Victim-blaming; Blame-shifting; Dresden

Written by John (the other John).

Today is the 75 th anniversary of the Dresden bombings by the Allied Powers. There is no dispute that the evil National Socialist government was responsible for WWII, but the citizen residents of Dresden were not responsible for WWII. The bombing killed many people; some say hundreds of thousands, while the German government today says it was about 20,000.

The purpose of this article is to discuss victim-blaming and blame-shifting. First and foremost, the German government was 100% responsible for WWII. Second, the average citizens did not cause WWII. So why is this relevant? Deutsche Welle today is discussing that although it was unfortunate for the citizens to have been killed, they deserved it because somebody else (the German government) caused WWII. Yes, they deserved to get killed not for anything they specifically did, but because the German government was evil.

So basically, sorry that tens or hundreds of thousands of average citizens were killed, but they deserved it (victim-blaming). While the German government today is acting holier than thou by preaching peace to the Germans, yet the government never reflects that it was their thirst for power by ruling Europe that caused all this (hint, EU today). So perhaps the government should step back from trying to rule Europe by lawfare (in lieu of warfare).

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.