Could the Germans have done anything to prevent the holocaust?

Answer 1

Opinion

Obviously, it would have helped if the U.S., Britain, Australia and Canada had taken in more refugees from Germany in the 1930s, before the Holocaust began. For an example of this aspect of Holocaust history you can read about the tragedy of the S.S. St. Louis at the related link.

However, the Holocaust could not have been prevented by the United States or any other country (except Germany).

Opinion

It is said that the US and the UK could have tried to bomb rail lines leading to the camps, but it is worth considering a worst case scenario, such as a large air raid that failed to destroy the gas chambers or crematoria but that killed thousands of inmates. It seems that the matter was discussed briefly at the time and that the idea was dismissed.

Opinion

Those with a basic knowledge of air-to-ground warfare in the WWII era will see the impossibility of preventing the Holocaust by bombing the rail lines. Railroad track can be repaired quickly and easily, and even a knocked out train bridge could be repaired by the Gemans in amazing time. The gas chambers were developed at the behest of Heinrich Himmler who after witnessing a mass execution by machine gun demanded something more efficient. Also, few people realize that the first mid-air refueling was done in 1929. The aircraft, named the Question Mark, set a world record for remaining in the air for 150 hours. Only after the war when Communism became the new enemy was it decided that bombers needed an inflight refeuling capability. Bombing surely could have saved some Holocaust victims, but it also would have killed some in the process. Only an invasion of Germany, delayed until 1945 by the squabbling Allies, could have stopped the Holocaust.

Opinion

The British government received frequent reports about the Holocaust from the Polish Home Army and other organizations in Poland from late 1941 onwards. When the first report about regular mass gassings reached London a Foreign Office official who read it wrote in the margin 'Bolshevist Propaganda?' (The document is in the Public Record Office). The U.S. government was also kept informed. Neither government wanted to know. Unfortunately, some of the earliest reports were vague and seemed (or actually were) exaggerated, which did not enhance their credibilty.

Some information obtained was released to the public, and in Britain in late 1942 and early 1943 and there was some discussion in the media about what might be done, and a small campaign to 'do something' got under way. However, it seems that the government saw the issue as a distraction from the war effort and manipulated public discussion in other directions.

There was not that much that the Allies could have done. They could have denounced the Holocaust 'loud and clear' and given it much more publicity. They might have tried to bomb the rail network near the major camps and they could have asked local resistance groups to give a high priority to disrupting the Holocaust. The extermination camps were nearly all in Poland, which was a long way from Allied bomber bases and deep inside German-held territory. A physical rescue by Special Operations would not have been possible. (One needs to have some knowledge of European geography when discussing these matters).

Opinion

Precision bombing of gas chambers and crematoria was not practical. Moreover, the exact location of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was not known to the Allies till the summer of 1944, following the escape (from Auschwitz) of Vrba and Wetzler who wrote a detailed, high quality report on the camp. It was forwarded to the Allies, who believed its contents and issued a thunderous denunciation ... In the U.S. this report together with another, earlier report was published in English in the U.S. in November 1944.

There are the now famous reconnaissance photographs of Auschwitz I and II (and part of III) which seem to have conveyed nothing at the time to those who analyzed it. (See link)

The Soviet air force was much closer and might have been better placed to bomb that railways near the death camps. As has been pointed out above, precision bombing was difficult as the time. One needs also to consider a worst-case scenario of inaccuate bombing, such as an air raid that killed most of the prisoners but left the gas chambers and crematoria largely undamaged.

Opinion

A Polish courier, Jan Karski, even had two face-to-face meetings with President Roosevelt about conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto and also told him about a feeder camp for Belzec (which he mistook for Belzec itself). When Karski pleaded for immediate intervention, President Roosevelt told him, 'Tell them that the guilty will be punished'.

Opinion

There was no indication prior to WW2 that the Nazis were planning on exterminating the Jews. Persecuting them, certainly, but European countries have a long history of persecuting the Jews (and, to be fair, the US was no innocent here either). The decision to initiate the Holocaust appears to have been an opportunistic one made by Hitler after WW2 began - it's unlikely that had the war NOT started, he would have refrained from beginning a Jewish pogrom at some point, but the systematic killing of Jews started as a side-"benefit" of the German conquests in 1939-41 (from Hitler's point of view).

Also, the idea that an earlier US entry would have stopped Hitler from initiating the Holocaust has no basis in reality. Remember that the Holocaust was conducted even when it conflicted with military necessity - that is, Hitler redirected critically-needed materials and manpower from the military to complete the Holocaust. There's no indication whatsoever that fighting yet another opponent would have halted the Holocaust once it began, as carrying it out became an obsession for Hitler and the SS once it had begun, and no other organization or person inside Germany could have countered this force. And, an early US entrance to the war would NOT have stopped the Holocaust from beginning - the Holocaust was started as a consequence of the military victories of 1939-41. Even if the US entrance had forced Nazi Germany from turning on the USSR in 1941, Germany still controlled the vast majority of territory that held Jews who were killed in the Holocaust.

Opinion

There's no rational scenario where the United States (or, frankly, any other country) could have halted or prevented the Holocaust from starting, since the decision to start was not a rational one to begin with, and the conditions which led to the decision to start were not really preventable - i.e. as soon as Germany finished the early conquests of 1939-40, the conditions to start the Holocaust were met, and there's no real rational basis for assuming that the Germans wouldn't have won the victories they did in 1939-40.

Opinion

To answer the question: there are no rational, let alone realistic, ways that the United States could have preventedthe Holocaust. The single possible route for this would have been to prevent the rise of Hitler in the first place, and that's a task which would have required near omniscience on the part of anyone in the 1920s.

Now, there are a great deal of things that the US could have done to reduce the total body count of the Holocaust, but that's an entirely different issue.

Answer 2

1. At the time the United Nations did not even exist. It was founded in October 1945 - after World War 2.

2. Since its foundation the United Nations has not prevented any genocide. It is dependent on its members ...

Answer 3

Had Britain and France not pursued their initial tactic in attempting to negotiate with Hitler and declared war earlier there would have been a far shorter war and a lot of holocaust deaths could have been prevented. It is unlikely that the German people could have done anything because they were not aware if the true extent of suffering in the camps.

Answer 4

Some people these days seem to want to claim that there was more the Allies could have done. But I don't really see what that might have been. Ultimately, the only thing that was going to end the holocaust was to defeat Germany and remove the Nazis from power, and the Allies were certainly doing absolutely everything they possibly could to bring about that happy day.

Specifically some people today want to complain because the Allies did not bomb the railroad tracks leading to Auschwitz. First of all, nobody knew what Auschwitz was until the war was almost over, and the last remaining prisoners were already evacuated ahead of the advancing Red Army by that time. Secondly, Auschwitz is in Poland, and US Air Forces were based in England. Berlin was a very long bombing raid from England, and Auschwitz was a few hundred more miles deeper into enemy territory. It would have been beyond the range of all but a few types of Allied aircraft. Thirdly, bombing railroad tracks is not as easy as it sounds. Railroad tracks are 4 feet, 8 inches wide, and the only Allied aircraft with the range to make the round trip customarily bombed from 25-30,000 feet. If they got within a few hundred yards of their intended target, that was considered very good. Fourthly, the Allies had a lot of experience bombing railroads, having destroyed almost all the French railroad system before D-Day. But this was done by fighter-bombers, coming in practically on the deck, and medium bombers attacking at low altitude, and these planes did not have the range to reach Poland. Fifthly, bombing a stretch of railroad track is a huge waste of time - a repair crew will fix any break in the track overnight, just like the Germans did in France, every night. The heavy bombers could only fly a mission every three or four days, due to the fickle weather over Europe. If all they did was fly missions to bomb the track leading to Auschwitz (assuming they had known what Auschwitz was, and that the Jews were being brought in by that railroad) , the Germans would repair the damage every night, and nothing else would get bombed, and thus the war would last that much longer and it would be that much longer before Auschwitz was liberated. The Germans could have moved the Auschwitz operation somewhere else, or used alternative means of transporting prisoners to Auschwitz, if the Allied bombing had seriously interfered with the transportation of prisoners there. Sixthly, bombing bridges over which railroads pass, rather than stretches of track, is a little bit more effective, but German military engineers could replace even railroad bridges in no more than a few weeks, bridges are about as hard to hit as railroad track and could probably only be done by the type of planes which could not reach Poland.

So, anyone who claims the Allies should have bombed the railroad track leading to Auschwitz does not really know what they are talking about. The shrill assertion that this should have been done seems to carry with it the assumption that it was not done due to Allied anti-semitism, and a tacit approval of Hitler's liquidation of the Jews. This is more than deeply insulting.

Answer 5

No, their was barely nothing that the allies could do to stop the persecution of jews because they were in the Nazi occupied zone and the only way that they could stop it was by trying to invade Germany to stop it by force.

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Yes, but by the time the war had started it was not possible.

Answer 6

Yes, the German people as well as the surrounding populace could have been born with backbones. To sacrifice one's life in order to save many is one of the greatest gifts one can give. Animals continue do it all the time.

Answer 7

yes, but as they did not know that the Holocaust was going to happen, the question is moot.