Posts made by KurtGodel7

Imperious Leader wrote:

if you start a war of extermination and annihilation

Poland is a food deficit nation. During the first few years of German occupation, Germany exported food to the General Government (i.e., German-occupied Poland). Germany’s willingness to deplete its own food supplies to feed its captured Polish people demonstrates that Germany’s initial intentions did not involve the extermination of Poles. Only after the war dragged on longer than expected, and only after Germany’s food reserves began to run low, did the German government decide to reverse the flow of food. Starting in 1942, Poland was turned into a food exporter; in order to help Germany alleviate its own food deficit. The Anglo-French food blockade began in September of 1939. The pro-Soviet Western democracies embraced extermination/annihilation tactics years before Germany did. Germany’s use of such tactics was mostly a response to the famine conditions the Allies successfully created.

then face the combined international community of nations who all want you to stop killing

The idea that the Allies wanted anyone to “stop killing” is laughable. You will recall that in 1932 - '33, the Soviet Union murdered 7 million of its own people (including 3 million innocent children) with the government-induced Ukrainian famine. That famine cannot be blamed on bad harvests, because the U.S.S.R. exported millions of tons of grain during the famine. What response did that (and other acts of Soviet mass murder) generate from the oh-so-noble international community that just wanted governments to “stop killing”? In 1933, FDR extended diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union–and then proceeded to consistently seek friendly relations with “uncle Joe.” France and Czechoslovakia signed defensive alliances with the Soviet Union in 1935–just two years after the Ukrainian famine. In 1939, Britain and France guaranteed Poland against German invasion, but not against Soviet invasion. This, despite the fact that as of 1939, Stalin had clearly established himself as a mass murderer; whereas Hitler had yet to commit any Soviet-scale mass murders.

From 1939 - '41, the population of eastern (Soviet-occupied) Poland was literally decimated. One person out of every ten was either killed outright, or sent to a gulag. After the war ended, Western politicians expressed their horror over these and other Soviet atrocities by sending Stalin millions of more victims. In Operation Keelhaul, the millions of refugees who’d fled westward into Germany at the end of the war were forcibly sent back to the Soviet Union. A large portion of those sent back were of course exterminated–some within earshot of the British or American soldiers who’d delivered them into Soviet custody.

The reasonable person would understand that if every German died of starvation, its only due to Hitler who refuses to give up his war.

You are justifying war crimes and extermination efforts against civilians. I’m guessing that the logic you’re using applies to Germany, but not to the United States? If the United States were to throw the first punch against some nation–to aggressively invade some random nation in the Middle East, for example–would our enemies be justified in seeking to exterminate every last American? No? Then why do you seek to justify a hypothetical effort to exterminate every last German?

Also, your point has little relevance to the actual war. Hitler did not respond to Allied-imposed famine conditions by cutting off calories to Germans. He responded by cutting off calories to Jews and Slavs. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Hitler was more interested in feeding Germans than Slavs or Jews. The fact that the Allies insisted on using famine as a weapon anyway demonstrates the hollowness of their claims to want to save Jews or Slavs from Hitler’s extermination efforts. Again: the Western democracies had no objections at all to Soviet mass murder. If they weren’t bothered by Soviet mass murder, why should we believe they were deeply troubled by Nazi mass murder? On the other hand, the politicians who ran Western democracies greatly benefited from Nazi extermination efforts. They were able to use those efforts as the centerpiece of their wartime and postwar propaganda efforts. Any decent human being regards the massive starvation in German-occupied Europe with horror. Allied politicians were not decent people, and were not bothered by Soviet or any other mass murder. They probably saw Nazi-related deaths as first and foremost the central part of their pro-war sales pitch. The Allied food blockade guaranteed that there would be widespread death in Nazi-occupied Europe, as long as the war dragged on long enough.

Oh and Poland didn’t start ww2, thanks

You’re welcome. Except that the expansionism of the Polish military dictatorship was a contributing factor to the start of the war. As was the pack of lies French politicians told to Poland; in order to entice Polish leaders to adopt a more anti-German foreign policy than would otherwise have been the case.

WraithZer0 wrote:

Kurt, I sincerely hope you don’t feel like you are being branded as a heretic for stating
your opinions and views based on what seems to be an enormous amount of invested learning.

First, thanks for your good post. :) I’ve had deep theological debates with strongly religious people. Arguments in which I’ve questioned some of their core theological tenets. I know from personal experience how deeply religious people respond to their core values being questioned.

There are strong parallels between those responses and much of what we’ve seen in this thread. In both cases, I’d make a key point which told against the other side’s position. If I made it well enough, and presented strong enough evidence clearly enough, the response would be . . . to ignore it. As an example of that in this discussion, I’ve pointed out that Germany simply could not feed its own people. I’ve provided evidence to that effect: statements by Herbert Hoover, evidence by a highly respected historian (Tooze), etc. Some of the more reasonable participants in this debate acknowledged that point. But others plowed ahead exactly as though Germany had granaries filled to bursting. For these people, the Allies’ deliberate use of famine didn’t kill anyone. Or if it did, the deaths should be blamed on Germany for having started the war. By that logic, all governments should be permitted to engage in war crimes, as long as those governments avoid the cardinal sin of throwing the first punch. Even worse was the claim that the existence of a single overweight German (Goering) proves the non-existence of famine conditions within German-occupied Europe.

If someone deliberately chooses to be illogical and unreasonable, there is nothing I can do to force that person to adopt a more rational approach. That is true of religious fanatics, and is doubly true of those who deliberately defend the big lies the Allies told, and the war crimes they committed, after those lies and war crimes have been exposed. There is no arguing with such people, no progress to be made.

There is, however, a different purpose to be served in arguments such as these. Back when I was in high school, I ran cross country and track. I pushed myself as hard as possible every single day, as a test of the strength of my will. Standing up for the truth, in a world filled with lies, tests a different form of strength. Part of being a complete human being is knowing that you can stand up to the majority when the majority is wrong. A man should be like a rock jutting out from the ocean: not a leaf to be swept about by every passing current or breeze.

Those who fanatically repeat the Allies’ big lies–those who personally attack those who question the Allies’ lying version of history–are actually doing the rest of us a favor. Standing up to that kind of social pressure is a test of character–a test not everyone is willing or able to pass. Many good people will choose not to stand up to the Allies’ lies, or worse, will become persuaded by those lies. But every person who is good enough and strong enough to stand up to those lies is a person worth having by your side. You know people like that will not turn out to be fair weather friends. They will not abandon you just because things get a little rough. This separation of the wheat from the chaff would not be possible in the absence of widespread social pressure in favor of acceptance of the Allies’ lies. For those who create such social pressure: thank you.

That, there were many other things that led to the secession which did not directly involve slavery.

I would agree with that. For example: before the Civil War, our country was called the united States. After the war, the capitalization changed. I’ve also heard (but have not yet investigated) allegations that Abraham Lincoln shut down newspapers which disagreed with him or which wrote to oppose the war. If that happened, it would have represented a very serious violation of the First Amendment.

On the other hand, many of my northern friends have confided in me that they were not taught the same way

School systems typically teach children to adopt the values and beliefs of the ruling elites; whomever those elites might be. It is rare that those elites are interested in telling the truth–at least not about politically sensitive subjects. I have relatively little familiarity with the Civil War. On the other hand, nearly every major Allied propaganda claim in either world war was based on a fabrication, a half-truth, or an outright lie. Those lies are presented as truth in history books. The same people willing to lie about one part of history (WWII) might well be willing to lie about another (the Civil War). My perspective about the Civil War is therefore neutral: I’m willing to listen to all sides; and will believe them to the extent they present solid evidence with which to defend their views.

Imperious Leader wrote:

You should worry more about NAZI lies

If you can be more specific about which Nazi lies you think I should be worrying more about, perhaps we can have a discussion.

If Hitler could not feed everybody, he could just easily surrender

Neither Britain nor the U.S. nor the Soviet Union ever offered Hitler any peace terms other than unconditional surrender. After Operation Barbarossa, that unconditional surrender was to be to all the Allies, including the U.S.S.R. There is no reason at all to believe that unconditional surrender would have stopped the killing. On the contrary: the killing continued in West Germany (Morgenthau Plan) and East Germany (Soviet atrocities and ethnic cleansing efforts) after the war was over. Surrendering unconditionally would also have been a case of rewarding bad behavior (the Allies’ use of famine as a weapon).

stop killing everybody

Far from “killing everybody,” Hitler did not kill enough people to eliminate the famine conditions the Allies had created. As a result of his failure to solve Germany’s food problems, large groups of people–such as Soviet POWs working in German weapons factories–could not be adequately fed.

and stop causing everyone else to starve by sinking merchant ships

Suppose Hitler had halted u-boat attacks against Allied merchant shipping. Do you think the Allied leaders would have reciprocated by ending their food blockade of Germany? I don’t.

If on the other hand the British people had gotten hungry enough, perhaps they would have voted their warmongering politicians out of office, and replaced them with different, more honest and peaceful politicians. I realize the German attacks against Allied merchant shipping might have seemed like a case of fighting hunger with hunger. But unless Hitler had had the wisdom to go forward with von Manstein’s planned invasion of Britain, I don’t really see what other options he had to end the Allies’ murderous food blockade.

to blame the agents that stopped the idiot Hitler from killing millions is no greater than reasoning of a child.

Prevention of mass murder was never, ever the Allied intent. Had the Allies not wanted millions of innocent people to die, they would never have imposed their murderous food blockade in the first place. They knew that many more Poles would die with the blockade than without it. Yet they imposed it anyway, supposedly in their overall efforts to “help” Poland. Allied leaders showed about as much sympathy to Polish or other victims of their own food blockade as they had a decade earlier to the 7 million Ukrainian victims of the Holodomor. Which is to say, no sympathy at all. To describe the Allies as opposing mass murder is absurd.

To use and advocate this line of reasoning is a travesty in light of the real facts.

As I hope this thread has made clear, the Allies’ actions can only be justified if the real facts are ignored.

To address the points made by IL–not once in this thread (or in any of my posts here these last few years) have I cited a neo-Nazi or other extremist source. My references have consistently been from highly respected mainstream sources; or at worst from Wikipedia. The key claims made by Wikipedia have been buttressed by other, more prestigious mainstream sources.

I can understand repeating Allied lies if one doesn’t know they’re lies. I did that myself, back before I’d learned better. But I’d always been guided by the conviction that there is such a thing as absolute truth, and that one can learn what that absolute truth is by studying hard enough. There are those here who don’t seem to share that conviction. Those who seem to believe that the truth is whatever they want it to have been; or whatever the Allied propagandists made up. For example: I have shown that the Nazis simply could not have fed everyone within their borders; and that the reason this was the case was the Allied food blockade. IL’s response to that truth was to attack me, personally, for having pointed it out. He then proceeded to simply ignore that particular truth in his moral calculus regarding who was right or wrong in the war. Of course repetitions of Allied propaganda (as he and others have done in this thread and elsewhere) are going to feel right to those who have spent their entire sentient lifetimes exposed to such propaganda. The question we should be asking is not whether Allied propaganda feels right. Rather, we should ask to what extent, if any, that propaganda was based on objective reality.

Typically, a religion will contain factual claims, as well as moral conclusions based on those claims. Often, it will also contain a story about how that religion came into being. A story which, if believed, demonstrates the validity of the religion, and the evil of those who oppose it. While the Allied propaganda effort is not generally considered a religion in the traditional sense, it contains the above-described elements of a religion. There are factual claims intended to support the good-versus-evil mythos. There are moral conclusions based on those factual claims. “Eugenics is wrong because the Nazis believed in it,” for example. Large numbers of WWII history books are written with the deliberate intent of making the Allies look better than they were, and the Nazis worse than they were, in order to promote the Allied view. If (for example) Soviet mass murders are mentioned at all–which is far from guaranteed in any Allied-friendly history book–we are not told the names of the victims, shown their pictures, or told anything about their life stories. Soviet and Western democratic war crimes are either omitted completely or (at best) treated as statistics. Nazi war crimes are treated as tragedies. Extenuating circumstances (such as Allied-imposed famine conditions in German-held Europe) are simply ignored.

Personally, I find the Allied religion shallow, hypocritical, and insipid. That does not mean I’m a Nazi. People had views about morality before Allied propagandists created their worthless religion. They will go on having views of morality long after the Allied religion is dead and buried. In the meantime, there will be those here who will treat me as a heretic. What they fail to realize is that being a heretic is the only acceptable option, if the religion in question does not (and was never intended to) reflect morality or truth.

Private Panic wrote:

Russia was growing its military and transport capabilities (is that the same thing as militarising?)

Growing one’s military capabilities is normally seen as the same thing as militarizing.

although whether it was aggressive or defensive (as it started from a point of disadvantage) is the debate we would no doubt have.

I do not profess to know whether Russia’s motives in militarizing were aggressive or defensive. It’s possible that, at least in some instances, there was not a major distinction between the two. For example, a national leader might think, “If we are weak, we will get conquered. So we must become strong to avoid that.” So that sounds nice and defensive and everything. Except that same leader might think, “Once we become strong, we will then have the chance to conquer those who are weak.” The distinction between defensive and offensive thinking isn’t always warranted. Also, there is the possibility that some leaders of major European nations felt war to be inevitable.

France’s actions before both world wars were driven by a fear of Germany.

You are correct, but have not gone far enough. It would be more accurate to say that France’s actions before both world wars were driven by a centuries-old anti-Germanism. A deep-seated, fixed belief that anything bad for Germany must be good for France. That whatever relations between Germany and France might be over the short term, eventually things would deteriorate and come to blows. (Which was why, from the French perspective, a weak Germany was so important.) A French policy of maintaining a weak Germany had begun hundreds of years earlier, when France divided Germany into 300 small pieces. (The Treaty of Westphalia.) Between the Treaty of Westphalia and 1940, France’s policy was consistently to seek a weak and divided Germany. That philosophy was at the heart of the Versailles Treaty. It is also why Germany was eventually united by Prussia. Prussia is about as far away from France as you can be and still be in Germany–and was thus less vulnerable to French military influence than western Germany.

This was despite Serbia having given in to virtually all of Austria’s demands.

Serbia accepted some demands and rejected others. In that particular instance, I think Serbia’s leaders were being more reasonable than Austria’s leaders. Serbia’s past track record of harboring anti-Austrian terrorists worked against it. The people making decisions about Austria’s foreign policy (the Austrian nobility) were the same people who’d just been targeted in the recent assassination. Typically, if you go after people’s families, they become less than reasonable in their response.

So the German blank cheque was more immediate to the commencement of hostilities

That is not necessarily the case. Serbia was emboldened by the Russian guarantee; and Russia was emboldened by the French guarantee. Austria was emboldened by the German guarantee. I could be mistaken, but I think that if any of those guarantees had not been given, hostilities would not have commenced.

The fact that Russia attempted the distinction that its mobilisation was only against
Austria would only have worked if Germany had not wanted war in 1914 (debatable)
and so put their faith in Russian assertions (difficult).

A certain amount of German thinking was driven by the desire to be a good ally to Austria. German leadership didn’t want to leave Austria to its fate, if Russia was mobilizing against it. Both Germany and Austria were aristocracies; and they had a good relationship with each other.

@Private:

• the so called “blank cheque” that G gave Austria
• that G needed war in 1914 as R rearmament and railway investments would erode its advantage by 1915
• that G pounced on R’s mobilisation order against Austria as a casus belli, despite knowing that R needed weeks longer than anyone else to mobilise.

I’d be interested to know what your view is on these points ShadowHawk?

Your second point is another way of saying that Russia was aggressively militarizing. Which is true; and the same could also be said of France. As for your third point: Russia mobilized before any of the Central Powers; with the mobilization directed against Austria.

I agree that the blank check Germany gave to Austria was a contributing factor. The same could be said of the blank check France gave to Russia. Serbian support for terrorism was also an important factor; especially given the fact that the targets of terrorist attacks were sometimes members of the Austrian nobility.

But the most important factor in the start of WWI may well have been France. After its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, France began assembling an anti-German alliance. Russia was persuaded to join this alliance, despite the czar having given his word that he would not do so. Britain joined the alliance as well; abandoning its traditional foreign policy of glorious neutrality. The United States would later (unfortunately) join the alliance in 1917.

Diplomatic winds shift, and diplomatic circumstances are subject to change. Having assembled an anti-German alliance, it was in France’s interest to see that alliance used to defeat Germany. If in 1914 Europe had experienced a decade or two of peace, France’s anti-German alliance might have drifted apart. Britain might have gone back to being gloriously neutral, and Russia might have reconciled with Germany. It was therefore in France’s interest to go to war before this happened. That explains the French decision to give a blank check to Russia, and its decision to encourage Russia to support a terrorist state such as Serbia.

@calvinhobbesliker:

Actually, the Versailles Treaty did not place sole blame on Germany for starting the war. It just said that Germany and her allies were responsible for the war damages in France and Belgium (and elsewhere maybe) and thus gave a legal basis for demanding reparations.

I’m not disagreeing. But the Versailles Treaty was part of a larger package of measures which, collectively, crippled Germany both economically and militarily.

• The reparations payments demanded by Versailles were staggering. Those alone had the potential to cripple the German economy.

• During the '20s, Britain and France closed their empires to German imports. That made it much more difficult for Germany to obtain the foreign currency needed to meet its obligations.

• The Versailles Treaty prohibited Germany from having more than a token military, which meant that other than the Western democracies, there would be no counterweight to Soviet expansionism in Europe. The Western democracies had no interest in being that counterweight–at least not prior to 1948.

• Important parts of Germany were placed under hostile foreign occupation. France was given control of the Rhineland and the Saar, Czechoslovakia control of the Sudetenland, and Poland control of West Prussia. This also made economic recovery more difficult.

• For whatever reason, the government of the Weimar Republic was weak. I’m not sure how much of that (if any) represented deliberate intent by the Allies, and how much was due to random chance. But for whatever reason, that government was unable to make the most of Germany’s (admittedly) meager position.

Germany is a net food importer and a net raw materials importer. In order to pay for all that food and all those raw materials, it must be a net exporter of manufactured goods. This means that it’s very vulnerable to other countries simply closing themselves to German exports; as the British and French empires did in the '20s, and as the U.S. did as part of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1929. When the economic pressure of that is added to the economic pressure the Allies exerted with their demands for massive reparations payments, the result was disastrous. (Especially when coupled with the loss of the heart of German industry–the Rhineland–to hostile French occupation.) It was this combination of factors which made the Weimar Republic unable to feed its own people.

In order to postpone its economic problems, the Weimar Republic borrowed large sums of money–especially from the United States. Over the short-term, that borrowing provided it desperately needed infusions of capital. But the underlying economy did not improve during the '20s. Which meant that later on, the Germans were dealing with the above-described economic problems, plus massive interest payments to nations such as the United States. Eventually, Britain and France were able to talk the United States into forgiving their war debts. In exchange for which, they would seek no further reparations payments from Germany. Thus, one of Germany’s most important economic problems was solved before Hitler came to power. However, its remaining economic problems (massive debt payments, markets closed to German exports, an industrial heartland under hostile French occupation) were severe enough to produce the economically disastrous conditions and widespread hunger needed to bring Hitler to power.

Narvik wrote:

Now you claim that Poland started WW II ?

Poland was an expansionistic military dictatorship. Prior to the outbreak of WWII, it had already engaged in several territorial annexations. (Including helping itself to a slice of Czechoslovakia in 1938.) Polish leaders wanted to help themselves to some German territory as well: notably East Prussia and part of Silesia. Their desire to do that was an important contributing factor in the start of the war.

But I do not feel that Poland’s raw desire for expansionism was the primary factor in the outbreak of hostilities. The primary factor was the pro-Soviet foreign policies consistently embraced by every major democracy prior to 1948. During the 1930s, it was widely believed that there would be war between Germany on the one hand, and the U.S.S.R. and the Western democracies on the other. Western democratic leaders–especially Daladier and FDR–were very eager to see exactly this kind of war.

Daladier wanted war between France and Germany. However, he did not want to go it alone. He wanted at least one major ally: Britain, or the United States, or the Soviet Union. He wasn’t all that picky which. FDR wanted to go to war against Germany as well. But at least initially, he was unable to persuade Congress or the American people that war was necessary. Making the case for war was difficult, given that the American people realized we’d gone into WWI based on a pack of Allied lies. For example, Germany was not guilty of killing millions of Belgians during WWI, despite Allied claims to the contrary.

If during the '30s Western democratic leaders were willing to carve up Germany with the Soviet Union, why didn’t Stalin want to go along with those plans? The answer is that Stalin wanted to conquer both Germany and the Western European democracies. A war in which everyone ganged up on Germany would (from Stalin’s perspective) have been too easy for the Western democracies, and would have left them in too strong a position. Therefore Stalin declined Western democratic invitations to carve up Germany, while using communist influence to promote “anti-fascism” and warmongering in Western democracies.

After the fall of France, Stalin’s plan was to invade Germany. By destroying the German Army only, Stalin would have taken control not just of Germany itself, but of France as well. He would have sold the Soviet invasion of France as a “liberation” from hostile German occupation. However, Germany invaded the Soviet Union at least a month before Stalin’s preparations to invade Germany were complete. The German attack took Stalin completely by surprise. Germany achieved a 10:1 exchange ratio during Operation Barbarossa. (As opposed to the 3:1 exchange ratio it normally achieved against Soviet forces.)

Even though Stalin declined to participate in a preemptive Allied effort to carve up Germany, Soviet and Western democratic influence in Eastern Europe was such that, during the ‘30s, most Eastern European nations had adopted anti-German foreign policies. Both Poland and other Eastern European nations wanted to be on what they felt would be the winning side in the impending conflict between Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Soviets’ allies.

The stated long-term goal of Soviet foreign policy was world conquest. Prior to 1948, the major Western democracies were useless in preventing Soviet expansion. In 1919 - '21, for example, no major Western democracy came to Poland’s aid when the Soviets went to war to annex it. Only the efforts of the Polish military (and the fact the Soviet Union was still in a state of civil war against the czarists) prevented Poland from becoming the newest Soviet socialist republic. The Soviets had achieved far greater penetration of Western democratic political processes (and influence over Western democracies) during the '30s and early '40s than had been the case during the Polish-Soviet War. The Western democracies were less likely to intervene against Soviet expansion during the '30s or early '40s than they’d been back in 1920, when they did nothing at all to prevent the U.S.S.R. from annexing Poland.

All of which reinforced Hitler’s conviction that peace and security for Germany could only be achieved by conquering the Soviet Union itself. Such a conquest would be difficult, given the fact that Stalin and the Western democracies had successfully persuaded most Eastern European nations to adopt anti-German foreign policies. Hitler used a carrot and stick policy to convert those Eastern European nations into German allies. Czechoslovakia had signed a defensive alliance with the Soviet Union in 1935. It was therefore annexed in 1938–a none-too-subtle message to any other Eastern European nation which might think of allying with Stalin against Hitler. Poland abruptly adopted an anti-German foreign policy in 1939 (mostly in response to false French promises about a general offensive against Germany).

In 1941, Italy invaded Greece. The Greeks fought off the Italian invasion. But they were careful not to provoke Germany. They didn’t attempt to conquer much Italian land, and they did not invite Britain to reinforce Greek positions. Germany therefore remained neutral in that conflict. However, the Greek government which demonstrated this restraint was voted out of office by a different, more aggressive Greek government. The replacement Greek government invited the British in; and took a more aggressive approach about conquering Italian territory. Germany therefore invaded Greece (and destroyed the pro-Soviet government which had arisen in Yugoslavia) as the final touches on its pre-Barbarossa efforts. With the fall of Greece and Yugoslavia, all of the nations between Germany and the Soviet Union were either allied with Germany or neutral in Germany’s favor. By that point, it was recognized that any Eastern European nation which engaged in bad (i.e., pro-Soviet) behavior would be very quickly punished by Germany. Ridding Eastern Europe of Soviet influence was an obvious prelude to the invasion of the Soviet Union itself.

Narvik wrote,

Bottom line is that Germany started two world wars, for no rational reason other than just for fun.

You seem like a good guy. I assume you’re telling the truth to the best of your ability. However, the above represents Allied propaganda; and is not connected to reality. I say that as someone who myself passionately repeated Allied lies–at least until I learned better.

WWI began as a conflict between Austria and Serbia. A member of Austrian nobility had been assassinated. Serbia was subjected to Austrian anger over that assassination, due in large part to its past track record of harboring anti-Austrian terrorists. Serbia refused some of the demands Austria made upon it. Russia supported Serbia’s position, with France quietly and behind the scenes egging Russia on. Note that all this happened before Germany took a position on these matters.

der Kaizer started a world war because he wanted to rule and suppress the whole world

The above statement is Allied propaganda, with no basis in reality. This particular Allied claim does not merit acknowledgement, let alone a detailed rebuttal. I once believed such things myself. It was only after doing a lot of research that I realized how many Allied lies I’d swallowed; or how little actual interest the Allied leaders had in any sort of morality. (Despite their frequent, loud protestations to the contrary.)

No German was starving in 1939 neither, yet der Fuhrer (new name same wrapping) started a
world war for the second time, just because he wanted to rule and suppress the whole world.

During the Weimar Republic, most Germans experienced what one historian referred to as “prolonged and insatiable hunger” due to the brutal economic conditions imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty. It was only by breaking free of that sadistic treaty that Hitler was able to spare the German people from additional hunger.

He even wrote a book about it so there would be no doubt.

I’ve read that book–twice–and found nothing in it to justify either the Allied big lie that Hitler wanted to rule the world, or the Allied big lie that Hitler had formulated plans to kill the Jews even before he took office. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote about his desire to conquer the Soviet Union–or at least the portion of the Soviet Union west of the Urals. That conquest would protect Germany and Europe from the evil of communism, and would give Germany the same position of strength with respect to Europe that the United States had relative to North America. As Hitler pointed out, no one had ever succeeded in imposing a Versailles Treaty on the United States. He wanted to make sure no one could ever again do so with respect to Germany.

One of Hitler’s reasons for going to war was described in John Toland’s book Adolf Hitler. Toland’s book was favorably reviewed by the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsweek, Library Journal, and a number of other major media publications.

[A.I.] Berndt [a German government official] thought the reported number of German nationals killed by Poles too small and simply added a nought. At first Hitler refused to believe such a figure but, when Berndt replied that it may have been somewhat exaggerated but something monstrous must have happened to give rise to such stories, Hitler shouted ‘They’ll pay for this! Now no one will stop me from teaching these fellows a lesson they’ll never forget! I will not have my Germans butchered like cattle!’ At this point the Fuhrer went to the phone and, in Berndt’s presence, ordered Keitel to issue ‘Directive No. 1 for the Conduct of the War.’ [pp. 566 - 567].

Also from Toland’s book:

Lipski never asked to see Hitler’s sixteen-point proposal . . . He was following his orders ‘not to enter into any concrete negotiations.’ The Poles were apparently so confident they could whip the Germans (with help from their allies) that they were not interested in discussing Hitler’s offer. [p. 567]

In 1939, France had promised Poland that, if Germany attacked, France would launch a major offensive within 15 days of mobilization. That claim was an outright lie.

In his post-war diaries general Edmund Ironside, the chief of Imperial General Staff commented on French promises “The French had lied to the Poles in saying they are going to attack. There is no idea of it”.[24] The French initiated full mobilization and began the limited Saar Offensive on 7 September but halted short of the German defensive lines and then withdrew to their own defences around 13 September. Poland was not notified of this decision. Instead, Gamelin informed by dispatch marshal Edward Rydz-Śmigły that half of his divisions were in contact with the enemy, and that French advances had forced the Wehrmacht to withdraw at least six divisions from Poland. The Polish military envoy to France, general Stanisław Burhardt-Bukacki, upon receiving the text of the message sent by Gamelin, alerted marshal Śmigły: “I received the message by general Gamelin. Please don’t believe a single word in the dispatch”.[23] The following day, the commander of the French Military Mission to Poland, General Louis Faury, informed the Polish Chief of Staff, General Wacław Stachiewicz, that the planned major offensive on the western front had to be postponed from September 17 to September 20. At the same time, French divisions were ordered to retreat to their barracks along the Maginot Line.

Back when the Polish were ignoring German peace proposals and killing Germans–albeit only one tenth as many Germans as Berndt had reported to Hitler–they’d expected France to honor its promise to launch a general offensive against Germany within 15 days of mobilization. Combined, France and Poland had at least as many infantry, tanks, and artillery as Germany. A general French offensive would have forced Germany to allocate the bulk of its military assets to its Western front; thereby turning a short war into a long war. In a long war, the Western democracies’ industrial advantages over Germany would have made Allied victory nearly inevitable; and Poland would have been on the victors’ side of the peace table.

Polish leaders wanted to expand westward.

[In 1941], an office of the Polish Government in Exile wrote to warn Władysław Sikorski that if the [Atlantic] Charter was implemented with regards to national self-determination, it would make the desired Polish annexation of Danzig, East Prussia and parts of German Silesia impossible, which led the Poles to approach Britain asking for a flexible interpretation of the Charter.[25]

Private Panic wrote,

Sorry for the selective quotes, but I believe this means that we have agreed that the Nazis were guilty of genocide.

On the surface, that sentence sounds entirely too much like an endorsement of the Allied anti-Nazi propaganda effort. Were the Nazis guilty of unfairly singling out Jews? Yes, absolutely. When famine conditions were imposed by the murderous Allied food blockade, did the Nazis unfairly allocate a disproportionate share of famine deaths to the Jews? Again the answer is yes. But a word like “genocide” normally implies that a government committed an avoidable act of mass murder. Granted, the civilian deaths which occurred in WWII Germany were avoidable. They could easily have been avoided by the Allies, had they chosen not to use famine as a weapon against the people living in German-occupied Europe.

However, it’s possible your use of the word “genocide” is more technically correct than mine. The word was first coined in 1944 by a Polish-born man named Lemkin. Lemkin wrote:

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aimed at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

Under that definition, an immigration policy could be described as “genocide,” as long as it resulted in the eventual elimination of the host country’s main ethnic or racial groups. Everyday colloquial usage of the term is typically far narrower than that. To describe the Nazis as guilty of “genocide” risks endorsing the Allied big lie that the Nazis could have fed everyone within their own borders; and only chose not to due to racial hate.

Oh yes we do - if that “us and them” leads to “them” being abused.

During WWI, and again in WWII, the U.S. embraced us-versus-them thinking with respect to the Germans. Yet few would describe American society during those times as “evil.” (Although the actions of our political leaders were evil, especially during WWII.) During the 1860s, both the North and the South embraced us-versus-them thinking during the Civil War. If anyone who embraces us-versus-them thinking is evil, both the North and the South were evil. During the 1960s, hippies embraced us-versus-them thinking WRT the Establishment; and the Establishment embraced such thinking WRT the hippies. Maybe the world is filled with evil people. Or, maybe us-versus-them thinking is a natural part of the human psyche; and (potentially) a hardwired survival instinct.

As for whether people end up getting abused: if there are famine conditions, of course “us” will get fed before “them.” That’s inevitable. With the possible exception of WWI Germany, I can’t think of any group which engaged in us-versus-them thinking which didn’t feed us before them under famine conditions.

Private Panic, I think we are in agreement on most points.

The Allied economic / food blockade killed millions of people. It did not target any single race or religion. It took the Nazis to do that.

Granted. On the other hand, not only did the Allies use famine as a weapon against those living in German-occupied Europe, they also blocked Jewish immigration into Palestine or any other Allied-controlled territories. Then they proceeded to use the Holocaust as the centerpiece of their wartime and postwar anti-Nazi propaganda efforts. The success of that propaganda effort meant that the Allies were credited with fighting a “good” war; despite their mass murder of millions both during and after the war, and despite leaving the diabolical Soviet regime in control of the vast majority of postwar Europe. Given the absolutely central role the Holocaust played in Allied propaganda, we have to wonder how sad the Allied leaders really were that the Jews were unfairly singled out.

The only thing I can think to do is to offer an analogy

I agree with everything you wrote in that analogy, with the possible exception of one point. You seem to be assigning a lot of guilt and moral condemnation to the process of choosing two victims. Many or most civilizations throughout human history have engaged in “us and them” thinking, or in more extreme cases “us, them, and evil other” thinking. For the Nazis, Germans were “us,” Slavs were “them,” and Jews were “evil other.” Other civilizations–especially in polarized times–will assign different groups to “us,” “them,” and “evil other.” We do not normally describe a civilization or culture as “evil” for having embraced us versus them thinking.

It is very common for Allied propagandists to use one measuring stick for the Nazis’ actions, while using a completely different measuring stick for Allied actions. For example, German civilian bombing of Britain was vilified, and served as the basis for some Nuremberg convictions. Meanwhile, the much more massive Allied bombing effort against civilian targets in Germany was treated as legitimate military necessity.

My goal here is to avoid Allied-style hypocrisy, and to subject the Axis, Allies, and all other civilizations to the same moral standard. One measuring stick for everyone. If we describe the Nazis as “evil” for engaging in us-versus-them thinking, or for feeding “us” before feeding “them,” then we have to also apply that same “evil” label to any other civilization which engaged in us-versus-them thinking; or which would have used that thinking as a primary factor in food distribution during famine.

Private Panic wrote:

I do not believe we should therefore forgive the Nazis the result of their evil anti-Semitic policies,
which ultimately lead to their murder of the Jews (and others), albeit helped along that path by
food shortages created by the Allies.

The Allies caused the death toll with their food blockade. The Nazis caused that death toll to be unevenly distributed. Of those two misdeeds, the Allies’ was both worse and less commonplace. In most nations throughout history, any given famine-related death toll would have been unevenly distributed; and the nature of that uneven distribution would have been unfair.

The above does not excuse the Nazis for their flaws. Certainly, a Jewish person could not expect fair treatment at the Nazis’ hands. That was true even in good times, when the Nazis had enough food with which to feed everyone. My point is not that the Nazis were perfect–they weren’t–but that their crimes have been deliberately misrepresented by the Allied propaganda machine.

The Nazis are damned because they “wanted the Jews to die first”, regardless of the active hostility of many other peoples and nations.

Suppose that some ancient Greek city-state was hit by a food blockade/famine conditions. And suppose that those who ran the city state wanted to make the feeding of citizens a much, much higher priority than the feeding of their slaves. Would you condemn those leaders in the same harsh terms you condemned the Nazis? If not why not?

I believe your quote above - the less than absolute certainty as to whether the Nazis would
have murdered the Jews if there had not been food shortages - is what holds you back from accepting this point.

Not only is there “less than absolute certainty” that the Nazis would have murdered the Jews even in the absence of food shortages. There is no evidence at all that such a murder would have happened. During the ‘30s, the Nazis exported so many Jews to Palestine that the Palestinians revolted. The act of sending the Jews away–to a place outside the Nazis’ control–is clear evidence of the absence of any short- or long-term plan to kill the Jews. Only after the food blockade was imposed, and only after severe food shortages were experienced, did the Nazis develop any sort of plan to kill the Jews.

If we had the missing certainty you would accept that the Nazis were guilty of genocide, even though helped along by food shortages?

After WWII ended, the Allies imposed murderous conditions on postwar Germany.

On March 20, 1945, President Roosevelt was warned that the JCS 1067 was not workable: it would let the Germans “stew in their own juice”. Roosevelt’s response was “Let them have soup kitchens! Let their economy sink!” Asked if he wanted the German people to starve, he replied, “Why not?”

The Allied propaganda machine went into high gear to justify what General Clay described as a “Carthaginian peace” imposed on postwar Germany. First, the starvation element was denied. Second–and perhaps a bit more to the point–the Allies declared that the Germans were “collectively guilty” of the Holocaust. In order to support their “collective guilt” argument, they claimed that anyone who’d casually perused Mein Kampf or listened to Hitler’s speeches knew or should have known that the Holocaust was inevitable. Therefore, the decision to vote Hitler into office in the first place–and the decision to support him throughout his tenure as Germany’s Fuehrer–constituted implicit consent to the Holocaust.

The Allied propagandists who said these things had precisely zero interest in telling the truth about this matter. Or any other matter in which the truth would have gotten in the way of their message. Their only motive in coming up with that propaganda was to downplay and justify the starvation and death that FDR and Truman deliberately inflicted on postwar Germany.

We are not dealing with “less than absolute certainty” about whether Hitler would have exterminated the Jews even in the absence of an Allied food blockade. We are dealing with a situation in which the only evidence that Hitler would have imposed such extermination comes from the empty, lying claims of the nations which used famine as a weapon both during and after the war.

Private Panic wrote:

But the effort to put the Jews into those concentration camps did not halt when food shortages began. It was intensified.

True.

Therefore the murder of the Jews was not an unfortunate result of Allied food shortages.

The Nazis fed everyone within their borders–including the Jews–back before the Allied food blockade was imposed or famine conditions experienced. Back then, their long-term plans for the Jews involved relocation to Palestine or Madagascar. Once the Allies imposed famine conditions upon German-occupied Europe, the Nazis’ actions demonstrated they did not want famine deaths distributed randomly. They wanted those deaths borne by the Jews first, Slavs second, the Germans not at all.

If there was any sort of famine, the Nazis wanted the Jews to die first. No one disputes that. The more controversial question is whether the Nazis would have exterminated the Jews even had the Allies not caused famine within Germany. In order to answer that question in the affirmative, it is necessary to assume that for some unknown (but presumably very compelling) reason, the Nazis would have been much harsher to the Jews in the '40s than they’d been in the '30s. Granted, the Nazis were much harsher to the Jews in the '40s. But we don’t have to look for some mystery reason to explain that increase in harshness. Not when the answer is staring us in the face. The Nazis could feed everyone within their borders during the '30s, and could not feed everyone after the imposition of the food blockade.

So because the Nazis were an evil anti-Semitic regime and put themselves into a
corner with the Jews via their evil policies we should forgive them genocide?

I think that it’s normal for people to see what they expect to see. If (for example) a man regards women as flaky and unreliable, then any time he encounters a woman who is those things, he will see it as confirmation of his view. If on the other hand a woman proves non-flaky and very reliable, he will see her as an exception to the broader trend, or will assume the woman has a reservoir of not-yet-discovered flakiness. The vast majority of people are guilty of seeing what they expect to see.

When the Nazis saw a Jew engage in economic exploitation, or an effort to lower moral standards, or an effort to promote miscegenation, or join a Marxist political organization, then for them this was confirmation of their views of Jews generally. If on the other hand some Jew were to stand up against those things, they would see that Jew either as a rare exception, or else as someone attempting to build his credibility today so that he could lend his support for those things tomorrow.

The Nazis saw the Jews in a very negative light. To the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, their perspective was not justified by facts.

Is there no category of people we see in a more negative light than that justified by facts? During WWI and again during WWII, a lot of counterfactual, nonsensical anti-German propaganda was thrown around. Ignorant propagandists called the Germans “Huns,” and much of the population followed suit. There was also plenty of anti-Japanese propaganda thrown around. Propaganda which led to anti-Japanese hate “A poll in Fortune magazine in late 1945 showed a significant minority of Americans (22.7%) wishing that more atomic bombs could have been dropped on Japan.[224][225]”

One of the central tenets of Allied propaganda is that the Nazis were uniquely evil–evil in a way the world had never seen before. There are many downsides to that particular lie being believed. For example, people often don’t realize when they are doing the exact same thing the Nazis did. Namely, singling out some group; and thinking of that group in malignant terms. Yes, the Nazis did that with the Jews; but there are plenty of examples throughout history in which some group did that with some other group. Typically the feeling was mutual. People are instinctively tribal; and sometimes there is hostility between one tribe and another.

aequitas et veritas wrote:

Well this explains a lot since you don not know much about Germany and Germans!

I’m always happy to learn. I don’t know if I’ll have the chance to visit Germany any time soon. But if I get the chance, I’ll take it. :) The only European country I’ve visited thus far is Lithuania. I loved it there, and would highly value a chance to see more of Europe. In the meantime, if there’s any insight you can give me about Germany or Germans, my ears are open.

Check History here again and get an second opinion.

Mastery of anything is a lifelong process. There is always something more to learn. That’s the approach I’ve taken toward WWII. Typically, the more I learn about that war, the more cynical I become about the Allies, their motives, their methods, and their propaganda. But saying that the Allies were warmongering, bloodthirsty thugs (they were) is not the same thing as saying the Nazis were innocent (they weren’t). Getting a feel for the actual scope of the Nazis’ war crimes has been more difficult than ascertaining the Allies’ crimes. There is no shortage of anti-Nazi accusations. But it’s important to not accept all such accusations at face value. To instead determine which accusations are valid, and which represent half truths, factual distortions, or outright lies. We live in an environment in which anti-Nazi lies are not punished; and are not felt to detract from the credibility of whichever liar makes them. That casual disregard for the truth makes it difficult to sift the wheat (truth) from the chaff (falsehoods).

def. double check on the Foodblockade Propaganda thingy.

I’ve already double checked on the food blockade. It happened. If that link isn’t enough to convince you, read the book associated with this link. I did, and found it the best book I’ve read on WWII, and one of the best history books I’ve read on any subject. The book has been favorably reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times (London), The Times (London), Financial Times, and other prominent and prestigious publications. Its author was awarded the Wolfson Prize.

Germany could have asked Argentina, Turkey,Spain,Grecce etc,etc…

If you’re talking pre-war, Germany didn’t need help, except for allies in the impending conflict with Stalin’s murderous and diabolical regime. If you’re thinking in terms of asking for help after the war began, the nations you mentioned would not have been in a position to provide Germany with much help with the famine conditions it faced. Spain ran at a food deficit; and had no excess to sell to Germany. I think Argentina runs at a food surplus. But any food they might have sent to Germany would have been intercepted by the Allied food blockade.

The proplem with this wild speculation is that Germnay never was in the Position to feed all
it’s peoples with own supplys and Food, because Germany depends strongly on the Import.

Other than characterizing anything I’ve written as “wild speculation,” the above statement is absolutely correct. :) Germany does not produce enough food with which to feed its own people, or enough raw materials for its factories. It must therefore import both food and raw material, and must pay for those imports by exporting manufactured goods. I had not been aware of that prior to reading Tooze’s book. As a German, it makes sense you know all this already.

Private Panic wrote,

The underlying prejudice of the Nazis therefore being that German Jews were not German, which you appear happy to accept.

I have neither accepted nor rejected that premise.

This prejudice ignored the war records of German Jewish families that had fought and died for Germany in previous wars.

I agree that there were a number of German Jews who fought valiantly for Germany during WWI.

Of course the Nazis’ policies lead to the Jews being unwilling to fight for the Nazis, because their anti-Semitism was already writ large.

Agreed. The Nazis alienated the Jews. Had they been more neutral toward the Jews, a large number of German Jews would undoubtedly been willing to fight for Germany during WWII.

The Nazis targeting of the Jews (even those whose families had been German for generations)
went far deeper than that of many other nationalities / ethnicities who were unwilling to fight
for Germany. The aim was to erase the Jews, but not the French or Dutch or ….

This is true. When Hitler came into power in 1933, he had two choices:

1. Be reasonable with the Jews, in hopes they’d be reasonable with him.
2. Be harsh toward the Jews.

At first, Hitler’s anti-Jewish measures were mild enough that he alienated some of the more extreme members of his own party. But even though he initially seemed to be open to 1), he drifted more and more to 2). In the late '30s, the Nazis decided that Germany’s Jews were not emigrating from Germany at a fast enough pace. In order to accelerate the process of Jewish departure, they initiated Crystal Night. A number of Jewish businesses were needlessly vandalized, and Germany’s Jewish population punished for the crimes committed against it. Jews were sent to concentration camps, then released after several weeks or months. The point of this exercise was to scare them into leaving Germany. Crystal Night intensified Jewish hostility against the Nazi regime.

But note that at this point in the story, the Nazis were still thinking in terms of convincing the Jews to leave Germany through intimidation. There was no indication of any plan to exterminate the Jews.

Then along came the Allies. On the one hand, they used food as a weapon, in order to prevent Germany from feeding everyone within its borders. On the other hand, they closed Palestine and their other colonies to Jewish immigration.

Imagine yourself being appointed military dictator of Germany at this point in the story. Imagine that your only criterion for making any major decision is military utility. On the one hand, you know that the food situation means that tens of millions of innocent people are going to die. On the other, you have a group of people (the Jews) which is deeply hostile to your regime. That hostility was largely due to Hitler’s anti-Semitism. But regardless of whose fault it was, that hostility is there, and may affect the military equation. If you leave the Jews alone, will they join partisan groups, anti-Nazi resistance movements, or other efforts to defeat Germany militarily? Probably. In fact, almost certainly. Jewish hostility toward the Nazi regime was much, much greater than any hostility most Japanese, German, or Italian immigrants felt to the American regime. FDR locked up the latter groups in concentration camps, and Hitler used similar logic to lock up his Jewish population.

Once the Jews are locked up in concentration camps, the only way to feed them is with food physically possessed by the German government. Note that much of the food supply was not in this category. In captured Soviet territory, for example, food flowed from captured Soviet farmlands to captured Soviet cities, without at any point in that process coming into physical possession by the German government. The same was also generally true of most food produced in other conquered territories. “Food physically possessed by the German government” was desperately needed to feed millions of Soviet POWs conscripted for German weapons factories. The POWs in question were typically young, strong, able-bodied men: perfect for industrial production/weapons production. In order to feed those POWs, Hitler would have needed to starve captured Soviet cities. He attempted to do exactly that, and for the most part failed. As a result of that failure, he was unable to feed the Soviet POWs working in German weapons plants. Millions of Soviet POWs starved, despite Hitler’s direct order that they be fed. (A direct order which, one might add, was based purely on military necessity, not on any kind of racial theory.) If “food physically possessed by the German government” was not sufficient to feed Soviet POWs–which it wasn’t–how was the German government supposed to come into physical possession of the additional food required to feed the Jews in the concentration camps?

I’m not saying that the Nazis’ initial anti-Semitic propaganda effort was justified. It wasn’t. If you want to blame the Nazis for their anti-Semitism, for Crystal Night, or for needlessly alienating their Jewish population, fine. I’m right there with you. But having made those mistakes–having stirred up a great deal of Jewish hostility against them–the Nazis created a situation in which any given Jewish population could be expected to be hostile to the Nazi regime. From a purely military perspective, it typically makes sense to feed one’s own people first, friends and allies second, neutrals third, and enemies fourth.

Prior to 1939, Germany had a number of options with respect to its Jewish population. Anything bad it did to the Jews during that time should be regarded as a consequence of the most hate-filled element of the Nazi ideology. After the war began and the White Paper of 1939 was imposed, Germany’s options became far more constrained. The (far worse) things it began doing to the Jews in 1942 were driven primarily by famine conditions and the military situation; not by ideology.

Private Panic wrote,

They saw the murder of six million Jews as very much more preferable (or advantageous) to that of six million of other religions.

The above statement is not entirely accurate. The Nazis were not overly concerned about religion. To them, a Jewish atheist or a Jew who’d converted to Christianity was the same as an observant Jew. The exception to that rule was Jewish Marxists, who were considered worse than Jews generally.

That is what robs the Nazis of the defence of food shortages.

Throughout human history, if almost any major nation was subjected to famine conditions, there would not have been an equality in how those famine effects would have been distributed. The United States’ Declaration of Independence states that all men are created equal. And yet we know that the homeless would suffer more in an American famine than the middle class; and that the middle class would suffer more than Bill Gates or Warren Buffet. One of the core tenets of communism is equality of outcomes. Yet famine deaths in major communist nations have never been equally distributed. Those with the right political connections, or who were part of favored ethnic groups, or who had the right political views, were spared the famines that starved their fellow countrymen. Communists went one step further, and created artificial famines to devastate select groups, while leaving everyone else unharmed.

Perhaps you feel that nations should be held to higher moral standards than those observed by either the 20th century Western democracies or communist nations. If so, I agree with you. But just about any major nation throughout human history would have distributed food unequally during times of famine. If you think I’m wrong about that, I invite you to point to several exceptions: several major nations, at any point in human history, that you think would have treated all categories of people equally during famine.

You wish to target the Allies for their “total war” exigencies (the economic / food blockade) but forgive the Nazis for theirs.

The two cases are not parallel. Britain could have exited the war with Germany any time it chose to, with no territorial loss. The same was also true of France, at least before it fell. Those two nations were at war voluntarily. Their stated reason for going to war was to protect Poland from hostile foreign occupation. But at no point did protection of Poland form any part of their plans, intentions, or policies. Given the circumstances, it made a certain amount of sense for Germany to attempt to use sub warfare to cut Britain off from its food imports on the one hand, while offering it peace without territorial loss or Versailles-type conditions on the other. Had the British people gotten hungry enough, they would have agreed to peace. Had its politicians wanted to continue fighting, they would have been voted out of office.

On the other hand, the Allies imposed a brutal food blockade on Germany–a blockade which resulted in the deaths of millions of Poles. The Allies’ cynical willingness to use food as a weapon to murder so many Poles clearly demonstrates exactly how little concern they had about “protecting” Poland from hostile foreign occupation. Their casual willingness to see Poland annexed by the Soviet Union–despite Stalin’s mass murder of 7 million innocent Ukrainians–is another indication of the contempt with which they regarded Poland and its people.

Soviet attempts to invade and annex Germany began in 1919, with the Polish-Soviet War. Had the Soviet Union won that war, the Red Army would have continued on into Germany. (Which, at the time, was disarmed and on the brink of communist revolution.) After Poland’s victory in the Polish-Soviet War–a victory the Western democracies did nothing at all to assist–the war between Germany and the Soviet Union turned colder. The communists focused first on consolidating their political power and ending the civil war. Once that was achieved, they focused on industrializing. The third stage in the process was to build up their military; and that third stage began no later than 1939. Stage 4 would have consisted of the invasion of Germany.

As long as the Red Army and the Soviet Union stood undefeated, Germany was in mortal danger. The Western democracies could not be trusted to stand up to Soviet expansionism, as they proved again and again. Prior to 1948, no major Western democracy adopted an anti-Soviet foreign policy, or did anything at all to slow the pace of Soviet expansion.

Prior to the beginning of WWII, the Soviet Union had 2.5 times as many people as Germany. It also had far greater access to food, raw materials, and oil than Germany did. Prior to 1944, the Soviets also had a significantly greater ability to produce weapons than did Germany. (In 1942, Soviet military production was 2 - 3 times that of Germany.) Even if the Western democracies had stayed neutral, the Soviet Union alone would have represented a mortal threat to Germany’s very existence. But the Western democracies did not stay neutral. With one brief exception (Chamberlain in 1938), they consistently adopted pro-Soviet, anti-German foreign policies. People say things like “politicians are corrupt” or “politicians are sleazy.” But I don’t think most people realize how corrupt or sleazy or (above all) narcissistic this particular batch of politicians truly was.

Nazi Germany’s circumstances were truly desperate. On the other hand, the consequences of a Soviet occupation would have been (and later turned out to be) unspeakable. It’s been said that desperate times call for desperate measures. If I’m willing to forgive Germany for total war measures which served a military purpose, it’s because I have some inkling of how desperate their military situation was, how unlikely it was for them to avoid the horror of Soviet occupation, and the brutality Bolsheviks consistently imposed upon their victims. None of which excuses any war crimes the Nazis committed which did not serve an underlying military purpose.

If the king selects victims for death on a basis other than being best able to
defend the castle, then his motivation is not defence, but murder.

The king needs to take into account not just ability, but willingness, to defend the castle. If (for example) the king is Polish, and the besiegers are Mongols, the king would be a fool to starve his own Polish subjects in order to feed Mongol prisoners he’d taken. Yes, the Mongol prisoners could do a very good job of helping defend the castle. But they’d be far more likely to assist the Mongol invaders than repel them.

The people most willing to fight for Nazi Germany were the Germans themselves. Those were also the people Hitler most prioritized for scarce food rations. Other groups–such as the Poles–were not willing to fight for Germany; and so received a much lower status on the food totem pole than the Germans received. Romanians were considered about as racially inferior as the Poles. But unlike the Poles, the Romanians were willing to fight for the Axis and against communism. There was not (as far as I’m aware) any effort to starve the Romanians.

aequitas et veritas wrote:

Again Kurt, life can’t be compared with Math or is a Math Thing at all!!

Math is a useful tool for determining when and where famine will occur, as well as the number of deaths most likely associated with the famine.

Do you honestly think Germany needs you to defend them?

I’m an American, and I’ve never been to Germany. In this country I’ve had three sources of information about Germany. 1) Popular media, such as movies, television shows, novels and so forth. 2) Historical books, especially those dealing with the world wars. 3) Actual Germans I’ve known.

In popular media, portrayals of Germans are typically negative. Germans during WWII are depicted as being especially evil and malignant. The history books are more of a mixed bag, depending on the author’s willingness to twist facts to suit the Allied narrative. Some of the worst history books I’ve read belong in the fiction section of the book store. Others take a more neutral approach, and acknowledge that most Germans were and are decent, respectable people. As for 3), I’ve interacted with a number of people born and raised in Germany, and who were alive during WWII. Those people produced a positive impression–an impression which largely undercut the anti-German propaganda described in 1) and 2).

It is obvious that Every Nation did one way or the other way war crimes but the Holocaust can’t be denied!

No one is arguing otherwise. Germany didn’t have enough food to feed everyone within its borders. Starting in 1939, it was no longer able export its Jewish population to Palestine or any other safe refuge. Unable to feed everyone, and unable to export its Jews, Hitler decided to allocate scarce food resources according to two bases: utility to the war effort, and perceived racial value.

They could have asked for help instead of taking everything by force.

Ask for help? From whom? They couldn’t have asked for help from the Allies, because they were the ones imposing the food blockade in the first place. They couldn’t ask for help from neutral nations, because no neutral nation had the naval power necessary to break the blockade.

Some might argue that the Allies wouldn’t have imposed an extermination food blockade on Germany had Germany not invaded Poland in the first place. But note that the Allies had never, ever intended to help Poland. The Western democracies did nothing to help Poland resist Soviet annexation during the Polish-Soviet War (1919 - '21). Nor did the treaties they made with Poland in 1939 call for Western democratic intervention in the case of a Soviet invasion of Poland. The Western democracies were perfectly happy to see Poland succumb to hostile foreign occupation–as long as the hostile foreign occupier was the Soviet Union, not Nazi Germany. If the Western democracies weren’t willing to lift a finger to help Poland resist Soviet invasion–which they weren’t–there is no reason at all to believe they would have helped Germany resist Soviet invasion either. Even before war began, Germany’s only hope for long-term survival was to be strong enough to resist Soviet invasion on its own, without help from anyone else. Had Germany played by the rules laid down in the Versailles Treaty, the Red Army would have annexed first Eastern Europe, and then Germany, without encountering serious resistance in either case. The Western democracies would have remained neutral.

Private Panic wrote,

Kurt - before I respond I’d like to hear your thoughts on my central point - that deliberate and targeted extermination
of 6 million Jews represents a selection process that damns the Nazis.

I would argue that every innocent, law-abiding citizen has the right to live. Due to the Allied food blockade and the resultant famine conditions within Germany, it was physically impossible for the German government to uphold that right for all the people living within Germany’s borders. Millions or (more likely) tens of millions of people were going to die, because Allied leaders had chosen to use food as a weapon. I would argue that the death of any innocent human being is a tragedy; and that the magnitude of this tragedy is not affected by whether the person in question is Jewish or non-Jewish. 6 million innocent Jewish deaths is neither better nor worse than 6 million innocent non-Jewish deaths would have been.

The above logic is based on a focus on individual rights. One could also argue that there is such a thing as group rights. Even if your enemies have forced famine conditions upon you, and even if you physically can’t feed everyone within your borders, it could be argued that the singling out of a particular group for extermination is a violation of that group’s right to continued existence. Moreover, such a singling out is also deeply unfair to the people chosen for extermination. (However, when your nation is subjected to famine, and some need to be chosen for starvation, virtually any selection process one might use will be unfair.)

If we accept the concept that groups have the right to exist, and that the Holocaust was a violation of the Jews’ right to continued existence, it stands to reason that any other policy which would lead to the eventual elimination of some group or another would also be a violation of group rights. For example, an immigration policy could be a violation of group rights, if it led to the eventual phasing out of existing groups within the host country.

Not everyone necessarily accepts the concept of group rights. If you reject that concept, fine. But I don’t see how it’s possible to argue that killing 6 million innocent Jews was worse than killing 6 million equally innocent non-Jews would have been, unless one appeals to the groups rights concept. As individuals, an innocent Jew’s right to live is neither greater than nor less than an innocent non-Jew’s right.

L Hoffman wrote:

Even if we look past the suffering part, the camps were a system for deliberately inflicting death.

You will recall that after Pearl Harbor, the United States rounded up its Japanese population (as well as recent German and Italian immigrants) and placed them in concentration camps. The American government didn’t trust those people and wanted them locked away. Initially, Germany’s motives for placing its Jewish population in concentration camps were similar to that. It was only after the war dragged on, and Germany’s food situation deteriorated, that the German concentration camps came to have a different, harsher purpose. (Just as the American concentration camps might well have had that same harsh purpose, had the United States been subjected to the same famine conditions Germany had been.)

We can have a debate about eugenics, but it is contrary to human free will and expression and incredibly subject to, if not being an outright tool of, political abuse.

A number of government policies and programs affect the gene pool. “Eugenics” implies that the government has benign intent toward that gene pool. The opposite of eugenics is for the government to take actions which affect the gene pool, while simply ignoring whether the effects are positive or negative.

But your whole argument and reasoning for absolving the National Socialist government of crimes against
humanity . . . is based on the premise that they were both doing a social good, either by killing the weak
deficient or the criminals, or that these killings were somehow merciful.

Before logging in and checking new posts, I was thinking that I could have done a better job of expressing myself clearly. The above text confirms my suspicion. So I’ll try again. :)

Let’s say that the Allied food blockade would have done 100 units of damage and harm, had the German government done nothing. The Allies should be blamed for the first 100 units of harm inflicted. If 120 units of harm were inflicted, the Allies should get the blame for the first 100, the Nazis for the remaining 20.

How do you measure harm inflicted? I’ll return to the three axes I mentioned earlier: quantity of people killed, per-person suffering experienced, and quality of people killed. For each of these three axes, I have not seen evidence that what the Nazis did was any worse than letting events take their natural course would have been. If under those circumstances you’d normally expect a years-long food blockade to inflict 100 units of harm, about 100 units were inflicted. This is not to suggest that every crime the Nazis committed can be explained in terms of their food situation. For example, they committed several thousand pre-war deaths, and those cannot be explained away by the food blockade or military necessity. Some of their other actions also cannot be explained in those terms. But on the whole, the number of people who died in Nazi-occupied Europe is about what I would have expected, given the food situation which pertained at the time. The per-person suffering was typically not worse than starving to death would have been. The quality of people killed was (to the best of my knowledge) neither higher nor lower than one would expect had the famine deaths been randomly distributed. I’m only seeing 100 units of blame to be assigned–or at least, not much more than 100 units. Like I said earlier, the Allies get the first 100 units of blame, and the Nazis get anything over and above.

[Paraphrasing one of my arguments] (a) it was the Allies fault that Germany had to do it,

The Allies used food as a weapon. They deliberately used food to kill people. When food is used in that way, people will look the way the concentration camp inmates looked. The presence of living skeletons and dead bodies indicates a successful food blockade. Whereas, the presence of healthy, well-fed people would indicate the food blockade had failed to achieve its intended, sinister purpose. The Allied food blockade succeeded in creating exactly the kind of famine conditions Allied leaders wanted Germany to have.

[Again paraphrasing me] (b) Germany did it in a logical (free from ideological bias) and humane way

I am not suggesting that they did it in a logical, unbiased, or humane way. What I am suggesting is that what the Nazis did was no crueler or more illogical than letting events take their natural course would have been. Ideology was of course taken into account when assigning victims. One would normally expect a highly ideological government to take its own ideology into account when assigning scarce food resources under famine conditions.

[Paraphrasing me] © the Allies did stuff just as bad, so it was either acceptable or at least not abnormal.

Large numbers of innocent civilians died during WWII. While some of those deaths can be attributed to military necessity, most died due to war crimes. Blame should be assigned for every civilian death not attributable to military necessity. Tens of millions of Slavs starved to death in German-occupied Europe. Blame for those deaths is typically assigned to the Nazi government. That is a case of the victors writing the history books. Those Slavs should be regarded as victims of the Allied food blockade, and blame assigned to every Allied leader who participated in that blockade. My intention is not to let anyone off the hook for avoidable civilian deaths. Rather, my intention is to assign blame for those avoidable deaths according to justice; and not as part of a fundamentally dishonest Allied propaganda effort.

The questions then (which I do not expect you to answer) are what is a “legitimate moral code”?

The three pillars of a legitimate moral code are love, imagination, and realism/intellectual honesty. Scientific findings are sometimes rejected due to ideology. Such rejection constitutes rejection of realism/intellectual honesty. Acceptance of science should be part of a broader effort to accept only true empirical statements, while rejecting false empirical claims. That broader effort is what I mean by “realism/intellectual honesty.”

Private Panic, thanks for the intelligent reply. I will do my best to address the points you’ve raised. However, I’m feeling a bit sleepy, so it’s possible something will get past me. If it does, let me know.

However, for “if I kill one person today then more people will be saved tomorrow” to possibly be
an absolute exoneration for killing one person today, I need perfect knowledge

I’m not sure about “perfect knowledge,” especially because there is so seldom perfect knowledge in this world. Newton’s laws of physics were once considered perfect knowledge, but have since been modified in the light of relativity, for example. Phenomena at the quantum level are not explained by Newtonian or relativistic principles. Perfect knowledge may be an unattainable goal.

Instead of “perfect knowledge,” I’d argue that it’s enough for people to make reasonable predictions, based on continuation of current trends. In 1940, German government officials predicted the occurrence of severe food shortages starting in 1941. That prediction later proved correct. At no point in the war (except possibly early on) did Germany have anything close to enough food. I don’t think that anyone is asserting that Germany killed more people than necessary to solve its food problems. On the contrary: millions of Soviet POWs conscripted for German weapons production died due to lack of food, despite Hitler’s order that they be fed. The government official tasked with feeding those POWs didn’t have food to feed them.

Inflicting per-person suffering that is no worse than might otherwise have happened is not a defence.

Normally, using food as a weapon (which the Allies did) implies widespread starvation. The blame for that suffering should be laid at the Allies’ feet, because it was their decision to use that weapon. In cases where the Nazis inflicted death in ways less painful than starvation, it should be recognized that they chose a lesser evil than the one the Allies chose. In cases where their chosen method of death was more painful than starvation they should be blamed for inflicting a greater evil than the one the Allies attempted to inflict.

the concentration camp system as a whole inflicted deliberate mental and physical anguish on millions who were not gassed.

My understanding is that the inmates were divided into two categories: the strong and the weak. The weak were gassed immediately. The strong were given small quantities of food, and large quantities of work. The combination of those two things led the strong to come to resemble human skeletons.

As cruel as that system was, it was not (at least not in most cases) a system for deliberately inflicting suffering. On the one hand, Germany was at war for its very existence, which meant that it needed as much work as possible from as many people as possible. On the other hand, its food situation was abysmal. The above-described approach to concentration camps was designed to maximize productive output while using as little of Germany’s (very scarce) food supply as possible. The thinking which led to that decision was based primarily on meeting Germany’s military and resource needs.

Such a process might be based on random selection or volunteers for the greater good.

I would argue that in a famine situation, the feeding of those who are above average in ability or character should be a higher priority than the feeding of those lacking in those two areas. Anyone who volunteers to be a famine victim might well be above-average in character. People like that shouldn’t be weeded out. Random selection would be better than asking for volunteers. But it would still not be good. Do you really want to snuff out the life of a bright and promising child, in order to feed an elderly person who only has a few years left anyway? Do you really want to starve some brilliant scientist or engineer so that a relatively unintelligent petty thief can live?

Decisions like the above shouldn’t be based on what makes us feel good. They should be based on what is good for the nation as a whole–and on that one criterion only.

If an irreproachable process of selecting those to die had been put in place then the Allies
would have been unable to avoid a share of the responsibility for those deaths.

I’m puzzled by the above view. I would argue instead that if the Allied food blockade and Stalin’s scorched earth policy were expected to kill X many millions of people, the Allies deserve the blame for the first X million deaths that occurred in Germany. Hitler deserves the blame for any deaths over and above X.

But a million deaths is not always the same as a million deaths. For instance, if nation A kills a million hardened criminals, and if nation B kills a million anti-communists (typically intelligent and idealistic people), nation B has committed a far worse crime than nation A.

When the Allies imposed their food blockade, they had every reason to believe it would kill tens of millions of relatively ordinary people. If the people the Nazis killed were higher in quality than the Allies had reason to expect, the Allies still deserve blame for the number of people killed. But the Nazis would deserve blame for the fact that the best people had been singled out.

But that’s just a hypothetical scenario. I am not aware that those whom the Nazis killed were either better or worse than those they let live.

but to most of us many of those loyal servants of the state were themselves guilty of far worse crimes than any common criminals.

Most of us have spent our lives immersed in fundamentally dishonest Allied propaganda. Opinions will tend to reflect the ideology of the propagandists, which is not necessarily the same thing as reflecting a legitimate moral code or accurate historical understanding. In particular, those propagandists would have people believe that the Nazis were somehow less moral than the communists or than Western democratic politicians. Neither assertion is even remotely true. Both the communists and the Western democracies were guilty of every major crime of which they accused the Nazis, specifically including the deliberate mass murder of millions of people. The guilt of Western and communist nations does not lessen the Nazis’ guilt–at least not in cases in which the Nazis were actually guilty. But just as a king under siege in a castle does not incur blood guilt by deciding which people to feed and which to let starve, I don’t think the Nazis can reasonably be blamed for the deaths caused by the Allied food blockade.