AHC: France/Russia perpetrate the Holocaust

There, page 11, it’s in french

For those who don't read French, it's in the very last portion of the run on sentence on the right page (apologies for the lack of accent marks, I am not on my own computer):

"il (Leclerc) en inventa d'une autre espece, ou les victimes des deux sexes, entasses les unes sur les autres, expiraient etouffes par les vapeurs du souffre"

This phrase is essentially saying, in addition to all the other war crimes perpetrated by Leclerc (the French occupying general), he also chained up slaves in the bottoms of ships and suffocated them using sulfur gas. This is a primary source written by Haitians who lived through the revolution, and frankly it's a little too oddly specific for them to make it up, especially given that if they were trying to make a propagandistic point about how horrible Leclerc was they could have pointed to other more documented abuses. A couple notes: it is often claimed by modern historians that the sulfur was taken from Haitian volcanoes. I am Haitian, and I do not know where these volcanoes are, and the source also says nothing about volcanoes, so I think someone made that part up. Also it's not necessarily Napoleon who did this, it was Leclerc; IIRC we don't have proof that Napoleon specifically told Leclerc to use sulfur, although as the guy who ordered the invasion he still is partially responsible.

Anyway back to the actual point of the thread, Russia is as others have said the way more obvious choice. I think you could also get such a scenario in a France that loses WWI though, given the pre-existing antisemitism and France's rather turbulent political record at the time. However such a Holocaust would thankfully be limited, as a France that loses WWI isn't going to be in any shape to invade Germany/other neighbors like OTL Nazis did, and as refugees start pouring into Alsace, the well-integrated German Jews might push for an intervention.
 
Before discussing and given the boards laudable rules about advocating genocide, promoting holocaust denial etc., I would like to make a disclaimer that I am not in anyway advocating or suggesting that a genocide of Jews by the French, Russians etc. would be positive. Just the opposite. However, I do think this post allows consideration of why the Holocaust happened and what made it uniquely terrible.

My basic reaction to this post is I think a French holocaust is totally ASB and a Russian Holocaust is still ASB. Beginning with a French holocaust, the basic problem is that the substantial majority of Jews live in Eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, White Russia, the Baltic States and Western Russia). Therefore, even assuming that for some reason a psychotic anti-Semite comes to power in France I see no plausible way such a person could get "access to a sufficient number of Jews to kill them in the millions. You would need to posit some way that "French-Hitler" sends his armies steamrolling over Germany, Austria, Russia etc. Clearly ASB. I suppose its slightly less absurd to posit that "French-Hitler" could kill most of the Jews of France. However, I think this misunderstands the nature of anti-Semitism in France (and in Europe more broadly). In OTL Holocaust substantial numbers of Jews survived in countries with functioning governments. For example, around half (or more) of the Jews of Belgium and France survived. By contrast the vast majority of the Jews of Poland, and the Baltic States were killed. A key difference was that there was no effective government in the East. The Nazis were able to kill the Jews via extra-judicial means in the East. This was much harder in France (and to some extent in Germany itself). Therefore, even if "French-Hitler" arises at some point it is difficult to see him exterminating the substantial majority of French Jews as evidenced by the fact that OTL Hitler was not able to exterminate the substantial majority of French Jews.

I would suggest a Russian Holocaust is also ASB. First, I think it IS plausible to see some fairly chaotic collapse of the Tsarist Regime. During such a collapse it is plausible that many Jews will be killed (as happened in OTL). However, such killing would not be as systematic or as comprehensive as occurred ITOL. As such, it would not really be a Russian Holocaust. Therefore, a necessary (but not sufficient) condition would involve the rise of some type of extreme Russian Nationalist. Here again, I think geography will change things. Historically, Russian Nationalists have focused toward Constantinople and the south. Therefore, you could imagine a Russian Nationalist leader engaging in War with Turkey or Persia and engaging in horrible atrocities there. However, I have a hard time seeing why a Russian Nationalist (absent ASB intervention) would want to go invading Austria to get their Jews or invading East Prussia to get their Jews. I also find it implausible that a Russian Nationalist leader would suddenly decide "let's kill all the Jews in the Pale of Settlement in Russia. There would be no war to provide cover.

Finally, the requirement in the original post that there can be no communist revolution in Russia also greatly diminishes the chances of a Holocaust. As Time Snyder convincingly argues, a key factor in making the Holocaust so effective in the East was the (false) equation of Judaism and Bolshevism. This was then combined with the fact that Stalin controlled most of this area (either since 1928 for the Ukraine or since 1939 for Eastern Poland and the Baltic areas). When the Nazis came in an easy way for minor officials to prove there weren't really Bolsheviks was to kill some Jews. Consequently, the Holocaust was much much worse in the East than in the West.

Overall, I would suggest the Holocaust was an unusual confluence of horrible events leading to a profound tragedy. It is difficult to see how such a confluence could occur in other countries.
 
Finally, the requirement in the original post that there can be no communist revolution in Russia also greatly diminishes the chances of a Holocaust. As Time Snyder convincingly argues, a key factor in making the Holocaust so effective in the East was the (false) equation of Judaism and Bolshevism. This was then combined with the fact that Stalin controlled most of this area (either since 1928 for the Ukraine or since 1939 for Eastern Poland and the Baltic areas). When the Nazis came in an easy way for minor officials to prove there weren't really Bolsheviks was to kill some Jews. Consequently, the Holocaust was much much worse in the East than in the West.

Yeah, that's a really good point. The "Final Solution" was finalized in 1942/1943, but even before that, it was preceded by the mass murder of Jews on the Eastern Front with the flimsy excuse that they were either partisans, possible partisans, possible future partisans, or something like that. I'm not sure if the Nazis couldn't have found some excuse to get their way up to the final mass extermination stage of the Holocaust, but it would have certainly harder for them to ramp up to that point without the war against the USSR.
 
Yeah, that's a really good point. The "Final Solution" was finalized in 1942/1943, but even before that, it was preceded by the mass murder of Jews on the Eastern Front with the flimsy excuse that they were either partisans, possible partisans, possible future partisans, or something like that. I'm not sure if the Nazis couldn't have found some excuse to get their way up to the final mass extermination stage of the Holocaust, but it would have certainly harder for them to ramp up to that point without the war against the USSR.

The war against the USSR was critical to the evolution of the Holocaust. It is also important to remember that the original plan General Plan Ost called for the extermination (mostly through starvation) of 30 million Slavs and Jews in the first few years after victory in the East. In this sense the Einsatzgruppen (SS Death squads following behind the Wermacht) could be seen as the beginning of the broader (and even more horrific plan). The Wannsee Conference, where various Nazi officials agreed to set up the death camps at Treblinka, Sobibor etc, occurred in 1942 after it became clear that there would be no quick victory in the East.
 
Charles Maurras of Action Francaise was very very Hitler-like. He founded AF in response to the Dreyfus affair and blamed the whole thing on the Jewish Republic. In the 1920s he condemned Versailles for not being harsh enough, called for killing an Interior Minister (who was Jewish and wanted right-wing leagues disarmed), and was sent to prison for 8 months by issuing death threats against Leon Blum.

For those interested, there's this page about various occasions where Maurras either advocates murder or making Jews second-class citizens.
 
Sorry, but i don't have as much faith in mankind as you, anti-semitism was common throughout europe, if germany could do it i'm sure there is a timeline where france did it.

Beside, if you switch the victims from jews to algerian muslims, you can definitely find a way for france to commit a holocaust scale genocide with a 1900 POD in algeria.

Yes, but that would be a genocide. Not THE Holocaust.

The OP asked us to imagine a timeline where France and Russia do THE Holocaust. If the point of this Holocaust is to target "algerian muslims" then its no longer the Holocaust, neither if they don't kill the OTL 6 million. Only Russia has the ruthlessness and means to do that.

France either lacks the ruthlessness or simply doesn't have the means to kill 6 million jews if anything because there simply aren't that many jews in France.
 
It's hard for me to see a twentieth century timeline where France controls the areas in eastern and east-central Europe where most European Jews live. There were really only two European powers that could plausibly have controlled all that territory and would therefore even have the technical capacity to pull off the Holocaust: Germany and Russia.
 
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How and Why? when France did was very judeophobe was not as brutal as the SU, i can see stalin purging jews as political enemies but france is hard
 
1) control over a hostile Central Europe
2) dehumanised / colonial policy towards Slavic peoples (starvation and execution “experiments” being important in mechanisation)
3) fascist state organisation including local initiative
4) total war
4a) massive number of Slavic POWs in deliberate neglect

Russia lacks the capacity to experiment en masse: it isn’t going to go Slavs. Additionally for Russia Germany and Poland are too urbanised to allow for effective experimentation.

France would have to fight its way through Germany to get to the right conditions.

Both France and Russia are capable of European genocides: they are large national states capable of nationalist fascism. But the Holocaust’s mechanical function was developed in the very specific circumstances of the failure of pogrom teams to keep up the demanded output, and of the success of encampment in the deliberate starvation of a group viewed as subhuman. France and Russia don’t have access to the circumstances of attempted policy implementation to produce such a holocaust.

As a comparator, both Croatia or Serbia in recent history satisfied their state and popular fascist aims through pogrom and death by neglect inside and outside camps. And both of these agents had strong dehumanising nationalism, civilians to practice upon, and high levels of local initiative allowing for experiment.

In summary: humans are capable of vast depths of horror, but many of the circumstances of the holocaust are specific to the material conditions of the possibility of the holocaust: racialised local initiative control over Central Europe during total war.
 
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The problem with colonial holocausts is that the colonial power is dependent upon the colonized population to provide for the livelihood and the value of its colony. If one kills all of the colonized people then the colony ceases being useful. The only time when this actually makes sense is in a settlement colony, like the British and American genocides in North America and Oceania. Algeria was a settlement colony, but the native population was very large and useful to the French. One can easily see extreme repression, vast amounts of loss of life, famines, etc. but an actual full-scale genocide of the population intended by the French is unlikely, even if there were "jokes" that all that it would take for the French to solve the Algerian problem would be to give every Algerian settler a pistol and 9 bullets.

How is the Algerian population useful to France? Wouldn't a far right fascist France want to wipe out Algerians so they can settle in Europeans?

Additionally for Russia Germany and Poland are too urbanised to allow for effective experimentation.
What does this mean? How does urbanization prevent human experimentation?

Also, I dont think Poland was that much more urbanized than Russia
 
What does this mean? How does urbanization prevent human experimentation?

Also, I dont think Poland was that much more urbanized than Russia

I was talking about experimentation in terms of the bureaucratic and administrative experiments on how to kill most Slavs and all communists and Jews in 1941: execution by action, predominantly battalion sized, and mass starvation. If you look at einsatzgruppen, police battalion or heer units cycled to police / anti-partisan duties they were less effective in urban areas. The experiments with non-shooting actions were carried out far from population centres on small human settlements within the easy capacity to control of five hundred armed men and their attended hiwi lesser humans.

In contrast clearing a major population centre like Warsaw required significantly more resources and investment and so left less room for “initiative” from below or for a more senior sub divisional leader to suggest or authorise the use of precious human murdering resources in experimenting with gas vans.

Correspondingly urbanisation correlated with camp construction resistance amongst soviet pows in the experiments with death by starvation or execution camps.
 
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BigBlueBox

Banned
I think an important fact that needs to be kept in mind is that in the beginning the Nazis just wanted to deport the Jews. It was only when deportation ceased to be a viable option (due to lack of naval supremacy and invading all the places Jews could have been deported too) that the Final Solution occurs. France has a colonial empire. Russia has vast swathes of sparsely inhabited territory. Any French antisemitic regime is more likely to deport the Jews to one of the African colonies than exterminate them, and a Russian regime will likely declare a new Pale of Settlement in Siberia or the Far East. It would be rather ironic if the neo-Pale coincided with the OTL Jewish Autonomous Oblast.
 
that in the beginning the Nazis just wanted to deport the Jews
Hilberg in _Destruction_ volume 1 pretty much refutes this given the exit visa system in place.

They may have stated that, but the actions of the German state and NSDAP ministers of that state suggest otherwise.
 
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