And when those are killed they could decide all people with black hair are inferior or if they have green eyes or any other arbitrary physical or national trait.
Would a victorious Reich moderate?
- Thread starter Wendigo
- Start date
And when those are killed they could decide all people with black hair are inferior or if they have green eyes or any other arbitrary physical or national trait.
Wendigo
Banned
Nazism was insane/demonic but I highly doubt they'd go this far. Their beliefs were irrational but for the most part had racism and belief in Aryan supremacy as the foundation.
This would be like Stalin declaring door to door vacuum salesmen "class enemies."
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The extermination/enslavement of inferior races/subhumans was a means to an end, not something that needed to be continued once this had been accomplished. You can have technocrats like Speer running the economy in a more rational fashion without doing away with slavery of the remaining Slavs (& others), the T4 program, and so forth. As I noted in a post on the Generalplan Ost thread, by 1945 everyone under 18 has spent their entire life being indoctrinated from their first school experience, and those somewhat older have spent much of their life indoctrinated. With victory and continental hegemony, this philosophy has been validated by victory. Once the Slavs and other Untermenschen have been culled and enslaved, the situation will stabilize - the philosophy won't change but only in the east against any partisans or on the border will there be the sort of active evil that went before.
The system was dependent on their being a "subhuman inferior" enemy and when they ran out another could well replace them. I wouldn't put it past Stalin to declare door to door vacuum salesmen as "class enemies" or anyone else that struck his fancy.
Given the leadership which would most likely succeed Hitler, it would probably moderate to an extent.
It is highly probable that the deportation/killing and settlement part of Generalplan Ost would be abandoned or largely scaled back, for reasons laid out below. The transportation infrastructure construction part would certainly be put into effect as the whole point of invading the Soviet Union was to acquire the raw materials of European Russia with which to supply the rest of the European mainland. Given the extreme improbability of Himmler's political survival in a post-Hitler structure, the replacement with the Waffen-SS of the regular army would be stillborn. The reconstruction of German cities would certainly be carried out, as there would be more than enough resources for it once the economy had gone off a war footing. The birthrate would probably resemble that of the postwar US, a baby boom followed by the slow, gradual decline typical of advanced economies.
German society would become increasingly indoctrinated, as in this scenario Nazism would have delivered spectacularly on all its promises and would have complete control of the media and education systems. There would be no reason for significant levels of rebellion or discontent.
First of all, it's not a matter of "if" Hitler dies, but when, the two options being "soon" or "sooner," given the facts of his being injected by Morell on a daily basis with highly dangerous substances and the state of his health at the time of his suicide. As for Goering, the state of his own addiction by this time, while not as immediately lethal as Hitler's, would be such as to render him unable to be more than a figurehead for one of the other two. Now, as was pointed out repeatedly in the other thread, Himmler was widely loathed for his habit of extending his reach wherever he could at everyone else's expense. He had also made an enemy of the Wehrmacht with his aspirations to replace it with the Waffen-SS, which were similar to those earlier held by Rohm. What all this adds up to is that it is incredibly unlikely that he would survive without Hitler's protection. That leaves Speer, almost by default. And while as I said in the other thread I haven't run across a specific assessment on his part of Generalplan Ost, it is safe to say that it would run against the entirety of what is known of his personality and tendencies, which were towards the practical and down-to-earth.
All this is setting aside something which really should be quite obvious, namely, that in order to achieve victory in the first place the Germans would have to have been doing something differently and better than what they were doing in OTL. In other words, it essentially requires that the influence of Speer or someone like him be greater than it was historically. This is important, because all the replies to the effect of "The Nazis would double down on the craziness because it would have been vindicated by the victory" have it exactly backwards. What would be vindicated by victory would not be the dreaming of people like Himmler, but the practicality of people like Speer, for the simple reason that relying primarily on the former rules out a victory in the first place, rendering what would follow it moot.
That quote is completely hyperbolic, and is probably an example of Speer playing to his audience, given that is says that "man would not even remember the light" implying that Germany would have conquered the world, which is utterly ASB. A German victory along the lines of what everyone seemed to be assuming in the other thread would lead to a cold war between the Anglo-American bloc and the German Axis bloc, probably centered at first on the Middle East as the Germans take advantage of its geographical proximity to aid the various pro-Axis movements there to try to deny the Wallies their important source of oil. Later on, a third major country, either in East or South Asia, would probably rise and the world would become broadly tripolar.
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I think this has to do with the OTL Western World's experience dealing with Communism. OTL Communism was built upon the promise of progress, high standard of living and equality, when it's proven that capitalism could bring forth faster progress, better standard of living and even, in some ways, more equality, capitalistic reforms would be logically inevitable.
Nazism was different. No matter how much the rest of the world achieves, it would always be selling its souls to Jewish financial capitalism. There was no way the Free World could outbid Germany on making the Aryan race purer, or practicing better racial hygiene, or subjugate their slavs to deeper servitude.
And their economy, built upon the Sub-human's slave labour and ecnomic integration with their allies, could potentially be very well. In this European Union, the Greeks would be lending the Germans money, not the other way round.
There would be no reason for a reformer in the Reich, not before most of the Sub-humans have worked themselves to death in German settler's farms and labour camps.
Wendigo
Banned
If it was accomplished then by definition it wouldn't need to be continued.
Also what "end" do you think the Nazis had in mind?
Because to me it's always seemed like murder of inferior races WAS the end in and of itself. They believed any non Aryan was subhuman and "unworthy of life." Their lives had no value so to enslave them or wipe them out on a whim wasn't morally significant. To the Reich killing Jews and planning to kill 85% of Poles, 75% of Russians, 65% of Ukrainians etc was explicitly referred to in terms of "pest control" and "cleansing." The Aryans were the strongest race therefore any action they took against weaker ones were automatically justified.
To a sane and moral person killing tens of millions is sheer madness. To the Reich it was a matter of paperwork or stepping on ants.
Himmler himself said:
Erich Koch the Nazi governor of Ukraine said as well:
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http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=90383 , this will greatly help , documents about general plan ost from 41 and 42
Very true. In fact, if I recall correctly, the Romanian leadership in particular (I.e. Antonescu) was very enthusiastic regarding any offensive action taken against Slavs, which they saw as being a "barbarian" threat to Romania, which was an island of Latin culture surrounded by Slavs and Magyars.
Hungary also seems to have been at least unofficially treated as if they were superior to the Slavs. Possibly this was related to the Finno-Ugric connection with the Finns (who were definitely seen as preferable to Russians) and the more 'Central European' culture of Hungary. The Magyars were also seen as a potential partner for oppression of the Slavs, having held dominion over Croatia-Slavonia and Slovakia pre-Trianon.
Hungary also seems to have been at least unofficially treated as if they were superior to the Slavs. Possibly this was related to the Finno-Ugric connection with the Finns (who were definitely seen as preferable to Russians) and the more 'Central European' culture of Hungary. The Magyars were also seen as a potential partner for oppression of the Slavs, having held dominion over Croatia-Slavonia and Slovakia pre-Trianon.
I'm making a timeline where it moderates Heil Herr Prasident: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/heil-herr-präsident-alternate-third-reich.388648/
Pretty much the pretext is that practically contingencies force the Nazis to change. I believe this is a reasonable enough assumption as any victory in the war will require the Nazis to change, and after Hitler dies you lose a lot of the impetus to be completely nuts.
Pretty much the pretext is that practically contingencies force the Nazis to change. I believe this is a reasonable enough assumption as any victory in the war will require the Nazis to change, and after Hitler dies you lose a lot of the impetus to be completely nuts.
Wendigo
Banned
It's often been said that a victorious Reich would collapse sooner than the USSR did IOTL probably right after they finish working all the Slavs to death and don't have any more slave labor to hold their economy up.
If Generalplan Ost goes as planned the Reich would collapse around the early 70s if they can't switch to an economy not based off expendable labor soon after.
General Ripper
Banned
Well, the Ustashe used the theory that Croats are descendants of Goths ( one of about 17 IIRC various theories about the origin of Croats ) so they were a sort of Aryans/Germanics... OFC nobody really believed in that, but it was expedient at the time for both sides... But, of course, the main reason was that aforementioned nations were not in the way to the Germans in their Lebensraum plans, plus Hitler's own distaste toward Balkans...
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I think I said something about this in the other thread and I will repeat it here: I think that the problem with this sort of thinking is taking the Third Reich and seeing it as a monolithic entity where everyone thinks like a Hitler or a Himmler. This was pretty far from the truth IOTL, and it would be pretty far from the truth even in a victorious Reich after the war. Even among the Nazi leadership, not everyone was a fanatic in the mold of the Führer himself. To a pretty high number of postwar Germans, even people in leading positions, killing tens of millions would still be sheer madness. At the very least even many Nazi leaders and officials would see killing tens and millions in vain as madness, even if they would not be adverse to killing such numbers slowly through heavy labour. In the late 40s, most Germans would not yet have lived all their lives under the Nazi system and they would remember how things were before 1933. That alone would be a moderating influence after the war when the Germans are rebuilding what was lost in the war.
The other thing I want to bring from the previous thread is to remember that most Nazi atrocities the OTL saw took place during the war itself. We'll do well to remember that in 1933-1940, Nazi Germany committed, on balance, a lot less crimes against humanity than Stalin's USSR. Every other nation that took part in WWII returned to more normal, peace time models after the war. Even Stalin's USSR, a nation that had killed millions of its own citizens by that point. That the atrocities of Nazi Germany would be scaled back in postwar years from the height of WWII is not the nation "moderating", it is just the normal effects of a large-scale war ending and peace returning. In a nation at peace, priorities are simply different than in one fighting for its survival. Even Nazi Germany would not escape this basic mechanism.
Even during the war, the Nazis wanted to keep their worst crimes hidden from the world. Now in peace time, they would not want to proudly proclaim their unparalleled evil to the world - that would just make the whole world turn against them. They'd rather try to hide their worst excesses and blame a lot of the wartime atrocities on their enemies, especially the USSR. The postwar Third Reich would want to be admired for its greatness and for "saving Europe from the Bolshevik menace", rather than reviled as the epitome of evil in the world, especially if it is led by relatively sane people like Speer or his ilk. No nation wants to embrace an evil identity, and in the 40s and 50s, most Germans would still know that killing tens of millions in cold blood is pretty evil. The German population during the war did not embrace the Final Solution as a sound policy - they were simply not officially told about it. The same would probably apply to the effort of running a system stemming from the different versions of Generalplan Ost - what actually happens in the Eastern territories would not be really detailed to the general public or the international community.
The wartime atrocities were a result of the Nazi system running a total war on ideological grounds, but the Nazi system was still just a relatively thin layer on the German society by the 1940s, it had not taken over the entire national psyche which was still mostly traditionally German with its prewar, pre-Nazi sensibilities, with a positive trust in German culture and science as the pinnacle of European civilization. The Nazis were well on their way in perverting Germany and its culture for their own ends, but they had not yet reached as low as to utterly corrupt the German people by the end of the war - the postwar IOTL proved this, as for example the plans for "Werwulf" resistance mainly came to nothing. The Nazi brainwash and indoctrination of Germany was still incomplete in 1945.
Wendigo
Banned
So you're admitting they wouldn't have an issue obliterating the Slavic populations through overwork on starvation diets over an extended period of time as opposed to gas chambers and death squads?
That's exactly what I've been saying.
I wasn't suggesting that Hitler would snap his fingers and like magic 80% of Slavs would disappear instantly.
Extermination through labor or simply put working people to death was the method the Reich had in mind when it came to how the Slavs would be reduced to their respective population levels. CalBear could go more in depth but that's basically the gist of their plans. It wouldn't have been in "vain" as you put it because eliminating and subjugating "untermensch" was an end in and of itself. Lower taxes were considered unworthy of life and were fit either to serve the Master Race or to die.
Generalplan Ost was supposed to take between 2 and 3 decades so we'd see a few million slave laborers dying a year steadily from overwork/disease/exposure/malnutrition which would be effective enough to kill off the majority and enslave the survivors on German farms in the East at least ostensibly. This was the plan but whether they would have followed through with it is the point of this very interesting discussion.
I don't see how the Reich would have an issue working a few million people to death annually in mines, factories, fortification building or destroying their own cities at least in terms of morals/logistics. They had no issue with using large numbers of concentration camp/slave labor nor did they have an issue with killing large numbers as well. If you can gas 3 million Jews in less than 3 years than you could do the same to other "inferior races" just in a more cost effective and brutal manner (overwork and starvation as opposed to gas.)
I mean the German workers and overseers had no issue treating Slav workers horribly during the war (hanging them for the slightest resistance and leaving their corpses up for days was common) or watching them drop like flies due to their low rations and horrid conditions so why would there be an issue after they won?
Remember they didn't see the Slavs as human beings who were worthy of fair treatment. They were seen at best as chattel and at worst as subhuman garbage. I doubt the Reich would run low on people who could stand watching sickly slave laborers slowly waste away until they die because there never was a shortage of guards in the concentration camps and workplaces that used primarily workers from Poland and the USSR IOTL who did exactly that. The ones who had no issue with it before wouldn't grow a conscience and become tolerant overnight.
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You keep saying that "the Reich" would do this or that, or that "the Reich" would not have an issue with it. The question, to me, is exactly what this "Reich" would mean in the postwar reality - are we talking about the German people here, the Nazi Party apparatus, the German government, or just the upper echelon of the Nazi leadership? These all are made of different groups and interests, with different preferences, beliefs and needs, and a post-Hitler Nazi empire would have many competing groups, any of which might end up running it, alone or together. Also, a postwar Nazi Germany is not just "Nazi", it is also "Germany", a culture and nation that predated the Nazi ideology by a fair margin. We should not forget that when we are thinking about the future of the German-run Europe after the war, especially after Hitler dies or is otherwise sidelined.
Like I wrote in the previous thread, I believe that completing a version of the GpO would be possible, but IMO that would be among the less likely options of what would happen. In most options, I believe something like the GpO would be started, but would not run its full course due to various reasons.
Wendigo
Banned
Sorry I wasn't clear. Whenever I say "the Reich" I am referring to the Nazi Party, the government AND the higher leadership meaning Hitler, Himmler, Goering etc as a combined entity with similar interests and ideological views.
You could also get away with the definition of "Hitler/The Fuhrer and anyone who would follow and implement his orders and policies."
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Well, even within that context, I think it is debatable whether there would be real support to a full-blown GpO after the war if the more "moderate" elements can sideline Himmler and his most extreme acolytes after Hitler is out of the game, one way or the other. Like I said in the other thread, I can see the Nazi state going "the full monty" with a version of the Generalplan Ost only if Himmler or, say, someone like Heydrich can monopolize power after Hitler. But then, the most extreme SS kooks would be disliked by most of the other groups within the byzantine reaches of the Party and the government apparatus, and there would be a high chance that their plans to grab total power are mooted by the other groups ganging up against them.
Wendigo
Banned
You keep making it seem like all the "kooks" in Nazi Germany were confined solely to the SS.
The entire German government/military/bureaucratic apparatus was deeply involved in various atrocities and war crimes from 1939-1945 particularly in the East. Things like the Holocaust, the genocide of over 2.5 million Soviet POWs within 8 months in 1941, the Commissar Order, wiping out whole villages suspected of assisting partisans, the policy of 100 civilians killed for every German death, deporting people as slaves, use of millions of slave workers in horrible conditions, mass looting, mass confiscations of foodstuffs from the local population etc were all horrific things that couldn't have occurred if it was solely up to the "kooks" in the SS. Everyone involved was guilty to some extent the only thing that varied was how much blood they had on their particular hands.
There were committed/true believer Nazis throughout German society especially among the government, the various ministries and the military. Most of the leadership both senior and junior were virulent racists and anti semites across a broad spectrum. These were people who had and would have no issue implementing Hitler/the Fuhrer's policies to the letter. These people wouldn't disappear or grow consciences in the event of a total victory. To do so would be going back on the tenets and doctrines of National Socialism to which they adhered to either totally or partially. If they committed or organized atrocities during the war then why wouldn't they continue to do so or support those who are doing it after the war when the REAL work was at hand?
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