Suppose for a moment that Hitler had not forced the Jewish (and other “inferior” groups) into concentration camps. Or even into the ghettoes. Instead, he spent WWII rounding up those people, and killed every one of them outright.
On one hand people wouldn’t have been tortured for days/weeks/months before dying, but on the other he probably would have killed a greater number of people (if he wasn’t overthrown any quicker than in reality).
In this scenario would history have remembered him as a more or less terrible human being?
I think the interesting aspect of this question is, what would the national leaders, and the citizens, of the rest of the nations of the world have done if Germany’s attempt to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, etc. had been that open? Would they have been more willing to accept as immigrants members of the targeted groups?
If Hitler had openly killed these groups outright, in the open, he probably would have ended up killing less of them. Because as soon as the Jews, Gypsies, hobosexuals, etc. heard about what was happening, they would have fled into hiding faster than you can say Schickelgruber.
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*Originally posted by elfkin477 *
**Suppose for a moment that Hitler had not forced the Jewish (and other “inferior” groups)
First of all I would not say “Inferior” when refering to another ethnic group. Hitler was a sick individual with gross overtones of “inferiority complexes” and skewed moral issues resulting primarily from a distorted childhood of molestation and severe self-esteem breakdown.
With that said, elfkin477 I know I took what you said a little out of contrast, and do not beleive you meant to go there with what you said, so I will try to answer your actual question. Also, I just wanted to stress that Hitler was an asshole.
As for the original question I think that Hitler would have been ‘caught’ if you will, much quicker had he not put the jewish people in the ghetto’s and then concentration camps. I think that the Germans who did not buy into Hitlers crap would have spoken up much sooner, especially if the SS had just gone on a killing spree. Also I think the Germans that did know about what was going on, needed a dictator at the time to ‘tell’ them what to do. They were in a very bad economic depression and Hitler was a means to an end. I am no historian but I think that the people at large listened to Hitler and therefore he was able to pull off what he did.
The OP’s premise–that the Nazis “probably would have killed a greater number of people”–is likely incorrect. The Nazis did initially kill the Jews and members of other groups they deemed “undesirable” by having special SS squads–the Einsatzgruppen–travel around Nazi-occupied territory shooting their victims. This method was abandoned in favor of extermination camps not necessarily to avoid public outcry, nor primarily in order to torment the victims of the Holocaust more, but because the extermination camps were a more efficient means of mass murder.
There is also evidence that the Allies did know about the extermination camps before the end of the war, while the Holocaust was still taking place.
Maybe I’m not understanding the OP’s premise. Do you mean, what would have happened if Hitler had just started mass-murdering people from day one, in 1933? Genocide is usually something you have to work up to–the Nazis passed the anti-semitic Nuremberg Laws in 1935; they carried out Kristallnacht, an old-fashioned pogram, in 1938; they started actually mass-murdering Jews only after the war started, at first only in occupied territories in the East, then in Germany proper, first using the Einsatzgruppen and then the extermination camps. I don’t think Hitler could have simply gotten away with ordering genocide on his first day in office.
I have read Albert Speer’s “Behind the Third Reich” and am in the middle of “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” (considered THE definitive history of Nazi Germany) and I concur with the above assessment. Hitler needed the old power structure in Germany to gain power and to hold on to it for quite some time. He was ruthless and cunning, but he had certain priorities. His sheer calculatedness is one of the things that make the Holocaust and related events so shocking. Hitler wanted the Jews dead, but he knew exactly how far he could go at any one time, and played the German public and political structure like a piano to get what he wanted. (Not that they were innocent dupes) What’s not well known is that he took power by completely legal, if unethical, means. By the time he took over in 1933, the German public was so desperate for order they would do anything for someone who could deliver.
The war might have ended more quickly. The German war effort was, to some extent, built on the slave labor done at these camps. Without this Hitler would have had to spend more on shells, tanks and the like. Overall, it would have, in my speculation, shortened the war.
I was under the impression that slave labor was not that significant when it came to the German war machine. They never had a real shortage of industrial power, not even after they started getting bombed. Most of the factories that used Jewish slave labor weren’t producing munitions or vehicles.
As to the OP, are we are assuming that everything was the same up until the actual genocide was the same, and that instead of being sent to camps the people were massacred where they were? I agree that more probably would have gotten away. Most of the people who were sent to the camps did not leave them, and for a long time most people had no idea what was really going on in the camps, they thought they were being sent off to work. Many people who would run from the prospect of certain death could accept working as a slave until the war was over, especially if they thought fleeing might endanger their loved ones, some people had the option to leave right up to the day they were put on the train.
It’s hard to speculate what the long term effects a more open massacre would have. I’m guessing about eight or ten million people who would otherwise have been killed would have fled Germany, this would put financial strain on the countries they ran to but it could also provide useful manpower. On the other hand, Germany would have available the resources they would have otherwise devoted to the extermination of ‘undesirables’ later in the war…
On a related note, how would things have been different if Hitler was not the genocidal racist sort? I think that if it wasn’t for the racist policies of Nazi Germany they would have won the war. For one thing, they would have had access to all the Jewish scientists who were killed or fled Germany, secondly their invasion efforts would have come off much more smoothly if they didn’t treat the conquered people like subhumans. If Hitler hadn’t hated the Slavs, his army could have grown instead of shrank as he took over the USSR as many people would have been willing to trade Stalin in for a less insane foreign ruler. Big problem with that ‘What If’ is that Hitler might not have been able to come to power if he had not used racism to get the German people behind him - but if he could, I imagine most of Europe and Asia would be either German territory or puppet-states.
This is an interesting question, but it is quite possible that Hitler’s racism was not incidental, but was the underlying philosophy behind his political motivations. Ron Rosenbaum, in his book ‘Explaining Hitler’, goes over a number of theories about the origins of what he calls ‘Hitler’s evil’, but if you don’t like that term, could be referred to as ‘Hitlers motivations towards destructive ends’. One of the more convicing ideas he refers to is that World War II was a ‘War Against the Jews’ (as referred to by Lucy Davidowitz), more than a war for world domination, and therefore such hypotheticals are meaningless. Incidentally, in the war years before Hitler invaded Russia, workers in Russia paid one days wages towards the German war effort, and the Germans waited until the last train of supplies from Russia crossed the border before invading (I don’t have a cite on this, but I was told this by my father, who lived in Russia at the time).
Another interesting piece of historical information that is little known that Rosenbaum brings to light is that, even before the Nazi party gained power in 1933, the SA were murdering opponents on a daily basis (mostly political opponents), and were considered a bunch of criminals by those with the eyes to see what was going on. This is an interesting fact to consider for people who talk about Nazism’s criminal actions being a complete surprise once they came to power.
You are a little confused. I was quoting Hitler that they were inferior, hence the quotemarks. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have used them. Unless you’re implying that he never said anything to that effect? I’m pretty sure the racist bastard made that statement many times.
As for the OP, I’m not really trying to figure out if he would have killed more or less people. What I’m trying to get at is, do we see him as a terrible monster because he ordered the deaths of millions of people, or that he had millions of people tortured and killed? If one element (torture) was taken away, would that make him more or less terrible?
Well, all other things being equal I suppose that in some theoretical sense someone who orders a million people be tortured to death is more evil than someone who orders a million people be killed quickly and painlessly. But it’s not like we’re going to let the second guy off the hook–“Well, yes, he did kill millions, but at least they didn’t suffer much.”
Realistically, it’s very unlikely that genocide or really large-scale mass murder can be carried out without a high degree of brutality.
You are a little confused. I was quoting Hitler that they were inferior, hence the quotemarks. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have used them. Unless you’re implying that he never said anything to that effect? I’m pretty sure the racist bastard made that statement many times.
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OK I agree with you elfkin477. I seem to have been a litle confused. I am not sure if Hitler said that or not, if you say so thats enough for me. And besides we agree that he was a racist bastard, and an asshole. [I won’t go any further]
I think basically he was a terrible monster because he ordered the deaths of millions of people AND he had millions of people tortured and killed. Even if torture was taken away, he was still a maniacal bastard.
Actually, if I’m not mistaken, one of the reasons they came up with the camps is because the emotional toll on the guys doing the killing was starting to get to them. So they came up with the “factory” approach if you will. I personally, don’t think it would have made a significant difference in the number of people the Nazi’s killed. Remember, they killed six million jews, plus Allied soldiers, plus civilians in the Allied countries, plus gays, plus anyone who happened to piss them off on a particular day. So, in reality, by changing the method of killing, you’re probably just shifting the numbers of dead from one column to another. In other words, more jews, etc. dead, fewer soldiers dead as the populace gets sick of the nuts running loose in the country and starts helping the Allies, thus making it easier and safer for them to march on to Berlin and put down the horrors of Nazism.
I think we have a problem of scale here. I’m overfond of analogies, but it’s like pushing a giant boulder off a cliff. Once you’ve pushed hard enough to get it over the edge, more force doesn’t change anything. The idea that any person would be so obsessed with wiping out such an immense number of other human beings, and would be even marginally successful at convincing a nation to help him, is so far beyond the pale that method doesn’t enter into it. Arguing whether torture was involved, or the method was human, is meaningless. The end was horrific, the means are inconsequential.