By Brent Douglas Dyck
Former German President Horst Koehler once said that Auschwitz, the largest Nazi extermination camp, was home to the “worst crime in human history.”
Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, confessed during his trial after World War II that approximately 1.1 million prisoners, mostly Jews, had been killed at Auschwitz by Hitler’s SS over a 41/2-year period. Some historians believe that the death toll may have been much higher. Most of these victims were killed in gas chambers, their bodies burned in crematoria, and their ashes dumped in a nearby marsh.
Many historians have wondered ever since, “Why wasn’t Auschwitz bombed by the Allies?” This is one of the most controversial and hotly debated topics among historians who study World War II. Did the Allies know about Auschwitz? If so, could it have been bombed or was it too far away? Would bombing Auschwitz have taken away from the war effort? Lastly, if it was possible, would it have been effective or would it have done more harm than good?
In considering the feasibility of bombing Auschwitz, one needs to know if the Western governments knew about the world’s largest killing center. The answer is a definitive yes. As historian Tami Davis Biddle has discovered, the first report about Auschwitz was made as early as January 1941—only six months after it had opened and before the gas chambers were installed. A report from the Polish underground was sent to the Polish government in exile in London, where it was forwarded on to Sir Charles Portal, the chief of the British Royal Air Force. The report said Auschwitz was one of the Nazis’ “worst orgainized (sic) and most inhuman concentration camps.”
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It’s also been stated that because the Nazis had committed so much of their rail rolling stock to transporting people to the camps that they were undermining their own war effort and disrupting that system might have freed more resources to be directed to the war effort. A very said calculus no matter how it is viewed and probably anti Semitism played a role no one really wants to admit.
Need
Good article need more like this one
A lot of “ifs” “could haves” and “maybes” in the reasoning of this article. It assumes a greater degree of accuracy of bombing than was normally achieved. Most importantly of all however, is the massive propaganda coup it would have given the Germans. Even if no prisoners had been killed by bombing, the Germans would obviously have had plenty of bodies to show, claiming them as victims. Goebbels would have had a field day. Neither is there any likelihood that killing would have stopped. More could have been starved to death, for example. The Holocaust is the greatest crime against humanity in history, but the only way to stop it was to win the war.
Fine article
I agree with David: I wonder would the killing have stopped? I don’t know that destroying the gas chambers and crematoria would have ended the killing. The Germans certainly wouldn’t have given them more food or clothing. They may have just been allowed to starve to death and then burned anyway. It’s difficult to project but maybe the prisoners would have been worse off, if that were possible.
Not to mention that even if all of this happened, the Jews still wouldn’t have been “free.” The Germans would’ve just used them to rebuild the camps. Airstrikes can be an effective way to deal blows to the enemy–just look at Desert Storm–but just like the Jews, the Kuwaitis wouldn’t have been free until the Iraqis were driven out of Kuwait
Goebbels would have a field day? Who cares. It would have saved many lives.
The Allies were blamed for a good number of things. Yet, nobody locally did anything to sabotage the railway lines to Auschwitz. Take into consideration that people went to extraordinary lenghts and even gave their lives to sabotaging trains carrying stolen art, yet did nothing to save Jewish lives. It is obvious, the average European considered art more precious than Jewish lives.
I understand your point Leslie; but it’s fair to remember that many Europeans did save the Jews at great peril to themselves and their families.
Could it be that bombing Auschwitz would be admitting knowledge of its existence? Something the allies denied for many years after the war ended.
Why do these articles about bombing targets in and around Auschwitz never include the possibility of independent action by the Soviet air force? To appease Stalin and encourage his partnership against Germany, the Western Allies were reluctant to apply any pressure on him. As a result, valuable western resources were diverted to actions in those parts of Eastern Europe that the Soviet Union could and should have had easy access to.
Yes, Franklin Roosevelt locked up Japanese-Americans, and refused to help the Jews.
The caption to the picture of the chemical is wrong. The picture is of the so-called Buna-Werke near the village of Monowice. The plant was built largely by slave laborers brought from Auschwitz II – Birkenau and from Auschwitz I. The Nazis then built Auschwitz III near the Buna-Werke. The plan by I.G. Farben was to produce synthetic fuel and rubber at the plant.
One relevant point to add to this discussion is that the Allied forces could have used low-level “light” bombers, instead of the ‘heavies”, to carry out a much more accurate precision bombing mission against the crematoria in Auschwitz. That was proved to be a very reasonable, feasible approach, as Operation Jericho, executed by low-level RAF Mosquitos attacking the Amiens Prison in France in Feb 1944, demonstrated.
In discussions and documentaries on this question, the evaluation of bombing always seems to be focused on high-altitude heavy bombers and American air forces. This is either ignorant or disingenuous.
Yes, the RAF Mosquito was the ideal aircraft for the job. Operation Jericho was the pinnacle of its potential. It had already proved itself very capable in 1942 of low-level precision bombing. It didn’t need fighter escort because it had enough speed to outrun German fighters. It also had considerable range to undertake long missions, such as the attack on the Oslo Gestapo headquarters. The Mosquito was also a very versatile aircraft with variants produced for numerous roles. One extremely lethal variant was the FB Mk. XVIII Tsetse, armed with a Molins 6-pounder cannon, capable of destroying ships and U-boats.
WHAT ABOUT MADAGASCAR!!!!!!
Typical “what if” stories. Seems strategy would have been the right thing to do but with the knowledge and technology at the time it seemed better to bomb the support industry. Come over to America and drop your stuff on the Lockheed factory would be more strategic than taking out Manzanar.
The author seems to demonstrate some bias.
1. “The U.S government believed that the best way to save the Jewish people being murdered at Auschwitz was to defeat the German Army and force Hitler to surrender.”
2. “After the Soviet Red Army had driven to within 10 miles of Warsaw in August 1944, the Polish Home Army rose up in the city and tried to overthrow the Nazi oppressors.”
Helping the Polish Home Army to fight the German army is directly in line with the stated goal of destroying the German army. The author completely failed to mention this as a possibility.
The last sentence of this article says it all. Little wonder the Jews decided to redouble their efforts after the war to re-establish a homeland in Palestine.