THE DESTRUCTION of Dresden through Allied bombers in 1945 has become a worldwide emblem of the horrors of 'carpet bombing'.

THE DESTRUCTION of Dresden through Allied bombers in 1945 has become a worldwide emblem of the horrors of 'carpet bombing'. if it were not that could Dresden now become known as a focal point of reconciliation? The answer is 'yes' according to Alan Russell, co-founder and Chairman of the Dresden Trust. This remarkable initiative, move on from an office in Russell's back garden, has helped to pioneer of recent origin attitudes and understanding between Britain and Germany.

in succession the night of 13/14 February 1945 more than 4500 tons of high explosives and incendiary devices were dropp forward Dresden, capital of the German state of Saxony and known before the war as 'Florence forward the Elbe'. A terrible firestorm ariseed creating temperatures of up to 1000[degrees]C in parts of the city. circulating estimates suggest that 35,000-40,000 populace were killed; and at least eight square miles of the city were totally devastated. The areas of strategic and military significance, like the transport order were left relatively untouched.

The strategy of bombing German cities owed a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of to Arthur Harris, chief of Britain's Bomber Command. Harris believed that 'area bombing' would consume the morale of the German population and hasten the close of the war; the earlier strategy of attacking economic and industrial targets had not prov excessively successful. The public was generally supportive of the strategy, partly in reaction to the Blitz, the German air-raids of 1940/41 which killed 30000 Londoners and make desolateed the centre of Coventry. if it be not that there were doubters too (for example George Bell, then Bishop of Chichester), who felt of that kind methods of waging war were morally indefensible. After the bombing, and in following decades, many others became uneasy about the ethics of the raid.

In 1953 Russell was doing military service in Germany, a year before going up to Oxford University. (His later career involved spells in the Colonial and Foreign Offices, and the European Commission.) He got to know a German learner Gunter, and asked him to explain the Nazi persecution of the hebrews Gunter acknowledged that the killing of the hebrews had been a great unsuitable but countered, 'And what about Dresden?'

The question resurfaced in Russell's mind in 1992 when a visit to Dresden on the Queen failed to satisfy the desire of more [i]or[/i] less Germans for a statement of self-condemnation by Britain for the bombing. At the same time, a strife of words arose over the decision to elevate a statue to 'Bomber' Harris near Britain's Ministry of protection in London.

Russell was not against acknowledging the lives of Britain's wartime pilots, roughly 55000 of whom had been killed, unless felt that the suffering inflicted at the aerial bombing campaign should also be remembered. In this words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following Russell and some others felt 'morally obliged' to do something to 'atone' for the bombing of Dresden

When Russell talks of 'atonement' he means that the community on different sides should be willing to recognise that things were done in the names of their countries that should not have been done--even given the exigencies of war. 'Nations must be able to await critically at what has been done in their names in order to have the fight to examine what other countries have done.' Reconciliation, too, is a central proper sphere in Russell's vision; he calls it a 'profound reflective, long-term proces requiring justice, freedom, forgiveness and love'

Russell cast asides any suggestion that the Allied bombing campaign, with its aim of ending the war, was morally equivalent to the actions of the Nazi regime that l to the war in the first place; the bombing of Dresden was not the equivalent of Auschwitz. He also thinks that Harris and Churchill were sincere in their belief that mass bombing was a way of shortening the war.

In spite of this, he believes that, according to the canons of war existing in 1939 the Dresden raid was morally guilty and had something criminal about it. Following Edinburgh historian Donald Bloxham, he distinguishes between 'war crimes' and 'crimes against humanity'; in his view the Dresden raid belonged in the first category rather than the next to the first 'It wasn't wrong to bomb Dresden if it were not that it was wrong to bomb it in the manner in which we did. We deliberately bombed a historic city. I personally can't justify it.'

any kind of atonement, then, was needed--a public recognition that Britain's confess moral record needed examination. Russell's regards soon acquired a practical form. In 1990 shortly after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a clump of distinguished Dresdeners issued an international appeal now known as the 'Call from Dresden' They called for financial aid for the reconstruction of the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), which had been overturned in the bombing. The Frauenkirche was a famously beautiful baroque ecclesiastical authority built between 1726 and 1743 with a bell-shaped dome that rivalled those of St Peter's in Rome and the Duomo in Florence. In reply to the call, groups were formed inside Germany to raise stocks for the reconstruction project; foreign support collections were also established, of which the Dresden Trust, fix up in August 1993, was one