How was Nazi occupation of France different to colonisation?
- Thread starter Tanc49
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Ficboy
Banned
Well for starters, Nazi Germany established the French State otherwise known as Vichy France in the southern half of the country. The northern half was under Nazi German military occupation. Had the Nazis won World War II, the French State/Vichy France would have covered all of France minus Alsace-Lorraine and potentially a few other portions which would be under Nazi Germany and the possible SS Order State of Burgundy.
Both those points don't chime well with Tunisia or Indochina. There was a very strong national identity in Vietnam and it was still colonized. And there was a lot of "distant" administration, what you describe seems a lot like your standard issue protectorate
I see your point but most Colonisations started in the XIXth century
Two key differences:
1) The conquered ones, the French, were white.
2) The Germans didn't need ships to get to France.
Now these differences may seem flippant (and there is an element of that here) but more seriously, I really don't see any difference between what is labeled as 'colonization' and the standard 'imperialism' that can be seen at least as far back, and probably even further, as Kish trying to assert dominance over its Sumerian neighbors. In the game Empire Earth in the Roman campaign, Ariovistus says sarcastically something like 'we are not invading [Gaul], we are colonizing it, as the Romans do', which I think expresses my point quite well.
That said, colonization/imperialism can come in varying degrees of nastiness. Being a Frenchman under Nazi rule was unpleasant, but a Messenian helot under Spartan rule would ecstatically trade places with said Frenchman given the chance.
1) The conquered ones, the French, were white.
2) The Germans didn't need ships to get to France.
Now these differences may seem flippant (and there is an element of that here) but more seriously, I really don't see any difference between what is labeled as 'colonization' and the standard 'imperialism' that can be seen at least as far back, and probably even further, as Kish trying to assert dominance over its Sumerian neighbors. In the game Empire Earth in the Roman campaign, Ariovistus says sarcastically something like 'we are not invading [Gaul], we are colonizing it, as the Romans do', which I think expresses my point quite well.
That said, colonization/imperialism can come in varying degrees of nastiness. Being a Frenchman under Nazi rule was unpleasant, but a Messenian helot under Spartan rule would ecstatically trade places with said Frenchman given the chance.
Ficboy
Banned
Well colonization involves going into a largely undiscovered place and setting up a new nation/colony. Nazi Germany's occupation of France would essentially evolve into a Warsaw Pact-esque puppet state relationship complete with Wehrmacht and SS troops stationed in the country alongside their local French counterparts.
I think this definition is problematic. I'd argue colonization is when a polity settles large numbers of its native population as a ruling class in another polity or it elevates a minority ethnicity into a ruling class as a way to control portions of conquered areas
The Oxford definition of colonialism is the practice of acquiring partial or total political control of territory for the purpose of occupying it with settlers and exploiting it economically. In that sense, Nazi Germany was one of the most colonialist countries in the 20th century. Colonialism has been associated with sailing to other continents but that is not required to be a colonial power - see the Roman Empire, which invented the word "colonia". Germany's long term plans with the Baltics, Ukraine, Russia, and the Low Countries can only be considered colonial, especially the former three.
I am not sure that the Nazi elites viewed the French, with all of their historical similarities to Germans the same way as the areas they wished to colonize, namely, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, Estonia, Lativia, etc etc etc... Indeed, the revanchist rhetoric as far as I know against the French was aimed less in regards to colonization and more towards rescinding the French imposition of the Treaty of Versailles and in a subconscious understanding, one of resetting the face of Europe to the past.
As this in before 1900, perhaps we can discuss these matters in that framework. One interesting point, is that in some regards German nationalist revanchism might be related to a goal of rescinding French and as such, the geopolitical entity of West Francia and replacing it with the older hegemony of the German realm associated specifically to the geopolitical entity and concept of East Francia and the Holy Roman Empire. This thus, is less an unprecedented conquest with intention to replace another people with your own, but one of asserting dominance along the continent of Western Europe or to use medieveal terms, the Frankish world. Meanwhile, the designs in the works for the eastern lands earlier discussed, were specifically less regarding a historical narrative of grievance/dominance and one of replacement and struggle for land and resources.
In a way, I would see it similar to say, the relationship Assyria held with the city of Babylon or its kingdom, Karduniash. Assyria often warred with it, but with the intent of asserting dominance among two admittedly similar powers, both culturally, historically and ethnically. Meanwhile, Assyria waged wars of replacement, assimilation, extermination and slavery upon those whom they did not afford these roles. Constructing an ideology around destroying an enemy land and then colonizing it with Akkadians from the Assyrian heartland.
As this in before 1900, perhaps we can discuss these matters in that framework. One interesting point, is that in some regards German nationalist revanchism might be related to a goal of rescinding French and as such, the geopolitical entity of West Francia and replacing it with the older hegemony of the German realm associated specifically to the geopolitical entity and concept of East Francia and the Holy Roman Empire. This thus, is less an unprecedented conquest with intention to replace another people with your own, but one of asserting dominance along the continent of Western Europe or to use medieveal terms, the Frankish world. Meanwhile, the designs in the works for the eastern lands earlier discussed, were specifically less regarding a historical narrative of grievance/dominance and one of replacement and struggle for land and resources.
In a way, I would see it similar to say, the relationship Assyria held with the city of Babylon or its kingdom, Karduniash. Assyria often warred with it, but with the intent of asserting dominance among two admittedly similar powers, both culturally, historically and ethnically. Meanwhile, Assyria waged wars of replacement, assimilation, extermination and slavery upon those whom they did not afford these roles. Constructing an ideology around destroying an enemy land and then colonizing it with Akkadians from the Assyrian heartland.
Relatively certain that, with the possible exception of the Belgian Congo, the concerted large scale deliberate and industrialized liquidation of entire groups, simply for having the unmitigated gall of existing, was not a feature of most colonization.
Deleted member 94680
This.
The Nazi occupations in Europe (and their plans for a post-victory world) are 100% colonialist. Much the same way the Russian Empire was colonialist in Central Asia and the Caucasus. It’s just that ‘we’ don’t describe them as such due to the popular colloquial understanding of the term. As others have stated, because it doesn’t involve travelling by sea, it’s somehow understood not to be colonial activity.
Anyone who doesn’t believe a Frenchman’s experience of life in a Nazi-victory 1965 would be vastly similar to, say, a Kenyan’s experience of life in 1905 is ignorant of the Nazis’ plans. The social strata, the pass laws, the economic privation, the barring of all but the most basic of services unless in exchange for servitude would all be there.
Which is why I was wondering about Western Europe specifically. In your own timeline, you have local French troups serving in the German army, but no liquidation of the French population.
On the other hand, there are quite a few examples of genocide in colonisation (Native American and Australia comes to mind...)
While I am anything but an apologist for the unquestionably deplorable and genocidal histories of North America (especially, but not exclusively, the U.S.) and British actions in Australia, there are, to this day, millions of "First Peoples" descendants living in both areas. The actions of colonial powers in both regions were not organized with the stated goal of literally liquidating the ENTIRE population of either continent through ACTIVE and on-going, resource draining efforts. While European colonists in both North America and Australia were eagar to push indigenous population off "desirable" lands, shunting them into the margins while violating treaties at will, and saw the deaths of indigenous populations as a feature, not a bug of colonial expansion, there was no policy dictated from the highest National authority, to kill every member of the indigenous population.
Had the Reich managed to hold France (or any other area they occupied) for two decades, much less two centuries, there would not have been a Jewish or Roma or mentally challenged or openly homosexual individual left alive. That is the difference. The Reich didn't want to marginalize or dispossess, as vile as those two goal are, they wanted to obliterate every trace that Jews had ever existed, that the Roma had ever lived in Europe, that homosexuality existed, and believed that the mentally or severely physically challenged were worthy of existence (even if members of the last two groups were "Aryans").
Simply no comparison between the stated goals and underlying policies.
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OK, that does make a lot of sense, and that's a feature indeed absent, as far as I'm aware, from most colonial policies. Of course, you have things like the Molucus but it's very much exceptional
Now, I do think the intentionality of Natives genocide is still to be discussed, but this is not my role to do that. I will indeed agree that the level of intentionality was not the same, even if some might have been present
I think there were also two visions towards the desired behavior of the people inside the western occupied areas. The basic one was: be docile, accept the New Order. The second one demanded an active support of the goals of the Nazi-regime, f.i. to exclude the jews from society. They achieved these goals by using the existing civil services.
That attempt to totally control society, to make people think like you, would have been impossible in colonial society, simply because of the ratio of governors versus governed. The governors there were satisfied when people remained docile. Government surpression was mostly reactive not pro-active.
That attempt to totally control society, to make people think like you, would have been impossible in colonial society, simply because of the ratio of governors versus governed. The governors there were satisfied when people remained docile. Government surpression was mostly reactive not pro-active.
Deleted member 1487
Adam Tooze argues that the American colonization of the 'west' was the inspiration for the Nazi plans, though obviously accelerated and using modern technology.
Of course it is hardly unique in European history that Europeans would try to push each other out of nearby territory and colonize it (Alsace-Lorraine for example)...or even for local rulers of a different language background would invite in people from other cultures to colonize 'their' lands. After all that is where the Volga Germans, among other such colonies, originated. Same with the concept of 'Drang nach Osten' before the Nazis.
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I've read that. Don't really agree.
The difference is more than a mere matter of technology. While it makes me more than slightly uncomfortable to even appear to make allowances for the despicable way that North America's First Nation Peoples were treated, the simple facts are difficult to ignore. There remain Algonquin, Cherokee, Chinookan, Choktaw, Iroquois, Navaho, Shawnee, Sioux (both Lakota and Dakota), Tlingit, and a vast number of other Bands remaining in the U.S. More on point, and historically closer to the Reich's repellent reign, there are significant numbers of Hawaiian, Chamorro, and Samoan peoples living in Hawaii, the Marianas and Samoa. Had the U.S. government desired the complete elimination of any of the First Nation Bands it was well within (and frankly remains within) the capacity of the United States to have done so. Simply put, they could killed everyone and DID NOT DO SO. Same can be said for the indigenous populations of the many other island groups that the U.S. oversaw as protectorates prior to their independence or Compacts of Free Association. Lastly, despite the rather brutal colonial war fought in the Philippines, no ethnic nor religious group in the Islands was marked for systematic obliteration.
The Above can flatly, and indisputably, not be said for the Reich. The Reich, as a matter of policy, planned to MURDER, in cold blood, every single Jew that fell under the their control. MURDER every Roma. MURDER every homosexual (although this seemed to be 1. mainly aimed at males and 2. not followed with close to the same sense of urgency). EXTERMINATE every mentally challenged or profoundly physically disabled individual as being "unworthy of existence".
The Reich was evil in ways that, 75 years after its elimination, still defy understanding. If the Nazis had not actually existed, had not both preserved documentation of their crimes and left literal piles of bodies in various locations across Europe, they would be seen as a rather obvious case of excessive propaganda. You literally could not make them up and have them be seen as plausible in the middle of 20th Century Europe (hell, 14th Century Europe, even the Inquisition gave Jews a chance to convert instead of simply slaughtering them). There is no redemption for the Reich, no comparative in modern history, not many even before than (the preferred way to handle despised minorities was enslavement or taxation to the point of theft), no, "well, ya know..." NADA.
The Reich is, and God willing, always will be, the ONE GREAT example of what can happen when humans give free reign to evil.