When did the allies know about the Holocaust?

[FragSinatra]

I was discussing w/someone how F. D. Roosevelt denied a boatload of
European Jews refugee status in the US and how he was never censured for
sending these people back to Europe and certain death. But did F. D. R.
know about the Holocaust? When did the allies know about the Holocaust? I'm
assuming the Germans weren't advertising the fact that they were committing
genocide, but it must have been a difficult fact to conceal from all except
the most stupid. After all, no one was coming back from the concentration
camps were they?

Did the allies, incl. Russia, at least make it a priority in their military
advance across Europe to liberate the concentration camps ASAP? Isn't there
anything the allies could've done to stop or ameliorate the Holocaust?
Maybe trade German POW's for incarcerated Jewish civilians? Did they at
least make it clear that all Nazis involved w/the Holocaust would be
punished for their involvement as soon as they found out about it?

--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ne...@netfront.net ---

[Bill]

In article <XnsA06D835CC6C...@202.177.16.121>,
per...@not.com says...

>
> I was discussing w/someone how F. D. Roosevelt denied a boatload of
> European Jews refugee status in the US and how he was never censured for
> sending these people back to Europe and certain death. But did F. D. R.
> know about the Holocaust? When did the allies know about the Holocaust? I'm
> assuming the Germans weren't advertising the fact that they were committing
> genocide, but it must have been a difficult fact to conceal from all except
> the most stupid. After all, no one was coming back from the concentration
> camps were they?

The British seem to have known quite early on about the mass murders in
Western Russia through communications intercepts.

As the British code breaking system leaked like a sieve in the direction
of the USSR (Kim Philby was the liaison officer between the British code
breakers and SIS) it's reasonable to assume that Stalin knew as well.

The US is slightly different because the question is:

"Did Roosevelt send a ship load of refugees back to certain death?"

I don't know if the British had passed the information on to them by
that stage.

> Did the allies, incl. Russia, at least make it a priority in their
military
> advance across Europe to liberate the concentration camps ASAP? Isn't
there
> anything the allies could've done to stop or ameliorate the Holocaust?
> Maybe trade German POW's for incarcerated Jewish civilians? Did they at
> least make it clear that all Nazis involved w/the Holocaust would be
> punished for their involvement as soon as they found out about it?

As far as anyone can make out, no.

Warnings were given about 'crimes' but anything specific would have
revealed that the mass gassings had leaked out, and these were a deep
dark secret and the Germans would have gone looking for the leak.

If they'd found the leak, which was their code machines, they would
have tightened the system up and the war could have lasted another year.

--
William Black

When you hear the words 'Our people are our greatest asset' then it's
time to leave.

[Don Phillipson]

"FragSinatra" <per...@not.com> wrote in message
news:XnsA06D835CC6C...@202.177.16.121...

>I was discussing w/someone how F. D. Roosevelt denied a boatload of
> European Jews refugee status in the US and how he was never censured for
> sending these people back to Europe and certain death. But did F. D. R.
> know about the Holocaust? When did the allies know about the Holocaust?

The Holocaust (after the Wannsee Conference) was a state secret of the
Third Reich: but so too were other killing programmes (notably that for
(Aryan) cripples and mental defectives, which began in late 1939.

Brutality and slaughter of prisoners after battle were reported in Germany's
1939 campaign in Poland and 1941 campaign in Russia, and the relocation
of populations in Poland 1940 generally known, viz. collection of Jews into
ghettos. What altered in 1941 was the construction of new death camps
(Belzec, Treblinka etc.) to which Jews were moved for slaughter. This
was known to the Polish Resistance, which collected evidence and
sent to the Western governments (first UK, then USA) in 1942 an agent called
Jan Karski to place the evidence before them.

This led to a debate in the British Parliament and the first formal
proclamation in the name of the United Nations (Dec. 1942) denouncing
murder of civilians and threatening after victory to try Germans responsible
for war crimes. This is narrated in histories like Walter Laqueur's
The Terrible Secret (1980).

> Did the allies, incl. Russia, at least make it a priority in their
> military
> advance across Europe to liberate the concentration camps ASAP? Isn't
> there
> anything the allies could've done to stop or ameliorate the Holocaust?
> Maybe trade German POW's for incarcerated Jewish civilians?

This is contentious (and still argued.)
The death camps were mostly in Poland, beyond bomber range in 1943.
More to the point, when Allied bombing became effective (1942-43?) the
death camps were not a priority target in the way German cities, key
industries, U-boat bases etc. were priority targets. The only industrial
target associated with any death camp was the liquid fuel facility at
Auschwitz (which did indeed get bombed by the 11th Air Force a
couple of times, I think.)

Overall strategy was that the fastest way to stop the killing was
to defeat the armed forces of the Nazi state: which got top priority.

A notable exception was the supposed secret negotiations (1944) of Adolf
Eichmann with Joel Brand (resistance leader) and the Jewish Agency
of Palestine (British mandate) to barter X thousand Hungarian Jewish
civilians
for Y thousand trucks and other military supplies, from American sources,
guaranteed to be used only on the Russian front, not for fighting Americans.
This was vetoed by the British government, for obvious reasons (mainly
the need to avoid any appearance of a sweetheart deal that would let
Germany strengthen its resistance to Russian forces.) In other words,
while some officials in Washington and London did not believe Karski
in 1942 (i.e. could not imagine that any modern government, even if
antisemitic, would in the 20th century collect people simply to
murder them), by the date of the Joel Brand negotiations everyone
knew about the death camps. This revived arguments among generals
whether known camps like Auschwitz should be attacked. The consensus
was that, so long as there was a chance of defeating Germany by Xmas
1944, this mission should get all available resources.

In othe words, top strategy remained that the fastest way to stop the Nazi
killing machine was to defeat the armies of the Nazi regime.

The reference to FDR (top) may invoke the case of the German ship
St. Louis which brought to Cuba in 1939 (before the war) nearly 1000
German Jewish refugees. The Cuban government would not let them land
(having recently legislated to keep out refugees) and nor would the
USA or other countries approached. The ship sailed back to Antwerp
where the passengers were accepted as refugees by the UK, France,
Belgium and the Netherlands, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis
It has also been suggested (not in this Wiki article) that many of the
passengers had been sold bogus visas by racketeers in the Cuban
consular service overseas.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[cman...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, June 9, 2012 5:02:58 PM UTC-4, FragSinatra wrote:

> I was discussing w/someone how F. D. Roosevelt denied a boatload of
> European Jews refugee status in the US and how he was never censured for
> sending these people back to Europe and certain death.

The St. Louis incident is what you are talking about, right? 937 Jews
aboard the St. Louis, trying to get asylum in the US and Cuba in the
summer of 1939?

According to Sarah A. Ogilvie and Scott Miller's _Refuge Denied_ 254
of the 620 passengers who returned to continental Europe died in the
Holocaust, the other 365 survived the war, and the "vast majority" of
the 288 who ended up in Britain also survived the war. So it wasn't
certain death: almost 60% of those who returned to the Continent
survived. (About half of the Jewish refugees on the boat ended up in
the US after the war.)

> But did F. D. R.
> know about the Holocaust?

Well, if by "Holocaust" you mean the Final Solution, that doesn't
start until several years after the St. Louis incident. The Wannsee
Conference where these things were organized was held in January 1942.

Now, somewhere between half a million and a million Jews (out of six
million total killed by the Nazis) were killed before the Wannsee
Conference, by the Einsatzgruppen, the Wehrmacht, etc. But that is
largely after the war started, so after the St. Louis incident again.
The existence of Concentration Camps was well known even before the
war, and it was clear from the Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht, etc.
that it was not a good thing to be a Jew in Germany. [1] But the
industrial scale slaughter of millions, that largely started after the
US entered the war.

I've seen it speculated that the Holocaust was tied to the US entry
into the war and the failure of Barbarossa to defeat the Soviet Union:
since Jews were associated with both countries in Hitler's mind, he
would punish those countries by slaughtering Jews. As with most
attempts to understand Hitler's reasons, the evidence is somewhat
patchy, so the most I feel comfortable saying is that it is a
plausible explanation.

> Did the allies, incl. Russia, at least make it a priority in their military
> advance across Europe to liberate the concentration camps ASAP? Isn't there
> anything the allies could've done to stop or ameliorate the Holocaust?

_The Myth of Rescue_ by Rubenstein is a book I read over a decade ago
that argued that there was not much that the Allies (specifically
focused on American Jews, but the US and UK in general) could have
done. The Nazis were evil, and determined to do evil, and it took
their complete destruction to halt them.

> Maybe trade German POW's for incarcerated Jewish civilians?

In 1944 the Germans offered the West (US/UK) to trade the lives of
thousands of Jews (in Hungary) for trucks, to be used only against the
Soviets. The Allies turned it down without serious consideration. It
was most likely more an attempt to break up the Grand Alliance (US
trucks fighting the USSR? That will go over well with Stalin) than a
serious offer to save the lives of Jews, according to Rubenstein.

> Did they at
> least make it clear that all Nazis involved w/the Holocaust would be
> punished for their involvement as soon as they found out about it?

The Moscow Declaration of 1943, in it's Statement on Atrocities,
warned all Germans that those who committed atrocities would be
shipped back to be judged by the people they committed them against,
and that those who committed international ones would be judged by all
the Powers together.

[1]: Of course, as I've argued several times before, right up to
Kristallnacht the situation for African-Americans in the Southern
states was fairly similar to the situation for Jews in Germany: legal
discrimination, occasional outbreaks of mob violence, etc.
Kristallnacht represented a big break by being massive, government
organized violence against the persecuted minority, but the US was
hardly in a position of moral superiority to complain about the
treatment of Jews in Germany.

Chris Manteuffel

[Bill]

In article <jr0gqo$u07$1...@speranza.aioe.org>, e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca
says...

>
> A notable exception was the supposed secret negotiations (1944) of Adolf
> Eichmann with Joel Brand (resistance leader) and the Jewish Agency
> of Palestine (British mandate) to barter X thousand Hungarian Jewish
> civilians
> for Y thousand trucks and other military supplies, from American sources,
> guaranteed to be used only on the Russian front, not for fighting Americans.
> This was vetoed by the British government, for obvious reasons (mainly
> the need to avoid any appearance of a sweetheart deal that would let
> Germany strengthen its resistance to Russian forces.)

Of course the British may just have assumed that the Germans were lying
about where they'd use the trucks.

After all, they'd lied about everything else...

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Bill <black...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > Maybe trade German POW's for incarcerated Jewish civilians? Did they at
> > least make it clear that all Nazis involved w/the Holocaust would be
> > punished for their involvement as soon as they found out about it?

> As far as anyone can make out, no.

> Warnings were given about 'crimes' but anything specific would have
> revealed that the mass gassings had leaked out, and these were a deep
> dark secret and the Germans would have gone looking for the leak.

> If they'd found the leak, which was their code machines, they would
> have tightened the system up and the war could have lasted another year.

Well, 3 months.

Then the US and UK would have started hitting the nuclear "Delete" button
for various German cities.

Mike

[Paul F Austin]

On 6/9/2012 5:59 PM, Don Phillipson wrote:
> "FragSinatra"<per...@not.com> wrote in message
> news:XnsA06D835CC6C...@202.177.16.121...
>
>

>> Did the allies, incl. Russia, at least make it a priority in their
>> military
>> advance across Europe to liberate the concentration camps ASAP? Isn't
>> there
>> anything the allies could've done to stop or ameliorate the Holocaust?
>

> This is contentious (and still argued.)
> The death camps were mostly in Poland, beyond bomber range in 1943.
> More to the point, when Allied bombing became effective (1942-43?) the
> death camps were not a priority target in the way German cities, key
> industries, U-boat bases etc. were priority targets.

Given the limitations of bombing accuracy and navigation in World War
II, I don't believe that bombing could have any effect on the operation
of the death camps, any _desirable_ effect at least.

Bombing of railway spurs leading to the camps would be unattractive,
since track repair was rapid and efficient and in any case, easily
circumvented. Bombing of the camps themselves had obvious hazards. Even
daytime "precision" bombing was much too inaccurate to be risked near
the camps themselves.

Paul

[Michael Emrys]

On 6/9/12 6:33 PM, mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> Then the US and UK would have started hitting the nuclear "Delete" button
> for various German cities.

One wonders how many German cities Bomber Command had left standing as
viable targets. I suppose that there were still a fair number of
strategic facilities that would have been vulnerable to A-bombs and only
vulnerable to A-bombs though.

Michael

[Rich Rostrom]

FragSinatra <per...@not.com> wrote:

> I was discussing w/someone how F. D. Roosevelt denied a boatload of
> European Jews refugee status in the US and how he was never censured for
> sending these people back to Europe and certain death.

1) FDR was criticized, then and later.
2) In 1939, there was no solid evidence that Nazi Germany
was planning to kill all Jews they could reach, or even
large numbers of Jews. That the Nazis were viciously anti-semitic
was obvious - they bragged of it. But the Russian Empire had been
viciously anti-semitic (pogroms, the Black Hundreds) without
indulging in industrialized mass murder.
3) In 1939, the US was still mired in the Depression, with
unemployment well above 10%. Millions of people still lived
in shacks and hovels and migrant camps. Americans might
sympathize with the victims of fascism, but the US was in no
position to absorb hundreds of thousands or millions of refugees.

> But did F. D. R. know about the Holocaust?

Not in 1939. He was not psychic.

> When did the allies know about the Holocaust?

When did the Allies know that the Germans were murdering
thousands of people for ethnic and racial reasons?

There were definite reports of German massacres in 1939
from Poland.

When did the Allies know that German murders had reached
the hundreds of thousands? Sometime in 1941, I'd guess.

Allied awareness lagged well behind the actual scale;
the Allies had no systematic reporting on the ground,
and it was not an intelligence priority while there was
fighting to be done.

Also, there were memories of World War I, when exaggerated
reports of German atrocities gave rise to the impression
that all reports of German atrocities were "propaganda".
To this day, some people dismiss the German mass murder
of civilians in Belgium in 1914 as an invention.

The WW II allies did not want that to happen again.

When did the Allies know - truly understand - that the
Nazis had constructed industrial killing machinery,
had murdered millions of Jews and others, had tried
their worst to exterminate the Jews of Europe?

1945.

Because the crime was so enormous and so fantastic that
it defied belief without massive concrete evidence.

> I'm assuming the Germans weren't advertising the fact that they were committing
> genocide, but it must have been a difficult fact to conceal from all except
> the most stupid. After all, no one was coming back from the concentration
> camps were they?

The Holocaust was carried out deep in the fog of war,
under the shield of a totalitarian government, across
a whole continent that was in chaos. Millions of people
were displaced or relocated. Some were murdered. No one
but the Nazis themselves had a full picture of what they
were doing.

The ordinary man on the ground might know that some
people from his district had been deported to camps
and never returned. But he didn't know anything but
rumors about what was going on elsewhere. There wasn't
much cross-communication - and discussion of what crimes
the Nazis were up to was, ahem, inhibited.

> Did the allies, incl. Russia, at least make it a priority in their military
> advance across Europe to liberate the concentration camps ASAP?

No. By the time the camps were liberated, the war was
almost over anyway.

> Isn't there anything the allies could've done to stop
> or ameliorate the Holocaust?

Defeat Germany sooner. For one thing, it was not then
realized how (and why) the Nazis industrialized murder.
It was assumed (IMO reasonably) that the Nazis needed
no special facilities to kill; guns, or even clubs or
bayonets would suffice, as long as the Nazis had power.

As for threatening the perpetrators with post-war
punishment - few Germans were really convinced that
they would lose the war until 1943 - after most of
the killing had been done. Even then, most Germans
didn't consider defeat inevitable until 1945. Either
Hitler the wonderworker would work a wonder, or the
Allies would fall out with each other, or the mighty
Wehrmacht would force an armistice. In the meantime,
the business of the Reich would continue. It was hardly
possible to make the threat of future retribution sharp
enough to deter all potential murderers; some were
fanatical enough that the threat didn't matter. Others
were already guilty as possible; and one can only be
hanged once.

What else? _If_ the Allies had known in 1941 what the
Germans had already done, and what they intended for
1942 and 1943 - the Allies could have tried to warn
the potential victims. "Do not cooperate with the
Germans in _anything_. You cannot provoke them to do
worse than they already intend, which is to kill you.
Resist at all costs - you have nothing to lose."

Whether such warnings would be believed and acted on
is another question.

Note that in 1941, Stalin having convinced himself that
it was not in Germany's interest to attack the USSR that
year, he dismissed British warnings as a plot to get the
USSR embroiled with German for their own ends.

I could see Jewish community leaders thinking that such
warnings were intended to provoke guerrilla uprisings
for the benefit of the Allies, regardless of the cost
to Jews. Perhaps they might even consider it a Zionist
plot. (Most of the Jewish leaders in pre-WW-II eastern
Europe were anti-Zionist.)

So it's not easy.
--
| Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdes. |
| -- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870. |

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Berlin, perhaps? I also wonder if the Japanese would have been smart enough
at that point to look at a nuked Germany and throw in their cards...

Mike

[Roman W]

On Sunday, June 10, 2012 8:56:58 AM UTC+1, Rich Rostrom wrote:

> As for threatening the perpetrators with post-war
> punishment - few Germans were really convinced that
> they would lose the war until 1943 - after most of
> the killing had been done. Even then, most Germans
> didn't consider defeat inevitable until 1945. Either
> Hitler the wonderworker would work a wonder, or the
> Allies would fall out with each other, or the mighty
> Wehrmacht would force an armistice. In the meantime,
> the business of the Reich would continue. It was hardly
> possible to make the threat of future retribution sharp
> enough to deter all potential murderers; some were
> fanatical enough that the threat didn't matter. Others
> were already guilty as possible; and one can only be
> hanged once.

I read in a diary of one the prisoners of Auschwitz that
when the Allies made a proclamation that the Nazi criminals
will be prosecuted after the war, many Nazi guards in the camp
became depressed and gloomy. They were afraid of what was coming
for them.

RW

[David Wilma]

On Saturday, June 9, 2012 5:04:48 PM UTC-7, cman...@gmail.com wrote:

> Well, if by "Holocaust" you mean the Final Solution, that doesn't
> start until several years after the St. Louis incident. The Wannsee
> Conference where these things were organized was held in January 1942.
>
> Now, somewhere between half a million and a million Jews (out of six
> million total killed by the Nazis) were killed before the Wannsee
> Conference, by the Einsatzgruppen, the Wehrmacht, etc. But that is
> largely after the war started, so after the St. Louis incident again.
> The existence of Concentration Camps was well known even before the
> war, and it was clear from the Nuremberg Laws, Kristallnacht, etc.
> that it was not a good thing to be a Jew in Germany. [1] But the
> industrial scale slaughter of millions, that largely started after the
> US entered the war.
>

It might be useful to clarify terms such as Holocaust and Final Solution,
even the War on the Jews. We can never know for certain what was
in Hitler's mind when he took power in 1933, but it's safe to say his
War on the Jews started then. When the Holocaust began is open
to any interpretation. Barbarossa and the Einsatzgruppen was
definitely the beginning of a systematic plan of murder, but where
the killers went to the victims. By the time of Wansee one SS office
r bragged that Estonia was "Judenfrei."

The Wansee Conference signaled the organized transport of victims
to extermination centers and, further, the industrial theft
of their labor and property.

What did the Allies know and when? It depends on what Allies and
what they knew. I think it's safe to say that the Soviets were aware
early on the nature of Einsatzgruppen operations. As for the existence
of the extermination camps, word reached London (don't have the
date, but it was via the resistance and escapees I believe).

There have been extensive discussions here of USAAF capabilities
to disable the gas chambers at Auschwitz and that will go back
and forth forever. As I recall there is an aerial photo of one of the
Kremas, gates open, and a fuzzy smudge of people headed in.
Since photo interpreters were focused on bomb damage assess-
ments and identifying conventional industrial targets this
would not have been noticed.

[Don Phillipson]

"Rich Rostrom" <rrostrom.2...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:rrostrom.21stcentury-...@news.eternal-september.org...

> When did the Allies know - truly understand - that the
> Nazis had constructed industrial killing machinery,
> had murdered millions of Jews and others, had tried
> their worst to exterminate the Jews of Europe?
>
> 1945.
>
> Because the crime was so enormous and so fantastic that
> it defied belief without massive concrete evidence.

The Karski mission and Allied government actions suggest
late 1942 (although for the reasons given above many officials
judged mass murder incredible: cf. also Allied disbelief of Nazi
reports (1943) of the discovery of the Katyn massacre (1940).)

> The Holocaust was carried out deep in the fog of war,

> under the shield of a totalitarian government . . . No one

> but the Nazis themselves had a full picture of what they
> were doing.
>
> The ordinary man on the ground might know that some
> people from his district had been deported to camps
> and never returned. But he didn't know anything but
> rumors about what was going on elsewhere.

Victor Klemperer's wartime diaries (published in translation
in the 1990s) suggest German Jews knew by 1944 (1) they
were to be rounded up and deported and (2) deportation
meant in effect death. He was a retired literature professor
in Dresden (scheduled for deportation in Feb. 1945, when the
bombing of Dresden liberated the detainees.)

Allied evidence was also available in 1944 because Russian
armies had recaptured the sites of some death camps (Sobibor,
Belzec, Maidanek.) Although those sites were levelled when
the camps were dismantled, evidence as well as folklore survived
(independently of rumour among German witnesses or participants.)

>> Did the allies, incl. Russia, at least make it a priority in their
>> military
>> advance across Europe to liberate the concentration camps ASAP?
>
> No. By the time the camps were liberated, the war was
> almost over anyway.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_camps
The notorious death camps were few (fewer than a
dozen, while there were scores of "concentration camps"
where many died albeit not in a production line) and temporary,
i.e. constructed in 1942 specifically to exterminate Polish
Jewry) and dismantled in 1943/44 because that task had been
largely completed. Even so, not until several years after victory
did people (including war crimes prosecutors) draw a clear
distinction between death camps (where 500,000 or 1,000,000
were processed in a year or two) and notorious camps like
Dachau (the Third Reich's model punishment camp from 1933,
where est. 35,000 prisoners were killed 1933--45.)

Foreign reporters and visiting dignatories were taken
on tours of Dachau 1933-39 to show off how the new Nazi
regime was re-educating dissenters and punishing non-
conformists. There must have been illegal deaths in this
period but they were not known to and not reported by
outsiders.

[Michael Emrys]

On 6/10/12 7:37 AM, mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> I also wonder if the Japanese would have been smart enough
> at that point to look at a nuked Germany and throw in their cards...

Mmmm, maybe. But more likely the leadership would have begun casting
about to come up with ways to defend themselves against it.

Michael

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

In article <47b8d3fb-7a29-4dd4...@googlegroups.com>,

It's a slight possibility that the guards heard the news, but how did anyone in
a camp have enough info to realize that the guards had become depressed and
gloomy about that particular bit of info?

[Shawn Wilson]

On Jun 9, 2:02 pm, FragSinatra <perh...@not.com> wrote:

> I was discussing w/someone how F. D. Roosevelt denied a boatload of
> European Jews refugee status in the US and how he was never censured for
> sending these people back to Europe and certain death. But did F. D. R.
> know about the Holocaust? When did the allies know about the Holocaust?

Know? As in industrial mass murder? Only when they started
liberating the camps. It was, of course, too late by then. If they
had known earlier the best thing that could have done was to
concentrate on ending the war as soon as possible anyway. Bombing the
camps would have been an utter waste of time and only lengthened the
war. It wasn't like bomber formations were just sitting around with
nothing to do.

They knew there was some killing going on, but that always goes on.
They knew rumors, but there had been identical rumors only 20 years
before in WWI which had been false. You should note that pre-WWII,
Nazi Germany treated Jews *better* than was typical in points East,
specifically including Poland. If they act to save a few hundred
thousand German Jews, what about the millions of Polish Jews being
treated worse? Take them too? Take in literally millions of
penniless refugees, when they had people who need help at home they
could do nothing for? Never going to happen.

[Mario]

mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net, 03:33, domenica 10 giugno 2012:

UK?


--
H

[Michael Emrys]

On 6/10/12 1:49 PM, Mario wrote:

> UK?

Since the planes delivering the bombs would likely have been based in
the UK, it's not unreasonable to suppose they would have been consulted
in the matter. This in addition to the not inconsiderable matter that
British scientists contributed to the construction of the bomb.

Michael

[Bill]

In article <atlas-bugged-4D26...@news.solani.org>, atlas-
bug...@invalid.invalid says...

Working parties within the camp made up of prisoners, the camp brothel
staffed by prisoners, the prisoners who were cooks and medical
orderlies.

[Mario]

Michael Emrys, 00:20, lunedě 11 giugno 2012:

> On 6/10/12 1:49 PM, Mario wrote:
>
>> UK?
>
> Since the planes delivering the bombs would likely have been
> based in the UK,

There were other airbases not in UK, though. Italy or France or
North Africa, far from prying eyes.

> it's not unreasonable to suppose they would
> have been consulted in the matter. This in addition to the not
> inconsiderable matter that British scientists contributed to
> the construction of the bomb.

I agree on the consultations, but not for that reason: were the
British consulted for the Japan bombs?

I suppose they could keep a total secrecy and tell the British
not to fly anything over a certain city on a certain day.
Or else they could share more infos on that superbombs and tell
the British not to fly anything over a certain city on a
certain day.


--
H

[Bill]

In article <4fd521c6$0$1388$4faf...@reader1.news.tin.it>,
ack...@ack.ack says...
>
> Michael Emrys, 00:20, lunedￜ 11 giugno 2012:

>
> > On 6/10/12 1:49 PM, Mario wrote:
> >
> >> UK?
> >
> > Since the planes delivering the bombs would likely have been
> > based in the UK,
>
>
> There were other airbases not in UK, though. Italy or France or
> North Africa, far from prying eyes.
>
>
> > it's not unreasonable to suppose they would
> > have been consulted in the matter. This in addition to the not
> > inconsiderable matter that British scientists contributed to
> > the construction of the bomb.
>
>
> I agree on the consultations, but not for that reason: were the
> British consulted for the Japan bombs?

Of course.

> I suppose they could keep a total secrecy and tell the British
> not to fly anything over a certain city on a certain day.
> Or else they could share more infos on that superbombs and tell
> the British not to fly anything over a certain city on a
> certain day.

What's to share?

Who do you think worked out a bomb was practical in the first place?

Under the Quebec Agreement of 1943 the US and UK agreed not to drop an
atomic bomb on anyone without consultation.

Field Marshall 'Jumbo' Wilson was the head of the British Military
Mission and I believe he agreed that the dropping of the bomb on Japan
would be recorded as a joint decision.

British observers were present at the atomic bomb droppings.

As Roosevelt and Churchill had met in July at Potsdam it is reasonable
to assume they'd talked together on this point at some point.

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Or maybe there would have been yet another change of the Cabinet; hard
to say, but oddly I think the Japanese would have been more eager to accept
a "Potsdam-like" set of conditions with Germany still in the war but being
nuked than they were later.

Mike

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Mario <ack...@ack.ack> wrote:

> > it's not unreasonable to suppose they would
> > have been consulted in the matter. This in addition to the not
> > inconsiderable matter that British scientists contributed to
> > the construction of the bomb.


> I agree on the consultations, but not for that reason: were the
> British consulted for the Japan bombs?

"Consulted" in the literal sense, but in that war it was agreed that the
US had carried the burden of the fight, and would make the Big Decisions.
In the European war, there was more partnership.

Mike

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

While the US was in charge of the use of the bombs in the Pacific, I find
it hard to believe that the US would not have worked with British officials
to settle on German targets, had it proved necessary.

Mike

[Mario]

mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net, 04:43, lunedￜ 11 giugno 2012:

>> > Then the US and UK would have started hitting the nuclear
>> > "Delete" button for various German cities.
>
>
>> UK?
>
> While the US was in charge of the use of the bombs in the
> Pacific, I find it hard to believe that the US would not have
> worked with British officials to settle on German targets, had
> it proved necessary.

I am dubious on the UK role as a 50% partner as implied by that
sentence.


--
H

[Mario]

mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net, 04:03, lunedￜ 11 giugno 2012:

A partnership of a lion and a lynx (and a red tiger) to kill the
bull.



--
H

[Mario]

Bill, 02:27, lunedￜ 11 giugno 2012:

>>
>> > it's not unreasonable to suppose they would
>> > have been consulted in the matter. This in addition to the
>> > not inconsiderable matter that British scientists
>> > contributed to the construction of the bomb.
>>
>> I agree on the consultations, but not for that reason: were
>> the British consulted for the Japan bombs?
>
> Of course.

Was there any difference of opinions between the two parties?
If so, how were they settled?

>> I suppose they could keep a total secrecy and tell the
>> British not to fly anything over a certain city on a certain
>> day. Or else they could share more infos on that superbombs
>> and tell the British not to fly anything over a certain city
>> on a certain day.
>
> What's to share?
>
> Who do you think worked out a bomb was practical in the first
> place?
>
> Under the Quebec Agreement of 1943 the US and UK agreed not to
> drop an atomic bomb on anyone without consultation.

Please define "consultation" as applied in this hypothetical
situation.

> Field Marshall 'Jumbo' Wilson was the head of the British
> Military Mission and I believe he agreed that the dropping of
> the bomb on Japan would be recorded as a joint decision.

Did FM Wilson agreed on everything with the American use of the
American Bomb or did he object on something?

> British observers were present at the atomic bomb droppings.

So they observed the American Bomb launched by an American
bomber.

> As Roosevelt and Churchill had met in July at Potsdam it is
> reasonable to assume they'd talked together on this point at
> some point.

Sure, but the Bomb was 90% made in USA.


--
H

[Chris Morton]

In article <cb27e604-daea-40ab...@googlegroups.com>,
cman...@gmail.com says...

>I've seen it speculated that the Holocaust was tied to the US entry
>into the war and the failure of Barbarossa to defeat the Soviet Union:
>since Jews were associated with both countries in Hitler's mind, he
>would punish those countries by slaughtering Jews. As with most
>attempts to understand Hitler's reasons, the evidence is somewhat
>patchy, so the most I feel comfortable saying is that it is a
>plausible explanation.

But of course conceptually, that's about on a par with me shooting up the main
campus of the Cleveland Clinic "because" House was canceled.

When you get to that level of psychopathology (both in the instigator and in his
willing accomplices), "causality" as such tends to break down.

"Mr. Berkowitz, why did you shoot those people?"
"My neighbor's dog told me to."
"Well, alrightee..."

I don't think it's plausible that that's how things got to the industrial level.
I MIGHT be a plausible explanation for WHEN they got to the industrial level.

I think it's FAR more believeable that Hitler planned to do what he did all
along, but that the turns in his fortunes, gave him a much greater sense of
urgency. If he was going to wipe out the Jews, he'd have to do it NOW, or
forever lose his opportunity.

I've heard it suggested that his Parkinson's had the same effect, almost like
the John Hurt character in Contact who, dying of some disease, builds his own
teleportation machine so that he can see first contact before he dies.


--
Gun control, the theory that 110lb. women have the "right" to fistfight with
210lb. rapists.

[Chris Morton]

In article <9MSdnTbKiPCAqEnS...@posted.olypeninternet>, Michael
Emrys says...

>One wonders how many German cities Bomber Command had left standing as
>viable targets. I suppose that there were still a fair number of
>strategic facilities that would have been vulnerable to A-bombs and only
>vulnerable to A-bombs though.

The Wenceslaus mines perhaps?

[Chris Morton]

In article
<rrostrom.21stcentury-...@news.eternal-september.org>, Rich
Rostrom says...

>Also, there were memories of World War I, when exaggerated
>reports of German atrocities gave rise to the impression
>that all reports of German atrocities were "propaganda".
>To this day, some people dismiss the German mass murder
>of civilians in Belgium in 1914 as an invention.

I would say that the single largest stumbling block to Allied comprehension of
the Holocaust was its sheer foolishness.

Not only did it not contribute ANYTHING to the furtherance of the German war
effort, it impeded it in numerous ways.

It's like asking, "When did Virginia Tech know that Cho Sun Hui was going to
shoot a bunch of people on campus?" The answer is of course when he started
pulling the trigger.

That of course doesn't excuse people from ignoring the warning signs, but some
acts are so irrational and outside of "normal" human behavior that most people,
even (especially?) the highly "educated" and "sophisticated" just dismiss their
possibility out of hand... especially when they're unprecedented.

The Japanese slaughtered a lot of Chinese, but they didn't do it like Henry Ford
building automobiles. It was "traditional" rape, pillage and murder as
practiced by the Huns, Mongols, and indeed the Romans. The leap between
"rewarding" a successful army by turning it loose on the enemy civilian
population and highly organized, technically sophisticated extermination of a
narrow slice of the population purely as an end in itself was propbably one just
too broad for most people of the time to make.

[Chris Morton]

In article <jr3jel$r69$1...@haven.eyrie.org>, mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net says...

>While the US was in charge of the use of the bombs in the Pacific, I find
>it hard to believe that the US would not have worked with British officials
>to settle on German targets, had it proved necessary.

I'm sure they would have actively participated.

The idea of Harris NOT wanting in on atomic bombings is implausible on its face.

[Chris Morton]

In article , Mario says...

>I agree on the consultations, but not for that reason: were the
>British consulted for the Japan bombs?

Given the level of Soviet penetration, I hope not, but they probably were.

What degree of participation did the British have in the conventional bombing of
Japan? Strategically? ZERO. Tactically, some carrier based raids at the very
end... MAYBE.

The British were very much a junior partner in direct operations against Japan
outside of CBI theater.

The situation in Europe was completely different. British and American bombing
efforts against Germany were unavoidably interrelated.

[Chris Morton]

In article <btydnRAwe9B4kUjS...@posted.olypeninternet>, Michael
Emrys says...

>Since the planes delivering the bombs would likely have been based in
>the UK, it's not unreasonable to suppose they would have been consulted
>in the matter. This in addition to the not inconsiderable matter that
>British scientists contributed to the construction of the bomb.

Besides, wasn't the Lancaster better suited to delivery of contemporary nuclear
weapons than anything other than the B-29?

[Chris Morton]

In article <w_OdnUJdkvZyb0nS...@posted.olypeninternet>, Michael
Emrys says...

Of course there really WAS no actual DEFENSE, at least not one available to the
Japanese.

Their only "defense" was surrender, and it took Hirohito to deploy it. Absent
his intervention, the military would have dragged the country down to REAL
destruction.

[Roman W]

On Sunday, June 10, 2012 8:56:58 AM UTC+1, Rich Rostrom wrote:

> Because the crime was so enormous and so fantastic that
> it defied belief without massive concrete evidence.

It has been always interesting to me, how much did the Allies' anti-semitism factor in this disbelief.

RW

[Roman W]

On Sunday, June 10, 2012 9:21:20 PM UTC+1, Shawn Wilson wrote:

> You should note that pre-WWII,
> Nazi Germany treated Jews *better* than was typical in points East,
> specifically including Poland.

Pre-Kristallnacht, you mean?

RW

[dirk...@gmail.com]

> Well, 3 months.

>
> Then the US and UK would have started hitting the nuclear "Delete" button
> for various German cities.

Well, within three months these cities would have become Soviet cities.

/dirk

[Chris Morton]

In article <e23ef28e-03bc-485f...@googlegroups.com>, Roman W
says...

>It has been always interesting to me, how much did the Allies' anti-semitism
>factor in this disbelief.

No doubt some.

I haven absolutely no doubt that there was a body of opinion in some British and
American circles that any stories about the REAL nature of the "Final Solution"
were "exaggerations" created out of whole cloth by "The Jews(tm)".

Today, there's indisputable proof, and there are deniers. Back when
anti-Semitism was something far less to be ashamed of (as it is again becoming),
denial was MUCH easier.

To this you can add Stalin's anti-Semitism and his desire to refocus ALL Nazi
atrocities as "anti-Soviet" rather than "anti-Semitic", even when they affected
ONLY Jews.

[FragSinatra]

Rich Rostrom <rrostrom.2...@rcn.com> wrote in
news:rrostrom.21stcentury-...@news.eternal-september.or
g:

>
> What else? _If_ the Allies had known in 1941 what the
> Germans had already done, and what they intended for
> 1942 and 1943 - the Allies could have tried to warn
> the potential victims. "Do not cooperate with the
> Germans in _anything_. You cannot provoke them to do
> worse than they already intend, which is to kill you.
> Resist at all costs - you have nothing to lose."
>
> Whether such warnings would be believed and acted on
> is another question.
>
> Note that in 1941, Stalin having convinced himself that
> it was not in Germany's interest to attack the USSR that
> year, he dismissed British warnings as a plot to get the
> USSR embroiled with German for their own ends.
>
> I could see Jewish community leaders thinking that such
> warnings were intended to provoke guerrilla uprisings
> for the benefit of the Allies, regardless of the cost
> to Jews. Perhaps they might even consider it a Zionist
> plot. (Most of the Jewish leaders in pre-WW-II eastern
> Europe were anti-Zionist.)
>
> So it's not easy.

That was a depressing read.

Did Zev Jabotinsky know what the Germans were going to do or
doing? His warnings seem prescient to an alarming degree. I hope
Rabbi Kahane's predictions don't turn out the same way.


--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ne...@netfront.net ---

[Mario]

Chris Morton, 16:33, lunedￜ 11 giugno 2012:

>
> Besides, wasn't the Lancaster better suited to delivery of
> contemporary nuclear weapons than anything other than the
> B-29?

Do you think Americans had given the Bomb to the British just to
avoid the trouble of moving B29s to Europe?


--
H

[Chris Morton]

In article , Mario says...

>Do you think Americans had given the Bomb to the British just to
>avoid the trouble of moving B29s to Europe?

Probably, considering that if we'd have still been fighting the Germans, we'd
surely still be fighting the Japanese.

Why divert a scarce resource from the war against Japan when a perfectly
adequate resource existed in place?

[Bill]

In article <4fd5f5f4$0$1391$4faf...@reader1.news.tin.it>,
ack...@ack.ack says...

>
> Bill, 02:27, lunedￜ 11 giugno 2012:
>
> >>
> >> > it's not unreasonable to suppose they would
> >> > have been consulted in the matter. This in addition to the
> >> > not inconsiderable matter that British scientists
> >> > contributed to the construction of the bomb.
> >>
> >> I agree on the consultations, but not for that reason: were
> >> the British consulted for the Japan bombs?
> >
> > Of course.
>
>
> Was there any difference of opinions between the two parties?
> If so, how were they settled?

There is none recorded.

The British had no objections.

> >> I suppose they could keep a total secrecy and tell the
> >> British not to fly anything over a certain city on a certain
> >> day. Or else they could share more infos on that superbombs
> >> and tell the British not to fly anything over a certain city
> >> on a certain day.
> >
> > What's to share?
> >
> > Who do you think worked out a bomb was practical in the first
> > place?
> >
> > Under the Quebec Agreement of 1943 the US and UK agreed not to
> > drop an atomic bomb on anyone without consultation.
>
>
> Please define "consultation" as applied in this hypothetical
> situation.

No. All I know is that 'consultation' was required, it took place and
no disagreements were recorded.

> > Field Marshall 'Jumbo' Wilson was the head of the British
> > Military Mission and I believe he agreed that the dropping of
> > the bomb on Japan would be recorded as a joint decision.
>
>
> Did FM Wilson agreed on everything with the American use of the
> American Bomb or did he object on something?

What possible objection could he have had?

>
>
> > British observers were present at the atomic bomb droppings.
>
>
> So they observed the American Bomb launched by an American
> bomber.

So?

> > As Roosevelt and Churchill had met in July at Potsdam it is
> > reasonable to assume they'd talked together on this point at
> > some point.
>
>
> Sure, but the Bomb was 90% made in USA.

So what?

[Bill]

In article <4fd5f69f$0$1391$4faf...@reader1.news.tin.it>,
ack...@ack.ack says...

Why?

[Bill]

In article <XnsA06F926E551...@202.177.16.121>,
per...@not.com says...

He was long dead by then.

He died a couple of years before Wannsee.

[Michael Emrys]

On 6/11/12 7:34 AM, Chris Morton wrote:
> Of course there really WAS no actual DEFENSE, at least not one available to the
> Japanese.

I don't disagree, but I did say that they would try to come up with one.
The military leadership was willing to see the country destroyed rather
than contemplate surrender. At least until the Bombs began falling, they
would hold out any desperate hope that something might be done,
including newer long range radar and interceptors perhaps. I don't
believe that this would work, but the point is what they would believe.

Michael

[Shawn Wilson]

On Jun 11, 7:42 am, Roman W <bloody_rab...@gazeta.pl> wrote:

> > You should note that pre-WWII,
> > Nazi Germany treated Jews *better* than was typical in points East,
> > specifically including Poland.
>
> Pre-Kristallnacht, you mean?

Even post Kristallnacht, though of course the difference was smaller
then. Poland was pretty bad for Jews even before the Nazis arrived.
It gets swept under the rug now. I think Spiegelman's 'Maus' talks
about it a little.

Of course the Final Solution changed everything, and the German
invasion brought on more restrictive policies than had been seen
before.

[Michael Emrys]

On 6/11/12 7:28 AM, Chris Morton wrote:
> I don't think it's plausible that that's how things got to the industrial level.

I recall reading somewhere, but don't remember where, that Hitler and
the Nazis at first had some vague notion of simply deporting the
European Jews somewhere else. Madagascar was mentioned as one candidate
destination. I'm sure Palestine would also have served. But once the war
started and the blockade was in place (a predictable outcome of a
general war) transporting anything off the Continent was no longer an
option for Germany. By the end of 1941 the Germans had acquired massive
numbers of Jews that they urgently desired to get rid of. Ergo, the
Final Solution.

Michael

[Bill Shatzer]

Chris Morton wrote:
> In article <btydnRAwe9B4kUjS...@posted.olypeninternet>, Michael
> Emrys says...

>>Since the planes delivering the bombs would likely have been based in
>>the UK, it's not unreasonable to suppose they would have been consulted
>>in the matter. This in addition to the not inconsiderable matter that
>>British scientists contributed to the construction of the bomb.

> Besides, wasn't the Lancaster better suited to delivery of contemporary nuclear
> weapons than anything other than the B-29?

Perhaps, but by the time the atomic bomb was ready, the B-29 had been in
service over a year.

Involving the Brits (and the Lancaster) would hardly have been necessary
or even useful.

[Chris Morton]

In article <lKqdnYSdf8s6rEvS...@posted.olypeninternet>, Michael
Emrys says...

>I don't disagree, but I did say that they would try to come up with one.
>The military leadership was willing to see the country destroyed rather
>than contemplate surrender. At least until the Bombs began falling, they
>would hold out any desperate hope that something might be done,
>including newer long range radar and interceptors perhaps. I don't
>believe that this would work, but the point is what they would believe.

Of course by that time, there was no steel to build the interceptors and no fuel
to put in them.

But then, the Japanese military never let little things like reality stand in
the way of pointless sacrifice...

[Chris Morton]

In article <Ytadna7zo7kjqUvS...@posted.olypeninternet>, Michael
Emrys says...

They could have done with the Jews what they did in WWI... NOTHING.

The Jews as Jews were utterly irrelevant to Germany's war effort. It was only
Hitler's psychotic obsession with them that put them in any different position
than they'd been in between 1914 and 1918.

That level of monomaniacal malice only has one outlet, the one we know so well.

[Chris Morton]

In article <jr5geo$iml$1...@dont-email.me>, Bill Shatzer says...

>Perhaps, but by the time the atomic bomb was ready, the B-29 had been in
>service over a year.
>
>Involving the Brits (and the Lancaster) would hardly have been necessary
>or even useful.

But wasn't the discussion premised on Germany AND Japan still in the war?

Not dividing the B-29 force between the ETO and PTO would have been BOTH
necessary and useful.

Why waste the B-29s on a much shorter trip?

[Bill Shatzer]

Chris Morton wrote:

> In article , Mario says...
>
>
>>Do you think Americans had given the Bomb to the British just to
>>avoid the trouble of moving B29s to Europe?

> Probably, considering that if we'd have still been fighting the Germans, we'd
> surely still be fighting the Japanese.

> Why divert a scarce resource from the war against Japan when a perfectly
> adequate resource existed in place?

I don't think you just strap an A-bomb on a Lancaster and say "go".

IIRC, the Silverplate B-29s incorporated several significant
modifications from the standard production models to make them suitable
for carrying and dropping the atomic weapons.

And the crews underwent a rather lengthy training syllabus.

'Sides, the entire 509th CG consisted of 15 bombers. Considering that by
the spring/summer of 1945, the Twentieth Air Force was already flying
raids of several hundreds of B-29s, the transfer of 15 planes to the ETO
would hardly represent a significant diversion of resources.

[Chris Morton]

In article <jr5mv1$q8$1...@dont-email.me>, Bill Shatzer says...

>I don't think you just strap an A-bomb on a Lancaster and say "go".

Nor do you do that with a B-29.

What's easier modifying B-29s and flying them across the Atlantic ocean, or
modifying Lancasters that are already where they're needed?

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

In article <jr5lu...@drn.newsguy.com>, Chris Morton <cmo...@newsguy.com>
wrote:

> In article <jr5geo$iml$1...@dont-email.me>, Bill Shatzer says...
>
> >Perhaps, but by the time the atomic bomb was ready, the B-29 had been in
> >service over a year.
> >
> >Involving the Brits (and the Lancaster) would hardly have been necessary
> >or even useful.
>
> But wasn't the discussion premised on Germany AND Japan still in the war?
>
> Not dividing the B-29 force between the ETO and PTO would have been BOTH
> necessary and useful.
>
> Why waste the B-29s on a much shorter trip?

much heavier bomb loads?

[Don Phillipson]

"Shawn Wilson" <ikono...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:69762746-a0bb-4ce8...@o3g2000pby.googlegroups.com...

> . . . You should note that pre-WWII,

> Nazi Germany treated Jews *better* than was typical in points East,
> specifically including Poland.

This seems doubtful. Did Poland have laws anything like
the Nuremberg Laws on race, viz. (1) defining Jews by ancestry
regardless of religious belief and practice, (2) excluding Jews
from specific professions and state employment (thus from
school and university teaching), (3) denying Jews full citizenship ?
I had never heard so.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

[Chris Morton]

In article <atlas-bugged-E21F...@news.solani.org>, Malcom \"Mal\"
Reynolds says...

>> Why waste the B-29s on a much shorter trip?
>
>much heavier bomb loads?

We were discussing the ATOMIC bombing of Germany.

Only ONE bomb necessary at a time.

[Mark Sieving]

On Mon, 11 Jun 2012 10:27:48 -0400, Mario <ack...@ack.ack> wrote:

>Bill, 02:27, luned� 11 giugno 2012:

>> Under the Quebec Agreement of 1943 the US and UK agreed not to
>> drop an atomic bomb on anyone without consultation.
>
>
>Please define "consultation" as applied in this hypothetical
>situation.

Actually, the word used in the agreement was not "consultation", but
"consent". As in, "we will not use it against third parties without
each other's consent."

http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/ManhattanProject/Quebec.shtml

The people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have considered the
situation to be hypothetical.

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

In article <jr5t1...@drn.newsguy.com>, Chris Morton <cmo...@newsguy.com>
wrote:

> In article <atlas-bugged-E21F...@news.solani.org>, Malcom
> \"Mal\"
> Reynolds says...
>
> >> Why waste the B-29s on a much shorter trip?
> >
> >much heavier bomb loads?
>
> We were discussing the ATOMIC bombing of Germany.
>
> Only ONE bomb necessary at a time.

but even after dropping two bombs on Japan, the US was still dropping
conventional bombs for several days, wasn't it?

[Bill]

In article <6ptct7t8cuohtb8la...@4ax.com>,
mark.s...@gmail.com says...

>
> On Mon, 11 Jun 2012 10:27:48 -0400, Mario <ack...@ack.ack> wrote:
>

> >Bill, 02:27, lunedￜ 11 giugno 2012:

> >> Under the Quebec Agreement of 1943 the US and UK agreed not to
> >> drop an atomic bomb on anyone without consultation.
> >
> >
> >Please define "consultation" as applied in this hypothetical
> >situation.
>
> Actually, the word used in the agreement was not "consultation", but
> "consent". As in, "we will not use it against third parties without
> each other's consent."
>
> http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/ManhattanProject/Quebec.shtml
>
> The people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have considered the
> situation to be hypothetical.

True, it wasn't.

The British were undoubtedly consulted.

They obviously had no objections.

What possible reasonable objections could they possibly have had?

The only alternative was a series of increasingly costly invasions.

[Chris Morton]

In article <atlas-bugged-724E...@news.solani.org>, Malcom \"Mal\"
Reynolds says...

>but even after dropping two bombs on Japan, the US was still dropping
>conventional bombs for several days, wasn't it?

And there were plenty of B-17s and B-24s available to do that to Germany.

[Michael Emrys]

On 6/11/12 4:25 PM, Bill wrote:
> The British were undoubtedly consulted.
> They obviously had no objections.
> What possible reasonable objections could they possibly have had?

I suspect that after nearly six years of war, the British were even more
eager than the Americans to see a prompt end to the fighting.

Michael

[Paul F Austin]

On 6/11/2012 4:02 PM, Chris Morton wrote:
> In article<lKqdnYSdf8s6rEvS...@posted.olypeninternet>, Michael
> Emrys says...
>
>
>> I don't disagree, but I did say that they would try to come up with one.
>> The military leadership was willing to see the country destroyed rather
>> than contemplate surrender. At least until the Bombs began falling, they
>> would hold out any desperate hope that something might be done,
>> including newer long range radar and interceptors perhaps. I don't
>> believe that this would work, but the point is what they would believe.
>
> Of course by that time, there was no steel to build the interceptors and no fuel
> to put in them.
>
> But then, the Japanese military never let little things like reality stand in
> the way of pointless sacrifice...
>
>

The shock value of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings on Hirohito
personally shouldn't be minimized. The _conventional_ bombing in July
1945 dropped 43 thousand tons of bombs on Japan. The bombing campaign
was planned to increase to 115 thousand tons by November 1945. Since
many small bombs are more destructive than a single large one, the July
bombardment was roughly equivalent to 32 nominal 20KT nuclear devices.
The war party in the cabinet was already in cloud coo-coo land and even
Hirohito's unprecedented intervention after the 9 August bombing was
barely sufficient.

Paul

[Malcom "Mal" Reynolds]

In article <jr60j...@drn.newsguy.com>, Chris Morton <cmo...@newsguy.com>
wrote:

> In article <atlas-bugged-724E...@news.solani.org>, Malcom
> \"Mal\"
> Reynolds says...
>
> >but even after dropping two bombs on Japan, the US was still dropping
> >conventional bombs for several days, wasn't it?
>
> And there were plenty of B-17s and B-24s available to do that to Germany.

but not to be redundant, the B-29's had a bigger bombload

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Mario <ack...@ack.ack> wrote:
> mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net, 04:43, luned? 11 giugno 2012:

> >> > Then the US and UK would have started hitting the nuclear
> >> > "Delete" button for various German cities.
> >
> >
> >> UK?
> >
> > While the US was in charge of the use of the bombs in the
> > Pacific, I find it hard to believe that the US would not have
> > worked with British officials to settle on German targets, had
> > it proved necessary.


> I am dubious on the UK role as a 50% partner as implied by that
> sentence.

I don't think I implied "50%" in that, but even if it were true, why
would you be surprised? The US and UK had gone to extraordinary lengths
thoughout the war to coordinate their activities and get their objectives
aligned with each other.

I see others have discussed this as well, but another point they haven't
touched on is that by this time period, both the US and UK were already
planning for the post-war period, and both realized this would also
require each other's cooperation. Under those conditions, I can't see
the US unilaterally making all the decisions on the use of the bomb
in Germany.

Mike

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Actually, the "shock value" is more properly applied to Suzuki; by that time,
Hirohito was pretty decided he wanted the war to end (there's pretty good
evidence he didn't want it started.) The shock seems to have been what
Suzuki needed to pull the subterfuge necessary to get the Cabinet to
convene in Hirohito's presence, where the latter was finally directly
asked for an opinion.

Mike

[Paul F Austin]

While that's true, there were relatively few B-29 squadrons available.
In the plans for the invasion of Japan, the Army Air Force intended to
move B-17s and B-24s from Europe to operate out of Okinawan air fields.
From Okinawa, both could reach targets in Kyushu in support of the
planned landings.

One of the little-noticed elements of Allied war planning was the role
that economic computation played in selecting which forces to use. The
B-29s were a severely limited resource, expensive to produce, train and
operate. Where the B-17s and B-24s range allowed them, they were
significantly less expensive way to deliver tonnage on target (being an
existing asset) than a replacement force of B-29s.

Paul

[Paul F Austin]

On 6/12/2012 12:54 AM, mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> Paul F Austin<pfau...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
>> The shock value of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings on Hirohito
>> personally shouldn't be minimized. The _conventional_ bombing in July

>> 1945 dropped 43 thousand tons of bombs on Japan. ...

>> The war party in the cabinet was already in cloud coo-coo land and even
>> Hirohito's unprecedented intervention after the 9 August bombing was
>> barely sufficient.
>
> Actually, the "shock value" is more properly applied to Suzuki; by that time,
> Hirohito was pretty decided he wanted the war to end (there's pretty good
> evidence he didn't want it started.) The shock seems to have been what
> Suzuki needed to pull the subterfuge necessary to get the Cabinet to
> convene in Hirohito's presence, where the latter was finally directly
> asked for an opinion.

On 22 June, Hirohito convened a meeting of the War Council (on the verge
of the fall of Okinawa) in which he directed the Government: "We wish
that you, leaders of Japan, will strive now to study the ways and means
to conclude the war ... do not be bound by the decisions you have made
in the past"

Suzuki did indeed break precedence in the 9 August meeting by appealing
to the Emperor directly but Hirohito's direct intervention in summoning
the 22 June meeting and the direction he gave following it was a greater
breach.

I agree that the Atomic Bombings weren't the singularity that switched
Hirohito and the Peace faction "on". There was clearly a trajectory over
which Hirohito, Suzuki and even the Army and Navy Ministers traveled as
first Saipan then Okinawa fell and finally the Atomic Bombings occurred.
Suzuki and a few others had begun to actively seek an end to the war but
rightly feared assassination by ultras. The military was far from ready
to surrender, even after 9 August. Only the prestige of the Emperor was
(barely) sufficient to override the determination of the War faction.

Hirohito had already made a strong commitment of personal prestige with
his 22 June direction and suffered some diminution of that authority
because the war faction ignored it. He repeated his direct intervention
on August 9 after Suzuki's appeal. It is impossible to comb out the
threads of relative changes in position and moral authority among
Hirohito, Suzuki, Sugiyama, and Anami as Japan suffered repeated defeats
but at the 9 August meeting, Hirohito was more than Suzuki's pawn.

Hirohito expanded his direction beyond agreeing with Suzuki to say that
his own sources and assessment of Japan's ability to continue,
independent of the reports of the Army, had convinced him that the
nation was not prepared nor would prevail in a battle on the home islands.

As it was, only subterfuge on the part of the Emperor and his staff
prevented the Army from seizing the recording of the surrender
proclamation so that fighting could continue. Hirohito was more than a
figure-head lending moral authority to his Premier. The content of his
direction on 9 August and the actions of his staff in circumventing the
Army's seizure of the Imperial Palace indicated that Hirohito had become
an active rather than passive element in Japanese governance sometime
before 22 June.

Accordingly, I concluded that the moral effect of the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki bombing on Hirohito was critical in moving him from figure-head
to active decision-making.

Paul

[Chris Morton]

In article <atlas-bugged-5115...@news.solani.org>, Malcom \"Mal\"
Reynolds says...

>but not to be redundant, the B-29's had a bigger bombload

But again, why take away from the PTO effort when there were ABUNDANT B-17s in
the ETO?

A NUCLEAR bombing effort didn't necessitate MORE bombers.

[Chris Morton]

In article <r7CdndoEuOo1FEvS...@supernews.com>, Paul F Austin
says...

>The war party in the cabinet was already in cloud coo-coo land and even
>Hirohito's unprecedented intervention after the 9 August bombing was
>barely sufficient.

The pre-surrender coup attempt was ample proof of that.

[mike]

On Jun 11, 4:16 pm, Bill Shatzer <ww...@NOcornell.edu> wrote:

>
> I don't think you just strap an A-bomb on a Lancaster and say "go".

Doing a 'Little Boy' wouldn't have been a problem for size or
weight, but the 60" diameter of the FatMan would have taken
some work

that it was 70mph slower and 6000 feet lower than a B-29
makes crew survival more chancy after the drop.

Enola Gay was flying at 328 mph before the drop,
before the change to full power, shallow dive, and hard
turn(several G's were pulled): the bomb continued on
its path from 31000 feet, 3.5 miles towards the aim
point before detonating 43 seconds after drop, with the plane over 5
miles away.

About a minute later and Eleven miles away, slant range
when the shockwave hit the aircraft

It was estimated that any closer to 8 miles would destroy
the aircraft. Lanc flys a mile lower, and would lose
about 2 miles from slower speed. 11-1-2=8

Cutting it close.

**
mike
**

[Roman W]

On Monday, June 11, 2012 7:13:02 PM UTC+1, Shawn Wilson wrote:
> On Jun 11, 7:42 am, Roman W <bloody_rab...@gazeta.pl> wrote:
>
> > > You should note that pre-WWII,
> > > Nazi Germany treated Jews *better* than was typical in points East,
> > > specifically including Poland.
> >
> > Pre-Kristallnacht, you mean?
>
>
> Even post Kristallnacht, though of course the difference was smaller
> then.

Can you give an example of anti-Jewish violence sponsored by Polish state, then?

> Poland was pretty bad for Jews even before the Nazis arrived.
> It gets swept under the rug now.

On the contrary, it gets talked about more than in Communist times (though you
are still right to an extent -- the Polish right wing does not like to talk
about it). I think you're skewing the story in the other direction, though.

> I think Spiegelman's 'Maus' talks
> about it a little.

Hardly a historical source... there is actually a decent body of research done
by the researchers from Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, did you read it?

RW

[FragSinatra]

mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net wrote in news:jr6bp1$5rb$1...@haven.eyrie.org:

I've read that even after Hirohito had recorded his message ordering the
forces of Imperial Japan to lay down their arms there were still military
officers who tried to mount a coup. If they had succeeded did these
plotters have any magic plan to turn defeat into victory for Japan though?
Or did they just want thousands more to die for nothing?

--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ne...@netfront.net ---

[Chris Morton]

In article <Y4idnRE9desss0rS...@supernews.com>, Paul F Austin
says...

>Accordingly, I concluded that the moral effect of the Hiroshima and
>Nagasaki bombing on Hirohito was critical in moving him from figure-head
>to active decision-making.

In "Embracing Defeat", doesn't Dower cite Hirohito's fear of the downfall of the
Imperial household through popular uprising, as a motivation for the surrender?

[Chris Morton]

In article <XnsA070BCA1247...@202.177.16.121>, FragSinatra says...

>I've read that even after Hirohito had recorded his message ordering the
>forces of Imperial Japan to lay down their arms there were still military
>officers who tried to mount a coup. If they had succeeded did these
>plotters have any magic plan to turn defeat into victory for Japan though?
>Or did they just want thousands more to die for nothing?

Japan came VERY close to not surrendering because of the coup attempt.

There is a recent claim that it was primarily a B-29 raid induced power outage
which impeded the search for the surrender recordings sufficiently to discourage
those doing the searching.

It was nitwits like Tsuji Masanobu driving the coup attempt.

There was no "magic plan", only the desire to fight to the last bamboo spear
equipped Girl Scout. Of course given the documented behavior of the Japanese
Army on Okinawa, it's entirely possible that AFTER having turned Japan into the
prequel for "Omega Man", "Soylent Green", and "The Road" combined, the military
would simply have surrendered, stepping over the mangled corpses of those Girl
Scouts to do so.

[Paul F Austin]

On 6/12/2012 12:36 PM, Chris Morton wrote:
> Paul F Austin
> says...
>
>> Accordingly, I concluded that the moral effect of the Hiroshima and
>> Nagasaki bombing on Hirohito was critical in moving him from figure-head
>> to active decision-making.
>
> In "Embracing Defeat", doesn't Dower cite Hirohito's fear of the downfall of the
> Imperial household through popular uprising, as a motivation for the surrender?
>
>

I've not read _Embracing Defeat_. Thank you for the reference. My
reading about Japan in World War II mostly treats the populace as
passive objects to be commanded more than manipulated, instead focusing
on the refractory militarists and their relatively weak opponents.

Paul

[Bill Shatzer]

Chris Morton wrote:
> In article <jr5mv1$q8$1...@dont-email.me>, Bill Shatzer says...
>
>
>>I don't think you just strap an A-bomb on a Lancaster and say "go".

> Nor do you do that with a B-29.

> What's easier modifying B-29s and flying them across the Atlantic ocean, or
> modifying Lancasters that are already where they're needed?

The Lancaster was originally suggested as the atomic bomb delivery
vehicle but Hap Arnold put the kibosh on that, insisting that if the
atomic bomb was used, it would be dropped by an American crew flying an
American aircraft.

Still, I wonder if the Lancaster would have proved suitable in any
event. The Lancaster was nearly 100 mph slower than the B-29 and its
service ceiling nearly 10,000 feet lower. So a Lancaster would be
dropping lower and exiting slower.

I've not done the math but given those constraints, it seems iffy as to
whether or not a Lancaster could safely exit the blast area before the
bomb detonated. I doubt anyone envisioned the atomic bomb as a suicide
weapon.

[Don Phillipson]

"Michael Emrys" <em...@olypen.com> wrote in message
news:Ytadna7zo7kjqUvS...@posted.olypeninternet...

> I recall reading somewhere, but don't remember where, that Hitler and the
> Nazis at first had some vague notion of simply deporting the European Jews
> somewhere else. Madagascar was mentioned as one candidate destination. I'm
> sure Palestine would also have served. But once the war started and the
> blockade was in place (a predictable outcome of a general war)
> transporting anything off the Continent was no longer an option for
> Germany. By the end of 1941 the Germans had acquired massive numbers of
> Jews that they urgently desired to get rid of. Ergo, the Final Solution.

This fair summary might be supplemented:
1. In 1900-1940 various colonial settlements were considered
for homeless Jewry by nationalists from Herzl to Jabotinsky,
chiefly Argentina and Uganda, where the local authorities
were believed to welcome settlement by Europeans. The
majority view prevailed that (1) if European Jews were to
move anywhere, they liked the USA best, and preferred Palestine
to any other colonial or frontier or undeveloped region: (2) no one
liked the prospect of moving to Argentina or Uganda; being
mostly townsmen or peasant farmers, they wanted to move
to either European-type cities or regions of European-
type agriculture, not to tropical plantations or the pampas.

2. So long as Palestine remained a League of Nations
mandate, the mandatory power (UK) felt bound by the
mandate's instruction, to preserve unchanged
the region's demographic and religious balance (viz.
including Moslem Arabs, Christian Arabs and Jews.)
Immigration was not prohibited but was rationed
according to the demographic balance of 1920. The practical
problem was that 1920-40 negligibly few Arabs wanted
to resettle in Palestine while (1933-40) many Jews wanted
to resettle there. The British authorities (1) limited immigration,
seeking to maintain the demography, (2) proposed over the
years various schemes for binational self government, every
one vetoed by one of the two racial communities (some by
both.)

3. Madagascar was a late addition to #1, suggested because
this island was governed by France and adhered to Vichy
in 1940, thus seemed conveniently available to non-homicidal
Nazis in ways Uganda was not.

[Chris Morton]

In article <FPGdnW8ixMea5krS...@supernews.com>, Paul F Austin
says...

>I've not read _Embracing Defeat_. Thank you for the reference. My
>reading about Japan in World War II mostly treats the populace as
>passive objects to be commanded more than manipulated, instead focusing
>on the refractory militarists and their relatively weak opponents.

As I recall Dower's(?) argument, not only was morale flagging, an undercurrent
of popular resentment was building against the Imperial system. Supposedly,
members of the Imperial family became quite alarmed, and expressed their
concerns to Hirohito.

[Chris Morton]

In article <jr7u08$iam$1...@dont-email.me>, Bill Shatzer says...

>I've not done the math but given those constraints, it seems iffy as to
>whether or not a Lancaster could safely exit the blast area before the
>bomb detonated. I doubt anyone envisioned the atomic bomb as a suicide
>weapon.

I'm not sure it would have been a "suicide" mission, but surely some things
could have been done to increase the Lancaster's performance as an atomic
bomber, including removing defensive armament. Those Boulton-Paul turrets
couldn't have been light.

[Mario]

Mark Sieving, 01:16, marted� 12 giugno 2012:

My "hypothetical" was referred to the use of the Bomb in Europe.


--
H

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Paul F Austin <pfau...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

> but at the 9 August meeting, Hirohito was more than Suzuki's pawn.

...

> Accordingly, I concluded that the moral effect of the Hiroshima and
> Nagasaki bombing on Hirohito was critical in moving him from figure-head
> to active decision-making.

Nobody claimed he was a pawn. He was undoubtedly apprised of what Suzuki
was planning; on August 9th, he told Kido "control the situation", as
he believed disaster was imminent, and no doubt Suzuki was manuevered
in the background.

He had taken direct action at other times in his tenure; he forced the
resignation of the Tanaka Cabinet very early on, and personally threatened
to lead troops against the 2/26/36 rebels, when the Army and Navy did
nothing.

While he was restrained, he could act on occassion, even if it required
an extraordinary occassion.

Mike

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Chris Morton <cmo...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> In article <Y4idnRE9desss0rS...@supernews.com>, Paul F Austin
> says...

> >Accordingly, I concluded that the moral effect of the Hiroshima and
> >Nagasaki bombing on Hirohito was critical in moving him from figure-head
> >to active decision-making.

> In "Embracing Defeat", doesn't Dower cite Hirohito's fear of the
> downfall of the Imperial household through popular uprising, as a
> motivation for the surrender?

If that's what Dower said, he wasn't paying much attention. Hirohito was
known to have opposed the war in the first place, and he knew that proposing
peace could be "problematic"; hence, they took precautionary steps to protect
the surrender speach. Whatever uprising to be feared would likely be through
the "Imperial" armed forces.

Mike

[Alan Meyer]

On 06/11/2012 02:13 PM, Shawn Wilson wrote:
> On Jun 11, 7:42 am, Roman W<bloody_rab...@gazeta.pl> wrote:
>
>>> You should note that pre-WWII,
>>> Nazi Germany treated Jews *better* than was typical in points East,
>>> specifically including Poland.
>>
>> Pre-Kristallnacht, you mean?
>
>
> Even post Kristallnacht, though of course the difference was smaller

> then. Poland was pretty bad for Jews even before the Nazis arrived.
> It gets swept under the rug now. I think Spiegelman's 'Maus' talks
> about it a little.
>
> Of course the Final Solution changed everything, and the German
> invasion brought on more restrictive policies than had been seen
> before.
>

There was serious antisemitism in Eastern Europe but to the best of my
knowledge, it was not institutionalized in the same way that it was in
Nazi Germany even before Kristallnacht. I'm not aware of laws
preventing Jews from working in the professions, of laws forbidding
intermarriage or sexual relations between Jews and Christians, of laws
keeping Christians out of Jewish stores or of laws keeping Jews out of
whole categories of institutions and places, as there were in Nazi Germany.

I don't want to make light of Polish antisemitism. It was real. It
caused real damage after the Nazi occupation when many Polish citizens
found it convenient and profitable to join in the persecutions and to
turn in Jews for the rewards.

However I also don't want to ignore the other side. For example, there
is a document called "The Troop Report", available on the web. It was
written by the commander (named "Troop") of the German soldiers and
their auxiliaries who put down the revolt in the Warsaw ghetto. I don't
recall the details, but I do recall reading in that document that a
small Polish force attacked the Germans from the rear when they were
suppressing the ghetto uprising. Troop, of course, called them
criminals and claimed to have totally wiped them all out. Perhaps he
did. In any case, it was certainly a very courageous show of solidarity
with the Jews who were being killed.

While there were many Poles who collaborated with the Germans in the
Holocaust, there were also many who despised German antisemitism and
some, as also in Germany, who risked their own lives to save Jews.

It turns out that it would have been very difficult to say in advance
who would collaborate with the Holocaust and who would resist it. I
can't quote a source here (though I think I read it in Ian Kershaw's
book), but as I understand it, studies show that education and urban
living, both of which might be expected to increase sympathy with the
Jews, did not. Supposedly, the studies show that about the same
percentages of courageous helpers of Jews could be found among city and
country people, and among educated and less educated people. Similarly,
Denmark saved almost all of its Jews while Belgium saved hardly any -
though admittedly it was easier to get Jews out of Denmark than Belgium.
But here's a surprise, Romania saved most of its Jews, far more than
in Belgium or France! That's not what one might have expected when
comparing western "civilization" and eastern "primitiveness".

Alan

[Rich Rostrom]

Alan Meyer <ame...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> While there were many Poles who collaborated with the Germans in the
> Holocaust, there were also many who despised German antisemitism and
> some, as also in Germany, who risked their own lives to save Jews.

Some time ago there was a posting about a woman
who was a noted campaigner in pre-war Poland for
restrictions on Jews in the professions and in
universities. During the war she helped organize
the concealment and rescue of Jews from German
persecution.

> But here's a surprise, Romania saved most of its Jews, far more than
> in Belgium or France!

Somewhere it was noted that the survival of Jews
in Axis territory inversely correlated with the
degree of German control. In areas under direct
German occupation, Jews were exterminated almost
completely. In the territory of German allies
or puppet regimes, or under their occupation,
many Jews survived. It does not reflect "saving"
Jews, so much as not systematically killing them.
--
| Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdes. |
| -- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870. |

[Chris Morton]

In article <jr93l1$el5$1...@dont-email.me>, Alan Meyer says...

>However I also don't want to ignore the other side. For example, there
>is a document called "The Troop Report", available on the web. It was
>written by the commander (named "Troop") of the German soldiers and
>their auxiliaries who put down the revolt in the Warsaw ghetto.

"Stroop", Juergen Stroop.

They actually put out a "coffee table" book to "commemorate" the slaughter.

[Chris Morton]

In article <jr93dp$69a$1...@haven.eyrie.org>, mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net says...

>> In "Embracing Defeat", doesn't Dower cite Hirohito's fear of the
>> downfall of the Imperial household through popular uprising, as a
>> motivation for the surrender?
>
>If that's what Dower said, he wasn't paying much attention. Hirohito was
>known to have opposed the war in the first place, and he knew that proposing
>peace could be "problematic"; hence, they took precautionary steps to protect
>the surrender speach. Whatever uprising to be feared would likely be through
>the "Imperial" armed forces.

"Opposed the war" is probably a bit too strong. I'd lean more toward, "Had
doubts about."

The truth is that Japanese "thought" about the war at all levels was usually at
variance to reality in various degrees, ranging from cluelessness to psychosis.
One of the few who seemed to have at least a reasonable understanding of the
realities was Yamamoto, but I think that his gambler's instinct, devotion to
duty (and lack of desire to be assassinated) overrode his appreciation of the
fundamental foolishness of the war.

[Roman W]

On Wednesday, June 13, 2012 7:40:53 AM UTC+1, Rich Rostrom wrote:
> Alan Meyer <ame...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > While there were many Poles who collaborated with the Germans in the
> > Holocaust, there were also many who despised German antisemitism and
> > some, as also in Germany, who risked their own lives to save Jews.
>
> Some time ago there was a posting about a woman
> who was a noted campaigner in pre-war Poland for
> restrictions on Jews in the professions and in
> universities. During the war she helped organize
> the concealment and rescue of Jews from German
> persecution.

Zofia Kossak-Szczucka. In her writings about HER OWN actions to help the Jews
she still comes across as a snotty, arrogant anti-semite, unfortunately.

>
> > But here's a surprise, Romania saved most of its Jews, far more than
> > in Belgium or France!
>
> Somewhere it was noted that the survival of Jews
> in Axis territory inversely correlated with the
> degree of German control.

That would mean that Vichy France Jews should have been saved.

RW

[Roman W]

On Wednesday, June 13, 2012 5:17:52 AM UTC+1, Alan Meyer wrote:

> It turns out that it would have been very difficult to say in advance
> who would collaborate with the Holocaust and who would resist it. I
> can't quote a source here (though I think I read it in Ian Kershaw's
> book), but as I understand it, studies show that education and urban
> living, both of which might be expected to increase sympathy with the
> Jews, did not.

There was quite a lot of anti-semitism among educated Poles who, being educated,
were better at finding excuses for not helping Jews. On the other hand,
a number of poor, uneducated people were simply too honest and too humane
no to help those who suffered so much, regardless of their ethnicity.

RW

[Chris Morton]

In article <53fe3107-fff8-4558...@googlegroups.com>, Roman W
says...

>That would mean that Vichy France Jews should have been saved.

It WAS France after all.

If you'd posited a "Holocaust" in 1910, most people even willing to entertain
the possibility at all, would have guessed Russia, then France. Germany
probably wouldn't have made the top five.

[Roman W]

On Wednesday, June 13, 2012 2:17:17 PM UTC+1, Chris Morton wrote:
> In article <jr93l1$el5$1...@dont-email.me>, Alan Meyer says...
>
> >However I also don't want to ignore the other side. For example, there
> >is a document called "The Troop Report", available on the web. It was
> >written by the commander (named "Troop") of the German soldiers and
> >their auxiliaries who put down the revolt in the Warsaw ghetto.
>
> "Stroop", Juergen Stroop.
>
> They actually put out a "coffee table" book to "commemorate" the slaughter.

There is a very interesting book about Stroop, written by a Polish undeground
soldier who shared a Communist Prison cell with Stroop:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Conversations-Executioner-Kazimierz-Moczarski/dp/0131719181

RW

[David Wilma]

On Tuesday, June 12, 2012 9:17:52 PM UTC-7, Alan Meyer wrote:

> There was serious antisemitism in Eastern Europe but to the best of my
> knowledge, it was not institutionalized in the same way that it was in
> Nazi Germany even before Kristallnacht.

Beginning in the 1700s the Czarina discriminated against Jews
in an effort to get them out of the empire. After Alexander
was assassinated in 1881 the Russian government systematically
removed Jews from cities and organized pogroms. That many
members of anti-Czarist movements consisted of Jews was no accident.
Going after Jews was well within the memories of Ukrainians and
Poles.

[mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net]

Chris Morton <cmo...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> In article <jr93dp$69a$1...@haven.eyrie.org>, mtfe...@netMAPSONscape.net says...

> >> In "Embracing Defeat", doesn't Dower cite Hirohito's fear of the
> >> downfall of the Imperial household through popular uprising, as a
> >> motivation for the surrender?
> >
> >If that's what Dower said, he wasn't paying much attention. Hirohito was
> >known to have opposed the war in the first place, and he knew that proposing
> >peace could be "problematic"; hence, they took precautionary steps to protect
> >the surrender speach. Whatever uprising to be feared would likely be through
> >the "Imperial" armed forces.

> "Opposed the war" is probably a bit too strong. I'd lean more toward, "Had
> doubts about."

I'd say "opposed" might be fair. One could argue that it wasn't strenuous
enough, but again, he took action against the Kwangtung Army in the late
20s, he was known to be disappointed in the war in China to begin with,
and admonished Tojo about the proposed war with the US, pointing out
something like "you said the China war would last 6 months, and now you
want to fight the US, too"? And there was Mikasa's speech to the Diet
(deleted from the record until the 1990s) excoriating the Army's
actions in China in the 40s and claiming "if my brother knew about this,
he'd order everyone fired", or words to that effect.

> The truth is that Japanese "thought" about the war at all levels was usually at
> variance to reality in various degrees, ranging from cluelessness to psychosis.
> One of the few who seemed to have at least a reasonable understanding of the
> realities was Yamamoto, but I think that his gambler's instinct, devotion to
> duty (and lack of desire to be assassinated) overrode his appreciation of the
> fundamental foolishness of the war.

If you prefer to think of Hirohito's opposition to war as being rooted in
pragmatism rather than morals, that's fine. The result is the same. But
certainly, he seemed very mistrustful (with good reason) of anything
involving the Japanese military throughout his reign.

Mike

[Mario]

Chris Morton, 16:40, mercoledￜ 13 giugno 2012:

> In article
> <53fe3107-fff8-4558...@googlegroups.com>, Roman
> W says...
>
>>That would mean that Vichy France Jews should have been saved.
>
> It WAS France after all.
>
> If you'd posited a "Holocaust" in 1910, most people even
> willing to entertain
> the possibility at all, would have guessed Russia, then
> France. Germany probably wouldn't have made the top five.

Austria was more anti-semitic than Germany.


--
H

[Mario]

David Wilma, 16:42, mercoled� 13 giugno 2012:

Most Jews lived in Ukraine and Belarus rather than in Russia
proper (IIRC there was an old ban).


--
H

[Roman W]

On Wednesday, June 13, 2012 3:42:08 PM UTC+1, David Wilma wrote:

> Beginning in the 1700s the Czarina discriminated against Jews
> in an effort to get them out of the empire. After Alexander
> was assassinated in 1881 the Russian government systematically
> removed Jews from cities and organized pogroms. That many
> members of anti-Czarist movements consisted of Jews was no accident.
> Going after Jews was well within the memories of Ukrainians and
> Poles.

Well OK, but Russian governments were not high on the Polish list of
role models.

RW

[Chris Morton]

In article , Mario says...

>Austria was more anti-semitic than Germany.

I believe that the ideological underpinnings of the National Socialist specific
brand of anti-Semitism arose in 19th century Austria. The name "Karl Lueger"
rings a bell as a major proponent.

[Roman W]

On Wednesday, June 13, 2012 6:04:50 PM UTC+1, Chris Morton wrote:
> In article , Mario says...
>
> >Austria was more anti-semitic than Germany.
>
> I believe that the ideological underpinnings of the National Socialist specific
> brand of anti-Semitism arose in 19th century Austria. The name "Karl Lueger"
> rings a bell as a major proponent.

AFAIR R.K. Massie in "Dreadnought" quotes Kaiser Wilhelm as saying that Jews
need to be "cut down" or something like that. According to Massie, Jews lived
in a semi-segregated world in pre-WW1 Germany. For example, German officers
never danced with Jewish girls; Kaiser's Jewish friends (he had some) were
not invited to official balls and receptions; Jews had their separate
sanatoria where they took rest among other Jews.

RW

[Rich Rostrom]

Chris Morton <cmo...@newsguy.com> wrote:

> In article , Mario says...
>
> >Austria was more anti-semitic than Germany.
>
> I believe that the ideological underpinnings of the National Socialist specific
> brand of anti-Semitism arose in 19th century Austria. The name "Karl Lueger"
> rings a bell as a major proponent.

Indeed. Mark Twain visited Austria in the
1890s, and observed the parliamentary
crisis that erupted when the _Ausgleich_
between Austria and Hungary came up for
renewal. He wrote about it in his essay
"Stirring Times in Austria".

As he described it, the members of the
Diet did little but scream insults at
each other for hours on end. And the
favorite insults, used indiscriminately
by and toward all factions, were "Jew"
and "Jew-lackey".

Lueger, who was Burgermeister of Vienna,
was also the leader of the Christian
Social Party, and prominent in this
garboil.

He was a notorious Jew-baiter - his
rhetoric inspired Hitler, who honored
him in _Mein Kampf_. But reportedly,
he did not carry his rhetoric into any
concrete actions against the Jews of
Vienna, and even had Jewish friends.

As to a comparison with Germany - Germany
seemed the most advanced nation of the
Continent, and Jews flourished there, but
there was still very profound anti-Jewish
sentiment.

Albert Ballin was the immensely wealthy
director of the Hamburg America Line,
and a friend of Kaiser Wilhelm II. But he
was Jewish - so though he could be a
guest at informal court activities, he
was never invited to a state ball.

He built a mansion in Berlin, and hosted
a lavish ball. All the fashionable young
men of Berlin came - and not one would
dance with his daughter, who sat ignored
through the entire affair.

[Joe keane]

In article <jr7u08$iam$1...@dont-email.me>,

Bill Shatzer <ww...@NOcornell.edu> wrote:
>I doubt anyone envisioned the atomic bomb as a suicide weapon.

No... everyone envisioned that. The crews that dropped the bomb were
told in certain terms 'even if you have done everything perfectly, we
don't know what is going to happen; there's a good chance that you will
be destroyed by the own bomb you dropped'. They accepted.

[David H Thornley]

Alan Meyer wrote:
> But here's a surprise, Romania saved most of its Jews, far more than in
> Belgium or France! That's not what one might have expected when
> comparing western "civilization" and eastern "primitiveness".
>

Not all of the Axis nations wanted the Jews killed, and even the ones
that went along generally had reservations about their own Jews.
>From what I've read, Romania was not interested in protecting the
Jews in their occupied territories, but in their own, and the
country went from active Axis ally to overrun by the Soviets without
an attempt to make peace in between.

The Hungarian government tried to get out of the war in 1944, so the
Germans changed it, and gave Hungary a new government, that wasn't
very interested in protecting Hungarian Jews.

--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-