FReepathon day 40.
Two percent a day keeps the 404 away.
Posted on 08/10/2014 12:50:30 PM PDT by not2be4gotten.com
I have lived near by, for the last 2 weeks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zollverein_Coal_Mine_Industrial_Complex
This is an extraordinary museum, that you need to visit, one of the best in Europe, IMHO.
The Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex (German Zeche Zollverein) is a large former industrial site in the city of Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Zollverein survived the Second World War with only minor damages and by 1953 again placed on top of all German mines with an output of 2.4 million tons.
Why was this extraordinary place not bombed out out of existence during WW2?
From coal to coke to pig iron to steel to ball bearings to tanks and planes, this was the starting point of the German WW2 war machine.
Everything else around it was bombed into the stone age.
So why was it not destroyed by Allied bombing?
And here are my theories:
1) The Allies wanted the access to the coal there, after the defeat of Germany, as reparations. 2) The Allies did not want a "Failed state" in Germany and understood that this place was needed to re-build Germany and prevent further German aggression. 3) There is really no sense in bombing a mine. You cant destroy coal in the ground with bombing. It was more effective to destroy assembling facilities and the people that worked there. 4) From coal to a finished tank or gun, the process took to long to have any impact on the immediate war effort. In other words, if you took out the coal factory, it would take months or even years to impact the Allies war effort.
Your comments or insights are greatly appreciated. on this matter.
"Long live our sacred Germany!"
Colonel Claus, Count Schenk von Stauffenberg
To the smartest people in the world, here on FR.
It’s rather hard to bomb a mine.
Could be because there were more critical targets.
It's amazes me that there are people in this country who are STILL mesmerized by Hitler and those years (1933-44).
1933: 81 years ago.
I lay no claim to being overly smart, but perhaps it had to do with the resultant mine fire that could burn for years?
Maybe a global warming skeptic warned them about that. /s
When you bomb coal, you are doing the miners’ job for them.
Either your explosives or theirs; which makes more sense?
It makes no tactical sense.
If you bomb the railroads and bridges used to transport the coal and the power plants that use the coal it’s not going anywhere.
Someone didn’t want it bombed.
destroying production plants for equipment means that you stop or delay production. Destroying the refining facilities for oil stops gas and diesel production. Destroying the steel mills stops steel production.
Thus more “bang for bomb” in destroying them than trying to hit the mine shaft heads or bombing the oil wells.
Bombing strategy changed several times during the war. Sometimes it changed between one raid and the next. They never, for example, targeted power plants. They only did one bombing on a dam, despite the tremendous potential for secondary destruction. They went to area bombing because a study showed that only a few bombs got within five miles of their intended target. How would one bomb a mine? It’s already a hole in the ground.
Isn’t a mine just a giant bomb shelter?
The Rockefellers?
Follow the money...
Was there any art stored there?
You’re an idiot!
It was obviously owned by the Bushes.
Part of Joe Kennedy’s investments...
Forgot to add the (Prescott) Bushes...
Who worked the mine?
Ernie Ford.
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