Anti-Semitism in a world where Hitler never rose to power

samcster94

Banned
What would prejudice against Jews in the West be like in a universe where Hitler died in WWI and a different "moderate" rightwing faction ruled Germany??? There is obviously no Holocaust equivalent in such a universe nor is there an Israel given the 1940's would be different.
 
In my view, Anti semitism would remain a problem without the Holocaust. Without Hitler's support the Holocaust would never have happened. In my view this would be somehow worse for Jews. Without the Holocaust anti semitic ideology continues unabated. But thats just my view.
 
I could see a particularly large (series of) pogrom(s) in Romania or somewhere else provoke a pretty significant migration to the Holy Land, and (provided it gets extensive coverage in the west) could lead to a similar denormalization of anti-semitism. So I'm not sure things would just continue on their pre-WWII trajectory.
 
In my view, Anti semitism would remain a problem without the Holocaust. Without Hitler's support the Holocaust would never have happened. In my view this would be somehow worse for Jews. Without the Holocaust anti semitic ideology continues unabated. But thats just my view.


While I get your point, I think that the victims of the holocaust and their families would much rather live in a world where they did not perish but more people hold bigoted views than a world where after ones whole family dies people go "oh … anti-Semitism is indeed awful". Be careful with this argument, for you could really offend holocaust survivors and their families.
 
There's a couple things to consider here, how does Germany shape up in the absence of Hitler? If it's a DNVP type party that takes over and regains some German territory(maybe Anschluss?) and eventually stops when faced with the Allies, then Jews will probably remain large populations in parts of Eastern Europe. Depending on how exactly the altered history of the Balkans and Eastern Europe shape up you could probably see some Jewish migration to either Mandatory Palestine, or further West as allowed. The US almost certainly has as big, if not bigger, of a Jewish population due to more gradual, but steady immigration. However, one has to consider how the absence of WW2 is going to affect the US politically, as without the Third Reich to ideologically oppose the US could retain many of its immigration restrictions for quite awhile.

Overall, more Jews all over, less Jews in what is now Israel. Immigration to the region almost surely continues, albeit slowly, and the tensions that creates will rise accordingly. But without WW2 taking place decolonization is going to be different, and the British might be more willing to try and mediate or at least manage Jewish/Arab relations.

I also see Jewish culture being a lot less cohesive as the Holocaust plays a large role in the Jewish identity. Those Jews ITTL would be more secular, but those remaining in Eastern Europe would still be Orthodox/Conservative. Maybe more integration for the Jews in the West while those in the East remain distinct, as they have for centuries?

There's a LOT of factors at play here due to the spread of the population and how things developed post war in the ME.
 
The Nazis may be out of the running here ITTL, but there's still another virulently anti-Semitic fascist organization running around: the lunatics known as the Romanian Legionary Movement - aka, the Iron Guard.

Expect meat-hooks to become a prominent anti-Semitic symbol in place of the swastika.
 
Considering the butterflies (no Hitler, no Nazis, maybe a World War II between Western Bloc and Soviet Union with Western victory, so no Stalin's Pogroms and no Cold War, very different decolonization and less today mass-migration from Africa, South America and Arabs Countries), today the populist far-right wave is very anti-Semitic (because "Jews control the markets and the World!") and less anti-Muslim. I can imagine the consequences...
 
Maybe the far right dictatorship that takes power has a more anti french and antislavic obsetion regarding conspiracies and backstab mythology, "the alsacians and poles sabotaged us, made us lost the war and took away our territory". Maybe the obssetion goes more to the minorities of the lost territories.
 
Without the Nazis to test the concept to destruction I agree that low key anti-Semiticism would remain pervasive for several decades however, as the aftermath of European colonialism comes home to roost, and immigrants from more alien cultures start to migrate to Europe I would expect it to downscale. The Jews are a distinctive population but they are monogamous in terms of marriage and have no customs that hugely differ from European norms (circumcision, kosher and worship on Saturdays instead of Sundays is pretty much it). Some of the new migrant communities will try and bring things like blood feud, honor killings, polygamy, female genital mutilation, imported brides from the homeland, large scale emigration etc. that will really rub up against European sensibilities and will provide a direct economic threat to the low paid. The Jews will drop down the hierarchy of hatred/distaste in view of these more immediate "threats".
 
Someone else's probably gonna do it or something similar enough at some point, although even OTL's "Never again" is rapidly receding from our collective memory and we are seeing a resurgence of antisemitism along with the [re]rise of right wing authoritarianism (in the West, in certain other parts of the world they never really left to begin with) almost seemingly going back to historic norms (when various flavors of despotism, authoritarianism, rabble-rousing, and oppression being the norm).
 
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Significantly less in the middle east without Israel, but there'd still be regional wars since we'd see similar political dynamics to otl there.
 
Some anti-Semitism will linger longer, but the real break will come with the American civil rights movement, in the sixties OTL. But in a world without WWII as we know it, entertainment progresses differently with the earlier spread of television and the world marketing of German tape recording in the late thirties. Since I believe those events had a direct impact on the timing of civil rights, events of the early sixties might be advanced to the late fifties. As a result, the prolonging of anti-Semitism would only be temporary.
 
There are a couple of issues that merit discussion that have been ignored so far. First, what is the POD that eliminates Hitler. For example, Tsarist Russia was notoriously anti-Semitic. Therefore, if Russia wins the battle of Tannenburg, leading to a German loss in 1915 and a hegemonic Russia you could imagine a world of far more pervasive anti-Semitism (and no Hitler since there was no Versailles, no stab-in-the-back etc).

Second, even in a world with a later POD (e.g. Hitler gets run over by a bus on January 29, 1933--go bus!!) we still need to consider Poland. Poland had a relatively large Jewish minority and some fairly ingrained and official anti-Semitism. Further with this POD the equation of Bolshevism with Judaism would have remained (particularly in right-wing circles such as the military dictatorships that rule Poland). Further, the Polish government gave a fair amount of support to Betar (Even providing military training) partly in the hope that Revisionist Zionists (precursors of the Likuid party) would solve their "Jewish problem. Further, if there were a Polish-Soviet war in the 30s or 40s I could imagine a rather grim fate for the Jews, particularly if the front lines shifted back and forth. For example, Poles may view Soviet Jews as instigators of Bolshevism, and massacre them as a consequence. Soviets may view Polish Jews as Capitalist parasites and massacre them as a consequence. This scenario would probably be somewhat less horrid than our timeline (perhaps 3 million Jews in Eastern Europe are killed and Jewish communities in the West and in Hungary survive). However, it probably also means the anti-Semitism is somewhat more socially acceptable.

The deep point is that while Hitler was somewhat unique in the vigor with which he prosecuted anti-Semitism, he found fertile conditions, particularly in Eastern Europe.
 
Significantly less in the middle east without Israel, but there'd still be regional wars since we'd see similar political dynamics to otl there.

The main dynamics can be traced back to the Palestinian refugee crisis, this would be far less likely to happen here. Without that initial refugee crisis, Arab states wouldn't be focused on handling the refugees and balancing Israeli ambitions, but on sorting out who is the dominant Arab State, and deciding which side of the Cold War to fall into. If there is an independent Israel, they'll be involved in this alliance system, not like in OTL as the most important actor but outside the general Middle Eastern world, with a foreign policy goal of maintaining ties with Jewish communities in the states throughout the region, influencing who they ally with.
 
Why wouldn't there be a Palestine refugee crisis of some sort? Jerusalem is a holy city in Islam, meaning that well there's good odds of Syrian-egyptian wars* over Palestine in worlds without israel.

* Got this bit from Mike Ralls' old "US enters WWI in 1915 tl which has it
 

samcster94

Banned
There are a couple of issues that merit discussion that have been ignored so far. First, what is the POD that eliminates Hitler. For example, Tsarist Russia was notoriously anti-Semitic. Therefore, if Russia wins the battle of Tannenburg, leading to a German loss in 1915 and a hegemonic Russia you could imagine a world of far more pervasive anti-Semitism (and no Hitler since there was no Versailles, no stab-in-the-back etc).

Second, even in a world with a later POD (e.g. Hitler gets run over by a bus on January 29, 1933--go bus!!) we still need to consider Poland. Poland had a relatively large Jewish minority and some fairly ingrained and official anti-Semitism. Further with this POD the equation of Bolshevism with Judaism would have remained (particularly in right-wing circles such as the military dictatorships that rule Poland). Further, the Polish government gave a fair amount of support to Betar (Even providing military training) partly in the hope that Revisionist Zionists (precursors of the Likuid party) would solve their "Jewish problem. Further, if there were a Polish-Soviet war in the 30s or 40s I could imagine a rather grim fate for the Jews, particularly if the front lines shifted back and forth. For example, Poles may view Soviet Jews as instigators of Bolshevism, and massacre them as a consequence. Soviets may view Polish Jews as Capitalist parasites and massacre them as a consequence. This scenario would probably be somewhat less horrid than our timeline (perhaps 3 million Jews in Eastern Europe are killed and Jewish communities in the West and in Hungary survive). However, it probably also means the anti-Semitism is somewhat more socially acceptable.

The deep point is that while Hitler was somewhat unique in the vigor with which he prosecuted anti-Semitism, he found fertile conditions, particularly in Eastern Europe.
I had him get killed in WWI(that British guy who nearly killed him could do it).
 
Why wouldn't there be a Palestine refugee crisis of some sort? Jerusalem is a holy city in Islam, meaning that well there's good odds of Syrian-egyptian wars* over Palestine in worlds without israel.

* Got this bit from Mike Ralls' old "US enters WWI in 1915 tl which has it

That kind of refugee crisis would look quite different. In that kind of war, they'd be fleeing the front-lines, it seems less likely that Syrian or Egyptian forces would be trying to depopulate the territory for their own settlers. It's less likely to produce the kind of permanent diaspora that the OTL Palestinian refugees became, it's more likely that they'd be repatriated to their homes, or find legal, permanent residence elsewhere.
 
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