Questions about Hitler and Nazi Germany's attempted extermination of Europe's Jews

[Dissonance]

@Miller

You’re missing one important number. Holocaust deniers will point out that Germany was losing a war, and the deaths were exacerbated by the destruction of the infrastructure needed to support the camps. If this were true, of course, it would affect all prisoners in Germany more-or-less equally. So, what was the death rate in POW camps in Germany during the war?

Turns out it was about 4%

To be more precise you are talking about the death rate of Western Allies in German POW camps. Soviet POWs were the second largest group of victims of the holocaust, with a mortality rate of 57%. Slavs were scarcely a step above Jews as subhumans in Nazi ideology, and the whole point of the war for Hitler was to seize lebensraum in the east for the German people. Those who happened to be living there were to be killed, exiled towards Siberia, or reduced to illiterate slavery. See Generalplan Ost:

The final version of Generalplan Ost, essentially a grand plan for ethnic cleansing, was divided into two parts; the “Small Plan” (Kleine Planung), which covered actions which were to be taken during the war, and the “Big Plan” (Grosse Planung), which covered actions to be undertaken after the war was won, and to be implemented gradually over a period of 25 to 30 years.[5][6]

Percentages of ethnic groups targeted for elimination by Nazi Germany from future settlement areas[7][8]

[ul]
[li]Ethnic group Percentage subject to removal[/li]
[li]Poles 80-85%[/li][li]Russians 50-60% to be physically eliminated and another 15% to be sent to Western Siberia.[/li][li] [/li][li]Belarusians 75%[/li][li] [/li][li]Ukrainians 65%[/li]
[li]Lithuanians 85%[/li][li] [/li][li]Latvians 50%[/li]
[li]Estonians 50%[9][/li]
[li]Czechs 50%[/li]
[li]Latgalians 100%[/li][/ul]

@Gack

There are two things to consider, the big killer in the camps was typhus which the Nazis battled continuously. There were typhus epidemics at other camps including Auschwitz during the war.

Horseshit. The big killers at the camps were Zyklon B, being deliberately worked to death and intentional starvation. From here regarding Nazi treatment of Soviet POWS:

The brutal treatment of Soviet POWs by the Germans violated every standard of warfare. Existing sources suggest that some 5.7 million Soviet army personnel fell into German hands during World War II. As of January 1945, the German army reported that only about 930,000 Soviet POWs remained in German custody. The German army released about one million Soviet POWs as auxiliaries of the German army and the SS. About half a million Soviet POWs had escaped German custody or had been liberated by the Soviet army as it advanced westward through eastern Europe into Germany. The remaining 3.3 million, or about 57 percent of those taken prisoner, were dead by the end of the war. Second only to the Jews, Soviet prisoners of war were the largest group of victims of Nazi racial policy.

Further:

Soviet prisoners of war were the first victims of the Nazi policy of mass starvation in the east. In August 1941, the German army set a ration of just 2,200 calories per day for working Soviet prisoners of war. Even this was not enough to sustain life for long, but in practice the POWs received much less than the official ration. Many Soviet prisoners of war received at most a ration of only 700 calories a day. Within a few weeks the result of this “subsistence” ration, as the German army termed it, was death by starvation. The POWs were often provided, for example, only special “Russian” bread made from sugar beet husks and straw flour. Suffering from malnutrition and nearing starvation, numerous reports from the late summer and fall of 1941 show that in many camps the desperate POWs tried to ease their hunger by eating grass and leaves.

EPIDEMICS

The Germans made little provision to shelter most of the prisoners they took from the Soviet military. Eventually the Germans established makeshift camps but the lack of proper food, clothing, and shelter took a terrible toll. Often the prisoners had to dig holes in the ground as improvised shelter from the elements. By the end of 1941, epidemics (especially typhoid and dysentery) emerged as the main cause of death. In October 1941 alone, almost 5,000 Soviet POWs died each day. The onset of winter accelerated the mass death of Soviet POWs, because so many had little or no protection from the cold.

Even in POW camps in Germany, Soviet POWs had often been left for months to vegetate in trenches, dugouts or sod houses. In the occupied eastern territories conditions were even worse. In Belorussia only pavilions (structures with roofs but no walls) were available to house Soviet POWs. By the winter of 1941, starvation and disease resulted in mass death of unimaginable proportions.

So much for the Nazis taking all measures to combat typhus. Quite the opposite, they deliberately provided minimal to no shelter to prisoners being fed on a starvation diet, outbreaks of typhoid and dysentery was both the obvious and the intended effect.

Further from the same cite:

EXECUTIONS

The executions did not take place in the prisoner-of-war camps or their immediate area. Instead, prisoners were transferred to a secure area and shot. The concentration camps proved an ideal location for executions. In Gross-Rosen concentration camp, for example, the SS killed more than 65,000 Soviet POWS by feeding them only a thin soup of grass, water, and salt for six months. In Flossenbürg, SS men burned Soviet POWs alive. In Majdanek, they shot them in trenches. In Mauthausen, Austria, so many POWs were shot that the local population complained that their water supply had been contaminated. The rivers and streams near the camp ran red with blood. Estimates of the numbers of victims of this operation range from at least 140,000 up to 500,000.

[Little_Nemo]

@simster

can someone explain to me, in simple terms, what the point is in ‘denying’ these events happened on the scale they did?

1. Deny that Hitler and the Nazis were all about killing Jews.
2. Convince people Hitler and the Nazis weren’t all that bad.
3. Make it possible for people like Hitler and the Nazis to get back into power.
4. Start killing Jews again.

[Voyager]

@Dissonance

To be more precise you are talking about the death rate of Western Allies in German POW camps. Soviet POWs were the second largest group of victims of the holocaust, with a mortality rate of 57%.

German POWs in the Soviet Union didn’t fare much better. From here.

The West German government set up the Maschke Commission to investigate the fate of German POW in the war, in its report of 1974 they found that about 1.2 million German military personnel reported as missing more than likely died as POW, including 1.1 million in the USSR.[17] The German historian Rüdiger Overmans puts the number of German POWs dead in the Soviet captivity at 1.0 million. Based on his research, Overmans believes that the deaths of 363,000 POWs in Soviet captivity can be confirmed be the files of Deutsche Dienststelle (WASt), he maintains that it seems entirely plausible, while not provable, that 700,000 German military personnel listed with the missing actually died in Soviet custody.[3][18]

According to the section of the German Red Cross dealing with tracing the captives, 1,300,000 German military personnel are still officially listed as missing, most are believed to have died as POW.[19][20]

Both sides were quite willing to abuse the prisoners of the other.

[Dissonance]

@Voyager

German POWs in the Soviet Union didn’t fare much better. From here.

Both sides were quite willing to abuse the prisoners of the other.

Which entirely misses the point. Holocaust denying Gack is of the opinion that none of the deliberate, systematic extermination of 12 million human beings by the Nazis actually happened. Further, the 3.3 million Soviet POWs murdered by the Nazis were killed in a deliberate policy to ethnically cleanse lebensraum in the East to make room for settlement by German colonists. Nazi atrocities certainly don’t excuse communist atrocities, but again that isn’t the point. Gack denies that these Nazi atrocities even occurred.

Calling both sides equally willing to abuse the prisoners of the other is also absurd. Between 13.9% and ~25% of German prisoners died in the hands of the Soviets as a result of being worked to death in Gulags up to 1956. This is most certainly a horrible and inexcuseable crime; and something Gack would prefer became a focus to avoid looking at what the Nazis did in the holocaust, which again he denies actually happened. In contrast 57% of Soviet POWs in Nazi hands died in a deliberate attempt to exterminate them for being racially undesirable in the much shorter time frame of 1941-45, with most occurring in an even shorter time frame. Notably, Soviet POWs were the first victims of Zyklon B, and (with bolding mine)

It was when dealing with Soviet POWs at Auschwitz that camp commandant Rudolf Hoess and his assistants experimented with the means of killing that has since become the symbol of Nazi genocide: Zyklon B. In early September 1941, 600 Soviet POWs were selected for execution. Hoess decided to gas them with Zyklon B, also known as hydrogen cyanide, in the Auschwitz I gas chamber. The experimental gassing here also included 250 inmates who had been designated unfit for work. The Nazis had already experimented with gassing as the means to kill people they considered disabled beginning in October 1939. A method was thereby found that would kill millions of people with minimal effort. Those lessons were subsequently applied first to Soviet POWs and then to Jews. By February 1942 [note by me, Dissonance - from the starting point of June 22, 1941],** 2,000,000 of the 3,300,000 Soviet soldiers in German custody up to that point had died from starvation, exposure, disease, or shooting.**

[Bryan_Ekers]

@simster

can someone explain to me, in simple terms, what the point is in ‘denying’ these events happened on the scale they did?

In addition to the anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi motives mentioned by others, believing in conspiracy theories makes people feel special - lets them feel that they can see the truth while the sheeplike masses cannot.

This is true even if the topic doesn’t happen to play into one’s personal bigotries, like faked moon landings or secret Shakespeares. Of course, if there’s a handy conspiracy theory about Jews, and one is already inclined to hate Jews… bonus.

[QuickSilver]

I rather hoped professor Gack was up revising history all night. But I suppose even holocaust deniers need their rest.

[Longshanks]

The Nazis definitely exterminated a lot of Jews, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the numbers where grossly exaggerated by the allies.

[Ludovic]

@QuickSilver

I rather hoped professor Gack was up revising history all night.

Do you know who else revised history?

[QuickSilver]

@Longshanks

The Nazis definitely exterminated a lot of Jews, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the numbers where grossly exaggerated by the allies.

Oh, look. Is it BOGO day already?

[Tapioca_Dextrin]

@Longshanks

The Nazis definitely exterminated a lot of Jews, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the numbers where grossly exaggerated by the allies.

The Jewish population of Europe was 5 million less at the end of WWII than at the beginning. Where did they all go? On a really long vacation??

[iiandyiiii]

@Longshanks

The Nazis definitely exterminated a lot of Jews, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the numbers where grossly exaggerated by the allies.

Not shockingly, this post is from the same poster.

[Frank]

@Longshanks

The Nazis definitely exterminated a lot of Jews, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the numbers where grossly exaggerated by the allies.

It’d surprise me. There has been a great deal of research and scholarship on the subject in the intervening 70 years. While some estimates are likely high, there seems to be a consensus of a lowest figure of about 5,000,000 Jews killed under the Nazis. Do you believe this is grossly exaggerated?

[Musicat]

@Longshanks

The Nazis definitely exterminated a lot of Jews, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the numbers where grossly exaggerated by the allies.

Yeah, six million, five mill…what’s a few million among friends? The Nazis weren’t really all that bad if they didn’t kill ALL six million. Might only have been four. So I guess we should cut them some slack.

[Kobal2]

@Longshanks

The Nazis definitely exterminated a lot of Jews, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that the numbers where grossly exaggerated by the allies.

For what purpose, and why ?

[Gack]

@GIGObuster

Like if Photographic evidence was not used in the original Nuremberg trial.

Holocaust Encyclopedia | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The movies made by the US and the Brits were necessarily of camps in Germany, none of them ‘death camps’, as the Soviets liberated all the camps in Poland.

[Mr.Miskatonic]

And why has the figure stood up to analysis by multiple independent historical researchers who had much more time to examine the data?

[Gack]

@tomndebb

This sort of goal-post shifting is disingenuous, at best.

Bergen-Belsen was a concentration camp with a role similar to the camp at Dachau. At various times it held POWs and political prisoners, and was occasionally used as a transit point for Jews and other Untermenschen destined to be sent to the extermination camps.

The relevance is that the photos/film shown by Oprah is from Belsen, and the pictures were of prisoners who died of typhus at the end of the war.

[Gack]

@QuickSilver

I rather hoped professor Gack was up revising history all night. But I suppose even holocaust deniers need their rest.

I’m up and have responded quickly to the posts to this point that seemed directly relevant to the photographic evidence.

However, now I have an appointment to visit a law library on another little project, and will be out till noon.

At that time I’ll summarize my argument thus far and move on to other topics, next … the gas chambers.

[iiandyiiii]

@Gack

The relevance is that the photos/film shown by Oprah is from Belsen, and the pictures were of prisoners who died of typhus at the end of the war.

The prisoners who died of typhus in the camps were victims of the Holocaust.

So the photos and films referred to certainly showed victims of the Holocaust.

[Frank]

@Gack

The relevance is that the photos/film shown by Oprah is from Belsen, and the pictures were of prisoners who died of typhus at the end of the war.

I’m mildly curious as to how this is relevant to the questions you were asked at the beginning of this thread.

@iiandyiiii

Did the Nazis try to wipe out Europe’s Jews?

Did they kill any of Europe’s Jews? If so, roughly how many do you think they killed?

Do you believe Hitler’s hatred of the Jews was justified?

They’re pretty simple questions, and shouldn’t require an attempt at a quasi-Socratic dialogue to answer.