Re: USA spies in Germany and Holocaust

In article <r-ydnd8FENJLLVbZnZ2dnUVZ8qWdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Andrew Clark <aclark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"David Thornley" <thornley@xxxxxxxx> wrote

Gilbert (op cit), for example, points out that the rail route from Hungary
to Auschwitz was extremely sparse and that there existed several chokepoints
around which rail traffic which could not be diverted. Attacks on these
vulnerable bridges, switching yards and other features could have imposed
considerable delays on the death trains. In fact, as Gilbert also shows,
Allied attacks on precisely the same rail elements later in 1944 to cut off
retreating German forces did reduce the line traffic to a trickle. So both
the means and opportunity were there, just used too late.

The Allied reach later in 1944 was considerably longer.

Bridges are not easy targets, and rail lines are easy to repair.
Switching yards are more vulnerable, but still require quite a bit
of effort. In other words, we're talking about a fair amount of
bombing here, and it has to be significantly before mid-July 1944
to save noticeable amounts of lives.

You did give a date as to when you thought operations could start,
and never said what you were basing that date on, or how hard
Fifteenth Air Force could strike at that time.

Actually, I gave a detailed timetable, which no one disputed, based on
Gilbert.

Except that I did dispute it, primarily asking why you thought the
bombing could start when you said it did, and you never answered.
There was no bombing in the area until about a month after the
deportation was finished, and I'd like to see some sort of evidence
that a heavy bombing campaign could have been started two months or
so earlier than historically.

I also said that 15th AF would not be able to do the job on its
own, if at all, and that fighter-bombers would need to be withdrawn from the
Allied front in Italy.

Those missions were rather long for fighter-bombers, and over bad
terrain.

Remember, also, that you're advocating taking away tactical air from
the Italy campaign at the time it was showing the most promise. At
that time, many Western authorities thought they could advance up
Italy a lot faster than historically happened.

We're talking about 1500 Jews a day for an extended period of time.
Most of the divisions in the SS were more or less qualified to
slaughter unarmed civilians, and not much more. The SS had lots
of people to bring in to kill Jews. Bring in 500 and they only need
to average 3 per day. I suspect they could do that for a while, and
then be rotated out.

The problem is that you persistently fail to take into account the fact that
mass murder as a process requires the willing participation of the victims -
mass resistance immediately renders the process impossible.

So how was it done?

Certainly, the maths can be arranged to dispose of the circa 440,000 Jews
who were shipped to Auschwitz beginning on 15 May and ending on 5 July
without use of the gas chambers and crematoria. (Incidentally, at your
arbitrary rate of 1500 per day, the job would not be finished until 7 March
1945, or two months *after* the Red Army occupied Auschwitz!).

Except that it didn't work that way.

Large numbers of Jews were killed pretty much immediately off the train,
but thousands were not. They were reserved for work, and they were the
ones who were killed about about 1500 per day. This level of killing
did not really require the gas chambers and crematoria.

It was the level of killing during the deportation that required them.

This is why I have been incessantly asking you for evidence that the
Allies could have done something effective early on, when it would
have mattered. Bombing after about mid-July was not going to be all
that effective.

You have talked about bombing after mid-July, which was possible and
pretty much pointless.

infants, children and women. I'm assuming, therefore, that the additional
familiarity stress on the murderers would make a three-day stretch
unrealistic and that two days per week would be the maximum. Doing the
maths, a continuous presence on-site of 500 men, each killing for two days
per week, would be needed to complete the task in 130 days. Two battalions
of 500 could do the job in 65 days, and so on.

You are assuming about fifty victims per week, which means that about
200 men would be required to kill 1500 people a day. That is quite
reasonable; there's no reason the SS couldn't have provided 500 or so.

However, this takes no account of the psychological impact of such a system
of mass shooting on the victims. Historically, trains arrived mid-morning
(carefully organised by the Reichsbahn) and the inmates were lined up on the
sidings to be selected. Those selected for death were covertly hustled into
the gas chambers in large numbers - 4000 a time - and by the end of the day
the majority of the daily arrivals would be dead. There was neither time nor
motivation for the victims to become sufficiently anxious to storm their
guards.

Right.

This is the process that it would have been useful to disrupt.

Again, what evidence do you have that it could be effectively disrupted
by, say, the beginning of July?

After the deportation, we're at 1500 a day, on the average, and I
maintain the Germans could manage without gas chambers or crematoria.

Under your system, with only 3500 being killed per day on average, thousands
of Jews will need to be accommodated at Auschwitz awaiting their turn to be
killed.

In fact, thousands were accomodated, awaiting their turn to be killed.
The Jews not selected for immediate murder were kept for work, and
were killed, as I understand it, at a rate of about 1500 per day.

Not only will accommodation have to be found for them, so will
guards.

I am describing the historical reality, as I understand it. There
were plenty of Jews in the camp. They had to know that the SS was
killing Jews at a fairly impressive rate historically. Historically.
the SS managed.

when the SS was under acute manpower strain. And those waiting victims will
be able to hear the continuous rattle of gunfire and smell the body
mountains burning, evidence in itself that there is nothing to lose by
revolt.

I believe there was plenty of evidence anyway.

We are looking at diverting primarily fighter-bombers from the Italian front
for a period of 12 weeks or so, which would not affect the Eastern Front in
any way, and partially diverting 15th AF from its *economic* targets, which
I can't believe would make any significant difference to the Eastern Front.
To suggest that the diversion of resources on this scale would result in
millions of deaths is fatuous.

I didn't suggest such diversion would cause millions of deaths, and find
it odd that you would consider me so fatuous.

Historically, the Soviets suffered over a million men killed from October
1944 on. 1% of that is ten thousand.

Therefore, if the Germans put up 2% greater resistance to the Soviets,
which doesn't sound all that significant to me, that's tens of thousands
of lives.

And as we all know, Soviet casualties racked up staggeringly in the last
months of the war as a consequence of the race for Berlin, not anything the
Allies did or could do.

Except that, if the Germans fight less effectively, the Soviets take
fewer losses, and if they fight more effectively the Soviets take
more losses.

I find it incredible that you seem quite happy to treat a million deaths
as inevitable, or not worth considering, while arguing about a few
tens of thousands.

to save tens of thousands of lives is dubious at best. In terms of
saving lives, the US policy of ending the war as fast as possible
without regard to special interests was probably correct.

So you say. So why was a considerable and ever-increasing military force
diverted to humanitarian relief in NW Europe from September 1944 onward?

Politics. Eisenhower wanted to bypass Paris to avoid having to supply
it, but political considerations overrid him.

The US got off lightly in WWII, compared to most of the European
participants.

That isn't an answer.

However, if you're going to talk about US deaths in WWII, you do have
to bear that in mind.

So?

I said opportunities *in* WW2 to save lives. Not opportunities *before* WW2.

So?

And the fact that opportunities were missed earlier heighten rather than
diminish the need to seize later opportunities. Is losing a thousand dollars
on Monday a reason to throw away 10 dollars on Friday?

You said that Auschwitz was one of the largest missed opportunities to
save lives in the war. I gave you missed opportunities that cost
far more lives, possibly in the millions.

(snip completely irrelevant examples of missed opportunities)

Irrelevant for what reason?

Military decisions in plenty.

Such as? Given that Western military and civilian casualty numbers in WW2
were measured in the tens of thousands,

There was this large country to the east of Germany. It was called
the Soviet Union. Some 11 million Soviet servicemen died in the war,
and many millions of civilians more.

I happen to consider that each Soviet citizen had a right to live as
much as any Westerner. If you differ, please say so.

it would be an extraordinarily
gifted general that could save tens of thousands by better decision-making.
Cancelling the entire strategic bombing campaign, for example, could only
save some 40,000 lives.

However, finding a way to reduce the Soviet military deaths by 1%
would save about a hundred thousand deaths. That's a very small
proportion, but a lot more lives than you were talking about.

In the meantime, we must remember that
bombing the death camp had the potential of losing more lives than it
gained.

In your opinion. The facts say otherwise. Even if the bombing killed 10,000
people, that's the equivalent of *one day's* gas chamber use.

If the resources were diverted from winning the war, and the Soviets
took a few percent more casualties, that bombing could easily lose
more lives than it gained.

Since the effect of strategic bombing was to weaken Germany's ability
to fight, it seems reasonable that reducing it would have increased
Germany's ability to fight on all fronts. The number of Western lives
that a significant diversion would have cost is probably not all that
large, but the potential number of Soviet lives lost is far higher.



--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
david@xxxxxxxxxxxx | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: sailor passed peacefully this afternoon
    ... their lives previous to their deaths that does that. ... Getting through Hell and returning home are necessary--but not ... All times need heros and heros come forth. ...
    (alt.gathering.rainbow)
  • Re: sailor passed peacefully this afternoon
    ... their lives previous to their deaths that does that. ... Getting through Hell and returning home are necessary--but not ... All times need heros and heros come forth. ...
    (alt.gathering.rainbow)
  • Joy of Giving
    ... More than a year and a half has passed since the deaths of Mother ... their lives remain clear in our memory. ... and all those we meet will gratefully accept our gifts. ... The deaths of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana remind us of our own ...
    (soc.culture.filipino)
  • Joy of Giving
    ... More than a year and a half has passed since the deaths of Mother ... their lives remain clear in our memory. ... and all those we meet will gratefully accept our gifts. ... The deaths of Mother Teresa and Princess Diana remind us of our own ...
    (soc.culture.filipino)
  • Re: Deadliness in the deep - thank you US Navy
    ... >> endangered their lives, because the bombing might yet slow down the ... Just what everyone else has been saying. ... Just leave the bombing to us, ... >>>train to Auschwitz to be stopped anywhere in Europe. ...
    (rec.scuba)