# Who were the most competant Nazis? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 14, 2013, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888 "2013-11-14T06:41:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/41 "2013-11-19T03:11:38Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Okay for you but personally I find arguing that a 6 year conflict that happened 60 yeats ago might have been shortened by a week or two by this or that person’s death is pretty silly. Well, you’re welcome not to participate. Or we can just agree to disagree. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/42 "2013-11-19T03:56:32Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > In their own, horrifying, monstrous way, the death camps were pretty efficient. Not really. On a per-capita basis, the Rwandan genocide killed faster and more cheaply than the death camps. Which makes sense, really - easier to ship machetes, or let people use their own on-site, than to transport living victims, maintain a camp infrastructure, etc. Note that this is _not_ Holocaust denial. The Nazis did, indeed, kill millions through the Holocaust alone, plus executions through their judicial process (such as it was), plus the war, and so on et sickening cetera. They just weren’t all that efficient at it, in the death camps or anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/43 "2013-11-19T04:28:46Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Much effect? Every day the war continued meant thousands more lives hanging in the balance, be it 24 hours, a week, a month, catastrophic consequences can still be envisioned, though Germany of course still loses. > > Even in [1940](http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/events/churchill_decides_to_fight_on) Churchill decided to fight on alone and reject German peace feelers, on the sound reasoning that one should never trust a Nazi and that it was either us or them who would decide the future of Europe. After Barbarossa the rival tyrannies of Nazism and Stalinism were involved in a death-struggle for Eastern Europe I doubt could be stopped, even if Hitler were dead. If he were, the 6th Army would have survived Stalingrad at least and Operation Citadel (aka the Battle of Kursk) would have gone differently, if it happened at all. > > Goering had the ambition and Himmler certainly had the ruthlessness. Bormann though was an extremely devious bastard, so he’d probably find a way to gain the reigns of power one way or another without Hitler. > > By 1939 everything was in motion, a long war was inevitable. If Hitler had been killed then he would have been a great martyr for Germany and naturally the course of the war would change, probably in Germany’s favour as I suspect that Germany’s generals would delay Operation Barbarossa until they were satisfied that Britain was contained (Hitler was impatient to take on his true enemy, communism), nor declare war on the United States as Hitler did. I’m not sure why you credit Hitler with any sort of strategic or tactical sense, he demonstrated repeatedly throughout the war that he had neither. Anyway, this is getting off-topic, assassinating Hitler has already been discussed to death. And none of them would have the people behind him and the popular support needed. I think the Reich could have easily collapsed due to infighting and battling factions. Hitler was the crazy glue holding it together. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/44 "2013-11-19T06:02:50Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Well, you’re welcome not to participate. Or we can just agree to disagree. I was merely speaking to the point of an assassination near the end and your quibbling about a week or two being a big difference. Certainly who over the course of the war were more useful and why is a fair enquiry - even if it’s already fairly well trod ground. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/45 "2013-11-19T12:27:41Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > And none of them would have the people behind him and the popular support needed. I think the Reich could have easily collapsed due to infighting and battling factions. Hitler was the crazy glue holding it together. > [@CarnalK](#): > > I was merely speaking to the point of an assassination near the end and your quibbling about a week or two being a big difference. Certainly who over the course of the war were more useful and why is a fair enquiry - even if it’s already fairly well trod ground. Fair enough, fellas. Maybe I was having a bit of tunnel vision about the late Fuhrer and the end stages of the conflict. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/46 "2013-11-19T14:40:15Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Fair enough, fellas. Maybe I was having a bit of tunnel vision about the late Fuhrer and the end stages of the conflict. Of course there is no way to actually know one way or the other. It’s all just guessing. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/47 "2013-11-19T16:30:22Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > In their own, horrifying, monstrous way, the death camps were pretty efficient. Yes. Himmler must be on the list. Heydrich and Eichmann, but he had superb staff and civilian support. The efficiency of not only the camps improved over the years only after research and constant “manufacturing reports.” In addition, as many people often are unaware, that not only were concentration camps “underutilized,” that so many had to be constructed, and German engineers, naturally, did their best to achieve the best designs possible, culminating only in 1941 for the bold and novel creation of death camps–which too were under constant re-appraisal by engineers in Germany. Field data was crucial. For a good two years, the numbers of troops and other military resources, the duration of operations, and of course the number of the Jewish dead in the “eradication” of the Jews in every village, town, and city (eg the Warsaw Uprising, famously) were important data for military analysts, demanded and supplied after every “special operation” (the particular skills required of _[Einsatzgruppen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen)_ “task forces,” or after any encounter of note (under what criterion I have no idea) when men of the Regular Army (_Wehrmacht_) had the opportunity or inclination. Efficiency of application of force was constantly monitored and improved. After the killing “by hand” of 1.3 million people from 1939 to 1941 various boards of experts finally determined that only industrial methods would hope to efficiently solve the Jewish Problem. Concentration camp capital equipment was installed or re-designed, and of course operations research influenced change in how people/“products” were ordered in the workflow. And only then was the concept of “concentration camp,” abandoned–no matter how bizarre and inappropriate the German re-definition of a pre-existing term/idea/thing. German industrial and government employees created something new, truly new in the history of the planet: [extermination camps](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camp), Vernichtungslager, aka death camps _Todeslager_, factories designed by solidly trained, modern engineers. The destruction of the Jews was Germany’s Apollo project. Careers depended on such data. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2013, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/48 "2013-11-19T17:39:10Z")
In his own book, Speer says the Allies could have stopped German war production completely in 43, if they hadn’t switched from bombing factories to bombing cities. At one point, they were down to their last ball bearing. Ironically, Speer was constantly begging Hitler for labor, which was one reason he said he couldn’t believe in the extermination camps, until he saw the evidence. ---
**Author:** ![ILikeForeignLanguages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bc8723/32.png) [@ILikeForeignLanguages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ILikeForeignLanguages)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/49 "2013-11-20T00:47:56Z")
I haven’t studied this subject, so I wouldn’t know the answer. However, I’ll just list some possible candidates for other people to pick from: Goebbels, Jodl, Burgdorf, Gunsche, Fegelein, Krebs, Grawitz, Goring, and Keidl. I learned those names from the Hitler parodies on youtube. ---
**Author:** ![ILikeForeignLanguages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bc8723/32.png) [@ILikeForeignLanguages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ILikeForeignLanguages)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/50 "2013-11-20T01:11:33Z")
> [@ILikeForeignLanguages](#): > > I haven’t studied this subject, so I wouldn’t know the answer. However, I’ll just list some possible candidates for other people to pick from: Goebbels, Jodl, Burgdorf, Gunsche, Fegelein, Krebs, Grawitz, Goring, and Keidl. I learned those names from the Hitler parodies on youtube. Sorry, that’s “Keitel,” not “Keidl.” ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/51 "2013-11-20T01:23:41Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Ironically, Speer was constantly begging Hitler for labor, which was one reason he said he couldn’t believe in the extermination camps, until he saw the evidence. Yes, but it turns out he was lying about that. > **[Letter proves Speer knew of Holocaust plan](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/mar/13/secondworldwar.kateconnolly)** > > A newly discovered letter by Adolf Hitler's architect and armaments minister Albert Speer offers proof that he knew about the plans to exterminate the Jews, despite his repeated claims to the contrary. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1489793/Wartime-reports-debunk-Speer-as-the-Good-Nazi.html](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/1489793/Wartime-reports-debunk-Speer-as-the-Good-Nazi.html) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888/52 "2013-11-20T01:33:25Z")
> [@ILikeForeignLanguages](#): > > I haven’t studied this subject, so I wouldn’t know the answer. However, I’ll just list some possible candidates for other people to pick from: Goebbels, Jodl, Burgdorf, Gunsche, Fegelein, Krebs, Grawitz, Goring, and Keidl. I learned those names from the Hitler parodies on youtube. Jodl and Keitel were yes-men, Fegelein (Fegelein! Fegelein! Fegelein!) was a drunken womaniser, Goering an indolent lump who led the Luftwaffe to ruin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-were-the-most-competant-nazis/673888.md?page=2)