Fate of German Jews without Hitler

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With Hitler gone, the Nazis are just another political party. When I read part of a translation of Mein Kampf, the strongest words I saw about the Jews were that they “must be eliminated.” To a developed world, being eliminated [from control] does not necessarily imply genocide. In fact, even these words were abridged from English translations in the thirties, and the same might happen in the German versions after enlightenment. If the Holocaust does not happen, Hitler’s hatred becomes a biographical footnote.

Jews will continue to endure anti-Semitism worldwide, as blacks endure Jim Crow until a civil rights movement comes along. The factors that drove civil rights and desegregation will happen in the “world without Hitler” for the same reasons they happened in OTL. When people are segregated so minorities have to ride in the back seats or “colored” rail cars, they tolerate the injustice because they still get to their destination. When the railroads cut their schedules or stop running, the result is intolerable because minorities in automobiles can’t get the food and lodging in towns along the road. Television and cinema make the disparities more painfully obvious.

In any case, any war or conflict in the thirties and forties would be very different, as it will not be run by a leader whose first priorities are to conquer Russia and execute Jews. Consider the millions of people who perished; the Jews, the Russians and all other casualties of war. Consider their potential contributions to a peacetime economy.

The best scenario is one where Germany (and the world), in the forties, move to consumer-based economic expansion similar to that which characterized the late fifties in the United States. This type of growth was directly responsible for the OTL civil rights movements. So, anti-Semitism becomes as unworkable as racial segregation. Even if certain technology (e.g., rocket science) is suppressed because there is less war or no war, enlightenment is inevitable. Imagine how different the world’s reaction would be to the atomic bomb if its first use was to open mountain passes or build canals.
 

Deleted member 1487

With Hitler gone, the Nazis are just another political party. When I read part of a translation of Mein Kampf, the strongest words I saw about the Jews were that they “must be eliminated.” To a developed world, being eliminated [from control] does not necessarily imply genocide. In fact, even these words were abridged from English translations in the thirties, and the same might happen in the German versions after enlightenment. If the Holocaust does not happen, Hitler’s hatred becomes a biographical footnote.

Jews will continue to endure anti-Semitism worldwide, as blacks endure Jim Crow until a civil rights movement comes along. The factors that drove civil rights and desegregation will happen in the “world without Hitler” for the same reasons they happened in OTL. When people are segregated so minorities have to ride in the back seats or “colored” rail cars, they tolerate the injustice because they still get to their destination. When the railroads cut their schedules or stop running, the result is intolerable because minorities in automobiles can’t get the food and lodging in towns along the road. Television and cinema make the disparities more painfully obvious.

In any case, any war or conflict in the thirties and forties would be very different, as it will not be run by a leader whose first priorities are to conquer Russia and execute Jews. Consider the millions of people who perished; the Jews, the Russians and all other casualties of war. Consider their potential contributions to a peacetime economy.

The best scenario is one where Germany (and the world), in the forties, move to consumer-based economic expansion similar to that which characterized the late fifties in the United States. This type of growth was directly responsible for the OTL civil rights movements. So, anti-Semitism becomes as unworkable as racial segregation. Even if certain technology (e.g., rocket science) is suppressed because there is less war or no war, enlightenment is inevitable. Imagine how different the world’s reaction would be to the atomic bomb if its first use was to open mountain passes or build canals.

Assuming that after the Versailles and border revisions happen Germany does transition to a consumer goods economy and limits rearmament to what was sustainable, while the Jews and liberals stay in Germany, leaving them with their best and brightest, can Germany become wealthy?

Even without the Versailles restrictions, plus export subsidies, and public works programs like the Autobahn (started OTL under von Schleicher) there is still the issue of high tariffs. Germany could go off the gold standard, which they resisted OTL due to rearmament (forgot the reason why) and would have helped their exports, but there were threats of tariff retaliation if they did, while France free floated her currency without those same threats. The international deck, thanks to tariffs, some of which were specially targeted at Germany, was stacked against Germany. Can she really thrive in such an enviornment?
 
The resources to build the military-industrial complex and the Autobahns would still be there, and they would be used to some extent. Any wars and conflicts should be much smaller, localized and with little resemblance to World War II as we know it. In that case, the world’s resources will not be diverted en masse to a war. The early forties see new markets for automobiles and television (in the United States, especially). German tape recorders enter the world market in the late thirties and revolutionize entertainment more than a decade before OTL.

Getting back to the primary subject of this thread, without a Holocaust there will be no Jewish state of Israel. There will be no massive effort to settle the region with Jews and a nation-state might very well be named Palestine. Based on the heritage of the faiths, though, there will be some Jews who want to settle there. In this ATL, the Arabs will be in control.
 
Hmm, a question was the German Empire already anti sematic ??
Not in a larger scale as other christian european countries during the 19th century and the early 20th century. At the early 19th century there were guys like Ernst Moritz Arndt who agigated against the jews but they were mostly mocked by mocked by contemporaries as 'Germanomanen' (Germanomanics). A first notificable rise of antisemitsmn or antijudaismn (as it was mostly argumented on religious base during that time) was during the banking crash of 1874. The second notificatable rise was after WWI when the religious based antijudasimn was strapped from its religious backgroudn and became antisemitismn (but both form used the same clichees.). Even then the antisemitsmn was not as murderous as it was in the end. Even in 1938 (during the Reichskristallnacht) Göbbels complained that too much germans where against the actions against the jews. But I think from 1939 latest 1941 it become really murderous and let to the holocaust.
 
Hmm, a question was the German Empire already anti sematic ??

To an extent, yes, but German Jews were very assimilated and secular by European standards (in fact Jews like Rathenau were essential to Germany's WWI staying power) and most of it was the mild, relatively banal form seen in the rest of Europe. Hitlerism was by far an unusual form of it more like that seen in Austria-Hungary than in the German Empire.
 
Ok. But A-H wasnt that anti sematic, because here jews were for example allowed to be an Ofifcer, which they weren't allowed to be in the German Empire.
 
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To an extent, yes, but German Jews were very assimilated and secular by European standards (in fact Jews like Rathenau were essential to Germany's WWI staying power) and most of it was the mild, relatively banal form seen in the rest of Europe. Hitlerism was by far an unusual form of it more like that seen in Austria-Hungary than in the German Empire.

Not to mention Fritz Haber, the most prominent Jeckyl-and-Hyde character in chemical science. He developed chemical warfare in WWI, as gassed opponents were bloodless and clean. As bad as that sounds, he is most remembered for the Haber process for fixing atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia and nitrates (essential for modern fertilizer and agriculture). That process is as important to the Louisiana economy as shrimp and petroleum. Haber wanted to contribute to the Third Reich, but he ended up starving to death for being born Jewish.
 
Ok. But A-H wasnt that anti sematic, because here jews were for example allowed to be an Ofifcer, which they weren't allowed to be in the German Empire.

Austria-Hungary gave rise to Lueger and no less than two National Socialist Parties that preceded Anton Drexel's party. Those movements had a tiny minority of the population supporting them and the Habsburgs were very tolerant of Jews by 19th Century standards, but still.......
 
Not to mention Fritz Haber, the most prominent Jeckyl-and-Hyde character in chemical science. He developed chemical warfare in WWI, as gassed opponents were bloodless and clean. As bad as that sounds, he is most remembered for the Haber process for fixing atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia and nitrates (essential for modern fertilizer and agriculture). That process is as important to the Louisiana economy as shrimp and petroleum. Haber wanted to contribute to the Third Reich, but he ended up starving to death for being born Jewish.

Yup. Not to mention that Jews served in large numbers in the German army, and in the Austro-Hungarian army as well. One of Hitler's Iron Crosses was given to him by a Jewish officer, which is one of those :eek: ironies of history. Germany's Jews saw themselves as Germans of Jewish religion, so without someone like Hitler they'd still be less than 1% of Germany's population and one of the most assimilated Jewish populations of Europe.
 
Assuming that Hitler never attains power in Germany, what happens to the Jews in Germany? For the sake of argument let's say that von Schleicher succeeds in reinstalling the monarchy in Germany and gets the Versailles treaty repealed. The military gets rebuilt slowly, but WW2 doesn't happen. Perhaps Germany unites with Austria, but this isn't necessary to the question I think.
What then happens to Jewish life in Germany? Does anti-semetism still plague the community?

Let us hope that the Holocaust would never, ever, occur in this TL and that Jews could actually be able in perfect harmony with all the other Germans.(Basically, a Weimar Republic that lasts 'til today.)
 
Like almost anything to do with the German empire, it's complicated. Legally speaking, of course, the answer was very simple. The state could not be antisemitic because under the law, there was no such thing as a Jew. It was established that no German could be treated unequally on account of anys religion he may or may not have. A beautiful sentiment, but really less than half the story.

Antisemitism in Germany was alive and well, and it represented a very complicated mix of resentment, envy, racism and old-fashioned xenophobia. Many of the germans that hated on "the Jews" most were surprised to learn that respected members of their community were Jews. they were under the impression Jews were a kaftan-wearing, bearded tribe from Eastern europe. Others had swallowed the scientifioc racist theory that Jews represented a foreign, parasitic body in European society. Some notable Jewish community leaders had embraced the same belief, so it wasn't like that should be surprising. And many simply thought of Jews as vaguely disturbing because that was traditional. Several political movements tapped into this sentiment to garner votes. The usual term was "Christian Social" parties. Germany's representatives of that movement tried to do things like making name changes difficult and creatively using grandfather clauses to keep the Jews out of professions and communities. It didn't work very well, though - the German haskalim were a very well integrated and by and large a thriving community, politically active and well organised.

There was never a law or regulation that made it impossible for jews to become officers. It was just general practice in the Prussian army to see to it that that kind of thing did not happen. The same was not true in other federal militaries - Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Saxony and Baden all had Jewish officers in their forces. It was also not an absolute - Walther Rathenau tried to have a military career (in the cuirassiers!) before he caved in to the will of his father to become a manager. In wartime, Jews were also more readily promoted.

The biggest problem to social progress in this field was not so much that the german people were more antisemitic than others, it was that Wilhelm II and many of his close confidants were antisemitic. Not Hitler-style raging and foaming, but clearly so. That meant that while he had Jewish friends and was generally civil to them in person, he used and allowed the use opf antisemitic rhetoric as part and parcel of the right-wing German national identity. Antisemitic and xenophobic organisations were strengthened immensely when it was made known that membership in such was not a career impediment to junior officials - quite the contrary. All of this was, of course, quite unofficial, and when the army got a request to copunt the number of Jews in frontline and rear area service during WWI (the infamous Judenzählung), they took their time to sort out the data because it wasan't the kind of question usually asked. But the atmosphere got pretty comprehensively poisoned with the sense that "German" and "Jew" were as mutually exclusive as "German" and "Pole".
 
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