Before World War II, Dresden was called “the Florence of the Elbe” and was viewed as one the world’s most beautiful cities for its architecture and museums. Although no German city remained isolated from “Hitler’s war machine”, Dresden’s impact to the war effort was nominal compared with other German cities CITATION His09 \l 1033 (History Staff). This is a major reason as to why many people did not understand the reason that Dresden was bombed out of all the German countries. The bombing began February 13, 1945 when British RAF bombers started to drop down on Dresden. According to History. com an article on the bombing of Dresden stated, “The city’s air defenses were so weak that only six Lancaster bombers were shot down. By the morning, some 800 British bombers had dropped more than 1,400 tons of high-explosive bombs and more than 1,100 tons of incendiaries on Dresden, creating a great firestorm that destroyed most of the city and killed numerous civilians” CITATION His09 \l 1033 (History Staff).…show more content… Eighth Air Force dropped more than 950 tons of high-explosive bombs and more than 290 tons of incendiaries on Dresden. Because of the severity of the bombing it was never clear how many lives were lost in the bombing of Dresden, today’s estimates are between 35,000 and 135,00 lives lost. At the end of the war, Dresden was so badly damaged that the city was basically leveled, and it went from being one the world’s most beautiful cities for its architecture and museums to the worlds most damaged city. Bringing it back to the theme of American Pride, how can we take pride in such an event and to be able to call it a success? Yet if this were caused by another country United States would be taking a different form of pride for helping the country and a specific form of hate and disgust for those who caused the