To convince folks that the Reich was rational?
To convince folks that the Reich was rational?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?
In a previous discussion (one of the ones I linked in an earlier comment) someone claimed that the Reich wouldn’t be able to pull off the genocidal aspect of Generalplan Ost because it would have been so enormously evil and grotesque without the veil of “wartime necessity” that the German people (and institutions like the Wehrmacht) would have protested and refused to go along before it was finished since they weren’t all fanatical Nazis like Himmler and Hitler.To convince folks that the Reich was rational?
That is a common argument, in the "the German people wouldn't stand for it". It fails on several levels, one being that they stood for it for years during the war with slave labor camps right in the middle of the Reich (in fact when the Dambusters did they thing one of the big casualty centers was a female "guest worker" camp). another being that most of the "extermination through labor" would have been in General Government and in the European parts of the conquered USSR.In a previous discussion (one of the ones I linked in an earlier comment) someone claimed that the Reich wouldn’t be able to pull off the genocidal aspect of Generalplan Ost because it would have been so enormously evil and grotesque without the veil of “wartime necessity” that the German people (and institutions like the Wehrmacht) would have protested and refused to go along before it was finished since they weren’t all fanatical Nazis like Himmler and Hitler.
I disagree but it’s certainly something to consider.
This is very important. The vast majority of the killing/enslavement of the Slavs would be out of sight and out of mind for the German population. It’s easy to ignore megadeaths when it’s happening a thousand miles away.another being that most of the "extermination through labor" would have been in General Government and in the European parts of the conquered USSR.
You mean KAPD supporters, KPD voters and SPD voters. Because the composition of the Police Battalions mirrored that of Weimar society politically. (Browning, Ordinary Men).All combined it would require a few million people of sufficient ideological commitment
Not Australia or New Zealand?The idea that the German population would somehow turn on a victorious Nazi government while Inner Germany was experiencing some of the highest quality of life, perhaps even the HIGHEST quality of life on the Planet,
I’m no economics expert but those countries didn’t have an entire continent to plunder/extort on top of having tens of millions of expendable slaves (and forced laborers from Aryan countries like France) to do dirty jobs and menial tasks like a victorious Reich would.Not Australia or New Zealand?
German citizens who did not fall befoul of the Gestapo, which to most Germans had become more of a Boogeyman than actual threat as dissent (and dissenters) disappeared from daily life, enjoyed full employment, seven weeks of paid vacation (ten weeks in the case of Party members) subsidized by the Reich Government, and free medical and dental care. The Reichmark was the most powerful currency on the Continent, allowing German travelers incredible purchasing power on their regular trips to France, Italy and the rest of Occupied Europe, and the Mark’s strength continued into the neutral states of Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland where luxury items, including some products from the West unavailable within Occupied Europe, could be secured for the trip home.
Through these shopping adventures the average Reich citizen was able to keep themselves well supplied with otherwise embargoed consumer goods ranging from exotic spices from the East and other foodstuffs including oranges from Florida and avocados from California to inexpensive appliances, with the Mark’s buying power allowing the average housefrau in Berlin to enjoy luxuries virtually unknown outside to any other in Europe except the ruling elite. Even the average American family did not enjoy the leisure time, easy work life, and buying power that were common across Inner Germany.
Pretty sure Australia did.those countries didn’t have an entire continent
Read the rest of my post.Pretty sure Australia did.
In the scenario I just laid out? In the mid 1950s?Not Australia or New Zealand?
Do you mean in a Nazi victory scenario?So here's a question. Would you like to have been a German in that scenario?
I'd have a hard time saying no. Not because I agree with the Nazis in any way, but because I'd like to say I'd sacrifice all I had for what I believed in was right but I don't think I would make that choice when push came to shove. I'm not sure I would be capable of resisting the temptation to benefit from ill-gotten gains.Do you mean in a Nazi victory scenario?
If so then no. I wouldn’t want to live in a nightmarish society like that as it would be completely antithetical to all of my values and beliefs.
If the Nazis had won, of course, things on the surface would eventually have settled down to an appearance of normality. The milkman would deliver his milk in the morning, the policeman would enforce the law, the doctor would cure the sick, people would still worry about their jobs, fight with their wives, save for a new car. But they would be living in a nightmare, buried in a graveyard of human hope and dignity, trapped in a hell they would never recognize, much less question. The long dark night would have begun, and finally man would not even remember the light.