The Pyres of Dresden

[Stubble]

For those unfamiliar, Dresden was mercilessly bombed during a festival. This saturation bombing of a civilian target was a joint allied effort.

The fires that resulted were so thorough that they scavenged the oxygen from the city and suffocated those who had gone underground thinking they had found shelter.

Their suffocated bodies were dragged into the square and burned on pyres.

This was a hygienic measure to desiccate the remains before burial as they had begun to rot.

Here are some images of the pyres;







You can see that wood is minimal. Destruction via cremation is also less than total.

Some claim this was done using only 'liquid fuels'. For a myriad of reasons, supposing that these bodies were cremated using gasoline alone is frankly ridiculous. One very clear and unignorable fact is, uhm, the, wood, in the pictures...I would also assume there is some coke or coal between the bodies looking at the color still image and the heat pattern indicated by it. Note that the pyre glows like a stoked ember.

Such a patent fact doesn't get in the way of some claiming 'it was a pure liquid job' and turning to statements made in the 50's and 60's and saying, see, this proves it.

Look, I don't care how many people saw Martha riding her broomstick through the air, that never happened, much like claims of bodies being 'completely cremated with liquid fuel'.

Some reading;

https://holocausthistorychannel.wordpre ... pton-farm/

[TlsMS93]

It is indeed possible to cremate these bodies with only "flammable liquid." Whether it is efficient or whether other materials were available determines the plausibility of using this method in Dresden rather than in the Reinhardt camps.

Since the city was devastated by incendiary bombs, little biomass would have been available. An industrial city would have had some benzene reservoir, as sanitation was urgent.

Now, what are the details of this open-air burning? Is a pyre of bodies built, rinsed, and set on fire, then simply added more benzene through a hose? This would have taken a long time to reduce to ash.

It's difficult to imagine this scenario in rural Poland, where there was timber in the regions, but the logistical problem is present. Exterminationists hope that all of this is just our delusional inability to believe in this process; they prefer this to having to maintain that a small fraction of it occurred and the rest went to occupied regions in the USSR.

[Stubble]

Have you ever, poured gas on a fire?

Don't.



Can it be done? I mean, to a degree, sometimes, in a controlled way.

Can it be done, with a fire hose?

That's, ill advisable.

You don't add more, and it is a flash and short burn. When it is smoking, that isn't a good time to add more, because vapor explosions are a thing.



Me, being the redneck that I am, I've probably made every mistake you can with fire. From my experience, you want to use used motor oil or diesel to start a fire, it is significantly less volatile. Also, if you add liquid fuel to a fire, do it with a cup that has a larger top than bottom, so, if it explodes in your hand, it goes out the top, and, generally away from you.

If the top is smaller, you, can have expansion issues. I know personally someone who was doing the 'glass bottle flame experiment' as a demonstration at a university that has nerve damage and had to get 70 stitches when the vessel exploded.

A PSA for your consideration;

https://www.chathamcountync.gov/governm ... ine-safety

[Callafangers]

One very clear and unignorable fact is, uhm, the, wood, in the pictures...I would also assume there is some coke or coal between the bodies looking at the color still image and the heat pattern indicated by it. Note that the pyre glows like a stoked ember.

They are also still wearing thick winter clothes which, if indeed soaked in gasoline, could add a few more megajoules (MJ) to the exchange. It also looks like the wood at the bottom is setup so that more would could be added-in as the fire progresses. Overall, if we assume complete-to-ash cremation, we know this was almost certainly the case, since no amount of missing/contrary testimony can explain away the need for meeting endothermic demand (i.e. enough fuel to input the needed ~200-300 MJ (since Dresden Germans were mostly non-emaciated) into each corpse, accounting for massive heat losses in an outdoor cremation environment and imperfect airflow).

[Stubble]

I don't think they were completely cremated though Fangers, this was a sanitary measure. Simple desiccation was the goal, if we're being honest.

There are exactly 0 pictures of any German mass cremation pyre 'burned to ash'...

[Callafangers]

I don't think they were completely cremated though Fangers, this was a sanitary measure. Simple desiccation was the goal, if we're being honest.

There are exactly 0 pictures of any German mass cremation pyre 'burned to ash'...

That makes sense, I'm just going off of what historian Frederick Taylor claims in his work cited in the HC blog. He claims some 6,800 corpses were turned into 8-10 cubic meters of fine ash with nothing but some gallons of gasoline, straw, and a day's work. Your interpretation seems far more likely but if we try to interpret his as truthful, we end up with big problems.

[Callafangers]

You don't add more, and it is a flash and short burn. When it is smoking, that isn't a good time to add more, because vapor explosions are a thing.

This is a hilarious and very relevant experiment. Even if we assume EXTREME dousing/soaking, we end up with the above (and the amount used here isn't even extreme). Just think how much of the heat (MJ) is lost in the explosion rather than being input into the wood it was in or under. It's completely untenable.

[Stubble]

You don't add more, and it is a flash and short burn. When it is smoking, that isn't a good time to add more, because vapor explosions are a thing.

This is a hilarious and very relevant experiment. Even if we assume EXTREME dousing/soaking, we end up with the above (and the amount used here isn't even so extreme). It's completely untenable.

Remarkably, it is a predictable outcome that replicates every time. I might go so far as to say it is a proven law. You drench something in gas and throw a match, it explodes. It is, unavoidable.