What Could the Allies Have Done to Stop the Holocaust?

[Amadeus]

For decades, historians have debated just what the Allies could have done to stop the Holocaust. In your judgement, what actions could the Allies have taken in order to end (or at the least limit) the atrocities committed by the Nazis?

 

[manav95]

For decades, historians have debated just what the Allies could have done to stop the Holocaust. In your judgement, what actions could the Allies have taken in order to end (or at the least limit) the atrocities committed by the Nazis?

They could have attacked Germany in 1939 while the bulk of the Nazi army was in Poland. A quick, lightning strike from the back could have at least led to a stalemate a la the Western Front, which would limit the Nazi ability to conquer territory and round up and kill Jews. And at best, they enter Berlin by Christmas and find Hitler and other defiant Nazis strung up a la Mussolini.

 

[danteheadman]

Accepted Jewish refugees without conditions.

 

[wcv215]

Before or after war was declared?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Britain could have backed France against Hitler pre-war. That would have solved the problem.

 

[arrowiv]

Would there be any problems with staging bombing raids on the railway lines leading to Auschwitz? Better still, how about a commando raid on the camp and rescuing as many prisoners as possible?

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Tell Himmler that it's conclusion would be a pre-condition to any peace negotiations. And then the negotiations still don't happen, but getting Himmler to betray Hitler a few months early probably saves hundreds of thousands to Jews and others.

 

[Barry Bull]

Tell Himmler that it's conclusion would be a pre-condition to any peace negotiations. And then the negotiations still don't happen, but getting Himmler to betray Hitler a few months early probably saves hundreds of thousands to Jews and others.

Given how Himmler feels for such broken down of negotiation, he may order acceleration of the murder of the Jews.

 

[Barry Bull]

Would there be any problems with staging bombing raids on the railway lines leading to Auschwitz? Better still, how about a commando raid on the camp and rescuing as many prisoners as possible?

Auschwitz was located deep in Nazi territory and it would impossible to infiltrate a large enough force to raid the camp. Moreover, the bad situation the inmates were in and the lack of place to go means extraction were also impossible.

 

[RMcD94]

Evian conference ends with an agreement. Sadly Western countries had no issue with holocaust until it was a good way to alienate Germany from allies

 

[Sam R.]

For decades, historians have debated just what the Allies could have done to stop the Holocaust.

That’s news for me. Got a good review article say in AHR? I believed the major debates were over initiative versus systemic predisposition (intentionalism versus functionalism) and to a lesser extent whether the coping mechanisms in central and Eastern European Jewish cultures that preserved communities from pogroms and ghettoisation failed wholesale to deal with modern industrial genocide as policy.

Accepted Jewish refugees without conditions.

This does sfa for Roma, trade unionists, socialists anarchists and communists, Yugoslav citizens and soviet citizens to go over only the other major categories of death for deaths sake by policy.

* * *

Given a third of camp system related deaths happened in late war death marches anything post 1941 will fail. Unless you think magic can achieve Soviets in Berlin by 1943. And this will only lop four million preventable deaths by camp and march off the total.

 

[Insane Ranter]

Not screwed Germany so hard in June 1919. If you don't lay the foundations then it's hard to build the ship that is Hitler.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Given how Himmler feels for such broken down of negotiation

Oh, as per OTL he gets fired for ordering the extermination to halt, and Hitler will order the extermination to resume with mixed results.

 

[Khanzeer]

For decades, historians have debated just what the Allies could have done to stop the Holocaust. In your judgement, what actions could the Allies have taken in order to end (or at the least limit) the atrocities committed by the Nazis?

Open a second front by invasion of france in 1942 and not wasted time in italy. North Africa etc

 

[Look More Closely Later]

Open a second front by invasion of france in 1942 and not wasted time in italy. North Africa etc

A second front in France in 1942 as a point of departure* is a great way to knock the UK out of the war. They've been beaten by Rommel in North Africa, crushed and utterly humiliated by the Imperial Japanese in southeast asia, and a catastrophe of the sort of Operation Jubilee, scaled up to army level, would be a great way to get rid of even Churchill (who would be unable to survive the finger wagging and comparisons: 'well he clearly never learned from Gallipoli, in the last war') and to have the Westminster government begging for peace.

* For it to be even remotely workable, you need earlier changes, setting it up, as possible, as far as I can see.

 

[jmc247]

Open a second front by invasion of france in 1942 and not wasted time in italy. North Africa etc

So Operation Sledgehammer mid to late 1942?

I know some believe Germany had a glass jaw in '42, but the U.S. had a green armed forces.

Generally I think this is an area where some hard hitting diplomacy is needed before or early in the war as well as a willingness to take refugees. If in the '41-'42 time frame it requires a willingness to dangle the carrots behind the scenes and perhaps even publicly.

 

[Kotka]

Britain Revokes the 1939 paper allowing tens of thousands of Jews to flee to Palestine.

 

[wcv215]

Would there be any problems with staging bombing raids on the railway lines leading to Auschwitz?

In WWII precision strategic bombing meant hitting within a mile of the target. Using mosquitos they might have done so, but the Germans could repair portions of the track damaged without trouble. Note that an attempt to bomb a factory near a camp elsewhere led to over one thousand dead or wounded. Not the camp itself mind, a factory nearby. A bunch of bombs missed.

Better still, how about a commando raid on the camp and rescuing as many prisoners as possible?

Let’s ignore how commando raids are...overhyped...in fiction. Where do you suggest these commandoes take these starving and sick people exactly?

 

[danteheadman]

This does sfa for Roma, trade unionists, socialists anarchists and communists, Yugoslav citizens and soviet citizens to go over only the other major categories of death for deaths sake by policy.

The question was about the Holocaust, not the Porajmos or other instances of Nazi genocide and mass murder.

The only way to butterfly everything the Nazis did is to butterfly the Nazis.

 

[Michele]

They could have attacked Germany in 1939 while the bulk of the Nazi army was in Poland.

You haven't looked up the numbers and whereabouts of German, French and British divisions, right?