Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

Discussions on the Holocaust and 20th Century War Crimes. Note that Holocaust denial is not allowed. Hosted by David Thompson.
Post Reply
Sid Guttridge
Member
Posts: 10158
Joined: 12 Jun 2008, 12:19

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#556

Post by Sid Guttridge » 21 Jun 2013, 14:28

Hi Guys,

The issue isn't whether the Allies did or did not know about Auschwitz. As early as 1942 Slovakian Jewish escapers had got the information out through Hungary and Switzerland.

The issue is, given this, "Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?"

Cheers,

Sid.

User avatar
LWD
Member
Posts: 8618
Joined: 21 Sep 2005, 22:46
Location: Michigan

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#557

Post by LWD » 24 Jun 2013, 17:17

Well it is significant in that when they know what helps determine if a case could be made for bombing it. So knowing it was a concentration camp from 42 on say doesn't warrant bombing. If you are bombing it to stop or slow down the killing you first have to know that the killing is taking place and that it's being done in a way that bombing can effect (and that there isn't an alternative to that method that's easy to put into practice).


ChristopherPerrien
Member
Posts: 7051
Joined: 26 Dec 2002, 01:58
Location: Mississippi

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#558

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 19 Apr 2015, 18:47

Here : US Bombs falling on Auschwitz. From another topic/wikimedia.
Attachments
Birkenau_Mexiko.jpg
Birkenau_Mexiko.jpg (138.21 KiB) Viewed 1778 times

User avatar
wm
Member
Posts: 8753
Joined: 29 Dec 2006, 21:11
Location: Poland

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#559

Post by wm » 23 Apr 2015, 21:54

1943: an American Liberator during a low level attack on heavily defended Ploiești, there were 161 others there that day. After travelling over 1500 kilometers they attacked from low level, sometimes just over tree-tops:
Image

Sid Guttridge
Member
Posts: 10158
Joined: 12 Jun 2008, 12:19

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#560

Post by Sid Guttridge » 25 Apr 2015, 13:45

Hi wm,

It is worth noting that the Ploiesti raid involved 177 B-24s.

Of these, 53 were lost and 55 were damaged.

It was, proportionally, the most serious US loss in any major bombing mission - and Auschwitz was even further away.

One can understand the risk being taken against Ploiesti, the single most important source of German oil, but Auschwitz lacked such strategic justification.

Cheers,

Sid.

User avatar
wm
Member
Posts: 8753
Joined: 29 Dec 2006, 21:11
Location: Poland

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#561

Post by wm » 25 Apr 2015, 23:51

The air defenses around Ploiești were exceptionally heavy and skillfully laid out, the mission was badly planned and badly executed so in the end lots of people died for nothing.
Auschwitz-Birkenau had no air defenses worth mention, and in fact was much closer than Ploiești, a mere thousand kilometers away - trivial distance for contemporary heavy bombers and long range fighters.
The target was so vulnerable that a dozen or so planes would be sufficient, a totally insignificant number in the grand scheme of things.

Another, Mosquitoes over Oslo:
oslo.jpg
In 1942 (and again later, in 1944), British bombers attacked at low level the headquarters of the Gestapo in Oslo, they flew more than 900 kilometers across the North Sea from Great Britain to Norway. The attack was intended as a morale booster for the Norwegian people.

ChristopherPerrien
Member
Posts: 7051
Joined: 26 Dec 2002, 01:58
Location: Mississippi

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#562

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 26 Apr 2015, 02:35

Well I posted the above photo as a handy link to where I could find that photo year later now as a reply.

Most important , I can link this photo down the road as an answer to those who post this question underhandedly as to infer the culpability of the Allied Powers in WWII for the "Final Solution",and tell them to stick it where the sun don't shine, and go look for guilt elsewhere.

The photo exposes the whole dishonest inference aspect of the question,
"Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?", And makes the question itself, a total lie in fact.

"So when did you stop beating your wife"?, same BS approach.

A picture is worth a 1000 words.

Sid Guttridge
Member
Posts: 10158
Joined: 12 Jun 2008, 12:19

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#563

Post by Sid Guttridge » 26 Apr 2015, 16:59

Hi wm,

Remember, Auschwitz wasn't the only camp with gas chambers, and gas chambers were not the only method of mass killing employed by the Nazis.

Bombing Auschwitz could not stop the massacre of Jews.

The only definitve way to save the remaining Jews was to win the war.

How would bombing Auschwitz have advanced the end of the war?

Cheers,

Sid.

User avatar
Geoff Walden
Member
Posts: 2616
Joined: 29 Mar 2002, 15:50
Location: South of the Mason-Dixon Line
Contact:

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#564

Post by Geoff Walden » 26 Apr 2015, 18:53

ChristopherPerrien wrote:Here : US Bombs falling on Auschwitz. From another topic/wikimedia.
Although that is Birkenau down below, the bombs were actually targeting, and would fall on, the IG Farben Buna-Werke factory site, some 7km from Birkenau. From the point where this photo was taken, the bombs would follow a long parabolic arc before they hit the ground at quite a distance from Birkenau (although a couple bombs did occasionally hit Birkenau and Auschwitz I).

User avatar
wm
Member
Posts: 8753
Joined: 29 Dec 2006, 21:11
Location: Poland

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#565

Post by wm » 26 Apr 2015, 22:51

As seen in '42 Warsaw:
The world is looking at these atrocities, the most horrible throughout the whole history of mankind, and is silent. Slaughter of the millions of people is happening in ominous silence. The executioners are silent, they do not boast with what they are doing. England is silent, so is America, even the international Jewry is silent, before so sensitive to all harm to their people. Silent are Poles. Polish political friends of Jews limit themselves to journalistic notes, Polish opponents of Jews show no interest in a matter that is alien to them. Dying Jews are surrounded only by Pilates washing their hands. Silence shouldn't be tolerated anymore. If for no other reason -- it is mean. Those who are silent in the face of murder - become partners of the killer. Those who do not condemn - approve.
As seen in '44 Auschwitz:
The beginning of the operation of the gas chambers and crematoriums, the gassing and incinerating of thousands of people was a tremendous shock for the prisoners. There were huge outbursts of panic. The prisoners couldn't sleep at night, gathered in small groups and commented anxiously on the latest events. The fact that there were no partisans or people who actively resisted the Germans among the gassed was extremely chilling. They gassed quietly and peacefully living families.
We were waiting for a world reaction. We expected a rain of warnings, threats, excommunications and reprisals from all over the world. Gassing was done practically in public, and the news of those murders were spreading around the world quickly. But nobody said a word, nobody protested. [...] The transports to the gas chambers were becoming more and more numerous. They built the second crematorium shortly, and then the third.
Bombing Auschwitz wouldn't save anyone. But it is also true it wouldn't delay the end for the war even for a second, and it would be a relatively easy mission, easier and safer than all the gestapo HQ bombings. Those people in Auschwitz needed a morale booster too, even more than the Norwegian people. And as it was said, those who do nothing, who do not condemn - approve.

I can't agree that the only definitive way to save the remaining Jews was to win the war. We can't possibly know that because the other option, demanded by the Polish Government and the Jews of Warsaw, was never tried, never seriously contemplated:
Offenders against the laws of war are liable to the punishments specified in the penal law.
This mode of repression, however, is only applicable when the person of the offender can be secured. In the contrary case, the criminal law is powerless, and, if the injured party deem the misdeed so serious in character as to make it necessary to recall the enemy to a respect for law, no other recourse than a resort to reprisals remains.
It wasn't after all the people of whom we know nothing slaughtered by millions, but citizens of an allied country, a country which relatively maybe contributed to the war efforts more than the others and suffered the consequences the most.

Sid Guttridge
Member
Posts: 10158
Joined: 12 Jun 2008, 12:19

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#566

Post by Sid Guttridge » 27 Apr 2015, 12:23

Hi wm,

You post, "I can't agree that the only definitive way to save the remaining Jews was to win the war."

Given that the Nazis were killing Jews en masse to the very end even after they had lost all the extermination camps and, indeed, thousands of Jews died in Allied hands even after the defeat of Germany because they were too far gone to be saved, the evidence seems to be heavily against you.

What alternative are you suggesting? Bombing Auschwitz wouldn't stop the slaughter.

It is often forgotten that at the time the so-called "Holocaust" was not in the Allied public consciousness as it is today and Allied governments had their own national interests to pursue. The misfortune for most Jews was that they did not have their own government to press their case and for all the major powers were a relatively minor concern besides the pursuit of the wider war, in which some 8 times as many non-Jews as Jews died.

Personally, given what we now know, I think bombing Auschwitz (and other similar sites) was worth a stab. However, those in authority at the time were not blessed with the same 20:20 hindsight that we are.

Cheers,

Sid.

User avatar
4thskorpion
Member
Posts: 733
Joined: 10 Nov 2009, 16:06
Location: United Kingdom

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#567

Post by 4thskorpion » 27 Apr 2015, 15:19

I agree with the above.

WWII in Europe was not fought by the Allies to save Europe's Jews from extermination or was it about the Holocaust although it has become almost entirely about fighting against the Holocaust and the extermination of the European Jews since the liberation of the camps and in the 70 years since then.

User avatar
wm
Member
Posts: 8753
Joined: 29 Dec 2006, 21:11
Location: Poland

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#568

Post by wm » 28 Apr 2015, 00:29

Of course it wasn't fought to save European Jews, but to protect interests of the Allies threatened by irresponsible behavior of a major European power.

Too bad Poland was one of the three original Allies, and its citizens were murdered by the millions. They weren't citizens of distant lands or Europe's Jews, from the Allies' point of view they were their own civilian population.
Can we even imagine the kind of hell unleashed on Germans if those people were Americans, even if Jews?

According to the customary rules of reprisals, especially the proportionality rule, remembering that in this case it's explicitly allowed that innocent people suffer for the guilty - the Allies had every right, after issuing the mandatory ultimatum to precede with execution of all German POWs, and all German citizens on their territory.

Ironically, in the end, only the Germans used reprisals during the WW2 - once, to punish a war crime (more properly to recall the Allies to a respect for law) committed by the Allies.

We know that reprisals could save lives because it was demonstrated. The Holocaust of Hungarian Jews was stopped, and about 200 thousand people were saved thanks to brutal pressure of the American Government, the Holy See and the mistaken Hungarian belief their cities would be razed to the ground in reprisals by American bombers (which in fact was forbidden, those Jews weren't Allies citizens).

It's not true the Jews didn't have their own government - disregarding the inept, quasi governmental World Jewish Congress - the Jews, at least most of them were represented by the Polish Government, as far I can tell faithfully and sincerely. It alarmed the Allies' leaders about the Holocaust and demanded action - promptly and without delay, including the unusual move to send a special envoy directly to Roosevelt/Churchill - Jan Karski.
Even the first The Black Book of Poland published by the Polish Government in the middle of 1942, just as the Holocaust had started contained the word Jews 750 times. Later, but still four months before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, among others was published:
note.jpg
note.jpg (79.39 KiB) Viewed 1538 times
The Polish Government—-as the representatives of the legitimate authority on territories in which the Germans are carrying out the systematic extermination of Polish citizens and of citizens of Jewish origin of many other European countries—-consider it their duty to address themselves to the Governments of the United Nations, in the confident belief that they will share their Opinion as to the necessity not only of condemning the crimes committed by the Germans and punishing the criminals, but also of finding means offering the hope that Germany might be effectively restrained from continuing to apply her methods of mass extermination.
the response:
The attention of the 12 Allied Governments having been drawn to numerous reports from Europe that the German authorities, not content with denying to persons of Jewish race in all the territories over which their barbarous rule has been extended the most elementary human rights, are now carrying into effect Hitler’s oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe. The above-mentioned governments and the French National Committee condemn in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination. They declare that such events can only reaffirm their solemn resolution to ensure that those responsible for these crimes shall not escape retribution, and to press on with the necessary practical measures to this end.

User avatar
DaveNZ
Member
Posts: 20
Joined: 09 Jul 2007, 01:42
Location: Christchurch, New Zealand.

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#569

Post by DaveNZ » 28 Apr 2015, 06:40

4thskorpion wrote:I agree with the above.

WWII in Europe was not fought by the Allies to save Europe's Jews from extermination or was it about the Holocaust although it has become almost entirely about fighting against the Holocaust and the extermination of the European Jews since the liberation of the camps and in the 70 years since then.

Indeed it is very interesting how the emphasis of what the war was about has (seemingly) moved over the years.

Shows how the narrative of history can be manipulated to suit whatever point somebody wants to emphasize . The same sort of thing has happened with the whole July 20 scenario too imo.

ChristopherPerrien
Member
Posts: 7051
Joined: 26 Dec 2002, 01:58
Location: Mississippi

Re: Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?

#570

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 28 Apr 2015, 21:29

Geoff Walden wrote:
ChristopherPerrien wrote:Here : US Bombs falling on Auschwitz. From another topic/wikimedia.
Although that is Birkenau down below, the bombs were actually targeting, and would fall on, the IG Farben Buna-Werke factory site, some 7km from Birkenau. From the point where this photo was taken, the bombs would follow a long parabolic arc before they hit the ground at quite a distance from Birkenau (although a couple bombs did occasionally hit Birkenau and Auschwitz I).
Well duh! :D I know that as do most here; But that is beside the original "point". How close would you want 500-1000lb bombs falling near you to improve your or Jewish Camp Prisoner morale or to "save" them? 50 meters?

Okay, fine , The Allies could have bombed Auschwitz more. Then the question postulated by Claims Conference advocates, and spread through the MSM, would be

"Why did the Allies bomb Auschwitz ?"

And the Claims Conference would be seeking money in liability that way. Same as they are now with "Why didn't the Allies bomb Auschwitz?" Or at least when this topic was more relevant. Maybe they gave up after several CC officials were thrown in jail, but I doubt it.

Think like an "unethical" :lol: lawyer it all makes sense.

Post Reply

Return to “Holocaust & 20th Century War Crimes”