Britain makes peace in 1940 - What happens to the Jews?

[JonS]

Lol - it was Britain's fault the Jews (and gypsies, et al) were murdered?

Perfidious Albion indeed :roll:

I knew, as soon as I saw you were posting here, that you'd be somehow trying to blame the industrial slaughter of millions on anybody except the actual culprits. I wonder what the Madagascarese would have thought about having Germany turn their Island into a dumping ground? Do you even care? You really are a predictable dork.

[JonS]

Close analysis of the genesis of the physical destruction of the Jews under German control reveals that the crucial factor that brought it about was the German failure to defeat the Soviet Union, which frustrated the original plans for dealing with the large Jewish population of that country.

Ah, yes. Of course. That totally expains why the wholesale murder of the Jews and all the other people Hitler and his Germans didn't like began in September 1939 ... just under 2 years before the invasion of Russia began. :roll:

[Baltasar]

Just to clarify: Do these sources state explicitly that Britain and France would be required to do the actual shipping or is that a conclusion coming from the assumption that Germany did not posess sufficient shipping?

Could you also specify which plan exactly you are referring to as there were several of them to go around.

[michael mills]

From memory, the books showed that the question of the shipping required to transport such a large number of Jews to Madagascar formed a major element in the planning process, and the planners proposed that shipping would nned to be provided by both Britain and France, since Germany itself did not possess a large enough fleet.

Again from memory, both books dealt with both the Foreign Office and RSHA plans, which really were not substantially different. In both plans the question of shipping was the same.

But why not read the books?

By the way, the book by Brechtken also deals with the Polish plans, as well as the German ones.

[Von Schadewald]

There can't be a full Holocaust ( ie 5 million Jews killed in 3 years) without a 1942 Wannsee Conference.

If there's peace with Britain in 1940, would such a conference even take place, ever?

If so, would it be much before or after 20-1-42?

[michael mills]

Ah, yes. Of course. That totally expains why the wholesale murder of the Jews and all the other people Hitler and his Germans didn't like began in September 1939

Except of course that the wholesale murder of the Jews did not begin in September 1939.

The only group of people the German Government planned to subject to summary execution at the time of its invasion of Poland consisted of ethnic Polish members of anti-German nationalist organisations and militias.

The Germans went into Poland without any plan whatever for dealing with the Jews there. Once things had settled down, and the German commanders realised how many Jews there were in the German Zone of Occupation, they adopted a policy of pushing the Jews across the demarcation line into the Soviet Zone. No obstacles were placed in the way of Jews trying to flee into the Soviet Zone, which is totally incompatible with a German desire to catch the Jews and exterminate them.

As I wrote previously, there is documentary proof that the Germans asked the Soviet Government to allow all the Jews in the German Zone of Occupation to be transferred into Soviet territory. That did not work because the Soviet Government rejected the request.

Once it had proved impossible to expel all the Jews in the German Zone of Occupation into Soviet territory, the German authorities began to concentrate them in ghettos, which were designed to be temporary holding places pending the final expulsion from Europe, either to Madagascar or Central Asia or both. Thus, no wholesale killing, just a few cases of boutique killing.

[michael mills]

If there's peace with Britain in 1940, would such a conference even take place, ever?

Obviously there would have been conferences dealing with the logistics of the transfer of Jews out of Europe, either to Madagascar or Central Asia or both. Transport would have been a major issue for discussion and decision.

[michael mills]

A post by michael mills containing insulting remarks against another member was removed

Jon S wrote this in reference to another Forum member:

You really are a predictable dork.

It is not the sort of comment I would make, although I might say that a Forum member was displaying a lack of knowledge if that was evident from his claims.

This sort of ad hominem attack does not advance the discussion one iota. If anything, it demonstrates the dearth of cogent arguments on the part of the person making the attack.

[JonS]

Thus, no wholesale killing

As the Scots might say; "not proven"

just a few cases of boutique killing.

Thus spake the banality of evil.

[Baltasar]

From memory, the books showed that the question of the shipping required to transport such a large number of Jews to Madagascar formed a major element in the planning process, and the planners proposed that shipping would nned to be provided by both Britain and France, since Germany itself did not possess a large enough fleet.

Again from memory, both books dealt with both the Foreign Office and RSHA plans, which really were not substantially different. In both plans the question of shipping was the same.

So, in the end, your memory says that the logistics were a problem which was suggested to be solved by having Britain and France do the actual transportation. However, none of the plans actually called for the Allies to do this in the sense that they would be required to do so. For me, this means that the transportation was an open question where people just had thrown in ideas, not more. This also means that if Germany and her allies had to do the transportation themselves, the conditions could easily be imagined to be similar to the cattle wagons used for the deportation to the concentration camps.

[michael mills]

.......the conditions could easily be imagined to be similar to the cattle wagons used for the deportation to the concentration camps.

Imagine away, Baltasar. Believe whatever you want to believe.

But there is nothing whatever in the German planning for the transportation of Jews to Madagascar that gives any basis for the supposition that the conditions of transport would have been so bad that large numbers of the transportees would have died en route. You in fact suggested cthat the great majority would die en route, without any factualk basis.

There were in fact real historical instances where the German authorities moved Jewish prisoners by ship, for example the evacuation of the surviving Jews from Riga to Danzig in the summer of 1944. There was no mass mortality on board the ships carrying the Jews.

Remember that any transportation of Jews to Madagascar would have occurred under conditions of peace, after the termination of hostilities between Britain and Germany. There would thus be no reason why the Jews being transported could not have been adequately accommodated and fed during the voyage.

Moist probablky the conditions on board the ships would have been similar to those on the boats carrying emigrants to North America before the First World War. They were very crowded, and conditions were not comfortable, but there was no mass mortality among the passengers.

[Baltasar]

But there is nothing whatever in the German planning for the transportation of Jews to Madagascar that gives any basis for the supposition that the conditions of transport would have been so bad that large numbers of the transportees would have died en route. You in fact suggested cthat the great majority would die en route, without any factualk basis.

These cattlewagons are the only comparible transportation I can think of, thus it seems likely that conditions on German transports for Jews, Gypsies and other "unwanted" would be somewhat similar, peace conditions or not. Peace with the west wouldn't mean peace per se for continental Europe anyway.

[michael mills]

These cattlewagons are the only comparible transportation I can think of

Then your thinking is rather restricted.

Perhaps you might consider the fact some groups of Jews, particularly from Western Europe, were transported to death camps on normal passenger trains, in pullman coaches.

The transports of German Jews to Lodz, to Minsk and to Riga between October 1941 and February 1942 used cattle-cars, but there is no hint of any of the Jews carried in them dying during their journey.

The fact is that the accounts of large numbers of Jews dying from heat-stroke, dehydration or suffocation during the journey to the extermination camps occur only in the context of the killings perpetrated at the Globocnik camps, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka. In the course of that extermination action directed against the Jews of occupied Poland, the German security ploce at the places of origin did cram so many Jews into each cattle-car that in many cases a large mortality did occur even before the transports arrived at their destination.

For example, there is extant the detailed report of a German police officer who commanded the guard detachment on a transport from Kolomyja to Belzec. He describes how the cars were crammed full beyond their capacity, and how large numbers of corpses were off-loaded on arrival at Belzec.

However, transports to other camps do not seem to have been so lethal. For example, comparison of the transport lists of Jews deported to Auschwitz from France and other places with the lists of arrivals at Auschwitz show that there was practically no mortality of the deportees during their journey which sometimes lasted several days; usually the number of arrivals matches the number despatched.

Thus, there is absolutely no reason to believe that sea-borne transport of Jews to Madagascar, carried under peace-time conditions, would have resulted in an abnormal mortality during the journey.

[Baltasar]

Then your thinking is rather restricted.

Can't you just quit that sort of childish behaviour...

Thus, there is absolutely no reason to believe that sea-borne transport of Jews to Madagascar, carried under peace-time conditions, would have resulted in an abnormal mortality during the journey.

Peace with the west would mean only a temporary lull in activity on the Axis side, there was still Russia to deal with and then the question of how continental Europe would be shaped in the aftermath of the fall of France.

What would you consider abnormal mortality rate during a journey to the other side of the world with the few transport ships the Germans had?
Was there any timetable for these deportations to be finished, ie before Barbarossa?

[Terry Duncan]

Has anyone looked at the numbers to be shipped to the wonderful island paradise that is Madagascar and the shipping available for this task? If shipped on the regular passanger shipping that plied that route, the task might be possible within a generation, unless all available shipping is to be devoted to the task in which case what is Britain going to do about its need to import and export goods to survive?

What would you consider abnormal mortality rate during a journey to the other side of the world with the few transport ships the Germans had?

Having worked in an industry that deals with exactly this sort of problem, I can say it is not unusual for a passanger to die on a liner during a cruise, even if it is not common. You have two or three thousand people en-route for maybe two or three weeks, so effectively a small town comprising a cross section of society from young to old and with all the attendant health issues, therefore deaths will happen. However, they are scarce enough to make the cruise industry a relatively safe bet and not the last thing to do before you die.

If you decide to cram people onto ships ill-suited to the purpose - and trans-equatorial travel is not something all ships are suitably equipped to cope with even when not overcrowded, naval vessels were specifically eqipped to allow service in these areas for one example - you can expect to see many problems, not only heat exhaustion, and with the more primitive medical facilities of the time, it would only take an outbreak of disease to see hundreds die on a single ship. Such problems still occur where people undertake to smuggle immegrants into other nations today, where the death rate is estimated to be as much as 50%.