Talk:Auschwitz bombing debate

NPOV
This article has just been started, which is why it's currently somewhat one-sided. This will be addressed in the coming days/weeks as the article develops. SlimVirgin (talk) 10:53, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The book "The Myth of Rescue" by William Rubinstein makes the contrary case. --Zerotalk 14:35, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

This article has a serious problem. The title of hte article is 'Why Auschwitz was not bombed'. The article states that Auschwitz was not bombed, and that the allies could have bombed it, but doesn't actually answer (or even attempt to answer) the question why. Raul654 01:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Raul, it was started as a longer-term project and is going to require a lot more writing. I'll try to find the time soon to get it into at least minimal shape. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:41, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Title
The original title was "Why Auschwitz wasn't bombed"; the grammar Nazi in me moved it to "Why Auschwitz was not bombed"; and now it has been moved back. I feel somewhat uncomfortable with unnecessary abbreviations in article title names, and I want to know whether or not this is just me (if so, fair enough, I will relent) or whether others feel the same. A possible compromise is to rename the page "Auschwitz bombing controversy", or words to that effect. Batmanand | Talk 13:53, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've changed the title to "Auschwitz bombing debate," as there seemed to be a consensus to change it during the AfD, and someone suggested this one. SlimVirgin (talk) 05:42, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * That seems a satisfactory outcome. Thanks - and good luck with the article. Batmanand | Talk 09:10, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes this is a much better title. I'm still bewildered by the focus on Auschwitz alone...  Fourdee 02:03, 15 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the new title is a really poor one. Aushwitz wasn't bombed so there's no debate --> the question is WHY it wasn't bombed. Allegations that not bombing death camps was premedidated against Jews is the appropriate title, but the best is simply why were the death camps not bombed.... and if one doesn't like the question: Reasons/excuses for not bombing death camps. Amoruso 02:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

they were bombing factories right next to Auschwitz, in which the inmates worked
Some even hit the camp (and others too), and the guards had an anti-aircraft shelters and trenches. They would also accidentally strafe the death trains (like the famous Dachau one). Also, the Polish plan for the Auschwitz uprising included an air raid. --HanzoHattori 19:07, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion of Source
This is a drive-by mention of a source that would benefit this article: Michael J. Cohen, "Churchill and Auschwitz: End of Debate?", Modern Judaism - Volume 26, Number 2, May 2006, pp. 127-140. In this article Cohen claims to solve the question of why Churchill did not follow through on his initial positive reaction to the proposal to bomb Auschwitz. --Zerotalk 07:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Zero. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Pilecki's organisation1940-43
Years before Vrba-Wetzler! To quote: ''From October 1940, ZOW sent reports to Warsaw, and beginning March 1941, Pilecki's reports were being forwarded via the Polish resistance to the British government in London. These reports were a principal source of intelligence on Auschwitz for the Western Allies. Pilecki hoped that either the Allies would drop arms or troops into the camp, or the Home Army would organize an assault on it from outside.'' --HanzoHattori 04:10, 20 February 2007 (UTC)


 * What point are you making? Knowing that camp called Auschwitz existed is different from knowing about the gassings there, which were not occurring in 1940. Paul B 15:43, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

They didn't bomb it because....
.... they knew there was no reason to do so. --41.242.207.217 (talk) 16:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

More on Auschwitz from the air: http://www.vho.org/GB/Books/dth/fndaerial.html#ftnref17 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.242.207.217 (talk) 16:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Why were these extermination camps full of starving people who looked like they'd been living there for years? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.240.249.92 (talk) 23:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how your question is relevant to this topic of why the Allied did not bomb the camps. The "starving people" were most likely typhus victims. It wasn't bombed because the Allied did not feel the rumors were correct that they were "extermination" camps. The front page at least links to the air-photo.com website at the very bottom which makes that case with documents. Why isn't there a stub about this on the main page when there is a link to a website that explains that the Allied did not feel they were "extermination" camps?

http://www.air-photo.com/english/policies.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.234.46.132 (talk) 00:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that it's not relevant to the article but I thought it might still be good to explain that many of the concentration camp inmates were sent from one camp to another, so if they were mere skeletons that does not mean they must have starved for a long time at that exact camp, just look at the histories of some inmates.Galant Khan (talk) 23:54, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Aerial Reconnaisance Picture Info Box
If there are no objections I'll change the reference to the picture being taken by a "Mosquito fighter bomber" to "Mosquito photo-reconnaissance aircraft", which is the actual type of aircraft that took the photo of Auschwitz.Starviking (talk) 07:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

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unmittelbar getötet (?)
What does unmittelbar getötet mean, why is there no translation for it? Bigger digger (talk) 01:39, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It's no longer in the article but it means "immediately killed". Galant Khan (talk) 23:59, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

When did the debate start?
The article states:


 * The issue of why Auschwitz concentration camp was not bombed by the Allies during World War II continues to be explored ...

When did the debate start? Was the issue debated during World War II (and, if so, in what forum?) or did the debate only begin later? Was it a genuine debate about proposed action or is it, rather, a retrospective question? It is possible that the change of title has caused problems.

Given the present title of the article, one would expect something on the history of the debate, not just 'continues to be explored'. Norvo (talk) 23:36, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * If we're going by the starting quote: "How could it be that the governments of the two great Western democracies knew that a place existed where 2,000 helpless human beings could be killed every 30 minutes, knew that such killings actually did occur over and over again, and yet did not feel driven to search for some way to wipe such a scourge from the earth?", then 1998.


 * It has been examined since then, and it has emerged – plausibly – that the Allies did "search for some way to wipe such a scourge from the earth"; and that Prof. Wyman had maybe not understood what was in Churchill's memoirs. No doubt new research will emerge, so it is an ongoing debate. We would all agree with Bush's 2008 sentiment, but in 1944 things obviously appeared differently.Red Hurley (talk) 14:54, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
 * As someone with family who had fought against the Nazis, Wyman's readiness to sacrifice Allied lives so that he can feel better about it, sixty-odd years on, has always rubbed me the wrong way. As far as agreeing with the Bush's sentiment goes, if the sentiment is "man, I wish we could have done more", I'm with you. If the sentiment truly is, "we should have bombed it", I'm not. Any attempt to bomb Auschwitz would have a real cost in both aircraft and aircrew and would have diverted resources away from targets whose destruction would actually impact the war, all in the vain hope that Jewish lives might possibly somehow be saved in some fashion. The most perverse aspect of this "debate" is that bombing supporters seem to underestimate or simply not understand how committed the Germans were in killing as many Jews as they could get their hands on. The Holocaust was not some whim to be stopped by Allied demands or action, it was state policy, it was a war aim. Indeed, Hitler saw the Holocaust as his legacy, his "gift" to the world. To think that they could be persuaded by any means to stop is foolish. You can't apply reason to the unreasonable.172.190.3.121 (talk) 04:14, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Would you argue in the same way if Americans or British had been exterminated in the camps?
 * I also don't see how the fire bombing of cities like Dresden that cost the life of thousands of civilians or of the churches of Hildesheim were a greater accomplishment in ending the war that did not divert resources. If you say the holocaust was a war aim for Hitler destroying the place where about one sixth of the killing of Jews happened would have diverted the Nazis' resources.Galant Khan (talk) 00:22, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

To what end?
What has always puzzled me about most arguments in favor of bombing Auschwitz is that they never specifically state what exactly was to be accomplished by such bombings. Was it expected that the bombings would lead to escapes? Inmates escaped from death camps by the hundreds, but the Germans and their allies never had much of a problem rounding them back up again. Was it to actually stop the killing process? The Einsatzgruppen show that the real machinery of death is a willingness to murder, not gas chambers and crematoria. Was it to show the Nazi leadership that the Allies were serious about holding them responsible for their crimes? This had already been explicitly stated and, if any doubts remained, the systematic bombing of Germany day and night (at great cost) should have been proof enough of Allied earnestness and resolve. Was it simply the right thing to do from a moral standpoint? Well, this at least allows us, over sixty years after the fact, to pat ourselves on the back for being morally superior to our 1940s counterparts, but the tangible results of such a policy would have been negligible. How many Jews, ostensibly to be saved by the bombings, would be killed by the bombs? How many aircrew would be sacrificed so we in the present can feel better about ourselves and our countries? Plus, if you do bomb Auschwitz, what else doesn't get bombed that day? Would the war be lengthened because the moral effort to bomb Auschwitz limited the number of sorties that could have been flown against Germany's dwindling oil supplies or rail infrastructure? Wyman himself seems to admit that the only real result of such a campaign would be some sort of moral victory with few, if any, lives saved. I realize that this is not a forum, but I mention all of this because if there have been concrete proposals on bombing Auschwitz with specific objectives in mind, they should certainly be included in the article.172.190.3.121 (talk) 03:50, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Article now a bit of a mess
An edit in March added content to contradict the idea that bombing was supported at the time or feasible. It massively expanded the lead and added argumentative editorializing into the article. I'm loath to revert as this seems to be sourced content, but the tone and structure is all wrong. Fences &amp;  Windows  18:36, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

The debate
Speaking as a reader rather than an editor, there doesn't seem to much in the article as to the debate itself. I think, the article needs to cover cerrtain points better than it does.


 * 1) When the debate started
 * 2) Whose on which side of the debate
 * 3) Who are the chief proponents
 * 4) How important the debate is to Holocaust history
 * 5) Is there are similar debate over any other camps
 * 6) How it fits in with the general question of "why didn't the Allies do something?"

Before it gets into the minutinae of the arguments, as to what could have been achieved by bombing and how it could have been done. GraemeLeggett (talk) 19:45, 21 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The omission in the debate so far is that the Soviets aren't mentioned at all, even though they were so close in 1944. I have just tidied up that para. Let me try:


 * 1) 1993 - "At the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1993, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel famously asked, "Why weren't the railways leading to Birkenau bombed by allied bombers? As long as I live I will not understand that"." and then 1998 - Wyman, David S. "Why Auschwitz wasn't bombed," in Gutman, Yisrael & Berenbaum, Michael. "Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp", Indiana University Press.
 * 2) Outside of the debates in academia and in TV documentaries, all the real-world decision-makers have died.
 * 3) Not very, as no bombing took place; it can be a counterfactual conditional at best, but books written about it will sell
 * 4) No; the Vrba-Wetzler report only mentioned Auschwitz
 * 5) Since the 1943 Casablanca Conference the western allies could not negotiate with the Nazis. The air forces looked at it in 1944 and said no; the political will was there, in Churchill's mind anyway. Bombing the railways was therefore the only thing the allies could have done, but the Germans were also expert at quickly repairing bombed railways.86.42.195.97 (talk) 23:14, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Soviet position
While it would be nice to have something about the Soviet position, that can only be done on the basis of sources that report it. The journal paper of Glantz which was offered as a source does not mention the camps, Jews, the Holocaust, or indeed anything directly concerning the subject of this article. It is entirely concerned with the Soviet role in the Warsaw Uprising. Zerotalk 05:03, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Surely the lack of a Soviet aspect – why there was no Soviet policy on this – compounds the fact that very few people of relative unimportance suggested this bombing to the western allies?86.42.192.204 (talk) 06:23, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Both the US and UK governments considered the question, so it is somewhat irrelevant who asked them. I don't remember reading about anyone asking the Soviets or if they considered it.  Zerotalk 08:03, 23 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Is there a source that states that the Soviet Union didn't know anything at all about the Holocaust? This would improve the article and settle that aspect. Obviously in terms of simple physics and proximity the SU could have bombed the camps much more easily than the US / UK air forces. By mid-1944 the SU air force had already bombed Berlin which was much further from its bases than the death camps.86.42.195.219 (talk) 12:08, 28 December 2011 (UTC)


 * The Soviets were members of the United Nations in 1942, and so would at least have been aware of the 1942 Polish booklet addressed to the United Nations. The Auschwitz bombing debate focuses on what the UK and USA might have done in 1943-44. Doubtless some American academic will some day widen the scope to include the USSR, but until then...78.16.33.213 (talk) 10:37, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

-- The article has a serious problem in that it does not adequately address Soviet failures to deal with the concentration camps. By the time Americans were being asked to bomb the camps in 1944, Soviet forces were within 100 miles of Auschwitz, well within the combat radius of Soviet tactical bombers best-suited for attacking rail lines. With the Red Army at the gates of Krakow, the Soviets paused their 1944 offensive and then invaded Romania. Not until January of 1945 would the Soviets liberate Auschwitz, by then most of the prisoners were dead or had been moved to Germany. Nevertheless, Soviet and American successes on the battlefield resulted in the camp operations being shut down months prior to its liberation. That prisoners were evacuated from the camp on foot may suggest rail transportation in Poland was compromised by Soviet aviation sometime in 1944. One can only hope omission of the Soviets is not the result of anti-American bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.3.36.231 (talk) 15:28, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Paragraph on Witold Pilecki
This paragraph is problematic, due to lack of sources or inaccessible sources. It has dubious claims, such as "By 1943, however, Pilecki realized that no such plans existed." (How could an Auschwitz inmate know what plans existed?) Also, "the British authorities refused air support for an operation to help the inmates escape" needs a source and it also doesn't make much sense (what operation exactly was support refused for?). Zerotalk 08:57, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Twin quote: "I wished every day they would bomb it."
Children of the Flames contains a relevant quote from one of the Mengele twins(Olga Grossman if I'm not mistaken). The quote was regarding the American planes they would see fly overhead and how she either wished or prayed that they would bomb the camp. Unless I am missing something there are no quotes from Auschwitz prisoners in this article so IMO it should certainly be included. Seems as if it would fit well with the information on the US planes taking photographs. I'm new to this and also a little hesitant to edit something of controversy. Any input or objections? UselessToRemain (talk) 23:52, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

a new source
it could be useful:

"AMERICA'S FAILURE TO BOMB AUSCHWITZ: A New Consensus Among Historians" by Dr. Rafael Medoff &Prof. Bat-Ami Zucker.

It reports the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress’s positions and other proponents: it seems to me that the claim in the WP article that the bombing was proposed "by a tiny handful of individuals on the periphery" is wrong.

And "despite the War Department’s claim that reaching Auschwitz would require diverting planes from elsewhere in Europe, U.S. bombers repeatedly attacked German oil factories close to the death camp throughout the summer" (chapter VII). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.40.140.2 (talk) 06:06, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

The conclusion in that study is that there were quite a few Jews that requested that it should be bombed, primarily orthodox leaders, but not single influential organization was among them, first and foremost The Jewish Agency and the Zionists leadership including David ben Gurion. L69 (talk) 05:42, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Whose debate?
Who is debating with whom? Auschwitz wasn't bombed and this article is on that. Buchenwald concentration camp was bombed by the US air force in August 1944, killing 388 and wounding over 2,000, but that doesn't get an article. Buchenwald was then liberated in 1945. Did that bombing make any difference? Sadly, no. This all comes across as a book selling exercise.86.42.200.153 (talk) 16:16, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Buchenwald concentration camp was in Germany and by far less people were killed there, the extermination camps were in Poland and Auschwitz is kind of the synonym for them due to the sheer extent of the killing. Which book do you think was supposed to be sold? Galant Khan (talk) 00:31, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Idea of bombing
The assertion that some thought had not occurred to anyone prior to some specific date cannot be factual in any context.216.96.229.97 (talk) 14:38, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Text reverted for wp:shouting
Re: John J. McCloy to bomb the camps. ... Akzin was not "a zionist activist in america". in fact, he was a junior employee of the war refugee board, of which john w. pehle was executive director, and akzin never accompanied pehle to a meeting with mccloy. secondly, pehle definitely did not "urge" mccloy to "bomb the camps". in fact, on june 24, 1944, pehle met with mccloy, passed on the recommendation, but made it abundantly clear that he did not endorse it. in fact, pehle "made it very clear to mr. mccloy that i was not, at this point at least, requesting the war department to take any action on this proposal other than to appropriately explore it. mccloy understood my position and said that he would check into the matter." source: fdr library, wrb files, box 35, hungary no. 5, reproduced in wymen, ed., "america and the holocaust", xii:104. whoever wrote the sentence above is obviously deliberately trying to deceive readers. Text case lowered by Poeticbent  talk  09:45, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Deleted two pieces of controversial information from intro
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Auschwitz_bombing_debate&diff=628988831&oldid=615231702 It said the debate was largely a post-war debate, which contradicts the main part of the article. And aerial photographs were only found after the war. Both sentences were marked as"citation needed" since October 2013, which I think risks discrediting the article.] Please go ahead if you have sources, though at least the first sentence I think should not be in the intro given the information that follows in the main part. Galant Khan (talk) 23:46, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Antisemitism as a factor?
Curiously, this article has not mentioned anti-antisemitism as a factor in why Auschwitz was not bombed. I've just watched the superb Auschwitz dvd and this was said about British refusal to save Jews from being sent from Hungary to Auschwitz in exchange for supplying the Nazis with trucks: "But during the discussion there was another, less idealistic reason suggested to refuse the Nazis' offer. Which was that to accept it might 'lead to an offer to unload an even greater number of Jews on our hands.'" (Transcript: http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/about/transcripts_5.html) I realise that accepting on English language Wikipedia that antisemitism existed among powerful British state officials as late as 1944 would undermine much post-WW II revisionism, but let's just do the historical record justice here. 188.141.10.11 (talk) 14:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Read the book Catch-22 on why the military is usually full of shit. They didn't bomb the camps because they were probably too busy shipping black market liquor and whores to some privileged officers and U.S. Govt. officials throughout Europe. Ask anyone in the military at the time how the Generals took care of themselves at the expense of the common soldier. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.71.5.159  (talk • contribs)

Issue first raised in 1967
Rubenstein, in "The Myth of Rescue" (already cited in the article) mentions that the debate didn't start until 1967. "For the first twenty years or so after the end of the Second World War, probably no historical work on the Holocaust criticised the actions of the Allies or suggested that much more could have been done which was not done. All of these early works on the Holocaust, not surprisingly, focused upon the guilt of the Nazis and their allies. Perhaps the first considered work to attack the Allies for their failures in rescuing Jews was a little-noted article by Reuben Ainsztein, a Holocaust survivor who was well known as a historian of Jewish revolt in the ghettos and concentration camps, entitled `How Many More Could Have Been Saved?' Ainsztein's article, which appeared in the British periodical Jewish Quarterly in 1967, contained a surprisingly large component of the critique of Allied policy which has since become standard, years before other historians made the same point." Worth a mention? John Nagle (talk) 21:13, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

The issue was never raised until 1967, a somewhat significant date in terms of Israeli nationalism, because it is a false proposition that was only ever intended to promote Israeli nationalism by implying that 'the Allies did nothing', and because it is an argument so absurd that it could never have been advanced while people still retained any immediate sense of the reality of the war. First, the Allies really could not deliberately bomb the camps and do the Nazis' work for them. Of course the SS would have air-raid shelters and the prisoners would not. Second, air raids did not normally destroy targets, even in ideal conditions. They inflicted damage which the enemy would then repair. In recent times the argument has become ludicrous and, for instance, Daniel Sugarman of the Jewish Chronicle in Britain has claimed that the Allies could and should have bombed 'the rail tracks leading to Auschwitz', implying that they didn't because they couldn't be bothered.

But to order an air raid you need an exact target with a reasonable chance of being heavily damaged. So where were these rail tracks, and what would it take to 'bomb' them? In Europe in 1944, all rail lines led to Auschwitz. From France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, everywhere. At what point would it have been a good idea to 'bomb' them? Because, to stop rail traffic moving on a given route, and to prevent the enemy simply re-routing around the problem, the entire rail network in that part of the continent has to be attacked for months, destroying marshalling yards, loco sheds, repair sheds, signalling centres, and preferably key bridges and tunnels. It means bombing and re-bombing and re-rebombing. The Allies did in fact do this to the rail system of western Europe, from May of 1944, and reduced rail freightcar movements in enemy territory to nil by March of 1945, but it required an enormous effort.

As for Daniel Sugarman's 'rail tracks leading to Auschwitz' -- presumably, as a naive kid, he means the spur line from the nearest junction. Attacking that would have achieved nothing. It was about 650 miles from US 15th Air Force's bases at Foggia. The B-24 Liberators could get there, with about 4,000lb bombload, but their Mustang escort fighters would have been at extreme range, and 15th Air Force could only carry out area pattern-bombing: every plane in an 18-ship group simply bombing when they saw the leader's bombs go. They were entirely reliant on clear weather and even in those circumstances they had a probable circular error (the radius within which the best 50% of bombs fell, relative to the aiming point) of about a mile. The attack would probably just blow up distant cows and, even if it disrupted the rail line, causing the nearest cattle-car train of victims to be held at a siding somewhere, the tracks would probably be re-laid by slave labour before the bombers even landed back at Foggia.

The only alternative would have been to use the 200 Lancasters of the RAF's specialist No.5 Group, operating at night, at over 1,100 miles from base, with an 8,000lb bombload. But the target was beyond the range of 5 Group's low-level marking squadron of Mosquitos, No.627. So probably the Lancasters of No.617 (Dam Buster) Squadron would have had to carry out the marking. 617 did of course destroy the Saumur rail tunnel in Normandy in June 1944, but only with the aid of low-level Mosquito marking and with the Lancasters delivering 14,000lb Tallboy bombs -- neither of those things being remotely possible at 1,100 miles' range. At the Lancaster's or the Liberator's normal attack height, hitting a rail line was like throwing a dart into a washing line at 25 yards. And again, even if you hit the line, and held up the next cattle-car train for a few hours, the track would be re-laid by Speer's slave labourers before the bombers landed back at base. Using bombers to stop rail movements was a much bigger and more systematic job than that. The Allies didn't do it, in regard to Auschwitz, because it wasn't physically practical or even feasible. Khamba Tendal (talk) 19:50, 17 August 2018 (UTC)

It would have probably town up the rails to Auschwitz...but not stopped the death factories from operation....[Treblinka, Belzec, Sobidor] nor it have saved the Jewish Ghetto prisoners.....the nearest base  [besides Italy] the allied planes could have taken off was the USSR...provided that Joseph Stalin gave his permission..... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.5.89.237 (talk) 18:36, 10 June 2019 (UTC)


 * US Fifteenth Air Force, based in Italy, did bomb Auschwitz several times, of course, from summer 1944 to the end of the year. Specifically, on 20 August, 13 September, 18 December and 26 December, they bombed IG Farben's Buna-Werke chemicals plant at Auschwitz III Monowitz, several miles from the death camp at Auschwitz II Birkenau, and bombs did spill over on to Birkenau. Reconnaissance photographs for these raids, taken from late May 1944 by Mosquito PR XVIs of 60 Squadron South African Air Force, also based in Italy at San Severo, showed the entire Auschwitz complex, though Allied intelligence was less than certain about the other installations apart from Buna-Werke. In principle, weather permitting, Fifteenth Air Force could have laid on a raid against Birkenau. Given the results of the Monowitz raids (Richard Overy, in The Bombing War: Europe 1939-1945, Penguin, London, 2014, ISBN 978-0-141-00321-4, p.584, writes: 'The damage was not extensive and output of methanol (from one of the completed parts of the site) was reduced by only 12 per cent'), it is not at all likely that the gas chambers would have been put permanently out of commission, or even that they would have been hit, since they made up a tiny proportion of the target area. It is, however, very likely that many prisoners in the complex would have been killed, and the Allied governments understandably balked at asking their aircrews to do this. In summer 1944 the Allied bombers were killing people all over the place, including French civilians, but asking them to deliberately kill Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz -- that wasn't on at all, and it was wrong of Jewish Agency representatives to suggest it.
 * Overy, pp.583-4, says, 'On 7 July [1944], following an interview with Chaim Weizmann, President of the Jewish Agency, Eden [Anthony Eden, British Foreign Secretary] wrote to Sinclair [ Sir Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air] asking whether it was possible to bomb the camp or the railtracks leading to it. Sinclair... told Eden that interrupting rail traffic in France had proved difficult even with the full weight of Bomber Command behind it; to find and cut a single line far away in Poland was beyond the power of the bomber force. Sinclair doubted that bombing the camp or dropping arms to the prisoners "would really help the victims." He thought the American air forces might be in a better position to do it, and promised to discuss the issue with Spaatz, overall commander of American air forces in Europe. Spaatz was sympathetic, but claimed that nothing could be done without better photographic intelligence of the camp itself... the extermination centre had not been the object of a specific reconnaissance operation. Unknown to Spaatz, the War Department in Washington had already been lobbied several times in the summer of 1944 to undertake bombing of the rail lines or the gas chambers but had deemed the operation to be "impracticable". On 14 August the Assistant Secretary of War, John McCloy, rejected the request (and did so again when lobbied in November). Two weeks later the Foreign Office informed Sinclair that since the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau appeared to have been halted [in fact completed], there was no longer any need to consider an operation to bomb it. On 1 September 1944 Spaatz was instructed to pursue the idea no further.'
 * The claim is often made that bombing the rail lines from Hungary could have stopped the extermination of Hungarian Jews at that time. In reality the Germans would simply have sent the trains on a longer and more circuitous route: they didn't care how long people spent in the cattle-cars. If people died in transit (and they did), it just saved work at the other end. And within a very short time the rail tracks, even if hit -- which is a big if -- would have been re-laid. It is in any case worth recalling that, by the time Weizmann and others made this ill-advised request in summer 1944, 90 per cent of all those murdered in the Shoah were already dead. Treblinka, Sobibor and Belzec had done their terrible work and shut down long before. Trying to blame the Allies for the Nazis' crimes is an infamous and unacceptable proposition. Khamba Tendal (talk) 18:41, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

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Stalin
Stalin refused to use his huge air force to bomb the death camps in 1944-45. (86.133.84.214 (talk) 11:09, 30 June 2017 (UTC))

Bomb someone to save him
Never heard of a more retarded plan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.176.131.174 (talk) 16:54, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Purpose was to stop the extermination that was on-going all the time. So that was a harsh reality back in the days, if to do something to stop it even at a price or let it continue... It is a sensible moral question. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.182.98.108 (talk) 18:50, 7 October 2021 (UTC)

Yehuda Bauer
Bauer's change of mind on this is notable and should be covered. A key article is here. From the conclusions: "not only were the Jews powerless, but the mighty US and its charismatic president would have been unable to rescue the millions of Jews murdered by the Nazis even had they tried—nor did they make serious efforts to save at least thousands of them." Zerotalk 05:50, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

House of Commons December 1942
I've added the Times ref needed, and a link to the actual debate online. Clearly the "United Nations" knew what was going on, clearly they deplored it and clearly they could do nothing about it. The Jewish MPs who spoke were glad that the matter was discussed and agreed upon.78.17.32.83 (talk) 10:25, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm adding the BBC News radio coverage on 17 December, that was broadcast to Europe in several languages, and the responses of various churches etc.78.17.32.83 (talk) 10:32, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

New Film

 * Film in Germany 2020 - English Titel/Version: 1944: Should We Bomb Auschwitz? (BBC Two 29 September 2019 (59 Min), Director Tim Dunn, Script Mark Hayhurst; Oxford Film and Television (Production) - Wikipedia, germ. Edition --User:Sehund, look and…] (sorry) 12:59, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 April 2021
Change "The Holocaust: what the Allies knew" to "Allied intelligence on the Holocaust" Change "Auschwitz: what the Allies knew" to "Allied intelligence on Auschwitz-Birkenau" Change "Bombing Auschwitz: technical considerations" to "Chances of success" Originalcola (talk) 22:04, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Deauthorized. (talk) 23:14, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 May 2021
The section on Churchill should mention that more than half of the Warsaw airlift was dropped to the Germans, as this underlines how inaccurate aerial bombing was in 1944. Westerhaley (talk) 20:35, 25 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made.  TG HL ↗  🍁 20:39, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Background + Allied intelligence on Auschwitz-Birkenau
The sections on "Background" and "Allied intelligence on Auschwitz-Birkenau" are way too long. The "Background" section doesn't even mention Auschwitz. They should be repleced with something shorter and their content, if not duplicated, could be moved to Karski's reports and to Auschwitz_concentration_camp, or perhaps become a self-standing article, Allied intelligence on Auschwitz-Birkenau. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 03:01, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

What about the Soviets
All of this discussion ignores the fact that Poland was a Soviet theatre of operations. The primary question should be why the Soviets didn't bomb the railroads or the camps. By April of 1944, the Soviet Dnieper offensive had driven to within about 200 miles of Auschwitz. This was well within the combat radius of Soviet bombers especially the thousands of Douglas A-20 Havocs and Mitchell B-25s the US had supplied the Soviet Union. Both aircraft had a combat radius of 1000 miles or more, and the Havocs and Mitchells were especially well-suit to precision attacks on buildings and rail lines. And for all we know these bombers in Soviet hands probably did attack the rail lines, even if their intent wasn't to isolate the camps. By August of 1944, the Soviets had reached the outskirts of Krakow, but did not push on to liberate Auschwitz or otherwise attempt to put it out of operation. The Soviets waited until January 1945 to liberate the camp. A discussion that leaves out the Soviet forces closest to the camps and most suited for the liberating or decommissioning it is not even handed. 2600:8800:4684:BD00:980:9D5D:6870:67FF (talk) 05:25, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Chances of success
I feel this section needs a lot more detail. Here is a block of text from the auchwitz page that might be added: "Wyman argued that, since the IG Farben plant at Auschwitz III had been bombed three times between August and December 1944 by the US Fifteenth Air Force in Italy, it would have been feasible for the other camps or railway lines to be bombed too. Bernard Wasserstein's Britain and the Jews of Europe (1979) and Martin Gilbert's Auschwitz and the Allies (1981) raised similar questions about British inaction.[267] Since the 1990s, other historians have argued that Allied bombing accuracy was not sufficient for Wyman's proposed attack, and that counterfactual history is an inherently problematic endeavor.[268]" Firestar47 (talk) 10:48, 17 September 2023 (UTC)