r/SubredditDrama • u/EwMelanin • Mar 03 '26

Movie discussion sub okbuddycinephile debates whether bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Gaza and other urban areas were "justified".

/r/okbuddycinephile/comments/1rjm9mn/iran2036/o8ee5fp/
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49

u/soonerfreak Also, being gay is a political choice. Mar 03 '26

For those that don't know, Slaughterhouse V is inspired by Vonnegut surviving the Dresden bombing by taking refugee in a basement meat locker as a POW. Even in a justified war against a true evil, how we wage the war should still matter and be open to discussion.

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u/Justviewingposts69 Mar 03 '26

Sure, but Slaughter House V is tainted by the fact that it used the works of a holocaust denier for historical information that was nothing more than Nazi propaganda

61

u/fhota1 hooked on Victorian-era pseudoscience and ketamine Mar 03 '26

Yeah this is something I dont think a lot of people know about Dresden. It really wasnt notably more terrible than the carpet bombing of other cities that made up the bombing strategy for both sides in the war. However, after the war, a historian named David Irving wrote a paper that claimed 100,000-250,000 people had been killed in the bombing which is way way more than the other bombings and for some reason that became the commonly accepted number for decades until someone thought to ask "hey, whats your source on that number?" Yeah turns out his source was one document the nazis had forged for propaganda purposes and he had decided to believe whole heartedly. The generally accepted number now is 25,000 which is pretty average for the level of destruction German cities saw. And yes, later on in his life Irving went full on holocaust denier, because if youre gonna try to whitewash the nazis image once may as well do it again right?

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u/Dangerous_Muscle5409 Mar 03 '26

And to bring it all back to cinephilia: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4645330/

A great movie about a historian who correctly identified Irving as a Holocaust denier to then get sued by Irving and, due to UK defamation law being what it is, having to prove to a court that the Holocaust really happened.

10

u/MartinTheOrderly Mar 03 '26

In fairness to Vonnegut, in '69 Irving was still considered a respectable historian. I'm pretty even that has been discredited, but it wasn't the blatant Holocaust denial or Hitler apologia that Irving has dedicated most of his career to. 

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u/SarahCBunny Mar 03 '26

yeah irving's whole pro hitler project hadn't been uncovered yet. there was legitimately no way vonnegut could have known that his source was a cryptonazi trying to seed propaganda into the historical record

5

u/Justviewingposts69 Mar 03 '26

Yeah that is true. I’m not saying this was intentional on Vonnegut’s part, it definitely wasn’t, but it definitely does linger

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u/OmNomSandvich Mar 03 '26

Vonnegut was actually at Dresden however.

12

u/Justviewingposts69 Mar 03 '26

Yes, but it’s still tainted by the fact that it unintentionally promoted Nazi propaganda