The Pyres of Dresden

[Wetzelrad]

Responding to some old posts...

Then this simply means that the corpses were barely charred, just enough to dry them out a bit and kill off odor and spreading disease somewhat, before burial.

[...] because we have no exact objective report/data at all to what degree those bodies were indeed really reduced to (at least 90%) ash or if they were mostly just charred/carbonized- as the main objective stated by above Irving quote mentions for epidemic preventing purposes-, with only a fraction really to ash, [...]

Both posters suggested that in the Altmarkt pyres bodies may have been only charred or carbonized externally. At the time, I hadn't realized there was some direct support for this from a survivor who witnessed it. She told Alexander McKee:

What I saw at the Altmarkt was cruel. I could not believe my eyes. A few of the men who had been left over [from the Front] were busy shoveling corpse after corpse on top of the other. Some were completely carbonized and buried in this pyre, but nevertheless they were all burnt here because of the danger of an epidemic. In any case, what was left of them was hardly recognizable. They were buried later in a mass grave on the Dresdner Heide.

The Devil's Tinderbox by Alexander McKee, p.248

This seems like a solid confirmation of partial burnings and the reason for doing so. Credit to John Wear for reading and writing about this.

[pilgrimofdark]

I went back to this a few weeks ago but didn't find much new.

Most sources weren't interested in "the mechanics of corpse carbonization and corpse/ash transportation," so didn't address it. Then I wondered "why am I interested in the mechanics of corpse carbonization and corpse/ash transportation?" and stopped.

Both posters suggested that in the Altmarkt pyres bodies may have been only charred or carbonized externally. At the time, I hadn't realized there was some direct support for this from a survivor who witnessed it.

The witness references the Dresdner Heide, which is a different location than the Heidefriedhof cemetery. She may be correct that remains from the Altmarkt were buried in numerous location, or it could be hearsay, retrospective compression, later knowledge, aspirational coherence, the rumor culture of the Warsaw ghetto, conflation, or general life stress.

In TECOAR, Mattogno also mentioned carbonization, but only as a deduction without citation.

In the case of the Dresden pyres the air flow only took place around the pile as a whole and affected only the external parts of the corpses. It is clear that the purpose of the pyres in this case was not incineration, but the partial carbonization of the bodies for hygienic reasons.

- p. 1231-1232

In a different context, he cites a German "Final Report of the Historians' Commission on the Air Raids on Dresden between February 13 and 15, 1945," which has a few mentions of the Altmarkt. PDF

It references a number of archival documents. Some of them might help confirm details.

For this to advance beyond discussions on a discussion forum, more would have to be fleshed out. It's possible only archival documents could answer some lingering questions, but Wear references a number of books worth pursuing.

But this is the narrative so far, to my mind:

• The cremations were intended for hygienic purposes and resulted in partial carbonization of the corpses.
• The corpses were buried in the Heidefriedhof cemetery "row graves" (and other locations).
• The remaining ash left on the Altmarkt after the process was complete was gathered and buried separately in the "Ash Grave" memorial.

Does this have larger implications for the Holocaust? If so, they might be pretty tangential.

Is "What Happened to the Corpses from the Dresden Altmarkt" an interesting micro-history in and of itself? Sure.

[Wetzelrad]

The witness references the Dresdner Heide, which is a different location than the Heidefriedhof cemetery.

You could be right, but no, I think she was probably referring to Heidefriedhof. The Dresden Heath does include the area of forest that the cemetery is in, both in a colloquial and legal/organizational sense. The cemetery's name is not mere coincidence.

If she was referring to another location in the Dresden Heath, one possibility is the Nordfriedhof cemetery where some air raid victims were buried, dug up, and reburied. If I were going to go look for lost cremains that's where I would try.