[WW2 AH] - Nazi Acceptance For Russia & Ukraine?

It strikes me that both Russia and Ukraine have some notable historical ties to the Germanic/Norse peoples of old. The Tsardom of Russia does of course go back in furthest detail to Rurik of Holmgard and Oleg of Novgorod, two Varangians kinsmen who settled and ruled over areas of what is now Russia. These ties were known or commented on as far back as the 1700s, and even as late as WW1 the royal families of German and Russia were quite close (being first cousins along with the British royals as well), with many Russian nobles in the Baltics having been of more modern German descent.

With that in mind, is it an impossibility that if persuaded of that heritage Hitler would alter or accommodate his intentions for the European portion of the USSR? Perhaps the integration of the Ukraine proper into his greater Germany, in line with an effort to 're-Germanize' the native Ukrainian population? Or perhaps the creation of various smaller Russian and Ukrainian polities ruled over by a German elite, not unlike the initial Varangian settlements?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus'_people
 

Deleted member 1487

Russia no because of the Mongol rule and Nazi ideology, but perhaps maybe Ukraine could be acceptable due to the Rus connection. The bigger issue though beyond the racial ideology is the core feature of Nazism being about colonial exploitation and settlement based on a US westward expansion model treating the natives as the US did the Indians. Unless you change Nazi colonial ideals racial ideology is made to fit the economic agenda. That's how the Japanese were made 'aryan' for the treaty they signed.
 

Deleted member 1487

And if you change the Nazis colonial ideas, you change the prospects for any invasion of the Soviet Union being carried out.
Not entirely, because there is still the argument for destroying communism and eliminating an enemy while weakened, while using collaborators to run the dismembered Soviet state on the behalf of the Germans. Consider it a British style colonial state similar to what they did in India rather than in Australia or the US. Or if you want to take examples out of German history a Brest-Litovsk deal instead of Bohemia.
 

CalBear

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You need to utterly alter the way that Hitler saw the world. Doing that will almost certainly result in the "Hitler who?" scenario where no one has ever heard of him.

His hatred of Slavs was deep rooted, close (and related, BTW) to his hatred of the Jews.

As an example: His goal was to WIPE OUT the Polish people. Kill off 80%, most by "extermination through labor", and ensure the survivors be kept as illiterate chattel slaves to ensure the Polish language died out. He also intended to take every great "Slavic" city and quite literally demolish them down to the last brick (part of the extermination through labor noted above).

Hitler without hatred = No Hitler as Fuhrer.
 
It strikes me that both Russia and Ukraine have some notable historical ties to the Germanic/Norse peoples of old. The Tsardom of Russia does of course go back in furthest detail to Rurik of Holmgard and Oleg of Novgorod, two Varangians kinsmen who settled and ruled over areas of what is now Russia. These ties were known or commented on as far back as the 1700s, and even as late as WW1 the royal families of German and Russia were quite close (being first cousins along with the British royals as well), with many Russian nobles in the Baltics having been of more modern German descent.

With that in mind, is it an impossibility that if persuaded of that heritage Hitler would alter or accommodate his intentions for the European portion of the USSR? Perhaps the integration of the Ukraine proper into his greater Germany, in line with an effort to 're-Germanize' the native Ukrainian population? Or perhaps the creation of various smaller Russian and Ukrainian polities ruled over by a German elite, not unlike the initial Varangian settlements?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rus'_people

You need to utterly alter the way that Hitler saw the world. Doing that will almost certainly result in the "Hitler who?" scenario where no one has ever heard of him.

His hatred of Slavs was deep rooted, close (and related, BTW) to his hatred of the Jews.

As an example: His goal was to WIPE OUT the Polish people. Kill off 80%, most by "extermination through labor", and ensure the survivors be kept as illiterate chattel slaves to ensure the Polish language died out. He also intended to take every great "Slavic" city and quite literally demolish them down to the last brick (part of the extermination through labor noted above).

Hitler without hatred = No Hitler as Fuhrer.

Although variations of this has been tried repeatedly and usually expelled for the reasons quoted above by Calbear I think there is an interesting development possible from the word nobility.
It would not be too unlike Nazi ideology -and convenient - to consider the pre-communism rule as done by a master race over the inferior slavs. You could see Nazi Germany collaborate with the remnants of the mobility. Thereby you might provoke the impression that he is prompting a return to pre-communism which would be better received than the impression of imminent extermination of OTL.
In effect you'll have the Russian Nobility rule the occupied Russians and with severe decimation they received there is still plenty of opportunity to create new lebensraum. Obviously, the outnumbered German descendants need help.
Probably end up as bad as OTL, but a more convenient occupation strategy.
 
Hitler make clear in his Book "Mein Kampf" about his vision of Acceptance For Russia & Ukraine

Exterminate 80% of there population, keep the rest as slaves...
 

Perkeo

Banned
Let Hitler Plan the "Lebensraum" somwhere else, e.g. Africa. That's no major modification of the Nazi ideology, but should make the Slavs less of a target and more of a potential ally.
 
His hatred of Slavs was deep rooted, close (and related, BTW) to his hatred of the Jews.
He still was ready to recognize nominal independence of Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovakia (with pro-Nazi parties in power, of course) and abstain from any attempts at colonization of these areas, at least as long as the war was on. Even though Ukraine (and Russia even more so) is clearly larger, and the two countries' ruthless exploitation was far more necessary for the implementation of the Nazi project, I still see a more rational Nazi policy in Eastern Slavic countries as a possibility (say, sticking to economic exploitation without overt extermination measures unless needed for the aforesaid exploitation).

I'm unsure whether this more rational policy would help the Reich to do better than in OTL, but ideologically, the Nazis were able to bend their 'racial' views to suit military needs, as shown by many examples (not just the above-mentioned Slavic groups, but even Japanese were treated as honorary Aryans or close to it).
 
You need to utterly alter the way that Hitler saw the world. Doing that will almost certainly result in the "Hitler who?" scenario where no one has ever heard of him.

His hatred of Slavs was deep rooted, close (and related, BTW) to his hatred of the Jews.

As an example: His goal was to WIPE OUT the Polish people. Kill off 80%, most by "extermination through labor", and ensure the survivors be kept as illiterate chattel slaves to ensure the Polish language died out. He also intended to take every great "Slavic" city and quite literally demolish them down to the last brick (part of the extermination through labor noted above).

Hitler without hatred = No Hitler as Fuhrer.

I think the idea of "Hitler as a hate machine" is over-rated. For one thing, Hitler wasn't the most consistent racial theorist - his opinions seem to have shifted depending on what his mood on that day was and what the opportunities of the moment offered.

For example, Hitler promoted the Japanese several rungs up his racial hierarchy when they became one of the handful of countries willing to ally with him.

In the particular case of Slavs, he seems to have changed his mind several times as to what he actually meant by "Slavs". While Russians were always "bad Slavs" (except for during the Nazi-Soviet pact), pretty much every other kind of Slav was given status as "Slavicised Aryans" at some point during the Nazi regime (note, "Slavicised Aryan" status could and was removed as well - generally by sending in racial profilers who analyzed the skulls of the locals and came back with a result that said only a tiny proportion of a population was "Aryan", opening the door to liquidating the rest if so desired).

The Nazis really loved the Sorbs for example as well as the Masurians (East Prussia's protestant Polish population).

Hitler also wedged Croats into the upper levels of his racial hierarchy after Mussolini pushed him into invading Yugoslavia. At the same time, the same situation made him demote the Serbs drastically.

And then, with the Poles...

There's this quote from 4 March 1944 in a memorandum from Hitler to Himmler: "Poles are the most intelligent of all the people with whom Germany came across during the war in Europe... Poles in my opinion and basing on the observation and reports from the General Government, are the only nation in Europe that combines high intelligence with the incredible cleverness. They are the most talented people in Europe, because while living in extremely difficult political circumstances, acquired the great sense of living, unparalleled anywhere."

I've also read in second hand sources that Hitler spoke favorably about Poles in Mein Kampf. This may be hearsay mind.

Certainly when Hitler first came to power, the Polish government was quite excited, since Hitler spoke about Poles and Poland in much more respectful terms than _any_ of the Wiemar chancellors who had preceded him (peace-loving Wiemar Germany, yeah right!)

However, Poland, with its will to stay neutral in the German-Soviet argument and with the political gasoline of existing German (and particularly German _army_) prejudice against Poles, was easier to annihilate for Hitler.

I don't think Hitler is an exception to the banality of Nazi evil. I don't get the sense he was a man driven by demonic hatred. Rather, to me he simply comes across as a man who could rationalize away inconvenient moral boundaries that lay between him and what he wanted (a German Empire with a "revitalized" and Nazified culture). (Meaning hatred was a means to an end for him, not the end towards which he worked.)

As such, while I agree that there is no way for Hitler to fit Russians into his idea of the "family of Aryan peoples", I could see him fitting Poles and Ukrainians into the "Aryan family".

I don't think that would make much difference though. Hitler would still go East with the army he had, that army is extremely likely to act out on the witches brew of Polonophobia that had been steeping during the Wiemar period, meaning that however "Aryan" Hitler tells the troops the Poles are, abuses will still happen and relations between Pole and German will go down like a lead balloon. Similar in Ukraine, where avoiding the bad racist crimes might improve things in the short term, but in the medium and long term, fighting the bloodiest war in all of history on Ukrainian soil is going to result in German atrocities against the civilian population, sending those relations straight down the toilet. In both cases, collapsing relations between occupier and occupied (or puppet ally and Reich) is going to mean Aryan status is removed from larger and larger groups of Poles and Ukrainians.

fasquardon
 
What CalBear said.

Not possible with OTL Hitler.

It could be possible with a different Nazi-like organization under a different leader, but not with Hitler and the Nazis (which were Hitler's creation).
 
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