On Bombing the Train Tracks to Auschwitz: Ricochet Changes My Mind
I've asked before--out of genuine curiosity--whether Ricochet had changed anyone's mind about a very significantly held belief. Today it changed mine.
In response to Meghan's reflections about the morality of using the atomic bomb, I left this comment:
The greatest cause for moral regret about our conduct in the Second World War, however, I would say is this: We could have bombed the train tracks to Auschwitz. We did not.
Our member David Foster replied:
Claire ... bombing the train tracks to Auschwitz.
I agree that we should have done this; however, railways in WWII prove remarkably resilient against aerial attacks. Unless you were lucky enough to hit a key bridge, they were back in operation very soon It's unlikely that sufficient damage could have been done on a continuing basis to put the camp out of operation.
It is possible, though, that such attacks combined with a heavy leafleting campaign about what was going on in the concentration camps *might* have had a meaningful effect on the will to resist in Germany.
While that one comment wasn't in itself sufficient for me to revise my opinion, it did prompt me to ask myself whether my knowledge of the historiography of this question was current.
Wasserstein's study--to which my link points--is not recent. In asking myself the question, I came across a Master's Degree thesis written by Rondall Raven Rice, in 1996. It persuaded me that David Foster is correct. I've been wrong about a belief I've held for a good twenty-five years.
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Re: On Bombing the Train Tracks to Auschwitz: Ricochet Changes My Mind
thelonious
Couldn't open up Master's Degree thesis. I normally don't have a problem opening up links. I don't know what a PDF reader is. Are they standard on most laptops? I'm not very computer literate. I barely know how to access this site or any of the satanic porn sites I like to frequent. Thank you for your concern. · Aug 7 at 8:17pm
Let's see ... try this. If you can open it, the problem isn't the PDF reader.
Interestingly, that was the first example of a PDF document I found when I Googled PDF.
Feb '11
Re: On Bombing the Train Tracks to Auschwitz: Ricochet Changes My Mind
Claire,
A quote from Bombing or Auschwitz in the first essay by Gerhard L Weinberg:
"The idea that men who were dedicated to the killing program, and who saw their own careers and even their own lives tied to its continuation, were likely to be halted in their tracks by a few line-cuts on the railways or the blowing up of a gas-chamber is is preposterous..... It would have required greater exertions and more ingenuity on their part --- and would perhaps...an additional promotion for those who in the face of great obstacles had carried out their Fuhrer's design."
Yes, he mentions only one "gas-chamber" but the enthusiastic Nazi Bureaucrats, like Eichmann, were using a massive amount of shrinking German resources to kill Jews. Resources such as trains that could have been better used to carry arms, soldiers, coal, and iron ore around Germany and to the fighting fronts.
Rice may be correct that bombing Auschwitz was feasible with relatively small collateral damage, but whether it would have made a difference is an equally important question.
The Americans never bombed Japanese POW camps, despite knowing their high death rates. Camps in Singapore and China for example.
Jun '11
Re: On Bombing the Train Tracks to Auschwitz: Ricochet Changes My Mind
I would agree that bombing railway tracks would have been a questionable tactic, but bombing the major depots, the switching stations and other infrastructure targets would have diverted the Nazis time and resources and perhaps might have given most of my family and other families hope. (Claire, you were not evasive! I was just adding another perspective to the conversation.)
Edited on August 8, 2011 at 3:53pm