What if Hitler had postponed the execution of the Jews until he had ended the war

CalBear

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Then he wouldn't have been Hitler.

This is one of the great truisms about Hitler. He was obsessed with the elimination of the Jews, Slavs and "Bolsheviks" (which he tended to see as one in the same) from Europe lest their continued presence contaminate the German people. The man was almost certainly insane, and was certainly willing to do whatever it took to achieve his goals.

What you are suggesting makes sense. So does harnessing the good will of the Ukrainian people who literally welcomed the Heer with flowers, seeing them as liberators. Instead Hitler had his Einsatzgruppen burn Ukrainian villages and slaughter Jews as the went.

A madman is a madman. Hitler was a madman.
 
Then he wouldn't have been Hitler.

This is one of the great truisms about Hitler. He was obsessed with the elimination of the Jews, Slavs and "Bolsheviks" (which he tended to see as one in the same) from Europe lest their continued presence contaminate the German people. The man was almost certainly insane, and was certainly willing to do whatever it took to achieve his goals.

What you are suggesting makes sense. So does harnessing the good will of the Ukrainian people who literally welcomed the Heer with flowers, seeing them as liberators. Instead Hitler had his Einsatzgruppen burn Ukrainian villages and slaughter Jews as the went.

A madman is a madman. Hitler was a madman.
I have to say that this whole 'but he wouldn't be X' business is pretty silly.As you say,he's a madman.Who can actually tell for real how a madman would actually think?
 
I have to say that this whole 'but he wouldn't be X' business is pretty silly.As you say,he's a madman.Who can actually tell for real how a madman would actually think?

In this case, there's no shortage of information about what Hitler said and did, which does give some insight into what he thought. You'd have to change his core beliefs (maybe possible with a 1910s POD) to overcome his innate inflexibility, and then... well, he's not Hitler. Or not the one we know, anyway.
 
In this case, there's no shortage of information about what Hitler said and did, which does give some insight into what he thought. You'd have to change his core beliefs (maybe possible with a 1910s POD) to overcome his innate inflexibility, and then... well, he's not Hitler. Or not the one we know, anyway.
The very definition of a madman involves that person to be erratic.If you accept that he's insane,then you have to accept that you simply can't read his thought patterns with accuracy like you think you can right now.
 
It has become quite a disturbing trend that people think if he hadn't of killed the Jews then he would somehow be more desirable. He destroyed Europe, bombed Warsaw to the ground on two occasions and destroyed the city of Rotterdam, not to mention the countless other atrocities committed by his regime.
And of course, caused a war in Europe.
 
The Germans choke after the invading the USSR because between the loss of imports, the British blockade, and their own kleptomatic policies all decimating the European economies they'd lack the food to feed everyone. The death camps served a disturbingly practical purpose as the Reich faced very real food crisis after 1942 which could have crippled it had it not settled on the solution of killing large numbers of conquered peoples. The extermination of the Polish Jewry for example was not just an ideological insanity - it also had the practical effect of freeing up large amounts of food for the German war machine, which would have otherwise been faced with famine. The brutality of the Nazi policies often hides the threadbare shoestring Germany waged WWII on. Germany was in terrible economic shape at the start of the war and carried it through only by exporting much of the hardships onto its victims. Had Germany actually tried to feed all its conquered citizens, it would have collapsed years earlier.
 
In this case, there's no shortage of information about what Hitler said and did, which does give some insight into what he thought.

Hitler could pretend to play all angles and seem to comprise when he felt it was in his interest to do so at least in the 30s.

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The thing is Hitler wasn't so willing to compromise on anything by the early 40s. He was by 41/42 several steps down the road of drug use, dementia, and victory disease and also had no reason to feel he had to be flexible about any of his end goals. He knew he had to pretend it wasn't happening because of German public opinion of course, but that was about it.

The SS not coming up with the idea for death squads and then death camps and instead utilizing starvation and forced labor is probably the most you are going to get without a massive change to the direction of the war. That still means many millions dead.
 
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The Germans choke after the invading the USSR because between the loss of imports, the British blockade, and their own kleptomatic policies all decimating the European economies they'd lack the food to feed everyone. The death camps served a disturbingly practical purpose as the Reich faced very real food crisis after 1942 which could have crippled it had it not settled on the solution of killing large numbers of conquered peoples. The extermination of the Polish Jewry for example was not just an ideological insanity - it also had the practical effect of freeing up large amounts of food for the German war machine, which would have otherwise been faced with famine. The brutality of the Nazi policies often hides the threadbare shoestring Germany waged WWII on. Germany was in terrible economic shape at the start of the war and carried it through only by exporting much of the hardships onto its victims. Had Germany actually tried to feed all its conquered citizens, it would have collapsed years earlier.
I think you need to factor in the mistake of declaring war on the United States as well. This seals his fate in a long drawn out war. Say all you want about Germany still able to produce war materials using the slave labor of Jews and Slavs, at some point the constant Allied bombing from the air will take a toll they cannot and were not able to carry on with their war industry.

The US, across an ocean, was in position to expand even more so at any time their industrial might should the war effort need it. Add to that, once Germany declared war on the United States, two days after the US declared war on Japan, both FDR and Churchill agreed that Germany would come first and Japan second in their efforts to win the global war.
 
I have to say that this whole 'but he wouldn't be X' business is pretty silly.As you say,he's a madman.Who can actually tell for real how a madman would actually think?
I don't think CalBear meant "madman" in the clinical sense of a drooling lunatic in a straight jacket suffering from psychosis but that Hitler's worldview and his ideological goal of killing all Jews, Roma and most of the Slavs were crazy/extreme.

After all, Himmler, Goebbels, Heydrich, Bormann, Goering and the rest of the Reich leadership shared the same views since they were true believers as well.
 

CalBear

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I have to say that this whole 'but he wouldn't be X' business is pretty silly.As you say,he's a madman.Who can actually tell for real how a madman would actually think?
Hitler was mad as a hatter, but he was anything but disorganized. Hitler was driver by his obsessions (actually most people are, to some degree, but Hitler was hyperfocused). If something removed that focus, that obsession, the likelihood is that Hitler never reaches power. The same things that destroyed him were the things that led him to power, that gathered his nasty herd of minions to the Nazi standard, and that gave him the push to throw the dice time after time.

A stable, reasonable leader, the sort who would put his personal desires aside for the good of the overall plan, would never have made the series of remarkable bluffs that led the Reich to the point where it could fight WW II.
 
I think you need to factor in the mistake of declaring war on the United States as well. This seals his fate in a long drawn out war. Say all you want about Germany still able to produce war materials using the slave labor of Jews and Slavs, at some point the constant Allied bombing from the air will take a toll they cannot and were not able to carry on with their war industry.

The US, across an ocean, was in position to expand even more so at any time their industrial might should the war effort need it. Add to that, once Germany declared war on the United States, two days after the US declared war on Japan, both FDR and Churchill agreed that Germany would come first and Japan second in their efforts to win the global war.

Pearl Harbor sealed their fate. America is in a Total War now with a war time press, FDR building as many divisions as he felt he needed and with its economy teatered by LL to the British Empire and USSR by this time.

America will still end up in war with Germany anyway once Japan is neutralized as a potential offensive threat.
 
For More Clarity see the HBO movie the "Conspiracy" from 2001 with Kenneth Branagh
It based on protocol from Wannsee conference of 1941
they look into that option but decline it for "logistic" reason they not could maintain the Gettos or relocated them.
And since that "annoying little Austrian" screamed about the Destruction of Jews, Reinhard Heydrich took this literal as a order to do...

 
from Wannsee conference of 1941

And since that "annoying little Austrian" screamed about the Destruction of Jews, Reinhard Heydrich took this literal as a order to do...

You mean January 1942?

That gets to my point about the SS ideas from certain officials being the driving force behind well the uniqueness of his they went about it, traditionally 19th century Imperial powers and some 20th century ones would simply work to death and not feed population they wanted to get rid of.

He and others around him came up with ideas like the mobile death squad and the industrialized death factory which without them coming up with the plans Hitler certainly wouldn't have devised them which leaves something more akin to older methods of dealing with populations dictators and kings decided they didn't want around.
 
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Hitler wuz a verrry bbaddd man, m'kay?

Somehow the idea of him holding off the Holocaust on the Jews until the war's over would have been the "sanest" for someone like him; though that would require a blunt brain adjustment.
 
I think you need to factor in the mistake of declaring war on the United States as well. This seals his fate in a long drawn out war.

By the time he made his declaration, US entry into the war was but a matter of time what with Pearl Harbour having delivered the final killing blow to isolationism. Now had he avoided the previous antagonism towards the US and alignment with Japan, then yeah maybe he could have dodged the US DoW. That requires not engaging Britain, though, and the British aren't going to let the Germans just ignore them.

I should note that within the realm of Hitler's cosmology of racial struggle, his strategic decisions up until 1943 (and in some cases even after that) actually follow a pretty solid logic. Morality, obviously, never really entered into this except in an annoyingly relativistic way.
 
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Then he wouldn't have been Hitler.

This is one of the great truisms about Hitler. He was obsessed with the elimination of the Jews, Slavs and "Bolsheviks" (which he tended to see as one in the same) from Europe lest their continued presence contaminate the German people. The man was almost certainly insane, and was certainly willing to do whatever it took to achieve his goals.

What you are suggesting makes sense. So does harnessing the good will of the Ukrainian people who literally welcomed the Heer with flowers, seeing them as liberators. Instead Hitler had his Einsatzgruppen burn Ukrainian villages and slaughter Jews as the went.

A madman is a madman. Hitler was a madman.
What about a "standard" Fascist Germany (read: something akin to a more competent Fascist Italy in terms of nastiness)?
 
I have to say that this whole 'but he wouldn't be X' business is pretty silly.As you say,he's a madman.Who can actually tell for real how a madman would actually think?

I think the point being made is that Hitlers obsessions, risk taking and drive were the factors that brought Germany to war and to its high water mark in 1942. Without those Germany's likely Facist type leader Is probably a Pinochet type figure, with no Nazi party and no WW2 and Hitler making a living as a grumpy Artist.

Hitler's flaws come with the successes and are inseparable from what made him successful earlier in his career.
 
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