-SLAUGHTERHOUSE

FIVEOr
The Childrens Crusade:
A Duty Dance with Death

TEACHERS GUIDE
Created by

Patrick Esposito

Book Synopsis
Slaughterhouse Five (or The Childrens Crusade) by Kurt Vonnegut is a work of
historical fiction that recounts the Allied firebombing of the German city of Dresden
in February of 1945. Vonnegut bases this powerful, and often symbolically fanciful,
novel on his own real experience as an American army private. He was captured
during the Battle of the Bulge in Germany and taken to Dresden where he would
soon witness the horrific events around which the novel is centered.
The first chapter serves as an introduction of sorts
in which Vonnegut describes his own experience
of the firebombing in Dresden, his time as a POW,
and his struggle to put his experience into writing.
The chapter follows Vonnegut and his war buddy
Bernhard V. OHare in 1967 on their journey back
to Dresden to revisit the site of their confinement
and the bombing. During the trip Vonnegut
discusses his intentions to write a book about his
experiences with their cab driver, Gerhard Muller.
He decides to dedicate his novel to Muller and
OHares wife Mary, to whom he had vowed years earlier to not glorify war within his
account.
The story opens with a request to listen and the introduction of the protagonist Billy
Pilgrim. Pilgrim is said to have come unstuck in time and his personal experience
often drifts from the present to the past and future throughout the book. Pilgrim
was born and raised in Ilium, New York where he worked towards a profession in
optometry until he was drafted into the army. After training, Billy was sent into the
war in Europe where he was soon captured
behind enemy lines during the Battle of the
Bulge. Shortly before he is taken captive, Billy
has his first experience of distorted time,
during which he sees his entire life played
out from beginning to end.
After his capture, Billy is sent with other
POWs by train to their eventual destination,
Dresden. The camp was located in an old
slaughterhouse, in and around which the
POWs performed hard labor at the instruction
of their German captors. During one night of Billys captivity, without warning,
allied forces dropped massive amounts of carpet and incendiary bombs on the city,
burning much of it to the ground and killing thousands of civilians. The POWs,
including Billy, survived the attack inside a sealed meat locker. The prisoners open

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the locker door to find an unfathomable scene of death and

destruction. After being forced by their surviving captors to
pull bodies from the remnants for several days, the Russian
troops take Dresden, which eventually results in Billy being
sent home.
Billy settles back into the comforts of home, finishes school,
and marries into money. Years later in 1967, Billy attends his
daughters wedding where he has a break down. The night
after the wedding, Billy is abducted by short, plunger shaped
aliens called Tralfamadorians. They take him to their home
planet where he is put on display with another female human,
an actress named Montana Wildhack, with whom he is mated.
The aliens explain to Billy their ability to perceive time as a
fourth dimension through which they can move with ease. Death, therefore, only
exits in one place in time from which they leave. Tralfamadorians prefer to only
enjoy the nicer times in life. This time- tripping is what Billy has been experiencing
his whole life. When he returns to earth, he attempts to attend a conference for
optometrists, but is stopped when his plane crashes. Billy is the lone survivor and
ends up in the hospital. Billys wife Valencia dies from carbon monoxide poisoning
after she gets into a car accident on the way to the hospital. Billy contemplates his
death, which he has already been aware of, but comments that he will simply skip
back again away from that place in time.

Author Biography
Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 11, 1922. His
father, Kurt Sr., was a notably successful architect and his mother, Edith, was
the daughter of an affluent brewer. The Great Depression hit the Vonnegut
family hard, resulting in Kurt Sr.s depression and Ediths substance abuse.
Kurt Jr.s parents reaction to the abrupt loss of wealth almost surely shaped
his characteristic pessimism. While in high school, and in college at Cornell,
Vonnegut wrote for the student paper where he gained many perspectives
on writing that would serve him well later. At age 20, Vonnegut joined the
army and was sent off to Europe where the Germans would quickly take him
as a POW during the Battle of the Bulge. He was housed in Dresden with
other POWs at a slaughterhouse 60ft underground when the Allies
firebombed the city. The remaining captors forced Vonnegut and the other
surviving POWs to gather and burn the dead. This experience deeply scarred
Vonnegut and instilled in him a very strong antiwar sentiment that would
later be the basis for his masterpiece Slaughterhouse Five. After the war
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Vonnegut married Jane Cox, a friend from private school, and they had three
children together. Vonnegut wrote for the next three decades showcasing his
dry wit, dark humor, and nearly comical cynicism in many acclaimed works
like Cats Cradle and Jailbird. He would go on to
speak out for nuclear arms control, civil liberties and
environmental protection. Kurt Vonnegut died from
complications from a fall on April 11, 2007, at age
84. (Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library)

Context
Historical Context:
The firebombing of Dresden, Germany by allied
air forces on February 13th through the 15th of 1945 is
the main historical event that Slaughterhouse Five
focuses on. The bombing of Dresden near then end of WWII remains one of
the wars more controversial topics as there are questions as to whether it
was strategically necessary or if was morally justifiable to relentlessly bomb
a target with such high expected civilian casualties. An American Air Force
investigation in 1953 claimed that the attack was a legitimate targeting of
Nazi infrastructure and industry (Angell, 1953). Some follow-up
investigations, however, have found that many industrial and infrastructure
heavy sites went completely untargeted. There is also dispute over the
amount of civilian casualties caused by the bombing. Early German
propaganda touted numbers in the hundreds of thousands, but this number
was found later to be false. Genuine estimations conducted by city officials
after the bombings estimated around 25,000 civilian casualties. This lower
estimate has more recently been supported by multiple investigations,
including a 2010 investigation led by the Dresden City Council. (Muller 2010,
Neutzner 2010)
Social and Cultural Context:
Vonneguts attitudes towards the destructive and meaningless nature of war
were formed during his time in Dresden, but they were most likely
encouraged in the progressive, counter culture social environment that
surrounded him in the U.S. during the writing and publication of his novel.
Vonnegut, who was born in the U.S., had almost entirely German lineage.
This cultural connection to Germany may have also affected his reaction to
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the bombing of Dresden, which is seen as an important cultural center in

Germany.
Doubly Historical:
Vonneguts first-hand experience of Dresdens bombing and aftermath left
him traumatized in such a way that he was unable to write about it
effectively until later in life. The publication date for Slaughterhouse Five is
1969, right in the midst of wartime tensions in Vietnam War and the counter
culture antiwar protest at home. Vonneguts antiwar message in
Slaughterhouse Five, considered in the context of its publication date,
reveals a doubly historical component in the novel. The methods of combat
used by the U.S. in Vietnam, such as fire and chemical based weapons
designed to remove the Jungle, also caused civilian casualties.

Key Themes:

Antiwar Sentiment
Free Will vs. Fatalism
Key Events:

WWII
Battle of the Bulge
Fire Bombing of Dresden
Russian invasion of Germany
Key Periods:

WWII
Post WWII
Vietnam War (Time in which the book was published)
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Other Possible Topics:

Censorship
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Teacher Resources
1) Slaughterhouse Five Webliograhyhttps://sites.google.com/site/sl5researchguides/extras/interviews-withvonnegut
This resource contains:

Summary of the novel (Slaughterhouse Five)

Primary sources
Readings about the censorship of Slaughterhouse Five
New York Times Article Archive containing work by and about
Vonnegut
Interviews with Vonnegut
Open Access Sources

2) Random house Catalogue Teachers Guidehttp://www.randomhouse.com/highschool/catalog/display.pperl?

isbn=9780440180296&view=tg
This resource contains:

Novel Summary (Slaughterhouse Five)

Historical Background Information
Author Biography
Teaching Ideas for English, Creative Writing, and History
Discussion and Essay questions about the text
Discussion and Essay questions that go beyond the text

3) We Were There: Letters from the Battle Front

(National Postal Museum Smithsonian Institution)
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http://postalmuseum.si.edu/education/pdfs/we.pdf
This resource contains:

Background information
Primary documents and transcripts
Photographs
Discussion questions
Writing tasks
Learning activities
Letters from the Civil War, WW II, and Vietnam

4) The History Learning Site The Bombing of Dresden

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/the-bombingcampaign-of-world-war-two/the-bombing-of-dresden/
This resource contains:

Historical context and information

Quotes from Royal British Airforce Pilot on Dresden
Quotes from Dresden Firebombing Survivor
Article that discusses the controversy surround the bombing of
Dresden

5) Letters of Note: Kurt Vonnegut

http://www.lettersofnote.com/search?q=+vonnegut
This resource contains:

A letter from Vonnegut to his son (backing his decision to not fight in
Vietnam)
A letter from Vonnegut to a Canadian Teacher (in relation to attempts
to censor his book Welcome to the Monkey House)
Many more letters to and from Vonnegut with transcripts

Connections to National Curriculum Standards for

Social Studies (NCSS)
NCSS Thematic Strand 2: Time, Continuity, and Change

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NCSS Thematic Strand 4: Individual Development and Identity

NCSS Thematic Strand 6: Power, Authority, and Governance
Standard USHC-7:
The student will demonstrate an understanding of the
impact of World War II on the United States and the nations subsequent role in the
world
Indicator USHC-7.2:
Explain how controversies among the Big Three Allied
leaders over war strategies led to post-war conflict between the United States and
the USSR, including delays in the opening of the second front in Europe, the
participation of the Soviet Union in the war in the Pacific, and the dropping of
atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Standard MWH-7:
The student will demonstrate an understanding of
the causes and consequences of global warfare in the first half of the twentieth
century.
Indicator MWH-7.1 Analyze the relative importance of economic and
political rivalries, ethnic and ideological conflicts, social class, militarism, and
imperialism as underlying causes of World War I and World War II, including
the role of nationalism and propaganda in mobilizing civilian populations around
the world to support the two world wars.
Indicator MWH-7.3
Describe major shifts in world geopolitics between
1900 and 1945, including the changing role of the United States in
international affairs and the move from isolationism to an increased role as a
world power.

Novel Review
Slaughterhouse Five is a great resource to expand on many aspects of the
social studies. The evolution of war and the United States role in global politics
from WWII through Iraq and Afghanistan offers a beautiful set of contrast and
similarities that can be addressed through aspects of Vonneguts novel. Questions
surrounding nuclear weapon use, the limits to diplomacy, ethnic conflict,
propaganda, and cultural differences in wartime practices are all addressed at least
ideologically in the content of Slaughterhouse Five. These concepts also fit well into
the 2nd and 6th NCSS Thematic Strands that address continuity and change over time
as well and authority and shifting power dynamics respectfully. Philosophical
questions are also raised within Slaughterhouse Five, whose alien race, the
Tralfamadorians, raises doubts about the truth of our experience. Their perception
of time allows them to see time as it really is, circular and inevitable. This type of
self-reflection and personal development fits well with the 4 th NCSS Thematic

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Strand; individual development and identity. The activity that discusses freewill and
determinism drives this idea home with students if they missed it while reading. The
novel can be used successfully in U.S. history sources as well as World history
courses. The global dynamic that was created by the world wars makes a great tool
for comparing and contrasting cultures and their practices. The compare and
contrast activities look at cultures across nations in addition to between citizens of
the same nation. Helping students realize the larger themes and motivations that
drive war and needless violence not only help them understand Slaughterhouse Five
on a much deeper level, it helps them to question their own actions as well as the
actions of their government and global community. The self-reflective nature of
Vonneguts novel as well as its rich diversity of historical and social content make it
a perfect choice for social studies classrooms.

Instructional Activities
1) Compare and Contrast
Prisoners of War Captive in Japan and Germany
1) Have students read Letter from PFC Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to
his family, May 29, 1945 that describes his experience as
a prisoner of war (POW) in Germany. (Primary
Document)
2) Watch YouTube video on Fergus Anckhorn and his
experience as a POW in Japan. (Media)
3) Pass out compare and contrast template to class.
4) Instruct students to write down 4 ways that the two
POW experiences were similar and 4 ways that the
two POW experiences were different.
Anckhorn Video Link (Japan): https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=VL4ub3rDPIs
Vonnegut Letter (Germany):
https://www.loa.org/images/pdf/Vonnegut_1945_letter.pdf
Compare and Contrast Template:
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson275/comp
con_chart.pdf
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Themes and Standards:

NCSS Theme 2: Time Continuity and Change
Standard MWH-7: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the causes and
consequences of global warfare in the first half of the twentieth century.
MWH-7.1 Analyze the relative importance of economic and political rivalries, ethnic and
ideological conflicts, social class, militarism, and imperialism as underlying causes of World War I
and World War II, including the role of nationalism and propaganda in mobilizing civilian
populations around the world to support the two world wars.

2) Structured Controversy
Students Roleplay Vonnegut and Truman
1) Have students read letters and diary entries from Truman on
bombing
Hiroshima. (Primary Document)
2) Have students research Vonneguts feelings towards the
atomic bomb (directing them towards quotes and selections from
Cats Cradle)
3) Assign Students to either the Truman Group or the Vonnegut
Group
4) Pair individuals with a partner from the opposing group
5) Have each pair debate the pros and cons of dropping the
atomic bomb on Hiroshima from the perspective of their
assigned role.
6) Have each student record 5 of their main points from the
debate to be turned in for assessment.
Truman Letters and diary entries: http://www.douglong.com/hst.htm
Themes and Standards:
NCSS Theme 6: Power, Authority, and Governance
Indicator USHC-7.2:
Explain how controversies among the Big Three Allied leaders over war
strategies led to post-war conflict between the United States and the USSR, including delays in the
opening of the second front in Europe, the participation of the Soviet Union in the war in the Pacific,
and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

3) Lecture and Discussion

Fatalism vs. Determinism vs. Free Will
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1) Watch the video lectures that explain the three concepts

2) Ask students to note main characteristics of the concepts
3) Break students into groups to discuss their feelings towards
the philosophies
4) Return to class discussion to discuss group findings and how
these concepts relate to Slaughterhouse Five
Video on Free-Will vs. Determinism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_ft0Xe0bjo
Video on Determinism vs. Fatalism:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKv2pWZkgrI
Themes and Standards:
NCSS Thematic Strand 4: Individual Development and Identity

4)

Picture Analysis and Comparison

Civilian vs. Military Lives Lost
1) Have students inspect and analyze the picture of civilian
casualties from the firebombing of Dresden. (Primary
Document)
2) Have students inspect and analyze the picture of Nazi soldier
casualties from the firebombing of Dresden. (Primary
Document)
3) Break into small groups to discuss feelings and thoughts.
4) Have open class discussion about the value of life and the role
of justice in this calculation.

Picture of Soldier Deaths:

https://sp.yimg.com/xj/th?
id=OIP.M30308e97c012bdaf691c8b44448c3edeo0&pid=15.1&P=0&w=300&
h=300
Picture of Civilian Deaths:
http://www.japanfocus.org/data/2WWdresden2.JPG
Themes and Standards:
NCSS Thematic Strand 4: Individual Development and Identity

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MWH-7.1 Analyze the relative importance of economic and political rivalries, ethnic and
ideological conflicts, social class, militarism, and imperialism as underlying causes of World War I
and World War II, including the role of nationalism and propaganda in mobilizing civilian
populations around the world to support the two world wars.

5)

Compare and Contrast/ Jigsaw

Vonneguts vs. Pattons Attitudes towards Warfare
1) Have half of the students read Pattons letter to his son about
WWII in Europe
2) Have the other half of the students read Vonneguts short
story Wailing Shall Be in All Streets
3) Have students partner with someone from the opposite group
4) Have students discuss their readings and work together to fill
out Compare and Contrast handout.

Vonneguts Wailing Shall Be in All Streets:

https://farrandrap.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/Kurt%20Vonnegut%27s
%20Wailing%20Shall%20Be%20in%20All%20The%20Streets.pdf
Pattons Letter to his son:
http://www.artofmanliness.com/2011/08/21/manvotional-a-letter-fromgeneral-george-s-patton-to-his-son/
Compare and Contrast Template:
http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson275/comp
con_chart.pdf
Themes and Standards:
NCSS Thematic Strand 4: Individual Development and Identity
Standard MWH-7: The student will demonstrate an understanding of the causes and
consequences of global warfare in the first half of the twentieth century.
MWH-7.1 Analyze the relative importance of economic and political rivalries, ethnic and
ideological conflicts, social class, militarism, and imperialism as underlying causes of World War I
and World War II, including the role of nationalism and propaganda in mobilizing civilian
populations around the world to support the two world wars.

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TEACHERS GUIDE

Works Cited
Author Biography:
Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library. (n.d.). Retrieved October 14, 2015, from
http://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/

Context:
Angell, Joseph W. (1953). Historical Analysis of the 1415 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden (PDF)
(1962 ed.). USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute, Air University, hq.af.mil. OCLC
878696404. Retrieved January 2008.
Mller, Rolf-Dieter; Schnherr, Nicole; Widera, Thomas, eds. (2010), Die Zerstrung Dresdens: 13. bis
15. Februar 1945. Gutachten und Ergebnisse der Dresdner Historikerkommission zur Ermittlung der
Opferzahlen. (in German), V&R Unipress, pp. 48, ISBN 3899717732
Neutzner, Matthias; et al. (2010). "Abschlussbericht der Historikerkommission zu den Luftangriffen auf
Dresden zwischen dem 13. und 15. February 1945" (PDF) (in German). Landeshauptstadt Dresden. pp.
17, 3839, 7081. Retrieved 7 June 2011.

Miscellaneous:
SparkNotes Editors. (2002). SparkNote on Slaughterhouse-Five. Retrieved October 13, 2015, from
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/slaughter/

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