Why didnt the allies do something?

[kfz]

I dont really know what happened, the final solution isnt my main area of knowledge but I find it really hard to beleive the Allies, the British Govement in particular didnt know what was happening.

So did they pretend they didnt know, didnt care or plain political reasons prevented action?

I just dont buy it that the allies didnt know what was going on. But in the case of the extermination camps which where big fixed targets it should have been to hard to slow them down??

Kev

[ADM199]

Originally Posted by kfz

I dont really know what happened, the final solution isnt my main area of knowledge but I find it really hard to beleive the Allies, the British Govement in particular didnt know what was happening.

So did they pretend they didnt know, didnt care or plain political reasons prevented action?

I just dont buy it that the allies didnt know what was going on. But in the case of the extermination camps which where big fixed targets it should have been to hard to slow them down??

Kev

We did know,
the evidence is at T.N.A. contained in Ultra decripts. HW16/10 is a file from 1942 - 43 that gives daily returns for 10 Concentration Camps including Auschwitz,Buchenwald and Dachau.These include daily intakes and Deaths with Inmate totals listed by Nationality headed by Jews.

Why we did nothing is another question.

[sapper]

Like what? What had you in mind that we should have done? I am all ears? If I recall we had our hands full at the time
sapper

[ADM199]

Originally Posted by sapper

Like what? What had you in mind that we should have done? I am all ears? If I recall we had our hands full at the time
sapper

Exactly,
but I think there were a few Bombing raids on the IG Farben installations that were attached to Auschwitz later in the War.

[Slipdigit]

Originally Posted by sapper

Like what? What had you in mind that we should have done? I am all ears? If I recall we had our hands full at the time
sapper

I agree with you Mr. Guy. What could be done, other than defeating the the ones who were doing the killing?

[kfz]

The extirmination camps relied on fixed components, rail links, box vans, gas chambers, cremetoria, huts, camps,etc.

They could have been bombed.

Kev

[sapper]

There was nothing we could do. Bombing? That only killed the inmates.
The concentration camps were symbolic of everything that was evil about the Nazi Regime.

For those of our friends here, that still insist that market garden was a failure? It was just another reason why we were going to break out into the plains of Northern Germany. NO MATTER WHAT! Lots of reasons. The war over by Christmas. Berlin in our hands. The relief of the concentration camps. The saving of thousands of Allied lives, A stop to the rockets being fired at targets in Holland and the UK.

That the Germans denied that knew anything about the camps is just plain daft! The smell of death is something we all recognise. Heavens knows there was enough stench for miles around the camps.
Cheers
sapper

[Ron Goldstein]

Sapper

We are back on the thorny question of "hindsight".

Sixty two years after the event we can all say "they could have done this, they should have done that".

As someone who, like yourself, lived and served in those times but who also by his very Jewish background had a vested interest in the speedy cessation of hostilities I would have gone along with any decision that was based on the question "will this finish the war any quicker ?"

Cheers

Ron

[kfz]

Originally Posted by Ron Goldstein

Sapper

We are back on the thorny question of "hindsight".

Sixty two years after the event we can all say "they could have done this, they should have done that".

As someone who, like yourself, lived and served in those times but who also by his very Jewish background had a vested interest in the speedy cessation of hostilities I would have gone along with any decision that was based on the question "will this finish the war any quicker ?"

Cheers

Ron

Dont believe its hindsight at all Ron, tHe Polish goverment in exile knew exactly what was happening. We chose it ignore them.

Also why was not policitcal force not used, The Nazis had some small degree of policitical consience attempting to hide the evidence, they may well have been less likely to continue if policitcal threats where made before the end of the war.

Even it it came to nothing, even if bombing the rail lines, destroying the infrastructure didnt work, why was it not tried??

Kev

[smc]

Originally Posted by kfz

Dont believe its hindsight at all Ron, tHe Polish goverment in exile knew exactly what was happening. We chose it ignore them.

Also why was not policitcal force not used, The Nazis had some small degree of policitical consience attempting to hide the evidence, they may well have been less likely to continue if policitcal threats where made before the end of the war.

Even it it came to nothing, even if bombing the rail lines, destroying the infrastructure didnt work, why was it not tried??

Kev

I'm afraid it is hindsight, it's easy to look at what could have been done after the event has happened. I fully agree with the posters who were contemporaries the best thing the Allied governments could have done to prevent this from happening was to win the war and remove those responsible for doing the killing.

I also think it is a little naive to expect political pressure to work. Who would exactly do the pressurising? If anything the fact that we were at war meant that normal political pressure had failed and that nothing else could be gained except by a show of strength so you're back to the same point mentioned in the first paragraph about winning the war.

And what is bombing going to do? Bomb the rail lines leading into the concentration camps? Who do you think will be forced to relay them? Infrastructure can be rebuilt relatively easily, one side bombs them the other rebuilds them, we did it after the Luftwaffe paid us a visit, the Germans did it after the Allies visited. It would also help to note the geographical position of the Camps, not the easiest to get to, remember the UK and US needed Soviet permission to refuel during the Warsaw Uprising because the round trip was a little too far, some of the camps were at the limit of the bomber's range. Then there is the question of what to look for, remember the plans and pictures of the camps were not always available to the Allies until after the war, what do crematoria chimneys look like from the air if you've never seen them before? And if you bomb the fences to allow the inmates to escape where exactly are they going to go when all of Europe is run by the same regime that are persecuting you in the camps?

The best thing to prevent the Final Solution was to remove the regime that were executing the inmates in an industrial fashion that had never occured before. Trying to put political pressure on a regime that had brushed aside such attempts in the run up to the start of the war is just plain ludicruous.