# Why didn't we bomb concentration camps?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [May 16, 2010, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633 "2010-05-16T12:33:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/121 "2010-05-18T02:11:29Z")
Some New York Times article headlines from the war period. Unfortunately, the archives after 1922 are pay, so I can just give you headlines. Here are just a few describing the maltreatment and murder of Jews in German Occupied territory:
> [@](#):
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> JEWS SAID TO FACE FAMINE IN POLAND; 1,500,000 in the German-Held Areas Are Reported to Have Been Condemned to Starve FLIGHT TO SOVIET BARRED Thousands Camp in Fields at Frontier Because Russians Have Closed Boundary November 6, 1939
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> JEWS LAY TORTURE TO NAZIS IN POLAND; Many Deaths Are Attributed to Shooting, Starvation and Beatings, London Hears PUBLIC FLOGGING ALLEGED Victims Reported as Killing Themselves on Approach of Police to Search Homes January 5, 1940
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> 250,000 JEWS LISTED AS DEAD IN POLAND; Reports to Joint Distribution Committee Cover Period Since Opening of War HEAVY TOLL IN EPIDEMICS Economic Life Is ‘Completely Strangled,’ It Is Said, and Thousands Lack Shelter January 23, 1940
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> NAZIS SAID TO REVIVE LUBLIN GHETTO PLAN; Paris Hears Nearly 1,000 Jews Have Arrived From Baltic February 27, 1940
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> Walls Will Enclose Warsaw Jews Today; 500,000 Begin ‘New Life’ in Nazi-Built Ghetto November 26, 1940
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> ANARCHY SPREADS TO ALL RUMANIA; Iron Guard Continues to Kill Jews and Maltreat Others-- Brazilian Envoy a Victim ARMY CURBS GREEN SHIRTS Communists Are Seized Almost Daily–Leading Family Is Barricaded in Home December 23, 1940
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> POLAND DESCRIBES OUTRAGES BY NAZIS; White Book, 240 Pages Long, Tells of Systematic Murder and Effort at Degradation MANY WITNESSES CITED Number Deported From Area Annexed by Germany Put at 1,500,O00 to End of 1940 March 19, 1942
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> 1,000,000 JEWS SLAIN BY NAZIS, REPORT SAYS; ’ Slaughterhouse’ of Europe Under Hitler Described at London June 30, 1942
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> ALLIES ARE URGED TO EXECUTE NAZIS; Report on Slaughter of Jews in Poland Asks Like Treatment for Germans CURB ON REICH IS SOUGHT ‘Only Way to Save Millions From Certain Destruction,’ Says the Appeal July 1, 1942
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> FIGHT MASS SLAUGHTER; Jewish Groups to Hold Rally in the Garden Tomorrow July 20, 1942
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> POLAND IN APPEAL ON NAZI OUTRAGES; Her Parliamentary Council at London Calls to the World Against Massacres UNDERGROUND AIDS JEWS Finance Minister Strasburger, on Visit Here, Says Germans’ Killings Total 1,400,000 November 18, 1942
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> HIMMLER PROGRAM KILLS POLISH JEWS; Slaughter of 250,000 in Plan to Wipe Out Half in Country This Year Is Reported REGIME IN LONDON ACTS Officials of Poland Publish Data – Dr. Wise Gets Check Here by State Department November 25, 1942
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> ALLIES DESCRIBE OUTRAGES ON JEWS; United Nations Office Here Releases Report on Fate of 5,000,000 in Europe EXTERMINATION IS FEARED Situation in Each Country Held by Germans Is Analyzed in Summarized Form December 20, 1942
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> SAVE DOOMED JEWS, HUGE RALLY PLEADS; United Nations Must Halt Nazi Murders Now, Leaders Tell 21,000 at the Garden Huge Rally Demands Rescue of Doomed Jews March 2, 1943
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> FRENCH JEWS SENT TO A NAZI OBLIVION; One Who Escaped Terror Says ‘Death Convoys’ Take Them to Unknown Fate in East April 1, 1943
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> ALL WARSAW JEWS HELD ‘LIQUIDATED’; Rabbi Miller Gets Report of Final Massacre After 60 Nazis Had Been Slain in Ghetto March 15, 1943
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> 2,000,000 Jews Murdered April 20, 1943
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> NAZI GAS KILLINGS OF REFUGEES CITED; Stockholm Paper Reports the Massacre of 10,000 Jews in Brest-Litovsk Area June 13, 1943
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> 2,000,000 MURDERS BY NAZIS CHARGED; Polish Paper in London Says Jews Are Exterminated in Treblinska Death House GROUPS SLAIN IN CELLS Steam Is Reported Used to Kill Men, Women and Children at Place in Woods August 8, 1943
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> 50,000 KIEV JEWS REPORTED KILLED; Soviet Atrocity Group Hears Nazis Machine-Gunned Victims in Sept., 1941 BODIES LATER BURNED Prisoners of War Forced to Build Pyres Were Shot to Destroy All Evidence November 29, 1943
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> JEWS IN HUNGARY FEeR ANNIHILATION; Gas-Chamber ‘Baths’ on Nazi Model Reported Prepared by Puppet Regime May 10, 1944
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> INQUIRY CONFIRMS NAZI DEATH CAMPS; 1,715,000 Jews Said to Have Been Put to Death by the Germans Up to April 15 July 3, 1944
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> TWO DEATH CAMPS PLACES OF HORROR; German Establishments for Mass Killings of Jews Described by Swiss July 6, 1944
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/122 "2010-05-18T02:48:34Z")
Wikipedia on [knowledge of death camps among the Allies.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust#Escapes.2C_publication_of_news_of_the_death_camps_.28April.E2.80.93June_1944.29)
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/123 "2010-05-18T03:06:39Z")
> [@Mince](#):
>
> you claim the Germans propagandized the extermination of Jews, yet kept it secret.
No, you claim that. I never said any such thing. The full nature of the death camps wasn’t made clear to the world until after the war. Bits and pieces were known or suggested during the war, but not the whole story.
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> And I suppose you know
Well, yes, facts tend to inculcate the condition known as knowledge. It was quite possible to conduct r[econ and photograph the camps](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Birkenau25August1944.jpg) in order to determine what likely target structures were
> [@RickJay](#):
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> with magically enhanced range
No no, magic Xbox wombat puppy dog range. Or, ya know, their actual combat range. Either way.
> [@RickJay](#):
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> (Again, why people think bombing the crematoria would have helped is beyond logical explanation.)
Ignorance often renders matters incomprehensible. DSeid already cleared this up for you, back when you didn’t even know what the full function of the crematoria was. Ah well.
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/124 "2010-05-18T03:57:54Z")
> [@DSeid](#):
>
> Wrong. By then the accuracy was extant and was used in several runs on the Buna synthetic oil plant.
> Train lines may have been rebuildable but [this quote](http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48964661.html) is also telling.
Train tracks were not attacked with bombers, major rail yards maybe. Trains were attacked by fighter bombers. There simply was no way a bomber was capable of precision bombing. The cites you listed talked in terms of flying 100 bombers to destroy a target. That’s carpet bombing, not precision bombing.
I don’t remember what program did it but there was a TV show on the accuracy of WWII bombers and they tested ( B25?) with dummy bombs. The best the bomb sites did was get them in the ball park for carpet bombing.
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### Author:  [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/125 "2010-05-18T05:11:46Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> No, you claim that. I never said any such thing. The full nature of the death camps wasn’t made clear to the world until after the war. Bits and pieces were known or suggested during the war, but not the whole story.
Maybe a review of our exchange will clarify things.
[QUOTE=Mince]
As brutal as it seems, even if the Allies had any appreciable knowledge of the atrocities, they were unlikely to expend military resources on what was essentially non-military targets.
[/QUOTE]
Pretty straight forward.
[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
But they did on several occasions. Mozzies, for example, attacked Nazi rallies for the propaganda value.
[/QUOTE]
You implicitly state that the Allies did indeed attack non-military targets, specifically targets that had propagandistic value.
[QUOTE=Mince]
Propaganda is an essential element of warfare. It is often considered a military objective. The concentration camps, largely, had no “propaganda” factor.
[/QUOTE]
I countered that targets of propaganda and for propagandistic effect _are_ valid military targets, implying that those targets cannot be compared to concentration camps because the camps essentially had no propagandistic value.
To which you responded:
[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
Sure they did. They represented a major ideological and material investment for the Nazis, a shocking and revolting secret that stunned the world once they were made public, and an example of what the vanquished could expect if the Nazis won.
It hardly would have taken a propaganda genius to come up with a PR offensive.
[/QUOTE]
You responded “Sure they did,” giving the appearance that you thought concentration camps did indeed have propagandistic value. “They had no propaganda value.” “Sure they did.”
The above is why I presumed you thought the camps had propagandistic value, prompting my response (in part):
[QUOTE=Mince]
…you claim the Germans propagandized the extermination of Jews…
[/QUOTE]
With that (hopefully) cleared up, I reassert my original point, which is that concentration camps, even had the Allies known their true nature and the extent of the atrocities, would likely not have considered them military targets. I contend that attacking a Nazi rally for, as you stated, “the propaganda value” is a legitimate military objective because of that propaganda value, which a big part of warfare, unlike the concentration camps which had no propagana value, mostly because, and as you indicated, the Allies likely did not have full knowledge of their activities due the Germans’ secrecy.
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### Author:  [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/126 "2010-05-18T05:50:57Z")
I was looking for something else and this link popped up
[Der Spiegel](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,694779,00.html)
This is a pictorial view of conquered Germany , with trolley missions flown at low altitude and obviously nobody firing back.
Declan
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/127 "2010-05-18T06:12:13Z")
> [@Declan](#):
>
> I was looking for something else and this link popped up
>
> [Der Spiegel](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,694779,00.html)
>
> This is a pictorial view of conquered Germany , with trolley missions flown at low altitude and obviously nobody firing back.
>
> Declan
Picture 17 shows an airfield with a bunch of Dornier DO 335’s (inline twin propeller) Wow. Found a [video clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdtzDZI0dAk) of one flying. Only a handful of these existed and this looks like the lot.
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### Author:  [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/128 "2010-05-18T06:22:02Z")
Wow again. Picture 30 shows a Mistel/Ju88 combination. They made bombs out of the bombers and carried them aloft below another plane. I was just reading about this today.
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### Author:  [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/129 "2010-05-18T13:43:01Z")
> [@Magiver](#):
>
> Train tracks were not attacked with bombers, major rail yards maybe. Trains were attacked by fighter bombers. There simply was no way a bomber was capable of precision bombing. The cites you listed talked in terms of flying 100 bombers to destroy a target. That’s carpet bombing, not precision bombing.
>
> I don’t remember what program did it but there was a TV show on the accuracy of WWII bombers and they tested ( B25?) with dummy bombs. The best the bomb sites did was get them in the ball park for carpet bombing.
It’s worth also highlighting that we’ve been terribly Western centric in this discussion, and a[s this map linked earlier highlights](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4b/Majorcampseurope.gif) a damned good chunk of the worst death camps are rather more accessible from Soviet air-front than the Western powers, and as memory serves, the Sovs had effecive air superiority by 1944.
In any case, giving the Sovs a pass and putting the weight on the US and UK is rather unbalanced. Of course the Sovs being bloody minded doubtless simply did not care. Not as if they did not have their own camps.
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### Author:  [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/130 "2010-05-18T14:01:39Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#):
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> That’s not a refutation.
Doesn’t need one. You’re just spewing hatred at your own nation and your own people again. It makes you feel morally superior or something.
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### Author:  [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/131 "2010-05-18T14:14:56Z")
The war in Europe wasn’t about saving the Jews. For the Russians, it was about their own survival. For the British and Americans, it was about eliminating the political and military danger that Nazi Germany represented to the Anglo-American world. Pardon my cynicism, but if Stalin had been seen as the greater threat, the Brits and Yanks would gladly have allied themselves with Hitler.
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### Author:  [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/132 "2010-05-18T14:49:39Z")
Picture 2 of a destroyed airfield also coincidentally demonstrates typical bomb distribution in the day. There are at least 20 bomb craters visible, rather randomly (apparently-- I didn’t do a statistical analysis) distributed.
Now mentally superimpose that distribution onto picture 5 of Buchenwald. I’m not convinced that standard bombing could be expected to result in anything more than mass murder of prisoners, except by random chance.
Upthread is a quote from a German locomotive engineer saying that his was a notoriously dangerous job because locomotives were targets of Allied air attack. This is offered to support the contention that Allied air routinely engaged in high precision attacks, as on a single locomotive; thus targeting a single building, say a crematorium, should have been equally possible. What is not stated is the reality that such attacks on trains were made, not by bombers but by fighters or perhaps fighter/bombers, using primarily straffing fire rather than bombs. It’s much easier to line one’s airplane up with the tracks and straff a train from end to end than it is to target it with a bomb or bombs. Locomotives are not hardened targets, and are quite susceptible to such damage. Bombing was much more effective against rail yards, less so against single rail lines, as other pictures in this series demonstrate. Again, there is little to suggest that precision bombing was even possible, let alone common or routine.
I am still unconvinced that the Allies had any realistic ability to selectively damage or destroy only (or primarily) certain important parts of a compound like that shown in picture 5. Causing mass death for prisoners, yes, followed by more mass death of survivors by either the actions or inactions of the Germans on site.
Nor am I convinced that this scenario would have had any significant impact on the genocide program, given the number of alternative camps available as well as the number of alternative means to inflict mass death.
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### Author:  [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/133 "2010-05-18T14:57:42Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#):
>
> The war in Europe wasn’t about saving the Jews. For the Russians, it was about their own survival. For the British and Americans, it was about eliminating the political and military danger that Nazi Germany represented to the Anglo-American world.
To amplify - in my opinion, on the debate as to whether the Allies _could_ have disrupted the death camp operations, I am of the view that the better arument is that (1) the Allies knew all about the Death Camps pretty quickly after they were established and (2) if they had wanted, they probably could have disrupted at least some of them pretty effectively, albeit at some cost.
But why should they? The Death Camps were not doing the Nazis any good, militarily. On the contrary, they were a huge distraction from the war effort. In particular, they used valuable railway capacity. The Nazis were busy killing people they ruled. The various Nazi death camp slave labour schemes were mostly worthless in terms of actual military/industrial efficiency - dying people simply do not make good workers.
The only exception I’m aware of was the use of slaves in the V-campaign, and in that case, the Allies were keen to bomb them, as I recall (and the Nazis keen to protect them, locating the assembly plans in underground tunnels).
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### Author:  [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/134 "2010-05-18T15:00:05Z")
> [@Mince](#):
>
> You responded “Sure they did,” giving the appearance that you thought concentration camps did indeed have propagandistic value.
Yes, of course they did. But do you see a difference between that, and your statement that “you claim the Germans propagandized the extermination of Jews, yet kept it secret”
> [@Mince](#):
>
> I contend that attacking a Nazi rally for, as you stated, “the propaganda value” is a legitimate military objective because of that propaganda value, which a big part of warfare
The allies had a enough information to make a reasonable judgment, and they had verified the gas chambers by '43. They could have, quite easily, crafted a propaganda offensive around the camps.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/135 "2010-05-18T15:04:06Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#):
>
> Doesn’t need one. You’re just spewing hatred at your own nation and your own people again. It makes you feel morally superior or something.
This sort of pointless squabbling and attacks on the persons of other posters was [ruled out of order way back in Post #39](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12460709&postcount=39).
Stop it.
[/Moderating]
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### Author:  [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/136 "2010-05-18T15:15:36Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Wikipedia on [knowledge of death camps among the Allies.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust#Escapes.2C_publication_of_news_of_the_death_camps_.28April.E2.80.93June_1944.29)
From the Wikipedia link:
> [@](#):
>
> … the most spectacular escape took place on 20 June 1942, when Ukrainian Eugeniusz Bendera and three Poles, Kazimierz Piechowski, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster and Józef Lempart made a daring escape.[162] The escapees were dressed as members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, fully armed and in an SS staff car. They drove out the main gate in a stolen Rudolf Hoss automobile Steyr 220 … The Germans never recaptured any of them.[163]
God damn. Those guys must have had testicles the size of baseballs.
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### Author:  [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/137 "2010-05-18T16:14:08Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#):
>
> Yes, of course they did. But do you see a difference between that, and your statement that “you claim the Germans propagandized the extermination of Jews, yet kept it secret”
Yes. I misspoke.
[QUOTE=FinnAgain]
The allies had a enough information to make a reasonable judgment, and they had verified the gas chambers by '43. They could have, quite easily, crafted a propaganda offensive around the camps.
[/QUOTE]
I can divine two reasons for the lack of a military offense against concentration camps:
Principally, and I believe most likely, they perceived…for whatever reason…little to no profit, in military terms, in doing so. The only other plausible option (IMO), that they just didn’t care, is possible; but do you really believe that is true?
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### Author:  [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/138 "2010-05-18T16:24:15Z")
> [@CannyDan](#):
>
> Picture 2 of a destroyed airfield also coincidentally demonstrates typical bomb distribution in the day. There are at least 20 bomb craters visible, rather randomly (apparently-- I didn’t do a statistical analysis) distributed.
>
> Now mentally superimpose that distribution onto picture 5 of Buchenwald. I’m not convinced that standard bombing could be expected to result in anything more than mass murder of prisoners, except by random chance.
This is essentially my argument up thread. Real war experience suggests that such raids ran a non-trivial chance of not doing any real damage to the machinery of death, and as the actual use of say P-38s shows (25% attrit in one raid), suffering serious losses of valuable, highly skilled air crews AND simply massacring prisoners.
Arm chair generals of course can look at paper profiles and in the abstract move planes around on a map, quite easy.
> [@](#):
>
> Again, there is little to suggest that precision bombing was even possible, let alone common or routine.
> [@](#):
>
> I am still unconvinced that the Allies had any realistic ability to selectively damage or destroy only (or primarily) certain important parts of a compound like that shown in picture 5. Causing mass death for prisoners, yes, followed by more mass death of survivors by either the actions or inactions of the Germans on site.
>
> Nor am I convinced that this scenario would have had any significant impact on the genocide program, given the number of alternative camps available as well as the number of alternative means to inflict mass death.
Precisely.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/139 "2010-05-18T18:11:46Z")
Several points in this thread are just odd.
While the USAAF’s claims for “precision” bombing were exaggerated, they were not false. The reason that most U.S. bombs were scattered across wide areas, (relatively) far from their targets had to do with the nature of the raids. If one sends 60 (or 500) bombers out to hit one target and they line up in single file to each take a crack at it, the flak gunners are going to have their range, altitude, and speed calculated pretty quickly and will simply shoot most of them down. Similarly, lining up in single file would have meant that they would have sacrificed their defensive combat boxes, making them easier targets for fighters. So, while giving lip service to their “pinpoint” bombing, the USAAF rarely actually employed it. Then, because their superiors knew that their tactics did not require that much precision, few pilots and bombardiers were given the extra training necessary to ensure their success with pinpoint raids. However, the planes and bombsights were quite capable of doing what was claimed for them when their crews were trained and they were sent out on special raids of smaller numbers.
Similarly, despite not having the Norden sight, the RAF did have their own accurate device, (that they simply limited to special raids rather than mass producing and placing in all their aircraft). They employed those sights, along with the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs, to take out railroad bridges and tunnels on several occasions. (Recall that the Jewish groups calling for interdiction did not ask that the gas chambers be destroyed, but that the railroads be interrupted. Bombing miles of track would not have been of significant use, but removing specific trestles and tunnels could have rendered the tracks useless for weeks or longer.)
Ignoring P-38s, Lancasters, B-17s and B-24s were all available for various raids had they been deemed appropriate.
On the other side of the discussion, reading over the [Wikipedia article on intelligence about the camps](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust#Escapes.2C_publication_of_news_of_the_death_camps_.28April.E2.80.93June_1944.29), it is not clear who among the Allied command actually received the information. Given the doubts expressed by many of the people receiving the information, it is quite possible that Churchill, Eisenhower, Portal, Harris, Arnold, and Eaker never really learned of the purpose of the camps during the fighting.
This is not a claim that no one knew of the ongoing murder of Jews and others. The _Einsatzgruppen_ activities were well known and documented. The issue is whether the leaders actually knew that the people being sent to Auschwitz, Birkenau, and other camps were being murdered by the thousands every single day.
It would be interesting to see documentation that those leaders were specifically aware of the nature of the death camps. (I do not know that they were not; I only note that the evidence presented thus far in this thread is ambiguous.)
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### Author:  [@CannyDan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CannyDan)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2010, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-we-bomb-concentration-camps/539633/140 "2010-05-18T19:54:17Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Several points in this thread are just odd.
>
> While the USAAF’s claims for “precision” bombing were exaggerated, they were not false. The reason that most U.S. bombs were scattered across wide areas, (relatively) far from their targets had to do with the nature of the raids. If one sends 60 (or 500) bombers out to hit one target and they line up in single file to each take a crack at it, the flak gunners are going to have their range, altitude, and speed calculated pretty quickly and will simply shoot most of them down. Similarly, lining up in single file would have meant that they would have sacrificed their defensive combat boxes, making them easier targets for fighters. So, while giving lip service to their “pinpoint” bombing, the USAAF rarely actually employed it. Then, because their superiors knew that their tactics did not require that much precision, few pilots and bombardiers were given the extra training necessary to ensure their success with pinpoint raids. However, the planes and bombsights were quite capable of doing what was claimed for them when their crews were trained and they were sent out on special raids of smaller numbers.
> Similarly, despite not having the Norden sight, the RAF did have their own accurate device, (that they simply limited to special raids rather than mass producing and placing in all their aircraft). They employed those sights, along with the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs, to take out railroad bridges and tunnels on several occasions. (Recall that the Jewish groups calling for interdiction did not ask that the gas chambers be destroyed, but that the railroads be interrupted. Bombing miles of track would not have been of significant use, but removing specific trestles and tunnels could have rendered the tracks useless for weeks or longer.)
> Ignoring P-38s, Lancasters, B-17s and B-24s were all available for various raids had they been deemed appropriate…
Well, there’s precision and then there’s precision. As you say, mass bombing raids produce randomized results for a number of reasons. And the Allies certainly had the ability to produce increased precision when willing to commit special equipment (planes equipped with precision bombsights), specially trained manpower (crews who knew how to use them and had practiced doing so in combat) and specialized tactics (including, as you note, the number of planes and their tactical arrangement). A competent aircrew, on a really good day, could probably put all or almost all their bomb load into a football field. In the 1940s that would be high precision.
Given the often competing interests and priorities of different field commanders and multiple political leaders, the decisions of how and where to target had to be defensible and aligned with an overall battle plan. (“We’re concentrating on _this_ right now because _that_ is happening, and _something_ is about to get underway. We’ll get to your area (of interest) next week, I promise!”) Diversion of any resources, let alone highly specialized, skilled, and rare resources for raids of unknown or doubtful strategic benefit would be unlikely.
Surely the Allies knew full well that bombing “trestles and tunnels” would have a longer lasting effect on German war effort _or_ genocide than bombing random tracks. I suspect that this was done routinely, all across the field of action, using whatever aircraft were available, precision or not. I doubt that there were many miles of railway devoted exclusively to serving death camps; railways are more like a web than a line, with multiple cross connections and serving multiple destinations. So it seems likely that virtually all railway bridges and tunnels were considered high value targets pretty much all the time, and unlikely that any were deliberately excluded from targeting simply because they served a death camp. The fact is, the Germans became really good at replacing such infrastructure, almost as quickly as it could be knocked out. The replacement bridge wouldn’t be as good perhaps as the original one, but it could handle a few trains. And whether it then fell down, or was bombed again, it could be thrown back together probably in a day or two.
Finally, even if a high precision strike intended to interfere with a death camp’s ability to commit mass murder was deemed desirable, results are not guaranteed. A lucky flak battery, a lost navigator, a fortuitous German fighter plane, or any of dozens of other random factors may interfere and the precision strike becomes something else. If the target was a railway trestle, any places the bombs actually hit are within the theater of war; they may be wasted, but any civilian lives lost are of no consequence in the context of the war. Lost Allied aircraft and air crews can be replaced, and the raid can be scheduled again.
However, while you **tomndebb** argue for targeting rail, upthread is a repeated call for precision bombing of the death camps themselves, with crematoria being the specific targets. Even under the best of circumstances, a perfect raid on a perfect day with neither flak nor fighter interference, only a tiny percentage of the bombs dropped could actually be expected to hit the targeted buildings. The rest are going to fall _in a football field with the crematorium somewhere inside it_. And that football field area is for a single plane. Every other plane, if it is as accurate, will place its own football field sized area of destruction somewhere nearby the first one, perhaps with or perhaps without overlap. Superimpose **that** image on the photo of Buchenwald. I find it hard to believe that, had this been done, the effect would have been as desired.
In the final analysis, I tend to agree with **Malthus**
> [@Malthus](#):
>
> To amplify - in my opinion, on the debate as to whether the Allies _could_ have disrupted the death camp operations, I am of the view that the better arument is that (1) the Allies knew all about the Death Camps pretty quickly after they were established and (2) if they had wanted, they probably could have disrupted at least some of them pretty effectively, albeit at some cost.
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> But why should they? The Death Camps were not doing the Nazis any good, militarily. On the contrary, they were a huge distraction from the war effort. In particular, they used valuable railway capacity. The Nazis were busy killing people they ruled. The various Nazi death camp slave labour schemes were mostly worthless in terms of actual military/industrial efficiency - dying people simply do not make good workers…
Indeed, I could envision such bombing as a major propaganda boost for the Nazi regime. What might the rest of the world have thought of us obliterating a prison camp chock full of Jews? Would the explanation “It’s for their own good!” actually have flown?
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