Tokyo was a city of canals before the Allies firebombed the city. Apparently the canals boiled due to the incendiaries used, so there was no escape from the fire during that tragic phase of life in the city. 100,000 deaths in one night is a statistic that few people think about, the Nazi death camps worked at a glacial pace in comparison, the craziness of WW1 campaigns gains a new perspective too, the bombing of Tokyo, with the loss of those canals, was something else. Hard to imagine. So we don't talk about it.
Tokyo was built on an estuary so the canals came from the management of the water that was already there. The final evolution being the water being pushed completely underground is pretty predictable. Other cities have dealt a similar fate to their rivers, London being a prime example where only the Thames is really 'welcomed' as a river, everything else is kind of banished underground.
Dresden was also completely destroyed by Allies (for no good reason) and its firebombing caused between 200 000 and 300 000 victims (largely women, children and elderly). We don't talk about it much even though it was a crime against humanity as well.
“Large variations in the claimed death toll have fuelled the controversy. In March 1945, the German government ordered its press to publish a falsified casualty figure of 200,000 for the Dresden raids, and death toll estimates as high as 500,000 have been given.[15][16][17] The city authorities at the time estimated up to 25,000 victims, a figure that subsequent investigations supported, including a 2010 study commissioned by the city council.[18]”
It’s a tragedy none the less but that figure doesn’t seem actuate ?
Nobody actually knows the real number of victims since it was not just the population of Dresden but also refugees from all over the place who had taken to live in Dresden. These are not accounted for by the city statistics, so 25 000 people killed is probably on the low end of actual numbers.
> The U.S. Eighth Air Force followed the next day with another 400 tons of bombs and carried out yet another raid by 210 bombers on February 15. It is thought that some 25,000–35,000 civilians died in Dresden in the air attacks, though some estimates are as high as 250,000, given the influx of undocumented refugees that had fled to Dresden from the Eastern Front. Most of the victims were women, children, and the elderly.
A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic. - Stalin
Regardless of the deaths, I understand the cultural tragedy of the destruction of Dresden is significant as it was an important intellectual center.
I had a friend who passed away recently who was a boy in the bombings and recounted with tears on multiple occasions, as a lifelong opiate addict, how he felt he had personally died at that time. I visited the city a few years ago and found the largely depressing husk of a city still under wishful reconstruction. The nominal activity of its touristic center was at direct odds to the clearly economically depressed suburbs mere moments away.
Just to be clear and provide context, the numbers the original poster linked were overbloated and inaccurate because it's a fictionalized neonazi talking point, like holocaust denial and white genocide in south africa. Some people get drawn into the, uh, wrong sources and start parroting the talking points without really knowing what they are helping to propagate, so the poster here might not be a racial supremacist or whatever, but it's something to keep an eye out for.
I am not a historian, but there had to be a reason. Just from the popular accounts of WW II, given the conviction of Germans to continue fighting, their ideology, self-esteem and the danger of war dragging on, obliterating a major cultural centre instead of focused strikes to military targets makes a lot of sense, both emotionally and strategically. As I see it, this was by intent not a tactical response, this was meant to be a major death blow to hit the German resolve, so they see what response will come if they continue. And to make it a lasting impact. At that point of time, the Allies knew they will win, and they felt justified bombing vulnerable non-soldiers as a means to accelerate the coming of the end of the war. Similar logic applies to destroying the towns Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs.
Tokyo was built on an estuary so the canals came from the management of the water that was already there. The final evolution being the water being pushed completely underground is pretty predictable. Other cities have dealt a similar fate to their rivers, London being a prime example where only the Thames is really 'welcomed' as a river, everything else is kind of banished underground.