When would the Nazis have finished their 'Final Solution'

Factual Questions
1

I’ve just started reading Martin Gilbert’s The Holocaust on recommendation by the board; I haven’t got far into it but one of the chapters is titled ‘If they have enough time, we are lost’.

Got me thinking - if the shoah by gas began earlier in Hitler’s reign, the war took a different turn and the Allies advanced slower, or even made peace (alien space bats complete the German Nuclear Program) and Nazis allowed to slaughter unmolested, how much longer would it have taken them to complete ‘The Final Solution’; murder all Jews (as well as Roma, disabled and other victims) found in German controlled territory? Did they have a timeframe for the completion?

2

According to this old threadsomething like 67% of all European Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. This sitegives a country by country breakdown.

I doubt whether the total poroportion could ever have reached 100%, but at a guess I’d say another two years would have brought the total proportion up to Poland’s level of 90%. So about 2 million more murders?

3

Except that their plans were, after the Jews and other immediate undesirables were gone, to slowly start killing off the Slavs. Clear out Poland, Ukraine and that whole end of the USSR to provide more space for the German Master Race.

4

Of the countries the Germans occupied, they pretty well did finish their Final Solution. In Poland, Lithuania, Latvia ,(what is now) Belarus, Czechoslovakia (aka ‘The Protectorate . . .’), and, as well, Germany and Austria, somewhere around 90 percent of the Jewish population was murdered. So, it’s moot what you mean by “finished”. Obviously, not every last Jewish person was going to fall victim; there would have to be some survivors. I guess what I’m saying is that 90 percent is essentially “finished”.

One notable exception to the above occurred in Hungary where, for a variety of reasons, the process was slowed down, if not actually halted. Even at that, however, some 65 or 70 percent of Hungarian Jews were exterminated. Given different circumstances, and more time, the remaining 30 percent or so could have been finished in a matter of two or three months. My estimate of two to three months is based on the four months or so it took to murder the first 70 percent (i.e. from May to August 1944).

There are (at least) two things to take into account when examining the pace of The Holocaust from spring 1944 onwards. First, as things deteriorated more and more for Germany, its dependence on slave labour became more and more important. So, notwithstanding its policy of exterminating the Juden (and others), the Jews might receive reprieves (at least temporarily) so they could be used as slave labourers.

Second, as bizarre as it sounds now, some of the German leaders believed that by not exterminating those Jews already under their control, good will would be engendered among the allies. In other words, this display of decency and humanitarian behaviour could be used to plead for more lenient treatment and less severe retribution at the hands of the obviously soon-to-be-victorious allies, who were also their soon-to-be judges.

5

Funny you should ask, I just finished this book a few weeks ago,
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/auschwitz-l-rees/1102427360?ean=9781586483579
which looks at the holocaust in general but through the history of Auschwitz in particular and makes some interesting points*:

That extermination was adopted more for logistical reasons than ideological ones, and they looked at and would happily have emigrated them all to Africa if it had been cheaper.

They fully expected millions of non-jews to starve in the east after they’d conquered Russia and that was fine with them.

The true death camps in Poland had mostly wound down their operations before the advancing Russians made it necessary.

The Hungarians were trying to jump ship in 1944 and the Nazis saw a huge cash windfall in deporting the previously ignored Hungarian jews.

That Hitler was a lot more preoccupied with winning the war than the day to day activities of the SS, and Reinhard and Himmler were the real architects. Reinhard in particular is under-appreciated as one of the blackest hearts in the Reich.
*I’m not taking an offical position on these claims.

6

I don’t know if these are your takes on the author’s ideas, your own, or some combination, but they are very misleading if not outright wrong.

“Cheaper” is hardly the correct word. As you said, the reason was more logistical than anything else.

In any case, by 1941, extermination of the Jews had become an ideological must in the minds of those who called the shots, primarily Himmler and, as you said, by Heydrich. However, it is absolutely untenable to postulate that Hitler had essentially washed his hands of it and let Himmler take charge of the “Jewish question”. For one, that is the opposite of the way things worked in Nazi Germany - Hitler had absolute power. He would delegate, of course, but only to do what he wanted or to achieve his goals. Equally, there was no way that Himmler or anyone else would commit the enormous resources required to exterminate the Jews without Hitler’s support. This is especially true during “Total War” when resources are marshalled for one and only one cause: victory.

It is true that by the fall of 1943, the ‘Operation Reinhard’ camps (built and operated for the express purpose of the extermination of the Polish Jews) were being closed down. In part that was because there were no longer enough Polish Jews around to justify keeping the camps open. But, in larger part, it was because Auschwitz would be more than able to handle any ongoing or future extermination needs (and not because of any ideological shift towards lenience to the Jews).

Well, if by Nazis you mean Himmler, you are right. And, indeed, Himmler tried to ransom several thousand Jews. Eichmann and others, though, did what they could to ensure that as many of the rest of the Jews in the occupied territories continued to be deported to Auschwitz and other camps (both ‘concentration’ and ‘labour’).

Answered above. I will ask again, though, whether you really think it’s possible, that in Hitler’s Nazi Germany, the huge undertaking that would ultimately be known as ‘The Holocaust’ could have taken place without his approval and knowledge? Sure, he may not have known the various details (or maybe he did), but he must have known about the big picture. For goodness sake, the citizens of towns near concentration camps were held accountable (in some sense) for not knowing, or wanting to know, what was going on down the road. Yet Hitler gets a pass?

7

Well, mostly the authors, but I think you rushed your response there just a bit.

He suggested that the commiting of resources to the invasion of Hungary at that point in the war, made more sense if you consider the wealth that could be confiscated from the jews which had mostly been left alone up till then. Later when things got worse, it was Eichmann who was the Nazis agent in the trucks for jew sceme.

I seems we agree about the true death camps and the logistics about deportation to camps vs deportation outside the Reich.

He also said that absolute power Hitler might have wielded, but that he created a culture of initiative, and favored radical solutions to problems, so that’s what his people did.

‘Hitler get’s a pass’, WTF? You just made that up.

8

It would have been “finished” once the Nazis succeeding in conquering all the territory they wanted and exterminated by directly killing or starving to death all the Jews and other “undesirables” under their control.

Based on Hitler’s lust for world domination and his willing accomplices, I strongly doubt there would have ever been an end to it while they were still winning.

9

The Final Solution is different than the genocide that the Nazis perpetrated on other groups besides the Jews. The initial policy toward Jews by the Nazis was to round them up in ghettos and concentration camps. The end game was thought to be deporting them once the war was over, possibly to Madagascar. In January of 1942 there was a conference that decided emmigration was not possible and a final solution was planned which involved opening death camps. Prior to 1941 less than 100,000 jews were killed by the Nazis. In 1941 1.1 million were killed, mostly in conquered Soviet territory because it was easier and cheaper to kill them then round them up and send them to camps.
In 1942 after the final solution was conceived 4 death camps were opened and 2.2 million jews were killed that year. In 1943 600,000 jews were killed, in 1944 500,000 jews were killed, and in 1945 100,000 jews were killed. After 1942 the pace was slowed because they were no more huge concentrations of Jews. Since about 3 million jews survived the Holocaust and the Nazis were killing about half a million a year, then the war would have had to have lasted another 6 years before all of the jews were dead.

10

Actually, a Final Solution was decided before the Germans invaded the USSR. Einsatzgruppen units followed the German Armies advance and killed all the Jews they encountered city by city; village by village.

Also there were 5 death camps: Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

11

This is pretty much the answer. I’ve read that some historians think the Jewish population may always have been a minority in the actual death camps (as opposed to the concentration camps), for the chillingly simple reason that so many of them were killed immediately on arrival.

Historian John Keegan, in The Second World War, detailed the population numbers of the camps in January 1945, and added this terrible comment:

“There were few Jews among them, for the simple and ghastly reason that the Final Solution was effectively complete.” cite

12

Just to add…I am fairly sure the above numbers are incorrect. 600,000 Hungarian Jews alone were killed in 1944 along with many others who died in the various camps or on the forced death marches.

13

You forgot Belzecwhere only two people out of over 400,000 survived.

14

:smack: Yep. Thank you for the correction.

15

And as long as there were people born with handicaps and certain classes of criminals the Final Solution would not end. Can’t forget ‘“Lebensunwertes Leben”’ programs.

16

US and UK academia also were heavily involved in eugenic research.,

17

Which means jack in the face of millions intentionally killed at fully functional death camps. Let’s not go all False Equivalency here.

18

Anybody here know what “The Final Solution” means?

Simple question. Simple answer.

19

Die Endlösung der Judenfrage; the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Although it’s my fault since I specified other victims in the OP, so my bad.

20

Nm