Not satisfied with getting kicked from The Daily Wire, Candace Owens is now abusing the historical memory of the Dresden bombing
Candace Owens is back, and she is as conspiratorial as ever. Not satisfied with her firing from The Daily Wire, Owens is once again playing to sympathy for Nazis. This time, alleging that historians have been hiding the infamous bombing of Dresden, inaccurately portraying it as a deliberately sacrilegious attack on Christians.
Candace Owens abuses history
Earlier this Tuesday, Owens argued that Dresden was “incinerated” on Ash Wednesday, implying that the attack on the German city was a deliberate attempt to attack Christians. She further asserted that “Christians will no longer be told that we aren’t allowed to know or discuss our history.”
The post, seemingly brought up randomly, is problematic for several reasons. Firstly, the bombing of Dresden was not a single event but a multitude of raids conducted by the Allies between 13 and 15 February 1945 during World War 2. It was part of the larger Allied efforts to destroy the German war machine and overthrow Adolf Hitler and his Nazi cohorts.
There was no deliberate attempt to bomb Christians on Ash Wednesday. Rather, the bombings occurred over several days in a long-lasting policy by the British and American Air Forces known as ‘strategic bombing.’ The policy sought to destroy every mechanism the Germans had to wage war against the Allies. Everything that could be used to support the Nazi war effort, such as factories and railroads, became a target for destruction. The goal was to obliterate the morale of the German people to fight. Simply put, Dresden was a military operation, not an attempt to butcher Christians.
The other problem with Owens’ post is that it explicitly argues that there is some cover-up or unwillingness to address the historical reality of Dresden. The idea being that historians will never give Dresden the respect it deserves because of a supposed effort to oppress Christians. That is especially ridiculous when you consider the people doing the bombing; the United Kingdom and the United States were then and are now still mostly Christian.
Owens’ insinuations are nonsensical. Dresden has been the subject of many books, articles, and works that evaluate its morality and legality. The idea that there isn’t a historical evaluation of Dresden is absurd, and Owens knows it.
The Nazi problem and memorializing the innocent
Normally, if this were all Owens had said on the topic or primed her audience to look for, I would leave it at that, but the post mentioned above is not alone. Owens has brought up Dresden repeatedly, tying her initial implications of Christian hunting to larger, more legitimate ethical difficulties created by the historical memory of the bombing.
In response to another user, Owens notes that British newspapers at the time reported an estimated 600,000 refugees from Russia in the city. This is also likely false, as the city of Dresden itself had a population of roughly 600,000 people. So, unless Owens expects the entire city to be compromised of refugees, that number is certainly incorrect.
Also, Owens is leaving out important information. Specifically, she doesn’t mention the actual death count. If she did, she would be walking into a larger, more frustrating discussion which, of course, involves Nazis.
The problem with Dresden’s historical memory is that it is mixed with two major concerns: the undeniable suffering and death of innocent civilians and the reality that the Nazis themselves twisted facts to create a false equivalence between the Allies and the Nazi regime. This is on full display when it comes to the death count.
Immediately after Dresden was bombed, Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi’s chief propagandist, claimed that Dresden wasn’t a military target in any capacity and inflated the death count to tens of thousands of people dying to the hundreds of thousands. The city itself investigated in 2008 and found that about 25,000 died in the attack, and later reports showed that Dresden was targeted to prevent troop movements to the Eastern front.
Goebbels’ claims were, of course, nonsense, but they spread. Even after his death, Goebbels’ lies still hold sway. Infamous Holocaust deniers like David Irving have helped propagate the myth that hundreds of thousands died in the attack on Dresden, and among Neo-Nazis in Germany itself, Dresden has become a rallying cry. In 2005, approximately 5,000 neo-Nazis marched through the city to memorialize those killed in the bombing in an event that the Guardian called “the largest Neo-Nazi demonstration in Germany’s postwar history.”
In one instance in the German parliament, members of the far-right NPD or National Democratic Party of Germany refused to memorialize the civilians killed by the Nazi forces during the war, declaring they would only memorialize the German victims. One NPD member, Juergen Gansel, referred to the bombing as the “Holocaust of bombs.” Dresden is a part of modern Neo-Nazi mythology.
The Responsibility of Memory
The focus on Dresden, while warranted when done by the right people, is part of a larger approach by Neo-Nazis to create a false equivalency between the Allies and Nazis. If Dresden’s memory is handled poorly, it can be disastrous and lend itself to people like Gansel, who abuse the tragedy in their bigoted ways.
Owens’ random focus on Dresden is, therefore, caught up in a large network of propaganda and fascist apologists. Adequately addressing the horrors of Dresden and the historical memory of the people who died there requires nuance, reason, and empathy. It requires a deep commitment to undermining Nazi propaganda and ensuring that one’s arguments don’t contribute to their bigotry. Owens past and current behavior show that she has none of that critical dedication. She has consistently demonstrated that she has no interest in such work. Owens is the same person who defended Kanye’s antisemitism, downplayed the enslavement of the Taino, and claimed that there is a secret group of Jewish people controlling Hollywood. Owens is the last person who should be handling something as complicated and painful as Dresden.
The people of Dresden should be able to look back on their history without antisemitic grifters disregarding their concerns, making it more painful and difficult to do so. If Owens truly cared about the Bombing of Dresden, she could have done everyone a favor and kept her opinions to herself and let the people who live there today decide how they deal with such a painful event.
References
“‘Bomber’ Harris and His Royal Air Force Bomber Command.” Warfare History Network. https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/bomber-harris-and-his-royal-air-force-bomber-command/ (April 24, 2024).
Burleigh, Michael. 2004. “Mission Accomplished.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/feb/07/featuresreviews.guardianreview2 (April 24, 2024).
Candace Owens [@RealCandaceO]. 2024a. “According to British Newspapers at the Time, 600,000 Refugees Who Fled the Bolsheviks Lived in Dresden. Https://T.Co/v6xgMvunmQ.” Twitter. https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1783141377796186372 (April 24, 2024).
Candace Owens [@RealCandaceO]. 2024b. “Did You Know That When Dresden Was Incinerated Back in 1945, It Was Ash Wednesday? Christians Were Burned Alive on Ash Wednesday— Many of Them Were Refugees from Stalin’s Christian Holocaust. Christians Will No Longer Be Told That We Aren’t Allowed to Know or Discuss Our.” Twitter. https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1782770695220421035 (April 24, 2024).
Cowardly Prejudice: Candace Owens and Lauren Chen’s Pathetic Defense of Kanye West. 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7r1MRy_pu4 (April 24, 2024).
“Dresden Historical Commission Publishes Final Report.” 2024. http://www.dresden.de. https://www.dresden.de/en/city/07/03/historical_commission.php (April 24, 2024).
“Dresden: The German City That Declared a ‘Nazi Emergency.’” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50266955 (April 24, 2024).
Harding, Luke. 2005. “Neo-Nazis Upstage Dresden Memorial.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/feb/14/secondworldwar.germany (April 24, 2024).
Kelly, Conor. 2024. “Candace Owens Finally Leaves The Daily Wire.” The Progressive American. https://theprogressiveamerican.com/2024/03/23/candace-owens-finally-leaves-the-daily-wire/ (April 24, 2024).
Rennell, Tony. 2004. “Hitler Was Evil. Our Bombs Were Not.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/oct/31/germany.secondworldwar (April 24, 2024).
“Report: Dresden Bombing Deaths Overestimated.” https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna26977893 (April 24, 2024).
Sommer, Will. 2024. “Candace Owens Departs Ben Shapiro’s Website after Antisemitic Commentary.” Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2024/03/22/candace-owens-antisemitism-daily-wire-shapiro/ (April 24, 2024).
Tustin, Joseph. 2022. Why Dresden Was Bombed: A Review of the Reasons and Reactions. Department of Defense. Wayback Machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20220214130246/https://media.defense.gov/2013/May/23/2001329959/-1/-1/0/Dresden%20again.pdf (April 24, 2024).
Volkery, Carsten. 2005. “60 Years after the Bombing of Dresden: A War of Words.” Der Spiegel. https://www.spiegel.de/international/60-years-after-the-bombing-of-dresden-a-war-of-words-a-339833.html (April 24, 2024).
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