1944

by Jay Winik

  AS THE WORLD WATCHED, the torment of Poland continued.

  In London, Polish officials waged an intense campaign to persuade the British government to do something. They begged for resupply flights. Their Resistance fighters needed guns, food, and medical supplies. Yet John Slessor, the RAF commander in Italy, was hesitant. He warned that supply flights to Warsaw from Italy were a sideshow, which could not possibly affect the issue “of the war one way or another,” and in any case, such runs would result in a “prohibitive” loss of airpower. That may have been the case, but Churchill, as with the proposal for bombing Auschwitz, wanted to keep faith with a devastated people. This time, he ordered the missions. During August and September, twenty-two night operations were carried out from Italy, employing 181 bombers all told. In Slessor’s view, the effort achieved “practically nothing.” But Churchill, never one to run away from a fight, let alone a cause, thought otherwise.

  Meanwhile, the prime minister pressed Roosevelt to join the effort. Actually, the president needed little convincing: he quickly dispatched American bombers. His health was failing, though his mind was as much on the presidential campaign as on the war itself, and he could not ignore the Chicago ward bosses who reminded him that he needed the Polish vote. In the capital and on the campaign trail, notably Chicago, he had already told the Polish American Congress that he would protect the “integrity” of Poland. So in addition to sending the bombers, he joined Churchill—to no avail—in calling on Stalin to help the “patriot Poles of Warsaw.”

  He knew the situation was grim and the options were limited. A quarter of a million Warsaw Poles were dead; the majority of the city lay in waste, unrecognizable even to its inhabitants. Even the U.S. strategic air forces concluded that “the partisan fight was a losing one.” Nevertheless, Roosevelt wrote that it was their duty to do the utmost to save as many of the “patriots there as possible.”

  Soon it was the American bombers’ turn. Over four days, 107 Flying Fortresses were loaded up with supplies and sat on runways in England, waiting for the right weather. And waiting. And waiting. Finally, on September 18, they were given the signal: go. And go they did. They dropped 1,284 containers of arms and supplies on Warsaw before making their way to airfields in the Soviet Union. For the Polish partisans, watching the crates float down from the skies, it was a minor miracle. But the effort remained largely futile, and Roosevelt knew it. Only 288 containers ever made it to the hands of the Polish Home Army. The others were seized by the Germans. The partisans would soon be butchered, and Poland itself would eventually be lost to the Soviets. When former envoy Arthur Bliss Lane asked the president to do more for Polish independence, Roosevelt tartly replied, “Do you want me to go to war with Russia?”

  But a precedent had been set. The president, often accused of being hypocritical, nevertheless remained a practical man who could proceed boldly, and a romantic who could grasp the reins of political symbolism. And here, he was willing to divert considerable airpower when he concluded that the mission was “amply justified,” as the director of intelligence for the U.S. Strategic Air Forces had said in summarizing the matter—even if the success of the mission was in grave doubt.

  The director of intelligence went on to conclude, “Despite the tangible cost which far outweighed the tangible results achieved . . . one thing stands out, from the president down to the airmen who flew the planes. America wanted to, tried, and did help within her means and possibilities.” And as Roosevelt and Churchill had said in their joint statement, “We are thinking of world opinion if the anti-Nazis in Warsaw are in effect abandoned.”

  ROOSEVELT, MORE THAN ANYONE else on the political scene, had masterfully led the Allies this far; of that there is no doubt. He knew that Hitler’s cities were in ruins. In the summer of 1944 alone, Germany had suffered over 1 million dead, wounded, and missing; and earlier, 3 million had already been lost. Hitler may have been readying his last, desperate gamble in the west—the Germans’ push in the Ardennes—but Roosevelt, following the war on the wall charts in the map room, could glimpse the future.

  There was no question: The war would soon be won, and if not in 1944, then 1945.

  If there were moments when he felt victorious and congratulated himself, that would be understandable.

  And at the end of 1944, his administration would have yet one more chance to put an end to the unspeakable cruelties taking place in the thick birch forests of Poland—or at least to make a statement to the world. One last time, his administration would have the chance to wrestle with whether events controlled strategy, or strategy controlled events.

  AT THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT, in early November Pehle at last received the entire thirty-page text of the Vrba-Wetzler report, more than six months after the two escapees had first dictated it. Accompanying the document were two other, corroborative reports. Pehle was normally levelheaded, but as he read he grew angry and disgusted and sickened. He now realized that the time for bureaucratic excuses had long since passed. On November 8, once more he contacted McCloy. Appended to his cover note was a copy of the escapees’ reports. “No report of Nazi atrocities received by the board has quite caught the gruesome brutality of what is taking place in these camps as have these sober, factual accounts of conditions in Auschwitz and Birkenau,” he wrote. “I earnestly hope that you will read these reports.”

  In his own summary he noted that the destruction of so many victims was “not a simple process.” In order to carry out such “murder on a mass production basis” the Nazis had to devote “considerable technological ingenuity and administrative know-how.”

  Then in perhaps one of the most poignant moments of decision in the war, he pointed out that despite pressures from many sources, he had been hesitant to urge the destruction of the camps by direct military action.

  But he was hesitant no longer.

  “I am convinced that the point has now been reached where such action is justifiable if it is deemed feasible by competent military authorities.” That clause about military authorities was a pro forma statement; there was little doubt what he felt needed to be done. Moreover, to anticipate any hesitance by the military, he then made a strategic case for systematic bombing of the death camps. Krupp, Siemens, and Buna factories (“all within Auschwitz”), which manufactured hand grenade casings, would be destroyed in the operation, along with German barracks and guardhouses and even homes of the leadership. Echoing what Benjamin Akzin had already stressed to him, he wrote that the morale of the Polish underground, vital allies of the United States, would be “considerably strengthened.” At the same time, an attack would destroy significant numbers of Nazi soldiers guarding the camp, among the worst of the worst. Last, many of the prisoners could escape in the chaos of battle—and, he added, in this regard there was both evidence and precedent. He appended the recent New York Times article on the British bombing of the Amiens prison camp where French Resistance fighters had slipped into the woods or escaped onto the roads.

  As Pehle wrote his memo, the mass killings at Auschwitz were finally coming to an end. But in any case, once more McCloy dismissed Pehle’s request. McCloy’s arguments almost didn’t matter; they simply proved the maxim that when the military or the White House didn’t want to do something, they would find reasons not to. Nevertheless, the specifics merit scrutiny. On November 18 McCloy wrote that Auschwitz could be hit only by American heavy bombers based in Britain, and that this “would necessitate a hazardous round-trip flight unescorted of approximately 2,000 miles over enemy territory.” In any case, he added that the target was “beyond the maximum range” of the Allied bombers and that the mission would entail “unacceptable . . . losses.”

  He of course made no reference to the Foggia air base in Italy, which reduced the distance by seven hundred miles. He ignored the fact that the round-trip had already been routinely carried out many times by U.S. planes bombing industrial targets throughout the Auschwitz region, and that for each raid a fighter escort had been pro
vided and had proved effective. He of course failed to mention that P38 dive-bombers had made a longer run from their bases in Italy to destroy oil refineries at Ploiesti the previous June. He of course omitted the fact that the Allies had found a way to resupply the partisans of Warsaw.

  And he of course made no note of the fact that Auschwitz-Birkenau had already been bombed inadvertently.

  The War Department’s conclusion, he told Pehle, was “a sound one.”

  IN HIS REPLY TO Pehle, McCloy enclosed the Vrba-Wetzler report without commenting on whether he had read it.

  As his biographer Kai Bird notes, McCloy had showed great courage and initiative when dealing with other controversial issues, such as racial discrimination in the army and offering army commissions to veterans of the Lincoln Brigade—but this courage was missing when he dealt with the proposed military strikes against the death camps.

  It is hard to imagine a decision weighted with more pathos. Had McCloy ushered the policy to bomb through in mid-August, some 100,000 Hungarian Jews almost certainly would have been given a reprieve from the gas chamber—about 30,000 more people than attended the 2013 Super Bowl, or slightly more than were serving in the Army of the Potomac at the time of the Battle of Gettysburg. If the decision had been made earlier—around July 7—50,000 more would have been spared. As it happened, nearly as many Hungarian Jews were slaughtered as the number of Allied troops that landed on the beaches of Normandy within the first two weeks.

  WHERE WAS THE PRESIDENT during all this? Earlier in September, Benjamin Akzin had told Pehle, “I am certain that the president, once acquainted with the facts, would realize the values involved and, cutting through the inertia-motivated objections of the War Department, would order the immediate bombing of the objectives suggested.”

  So what were the views of the era’s most prominent symbol of humanitarianism when he was confronted with the globe’s most compelling moral challenge? Here, history records a question mark. True, Roosevelt rarely put his private thoughts to paper and rarely confided his personal feelings to his aides. Yet, was there ever a spontaneous moment during this period when he put his head in his hands in remorse, as he did after the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Or, as the awful information about the ongoing slaughter filtered in, was there ever a time when he muttered under his breath in disgust and indignation? Did he ever pause to weigh the moral implications for history? Many years later McCloy told a journalist that Roosevelt’s close adviser and good friend, Harry Hopkins, maintained that “the Boss was not disposed to” order the bombing of the death camp. Nonetheless, Hopkins himself had enjoined McCloy to solicit the advice of the War Department. McCloy indicated that the air force was against the idea of bombing the camps. Insisting that he had “never talked” to the president in person, McCloy said bluntly: “That was the end of that.”

  However, several years later McCloy, by then elderly and evidently conscience-stricken, gave a different version of what had happened. In an interview with Morgenthau’s son, he indicated that he and Roosevelt had talked about whether to bomb Auschwitz. In this account, McCloy said the president felt that the bombing would amount to little except to make the United States seem complicit in the Final Solution, a view some Jews themselves held. Roosevelt then evidently told McCloy that the United States would be accused of “bombing these innocent people,” and “we’ll be accused of participating in this horrible business.” Thus, the president himself denied the request, without offering any other imaginative alternatives.

  Is either account true? Both have a ring of plausibility, yet ultimately the record remains unclear. What remains clear is the fact that no such coordinated bombing run took place. Not in June. Not in July. Not in August. Not in September. Not in October. Not in November. Not after the resupply of Warsaw. Not after word leaked out about the daring bombing and rescue of prisoners at the Amiens prison in occupied France. Not after the accidental bombing of Birkenau itself. Not to put an end to the most grisly death machine history had ever recorded, even after the president had all the details about it. Not in the early summer of 1944, when the mission would have been more difficult but would have had the greatest impact. Not in the middle of the summer, when the Allies had indelibly secured a beachhead in France, Paris was liberated, and Romania threw its lot in with the United States. Not after Johan J. Smertenko wrote to the president on July 24, 1944, a month after the Soviets had pounded the Germans on an eight-hundred-mile front in White Russia. Not in the fall, after D-Day, when the bombing operation could have been a far more straightforward affair, even if the operation of the gas chambers was winding down. Not to slow the death machine, as was entirely doable. Not to make a statement to the world that such heinous acts could not go unaddressed. Not as one victim after another victim after another victim after another took off his clothes, listened to the clink of the Zyklon B being activated, and heard the screaming and whimpering of the other victims. Not as the now lifeless bodies were incinerated in the crematoriums or in vast pits of fire.

  There is little doubt that the refusal to directly bomb Auschwitz was the president’s decision or at least reflected his wishes. He had access to as much information as anyone else in Washington but tragically chose never to the dwell on the issue—or make it his. Many years later, Congressman Emanuel Celler charged that the president failed to provide even a “spark of courageous leadership,” and was “silent” and “indifferent.” Yet it remains a fact that Roosevelt was absorbed in waging a global conflict, with countless issues tugging at his head and no doubt at his heart. Consumed by the awesome challenge of bringing the war to a close and establishing a structure for peace, in 1944 he seemed to be trapped in the twilight “between knowing and not knowing.”

  And more immediately, he was also consumed by something else: his rapidly dwindling health and his final race—a reelection campaign for a fourth term.

  14

  The Wind and the Silence

  GERMANY HAD ITS LAST elections in 1938. But by then it was already a one-party state. The Nazis controlled the entire apparatus of government and attempted through that to control every mind as well. In 1938, 99 percent of the vote for the Reichstag went to the National Socialist German Workers Party. Opposition, where it existed, was dealt with swiftly and brutally. Lest anyone miss the point, six leading pamphleteers and graffiti artists of the White Rose, a nonviolent anti-Nazi protest movement, were summarily rounded up by the Gestapo and beheaded. Elsewhere, even Great Britain had postponed its parliamentary races because of the exigencies of wartime, and there had been no elections in Europe at all. In the United States, however, 1944 was a regular election year.

  Indeed, since the United States entered the war, there had already been three congressional and hundreds of state elections. A presidential election in wartime had happened only once before—in 1864, during some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, including the ghastly Wilderness campaign. But the Constitution had no provision for suspending federal elections. Now, with an almost unparalleled belief in himself, Franklin Roosevelt, the American commander in chief, prepared to seek an unprecedented fourth term in office.

  Roosevelt, however, announced none of this. His campaign was a phantom. In public, he said nothing; he did nothing; he barely acknowledged that it was an election year. He brushed off every question with quips such as “There is no news on that today,” or “I am not going to talk about it now anymore than I did before.” Otherwise, he was as silent as Calvin Coolidge. He became the nominee by consensus, for the most part enthusiastic, but not always. The first hurdle had been cleared in January, when a thundering political circus, the annual Southern Governors’ Conference—all the members were Democrats, but nearly all very far to the right of Roosevelt—was held in Washington. At the closing, the governor of North Carolina emerged and noted bluntly, “We go into meetings and cuss him [Roosevelt] out, but we just can’t figure out any other answer than Roosevelt in 1944.”

  The Democratic National
Committee was far more eager. In January 1944, its members unanimously called on the president to serve another term as “the great world leader.” But the convention was not until July. There were months for machinations to take place. Actually, some of the maneuvering was not on the Democratic side, where Roosevelt was completely unopposed, but among the Republicans. Their party had spent nearly twelve years out of the White House, and their anxiety was palpable. Candidates were trotted forward, starting with Wendell Willkie, who failed in the early competition for delegates. Then there was a wave of enthusiasm for the charismatic Pacific commander, General Douglas MacArthur. The plan was to keep him under wraps until he could be drafted at the convention. But that bubble burst when a Nebraska congressman published correspondence in which he had forcefully attacked the New Deal, and MacArthur had concurred, referring to “our present chaos and confusion.” Shortly thereafter, MacArthur declared his lack of interest in the nomination saying that his place as a high-ranking officer was not in politics but in battle.

  That left the Republicans with Thomas Dewey, now Governor of New York, as Roosevelt had been in 1932. Dewey was young, just forty-two and successful, and a captivating speaker. He had once thought of becoming a professional singer, and now he used his vocal skills in speeches, where each word seemed to glide mellifluously off his tongue. But he also had, in the words of James MacGregor Burns, “a reputation for being stiff, humorless, overbearing”; and Alice Roosevelt Longworth described him as looking like “the little man on the wedding cake.” But Dewey had a plan of attack. In his convention speech, he chastised the Democrats for having grown “old and tired and stubborn and quarrelsome in office.” And of course the chief Democrat, the face of the party, was President Franklin Roosevelt.