Holocaust without WW2

[Zachariah]

Let's say that, in this ATL, neither WW2 nor any of the preceding conflicts and annexations initiated by the Nazis which built up to it take place; but the Nazis remain in power in Germany, and without the Lebensraum provided by expansionist conquests, still resolve to pursue a "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" with just as much vigor, or even greater vigor, than they did IOTL. What happens? How much would the rest of the world hear about it, and how would they react to the plight of the Jews in Germany? Would the Nazis suffer any real backlash from the international community, or be largely left to their own devices, free to carry out their genocide of the Jews with little to no repercussions?

 

[Apollo 20]

In that case, wouldn't it be far easier to simply make conditions so intolerable for German Jews that they are forced to emigrate? The Nazis were rather squeamish about conducting that project inside Germany; this is why the exterminations were conducted in Poland and the conquered territories of the east.

 

[Thon Taddeo]

Half of Germany's Jewish population had fled by 1939. During the 1930s, Nazi policy was to make life intolerable for Jews, making them want to emigrate, not to exterminate them. Considering the international condemnation that Kristallnacht aroused, I doubt anyone in the Nazi government would seriously consider killing all the Jews. It took the war, and especially the radicalization caused by the Eastern front, for the Nazis to move from persecution to mass murder.

 

[Sam R.]

Well the POD is obviously that intentionalists were right all along and that the “escalation” cycle that scholars like Hilberg observed wasn’t in fact determinate.

So given that the actual causes are off the table, whatever you prefer given that this is ASB territory.

 

[Zachariah]

Well the POD is obviously that intentionalists were right all along and that the “escalation” cycle that scholars like Hilberg observed wasn’t in fact determinate.

So given that the actual causes are off the table, whatever you prefer given that this is ASB territory.

Actually, no it isn't. I'm asking for people's opinions on what the Holocaust would be like in such a TL. Of course, it wouldn't be OTL's Holocaust; and the death toll wouldn't be comparable even in the worst case scenario, without the Nazi occupations of other nations' territories and the culling of their 'undesirable' populations. But even if the majority are simply stripped of their possessions and forced to emigrate by making life intolerable for them, with TTL's Nazi Germany's "Answer to the Jewish Question" being similar to Idi Amin's Uganda's "Answer to the Indian Question", it'd still be ethnic cleansing, and hence genocidal in nature. And judging by the precedent of Kristallnacht, thousands, possibly tens of thousands, would still likely be killed in the process.

 

[Enigmajones]

In that case, wouldn't it be far easier to simply make conditions so intolerable for German Jews that they are forced to emigrate? The Nazis were rather squeamish about conducting that project inside Germany; this is why the exterminations were conducted in Poland and the conquered territories of the east.

It was also because the conquered territory had a huge population of Jews at the time.

 

[JamesBond88]

From what I know there was also some level of profit extraction going on with the concentration/labor camps. Without the war there wouldn't much need for a war economy, and hence the profit motive for mass imprisonment wouldn't be there. There'd be less, if any, roundups for sure.

 

[Sam R.]

Your use of “genocide” is idiosyncratic, “
Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part ; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and]
forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."” ( http://www.un.org/ar/preventgenocide/adviser/pdf/osapg_analysis_framework.pdf )

You’re also overloading “holocaust,” severely. You’ll want to read Hilberg on the NSDAP elite’s horror at kristallnacht as a failure. In particular the outrage at the destruction of property slated for aryanisation and the general outrage at the disorderly nature of the pogrom.

 

[sloreck]

The Germans would have been happy simply to throw out all the Jews, and those they considered Jewish (converts and those with between 1/4 & 1/8 Jewish ancestry), until the war started (and they acquired a lot of Jews in conquered territory). Of course those Jews would leave essentially all their assets as well as the clothes they could not pack in 2 suitcases behind. The difficulty was that the rest of the world was not willing to let the Jews of Germany/Austria in, so the issue is what happens. The Germans did revoke citizenship of those Jews who had immigrated, expelling them back to where they came from (Poland or elsewhere), but in some cases those countries refused to accept them leaving them literally in a no-mans land in the open. I expect some of the Jews will manage to leave, the others will gradually starve or be killed, but more like the T4 program rather than full on death camps...

Of course sending "criminals" to KZLs with 20 year sentences will "work" those folks to death in short order.

 

[BlondieBC]

The figures that I have seen indicated that around 400K of 500K Germans Jews left Germany before WW2 started. They could keep 10% of their assets and avoid persecution if they left. In any scenario where before Poland is invaded, I would expect the mass of Jews to be driven out by the slow moving ethnic cleansing.

 

[Falecius]

The premise is probably impossible, or at least very implausible. It's hard to see the Nazis staying in power in Germany for long without annexations and, down on the road, war. It may be argued that for the Nazis, war itself was the entire point of being in power.
However, a somehow "pacifist" Nazi Germany would likely manage to become Judenrei in a couple decades, mostly through more or less forcible expulsion. As noted, this would clearly include state-sanctioned violence, but people would likely mostly escape, as opposed to be killed/starved/worked to death by the millions.
Large numbers of German Jews who were deported and killed IOTL would manage to emigrate. Absent war, Nazi Germany would probably not create a full extermination apparatus for the ones who choose to remain anyway, but might enact very nasty policies against them anyway. Forced labor, expropriations, imprisonment and yes, possibly mass killings too. It would not amount to anything close to OTL's Holocaust, but it would be seriously horrible.

 

[sloreck]

Another possibility, for the dwindling number of Jews left, is mandatory sterilization. This was done for the half black male Germans (children of German women and black French troops after WWI, mentally challenged folks who were not bad off enough for the T4 program and others. The eugenics movement had not been discredited like it was OTL by Nazi actions, so the international "upset" over this would be muted compared to actual execution. Sterilization of males is quick and easy (vasectomy), and even castration is a simple procedure. Doing the latter under "racial hygiene" as well as to "prevent the male Jewish threat to German womanhood" would both encourage Jewish emigration and also mean diminuition to zero numbers over a relatively short time.

 

[DaveBC]

The premise is probably impossible, or at least very implausible. It's hard to see the Nazis staying in power in Germany for long without annexations and, down on the road, road. It may be argued that for the Nazis, war itself was the entire point of being in power.
However, a somehow "pacifist" Nazi Germany would likely manage to become Judenrei in a couple decades, mostly through more or less forcible expulsion. As noted, this would clearly include state-sanctioned violence, but people would likely mostly escape, as opposed to be killed/starved/worked to death by the millions.
Large numbers of German Jews who were deported and killed IOTL would manage to emigrate. Absent war, Nazi Germany would probably not create a full extermination apparatus for the ones who choose to remain anyway, but might enact very nasty policies against them anyway. Forced labor, expropriations, imprisonment and yes, possibly mass killings too. It would not amount to anything close to OTL's Holocaust, but it would be seriously horrible.

I agree with this. It's worth the context that the Nazis are not just about getting rid of Jews. Its one Germany for all Germans. It's all of a piece - bringing in the Germans from other countries, getting the living space, and purging the undesired people.

Wandering quite a long ways from real history now, it's probably possible to imagine the Nazis keeping that core ideology but just at the level of rhetoric as opposed to practical politics, either because they only get power through some more limited coalition arrangement, or what have you. That way there wouldn't be a World War II. But if they were going to be that pragmatic and toned-down in general, then they probably wouldn't want to invest so much energy into the Holocaust either. All or nothing really.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

It’s called the Final Solution for a reason.

 

[Gabingston]

Don't judge the past by the standards of today...
Amen, my brother