Hitler treated conquered russians,etc... benevolently.

In Late 1941 Hitler creates several puppet states in the conquered areas of the Soviet Union. These includes Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Ukraine, etc... Nazi-supervised volunteers fight for Hitler against the Soviets, what kind of affect would this have on the war? By the way, there is no enslavement and murder of slavs and etc... until after the war.

Yet after the war they all get sent to the camps, ya happy :(
 
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Lets say Hitler decides that using the conquered peoples of the Soviet Republics against the soviets is more beneficial to the Nazis then enslaving them all. Hitler liberates Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as creating a Ukranian and Belorussian state. He then enlists volunteers into batallions with Nazi Officers, this could mean thousands of more soldiers fighting under Hitler.

Then they won't be Nazis. The Baltic states isn't impossible, but, no.
 
Some people here have a alarmingly rosy view of what a war of conquest is all about. Fact is that racism, and race-based exploitation, are very effective vehicles for justifying conquest. If you try to treat everyone fairly and equally, then you're gonna run into a LOT of problems trying to build your empire. It gets worse if one of the chief reasons for your expansion is to steal resources from others, as was the case with Nazi Germany. Then you need a very good reason why your people deserve other people's stuff more than they do themselves, and racism is very good at providing that reason.

This isn't just talk. People need a reason to lay down their lives for their country, and states that are unable to provide sufficient reason often fold under pressure. Fascist Italy is a good counter example. Although Italy certainly had some of the same racist dogma, it wasn't as pervasive or as popular. Once the going got tough, the Italians asked themselves just what the hell they were dying for, then threw in the towel. A country doesn't fight to the bitter end for nebulous reasons. The Germans fought incredibly hard in WWII because they had a pervasive ideology that made sense to them. That ideology told them they were better than everyone else, deserved to be on top, and were justified in killing anyone else until that became a reality. It was incredibly racist, but as a motivational tool it worked.

With that in mind, there is simply no way Hitler does any of this as it undermines the very war he is trying to wage.
 
Then it wouldnt be "hitler" as we know and hate today.

But lets say that another world-conquering German takes power. I think the Ukrainians and Byelorussians were fighting the soviets with the Nazis until they realized what was about to happen to them. My thought is that a rump "Russian Empire" would be carved to the Urals, and Japan would try to take the rest but have there forces utterly destroyed by the sheer expanse of Siberia. the PRC collapses, and NatChina might even take over the rest of the Soviet Union, which missing most of its russians would explode into a fury of secessionists.
 
Some people here have a alarmingly rosy view of what a war of conquest is all about. Fact is that racism, and race-based exploitation, are very effective vehicles for justifying conquest. If you try to treat everyone fairly and equally, then you're gonna run into a LOT of problems trying to build your empire. It gets worse if one of the chief reasons for your expansion is to steal resources from others, as was the case with Nazi Germany. Then you need a very good reason why your people deserve other people's stuff more than they do themselves, and racism is very good at providing that reason.

This isn't just talk. People need a reason to lay down their lives for their country, and states that are unable to provide sufficient reason often fold under pressure. Fascist Italy is a good counter example. Although Italy certainly had some of the same racist dogma, it wasn't as pervasive or as popular. Once the going got tough, the Italians asked themselves just what the hell they were dying for, then threw in the towel. A country doesn't fight to the bitter end for nebulous reasons. The Germans fought incredibly hard in WWII because they had a pervasive ideology that made sense to them. That ideology told them they were better than everyone else, deserved to be on top, and were justified in killing anyone else until that became a reality. It was incredibly racist, but as a motivational tool it worked.

With that in mind, there is simply no way Hitler does any of this as it undermines the very war he is trying to wage.

This might be the best post on the actual reasoning behind, and the mechanisms of, Nazi totalitarianism i've seen on this forum.
 
Hang on, why are people saying they wouldn't be Nazis? They're still doing the killing, but they're just been calculating and cunning in their conduct! As for the thread, this would have certainly improved the supply lines and manpower for Germany, but I reckon that other factors may have been needed for a certain Axis victory.
 

B-29_Bomber

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Hang on, why are people saying they wouldn't be Nazis? They're still doing the killing, but they're just been calculating and cunning in their conduct! As for the thread, this would have certainly improved the supply lines and manpower for Germany, but I reckon that other factors may have been needed for a certain Axis victory.

Except that Nazis were as subtle as a nuke up the arse.:rolleyes:
 
Is it possible for the Nazis to more actively divide the Soviet ethnic groups in accordance with their demented racial theories, and establish puppet-state collaborators that way by turning them against their neighbors? It should get them more support in the East, (like how they puppetised Slovakia and Croatia).

So in this scenario, could the Nazis co-opt the Ukrainians (reclassify them as descendants of Gothic tribes) and Balts (Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians are not Slavs) as collaborators, whilst still slaughtering the Poles, Belorussians and Russians and looting the East? The Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians have suffered tremendously at the hands of the Bolsheviks and have the most reason to hate the Soviet state and Stalin. Isn't it feasible, and still in accordance with Nazism, to co-opt them and give them puppet states, while still slaughtering the Russians and Poles and pillaging the rest of the East? The Georgians, Armenians and Cossacks strike me as other groups that could be similarly co-opted as collaborators by the Nazis.
 

CalBear

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This is a really common theme. Find a way for the Reich to bottle up all the crazy until they win.

The overarching problem is that the Reich didn't think they were crazy. They didn't want to wait. They were waging a war of extermination. That wasn't a by-product, it was the POINT. Kill 85% of the Poles, 65% of the Ukrainians, 60% of the Russians (and transport 15% more to the far side of the Urals), etc. was the entire point of going East. Clear the territory wipe the memory of the Slavic "race" from human memory.

The shorthand for this is "take the Nazi out of the Nazis". Can NOT be done.
 
Is it possible that the Nazis enlist the help of the Poles, Byelorussians, Ukranians, Balticans, etc. during the war and unleash the Holocaust on them afterwards? If they were utilitarian?
 
This is a really common theme. Find a way for the Reich to bottle up all the crazy until they win.

The overarching problem is that the Reich didn't think they were crazy. They didn't want to wait. They were waging a war of extermination. That wasn't a by-product, it was the POINT. Kill 85% of the Poles, 65% of the Ukrainians, 60% of the Russians (and transport 15% more to the far side of the Urals), etc. was the entire point of going East. Clear the territory wipe the memory of the Slavic "race" from human memory.

The shorthand for this is "take the Nazi out of the Nazis". Can NOT be done.

Didn't the nazi party at one point of time was more about anti capitalism than racism which couldn't have taken the turn on the nazi ideology?
 
This is a really common theme. Find a way for the Reich to bottle up all the crazy until they win.

The overarching problem is that the Reich didn't think they were crazy. They didn't want to wait. They were waging a war of extermination. That wasn't a by-product, it was the POINT. Kill 85% of the Poles, 65% of the Ukrainians, 60% of the Russians (and transport 15% more to the far side of the Urals), etc. was the entire point of going East. Clear the territory wipe the memory of the Slavic "race" from human memory.

The shorthand for this is "take the Nazi out of the Nazis". Can NOT be done.

So the Nazis using divide-and-rule on the Soviet ethnic groups, favoring some groups while continuing to genocide and enslave the others, is not possible? I use the examples of recruiting the Ukrainians and Balts against the Poles and Russians.
 
They could do like in "A Storm of Steel in Fire", have the situation be so dire (in this case the Soviets invade first) they have to agree to ally with the revolutionaries to defeat Stalin. That's about the most plausible way I can imagine right now.
 

CalBear

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So the Nazis using divide-and-rule on the Soviet ethnic groups, favoring some groups while continuing to genocide and enslave the others, is not possible? I use the examples of recruiting the Ukrainians and Balts against the Poles and Russians.

The Nazis didn't see any difference between them. Simply didn't matter. Might as well ask them which dogs they wanted to favor over others, except Hitler actually sort of liked dogs.

They intended to KILL 85% of the Poles and of the Lithuanians, no difference at all. Half of the Estonians, half the Czechs, 50-60% of the Russians (plus transportation of another 15% that would likely have resulted in most of them dying en route), etc. They just didn't care. They didn't trust ANY of the groups in the East. They were, in their view, ALL THE SAME. Implying that Ukrainians were useful as anything but slave labor was unthinkable.

The Nazis did not see the world the way that even most racists do today. They were so deeply buried in an ideology that made entire groups, based solely on where they lived, subhumans that it is really difficult to even fathom their world view. (I mean, think about it, can you tell the difference been someone from the Czech Republic and someone from Austria, just by looking at them? Yet to the Nazis, one is an untermensch and the other is a pure Aryan.)
 
Didn't the nazi party at one point of time was more about anti capitalism than racism which couldn't have taken the turn on the nazi ideology?
Hitler purged all of the anti-Capitalist types in 1934 in order to gain the support of the German Military and Big Business.
 
The Nazis didn't see any difference between them. Simply didn't matter. Might as well ask them which dogs they wanted to favor over others, except Hitler actually sort of liked dogs.

They intended to KILL 85% of the Poles and of the Lithuanians, no difference at all. Half of the Estonians, half the Czechs, 50-60% of the Russians (plus transportation of another 15% that would likely have resulted in most of them dying en route), etc. They just didn't care. They didn't trust ANY of the groups in the East. They were, in their view, ALL THE SAME. Implying that Ukrainians were useful as anything but slave labor was unthinkable.

The Nazis did not see the world the way that even most racists do today. They were so deeply buried in an ideology that made entire groups, based solely on where they lived, subhumans that it is really difficult to even fathom their world view. (I mean, think about it, can you tell the difference been someone from the Czech Republic and someone from Austria, just by looking at them? Yet to the Nazis, one is an untermensch and the other is a pure Aryan.)

Woah, when you explain it like that, it really does sum up how utterly vile, insane, but also monumentally moronic the Nazis were in a lot of ways. It amazes me they got as far as they did for as long as they did, wreaking so much death and destruction along the way before they inevitably fell.

It surprises me that the Nazis didn't also condemn 'Latins' (Italians, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Portuguese), 'Hellenes' (Greeks), 'Magyars' (Hungarians) and 'Vlachs' (Romanians) - ethnic groups that are as far from being "Germanic" as the Slavs - as "untermensch" too. They certainly were blinded enough by their nonsense ideology to not care about making even more enemies.
 
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The Germans couldn't afford their war of conquest without resorting to enslaving/starving the various peoples of the Soviet Union.
 
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