The following is the account of Otto Sailer-Jackson, a 60 year old animal trainer turned Dresden Zoo inspector. Otto loved animals and described the moments following the raid as the most heart breaking thing he had ever had to do, and it haunted him:

'We did what we had to do, but it broke my heart. I collapsed physically and emotionally. Everything that happened after that, happened as if behind a veil. I was burnt out inside. I acted mechanically, as if I had no room for pain in my heart'

'The elephants gave spine-chilling screams, their house was still standing but an explosive bomb of terrific force landed behind it, lifted the dome of the house, turned it around, and put it back on again. The heavy iron doors had been completely bent, and the huge iron sliding doors which shut off the house form the terraces, had been completely lifted from its hinges. When I and some of the other men, including the elephant, warden Galle, managed to break into the elephant house, we found the stable empty.

For a moment we stood there helpless, but then the elephants told us where they were by their heart-breaking trumpeting. We rushed out onto the terrace again. The baby cow elephant was lying in the narrow barrier-moat on her back, her legs up to the sky. She had suffered severe stomach injuries and could not move.

A 90 cwt cow elephant had been flung clear across the barrier moat and fence by some terrific blast wave, and just stood there trembling. We had no choice but to leave these animals to their fate for the moment.'

'….In the same building as the hippos was the humanoid ape house. This also had been destroyed. Not a single ape could be seen, except for the gibbon, who crept out from under a corner. The creature held out it's hands to Sailer-Jackson, who saw that it had no hands, merely stumps. Haunted by the expression of suffering on it's face, he drew his pistol and shot the beast'

Old warden Lehmann went into the bear house while the flames roared up from it's roof. His favourite brown bear mother, who had two cubs, was still there, had been blinded by incendiary bombs. But she knew Lehmann's voice and let him to remove the cubs to safety…The female polar bear was there too, dreafully burned on the back by the thermite (or phosphorus) but covering and protecting her two cubs. Without making a sound, the mother kept the cubs pinned down with her huge paws so they could not run away and out into danger in the open. It would be a brave man who tried to take them away from her, but the old grey haired warden managed it. As the mother was in terrible agony she was dispatched with a pistol shot. Her cubs could have been reared from the bottle, but there was no milk in the ruins of Dresden, they soon died of hunger.'

The Devil's Tinderbox: Dresden, 1945, Alexander McKee (2000)