Ukraine at the scene of a Nazi victory

[pattersonautobody]

The Holocaust was not a response to Allied blockade. You are right in that Nazi planners decided to implement the Hunger Plan in the Soviet Union and starve millions because they determined that they didn’t get enough food. But by common definition (more complicated, but for sake of argument) that isn’t the Holocaust, which was the specific targeting of Jews and Roma. The targeting of Jews long preceded the war, and the specific intent to ghettoize and eventually remove them from Europe preceded food crises. The evidence we have for why the Nazi bureaucracy began to organize mass killings of Jews in 1941 points towards the problem of the large amount of Jews in the conquered eastern territories. The simplest solution, in the eyes of Nazi plenipotentiaries, was to kill them rather than deal with building more ghettos and reserves. Soviet Jews were also seen as intrinsically more dangerous than German or even Polish Jews, having allegedly been complicit in the Bolshevik project by default - therefore they couldn’t be allowed to live. The Holocaust as a specific process of organized mass killing was prompted by the “success” in the initial killing programs of summer and fall 1941 and an increasing sense that this was a viable solution for the “Jewish Question” as opposed to the previous proposals like encouraged emigration, removal to Madagascar, or a large reservation in Poland. The bureaucracy shifted towards organized mass murder as its preferred method of choice, and we saw the result. That process had very little to do with the Allied blockade.

Even if it did, the Allies making it harder for the Wehrmacht to get adequate food while it invaded the Soviet Union doesn’t make them morally culpable for the German decision to starve millions to supply their armies and home front. The alternative is what? Allow food to go in unmolested and still have a race obsessed genocidal empire conquer Europe and carry out its exterminationist policies, but this time without a utilitarian justification?

Fair enough, though going by memory the jews had less skilled workers and even then wannssee preserved the lives of skilled blue collar workers for war industry as part of the planning process, so there appears to be a malthusian aspect to it in any event.

 

[CalBear]

There's exhibits on this in the holocaust museum in DC. They blame the western allies for not bombing rail transport to the camps and taking a mote active role in trying to stop the holocaust.

Mass killings of Jews by the way began before the holocaust, but the final decision was made after the Wansee Conference. The main incentive behind yhe decision was to hold Jews collectively responsible for what Nazis imagined was the work of New York Jews in bringing the US into the war as part of a global conspiracy. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/235167

Nevertheless, this occurred after the blockade forced the shelving of plans of mass resettlements (which would have been deadly of course):

"However, because of the British naval blockade and the Nazis’ defeat in the Battle of Britain, the (Madagascar) plan never went into effect." Source: https://www.jns.org/column/antisemitism/23/9/3/315690/

Here is peer reviewed research that the blockade prevented significant red cross relief to holocaust prisoners during the war: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2639905

The germans had loot to feed their own population because they were starving everyone else.

This is the best i can do on short notice from work. But im ethnically ashlenazi, i am pro Israel in this war, and my comments are not meant to decrease German culpability. My point is that the Germans are not alone culpable. Ive cited legitimate sources. Hopefully you can accept that there is something to what i say.

The decisions regarding the bombing of the approaches to the camps has literally nothing to do with your statements regarding the blockade.

The so-called Madagascar Plan was simply a different version of the Mass Murder of the the Jewish population of Europe That the RN would have attacked German shipping is also remarkably unsurprising. I will agree that the British and American response to Jewish would be refugees fleeing the Reich was deplorable, however, this is again not at all what your post implied.

Of course the Reich looted the rest of the European Peninsula to ensure that residents of Inner Germany felt no impacts of the War. If anything, this shows just how little German internal political pressures had to do with the Holocaust.

I do understand, thanks to this reply, that your post did NOT actually imply what the plain reading of it indicated.

Thanks for the clarification.

 

[Real History]

They couldnt feed their own population so they killed their undesirables. The holocaust was an evil response to the blockade. This does not make the Nazis less culpable, murder is murder, but not admitting this ignores the culpability of the Allies who really didnt give a flying flock that there was a holocaust and did absolutely nothing to stop it, bomb transport to the camps, etc.

I have read this theory several times on other sites, however it does not adequately answer the question of why the Holocaust peaked in mid-1942 when Poland and Ukraine had good harvests.

I mean, while for example the mortality of Soviet prisoners of war improved enormously in 1942 onwards, the Holocaust continued until the end.

 

[pattersonautobody]

I have read this theory several times on other sites, however it does not adequately answer the question of why the Holocaust peaked in mid-1942 when Poland and Ukraine had good harvests.

I mean, while for example the mortality of Soviet prisoners of war improved enormously in 1942 onwards, the Holocaust continued until the end.

I'd suppose because the Nazis were not doing it because of an imminent issue (though by the pre-war standards, people were already tightening the belt big time in 1942 when it comes to food), but because of what was seen as a necessary decision in light of the near future.

The Germans captured less Soviet POW's in 1942, correct? Didn't they have better logistics when they changed rail gauge to bring food to the POWs and the front after 1941 then during? I think you are not connecting some obvious dots.

 

[Captain Homicide]

I think the common argument that those tasked with implementing Generalplan Ost would simply refuse or do their best to obstruct it is wrong for multiple reasons.

1: There were far too many true believers and fanatics in positions of power and Hitler and his inner circle would only further Nazify the relevant institutions complete with demoting or firing anyone seen as insufficiently zealous.

2: No ongoing war means it wouldn’t be nearly as easy to obstruct Nazi plans or hide evidence of said obstruction.

3: Fear of demotion, firing, imprisonment or death would do an excellent job at keeping people in line and Himmler and the Gestapo would have a field day uncovering the slightest resistance and “correcting” those involved. It’s easy to say you’d do the right thing until very serious men with dead eyes and handguns show up to your office to chat with you complete with reminders as to what could happen to your family if you cause problems. The SS honed terror to a fine art.

 

[The Link]

Nazis were not ideologically rigid. There were many instances throughout their rule when Nazis threw ideology out the window in the name of practicality.

But not in case of Ukraine. Hitler gave the position of the Reichskommissar of Ukraine to Erich Koch who was fanatically anti-slavic. There was Alfred Rosenberg who advocated for using the ukrainian anti-soviet sentiments and getting the ukrainian recruits for Germany, but Hitler was completely ignoring Rosenberg's suggestions and preferred the genocidal attitude of Koch.