# If Hitler had won WWII, would the Nazi economic system have worked in the long run? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 23, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508 "2007-11-23T16:03:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/61 "2007-11-27T20:15:26Z")
BTW, I’ve sometimes seen the Latin American countries described as “corporatist,” but I’ve never been clear on how it applies to them. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/62 "2007-11-27T21:02:31Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Well, corporatism (as discussed in Wikipedia) appears to differ from socialism (and even from social democracy) primarily in that it envisions a society of vertically integrated sectors coming together in national “corporations” or unelected governing bodies – one for the steel industry, one for the agricultural sector, etc. – rather than something that might result from a struggle between horizontal social classes or a demand for “workplace democracy”; thus it is well adapted for ideologies such as fascism that seek social cohesion on a national scale and some form of state management without any hint of “class struggle.” Did the Scandinavian systems meet those criteria? [/QUOTE] Was it corporatist to that degree? No. It was, however, an attempt to move along the path towards control of industry by representative groups of management, workers and government, as a method of attempting to prevent industrial conflict (gross oversimplifcation alert). British neo-corporatism, on the other hand, focused predominately IIRC on conflict resolution, and didn’t really get into industrial planning as much. I think the Latin American examples are more to do with “fake” corporatism, or the facistic one. My impression it that it referred more to the military dictators being hand in hand with big business, and labor unions getting trampled while lip service is paid to workers’ rights. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2007, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/63 "2007-11-27T22:41:52Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] In fact, anti-Semitism was a bigger factor in France and even Denmark, despite the King’s support. [/QUOTE] With the exception of anti-Semitic rioting in 1819, there was almost no anti-Semitism in Denmark before and during World War II. Immediately priorthe occupation, the Danish government, while not allowing foreign Jews (from Germany) as refugees, took no action against Danish Jews, and there was very little popular support for anti-Semitism. And, of course, during the occupation, the efforts by the Danes to protect Danish Jews and intercede for those Danish Jews in German custody are well known. The people of Denmark have nothing to be ashamed of in regard to their treatment of the Jews during the war. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/64 "2007-11-28T01:08:44Z")
Sorry, **elucidator** , the cruel fact of life is that eastern European Jews were _gasp_ as ignorant and blindly introspective as anyone. And they had some deep biases against the local Christians. I won’t go into Jewish support for Communism, as I can understand if not admire their mistake. Suffice it to say that many Jews inflicted far more harm on the locals via their support for Soviet Russia than had ever been the reverse case. Try [Did the Children Cry](http://www.amazon.com/Did-Children-Cry-Hitlers-1939-1945/dp/0781808707/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196211850&sr=8-1). It’s a balanced look at all sides and while not casting blame, is an excellent history of Poland and anti-Nazi activities. It also notes the prejudice and ignorance of the Polish Jews, _who had the same faults as anyone_, and the efforts of Zionists after the war to cast as much blame as possible on certain groups including Poles in order to build support for Israel. Look, it’s not pleasant, but it’s true. It’s not I’d like to hear, but it’s also true. > [@Captain Amazing](#): > > With the exception of anti-Semitic rioting in 1819, there was almost no anti-Semitism in Denmark before and during World War II. That would be my point. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/65 "2007-11-28T02:13:55Z")
So - was there significant local cooperation with the Holocaust in the Baltic States & the Ukraine, **smiling bandit**? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/66 "2007-11-28T04:07:23Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing] With the exception of anti-Semitic rioting in 1819, there was almost no anti-Semitism in Denmark before and during World War II. [/QUOTE] That strikes me as a rather jarring statement. You’re saying there was almost no anti-Semitism, but that one year suddenly there were anti-Semitic **riots?** Just out of the clear blue sky? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/67 "2007-11-28T05:00:55Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] That strikes me as a rather jarring statement. You’re saying there was almost no anti-Semitism, but that one year suddenly there were anti-Semitic **riots?** Just out of the clear blue sky? [/QUOTE] In 1819 there was anti-Semitic rioting in Wurzburg, Bavaria, in response to Jewish calls for emancipation and civil rights. The rioting spread throughout Germany and into Denmark. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/68 "2007-11-28T05:26:30Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] That would be my point. [/QUOTE] Yes, but in the interwar period and during World War II, there was considerable anti-Semitism in Poland…certainly much more than in Denmark. In the 30s in Poland, Jews weren’t allowed welfare benefits, there were Jewish quotas at the Polish universities, Endecja advocated a boycott and confiscation of Jewish businesses, there was denunciation of the Jews by the clergy, and there were physical attacks on Jews by right wing nationalists. During the war and occupation, there were, of course, the pograms in the Jedwabne and Lviv. None of this, of course, changes the fact that there were many Poles who did help Jews during the Holocaust, many at severe risk to themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Eolbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@Eolbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eolbo)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/69 "2007-11-28T09:42:44Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] _cough_ Ahem, no. It’s true they were able to use anti-semitism in some small areas, but overall, the Poles went to extreme, lengths to save their Jewish neighbors. Once you account fot he fact that the Germans had the run of the country, guns, obliterated the Polish leadership, total administrative control, and the Jews were often nigh-impossible to save (language, circumcision, and the unpleasant fact Jewish racism against Poles meant they often resisted Polish attempts to help), the wonder is that not that they Poles saved so few but that they saved so _many_. And of course, every Pole who helped a Jew, and everyone related to that Pole, and everyone in the vicinity of that Pole, was in mortal danger every minute of their lives. In fact, anti-Semitism was a bigger factor in France and even Denmark, despite the King’s support. [/QUOTE] Sorry, that’s about the most bizarre thing I’ve ever read on this forum. Eastern European including Polish anti-semitism is very well documented. [Anti-jewish pogroms occurred in Poland even after the war was over.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kielce_pogrom) The situation in France and especially Denmark is not even remotely comparable. Also worth noting that Did the Children Cry? which you cited has in itself been attacked for anti-semitism which I expect would include elements like claiming jewish racism prevented them accepting help from the Poles. ---
**Author:** ![Eolbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@Eolbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eolbo)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/70 "2007-11-28T09:52:55Z")
Wartime pogroms in Poland [Jedwanbe pogrom](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedwabne_pogrom) [Wasosz pogrom](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C4%85sosz_pogrom) [Poles blamed for wartime massacres](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2392591.stm) ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/71 "2007-11-28T18:01:13Z")
What I’m saying is that, for whatever reasons, large numbers of Poles worked hard to help save anyone they could, including Jews and jewish children (who could be more easily hidden, and who were not commonly pressured religiously). Whatever happened after the war, can’t say. But the numbers don’t lie, and very, very few Poles helped the Nazis, while hundreds aided every Jew that was saved. I can’t help that the book also shows that some Jews were racist themselves. Frankly, I don’t see what’s so shocking about it. The fact that they might be prejudiced? Being atacked by the Nazi’s doesn’t mean they were inherently virtuous, and many had their own issues. That’s life, and the book documents it carefully. As for Ukraine and Hungary, I admit I don’t know much about them. I had ben thinking about Poland and didn’t consider the other parts of Eastern Europe. I always think of Poland and Russia in that sense. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/72 "2007-11-28T18:22:02Z")
[QUOTE=smiling bandit] What I’m saying is that, for whatever reasons, large numbers of Poles worked hard to help save anyone they could, including Jews and jewish children (who could be more easily hidden, and who were not commonly pressured religiously). Whatever happened after the war, can’t say. But the numbers don’t lie, and very, very few Poles helped the Nazis, while hundreds aided every Jew that was saved. [/QUOTE] No one denies there were many heroic Poles who took on great personal dangers to help Jews, or that the Polish people suffered horribly themselves under Hitler. But what you don’t address is the long history or Polish antisemitism before the war, and the actions after the war. Even without the massacres in the war that have been cited to, do you think it likely that ingrained antisemitism was there before and after the war, and disappeared during it? [QUOTE=smiling bandit] As for Ukraine and Hungary, I admit I don’t know much about them. I had ben thinking about Poland and didn’t consider the other parts of Eastern Europe. I always think of Poland and Russia in that sense. [/QUOTE] Not sure why you are mentioning Hungary, when I talked of the Ukraine & the baltic states, parts of the USSR occupied by the Nazis. Given that you didn’t consider much of Eastern Europe in your answer, where there was significant local support for the extermination of Jews, such as documented examples of local pogroms occuring before the Nazis requested moves against the Jews, don’t you think your response to me, starting as it did with “_cough_ Ahem, no…” was more than a little unnecessarily snarky? ---
**Author:** ![slaphead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/73 "2007-11-28T18:37:41Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme] … regardless of if there was no Soviet government supplies would have continued to trickle in. … If the Iraqi’s could do it to the US I don’t think the Russians would have had any trouble doing it to the Germans … even if the Germans employed much more harsh measures. [/QUOTE] I’m not 100% convinced this is entirely correct. Once the infrastructure supporting an organised military has collapsed, partisan organisations are at an overwhelming disadvantage in terms of the firepower they can bring to bear. They generally compensate for this by hiding amongst and drawing support from the civilian population. This is generally a very effective tactic, but not necessarily if the army remaining in the field is willing to kill everyone not wearing their uniform and devastate the local transport, accommodation and food supply. Burn all the fields and houses and dynamite all the wells, and pretty soon there would be very few partisans left. The Iraq analogy is false - if the US had focused their attention on destroying the infrastructure and logistics providing food, water & sanitation and then denied Iraqi refugees or outside relief supplies access to the road network, then most of the population of Iraq would have died within a few months, even without an organised extermination campaign. ---
**Author:** ![Wakinyan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wakinyan/32/352_2.png) [@Wakinyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wakinyan)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2007, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/74 "2007-11-28T22:28:37Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] There’s no realistic scenario involving Nazism that doesn’t include continued warfare /…/. [/QUOTE] While I agree that the middle name of Nazism is murder, I do not agree to this widely held conception of the core of Nazim, though of it was/is an ideology of violence. There were arabs in the Nazi armies, Hitler didn’t care much about blacks, he did’nt mind “asians” (other than as an euphism for Slavs), he didn’t want war on England - a country and culture he admired - and so forth and so on. Like just about any “intellectual” of his time - pseudo or not - he looked down at America, but there was no hatred against it, and would he have it his way, USA would’ve taken care of the Americas, while he took care of Europe. What Hitler hated, wanted to exterminate or enslave, was Jews and Slavs (and Poles [being Slavs] gays, Social Democrats [being un-nazi], Christian [having another god], etc, since he was a racist at heart. Everybody reading this post agree that that is not good. But Hitler was _not_ on a crusade to conquer the world, enslave all, master all. There’s no historic evidence on that. There is nothing in his ideology that support this thought. He _was_ as a bad person as you wish, but he was not a Darth Vader. - He was too much in love with childish dreams of Germanica, to fancy himself a Alexander. There are numerous accounts of his disliking of this war he obviously wanted to “get over with”. ---
**Author:** ![Eolbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@Eolbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eolbo)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2007, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/75 "2007-11-29T01:53:43Z")
Smiling Bandit, here is a link you might want to read. [Anti-Semitism in Prewar Poland 1935-1939](http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Total/Polish%20Antisemitism.htm) It discusses among other things anti-semitic legislation passed by the Polish government before the war barring jews from many fields of employment including medicine and law and their desired forced relocation of Polish jews to Africa. Add to this massacres of jews by Poles that took place during and even _after_ the war do you still maintain your claim that anti-semitism in Poland was lower then in France and Denmark? I also find this statement of yours somewhat disturbing: > [@](#): > > I won’t go into Jewish support for Communism, as I can understand if not admire their mistake. Suffice it to say that many Jews inflicted far more harm on the locals via their support for Soviet Russia than had ever been the reverse case. You really need to read up on the Ukranian and Baltic participation in the holocaust that Villa keeps alluding to. Or on historical pogroms for that matter. And jewish is not a synonym for Bolshevik. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2007, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/76 "2007-11-29T02:33:33Z")
I’m not terribly knowledgeable on Nazi economics nor Mexican, but from the OP’s description and my limitted knowledge, I’d surmise that Mexico is relatively close to such an economic system. The end effect seems to be a grab-and-run effect when a company is nationalised, wherein the relevant government officials try to bleed off as much profit from the company into their own pockets as possible. And then when a company is de-nationalised, it ceases being able to function due to blocks by small-time government officials who aren’t receiving any funding to allow the company to continue. Workers are nearly impossible to fire and state-run projects to keep people employed are numerous, though anything built by them is intended for short term use since anything done well won’t need to be redone next year (and probably the workers are not qualified for it anyways.) Overall, progress is impossible and there is little motive for individual accomplishment though it is seemingly a free market. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/77 "2007-11-29T20:30:27Z")
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus] Loved that book [“Fatherland”]. The narrator mentions in passing the Beatles’ Hamburg gigs, suggesting that even in this alternative history the influence of English rock and rollers was not much diminished. To me, the fact that the Hamburg club promoters were able to hire an English band also suggests that the state’s iron grip on popular culture must have relaxed somewhat. [/QUOTE] It’s a _great_ book - well-researched, well-written, generally plausible and very chilling. Harris also makes passing reference to the White Rose, the student anti-Nazi organization (that IRL was violently suppressed and its leaders executed), still at work in 1964. He also mentions some great graffiti that stuck with me: “A police state is one in which the criminals are in charge.” As to the OP, I don’t think the Nazi economic system would have worked in the long run because of massive deficit spending, self-defeating exclusion or persecution of large portions of the potentially-economically-helpful populace, and the kleptocratic tendencies of its top leadership. And when Hitler died or became enfeebled, all bets were off as his ambitious and utterly ruthless cronies vied to succeed him. A civil war would have been quite likely. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2007, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/78 "2007-11-29T21:25:21Z")
And that’s a very telling point. Nazi Germany operated under a Hitlernomic economic system because Hitler was the supreme dictator. Once Hitler dies (either naturally or via foul play), the next German dictator would inevitably follow their own private ideas for how the country should be run. So you have a analogy to the situation where Lenin is succeeded by Stalin, or more analgous to Stalin replaced by Kruschev. Maybe the new dictator is a pragmatist who just wants personal power, maybe the new dictator is a dreamer who wants to remake humanity, maybe the new dicatator rules with an iron fist or maybe the new dictator is a just the most powerful member of the ruling oligarchy, maybe the new dictator presents himself as the heir of Hitler or maybe the new dictator presents himself as the person who saved the nation from the mistakes of Hitlerism. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/79 "2007-11-30T02:48:58Z")
[QUOTE=Wakinyan] But Hitler was _not_ on a crusade to conquer the world, enslave all, master all. There’s no historic evidence on that. There is nothing in his ideology that support this thought. He _was_ as a bad person as you wish, but he was not a Darth Vader. - He was too much in love with childish dreams of Germanica, to fancy himself a Alexander. There are numerous accounts of his disliking of this war he obviously wanted to “get over with”. [/QUOTE] Weeelllll . . . this historical evidence kinda goes both ways there. Judge for yourself. From [_Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties,_](http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Times-Revised-Twenties-Perennial/dp/0060935502/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1196390812&sr=8-3) by Paul Johnson, Chapter 10, “The End of Old Europe”: > [@](#): > > Hitler’s aims can be reconstructed not merely from _Mein Kampf_ itself, with its stress on the ‘East Policy,’ but from his early speeches and so-called ‘Second’ or _Secret Book_ of 1928. This material makes it clear that the ‘cleansing’ process – the elimination of the Jews – was essential to the whole long-term strategy. Being a race-socialist as opposed to a class-socialist, Hitler believed the dynamic of history was race. The dynamic was interrupted when race-poisoning took place. The poison came, above all, from the Jews. He admired the Jews as ‘negative supermen’. In his _Table-Talk_ he said that if 5,000 Jews emigrated to Sweden, in no time at all they would occupy all the key positions: this was because ‘blood purity’, as he put it in _Mein Kampf,_ ‘is a thing the Jew preserves better than any other people on earth’. The Germans, on the other hand, were poisoned. That was why they lost the First World War. Even he was poisoned: that was why he sometimes made mistakes – ‘all of us suffer from the sickness of mixed, corrupt blood’. Race-poisoning was a comparatively common obsession in the time of Hitler’s youth, rather as ecological poisoning became an obsession of many in the 1970s and 1980s. The notion of ubiquitous poisoning appealed strongly to the same type of person who accepted conspiracy theories as the machinery of public events. As with the later ecologists, they thought the race-poison was spreading fast, that total disaster was iminent, and that it would take a long time to reverse even if the right policies were adopted promptly. Hitler calculated it would take a hundred years for his regime to eliminate racial poisoning in Germany: on the other hand, if Germany became the first nation-race to do so successfully, it would inevitably become ‘lord of the Earth’. _(Mein Kampf.)_ > > What distinguished Hitlerian race-theory was, first, this rooted belief that ‘cleansing’ could make Germany the first true superpower, and ultimately the first paramount power in the world; and, secondly, his absolute conviction that the ‘Jewish race-poison’ and Bolshevism were one and the same phenomenon. In 1928, when he wrote his Second Book, he did not appreciate that old-style ‘Jewish’ Bolshevism had ceased to exist and that Stalin’s Russia was in essentials as anti-Semitic as Tsardom had been. On the contrary, he believed the Soviet Union was a Jewish cultural phenomenon. Hence the object of his policy was to combat ‘an inundation of diseased bacilli which at the moment have their breeding-ground in Russia’. Thus the ‘cleansing’ fit in perfectly with the resumption of traditional German East policy, but on a far more ambitious scale. > > Hitler’s full programme, therefore, was as follows. First, gain control of Germany itself, and begin the cleansing process at home. Second, destroy the Versailles settlement and establish Germany as the dominant power in Central Europe. All this could be accomplished without war. Third, on this power basis, destroy the Soviet Union (by war) to rid the ‘breeding-ground’ of the ‘bacillus’ and, by colonization, created a solid economic and strategic power base from which to establish a continental empire, in which France and Italy would be mere satellites. In the fourth stage Germany would acquire a large colonial empire in Africa, plus a big ocean navy, to make her one of the four superpowers, in addition to Britain, Japan and the United States. Finally, in the generation after his death, Hitler envisaged a decisive struggle between Germany and the United States for world domination. > > No one since Napoleon had thought in such audacious terms. In its gigantic scope the concept was Alexandrine. Yet until he was engulfed by the war he made, Hitler was always pragmatic. Like Lenin he was a superb opportunist, always ready to seize openings and modify his theory accordingly. This has led some historians to conclude he had no master-programme. In fact, while always adjusting the tactics to suit the moment, he pursued his long-term strategy with a brutal determination that has seldom been equalled in the history of human ambition. Unlike most tyrants, he was never tempted to relax by a surfeit of autocratic power. Quite the contrary. He was always raising the stakes on the table and seeking to hasten the pace of history. He feared his revolution would lose its dynamism. He thought himself indispensable, and at least four of his phases must be accomplished while he was not only still alive but at the height of his powers. It was this impatience which made him so dangerous in the short term and so ineffectual in the long term (the very reverse of the Soviet strategists). In a secret speech to German newspaper editors in November 1938, after his great Munich triumph, he deplored the fact that his need to talk about peace had led the German nation to relax too much. He argued that for Germany to accept peace, and thus stability, as a permanent fact of international life was to accept the very spirit of defeatism. Violence was a necessity, and the public must be prepared for it. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2007, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508/80 "2007-11-30T03:01:55Z")
Same book, Chapter 11, “The Watershed Year”: > [@](#): > > Hitler’s ultimate aim was to create a German _Volk_ of 250 million. He said that he proposed settling 100 million Germans on the great plains to the west of the Urals. In 1941 he envisaged that over the next decade the first 20 million would move east. Though he saw the colonization process clearly, he was vague on where the settlers were to come from. Those eligible and willing to settle, the _Volksdeutsche_ from south-east Europe, numbered only 5 million, perhaps 8 milllion at most. His colleage Alfred Rosenberg considered the idea of ‘drafting’ Scandinavian, Dutch, and English settlers, being racially approximate to Germans, when the war was won. Some aspects of this great population transfer, to be the most formidable and decisive in history, were determined in meticulous detail. There was to be polygamy and a free choice of women for servicement with decorations. The Crimea, after being ‘cleansed’ of Slavs and Jews, was to be turned into a gigantic German spa under its old Greek name of Tauria, populated by a mass transfer of peasants from the South Tyrol. Over vast areas of the Ukraine and south European Russia, a new _Volk_ civilization was planned. As Hitler described it: > > > [@](#): > > > > The area must lose the character of the Asiatic steppe. It must be Europeanized! . . . The ‘Reich peasant’ is to live in outstandingly beautiful settlements. The German agencies and authorities are to have wonderful buildings, the governors palaces. Around each city, a ring of lovely villages will be placed to within 30 or 40 kilometers . . . . That is why we are now building the large traffic arteries on the southern tip of the Crimea, out to the Caucasus mountains. Around these traffic strands, the German cities will be placed, like pearls on a string, and around the cities the German settlements will lie. For we will not open up _Lebensraum_ for ourselves by entering the old, godforsaken Russian holes! The German settlements must be on an altogether higher level! > > As Hitler’s vision expanded, in the heady days of 1941, it came to embrace all Europe. Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the whole of France north of the Somme were to be incorporated in a Greater Germany, the names of the cities being changed – Nancy would become Nanzig, Besancon Bisanz. Trondheim would become a major German city and naval base of 250,000 inhabitants. The Alps would be the boundary between ‘the German Empire of the North,’ with a new ‘Germania’ as its capital, and ‘the Roman Empire of the South’. The Pope would be hanged in full pontificals in St. Peter’s Square. Strasbourg Cathedral would be turned into a giant ‘Monument to the Unknown Soldier’. New crops, such a perennial rye, would be invented. He would forbid smoking, make vegetarianism compulsory, ‘revive the Cimbrian art of knitting’, appoint a ‘Special Commissioner for the Care of Dogs’ and an ‘Assistant Secretary for Defence Against Gnats and Insects’.’ Darth Vader? What a small-time weak-kneed liberal **wuss!** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-hitler-had-won-wwii-would-the-nazi-economic-system-have-worked-in-the-long-run/427508.md?page=3)