What with? Heavy bombers - like at Peenemunde where slaves at Trassenheide were bombed? think of the peopaganda gift to Goebbels - luftgangsters killing our 'Jewish inmates of a work camp' or perhaps 'here's evidence that the 'Jewish world conspiracy' is at work favouring European Jews at the expense of Gentiles'.

Mosquitos? The only ones in range were in Italy - 40-odd night fighters and reconnaissance versions.

If a precision day raid by Mossies succeeded what would be the effect? Consider the purpose of the extermination-on-arrival practice from the point of view of the Jews who WEREN'T murdered. What were they for? Labour in Germany's war economy. Would the Germans have stopped murdering the 'useless mouths' because the principal means had been bombed? I doubt it since the removal of the people with no labour power was part of what made the labour power of those not murdered immediately usable - rations, accommodation and guards were not available so an ad hoc method would have been used, less 'efficient' certainly but the economic machine depended on slaves so a way would have been found to keep it going.

Token gesture; a bombing to show the world that the Allies 'cared'. Rather contemptible to make a futile effort for a headline methinks.

The photograph - was that the one taken in 1944 and developed in 1978?

On the whole I don't know what more the Allies could have done if they wanted to. Prejudice against Jews in the Allies' leadership, whilst despicable, seems to me to have no influence on the objective constraints listed above.

Bear in mind as well that some 'Jews' in Palestine (like the odious deserter Menachem Begin) were fighting a dirty war against the British and made at least one attempt to deal with Hitler. Perhaps any act to help Jews per se had the potential to rebound?

Saw a document on ostfront awhile ago and it showed the main railway lines going to the front in 1944. Auschwitz area was a very important railway yard area, with the camp "in the middle" of the yard. The southern part of front was covered by a railway line through Auschwitz area, the northern section through another making it two MAIN lines supplying the whole front, at least in the area of Western Poland after which they divided to smaller lines.

Unfortunately could not find anything maps etc in the net and the one good site was this:

Deutsche Reichsbahn - The German State Railway in WWII

Also the fact that important war machinery etc was built at the camp(s) means the railway lines would be going close-by.

http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/200...z-environs.png

Just wondered if anyone knows where to find a railway map of the German lines in the east 1944 and how many lines truly go through Auschwitz. I mean it would be no I target in that case even without the camp in my list if it was an important section and a possible bottle-neck for frontline supplies.

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i'd like to add another motivation in favour of bombing the camp:

if the allies had bombed aschwitz then all the nazis involved in the industrial extermination process would have got a clear message from the allies: "we KNOW what you are doing and when it's all over you will be accountable for this"

On the contrary, the fact that no military action was ever taken against any extermination camp made many nazis think that the allies ignore what was going on. Many people working in death camps felt somehow safe, far away from war front, just waiting for the end of the war. they believed that dismatelling the camp a few weeks before the allies arrival would be enough to hide everything.

I heard this argument when i visited the camp, actually i never thought about it earlier.

Btw, I strongly suggest everyone to visit the aschwittz/birkenau camp. For european people it's very easy and cheap. just take a low cost flight to krakow (skyeurope).

Auschwitz is really impressive, the explanations are good and you learn about everyday life in the camp, including the life of the nazis there. But when you move to birkenau the effetct will be even worse, even though in birkenau there is hardly nothing left, just the railway and a few barracks (here is better to hire a guide). What really strucks you is the vastness of the camp, it's huge, enourmous. being there and figure out the death-factory fully working is something rather disturbing.

PS: when your visit is over ther's only one way to reconciliate yourself with mandkind: enjoying krakow nightlife!! girls there will make you forget all the horror you saw before

well, at least for one night........

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If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons
- Winston Churchill

I'm sure the inmates would enjoy the initiative immensely!

Gen. Ira Eaker or whoever would be the 8th Air Force Commander at the time would immediately be nominated another Righteous Among the Nations.

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Bah!

~~~~~no military action was ever taken against any extermination camp~~~~~

Really? I recall Primo Levi describling the arrival of the Red Army!

Wouldn't it have just been easier to say directly to them, instead of killing the innocents by bombings, "we KNOW what you are doing and when it's all over you will be accountable for this? Saying it directly is not ambiguous and leaves no wiggle room for the Germans to say, "Hey, look, even the Brits and the Amis want the Jews dead, they're bombing them for us."

I just fail to see how intentionly bombing the crap out of a non-military target is going to help in any way to shorten the war or help camp morale. So we fly in and kill and maim a large number of prisoners? That's going to make them real happy with us. "Moisha wasn't gassed, he was killed by American bombs only three months before the war ended. He wasn't at the cremetoria, he was working in shop 2 miles away."
Yes, other nation's endured bombing of non-combatants, but I am quite certain that the inhabitants of the camps knew what the aircraft that flew over night and day were doing and it that wasn't beneficial to their tormentors.

Why heap misery on a group that had already endured so much?

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Best Regards,
JW

The nazis (and many other Germans and their allies) burnt their bridges with the human race in 1941 at the latest. They knew what they had coming to them.

ok guys, your remarks sounds all sensible.... So i'll try to be more specific:

- i repeat that i heard this argument at the camp (birkenau) from the guide. She reported that many inmates were looking forward a military action from the allies, whatever the cost could be.

- when i say "no military action was ever taken" i mean behind enemy lines, not just liberating the camp

- when i say "bombing the camp", i mean targeting the infamous railway or something like that, not levelling the camp. collateral effects for the inmates wolud be "relatively" limitated, pls consider that birkenau is enourmous.

- at the climax aschwitz/birkenau was able to kill thousands of jews a day (i read it in this thread too). the creamtorium were not enough, the death factory worked too fast! the bodies burned in open air.... grilled. So it's a paradox but the bombing would have reduced the death rate in the camp (i read it in this thread too)

- of course, the nazis could rebuild the railway in a few days, but maybe things would not have been the same for nazis working there. rebuilding a camp or building a new one would have meant divert precious resources from the war front and soften the curtain of secrecy around the "final solution". the nazis were very sensitive to this issue.

- if i well remember the allies gave to germany a few (mild) warnings... but the nazis simply denied everything. Anyway an "official" warning would never be heard from ordinary nazis involved (they didn't use to read the Guardian or NYtimes). A specific bombing would have been heard from many more.

- nazis dismantelled very carefully all the camps, there is nothing left in mathausen or dachau. auschwitz is the exception, they simply didn't have enough time because russians arrived too fast. So the nazis feared that the allies could find out the truth.

Once again, the point is that the nazis were sure that the allies had not evidence, maybe just a couple of stories from someone fled... nothing really serious. Targeting the camps would have changed this. maybe.

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If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons
- Winston Churchill

For this I think a daylight low-level Mosquito attack would have been needed - in late 1943 Bomber Command Main Force had great difficulty targeting the Peenemunde installations which were a relatively good H2S target, and on a moonlit night.....

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson