National Socialism vs. Communism.

[Private-Panic]

@KurtGodel7:

…. 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:

@KurtGodel7:

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.

@KurtGodel7:

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.

@KurtGodel7:

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.

@KurtGodel7:

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.

@KurtGodel7:

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

[KurtGodel7]

Private Panic wrote,

They saw the murder of six million Jews as very much more preferable (or advantageous) to that of six million of other religions.

The above statement is not entirely accurate. The Nazis were not overly concerned about religion. To them, a Jewish atheist or a Jew who’d converted to Christianity was the same as an observant Jew. The exception to that rule was Jewish Marxists, who were considered worse than Jews generally.

That is what robs the Nazis of the defence of food shortages.

Throughout human history, if almost any major nation was subjected to famine conditions, there would not have been an equality in how those famine effects would have been distributed. The United States’ Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal. And yet we know that the homeless would suffer more in an American famine than the middle class; and that the middle class would suffer more than Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. One of the core tenets of communism is equality of outcomes. Yet famine deaths in major communist nations have never been equally distributed. Those with the right political connections, or who were part of favored ethnic groups, or who had the right political views, were spared the famines that starved their fellow countrymen. Communists went one step further, and created artificial famines to devastate select groups, while leaving everyone else unharmed.

Perhaps you feel that nations should be held to higher moral standards than those observed by either the 20th century Western democracies or communist nations. If so, I agree with you. But just about any major nation throughout human history would have distributed food unequally during times of famine. If you think I’m wrong about that, I invite you to point to several exceptions: several major nations, at any point in human history, that you think would have treated all categories of people equally during famine.

You wish to target the Allies for their “total war” exigencies (the economic / food blockade) but forgive the Nazis for theirs.

The two cases are not parallel. Britain could have exited the war with Germany any time it chose to, with no territorial loss. The same was also true of France, at least before it fell. Those two nations were at war voluntarily. Their stated reason for going to war was to protect Poland from hostile foreign occupation. But at no point did protection of Poland form any part of their plans, intentions, or policies. Given the circumstances, it made a certain amount of sense for Germany to attempt to use sub warfare to cut Britain off from its food imports on the one hand, while offering it peace without territorial loss or Versailles-type conditions on the other. Had the British people gotten hungry enough, they would have agreed to peace. Had its politicians wanted to continue fighting, they would have been voted out of office.

On the other hand, the Allies imposed a brutal food blockade on Germany–a blockade which resulted in the deaths of millions of Poles. The Allies’ cynical willingness to use food as a weapon to murder so many Poles clearly demonstrates exactly how little concern they had about “protecting” Poland from hostile foreign occupation. Their casual willingness to see Poland annexed by the Soviet Union–despite Stalin’s mass murder of 7 million innocent Ukrainians–is another indication of the contempt with which they regarded Poland and its people.

Soviet attempts to invade and annex Germany began in 1919, with the Polish-Soviet War. Had the Soviet Union won that war, the Red Army would have continued on into Germany. (Which, at the time, was disarmed and on the brink of communist revolution.) After Poland’s victory in the Polish-Soviet War–a victory the Western democracies did nothing at all to assist–the war between Germany and the Soviet Union turned colder. The communists focused first on consolidating their political power and ending the civil war. Once that was achieved, they focused on industrializing. The third stage in the process was to build up their military; and that third stage began no later than 1939. Stage 4 would have consisted of the invasion of Germany.

As long as the Red Army and the Soviet Union stood undefeated, Germany was in mortal danger. The Western democracies could not be trusted to stand up to Soviet expansionism, as they proved again and again. Prior to 1948, no major Western democracy adopted an anti-Soviet foreign policy, or did anything at all to slow the pace of Soviet expansion.

Prior to the beginning of WWII, the Soviet Union had 2.5 times as many people as Germany. It also had far greater access to food, raw materials, and oil than Germany did. Prior to 1944, the Soviets also had a significantly greater ability to produce weapons than did Germany. (In 1942, Soviet military production was 2 - 3 times that of Germany.) Even if the Western democracies had stayed neutral, the Soviet Union alone would have represented a mortal threat to Germany’s very existence. But the Western democracies did not stay neutral. With one brief exception (Chamberlain in 1938), they consistently adopted pro-Soviet, anti-German foreign policies. People say things like “politicians are corrupt” or “politicians are sleazy.” But I don’t think most people realize how corrupt or sleazy or (above all) narcissistic this particular batch of politicians truly was.

Nazi Germany’s circumstances were truly desperate. On the other hand, the consequences of a Soviet occupation would have been (and later turned out to be) unspeakable. It’s been said that desperate times call for desperate measures. If I’m willing to forgive Germany for total war measures which served a military purpose, it’s because I have some inkling of how desperate their military situation was, how unlikely it was for them to avoid the horror of Soviet occupation, and the brutality Bolsheviks consistently imposed upon their victims. None of which excuses any war crimes the Nazis committed which did not serve an underlying military purpose.

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.

The king needs to take into account not just ability, but willingness, to defend the castle. If (for example) the king is Polish, and the besiegers are Mongols, the king would be a fool to starve his own Polish subjects in order to feed Mongol prisoners he’d taken. Yes, the Mongol prisoners could do a very good job of helping defend the castle. But they’d be far more likely to assist the Mongol invaders than repel them.

The people most willing to fight for Nazi Germany were the Germans themselves. Those were also the people Hitler most prioritized for scarce food rations. Other groups–such as the Poles–were not willing to fight for Germany; and so received a much lower status on the food totem pole than the Germans received. Romanians were considered about as racially inferior as the Poles. But unlike the Poles, the Romanians were willing to fight for the Axis and against communism. There was not (as far as I’m aware) any effort to starve the Romanians.

[Private-Panic]

I just want to quote two parts of your reply, Kurt, in an attempt to demonstrate that you are not engaging with the point I am making:

@KurtGodel7:

They saw the murder of six million Jews as very much more preferable (or advantageous) to that of six million of other religions.

The above statement is not entirely accurate. The Nazis were not overly concerned about religion. To them, a Jewish atheist or a Jew who’d converted to Christianity was the same as an observant Jew. The exception to that rule was Jewish Marxists, who were considered worse than Jews generally.

Differentiating between Jews as a religion vs as a people or ethnic group is irrelevant to this discussion.

@KurtGodel7:

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.

The king needs to take into account not just ability, but willingness, to defend the castle. If (for example) the king is Polish, and the besiegers are Mongols, the king would be a fool to starve his own Polish subjects in order to feed Mongol prisoners he’d taken. Yes, the Mongol prisoners could do a very good job of helping defend the castle. But they’d be far more likely to assist the Mongol invaders than repel them.

The people most willing to fight for Nazi Germany were the Germans themselves. Those were also the people Hitler most prioritized for scarce food rations. Other groups–such as the Poles–were not willing to fight for Germany; and so received a much lower status on the food totem pole than the Germans received. Romanians were considered about as racially inferior as the Poles. But unlike the Poles, the Romanians were willing to fight for the Axis and against communism. There was not (as far as I’m aware) any effort to starve the Romanians.

The underlying prejudice of the Nazis therefore being that German Jews were not German, which you appear happy to accept. This prejudice ignored the war records of German Jewish families that had fought and died for Germany in previous wars. Of course the Nazis’ policies lead to the Jews being unwilling to fight for the Nazis, because their anti-Semitism was already writ large.

The Nazis targeting of the Jews (even those whose families had been German for generations) went far deeper than that of many other nationalities / ethnicities who were unwilling to fight for Germany. The aim was to erase the Jews, but not the French or Dutch or ….

So - the aim was not merely to save food for those who would fight for Germany. It was also to erase the Jews.

But you know all this Kurt. You are incredibly knowledgeable on the period. The facts are at your fingertips.

You did invite me to continue this discussion and I responded positively to that request. I now invite you to engage wholly with the point on which I continue to focus.

[aequitas-et-veritas]

@KurtGodel7:

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.

No incorrect.
With this method you will likely determing when it should occur.
You can’t calculate it for all the peoples living in 1939 Germany.
It will be still an assumption not a fix nbr.

@KurtGodel7:

aequitas et veritas wrote:

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).

Well this explains a lot since you don not know much about Germany and Germans!
As for 2.)
If you get your wisdom from books, then let me tell you that the 1st thought behind a book is (in the very most cases) to sell it for Money.

As for 3.)
Where did you met the Germans?
I guess in America?
I would like to invite to take a trip over here to Germany. Vist as many places you can, get to know the People, especially us from the South.
Check History here again and get an second opinion.
Learn to know what it is to be German and def. double check on the Foodblockade Propaganda thingy.
The proplem with this wild speculation is that Germnay never was in the Position to feed all it’s peoples with own supplys and Food, because Germany depends strongly on the Import.
Still of as today!
Germany depend on trading stuff. Import ,Export is very vital for Germany.
Germany is missing the resources to grow things properly for all germans but was rich on charcoal for example.
Another Point is that Germany lacked to distribute properly wich lead to Problems as well.

@KurtGodel7:

aequitas et veritas wrote:

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.

Germany could have asked Argentina, Turkey,Spain,Grecce etc,etc…
At this Point the U.S. wasn’t at war with Germany.
Why should they still trade with Germany (Wolfram for example or engines parts(Ford)) when they want to “starve” them?

@Private:

I just want to quote two parts of your reply, Kurt, in an attempt to demonstrate that you are not engaging with the point I am making:

@KurtGodel7:

They saw the murder of six million Jews as very much more preferable (or advantageous) to that of six million of other religions.

The above statement is not entirely accurate. The Nazis were not overly concerned about religion. To them, a Jewish atheist or a Jew who’d converted to Christianity was the same as an observant Jew. The exception to that rule was Jewish Marxists, who were considered worse than Jews generally.

Differentiating between Jews as a religion vs as a people or ethnic group is irrelevant to this discussion.
Correct Private!

[Imperious Leader]

Hitler kept invading countries and plundered them to keep Hermann Goering well fed with delicacies because he needed him happy on the job. That explains the genocide ( or whitewashes it anyway). And also why no Germans starved to death since Herman didn’t lose even one pound during the war.

If any Germans starved, they were German Jews or the slave labor population. Not the “Germans” he is talking about. The reasoning is so ridiculous, grown men should not even try to think that way.

It even sounds like the kind of reasoning Hitler would have used in a speech to explain away how he raped another country that did nothing.

[KurtGodel7]

Private Panic wrote,

The underlying prejudice of the Nazis therefore being that German Jews were not German, which you appear happy to accept.

I have neither accepted nor rejected that premise.

This prejudice ignored the war records of German Jewish families that had fought and died for Germany in previous wars.

I agree that there were a number of German Jews who fought valiantly for Germany during WWI.

Of course the Nazis’ policies lead to the Jews being unwilling to fight for the Nazis, because their anti-Semitism was already writ large.

Agreed. The Nazis alienated the Jews. Had they been more neutral toward the Jews, a large number of German Jews would undoubtedly been willing to fight for Germany during WWII.

The Nazis targeting of the Jews (even those whose families had been German for generations)
went far deeper than that of many other nationalities / ethnicities who were unwilling to fight
for Germany. The aim was to erase the Jews, but not the French or Dutch or ….

This is true. When Hitler came into power in 1933, he had two choices:

1. Be reasonable with the Jews, in hopes they’d be reasonable with him.
2. Be harsh toward the Jews.

At first, Hitler’s anti-Jewish measures were mild enough that he alienated some of the more extreme members of his own party. But even though he initially seemed to be open to 1), he drifted more and more to 2). In the late '30s, the Nazis decided that Germany’s Jews were not emigrating from Germany at a fast enough pace. In order to accelerate the process of Jewish departure, they initiated Crystal Night. A number of Jewish businesses were needlessly vandalized, and Germany’s Jewish population punished for the crimes committed against it. Jews were sent to concentration camps, then released after several weeks or months. The point of this exercise was to scare them into leaving Germany. Crystal Night intensified Jewish hostility against the Nazi regime.

But note that at this point in the story, the Nazis were still thinking in terms of convincing the Jews to leave Germany through intimidation. There was no indication of any plan to exterminate the Jews.

Then along came the Allies. On the one hand, they used food as a weapon, in order to prevent Germany from feeding everyone within its borders. On the other hand, they closed Palestine and their other colonies to Jewish immigration.

Imagine yourself being appointed military dictator of Germany at this point in the story. Imagine that your only criterion for making any major decision is military utility. On the one hand, you know that the food situation means that tens of millions of innocent people are going to die. On the other, you have a group of people (the Jews) which is deeply hostile to your regime. That hostility was largely due to Hitler’s anti-Semitism. But regardless of whose fault it was, that hostility is there, and may affect the military equation. If you leave the Jews alone, will they join partisan groups, anti-Nazi resistance movements, or other efforts to defeat Germany militarily? Probably. In fact, almost certainly. Jewish hostility toward the Nazi regime was much, much greater than any hostility most Japanese, German, or Italian immigrants felt to the American regime. FDR locked up the latter groups in concentration camps, and Hitler used similar logic to lock up his Jewish population.

Once the Jews are locked up in concentration camps, the only way to feed them is with food physically possessed by the German government. Note that much of the food supply was not in this category. In captured Soviet territory, for example, food flowed from captured Soviet farmlands to captured Soviet cities, without at any point in that process coming into physical possession by the German government. The same was also generally true of most food produced in other conquered territories. “Food physically possessed by the German government” was desperately needed to feed millions of Soviet POWs conscripted for German weapons factories. The POWs in question were typically young, strong, able-bodied men: perfect for industrial production/weapons production. In order to feed those POWs, Hitler would have needed to starve captured Soviet cities. He attempted to do exactly that, and for the most part failed. As a result of that failure, he was unable to feed the Soviet POWs working in German weapons plants. Millions of Soviet POWs starved, despite Hitler’s direct order that they be fed. (A direct order which, one might add, was based purely on military necessity, not on any kind of racial theory.) If “food physically possessed by the German government” was not sufficient to feed Soviet POWs–which it wasn’t–how was the German government supposed to come into physical possession of the additional food required to feed the Jews in the concentration camps?

I’m not saying that the Nazis’ initial anti-Semitic propaganda effort was justified. It wasn’t. If you want to blame the Nazis for their anti-Semitism, for Crystal Night, or for needlessly alienating their Jewish population, fine. I’m right there with you. But having made those mistakes–having stirred up a great deal of Jewish hostility against them–the Nazis created a situation in which any given Jewish population could be expected to be hostile to the Nazi regime. From a purely military perspective, it typically makes sense to feed one’s own people first, friends and allies second, neutrals third, and enemies fourth.

Prior to 1939, Germany had a number of options with respect to its Jewish population. Anything bad it did to the Jews during that time should be regarded as a consequence of the most hate-filled element of the Nazi ideology. After the war began and the White Paper of 1939 was imposed, Germany’s options became far more constrained. The (far worse) things it began doing to the Jews in 1942 were driven primarily by famine conditions and the military situation; not by ideology.

[KurtGodel7]

aequitas et veritas wrote:

Well this explains a lot since you don not know much about Germany and Germans!

I’m always happy to learn. I don’t know if I’ll have the chance to visit Germany any time soon. But if I get the chance, I’ll take it. :) The only European country I’ve visited thus far is Lithuania. I loved it there, and would highly value a chance to see more of Europe. In the meantime, if there’s any insight you can give me about Germany or Germans, my ears are open.

Check History here again and get an second opinion.

Mastery of anything is a lifelong process. There is always something more to learn. That’s the approach I’ve taken toward WWII. Typically, the more I learn about that war, the more cynical I become about the Allies, their motives, their methods, and their propaganda. But saying that the Allies were warmongering, bloodthirsty thugs (they were) is not the same thing as saying the Nazis were innocent (they weren’t). Getting a feel for the actual scope of the Nazis’ war crimes has been more difficult than ascertaining the Allies’ crimes. There is no shortage of anti-Nazi accusations. But it’s important to not accept all such accusations at face value. To instead determine which accusations are valid, and which represent half truths, factual distortions, or outright lies. We live in an environment in which anti-Nazi lies are not punished; and are not felt to detract from the credibility of whichever liar makes them. That casual disregard for the truth makes it difficult to sift the wheat (truth) from the chaff (falsehoods).

def. double check on the Foodblockade Propaganda thingy.

I’ve already double checked on the food blockade. It happened. If that link isn’t enough to convince you, read the book associated with this link. I did, and found it the best book I’ve read on WWII, and one of the best history books I’ve read on any subject. The book has been favorably reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times (London), The Times (London), Financial Times, and other prominent and prestigious publications. Its author was awarded the Wolfson Prize.

Germany could have asked Argentina, Turkey,Spain,Grecce etc,etc…

If you’re talking pre-war, Germany didn’t need help, except for allies in the impending conflict with Stalin’s murderous and diabolical regime. If you’re thinking in terms of asking for help after the war began, the nations you mentioned would not have been in a position to provide Germany with much help with the famine conditions it faced. Spain ran at a food deficit; and had no excess to sell to Germany. I think Argentina runs at a food surplus. But any food they might have sent to Germany would have been intercepted by the Allied food blockade.

The proplem with this wild speculation is that Germnay never was in the Position to feed all
it’s peoples with own supplys and Food, because Germany depends strongly on the Import.

Other than characterizing anything I’ve written as “wild speculation,” the above statement is absolutely correct. :) Germany does not produce enough food with which to feed its own people, or enough raw materials for its factories. It must therefore import both food and raw material, and must pay for those imports by exporting manufactured goods. I had not been aware of that prior to reading Tooze’s book. As a German, it makes sense you know all this already.

[Private-Panic]

I can see your effort this time to engage with the point, so thanks for that. However, I do find your position fantastical. I will limit myself to a couple of examples as my energy for this is dwindling fast:

@KurtGodel7:

Once the Jews are locked up in concentration camps, the only way to feed them is with food physically possessed by the German government.

True. But the effort to put the Jews into those concentration camps did not halt when food shortages began. It was intensified. You know this. Therefore the murder of the Jews was not an unfortunate result of Allied food shortages. It was deliberate.

@KurtGodel7:

I’m not saying that the Nazis’ initial anti-Semitic propaganda effort was justified. It wasn’t. If you want to blame the Nazis for their anti-Semitism, for Crystal Night, or for needlessly alienating their Jewish population, fine. I’m right there with you. But having made those mistakes–having stirred up a great deal of Jewish hostility against them–the Nazis created a situation in which any given Jewish population could be expected to be hostile to the Nazi regime. From a purely military perspective, it typically makes sense to feed one’s own people first, friends and allies second, neutrals third, and enemies fourth.

So because the Nazis were an evil anti-Semitic regime and put themselves into a corner with the Jews via their evil policies we should forgive them genocide? This makes no sense whatsoever.

Even if either of your points had any credibility, which they do not, the Nazis were also in a corner with many other peoples across Europe, whose countries they had invaded, whose peoples they had mistreated and abused. But they did not set out to erase each of those peoples in the same utterly determined way. They selected whom to target with eradication. Their aim was not only to save food. It was also to erase the Jews.

The Nazis ARE guilty of genocide.

In an earlier posting Hoff complimented you on your patience. I would agree and add my own appreciation of your polite approach even when others are less so. I do hope that I have managed to reciprocate that. My final comment is to suggest that your undoubted knowledge would be more likely to be treated with the respect it deserves if instead of drip feeding clarifications that make your contributions less unpalatable, include them up-front. For example, you have accepted during the course of this never ending thread that the Nazis did pursue a policy of genocide (albeit that the guilt is all the Allies) and were unjustifiably anti-Semitic.

[KurtGodel7]

Private Panic wrote:

But the effort to put the Jews into those concentration camps did not halt when food shortages began. It was intensified.

True.

Therefore the murder of the Jews was not an unfortunate result of Allied food shortages.

The Nazis fed everyone within their borders–including the Jews–back before the Allied food blockade was imposed or famine conditions experienced. Back then, their long-term plans for the Jews involved relocation to Palestine or Madagascar. Once the Allies imposed famine conditions upon German-occupied Europe, the Nazis’ actions demonstrated they did not want famine deaths distributed randomly. They wanted those deaths borne by the Jews first, Slavs second, the Germans not at all.

If there was any sort of famine, the Nazis wanted the Jews to die first. No one disputes that. The more controversial question is whether the Nazis would have exterminated the Jews even had the Allies not caused famine within Germany. In order to answer that question in the affirmative, it is necessary to assume that for some unknown (but presumably very compelling) reason, the Nazis would have been much harsher to the Jews in the '40s than they’d been in the '30s. Granted, the Nazis were much harsher to the Jews in the '40s. But we don’t have to look for some mystery reason to explain that increase in harshness. Not when the answer is staring us in the face. The Nazis could feed everyone within their borders during the '30s, and could not feed everyone after the imposition of the food blockade.

So because the Nazis were an evil anti-Semitic regime and put themselves into a
corner with the Jews via their evil policies we should forgive them genocide?

I think that it’s normal for people to see what they expect to see. If (for example) a man regards women as flaky and unreliable, then any time he encounters a woman who is those things, he will see it as confirmation of his view. If on the other hand a woman proves non-flaky and very reliable, he will see her as an exception to the broader trend, or will assume the woman has a reservoir of not-yet-discovered flakiness. The vast majority of people are guilty of seeing what they expect to see.

When the Nazis saw a Jew engage in economic exploitation, or an effort to lower moral standards, or an effort to promote miscegenation, or join a Marxist political organization, then for them this was confirmation of their views of Jews generally. If on the other hand some Jew were to stand up against those things, they would see that Jew either as a rare exception, or else as someone attempting to build his credibility today so that he could lend his support for those things tomorrow.

The Nazis saw the Jews in a very negative light. To the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, their perspective was not justified by facts.

Is there no category of people we see in a more negative light than that justified by facts? During WWI and again during WWII, a lot of counterfactual, nonsensical anti-German propaganda was thrown around. Ignorant propagandists called the Germans “Huns,” and much of the population followed suit. There was also plenty of anti-Japanese propaganda thrown around. Propaganda which led to anti-Japanese hate “A poll in Fortune magazine in late 1945 showed a significant minority of Americans (22.7%) wishing that more atomic bombs could have been dropped on Japan.[224][225]”

One of the central tenets of Allied propaganda is that the Nazis were uniquely evil–evil in a way the world had never seen before. There are many downsides to that particular lie being believed. For example, people often don’t realize when they are doing the exact same thing the Nazis did. Namely, singling out some group; and thinking of that group in malignant terms. Yes, the Nazis did that with the Jews; but there are plenty of examples throughout history in which some group did that with some other group. Typically the feeling was mutual. People are instinctively tribal; and sometimes there is hostility between one tribe and another.

[Private-Panic]

I think our different view possibly comes down to the following point:

@KurtGodel7:

If there was any sort of famine, the Nazis wanted the Jews to die first. No one disputes that. The more controversial question is whether the Nazis would have exterminated the Jews even had the Allies not caused famine within Germany.

This is a good question. It is also one to which we will never know the answer. I do not believe we should therefore forgive the Nazis the result of their evil anti-Semitic policies, which ultimately lead to their murder of the Jews (and others), albeit helped along that path by food shortages created by the Allies.

The Nazis are damned because they “wanted the Jews to die first”, regardless of the active hostility of many other peoples and nations.

I think I have said that half a dozen times in a number of different ways in my responses. I believe your quote above - the less than absolute certainty as to whether the Nazis would have murdered the Jews if there had not been food shortages - is what holds you back from accepting this point. If we had the missing certainty you would accept that the Nazis were guilty of genocide, even though helped along by food shortages?

Please confirm whether we have finally reached the focal point of our disagreement?

[Narvik]

Nazis are bad, period. What is wrong with you people ?

[Private-Panic]

@Narvik:

Nazis are bad, period. What is wrong with you people ?

The Nazis were evil Narvik.

Edit - Since your post was in the plural Narvik, are you saying that I should not be debating whether the Nazis were guilty of genocide with Kurt?

The debate has moved Kurt along the path of accepting both that the Nazis had a policy of genocide and that they were “unjustifiably” anti-Semitic. If my previous post was right then that is two thirds of the way to gaining agreement to the Nazis being guilty of genocide. Is this not a point worth winning?

I do not think ignoring Kurt’s well informed (but in my view often misguided) views achieves anything. Nor do I believe rudeness gets us anywhere. Whereas a constructive and civil debate can yield progress. In this thread I think I am two thirds of the way towards my objective. In a previous thread, wherein Kurt advanced a much posted argument that the western democracies should have been more worried about Stalin than Hitler, I won acceptance that it was G’s position at the heart of Europe that ratcheted up its threat status. Kurt is open to discussion if you engage with him. But to engage with him you also have to be open to his views being right some of the time.

I thought I’d check whether you were having a go at me as I see that two forum colleagues have marked your post up, to my surprise.

[Narvik]

@Private:

Since your post was in the plural Narvik, are you saying that I should not be debating whether the Nazis were guilty of genocide with Kurt?

If Kurt claimed the Moon is a cheese, would you still be debating him ?

I think that Kurt is maybe David Irving, lurking on wargames forums from his prison pc, doing PsyOps against not so smart kids that love to play A&A

[LHoffman]

@Narvik:

I think that Kurt is maybe David Irving, lurking on wargames forums from his prison pc, doing PsyOps against not so smart kids that love to play A&A

I didn’t know Holocaust Denial was a crime, at least in some European countries. Yikes.

[KurtGodel7]

Private Panic wrote:

I do not believe we should therefore forgive the Nazis the result of their evil anti-Semitic policies,
which ultimately lead to their murder of the Jews (and others), albeit helped along that path by
food shortages created by the Allies.

The Allies caused the death toll with their food blockade. The Nazis caused that death toll to be unevenly distributed. Of those two misdeeds, the Allies’ was both worse and less commonplace. In most nations throughout history, any given famine-related death toll would have been unevenly distributed; and the nature of that uneven distribution would have been unfair.

The above does not excuse the Nazis for their flaws. Certainly, a Jewish person could not expect fair treatment at the Nazis’ hands. That was true even in good times, when the Nazis had enough food with which to feed everyone. My point is not that the Nazis were perfect–they weren’t–but that their crimes have been deliberately misrepresented by the Allied propaganda machine.

The Nazis are damned because they “wanted the Jews to die first”, regardless of the active hostility of many other peoples and nations.

Suppose that some ancient Greek city-state was hit by a food blockade/famine conditions. And suppose that those who ran the city state wanted to make the feeding of citizens a much, much higher priority than the feeding of their slaves. Would you condemn those leaders in the same harsh terms you condemned the Nazis? If not why not?

I believe your quote above - the less than absolute certainty as to whether the Nazis would
have murdered the Jews if there had not been food shortages - is what holds you back from accepting this point.

Not only is there “less than absolute certainty” that the Nazis would have murdered the Jews even in the absence of food shortages. There is no evidence at all that such a murder would have happened. During the ‘30s, the Nazis exported so many Jews to Palestine that the Palestinians revolted. The act of sending the Jews away–to a place outside the Nazis’ control–is clear evidence of the absence of any short- or long-term plan to kill the Jews. Only after the food blockade was imposed, and only after severe food shortages were experienced, did the Nazis develop any sort of plan to kill the Jews.

If we had the missing certainty you would accept that the Nazis were guilty of genocide, even though helped along by food shortages?

After WWII ended, the Allies imposed murderous conditions on postwar Germany.

---

On March 20, 1945, President Roosevelt was warned that the JCS 1067 was not workable: it would let the Germans “stew in their own juice”. Roosevelt’s response was “Let them have soup kitchens! Let their economy sink!” Asked if he wanted the German people to starve, he replied, “Why not?”

---

The Allied propaganda machine went into high gear to justify what General Clay described as a “Carthaginian peace” imposed on postwar Germany. First, the starvation element was denied. Second–and perhaps a bit more to the point–the Allies declared that the Germans were “collectively guilty” of the Holocaust. In order to support their “collective guilt” argument, they claimed that anyone who’d casually perused Mein Kampf or listened to Hitler’s speeches knew or should have known that the Holocaust was inevitable. Therefore, the decision to vote Hitler into office in the first place–and the decision to support him throughout his tenure as Germany’s Fuehrer–constituted implicit consent to the Holocaust.

The Allied propagandists who said these things had precisely zero interest in telling the truth about this matter. Or any other matter in which the truth would have gotten in the way of their message. Their only motive in coming up with that propaganda was to downplay and justify the starvation and death that FDR and Truman deliberately inflicted on postwar Germany.

We are not dealing with “less than absolute certainty” about whether Hitler would have exterminated the Jews even in the absence of an Allied food blockade. We are dealing with a situation in which the only evidence that Hitler would have imposed such extermination comes from the empty, lying claims of the nations which used famine as a weapon both during and after the war.

[wheatbeer]

@KurtGodel7:

Suppose that some ancient Greek city-state was hit by a food blockade/famine conditions. And suppose that those who ran the city state wanted to make the feeding of citizens a much, much higher priority than the feeding of their slaves. Would you condemn those leaders in the same harsh terms you condemned the Nazis?

Yes, I would rebuke such leaders.

I would also rebuke anyone who forced a slave to work with inadequate food or otherwise inhumane conditions.

I would also rebuke anyone who supported slavery as an institution regardless of the circumstances (this includes total war) … it would be better for a civilization to perish than to stoop to slavery.

[Private-Panic]

@Narvik:

If Kurt claimed the Moon is a cheese, would you still be debating him ?

I think that Kurt is maybe David Irving, lurking on wargames forums from his prison pc, doing PsyOps against not so smart kids that love to play A&A

Kurt actually has less unpalatable views than his initial posts suggest. From those initial posts it would be easy to think he is a holocaust denier, but he is not. It would be easy to believe him to be pro-Nazi, but he is not. It would be simple to understand him to be anti-Semitic, but not so. I have no idea why he keeps putting up posts that invite those interpretations, as he does himself no favours by doing so.

However, when you engage in a debate with him and dig below his initial response you discover that he accepts that the Nazis engaged in a policy of genocidal mass-murder of the Jews, that he thinks the Nazis were a terrible regime, that he regards anti-Semitism as “unjustifiable” (his word). Unfortunately he makes you work hard to get to these clarifications and many would not persevere sufficiently to do so. It seems that he is driven by a desire to apportion guilt to the allies for their failures, such as starvation of millions of Poles, given his Polish origin.

Instead of arguing with Kurt about guilt for the holocaust I am now defending Kurt and his right to free speech. Thanks for the distraction Narvik! :-(

[Private-Panic]

@KurtGodel7:

The Nazis are damned because they “wanted the Jews to die first”, regardless of the active hostility of many other peoples and nations.

Suppose that some ancient Greek city-state was hit by a food blockade/famine conditions. And suppose that those who ran the city state wanted to make the feeding of citizens a much, much higher priority than the feeding of their slaves. Would you condemn those leaders in the same harsh terms you condemned the Nazis? If not why not?

Absolutely YES - I would condemn them, as I would condemn the institution of slavery (agreeing with wheatbeer). I condemn the Nazis even more than that because the Jews were not slaves. They were a free people that the Nazis first reduced to sub-human status and then sought to erase.

The Allied economic / food blockade killed millions of people. It did not target any single race or religion. It took the Nazis to do that.

The Nazis’ targeting of the Jews was not prompted by Jewish hostility, as they did not similarly target many other hostile peoples and nations across Europe in the same way. It was driven by the Nazis evil anti-Semitic views. You have accepted this.

A lack of evidence that the Nazis would have attempted to eradicate the Jews without the Allied imposed starvation is therefore irrelevant. This final step is all it takes to allocate guilt for the holocaust to the Nazis, whilst still holding the Allies guilty for the deaths of millions via the food blockade. As per a previous post, my ability to be persuasive on this point is damaged by the fact of it being obvious to me.

The only thing I can think to do is to offer an analogy, much as I don’t want to because they are terribly simplistic and rather risky!

• If you restrict the food I have to being sufficient to feed just 8 of the 10 people in a group for which I am responsible you are guilty of imposing starvation that kills two people.
• If I then feed 8 Christians but not 2 Jews (who may be hostile or unwilling to fight, or whatever, but so are others in my 10) then I am guilty of having targeted the Jews. This is genocide - “the systematic elimination of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious, or national group”. Since I decided to target that group specifically I am guilty of that genocide.
• Since you did not target any specific group you are not guilty of genocide, but you are guilty of two deaths.
• The guilt of neither party forgives the guilt of the other.

If you do not accept this then I fail to see what more I can say.

[KurtGodel7]

Private Panic, I think we are in agreement on most points.

The Allied economic / food blockade killed millions of people. It did not target any single race or religion. It took the Nazis to do that.

Granted. On the other hand, not only did the Allies use famine as a weapon against those living in German-occupied Europe, they also blocked Jewish immigration into Palestine or any other Allied-controlled territories. Then they proceeded to use the Holocaust as the centerpiece of their wartime and postwar anti-Nazi propaganda efforts. The success of that propaganda effort meant that the Allies were credited with fighting a “good” war; despite their mass murder of millions both during and after the war, and despite leaving the diabolical Soviet regime in control of the vast majority of postwar Europe. Given the absolutely central role the Holocaust played in Allied propaganda, we have to wonder how sad the Allied leaders really were that the Jews were unfairly singled out.

The only thing I can think to do is to offer an analogy

I agree with everything you wrote in that analogy, with the possible exception of one point. You seem to be assigning a lot of guilt and moral condemnation to the process of choosing two victims. Many or most civilizations throughout human history have engaged in “us and them” thinking, or in more extreme cases “us, them, and evil other” thinking. For the Nazis, Germans were “us,” Slavs were “them,” and Jews were “evil other.” Other civilizations–especially in polarized times–will assign different groups to “us,” “them,” and “evil other.” We do not normally describe a civilization or culture as “evil” for having embraced us versus them thinking.

It is very common for Allied propagandists to use one measuring stick for the Nazis’ actions, while using a completely different measuring stick for Allied actions. For example, German civilian bombing of Britain was vilified, and served as the basis for some Nuremberg convictions. Meanwhile, the much more massive Allied bombing effort against civilian targets in Germany was treated as legitimate military necessity.

My goal here is to avoid Allied-style hypocrisy, and to subject the Axis, Allies, and all other civilizations to the same moral standard. One measuring stick for everyone. If we describe the Nazis as “evil” for engaging in us-versus-them thinking, or for feeding “us” before feeding “them,” then we have to also apply that same “evil” label to any other civilization which engaged in us-versus-them thinking; or which would have used that thinking as a primary factor in food distribution during famine.

[Private-Panic]

Hooray!

In response, Kurt, I’ll start by focusing on rather a lot of agreement:

@KurtGodel7:

Private Panic, I think we are in agreement on most points.

The Allied economic / food blockade killed millions of people. It did not target any single race or religion. It took the Nazis to do that.

Granted ……

The only thing I can think to do is to offer an analogy

I agree with everything you wrote in that analogy, with the possible exception of one point…

Sorry for the selective quotes, but I believe this means that we have agreed that the Nazis were guilty of genocide. Since that was my single focused aim I plan to take a rest after this post!

I won’t respond re Allied propaganda because I have agreed on this point in its broadest sense in the past. There is a challenging debate to be had on whether the UK & US (not the Soviets) did their best in the most difficult circumstances, as I have previously posted, but I do not plan to have it!

Before going for a lie down I will, however, respond on something else that you said:

@KurtGodel7:

Many or most civilizations throughout human history have engaged in “us and them” thinking, or in more extreme cases “us, them, and evil other” thinking. For the Nazis, Germans were “us,” Slavs were “them,” and Jews were “evil other.” Other civilizations–especially in polarized times–will assign different groups to “us,” “them,” and “evil other.” We do not normally describe a civilization or culture as “evil” for having embraced us versus them thinking.

Oh yes we do - if that “us and them” leads to “them” being abused. I then typed a load of examples of such evil, but deleted them. I don’t think I need them for my response to be absolute.

That’s it Kurt. Bye for now!