Qvist wrote:1. Ignorance of context. It takes a verbal statement by Horthy that was made in a specific context, and assumes that it is a straightforward factual statement about what it purports to be about. It also takes for granted that Horthy knows what he's talking about. Horthy might very well have been lying, or been badly informed, or simply used this in a conversational context for some other, unstated, purpose.
AFAIK it was a private communication (letter) from Nagybanyai to his chief enforcer, PM Teleki. As such, I think it that it states clearly the Horthy-preferred antisemitic policies - a "rational" policy that would bring minimal damage to hungarian economy.
Given Horthy's pedigree and the setting of the communication (private letter from diktator to enforcer-in-chief), it is unlikely that he was lying, or that he had been badly informed.
2. Lack of sufficiency. Even if it is a straightforward statement made with factual intent, it doesn't even begin to provide grounds for believing its accuracy. The understanding of large complex phenomena aren't enabled by single statements made by Admirals. You would need to construct a viable argument demonstrating, or at least supporting, that the consequences would indeed be such.
That's why from the 'macroeconomic' POV, the size of the fine (1 billion RM) imposed on the jewish community by Adolf and his merry band of exterminators is likely a better measure of impact.
3. Lack of relevance. Horthy is speaking about Hungary. Even if his argument is valid for that country at that time, that does not mean it would be automatically valud also for Germany.
Lack of relevance? Horthy's Hungary was economically linked to Austria and Germany. Like Fouche's "pire qu'un crime" quote, Horthy's statement is particularly strong because it comes from the side (i.e. Axis) employing the policy. A similar statement coming from say Henry Morgenthau would definitely carry less weight.
4. Contrafactuality. Nazi Germany did remove their Jewish minority from the economy. It's not a hypothetical scenario in Germany - the results are known, if not by you, since you prefer to speculate about them rather than describe them. This of course renders the whole Horthy statement completely irrelevant to the matter you are so misguidedly attempting to apply it to.
Sure. You're more than welcome to point me to the facts, then.
That's because you are content to confuse what appears to be plausible to you with actual knowledge about history. The point is that if you have no direct knowledge of the state of the German winter equipment, then you are in no position whatsoever to have any opinion on its avilability. And, it so happens that ljadw is right on this point - the problem was not a lack of equipment as such, but the inability to bring it forward in time.
And I pointed out that this is such a load of baloney that is incomprehensible how this is still believed. The frontline german soldier winter kits were (logistics-wise) about/less than 1 days' worth of supplies. Which they were receiving as they were pressing on the attack into early December.
But of course, that's only the tip of the iceberg, because your argument isn't merely that there was too little winter equipment, but also that the reason for this was the destruction of Jewish small business. An argument that of course requires showing how the German army was reliant on supplies from that sector in this area, why it was impossible for it to replace it when it disappeared and how that impacted on its stores of winter equipment. Which you haven't, and which would be a sad waste of time to attempt, as its only result would be to make it clear to you what is presumably already abundantly clear to most people reading this thread, namely that you have no idea what you're talking about.
You're right. I only "know" what losing his merchant jewish pals meant to my kulak grandfather.
The hard data backing your harsh words would be appreciated, though.
I agree that it is reasonable to assume to some extent that the loss of several thousand doctors had a derimental effect in some way, but that is still no sufficient basis for attributing to this far-reaching consequences at the front. You would, for example, need to show what direct effect it had on the army medical corps, which is not necessarily the same as the effect it had on German society in general. And you would have to offer some sort of actual backing for the claim that medical care in the army declined as a result of the unavailability of jewis doctors. Again, you are simply putting assumption in the place of any actual and relevant knowledge.
http://www.jpands.org/hacienda/weyers.htmlYes, doesn't that make it sound really significant? Of course, when you put the 250,000 or so male jews of useful military age in prewar Austria and Germany in the context of the fact that more than 18 million men served in the Wehrmacht during the war (foreigners not included) it gets slightly more difficult to assume that this made a crucial difference.
I was thinking more in terms of the 360+ (900?) thousand noncombat casualties during the 41-42 Soviet winter counterstrike, not of the the actual bodies jews could have contributed to the Axis cause.
You know what, I don't think I'm going to excuse you after all. You are so far away from making viable historical arguments, and so happy to just blithely generalise from speculative assumptions in lieu of any actual relevant historical knowledge, that it is reasonable to conclude that you don't actually understand what a relevant historical argument consists in. You belong to that special category of men who can take a point that is virtually self-supporting (which is the case with the entirely reasonable proposition that the persecution and murder of the Jews was a drain on the German war effort rather than a contribution to it), and still end up painting yourself into a corner due to wild exaggeration and ignorance of the nature of historical proof.
No one questions that the Holocaust was detrimental also to the war-making capabilities of Germany. That does not mean that the effects were limitless. If you want to be able to argue that effects were of a scale and nature that had a major and direct impact on events at the front, then that must be demonstrated through a convincing causal chain that includes actual and specific familiarity with the phenomena described - or reference must be made to somebody who has carried out such an analysis.
Reference was made to the size of the fine Nazis were able to impose on a tiny sliver of the population - 0.76%. Reference was also made to statement of policy's impact from a person of importance and influence at the time.
Reference was made to a study of the impact of Nazi policies on one aspect of life in the Third Reich (medicine).
But if it's dismissed as not relevant to the discussion?
If you want outlandish (but still within the physically possible) speculation - how about recruiting jewish refugees from western teritorries of bolshevik Russia, which counted in the higher hundreds of thousands in Nazi Poland (at a minimum), to join the Wehrmacht as 'advisors' and help set up local logistical support and corraling of population to help the Nazi warmachine? - then you can talk about "silly" - although keep in mind what New York / Boston wiseguys did for
Operazione Husky.
But germans could not be bothered to even employ all the armor and heavy artillery they had on hand, such forethought is indeed akin to the flying T34s of Khalkin Gol.
by ljadw on 31 Jul 2012 16:37 
