Why Wasn't Auschwitz Bombed?

SpitfireIX said:
I once saw an interview with a P-51 pilot. He stated that while escorting B-17s on a raid, he spotted a German fighter machine-gunning bomber crewmen who had bailed out, while they were hanging helpless underneath their parachute canopies. The P-51 pilot of course jumped the German, and shot him down. The German bailed out, and the P-51 pilot machine-gunned him. Would you say that was the start of a slippery slope? There may not be a clear-cut answer in this case.
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There's a case that shooting parachuting air crew over their own territory is justified, while if they are over enemy territory, it isn't.

In any case, I don't think that there was any war crime, as such, committed in either case. They were enemy combatants, and they were in no position to surrender or be taken prisoner immediately. There might have been a gentleman's agreement about it, but there's no rule of war that helpless enemies can't be killed. Killing people who can't fight back is war. Shooting prisoners is a different matter.

Having said that, it's always likely that people attempting to surrender will be in potential trouble in a war zone. It's what happens after surrender has been accepted that is more significant.
 
SpitfireIX said:
I once saw an interview with a P-51 pilot. He stated that while escorting B-17s on a raid, he spotted a German fighter machine-gunning bomber crewmen who had bailed out, while they were hanging helpless underneath their parachute canopies. The P-51 pilot of course jumped the German, and shot him down. The German bailed out, and the P-51 pilot machine-gunned him. Would you say that was the start of a slippery slope? There may not be a clear-cut answer in this case.
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Interestingly, I believe (though I'm no expert) that according to international law, the German fighter pilot in this example was committing a war crime, but the P-51 pilot wasn't. Aircrew bailing out over enemy territory are presumed to be no longer combatants, because the presumption is that they will be captured as soon as they land. Shooting US aircrew who were bailing out over Germany was therefore equivalent to killing POW's. However, aircrew bailing out over their own territory are presumed to be combatants, because they will be able to return to their units and continue fighting.

Dave
 
gumboot said:
By the way, am I hallucinating, or is MaGZ claiming the Holocaust didn't happen and using the fact that there were survivors as evidence? :eye-poppi
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That was exactly the point I was making.

ElMondoHummus said:
Anyway, if you stop and think about MaGZ's logic, he's trying to say the survival of an eyewitness proves the account the person is an eyewitness to never happened. Does that really compute?
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Dave Rogers said:
Interestingly, I believe (though I'm no expert) that according to international law, the German fighter pilot in this example was committing a war crime, but the P-51 pilot wasn't. Aircrew bailing out over enemy territory are presumed to be no longer combatants, because the presumption is that they will be captured as soon as they land. Shooting US aircrew who were bailing out over Germany was therefore equivalent to killing POW's. However, aircrew bailing out over their own territory are presumed to be combatants, because they will be able to return to their units and continue fighting.

Dave
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I don't know what the position is in international law, but those airmen (and the German aircrew parachuting over England, some of whom were also machinegunned) would have been armed, and would have been quite entitled to make a run for it as soon as they landed. Indeed, some parachuting Allied airmen did get away, helped by partisans. I have the impression that shooting parachutists, however distasteful it might seem, would be fully within the rules of war.
 
westprog said:
If Magz is claiming that there was, to some extent, a double standard in prosecuting war crimes, then he's probably right. In particular, Soviet troops were far more likely to be punished for being taken prisoner than for shooting prisoners. Any victorious armies will view crimes perpetrated on its own more severely than those perpetrated by its own.

However, that's a side issue. While there was a degree of hypocrisy in, say, prosecuting the Germans for shooting POW's, there was no mistake in prosecuting the leading Nazis for genocide. They were carrying it out, and the Allies weren't.
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It could be an important side discussion too, unless of course one is using it to rationalize to himself that the holocaust never happened; then it would just be stupid.
 
twinstead said:
It could be an important side discussion too, unless of course one is using it to rationalize to himself that the holocaust never happened; then it would just be stupid.
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I think that when having discussions about WW2, it shouldn't be a consideration whether a particular point might serve the interests of the Holocaust deniers. They can't be helped by people talking the truth. They can't be harmed by people avoiding uncomfortable truths. Allied conduct in WW2 doesn't need to be whitewashed in order to make the Holocaust evil.

Nor is it necessary at every stage during a discussion to say "This doesn't excuse Auschwitz" or "The genocide of the Jews was on a completely different plane to Allied mistreatment of prisoners". To the sane, that can be taken as read.
 
ElMondoHummus said:
Anyway, if you stop and think about MaGZ's logic, he's trying to say the survival of an eyewitness proves the account the person is an eyewitness to never happened. Does that really compute?
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That appears to be correct, but using his logic you'd also have to say that if there were no eyewitnesses then that would also prove it didn't happen because you couldn't kill that many people without eyewitnesses surviving.
 
I live for the day MagZ spouts his rubbish in Europe....preferrably Germany.
 
robinson said:
The number of bombers and tonnage bombs in the lead are taken from a USAF document written in 1953 and classified secret until 1978: Angell, Joseph W. Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden, USAF Historical Division Research Studies Institute Air University, 1953, retrieved January 7, 2008.
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Still doesn't change the fact that the high number of casualties was caused by the creation of a firestorm.

On the night of July 24/25, 1943, Bomber Command sent 791 bombers to attack Hamburg. This raid resulted killed approximately 1,500. On the night of July 27/28, Bomber Command attacked the city again with 787 bombers. This raid caused a firestorm, which consequently resulted in an unusually high number of deaths, estimated to be about 40,000.

One of the reasons for the casualty totals from a firestorm being so high is that a bomb shelter, which would normally would protect individuals from a bombing raid, cannot protect against the extreme heat of a firestorm.
 
Corsair 115 said:
Still doesn't change the fact that the high number of casualties was caused by the creation of a firestorm.
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That can happen when you bomb a city with firebombs. Still doesn't change the fact it was a war crime. Bombing civilians was/is a war crime. Right?

Or is it?

I thought there was a POW camp in Dresden (blame Slaughterhouse 5), which brings us back to the topic. Sort of.
 
SpitfireIX said:
There were two theories on this. First, if the rail lines leading to Auschwitz had been bombed, the deportations might have been disrupted, or even stopped. Second, if the gas chambers and crematoria had been damaged or destroyed, the rate of killing might have been significantly slowed.
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I'm not sure it would have slowed down the rate of killing. Extermination camps captured economies of scale in genocide but they got along just fine lining people up on the edge of a ditch and shooting them before the extermination camps were finished.
 
robinson said:
That can happen when you bomb a city with firebombs. Still doesn't change the fact it was a war crime. Bombing civilians was/is a war crime. Right?

Or is it?
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It certainly would have been regarded as a war crime if the Japanese had won.

But considering the scale of the genocide perpetrated by the Japanese I can't say I feel sorry for them.
 
westprog said:
I don't know what the position is in international law, but those airmen (and the German aircrew parachuting over England, some of whom were also machinegunned) would have been armed, and would have been quite entitled to make a run for it as soon as they landed. Indeed, some parachuting Allied airmen did get away, helped by partisans. I have the impression that shooting parachutists, however distasteful it might seem, would be fully within the rules of war.
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Few things to correct:

Firstly, aircrews were never armed in WW2. The armament of aircrews is something fairly new, and is (I think) primarily a recognition that the enemy forces the west will typically be facing do not recognise the laws of war.

I don't know how it would apply to the laws of armed conflict (you could argue a bailed airman had been removed from combat, in which case you cannot shoot them) but certainly during World War 2 the Germans, British and Americans forbid the shooting of parachutes.

In 1923 draft Laws of Air Warfare were created at the Hague which outlined specific laws for engaging in air combat. This international law was never adopted, however all of the drafters of this law publicly declared their intention to adhere to it, and during WW2 the military service laws of all these countries reflected that.

Included in that was the shooting of aircrew that had exited an aircraft in distress via parachute. The basic rules were:
-You cannot shoot at an airman who has bailed out of an aircraft in distress
-An airman, upon bailing out, must be given the opportunity to surrender

As such while it may not have been a violation of international law to shoot at aircrews in parachutes it was certainly a violation of military law in the nations in question.

(Russia and Japan were notable examples where these rules were never implemented and shooting of downed aircrews was common place)
 
robinson said:
That can happen when you bomb a city with firebombs. Still doesn't change the fact it was a war crime. Bombing civilians was/is a war crime. Right?
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(My bolding)

It's important not to conflate these two instances. After WW2 significant changes were made to the Laws of War - particularly regarding the protection of civilians.

There is no explicit prohibition on targeting civilians in the pre-WW2 laws of war. What there is instead is a prohibition on targetting undefended targets.

One could easily argue that the Anti-Air batteries around major cities constituted defense, and therefore made them legitimate targets.
 
Gumboot,

Indeed; Tokyo was heavily defended. If I recall correctly, even the Doolittle Raids, which caught the Japanese unprepared, encountered both antiaircraft fire and fighter opposition.

Moreover on those raids the targets were military and industrial and residential areas were not targeted or hit.

-Ben
 
BenBurch said:
Gumboot,

Indeed; Tokyo was heavily defended. If I recall correctly, even the Doolittle Raids, which caught the Japanese unprepared, encountered both antiaircraft fire and fighter opposition.
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To add insult to injury, Tokyo was holding an air-raid drill when Doolittle arrived. Due to the necessity of saving fuel, the raiders flew separately from Hornet and arrived at staggered intervals. IIRC from a detailed (one chapter devoted to each plane and crew) book I read a long time ago, one plane was hit by flak but not seriously damaged; another was jumped by fighters and had to jettison its bombs in order to escape. In any case none of the bombers was shot down, and most of the bombs hit their targets.
 
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