Number of deaths if the USSR capitulates in 1942 and the Anglo-Americans sign a peace treaty?

[Sam R.]

I’m rambling right now, I’ll try and sit down and write something more comprehensive to my argument later, but I think perhaps @Sam R. could also elaborate a bit on the nature of Generalplan Ost, the Nazi administrative apparatus, and the incoherence of policy making and implementation in this hypothetical East.

Cheers mate, because what I need on a Sunday is to be dredged into a multiple apparatus practice of killing tens of millions of europeans, and the question of how many tens of millions more could be killed. Unfortunately I'm "up for this," because I seem to have knowledge (widely available but unconsulted, perhaps people could begin with the seminal Browning (1994) Ordinary Men,) regarding how you go about killing tens of millions of europeans.

The German state wasn't. There was no plan. There were multiple over lapping apparatus, legal designations, plans, ideas, and positions. Kershaw's "working towards the Fuhrer" is diagnostic, but only to the extent that you put your own genocidal plan in the school uniform of Adolf and claim its central approval.

Let's start geographically: Germany starts with Germany, moves into allied states, (Finland, General Government Poland, Nazi Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria). Then into State's Commissioners territories (Reichscommissariats), then into Army Group responsibilities. These are broadly ordered (far North), North, Central, South. Then across this geography you have departmental responsibilities. Economic. Security. States' Security. Party. Army.

The totality of these institutions demand the physical liquidation of Jewry and Roma through non-economically optimal punishment.

This is a war goal which is held, universally, yes even by the institution your favourite ace is part of, prior to the states' own existence.

Then you have a totality of insitutional agreement on the need to non-economically punish through liquidation the slav. This is not held prior to the states' existence, but is coterminous with the state.

>oh they'll see economic reason
Please demonstrate this existing within the NSDAP/German state?

It'll probably be massed starvation (deliberate) like 1941 as demonstrated on Soviet POWs. Soviet and non-Soviet easterners will fight back. Those who do not starve will be shot.

Consider for a moment the Australians: how much more economic would the Australian colonies have been had they actually bothered to learn the bush tucker which was proto-agricultural and farmed?

Genocide is economic nonsense as far as production maximisation. It is an ideological project of the murder of that considered less than man. This was the project of the German fascist state. Had the Soviet working class proved incapable of preventing that (please note: not the nomenklatura, the class by Janurary 1942 had made a decision so ugly that it would haunt them for 51 years…), had the Soviet working class proved incapable of preventing it, the German people and state would have killed into the 60s or 80s of millions over a couple of decades. Almost certainly with Hiwi help

If you think there was an intentional plan, please do read more bureaucratic history of the holocaust. Stuff after 1990.

 

[Captain Marvel]

Snip

How do you respond to the counter argument that killing tens of millions of Slavs in a Nazi victory scenario would have simply been too much and too evil for the German people to go along with and so it would have been drastically toned down?

 

[Sam R.]

The tens of millions of dead in reality would be my counter.

 

[James Ricker]

300,000,000 as Generalplan Öust is carried out with no outside interference

 

[Quintuplicate]

The Reich wanted to conquer or subjugate the world in one form or another but Hitler and his inner circle never planned for the physical conquest of North America. Japan did to some extent but never Germany.

The Nazi leadership did plan to wage a future “war of continents” between Europe and North America (and a war against Japan and Asia) that they wouldn’t live to see. Hitler did constantly fantasize about bombing the US (specifically New York City in flames) but did they ever imagine Nazi troops marching in front of the White House? No.

Wasn't one of the mainstays of American propaganda that if Britain lost America would be the only "light of democracy" in the world and would be overwhelmed sooner or later by the fascist slaves?

 

[Captain Marvel]

Wasn't one of the mainstays of American propaganda that if Britain lost America would be the only "light of democracy" in the world and would be overwhelmed sooner or later by the fascist slaves?

Sure but that’s propaganda. It doesn’t change the fact that the Nazi leadership never had any plans to physically conquer the US.

 

[RedSword12]

How do you respond to the counter argument that killing tens of millions of Slavs in a Nazi victory scenario would have simply been too much and too evil for the German people to go along with and so it would have been drastically toned down?

If it would have been toned down, it would not have been out of moral concerns, but economic concerns. Gauleiter Albert Forster, for example, was willing to register Poles as ethnic Germans if it benefited him economically, even while he was actively working on a genocide against Poles.

 

[merlin]

Eastern Europe is looted for anything the Nazis want and its citizens essentially slave workers for German industry.

Western Russia yes - what was left from the evacuation east, where they had annexed and invaded - Poland etc., yes, but elsewhere no. Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria were part of the German invasion army going east. Therefore only what Jews & Gypsies that those countries are willing to forego.

Resettlement maybe helped - with suitable propaganda films being shown stateside - by people of German heritage returning to the 'Fatherland' from the US.

 

[Captain Marvel]

If it would have been toned down, it would not have been out of moral concerns, but economic concerns.

Obviously you’re positing a hypothetical but I doubt that would have happened enough to matter as long as Hitler and his fellow fanatics were alive and in charge. Himmler himself said that the day Hitler approved Generalplan Ost in 1942 was the happiest day of his life.

Some things the Nazi leadership could be pragmatic about but the overall goal of exterminating and enslaving the Slavs was definitely something that was too ingrained into the Nazi ideology/worldview to ever be moderated in my opinion. It was practically the the basis for the war and the invasion of the USSR to begin with. There are numerous examples where ideology and belief trumped common sense and reality among Hitler and his inner circle to Germany’s detriment so it isn’t exactly unimaginable. Winning the war against the “Jewish Bolshevik” menace and being able to carry out their sick dreams on a continental scale without interruption would only embolden Hitler and his minions because they’d be more convinced than ever that Nazism was a righteous and correct ideology. Any Nazi official that tried to buck the Fuhrer’s orders would be warned and if they persisted they’d be purged or retired.

In a Nazi victory scenario if Hitler wanted Generalplan Ost to be carried out with all the resulting megadeaths (which he obviously did because he approved it and constantly spoke about the colonization of the East and the horrible fate of its “subhuman” inhabitants) I don’t see a feasible reason why it wouldn’t be. Even if Hitler died a few years after defeating the USSR whoever took over would necessarily have to continue following Hitler’s vision or risk losing legitimacy and getting purged by the true believers like Himmler, Bormann and Goebbels. In their eyes ideology and Party doctrine came first over matters such as economics even if it meant Germany’s eventual collapse.

 

[RedSword12]

Obviously you’re positing a hypothetical but I doubt that would have happened enough to matter as long as Hitler and his fellow fanatics were alive and in charge. Himmler himself said that the day Hitler approved Generalplan Ost in 1942 was the happiest day of his life.

Some things the Nazi leadership could be pragmatic about but the overall goal of exterminating and enslaving the Slavs was definitely something that was too ingrained into the Nazi ideology/worldview to ever be moderated in my opinion. It was practically the the basis for the war and the invasion of the USSR to begin with. There are numerous examples where ideology and belief trumped common sense and reality among Hitler and his inner circle to Germany’s detriment so it isn’t exactly unimaginable. Winning the war against the “Jewish Bolshevik” menace and being able to carry out their sick dreams on a continental scale without interruption would only embolden Hitler and his minions because they’d be more convinced than ever that Nazism was a righteous and correct ideology.

In a Nazi victory scenario if Hitler wanted Generalplan Ost to be carried out with all the resulting megadeaths (which he obviously did because he approved it and constantly spoke about the colonization of the East and the horrible fate of its “subhuman” inhabitants) I don’t see a feasible reason why it wouldn’t be. Even if Hitler died a few years after defeating the USSR whoever took over would necessarily have to continue following Hitler’s vision or risk losing legitimacy and getting purged by the true believers like Himmler, Bormann and Goebbels. In their eyes ideology and Party doctrine came first over matters such as economics even if it meant Germany’s eventual collapse.

It should be noted that the Germans were willing to let some things slide from time to time. A Jewish combat medic serving with the Finns was nominated for the Iron Cross, a move approved by Berlin. Kazakhs and Cossacks, among other "subhumans" were permitted to serve in the ranks, as well. Genocide is of course inevitable, but it is very possible that pragmatism would have toned things down somewhat on a case-by-case basis. The Nazis were fanatical, but they were also greedy. Combine that with Hitler's hands-off leadership style, and there would inevitably have been some local officials who would have quietly deviated from official directives when it profited them to do so.

 

[Definitivo]

Cheers mate, because what I need on a Sunday is to be dredged into a multiple apparatus practice of killing tens of millions of europeans, and the question of how many tens of millions more could be killed. Unfortunately I'm "up for this," because I seem to have knowledge (widely available but unconsulted, perhaps people could begin with the seminal Browning (1994) Ordinary Men,) regarding how you go about killing tens of millions of europeans.

The German state wasn't. There was no plan. There were multiple over lapping apparatus, legal designations, plans, ideas, and positions. Kershaw's "working towards the Fuhrer" is diagnostic, but only to the extent that you put your own genocidal plan in the school uniform of Adolf and claim its central approval.

Let's start geographically: Germany starts with Germany, moves into allied states, (Finland, General Government Poland, Nazi Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria). Then into State's Commissioners territories (Reichscommissariats), then into Army Group responsibilities. These are broadly ordered (far North), North, Central, South. Then across this geography you have departmental responsibilities. Economic. Security. States' Security. Party. Army.

The totality of these institutions demand the physical liquidation of Jewry and Roma through non-economically optimal punishment.

This is a war goal which is held, universally, yes even by the institution your favourite ace is part of, prior to the states' own existence.

Then you have a totality of insitutional agreement on the need to non-economically punish through liquidation the slav. This is not held prior to the states' existence, but is coterminous with the state.

>oh they'll see economic reason
Please demonstrate this existing within the NSDAP/German state?

It'll probably be massed starvation (deliberate) like 1941 as demonstrated on Soviet POWs. Soviet and non-Soviet easterners will fight back. Those who do not starve will be shot.

Consider for a moment the Australians: how much more economic would the Australian colonies have been had they actually bothered to learn the bush tucker which was proto-agricultural and farmed?

Genocide is economic nonsense as far as production maximisation. It is an ideological project of the murder of that considered less than man. This was the project of the German fascist state. Had the Soviet working class proved incapable of preventing that (please note: not the nomenklatura, the class by Janurary 1942 had made a decision so ugly that it would haunt them for 51 years…), had the Soviet working class proved incapable of preventing it, the German people and state would have killed into the 60s or 80s of millions over a couple of decades. Almost certainly with Hiwi help

If you think there was an intentional plan, please do read more bureaucratic history of the holocaust. Stuff after 1990.

I don't know if I understood your point correctly, but are you saying that there was no extermination plan against the Slavs but that they were still going to be exterminated for being considered inferior?

It doesn't really make a lot of sense, many peoples have historically been considered inferior and have rarely been exterminated on a large scale (especially those with large populations).

Even everything about the "subhumans Slavs" seems done with the simple intention of devaluing the lives of these people in order to somehow justify the atrocities of the Nazis in the occupied territories such as food confiscation and terrorist partisan warfare. This is not something new, it happened with the African slaves.

And we also have evidence that the Nazis imposed "more rational" regimes in Czechoslovakia where the non-Jewish population had a very low mortality.

 

[Resurgam]

The Reich wanted to conquer or subjugate the world in one form or another but Hitler and his inner circle never planned for the physical conquest of North America. Japan did to some extent but never Germany.

The Nazi leadership did plan to wage a future “war of continents” between Europe and North America (and a war against Japan and Asia) that they wouldn’t live to see. Hitler did constantly fantasize about bombing the US (specifically New York City in flames) but did they ever imagine Nazi troops marching in front of the White House? No.

While I agree with you in that there were no solid plans for conquering North America, Hitler did foresee the grand battle royale for control of the world being between the US and Germany according to Zweties Buch. So, he did see some kind of final battle happening between the two countries. But I would imagine he saw that as crippling and beating America into accepting German dominance as opposed to, as you said, the SS parading down Pennsylivania Avenue.

 

[Sam R.]

I don't know if I understood your point correctly, but are you saying that there was no extermination plan against the Slavs but that they were still going to be exterminated for being considered inferior?

Studies of German killing have concentrated on two positions:

1. Intentionalism: That there was a central plan, and that central planning dictated mass killing
2. Functionalism: That mass killing was a common action across bureaucratic fissures, and that it functioned within the structure of German and Nazi social orders as a "good" and "useful" thing to do

There was no singular plan to exterminate the slavs that dictated German actions. There were multiple plans local to particular bureaucratic institutions. Some envisaged killing almost all the slavs. Some envisaged killing not almost all the slavs, but a great many of them. These plans were utterly unrelated to the actual mass killings engaged in, both flowed from a racial animus, and the unlocking of action on "life unworthy of life."

Slavs were considered inferior. They were killed on mass. They were largely killed because:

1. Partisans. Anti-partisan operations were essential. Easy anti-partisan operations were just killing entire villages. Killing entire villages was accepted as a good in itself.
2. Starved POWs. Here the inferiority of Soviet Citizens was clearest. OKH/OKW and the Army Groups expected to capture vast numbers of POWs. They decided to not keep them alive.
3. Labour encampments, whose economic benefits were negative.
4. Mass civilian starvation.

It doesn't really make a lot of sense, many peoples have historically been considered inferior and have rarely been exterminated on a large scale (especially those with large populations).

Look at Namibia where the Germans experimented with mass killing. Or read Browning (1994) for goodness sakes. It is a monograph length essay on why ordinary german men who were not brainwashed and whose party affiliation and class background matched Weimar, chose to voluntarily kill thousands of people for fun. *FOR FUN.*

Even everything about the "subhumans Slavs" seems done with the simple intention of devaluing the lives of these people in order to somehow justify the atrocities of the Nazis in the occupied territories such as food confiscation and terrorist partisan warfare. This is not something new, it happened with the African slaves.

It isn't post hoc justification though. The view of the inferior precedes the killing. Theweilet's Male Fantasies is useful here if you want to stomache reading about the sexual interior of freikorps men.

 

[Derek Pullem]

I don't know if I understood your point correctly, but are you saying that there was no extermination plan against the Slavs but that they were still going to be exterminated for being considered inferior?

It doesn't really make a lot of sense, many peoples have historically been considered inferior and have rarely been exterminated on a large scale (especially those with large populations).

Even everything about the "subhumans Slavs" seems done with the simple intention of devaluing the lives of these people in order to somehow justify the atrocities of the Nazis in the occupied territories such as food confiscation and terrorist partisan warfare. This is not something new, it happened with the African slaves.

And we also have evidence that the Nazis imposed "more rational" regimes in Czechoslovakia where the non-Jewish population had a very low mortality.

I have no idea of the reason for your initial question but you seem to be suggesting with your later posts that the Nazis would be "rational" after a complete victory in the East. Why would you believe this?

The case of Bohemia and Slovakia (there was no "Czechoslovakia" in the Nazi's world view) was very much a plan to forcibly assimilate the Czechs in Bohemia into the Reich with undesirables like intellectuals and Jews being incarcerated or murdered. And this was only done because of the historical association of Bohemia with greater Germany. Slovakia was a puppet which existed only at the whim of the Nazis as demonstrated in 1944. For a taste of what Eastern Europe would suffer you could look at Poland - 20% of its pre-war population died in 6 years of war and occupation.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

Germany starts with Germany, moves into allied states, (Finland, General Government Poland, Nazi Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria).

General Government? Really?
As well Ethiopia could be counted as Italian ally.

 

[Sam R.]

General Government? Really?
As well Ethiopia could be counted as Italian ally.

I didn’t suggest it was an ally. I indicated it was a separate German administration for the purposes of local implementation of genocide.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

I didn’t suggest it was an ally. I indicated it was a separate German administration for the purposes of local implementation of genocide.

Perhaps colony would be proper word

 

[Definitivo]

Slavs were considered inferior. They were killed on mass. They were largely killed because:

1. Partisans. Anti-partisan operations were essential. Easy anti-partisan operations were just killing entire villages. Killing entire villages was accepted as a good in itself.
2. Starved POWs. Here the inferiority of Soviet Citizens was clearest. OKH/OKW and the Army Groups expected to capture vast numbers of POWs. They decided to not keep them alive.
3. Labour encampments, whose economic benefits were negative.
4. Mass civilian starvation.

I agree with this, but these deaths are closely related to the extremely cruel way in which the Axis fought the war. Therefore, we can assume that if the war ends in 1942 the extreme violence of the Nazi regime in the occupied territories would reduce or at least the violence against the non-Jewish population. There simply would be no need to confiscate food to support the army or to use slave labor.

I have no idea of the reason for your initial question but you seem to be suggesting with your later posts that the Nazis would be "rational" after a complete victory in the East. Why would you believe this?

The case of Bohemia and Slovakia (there was no "Czechoslovakia" in the Nazi's world view) was very much a plan to forcibly assimilate the Czechs in Bohemia into the Reich with undesirables like intellectuals and Jews being incarcerated or murdered. And this was only done because of the historical association of Bohemia with greater Germany. Slovakia was a puppet which existed only at the whim of the Nazis as demonstrated in 1944. For a taste of what Eastern Europe would suffer you could look at Poland - 20% of its pre-war population died in 6 years of war and occupation.

I base it on the fact that the great mortality in Poland and the Soviet Union was due to the cruelty with which the Axis fought the war, without war the mortality would be lower. This also happened with Japan and Asian countries, tens of millions of Chinese died because of the Japanese actions but in this case it is clear that there was no plan to exterminate the Chinese.

In the Polish case, it must be taken into account that most of the deaths were Jews despite the fact that they only accounted for 10% of the total population. But once the Jewish population has been wiped out and the war is over, do you really think mortality would rise much more than the atrocious 20% caused by the Nazis?

Reviewing the history of colonialism, extermination only occurred when the indigenous population was very small but never when it was large. The Jews were a small minority therefore I have no hope that they will be saved in a Nazi Europe, but the Slavs were a very large group, therefore I "intuit" that the Germans would follow the model of the Spanish in America or that of the English in Africa and Asia, which is still a disaster for the conquered countries.

 

[CalBear]

I don't know if I understood your point correctly, but are you saying that there was no extermination plan against the Slavs but that they were still going to be exterminated for being considered inferior?

It doesn't really make a lot of sense, many peoples have historically been considered inferior and have rarely been exterminated on a large scale (especially those with large populations).

Even everything about the "subhumans Slavs" seems done with the simple intention of devaluing the lives of these people in order to somehow justify the atrocities of the Nazis in the occupied territories such as food confiscation and terrorist partisan warfare. This is not something new, it happened with the African slaves.

And we also have evidence that the Nazis imposed "more rational" regimes in Czechoslovakia where the non-Jewish population had a very low mortality.

Ah, justification of the mass slaughter that the Reich committed and planned to commit.

Read up on Generalplan Ost. Especially how it continued to evolve right until the Reich found itself getting pushed back by the Red Army.

You are going to have plenty of time on your hands.

Banned for justification of genocide.

 

[Captain Marvel]

And we also have evidence that the Nazis imposed "more rational" regimes in Czechoslovakia where the non-Jewish population had a very low mortality.

This was during the war when Czech production was very valuable to Germany. After the war they planned to eliminate 50% of Czechs.

Though the OP is banned if they already have their mind made up about the Reich’s post war plans why did they bother to make this thread?