While I certainly agree with most of your post, I think you are giving us (humanity) too much credit in ascribing that title only to the Nazi state. The Mongols for example, though they did not do it out of any particular hatred, are estimated to have killed over 40 million people (about 5% of the world population at the time). Entire cities, including some of the largest and greatest of their era, were completely destroyed. Purely as a war to keep people in line, and stop others from resisting. There are others, though perhaps with lesser body count, that could be used as examples as well. Anyone is capable of any evil act, if they can justify it to themselves. And we are very good salesmen when it comes to ourselves.
How was Nazi occupation of France different to colonisation?
- Thread starter Tanc49
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Deleted member 1487
His argument is it was inspired by US practices, not equivalent to them.
@CalBear
I am not sure. How would you differentiate the old Akkadian notion of expansion with that of the Nazi era genocides? It would seem to me, that in many ways, the Assyrian state especially maintained at least a dogma of genocide and devastation as a moral good fro much longer periods of times than the Nazi regime. Further, if I am not mistaken, the Nazi party cadre attempted to hide these exterminations beneath the public eye, in other words, they did not use the Holocaust as an example of propaganda. Meanwhile, in Assyria, ready practice of mass slaughter was seen as not only accepted, but was a moral good according to the will of the elite's and religious dogma.
Such bloodletting propaganda was common and was within the Akkadian cosmological understanding. Wherein, the only 'humans' were those who lived within Mesopotamia and practiced the harsh agriculturalism of the Uruk period. This message of supremacy entailed for the Assyrians after 1480 BCE, a elite propaganda, that claimed readily and bragged widely about genocide. Claims were made akin to 'hunting the people of Nairi like gazelles' making thus the comparison that these peoples were little more than prey whose humanity was irrelevant to the mission of expansion and replacement. In this period from 1480-1260 BCE, the Assyrian kings would exterminate nearby pastoralist peoples as a matter of dogma. This was meeted out especially to neighboring peoples who did not practice the same type of agriculture or government to Assyria.
Mario Liverani, the preeminent Assyriologist of Italy, notes a trend. Assyrian state apparatus would seek submission form a people, if there was a pause in the thought process, the people in question were to either be exterminated or enslaved. The discrepancy in that the people who paused, typically were societies that lacked central governments and the Assyrian state dogma, as an exporter of authoritarianism, considered people who lacked kings to be 'non-humans' (the term was literally, 'denizen, are you human?').
Over time, this level of radicalism declined. Under Shalmaneser I (1264-1233 BCE), the Assyrian kings begin to add enslavement to their punishments to sinning folk alongside extermination. Increasingly, this becomes the more common situation in regards to punishments. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the Assyrian state dogma did revolve around a form of what we may call, genocidal tendency and cultural destruction. It did so further, without any veil upon it nor without a notion of civilizing. Indeed, the justification was simply that the 'weak serve the strong' or that it was ordered by the Great Gods, who decreed such things. Subconsciously, it was rooted perhaps in the experience of the Uruk civilization prior, which by all accounts acted as a sort of hyper-expansionist agricultural zones, pushing back and replacing through warfare earlier and more traditional farming villages. Thus, the battle for land and resources.
I am not sure. How would you differentiate the old Akkadian notion of expansion with that of the Nazi era genocides? It would seem to me, that in many ways, the Assyrian state especially maintained at least a dogma of genocide and devastation as a moral good fro much longer periods of times than the Nazi regime. Further, if I am not mistaken, the Nazi party cadre attempted to hide these exterminations beneath the public eye, in other words, they did not use the Holocaust as an example of propaganda. Meanwhile, in Assyria, ready practice of mass slaughter was seen as not only accepted, but was a moral good according to the will of the elite's and religious dogma.
Such bloodletting propaganda was common and was within the Akkadian cosmological understanding. Wherein, the only 'humans' were those who lived within Mesopotamia and practiced the harsh agriculturalism of the Uruk period. This message of supremacy entailed for the Assyrians after 1480 BCE, a elite propaganda, that claimed readily and bragged widely about genocide. Claims were made akin to 'hunting the people of Nairi like gazelles' making thus the comparison that these peoples were little more than prey whose humanity was irrelevant to the mission of expansion and replacement. In this period from 1480-1260 BCE, the Assyrian kings would exterminate nearby pastoralist peoples as a matter of dogma. This was meeted out especially to neighboring peoples who did not practice the same type of agriculture or government to Assyria.
Mario Liverani, the preeminent Assyriologist of Italy, notes a trend. Assyrian state apparatus would seek submission form a people, if there was a pause in the thought process, the people in question were to either be exterminated or enslaved. The discrepancy in that the people who paused, typically were societies that lacked central governments and the Assyrian state dogma, as an exporter of authoritarianism, considered people who lacked kings to be 'non-humans' (the term was literally, 'denizen, are you human?').
Over time, this level of radicalism declined. Under Shalmaneser I (1264-1233 BCE), the Assyrian kings begin to add enslavement to their punishments to sinning folk alongside extermination. Increasingly, this becomes the more common situation in regards to punishments. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the Assyrian state dogma did revolve around a form of what we may call, genocidal tendency and cultural destruction. It did so further, without any veil upon it nor without a notion of civilizing. Indeed, the justification was simply that the 'weak serve the strong' or that it was ordered by the Great Gods, who decreed such things. Subconsciously, it was rooted perhaps in the experience of the Uruk civilization prior, which by all accounts acted as a sort of hyper-expansionist agricultural zones, pushing back and replacing through warfare earlier and more traditional farming villages. Thus, the battle for land and resources.
Nazi Germany was, more so than any other group, malevolence and brutality personified.
Generalplan Ost alone (not to mention creating literal murder factories never before seen that killed 3+ million people) cements that.
Any group that can plan the death and enslavement of 100+ million people down to the exact percentages (65% of Ukrainians, 85% of Poles etc) in the same document as building kindergartens, community centers, farms and telephone lines can only be describe as demonic without the horns and tail.
Nazi control of Western Europe would have been similar (if not worse) to the Warsaw Pact dominated by the USSR. Think puppet states instead of colonies (though certain parts would be directly annexed to the Reich proper). Were Hungary and Poland colonized by the USSR?
They would have had their own “independent” governments and militaries (approved by Hitler and his inner circle of course) but would be heavily exploited with every aspect of life controlled and approved by Nazi officials serving in an “advisory” role. Like in AANW they would be heavily brainwashed and educated to believe in Nazism and that Germany is the rightful master of Europe.
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You know, these are hood, informative posts. I want to give a like. But like just shouldn’t be applied to the subject matter. So I will quote them instead
Without completely derailing this into yet another discussion regarding the depths of depravity the Reich sank to...
You actually have a element that is extremely important in your comment
emphasis added
This is a REALLY important distinction. While the hope may well have been that there would be hesitation that would allow the authorities put everyone to the sword, there was still an opportunity to submit, to avoid the blood-letting. That did not exist in the case of those marked for "special handling" by the Reich. There was nothing that could be done, non-believers or Christian converts, military veterans (including holds of the highest Imperial German decorations for valor), toddlers and infants, were simply sent to their horrific fate simply by being born as a Jew or Roma. The individual, neighborhood, town, ghetto, had no choice, not even the opportunity to hesitate. The were doomed.
I understand that point. However, it was somewhat tongue and cheek (the request of submission) admittedly when you understand that the Assyrian cosmological mindset. But that will derail the thread. I hope that the contribution was worth it to readers, despite the large discrepancy in time period.
Back to the OP how would you characterize Western Europe in the event of a Nazi victory?
Would you agree with my previous post that it would be comparable to the Warsaw Pact?
If not how would it differ?
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Formally, , France remained in 1940 an independent country, the Vichy government having jurisdiction not only over the Zone Libre but--theoretically--over the Occupied Zone as well.
Deleted member 90563
I think the only ones that even come close to what the Germans did in the occupied areas and their concentration camps, were the Japanese and what they were doing in China at that same time, especially wrt unit 731. What some of their victims went through would be like actually experiencing the most disturbing horror films in existence.
What are your sources on this? Alsace-Lorraine is a bad example as it didn't become French till 1648 and the French didn't colonize it as German dialect remained and remains the spoken language! Or it was some very subtle form of colonization where the colonizers assumed the language of the oppressed!
As to the Volga Germans these as I understand it was invited to increase the agricultural output of the region not to displace locals though that may have been intend or a sideeffect which rulers of the day and age didn't care much about.
Vikings in England and Normandy didn't make those areas Danish/Norse-speaking though they did settle there in some numbers.
I would assume the German/Danish crusading on the Southern Baltic shore would be the one issue that comes closer to your arguement though the Danish impact didn't last and only the Germans seem to have really COLONISED the area by replacing the original population thus in another way than the 18.-19. century way of colonization which didn't entail a huge migration from the mothercountry to the colonies. The Dutch settlers in Cape Colony possibly the execption - Australia by undesirables.
Regarding Denmark(-Norway) with which I'm familiar the King often, as in the case of Catherine the Great, invited peoples in - Dutch for hortoculture and later artisans, Hugenots for agriculture, Sephardic Jews for economy - adding to this other desirables that was deemed of the right confession or that would be an economic or other benefit to the country(ies).
Colonization in the Ancient world seems to have been establishing a tradepost in a foreign land to extract riches for the establisher. Like the Roman settlement in Germanic lands that ended up being named Köln (Colonia/Cologne). Seems to me the 18.-19. century colonization followed essentially or at least at the outset that pattern.
The huge migration to North America, Dutch to Cape Colony were exceptions to the rule but those that seems to define the OP.
I think we don't traditionally think of it as colonisation as we don't usually think of western "white" countries as being colonised, and the Germans were beaten and withdrew within a few years. But I'm pretty sure it would have ended up looking like colonisation pretty quickly if that hadn't happened. Plus all the Nazi specific targeted killings on top of that.
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Deleted member 1487
Less than half the population speaks the Alsatian dialect, which also is a partially French dialect as well. Plus it's not unusual for settlers to learn the language the local majority and adapt to the culture in the region to fit in, especially if the conquering country retains the existing power structures for some time to make ruling it easier, which appears to have been the case at least somewhat until the French Revolution.What are your sources on this? Alsace-Lorraine is a bad example as it didn't become French till 1648 and the French didn't colonize it as German dialect remained and remains the spoken language! Or it was some very subtle form of colonization where the colonizers assumed the language of the oppressed!
Alsace - Wikipedia
Alsace–Lorraine - Wikipedia
I've actually heard quite a few academics who study the Holocaust discuss and interpret Nazi colonial expansion within the framework of the European colonial projects brought home. It's not quite as controversial a notion within the field as one would think reading this thread, there's a bunch of papers and some books written on the subject, this is certainly already an established viewpoint in studies of Nazi Germany and has been since at least when Hannah Arendt wrote on it.
This is the only open access piece I could find on it but it's quite long and goes into excellent depth on the colonial continuity and arguments related to it.
Also I disagree with the idea that Nazi expansion differed sharply from colonial
practice because there wasn't a history of "planned mass exterminations of a population on a modern scale." Only 40 years before the Holocaust, the most glaring example committed by Germany itself in its colonies was the extermination of the Herero and Nama peoples in Namibia. A brutal war of annihilation was ordered and men, women, and children were all murdered on a large scale. In the words of the commanding General Trotha, "I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated, or, if this was not possible by tactical measures, have to be expelled from the country ..." Mass starvation, concentration camps, and indiscriminate slaughter by military personnel were all features of this genocide. It's hard to argue that these experiences had no weight towards later Nazi plans for the wiping out of so called "undesirables." It's also probably worth noting that it's accepted wisdom in the field of Holocaust studies that the initial plan wasn't always direct and wholesale industrial slaughter, but rather that option was chosen on an ad-hoc basis with factors such as the unfeasibility of expulsion and cost-benefit analysis leading ultimately to the road of annihilating of the Jewish, Roma, Slavic, etc. peoples. It wasn't the intention from the get-go to make such a sharp break with European colonial history and simply murder everyone on a coordinated industrial scale, that was a development of the many factors that evolved as the war progressed into what we know as the "Final Solution." There's many other arguments to be made in favor of thesis, but this was the one that stood out to me particularly given the nature of the German colonial experience.
This is the only open access piece I could find on it but it's quite long and goes into excellent depth on the colonial continuity and arguments related to it.
Also I disagree with the idea that Nazi expansion differed sharply from colonial
practice because there wasn't a history of "planned mass exterminations of a population on a modern scale." Only 40 years before the Holocaust, the most glaring example committed by Germany itself in its colonies was the extermination of the Herero and Nama peoples in Namibia. A brutal war of annihilation was ordered and men, women, and children were all murdered on a large scale. In the words of the commanding General Trotha, "I believe that the nation as such should be annihilated, or, if this was not possible by tactical measures, have to be expelled from the country ..." Mass starvation, concentration camps, and indiscriminate slaughter by military personnel were all features of this genocide. It's hard to argue that these experiences had no weight towards later Nazi plans for the wiping out of so called "undesirables." It's also probably worth noting that it's accepted wisdom in the field of Holocaust studies that the initial plan wasn't always direct and wholesale industrial slaughter, but rather that option was chosen on an ad-hoc basis with factors such as the unfeasibility of expulsion and cost-benefit analysis leading ultimately to the road of annihilating of the Jewish, Roma, Slavic, etc. peoples. It wasn't the intention from the get-go to make such a sharp break with European colonial history and simply murder everyone on a coordinated industrial scale, that was a development of the many factors that evolved as the war progressed into what we know as the "Final Solution." There's many other arguments to be made in favor of thesis, but this was the one that stood out to me particularly given the nature of the German colonial experience.
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Military occupations during war and long term colonization are different things. The Nazis definitely planned to colonize Eastern Europe however.