|
The Official Response In July 1944, after learning that over 400 000 Hungarian Jews had been sent to Auschwitz and were being mass-murdered there, Churchill asked the Air Staff to look into the possiblity of bombing either the camp directly, or the rail lines between it and Budapest. Archibald Sinclair, Secretary of State for Air, reported back that attacking the railways would be ineffective, as they would be repaired too quickly. Attacking the camp itself was possible, but it would have been an extreme measure that would be more to incite the Hungarian government to stop the forced deportation of their Jewish population (ostensibly out of a lack of a final destination). Expounding on the possibility, Auschwitz would have been too far to be attacked effectively at night, so Sinclair proposed sending the question to the Americans for their consideration. The call-to-action was sent to Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy, who responded that such an endeavour would have entailed "diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations." This was in line with the official policy of the War Department: "the most effective relief which can be given victims of enemy persecution is to insure the speedy defeat of the Axis." Hypothetical Mission Profile A bombing mission to Auschwitz by the 8th Air Force would have been a distance of 1 540 miles, although fighter cover could have been present throughout the trip. They might have done it via shuttle bombing: Take-off from England, bomb targets in Greater Germany, land in specially approved airbases near Kiev, take-off again, bomb targets in Eastern Europe, land in USAAF bases in Italy, take-off yet again, bomb targets in Greater Germany, finally landing back in England. Such missions were done under the code-name Frantic. The issue with this approach though was that since such missions were only allowed by Stalin's good graces, he had tight control over what the targets were, and he only approved those which were of assistance to the Red Army's summer offensive. The Soviet Air Force's sometimes lackluster ability to defend the Frantic airbases from Luftwaffe attacks were also a concern. A more likely alternative would have been to use the 15th Air Force, based out of Italy directly. Foggia to Auschwitz was a distance of only 640 miles, and the 15th AF was already attacking targets in Upper Silesia near Auschwitz, so going after the camp would not have been a significant change in range nor region. The biggest problem facing such a mission was time: you needed to have clear skies to have a shot at hitting just the crematoria and the gas chambers without inadvertently hitting the prisoners' barracks (which, given the bomb aiming technology at the time, might have happened anyway). You needed to allot time for assessing bomb damage via photo-reconnaissance. You needed to allot time to make mission profile adjustments in response to changes in enemy defenses. You needed multiple strikes to complete the job, and you needed to spread these missions out over multiple weeks to prevent predictability and fool defenders. Secretary Sinclair gave his initial report to Churchill on July 15, 1944. On August 2, Carl Spaatz heard about this inquiry from a counter-part at the RAF and was "most sympathetic". If we peg the first of these Auschwitz raids as starting sometime between those two dates and allotting for four missions being necessary to destroy the camp's death apparatus, that puts Mission Accomplished at some time in September 1944. Historically, we know that all of the Hungarian Jews were dead by then. There may still have been lives saved insofar as Auschwitz remained active until November of that year, but then you circle back to the issue of the precision of that era's bombing, the possibility of prisoners being moved even closer to the gas chambers in response to the potential inaccuracy of bombing, and the possibility of the prisoners being moved elsewhere or killed via other means.
|
#
?
Apr 22, 2015 13:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 02:26 |
|
|
Would you fine fellows mind enlightening an idiot about the clean Wehrmacht myth and all the ways in which it's bullshit? 
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 12:15
|
|
|
Klaus88 posted:Would you fine fellows mind enlightening an idiot about the clean Wehrmacht myth and all the ways in which it's bullshit? As I already said in the milhist thread, if you want an English-language teardown of it check out Omer Bartov. "Hitler's Army" and "The Eastern Front 41-45: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare" both dismantle it backwards and forwards. If you want the tl;dr version of why it's bullshit it boils down to the Wehrmacht massacred the gently caress out of tons of civilians on the E. Front, both Jews and non-Jews, and were complicit as all gently caress in all kinds of other nasty stuff that they merely provided the logistical support for. Oh yeah, and throw in some really hosed up rear-area anti-partisan policies to boot. As an addition, throw in a dash of the treatment of POWs, most notably the very intentional starving to death of millions of Russians. Hell, just read the wikipedia entry on the Hunger Plan, which was more or less a Wehrmacht gig from the get go.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 14:34
|
|
|
My personal favorite bite-size tear down of the Clean Werhmacht idea has always been that, even in so much as there is even a tiny amount of argument in favor of it*, it's that the Wehrmacht were clean relative to the SS. The fact that you're fighting to argue that they weren't as bad as the motherfucking SS is a clue that gently caress no you're hands are dirty. *Which is being rhetorically very generous.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 15:56
|
|
|
Klaus88 posted:Would you fine fellows mind enlightening an idiot about the clean Wehrmacht myth and all the ways in which it's bullshit? My posts in this thread.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 18:09
|
|
|
The clean Wehrmacht myth is the idea that the common soldiers of the German army were ordinary men fighting for their country, and that the Sonderaktionen, Holocaust etc were all carried out by the SS and the party organs. Even if we were to ignore the insane brutality on the eastern front (and the willing cooperation of the army needed to carry out the Holocaust, and the starvation, torture and murder of prisoners, and, and, and...), we run into the same snag faced by the US Lost Causers - what country exactly were these men fighting and dying for? Well, for the Wehrmacht 39-45, that would be Nazi Germany. Like, you are invading other countries on the orders of actual loving nazis. You don't get to go "I only served my country" when your flag is the loving swastika and your head of state is Adolf loving Hitler.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 19:14
|
|
|
Don't forget the WM in Serbia, where the WM killed a ridiculous amount of civilians under the umbrella of "Partisanenaktionen".
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 19:51
|
|
|
Xiahou Dun posted:My personal favorite bite-size tear down of the Clean Werhmacht idea has always been that, even in so much as there is even a tiny amount of argument in favor of it*, it's that the Wehrmacht were clean relative to the SS. Another good one is the communique from a field marshal bitching that the SS was taking an unfair share of looted watches from jointly run massacres.
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 20:43
|
|
|
Raskolnikov38 posted:Another good one is the communique from a field marshal bitching that the SS was taking an unfair share of looted watches from jointly run massacres. Got a source for that?
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 22:20
|
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:Got a source for that? It was Manstein. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_Manstein#Antisemitism http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/Ohlentestimony.html
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 22:25
|
|
|
At best Nazi generals seem more or less to have tried to skirt around the worst of the holocaust like Guderian, but if you look at what Rundstedt and Reichenau were doing, there can be no illusions.
|
|
|
#
?
Apr 27, 2015 22:55
|
|
|
Has anyone ever studied what the effect of methamphetamine had on Nazi soldiers, war crimes, and World War II in general? It seems like the kind of thing that would help in the short term, but in the long term it must have made them more paranoid and violent.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2015 13:17
|
|
|
HalPhilipWalker posted:Has anyone ever studied what the effect of methamphetamine had on Nazi soldiers, war crimes, and World War II in general? It seems like the kind of thing that would help in the short term, but in the long term it must have made them more paranoid and violent. If there was an effect it wasn't limited to the Germans. Militaries around the world have been using combat uppers for near a century.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2015 14:08
|
|
|
Although the substance abuse of Hitler and Goering did contribute to their problems as human beings.
|
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2015 14:30
|
|
|
Disinterested posted:Although the substance abuse of Hitler and Goering did contribute to their problems as human beings. Wasn't Hitler intentionally drugged up by his quack physicist? Something about intestinal problems and some other poo poo, I don't quite remember. They couldn't have been the only two Third Reich high rankers with massive drug problems though.
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2015 14:36
|
|
|
Hitler had ulcers, was severely stressed and also tried to maintain an impossible schedule. He was demented and running on fumes and drugs in the end.
|
|
|
#
?
May 4, 2015 14:54
|
|
|
Pornographic Memory posted:If you have something nice to say about Hitler, don't say anything at all e: And regarding drugs: Pilots on both sides had amphetamines available as rations to stay awake. For short-term usage (bombing raids, assaults) it was probably okay, it enhanced focus and all that, and without severe side effects at that (they got home, had a day's rest etc) but when you take stimulants such as amphetamines on a daily basis, severe psychosis is never far away. I've seen soldiers on a week-long drill shoot at giant oranges rolling towards them, making the entire platoon get up in alert mode and acknowledge the "emergency" when it's just sleep deprivation (which is the cause of most amphetamine-related psychosis.) F4rt5 fucked around with this message at 04:51 on May 5, 2015 |
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 04:29
|
|
|
I am sure that Ferdinand Porsche's works were influenced by a large amount of some manner of substance or substances.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 04:51
|
|
|
JazzmasterCurious posted:I've seen soldiers on a week-long drill shoot at giant oranges rolling towards them, making the entire platoon get up in alert mode and acknowledge the "emergency" when it's just sleep deprivation (which is the cause of most amphetamine-related psychosis.) Well, won't you look silly when you get crushed like Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge after telling the soldiers to cease fire.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 05:02
|
|
Ensign Expendable posted:I am sure that Ferdinand Porsche's works were influenced by a large amount of some manner of substance or substances. I think in the context of the war effort the fact that Porsche was continuing to draw breath was a substance abuse problem for the Reich.
|
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 12:42
|
|
|
Something I've always wondered about is why weird occult paranormal stuff is so persistently attached to Nazis in pop culture. Is it just people's tendency to see monsters when monstrous things happen, was it part of an Allied propaganda campaign, or was Hitler actually THAT into astrology and pseudoscience?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 14:57
|
|
moths posted:Something I've always wondered about is why weird occult paranormal stuff is so persistently attached to Nazis in pop culture. This is actually a really messy subject. A lot of Nazis were very strongly observant Christians - a very great proportion of the SS, for example, were strongly Roman Catholic. That was certainly the religious background of a strong part of the Nazi movement (though many were also Lutherans). And, indeed, the Nazis did rely on Church support in their early years. On the other hand, many saw the Church as corrupt, flimsy, and not rooted in the traditions of the race. And when you consider that Nazism is principally a racial ideology (as opposed to say, nationalist) that's really your way of gripping on to how Nazis come to be fascinated in a sort of false version of Nordic culture - they are looking for a pure, 'Aryan' religion and folk custom before the influences of civilization. So the endgame of Nazism in some way did involve the re-awakening of Germanic folk customs and religion. But I think you have to grip very firmly on the idea that there was no fully coherent Nazi ideology or take on religion - pagan or otherwise.
|
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:02
|
|
|
Disinterested posted:This is actually a really messy subject. A lot of Nazis were very strongly observant Christians - a very great proportion of the SS, for example, were strongly Roman Catholic. That was certainly the religious background of a strong part of the Nazi movement (though many were also Lutherans). Do you have any source and figures for this? It's a pretty startling claim, given both the anticlericalism of the SS and the specific hostility of the sicherheitsdienst towards Catholicism.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:09
|
|
|
moths posted:Something I've always wondered about is why weird occult paranormal stuff is so persistently attached to Nazis in pop culture. it's because of Himmler
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:13
|
|
|
It's probably because nazis being into the occult is really cool and leads to stuff like Wolfenstein and Hellboy.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:24
|
|
|
Obdicut posted:Do you have any source and figures for this? It's a pretty startling claim, given both the anticlericalism of the SS and the specific hostility of the sicherheitsdienst towards Catholicism. Yeah that's just wrong. The nazis didn't try to refight the kulturkampf or anything but they were at best wary of Catholicism. The closest they came to a state recognized church was some Lutheran branches that jumped on board in a big way. Most of the bigwigs were pretty secular and tolerated churches of any type as a necessary evil and a good way to drum up anticommunist zeal among traditional sections of society.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:24
|
|
|
re: occultism http://www.amazon.com/Occult-Roots-...+and+the+occult This was actually a very fascinating book but I've no idea how accurate it is.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:24
|
|
Obdicut posted:Do you have any source and figures for this? It's a pretty startling claim, given both the anticlericalism of the SS and the specific hostility of the sicherheitsdienst towards Catholicism. Why would have expected wiki to deliver so hard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_Nazi_Germany#Catholic_adaptation_to_Nazism These article is pretty comprehensive. I can't dig out the stat at the moment but I believe Catholics were over-represented in the higher echelons of the Nazi party including the SS, although to advance further and deeper you had to begin to renounce elements of your faith. On the other hand, the average voter for the Nazi party was more likely to be protestant. I think I over-state my case somewhat by claiming these people were observant (they were often strongly religious, from a Catholic cultural background, but were also anti-clerical). I don't think that many of the SS actually ever bought the paganism, at least that's the impression I always got from interview footage of SS members.
|
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:27
|
|
|
Disinterested posted:Why would have expected wiki to deliver so hard: First, I don't accept Wiki as a source for any contentious claims, second, I'm asking particularly about your claim of high representation in the SS> quote:I can't dig out the stat at the moment but I believe Catholics were over-represented in the higher echelons of the Nazi party including the SS, although to advance further and deeper you had to begin to renounce elements of your faith. On the other hand, the average voter for the Nazi party was more likely to be protestant. I think I over-state my case somewhat by claiming these people were observant (they were often strongly religious, from a Catholic cultural background, but were also anti-clerical). You appear to be combine wildly different time frames, talking about the SS and 'voters' at the same time. The SS was also not a 'higher echelon of the Nazi party'. Instead of operating off of your remembrances, could you find an actual text backing up anything you're saying? What time period are you even talking about, the original SS? The Waffen SS included--with the later enforced SS battalions? quote:I don't think that many of the SS actually ever bought the paganism, at least that's the impression I always got from interview footage of SS members. What paganism are you talking about? The SS was specifically monotheistic.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:33
|
|
Obdicut posted:First, I don't accept Wiki as a source for any contentious claims, second, I'm asking particularly about your claim of high representation in the SS> I'm not using the Wiki as a source for a contentious claim, merely saying it's a fairly comprehensive article on the whole subject. quote:You appear to be combine wildly different time frames, talking about the SS and 'voters' at the same time. The SS was also not a 'higher echelon of the Nazi party'. Instead of operating off of your remembrances, could you find an actual text backing up anything you're saying? What time period are you even talking about, the original SS? The Waffen SS included--with the later enforced SS battalions? I don't have the text available. I'm searching now, I'll get back to you. quote:What paganism are you talking about? The SS was specifically monotheistic. Paganism=/=polytheism, even though the two often go together. I'm not sure what things like the Thule Society are if not 'neopaganism' of some description.
|
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:39
|
|
|
Did you actually read the links you posted? They speak pretty directly to the anticlericism of the nazis. Also I think you are confusing the political relationship between the nazi state and the papacy with an actual affinity for Catholicism on the part of the nazis.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:41
|
|
Cyrano4747 posted:Did you actually read the links you posted? They speak pretty directly to the anticlericism of the nazis. Also I think you are confusing the political relationship between the nazi state and the papacy with an actual affinity for Catholicism on the part of the nazis. Yes, I know, and I didn't anywhere make a claim that the Nazis weren't anti-clerical. I just made a lovely post.
|
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:45
|
|
|
Disinterested posted:I'm not using the Wiki as a source for a contentious claim, merely saying it's a fairly comprehensive article on the whole subject. What whole subject? I'm asking you about a specific claim: That the SS was heavily Catholic. quote:I don't have the text available. I'm searching now, I'll get back to you. I am 99% certain you will find you are absolutely wrong. Do you have a name of a text that you got this from? quote:Paganism=/=polytheism, even though the two often go together. I'm not sure what things like the Thule Society are if not 'neopaganism' of some description. Why are you talking about the Thule society? It was dissolved in 1925. Obviously the SS weren't signing up for it. Where do you get the idea that paganism was being promulgated in any serious way?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:45
|
|
Obdicut posted:Why are you talking about the Thule society? It was dissolved in 1925. Obviously the SS weren't signing up for it. Where do you get the idea that paganism was being promulgated in any serious way? In the context of the Thule society I am not talking about the SS. But that and elements of Hitler's occultism strongly leaned on pagan motifs and rituals. I definitely made a bad post, and I need to keep digging to see if I can find where I produced this idea from.
|
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 15:57
|
|
|
Disinterested posted:In the context of the Thule society I am not talking about the SS. But that and elements of Hitler's occultism strongly leaned on pagan motifs and rituals. When I say that the SS wasn't paganistic becaues it was monotheistic, and you reply that "Paganism=/=polytheism, even though the two often go together. I'm not sure what things like the Thule Society are if not 'neopaganism' of some description." I'm going to assume that you're talking about the Thule society as connected with the SS. Hitler's occultism is generally overstated by History Channel's Secrets of the Nazi Curse-Wizards and stuff like that. In general, Nazis were absolutely overwhelmingly Christian.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 16:07
|
|
|
Hitler read the Ostara when he was a bum in Vienna. Lanz von Liebenfels and Guido von List are the people you are looking for, who provided the occult and neopagan background. Himmler was a fan, and you can also check out literature about Karl Maria Wiligut. There's a few other names that I could look up, if you ask really, really nice.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 17:15
|
|
|
moths posted:Something I've always wondered about is why weird occult paranormal stuff is so persistently attached to Nazis in pop culture. It looks cool, it's interesting in a pop culture and televisual way that grim and gritty things like concentration camps and troop movements just aren't, and it further dehumanizes the Nazis so that we can tell ourselves that Good & Devout Christians could never ever be responsible for such atrocities.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 17:43
|
|
|
Martin Luther's "On the Jews and Their Lies" was a huge influence on the Nazis.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 17:45
|
|
|
Check out how many reliefs of the medieval "Judensau" are still left on german churches. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judensau The woodcut on the lower right is classic that you'll often find printed in history schoolbooks.
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 18:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 02:26 |
|
|
What about the so called "positive christianity" , did it survive the war, did it ever have mass appeal?
|
|
#
?
May 5, 2015 18:29
|
|
