The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? (review)

The collection of essays that are gathered in this volume together with introductory essays for each section represent a thorough and careful effort to explore both sides to an issue that most of the authors agree is hardly answerable. Doing history by hindsight is not normally the role that historians assume, and this question is loaded with so much contemporary meaning that we are well served by the caution of the authors who attempt to expose our all too easy desire to use our current view of things to make judgments about decisions in the past. Thus, I believe that this collection is a sterling example of good historical research as well as a fine model for how such questions ought to be pursued in any field of inquiry, particularly when dealing with the Holocaust.

Of course the debate presumed as backdrop for these essays is the one initiated by David Wyman, who strikingly, and it must be noted, by his own decision, is not included in this volume. The issue is whether the allies had the capacity to bomb the crematoria and gas chambers at Auschwitz, especially in late summer 1944, or if not that the rail lines leading to the camps. More to the point, the issue is whether the allies should have bombed these facilities if they had such a capacity, the question the editors claim is the most asked question by our students. Wyman’s conclusion was yes on all counts, and his position has been forcefully supported by a number of people, most particularly Stuart Erdheim and to a lesser extent, Martin Gilbert. Those who wish to accept Wyman’s claims in whole or part are inclined as well to conclude that such efforts should have been undertaken. Those who do not accept Wyman’s judgments about the capacity of the allied forces are inclined to argue against such a conclusion. The issue is throughout this text one of military capacity and timing within the whole scope of the military advance against the Nazis on all fronts.

The debate presented in these essays is remarkable for several reasons. First, the editors have skillfully organized material around basic sub-questions within which are included both academic and military historians as well as eyewitnesses, Jewish leaders, and technical experts. Above all, the introductory essays to each section create a cohesion to the whole discussion that is not so obvious in other similar collections from conferences. Thus, the reader is treated to excellent argument, presentation of facts as we know them from documents (many included in an excellent appendix) and memory, and a careful construction of the various contributions so as to give a clear whole to the debate. For these reasons alone, the book is well worth the investment and can be a valuable, even indispensable addition to a course bibliography.

Nevertheless, the construction of the issue around the question of technical capacity makes this complex issue all the murkier. While the historical issues might be settled for the contributors by documenting the actual military situation surrounding the request to bomb the camps or the rail lines, it is less certain that these matters are so conclusive in settling the difficult moral, political, and human questions that this issue raises and our students are likely interested in. Yet, even with the fine contributions by Walter Lacqueur and Henry Feingold, who open up these other questions skillfully, there are no ethicists or theologians or even social scientists as such who have joined the fray in this volume. One gets the feeling that the moral issue, for example, of whether such attempts should have been made despite the capacity cannot be fully argued by looking at documents or uncovering military capacity. Indeed, the issue of the role of anti semitism on whatever level among the political decision makers seems to require more than simply looking at the documents of the time but rather requires...