Why Wasn't Auschwitz Bombed?

robinson said:
That can happen when you bomb a city with firebombs.
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There were hundreds of bombing raids conducted during WWII. Perhaps a dozen, at most, resulted in firestorms. In other words, it's a very low probability event beyond the control of any air force.

robinson said:
Still doesn't change the fact it was a war crime.
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If so, then surely Hamburg, Kassel, and Tokyo belong on the list. Indeed, perhaps every city ever hit by bombs during WWII should be on the list.

robinson said:
Bombing civilians was/is a war crime. Right?
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In a total war between industrialized nation-states such as was WWII, the dividing line between civilian and military is not so clear as one might like. Without the support of the civilian economy, the military would not have been able to function.

Also, the cities in Germany were not undefended. There were enormous numbers of anti-aircraft guns, as well as plenty of fighters tasked to the defence of the Reich.
 
Can someone knock the 'Red Cross records prove only 200k Joos died!' claim out of the ballpark for me?
 
Back to the question of whether bombing the concentration camps would have been a war crime.

Would it be a war crime to bomb a camp that is killing civilians, if the bombing raid would lead to a reduction in the rate at which the camp could kill civilians?
 
BenBurch said:
And note, we never cited the Luftwaffe with war crimes for the bombing of Coventry.
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Thats a very good point. The fire raids did not take place in isolation, the Allies did worry if they were crossing the same moral lines the Germans had, and did struggle with the answers

Bomber Harris was much shunned after the war, and it was only recently that any sort of memorial was built for him. And I am certain that none of the crews that flew the big raids recieved campagin ribbons or unit citations. Personally I believe Harris did go a little too far. But then again I didn't suffer the Blitz, so I am happy to forgive and forget

With the fire raids on Tokyo, it must be remembered that the US bombed in a checker board pattern, and did drop leaflets to warn what district would be next. Sure it was pyschological, but to be fair at least the population had the option if they wanted too.
 
MG1962 said:
Bomber Harris was much shunned after the war, and it was only recently that any sort of memorial was built for him. And I am certain that none of the crews that flew the big raids recieved campagin ribbons or unit citations. Personally I believe Harris did go a little too far.
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Harris' biggest problem was that he was a firm believer in the pre-war theories of air power. He only thought in terms of area attacks as being useful to the war effort and very much thought the USAAF was wasting its time in trying to bomb specific military and economic targets.

While Harris did do much to get Bomber Command on track after its dismal early efforts at bombing, by late 1944 when the force had demonstrated a consistent ability to attack targets with some measure of precision, Harris obstinately refused to conduct anything but area bombing raids. He really should have been replaced at that point.
 
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SpitfireIX said:
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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[CT] That's ridiculous. How could sixteen unarmed American bombers defeat the entire Japanese defence system in time of war? How come the bombers got past the best fighter defences in Asia? Why weren't they picked up on primary radar? Why weren't there fighters already in the air ready to be vectored for an intercept? Who ordered a stand-down by the Imperial Japanese Air Force? You're expecting me to believe that they just let the bombers through? Nothing will ever convince me that there wasn't a conspiracy to let the Doolittle raiders through to their targets. [/CT]

Dave
 
Blender Head said:
Can someone knock the 'Red Cross records prove only 200k Joos died!' claim out of the ballpark for me?
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From an AP article dated October 8, 1997:

The Red Cross handed over 60,000 pages of World War II-era documents to Israel on Tuesday and a top official acknowledged the organization's "moral failure'' in keeping silent while the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews. "Very clearly, the ICRC's activities with regard to the Holocaust are sensed as a moral failure,'' said George Willemin, director of archives for the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross. "The ICRC admits - yes - that it has kept silent with regard to the Holocaust, and I would say that this is the heart of the moral failure,'' he added. . . .

The documents include reports from field workers about mass deportations and killings of Jews. . .

Among the facts they reveal is that the Red Cross discounted reports of a mass murder of Polish Jewish prisoners that took place at Lublin, Poland, in 1940 . . .
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The article goes on to state that the reasons for the Red Cross's silence included fears that the Germans would interfere with the organization's work with Allied POWs, and a desire to avoid compromising Switzerland's neutrality.
 
gumboot said:
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)
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Yeah, well anyone can win an argument with facts.

I suppose that this leaves the issue of whether shooting parachutists was a war crime as slightly vague.
 
Dave Rogers said:
[CT] That's ridiculous. How could sixteen unarmed American bombers defeat the entire Japanese defence system in time of war? How come the bombers got past the best fighter defences in Asia? Why weren't they picked up on primary radar? Why weren't there fighters already in the air ready to be vectored for an intercept? Who ordered a stand-down by the Imperial Japanese Air Force? You're expecting me to believe that they just let the bombers through? Nothing will ever convince me that there wasn't a conspiracy to let the Doolittle raiders through to their targets. [/CT]

Dave
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:dl: :dl: :dl: :dl:
 
gtc said:
Back to the question of whether bombing the concentration camps would have been a war crime.

Would it be a war crime to bomb a camp that is killing civilians, if the bombing raid would lead to a reduction in the rate at which the camp could kill civilians?
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It's a fairly moot point - the Allies were never going to prosecute anyone for bombing civilians. Thousands of French civilians died in the lead up to D-Day.

Whether it's moral to kill a number of innocent people to save a greater number of other innocent people is an interesting philosophical question.
 
gumboot said:
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)
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Oops--missed your post the first time through. Thanks; I'd been trying to find information on the above by investigoogling (hadn't had time to hit the reference books). I'd thought the policy of not shooting aircrew was part of the Geneva conventions during World War II (I'd recalled hearing that many years ago on an episode of Baa Baa Black Sheep; hardly a reliable source :rolleyes:). I discovered that the aforementioned policies weren't formally adopted until after the war, as part of a Protocol to the Convention on POWs.

On a side note, are you sure that the US had a policy of not arming air crew? I know that US naval aviators in the Pacific were armed, as I've read several accounts stating they were. Whether this was as protection against sharks, or against the Japanese (who were known not to respect the laws of war as generally recognized by the Western powers), I'm not certain.

With this clarified, I now re-pose my question. Did the P-51 pilot commit a war crime when he machine-gunned the German pilot, and, if so, should he have been punished, in order to avoid starting down the "slippery slope"?
 
blobru said:
So, "The Committee For Historical Truth", so-called, admit there are cremation buildings at Auschwitz prison camp, and a network of rail-lines leading into it, then deny that anyone was being murdered there...

Again: the Germans build five rail-lines, all leading to Auschwitz -- (should've filled up pretty quick!) -- then row upon row of cremation buildings, in Auschwitz, and... and... never use them???
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No one denies that cremation facilities (ovens) existed at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Cremation is the most sanitary way to dispose of corpses that may be diseased. Birkenau was, strictly speaking, a "death camp," in that it was the facility to which any member of the entire camp system was sent who was terminally ill. The bodies of nearly all those who died in the camp system-- mostly from typhus and other diseases which raged through it-- were sent to Birkenau to be incinerated.

None of those people were intentionally killed by the Germans. Most of them were not Jews. The existence of crematoria does not prove or even demonstrate exterminations of anyone.

Auschwitz was a rubber manufacturing plant. The allies knew intimately from their intelligence resources what was going on inside. They knew there were never any exterminations; that's why they didn't bomb Auschwitz.

The railway lines to Auschwitz were presumably to ship in raw materials and ship out finished product.

Getting back to the ovens at Birkenau, here is a quote from Heinrich Himmler in an interview with a representative of the World Jewish Congress just a few weeks before the end of the war:

"In order to put a stop to the epidemics, we were forced to burn the bodies of incalculable numbers of people who had been destroyed by diesease. We were therefore forced to build crematoria, and on this account they are knotting a noose for us."
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So the existence of the ovens was a boon for the post-war investigators who used them to begin constructing the Holocaust Legend, and frame the Germans for exterminations that never happened.
 
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