Slaughterhouse-Five, the 1969 novel by Kurt Vonnegut, is set against the backdrop of the Allied bombing of which German city during World War II?
"Slaughterhouse-Five Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) is a science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut about the World War II experiences and journeys through time of Billy Pilgrim, from his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant, to postwar and early years. It is generally recognized as Vonnegut's most influential and popular work. A central event is Pilgrim's surviving the Allies' firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner-of-war. This was an event in Vonnegut's own life, and the novel is considered semi-autobiographical. The story is told in a nonlinear order, and events become clear through"
"Vonnegut also describes life experiences that are found in his novels. For example, ""Slaughterhouse-Five"" deals with a firebombing of Dresden, Germany, an event that he was present at during his time in the Army. Specifically, ""I was a battalion scout, a PFC, who was captured on the border of Germany in December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. Thus did I happen to be a laborer under guard in Dresden when it was firebombed on February 13, 1945.” As this experience was similar to that of Jewish prisoners in World War II, Vonnegut's use of ""liberated"" to describe his"
"German military's ability to wage war. American author Kurt Vonnegut's novel ""Slaughterhouse Five"" is loosely based on his first-hand experience of the raid as a POW. In remembrance of the victims, the anniversaries of the bombing of Dresden are marked with peace demonstrations, devotions and marches. The destruction of Dresden allowed Hildebrand Gurlitt, a major Nazi museum director and art dealer, to hide a large collection of artwork worth over a billion dollars that had been stolen during the Nazi era, as he claimed it had been destroyed along with his house which was located in Dresden. After the Second"
"Bombing of Friedrichshafen in World War II The German city of Friedrichshafen was bombed during World War II as part of the Allied strategic bombing campaign against German war materiel industry, particularly in the targeting of German fighter aircraft production and long range missile development. Friedrichshafen lies in the Bodenseekreis district, on Lake Constance in the extreme south of Germany, and at the time it was at the edge of the German nightfighter defences. Targets included the ""Dornier Flugzeugwerke"" aircraft works at Manzell, the Maybach tank engine factory, the ""Luftschiffbau Zeppelin"" aircraft works and its Oberraderach test facility near Raderach,"
"and upper parts of Loschwitz. The city planner designed some industrial buildings in the city centre. His storage building near the Semperoper is adapted to neighbouring buildings by a dissected roof. Another building planned by Hans Erlwein is the slaughterhouse complex. This location became famous thanks to the novel ""Slaughterhouse-Five"" by Kurt Vonnegut. Another well-known technical building is the Yenidze which was built as a cigarette factory. Its architecture is greatly influenced by marketing and orientally designed in an Oriental style to bring to mind the countries where tobacco comes from. Even the chimneys are styled like minarets. At the"
"Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (; November 11, 1922April 11, 2007) was an American writer. In a career spanning over 50 years, Vonnegut published 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. He is most famous for his darkly satirical, best-selling novel ""Slaughterhouse-Five"" (1969). Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Vonnegut attended Cornell University but dropped out in January 1943 and enlisted in the United States Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to"
"The Germans put him and other POWs to work gathering bodies for mass burial. ""But there were too many corpses to bury. So instead the Nazis sent in troops with [[flamethrower]]s. All these civilians' remains were burned to ashes"". In the special introduction to the 1976 [[The Franklin Mint#The Franklin Library|Franklin Library]] edition of the novel, he wrote: This experience was also used in several of his other books and is included in his posthumously published stories: ""[[Armageddon in Retrospect]]"". The firebombing of Dresden was depicted in [[George Roy Hill]]'s 1972 [[Slaughterhouse-Five (film)|movie adaptation of Vonnegut's novel]]. The death toll"
"of the town. In World War II, the trainstation served as connection to the Schlier V-2 rocket motor test area. The Attnang-Puchheim marshalling yard was bombed on April 21, 1945 at 10:57 by 179 bombers of the US 15th Air Force from Foggia, Italy. The air raid destroyed/damaged 120 apartments and 277 houses and caused the highest World War II death rate in Austria: 708 of 5,600 residents or 12.9% (compared to 2.5% for Wiener Neustadt). The Allies captured Attnang-Puttheim on May 5, 1945. Attnang-Puchheim railway station is a railway junction, where the Salzkammergut line connects with the Salzburg -"
"and October 7, and the RAF bombed on December 4/5. In 1945, B-17s bombed the nearby Paderborn marshalling yard, the ""Schildesche Railway Viaduct"" was bombed on January 17, 1945, and on March 14 the Grand Slam bomb was used for the very first time against the viaduct. American troops entered the city in April 1945. Due to the presence of a number of barracks built during the 1930s and its location next to the main East-West Autobahn in northern Germany, after World War II Bielefeld became a headquarters town for the fighting command of the British Army of the Rhine"
"Bombing of Wiener Neustadt in World War II Wiener Neustadt, a city in Austria, was the target of bombing raids during World War II by the Allies. The targets in and around Wiener Neustadt included the marshalling yards, the ""Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke"" (WNF) aircraft factory (effectively an extension of Messerschmitt) and the Raxwerke plants of ""Wiener Neustädter Lokomotivfabrik"" (two of which used forced labor from the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp). The three WNF plants (W.N.F. Fischamend, W.N.F. Klagenfurt, W.N.F. Bad Voslau) were targets of the Combined Bomber Offensive against the German aircraft industry. WNF manufactured Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and repaired"
"which were bombed by the Allies on August 17, 1943, by the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission, and on February 5, 1945, during the Oil Campaign of World War II. Although both targets were badly damaged, Regensburg itself suffered little damage from the Allied strategic bombing campaign, and the nearly intact medieval city centre is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city's most important cultural loss was that of the Romanesque church of Obermünster, which was destroyed in a March 1945 air raid and was not rebuilt (the belfry survived). Also, Regensburg's slow economic recovery after the war ensured that historic"
"Zeppelin, Maybach, Dornier, and Zahnradfabrik made it an important German industrial center during World War II. Between 1942 and 1945, the factories used slave labor of hundreds of concentration camp prisoners from Dachau and Dora-Mittelbau. They were housed first at Zeppelin's hangar and then, following its destruction during a raid, the V-2 factory Raderach. The prisoners were also used to dig underground tunnels near Friedrichshafen to protect production sites from the repeated bombing. Between June 1943 and February 1945, the city was targeted for Allied bombing attacks. The most accurate took place on April 28, 1944, and destroyed most of"
"main object seems to be to inspire terror by the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians ... At the beginning of World War II, bombing of cities prior to invasion was an integral part of Nazi Germany's strategy. In the first stages of war, the Germans carried out many bombings of towns and cities in Poland (1939), including the capital Warsaw (also bombed in 1944), with Wieluń being the first city destroyed by 75%. The Soviet Union also attempted strategic bombing against Poland and Finland, bombing Helsinki. The British bombed the German city of Mönchengladbach on 11 May 1940. While Germany had"
"Bombing of Bremen in World War II The Bombing of Bremen in World War II by the British Royal Air Force and US Eighth Air Force targeted strategic targets in the state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, which had heavy anti-aircraft artillery but only 35 fighter aircraft in the area. In addition to Wesermünde/Bremerhaven, targets were also in Farge and Vegesack. Bremen also included concentration camps such as Bremen-Farge and Bremen-Vegesack. The city of Bremen was captured in April 1945. In the 1939-45 period the RAF dropped 12,831 long tons of bombs on Bremen. In June 1942, Bremen was the"
"the airlift but sets the scene for the following 40 years of Cold War. The book explains some important consequences of defeating Nazi Germany: Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin Armageddon, or Armageddon: A Novel of Berlin, is a novel by Leon Uris about post-World War II Berlin and Germany. The novel starts in London during World War II, and goes through to the Four Power occupation of Berlin and the Soviet blockade by land of the city's western boroughs. The description of the Berlin Airlift is quite vivid as is the inter-action between people of the five nations involved as"
"the first chapter of his 1969 novel ""Slaughterhouse-Five"" is about the process of writing the novel and calls attention to his own presence throughout the novel. Though much of the novel has to do with Vonnegut's own experiences during the firebombing of Dresden, Vonnegut continually points out the artificiality of the central narrative arc which contains obviously fictional elements such as aliens and time travel. Similarly, Tim O'Brien's 1990 novel/story collection ""The Things They Carried"", about one platoon's experiences during the Vietnam War, features a character named Tim O'Brien; though O'Brien was a Vietnam veteran, the book is a work"
"Bombing of Schwäbisch Hall in World War II Schwäbisch Hall, a historic German town, was attacked by 24 American Liberator bombers on 23 February 1945 during World War II. Three smaller attacks followed. On 25 February 1945, 53 civilians died and the old bridge collapsed. Then, and on 17 April 1945, the old Rathaus was reduced by incendiary bombs to rubble. Though several buildings were destroyed or damaged, the historical old town suffered comparatively little. Altogether, the great majority of houses in the city survived the war without any damage, so still today the spectacular medieval houses can be admired."
"Bombing of Schwäbisch Hall in World War II Schwäbisch Hall, a historic German town, was attacked by 24 American Liberator bombers on 23 February 1945 during World War II. Three smaller attacks followed. On 25 February 1945, 53 civilians died and the old bridge collapsed. Then, and on 17 April 1945, the old Rathaus was reduced by incendiary bombs to rubble. Though several buildings were destroyed or damaged, the historical old town suffered comparatively little. Altogether, the great majority of houses in the city survived the war without any damage, so still today the spectacular medieval houses can be admired."
"for Eastern Workers""). In 1944, a subcamp of the concentration camp Neuengamme was established in Braunschweig. Hundreds of prisoners, mostly Jews, lived in brutal conditions and hundreds died from hunger, disease, and overwork. Piera Sonnino, an Italian author, writes of her imprisonment in that camp in her book, ""This Has Happened"", published in English in 2006 by MacMillan Palgrave. The Anglo-American air raid on October 15, 1944, destroyed most of the city's churches, and the ""Altstadt"" (old town), the largest homogeneous ensemble of half-timbered houses in Germany. The city's cathedral, which had been converted to a ""Nationale Weihestätte"" (national shrine)"
"and the ""Zahnradfabrik Friedrichshafen"" (literally ""gearwheel factory Friedrichshafen"") tank gearbox factory. In February 1944 an underground factory at Immenstaad near Friedrichshafen was suspected to be a synthetic oil and/or liquid oxygen plant. Near Überlingen, forced labor of KZ-Häftlinge im Goldbacher Stollen, KZ Nebenlager Raderach and the Aufkirch subcamp of Dachau concentration camp was used for constructing an underground facility for armament manufacturing (code name ""Magnesit"") safe from Allied air raids. Bombing of Friedrichshafen in World War II The German city of Friedrichshafen was bombed during World War II as part of the Allied strategic bombing campaign against German war materiel"
"since 1962. Perhaps the city's most famous 20th century writer was Kurt Vonnegut, known for his darkly satirical and controversial bestselling novel ""Slaughterhouse-Five"" (1969). The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library opened in 2010 downtown. Vonnegut became known for including at least one character in his novels from Indianapolis. Upon returning to the city in 1986, Vonnegut acknowledged the influence the city had on his writings: Indianapolis is the current home to bestselling young adult fiction writer John Green, known for his critically acclaimed 2012 novel ""The Fault in Our Stars"", set in the city. The Children's Museum of Indianapolis is the"
"Bombing of Stuttgart in World War II The bombing of Stuttgart in World War II was a series of 53 air raids that formed part of the strategic air offensive of the Allies against Germany. The first bombing (by 20 aircraft of the Royal Air Force) occurred on August 25, 1940, and resulted in the destruction of 17 buildings. The city was repeatedly attacked over the next four and one-half years by both the RAF and the 8th Air Force as it had a significant industrial infrastructure (including the Daimler and Porsche automotive factories) and several military bases, and was"
"Vergeltung The book was originally published in late 1956, by the long established Frankfurt publishing house S. Fischer Verlag. It deals with 70 minutes of a mid-night bomb attack by the United States Army Air Forces against an unnamed German city towards the end of World War Two, during which a large number of civilians and military personnel are killed. The events are described from both the American and German perspectives with great directness, and without shielding the reader from the horrific details. Ledig’s first novel """" (""The Stalin Organ""), which dealt with the battles of the Russian Front in"
"Plymouth Blitz The Plymouth Blitz was a series of bombing raids carried out by the Nazi German ""Luftwaffe"" on the English city of Plymouth in the Second World War. The bombings launched on numerous British cities were known as the Blitz. The royal dockyards at HMNB Devonport were the main target in order to facilitate Nazi German efforts during the Battle of the Atlantic. Portsmouth, some 170 miles away in Hampshire, was also targeted by the ""Luftwaffe"" due to the presence of a royal dockyard there. Despite this, civilian casualties were very high and the dockyards continued in operation. The"
"ruins of churches, royal buildings and palaces, such as the Gothic Sophienkirche, the Alberttheater and the Wackerbarth-Palais, were razed by the Soviet and East German authorities in the 1950s and 1960s rather than being repaired. Compared to West Germany, the majority of historic buildings were saved. From 1985 to 1990, the future President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, was stationed in Dresden by the KGB, where he worked for Lazar Matveev, the senior KGB liaison officer there. On 3 October 1989 (the so-called ""battle of Dresden""), a convoy of trains carrying East German refugees from Prague passed through Dresden on its"
"between 1933 and 1939. After Kristallnacht in 1938, thousands of the city's Jews were imprisoned in the nearby Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Starting in early 1943, many were shipped to death camps, such as Auschwitz. Berlin is the most heavily bombed city in history. During World War II, large parts of Berlin were destroyed in the 1943–45 air raids and during the Battle of Berlin. The Allies dropped 67,607 tons of bombs on the city, destroying 6,427 acres of the built up area. Around 125,000 civilians were killed. After the end of the war in Europe in May 1945, Berlin received"
"closed on March 14, 1971. In 1972, Universal Pictures adapted ""Slaughterhouse-Five"" into a film which the author said was ""flawless"". Meanwhile, Vonnegut's personal life was disintegrating. His wife Jane had embraced Christianity, which was contrary to Vonnegut's atheistic beliefs, and with five of their six children having left home, Vonnegut said the two were forced to find ""other sorts of seemingly important work to do."" The couple battled over their differing beliefs until Vonnegut moved from their Cape Cod home to New York in 1971. Vonnegut called the disagreements ""painful"", and said the resulting split was a ""terrible, unavoidable accident"
"""Marshalling Lancasters Against Stuttgart, 7 October 1943"", though he most likely finished the piece later. This piece would become one of five of his works to be put on public exhibition. ""The New York Times' Stuttgarter Nachrichten (in German) The National Archives Flightglobal archives City of Stuttgart Schtuzbauten Stuttgart (in German) Bombing of Stuttgart in World War II The bombing of Stuttgart in World War II was a series of 53 air raids that formed part of the strategic air offensive of the Allies against Germany. The first bombing (by 20 aircraft of the Royal Air Force) occurred on August"
"bombs. Amongst others, the (second) Gewandhaus (concert hall) was almost totally destroyed as a result of the attacks[12]. In total, about 970 people died, most of them during the British night raid. During the following day raid some of the bombed factories were damaged severely, e.g. 65% of the “Erla Maschinenwerk” in Heiterblick was destroyed. In May 1944 its production had not entirely recovered yet, while the other bombed factories were working at full capacity again[13]. In May 1944 more than 15,000 buildings were hit. Among them, more than 4,000 were destroyed completely, more than 1,000 heavily and over 10,000"
"was responsible for military operations in Bonn, Siegburg, Aachen, Jülich, Düren, and Monschau. Cologne was home to the 211th Infantry Regiment and the 26th Artillery Regiment. The Allies dropped 44,923.2 tons of bombs on the city during World War II, destroying 61% of its built up area. During the Bombing of Cologne in World War II, Cologne endured 262 air raids by the Western Allies, which caused approximately 20,000 civilian casualties and almost completely wiped out the central part of the city. During the night of 31 May 1942, Cologne was the target of ""Operation Millennium"", the first 1,000 bomber"
"before the reunification of Germany, the museum was renamed the Military History Museum in Dresden. On February 13 and 14, 1945, British bomber planes commenced an air attack against Dresden, creating a vast firestorm below. During the first phase, 244 Lancaster bombers dropped high explosive and incendiary bombs aimed at the center of the city. American B-17 bombers followed the next morning, to destroy the city's railroad marshaling yards. While much of the city was in ruins, the Bundeswehr's main military museum and most of the other military buildings in the Albertstadt survived the bombing of Dresden because of its"
"Bombing of Munich in World War II The bombing of Munich (""Luftangriffe auf München"") took place mainly in the later stages of World War II. Munich was, and is, a significant German city, as much culturally as well as industrially. Augsburg, twenty miles to the west, was a main centre of diesel engine production (and still is today). Although some considerable distance from the United Kingdom, Munich is not a difficult city to find from the air, mainly due to its size, and possibly its proximity to the Austrian Alps to the south-east as a visual reference point. Munich was"
"has not found any evidence that it was bombed. Bristol Blitz The Bristol Blitz was the heavy bombing of Bristol, England by the Nazi German ""Luftwaffe"" during the Second World War. Due to the presence of Bristol Harbour and the Bristol Aeroplane Company the city was a target for bombing, and was easily found as enemy bombers were able to trace a course up the River Avon from Avonmouth using reflected moonlight on the waters into the heart of the city. Bristol was the fifth most heavily bombed British city of World War II. Between 24 November 1940 and 11"