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A gripping work of narrative nonfiction recounting the history of the Dresden Bombing, one of the most devastating attacks of World War II.On February 13th, 1945 at 10:03 PM, British bombers began one of the most devastating attacks of WWII: the bombing of Dresden. The first contingent killed people and destroyed buildings, roads, and other structures. The second rained down fire, turning the streets into a blast furnace, the shelters into ovens, and whipping up a molten hurricane in which the citizens of Dresden were burned, baked, or suffocated to death.
Early the next day, American bombers finished off what was left. Sinclair McKay's
The Fire and the Darkness is a pulse-pounding work of history that looks at the life of the city in the days before the attack, tracks each moment of the bombing, and considers the long period of reconstruction and recovery.
The Fire and the Darkness is powered by McKay's reconstruction of this unthinkable terror from the points of view of the ordinary civilians: Margot Hille, an apprentice brewery worker; Gisela Reichelt, a ten-year-old schoolgirl; boys conscripted into the Hitler Youth; choristers of the Kreuzkirche choir; artists, shop assistants, and classical musicians, as well as the Nazi officials stationed there.
What happened that night in Dresden was calculated annihilation in a war that was almost over. Sinclair McKay's brilliant work takes a complex, human, view of this terrible night and its aftermath in a gripping book that will be remembered long after the last page is turned.
List of contents
Part One: The Approaching Fury
Chapter 1: The Days Before
Chapter 2: In the Forests of the Gauleiter
Chapter 3: The Dethroning of Reason
Chapter 4: Art and Degeneracy
Chapter 5: The Glass Man and the Physicists
Chapter 6: "A Sort of Little London"
Chapter 7: The Science of Doomsday
Chapter 8: The Correct Atmospheric Conditions
Chapter 9: Hosing Out
Chapter 10: The Devil Will Get No Rest
Part Two: Schreckensnacht
Chapter 11: The Day of Darkness
Chapter 12: Five Minutes Before the Sirens
Chapter 13: Into the abyss
Chapter 14: Shadows and Light
Chapter 15: 10:03 PM
Chapter 16: The Burning Eyes
Chapter 17: Midnight
Chapter 18: The Second Wave
Chapter 19: From Among the Dead
Chapter 20: The Third Wave
Part Three: Aftershock
Chapter 21: Dead Men and Dreamers
Chapter 22: The Radiant Tombs
Chapter 23: The Meanings of Terror
Chapter 24: The Music of the Dead
Chapter 25: Recoil
Chapter 26: "The Stalinist Style"
Chapter 27: Beauty and Remembrance
About the author
Sinclair McKay
Summary
The Bombing of Dresden, 1945. A gripping work of narrative nonfiction recounting the history of the Dresden Bombing, one of the most devastating attacks of World War II. What happened that night in Dresden was calculated annihilation in a war that was almost over. Sinclair McKay's brilliant work takes a complex, human, view of this terrible night and its aftermath in a gripping book that will be remembered long after the last page is turned.
