Operation Gommorra - July / August 1943 : Hamburg "Firestorm" kills thousands.

[Lefty]

The strategic bombing campaign was absolutely fundamental to winning the war when it did. That it targeted population centres sometimes was because that was where the rail communication hubs were, which were central to the German war effort, where the munitions factories were and where the workforces for these factories were. This was crucial to the Eastern Front as well as the Western.

A good example is the King Tiger. 1500 were ordered, but only 492 were ever produced. That's 2/3 never made it to the battlefield. 657 alone were lost due to 5 bombing raids in late September/early October 1944.

If you are bothered about the losses, ask yourself how many more Jewish women and children would Auschwitz have got through in another year or two and with a nice rail network?

 

[Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret]

Civilians arent armed and trained to kill.
Thats the difference.

So what? Why is it morally correct to kill a 18 year old who has been drafted rather than a civilian.
The fact he has been trained and is armed is completely irrelevant to the moralism of it. He has been forced into the situation. Just nonsense chivalry. I'd rather see the 50 year old bloke who voted for Hitler go to his grave.
Like handing out speeding tickets at the indie 500.

 

[Lefty]

So what? Why is it morally correct to kill a 18 year old who has been drafted rather than a civilian.
The fact he has been trained and is armed is completely irrelevant to the moralism of it. He has been forced into the situation. Just nonsense chivalry. I'd rather see the 50 year old bloke who voted for Hitler go to his grave.
Like handing out speeding tickets at the indie 500.

It is often overlooked that any normal government would have sought peace probably from late 1942/early 1943. And every month afterwards. Or been removed. We overlook that the Nazi regime was extraordinarily fanatical and had the grip it had on the population. We are looking back with hindsight, but in 1942 we didn't expect they would be happy to continue an unwinnable war for so long and with such destruction.

 

[Thing]

Let me be the first to concede that ever since the foundation of the East India Company in 1600 the British have not exactly covered ourselves in the glory we are all taught in school - as a nation we have one hell of a lot to answer for.

The vast majority of history taught at schools (certainly up to O-level/GCSE) is "fact" based. The story that prevails is that of the victor; the vanquished are forgotten. We get taught this happened on this day and this was the result. A-level starts to get the student to question those historical facts and importantly view them in the wider historical context.

If you look at the bombing of Hamburg as a singular event then it's a barbaric act against a civilian population when the war was already being won. Non-debatable.

But...... when viewed in the wider context the events, and importantly the rationale behind them, we can get a better understanding of why. Yes the war was on the way to being won, it was only a matter of time. However there was significant intelligence that the Germans were close to finishing the development of a weapon of mass destruction. The Americans were developing one but weren't there yet - that would be six months away. The allies had to end the war as fast as they could, before the ever-increasingly desperate Germans had the opportunity to use their weapon (possibly against London). They had to show the Germans that they too could destroy a city if necessary; it just happened that Hamburg was strategically placed. Such was the impact of those raids on Hamburg, that Joseph Goebbels is documented as pleading with the other members of the High Command to immediately sue for peace. That's the untold rationale behind the "area" bombing of Hamburg. To destroy what was left of the industrial capability, and try to force the German leadership into surrendering before they have a chance to use whatever weapon it was that they were developing.

Sorry for sounding like my history teacher!

 

[Soutra]

They knew about the railway line, they could have sorted it there. We did not have the will, or at best it was not seen as a priority.

Like I said if it had not been Jews, it would have been dealt with.

Berlin was about the furthest practical target at 600 miles from bomber basis in the UK. Travelling another 250 - a round trip of 1700 miles to Auschwitz - was beyond the range of the RAF. And bombing a railway line? How many bombs would need to be dropped to make that happen, but more to the point, how long would it out of action? When the RAF was trying to knock out the Bielefeld Viaduct in 1944/5, it took 50 raids with no air defences to manage to do it. In the meantime the Germans had built a "Gummibahn" (rubber railway) to handle traffic in the event that the RAF succeeded.

So what chance would the Allies had of hitting a tiny target, much further away, earlier in the war with air defences, and what was the likelihood it would have been a fatal blow to the transport of people to death camps? How many planes and airmen would have perished trying to do it, and what would have been the longer term effect of losing those planes and crew on the war?

 

[Redwurzel]

The Allies knew about mass killing @ Auschwitz in 1943, but the strategy employed was to end the war asap to save people at these camps. With hindsight we could have possibly sent light bombers (more precise) by 1944 from Italy to cause choas in the camps. We had managed to bomb the Eagles Nest in the Alps in 1945 so we must have had planes capable of of hitting a relatively large target like Auschwitz Birkneau (it took me 25 minutes to walk top to bottom). Range might have been an issue although Mustangs could for example fly over Berlin. More evidence of knowledge of mass killings was the fact the Germans were bought off in the summer of 1944 when some Hungarian Jews were exchanged for trucks and/or cash. Next to Auschwitz Birkneau there ws a giant Artifical Rubber manufacturing plant operated by IG Faben, converting Polish coal into rubber. The plant was bombed by the RAF, so it was within range of some bombers.

My gripe with the RAF mass bombings were is last 3 months of the war when the Germans had ran out of fuel and people to fight. I have never seen any Tiger tanks in historic film for the Battle of Berlin. The Allied leaders at Yalta in January 1945 knew Germany was beaten as they divided out Europe at that Conference.

PBS ran a TV programme about the last 100 days of Nazi Germany last night. It covered the first 10 days of that period, so there should be quite a few more to come. Last night covered the bombing of Dresden amongst other topics.

 

[Thing]

The Allies knew about mass killing @ Auschwitz in 1943, but the strategy employed was to end the war asap to save people at these camps. With hindsight we could have possibly sent light bombers (more precise) by 1944 from Italy to cause choas in the camps. We had managed to bomb the Eagles Nest in the Alps in 1945 so we must have had planes capable of of hitting a relatively large target like Auschwitz Birkneau (it took me 25 minutes to walk top to bottom). Range might have been an issue although Mustangs could for example fly over Berlin. More evidence of knowledge of mass killings was the fact the Germans were bought off in the summer of 1944 when some Hungarian Jews were exchanged for trucks and/or cash. Next to Auschwitz Birkneau there ws a giant Artifical Rubber manufacturing plant operated by IG Faben, converting Polish coal into rubber. The plant was bombed by the RAF, so it was within range of some bombers.

My gripe with the RAF mass bombings were is last 3 months of the war when the Germans had ran out of fuel and people to fight. I have never seen any Tiger tanks in historic film for the Battle of Berlin. The Allied leaders at Yalta in January 1945 knew Germany was beaten as they divided out Europe at that Conference.

PBS ran a TV programme about the last 100 days of Nazi Germany last night. It covered the first 10 days of that period, so there should be quite a few more to come. Last night covered the bombing of Dresden amongst other topics.

Hindsight is indeed a wonderful thing. However hitting a rubber factory and impacting the German war effort, is different to bombing the very people you're trying to help. Bombing raids were notoriously inaccurate back then. You've also got to take into account that in 1943 it was only rumours coming from the resistance about the concentration camps, it wasn't until 1944 that any hard evidence was available, and by that time planning for Overlord was well underway, and the Russians were advancing back towards Poland. Conserve your resources and let the Russians do the liberating.

I remember, many many moons ago now, my history teacher gave the analogy of the bombing campaign in 1945 as two heavy weight boxers in a ring.

One boxer is winning with his opponent against the ropes and unable to defend himself anymore. There is no point carrying on.....he's won the fight. Except there is no referee to stop the contest so he keeps on bashing him until he is down and unconscious, victory assured.

 

[Anton_Berg]

In an interview I remember seeing on TV in the 60s/70s, Montgomery was asked about biological warfare. He said (words to the effect) 'wouldn't it be more humane if we could have given Hamburg a flu epidemic'.

Another thing from that interview was when he was asked if he had thought about going into politics, as Eisenhower had done. He replied, shaking his head, 'War's a dirty business, but politics..."

 

[Same_as_before]

Berlin was about the furthest practical target at 600 miles from bomber basis in the UK. Travelling another 250 - a round trip of 1700 miles to Auschwitz - was beyond the range of the RAF. And bombing a railway line? How many bombs would need to be dropped to make that happen, but more to the point, how long would it out of action? When the RAF was trying to knock out the Bielefeld Viaduct in 1944/5, it took 50 raids with no air defences to manage to do it. In the meantime the Germans had built a "Gummibahn" (rubber railway) to handle traffic in the event that the RAF succeeded.

So what chance would the Allies had of hitting a tiny target, much further away, earlier in the war with air defences, and what was the likelihood it would have been a fatal blow to the transport of people to death camps? How many planes and airmen would have perished trying to do it, and what would have been the longer term effect of losing those planes and crew on the war?

Send in a few specialist trained bombers. My old fella would have done it in an instant.

We did nothing for a reason.

 

[Redwurzel]

Thing

I agree bombing people you really want to protect seems crazy, but that was what the Jewish Council was asking for by April 1944. Two Slovak jews had escaped April 10th 1944 and they described the camp in detail. No senior allies fully believed their stories (in public anyway), particularly the scale of the killings. The Jewish Council believed them and called for the bombing of the camps while they were still operating. Thre had been reports in the New York Times from November 1942 of reports from Palenstine. Interestingly many in the West also did not believe the Russian Soviets about the camps (in Jan 1945). It was when Belsen was found that the Allies (15 April 1945) fully realised what so called civilised people were capable of doing to other people, even though all the warning signs were all there. Some say the final raids on Germany in the last 2 weeks of war, were partly revenge. My Mum today will still tell anyone the horror she felt as a little girl watching the first newsreels of Belsen, in a cinema in South Bank. By April 16th everyone in the UK knew.

I will always defend the EEC/EU and the Allies after the war, for helping bring Germany and France closer together and avoiding another military conflict in Europe. This thread shows the horror of war and hatred of others.

 

[r00fie1]

So what? Why is it morally correct to kill a 18 year old who has been drafted rather than a civilian.
The fact he has been trained and is armed is completely irrelevant to the moralism of it. He has been forced into the situation. Just nonsense chivalry. I'd rather see the 50 year old bloke who voted for Hitler go to his grave.
Like handing out speeding tickets at the indie 500.

It appears you are letting emotion rule your heart.
Morality doesnt come into it.
Truth and civilians are the first casualties of war.
How is a country to defend itself if it relies on volunteers(?) - it couldnt.
The war machine involves state control and planning from top to bottom.
Conscription is a component of that.
Families were forced from their homes as enemy bombs killed their children and flattened our cities.
Civilians have no defence against bombs and incendiaries.
Our civilians needed defending - each of our servicemen were defending not only their own lives but millions on this island.

 

[r00fie1]

British spy's early alert on Holocaust

An agent working for Britain's wartime intelligence services alerted the Allies to the Nazi plan to eradicate the Jews of Europe in late 1941, two months before the Wannsee conference that rubber-stamped Hitler's Final Solution.

www.theguardian.com

​

British spy's early alert on Holocaust​

Discovery poached from Chilean cable raises question of why Jews were kept in the dark about the Final Solution

An agent working for Britain's wartime intelligence services alerted the Allies to the Nazi plan to eradicate the Jews of Europe in late 1941, two months before the Wannsee conference that rubber-stamped Hitler's Final Solution.

A British intelligence document held in the US National Archives and declassified last week shows that Britain was warned about Hitler's plans for the Jews after 'a most secret' British source 'poached' diplomatic cables written by a fanatically pro-Nazi Chilean diplomat in Prague.

The revelation that Britain and the US - which was passed the cable in March 1942 - were warned so early in the war is certain to fuel the bitter historical debate over whether the Allies should have done more to prevent the Holocaust - which claimed the lives of six million Jews - or at least warn its potential victims.

It also comes amid fresh revelations - in a book to be published in the autumn by Richard Overy, a British military historian - claiming to identify for the first time the order for the Final Solution signed in Hitler's name.

The warning was contained in a document prepared by Gonzalo Montt Rivas, Chile's flamboyant consul in Prague, then under Nazi occupation.
The cable is one of nearly three million US intelligence documents relating to the Holocaust declassified under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act enacted by President Bill Clinton.

In November 1941, the anti-Semitic Montt was one of the last 'neutral' diplomats in Prague, a fact not unconnected with the revelation that he had been recruited to provide information to Walter Schellenberg, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Branch of the Reich Security Main Office.

Montt, 48, was a dapper former soldier who had fought in the Paraguayan army and enjoyed a taste for fine wine, fine food and women. As an agent of Schellenberg, he would have enjoyed access to senior Gestapo officials in Prague.

Through his connections, Montt remained remarkably well-informed about the German policy towards the Jews.

His own views were made clear when he advised that Chile should avoid taking even 'baptised Jews' fleeing from Europe as he believed that even 'baptismal water' could not cleanse the 'filth accumulated during centuries in ghettoes'.

By 25 November, secret talks were under way that would seal the fate of the Jews. Germany was still riding high on a wave of euphoria after its surprise attack on Soviet Russia and Hitler had turned his mind to settling the Jewish 'problem'.

Hitler had given the task of solving this 'problem' to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Gestapo, and to Rheinhard Heydrich, then based in Prague, who two months later would chair the Wannsee conference.

Montt filed his cable to Santiago on 24 November. Twenty-four hours later, Germany would announce the Eleventh Decree - that the property of Jews who had fled would be forfeited.

A day before the decree was published, Montt had obtained and translated it for the diplomatic pouch. With it he included his reflections on the future for the Jews of Czechoslovakia and Europe.

'The German triumph,' he noted, 'will leave Europe free of Semites. Those who escape with their lives from this trial will certainly be deported to Siberia.' Montt added that as US rhetoric and military action against the Nazis accelerated, so 'Germany will expedite the destruction of Semitism'.

Professor Richard Breitman, a historian at the US National Archives, says: 'This is certainly the earliest piece of evidence we have that Britain and the US were warned about the coming genocide. It predates by months the British Postal and Telegraph Censorship Office report that would claim the Nazis were planning to exterminate the Jews.

'Right now, it is impossible to know why it was not acted on,' says Breitman, regarded as an expert on the planning of the Holocaust. 'My guess, though, is that this was not an isolated document.'

The Montt cable raises important questions about the fate of intelligence gathered first by Britain - and passed to the US - about the Nazi's treatment of the Jews.

From September 1939, Breitman says, British codebreakers had been reading messages of the German Order Police responsible for mass killings of Polish Jews.

By June 1941, the codebreakers were decoding SS signals describing the massacre of Jews in the Soviet Union - a fact Breitman believes was known to Winston Churchill, but to which he did not allude in his blanket condemnation of Nazi executions in a speech in August 1941 which did not refer specifically to the Jews.

That Churchill knew Jews were being massacred, says Breitman, was acknowledged on 12 September 1941 when MI6 staff concluded in a note that 'the fact that the police are killing all Jews that fall into their hands [in the Soviet Union] should by now be sufficiently well appreciated. It is not therefore proposed to continue reporting these butcheries specifically [to the Prime Minister]'. It was against this background that the Montt cable was received.
[Prisoners forced to build their own concentration camps between 1933-39]

'There is something discomfiting,' says Breitman, 'about the conclusion that a document today considered an important source about Nazi policy had limited impact on Western governments. It prompted no Western action to warn potential Jewish victims.' He concedes that for many the priority was the war - not the atrocities that accompanied it.

'The reason this document is important,' says Overy, professor of modern history at King's College London, 'is that it appears to confirm that a decision had been made by October 1941 to exterminate the Jews. In Adolf Eichmann's interrogation he recalled that a decision had been made by mid-October.'

Equally important was the fact that the Allies had been warned within a month of that decision.

Overy's book, Interrogations , published in September, will add one of the final missing pieces to genesis of the Final Solution, proof that Hitler ordered the genocide. Overy found it in an account of a long-vanished command to Heinrich Himmler to order Heydrich to begin the killing.

The order was shown by Eichmann - with Himmler and Heydrich one of the architects of the genocide - to Dieter Wisliceny, his lieutenant, in spring 1942. Although not mentioned in Wisliceny's affidavit during his war crimes trial, Overy found the reference in his long buried interrogation. The order he was shown, said Wisliceny, was signed by Himmler. Beneath it were the words 'on the orders of the Führer'.

But the mystery remains how Britain acquired Montt's dispatch. Breitman believes that the British spy was either working in the Chilean embassy or that British agents in Bermuda were opening diplomatic bags sent across the Atlantic by South American diplomats.

 

[Sheriff_John_Bunnell_ret]

It appears you are letting emotion rule your heart.
Morality doesnt come into it.
Truth and civilians are the first casualties of war.
How is a country to defend itself if it relies on volunteers(?) - it couldnt.
The war machine involves state control and planning from top to bottom.
Conscription is a component of that.
Families were forced from their homes as enemy bombs killed their children and flattened our cities.
Civilians have no defence against bombs and incendiaries.
Our civilians needed defending - each of our servicemen were defending not only their own lives but millions on this island.

Don't really understand your post roofie. I'd say holding a civilians life as being of more worth than a serviceman is letting your heart rule your head. Perhaps we're at cross purposes.

 

[r00fie1]

Don't really understand your post roofie. I'd say holding a civilians life as being of more worth than a serviceman is letting your heart rule your head. Perhaps we're at cross purposes.

Possibly?
It seems likely.

 

[Same_as_before]

British spy's early alert on Holocaust

An agent working for Britain's wartime intelligence services alerted the Allies to the Nazi plan to eradicate the Jews of Europe in late 1941, two months before the Wannsee conference that rubber-stamped Hitler's Final Solution.

www.theguardian.com

​

British spy's early alert on Holocaust​

Discovery poached from Chilean cable raises question of why Jews were kept in the dark about the Final Solution

An agent working for Britain's wartime intelligence services alerted the Allies to the Nazi plan to eradicate the Jews of Europe in late 1941, two months before the Wannsee conference that rubber-stamped Hitler's Final Solution.
View attachment 21957
A British intelligence document held in the US National Archives and declassified last week shows that Britain was warned about Hitler's plans for the Jews after 'a most secret' British source 'poached' diplomatic cables written by a fanatically pro-Nazi Chilean diplomat in Prague.

The revelation that Britain and the US - which was passed the cable in March 1942 - were warned so early in the war is certain to fuel the bitter historical debate over whether the Allies should have done more to prevent the Holocaust - which claimed the lives of six million Jews - or at least warn its potential victims.

It also comes amid fresh revelations - in a book to be published in the autumn by Richard Overy, a British military historian - claiming to identify for the first time the order for the Final Solution signed in Hitler's name.
View attachment 21958
The warning was contained in a document prepared by Gonzalo Montt Rivas, Chile's flamboyant consul in Prague, then under Nazi occupation.
The cable is one of nearly three million US intelligence documents relating to the Holocaust declassified under the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act enacted by President Bill Clinton.

In November 1941, the anti-Semitic Montt was one of the last 'neutral' diplomats in Prague, a fact not unconnected with the revelation that he had been recruited to provide information to Walter Schellenberg, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Branch of the Reich Security Main Office.

Montt, 48, was a dapper former soldier who had fought in the Paraguayan army and enjoyed a taste for fine wine, fine food and women. As an agent of Schellenberg, he would have enjoyed access to senior Gestapo officials in Prague.

Through his connections, Montt remained remarkably well-informed about the German policy towards the Jews.
View attachment 21960
His own views were made clear when he advised that Chile should avoid taking even 'baptised Jews' fleeing from Europe as he believed that even 'baptismal water' could not cleanse the 'filth accumulated during centuries in ghettoes'.

By 25 November, secret talks were under way that would seal the fate of the Jews. Germany was still riding high on a wave of euphoria after its surprise attack on Soviet Russia and Hitler had turned his mind to settling the Jewish 'problem'.
View attachment 21961
Hitler had given the task of solving this 'problem' to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Gestapo, and to Rheinhard Heydrich, then based in Prague, who two months later would chair the Wannsee conference.

Montt filed his cable to Santiago on 24 November. Twenty-four hours later, Germany would announce the Eleventh Decree - that the property of Jews who had fled would be forfeited.

A day before the decree was published, Montt had obtained and translated it for the diplomatic pouch. With it he included his reflections on the future for the Jews of Czechoslovakia and Europe.

'The German triumph,' he noted, 'will leave Europe free of Semites. Those who escape with their lives from this trial will certainly be deported to Siberia.' Montt added that as US rhetoric and military action against the Nazis accelerated, so 'Germany will expedite the destruction of Semitism'.

Professor Richard Breitman, a historian at the US National Archives, says: 'This is certainly the earliest piece of evidence we have that Britain and the US were warned about the coming genocide. It predates by months the British Postal and Telegraph Censorship Office report that would claim the Nazis were planning to exterminate the Jews.

'Right now, it is impossible to know why it was not acted on,' says Breitman, regarded as an expert on the planning of the Holocaust. 'My guess, though, is that this was not an isolated document.'

The Montt cable raises important questions about the fate of intelligence gathered first by Britain - and passed to the US - about the Nazi's treatment of the Jews.

From September 1939, Breitman says, British codebreakers had been reading messages of the German Order Police responsible for mass killings of Polish Jews.
View attachment 21963
By June 1941, the codebreakers were decoding SS signals describing the massacre of Jews in the Soviet Union - a fact Breitman believes was known to Winston Churchill, but to which he did not allude in his blanket condemnation of Nazi executions in a speech in August 1941 which did not refer specifically to the Jews.

That Churchill knew Jews were being massacred, says Breitman, was acknowledged on 12 September 1941 when MI6 staff concluded in a note that 'the fact that the police are killing all Jews that fall into their hands [in the Soviet Union] should by now be sufficiently well appreciated. It is not therefore proposed to continue reporting these butcheries specifically [to the Prime Minister]'. It was against this background that the Montt cable was received.
View attachment 21965[Prisoners forced to build their own concentration camps between 1933-39]

'There is something discomfiting,' says Breitman, 'about the conclusion that a document today considered an important source about Nazi policy had limited impact on Western governments. It prompted no Western action to warn potential Jewish victims.' He concedes that for many the priority was the war - not the atrocities that accompanied it.

'The reason this document is important,' says Overy, professor of modern history at King's College London, 'is that it appears to confirm that a decision had been made by October 1941 to exterminate the Jews. In Adolf Eichmann's interrogation he recalled that a decision had been made by mid-October.'
View attachment 21967
Equally important was the fact that the Allies had been warned within a month of that decision.

Overy's book, Interrogations , published in September, will add one of the final missing pieces to genesis of the Final Solution, proof that Hitler ordered the genocide. Overy found it in an account of a long-vanished command to Heinrich Himmler to order Heydrich to begin the killing.
View attachment 21968
The order was shown by Eichmann - with Himmler and Heydrich one of the architects of the genocide - to Dieter Wisliceny, his lieutenant, in spring 1942. Although not mentioned in Wisliceny's affidavit during his war crimes trial, Overy found the reference in his long buried interrogation. The order he was shown, said Wisliceny, was signed by Himmler. Beneath it were the words 'on the orders of the Führer'.
View attachment 21969
But the mystery remains how Britain acquired Montt's dispatch. Breitman believes that the British spy was either working in the Chilean embassy or that British agents in Bermuda were opening diplomatic bags sent across the Atlantic by South American diplomats.

Thanks for that. It's fully verified my dad's view. There was no excuse.

 

[Soutra]

British spy's early alert on Holocaust

An agent working for Britain's wartime intelligence services alerted the Allies to the Nazi plan to eradicate the Jews of Europe in late 1941, two months before the Wannsee conference that rubber-stamped Hitler's Final Solution.

www.theguardian.com

​

British spy's early alert on Holocaust​

Discovery poached from Chilean cable raises question of why Jews were kept in the dark about the Final Solution

An agent working for Britain's wartime intelligence services alerted the Allies to the Nazi plan to eradicate the Jews of Europe in late 1941, two months before the Wannsee conference that rubber-stamped Hitler's Final Solution.
A British intelligence document held in the US National Archives and declassified last week shows that Britain was warned about Hitler's plans for the Jews after 'a most secret' British source 'poached' diplomatic cables written by a fanatically pro-Nazi Chilean diplomat in Prague.

How much information do you think the Alled security services were receiving on a daily basis? Why would anyone believe stuff from a pro-Nazi Chilean diplomat? Why would anyone propose action from such an unlikely source?

In retrospect it's easy to say something should have been done, but easy to see why, in the fog of war, it wasn't.

 

[r00fie1]

How much information do you think the Alled security services were receiving on a daily basis? Why would anyone believe stuff from a pro-Nazi Chilean diplomat? Why would anyone propose action from such an unlikely source?

In retrospect it's easy to say something should have been done, but easy to see why, in the fog of war, it wasn't.

If you read this sentence from the above article - it gives you a clue as to the relationship between intelligence "poached" from a diplomats communications [i.e "without the diplomat`s knowledge"] and how this ties in with the British code breakers - as discovered in the archives - released by the American Government:

A British intelligence document held in the US National Archives and declassified last week shows that Britain was warned about Hitler's plans for the Jews after 'a most secret' British source 'poached' diplomatic cables written by a fanatically pro-Nazi Chilean diplomat in Prague.


* "poached" - means stolen by a British Agent who had infiltrated deep into the organisation where he had access to classified Top Secret information.

 

[Trug]

Berlin was about the furthest practical target at 600 miles from bomber basis in the UK. Travelling another 250 - a round trip of 1700 miles to Auschwitz - was beyond the range of the RAF. And bombing a railway line? How many bombs would need to be dropped to make that happen, but more to the point, how long would it out of action? When the RAF was trying to knock out the Bielefeld Viaduct in 1944/5, it took 50 raids with no air defences to manage to do it. In the meantime the Germans had built a "Gummibahn" (rubber railway) to handle traffic in the event that the RAF succeeded.

So what chance would the Allies had of hitting a tiny target, much further away, earlier in the war with air defences, and what was the likelihood it would have been a fatal blow to the transport of people to death camps? How many planes and airmen would have perished trying to do it, and what would have been the longer term effect of losing those planes and crew on the war?

One of the reasons that the camps were not bombed was that it would have told the Germans that we had intercepted their radio traffic and decoded it