Re: USA spies in Germany and Holocaust

Andrew Clark wrote :

I am answering Louis' post about the rail bombing points,

I seem to have missed that post. Would you care to either repost or
provide a link to the relevant message?

I'd be interested in understanding what, where and when the Allied air
forces based in Italy should strike to disrupt the transport of Jews to
their death. If all you have is Gilbert's sentence that you already
quoted, please confirm it so that we know where we stand.

I found the following link on the topic:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/aubombtoc.html

The arguments are the same as yours about the Germans not being able to
cope with destruction of their mass-murder capability (e.g. the two
largest crematoria), but they are far weaker about the actual Allied
ability to hit anything significant. In particular, there's the usual
confusion between bombing "in 1944" and examples from
September-December 1944.

(snip)
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.

Many among the Hungarian Jews were too old, too young or too sick to
work, and these made up a large proportion of those who were killed
outright on arrival.

Then there were the regular murders e.g. in the Auschwitz subsidiary
work camps, SS supervisors would come in and select those deemed unfit
to work any longer for killing at Birkenau.

What I'm aiming at is that even when murder through work was
substituted to outright genocide, the work camps incorporated a
significant killing element and there was a substantial killing
capacity available in the system. As an example, Birkenau switched from
Bunker I & II to the larger Crematorium II to V, though Bunker II was
brought back online when the afflux of Hungarian Jews called for the
additional capacity.

I suppose that the same could have been applicable to other gas
chambers, perhaps the one at Auschwitz I? Then there were other
camps... All in all, I don't have a chart with total gas chamber
capacity versus used capacity throughout those years, but I suspect as
with the Bunker II example above as well as the 1945 experience that
some of the killing apparatus simply went unused as opposed to being
actually dismantled, and therefore that ways could have been found to
increase the killings.

The killing of the Hungarian Jews was *not* a project sanctioned by Himmler
or the SS leadership.

But I suppose that the crackdown on the remaining 170,000 Jews was? So
why was Himmler opposed to the killing of the Hungarian Jews? If it was
because of manpower requirements, does this mean that they were all
working for the Reich from their Hungarian camps?

In such a case, Hoess could presumably have made his case later on,
when the Soviets closed on Budapest?

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.

This sounds like a lot, given that the total Auschwitz population seems
to have peaked at something like 105,000. If "the camp area" includes
the subsidiary camps, including relatively open places like Rajsko and
Gleiwitz, then large numbers of laborers leaving their workplace
(though not leaving the camp itself) are possible.

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.

Please note however that there was very little empty area in Auschwitz
II which is what concerns us here. The other two camps and subsidiaries
involved marching up to a few miles to work but Birkenau, though it was
the largest of the three camps, actually consisted of an enclosed and
relatively crowded area. So if bombs had hit the camp, I'm far from
optimistic about the opportunity to avoid casualties - not to mention
the fact that the inmates would now have to sleep in the open until
their huts had been rebuilt: more deaths.

Thirdly, the Auschwitz region was made up mainly of soft sandy soil, ideal
for absorbing bomb blast.

....so this makes protecting the gas chamber complexes easier: erect
thick earthwalls all around them, and they will be safe from near
misses as well as from concussion. Only direct hits will damage them,
and these would require numerous attacks to achieve, with attendant
casualties among the camp inmates.

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.

The way I understand it, there were no "open areas" in Birkenau, the
camp was compartmented into several areas, each one with a barbed wire
fence. So flight would have cost wounded and have been slow, by which
time various fragments would be in the air.

Some of the population would be out to work, and presumably in less
vulnerable positions depending on their assignments. That would still
leave a lot of people stuck in Auschwitz II.

(snip)
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.
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.

I'm confident that Zyklon B production was higher than that, you may be
referring to the SS quota, or production from SS companies. For
example, the French industry continued to produce the stuff right into
1944.

(snip)
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.

Geoffrey is I believe assuming that the Allies wouldn't hit the gas
chambers on their first try, an assumption which I think is very solid
considering the track record of Allied air attacks up to mid-44,
particularly at that range.

Building earthworks is an easy way to protect valuable installations,
particularly when the ground is otherwise a good shock-absorber. All it
takes is manpower, which the SS would have a-plenty (and could easily
get more of since as you pointed out Hoess was not the one asking for
more Jews).

(snip)
Thirdly, moving the hundreds of tons of corpses generated by each gas
chamber cycle was not a trivial handling issue.

I seem to remember that the big gas chambers had a capacity of some
4,200 people, times 75kg (a generous average) is 315 tonnes. On the
other hand, it's not one object weighting 300 tons, but a continuous
flow, so this would be like grain elevators or other agricultural
machinery.

Not trivial, but not rocket science either.

(snip again about a direct hit being difficult to fix)

Fourthly, as you have pointed out, incineration of the bodies is a key
problem, albeit one relatively easily solved through burning. 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.

Actually, military experience is that taking out a relatively small
target like a tanker truck is difficult for a conventional bomber to
do, and that simply digging in a pit for the tank would be excellent
protection, requiring a direct hit for damage.

(snip)
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.

What I don't understand here is why the German response is so
important. Assuming the Germans don't deploy heavy AA assets around
Auschwitz, so what?

They are going to have the same kind of repair capacity as historically
exhibited at synthetic oil plants - in fact, they will probably get at
least smoke screens given how close a critical target like the Buna IG
Farben plant was to Monowicz - since that basically consisted of heaps
of conscripted laborers. If Hoess needs thousands of workers in a pinch
to replace losses plus some "spares" to build additional earthworks and
dig pits, he has a ready supply source...

(snip)
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.

So what?

In October 1944, inmates revolted and burnt two of the large
crematorium, which is what ultimately prompted the order to close down
the gas chambers. Even then, all the "rebels" were duly executed, as
well as the women who had smuggled explosives to them. Auschwitz
population was down to 65,000 or so in January 1945 compared to 105,000
in August 1944, so the capacity was there to house an additional
40,000. Assume the historical amount of food, and the death toll
mechanically rises from starvation, exposure and associated diseases.

(snip)
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.

I've read and heard plenty of testimonies to the effect that some of
the people were dying en route to concentration camps (how many is hard
to tell, certainly a minority) with a significant fraction being
significantly weakened.

People at the time had not had the benefit of survival courses and/or
Internet access, so just one testimony of "don't drink your urine, it's
salty and you're even more thirsty afterwards" would be enough to stop
the practice - or considerably delay it.

Finally, there's the fact that the people being sent to concentration
camps were rarely very fit by today's standards.

(snip)
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.

Thanks for the figure, I'm surprised at how big that it is. Off the top
of my head, we have some 420,000 Hungarian Jews moved to Auschwitz,
plus the destruction of various ghettoes, call it some 600,000 Jews
sent to Auschwitz for extermination in 1944. You are saying that as
many as 18,000 escaped?

Then we have other deportations e.g. large movements from France and
Italy in 1944. All in all, this seems like a large number of people to
escape. I wonder how the figure was calculated. Please note that there
are several cases of dead bodies being dumped during intermediate stops
(when the doors were opened to provide a little food and water to the
inmates), which might be part of that ratio.

(snip)
The process of closing down Auschwitz began 51 days (less than two months)
after the last Hungarian transport arrived.

Auschwitz gas chambers were closed down in November 1944, and the camp
wasn only abandoned in January 1945. I thought that the last large
arrival of Hungarians was in July? This is 4 months, not 51 days.

(snip)
No, you have missed the point entirely. 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.

The latest issue that he raised was that it was becoming kind of
difficult to keep track of your argument.

While I've learned all sorts of interesting things about the Hungarian
Jews and refreshed my memory tremendously about the details of gas
chambers and layout of the various Auschwitz camps, I'm still confused
about what exactly you were arguing. Is it:

1. That the Allies could have saved lives and deliberately ignored
information to that effect that was available to them at the time?

or

2. That the Allies made a reasonable decision based on what information
was available to them, though with hindsight it turned out to have been
a mistake?

In either case, what is dearly missing is a more detailed case of what
the Allies could have done, when, for how long, against what targets
and with what. So far, all that has been brought up have been vague
statements about obvious chokepoints in the German railways network in
Yugoslavia, which are irrelevant, as well as detailed information about
how difficult to cope with a direct hit on a gas chamber would have
been - which is very relevant but ignores how many bombs it took to
achieve such a hit.

Have you any evidence that the RAF or USAAF
concluded that they *couldn't* bomb Auschwitz's gas chambers?

<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/wjcbomb.html>
<http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/mccloyreply.html>

I quote from the second link:
"The Operation Staff of the War Department has given careful
consideration to your suggestion that the bombing of these camps be
undertaken. In consideration of this proposal the following points were
brought out:

a. Positive destruction of these camps would necessitate precision
bombing, employing heavy or medium bombardment, or attack by low flying
or dive bombing aircraft, preferably the latter.

b. The target is beyond the maximum range of medium bombardment, dive
bombers and fighter bombers located in United Kingdom, France or Italy.


c. Use of heavy bombardment from United Kingdom bases would necessitate
a hazardous round trip flight unescorted of approximately 2,000 miles
over enemy territory.

d. At the present critical stage of the war in Europe, our strategic
air forces are engaged in the destruction of industrial target systems
vital to the dwindling war potential of the enemy, from which they
should not be diverted. The positive solution to this problem is the
earliest possible victory over Germany, to which end we should exert
our entire means.

e. This case does not at all parallel the Amiens mission because of the
location of the concentration and extermination camps and the resulting
difficulties encountered in attempting to carry out the proposed
bombing.

Based on the above, as well as the most uncertain, if not dangerous
effect such a bombing would have on the object to be attained, the War
Department has felt that it should not, at least for the present,
undertake these operations.

I know that you have been reluctant to press this activity on the War
Department. We have been pressed strongly from other quarters, however,
and have taken the best military opinion on its feasibility, and we
believe the above conclusion is a sound one.

Sincerely,

John McCloy
Assistant Secretary of War "

From another page of the same site: "Both the British Secretary of
State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair, and the U.S. Assistant Secretary
of War, John McCloy, concluded Auschwitz could not be bombed."

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...

I'd be interested in what exactly the rationale is. It does look like
the USAAF believed that there was more redundancy in the German
mass-killing system than you know it to have been the case.

This would make a distinction between whether "that decision was wrong"
is to be assessed with or without the use of hindsight.


LC

.

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