# How would a history bok written by the victorious Nazis read? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 13, 2004, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583 "2004-12-13T13:00:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/21 "2004-12-13T18:36:24Z")
We’d be treated to “historically accurate” photos of happy Jews horsing around the pool at their lush, leisure-oriented internment camps right before they all accidentally died of cholera. The book would feature the “Ship of Fools” story prominently (The many countries that condemned Germany’s anti-Jewish policies would, given an opportunity to absorb one paltry shipload of Jewish refugees, pass on it. This did, in fact, happen, but our high school history classes usually gloss it over). Roosevelt and Churchill would routinely be depicted as baby-eating monsters with frothing, blood-flecked mouths. There’s actually a Firesign Theater album based on this very premise (_Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers_), but the satire is indirect to the extreme. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/22 "2004-12-13T19:13:32Z")
> [@Rashak Mani](#): > > Most certainly the threat from Poland, USSR and Great Britain will be increased as a retroactive means of justifying aggressive moves. [http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/wehr02.htm](http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/wehr02.htm) The official story in Nazi Germany was that Britian and France were afraid of Germany becoming too powerful and them losing influence internationally so they used the invasion of Poland as an excuse for war. I’m pretty sure the invasion of Chezkoslovakia was promoted on human rights (the nazis said they were protecting nazis in Chezkoslovakia who were being persecuted at the time). ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2004, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/23 "2004-12-13T19:27:57Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > (the nazis said they were protecting nazis in Chezkoslovakia who were being persecuted at the time). Sudeten Germans were allegedly being mistreated. This group had, as in Austria, an extremely small but active and vocal Nazi minority, and were, as a whole, Nazis or not, delighted to be made a part of Germany. ---
**Author:** ![vl\_mungo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc8723/32.png) [@vl\_mungo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vl_mungo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/24 "2004-12-14T04:49:14Z")
In Fatherland, the Jews were only mentioned obliquely in German history. They had been relocated to “the East”. End of story. ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/25 "2004-12-14T06:35:35Z")
Well, according to the Family Guy timeline, from the year 1939 to 1945, “Nothing happened.” “WE WERE ON VACATION. POLAND INVITED US!” 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Eolbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@Eolbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eolbo)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/26 "2004-12-14T08:23:53Z")
I doubt they would have boasted of exterminating the jews, and they would have denounced as cranks and “revisionists” any historians probing into the truth of the “relocation to the east” cover story. Contemporary evidence indicates the approach they would have taken. During the war they went to considerable length to hide their extermination program and Himmler in a speech at Poznan in 1943 said: \*\*“I shall speak to you here with frankness on a very grave matter. Among ourselves, it should be mentioned quite frankly, and yet we will never speak of it publicly. Just as we did not hesitate on June 30, 1934 (Night of the Long Knives - an internal purge of the Nazi party) to do our duty as we were ordered, to stand our comrades against a wall and shoot them, and we never spoke about it and we will never speak about it. It was a matter of natural tact that is alive in us, thank God, that we never discussed it. Each of us shuddered and yet each of us knew clearly that next time he would do it again if it were an order and if it were necessary.” “I am referring to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. This is one of the things that is easily said: “The Jewish people are going to be exterminated.” That’s what every Party member says, “Sure, it’s in our program, elimination of the Jews - extermination - it’ll be done!” And then they all come along, 80 million worthy Germans and each one has his one decent Jew. Of course, the others are swine, but this one, he is a first-rate Jew! Of all those who talk like that, not one has seen it happen, not one has had to go through with it. Most of you know what it means to see 100 corpses lying together, or 500, or 1000. To have stuck it out and at the same time - apart from exceptions caused by weakness - to have remained decent fellows, that is what has made us hard. This is a page of glory in our history which has never been written and shall never be written”\*\* [http://www.datasync.com/~davidg59/himmler.html](http://www.datasync.com/~davidg59/himmler.html) Officially it just never would have happened, and stories to the contrary they would likely have attacked as fabrications of the hostile jewish population of the United States. American jews would surely be asking questions about their missing relatives and there wouldn’t be any satisfactory answers. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/27 "2004-12-14T13:12:05Z")
> [@Krokodil](#): > > There’s actually a Firesign Theater album based on this very premise (_Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers_), but the satire is indirect to the extreme. Please do explain this remark. It seems very strange to me. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/28 "2004-12-14T13:56:08Z")
> [@Eolbo](#): > > During the war they went to considerable length to hide their extermination program and Himmler in a speech at Poznan in 1943 said: Actually, the Posen Castle speech is slightly open-ended about what the German people would be told eventually. There’s the “page of glory” remark and the various passages emphasising that it’s all highly secret, but later on Himmler also says: > [@](#): > > And with this I want to finish about the matter of the Jew. You are now informed, and you will keep the knowledge to yourselves. Later perhaps we can consider whether the German people should be told about this. But I think it is better that we - we together - carry for our people the responsibility … responsibility for an acheivement, not just an idea … and then take the secret with us to our graves … (as quoted in Sereny’s _Albert Speer: His Battle With Truth_.) Even during their actual years in power, the Nazis’ language about the Jews was so routinely revelling in violence that it seems at least possible to me that after a few generations in power they’d have been confident enough to happily proclaim the exterminations as their greatest triumph. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/29 "2004-12-14T14:43:21Z")
> [@bonzer](#): > > the Nazis’ language about the Jews was so routinely revelling in violence that it seems at least possible to me that after a few generations in power they’d have been confident enough to happily proclaim the exterminations as their greatest triumph. I think this is extremely possible. The prevailing, very active, anti-Jewish sentiments would make it likely that they would be proud of how they freed themselves of ‘the lice in their fur’. They would have also stress how they defended European culture against the barbarian communist hordes, that would have shat in our fountains and stabled their horses in our museums. Of course we are also to be gratefull of how they protected us from the US gansters with their lawlessness, moneyhunger and indecent morals. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Mahma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@Joe\_Mahma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Mahma)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/30 "2004-12-14T15:40:42Z")
> [@detop](#): > > [nitpick] He didn’t write the book, he edited it. It is a collection of short stories by various authors[/nitpick] Oops. My bad. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/31 "2004-12-14T18:30:42Z")
“Saving everyone from communism” would be a big deal. Aryan-type countries would be accepted in with a “Well, your government was in the wrong, but you’re decent chaps on the whole, let’s forget that embarassing period of history where you war-mongered us.” Embarassing nazi officials wiped out would be edited out. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2004, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/32 "2004-12-14T18:51:37Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Please do explain this remark. It seems very strange to me. Not sure what’s unclear about it. Firesign Theater, a comedy group from the late 60s-onward, did a “concept” comedy album in 1970 called _Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers_. The concept was, what would American life be like today if America had lost WWII? Half the album was some luckless stoner listening to the radio under this regime with strange ads (Pizza delivery places that wouldn’t go into certain sectors after dark and say so in their commercials) and stranger musical programming (Lots of Christian musical programming). The other half of the album focuses on a radio show the stoner tunes in and listens to, an old “Henry Aldrich”-type program called “Porgie Tirebiter.” You need to sift through to find clues about what’s happened in this society; roving gangs of Latino hoodlums, schools with names like “Communist Martyrs High School,” high school pep rallies with themes like “Shoes for Industry!” and so on. If I were to do a show with this specific concept, I’d probably go for the obvious and it would look a lot more like that old 80s miniseries _Amerika_, only with Nazis instead of Communists (Open with drum majorettes hefting banners of Washington and Hitler at a Fourth of July parade, etc). Firesign Theater’s approach was a lot more roundabout. Their point was that, on a cultural level, we probably _did_ lose the war. Here’s Rolling Stone’s [review](http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/_/id/175983/firesigntheatre?pageid=rs.ArtistDiscography&pageregion=triple2) of the album. Hope this answers your question. ---
**Author:** ![Iskatel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a5b964/32.png) [@Iskatel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iskatel)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/33 "2004-12-15T01:23:19Z")
Probably a lot like American history books between 1865 - 1914… Manifest destiny, gotta love it. ---
**Author:** ![andymurph64](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e57/32.png) [@andymurph64](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andymurph64)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2004, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583/34 "2004-12-15T23:06:45Z")
I imagine it would have been painted as energetic, smart underdogs perservering against the great, corrupt, old colonial powers of the world. Of Germany finally winning her rightful place as a great, colonial power of her own. The young and strong replacing the old and weak. As for Russia and places East and South of Germany it would be painted as superior humans putting things right with the world and lesser humans in their productive place in the heirarchy. Something like that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-a-history-bok-written-by-the-victorious-nazis-read/279583.md?page=1)