During the Yalta Conference on 4 February , the Deputy Chief of the Soviet General Staff , General Aleksei Antonov , raised the issue of hampering the reinforcement of German troops from the western front by paralysing the junctions of Berlin and Leipzig with aerial bombardment . In response , Chief of the British Air Staff Portal , who was in Yalta , asked Bottomley to send him a list of objectives to discuss with the Soviets . Bottomley 's list included oil plants , tank and aircraft factories and the cities of Berlin and Dresden . A British interpreter later claimed that Antonov and Joseph Stalin asked for the bombing of Dresden , but there is no mention of these requests in the official record of the conference and the claim was assessed as possible Cold War propaganda
Yalta Conference
Yalta Conference
Bombing of Dresden in World War II