Would the Nazis ever moderate in time ?

Whether or not there are any real Jews or communists, it's always going to be convenient for a National Socialist official to get rid of a political rival, or just a neighbour who was rude to him when he was a kid, by accusing them of being Jewish or communist. Because of that, the 'Judeo-Bolshevik threat' will never die.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functionalism_versus_intentionalism
This entire historical debate is how much was pre-planned and how much a circumstance of the war and Nazi form of government. The Allies certainly did NOT cause the Nazis to commit the Holocaust by continuing to resist, but the war dragging out did provide cover to implement the Holocaust; it probably would have happened another way without the war, like via the Madagascar Plan. There was some radicalization politically by the war, but that was a feature of them starting it.


That's just factually wrong:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Influence_on_policy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#JCS_1067
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Implementation
That's not to say it had any impact on German policy in terms of genocide, though it did on German resistance in 1944-45, as that was decided on much earlier; even the Madagascar Plan would effectively have been genocide by other means by throwing them into a reserve that could not sustain them. Its arguable that US entry hastened the 'final solution', but it was going to happen win or lose with the Nazis in charge.

Fair points, but my main point was that GrafZahl was vastly overstating the importance of the Morgenthau Plan to the WAllies, and using it as some kind of justification for the Nazis behavior (as somehow "radicalizing" them and pushing them to commit to the Final Solution) is deeply misguided at best, and apologia at worst.
 

Deleted member 1487

Fair points, but my main point was that GrafZahl was vastly overstating the importance of the Morgenthau Plan to the WAllies, and using it as some kind of justification for the Nazis behavior (as somehow "radicalizing" them and pushing them to commit to the Final Solution) is deeply misguided at best, and apologia at worst.
I agree, I was just correcting some details; otherwise you're right.
 
The Nazi regime was not sustainable as such. It would have run out of money (actually it did around 1941 when there was no gold left to loot), only the fiat money kept it going for a while). Unless we talk about a war successfully concluded in 1940, you would see Greater german Reich collapse either through escalating power politics or the unrest in the core area. The ongoing conquests were among others supplying German civilians with food and basic necessities, but with the end of ongoing conquests this source of plunder would dry out. Claiming that the war requires sacrifices won't work any more. Unlike North Korea which was for several decades the better off part of the peninsula, the food and raw materials supply - and the quality of life - of German civilians would crash hard, and this in very short time; people are still remembering pre-war period. The Nazi ideology has never really taken root in the population; it was accepted as stuff to be mouthed because the regime managed to run the war without food shortages that older people remembered from 1914-1918. (well...).

End this, either through bombing disrupting transportation system or through plundering the East empty, and the people will start to mutter. The Nazi plan to settle millions of Germans as fighting farmers, Roman style, in the conquered areas was not popular at all; I would assume that large numbers of families would have to be conscripted for this against their will as few town-dwellers were looking forward to grub around in the earth instead of just visiting a greengrocer. At some point the result would be an explosion; and rumors and accounts of SS gunning down German families protesting against transportation is not going to go down well even with those who didn't waste any thought about gunning down Czech or Polish families. The result would not be pretty for any side.
 
Fair points, but my main point was that GrafZahl was vastly overstating the importance of the Morgenthau Plan to the WAllies, and using it as some kind of justification for the Nazis behavior (as somehow "radicalizing" them and pushing them to commit to the Final Solution) is deeply misguided at best, and apologia at worst.

The Morgenthau plan, which became public very soon, was a gift from heaven for the Nazi propaganda machine; there are estimations that together with this insane book about sterilizing all Germans (whose author has met with Roosevelt for some reason) it prolonged the war for something between 6 and 9 months. It possibly motivated hardcore Nazis to continue with the Final Solution at all costs; it definitely motivated the population to put up with increasingly draconian measures against dissent, to keep heads down and to fight on despite things falling and being bombed apart around them.
 

Deleted member 1487

The Nazi regime was not sustainable as such. It would have run out of money (actually it did around 1941 when there was no gold left to loot), only the fiat money kept it going for a while).
How do you explain Nazi gold found at the end of the war, especially when they were spending it in a bidding war with neutrals?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_gold
That's just in gold taken from state organizations, not private individuals, precious jewels, stocks and bonds, silver, or commodities they could trade; this is way over blown as a concept because the only reason the Germans were short of domestic foreign exchange in 1939 was because they were wildly spending on imports to fuel rearmament; without rearmament they would have been fine financially due to trade and barter deals they had going. Fiat currency is all they needed to run internal markets, foreign exchange is needed for foreign trade outside of Europe.

Unless we talk about a war successfully concluded in 1940, you would see Greater german Reich collapse either through escalating power politics or the unrest in the core area. The ongoing conquests were among others supplying German civilians with food and basic necessities, but with the end of ongoing conquests this source of plunder would dry out. Claiming that the war requires sacrifices won't work any more.
That's the thing after the war is over you transition back to a peacetime economy now that rearmament and war spending is over; they had the resources for a peacetime economy, it was a problem financing a long war that was the issue or at least financing the quickest possible rearmament from nothing from 1933. Once the war ends they have the resources domestically to run a normal economy.

Unlike North Korea which was for several decades the better off part of the peninsula, the food and raw materials supply - and the quality of life - of German civilians would crash hard, and this in very short time; people are still remembering pre-war period. The Nazi ideology has never really taken root in the population; it was accepted as stuff to be mouthed because the regime managed to run the war without food shortages that older people remembered from 1914-1918. (well...).
Except they control Europe and don't need hard currency like they did before because they control the resources of Europe. Plus without war or rearmament they can actually produce things to export to raise hard currency to buy what they can't source from their empire.

End this, either through bombing disrupting transportation system or through plundering the East empty, and the people will start to mutter. The Nazi plan to settle millions of Germans as fighting farmers, Roman style, in the conquered areas was not popular at all; I would assume that large numbers of families would have to be conscripted for this against their will as few town-dwellers were looking forward to grub around in the earth instead of just visiting a greengrocer. At some point the result would be an explosion; and rumors and accounts of SS gunning down German families protesting against transportation is not going to go down well even with those who didn't waste any thought about gunning down Czech or Polish families. The result would not be pretty for any side.
Yeah, that wasn't really viable in the end. It would change due conform to reality. No major settlement of the East in the end be possible, so that gets dropped; the Nazis understood they couldn't piss off the German people without consequences, so there is not going to be forcible relocations, they didn't even try that IOTL; when the public found out about euthanasia of the mentally and physically handicapped they protested and got the government to stop:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4#Opposition
During 1940 protest letters were sent to the Reich Chancellery and the Ministry of Justice, some of them from Nazi Party members. The first open protest against the removal of people from asylums took place at Absberg in Franconia in February 1941, and others followed. The SD report on the incident at Absberg noted that "the removal of residents from the Ottilien Home has caused a great deal of unpleasantness", and described large crowds of Catholic townspeople, among them Party members, protesting against the action.[78] Opposition to the T4 policy sharpened after the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, because the war in the east produced for the first time large-scale German casualties, and the hospitals and asylums began to fill up with maimed and disabled young German soldiers. Rumours began to circulate that these men would also be subject to "euthanasia".

By August the protests had spread to Bavaria. According to Gitta Sereny, Hitler was jeered by an angry crowd at Hof – the only time he was opposed in public during his 12 years of rule.[86][87] Despite his private fury, Hitler knew that he could not afford a confrontation with the Church at a time when Germany was engaged in a life-and-death war, a belief which was reinforced by the advice of Goebbels, Martin Bormann, head of the Party Chancellery and SS leader Heinrich Himmler. Robert Lifton writes: "Nazi leaders faced the prospect of either having to imprison prominent, highly admired clergymen and other protesters – a course with consequences in terms of adverse public reaction they greatly feared – or else end the programme." Himmler said: "If operation T4 had been entrusted to the SS, things would have happened differently", because "when the Führer entrusts us with a job, we know how to deal with it correctly, without causing useless uproar among the people."[88]
On 24 August 1941 Hitler ordered the cancellation of the T4 programme. He issued strict instructions to the Gauleiters to avoid further provocations of the churches for the duration of the war. The invasion of the Soviet Union in June provided new opportunities to use the T4 personnel. Many were transferred to the east to begin work on a vastly greater programme of killing: the "final solution of the Jewish question". The winding-up of the T4 programme did not end the killing of people with disabilities. From the end of 1941, the killing became less systematic. Lifton documents that the killing of adults and children continued to the end of the war, on the local initiative of institute directors and party leaders. The methods reverted to those employed before use of the gas chambers: lethal injection or starvation.[89] Kershaw estimates that by the end of 1941 75,000 to 100,000 people had been killed in the T4 programme. Tens of thousands of concentration camp inmates and people judged incapable of work, were killed in Germany between 1942 and 1945. (This figure does not include Jews who were deported to their deaths in 1942 and 1943). The Hartheim and Hardamar centres continued to kill people sent to them from all over Germany until 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed
 
Yeah, that wasn't really viable in the end. It would change due conform to reality. No major settlement of the East in the end be possible, so that gets dropped; the Nazis understood they couldn't piss off the German people without consequences, so there is not going to be forcible relocations, they didn't even try that IOTL; when the public found out about euthanasia of the mentally and physically handicapped they protested and got the government to stop:

Kinda damning that the Germans didn't show such concern about their Jewish neighbors.
 
It's kind of an odd question. In the Presence of Mine Enemies, they had a Nazi Empire that went "softer" in the vein of Gorbachev's reforms, but I don't know if that timeline is what you would call realistic. It sticks to the parallels of Turtledove's histories.

In an honest manner, the Nazis that took power were far more moderate than the revolutionary left wing of the party. While still being a dangerous right wing figure, it was only Hitler who could mend the fences with the conservative power base that absorbed his party.
 

Deleted member 1487

Kinda damning that the Germans didn't show such concern about their Jewish neighbors.
That's effectively Kershaw's argument, that it wasn't that the Germans knew about gas chambers and mass shootings, its that they were indifferent to them being shipped East and removed from the country; of course we could argue that the people understood that the Jews were the primary core of the Nazis hate so fight back for them wasn't worth it, because they were less likely to compromise there. But it should be noted that the majority of German Jews left the country before thew war started leaving something like 185k Jews in Germany, mostly in Berlin, which was actually really a Jew-friendly city and they did fight back against deportations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenstrasse_protest

But the reality is that by 1939 out of a pre-war German population of some 68 million a fraction of 1% were Jewish. Most people didn't know the Jews that were left and couldn't care, while many that did actually did try to help people if they thought they could get away with it. It was known that helping hide Jews meant execution though if you were caught, so protests against deportations were FAR riskier than against T4.

In Austria things were a lot more anti-semitic so there was very little protest there about deportations, while the Czechs didn't get a say about their Jewish population. The vast majority then of the killing was of foreign Jews in Poland, Russia, Hungary, Romania, and the West rather than of German Jews and that was largely hidden from the German people despite rumors coming in from deployed family members.
 
That's effectively Kershaw's argument, that it wasn't that the Germans knew about gas chambers and mass shootings, its that they were indifferent to them being shipped East and removed from the country; of course we could argue that the people understood that the Jews were the primary core of the Nazis hate so fight back for them wasn't worth it, because they were less likely to compromise there. But it should be noted that the majority of German Jews left the country before thew war started leaving something like 185k Jews in Germany, mostly in Berlin, which was actually really a Jew-friendly city and they did fight back against deportations

Yes, Hitler managed to get the vast majority to 'self-deport' before the war, leaving him with a much smaller political problem to deal with when forcible deportation from Germany became the policy.
 

Deleted member 1487

Yes, Hitler managed to get the vast majority to 'self-deport' before the war, leaving him with a much smaller political problem to deal with when forcible deportation from Germany became the policy.
Which effectively removed the issue from public sight as those that remained were increasingly segregated from the rest of the public so when they were deported after 1941 there wasn't much public connection with what was going on, as they were too distracted by war and too distanced by Nazi policies removing the Jews from site, while mixed people aryanized legally.
 
I don't believe that Nazism was an economic theory, it was a social theory. Unlike Soviet Communism that used repression as a tool to support their economic theory the Nazis used the economy to support their social theory. I say social rather than racial because pure Aryan Homosexuals and those with deformities suffered much the same fate as the Jews. The idea that those who were different were some how sub human was the sum total of Nazi belief and this was taught in school in Nazi Germany. The extermination of all sub humans in Nazi territory would mitigate against any Germans questioning Nazi theory because there would be no Jew, Slavs and so on, to interact with and challenge their beliefs. As for Speer being the good Nazi, I recall seeing interviews with him about the killing of the Homosexual Rohm and his acceptance of that killing sent shivers down my spine. As for Goring, his father was the first Colonial Governor of German South West Africa, where the Nama and Herero people were nearly exterminated. And I have always believed that the Death Camps along the skeleton coast were the real template for the concentration camps that Goring created when the Nazis took over in 1933.
 
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