What size did Hitler want his Polish puppet state to be?

[Futurist]

I would not wish to develop this theme.

Then why respond here at all?

[wm]

It was going to be more or less territories of the General Government, the Germans held exploratory talks with some Polish politicians (especially with Witos), weren't especially successful, and then Stalin arrived with his veto.

Some people were willing (for example Studnicki) but they represented nobody and were rejected by the Germans.

[Futurist]

It was going to be more or less territories of the General Government, the Germans held exploratory talks with some Polish politicians (especially with Witos), weren't especially successful, and then Stalin arrived with his veto.

Some people were willing (for example Studnicki) but they represented nobody and were rejected by the Germans.

Had these talks been more successful and Stalin not vetoed this idea, do you think that this Polish collaborationist government would have fully cooperated with the Nazis in regards to the Holocaust? Or would they have--like Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria--tried to keep a large part of their own Jews alive?

[wm]

There would be no Holocaust, pre-1941 Hitler wanted to get rid of "his" Jews, not to kill them all but "merely" dump them somewhere.
Poland was a perfect place, it was actually partially realized - the so-called Lublin Reservation.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi wm,

As it was always with Hitler's power to ensure there was no so-called "Holocaust", you cannot say with any certainty that "There would be no Holocaust".

Nor was there any obligation on Hitler to accept any veto from Stalin, and he could certainly have reversed one with impunity after June 1941.

The simple fact is that Nazi Germany recognized no successor Polish regime, even in a collaborationist role. This was unique in the German administration of countries in occupied Europe. It implies strongly that, because it stood between the Alt Reich and the lebensraum desired in the Ukraine, Poland and the Poles were simply to disappear by one means or another.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Futurist]

There would be no Holocaust, pre-1941 Hitler wanted to get rid of "his" Jews, not to kill them all but "merely" dump them somewhere.
Poland was a perfect place, it was actually partially realized - the so-called Lublin Reservation.

There would still be a Nazi invasion of the USSR in this scenario, no? If so, is Hitler going to deport the Soviet Jews into Poland as well? Also, is Hitler going to maintain all of the Jews in Poland right up to the point that the Red Army liberates Poland?

[Futurist]

Hi wm,

As it was always with Hitler's power to ensure there was no so-called "Holocaust", you cannot say with any certainty that "There would be no Holocaust".

Nor was there any obligation on Hitler to accept any veto from Stalin, and he could certainly have reversed one with impunity after June 1941.

The simple fact is that Nazi Germany recognized no successor Polish regime, even in a collaborationist role. This was unique in the German administration of countries in occupied Europe. It implies strongly that, because it stood between the Alt Reich and the lebensraum desired in the Ukraine, Poland and the Poles were simply to disappear by one means or another.

Cheers,

Sid.

Is Alt-Reich a pun?

Also, Yes, Hitler could have certainly created a rump puppet Polish state after the start of Operation Barbarossa if he would have so desired. Hank Frank would have lost his fiefdom, but so what?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi futurist,

Alt Reich is the term for the old Reich before Hitler began his expansion.

I had always assumed that the term "Alt Right" (to which I presume you are referring) had begun life as an obscure pun on "Alt Reich".

Cheers,

Sid

[Futurist]

Hi wm,

As it was always with Hitler's power to ensure there was no so-called "Holocaust", you cannot say with any certainty that "There would be no Holocaust".

Nor was there any obligation on Hitler to accept any veto from Stalin, and he could certainly have reversed one with impunity after June 1941.

The simple fact is that Nazi Germany recognized no successor Polish regime, even in a collaborationist role. This was unique in the German administration of countries in occupied Europe. It implies strongly that, because it stood between the Alt Reich and the lebensraum desired in the Ukraine, Poland and the Poles were simply to disappear by one means or another.

Cheers,

Sid.

Is Alt-Reich a pun?

Also, Yes, Hitler could have certainly created a rump puppet Polish state after the start of Operation Barbarossa if he would have so desired. Hank Frank would have lost his fiefdom, but so what?

That's HANS Frank, not Hank Frank! Sorry for the typo here.

[wm]

Nor was there any obligation on Hitler to accept any veto from Stalin,

not quite:

The Stalin-Hitler Pact, 1939
...
The question of whether the interests of both parties make desirable the maintenance of an independent Polish States and how such a state should be bounded can only be definitely determined in the course of further political developments. In any event both Governments will resolve this question by means of a friendly agreement.

As it was always with Hitler's power to ensure there was no so-called "Holocaust", you cannot say with any certainty that "There would be no Holocaust".

The Holocaust was an extreme measure taken in extreme, apocalyptic-like circumstances. As long the very survival of the Nazis is not at stake the Holocaust is pointless and undesirable, Himmler to Hitler in 1940:

out of inner conviction, one rejects as un-German and impossible the Bolshevist method of physical extermination of a people.

[wm]

There would still be a Nazi invasion of the USSR in this scenario, no? If so, is Hitler going to deport the Soviet Jews into Poland as well? Also, is Hitler going to maintain all of the Jews in Poland right up to the point that the Red Army liberates Poland?

After the invasion the plans changed, all the Jews were going to be deported behind the Urals.
The German invasion of the USSR was forced by the failure of the war with Britain so it depends.

Also, Yes, Hitler could have certainly created a rump puppet Polish state after the start of Operation Barbarossa if he would have so desired. Hank Frank would have lost his fiefdom, but so what?

Hitler didn't need a puppet Polish state for anything, by trying to create one he merely virtue signaled his willingness to be a nice guy to the British.
After the invasion of the USSR, gloves were off and a Polish state became a pointless burden.

[Futurist]

So, if the Nazis will end their war with Britain in 1940 or 1941, you don't think that the Nazis are actually going to invade the USSR? Do Hitler's words in Mein Kampf not mean anything? :

https://archive.org/stream/meinkampf035 ... p_djvu.txt

"We National Socialists, however, must go further: the
right to soil and territory can become a duty if decline seems
to be in store for a great nation unless it extends its territory.
Even more especially if what is involved is not some little
negro people or other, but the German mother of all life,
which has given its cultural picture to the contemporary
world. Germany will be either a world power or witt not be at
all. To be a world power, however, it requires that size
which nowadays gives its necessary importance to such
a power, and which gives life to its citizens.

With this, we National Socialists consciously draw a line
through the foreign-policy trend of our pre-War period. We
take up at the halting place of six hundred years ago. We
terminate the endless German drive to the south and west of
Europe, and direct our gaze towards the lands in the east. We
finally terminate the colonial and trade policy of the pre-War
period, and proceed to the territorial policy of the future.

But if we talk about new soil and territory in Europe to-
day, we can think primarily only of Russia and its vassal
border states."

With this quote, it seems pretty clear that Hitler aimed to resume the Ostsiedlung by expanding into Russia and its vassal border states.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi wm,

You post: "The Holocaust was an extreme measure taken in extreme, apocalyptic-like circumstances."

No it wasn't, "….taken in extreme, apocalyptic-like circumstances". It was "an extreme measure" undertaken by the Third Reich's leadership at the height of their power, when it still seemed they could win the war.

More importantly, you are misquoting Himmler by leaving out one key word: if. He apparently actually wrote, ".....this method (shipping Jews off to a colony in Africa or somewhere similarly distant) is still the mildest and best, if one rejects the Bolshevik method of physical extermination of a people out of inner conviction as un-German and impossible". It would appear from subsequent events that he certainly did not reject "the Bolshevik method of physical extermination of a people as un-German and impossible" because he went ahead and tried to do precisely that to the Jews.

Cheers,

Sid.

[wm]

I think you confuse territorial dimensions with military or political power. Mongolia is three times larger than Germany but an insignificant power in comparison. Israel is seventeen times smaller than Germany but an equal power (if not stronger.)

Similarly, in the middle of 1942, Japan controlled enormous territories but certainly wasn't stronger than pre-war.
Actually, at that time Japan was a dead country walking waiting for a coup de grâce.

According to Christopher Browning, the Holocaust was given a go-ahead in the middle of December 1941, and by that time:

- Operation Barbarossa failed completely. And Barbarossa was a one-time wonder, impossible to be repeated for the reason of Germany's military and economic weakness.

- the Battle of Moscow, a desperate effort to win the war before the winter resulted in such a catastrophic defeat that some German generals recommended abandoning the war completely.

- the US entered the war against Germany.

- the food situation in Germany was considered to be catastrophic:

The German grain harvest in both 1940 and 1941 had been well below average and imports from the occupied territories had not made up the difference.
For lack of feed the swineherd had been reduced by 25 percent since the start of the war, triggering a cut in meat rations as of June 1941 Bread rations had only been sustained by making severe inroads into grain stocks. By the end of 1941, these were nearing exhaustion.
The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze

If all that isn't apocalyptic-like I don't know what is.
In December 1941 Germany was another dead country walking and the Germans were aware of that.

[wm]

More importantly, you are misquoting Himmler by leaving out one key word: if. He apparently actually wrote, ".....this method (shipping Jews off to a colony in Africa or somewhere similarly distant) is still the mildest and best, if one rejects the Bolshevik method of physical extermination of a people out of inner conviction as un-German and impossible". It would appear from subsequent events that he certainly did not reject "the Bolshevik method of physical extermination of a people as un-German and impossible" because he went ahead and tried to do precisely that to the Jews.

"If" is just a stylistic device used in other places too:
If other small and isolated national groups can be found in other places
If we acknowledge such a child to be as of our blood

That he changed his mind later isn't a proof of earlier intentions.