Good point.
National Socialism vs. Communism.
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My point is simply that Nazi Germany need not have expended such an effort to kill all those involved in the Holocaust. Impending Starvation does not logically lead to Kill A Portion of Your Own Populous. There were other, non-genocidal ways of removing undesirable people. If the Nazis were at all capable of separate coexistence or had any compunction over atrocities, they could have made different choices. To insinuate that Hitler/the Nazis had no choice but to kill people is blatantly false.
I agree. All the arguments against this merely throw blame at other parties, either for different crimes, or for creating the conditions that contributed to the Nazi’s policy of deliberate and systematic genocide. Whether or not those arguments are true, and all too often they are, is irrelevant. Hopefully, we do not live in a world where self-interest and logic have replaced justice, legality and morality, imperfect though our pursuit of those concepts is. The Nazi’s are guilty of genocide.
There is a debate we might have about the allies’ failings, but that debate is stymied by the use of those failings to forgive the Nazi’s their crimes.
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Private Panic wrote,
Hopefully, we do not live in a world where self-interest and logic have replaced justice, legality and morality.
I hope the same, which is why some of the arguments advanced in this thread concern me. For example, the argument has been made that a food blockade is an acceptable tactic, because it’s analogous to besieging a castle in the Middle Ages. The underlying assumption seems to be that if an action was considered permissible during the Middle Ages, it should have been considered permissible during WWII.
As long as we’re on the subject of the Middle Ages, below is a description of the torture tactics used by the Normans to extract treasure from the conquered Anglo-Saxons.
They hanged them by the thumbs, or by the head, and hung fires on their feet; they put knotted strings about their heads, and writhed them so that it went to the brain … Some they put in a chest that was short, and narrow, and shallow, and put sharp stones therein, and pressed the man therein, so that they broke all his limbs … I neither can nor may tell all the wounds or all the tortures which they inflicted on wretched men in this land.
Below is another description of a medieval torture tactic.
A barrel is fitted over the entire body, with the head sticking out from a hole in the top. The person is kept locked in the barrel, forcing him to kneel in his own filth, and in some cases suffer extremes of hot or cold. . . .
The defenceless individual’s faeces accumulated within the container, attracting ever more insects, which would eat and breed within his or her exposed and often gangrenous flesh.
Feeding the victim would often be allowed each day in some cases to prolong the torture, so that dehydration or starvation did not provide him or her with the release of death. . . .
Death, when it eventually occurred, was probably due to a combination of dehydration, starvation and septic shock.
The Middle Ages should not be used as a barometer for whether the Allied food blockade was acceptable!
I’m not an expert on medieval history. But my impression is that whoever imposed brutality took responsibility for their actions. Their attitude was, “Yes, we did this, and it was necessary because . . .” I could be wrong, but I don’t think they attempted to blame their own brutality on their victims. For example, if some random king besieged an enemy castle, I don’t think he’d blame the resulting starvation on the enemy’s refusal to surrender. If he ordered his soldiers to lob dead bodies over the castle walls in an effort to spread disease, I don’t think he’d turn around and say, “The defenders of the castle are cruel, inhuman monsters for having driven me to this!” But when the Allies imposed their food blockade–a blockade designed and intended to starve millions or tens of millions–why do so many blame the consequences of that food blockade on the Nazis? I just don’t understand the thinking behind that assignment of blame, any more than I understand a recent court decision to needlessly ruin an innocent teenager’s life.
If you can show me where the Nazis had enough food with which to feed innocent people, but chose not to, then fine. Blame those deaths on the Nazis. If you can show me where they imposed deaths that were crueler than starvation (Allied food blockade) would have been, then blame that cruelty on the Nazis too. If you can show me cases in which they reduced their own food supply, for reasons other than military necessity, those deaths should be blamed on them too. My goal is not to defend the Nazis in cases where they were legitimately guilty. But I don’t want to see them blamed for the Allies’ choice to impose a food blockade, or the Allies’ refusal to offer Germany any way out of that blockade other than unconditional surrender. The Allies knew their food blockade would kill millions of Poles. In choosing to go forward with that food blockade anyway, they demonstrated the same spirit of cynicism and betrayal toward Poland which had motivated them during the Polish-Soviet War (1919-'21), and which motivated Daladier’s government to tell a pack of lies to Poland during the months leading up to WWII.
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My attempts to keep out of this thread fail because I feel strongly on the subject.
… when the Allies imposed their food blockade–a blockade designed and intended to starve millions or tens of millions–why do so many blame the consequences of that food blockade on the Nazis?
Starvation can be blamed on the blockade. Genocide cannot. See below.
If you can show me where the Nazis had enough food with which to feed innocent people, but chose not to, then fine. Blame those deaths on the Nazis. If you can show me where they imposed deaths that were crueler than starvation (Allied food blockade) would have been, then blame that cruelty on the Nazis too. If you can show me cases in which they reduced their own food supply, for reasons other than military necessity, those deaths should be blamed on them too. My goal is not to defend the Nazis in cases where they were legitimately guilty. But I don’t want to see them blamed for the Allies’ choice to impose a food blockade, or the Allies’ refusal to offer Germany any way out of that blockade other than unconditional surrender. The Allies knew their food blockade would kill millions of Poles. In choosing to go forward with that food blockade anyway, they demonstrated the same spirit of cynicism and betrayal toward Poland which had motivated them during the Polish-Soviet War (1919-'21), and which motivated Daladier’s government to tell a pack of lies to Poland during the months leading up to WWII.
By this reasoning a government unable to feed its people has the right / duty to murder part of its population in order to feed the rest. It can select which part to murder based on whatever mantra of hatred and bigotry it prefers. No guilt is attached.
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Private Panic wrote
Starvation can be blamed on the blockade. Genocide cannot
With a very small number of possible exceptions, every major nation ever to have existed has a formal or informal hierarchy. That hierarchy would determine how scarce food resources get distributed in the event of a famine.
If a famine hit ancient Egypt for example, plenty of slaves would have starved to death, but none of their nobility would have. Had a famine hit ancient democratic Athens, slaves would have starved while citizens would have eaten. If a famine hit a capitalist nation, the rich would have eaten while the poor starved. If a famine had struck the United States back when we occupied Afghanistan and Iraq, there would have been a lot more starvation among Afghanis and Iraqis than among Americans.
Suppose that a famine starves 10 million people in a capitalist nation. The government played no active role in assigning victims, and therefore does not appear to be guilty of anything. 10 million people nevertheless died; and died slow, painful deaths. Now suppose some Nazi government gets hit with famine conditions, and realizes that the resulting food shortage will result in 10 million deaths. It does not want those deaths assigned based on economic status or lack of proximity to farms; which is what would happen if it did nothing. Instead, the 10 million deaths are assigned on the basis of race and utility to the war effort. 10 million people still die, and their deaths are just as bad as the 10 million deaths the capitalist nation experienced. But are they worse?
Every nation’s hierarchy will seem unfair to those at the bottom. That’s doubly true if those at the bottom are being starved to death. Many of history’s greatest minds have experienced long periods of poverty. Does it really make sense to starve people like those whenever there’s a famine so that far less able people born into privilege can eat? Holes can likewise be poked into other nations’ hierarchical structures or methods of assigning scarce food resources during times of famine.
You might not like the way the Nazis assigned the famine deaths caused by the Allied food blockade. But can you point to a single major nation in human history which would have fairly assigned famine deaths? If so, what would that method of assignment have been? Would you be able to tell the families of the victims that the assignment method was completely fair?
Again, my goal in all this is not to absolve the Nazis of crimes for which they were actually responsible. But I don’t think it’s fair or accurate for the Allies to say, “We used our food blockade to create famine in Germany. On the other hand, we take issue with how the Nazis distributed the famine deaths the Allies caused. Because the Nazis’ distribution methodology was unfair, we will just pretend that the Nazis could have fed everyone within their borders. And that any failure on their part to do so was part of a carefully laid plan, first spelled out in Mein Kamf. Because it was so obvious that the Nazis would kill millions of people when given half a chance, the Allies have the right and the duty to hold the Germans collectively guilty for their crimes. The Allies are absolutely right to collectively punish the Germans for war crimes committed, for example through postwar starvation (Morgenthau Plan) or by sending German POWs off to die in Soviet or French postwar gulags or camps.” The preceding line of logic forms the core of the Allied propaganda effort. That core is not based on morality. It is based on the fundamental rejection of intellectual honesty and traditional morality.
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Kurt - we are doing exactly what Hoff highlighted in his wise earlier posting. I don’t feel that you are listening to me and no doubt you feel the same way in reverse.
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@Private:
Kurt - we are doing exactly what Hoff highlighted in his wise earlier posting. I don’t feel that you are listening to me and no doubt you feel the same way in reverse.
Your most recent posts were rather terse. Nothing wrong with that. However, I may not have fully understood what you meant by the distinction between starvation and genocide. If you’d care to elaborate, maybe we could get better communication going.
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My aim was to be brief and to the point Kurt. If that implied rudeness then my apologies.
Brief and to the point because I don’t have the time for anything else at the moment - too many other things going on.
One of my failings is that when something is obvious to me I lose the ability to understand why it is not to others and become ever less persuasive. Given that self-knowledge I guess I had given up on achieving a change of mind. The starvation vs genocide distinction is just too obvious to me (and from others’ postings I believe to many of them too).
Perhaps we’ll come back to this topic in some future thread….
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Private Panic wrote:
If that implied rudeness then my apologies.
No apology necessary. I didn’t think you were being rude.
You wrote that to you, the distinction between starvation and genocide is obvious. To me, it’s equally obvious that any given mass killing should be evaluated on the following three based:
1. The number of people killed.
2. The per-person suffering inflicted.
3. The quality of the people killed.I give an exams of what I mean by point 2, Vlad the Impaler killed his victims slowly and painfully. His methods were worse (in terms of 2) than, for example, hanging the equivalent number of people would have been.
As for point 3: if there was an effort to hunt down the best, brightest, most idealistic people, it would be worse in terms of 3 than an effort to kill rapists, murderers, or other common criminals.
One reason I’m having trouble understanding your genocide/starvation distinction is because you haven’t explained why what the Nazis did was worse, in terms of 1 - 3, than letting the Allied food blockade take its natural course would have been. The death toll from both options would have been about the same, and the pain and suffering would have been about equal. There were not (so far as I know) tens of millions of convicted rapists and murderers waiting around for the Nazis to execute them. So the death toll would have primarily been inflicted upon good, non-predatory people regardless of whether the Nazis did or didn’t attempt to redistribute the death toll caused by the food blockade.
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Okay Kurt - I will reply to this when I have a moment. Not me that marked you down by the way. I have never marked anyone down.
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Me neither. I hate it and only mark up.
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@wittmann:
Me neither. I hate it and only mark up.
Glad to hear that witt. Marked you up for agreeing with me!
I promised you a reply, Kurt, so here it is! Let me start by saying that for the purpose of this response I will ignore all “distractions” and focus totally on the genocide question. This is important to say because some of those distractions do have a bearing - for example responsibility for the war incurs a degree of responsibility for resulting suffering. But I anticipate that within those distractions are another bunch of disagreements. So focus!
I am probably happy to base this debate on the 3 criteria you cite. For me the Nazis are damned by these same criteria.
1. The number of people killed.
Certainly if a course of action results in fewer deaths, then that is a defence for that action. However, for “if I kill one person today then more people will be saved tomorrow” to possibly be an absolute exoneration for killing one person today, I need perfect knowledge (i.e. there is no room for doubt about this assessment). This has to be true or anyone can make any assessment they wish justifying any action and be judged exonerated, regardless of the accuracy or certainty of that assessment. Of course no-one ever has perfect knowledge, so we do not have a black and white criteria, but rather room for doubt and disagreement, even when a truly herculean effort is made towards accuracy and certainty.
I have no idea whether such an assessment effort was made? However, even if not, let me put this point to one side as I work towards what I regard as the key issue.
2. The per-person suffering inflicted.
Inflicting per-person suffering that is no worse than might otherwise have happened is not a defence. Inflicting as little suffering as possible might have been, but no true effort was made to deal death in a “humane” manner. Gassing in itself might be quicker and less painful than starvation (I would not know) but the concentration camp system as a whole inflicted deliberate mental and physical anguish on millions who were not gassed. Furthermore, that effort to torment those selected to suffer began long before they found themselves in the camps.
3. The quality of the people killed …. � if there was an effort to hunt down the best, brightest, most idealistic people, it would be worse … than an effort to kill rapists, murderers, or other common criminals … There were not (so far as I know) tens of millions of convicted rapists and murderers waiting around for the Nazis to execute them. So the death toll would have primarily been inflicted upon good, non-predatory people regardless of whether the Nazis did or didn’t attempt to redistribute the death toll caused by the food blockade.
This is the most clearly damning of your three points.
For mass murder under duress to even begin to be defensible the process by which those to die are selected has to be utterly irreproachable. Such a process might be based on random selection or volunteers for the greater good.
Criteria might be applied for acceptance of volunteers in order to save the “best, brightest, most idealistic” as you put it. However, once you start applying those criteria you increase the extent to which the process must pass the irreproachability test. This problem is hugely exacerbated when you turn from random selection, or volunteers, to forced victims. With forced victims the selection criteria would have to be faultless for the Nazis to avoid guilt.
The Nazis’ criteria fail even the most basic irreproachability test. Their policy of genocide judged killing common criminals as better than killing loyal (“idealistic”?) servants of the state, but to most of us many of those loyal servants of the state were themselves guilty of far worse crimes than any common criminals. But to the nub of the issue - you do not kill 6 million Jews with a faultless selection process. It is at this point that my inability to understand why this is not obvious overflows. As I previously posted:
@Private:
By this reasoning a government unable to feed its people has the right / duty to murder part of its population in order to feed the rest. It can select which part to murder based on whatever mantra of hatred and bigotry it prefers. No guilt is attached.
If an irreproachable process of selecting those to die had been put in place then the Allies would have been unable to avoid a share of the responsibility for those deaths. The more irreproachable the process, the greater the share. Instead the Nazis put in place a heinous process that can only leave them guilty of genocide, regardless of any contribution allied action made to the mass-murder decision.
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Private Panic, thanks for the intelligent reply. I will do my best to address the points you’ve raised. However, I’m feeling a bit sleepy, so it’s possible something will get past me. If it does, let me know.
However, for “if I kill one person today then more people will be saved tomorrow” to possibly be
an absolute exoneration for killing one person today, I need perfect knowledgeI’m not sure about “perfect knowledge,” especially because there is so seldom perfect knowledge in this world. Newton’s laws of physics were once considered perfect knowledge, but have since been modified in the light of relativity, for example. Phenomena at the quantum level are not explained by Newtonian or relativistic principles. Perfect knowledge may be an unattainable goal.
Instead of “perfect knowledge,” I’d argue that it’s enough for people to make reasonable predictions, based on continuation of current trends. In 1940, German government officials predicted the occurrence of severe food shortages starting in 1941. That prediction later proved correct. At no point in the war (except possibly early on) did Germany have anything close to enough food. I don’t think that anyone is asserting that Germany killed more people than necessary to solve its food problems. On the contrary: millions of Soviet POWs conscripted for German weapons production died due to lack of food, despite Hitler’s order that they be fed. The government official tasked with feeding those POWs didn’t have food to feed them.
Inflicting per-person suffering that is no worse than might otherwise have happened is not a defence.
Normally, using food as a weapon (which the Allies did) implies widespread starvation. The blame for that suffering should be laid at the Allies’ feet, because it was their decision to use that weapon. In cases where the Nazis inflicted death in ways less painful than starvation, it should be recognized that they chose a lesser evil than the one the Allies chose. In cases where their chosen method of death was more painful than starvation they should be blamed for inflicting a greater evil than the one the Allies attempted to inflict.
the concentration camp system as a whole inflicted deliberate mental and physical anguish on millions who were not gassed.
My understanding is that the inmates were divided into two categories: the strong and the weak. The weak were gassed immediately. The strong were given small quantities of food, and large quantities of work. The combination of those two things led the strong to come to resemble human skeletons.
As cruel as that system was, it was not (at least not in most cases) a system for deliberately inflicting suffering. On the one hand, Germany was at war for its very existence, which meant that it needed as much work as possible from as many people as possible. On the other hand, its food situation was abysmal. The above-described approach to concentration camps was designed to maximize productive output while using as little of Germany’s (very scarce) food supply as possible. The thinking which led to that decision was based primarily on meeting Germany’s military and resource needs.
Such a process might be based on random selection or volunteers for the greater good.
I would argue that in a famine situation, the feeding of those who are above average in ability or character should be a higher priority than the feeding of those lacking in those two areas. Anyone who volunteers to be a famine victim might well be above-average in character. People like that shouldn’t be weeded out. Random selection would be better than asking for volunteers. But it would still not be good. Do you really want to snuff out the life of a bright and promising child, in order to feed an elderly person who only has a few years left anyway? Do you really want to starve some brilliant scientist or engineer so that a relatively unintelligent petty thief can live?
Decisions like the above shouldn’t be based on what makes us feel good. They should be based on what is good for the nation as a whole–and on that one criterion only.
If an irreproachable process of selecting those to die had been put in place then the Allies
would have been unable to avoid a share of the responsibility for those deaths.I’m puzzled by the above view. I would argue instead that if the Allied food blockade and Stalin’s scorched earth policy were expected to kill X many millions of people, the Allies deserve the blame for the first X million deaths that occurred in Germany. Hitler deserves the blame for any deaths over and above X.
But a million deaths is not always the same as a million deaths. For instance, if nation A kills a million hardened criminals, and if nation B kills a million anti-communists (typically intelligent and idealistic people), nation B has committed a far worse crime than nation A.
When the Allies imposed their food blockade, they had every reason to believe it would kill tens of millions of relatively ordinary people. If the people the Nazis killed were higher in quality than the Allies had reason to expect, the Allies still deserve blame for the number of people killed. But the Nazis would deserve blame for the fact that the best people had been singled out.
But that’s just a hypothetical scenario. I am not aware that those whom the Nazis killed were either better or worse than those they let live.
but to most of us many of those loyal servants of the state were themselves guilty of far worse crimes than any common criminals.
Most of us have spent our lives immersed in fundamentally dishonest Allied propaganda. Opinions will tend to reflect the ideology of the propagandists, which is not necessarily the same thing as reflecting a legitimate moral code or accurate historical understanding. In particular, those propagandists would have people believe that the Nazis were somehow less moral than the communists or than Western democratic politicians. Neither assertion is even remotely true. Both the communists and the Western democracies were guilty of every major crime of which they accused the Nazis, specifically including the deliberate mass murder of millions of people. The guilt of Western and communist nations does not lessen the Nazis’ guilt–at least not in cases in which the Nazis were actually guilty. But just as a king under siege in a castle does not incur blood guilt by deciding which people to feed and which to let starve, I don’t think the Nazis can reasonably be blamed for the deaths caused by the Allied food blockade.
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Kurt - before I respond I’d like to hear your thoughts on my central point - that deliberate and targeted extermination of 6 million Jews represents a selection process that damns the Nazis.
Otherwise we are debating around the edges of the issue rather than facing it head on.
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As cruel as that system was, it was not (at least not in most cases) a system for deliberately inflicting suffering. On the one hand, Germany was at war for its very existence, which meant that it needed as much work as possible from as many people as possible. On the other hand, its food situation was abysmal. The above-described approach to concentration camps was designed to maximize productive output while using as little of Germany’s (very scarce) food supply as possible. The thinking which led to that decision was based primarily on meeting Germany’s military and resource needs.
Even if we look past the suffering part, the camps were a system for deliberately inflicting death. That is obvious and the point.
I would argue that in a famine situation, the feeding of those who are above average in ability or character should be a higher priority than the feeding of those lacking in those two areas. Anyone who volunteers to be a famine victim might well be above-average in character. People like that shouldn’t be weeded out. Random selection would be better than asking for volunteers. But it would still not be good. Do you really want to snuff out the life of a bright and promising child, in order to feed an elderly person who only has a few years left anyway? Do you really want to starve some brilliant scientist or engineer so that a relatively unintelligent petty thief can live?
Decisions like the above shouldn’t be based on what makes us feel good. They should be based on what is good for the nation as a whole–and on that one criterion only.
This is socialist state-run eugenics.
But a million deaths is not always the same as a million deaths. For instance, if nation A kills a million hardened criminals, and if nation B kills a million anti-communists (typically intelligent and idealistic people), nation B has committed a far worse crime than nation A.
When the Allies imposed their food blockade, they had every reason to believe it would kill tens of millions of relatively ordinary people. If the people the Nazis killed were higher in quality than the Allies had reason to expect, the Allies still deserve blame for the number of people killed. But the Nazis would deserve blame for the fact that the best people had been singled out.
Again, eugenics. We can have a debate about eugenics, but it is contrary to human free will and expression and incredibly subject to, if not being an outright tool of, political abuse. Using a eugenics argument, while sounding logical and clinical, does not help your cause in my opinion. If you truly believe in it, then we have a more fundamental disagreement than simply whose fault the holocaust was. And it would probably explain a lot.
But that’s just a hypothetical scenario. I am not aware that those whom the Nazis killed were either better or worse than those they let live.
But your whole argument and reasoning for absolving the National Socialist government of crimes against humanity (besides them not being held accountable in the first place) is based on the premise that they were both doing a social good, either by killing the weak, deficient or the criminals, or that these killings were somehow merciful.
If you do not know or are not convinced of this, then how can you speculate on it or offer definitive absolution?
Most of us have spent our lives immersed in fundamentally dishonest Allied propaganda. Opinions will tend to reflect the ideology of the propagandists, which is not necessarily the same thing as reflecting a legitimate moral code or accurate historical understanding. In particular, those propagandists would have people believe that the Nazis were somehow less moral than the communists or than Western democratic politicians. Neither assertion is even remotely true. Both the communists and the Western democracies were guilty of every major crime of which they accused the Nazis, specifically including the deliberate mass murder of millions of people. The guilt of Western and communist nations does not lessen the Nazis’ guilt–at least not in cases in which the Nazis were actually guilty. But just as a king under siege in a castle does not incur blood guilt by deciding which people to feed and which to let starve, I don’t think the Nazis can reasonably be blamed for the deaths caused by the Allied food blockade.
The questions then (which I do not expect you to answer) are what is a “legitimate moral code”? Who creates it? Who has the right to create it? If all nation-states are to be recognized as peer-equals, is each able to draft their own legitimate moral code based on their culture, political views or whims? And have it be accepted as equally legitimate?
I don’t think anyone is denying that the Allies perpetrated what could be argued as war crimes or that they did some terrible things also. But this discussion, as many others have been, is about Germany’s guilt in the Holocaust. I am trying not to put words in your mouth, but taken to a more basic form, your arguments are that (a) it was the Allies fault that Germany had to do it, (b) Germany did it in a logical (free from ideological bias) and humane way and © the Allies did stuff just as bad, so it was either acceptable or at least not abnormal. And that because Germany lost the war, they get singled out as the ultimate bad guy.
For the record, I sort of agree with that last item. Naturally, as the loser, Germany is not going to be looked upon favorably by history. Some of that can be balanced by knowledge that the Allies weren’t perfect angels either, but it does not absolve Germany of what they did.
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L Hoffman wrote:
Even if we look past the suffering part, the camps were a system for deliberately inflicting death.
You will recall that after Pearl Harbor, the United States rounded up its Japanese population (as well as recent German and Italian immigrants) and placed them in concentration camps. The American government didn’t trust those people and wanted them locked away. Initially, Germany’s motives for placing its Jewish population in concentration camps were similar to that. It was only after the war dragged on, and Germany’s food situation deteriorated, that the German concentration camps came to have a different, harsher purpose. (Just as the American concentration camps might well have had that same harsh purpose, had the United States been subjected to the same famine conditions Germany had been.)
We can have a debate about eugenics, but it is contrary to human free will and expression and incredibly subject to, if not being an outright tool of, political abuse.
A number of government policies and programs affect the gene pool. “Eugenics” implies that the government has benign intent toward that gene pool. The opposite of eugenics is for the government to take actions which affect the gene pool, while simply ignoring whether the effects are positive or negative.
But your whole argument and reasoning for absolving the National Socialist government of crimes against
humanity . . . is based on the premise that they were both doing a social good, either by killing the weak
deficient or the criminals, or that these killings were somehow merciful.Before logging in and checking new posts, I was thinking that I could have done a better job of expressing myself clearly. The above text confirms my suspicion. So I’ll try again. :)
Let’s say that the Allied food blockade would have done 100 units of damage and harm, had the German government done nothing. The Allies should be blamed for the first 100 units of harm inflicted. If 120 units of harm were inflicted, the Allies should get the blame for the first 100, the Nazis for the remaining 20.
How do you measure harm inflicted? I’ll return to the three axes I mentioned earlier: quantity of people killed, per-person suffering experienced, and quality of people killed. For each of these three axes, I have not seen evidence that what the Nazis did was any worse than letting events take their natural course would have been. If under those circumstances you’d normally expect a years-long food blockade to inflict 100 units of harm, about 100 units were inflicted. This is not to suggest that every crime the Nazis committed can be explained in terms of their food situation. For example, they committed several thousand pre-war deaths, and those cannot be explained away by the food blockade or military necessity. Some of their other actions also cannot be explained in those terms. But on the whole, the number of people who died in Nazi-occupied Europe is about what I would have expected, given the food situation which pertained at the time. The per-person suffering was typically not worse than starving to death would have been. The quality of people killed was (to the best of my knowledge) neither higher nor lower than one would expect had the famine deaths been randomly distributed. I’m only seeing 100 units of blame to be assigned–or at least, not much more than 100 units. Like I said earlier, the Allies get the first 100 units of blame, and the Nazis get anything over and above.
[Paraphrasing one of my arguments] (a) it was the Allies fault that Germany had to do it,
The Allies used food as a weapon. They deliberately used food to kill people. When food is used in that way, people will look the way the concentration camp inmates looked. The presence of living skeletons and dead bodies indicates a successful food blockade. Whereas, the presence of healthy, well-fed people would indicate the food blockade had failed to achieve its intended, sinister purpose. The Allied food blockade succeeded in creating exactly the kind of famine conditions Allied leaders wanted Germany to have.
[Again paraphrasing me] (b) Germany did it in a logical (free from ideological bias) and humane way
I am not suggesting that they did it in a logical, unbiased, or humane way. What I am suggesting is that what the Nazis did was no crueler or more illogical than letting events take their natural course would have been. Ideology was of course taken into account when assigning victims. One would normally expect a highly ideological government to take its own ideology into account when assigning scarce food resources under famine conditions.
[Paraphrasing me] © the Allies did stuff just as bad, so it was either acceptable or at least not abnormal.
Large numbers of innocent civilians died during WWII. While some of those deaths can be attributed to military necessity, most died due to war crimes. Blame should be assigned for every civilian death not attributable to military necessity. Tens of millions of Slavs starved to death in German-occupied Europe. Blame for those deaths is typically assigned to the Nazi government. That is a case of the victors writing the history books. Those Slavs should be regarded as victims of the Allied food blockade, and blame assigned to every Allied leader who participated in that blockade. My intention is not to let anyone off the hook for avoidable civilian deaths. Rather, my intention is to assign blame for those avoidable deaths according to justice; and not as part of a fundamentally dishonest Allied propaganda effort.
The questions then (which I do not expect you to answer) are what is a “legitimate moral code”?
The three pillars of a legitimate moral code are love, imagination, and realism/intellectual honesty. Scientific findings are sometimes rejected due to ideology. Such rejection constitutes rejection of realism/intellectual honesty. Acceptance of science should be part of a broader effort to accept only true empirical statements, while rejecting false empirical claims. That broader effort is what I mean by “realism/intellectual honesty.”
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Can’t reply to you now Kurt and just briefly scanned your post, but I will say that you are an extremely patient person. :wink:
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Let’s say that the Allied food blockade would have done 100 units of damage and harm, had the German government done nothing. The Allies should be blamed for the first 100 units of harm inflicted. If 120 units of harm were inflicted, the Allies should get the blame for the first 100, the Nazis for the remaining 20.
How do you measure harm inflicted?
Again Kurt, life can’t be compared with Math or is a Math Thing at all!!
If you count the gramms of butter you put daily on your bred, fine, but please do not use mathematical schemes to explain why Nazi Germany had to do what they did.
Do you honestly think Germany needs you to defend them?It is obvious that Every Nation did one way or the other way war crimes but the Holocaust can’t be denied!
We still have parts of the Camps here in Germany as a reminder that something like this will not happen again in here Germany.If Germany was really Food blocked by the Allies ,Germany would still have a choice.
They could have asked for help instead of taking everything by force.
AND: If Germany would have been blocked by the Allies, is it not a “Logical” thing to go against the ones who are trying to starve you?I mean:
If somebody is punching you in the face, are you honestly go over to the next guy and Punch him? -
Private Panic wrote,
Kurt - before I respond I’d like to hear your thoughts on my central point - that deliberate and targeted extermination
of 6 million Jews represents a selection process that damns the Nazis.I would argue that every innocent, law-abiding citizen has the right to live. Due to the Allied food blockade and the resultant famine conditions within Germany, it was physically impossible for the German government to uphold that right for all the people living within Germany’s borders. Millions or (more likely) tens of millions of people were going to die, because Allied leaders had chosen to use food as a weapon. I would argue that the death of any innocent human being is a tragedy; and that the magnitude of this tragedy is not affected by whether the person in question is Jewish or non-Jewish. 6 million innocent Jewish deaths is neither better nor worse than 6 million innocent non-Jewish deaths would have been.
The above logic is based on a focus on individual rights. One could also argue that there is such a thing as group rights. Even if your enemies have forced famine conditions upon you, and even if you physically can’t feed everyone within your borders, it could be argued that the singling out of a particular group for extermination is a violation of that group’s right to continued existence. Moreover, such a singling out is also deeply unfair to the people chosen for extermination. (However, when your nation is subjected to famine, and some need to be chosen for starvation, virtually any selection process one might use will be unfair.)
If we accept the concept that groups have the right to exist, and that the Holocaust was a violation of the Jews’ right to continued existence, it stands to reason that any other policy which would lead to the eventual elimination of some group or another would also be a violation of group rights. For example, an immigration policy could be a violation of group rights, if it led to the eventual phasing out of existing groups within the host country.
Not everyone necessarily accepts the concept of group rights. If you reject that concept, fine. But I don’t see how it’s possible to argue that killing 6 million innocent Jews was worse than killing 6 million equally innocent non-Jews would have been, unless one appeals to the groups rights concept. As individuals, an innocent Jew’s right to live is neither greater than nor less than an innocent non-Jew’s right.
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aequitas et veritas wrote:
Again Kurt, life can’t be compared with Math or is a Math Thing at all!!
Math is a useful tool for determining when and where famine will occur, as well as the number of deaths most likely associated with the famine.
Do you honestly think Germany needs you to defend them?
I’m an American, and I’ve never been to Germany. In this country I’ve had three sources of information about Germany. 1) Popular media, such as movies, television shows, novels and so forth. 2) Historical books, especially those dealing with the world wars. 3) Actual Germans I’ve known.
In popular media, portrayals of Germans are typically negative. Germans during WWII are depicted as being especially evil and malignant. The history books are more of a mixed bag, depending on the author’s willingness to twist facts to suit the Allied narrative. Some of the worst history books I’ve read belong in the fiction section of the book store. Others take a more neutral approach, and acknowledge that most Germans were and are decent, respectable people. As for 3), I’ve interacted with a number of people born and raised in Germany, and who were alive during WWII. Those people produced a positive impression–an impression which largely undercut the anti-German propaganda described in 1) and 2).
It is obvious that Every Nation did one way or the other way war crimes but the Holocaust can’t be denied!
No one is arguing otherwise. Germany didn’t have enough food to feed everyone within its borders. Starting in 1939, it was no longer able export its Jewish population to Palestine or any other safe refuge. Unable to feed everyone, and unable to export its Jews, Hitler decided to allocate scarce food resources according to two bases: utility to the war effort, and perceived racial value.
They could have asked for help instead of taking everything by force.
Ask for help? From whom? They couldn’t have asked for help from the Allies, because they were the ones imposing the food blockade in the first place. They couldn’t ask for help from neutral nations, because no neutral nation had the naval power necessary to break the blockade.
Some might argue that the Allies wouldn’t have imposed an extermination food blockade on Germany had Germany not invaded Poland in the first place. But note that the Allies had never, ever intended to help Poland. The Western democracies did nothing to help Poland resist Soviet annexation during the Polish-Soviet War (1919 - '21). Nor did the treaties they made with Poland in 1939 call for Western democratic intervention in the case of a Soviet invasion of Poland. The Western democracies were perfectly happy to see Poland succumb to hostile foreign occupation–as long as the hostile foreign occupier was the Soviet Union, not Nazi Germany. If the Western democracies weren’t willing to lift a finger to help Poland resist Soviet invasion–which they weren’t–there is no reason at all to believe they would have helped Germany resist Soviet invasion either. Even before war began, Germany’s only hope for long-term survival was to be strong enough to resist Soviet invasion on its own, without help from anyone else. Had Germany played by the rules laid down in the Versailles Treaty, the Red Army would have annexed first Eastern Europe, and then Germany, without encountering serious resistance in either case. The Western democracies would have remained neutral.
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…. I don’t see how it’s possible to argue that killing 6 million innocent Jews was worse than killing 6 million equally innocent non-Jews would have been, unless one appeals to the groups rights concept. As individuals, an innocent Jew’s right to live is neither greater than nor less than an innocent non-Jew’s right.
Hi Kurt
Just back from a w/e away and no time to read the other postings in this thread - but saw your reply to me, from which I have quoted above.
Of course you are completely right in what you say in the quote. All of us no doubt believe that the religion, sex, politics, etc of those murdered should be irrelevant to the degree of tragedy associated with that murder.
The issue is that it was not irrelevant to the Nazis. They saw the murder of six million Jews as very much more preferable (or advantageous) to that of six million of other religions. That is what robs the Nazis of the defence of food shortages. That is what condemns them.
You invited me to explain why I believe it to be “obvious” that the Nazis are GUILTY of genocide, rather than innocent practitioners of it. Perhaps I have missed your reply grasping this nettle? Anyway I have now attempted to say why again.
Because of the above, the Allies being guilty of inflicting starvation does not render the Nazis innocent of genocide.
For the record, neither does the Nazis being guilty of genocide excuse the Allies their guilt for starvation.
Now turning to your points in your reply of the 2nd July:
Instead of “perfect knowledge,” I’d argue that it’s enough for people to make reasonable predictions…
As I am sure you know I was merely saying that your principle of “the number of people killed” leads to a judgement that is open to debate because we do not have perfect knowledge. I think that is incontrovertible and do not think you can be disagreeing. In any case as I made very clear my key issues were with the other two principles.
In cases where the Nazis inflicted death in ways less painful than starvation, it should be recognized that they chose a lesser evil than the one the Allies chose. In cases where their chosen method of death was more painful than starvation they should be blamed for inflicting a greater evil than the one the Allies attempted to inflict.
Yes - but not grasping the point that I made. Inflicting a lesser evil only goes so far towards exoneration. Guilt remains for the suffering that the Nazis did inflict, where that was greater than could have been achieved.
As cruel as that system was, it was not (at least not in most cases) a system for deliberately inflicting suffering. On the one hand, Germany was at war for its very existence, which meant that it needed as much work as possible from as many people as possible. On the other hand, its food situation was abysmal. The above-described approach to concentration camps was designed to maximize productive output while using as little of Germany’s (very scarce) food supply as possible. The thinking which led to that decision was based primarily on meeting Germany’s military and resource needs.
You wish to target the Allies for their “total war” exigencies (the economic / food blockade) but forgive the Nazis for theirs. My approach is to forgive neither side.
I would argue instead that if the Allied food blockade and Stalin’s scorched earth policy were expected to kill X many millions of people, the Allies deserve the blame for the first X million deaths that occurred in Germany. Hitler deserves the blame for any deaths over and above X.
Misses my point. The Allies are to blame for deaths that were or would have been caused by starvation. The Nazis are to blame for their policy of genocide, for all the reasons I gave. I repeat them below in response to your castle under siege analogy. The guilt of either one does not make the other innocent.
But just as a king under siege in a castle does not incur blood guilt by deciding which people to feed and which to let starve
It is all the points in my previous response that nullify this defence:
- If the king murders more than would otherwise have died he does incur blood guilt. Without perfect knowledge we do not know whether he did so, so the defence represented by the first principle you gave leaves room for debate and disagreement.
- If the king murders those people by inflicting greater suffering than he had to, then he is guilty of inflicting that suffering.
- If the king selects victims for death on a basis other than being best able to defend the castle, then his motivation is not defence, but murder.
Thanks
PP
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