Welby denies apologising for Dresden bombing

The Archbishop of Canter­bury’s office has dismissed media claims he “apologised” for the February 1945 destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers, in which 25,000 German civilians died, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

Archbishop Welby spoke in Dresden’s rebuilt Frauenkirche last Sunday on the seventieth anniversary of the bombing. “Any suggestion that the Archbishop was apologising is manifestly false,” Lambeth Palace said. “[His] comments were a reflection in a solemn ceremony on the tragedy of war. They very carefully avoided apologising, and those present, including the German President [Joachim Gauck], recognised the difference.” Archbishop Welby’s address was criticised by a British newspaper and the Conservative MP Philip Davies, who believed Archbishop Welby had insulted British war dead by issuing an “apology for our defeat of Hitler”. Archbishop Welby said the Allied bombers had “brought death and destruction on a scale and with a ferocity impossible to imagine”. He also referred to “terrible losses” by Britain’s Bomber Command and in the German bombing of Coventry, Liverpool and London.