It was pushed quite hard by a postwar historian by the name of David Irving, who was later discredited for being… well, a pro-Nazi piece of shit. But at the time Slaughterhouse 5 came out, it could still pass amongst the public as cutting-edge popular history, so Vonnegut being taken in by it is more a reflection of the time.
It was pushed quite hard by a postwar historian by the name of David Irving, who was later discredited for being… well, a pro-Nazi piece of shit. But at the time Slaughterhouse 5 came out, it could still pass amongst the public as cutting-edge popular history, so Vonnegut being taken in by it is more a reflection of the time.
Kurt Vonnegut did actually go through Dresden during the war though. Some aspects of the story in Slaughterhouse 5 were his own observations.
The number of deaths cited are what’s in question.