Sort:  

of for sure. That much is evident. I guess they were disappointed that it took 17 days longer than they had hoped and 5,000 casualties. You know, war is awful and what not and we talk about how awful the Nazis were but they participated in evacuating the populous because they knew a major assault was about to happen.

I don't think people bother with stuff like that these days, especially whoever is defending, so they can blame the attacker for killing civilians.

Yeah, for sure. I think it is probably important to point out that they evacuated German citizens. I am sure if there would have been other nationalities living there they wouldn't have taken such care to make sure they were safe. It is sad to see the amount of collateral damage these days and how nations use its citizens as a shield or for political gain.