Rolf Hochhuth is a German author, probably best known for his 1963
play, "The Deputy."  In the play, Hochhuth proposes that Pope Pius
XII, by barely protesting the extermination of Jews by Nazi Germany,
was complicit in the holocaust.

About two weeks ago, Hochhuth, now 74, was interviewed by a minor
right-wing German publication, Junge Freiheit.  In the interview,
Hochhuth spoke favorably of historical work done by David Irving, a
"holocaust-denier" now forbidden entry to Germany.  In the same
interview, Hochhuth also said, "It is a disgrace that we have still
not acknowledged: world history knows no crime comparable to our
holocaust." And, "I have seen for myself how the Jews were deported
from my native city.  It wasn't by Hitler alone.  Without what
happened in Auschwitz, Dresden would not have been possible."
Hochhuth said that he accepted the idea of collective guilt.

After Hochhuth's comments were discovered and reprinted by a Berlin
newspaper, Hochhuth was condemned by Paul Spiegel, Chairman of the
Central Council of Jews in Germany.  Spiegel expressed the view that
whoever defends a holocaust-denier, is also a holocaust-denier.
Hochhuth's attempts to reach Spiegel to discuss the matter were
unsuccessful, as Spiegel
insisted that there could be no discussion until Hochhuth apologizes.
Spiegel has now refused to debate the matter publicly.

Hochhuth has offered an apologetic explanation, saying that he
referred only to Irving's early historical work, and has pointed out
that other authors, including Günter Grass, have relied on this work.
Wolfgang Benz, Director of the Berlin Center for Anti-Semitism
Research, has taken the view that Irving deteriorated over the years
from being a "respectable writer" to becoming a "professional
right-wing extremist."

There is more to the story, including awkward efforts by Hochhuth to
defend himself, in his outrage and frustration, against the Central
Council of Jews, as well as Spiegel's dismissal of Hochhuth as a
"geistige Brandstifter," i.e., intellectual arsonist.  The Süddeutsche
Zeitung of Munich remarks that Hochhuth must be excused for the lack
of his own public-relations staff to counter the press releases and
op-ed attack columns generated by the Council.

Questions remain, nonetheless: What are we to make of Hochhuth's
remarks and Spiegel's condemnation of him?  Is Hochhuth's past
irrelevant, or is his interview irrelevant?

Robert Berkovitz

Hey Robert Berkovitz, get real! you can't comment on what somebody
said from disconnected comments in the press, especially from a right
wing paper with an axe to grind, and subsequently from a bunch of
hysterical people trying to be important. With friends like Paul
Speigel, who needs enemies?  Before the Germans would even admit
their collective guilt, to say nothing of their individual guilt, in
those early post war years when they were a country of amnesiacs,
Hockhuth was insisting publicly that they look squarely at their
country's monstrous actions.. He even had the guts to drag in the
Catholic Church for its part in the disaster, that Church which is
now about to canonize that pope (Pius X11) who tacitly encouraged the
extermination of the jews by not protesting it and by maintaining
amicable relations with both the fascists and the nazis. For that
matter why don't we discuss why our bombers didn't destroy the camps,
or at least bomb the railroad tracks that transported the victims?
Now thats an interesting subject.

Eleanor Antin

I was interested to see that despite your admonition ("...you can't
comment"), you were able to make a number of relevant and provocative
comments on my posting before introducing another question, i.e., why
were Auschwitz and the railroad tracks leading to it not bombed?

Perhaps others will react to my posting with comments on reflex
accusations of anti-Semitism, if this is a real phenomenon, and the
respective and remarkable ignorance of Spiegel re Hochhuth, and
Hochhuth re Irving.

In the meantime, and in response to Antin's question, I would suggest
that the Allied commitment to strategic bombing, the mass killing
of`as many civilians as possible, together with the failure of aerial
bombing to achieve the expected precision, made it difficult to
justify attempts to attack Auschwitz from the air.  There appears to
have been no sense of psychological urgency about the matter in an
establishment that had no particular fondness for Jews.

See "The Holocaust and Strategic Bombing," by Eric Markusen and David
Kopf, especially Chapter 8, "The Evolution of Allied Strategic
Bombing, 1939-1945."  The Allied commitment to strategic bombing is
also, of course, the major theme in Hochhuth's play, "Soldiers."  A
1944 letter from John McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War, explaining
the decision not to bomb the concentration camp, although the nearby
I.G. Farben synthetic rubber plant had been a target of precision
bombing, can be found at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/filmmore/reference/primary/bom...

Robert Berkovitz

John McCloy's icy letter was extremely interesting bull shit
considering that by 1944 the allies had control of the air over
Germany, with anti aircraft guns being the only real threat. Indeed,
he appears to be annoyed that he is "being pressed from other
quarters" to bomb the camps, while congratulating Mr. Pehle of the
War Refugees Board for maintaining a less aggressive stance. It is
also interesting that the War Refugees Board was lodged in the
Treasury Dept. as opposed, say, to the State Dept. However, I don't
understand your own seemingly contradictory sentence in paragraph 3
where you seem to be accepting the non intervention arguments.  " I
would suggest that the Allied commitment to strategic bombing, the
mass killing of as many civilians as possible, together with the
failure of aerial bombing to achieve the expected precision made it
difficult to justify attempts to attack Auschwitz by air." This is
seemingly contradictory. Either the air force was committed to
strategic bombing or "the mass killing of as many civilians as
possible". The bombing of Dresden was hardly strategic bombing, just
as the non intervention into chosen industrial targets was strategic
non-bombing. I think the irony of your last sentence in that
paragraph "There appears to have been no sense of psychological
urgency about the matter in an establishment that had no particular
fondness for Jews" is right on.

  The failure of the allies to destroy the death camps is a serious
and disturbing issue. You can't leave the final word to John McCloy
who was more interested in the post war division of the spoils
between east and west than in the murder of powerless people. He may
even have thought that with fewer Jews left alive,  there would be
less financial and administrative difficulties for the victors,
though this, of course, is only conjecture.

Eleanor Antin

I

I intended to post a few observations about the topic raised by Antin
(the decision not to bomb Auschwitz), not to review all its aspects.
Citing the McCloy letter was not done to "leave the last word to
McCloy," but to point readers to a location where various documents on
the subject can be found, including McCloy's official explanation.  I
do not know the basis for the conjecture that McCloy believed that
"with fewer Jews left alive,  there would be less financial and
administrative difficulties for the victors."

Many other source documents at the same site referred to earlier
substantiate the failure of the U.S. and British governments to take
specific steps to impede the holocaust or rescue potential victims
while this was still possible.  An extremely interesting note on the
subject, primarily concerning Jews in Hungary, which appeared recently
in the London Times, can be found at
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/9903.html.  There, historian Martin
Gilbert writes on the question, "Should the Allies Have Bombed
Auschwitz?"

Just to keep the terminology clear, the "strategic bombing" doctrine
held that the destruction of civilians and the cities they lived and
worked in would degrade morale and support of the war, hastening the
surrender of Germany and Japan.  The dropping of the atomic bomb on
Hiroshima, earlier not considered a prime target, is a good example.
The alternative, "precision bombing," later referred to as the
"surgical strike," appears to be a fallacy, rather than a practical
policy, up to the present day.  Nothing prevents an erratic bombardier
from surgically striking a hospital or news agency.  But this is
getting away from Jewish issues.

Robert Berkovitz