tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4620165642037025659.post9078434315025689822..comments2024-03-28T18:00:19.313-04:00Comments on VA Viper: Kurt Vonnegut's May 29, 1945 letter home after imprisonment in an underground slaughterhouse during the Dresden bombingWitt's Endhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04505106934467289492noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4620165642037025659.post-815632499079465832016-05-31T09:22:50.446-04:002016-05-31T09:22:50.446-04:00He paid in advance for the right for his cynical, ...He paid in advance for the right for his cynical, satirical, hopeful writing and defended our rights as well. Bless him.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4620165642037025659.post-59038319904665150042016-05-31T08:55:45.245-04:002016-05-31T08:55:45.245-04:00Well, yes, you have quite obviously run out of wit...Well, yes, you have quite obviously run out of wit, Witt.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00858147381078904705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4620165642037025659.post-89911031171068878092014-05-31T09:00:40.619-04:002014-05-31T09:00:40.619-04:00I had read that the numbers had been much reduced,...I had read that the numbers had been much reduced, but not the details. Thanks for that. Re: "The 250,000 figure came about via Goebbels' "judicial addition of an additional zero to the provisional casualty estimate."", politicians continue to do the same, don't they - think of the "millions" of jobs created by Obama's stimulus.<br /><br />Plus ca change.Witt's Endhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04505106934467289492noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4620165642037025659.post-10300853597762366182014-05-30T21:37:25.452-04:002014-05-30T21:37:25.452-04:00I've been a Vonnegut fan since I was in junior...I've been a Vonnegut fan since I was in junior high in the late 1960s, so of course I knew the general story of his POW service and his experiences in the Dresden bombing that became so crucial to "Slaughterhouse Five."<br /><br />Without intending any slight to Mr. V, though, current scholarship suggests that the death toll in the Dresden bombing on Feb 13-14 was much much lower than the quarter-million figure in this letter. I just finished "The Bomers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe, 1940-1945," by Richard Overy (Viking 2013), which asserts: "Recent estimates from a historical commission in Dresden have confirmed that the original figure suggested by the city's police preisdent in March 1945 of approximately 25,000 dead is the best available estimate." The 250,000 figure came about via Goebbels' "judicial addition of an additional zero to the provisional casualty estimate." Beldarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13404583858244777905noreply@blogger.com