I probably would have dropped leaflets on the camps, thus explaining to the Germans and the prisoners that we are aware of the situation, and know of the mass murders that are happening. Alot of Resistance movements were already pretty active in bribing guards, assissinating certain persons in the Gestapo run camps and such.

However this brings me to ask... or almost start another thread... We all know the Allies won, and in doing so, they stripped the Waffen SS men of Vetran benefits and such. As a reanactor of a particular Waffen SS unit, and Historian. I find such atrocities commited by the Waffen SS to be isolated incidents. The exception being the Russian front where no quarter or mercy was given really by either side. Im not saying that the Waffen SS did not stand sentry posts ever at a gestopo camp... Im just saying I guess they deserved more respect and Honor, they were soldiers first and many have this misconseption that they were all evil and Nazi's. That would be like saying every soldier in the US army today are all Republicans because Bush is currrently in Office. I see most soldiers wanting to go to war, wanting to be in the best outfit... ie why Americans or British choose the Marines or Royal Marines respectively. Sorry I went off on this post... but I see where your going. but if you were to judge everyone for wearing SS runes.. soley because of the camps..then that would have been an atrocity as well. Doing much research.. alot of the regular German Police Units were responsible and recruited by the Gestapo to carry out gruesome acts. Maybe this should be an entirely different post. (I apolagize if that was lengthy) but yes.. the camps should have been stopped early somehow.

Yhmmmmmmmmm.

 

 I had one of my family who was actually SS. They weren't depicted falsely by history at all. At least from what I heard first hand from my Wehrmacht uncles and my Waffen SS great great cousin, they, the SS, were very very evil men.

 

Herald

 

It was suggested that weapons be dropped to the Jewish groups hiding out in the forests. They did a lot of damage to German troops with just a few hunting rifles. It would have been very interesting to see what they could do with machine guns, mortars and anti-tank weapons. They did a good job fighting the Germans in Warsaw. 

The problem with scenarios like the Warsaw uprising is that it brought very little strategic significance.  The logistics aspect of inciting resistance would be formidable.  Much easier to supply small arms and light antitank weapons than to supply ammo and food on a sustained basis.  (Guns become next to useless without ammo; resistance fighters become next to useless without food and medicine.)  To make any small gains by the resistance fighters to impact strategic outcome, they need to relieved by larger friendly forces..

It was suggested that weapons be dropped to the Jewish groups hiding out in the forests. They did a lot of damage to German troops with just a few hunting rifles. It would have been very interesting to see what they could do with machine guns, mortars and anti-tank weapons. They did a good job fighting the Germans in Warsaw. 

There was a book I read back in the early sixties about an un-named war between un-named countries in which overflying aircraft dropped especially designed, simple, fused and personally concealable explosive devices in scattered patterns over the countryside of an occupied land. Many were found or turned in to authorities but when a resistance minded civilian was the first to spot one they would hide it. These explosive devices were used clandestinely against the occupiers unpredictably and with disconcerting effect.

The occupiers had made a great effort initially to be seen as friends but increasingly resorted reprisals against civilians when their soldiers were blown up. The civilians didn't like killing people and suffered under the reprisals but were driven by a silent rage against foreign occupation. The result was chronic low grade conflict with both sides becoming implacably homocidal.

 

The Nazis had working for them a sense that resistance was not only futile but counterproductive.

 

I wonder whether a well thought out program for supplying like means of resistance would have enabled people in occupied lands to assert an unstoppable even if modest level of resistance. All they would need to do would be to embarass the occupation into a commitment of a disproportionate level of resources.

 

The Russian partisans did wind up having a decisive effect in the summer of 1944.

 

The Russian partisans wound up have a pretty decisive effect in the summer of 1944.

Regarding the Russian partisans ...

 

They had unique advantages that others like the Poles did not have:

 

1.  Western Soviet Union was a huge turf and there were not enough Germans around to establish tight front lines nor tight encirclements.  Heck, the Germans had trouble tightly sealing off massive encirclements of Russian armies in 1941!  Huge space and population = two thumbs up for the partisans.

 

2.  While the partisans took advantage of captured German weapons and supplies, they were supported and coordinated by Moscow.  So, it was not like the partisans were a bunch of disorganized fighters.

 

3.   A considerable portion of the nucleus of the partisans consisted of Red Army troops bypassed by the Germans, plus a handful of specialists sent by Moscow.

 

I think crunching a bit of numbers could show a pattern of successful and unsuccessful partisan operations.  For example, no partisan uprising in places like Denmark and Norway.  Problems with such places:  Larger number of German garrison troops per civilian and the Germans did not have additional difficulties associated with having to guard larger real estates.  By contrast, much smaller number of German troops per civilian in Soviet Union.   Not to mention that its real estate is bloody darn huge with sparse road and rail nets.  The Korean freedom fighters during Japanese occupation faced problems similar to that of the Danes and the Norwegians:  Relatively large number of Japanese garrison troops per civilian with small real-estate.  As a matter of fact, most of these Korean fighters operated in remote place like Manchuria. 

Also, I remember reading once about how someone in a Gestapo or SS uniform showed up at a Gestapo HQ in either Nazi occupied Ukraine or Nazi occupied  White Russia. He presented a list of locals who he said were partisans.

 

In actuality, the officer was NKVD masquerading as German and the people on the list were locals who had refused to engage in resistance activities for Moscow. Of course, the Gestapo rounded the people on the list up and presumably shot them.

Warsaw did tie up a large number of German troops. Since the German's were trying to kill the Jews in the forests giving the Jews guns would cause more Germans to die and tie up more troops. It would not be that hard either - 9 bombers with bombs, 1 bomber with guns.

Why was it, as I have heard, that the Russians did not immediately accede to the requests of the western allies that the Russians allow access to their forward airfields to British (and American?) aircraft operating in support of the Warsaw uprising?

The Russians dragged their feet and did not allow access to Russian airfields within reach of Warsaw until too little, too late.  The Warsaw fighters were pro-London, not pro-Moscow.  Meanwhile, the Russians were building pro-Moscow Polish army.