effect of bombing both in Europe and Japan. It's worth watching his daughter, Lisa Jardine's documentary "My father, The Bomb, and me" that explores some of these issues. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wkps1 (currently unavailable)
BBC Four - My Father, the Bomb and Me

Lisa Jardine tells the story of her famous father, scientist Jacob Bronowski.

BBC
Show threadSellaTheChemistJun 26, 2023
@t_mkdf @Ruth_Mottram There is more about this in this article which assesses Bronowski's relationship with bombs of various kinds. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-for-the-history-of-science/article/jacob-bronowski-a-humanist-intellectual-for-an-atomic-age-19461956/AABCAF105D9507DF10408621076C681E
Jacob Bronowski: a humanist intellectual for an atomic age, 1946–1956 | The British Journal for the History of Science | Cambridge Core

Jacob Bronowski: a humanist intellectual for an atomic age, 1946–1956 - Volume 45 Issue 4

Cambridge Core