WI: Hitler Does Not Commit Genocide

I didn't think this idea was far-fetched enough to put it in the ASB page, but what if Hitler decided instead of killing off the groups he didn't like, he simply forced them to be deported en masse?
 

Deleted member 1487

Forcing people out of their land en masse is considered genocide
I think the legal definition is ethnic cleansing. But in this situation it would depend on what happens to the 'cleansed' peoples that Hitler is victimizing. Do they die en masse? Not that different from genocide then. Of course without the horrors of the death camps and einsatzgruppen it probably wouldn't have as much emotional resonance given that Stalin did ethnic cleansings via deportation and the Germans outside of Germany were 'cleansed' at the end and post-WW2. So Hitler is still seen as a major scum bag for all of the crimes of his regime, but it would then lack the more unique elements of OTL's Holocaust, so perhaps that would have an impact on his post-war reputation, such as it is.

Of course that requires 'Not-ler', as Hitler was at his core extremely genocidally fixated and surrounded himself with the must vile people in German society who were into his disgusting views and in fact encouraged him.
 
I think the legal definition is ethnic cleansing. But in this situation it would depend on what happens to the 'cleansed' peoples that Hitler is victimizing. Do they die en masse? Not that different from genocide then. Of course without the horrors of the death camps and einsatzgruppen it probably wouldn't have as much emotional resonance given that Stalin did ethnic cleansings via deportation and the Germans outside of Germany were 'cleansed' at the end and post-WW2. So Hitler is still seen as a major scum bag for all of the crimes of his regime, but it would then lack the more unique elements of OTL's Holocaust, so perhaps that would have an impact on his post-war reputation, such as it is.

Of course that requires 'Not-ler', as Hitler was at his core extremely genocidally fixated and surrounded himself with the must vile people in German society who were into his disgusting views and in fact encouraged him.

There are indeed many ways of committing genocide. Not only guns or gas, but also hatchets, forced work until death, starvation, exhaustion, ... etc.

To sum-up with, Hitler's plan concerning the lebensraum had always implied recourse to genocide through starvation. He wanted to reduce the number of slavs in conquered territories in order to free space for the germans. This was his vision. Without this dimension, he would not be Hitler as he was OTL, and there would be no nazism. Nazism was a program of racial darwinism that (of course !) put the german so called race on top and aimed at having it prevail.

If you don't have the racist supremacist vision, then you won't have either nazi imperialism nor genocidal plans.
 

Deleted member 1487

There are indeed many ways of committing genocide. Not only guns or gas, but also hatchets, forced work until death, starvation, exhaustion, ... etc.

To sum-up with, Hitler's plan concerning the lebensraum had always implied recourse to genocide through starvation. He wanted to reduce the number of slavs in conquered territories in order to free space for the germans. This was his vision. Without this dimension, he would not be Hitler as he was OTL, and there would be no nazism. Nazism was a program of racial darwinism that (of course !) put the german so called race on top and aimed at having it prevail.

If you don't have the racist supremacist vision, then you won't have either nazi imperialism nor genocidal plans.
Exactly. Its kind of impossible to only go half way on Hitler's plans. Either your all in or not at all.
 

Wendigo

Banned
If Hitler wasn't in favor of genocide or as he called it "depopulation" he wouldn't be the same person.

Nazism without racial surpremacy and the idea that non Aryans are only fit for death or enslavement wouldn't be Nazism it would be plain old right wing fascism.

Nazism, Hitler and the Reich was evil incarnate, the worst regime in human history in terms of malevolence and pure unadulterated primordial pitch black evil.
 
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There are indeed many ways of committing genocide. Not only guns or gas, but also hatchets, forced work until death, starvation, exhaustion, ... etc.

To sum-up with, Hitler's plan concerning the lebensraum had always implied recourse to genocide through starvation. He wanted to reduce the number of slavs in conquered territories in order to free space for the germans. This was his vision. Without this dimension, he would not be Hitler as he was OTL, and there would be no nazism. Nazism was a program of racial darwinism that (of course !) put the german so called race on top and aimed at having it prevail.

If you don't have the racist supremacist vision, then you won't have either nazi imperialism nor genocidal plans.


It is well within the bounds of NOT asb to WI a Hitler who initially went for deportation for German and French and even Polish "undesirables".


Hell, if he was slightly less drug addled and decided to divert all train transport to supporting the war effort, with full intentions of getting back to the important work of Genocide once the war was over,


he would, relative to OTL Hitler, "not committed genocide", BUT with even the more mundane and less "industrial" mass murder of the Nazi, not to mention the death likely accompanying even the "best" case deportation scenario, and the mass death caused by WWII, would still be "Hitler".

imo.

There is enough "margin" with Hitler to speculate on a ALt Hitler who is LESS Evil than OTL, but to still be one of the top Mass Murderers and Iconic Faces of Evil in HIstory.
 
Deporting tens of millions of people towards an area that is not fit for sustaining them is deliberately sending most of them to a certain death. This is genocide too.
 
Deporting tens of millions of people towards an area that is not fit for sustaining them is deliberately sending most of them to a certain death. This is genocide too.

War is seldom kind or fair and whilst I agree with your comment, it's simply not a realistic view on wars. Look at the Middle East for example or African wars that are displacing large populations, either by the shear fact that war is not fun and people move to get away or they are the target and flea or are simply told it's time to maybe look elsewhere to live.

Mass deportation works if they have some place to go and or someone who wants to take those peoples.
But I agree driving them off into more than likely hostile territory is criminal as well, unfortunately few stand trial for that.

That said what nazi's did is one of the most horrific things in recent memory and done on an industrial scale. Pol pot, Mao, American Indian removal, Stalin, Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda, hittler and company are stains on the concept of humanity.
 
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