Femen activists have come under fire after the latest campaign in the German city of Dresden involved naked breasts painted with slogans praising Bomber Harris.
Germany’s pirate party has condemned one of their members after she stripped off to reveal a slogan praising Bomber Harris – the RAF chief who ordered the Dresden bombings – painted on her breasts.
Pirate party members and people in the city said they were shocked by the fact that Dresden-based activist Anne Helm, 27, was one of those who staged the naked protest just days after the anniversary of the brutal bombing.
A spokesman for the party leadership in Berlin said: "This stunt was certainly not done in the name of our party and we distance ourselves from it. And more, we condemn it."
They added that as a local woman from Dresden Helm should have been more sympathetic to what was effectively the greatest tragedy in the city’s history.
But they stopped short of throwing her out of the party despite massive protest in their own ranks.
The bombing of Dresden in the closing months of the war involved 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) that dropped more than 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices on the city.
It caused a firestorm that destroyed over 1,600 acres of the city centre killing between 22,700 and 25,000 people – most of them civilians.
Harris, the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) of RAF Bomber Command, helped carry out the United Kingdom’s most devastating attacks against the German infrastructure and population, including the Bombing of Dresden.
Right up to the end Harris, who died in 1984 aged 91, refused to apologise for the deaths saying: "The bombers kept over a million fit Germans out of the German army.
Manning the anti-aircraft defences; making the ammunition, and doing urgent repairs, especially tradesmen."
But it remains controversial because of the vast number of civilian deaths, and the Femen protest praising Bomber Harris on the anniversary of the raids that took place between 13 and 15 February 1945 has infuriated locals.
The Femen girls posted the image snapped in Dresden on Twitter, with their faces masked and their hands made into fists.
They said: "Femen wants to show solidarity with the antifascist movement in Dresden."
They added that Bomber Harris had also been dedicated to the fight against fascism.
The move however resulted in a firestorm of protest with online commentators saying that the protest was an insult to the other young women and children had died in the bombing.
One said: "Any credibility that the German Femen ever had has been destroyed with this stupid protest."
BOMBER HARRIS: THE MAN WHO ORDERED THE DRESDEN BOMBINGS
One of the girls, Debbie Anderson, 22, who works as a receptionist in Berlin said: "We wanted to show solidarity with anti-fascists (Antifa). Bomber Harris like the anti-fascists wants to stop Nazis and neo-Nazis."
Dresden city council spokesman Kai Schulz, 39, said: "Nice breasts but a really stupid message."
Dresden had been northern Germany’s cultural centre – a city filled with museums and world famous historic buildings.
By 1945 it was filled with refugees who were trying to flee the advancing Red Army.
Between February 13th and February 14th 1945, between 35,000 and 135,000 people were killed by Allied bombing in Dresden.
In a series of attacks, 3,300 tons of bombs were dropped on the city.
These created a firestorm and as more of the city burned, the more oxygen was sucked in, exacerbating the blaze.
Temperatures are believed to have peaked at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit and the heat was so intense that the surface of roads melted.
Sir Arthur Harris has become one of the most controversial figures of World War Two.
Harris did not believe that city bombing would affect German morale, but he did believe that by destroying German industrial cities, the Germans would eventually be unable to continue waging war.
Harris did not create the policy – it was conceived by Air Ministry planners and supported by Lord Cherwell, Churchill’s Chief Scientific Advisor who justified the policy as the ‘dehousing’ of industrial workers.
During the war Harris was branded as one of the Allies’ greatest military leaders and the determined commander who was striking back at Germany.
But once the war was over and the extreme level of destruction in Germany’s cities became apparent, Churchill and other politicians were careful to distance themselves from what had been inflicted on the enemy.
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READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/60276.html
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