# Regarding the Holocaust: Did this crime benefit the perpetrator's plans? Did they expect it to? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 21, 2019, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857 "2019-04-21T16:44:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/41 "2019-04-22T15:44:08Z")
I think the difference was primarily industrialization. It potentiates all forms of the exercise of power. Tribal genocide isn’t a particularly modern phenomenon. Genghis Kahn, Attila, the Israelites themselves in the lands of Elamites, and the Egyptians, the early Caliphates, and century long wars among new world tribes on both continents. Us, and them. It’s the only differentiation necessary to create the desire to eliminate them. Twentieth century technology created the greatest increase in many human activities. As a species we have always used tribal justification for murder. We just got a lot better at it. Tris * * * Planetary sterilization remains slightly out of our technological reach. So far. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/42 "2019-04-22T16:55:19Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I think we’re falling into the trap of “If something is evil, it must therefore be irrational.” If the Nazis wanted lebensraum and also considered certain peoples inferior and those people also had to eat food like anyone else, then there is a perfectly logical reason that they enacted the Holocaust. Less food consumed, less undesirable people around, more space for the superior race. > > Doesn’t make it any less monstrously evil, but it makes rational sense. I agree with this. People are capable of tremendous cruelty, but that doesn’t make people insane or illogical in the ways that we ought to understand those terms. In my view, the Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram experiment showed that normal people who are completely lucid can do things that are absolutely disgusting. I’m not enough of an amateur psychologist to understand why so many people can do bad things – is it a weakness in every person? a weakness in society? a primal level of hate that sublimates under certain circumstances, but only for some people? – but I strongly disagree that the reason boils down to a psychological condition of being unaware of reality in the manner of a mass psychotic breakdown, or as the OP put it, that people are unintelligent. I tend to think that there’s something scary inside of us that can be drawn out by authority, and everyone possesses an inherent ability to rationalize their own actions, no matter what they are. But we can call still call those actions evil, to be sure. Nazi were evil. ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/43 "2019-04-22T18:56:38Z")
Since everyone in this thread has some varying opinions and seems genuinely interested in this, may I strongly recommend Peter Hayes’ phenomenal book _[Why? Explaining the Holocaust](https://www.amazon.com/Why-Explaining-Holocaust-Peter-Hayes-dp-0393355462/dp/0393355462/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=)_. Basically, Hayes argues that this: > [@Broomstick](#): > > The _long term plan_ was to depopulate Central and Eastern Europe to give the “master race” more space in which to live. That is, the long-term plan was to exterminate the rightful owners then move in, take their goodies, their land, and everything. It was called [_lebensraum_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum) and slated the non-Aryans for either extermination or expulsion. > > This plan was why, after the Jews, the next largest group enslaved and killed in the concentration camps were the Polish - they were next for the Final Solution after the Jews were gone. > > So no, it wasn’t just conspiracy theories and scapegoating (even though those played a part). It was a plan to obliterate people and take their stuff and territory for their own. Along with this: > [@Reindeer\_Flotilla](#): > > Also keep in mind that German antisemitism goes back a long time and was unfortunately buried into the region’s psyche. Martin Luther himself was a rabid antisemite who wrote at length on the subject, though his followers weren’t unique in that regard. > > Coupled with the aforementioned economic crisis, things then reached a flashpoint for an unscrupulous leader to leverage the bigotry to come to power. was that foundation of the Holocaust. > [@Chronos](#): > > Killing millions of undesireables was not a means to an end for the Nazis, and it did not further their goals. It was, itself, the end and the goal. Not true—or at least, not in the beginning, amazing as that may seem to us today. The “end and the goal” was the Final Solution, which began with Operation Reinhard in late 1941. The “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” was very much a means to an end—it’s right there in the name. Recall that before Wannsee, there was the [Madagascar Plan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan), something fully endorsed by Hitler and Eichmann. Before that (and before the war, so before eastern European Jews had come under German control) Germany simply wanted the Jews gone. I’m sure you’ve heard of the [St. Louis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis) debacle. That was not an isolated indecent. Recall that Albert Einstein was among the German Jews expelled from the country when Hitler rose to power. (or more accurately, was not allowed back in after he had visited the US in 1933.) Hitler rose to power in 1933, and as Hayes points out, the Nazis spent the next ~5 years determining what level of persecution against the Jews they could get away with without triggering the ire of the German population in general. The principal goal of Nazi leadership as late as 1938 was to speed up the process of driving the Jews out of the German economy and then out of the country altogether—. The mass murder of Jews didn’t really begin until the Einsatzgruppen started using mass killings as a way of dealing with Jewish civilians in occupied territories following Operation Barbosa. Interestingly, Hayes argues that the Final Solution was just that: the final way of addressing what the Nazis saw as a problem that did not require mass extermination. "as late as May 1940, Heinrich Himmler called ‘the bolshevist method of the physical annihilation of a people… un-German and impossible.’ " (Hayes, 86.) The Jewish question became more of a “problem” with Hitler’s war successes early in 1941. The number of Jews the Nazis became responsible for multiplied and Hitler begins to see them as a threat. On page 88 Hayes discusses how Hitler saw the Jews in the East as a threat to his advancing army and the reality that the United States would probably enter the conflict against him meant that the Jews “no longer had any value as hostages whose fate could be used to pressure the Allies or intimidate other Jews abroad.” According to Hayes this allowed any “restraint toward the Jews” to fall away. Hayes continues to say that there was a combination of “impatience, frustration, and hubris” that allowed Nazi leaders to proceed more radically against the Jews. While early policy may have been to hold off and win the war before they addressed the “Jewish Question” these circumstances allowed them to begin before they won ultimate victory. The actual “eliminationist strategy” doesn’t appear to really take hold until the Wannsee Conference—indeed, I’d argue that the whole point of the Wannsee Conference was because the Nazi’s had not fully embraced genocide before that point. Additionally, not only did the Wannsee Conference kick off the Final Solution, it specifically addressed Jews in countries either under German control or that Germany hoped would be under their control (i.e. the USSR) soon. The Wannsee conference was held in January 1942. This was almost 9 years after the Enabling Act which gave Hitler dictatorial powers (March 1933). Hitler had always blamed the Jews for WWI and claimed that if war would come again it would once again be the Jews’ fault. Going back to the Hayes book, he even calls the progression of the Holocaust “mission creep” on page 326. The war gave the Nazis an excuse and the cover needed to carry out the Final Solution. However, the mass murder of Jews was not part of Hitler or the Nazi party’s original platform. This isn’t to say of course that Hitler didn’t want Jews exterminated —indeed, he called for just that in _Mein Kampf_, but it was not part of Nazi party ideology when the party first rose to power. ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/44 "2019-04-22T19:08:07Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > People are capable of tremendous cruelty, but that doesn’t make people insane or illogical in the ways that we ought to understand those terms. > > … > > I tend to think that there’s something scary inside of us that can be drawn out by authority, and everyone possesses an inherent ability to rationalize their own actions, no matter what they are. But we can call still call those actions evil, to be sure. Nazi were evil. Another must-read book on the Holocaust is _[Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Murder](https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Evil-Ordinary-Genocide-Killing/dp/0195314565/ref=pd_sbs_14_1/144-7851273-7105268?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0195314565&pd_rd_r=c3a230de-6531-11e9-af2b-df456cd2a423&pd_rd_w=OCEbU&pd_rd_wg=Tm8Xo&pf_rd_p=588939de-d3f8-42f1-a3d8-d556eae5797d&pf_rd_r=MTRBJMCE2MRMR1W2AZ2V&psc=1&refRID=MTRBJMCE2MRMR1W2AZ2V)_ One thing that’s fascinating is that Waller argues that the Nazi’s looked for unquestioning loyalty — not madmen or wannabe killers, but people who would not question following any orders given to them. The Einsatzgruppen, for instance, were not comprised of Leopold and Loeb types, but rather older (or very young) men who were unfit for other types of service. They had been indoctrinated for years with the idea that anti-semitism was just another form of pest control. They were then given a chance to serve their country… as mass murderers. Thy jumped at it not because they all wanted to slaughter Jews but because they wanted to serve their country and were willing to follow orders. Seriously scary shit when one stops and thinks about it. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/45 "2019-04-22T19:10:30Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > They’d have to be clairvoyant to know this. > > The earliest evidence for atomic fission came in 1939, from Lisa Meitner, Otto Hahn, and Otto Frisch. Hahn stayed in Germany. Meitner and Frisch fled. (But Metiner refused to work on a possible bomb at Los Alamos.) Fermi’s first atomic pile wasn’t until 1942. > > In the 1930’s German science was the envy of the rest of the world. Losing the Jewish fraction would be a serious mistake but not one they could have predicted would come back to bite them. And the official line was that Jewish science (all of it, in every discipline) was wrong and inferior. By their lights they were improving the breed. > > There was nothing rational about the Nazi hatred of Jews. Trying to find rational explanations is futile. Your doing so as with your quick embrace of _lebensraum_ as a rational excuse will always mislead you from the irrational core of the mindset. Jews were not just scientists, but also were a strong part of the German economy. The Jewish accountants and all the managers. I read once how German industry suffered from their loss. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/46 "2019-04-22T19:36:26Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > Another must-read book on the Holocaust is _[Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Murder](https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Evil-Ordinary-Genocide-Killing/dp/0195314565/ref=pd_sbs_14_1/144-7851273-7105268?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0195314565&pd_rd_r=c3a230de-6531-11e9-af2b-df456cd2a423&pd_rd_w=OCEbU&pd_rd_wg=Tm8Xo&pf_rd_p=588939de-d3f8-42f1-a3d8-d556eae5797d&pf_rd_r=MTRBJMCE2MRMR1W2AZ2V&psc=1&refRID=MTRBJMCE2MRMR1W2AZ2V)_ I’ll throw in _[Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland](https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution-ebook/dp/B01G1F0F84)_ It’s been a while since I read it, but it’s the story of a reserve German MP battalion (a unit of roughly 500-600 or so men) that participated in the rounding up and mass shooting of Jews in Poland. It’s particularly chilling in that the unit was composed of middle-aged working-class draftees, who weren’t Nazis or anything like that- literal “ordinary men”. It’s kind of like some sort of real-life amalgam of the Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments in some ways. ---
**Author:** ![Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reindeer_flotilla/32/3024_2.png) [@Reindeer\_Flotilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reindeer_Flotilla)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/47 "2019-04-22T20:02:05Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > Another must-read book on the Holocaust is _[Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Murder](https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Evil-Ordinary-Genocide-Killing/dp/0195314565/ref=pd_sbs_14_1/144-7851273-7105268?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0195314565&pd_rd_r=c3a230de-6531-11e9-af2b-df456cd2a423&pd_rd_w=OCEbU&pd_rd_wg=Tm8Xo&pf_rd_p=588939de-d3f8-42f1-a3d8-d556eae5797d&pf_rd_r=MTRBJMCE2MRMR1W2AZ2V&psc=1&refRID=MTRBJMCE2MRMR1W2AZ2V)_ > > One thing that’s fascinating is that Waller argues that the Nazi’s looked for unquestioning loyalty — not madmen or wannabe killers, but people who would not question following any orders given to them. > > The Einsatzgruppen, for instance, were not comprised of Leopold and Loeb types, but rather older (or very young) men who were unfit for other types of service. They had been indoctrinated for years with the idea that anti-semitism was just another form of pest control. They were then given a chance to serve their country… as mass murderers. Thy jumped at it not because they all wanted to slaughter Jews but because they wanted to serve their country and were willing to follow orders. > > Seriously scary shit when one stops and thinks about it. > [@bump](#): > > I’ll throw in _[Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland](https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution-ebook/dp/B01G1F0F84)_ > > It’s been a while since I read it, but it’s the story of a reserve German MP battalion (a unit of roughly 500-600 or so men) that participated in the rounding up and mass shooting of Jews in Poland. > > It’s particularly chilling in that the unit was composed of middle-aged working-class draftees, who weren’t Nazis or anything like that- literal “ordinary men”. It’s kind of like some sort of real-life amalgam of the Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments in some ways. There was a very interesting line of dialog in a Holocaust movie many decades ago (perhaps [_Playing for Time_](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081344/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1)?) that touched upon this. Some prisoners that were kept alive at Auschwitz to entertain the camp soldiers (and thus were witness to a more of the atrocities) were arguing this very topic: “The soldiers here are just monsters, it’s that simple.” “No, you’re missing the point. They’re not monsters, but rather just ordinary people like the rest of us - _ **who are doing monstrous thing** s_.” ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/48 "2019-04-22T21:38:48Z")
Let’s start wit what Hitler, himself, wrote. > [@Mein Kampf](#): > > The black-haired Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end, satanically glaring at and spying on the unsuspicious girl whom he plans to seduce, adulterating her blood and removing her from the bosom of her own people. The Jew uses every possible means to undermine the racial foundations of a subjugated people. In his systematic efforts to ruin girls and women he strives to break down the last barriers of discrimination between him and other peoples. The Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland, with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race which they hate and thus lowering its cultural and political level so that the Jew might dominate. For as long as a people remain racially pure and are conscious of the treasure of their blood, they can never be overcome by the Jew. Never in this world can the Jew become master of any people except a bastardized people. And, to put a point on it. > [@](#): > > Whenever Aryans have mingled their blood with that of an inferior race the result has been the downfall of the people who were the standard-bearers of a higher culture. There isn’t really a lot of mystery here. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/49 "2019-04-22T21:39:40Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > This seems to be in the class of “the Nazis were morons” explanations. Obviously no rational person would consider these targetted groups to not be humans and they would not conclude they were an existential threat without evidence of such. Key phrase being “rational person”. You don’t have to be stark raving mad to be irrational. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/50 "2019-04-22T21:49:18Z")
Not just Germans. Think about all the other people of Europe like the French, Dutch, and especially the Poles who also rounded up Jews. Remember that scene in “Schindlers List” where the Polish Jews are being lead away and the ordinary Poles are screaming “Goodbye Jews” and throwing mud at them. Then after the war when some survivors came back they were sometimes killed when they tried to reclaim their homes and property. ---
**Author:** ![survinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@survinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/survinga)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/51 "2019-04-22T23:14:44Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Not just Germans. > > Think about all the other people of Europe like the French, Dutch, and especially the Poles who also rounded up Jews. > > Remember that scene in “Schindlers List” where the Polish Jews are being lead away and the ordinary Poles are screaming “Goodbye Jews” and throwing mud at them. > > Then after the war when some survivors came back they were sometimes killed when they tried to reclaim their homes and property. Eastern Europe was absolutely rich in antisemitism. Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states…they were full of collaborators, people who worked with the Nazis in the killing machine. In Eastern Europe, Jews lived a more segregated life in many parts. They had their own settlements, called the “Shtetl”, which were small villages and markets throughout Eastern Europe. I think this contributed to the hatred, this idea of the Jews being “the other”. None of that “shtetl” living was present in Germany or in Western Europe. So, some places, like Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark, were either “neutral” or they protected their jews from the Nazis. Of course, it only helped some. Many Jews from Western Europe was also hated, and they were eventually killed, too. > **[What Were Shtetls? | My Jewish Learning](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/shtetl-in-jewish-history-and-memory/)** > > The Shtetl in Jewish History. Modern Jewish Religion and Culture. Modern Jewish History. Jewish History and Community. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/52 "2019-04-23T00:23:41Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’ll throw in _[Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland](https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Men-Reserve-Battalion-Solution-ebook/dp/B01G1F0F84)_ > > It’s been a while since I read it, but it’s the story of a reserve German MP battalion (a unit of roughly 500-600 or so men) that participated in the rounding up and mass shooting of Jews in Poland. > > It’s particularly chilling in that the unit was composed of middle-aged working-class draftees, who weren’t Nazis or anything like that- literal “ordinary men”. It’s kind of like some sort of real-life amalgam of the Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments in some ways. We were assigned this book in a history class in college. Yup it is sobering. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/53 "2019-04-23T04:19:22Z")
The “stab in the back” myth really took root after the German defeat in WWI: > **[Stab-in-the-back myth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth)** > > The stab-in-the-back myth (German: Dolchstoßlegende, pronounced \[ˈdɔlçʃtoːsleˌɡɛndə\] (listen), lit. 'dagger-stab legend')\[a\] was an antisemitic conspiracy theory that was widely believed and promulgated in Germany after 1918. It maintained that the Imperial German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield, but was instead betrayed by certain citizens on the home front—especially Jews, revolutionary socialists who fomented strikes and labor unrest, and other republican politicians who ha Hitler inflamed the passions of Germans by telling them that they were good people who could not have possibly lost the war, indeed the Allies never made it into German territory, but their soft and corrupt leaders nonetheless signed the Treaty of Versailles., while back at home in support of the war effort, these leaders were enriching themselves while the Jews, Catholics, and Gypsies had divided loyalties and did not do enough to help Germany win the war, or worse yet, self dealt to themselves and their communities at the expense of Germany. Germany seemed to be content with simply stripping those that were the ire of its hatred of their civil and political rights and leaving well enough alone except for the leaders. However, their successes early in the war made this impractical. You cannot have hundreds of thousands of Jews in conquered territory and leave enough of a rear guard to keep an eye on all of them. And even if you could, why waste that manpower on those people instead of just killing them? The short version was that it was an appeal to ethnic pride that got WAAAY out of hand due to the charismatic nature and fanaticism of Adolf Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/54 "2019-04-23T16:02:55Z")
The fundamental central tenet of Nazism is the concept that peoples are in constant conflict. The conflict between nations (nations can mean nation states or, more pertinently, nations of ethnic peoples) is an eternal feature of humanity and is the true purpose of the apparatus of state. The Nazi regime existed to fight those conflicts, both internally and externally. Killing Jews was a fundamental purpose of the government, because the German people were in conflict with all other peoples, always. Had they succeeded in eliminating the Jews, they would have finished off the Roma, and then moved on to the Slavs, and then someone after that. A Nazi state was destined for genocide and war; it’s why Nazism existed. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/55 "2019-04-23T20:53:45Z")
> [@Mein Kampf](#): > > The black-haired Jewish youth lies in wait for hours on end, satanically glaring at and spying on the unsuspicious girl whom he plans to seduce I’ve tried this, but it’s a really lousy pickup technique. Much better to use a cute puppy. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/56 "2019-04-23T21:08:35Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I’ve tried this, but it’s a really lousy pickup technique. Much better to use a cute puppy. You’re trying to seduce a cute puppy? ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2019, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/57 "2019-04-23T21:55:01Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The fundamental central tenet of Nazism is the concept that peoples are in constant conflict. The conflict between nations (nations can mean nation states or, more pertinently, nations of ethnic peoples) is an eternal feature of humanity and is the true purpose of the apparatus of state. Similar to the KKK manifesto. It tries to justify hostile action against races other than white people for a similar argument, that conflicts between races are an aspect of nature. I suppose what makes it so insidious is the idea isn’t overtly wrong. A certain amount of bias towards people that look differently from ourselves does seem to be more or less hardcoded in. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/58 "2019-04-24T00:53:21Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The fundamental central tenet of Nazism is the concept that peoples are in constant conflict. The conflict between nations (nations can mean nation states or, more pertinently, nations of ethnic peoples) is an eternal feature of humanity and is the true purpose of the apparatus of state. The Nazi regime existed to fight those conflicts, both internally and externally. Killing Jews was a fundamental purpose of the government, because the German people were in conflict with all other peoples, always. Had they succeeded in eliminating the Jews, they would have finished off the Roma, and then moved on to the Slavs, and then someone after that. > > A Nazi state was destined for genocide and war; it’s why Nazism existed. I think that the idea of constant conflict is an important element of Nazism/fascism to understand. The Nazis worldview was that the the world was a jungle. People are out to kill us, so we need to kill them first before they can succeed – like prides of lions and packs of hyenas competing for territory on Serengeti. It’s a world based on competition. What’s important to understand beyond Nazism, however, is that the competitive worldview - the idea that countries live to compete with each other - predated Nazi Germany. It was the world in which Nazism was born. Colonial competition and nationalism from the late 19th Century led to massive militarization that culminated in WWI. The post-WWII order was replacing a world based on competition with one based on cooperation. And that is the crossroads we’re at now. ---
**Author:** ![MarvinKitFox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ba0ec/32.png) [@MarvinKitFox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarvinKitFox)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/59 "2019-04-24T08:38:03Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > One topic I don’t see discussed much is _why_ the Nazi’s committed the Holocaust. Yes, they did it. Yes, it was a terrible crime. Yes, they murdered about 11 million people in a horrific way. > > _Why_ did they do it? Usually, I hear the argument that they were just irrational and stupid. Simple. Germany in the 1920’s and 1930’s WERE a horridly oppressed people, being punished willy-nilly by (mostly) France , using the very unfair Treaty of Versailles as an excuse for, frankly, pure piracy. This oppression created anger. This anger needed _someone_ to blame. They could blame the French, but could not actually _do_ anything about them. They could not blame _themselves_, after all who ever blames themselves for their troubles. So they focused their anger into self-pride, and disdain for the “other” ethnic groups. Mainly the Jews (because they were generally more economically powerful) and the Gypsies (because _eww! Gypsies_) Let’s also lump in mental defectives, and deviants, because they detract from this self-pride image. You did _NOT_ want to be gay, or autistic, or even have a genetic physical defect in Nazi Germany. Bad, bad things happened to those, worse than and well before the persecution of the Jews began. So they elect a new, dynamic leader who speaks to their anger and disdain, and fuels both to quite silly levels. And by belittling others, they feel a bit better about themselves. Once they are in power, and the speeches continue, of course they declare the “others” to be subhuman, and get rid of them. Blame _them_ for your troubles! It was an almost inevitable result of their own oppression, lashing out to hurt others. Rather blame the root cause, that warped Versailles Treaty. And blame the way the US and UK leaned over backwards to allow the Germans to do their own thing, because they felt guilty about that same unfair Treaty. Germany should not have been punished for WW1, to the extent that the Versailles Treaty did. This directly created the environment that fostered Hitler’s rise to power, and the social attitude that led to the Holocaust. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2019, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857/60 "2019-04-24T12:27:20Z")
> [@MarvinKitFox](#): > > Simple. > Germany in the 1920’s and 1930’s WERE a horridly oppressed people, being punished willy-nilly by (mostly) France , using the very unfair Treaty of Versailles as an excuse for, frankly, pure piracy. > > This oppression created anger. Denial was a river that ran through Berlin. And there are still people today who buy into the nonsense that the Versailles Treaty created Nazism, forgetting that the Germans imposed much harsher terms on Russia (and on France back in 1870). \*"The German Empire, having imposed a Carthaginian Peace on the new Bolshevik government of Russia in March 1918, winning virtual control of eastern and south-eastern Europe, had overextended its resources. A last German attempt to break the stalemate in the West failed abysmally, and when the Allies’ counter-offensives of August and September 1918 broke through the trenches and the Hindenburg Line the German war effort went into free fall. The Reich’s military leadership instructed the government to seek peace, and this it did on the basis of the ‘Fourteen Points’ that had been put forward by American President Woodrow Wilson on 8 January 1918. The Allies, after intense and often acrimonious debate among themselves, agreed to conduct peace negotiations on the basis of the Fourteen Points and the further condition ‘that compensation will be made by Germany for all the damage done to the civilian population of the allies and their properties by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea and from the air’… Peace negotiations, which commenced in Paris on 18 January 1919, lasted for five months. The Germans were presented with the Treaty in the dining room of the Trianon Palace Hotel at Versailles on 7 May. The allies had included in the 440 articles of the Treaty a clause – Article 231 – stating Germany’s moral and legal obligation to accept responsibility for the damage inflicted on civilians by its aggression. Having assigned unlimited German theoretical and moral responsibility, however, Germany’s liability in practical terms, as contained in Article 232 of the Treaty, was much narrower. Nevertheless the German chief negotiator, Count Ulrich von Brockdorff-Rantzau, the physical epitome of the stereotypical Prussian aristocrat and just as arrogant, used the opportunity to produce what today we would call ‘fake news’ – or what traditionally went under the term ‘manipulation of documents’. Having been handed the Treaty he immediately announced that Article 231 assigned war guilt to Germany, something he vehemently denied. So began the litany of ‘fake news’ surrounding the Versailles Peace. The newly formed German government in Berlin soon joined the chorus of news falsifiers, claiming that the Allies were imposing a ‘hunger blockade’ upon Germany threatening hundreds of thousands of children with starvation. In fact, though the Allies and the Germans did quarrel about the delivery of food, there was no such blockade. There certainly was undernourishment among the population at large, not just among children, but this was the result not of a ‘hunger blockade’ but of the German war leaders’ food distribution policy over the preceding four years, favouring as it did the soldiers at the front at the expense of civilians, whose food rations throughout the war were kept barely above subsistence level. The ink on the Treaty was scarcely dry when English economist John Maynard Keynes provided his ‘alternative fact’ account. In his much-cited The Economic Consequences of the Peace Keynes, whose sympathies for the Germans were matched by his dislike of the French, predicted a disastrous economic future for Europe. Ten years after the war had ended none of his dire prognostications had come to pass; in fact the European economy had largely recovered. This changed with the collapse of the New York stock market in September 1929. Germany in particular sank into total economic chaos, but not due to the Versailles Peace; it was because the German budget had been financed with United States loans. To establish that the ‘war guilt’ article was based on a falsehood became an integral part of Weimar Germany’s historical and political thought-process. Obviously if the Treaty was grounded in the assumption that Germany had caused the war, proving that assumption wrong would remove the very foundations of the Treaty itself. Not that Germany’s attempts to invalidate the war guilt article were crowned with much success. The publication of 40 volumes of diplomatic documents under the pretentious title Die Grosse Politik der Europäischen Kabinette (The major policies of the European Governments) failed to establish war responsibility. A further investigation commissioned by the Reichstag did indeed show that the Austro-Hungarian and German Empires had led Europe into the war, but the study was duly shelved by the German Foreign Office before it was discovered twenty years after the World War II by American scholars."\* > **[When Fake News Wins: How Germany used the Treaty of Versailles to dodge World...](https://www.historyanswers.co.uk/history-of-war/the-triumph-of-fake-news-how-the-germany-used-the-treaty-of-versailles-to-dodge-blame-for-world-war-i/)** > > We've seen the consequences of 'alternative facts' before, argues Jürgen Tampke, author of A Perfidious Distortion of History: The Versailles Peace Treaty and the Success of the Nazis [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/regarding-the-holocaust-did-this-crime-benefit-the-perpetrators-plans-did-they-expect-it-to/832857.md?page=4)