In a Nazi victory how much knowledge would the German public have on the Holocaust?

[machine3589]

I said if we have to say that the Nazis had one single reason for their existence, it would be world domination, not exterminating the Jews.

"World domination" is a very specific thing. If you'd said they wanted to dominate Europe and re-shape it into their image, fine, that'd be correct, but you specified "World Domination". That is a lot harder to prove.

It's correct to say they wanted to exterminate the Jews, it's not correct to say that it's the entire reason for their existence.

So your whole point in replying to me was to engage in a pointless display of pedanticism?

The point was that the Nazis really cared about exterminating the Jews, more so than most other things they set their minds to, and if they didn't brag about that than Hades' idea on how they would behave with Generalplan Ost doesn't hold water.

Then I don't need to give citations on how deeply they wanted to exterminate the Gypsy or Polish populations.

You said "World Domination". That is what I want you to cite. I can be pedantic too.

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

"World domination" is a very specific thing. If you'd said they wanted to dominate Europe and re-shape it into their image, fine, that'd be correct, but you specified "World Domination". That is a lot harder to prove.

So your whole point in replying to me was to engage in a pointless display of pedanticism?

The point was that the Nazis really cared about exterminating the Jews, more so than most other things they set their minds to, and if they didn't brag about that than Hades' idea on how they would behave with Generalplan Ost doesn't hold water.

You said "World Domination". That is what I want you to cite. I can be pedantic too.

I said that if you had to say they were entirely about one thing, it would be world domination, not exterminating Jews.

My first response to your post was saying just what you are saying in this latest post, that exterminating the Jews was not the entire reason for the existence of the Nazi party.

 

[Wendigo]

snip

What Hades said and what I said are two similar but different things. I said that the Holocaust and the ongoing extermination of the Slavs would be public knowledge. He stated that it would be bragged about/glorified/celebrated. At least in reference to the genocide of the Slavic race.

I'm NOT saying that they would have festivals celebrating Auschwitz and Treblinka but that since the elimination of Jewry was a goal (not the only goal mind you) of the Nazis it's reasonable to say that the "annihilation" of Jewry would be mentioned even if just occasionally in propaganda and public speeches by Reich officials in the event of total victory in Europe. They did it IOTL often vaguely when the task wasn't completed so why would they stop when they've WON? They aren't scared of what the US and Britain will say about them in their newspapers. The Reich didn't care what others thought most of the time because they were genuine true believers in Nazism. Why should you hide what you're doing when you've already won and there's nothing any outside party can do to change that?

The extermination of Slavs would be common knowledge since millions of them would be transported to the Inner Reich and Western Europe as slave laborers annually, many of their jobs requiring German oversight or for them to work in the open (construction, roadwork, other manual/dirty jobs.) This all happened IOTL just on a smaller scale and not as deadly.

The German populace was used to seeing malnourished slave laborers (there were over 8 million slave laborers in 1944 or one fifth of the total Reich workforce) and Generalplan Ost clearly called for reduction of the Slavs through overwork, disease, and starvation so logically the German populace would have actual evidence that Slavs were being worked to death regularly. It would be about as normal and a fact of life as slaves on plantations in the pre Civil War American South were.

Would the extermination of Slavs be an explicit policy known to the public? Yes.

Would the German populace care much about what happens to "untermensch" and "vermin"? Hell no. Non Aryans existed to serve the Aryan race either through subjugation, enslavement, or death. This was explicit political doctrine going all the back to Mein Kampf in 1925.

Would the puppet governments of France, Belgium, Norway etc know that the Slavs were being slowly but surely wittled into oblivion through various means? Most likely considering that millions of laborers would be worked to death there as well (Atlantic Wall won't build itself).

Would the threat of their nation being turned into a charnel house/depopulated wasteland like Eastern Europe be used by the Reich to get their "allies" to follow orders? Probably. The governments of Western Europe will be pretty much over a barrel considering that the Wehrmacht/Waffen SS is the most powerful military force on the continent.

When you see a few hundred malnourished souls getting herded into a coal mine by overseers armed with clubs and whips (either civilians or SS) near your house on Monday and then when Sunday comes more than half of those workers don't come back at all and the survivors resemble skeletons, you're going to put 2 and 2 together. It's hard to deny mass murder when you can see the target group drop like flies right in front of your face.

A good question is why WOULDN'T the Reich admit their genocidal policies to their increasingly indoctrinated population? National Socialism, the Nazi Party, the SS, Hitler, and Hitler's inner circle were proven right because they won the war and achieved continental hegemony. Lebensraum and the Germanization of the East were explicit goals of Hitler and his henchmen and they knew that millions of Germans supported those policies as well. Hitler explicitly told his military high command on several occasions that the war against the Soviet Union was a "war of annihilation" between the "Master Race" and the Jewish led subhuman Slavic-Asiatic hordes.

In the event of a complete victory and the occupation of Europe from France to Norway to Greece to the Urals, they would double down on National Socialist ideology and doctrine because it was the entire POINT of the war. Not only was it the entire point of the war, the German populace would be convinced that Nazism was the reason why they won in the first place. This combined with the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls plus other brainwashing/indoctrination programs means that as time goes on an ever increasing portion of the public (particularly those who can't remember when Hitler wasn't the Führer or young adults) will become Nazi zealots who practically worship Hitler and the Party and see the extermination and enslavement of Jews/Roma/handicapped/gays/Slavs as something that is necessary or even good for the prosperity of the Aryan race.

 

[Tallil2long]

How do you explain the millions of slave laborers toiling and dying across German Occupied Europe on a regular basis many of whom would clearly be seen in public?

You don't. You simply don't let anyone know the numbers involved.

Sure, it'll be obvious that a lot of victims are involved. Sure, it'll be obvious that they are starving and abused. It'll be presumed that many die.

But if you can't gather statistics on just how many there are, and if you can't prove how many of those die, there's still plenty of room for denial.

Across an area the size of Occupied Europe, there's room to spread many millions of starving slave workers. There won't be that many in any one place; the bodies can be "discreetly" disposed of; and nobody will be able to gather accurate statistics from the whole.

And I very much suspect that most would be worked to death in the East. Germany itself wouldn't need 50 million (or more) slave workers for her own industries, for instance.

(cont.)

 

[Tallil2long]

(cont.)

Consider an example.

In one region, let us say, there are 50 industrial concerns and construction projects using slave labor.

How many laborers are used at any one time in all these companies/projects?

By interviewing several hundred eyewitnesses, you can probably get a fair idea through anecdotal evidence. But how will you get access to the witnesses, and why would they speak to you?

And although by this means you could form a "snapshot" view, it probably would just let you know that, say, 50,000 slave laborers were present at any one time over, say, 5 years. But does that represent a total of perhaps 60,000 laborers, each laboring for several years? Or is it 400,000, each laboring for a few months?

Most of your anecdotal witnesses won't be able to say, even if accessible and willing to speak honestly.

You'd have to interview dozens of bosses and officials to form a good estimate; and these certainly won't talk to you.

Perhaps you could inspect all the administrative records. But how will you get access to these? And it would be a relatively simple measure for the Nazi authoritie to order periodic destruction of records.

Even if you somehow determine a high turnover rate, how do you prove what happens to the workers at the point they disappear from work? The Nazis will claim that they just got sent somewhere else. If most are killed in access-controlled camps and their bodies destroyed, you'll have to meticulously gather anecdotal evidence from hundreds or thousands more people (who won't be accessible to you, or willing to talk). Or else you'll need administrative records (which won't be accessible to you, and have probably been destroyed).

And this is all for just ONE RELATIVELY SMALL REGION of Occupied Europe. You'd have to repeat the investigative process dozens or hundreds of times in order to form a solid overall estimate.

Or maybe you somehow get honest testimony from national-level organizers and administrators. How?
Or maybe you can see the administrative records -- probably tons of them. How do you get access to these, assuming they, too, haven't been purged?

Nauseating as it is to contemplate all this, in a Nazi victory scenario, you can be convinced all you want that the Nazis starved, worked to death, and executed scores or even hundreds of millions. But getting any real evidentiary handle on the true scale of the atrocity will be extremely difficult, and quite likely impossible.

Especially in the chaos left after the war: Communications systems broken; entire cities reduced to rubble with populations dispersed; family and community links broken; records destroyed or seized by the Nazis; many millions displaced, wandering about, living in refugee camps, or squatting amid the ruins, without known identity or records being kept.

Sure, lots of people will "know" what the Nazis are doing. But they will be able to PROVE only tiny bits of the whole. Until and unless the Nazi regime falls and a continent-wide investigation is instituted, and even then good luck getting many witnesses to admit what they've seen or done, or in finding damning unpurged records.

 

[machine3589]

I said that if you had to say they were entirely about one thing, it would be world domination, not exterminating Jews.

My first response to your post was saying just what you are saying in this latest post, that exterminating the Jews was not the entire reason for the existence of the Nazi party.

So your whole reason to reply to me really was just pointless pedanticism. Good to know.

 

[Abradolf Lincler]

Even in OTL the German people most likely new about the holocaust. Yes the Nazis always said that the Jews and other victims were going east to work but the riechsbahn (the German national railway) which moved the victims to the concentration camps employed 1.2 million Germans i find it hard to believe that these 1.2 million people did not realize what was going on when millions of people where packed into rail cars like cattle and when those cars came back they where filled only with the same clothes the Jews were wearing. So if the Nazis somehow were able to win the war most German citizens would have full knowledge of the holocaust and it would probably be celebrated as the Nazis greatest achievement.

 

[Jürgen]

I image that the post War view of the Holocaust will either be:

"It didn't happen, and they deserved it" (the Turkish view of the Armenian Genocide)

or

"It happen,but it's the past, let the dead rest"

But in general it's something anyone looking into it knows about, even if they don't know detail. But it won't be part of pop-culture knowledge. So more or less all German posters on that world's Alternatehistory.com will know about, while the average German on the street doesn't know about it.

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

So your whole reason to reply to me really was just pointless pedanticism. Good to know.

Not at all. I was responding to your post where you said that the Nazis entire reason for existence was to exterminate the Jews. It seems that we both agree it wasn't.

 

[Wendigo]

(cont.)

Consider an example.

In one region, let us say, there are 50 industrial concerns and construction projects using slave labor.

How many laborers are used at any one time in all these companies/projects?

By interviewing several hundred eyewitnesses, you can probably get a fair idea through anecdotal evidence. But how will you get access to the witnesses, and why would they speak to you?

And although by this means you could form a "snapshot" view, it probably would just let you know that, say, 50,000 slave laborers were present at any one time over, say, 5 years. But does that represent a total of perhaps 60,000 laborers, each laboring for several years? Or is it 400,000, each laboring for a few months?

Most of your anecdotal witnesses won't be able to say, even if accessible and willing to speak honestly.

You'd have to interview dozens of bosses and officials to form a good estimate; and these certainly won't talk to you.

Perhaps you could inspect all the administrative records. But how will you get access to these? And it would be a relatively simple measure for the Nazi authoritie to order periodic destruction of records.

Even if you somehow determine a high turnover rate, how do you prove what happens to the workers at the point they disappear from work? The Nazis will claim that they just got sent somewhere else. If most are killed in access-controlled camps and their bodies destroyed, you'll have to meticulously gather anecdotal evidence from hundreds or thousands more people (who won't be accessible to you, or willing to talk). Or else you'll need administrative records (which won't be accessible to you, and have probably been destroyed).

And this is all for just ONE RELATIVELY SMALL REGION of Occupied Europe. You'd have to repeat the investigative process dozens or hundreds of times in order to form a solid overall estimate.

Or maybe you somehow get honest testimony from national-level organizers and administrators. How?
Or maybe you can see the administrative records -- probably tons of them. How do you get access to these, assuming they, too, haven't been purged?

Nauseating as it is to contemplate all this, in a Nazi victory scenario, you can be convinced all you want that the Nazis starved, worked to death, and executed scores or even hundreds of millions. But getting any real evidentiary handle on the true scale of the atrocity will be extremely difficult, and quite likely impossible.

Especially in the chaos left after the war: Communications systems broken; entire cities reduced to rubble with populations dispersed; family and community links broken; records destroyed or seized by the Nazis; many millions displaced, wandering about, living in refugee camps, or squatting amid the ruins, without known identity or records being kept.

Sure, lots of people will "know" what the Nazis are doing. But they will be able to PROVE only tiny bits of the whole. Until and unless the Nazi regime falls and a continent-wide investigation is instituted, and even then good luck getting many witnesses to admit what they've seen or done, or in finding damning unpurged records.

You're absolutely correct but can you explain why would the Reich deny their treatment of the Slavs to the German populace in the first place? The whole point of the war which was spoken about privately and publicly was to clear the East for Aryan settlement and the "cleansing" of the native subhuman populations both Jewish and Slavic.

Every German knew as a matter of fact why the Reich invaded the USSR. A large portion of Germans were dedicated Nazi true believers who believed that Slavs were animals and barbarians who should be killed or enslaved. This would only increase as time went on and the Hitler Youth/League of German Girls/Nazi education system started pumping out brainwashed fanatics by the millions. The quality of life that your average Reich citizen would enjoy would be built off the backs of millions of dead slave laborers and the plundering of the Eastern Territories and for the most part they would have no issue with it out of either indoctrination or fear that the Gestapo will pay them and their family a visit.

The Reich never denied that they were on a crusade of race based conquest and destruction in the East and Poland. Why would they change their tune after the war is won? I doubt they would care what British and American newspapers print about them.

I can imagine Himmler or Hitler or Goebbels saying to a crowd of adoring Reich citizens:

"Yes we're exterminating the Slavs. So what? They're vermin and untermensch and their fate is necessary for the survival of our race and our 1000 Year Reich."

Followed by massive applause.

 

[jmc247]

I image that the post War view of the Holocaust will either be:

"It didn't happen, and they deserved it" (the Turkish view of the Armenian Genocide)

or

"It happen,but it's the past, let the dead rest"

But in general it's something anyone looking into it knows about, even if they don't know detail. But it won't be part of pop-culture knowledge. So more or less all German posters on that world's Alternatehistory.com will know about, while the average German on the street doesn't know about it.

Assuming Germany reverts to something akin to Putin style authoritarianism in time then I agree. I am sure the Russians here know about Stalin's terror famines killing millions, but does the average Russian on the street? Most likely not.

Obviously some here are assuming Germany goes hyper Totilitianian after Hitler and you have someone like Himmler or more extreme and there were a few of them at the time in Germany. But, if Germany wins because Britian bails after a disaster at Dunkirk and Germany rolls over the Soviet Union which breaks into a civil war then you aren't apt to see a 10 million man SS Army take over from the German Army. The Heer exists and becomes more politicized in time, but upon Hitler's death the SS isn't apt to have the upper hand after if they try to assume the throne.

Now a Germany where the war in the East lasts until the mid to late 40s with no the war in the West (which ended in 1940) that is a different animal. You actually might have there the Nazi Party's revolutionary army become the army of the state and have the final say over who replaces Hitler.

 

[Tallil2long]

You're absolutely correct but can you explain why would the Reich deny their treatment of the Slavs to the German populace in the first place? The whole point of the war which was spoken about privately and publicly was to clear the East for Aryan settlement and the "cleansing" of the native subhuman populations both Jewish and Slavic.

Snip.

Because there's no reason to.

They won't pretend to have been nice to the Slavs. There simply isn't any point to publicly stating "As of noon today, we have shot or worked to death 162,544,209 Slavs. Stay tuned for the next update!"

The point was to take land, clear it of Slavs, and give it to Aryans; and to prove the supposed superiority of the Race.

Trumpeting the deliberate slaughter of scores of millions adds nothing to the message of Success. The supposed point is made without it. Besides... people will pretty much know without it being said.

And not trumpeting the scale of the horror eases interactions with other nations. Even for a Nazi regime, this would have some value.

Wendigo, you might be right. I can't say with absolute assurance that the Nazis would try to keep the actual scale of the thing secret. But I really do believe that they would.

 

[Wendigo]

Wendigo, you might be right. I can't say with absolute assurance that the Nazis would try to keep the actual scale of the thing secret. But I really do believe that they would.

But you do believe that racism, anti Semitism, and contempt of other races would be taught as a part of the Reich's official education system right?

 

[sloreck]

The extermination of the Jews, making any place run by the Nazis Judenfrei, would have been openly celebrated. There was a plan for a museum in Prague for "a vanished race" there was a collection of Torahs, menorahs, and many other ritual items in a warehouse which would have been in the museum. Having said that, having made "Nazi-land" Judenfrei would be celebrated, however the details of the death camps would not be publicized. That was what Himmler was talking about when he said the story of the SS "heroism and sacrifice" would never be told. It's like the old aphorism about sausage making, people like the final product but the process...

As far as what is happening to the Slavs in the east, in reality once postwar reconstruction which requires a lot of pick and shovel grunt labor is over, you won't see large numbers of Slav slaves in the settled parts of Großdeutschland. Further east a lot of the death by starvation will be out of sight, and to the extent there are death camps it will be treated like the Jews (and Roma, and homosexuals, etc). The folks who will be closest to all that death will be the military forces and the settlers and for both of them the attitude will be like most of the military and settlers in the American west. No lost love for the savages being cleared so that those who deserve the land can occupy it. Of course stories will leak out about the death camps, the massive deaths from starvation, and perhaps the expenditure of slaves by labor in the east. Official records and statistics most certainly will not be generally released. To the extent records are not destroyed when a camp closes shop, they will be locked up for quite some time not unlike what many governments due with documents held for 50-100 years (or in the case of the Vatican much, much longer).

Most Germans, as OTL, will do their best NOT to let word of these things linger in their heads, but consciously purge them. To the extent these events become part of history it will be the inevitable march of the superior (aryan) race over the inferior Jewish, Slavic, etc races - Social Darwinism in action. Also note that Nazi propaganda represnted Jews and to a lesser extent Slavs as equivalents to infective organisms, so who can be upset that you have eradicated or controlled germs.

 

[Tallil2long]

But you do believe that racism, anti Semitism, and contempt of other races would be taught as a part of the Reich's official education system right?

Absolutely.

 

[Max Sinister]

Austrian author Christine Nöstlinger told this story in one autobiographical book (she was a child then): Towards the end of the war, some man mentioned that he hoped that a Herr Goldberg or Goldstein would return (he worked for him before Hitler). She says that her uncle claimed that the Jews "would all go through the chimney". Yes, he was a radical nazi.

 

[Tallil2long]

Austrian author Christine Nöstlinger told this story in one autobiographical book (she was a child then): Towards the end of the war, some man mentioned that he hoped that a Herr Goldberg or Goldstein would return (he worked for him before Hitler). She says that her uncle claimed that the Jews "would all go through the chimney". Yes, he was a radical nazi.

And this sort of "common knowledge" would be widespread about the extermination of the Slavs, too.

But even as the Nazis didn't publicly chronicle the activities of Belzec, Sobibor, Chelmno and Treblinka, they won't publicize the effort to exterminate the Slavs.
There would be no need.

Of course the effect could not be hidden completely. But Stalin proved that the deaths of many millions of people do not necessarily present such a blatantly obvious picture to the world at large. Not when the State controls both physical access to, and information flow from, the affected regions.