AHC: German genocide

Most plausible cause for a German genocide


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Another ASB thought: Seeing how the Austrian empire went from being a mayor European player in 1800 to just a bunch of ski resort and opera venues in 1920, what if Great Germany, which officially only had been established with the Inner German Tarif Union of 1900, would get the Austrian treatment:
1) splitting off of all provinces that are not 100% Kaiserlich German into separate countries, leaving only a core Germany of Greater Berlin
2) radical persecution of everything 'German' in the new countries, eradication of all German structures and forcing everyone feeling 'German' into either assimilation or emigration.
This may seem pretty ASB, but something along this line actually happened at the end of WWII with the redrawing of Germany's eastern borders in favor of Czechoslovakia and Poland.

The problem with this is that unlike Great-Austria, which at that time already had become Austro-Hungary, Greater Germany was pretty much one in language and culture. The only part , apart from the East, that you could split of on the basis of having its own sense of statehood was Austria, which actually happened. Apart of this, I don't think even Bavaria would want to become its own state again and would unify with the rest if Germany as soon as it had the chance.

If however you replace 'German' with 'Prussian', you might have a chance. Many German regions still felt overrun by a Prussian power apparatus and would 'unprussify' in a heartbeat, even if this meant forced independence. In fact, many of the regions did exactly that after 1945.

However, Prussian Genocide this is not, oh Padawan.
 
I do not understand why people say that the destruction of Germany castrotrically damaged Europe's economy. Because it would be, could you help me?
 

Perkeo

Banned
OTL 1945. Ethnic cleansing of 14 million Germans from the lands they inhabited for centuries, up to 2 million killed... Yes, it fits the bill. It was genocide.

EDIT: Ninja'd. I failed to read the whole thread before posting. Sorry.
Entirely true, but the Germans kind of desensitized world opinion before that. Like in Sin City „I love Hitmen. Whatever you do to them, you don’t feel bad afterwards.“
If we demand the term being commonly used for something done to the Germans, we have to either make it even bigger (Morgenthau Plan) or remove the excuse by e.g. doing it after WWI. The latter case would include France claiming her „natural borders“.
 
Entirely true, but the Germans kind of desensitized world opinion before that. Like in Sin City „I love Hitmen. Whatever you do to them, you don’t feel bad afterwards.“
If we demand the term being commonly used for something done to the Germans, we have to either make it even bigger (Morgenthau Plan) or remove the excuse by e.g. doing it after WWI. The latter case would include France claiming her „natural borders“.

Speaking of the Morgenthau Plan, just the idea of it caused uproar in both the US government and public alike. Roosevelt may have been anti-German, and put a lot of effort into turning public opinion against them, but the greater part of American antipathy was aimed at the Japanese, what with Pearl Harbor and all. And with the Cold War beginning to swing up, all those dead and starving Germans in West Germany would play right into Soviet hands.

The Soviets could easily claim they're being 'the better men', especially as it's impossible to deny the Soviets or rather the Russians suffered the most from the Germans, and yet they're willing to reconcile with the German people, as shown by East Germany being allowed to rebuild. And then compare the Free World, which is starving helpless Germans to death in a manner all too similar to Generalplan Ost. Worse, it could easily be played up as a 'Counter Holocaust', and in the long term could potentially desensitize people to the idea of genocide. After all, in such a scenario, why would people take western condemnation of genocide when they themselves committed genocide as a matter of policy?
 
It's borderline ASB. Germany's population in 1920 was 65 million. Ireland in 1845 had 8 1/2 million, Armenia in 1913 had 4 1/2.

So to inflict a genocide on 65 million Germans you need something like the Irish Potato Famine but 7 times bigger, or the Armenian genocide times 16. Even the Nazis, who perfected genocide to a technological art, 'only' managed to kill of 6 million 'unworthies' in their concentration camps. The allies would have to do 10 times better.

Also for comparison: In 1920, both France and England had about 45 million inhabitants, the US had 106. (1920's core Austria with 6 1/2 million was merely an afterthought. )

Operation Vegetarian and other biochemical warfare (producing mass death and starvation of the survivors) combined with some other genocidal means might be able to put a giant dent in that number. You could probably easily kill half of all ethnic Germans in Europe through this method.

Besides, it doesn't really matter how many people you kill in a genocide as long as killed a lot of people. The Holocaust would still count as genocide even if "only" a million Jews died instead of OTL's death toll.
 
OTL 1945. Ethnic cleansing of 14 million Germans from the lands they inhabited for centuries, up to 2 million killed... Yes, it fits the bill. It was genocide.

EDIT: Ninja'd. I failed to read the whole thread before posting. Sorry.
2 millions killed is vastly exaggerated number (there were around 500 000 victims in fact, including 200 000 deported to USSR). It is like this number was deduced: population of Eastern Germany (east of Oder) from 1939 minus number of expelled Germans who end in FGR and GDR and former German citizens who remained in the east-2 millions missed from this equation. But this number included deaths from natural cases, suicides, Wehrmacht soldiers killed in action and even local Jews who were victims of Holocaust.
Indeed there were massacres, mostly in Sudetenland (like the one in Usti nad Labem).
 
2 millions killed is vastly exaggerated number (there were around 500 000 victims in fact, including 200 000 deported to USSR). It is like this number was deduced: population of Eastern Germany (east of Oder) from 1939 minus number of expelled Germans who end in FGR and GDR and former German citizens who remained in the east-2 millions missed from this equation. But this number included deaths from natural cases, suicides, Wehrmacht soldiers killed in action and even local Jews who were victims of Holocaust.
Indeed there were massacres, mostly in Sudetenland (like the one in Usti nad Labem).

Even the lowest estimates of civilian deaths after the end of hostilities in eastern Europe today use 600.000 while the German and Austrian governments officially estimate it at around 1.5 million. The 2 million estimation is from the years after the war and from the cold war. But a moderate estimation usually comes close to a million and that excludes the Balkans and the people deported to Siberia.
 
Operation Vegetarian and other biochemical warfare (producing mass death and starvation of the survivors) combined with some other genocidal means might be able to put a giant dent in that number. You could probably easily kill half of all ethnic Germans in Europe through this method.

Besides, it doesn't really matter how many people you kill in a genocide as long as killed a lot of people. The Holocaust would still count as genocide even if "only" a million Jews died instead of OTL's death toll.

The problem with operation Vegetarian is that you would kill a lot of people in the occupied territories too. You wouldn't just kill Germans, but Czechs, French, Dutch, Danes and Poles too.
 

Perkeo

Banned
The problem with operation Vegetarian is that you would kill a lot of people in the occupied territories too. You wouldn't just kill Germans, but Czechs, French, Dutch, Danes and Poles too.
As for all scenarios, there’s a reason why it didn’t happen IOTL. OTOH had the Germans not sunk as deep as they did IOTL, everybody would also insist that there’s a reason for that and that assuming otherwise is ASB.
 
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