Nazi victory: How would we remember the Holocaust compared to the genocide of the Slavs?

Nazi victory: How would we remember the Holocaust compared to the genocide of the Slavs?

  • Jewish Holocaust would still get more attention/study

    Votes: 10 16.4%
  • Slavic genocide would get more attention/study

    Votes: 29 47.5%
  • They'd get equal attention/study

    Votes: 22 36.1%

  • Total voters
    61

Wendigo

Banned
In an AANW scenario where the Reich has dominated the continent up to the Urals but is later defeated by the US/UK many years later, how would the Jewish Holocaust be remembered in comparison to the far larger genocide of the Slavs?

There were only around 9.5 million Jews in Reich occupied territory and once they were all dead within a few years of any Nazi victory (@CalBear had it completed by 1947) the Nazis would only have the Slavs to worry about. Generalplan Ost was far larger in scope, scale and horror than the Jewish Holocaust since there were over a hundred million Slavs designated for death through slave labor/starvation or enslavement as chattel serfs on German plantations in the East. Not only that but their cities, towns, and any trace that they existed would be destroyed and razed as well (by their own populations in a sick irony).

85% of Poles, 75% of Russians, 65% of Ukrainians, 50% of Czechs, Estonians, and Latvians, 85% of Lithuanians and 75% of Belarusians were to be killed and the survivors enslaved. If completed this would mean 80% of all Slavs would be dead. This would result in a death toll of around 115 MILLION people once the individual populations are added together. Eastern Europe would become Hell on Earth/the world's largest tomb. So even if they are HALF successful (depending on when the Allies invade) this would still mean 57.5 million deaths or 6x the amount of murdered Jews in Europe.

Once the Reich has been defeated/occupied and all the evidence of their crimes has been discovered and documented and trials are held, how would the genocide of the Jews compare to that of the Slavs in terms of museums, books, documentaries, and so on?

Would the Jewish Holocaust fall behind the Slavic genocide in public attention and knowledge, becoming a mere footnote in the Reich's body count? Or would they receive equal amounts of study by scholars and historians?
 
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I said equal attention only because you are forgetting the ENORMOUS number of Slavic Jews who would be included in both final numbers, the Pale of Settlement is huge. I also have a feeling that so many Ukrainians and Balts (Balts aren't Slavs in ANY fashion or definition by the way, so don't count them in your Slavic numbers please!) would be killed once things got under way. Ukrainians were huge collaborators, as were many Croatians, Serbs, and of course Bulgaria was an Axis nation. I think given the number of Jews in America, especially with German or Slavic national background, you're going to see both the Holocaust and the Slavic Ethnocide (not a genocide, they aren't a different race than Germans, and capital H Holocaust was coined to be for the Jewish Genocide, not originally for ANY ethno-racial murdering as it is popularly applied today with indiscriminate results where two African tribes of identical genetics and only a social-economic difference are called to be having a genocide or holocaust on the other)
 

Wendigo

Banned
I said equal attention only because you are forgetting the ENORMOUS number of Slavic Jews who would be included in both final numbers, the Pale of Settlement is huge. I also have a feeling that so many Ukrainians and Balts (Balts aren't Slavs in ANY fashion or definition by the way, so don't count them in your Slavic numbers please!) would be killed once things got under way.

The majority of Soviet Jews lived west of the Urals. Even if every Jew past the Urals was included to the rest of European Jews under occupation that was dead or soon to be, the death toll would be 11.5 - 12 million instead of 9.5 million. Not a substantial increase especially when compared to what was planned for Slavs.

Also the Nazis explicitly included Balts in their plans. Regardless of whether or not they were actually Slavs is besides the point, the Nazis BELIEVED they were Slavs or partially so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

Check the link. It explicitly says in the column of nations and the "percentage subject to removal" (Removal=Extermination):

Estonia: 50%
Latvia: 50%
Lithuania: 85%

Hitler and his inner circle weren't going to exclude the Balts because in their eyes they were just as subhuman as Ukrainians or Russians. It's insane and evil but that's how they thought.
 
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The majority of Soviet Jews lived west of the Urals. Even if every Jew past the Urals was included to the rest of European Jews under occupation that was dead or soon to be, the death toll would be 11.5 - 12 million instead of 9.5 million. Not a substantial increase especially when compared to what was planned for Slavs.

Also the Nazis explicitly included Balts in their plans. Regardless of whether or not they were actually Slavs is besides the point, the Nazis BELIEVED they were Slavs or partially so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

Check the link. It explicitly says in the column of nations and the "percentage subject to removal" (Removal=Extermination):

Estonia: 50%
Latvia: 50%
Lithuania: 85%

Hitler and his inner circle weren't going to exclude the Balts because in their eyes they were just as subhuman as Ukrainians or Russians. It's insane and evil but that's how they thought.

You don't seem to understand how few WWII plans were done according to plan, especially when it came to Nazis. I wasn't talking about past the Ural Mts... Generalplan Ost has nothing to do with anything east of the Urals, not to mention the number of Slavs east of the Urals wasn't all that great a number either, a thin line along the Urals and the Trans-Siberian RR. You're underestimating collaboration and realpolitik considerations. You're thinking that the Ost plan meant a bunch of Slavs east of the Urals then you're mistaken on many points. Exerpt from the very Wikipedia article (and please don't use Wikipedia as a source anymore!) "While the Baltic nations like Estonians would be spared from repressions and physical liquidation that Jews or Poles were experiencing, in the long term the Nazi planners did not foresee their existence as independent entitites and they would be deported as well, with eventual denationalisation" so you're "removal" you keep equating with murder is not murder, it is forced relocation and denationalism (ie- deprive them of a state, and make them culturally Germans, something Germans have been doing to Balts for thousands of years btw).
 
In a Nazi victory, They'd be considered part of the same project, I think. Making distinctions between the Jewish and non-Jewish components of the Nazi's de- and re-population projects would be a silly argument in that world, and the question over which part of the genocide deserves more attention would be more offensive there than it is in our world.

Of the choices in the poll, equal attention is closest, but the real answer is 'none of the above'.
 

Wendigo

Banned
In a Nazi victory, They'd be considered part of the same project, I think. Making distinctions between the Jewish and non-Jewish components of the Nazi's de- and re-population projects would be a silly argument in that world, and the question over which part of the genocide deserves more attention would be more offensive there than it is in our world.

Of the choices in the poll, equal attention is closest, but the real answer is 'none of the above'.

So you don't think the HUGE disparity between the two in terms of sheer victims (9.5 million vs tens of millions depending on when the Allies invade) would alter the amount of research and focus given to each in the post war world?
 
So you don't think the HUGE disparity between the two in terms of sheer victims (9.5 million vs tens of millions depending on when the Allies invade) would alter the amount of research and focus given to each in the post war world?

Like I said, I don't think there would be two disciplines, it wouldn't be normally divided into two studies. The 9.5 million would be of special significance to Jewish survivors, as the Baltic victims would be to Baltic survivors, and Roma to Roma, and so on; but the general study or conception of the Holocaust would be of the 10s (100s?) of millions, including the 9.5. We might find more ink spilled per Jewish victim, as in OTL, but it will be because they were the first victims the Nazis called out, the prototype for their later acts, not because of the misconception that Jews were the primary victims of the Nazi regime. We might find the term 'Shoah' in more common use ITTL, as in OTL the Holocaust is often reduced to just the Jewish victims, even in discussions involving people who know better.
 
In a Nazi victory, They'd be considered part of the same project, I think. Making distinctions between the Jewish and non-Jewish components of the Nazi's de- and re-population projects would be a silly argument in that world, and the question over which part of the genocide deserves more attention would be more offensive there than it is in our world.

Of the choices in the poll, equal attention is closest, but the real answer is 'none of the above'.

Eh, I think there'd definitely be a difference; Jews were primarily sent to Extermination Camps, while Slavs were meant to be exterminated more slowly through death by labor.
 
Eh, I think there'd definitely be a difference; Jews were primarily sent to Extermination Camps, while Slavs were meant to be exterminated more slowly through death by labor.

This wasn't the case in OTL, it's the common misconception. Most Jews who were killed by the Nazis never saw the inside of an extermination camp, they were worked or starved or shot or froze to death somewhere on the Eastern Front (the Pale of Settlement was the centre of the world Jewish population as of 1939, some 6-8 million Jews, a large number ended up under the General Government, but they were mostly in the USSR, IIRC), like most of the rest of the Nazis tens of millions of OTL victims. We do find that a higher percentage of Jewish victims of the Holocaust were sent through the camp system than non-Jewish victims, and we find the same for Roma, and German undesirables.

The difference could be more pronounced in TTL, as the process of depopulating the Slavs was actually carried out. Now that you've said it, I do agree with your main point, in a Nazi victory or a Nazi malingering TL, I think the important distinction will be between the people who were exterminated (Jews, Roma, homosexuals, various other unfortunate groups), and the ones who were first enslaved (Balts and Slavs and others, per Nazi wartime plans). I would just maintain that in this timeline, the concentration camps would be the less well known part of the Holocaust, compared to the death-squads, the opposite of how we perceive it.
 

Wendigo

Banned
Is there a thread where @CalBear lays out the figures @Wendigo describes in the first post?

Is the Anglo-American Nazi War stuff all in the book now, or are there remnants on this forum?

CalBear based the entire TL on Hitler's plans for the Slavs/Generalplan Ost so you would have to ask him. It describes it in the beginning of the story. The TL still exists on the forum and as an E-Book.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...omplish-generalplan-ost.390353/#post-12508017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/GPO/gpoarticle.HTML

The numbers come from simple math and research I did on the populations of the individual nations before the war and how they correspond to the percentages of each that were "marked for removal/physical elimination." It speaks of "deportation" and "resettlement" but deporting over 100 million people is a fantasy especially when the Reich's leadership frequently spoke of using the Slavs as expendable slave labor or what Himmler called a "reservoir of labor" after the war and how their cities would be razed so that there would be no signs of their existence.

You think the same people who didn't want precious Aryans working in mines and other dirty/dangerous jobs so they got Jews/Slavs/Poles to do them IOTL would use German labor to tear down Moscow, Kiev, and Leningrad in harsh winter and sweltering summer when there's millions of potential laborers already living there who are "subhuman" and need to be eliminated anyway?

European USSR + Poland + Czechoslovakia equals between 130 and 140 million people total. 80% of ALL Slavs were marked for death by starvation, disease, and Extermination through Labor. The remaining 20% would become chattel serfs on German farms in the East. Even if the Reich ONLY managed to kill half of who they intended to kill, that's still 60 MILLION people murdered for being born the wrong race. That's a similar number to Mao's Great Leap Forward.

Belarus: 6,120,000 out of 8,160,000 (75%)
Ukraine: 25,350,000 out of 39,000,000 (65%)
Lithuania: 2,180,250 out of 2,565,000 (85%)
Estonia: 526,000 out of 1,052,000 (50%)
Latvia: 905,500 out of 1,811,000 (50%)
Poland: 29,000,000 (85%)
Russia: 57 million out of 76 million (60% physically eliminated, 15% deported)
Czech: 5,100,000 out of 10.2 million (50%)

Add up the numbers and the planned death toll is around 115 million. 120 million if you include the deported Russians (most of which would die on their journey.) This doesn't include the "guest workers" who most likely would be sent from the rump USSR behind the Urals as reparations, the majority of whom wouldn't survive their stay in the Reich and Occupied Europe.

The Nazis truly were monsters.

Also the extermination camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec, etc) killed around 3.1 million Jew IOTL, a number that would have risen if they won the war.
The rest died through shooting, starvation, brutality, disease, and being worked to death in actual concentration camps.
 
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You think the same people who didn't want precious Aryans working in mines so they got racially inferior people to do the job IOTL would use German labor to tear down Moscow, Kiev, and Leningrad in the middle of winter when there's millions of potential laborers already living there who are subhuman and need to be eliminated anyway?

This seems likely, if they got to determine policy like this. Since that's the scenario, there is no need to go into how many compromises would likely happen if this was actually practised.

The Nazis truly were monsters.

No argument there. Well, unless there is an implication that Germans are Nazis waiting to happen, but there isn't, so there isn't.

Also the extermination camps (Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec, etc) killed around 3.1 million Jews. The rest died through shooting, starvation, brutality, disease, and being worked to death in actual concentration camps.

I was given to understand that total death toll for the camps was 3-4 million, more than half of them Jewish; while 3-4 million Jews were killed on the Eastern Front, a fraction of the total population that was killed there.


I guess my argument is only really that you're saying the Holocaust is the Jewish part of the Nazis deliberate, methodical murdering campaign; I would count everyone killed in that way as victims of the Holocaust. The Jewish part of it is the Shoah.
 

Wendigo

Banned


The total Reich death toll depends on how inclusive you are.

6 million Jews (the Shoah/Holocaust)

3.3 million Soviet PoWs

2 million Poles

300k Greeks due to famine

22k Dutch due to famine (Audrey Hepburn was a survivor)

270k mentally/physically ill or disabled

250k-500k Roma

4 million famine deaths in the occupied USSR including Leningrad

A minimum 1 million Soviet deaths from reprisals/massacres/brutality

A minimum 1 million Soviet deaths from privation, exposure and slave labor.

50-100k combined deaths of Freemasons, homosexuals, criminals, Jehovah's Witnesses, priests, Slovenes, Spanish Republicans, trade unionists, Communists, vagrants and small groups

This makes for a combined death toll of 18 to 19 million deaths.

The biggest factor is exactly how many Soviet deaths you hold the Reich responsible for. Around 15 million out of 68 million or 20% of the Slavs in the occupied East died during the war on the Eastern Front.

I used 6 million as a middle estimate for Soviet deaths from starvation, reprisals, massacres, exposure and disease that the Wehrmacht/Reich is responsible for out of neglect or premeditation. 4 million are estimated to have died from famine alone with Leningrad being the most infamous.

And to imagine that if they won they would have killed over 100 million more is just mind boggling. The above killings particularly of Jews and Roma were just a WARM UP for what was planned for the Slavs. The Reich planned the deaths of tens of millions with a stroke of a pen like it was nothing.
 
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thorr97

Banned
If Germania was established and if the Reich came anywhere close to attaining its goals as to eradicating the Slavs then the extermination of the Jews would probably be viewed as is the exterminations of the homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses and Freemasons. That is, as a horrible thing but something little more than a footnote when compared to the rest...
 

Wendigo

Banned
If Germania was established and if the Reich came anywhere close to attaining its goals as to eradicating the Slavs then the extermination of the Jews would probably be viewed as is the exterminations of the homosexuals, Jehovah Witnesses and Freemasons. That is, as a horrible thing but something little more than a footnote when compared to the rest...

This is similar to what I believe. 9.5 million Jews shot and gassed within 6 years vs 100+ million Slavs starved and worked to death over 30 years makes me believe (like the majority of those who chose in the poll) the latter would logically get more coverage and study due to the sheer scope and scale of it.
 
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I seriously think this discussion is getting a bit insensitive. I say this as a Jew with Holocaust victims and survivors in my family. Is it really a matter to discuss "which aspect would get more coverage"? Is someone, perhaps, TRYING to find a way to lessen the study of Jews being eradicated? I sure hope there isn't such a nefarious reason behind this question or some people's responses. But to be safe, can someone in charge please close out this discussion? I see it as off-topic and as a lightning rod.
 

thorr97

Banned
Napoleonrules,

I don't see it as such. Rather, it's an exploration of how one horrendous evil would be viewed in light of a subsequent horrendous evil that utterly dwarfed it in terms of slaughter. Is the attention paid the Jewish Holocaust insensitive to the victims of the Armenian Holocaust? How do you compare differing shades of utter blackness and evil?
 

Wendigo

Banned
I can't see how this discussion is "off topic" or "a lightning rod" in any sense of the word. I agree with @thorr97.

Is discussing the study of Mao's Great Leap Forward or Pol Pot's Killing Fields insensitive to Saddam's victims or the survivors of Rwanda? No.

Is it insensitive to those who died in the atomic bombings in Japan to discuss the hypothetical effect of a nuclear exchange between the US and USSR? No.

Threads like this can't be closed for the sake of being "safe" because you think our posts could be "nefarious." You're literally the only person who has had an issue. Why you bothered to even post in the first place is beyond me.
 
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