Re: USA spies in Germany and Holocaust
- From: "Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 15:21:08 -0400
"Andrew Clark" <aclark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:TPidnT_T1I8LSEHZnZ2dnUVZ8tSdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
I am answering Louis' post about the rail bombing points, and to avoid
duplication I am not addressing the same issues here.
I presume the rest of the post will be as bad as the above statement,
the reply to Louis talks about how some rail cars have weak or
weakened construction, therefore they are easy to escape from.
Zero mention of the fact the rail lines used were in Hungary and points
north, not Yugoslavia, zero mention of the actual results of allied
bombings of rail systems, in Italy, France and then Germany, zero
mention of the continual effort needed to shut down a rail network.
I presume, given steam trains had to make frequent and extended stops
for water and more coal, that the trains carrying prisoners lost a large
number of prisoners on the way.
Instead of the "I estimate" how about some idea of the figures?
After all presumably the SS counted people on and off trains.
Sigh.
Adolf, if we make it hard for the allies to bomb Auschwitz they will
have to divert effort from other targets like oil.
As a bonus the allies are killing large numbers of prisoners there
as they try and bomb the place.
Can we have some resources to continue this win win situation?
In the mean time a relatively small effort can be mounted to create
another gas chamber and crematoria complex.
Sigh.
You clearly have no idea about the politics going on within the SS and the
Nazi command in 1944, and you clearly haven't read my post.
1) I note that my point about setting up another gas chamber and crematoria
complex is ignored, instead we segue to the politics of the SS.
2) The post in question is long on assertion and short on evidence.
3) The fact the allies bombing Auschwitz is a win win for the Nazis is
being ignored.
Briefly: there had always been a substantial body of opinion inside the
NSDAP and German state which was against killing the Jews, not because they
valued them but because they valued their labour.
This still leaves large numbers of Hungarian Jews who are too young,
too old or sick.
The debate between these factions wavered back and forth over the war years
but by late 1943 the genocide - in the sense of deliberate racial murder
for its own sake - was firmly off the agenda, officially, by Himmler's
written order with Hitler's consent. The death camps closed and were
converted or destroyed, the Jews went to
labour rather than gas chambers and the destruction of the evidence of a
failed attempt at genocide began.
Except gas chambers were operating around the various camps, the
dedicated extermination camps were largely shut down, but the other
camps had their killing capacity.
If Wikipedia can be considered correct gassings at Stutthof did not
start until June 1944. The chamber held 150 people so mobile gas
wagons were used. The chamber and crematoria were built in 1943/44.
The killing of the Hungarian Jews was *not* a project sanctioned by
Himmler
or the SS leadership. It was one carried out on their own authority by
Kaltenbrunner and his small team in the RHSA, against orders. They got
away
with it because they managed to carry off the whole project very quickly,
very efficiently - in particular without using many resources - and
without
drawing particular attention to what they were doing. Change those
parameters, and the entire project becomes an administrative bleeding
wound - something which Kaltenbrunner and Eichmann would have *not*
been able to carry off.
Rail lines are not the resources in question, the allocation of trains and
that does not change unless the allies destroy a significant amount of
rolling stock. After all by the third quarter of 1944 the Hungarian
economy was in trouble given how much of the country was captured
by the Red Army. So the rail capacity allocated to the economy was
becoming available.
You have to fundamentally rethink your assumption that the German response
in 1944 to halt the killing of the Hungarian Jews would be the same as the
German response in 1941-43. In fact, your suggestions are glib and fly in
the face of the facts. Go read some Holocaust history.
I really like the glib assumptions claim.
Now try a reality check, if the Germans keep killing people at Auschwitz
the bombs dropping there are not dropping on other targets, mainly the
military targets the 15th Air Force attacked historically.
In addition the bombings would result in large numbers of prisoners
being killed.
But the idea is if the allies start this bombing the Nazis from Hitler down
will realise this is the wrong thing to do and stop the killings, allowing
the allied bombers back to targets that were hurting the German war
effort.
Care to actually explain why the Nazis would do this?
And for that matter build or reopen other facilities in the hope the
allies will bomb them as well?
The inmates had no air raid shelters.
The book Downfall notes the 5th April 1943 strike on Antwerp,
104 B-17s of which 82 were rated as effective, dropping 383 1,000
pound bombs on the Antwerp industrial area as the primary target,
936 civilians killed. That works out at 4.9 deaths per short ton of
bombs dropped. Ten thousand deaths at this rate is around 2,000
tons of bombs or around 400 to 500 heavy bomber sorties.
There are two factors in play here,
1) There is a good chance many civilians presumed the bombers
were going somewhere else and so did not take cover, this would
push the death toll up.
2) The USAAF was under strict instructions to only attack clearly
identified targets in the low countries, which meant attacking in
the best weather. This would push the death toll down.
Do not be so sure about how many inmates would be killed,
given the SS would be quite happy for the allies to help the
killings and make sure the prisoners have no shelter. There
would be little medical aid for the wounded.
The issue is rather more complicated than that.
Firstly, when camps were bombed, the guards took to their shelters - at
Auschwitz III, over 52,000 labourers left the camp area when the USAAF
attacked. The inmates were not passive prisoners.
Is the idea 52,000 labourers escaped? Or are these the workers from the
various industrial plants the USAAF attacked.
Secondly, inmates in all camps attacked or threatened with attack from the
air tended to leave their huts (helped by the absence of guards) and run
to
open areas, where they lie down - this behaviour is seen from Auschwitz I
and II to western POW camps. This is far safer behaviour than remaining
huddled in large masses within timber buildings which turn into flying
splinters when hit.
Now note if the allies become predictable the SS can shut the prisoners
in the huts after the raids are detected. Also frequent raids would make
it viable to build the bunkers needed to ensure guards can continue
to work through the raids.
Thirdly, the Auschwitz region was made up mainly of soft sandy soil, ideal
for absorbing bomb blast.
So in other words the allied bombings would be even less effective
than those against the average factory in Germany?
An attack on Auschwitz II, based on what happened at other camps, would
likely lead to mass panic on the part of the inmates, a flight into the
open
areas, and hundreds of deaths of those unfortunate to be lying
under a bomb when it hit. The scenario in which bombs shred huts
packed with thousands of inmates, all of whom die, is the *least* likely.
Given the number of raids on the camps the reality is the few that
were done, basically by accident, resulted in the above effects.
Now consider the results if the allies mount a series of raids and the
Nazis think through their defences, like they did for the oil plants.
See the death toll for the air raid on Holland I mentioned.
This is a false comparison since it assumes the allies could stop
the operation of the gas chambers.
As opposed to the number of inmates killed versus the number
saved for a time when the chambers and crematoria could not
operate at full capacity.
See below.
No there is no answer below.
And, remember, destroying the chambers is not necessary: the shortage of
specialist spare parts and of Cyclone B meant that even trivial damage
ran
a high risk of stopping gas chamber use.
Zyklon B? Well known and used as a delousing agent. Needed in
much higher concentrations to kill infestations in clothing thanks to
the way insects breath. The delousing stuff comes with an irritant
or smell to warn the humans, since they are killed by much lower
concentrations. The SS version dispensed with the warning.
Again, this is naive.
No this is factual, the reason the gas was chosen comes down to the
fact it was in production and use, at much higher concentrations, as
an insecticide. It was a known product with known handling protocols.
That made it quite suitable.
Tesch and Stabenow produced some 50 tons of Zyklon B per year in
1942-43, at
least 45 tons and perhaps as much as 48 tons of which was used for murder
in
the death camps. In December 1943, with the closure of the death camps,
the
state order was revised downward to 2 tons for 1944 and 3 for 1945.
links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8723(199603)82%3A4%3C1505%3A%22OAMFW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5
Production of Zyklon B in short tons,
1940 242
1942 321
1943 411
1944 231
I presume the small figures being presented are the special SS orders
without the warning agents.
Furthermore not all the gas chambers were closed.
This amount tallies, for example, with the military order of less than
half
a ton on 3 January 1944 for the use of all Wehrmacht units north of the
Elbe.
North of the Elbe? Is this meant to be a joke?
The idea that Wehrmacht units in garrison in northern Germany and
Denmark normally need lots of insecticides is supposed to be credible?
How about the clothing treatment areas, where the clothing troops
have been wearing in combat are deloused. How about civilian
delousing services? Think Typhus.
Auschwitz II then ordered 8 tons of Zyklon B in March 1944: an order which
could not be fulfilled. Eichmann had to send men in trucks around to the
camps all over eastern Europe to make up the deficit. Had the stockpile of
tins at Auschwitz II been hit (and they were kept in open wooden
shelters),
replacement would have been very hard to find.
Try replacement by the SS special mix gas would have been a problem,
assuming the above low production figures are correct.
And the many times "trivial damage" is trotted out as all that would
be needed, since the Germans could not somehow work around the
shortage, of ball bearings, Molybdenum, etc etc.
The SS had plenty of labour close by to build protective earthworks.
This is naive. The gas chamber complexes were sophisticated production
lines
requiring sophisticated machinery.
You mean like oil plants, aircraft assembly plants etc?
For a start, the construction method had to be very robust, because large
numbers of people desperate to escape death exert a lot of force.
So the chambers are quite blast resistant sitting in that blast absorbent
soil, right?
People
tunnel out of earthworks and break down brick walls, for example (they
did,
in experiments), and the gas escapes with them.
The earthworks are to protect the important infrastructure from bombs.
Like the oil plants in Germany for example.
So walls had to be of robust
brick and concrete. Now, there is no question that the SS could repair
brick
and concrete walls quickly and efficiently. But it takes time - the drying
time for mortar and concrete is a key factor. The SS had 51 days, and
every
day that a gas chamber was out of action for repairs and drying time meant
the backlog grew by around 10,000.
Auschwitz as a death camp was shut down in November 1944.
The SS had longer the 51 days. The gas chambers ran below
capacity for around a month before they were shut down.
Secondly, doors and hatches had to be reinforced, too, and also gas proof,
otherwise the SS guards would not operate them (check out the 'strike' by
SS
officers at some of the early gas killing experiments).
Gas masks.
Making big (they had
to be big to admit thousands of people quickly), gasproof and extremely
strong doors is not a trivial matter - in fact several prototypes were
tried
before the final version was authorised. As I have already pointed out,
the
RHSA had precisely one spare door in hand in 1944, and no way of
constructing another. So we are looking at workarounds and experiments -
and
all the time the clock is ticking.
Big tough doors on big tough walls require big tough bombs to hit
them. In all the allied bombings of German oil plants only 1 or 2 of
the plants lost key machinery that meant the site was effectively
abandoned.
Secondly, the gas chambers had to have a very large and efficient
mechanical
ventilation plant, because otherwise the gas remained within the chamber
and
prevented its emptying.
Gas masks. Sonderkommando are expendable.
The plant was based on that used on U-boats - one of
the first gas experiments involved using a U-boat engine to generate CO
and
the engineering team carried on the analogy. But, unlike a U-boat, the
plant
was not designed to resist attack - there was no redundancy of key routes
or
processes, for example.
So the idea is to use the U-boat systems in mass production for the
mass production U-boat fleet.
Neither was the plant in hardened underground
accommodation, but rather in plant rooms protected only by a timber
ceiling
and two feet of soft earth.
Which means they need to be better protected.
And, after the demolition of the gas chambers at
the Aktion Reinhardt camps in 1943, there was no longer a production line
delivering spare parts - Auschwitz II staff had to ring around the
warehouses to get enough parts to keep the chambers operating through 1944
in the first place.
Or alternatively take a plant from a U-boat.
At the risk of labouring the point, the SS had 51 days,
and every day that the highly vulnerable gas chamber ventilation plant was
out of action for of repairs meant the backlog grew by around 10,000.
The SS had more than 51 days, they had until November 1944, probably
December actually.
Thirdly, moving the hundreds of tons of corpses generated by each gas
chamber cycle was not a trivial handling issue.
Hundreds of tons? At 80 kg (180 pounds) per person there are 125 people
per ton times a hundred is 12,500 people per gas chamber cycle.
How come it was only 7,000 per day then? Using multiple gas chamber
cycles.
The chamber complexes at
Birkenau were mechanised, with moving roller belts, hydraulically-operated
lifts and other power handling machinery.
Think German factory.
All this machinery was not robust
against military attack - teams of inmates laboured constantly to keep it
in
working order
Think German factory. This is the point I am trying to make.
and Auschwitz II had to make many of its own spare parts and
workarounds to keep the system going in 1944, because the official support
contracts for the system had been discontinued. That process would have
been
far more difficult if the mechanical plant had also been damaged, or even
destroyed, by bombing.
Think the number of workers available in the camps. Think how many
reports were given to the allied air forces basically stating they could
cause irreparable damage against a specific target.
Fourthly, as you have pointed out, incineration of the bodies is a key
problem, albeit one relatively easily solved through burning.
The reality is it was not easily solved by burning, otherwise there
was no need for the crematoria.
The pits had to be dug, the bodies moved to them then accelerants
used to start the fires.
But even the
burning depended on tens of thousands of gallons of POL accelerants, which
all had to be shipped in to the camp by rail using tanker trucks and was
stockpiled in tanks protected only by a few feet of soil. Military
experience is that such tanks and trucks are particularly vulnerable to
air
attack.
Tens of thousands of gallons? There are around 300 British gallons
of motor fuel per long ton, 12,000 gallons would be 40 tons. Or a couple
of rail cars on a siding some distance from the camps.
Real big storage area.
I remain of the view, on the evidence, that relatively trivial bombing
damage could put a gas chamber out of use, for a few days or equally
possibly for a few weeks, or permanently. You need to justify why you
think
otherwise, given the above.
I suppose the effects of over a million tons of allied bombs dropped on
Germany may be mentioned at some stage. The way so much was repaired,
the way so many bombs missed. The way, since attacks on Auschwitz
did not happen, we have the problem of someone without any proof
demanding others disprove.
The way above we have the gas chambers as sturdy tough construction
in sandy soil but here they can be easily knocked out.
And of course the Nazis would not actually do things like use smaller
gas chambers that were harder to hit and easier to repair.
Try and understand where the bottlenecks were, this tells you
what is best to hit.
The disposal of the corpses from a massacre is one of the major
needs, large numbers of corpses unburied or not cremated means
disease, major disease. Not even the SS guards could escape
these effects.
The limiting factor at Auschwitz in 1944 was the crematoria capacity,
hence the burning of bodies in pits. A much more labour intensive
operation.
Your failure to realise this makes all your ideas about what could be
done
as suspect.
See above.
As far as I can tell see above, see below or see other post are ways
of not answering the question.
Your failure to realise the basic facts about the operation of a
death camp and a gas chamber complex makes your ideas naive.
There is not much to say when confronted with this level of denial.
The failure to realise basic facts shows this.
Try and look up the real effects of allied air raids.
Treblinka was no more than a forest clearing on a rail line.
Complete rubbish. Go look at
http://www.deathcamps.org/treblinka/pic/bmap9.jpg.
Note the complicated fenced layout, the extensive building complexes,
service buildings, petrol tanks, watchtowers...
By the way the scale of the map shows it is less than a square 500 by 400
metres in size. Basically a forest clearing in size.
My apologies for not putting in the "in size".
Auschwitz was big because it was labour camp, Treblinka killed almost
all new arrivals within hours.
The Treblinka gas chamber building was a large multi-room strongly built
concrete and brick structure (at least to head height; the roof, however,
was only a light timber construction) with specially made iron doors,
designed to resemble a Jewish ritual bath house.
So the idea is the timber was air tight? So the SS could repair a chamber
roof with timber? The iron doors all that was needed?
Each chamber had a
specially-made folding gas tight rear door for corpse-removal access. The
complex incorporated a large petrol driven electrical generator and two
base-mounted diesel U-boat engines providing CO for the killing. There was
a major
ventilation plant installation to distribute and extract fumes. In short,
a
sophisticated industrial factory highly vulnerable to damage by bombing.
Quick, think ball bearings, molybdenum, etc. etc.
Note the need for fuel was decreased at Auschwitz because of the
use of Zyklon B.
In 1942 it was all new, no one had done this before, including the high
capacity crematoria. In 1944 the plans and techniques were known and
proven, that is one of the horrible legacies of the Nazis, industrialised
mass murder using minimum resources, plans now all ready for the next
dictator.
Yes, but irrelevant.
No, it is always easier to work off plans that to invent something.
Given the German response to the allied bombings the above is simply
wrong.
You seem to have insufficient knowledge to appreciate the difference
between the German response in 1944 to Allied bombing of essential
industries and plant and the likely German response to bombing of a death
camp in 1944 after the policy of extermination had been officially ended.
Go read some Holocaust history.
Go read some WWII history and get back to us is all I can say.
Try the USSBS and the BBSU for a start.
For someone trying to make the rail routes from Hungary to
Poland go via Yugoslavia some self awareness is in order.
Reading maps would be a good follow up.
Try and cope with the basic facts, the SS had lots of workers in the
camps, and any allied bombing of the death camps would relieve the
pressure elsewhere. This made repairing any damage worthwhile
and possible. Then add opening other death camps, even if only
to attract more bombs.
And the bombings would have to be sustained from around March
to November 1944 to keep Auschwitz below capacity.
The whole point of the complexes was to minimise the effort
needed to kill people than dispose of their bodies, there was nothing
magical about near airtight concrete buildings and nearby furnaces.
The main reason - in fact most current historians believe the overwhelming
reason - why the gas chambers were developed was not efficiency as such.
Note by the way my statement is not challenged, instead we have the
addition that the killing system minimised the impact on the killers.
Hitler's decision in 1940-41 to implement an actual policy of large scale
genocide in was based on euphoria at having, as he thought, won the
war and, at that time, the SS thought they had all the time in the world
to kill the 15 million Jews they thought they could obtain from Europe and
northern Africa. The gas chambers and the associated means were a response
to the psychological inability of the SS to carry through a policy of mass
murder based on contact killing - familial murder.
The whole point of the complexes was to minimise the effort
needed to kill people than dispose of their bodies, there was nothing
magical about near airtight concrete buildings and nearby furnaces.
If you had read research on this conducted in the last 15 years or so, you
would not be so glibly advocating a return to the killing methods
discontinued in 1942.
Now of course there will be some evidence produced that I am advocating
a return to the 1942 killing methods, in effect mainly shooting people on a
mass scale as opposed to things like the killings in the Baltic states as
the
Red Army closed in. Plus other ghettoes in the east.
Such evidence can be produced I trust? Or is it another invented fact?
And, as pointed out above, the gas chambers were much more than simple
concrete boxes. They were sophisticated industrial complexes packed with
vulnerable and essential machinery.
Think German factory. Think how many were destroyed by bombing.
There was a labour supply, ready to work, thanks to what you claim
were the SS techniques to inspire hope, or at least self delusion they
would not be killed if they followed orders.
This is broadly true. However, using slave labour is not as simple as it
seems: there is a complex and sensitive psychological mechanism regulating
the conduct of the overseers and the slaves. Most significantly, all
reports indicate that by late 1944 the SS had lost faith in ultimate
victory and this had coloured their attitude to their slaves; and the
slaves themselves were daring to hope of a German defeat and release from
bondage, and this too coloured their attitudes to their captors. The same
happened in western POW camps, of course.
And more diverted to repair work would mean more surviving for a
longer period of time.
The deadline is November/December 1944, when the Red Army came
too close. The gas chambers ran at near capacity until around the end
of September 1944.
This being true, it is simply not correct to talk of SS capabilities at
Auschwitz in summer 1944 using the parameters of 1941-43.
One day it will be noticed I have not referred to the SS parameters
for 1941 to 1943 and we have someone busy inventing what they
would prefer to respond to.
(snip bombing points)
Yet again facts that are inconvenient are removed. Here they are
again.
To add to my post the USSBS noted the effects of allied long
range fighters strafing trains, not bombing or rocketing them,
has a negligible effect on the German rail system.
Why is it the basic information on what the aircraft could do is
deleted?
So tell us what you thing the range of a P-47 with bombs is? How
about a P-51? The P-51 combat radius was rated at 450 miles on
internal fuel at 10,000 feet, clean. This dropped to 375 miles at 25,000
feet, in both cases with 269 gallons of fuel.
The P-47D combat radius was 225 miles at 25,000 feet clean, using 370
US gallons of fuel.
The P-38 with 410 gallons of fuel had a combat radius of 275 miles
at 25,000 feet. Note only the P-38J onwards had this much internal
fuel, earlier versions had 300 gallons.
The nominal range of the B-26 was 1,100 miles, the B-25 1,350 miles.
Divide by 3 to gain a rough idea of effective radius and expect to
round down when it comes to European operations.
Now tell us how long people last in the rail carriages without water.
Death from dehydration occurs from 3-21 days, depending on all sorts of
physical variables.
So crammed together in a carriage is how long? Given the excess heat
from the other bodies.
By the way note the claim about how the Nazis would have had to
stave people to death has been removed from this reply.
The average is around 9 days. Drinking urine and other
usually non-potable fluids (blood, for example) can extend that average to
14 days.
The whole point of cramming people together is to make it very hard
for them to do anything at all.
The RHSA historically moved the Jews to Auschwitz in 180 trains of
about 50 cars each, of which ten trains or so were on the move at any one
time. So, under your scenario, the RHSA is going to have to hold on to
*each
of 10 trains* for at least two weeks, then empty it out, return to
Hungary,
re-stock and repeat.
I like it so much, Andrew decides to claim the Nazis would have had
to starve people to death in the trains, then I point out denying them
water is a much quicker affair.
Then all of a sudden it is my scenario, after the absurd starvation
scenario is removed.
That's ten trains constituting 9000 trucks tied up for
over a year. In fact, the Russians will have occupied Hungary long before
the SS has even shifted the last contingents.
So I gather the idea is the SS had ten 50 carriage trains, which
ran the shuttle missions. So each train made around 18 round
trips. Should we say 12 trains to allow for one loading and one'
unloading, 15 trips per train, times 2 weeks is 30 weeks. Now
30 weeks from March 1944 is end September 1944.
Add 6 more trains for a safety margin.
Not a feasible scenario. As I have pointed out, the reason Kaltenbrunner
and
Eichmann planned to killed the Hungarian Jews on arrival at Auschwitz was
because that was the *only* option available to them.
No there were other options.
Amazing that so few people did so then.
Actually, escapes from rail trucks were quite common - the RHSA itself
calculated that it lost about 3% of inmates transported by train in 194,
despite strong guard contingents and a schedule deliberately
keeping the trucks continually on the move. Again, you need to do more
reading.
Steam trains stop on quite a regular basis.
What I like is I am supposed to do more reading but no reference is
given to where I could find the RHSA figure for the unknown year.
So the idea is 3% of the prisoners escaped successfully I presume.
Now tell us how active the average person is after 2 days without water.
That depends on the person. A large percentage will be perfectly capable
of
walking.
My comment by the way was to point out the difference between
staving someone and dehydrating them.
Sigh, amazing that the SS need a full dress prison, amazing that
any effort on their part has to be a maximum one.
Not at all. I built up the requirement logically, based on what the SS
actually had to do when constructing sites for killing tens of thousands
of
people. Unlike you, I have actually read some Holocaust history.
As far as I can tell you have claimed to have read much but leant
very little.
Logic that moves railways hundreds of miles, refuses to actually
look at allied air capabilities and bombing results is not logic. It
is a conclusion being made and then assertion made to fit.
No chance of a field position, some barbed wire and associated
field works around a couple of sidings, all the SS wanted is 7,000
deaths per day, 70 rail carriages times 100 people times 5 trains,
assuming it takes around 5 days to die of thirst. The more people
crammed together the quicker the deaths.
OK, let's go with this.
Firstly, you need sidings capable of taking the ten trains which
historically were on the move at any one time. That's 500 trucks - a
linear
length of somewhere around 8 miles. This needs to be somewhere that no
other
train will need to go. This rules out marshalling yards and so on.
Practically, the RHSA has no option but to use an unused branch line 8 or
so
miles long. Given the slow timescale of killing, and that the RHSA can't
requisition supplies to build facilities from scratch, the branch line has
to be near to a village or small town. This may be feasible.
There should be branch lines available.
Then the RHSA has to somehow obtain enough barbed wire to construct
an 18
mile long perimeter around the line. This will be around 16 miles long.
This
would be a major construction (remembering that barbed wire tangles have
to
be three or four thick to be at all effective) involving tons of wire and
posts. Landscaping, tree-felling and other ground works will almost
certainly be necessary to make the perimeter - requiring at the least hand
tools for the labour. So Kaltenbrunner and Eichmann have - without any
official authority outside the RHSA - requisition and transport many tons
of
material. This is almost certainly unfeasible, so the perimeter will have
to
remain open.
See the extra labour camps opened to take the new prisoners from
Hungary. After all it seems the Hungarians were in overall better
shape than those confined to the ghettos run by the Nazis.
Now, the RHSA had a transit guard force for the Hungarian deportations of
three battalions of troops, some 1500 men in total. Two were Waffen SS
battalions on temporary loan: they would be recalled by Waffen SS HQ
within
two months.
Of course the main transportation was done in 2 months. I like the
way the SS sticks to the historical time line even as other things change.
The remaining battalion was an SS-officered Ukrainian unit of
about 350 men, undisciplined but RHSA-owned. Another similar unit might
feasibly be obtained, total around 700 men to guard an open 16 mile
perimeter containing 10,000 desperate people.
Again see the labour camps being built or expanded.
Result: on the first night, hundreds, maybe thousands, take to their
heels
and flee. The guards shoot some, but it is dark and at one guard per 700
feet, stopping the flight is futile. This happens night after night for
the
first five days, at which point the healthy have gone and dehydration has
killed the rest. The word goes out to local antipartisan and police forces
that thousands of Jews are on the loose. This ties up SS and police forces
from all over the region. Word gets back to Himmler than Eichmann is
taking
Jews from secure Hungarian army camps against his express order and
effectively letting them go. Result: Himmler bans further deportations.
The conclusion being pushed is just about anything would cause the
senior Nazi leadership to stop the killings of the Hungarian Jews hence
the above paragraph.
It is impressive, given the protests that convinced the Hungarian
government to stop the transports, that Himmler did not know what
was going on.
As of 1 June 1944 the Reichsbahn had around 38,000 locomotives
and 990,000 waggons, to use the RAF figures and nomenclature.
In the whole of Europe. In the East, rail waggons are at a premium - you
have said so yourself in this NG. Losing 13% of waggons is a crippling
blow
to German logistics, and not one which OKH would ever accept simply to
allow Kaltenbrunner to run his own private genocide project.
Is the idea Kaltenbrunner was going to have the best part of 130,000
rail waggons? Just how many did he have at one time?
To kill people quickly deprive them of water.
Death from dehydration occurs from 3-21 days, depending on all sorts of
physical variables. The average is around 9 days. Drinking urine and other
usually non-potable fluids (blood, for example) can extend that average to
14 days. That's not quick.
And I repeat my point was to respond to a claim about staving the
prisoners to death.
From inside the trains, after a couple of days being deprived of water.
But the process starts the moment the train doors are locked. By the time
the train is stationary, the process is *complete* - long before
dehydration
has had time to affect more than the physically vulnerable like infants
and
the elderly. That's why every time a deportation train stopped, about 5%
of
the inmates tried to escape and the guards went on high alert against a
mass
break out.
So every water stop 1 in 20 of the prisoners tried to escape but overall
only 3% of the total prisoners managed to do so in whatever year of the
war the 3% figure comes from?
Now go back and do the calculation based on death from
dehydration.
See above.
I note by the way the original scenario that claimed it would be
starvation is simply erased.
Sigh, your entire answer ignores the point I make except for,
So you cut three paragraphs which taken as whole addressed this precise
point, leave one sentence devoid of its supporting reasoning, and parrot
your original claim. I'm presuming therefore that you have no argument.
Andrew, please note I came to the conclusion your paragraphs do not
support what you claim, they were repeated verbiage that simply
ignored the point I made.
So your presumption is incorrect.
What really has me laughing is that there were 3 paragraphs on the
claimed psychology of the situation, I dropped the first 2 and a
half, the text I did retain is deleted from this non reply.
Also I note the claim about the gas chambers needed to be screened
more at Birkenau than at Treblinka, which rather ignores the way
Treblinka was meant to kill almost all arrivals immediately, the Auschwitz
complex was also a labour camp. Treblinka was shut down in November
1943.
Everybody knew there was mass killings, there was no rebellion.
As long as they were the "others" in this case the Hungarians, being
killed then your answer simply shows it does not matter how they
were being killed.
The method of inflicting death on an actual individual does not actually
matter. The process of mass murder, which is a much wider issue, does
matter.
Your psychology remarks are actually disagreeing with your claims.
I'll make this brief: if the RHSA had dumped hundreds of thousands of Jews
in Auschwitz II, thereby completely overloading all the security and
control mechanisms designed to keep the camp under SS command, they would
have lost control of the camp *even if they were not seeking to kill those
Jews*. The fact that they were seeking to kill those Jews in a
particularly obvious way would accelerate and accentuate the process of
rebellion.
May 3, 1944: Auschwitz Region; The first of a number of new factories
open up in preparation to receive labourers from the deportation of
Hungarian Jews. New labour camp opens in Myslowice, Bobrek, and
Sosnoweic in preparation for the same action.
It would seem the lift was in the order of 12 to 15,000 people per
day during the time period, of which around half were killed
on arrival. This sounds about right given the mix of those being
deported, the men and women of working age would be sent to
the labour camps.
Seems the total prisoner transport for 15 to 31 May 1944 was 204,312.
By the way, in August 1944 the Lodz Ghetto was destroyed, some
67,000 people sent to Auschwitz.
In late September the Auschwitz gas chambers are operating well below
their capacity.
Seems there were plenty of death marches of mainly Jews from Hungary
in the final 3 or 4 months of 1944. One group had 9 survivors out of
5,000.
It seems at least some Hungarian Jews ended up in German as slave labour.
Now add there are quite horrible ways to die and rebels tend to
attract that sort of punishment, overlay this with the problem of
what happens next after an escape, could they survive or would
they be betrayed.
But this sort of scenario depends on maintaining control and discipline
within the camp, which requires physical sub-division of population groups
in order to allow a high local guard to inmate ratio. If you dump hundreds
of thousands of Jews in the camp and thereby overload all the security and
control mechanisms, you can't use these sorts of discipline methods.
See how the SS coped and note about half the prisoners were meant
to be killed, the others sent to labour camps.
As far as I can tell not all the Hungarian Jews were sent to the
Auschwitz complex.
Lack of water comes first. Allowing disease to take hold is slower
unless you deliberately introduce the really dangerous ones.
Exposure helps, think of all those Red Army PoWs killed in 1941.
Dehydration takes days if not weeks to kill and it is not practically
feasible without a great deal of preparation (which the RHSA could not do)
to simultaneously starve or dehydrate 440,000 people. That being the
case,
there simply was not enough time for the RHSA to kill more than a fraction
of the Hungarian Jews by dehydration.
Great deal of preparation? Not giving something takes preparation?
By the way the above list is assuming there are no other gas chambers
opened and all the existing chambers were running at capacity.
And the need was not for killing 440,000 people.
Exposure is a very slow killer - weeks usually. Again, the Heer in 1941
had
massive resources to employ on confining millions of POW for weeks until
they died.
Not really, that is why so many died. Lack of food, water and shelter.
In summer 1944, the RHSA did not have the resources or the time
to confine 440,000 people until they died of exposure.
As a simple question how many prisoners were the SS holding at
the time?
I suggest you try and come to terms with strawmen.
I clearly said "If you think...". That isn't erecting a strawman: it's
making an overt speculation about your thoughts.
The speculation was in error.
What happened to the Hungarian Fascists?
They did not have the manpower, organisation or indeed ideological
fanaticism to embark on genocide, especially when Germany was clearly
losing
the war. The Hungarian government and Army were willing to look the other
way and let Eichmann take away their Jews (somewhat like Vichy did with
so-called foreign Jews), but they were not willing at all to be direct
participants in mass murder.
Seen the difference after the Hungarian fascists took power?
The previous government responded to international pressure.
I suggest you stop inventing words for me.
It would probably help if you left my paragraphs intact.
That I really doubt.
Well having devoted so much time to what I never said is it
possible to simply reply properly to what I did say?
Your original statement:
I see the point I make is not addressed.
3) there are other methods to kill people over and above shooting,
and these do not involve sending people to Auschwitz. The
problem was disposal of the bodies, not killing.
See the thirteen paragraphs above addressing this specific issue. So far,
you have suggested shooting, starvation, dehydration and exposure as
alternative methods of killing the Hungarian Jews. None are feasible.
Andrew please show me where I suggested starving the
Hungarian Jews.
Please show me where I have suggested shooting them.
Please show me where I have suggested exposure beyond the
way it would help.
Please I suggested dehydration as a response to your absurd
starvation ideas.
"this late stage" is at least 7 months to around 14 months, in a war that
lasted, in Europe, 68 months.
The process of closing down Auschwitz began 51 days (less than two months)
after the last Hungarian transport arrived. The camp was abandoned not
long
afterward. Talking about the date of surrender of German forces is
pointless.
The gas chambers were under capacity for at least a month before they
were disassembled starting in early November 1944. They could have
operated for a couple more weeks if needed before the Red Army
arrived.
The last deportation of the bulk transport from Hungary left on
July 8 1944, some 4 months before Auschwitz shut down. There
were some smaller transports for a while. Meantime the gas
chambers were used to kill people from other parts of Europe, like
Greece, Italy and France.
Then in mid October 1944 the Hungarian fascists stage a successful
coup and the Nazis start to move against the 170,000 or so Hungarian
Jews still in Hungary.
And this rather ignores how many dies on the marches west and in
the western camps in the final months of the war.
Yes, The average death rate in the eastern marches was 28%. That's a lot
less than the 95% death rate imposed on the Hungarian Jews in Auschwitz.
It would seem the 95% death rate is for the entire war, not the period
of the summer of 1944 where around 50% appear to have been killed
rather than sent to a labour camp.
Amazing with presumably even fewer resources in 1945 the SS still
managed to march so many people so far with so few escapees.
You clearly have no detailed knowledge of the eastern marches.
Between 48 - 65% of those marched out of the camps in the East
westward evaded custody at some point. In the west, however, it
was much lower, around 15%.
Does the eastern figure include those the Red Army caught up with,
or those whose guards abandoned them?
Of course with plenty of deaths along the way.
during the marches was very low - normally the SS abandoned their chargesFrom all sorts of causes. The rate of those deliberately killed by the SS
to
their fate and then they died, something not helped by the Soviet
callousness to the fate of refugees and ex-prisoners.
So the idea is the escape rate is a function of whether the guards stayed?
Take a look at the Hungarian death marches since this is all about the
Hungarian Jews.
Another declaration of claimed facts with no support, as if the system
was some sort of high tech wonder and the inmates could not be used
to help run and repair it.
See above.
Above does not answer.
The chambers were basic air tight concrete structures, the killing agent
was chosen because it was in systematic production as a delousing agent,
the allies moved to DDT for this, the crematoria were high capacity (at
least for human bodies) furnaces.
See above.
Another way of avoiding a real answer.
Additionally, the crematoria used at the death camps were specifically
designed for the purpose. Normal crematoria take up to an hour to
completely
consume one body. The Auschwitz crematoria had high volume forced
ventilation to reduce that time to 18 minutes. That additional ventilation
plant was vulnerable to bombing and, without it, the furnaces would
function
far less efficiently.
Which again makes the point the crematoria were the weak link, given
they were unable to cope with the killings in mid 1944.
Like all those massively overcrowded camps stuffed full of prisoners
from the east the western allies uncovered in 1945? Take a look at the
deaths in those camps in the weeks before and after liberation.
The Germans had no control over those camps: they simply dumped
and left.
So is the claim all those prisoners from the east arrived in the western
camps a matter of hours or days before the allied troops liberated them?
There were prisoners coming into the western camps in early 1945.
To
ensure the Hungarian Jews died at Auschwitz II in the summer of 1944, they
had to maintain control for an extended period.
Which the did, including constructing extra work camps for the new
arrivals.
It was disease that killed nearly all the people in the western camps, eg
typhoid at Bergen-Belsen in the last month of the war.
So? How many revolts in the western camps?
Given how many revolts there were in the camps during the war the
SS afraid of too many prisoners line simply does not work.
Sez you.
Yes.
The actual history of the camp system suggests otherwise.
No.
The Germans suffered from frequent riots and inmate disturbances in
concentration camps in 1933-34, which is why Himmler brought in the
professionals from the German state prison service to lay down guidelines
for the SS to avoid that problem in the future.
So we have the situation in 1934 with an inexperienced guard force.
Penology is, after all, a well studied science. The SS then suffered from a
recurrence of riots and rebellions in their internment and POW camps in
Poland in 1939, which again were addressed by a joint SS-Heer task force
with involvement from the Heer POW specialists. As a result, strict
guidelines for running camps were laid down in manuals issued by RHSA,
policed by the Inspector-General of Concentration Camps.
And is there an idea these manuals were revised for death camps?
When individual SS men, officers and commandants broke these guidelines,
for example through arbitrary brutality which threatened the stability of
the camp, Himmler authorised disciplinary action.
rare. They made lots of money taking things from prisoners.From what the guards at Auschwitz report such discipline was
Himmler did not easily believe his "knights" were corrupt.
All this proved that while the SS were not "afraid of too many prisoners",
they were extremely careful to work within professional and scientific
penology guidelines.
And I repeat my point, how many revolts were there?
(snip bombing arguments and repetition)
They need to be repeated because they are basic facts and they
are continually removed rather than addressed.
So pick another target group, the 15th air force dropped around
303,000 short tons of bombs in WWII, 153,000 of this March to
September 1944 inclusive.
Give us your estimate of how much of this bomb tonnage would
need to be used against these new targets and then tell us what
targets could be spared. Note 13,600 tons of the 153,000 tons were
dropped on Yugoslavia in the given time period.
The allies dropped some 67,000 tons of bombs against French rail
centres plus another 6,000 tons of bombs on bridges, pre D-Day and
another 43,000 tons on choke points plus 24,000 tons on bridges
post D-Day. Total 140,000 tons, probably short tons. Plus the
fighter bomber attacks on trains.
This dropped the French rail network from peaks of near 26,000,000
ton kilometres in March 1944 to 4,000,000 ton kilometres by the end
of July 1944. With the regions closes to England suffering the
greater declines. So down to 15% capacity overall.
Just how much of the Hungarian rail capacity were the trains to
Auschwitz using? Given 320,000 people moved mid May to early
July 1944.
In the case of France total passenger trains halved, goods trains
were down to around a sixth, military trains to around two thirds
and through passenger trains to maybe a fifth of the peaks.
There is a lot of spare capacity in a rail network if you do not care
about the economy it is supposed to be serving. Pre attack goods
trains were around 19 out of the 26 million ton kilometres.
2) The "logical argument" falls flat on its face given the allied
capabilities in 1944.
I said:
1. "Even after mid-July, the gas chambers were still working and
thousands were losing their lives". That's true.
2. "And, while the SS could conceivably have killed the same numbers by
shooting, there is no solid evidence that they possessed the resources -
financial, material or moral - to do so". That's true.
3. "There is no logical argument for the Allies' washing their hands of
the need to bomb the gas chambers after July 1944". That's a logical
conclusion.
So what's your point? Are you saying the Allies *couldn't* bomb the
Auschwitz gas chambers after July 1944?
My but the retreat to motherhood statements is wonderful to watch.
So, tell me again about you not being condescending?
Accurate reporting is not condensation.
Note the missing key conclusion, the bombings would be effective.
That goes completely missing.
No, you have missed the point entirely.
No you have dropped the controversial claim from the above list.
The issue raised by David Thornley here was not whether the Allies could or
could not effectively attack the camps, but whether or not it was even
worth attempting to destroy the gas chambers after the Hungarian Jews had
arrived, on the grounds that the SS could kill the Jews anyway by other
methods.
I suggest you try and address my points instead of effectively changing
the goal posts.
And the SS could kill people by other methods, like other camps.
And the logical reason for not bombing the gas chambers is made
quite convincingly by the results of the investigations into what
the allied airpower actually did plus the capabilities the allies
actually
had in 1944.
It does not seem reasonable to expect the Allies to have the benefit of
post-war analysis in making their contemporary plans about what could or
could not be effectively bombed.
However throughout the great they could claims we have all sorts
of claims about how vulnerable the camps were.
As we know, the Allies, and the USAAF in particular, during WW2
consistently thought their capabilities were much higher than they really
were.
Ever considered what this would mean to the effective damage they
would cause to the gas chambers? Like over estimating the damage
and allowing the camps to resume without further bombings?
One great breakthrough in the oil plan was the decision to bomb
plant continually even if they shoed no signs of being in operation.
An extravagant use of power and the plants still often managed
a few days at least of production before being hit again.
Have you any evidence that the RAF or USAAF concluded that they *couldn't*
bomb Auschwitz's gas chambers?
Oh they could bomb the gas chambers, they had the bombers with
the range. The question is how effectively. The answer, using the
results of the raids on Germany and elsewhere is not effective
enough unless there was major commitment and even then the SS
had alternatives, like other gas chambers.
What I like is yet again the person making the alternative history
claims has no evidence (because the events did not happen) but
demands evidence from others.
It will be interesting to see that evidence, because Gilbert prints
extracts from US documents which say that while the USAAF thought it could
destroy the gas chambers at Auschwitz, it should not do so because the best
way to save Jews was to win the war quickly, by continuing to bomb
battlefield targets and oil plants and aircraft factories instead. That
decision was wrong, which is where this whole thread started...
The decision was right and no amount of assertion is going to change
that fact.
Similar for attacks on the Balkan rail network.
Again, Gilbert prints extracts from documents which say that while the RAF
in Italy thought it could disrupt the rail net from Hungary to Auschwitz,
it should not do so because the best way to save Jews was to win the war
quickly by continuing to support 5th AF, the partisans and 8th and 5th
Armies in Italy. That decision was also wrong, which is where this whole
thread started...
The decision was right and no amount of assertion is going to change
that fact.
I presume this is the rail network that runs via Yugoslavia, not the one
that goes direct?
That alone should ring the alarm bells. However we simply have the
assertion the allies could have shut down the relevant rail network
so well that 180 trains could not have been run.
Now go take a look at the results in France Italy and Germany and
understand it is a pipe dream.
After all the point does not help the claims.
You are far too keen to accuse others of dishonest debating styles.
I prefer to call it accurate reporting.
It was a tangential point in a very long post; I overtly cut it. You have
done precisely the same on several occasions.
Then we disagree on what are tangential points.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
.
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