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Old July 15th, 2007, 04:38 AM
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Friedrich Friedrich is offline
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Default Re: Bombing of Auschwitz

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I doubt that the allies knew how many people were killed every day.
Well, the British certainly knew... British Intelligence in the Middle East were in contact with Rudolf Kastner, the head of the Aid and Rescue Comettee, in 1944. He very well knew the number of people being deported every day from Hungary.

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But surely, all the camps would have had to be destroyed ?
Well, maybe not all the camps... Some had been already dismantled, like Chelmno. But Auschwitz was by far the largest (in every aspect) and the most visible, since it was not hidden in the woods.

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When the allies bombed the factories , the Nazis built new facilities , they would have done the same with death camps and they might even have used have used human shields too.
Yes, but it may have had an impact. The Final Solution was not going as planne: it was not working as rapidly as it should have, and the Germans were facing growing numerous practical problems about it. The amount of improvisation and test/error methods they were implementing was huge. A severe disruption of the Birkenau complex could have temporarily stopped deportations from Hungary, by example.

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It's also quite flattering to Bomber Command to assume that they could hit the crematoria or railroads by night in late '43/early '44.
Who said by night? The Buna at Monowitz was bombed by the USAF in day-light. There is even a photograph, taken during the mission by a B-17, of Birkenau: you can bloody see the crematoria's chimenney, for God's sake!

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Agreed, by early 1945 Bomber Command would have had the operational capability to 'do a Dresden' on Auschwitz, but would it have been worth it by that stage ?
No, since Auschwitz was 'shut down' on December and liberated by the Red Army on January 27th.
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