Why was the Zollverein Coal Mine, in Germany NOT bombed by the Allies during WWII?

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.

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.

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.

The US wanted a cross channel invasion and said so continuously. The UK fought the idea halfway up the Italian peninsula. The Normandy battle was supposed to not be a big battle, it was supposed to be as easy as possible — establish the beachhead and keep pushing out in all directions. LSTs landed troops and tanks with or without the artificial harbors, and Operation Double Cross kept most German reinforcements from being sent until it was too late. There was no cakewalk in France, but as it turned out the narrow gauge of the Sherman (which was built on auto assembly lines) was ideally suited for those lanes between the hedgerows and the narrow streets of many a French village. Much better than fighting in Italy, and it served an actual purpose.

“The Normandy battle was supposed to not be a big battle, it was supposed to be as easy as possible — establish the beachhead and keep pushing out in all directions.”

I understand that; it was to AVOID a big battle. Yet to Americans it is on the same level (or higher) than much larger battles in the east, where the Soviets alone by and large destroyed the Axis war machine.

80 percent of Germany casualties (and that includes non-Germans, including citizens of the Soviet Union, who served in the Waffen SS) were on the eastern front.

Barbarossa began in June of 1941; Germany capitulated in May of 1945. Meanwhile, Overlord started in June of 1944. That ratio is also 4:1.

The USSR had to sacrifice about a seventh of its population to accomplish that, even with Lend-Lease and its climate. That yearlong second front campaign represented a lot of the total US and UK casualties in Europe, but deaths in and related to combat were under one percent of the populations.

While we are indeed fortunate that our vanishing WWII generation fought when Germany seemed near the end of its strength, by the end of the war the Red Army in Europe outnumbered the US and UK combined (plus the French, but c’mon), and Hitler’s impulsive counterattacks against the Soviet advance resulted in uncontrolled losses and the collapse of various parts of the lines.

German manpower losses accelerated in the last year of the war, as the hundreds of miles of retreat were littered with irreplaceable equipment losses. Even so, numerically they were not in disastrous shape when they capitulated.

If some officer had blown Hitler’s brains out at any time before Barbarossa, obviously the politics of Europe would have gone in entirely different directions. Even without that, if the German effort had gone into Africa instead of eastward, the British would have been cleaned out of the Med, the Suez Canal would have been closed, which would have led to the loss of the British empire in southern Asia, and the loss of the oil supply would have finished off the British navy. Lucky for everyone that Hitler was such a dumbass.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.