by Mike Mueller

Created on: May 05, 2009   Last Updated: May 08, 2009

Given that Auschwitz was a facility for committing mass homicide and given that the Allies were aware of that fact, it follows that the Allies had a duty to destroy Auschwitz in its totality in complete haste, if one is to believe the claim by the Allied victors of WWII that one of the objectives in waging war against the Third Reich was to stop the mass murder of European Jewish civilians. The Allies were not only obligated to destroy Auschwitz, but to destroy any other facility used for the same purpose.

The most efficient method of destroying Auschwitz would have been to carpet bomb the entire facility until no structure was left standing. The Allies had already demonstrated their capability and willingness to carry out such operations on German civilian centers where no mass exterminations were being carried out, other than the extermination caused as a result of the Allies themselves. Therefore any claim by anyone that the allies could not bomb the camps because the bombs would also fall on prisoners is inconsistent with the Allies already in place policy of allowing Allied bombs to kill non-combatants, since the Allies were able to drop bombs indiscriminately on civilian areas, without the faintest remorse.

The historical facts, which seem to speak for themselves, indicate that either the Allies did not have the technical ability to bomb death camps, or that stopping the holocaust was not a high priority, in the Allied campaign against Hitler. If the allies had the ability to bomb Auschwitz and they did not, then the only argument that can be made against an Allied bombing of Auschwitz is that either the mass killings being conducted there were unimportant, or that they benefited the Allies in some way.

How could America, Great Britain, and Russia possibly benefit from the mass killings taking place behind enemy lines? In order to answer that, you only need to examine how the Allies did in fact benefit from Germanys crimes after Germany was defeated. It wasn't the Allies who were put on trial at Nuremberg; it was their defeated adversary. Recall that the Allies were responsible for many tens and thousands of civilians dead and many parts of Germany lay in rubble shortly after the war. Who better to rebuild it than the liberators of the camps? What easier justification for the complete demolition of an entire city is there than the Holocaust? Who among the Germans, and who in Europe, can dare argue against the moral superiority of the Allied victors when confronted with the barbarity of German atrocities? What is more offensive after all, the carpet-bombing of Dresden, or the crematoria at Auschwitz?

The Allies and Historians claim that stopping the Holocaust was an objective after the fact. Histories judgment of the Allies has been kinder on the Allies than it may have been if it were not for the crimes committed by Germany. It is worrisome to realize that the Allies were aware of Germany's crimes and probably could have done much more to stop it, but chose not to. The Allies may have not intervened in the Holocaust because they foresaw how the guilt of Germany could serve their purposes after Germanys defeat.

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