We needed to preserve it, so as to not allow a mine shaft gap.
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
That is so last century - in reading history of the air war the Allies were more interested in cutting lines of communication - rail/marshaling yards/ etc.
I think you've got it. Bombs in those days were far less accurate than today.
These days, bombs are pin-point accurate, and the US even has a special power-plant bomb, the BLU-114B. It's designed to be used against the switching stations, not the generator halls. It works by dispersing a cloud of carbonized fibers over a substation or high-tension line. These cause shorts, blowing transformers and tripping breakers, taking down the enemy's power distribution system. Once the territory is occupied, having the generators themselves intact helps the recovery.
The conductive filament bomb was used in Serbia in 1999:
Probably a LOT more effective to bomb the manufacturing process than the starting point...
Sort of hard to go from the raw materials to a tank and airplane in battle without the means to make them...
Fantastic Place. Our division of our company (German)held the party for our twenty fifth anniversary bash up in their party room, about a hundred feet up with a view of the region. I also toured it ten years ago. The cars when they came up from bellow clanged so hard and with such noise that if you worked in that room you were deaf in a few months. That was pre-WW One.
Not much point in bombing a mine. Better question: Why weren’t the German Ford and Opel(GM) factories bombed?
We needed to preserve it, so as to not allow a mine shaft gap.
The Germans used mines for aircraft and rocket production. They used mines to store their gold and art treasures. Why did they do this? Because the 8th Air Force did not have the capability to bomb underground mines with any result besides a little rubble at the entrance that could be cleared away in an hour or two.
They bombed oil refineries for months with thousands of bombers and many thousands of tons of bombs. The refineries were right out in the open. The refineries were severely damaged, but were still producing refined petroleum products on the day that the war ended.
Do not ask this question of any 8th Air Force veterans. They are getting old and the uncontrollable fits of laughter could be fatal.
Bombing the mine would be akin to bombing the farmer in the field that raises crops that can feed the army.
To kill the farmer or miner would be “strategic devastation” and not in accordance with the Just War principle of minimizing the suffering of the innocent — a western concept that the middle-east has yet to embrace (if ever).
One can bomb a munitions factory that is staffed with civilians because they contribute directly to the war effort, whereas miners do not as the mine serves a purpose beyond the war. . .like the farmer.
So, morally, bombing a munitions factory and killing the civilian employees would be justified because the munition employees contribute directly (and solely, in essence) to the war effort. Bombing the mine and killing miners that do not directly contribute to the war effort, like the farmer, would be immoral, unjust.
“Just and Unjust War” by Walzer is an excellent read on the subject.
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.
Read up on the Morgenthau plan out of the Treasury department. Until fairly late in the war, SecTreas Morgenthau was leading Roosevelt around by the nose with his plan to break up Germany and reduce the population to subsistence farming. The Red threat (and the timely death of Elanor's husband) dealt the end to the Treasury Department's plan, although saner heads were working against that final solution to the German problem.
I thought this was an open pit mine, but it is underground.
LOCs are centers of gravity (CoGs).
CoGs are import decisive points that when destroyed have an impact far beyond their immediate tactical effect. WWII air campaign planners were just starting the concept of CoGs and technology and intel limited strategic effects.
In WWII, targets that had the most immediate effect on the tactical level were important, whereas when thinking about strategic targets, the effects took time and the powers-that-be were impatient and wanted immediate results, so the focus was on tactical CoGs, not strategic CoGs (other than ball-bearing factories. . .that is a whole different discussion).
Col John Warden’s “Five Rings” drove strategic planning for Gulf War I and was the key strategy that ensured such a quick and decisive victory.
3) There is really no sense in bombing a mine. You cant destroy coal in the ground with bombing.
The coal may be underground, but the elevator buildings and coal handling facilities are above ground. So you could knock back (but not knock out) production if it was a priority target.
I think there is a lot of merit to this one:
1) The Allies wanted the access to the coal there, after the defeat of Germany, as reparations.
The British had their eyes on the Ruhr for post war reparations, and as I recall, the Sovs were to get a cut of the action, as well. (The rising tensions leading up to the Berlin crisis caused the western Allies to cut them out of that deal). The French had their eyes on the Saar, so they didn't care much one way or the other, and wouldn't have had any influence on the strategic bombing plan, anyway.
On the other hand, I think we all know the answer as to why the Ford plant in Cologne wasn't targeted, but the competing German owned truck manufacturing facilities were bombed into dust.
What centurion316.
The pretext the British used to make the Italian campaign (some of the toughest fighting of the war) was to seize 13 airfields in southern Italy, as they lay within bomber range of the oil fields and refineries in Romania. After that objective was achieved, there was no further point to the Italian campaign. The British pushed for it, in order to avoid a cross-channel invasion into France. They failed.
The answer you seek is a simple one................. Just follow the money!
The losses in Italy would be a more logical reason why Normandy was invaded; the Germans could have traded 10:1 losses will the allies all the way until the end (as it was, northern Italy was still held by the Axis at war’s end). Normandy by comparison was a much softer target; it was impossible to defend the vast stretches of the French coast in any numbers. Normandy is a much larger battle in folklore than the numbers involved would indicate.
And I have my answer.
Thank you for your well reasoned reply.
Spent the rest of the war in a stalag.
Weird thing, my dad was in the unit that liberated the camp.
He was very jaded about our bombing missions, claiming there were certain targets that were off limits. Including certain munition factories.
Ploesti continued to produce crude oil until the fields and refineries were overrun by the Soviets in August, 1944. Bomb damage, including that from the 15th Air Force in Italy severely reduced production, but never stopped it.
Synthetic oil plants became the primary source of aviation fuel, and again, bombing severely reduced production, making oil one of the most critical commodities affecting German military operations. Production, however, was not the only problem that the Germans had with fuel. Attacks on their transportation infrastructure made it difficult for the Germans to supply fuel to their forces. Achievement of air superiority throughout European airspace greatly increased the destruction of German aircraft, reducing the demand for fuel. When the was ended, the Luftwaffe had practically ceased to exist and the Army trying to escape the Russians ran out of gas, but mostly because it could not be supplied. Production ended in 8 May and was restarted shortly thereafter by occupation forces.
Had the British succeeded, the Soviets would not have stopped until they got to Paris.
You watch the archival footage of B-17 raids and you will see many bombs falling in farmers’ fields. Navigation over enemy target areas was not the best back then. Precision guided munitions would have been considered science fiction at that time.
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