This little site about Dresden is here because as a Christian teacher I am interested in teaching about human depravity. I think the bombing of Dresden is an especially good lesson in depravity for American students, because it was a horribly immoral thing done by British and American airmen, whom we naturally want to defend. Even today, long after the facts about this atrocity have become well-known, most 'respectable' Americans are quick to make excuses for it. We are all too ready to see depravity in others (especially in foreigners), but we are not so willing to see it in ourselves.
I do not mean little faults. I mean a readiness to do really evil things when we are tempted, and, after we have done them, to deny that they were evil; but to turn around and call it evil when an enemy does the same thing. This is what St. Paul was talking about when he said, "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things." (Romans 2:1) And again, "There is none righteous, no, not one." (Romans 3:10) Dear reader, take it to heart. He is talking about all of us.
Aside from general human depravity, we may also find a special explanation for the bombing of Dresden in the dehumanizing propaganda about Germans that became so much a part of American public life during the First World War. For this aspect of the Dresden tragedy I give an article on Hate Propaganda.