Fate of German Jews without Hitler

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
  • Start date
On the other hand it would be acceptable to openly discriminate against Jews for much longer and dinner-table anti-Semitism might well persist today. While obviously very bad news for it's victims it took the Holocaust to change public attitudes to discriminating against minorities (including Blacks, Asians etc.) by showing everyone the logical conclusion of "you can't trust those bloody (insert minority here)!".
Very true. Even though a great many Jews fled Europe for the tolerance of the United States generations ago, anti-Semitism was still very prevalent. Consider how many actors changed their names to "mask" their Jewish ones. It has been said that Henry Ford was as anti-Semitic as Hitler; he never promoted genocide over it.
 
Things may go in a lot of different ways. A "normal" right-wing dictatorship would not try to exterminate the Jews. Discrimination laws are possible but unlikely. As far as I know, no one in Europe did so before the Nazis. There were Italian Jews quite high-ranked in the Fascist Party, for example, though I guess that in other places it was not so easy. On the other hand, Anti-Semitism will be still widespread, and harder to die without its nastiest consequences so tragically apparent. Poland may be the most overtly Anti-Semitic country for a while.
Zionism will be way weaker.
However, if there is no WWII at all, world be different in so many ways that butterflies will affect the German Jews unpredictably. One point IMHO is that in such a scenario, decolonization will look much different. It may turn easier, but most likely not. I mean that France may feel free to go much, much nastier in such places like Algeria, for one example.
 

jeffking

Banned
Nazism was built on the very basis off destruction of the jewish race so even without Hitler the jews will still be slaughtered but maybe by not as much.
 
Nazism was built on the very basis off destruction of the jewish race so even without Hitler the jews will still be slaughtered but maybe by not as much.

Without Hitler the Nazis would be a minor party without any clout. Without a charismatic leader it would just be another fringe party that is utterly ignored and probably dies out completely within decades.
 
On the other hand it would be acceptable to openly discriminate against Jews for much longer and dinner-table anti-Semitism might well persist today. While obviously very bad news for it's victims it took the Holocaust to change public attitudes to discriminating against minorities (including Blacks, Asians etc.) by showing everyone the logical conclusion of "you can't trust those bloody (insert minority here)!".

Agreed, Nazism was the beginning of the end of respectable racism in the long run.
 

jeffking

Banned
Without Hitler the Nazis would be a minor party without any clout. Without a charismatic leader it would just be another fringe party that is utterly ignored and probably dies out completely within decades.


No way Nazism was bound to happen just like the KKK was bound to take over the south after the Civil War, the Allies had so humiliated and crippled the German state that someone had to be blamed.
 
No way Nazism was bound to happen just like the KKK was bound to take over the south after the Civil War, the Allies had so humiliated and crippled the German state that someone had to be blamed.


Yet the KKK did not start another war. Indeed they were pretty careful to avoid provoking the North by challenging reunion. The Southern leadership of the 1870s were Stresemanns, not Nazis. They had limited objectives.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
The likelihood of State anti-Semitism is pretty high, but the degree to which it is implemented depends entirely on what sort of regime is in power. A military regime is probably the least hostile to Jewry, with that of a right-wing party at the helm being the most dangerous.

That being said, it is difficult to see Nazi-level atrocities arising in a non-Nazi regime. "Strongly encouraged" emigration, social destruction, maybe concentration/labor camps. Pogroms will likely occur on whatever territory is absorbed by said regime.
 
No way Nazism was bound to happen just like the KKK was bound to take over the south after the Civil War, the Allies had so humiliated and crippled the German state that someone had to be blamed.

The Nazis were ignored for quite some time before they rose. There were other people who could have been blamed other than the Jews including the monarchy, the industrialists, the Serbs, and the Austrians. Hell, they could have blamed it all on one individual namely Zimmerman. It could well be argued (whether you think it is accurate or not) that without Zimmerman that the US would have stayed out of the war and that at least a stalemate could have been achieved.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
No way Nazism was bound to happen just like the KKK was bound to take over the south after the Civil War, the Allies had so humiliated and crippled the German state that someone had to be blamed.
What? Had it not been for the Great Depression, internecine and moronic intra-Leftist division, liberal impotence, conservative obstinacy, and a host of other factors, the Nazis would never have gained power. In fact, the only reason that they did gain power was because the German Establishment was more afraid of socialists than it was of fascists. Nazism was by no means predetermined.
 
What? Had it not been for the Great Depression, internecine and moronic intra-Leftist division, liberal impotence, conservative obstinacy, and a host of other factors, the Nazis would never have gained power. In fact, the only reason that they did gain power was because the German Establishment was more afraid of socialists than it was of fascists. Nazism was by no means predetermined.

Exactly, they were bit players for quite a while. Make the Great Depression somewhat shorter and shallower somehow and you probably kill Nazism right there.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Exactly, they were bit players for quite a while. Make the Great Depression somewhat shorter and shallower somehow and you probably kill Nazism right there.
Quite so. In studying the Nazis' rise to power, the key years are 1928-1933, the onset of the Depression. Prior to that, they were no different than any other far-rightist group and a good deal less popular.
 
AIUI, anti-Semitism was on the wane in Germany from the 1870s to WWI. Perhaps nothing would have happened to the Jews as they gradually gained more acceptance. The big catch is the conspiracy theory that arose after WWI that the Jews betrayed Germany in exchange for a promise from Britain that they could settle in Palestine. If this theory dies a natural death or becomes a low-key way for cranks to blow off steam (like the JFK or 9/11 theories today) instead of the nucleus of a serious political movement, so much the better.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
German anti-Semitism was alive and well in Germany between 1870 and WWI. It was widespread in the army and Prussian hierarchy, and Wilhelm II was himself a rather nasty anti-Semite. That being said, German anti-Semitism had nothing on its Austrian counterpart. And while France may have had the Dreyfus affair, Germany had the Judenzählung.
 

Nebogipfel

Monthly Donor
Antisemitism was a fundamental part of the identity of the German nationalist/extreme right (regardless what some of the Nazis-without-Adolf fanboys on this board want to make us belief).

So the point is how much official support this view would get. I am very sure any nationalist government would make life very difficult for Jews. Hungary was quite bad, and Germany could at least as bad. Expect at least a substantial brain-drain. For example, Einstein left very early IOTL (however, Lise Meitner stayed until 1938).
 

OS fan

Banned
Extremely anti-semitic policies and eventually the forced expulsion of most of Germany's Jewish population. That's as far as I can see a military dictatorship going.

It may surprise you, but quite a number of German officers had Jewish mothers or grandmothers, since poor German noblemen sometimes married Jewish women with a high dowry. Hitler expelled most of those from the military, of course.

The millions of Jews along with the millions of other people murdered in concentration camps including Gypsies, homosexuals, Slavs, the physically or mentally impaired (I presume there are others also) would make impressive waves in European culture and society, especially given sixty years to do so.

The Berlin art and theater scene would be... something!!!

Even if you like the culture from Germany's Twenties: Actually they ceased to create their better works before Hitler came to power, or even before the Great Crash. Many artists had emigrated before, too. The rise of their movie industry was caused by the hyperinflation.

And some art produced then was simply disgusting. A dance called "cocaine"?

One reason is both Early Christians and Jews of the Early Christian period considered each other heretics. It is very common in religions that heretics are considered even worse than infidels as they should know better.

This is true but irrelevant. Every other factor was more important at this time.

Without Hitler and nazism i don't see a state anti-semitism.
Jews were judged individually for political beliefs,not for "race".

This simply isn't true. At the end, the nazis killed all kinds of Jews, without caring for their political views, their amount of property, or whether they took their own religion seriously.
 
And while France may have had the Dreyfus affair, Germany had the Judenzählung.

Here's a really negletted what-if. Suppose von Hohenborn publishes the favourable original statistics that debunk the myth of Jewish draft-dodgers?

With proven stats to back their claims, the Reichsbund jüdischer Frontsoldaten would undoubtedly remain vocal opponent of anti-Semitism - and, ironically - political Zionism. Sure there would still be hate-mongering, but without the propaganda value of OTL Judenzählung, the supporters of Dolchstoßlegende would have much less basis for their lies.




 
As was mentioned most of the Jews of Germany were highly assimilated, and one reason that many did not leave Germany before leaving was too difficult was they had a hard time believing that German Kultur could treat other Germans in such a way. Was there anti-Semitism in Germany, of course, and prior to the Nazis probably about average for the western world including the USA - Henry Ford's "The International Jew" published in the early 20's was as vicious as anything the Nazis printed and his Dearborn Independent newspaper was not far from Julius Streicher's Die Stürmer. Jews were generally excluded from higher social circles, and while present throughout academia had difficulty progressing in certain faculties. Likewise Jewish doctors could not get privileges at certain hospitals (something that was happening in the USA until the 50's-early 60's).

While Jew baiting helped the Nazis get in to power by pandering to certain elements, their treatment of the Jews even before the huge expenditure of effort to create the death camps, transport people there, and run them, was highly detrimental to their war effort. IMHO while a renewed monarchy of some generic right wing or fascist government might re-institute official quotas for Jews at universities etc, it is unlikely that ghettoization and other extreme measures, let alone extermination would happen (look at Italy/Mussolini, Hungary/Horthy before being leaned on by Hitler for examples). Most German Jews (500K out of 67 mil population) in 1933 were German patriots and would have been useful at all levels to a rebuilding Germany - not just the physicists but doctors, engineers, and young men who could be common soldiers and factory workers...
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Sure there would still be hate-mongering, but without the propaganda value of OTL Judenzählung, the supporters of Dolchstoßlegende would have much less basis for their lies.
They can just say that the Jews infesting the Establishment fudged the numbers, or some other such nonsense. Conspiracy theories ignore blatant counter-evidence all the time. If it's not Jew draft dodgers, it's Jew Marxists and Jew pacifists. Bigotry does not require reality to function.
 
Last edited:
Top