Aerial Photo Surveillance of Auschwitz

Aerial Photo Surveillance of Auschwitz

By Andrew Allen

Various allegations have been leveled against the United States Army Air Corp and the Royal British Air Force concerning the failure to bomb the Birkenau Camp at the Auschwitz Complex in Poland (1). Numerous aerial photographs were taken of the Birkenau Camp between April and November of 1944. The author will show that these photographs do not reveal any evidence which would have alerted Allied photo interpreters that mass killings were taking place and contain much evidence which would have misled any analyst.

July 7, 1997 - This link will open a large JPEG file (180K) showing the southern side of Birkenau,[ALSO HERE]

taken by an Allied aerial photo plane in August, 1944 and labeled in a highly questionable manner by the CIA in 1979, in order to justify publication of an anti-revisionist pamphlet and launch the authors onto the lecture circuit.

    You don't have to look at this photograph too closely in order to see that it's been doctored in a less than professional manner. Notable are the thick fence around Krema II and III, the apparent formations of prisoners standing partly and impossibly on the roof of a building, plus the unsymetric blobs on top of the structures labeled as "GAS CHAMBER" by the CIA. These marks are supposed to represent rectangular structures about three feet high that were used as entry ports for Zyklon B.

    The fences around Krema II and Krema III are shown in numerous ground-level photographs taken around this time (Aug 1944) which show them to be almost invisible wire-strand fences with no vegetation of any kind near them. Take a close look at the upper right of the fence around Krema II, just beneath the tag, "UNDRESSING ROOM" and you'll see an impossibly long gate which opens in what appears to be solid woods or brush. This and other oddities show up very clearly in an enlargement of the area where Krema II and Krema III are located.[ALSO HERE]

    There are many other apparent alterations which are not as obvious. These are pointed out and discussed at some length by photo expert John Ball at his Website, Air Photo Evidence , and in an article on the CODOH site, Air Photo Evidence,. -- David Thomas

NO OBVIOUS SIGNS OF MASS KILLINGS

 

Lack of Smoke from Crematorium

Although much survivor testimony relates that flames and clouds of smoke came from the crematorium chimneys, no such sign is visible in any of the photographs of Birkenau. Poirier and Brugioni comment on this in their monograph, The Holocaust Revisited (2). Modern crematorium chimneys such as the ones at Birkenau do not emit smoke when being used, so lack of smoke is not proof of lack of use. 

Lack of Evidence of Mass Outdoor Cremations.

Mass cremations of many bodies might have drawn the attention of photo interpreters (a small fire is visible in one picture), however, no other fire or smoke is visible in the photos. The imagery examined by Poirier and Brugioni included 4 April , 26 June, 26 July, 25 August, and 12 September as well as imagery from after the period of alleged mass killings reveal no cremation fires visible in any photographs available to Western interpreters. 

Lack of Evidence of Mass Graves or Burial Areas.

There is no sign of any mass graves at Birkenau Camp or of any unusual disturbed area of earth which would signal mass burials. 

LACK OF EVIDENCE WHICH HAVE WOULD ALLOWED PHOTO INTERPRETERS TO LOCATE SITES OF MASS KILLINGS

Any aerial strike against the gaschamber buildings would have required that the targeted buildings be clearly identified. The Birkenau Camp held tens of thousands of individuals in scores of buildings. It was too large and too populated to have allowed random bombing in the hopes of hitting the gas chambers. But even if Aushwitz-Birkenau were suspected as a site of mass killings, verification of the specific target would have been impossible from the available aerial photographs. 

Lack of Particular Security at Crematorium

The gas chambers were in no way screened or protected from being visible either from the rest of the camp or from the fields and woods of the surrounding countryside. The fields right up to the fence, thirty meters from the gas chamber at Krema II, appear to have been plowed and harvested during the summer of 1944. The crematorium were not "flagged" as particularly secure sites other than by their one barbed wire fence. Crematorium 4 and 5 did not have guard towers around them. The main east-west road in Birkenau camp ran between Kremas 2 and 3 and was ungated on its west end. Drainage ditches and a large tree at the west end of the road would have been considered as compromising the security of the area. No security structures are visible in the area outside the camp.

    Although the crematorium would have been distinguishable from the air, it was impossible to see if there were gas chambers located in the building.

    As noted, no cremation pyres were visible. Cremation pyres would have indicated the possible proximity of the actual killing site and indicated the disposal of more bodies than could have been handled by the crematorium. Even in photographs taken while trains were at the Birkenau loading ramp, there are no lines of people entering any crematory buildings and, in the photographs of 9/13/44, a large group of people can be seen apparently moving away from both the train and from Kremas 2 and 3. Thus, there were no visible signs of heightened security concerns or types of activity which would signal that mass killings were being performed on a regular basis at Kremas 2 and 3 and which would have allowed the crematorium to be designated as specific targets. 

EVIDENCE WHICH WOULD MISLEAD

One of the most obvious facts about the Birkenau Camp is the large number of buildings in the camp which clearly appeared to be barracks. Birkenau was meant to be a place to house tens of thousands of people.

    Moreover, preparations to the north of the camp for further construction indicated plans to house thousands more. Thus, Birkenau appeared from the air to be a camp with a large and expanding population similar to any large labor camp. This impression was re-enforced by large scale water purification plants visible at the west end of the camp, by the numerous administration buildings in the camp (which were, in fact, delousing facilities and the camp hospital), and by gardens and parade fields inside the camp fence.

    The only evidence in the pictures which is unusual is the frequent presence of railroad boxcars in the central area of the camp. If this rail traffic had consisted of tank cars it might have been noticed by the photo interpreters as being connected with the Monowitz coal gasification plant. It has been commented that "historians have been extraordinarily unlucky that the reconnaissance aircraft flew over Auschwitz-Birkenau precisely on those days when nothing was happening"(3). But this was the evidence that the Allied Command had. The men who took and developed these photographs were working under wartime pressures and with equipment and methods far less efficient than what is available today. This paper does not comment on claims that Allied officials had other information concerning mass killings at Auschwitz/Birkenau. However, any assertion that Allied photo interpreters deliberately overlooked or ignored evidence of mass killings has not been demonstrated. 

NOTES

1. "U.S. Could Have Bombed Nazi Camps, Israelis Say, Saving Millions of Jews." (See: New York City Tribune. April 23, 1990.)
2. Dino A. Brugioni and Robert G. Poirier, "The Holocaust Revisited: A Retrospective analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Complex". (Washington, D.C., Central Intelligence Agency, ST-79-10001, Feb. 1979, pg. 11)
3. Jean-Claude Pressac, Auschwitz: Technique and Operation of the Gas Chambers. (Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, New York 1989 , pg. 253)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

An excellent article on the subject is Dr. Richard Foregger's "The Bombing of Auschwitz," Aerospace Historian, June 1987

Dates of Photographs of Birkenau Record group #373

1. 5/31 Can D 1508 exposure 3055 , 3056 -- not analyzed by Brugioni and Poirier, good condition.
2. 6/26 Can C 1172, exp. 5022 -- out of focus.
3. 8/25 Can F 5367 ex 3184 3185, 3186 -- good condition.
4. 9/13 Can B 8413 exp. 3VI 6V2 -- good condition.
5. 12/21 Can D 1534 exp. 4022-4023 Can D 1535 ex 4018 -- good condition
6. 2/19/45 Gx 12337-188 SD exp. 145-146 Luftwaffe photo. -- taken after liberation

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Why Wasn't Auschwitz Bombed?

Did Missing 1944 Military Studies Conclude Auschwitz-Birkenau Not Death Camp?

By THE COMMITTEE FOR HISTORICAL TRUTH (2004)

From 1944 to 1993 the Holocaust lobby's story was Auschwitz-Birkenau wasn't bombed because the 3,000 to 10,000 daily mass murders were kept secret through a circle of fences one kilometer (0.6 mi) from Birkenau so noone outside the camp knew about the mass executions until an April, 1944 prison escape, and the camp was out of range for bombers until late 1944.

In 1993 Air Photo Evidence published air photos proving the Germans made no attempt to hide the Birkenau Cremation buildings which had no outer fence and only one wire fence close to the buildings so mass executions would have been visible, and Birkenau was not out of range as American  planes bombed the Monowitz industrial complex 6 km (4 mi) east starting in August, '44.

The photos sent shockwaves through the Holocaust lobby which hastily organized a 1993 Auschwitz Bombing convention in Washington, DC, to change their story and agree to new reasons why Birkenau was not bombed. The new story was the British and American governments knew about the Birkenau mass executions from early '43 to November, '44, but didn't order that Birkenau or rail-lines leading to the camp be bombed for a number of reasons. The Holocaust Lobby's 4 main reasons are in black text, and the truth according to Air Photo Evidence is in red:

1. Requests for bombing in 1944 by U.S. President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill were over-ruled by the military who knew about the mass murders, but were
   indifferent to the plight of the camp inmates. The truth is that in 1944 the American and British military completed independent studies using air photos and spy reports about whether it was neccessary to bomb Birkenau, and although both studies disappeared after 1944, they must have concluded that no mass murders were occurring at Birkenau because bombing was not ordered by Roosevelt, Churchill, or the military.
   
2. Jewish groups in America, Britain, and Jersualem asked the U.S. and British
   governments to bomb Birkenau during 1944 but they were rebuffed by military and political leaders. The truth is that although a few individual members of Jewish groups who had heard the mass-murder rumors, sent letters to other members of their groups to consider bombing, not one official Jewish organization anywhere in the world asked that Birkenau be bombed, because they knew from escaped inmates and spies, and from contacts with the highest levels of the U.S. and British governments, that mass murders were not occurring.
3. The War Refugee Board knew about the daily murders but did not have enough political clout to command the attention of President Roosevelt. The truth is that Board member Henry Morgenthau knew of the unsubstantiated stories of Birkenau mass murders, but he acted like he did not believe them because he did not even discuss the possible bombing of Birkenau or any other camp during his many meetings with President Roosevelt.
   
4. Bombing would have killed inmates and there was no guarantee bombing would have
   stopped the slaughter. The truth is rail-lines and bridges together with the Birkenau
   Cremation buildings could have been bombed with a minimum loss of life the same way two other areas were bombed. From June, 1942 to August, 1944, 12 groups of B-25 long-range bombers and P-38 Lightning fighter-bombers , flew long distances from airfields in Egypt to pin-point bomb at low elevations the Ploesti oil refinery 55 kilomters (35 miles) north of Bucharest, Rumania, and on August 24th, '44, the Gustloff-Werke armaments factory 150 m (500 ft) from Buchenwald detention camp in Germany, was destroyed by B-25 bombers without a single bomb hitting the Buchenwald camp.
   

In 1944 the Americans and British had the ability to pin-point bomb the Birkenau cremation buildings or rail-lines leading to camp, but after military studies of air photos and spy reports concluded that inmates were not being executed, no American or British leader ordered bombing of Birkenau because they believed executions were not occurring.
THE COMMITTEE FOR HISTORICAL TRUTH (2004)
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