WI: Rosenstrasse protests turned violent?

For those who don't know, wikipedia has some good info on this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenstrasse_protest

In short, it was a protest by German women to have their Jewish husbands back. During the event, the police and the SS arrived, intending to break up the event. Despite threatening to gun down the women multiple times, the women refused to leave. After a while, the men were released to the women by the order of Joseph Goebbels.

So what if the protests turned bloody? Would the massacre of German women have forced an earlier defeat for the Nazi regime? Or would it be like Tienanmen, where people die and nothing major changes for the war?

I suppose one could state that such a massacre might provoke more into protesting, with hundreds of women turning into thousands, popping up into cities across Germany, reducing production of weapons and German soldiers questioning their service to Hitler, seeing how their government committed an awful act. German resistance could rise and more Valkyrie-like attempts could result.

On the other hand, one could also state it might sour up future attempts at protesting, maybe the Nazi regime making up some excuses how the women were "brainwashed" by their Jewish husbands into sabotaging the war effort or whatever bullshit the Nazis pulled from their asses. The war ends as OTL.

So what would have happened, if the protests turned bloody?
 
You're forgetting that the Nazis controlled the media, which means that no one outside the immediate vicinity would know what had happened, and anyone in the immediate vicinity would have had a strong incentive not to talk.
 
You're forgetting that the Nazis controlled the media, which means that no one outside the immediate vicinity would know what had happened, and anyone in the immediate vicinity would have had a strong incentive not to talk.

What do you mean by that? Are you trying to tell me that a massacre would have no effect at all? In the link I submitted, the OSS were somewhat familiar with a protest going on.
 
A massacre would provide good propaganda material for the Allies, but I can’t see it having much of an effect other than that - just another atrocity on the long list of Nazi atrocities.
 
. . . it was a protest by German women to have their Jewish husbands back. . . .
The husbands were of course also German,

with many of their family backgrounds going back generations and generations to when there was only Prussia, Brunswick, Bavaria, etc, and no unified Germany at all.

And—equally true—that did not protect other longstanding Germans. :frown:
 
What do you mean by that? Are you trying to tell me that a massacre would have no effect at all? In the link I submitted, the OSS were somewhat familiar with a protest going on.

I'm not saying that it wouldn't have slightly increased resistance activity or given the Allies fodder for propaganda, but none of this would have been sufficient to meaningfully alter the course of the war.
 
IMHO one reason the demonstration was not suppressed violently is that doing so would have been very public and indicating regime weakness. One wonders, although the husbands were released then, how many actually survived until the end of the war. For a Jew to have sex with an Aryan was illegal (married or not) although that did not stop the Wehrmacht and SS from using Jewish women as whores in concentration camps and army brothels. Half Jews (Mischling first degree) were sent to camps like "full" Jews.

In any case had the demonstration been violently suppressed, it is entirely possible the Allies would not have heard of it before the war ended. If they did hear of it, it would have been well after the event and probably only the sketchiest of details. In any case I doubt very much whether most Germans would be upset, by 1943 the general view of any good German woman having sex with a Jew would be negative to say the least. It's not like people were unaware of what happened to the Jews in their neighborhoods and towns when they were taken away never to return...
 
I'm not saying that it wouldn't have slightly increased resistance activity or given the Allies fodder for propaganda, but none of this would have been sufficient to meaningfully alter the course of the war.

What do you mean by "slightly increased?" Can you provide more details to this part of your post?
 
What do you mean by "slightly increased?" Can you provide more details to this part of your post?

A few dozen people or maybe a few hundred people who hear about the massacre or are related to one of the victims join the resistance, but it's not enough to make the resistance inside Germany a significant player.
 
You're forgetting that the Nazis controlled the media, which means that no one outside the immediate vicinity would know what had happened, and anyone in the immediate vicinity would have had a strong incentive not to talk.

Sorry to disagree. News traveled by word of mouth, and the Gestapo was not able to suppress that. Also, there still were leaflets around. And if the news reaches diplomats of the neutral embassies, which is likely, it reaches the Allies, and by way of air-dropped leaflets it goes back to all parts of Germany too.

That is not to say that it brings about a collapse of the regime - it doesn't. It might increase the level of active opposition, and almost surely it will increase the level of passive non-compliance. Make the Nazis marginally less in control in the end. Not much more.
But it's not kept secret.
 
That is not to say that it brings about a collapse of the regime - it doesn't. It might increase the level of active opposition, and almost surely it will increase the level of passive non-compliance. Make the Nazis marginally less in control in the end. Not much more.
But it's not kept secret.

It would be a major embarrassment to the regime. There was already considerable dissidence within the Army. Many high-ranking officers had come to dislike the Nazi regime, but most were unwilling to act against it.

They were constrained by loyalty to the country against the destruction threatened and already being wreaked by the Allies, and by the personal oath to Hitler all German officers had sworn. "A German soldier does not mutiny."

But an act of this nature would cause many to rethink their positions. There were some who knew about the plotting by the Schwarz Kapelle, but kept silent - neither joining nor informing the Gestapo. After the Rosenstrasse Massacre, some of these fence sitters would join the SK. This might enable the SK to assassinate Hitler. Maybe they succeed in one of the several failed assassination plots which preceded 20 July. A 50% chance that Hitler is killed in late 1943-early 1944?
 
Okay so everyone here seems to agree that this doesn't bring about a collapse of the regime, correct?

Well can someone answer to me how much is the war shortened? By a few days, maybe a couple weeks?
 
The major complaint the "generals" had about the Nazis was the interference by Hitler with operational details, including the "no retreat" orders. The "nickname" for Hitler among many of them was GROFAZ which was an acronym for "greatest field marshal of all time" (Großter Feldherr alle Zeit). The theme, the Wehrmacht was not doing bad things to Jews, and the General Staff was not behind the Holocaust is a fraud. Individual exceptions occurred, of course, but most German senior officers either supported what was happening to the Jews (including the Munich Laws which forbid relations between Aryans and Jews long before the war), or did not care one way or another.
 
. . . There were some who knew about the plotting by the Schwarz Kapelle, but kept silent - neither joining nor informing the Gestapo. After the Rosenstrasse Massacre, some of these fence sitters would join the SK. . .
Okay so everyone here seems to agree that this doesn't bring about a collapse of the regime, correct? . . .
Not necessarily, see the above about one possible threshold effect.

In fact, someone might even make the case: Look, given the number of assassination attempts against Hitler, we're just living in the 1 out of 5 world in which he isn't assassinated. (and since a negotiated peace allows them a better chance of covering up . . .




. . . and perhaps even continuing the Holocaust—for example, in Harry Turtledove’s Colonization series, the Nazis stopped killing basically because they ran out of people to kill—such is not automatically a plus for the human race)
 
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