A year ago, this blog pointed to an interview with a British historian who contended that the destruction of Dresden, 65 years ago this past weekend, had a clear military rationale, since it was a communications and transit hub. “I remain unconvinced that maximizing civilian casualties, rather than winning the war by whatever means necessary,” was the chief objective, said Frederick Taylor.

But recently in The New Statesman, Leo McKinstry sifted through archives that he says contradict the British government’s longstanding denials that killing civilians en masse was a primary aim of wartime air raids on German cities:...