National Socialism vs. Communism.

As for the idea that the Allied blockade was somehow “economic”–it’s true that the Allies blocked oil, metal, and other supplies that a blockade should block. But they also blocked food. Not only did they block food to Germany directly. They also prevented neutral European nations bordering Germany from importing more food than necessary to compensate for their own food deficits. The intention was to prevent those neutral nations from acquiring any sort of food surplus which could be sold to Germany. The sole intention of the Allied food blockade was to use hunger as a weapon with which to kill large numbers of innocent people.

You’d think that with so many deaths on their hands during the war, the Western democracies’ blood lust would have been sated. But no. There was plenty of more Western democratic killing after the war was over. Exhibit A was the Morgenthau Plan, a plan intended to starve large numbers of Germans to death after the war. In this it largely succeeded. The degree of its success has not been widely studied due to the political sensitivity of the issue. However, one historian estimated that the resultant death toll was 6 million. His estimate may or may not be accurate; and it would be nice if the issue could be more widely studied in an environment free from politically-based arm twisting.

Throughout human history, government typically feed their own citizens first, before feeding the residents of occupied territories. In choosing to prioritize the feeding of Germans over the feeding of Poles, the German government did not do anything criminal, or out of the ordinary. The “out of the ordinary” thing was the Western democratic willingness to take a brutal, medieval tactic–starving an enemy castle into submission–and to apply that tactic to an entire continent. The Polish were among the foremost victims of that blockade, thereby demonstrating the emptiness of the Allies’ claims that they wanted to “help” Poland. The starvation of millions of Poles was completely avoidable, and almost certainly would have been avoided had the Allies not imposed their murderous, sadistic food blockade.

But in Germany’s she just plundered France and all her other conquests of foodstuffs and people who could be forced to work in her Labor camps, or just get killed. then you say :

With  “the German government did not do anything criminal, or out of the ordinary” you made another ridiculous statement. The Poles where forced into labor camps, Killed, and or forced into Ghettos. The Western Allies didn’t put anybody in forced labor, or kill them. The poles were doing just fine before Germany plundered Poland and starved them and whom latter raised keyboard commandos to argue the most ludicrous points of reasoning imaginable. If Germany was so concerned about Poland, she would have left her alone. So don’t freaking blame the outcome of what happens to Germany after she started the war. Next you will argue that the war was forced on Germany, just like Hitler did.

The starvation of millions of Poles was completely avoidable, and almost certainly would have been avoided had the Allies not imposed their murderous, sadistic food blockade.

To reason like this is really sad. you ignore the fact that Germany invaded Poland and Poland did nothing to deserve that, then blame the Allies again? Dude your either a Nazi or the next best thing?

The rest of your point is just more faulty reasoning. Volumes of words don’t make points or the truth. I’m done with you.

Imperious Leader wrote:

you ignore the fact that Germany invaded Poland and Poland did nothing to deserve that, then blame the Allies again?

Once the war started, there was no way Poland was going to avoid hostile foreign occupation. An Axis victory would have meant a German-occupied Poland. An Allied victory would have meant a Soviet-occupied Poland. WWII was never about Polish freedom–it was about who its hostile foreign occupiers would be.

Knowing that Poland would be subject to hostile foreign occupation regardless of who won or lost the war, the question then becomes: what (if anything) could the Western democracies do to influence conditions in occupied Poland? In 1939, Britain and France imposed a food blockade on Germany. In doing so, they made the starvation of millions of Poles an absolute certainty. They could have chosen to allow food through their naval blockade, in which case widespread starvation would most likely not have happened in Poland.

You seem to think that the German invasion of Poland excuses the Allied food blockade. It does not. Life for Poland was going to be bad enough already, without the Allies adding mass starvation to Poland’s other problems.

Also–to be blunt–Germany was not the only country to have invaded Poland. The Soviet Union also invaded Poland in 1939–the second time in as many decades that it did so. The Western democracies showed no more interest in stopping the second Soviet invasion of Poland than they had in stopping the first.

You will recall that many Poles escaped to Britain, where they continued fighting against the Axis. After WWII ended, a pro-Soviet British Labour government denied those Poles the chance to participate in the victory parade. Perhaps that’s fitting. A Soviet-occupied postwar Poland was hardly a legitimate reason for Polish celebration.

If Germany was so concerned about Poland, she would have left her alone.

No one was concerned about what happened to Poland. The Soviets were not concerned: they were evil invaders and hostile foreign occupiers. From 1939 - 1941, the population of the eastern half of Poland was literally decimated. One Pole out of every ten was either shot outright, sent to a gulag, or otherwise deported. Recall that the Soviets had no food shortage, making these killings entirely capricious.

Germany was not concerned at all about Poland. They were consistently upfront about the fact that their foreign policy was based on what they considered best for Germany.

The Western democracies had no, zero, zilch interest in helping Poland whatsoever. What makes their contempt for the Poles different from German or Soviet contempt is that the Western democracies awarded themselves credit for standing up for Poland. Their entire justification for going to war was based on the idea that they wanted to “help” Poland stand up to the German bully. Instead of doing that, Daladier deliberately lied to Poland about French military intentions in order to get Poland to pursue an anti-German foreign policy in the first place. Having deliberately misled his “ally,” and having placed it in a completely false position, Daladier–together with Chamberlain–proceeded to impose a food blockade on Germany starting in the very first month of the war. A food blockade which would ultimately kill millions of Poles.

You seem to think that I should be blaming Germany for the Western democracies’ crimes against Poland. Why would I do that? Hitler wasn’t the one who chose to impose a food blockade against Germany. Hitler wasn’t the one who chose to lie to Poland about whether France would launch a general offensive. Hitler wasn’t the one who felt that a Soviet-occupied postwar Poland would be perfectly acceptable. Yes, Hitler was guilty of his own crimes against Poland. But a discussion of Hitler’s anti-Polish crimes does not (as you seem to think) justify the absolutely despicable way in which the Western democracies treated Poland.

@Imperious:

With  “the German government did not do anything criminal, or out of the ordinary” you made another ridiculous statement.

Please don’t quote selectively to advance your argument/reduce your opponent’s. The statement was:
@KurtGodel7:

In choosing to prioritize the feeding of Germans over the feeding of Poles, the German government did not do anything criminal, or out of the ordinary.

This does not say that the Germans did nothing wrong in their other actions against the Poles, Jews, and other Eastern European people (as your quote implies). It says that feeding your own people first is a normal response in wartime.
Had India somehow been a part of the British Isles, I highly doubt that the British would have tried to feed everyone equally while under Germany’s USW. And I highly doubt you would blame the British for the Indians’ starvation.

@ColonelCarter:

Had India somehow been a part of the British Isles, I highly doubt that the British would have tried to feed everyone equally while under Germany’s USW. And I highly doubt you would blame the British for the Indians’ starvation.

Actually there was a famine in India in 1943 with between 1m and 3m deaths. Snippet from Wikipedia:

Any imports would have had to come from Australia, North America or South America. Some supplies from Australia entered the region.[63] The main constraint was shipping. The Battle of the Atlantic was at its peak from mid-1942 to mid-1943, with submarine wolf packs sinking so many ships that the Allies were on the verge of defeat, so shipping could not be spared for India.[64]

By August 1943 Churchill refused to release shipping to send food to India.[65][66][67] Initially during the famine he was more concerned with the civilians of Nazi occupied Greece (who were also suffering from a famine) compared with the Bengalis,[68] noting that the “starvation of anyhow underfed Bengalis is less serious than that of sturdy Greeks”.

Which brings us back to the Allies not being perfect, faced as they were with such challenging decisions, Churchill’s failings being embarrassingly evident in this example. But that does not stop Churchill being a great leader, nor suggest any (im)moral equivalence with the Nazis’ policy of genocide.

Private Panic wrote,

Actually there was a famine in India in 1943 with between 1m and 3m deaths.

A good contribution to the discussion.

When Churchill was told about the famine, he made a flippant remark about Gandhi not yet having starved to death. There was something about Gandhi which really got under Churchill’s skin. He also seemed irritated by the fact that Gandhi hadn’t starved to death, despite Indian food shortages and Gandhi’s own self-imposed fasts.

But that does not stop Churchill being a great leader, nor suggest any (im)moral equivalence with the Nazis’ policy of genocide.

Winston Churchill fought an unnecessary, unjust war which resulted in Soviet hegemony over the vast bulk of Europe. Including Poland–the nation the Allies supposedly went to war to save.

Was Churchill guilty of genocide? Yes, absolutely. But the millions of victims of famine in India should not be counted among his genocidal victims, any more than the millions of Slavs who starved to death in Nazi-occupied Europe were victims of Nazi genocide.

@KurtGodel7:

Was Churchill guilty of genocide? Yes, absolutely. But the millions of victims of famine in India should not be counted among his genocidal victims, any more than the millions of Slavs who starved to death in Nazi-occupied Europe were victims of Nazi genocide.

Of course you know that I disagree with that utterly KG. Churchill did not set out to exterminate any race, religion or nationality. The Nazis did. Genocide. Definition:

“the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group”

@KurtGodel7:

Winston Churchill fought an unnecessary, unjust war which resulted in Soviet hegemony over the vast bulk of Europe. Including Poland–the nation the Allies supposedly went to war to save.

The outcomes of the war did include Soviet hegemony over eastern Europe including Poland. Looking at outcomes as a whole rather than only in part we should remember that these also included democratic free peoples across western Europe.

As I have said before in this thread, a war against an aggressor, which represented a strategic threat to the beleaguered democracies and which pursued a policy of genocide and other heinous crimes is a just war.

Recognising that the UK & US were not perfect and that the Soviets were awful does not change that fact.

I understand your desire, KG, to highlight the Allies’ shortcomings. The victors write the history and the truth must come out. But you take a worthwhile cause and then undermine your argument by drawing conclusions every bit as one-sided as those who presented us with the Allies perfect / Nazis evil picture in the first place.

Private Panic wrote,

Churchill did not set out to exterminate any race, religion or nationality.

Whether or not that’s what he set out to do, that’s exactly what he did. The millions of people who died of hunger-related deaths in German-occupied territory were his responsibility, and the responsibility of the other Allied leaders who participated in the food blockade. Churchill was also a participant in other genocidal acts, such as extermination bombing raids, the treatment of German POWs after the war, the early stages of Operation Keelhaul, and (to an extent) the Morgenthau Plan. To his credit, Churchill was never enthusiastic about the Morgenthau Plan, and had to have his arm twisted at the Quebec Conference to participate in it.

Looking at outcomes as a whole rather than only in part we should remember that these also included democratic free peoples across western Europe.

If the Western democratic goal for entering WWII was to save Poland from foreign tyranny, the war was a failure. If the goal was to preserve democracy in France, the war was unnecessary. Hitler never wanted war with France or the west. If the goal was to forcibly impose democracy on Germany, they were 50% successful, in that they conquered the western 50% of Germany. But if that last point was their objective, then (from the Western democratic perspective), WWII was a war of aggression and imperialism, not a war of liberation.

But you take a worthwhile cause and then undermine your argument by drawing conclusions
every bit as one-sided as those who presented us with the Allies perfect / Nazis evil picture in the first place.

Probably everyone reading this thread has spent a lifetime steeped in history written from the Allied perspective. My posts are going to seem one-sided–at least to people who have spent decades immersed in that perspective.

When I was younger, I read a complaint about Allied hypocrisy. The Allies had loudly complained about German bombing attacks against civilian targets in England, while remaining silent about their own, far more massive attacks against civilian targets in Germany. At the time, I thought that complaint was nonsensical. Of course they’re different, I thought to myself, the German raids against England were clearly a war crime. The Allied raids against Germany clearly weren’t.

That was an example of how I thought after having been steeped in a pro-Allied perspective. At the time, I didn’t realize how one-sided I was. I honestly believed I was being neutral! I’ve since had to deprogram myself–almost like the deprogramming one has to do to escape the brainwashing efforts of cults. That effort took years. But I believe that effort is now successful, and that my brain is Allied propaganda-free.

On the surface, rejecting Axis propaganda should be easier, because we are exposed to so little of it. However, once Allied propaganda is rejected, it’s very important to not use Axis propaganda to fill the resulting void.

Sorry KG, but my answer won’t progress the argument much.

Regarding whether Churchill participated in genocide I refer you to the definition I included in my previous post. Clearly the definition exempts Churchill from genocide but the accusation falls squarely on the shoulders of the Nazis.

Yes - Churchill did participate in acts that today would be labelled by many as war crimes. (So did Roosevelt, who deluded himself into believing Britain the bigger threat to US security that the Soviets.) I have already said as much in an earlier posting in this thread. In that same posting, however, I did flag that our parameters for war crimes have changed since 1945, the bar having become more stringent as we confront such issues from the peace and security that these self same acts gave us. Also that in an existential war (which it was for the UK and Russia) difficult decisions are made in challenging circumstances. From our armchairs it is easy to deplore what at the time may have seemed unavoidable.

I like to think that I too have rejected Allied propaganda, as I hope my posts demonstrate. However, I have replaced it with a firm belief in certain fundamentals that give me a clear moral steer. The Germans were the aggressors. The Germans were a strategic threat to the beleaguered democracies. The Germans pursued genocide and other heinous acts not equalled by two at least of the three allies. I believe these facts are utterly rock-solid, but that you do not and will not accept them.

Private Panic wrote:

Clearly the definition exempts Churchill from genocide but the accusation falls squarely on the shoulders of the Nazis.

I disagree with that.

If you look at pre-war crimes committed in Europe, both the Nazis and the Western democracies had relatively clean records. (The Western democracies’ brutality in their colonies is a subject for a different thread.) The Soviets had a very, very ugly prewar record, with millions of murders to show for their actions.

If you look at crimes committed during the war, all the major crimes committed by the Nazis had a “yes, but” associated with them. Did the Nazis kill millions of Jews? Yes, but they couldn’t feed everyone within their own borders. Did the Nazis starve millions of Slavs? Yes, but they couldn’t feed everyone within their own borders. To ignore the “yes, but” part of that equation is to stray from the straight and narrow path of truth.

On the other hand, Churchill and other Allied leaders chose to use food as a weapon, knowing that millions of innocent civilians would die as a result of their decision. I regard that as the greatest single crime committed during the war, and the one for which there is the least justification.

The main military benefit of the Allied food blockade was that it furthered the Allied propaganda effort. By making it physically impossible for the Germans to feed the people in the lands they conquered, the food blockade created the illusion that the Germans were even worse than the Soviets. Had food been allowed through the Allied blockade, the Germans could have fed the people of Eastern Europe and the western Soviet Union. Had those people been fed, many Soviet citizens might well have fought for the Germans and against Stalin’s evil regime. The second most important military benefit of the Allied food blockade was that it prevented Germany from feeding the Soviet POWs working in German weapons factories. Millions of Soviet POWs died of starvation, despite Hitler’s direct order that they be fed.

In that same posting, however, I did flag that our parameters for war crimes have changed since 1945 . . .

In the Nuremberg Trials, the Allies were more than happy to subject the Nazis’ decisions to a very high level of critical scrutiny. I see no reason whatever that the Allies’ own decisions should be exempted from the standards they used on the Nazis.

Also that in an existential war (which it was for the UK and Russia) difficult decisions are made . . .

WWII was not an existential war for Britain. Britain had the option of obtaining peace whenever it wanted to, with no loss of British territory. They chose to disregard German offers of peace, and continue fighting instead.

WWII was an existential war for the Soviet Union–or at least for the Soviet government and the Soviet system. It was also an existential war for Germany. I am willing to apply your “difficult decisions are made in existential conflicts” logic to both Germany and the Soviet Union. For example: during the war, Stalin transferred a large portion of the Soviet farm labor force to the military or to factories making weapons. This caused severe hunger in the Soviet Union, with a significant number of people dying as a result. I have not accused the Soviets of committing a war crime for doing that; just as I didn’t accuse the Germans of committing a war crime due to having transferred some farm animals to military use.

While “existential war” logic can justify stuff like that, it does not justify the British using a food blockade to starve millions of Poles. Especially considering that the Poles were the ones whom Britain supposedly went to war to protect.

The Germans were the aggressors.

The Soviets had become the aggressors long before Hitler even took power. If Hitler was aggressive in his efforts to build a Greater Germany, it was because he knew that only a strong Germany could withstand Soviet aggression. And he knew from past experience that the Western democracies would do precisely nothing to stop or slow Soviet expansionism.

This first became clear in the Polish-Soviet War, which occurred in 1919 - 1921. The Soviet Union had wished to annex Poland. Then, at least according to a highly reliable Soviet source (and Soviet defector to Britain), the Soviet Union intended to keep pushing west into Germany. Germany had been disarmed in the aftermath of WWI, and was already on the brink of a communist revolution. After conquering Poland, the Soviets intended to meet up with the German communists.

Did the Western democracies declare war on the Soviet Union for having invaded Poland? Did they launch an “existential war” against the Soviets? No! They didn’t even send soldiers to help Poland. A pro-Soviet British government sent weapons to the Soviets, but not to Poland. The French sent the Polish some military advisors, but otherwise did nothing to help Poland. Nor did the United States do anything useful. As the Soviets pushed westward, the western democracies advised Poland to obtain the best surrender terms it could. Instead of which, the Polish, alone and unaided, won an unexpected victory near Warsaw. That victory turned the tide of the entire war, and (temporarily) saved both Poland and Germany from the terror of Soviet occupation.

You’d think that in light of Soviet expansionism, and in light of Western democratic refusal to do anything at all to stop it, that Germany would have been allowed a decent military. A strong Germany could have been a counterweight to the Soviet threat. Instead, the Western democracies insisted that Germany limit itself to only a token military. Their Versailles Treaty also kept Germany crippled economically. Their post WWI policies created a power vacuum in the heart of Europe–a vacuum Stalin was only too eager to fill.

It was in this environment that Hitler came to power. Hitler immediately renounced the Versailles Treaty, and began building up Germany militarily and industrially. The Allied response to that was to embrace a pro-Soviet strategy of encirclement. France and the Soviet Union signed a defensive alliance in 1935. Czechoslovakia also signed a defensive alliance with the Soviets that same year. The Western democracies were no more interested in preventing the Soviet conquest of Poland, Eastern Europe, or Germany in the '30s than they had been in the '20s.

In 1939, French politicians told a pack of lies to the naive Polish. Polish government officials believed the lies, and embraced an anti-German foreign policy. While Hitler was not privy to the secret conferences in which the French and British lied to the Poles, his reading of the diplomatic tea leaves convinced him that Britain and France were determined to go to war. Hitler knew that time was not on Germany’s side. If war was inevitable, it was better from the German perspective for it to occur in 1939 than some later year.

The Germans and the Western democracies were not the only nations preparing for war. Stalin was also gearing up for an invasion of Europe. From Hitler’s perspective, it made sense to deal with the Western democratic threat first, before the Soviets could mount their invasion of Europe. Neither Hitler nor anyone in the German military had any appetite for a two front war.

To label the Germans “aggressors” is accurate, but perhaps overly simplistic. It’s far from obvious what non-aggressive foreign policy Germany could possibly have pursued which would have protected it from Soviet invasion. I know a lot about this war, and I have no idea what I could have done in Hitler’s place, to have protected Germany. Had the Germans stayed within their own borders, minding their own business, the Red Army would have overrun first Eastern Europe, and then Germany itself. The Western democracies would have done every bit as much to stop that invasion as they did to stop the Soviets’ invasion of Poland in 1920. Which is to say, they would have done nothing at all.

If you doubt the truth of that last statement, consider the Western democratic response to the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, and its invasion of Finland in 1940. Also consider the Western democratic response to the Soviet annexation of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia in 1940, as well as to the Soviet annexation of part of Romania in that same year.

Rather than have a muddled debate with lots of points at issue, I thought we might get somewhere if I picked up on just one:

@KurtGodel7:

If you look at crimes committed during the war, all the major crimes committed by the Nazis had a “yes, but” associated with them. Did the Nazis kill millions of Jews? Yes, but they couldn’t feed everyone within their own borders.

Did the Nazis also exterminate millions of Jews by other means - gas chambers, mobile death squads and the like? Was there a systematic and deliberate plan to exterminate the Jews? Were the Nazis therefore guilty of genocide?

I ask because this last post of yours, nor any previously so far as I have read, have accepted this accusation. When I have a clear answer to that I will happy to debate whether the Allies were guilty of genocide.

Private Panic wrote:

Did the Nazis also exterminate millions of Jews by other means - gas chambers, mobile death squads and the like?

Based on the reading I’ve done, I believe that the Nazis used gas chambers and mobile death squads to kill large numbers of Jews. That particular subject is not one I’ve researched in depth, at least not yet.

Was there a systematic and deliberate plan to exterminate the Jews?

During the '30s, the Nazi plan for the Jews was to encourage emigration to Palestine. However, the British–who owned Palestine at the time–closed off additional Jewish immigration to Palestine in 1939. Starting in 1942, the Nazis began a systematic effort to exterminate large numbers of Jews. Eliminating the Jewish population was seen as the best way of freeing up calories desperately needed to feed other groups of people.

Were the Nazis therefore guilty of genocide?

An act of genocide definitely occurred. There is the question of how much blame for that genocide should go to the Nazis (for singling out the Jews) and how much should go to the Allies (for having created famine conditions within Germany in the first place, and for having blocked Jewish immigration to Palestine and all other Allied-controlled nations and colonies).

I will not get into those questions right now. But I will point out that the Holocaust was extremely convenient for the Allies. They made it the centerpiece of their anti-Nazi propaganda effort, used it to distract attention from Soviet genocide, and also used it to reduce sympathy for wartime and postwar German victims of Western democratic genocide.

To add to my previous post: there is the illusion that Western democracies do not commit genocide. But then one could point out European acts of genocide in Africa, or American acts of genocide against the Native Americans. There are some who see such acts as the product of racism. The implication is that in the past Western democracies were willing to do terrible things to non-whites, but would stop short of doing those same things to white people.

However, even that latter, more circumscribed point is still inaccurate. As I pointed out earlier, the British committed genocide during the Boer War, including the extermination of half of Boer children. In absolute terms the death toll is significantly smaller than other genocides: “only” 28,000 victims. The Boers were white, of primarily Dutch ancestry.

A significantly larger genocide was the Irish Potato Famine, otherwise known as the Great Famine. Europe, including Ireland, had been hit with potato blight. Despite the potato blight, Ireland nevertheless ran at a food surplus. All that was necessary to prevent famine in Ireland was to forbid export of food. This, the British refused to do. Instead, they imposed new taxes on the Irish–taxes which punished land owners for extending charity to their starving neighbors.

Landlords were responsible for paying the rates of every tenant whose yearly rent was 4 [pounds] or less. Landlords whose land was crowded with poorer tenants were now faced with large bills. They began clearing the poor tenants from their small plots, and letting the land in larger plots for over 4 [pounds] which then reduced their debts. . . . While Helen Litton says there were also thousands of “voluntary” surrenders, she notes also that there was “precious little voluntary about them.” In some cases, tenants were persuaded to accept a small sum of money to leave their homes, “cheated into believing the workhouse would take them in.”[88] . . .

The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Clarendon, wrote a letter to Russell on 26 April 1849, urging that the government propose additional relief measures: “I don’t think there is another legislature in Europe that would disregard such suffering as now exists in the west of Ireland, or coldly persist in a policy of extermination.”[137] . . .

John Mitchel, one of the leaders of the Young Ireland Movement, wrote the following in 1860: “I have called it an artificial famine: that is to say, it was a famine which desolated a rich and fertile island that produced every year abundance and superabundance to sustain all her people and many more. The English, indeed, call the famine a ‘dispensation of Providence;’ and ascribe it entirely to the blight on potatoes. But potatoes failed in like manner all over Europe; yet there was no famine save in Ireland. The British account of the matter, then, is first, a fraud; second, a blasphemy. The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the famine.”[139]

Estimates of the death toll range between 700,000 and 1.5 million victims, with the most common estimate being 1 million victims.

John Adams once wrote “Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy.” The Boer Wars, the Irish Potato Famine, and Allied actions during and after WWII were certainly consistent with his view.

I am going to focus on your answers to my genocide questions for now. Your other post re whether democracies are capable of and have at times committed genocide I will leave to one side as I do not doubt the idea, although I am sure there is much to argue over the examples.

@KurtGodel7:

Did the Nazis also exterminate millions of Jews by other means - gas chambers, mobile death squads and the like?

Based on the reading I’ve done, I believe that the Nazis used gas chambers and mobile death squads to kill large numbers of Jews. That particular subject is not one I’ve researched in depth, at least not yet.

Thanks.

@KurtGodel7:

Was there a systematic and deliberate plan to exterminate the Jews?

…. Starting in 1942, the Nazis began a systematic effort to exterminate large numbers of Jews…

Thanks again.

My selective quote above excluded the reasons you gave for this policy, so I’ll include those in the next quote where they are repeated.

@KurtGodel7:

Were the Nazis therefore guilty of genocide?

An act of genocide definitely occurred. There is the question of how much blame for that genocide should go to the Nazis (for singling out the Jews) and how much should go to the Allies (for having created famine conditions within Germany in the first place, and for having blocked Jewish immigration to Palestine and all other Allied-controlled nations and colonies).

I will not get into those questions right now. But I will point out that the Holocaust was extremely convenient for the Allies. They made it the centerpiece of their anti-Nazi propaganda effort, used it to distract attention from Soviet genocide, and also used it to reduce sympathy for wartime and postwar German victims of Western democratic genocide. Â

Does Britain limiting access to Palestine and a lack of food justify the Nazi murder of Jews? We are not talking about allowing hunger to take its course when food is not available, but proactive slaughter. Forget blame and convenience for the moment. Let’s focus on the morality. Do these reasons justify genocide?

Private Panic wrote:

Does Britain limiting access to Palestine and a lack of food justify the Nazi murder of Jews? We are not talking
about allowing hunger to take its course when food is not available, but proactive slaughter.

Before answering that question, I’ll pose one of my own. Suppose a bus is out of control, and is about to hit and kill ten people. You are witnessing this. You can stop the bus–but only by pushing one fat person off a bridge and into the bus’s path. Do you push the person off?

The reason I ask this question is because many people draw a moral distinction between passively letting death happen (watching while the bus kills ten people) and actively killing someone (pushing the fat person off the bridge). The ethical question then becomes: is there a moral distinction between passively letting someone die (letting the bus kill the ten people) and actively making someone die (by pushing the fat person off the bridge)? If a moral distinction like that should exist–if letting the 10 people die would be “good,” and pushing the fat person off the bridge to save them would be “evil,” then you are right to impose that passive versus proactive distinction on the Nazis.

However, there are those who look at the bus example and feel that the only thing which matters is the death toll. It doesn’t matter whether the people involved had been killed passively or actively–just whether they made it out dead or alive. According to that way of thinking, it is better to push the fat person in front of the bus, because that would result in a smaller death toll than the alternative.

Personally, I’m a member of the second camp. I believe that one death is less bad than ten deaths, and that the correct moral decision is to push the person off the bridge. I believe that the person who does the pushing should take responsibility for the one death he caused, just as a person who refuses to push should take responsibility for the ten deaths his inaction caused. Responsibility is equal in both cases, except that the latter person is responsible for ten times as many deaths.

The Allied food blockade was going to kill millions or (more likely) tens of millions of innocent people. The Nazis had the option of creating a plan for how those deaths would be distributed. They also had the option of allowing those deaths to be distributed by circumstances or random chance. They chose the former. Having determined which groups were going to get fed and which ones weren’t, they had the option of either passively starving the “not to be fed” groups, or actively killing them. In most cases they chose the former, but in some cases they chose the latter option.

The death toll imposed by the food blockade would have been roughly equal, regardless of whether the people in the “not to be fed” group were passively allowed to starve or actively hunted down and exterminated. From the Nazis’ perspective, the main advantage to actively hunting down and exterminating people was that it allowed them to exert more control over which people were fed and which weren’t. Suppose, for example, that the Nazis had chosen to passively starve the Jews to death. Put them all in ghettos, then blockade the ghettos’ food supply. Some food would have made it through the Nazis’ food blockade, resulting in some Jews within those ghettos surviving the war.

The reason the Nazis didn’t want that to happen is because, for them, feeding the Jews was a lower priority than feeding any other group. If the Jews in the ghettos had been fed, their food would have come at the direct expense of other population groups. The Nazis used two principles for the allocation of scarce food resources: race, and utility to the war effort. From both perspectives, feeding the Soviet POWs working in German weapons factories was considered a higher priority than feeding the Jews. The Germans didn’t have enough food to feed those Soviet POWs, resulting in millions of them starving to death.

Hi KG

So I think I now understand your position. The Nazis were guilty of genocide through gas chambers, mobile death squads, etc as well as starvation. It is good to hear that you accept that.

But that genocide was justified by the lack of food engendered by the Allied economic blockade, including food. Your reasoning is based on a belief that proactive population control (i.e. eliminating those groups you do not wish to consume scarce food) is more efficient than active control of the food supply in achieving the desired end - survival of preferred sections of the population.

I will respond by first imagining an analogous hypothetical situation that might occur for any of us at a personal level. If three people were marooned with limited food - me, a close member of my family and a stranger - I would hope that I would pursue an equal sharing of what we had. Nevertheless if the stranger was least able to contribute to our survival and things got really desperate, perhaps that resolve would fall away and be replaced by the withdrawal of an equal ration. And in extremis there is a possibility that I might kill that stranger if I believed that improved our chance of survival.

I would hope that I would not succumb to such acts, but I cannot rule it out as I have not been so tested.

However, despite all the reasons and excuses at hand, in withdrawing food from the stranger I would, as a minimum, have behaved immorally. If I had committed murder then I would have behaved illegally. I would be responsible for my actions and should be judged by those actions. The reasons/excuses are irrelevant to my guilt (although not necessarily to the resulting punishment).

Do you not agree?

Cheers
PP

Just to toss a couple of points into this discussion, it might be helpful to note that:

1. The blockading of enemy nations is a technique of naval warfare that’s been used for a long time.  There’s nothing novel about it and there’s nothing illegitimate about it when it involves belligerent nations.  To give just a few examples, the Union did it to the Confederacy during the Civil War, the Allies did it to Germany during WWI, Germany did it to Britain in WWI and WWI, the US did it to Japan in WWII, and the US did it to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

2. Blockades are regarded as an act of war (which is why the US called the Cuba blockade a “quanrantine”) and they can cause great economic hardship (which is usually the whole point) but they’re not regarded as war crimes.  Article 42 of the UN Charter implicitly recognizes blockade as a legitimate technique because it gives the UN the power to impose one if the need arises: “Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.”  The UN Charter would hardly include such a clause if blockades were regarded as war crimes, let alone as genocidal acts.

3. The Allied blockade of Germany in WWI was extremely effective in damaging Germany’s economy, where by 1917 the effects were felt (among other things) by considerable food shortages…but the Kaiser’s regime didn’t respond to this situation by targeting the Jews of Germany (or anywhere else) for extermination.  I don’t buy the argument that food blockades tend to lead to genocide, or provide a moral justification for genocide, or somehow provide a rationale for pinning the blame for genocide on the people who are doing the blockading instead of on the people who are committing the mass murders.

Private Panic wrote:

The Nazis were guilty of genocide through gas chambers, mobile death squads, etc as well as starvation. It is good to hear that you accept that.

H.G. Wells dealt with this subject in his book The Island of Dr. Moreau. Three men were on a raft in the middle of the ocean, with no access to food or fresh water. After days of being out in the hot sun, one of the men on the raft said, with a wild look in his eyes, that he knew how they might have drink. Eventually the men on the raft decided to draw straws, on the theory that a 2/3 chance of survival was better than the certainty of dying of hunger and thirst. However, the physically strongest and most aggressive man on the raft drew the short straw, and refused to accept the verdict.

But for the sake of argument, suppose he’d been killed in order to keep the other two men alive. It would be correct to say that they’d killed the man in question. But would it be correct to say they’d murdered him?

That question is a very thorny one. Certainly, there is a moral distinction between killing someone so that you can stay alive, versus killing someone out of spite. In the former case your goal is to protect life. Granted, you’re protecting your own life at someone else’s expense. Nevertheless, I’d feel much less threatened by someone willing to kill if absolutely necessary in a survival situation, as opposed to someone willing to kill for the sheer joy of killing. In a nutshell: I agree with the factual statements you have made above, without necessarily agreeing with you about assignations of guilt.

I would hope that I would not succumb to such acts, but I cannot rule it out as I have not been so tested.

I would not distribute the food equally, but neither would my distribution necessarily be selfish. If (for example) the other guy on the island was someone a few years from developing a cure for cancer, I hope my response would be “The world needs this guy more than me. Therefore I will starve so he can live.” On the other hand, if the other person on the island was a sleazy politician who consistently harmed the public, my response would likely be, “Let the crook starve so I can live.” It would be very important for me to be unbiased–to avoid over-valuing myself or under-valuing the other person, in an effort to justify a selfish act on my part. My decision should be based on a desire to make the world a better place, regardless of whether doing so would help or harm me personally.

CWO Marc wrote:

The blockading of enemy nations is a technique of naval warfare that’s been used for a long time.

That may be, but it’s important to draw a distinction between a normal blockade and a food blockade. Metals, ammunition, weapons, oil, and things like that are all fair game for a naval blockade. Food is in a different category.

Article 42 of the UN Charter implicitly recognizes blockade as a legitimate technique

Article 42 does not specify whether it’s legitimate to blockade a nation’s food supply.

The Allied blockade of Germany in WWI was extremely effective in damaging Germany’s
economy, where by 1917 the effects were felt (among other things) by considerable food shortages.

The Allied food blockade in WWI killed an estimated 424,000 innocent civilians. The fact that the Allies committed a very serious war crime in WWI does not justify their decision to commit that same war crime, on an even larger scale, during WWII.

but the Kaiser’s regime didn’t respond to this situation by targeting the Jews of Germany (or anywhere else) for extermination.

Germany’s inability to feed its own people during WWI may have been the primary reason the Kaiser was overthrown. With Germany’s home front collapsing, a decision was made to lay down Germany’s arms. Why keep fighting when the Allies had promised Germany an honorable peace, based on the 14 Points? (France agreed to all 14 points. Britain agreed to 13 of the 14, with the one point of disagreement involving freedom of the seas.) After Germany laid down its arms, the Allies continued their food blockade into June of 1919, in order to force Germany to sign the vindictive Versailles Treaty. A treaty which had nothing at all to do with any of the promises Allied leaders had made regarding a just and honorable peace.

Allied nations crippled Germany economically in several ways, one of which was the Versailles Treaty. During the '20s the British and French empires closed themselves to German imports–thus augmenting the economic damage done at Versailles. As a result of all this economic harm, Germany could not afford to import the food it needed to feed its own people. Many or most Germans experienced what one historian described as periods of prolonged and insatiable hunger.

These events were why Hitler and other Nazis had what has been described as a “mortal fear” of letting the Germans go hungry. He knew that widespread hunger among the German people could lead to the collapse of his government, and therefore to Soviet occupation of Germany.

But suppose that the Nazis hadn’t had that mortal fear. Suppose that Hitler had distributed food in such a way that any given person was equally likely to fall prey to the Allied food blockade, regardless of whether he was German, or Slavic, or Jewish. Would that have made the blockade any less murderous, or any less of a war crime? I don’t see why it would have. Being at war does not justify the wholesale slaughter of civilian populations living in enemy-occupied territory.

Oh well - I seem to have lost the focus on the issue I was trying to get to the bottom of and am not sure I have the energy to persevere.

So just a couple of points:

• Marc makes some valid points. I had intended to extend my analogy to the guilt of whomever had put the three of us on the island without enough food - the allies - but only when we had reached a conclusion on my own guilt - me being the Axis. Can you take a bad analogy too far?

I find the guilt of the blockaders a complex moral question. We like to decry the blockage of humanitarian aid when it suits us and yet leave open the possibility of it being acceptable when we wish it to be. Assad’s actions against his own civilians being an example of the first. The possibility of UN approval being the latter.

Other allied actions, such as bombing of civilians, are less ambiguously frowned upon nowadays, but still merit consideration.

• But returning to the genocide guilt of the Germans - killing in self defence is one thing, but killing in self-interest is entirely different, no matter how desperate the circumstances. If we justify the latter we create of every individual and nation a god with the power of life and death without consequence. KG - your own example includes giving you the power to decide who lives and dies. I cannot agree with you and hope that you have only been driven to this unsavoury stance by your passion for a re-evaluation of the generally accepted allies perfect view.

You can make a valid case for that re-evaluation without excusing the Germans their evils. In fact the case is more persuasive if you don’t.

Signing off!

Cheers
PP

Blame it on Sweden

At the risk of getting dragged into another one of these inane and endless arguments…

I would just like to say that Kurt’s point is well known in the sense that there are a great many posts of his along the same lines. I don’t want to get into this discussion, because, very honestly, I just don’t have the time or desire beyond stating this for the record: IL is right…

@ColonelCarter:

@Imperious:

OMG more of this “The Communists are worse than the Nazi’s” –-Godel its like every day with you. The lampshade talk and death talk never ends.

IL, unless Kurt made and deleted a post, you should probably at least read his posts before mindlessly opposing them because you know he has some different opinions than you.
Kurt’s actual post if from a month ago, and it made no mention of Communism.

Kurt is very intelligent and extremely well read and his opinions are well known by people who have been here a while and dealt with him in the past. That is neither positive nor negative, it is just the truth. The same can be said of IL.

As far as I can tell Colonel Carter, all your posts, prior to those on this thread, have been on other boards and dealt with game tactics rather than historical argument. That’s perfectly fine, but you are the one who is ignorant (and I say that politely) of the legacy of discussions on this area of A&A.org… unless of course you have read much, but never posted. I cannot know that for sure, but IL does not need to support his statement about past experience. That is for you to look up and determine yourself. All that said… Welcome brother!  :lol:

In fairness to Kurt, he did not begin the devolution of the discussion; he merely began to answer responses directed at him which snowballed into this…

But whatever. I am happy to read and observe because words are more futile than not here. All that happens its that you argue furiously for a while, realize you are foreer re-treading the same ground and no amount of talk will convince anyone. You just get burned out. As PrivateP just did.

Now that I have sufficiently rationalized what everyone already knows… I too will hit and run. Funny thing is that this is the closest to Political Discussion allowed on these forums… people can get nearly as heated over it.  :lol: