If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces know?

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wm
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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#16

Post by wm » 13 Aug 2020, 14:57

Sid Guttridge wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 14:22
1) The question does not mention the so-called "Holocaust at all.
holocaust.png
Sid Guttridge wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 14:22
2) Unlike the Grouse Season, the "Holocaust" had no official opening date. It was a rising series of pressures and killings that culminated in the death camps.
Not true. The Holocaust was ordered in December 1941 by Hitler. Do you know any historian contesting that fact?
On December 12, 1941, Hitler hosted the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter, that is the top echelons of the Nazi Party, for a gathering in his private apartment in Berlin. Goebbels recorded the gist of Hitler's lengthy remarks in his diary, including brief comments on the Jews:

"Concerning the Jewish question, the Fuhrer is determined to make a clean sweep. He prophesied to the Jews that if they were once again to cause a world war, the result would be their own destruction. That was no figure of speech. The world war is here, the destruction of the Jews must be the inevitable consequence. This question is to be viewed without sentimentality. It is our duty to have sympathy not for the Jews but only for our own German people. If the German people have now again sacrificed 160,000 dead on the eastern front, then the authors of this bloody conflict must pay for it with their lives. "
Four days after Rosenberg's meeting with Hitler, an inquiry from the Reichskommissariat Ostland as to whether all Jews should be liquidated regardless of age, sex, and economic interest was answered from Berlin:
"In the meantime clarity on the Jewish question has been achieved through oral discussion: economic interests are to be disregarded on principle in the settlement of this problem."
Moreover, Hitler's statement resolved a possible ambiguity about the timetable for the Final Solution.
In the fall of 1941, the anticipated timetable had been expressed in two ways—"after the war" and "next spring." In October these were two ways of expressing the same notion.
In December, however, after the Red Army counteroffensive and the American entry into the war, "after the war" and "next spring" were no longer two different expressions for the same timetable, and the conflict between the two had to be resolved. Hitler's remarks made it clear that the Final Solution would go forward "next spring" and would not be delayed until "after the war."
The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942 by Christopher R. Browning
Last edited by wm on 13 Aug 2020, 15:06, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#17

Post by Mori » 13 Aug 2020, 15:04

wm wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 13:49
Mori wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 13:19
I suppose Romanians had a clue given the ca. 40 000 Jews they slaughered in Oct-Nov 1941 in Odessa and vicinity, not to mention the additional ca. 100 000 Jews and 15 000 Roms they killed in the vicinity.

Please explain how on earth a single massacre proved the existence of the Holocaust, i.e., the plan to exterminate all Jews in German-controlled territories.
It's pretty obvious but you seem the only one not to see it (or maybe it's too disturbing): the systematic killing of a helpless population showed to everyone Jews and Roms were just fair game. It was the most explicit demonstration the goal was to murder as many as possible.

Killing more than 100,000 people is not a "single massacre" but mass murder on a grand scale.

That within the borders of Rumania the leadership was for a time more reluctant to kill its citizen should not obscure the dire reality of what the German policy consisted in, and how much it was spread not only within German troops but also towards their vassal countries.
The Soviets in the first days of the war slaughtered almost 100,000 of their prisoners (mostly Ukrainians and Poles) in so-called NKVD prisoner massacres.
Earlier, they slaughtered 110,000+ people during the so-called Polish Operation of the NKVD.

Using your reasoning that proves that a Soviet plan to exterminate the Poles and the Ukrainians existed. And it didn't.
You miss a significant point. Killing prisonners is one thing. Indiscriminate killing of whole populations - including babies and children, including old and sick - is another degree. The Soviet killing of PoW is an extremely severe crime, yet it focused on victims the killers had something against in terms of (most of the time imaginary) acts, or thoughts. This just does not exist in holocaust-like murders. There is nothing new it my statements. The Nuremberg tribunal thought the same when it created crimes against humanity as something else than war crimes.


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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#18

Post by Mori » 13 Aug 2020, 15:05

wm wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 13:41
Mori wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 13:24
Your ambiguous statements are spread in many threads. You also like to ask for sources: have you ever checked Eric Johnson's What we knew and Sönke Neitzel's Tapping Hitler's Generals?
So your argument is to read more books? Not very convincing.
My argument is not to read more books. It's to read elementary books to be at par with other people.

I also see that the mere idea of checking books that go against your preconceived opinions is a problem for you.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#19

Post by Sid Guttridge » 13 Aug 2020, 15:08

Hi wm,

I have already changed the "Holocaust" error, but thanks for the belated heads up anyway.

I don't know anyone, except you here, who ascribes a particular date to the start of the so-called "Holocaust".

What is more, your quote doesn't do so either!

The notion of the "Holocaust" as we understand it today, is essentially a post-war label attached to the mass killing of Jews by the Nazis. Mass killing of Jews by the Nazis began well before the date you give. How would you describe what the Einsatzgruppen were doing, if not mass murdering Jews?

Try: https://newrepublic.com/article/121807/ ... -holocaust

Cheers,

Sid.
Last edited by Sid Guttridge on 13 Aug 2020, 15:17, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#20

Post by wm » 13 Aug 2020, 15:10

Mori wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 15:04
The Soviet killing of PoW is an extremely severe crime,
They weren't POWs, they were political prisoners.
Half of them weren't even arrested, they were rounded up and executed.
Maybe you should read a few books before commenting first.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#21

Post by Ivan Ž. » 13 Aug 2020, 15:15

What is it that you want wm? What is the point of quoting when the Holocaust was officially ordered? If it was ordered in December 1941, do the previous murders and persecutions don't count? Are they all just separate events, accidents or arbitrary acts of various individuals? Years of the Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda, the movies Jud Süß, Der ewige Jude, Kristallnacht, what was all that if not a long overture to what would become known as the Holocaust. I really don't understand what is it that you want and trying to prove here but it's rather tasteless and disrespectful, and seems like a big waste of everybody's time.

Ivan

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#22

Post by wm » 13 Aug 2020, 15:23

Sid Guttridge wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 15:08
I don't know anyone, except you here, who ascribes a particular date to the start of the so-called "Holocaust".
That's argument from ignorance.
Sid Guttridge wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 15:08
The notion of the "Holocaust" as we understand it today, is essentially a post-war label attached to the mass killing of Jews by the Nazis. Mass killing of Jews by the Nazis began well before the date you give. How would you describe what the Einsatzgruppen were doing, if not mass murdering Jews?
No.
Holocaust - the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The Germans called this "the final solution to the Jewish question."
Encyclopedia Britannica
Holocaust is the final solution to the Jewish question through genocide. Eradication of an entire race, not some mass killings. Others were mass killed too.

Pre the end of 1941 the Nazis mass killed Jews, Russians, Poles for security reasons - as a result of the Commissar Order, but otherwise were ok with getting rid of Jews through Jewish emigration to Palestine, the US, colonies or to Asia.
It was called the final solution to the Jewish question.

Later the Jews were killed because they were Jews plain and simple.
Pre the end of 1941 the Jews had a chance of survival, later they didn't.
That the final solution to the Jewish question through genocide. That was the Holocaust.
Last edited by wm on 13 Aug 2020, 15:34, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#23

Post by Mori » 13 Aug 2020, 15:25

wm wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 15:10
Mori wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 15:04
The Soviet killing of PoW is an extremely severe crime,
They weren't POWs, they were political prisoners.
Half of them weren't even arrested, they were rounded up and executed.
Maybe you should read a few books before commenting first.
Well, if they weren't even "arrested", how can you call them "prisoners"? Maybe you should think twice before nitpicking.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#24

Post by wm » 13 Aug 2020, 15:31

I wrote:
Earlier, they slaughtered 110,000+ people during the so-called Polish Operation of the NKVD.
nothing there about prisoners.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#25

Post by Sid Guttridge » 13 Aug 2020, 16:53

Hi wm,

OK, so who else ascribes the formal start of the so-called "Holocaust" to a specific day?

You post the following Encyclopedia Britannica definition:

"Holocaust - the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The Germans called this "the final solution to the Jewish question."

That agrees with what I posted. It doesn't specify any cut off point that excludes the hundreds of thousands of Jews killed by the Einsatzgruppen.

The "Holocaust" was a rising continuum of deliberately inflicted deprivation and violence against the Jews that saw a steady rise in Jewish deaths almost from the moment war broke out.

"The final solution to the Jewish question" might reasonably be argued as the most destructive subsection of the "Holocaust", but not as a separate entity.

Cheers,

Sid9

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#26

Post by Mori » 13 Aug 2020, 17:01

wm wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 15:23
Pre the end of 1941 the Nazis mass killed Jews, Russians, Poles for security reasons - as a result of the Commissar Order, but otherwise were ok with getting rid of Jews through Jewish emigration to Palestine, the US, colonies or to Asia.
It was called the final solution to the Jewish question.

Later the Jews were killed because they were Jews plain and simple.
Pre the end of 1941 the Jews had a chance of survival, later they didn't.
That the final solution to the Jewish question through genocide. That was the Holocaust.
It's a simplistic view of history. It more sounds like the starting point of knowledge, before you read books deeper than the occasional extracts you pick here and there from websites. Don't be surprised that many contributors are more advanced than that.

Many of your comments demonstrate a Dunning–Kruger effect (I let you google that): low knowledge goes with self-confidence.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#27

Post by wm » 13 Aug 2020, 17:10

Holocaust - the systematic state-sponsored killing.
Till December 1941, the killings weren't systematic, they were arbitrary. Some people were killed millions of others weren't.
There were reasons for killings; security, reprisals, vengeance.

Massacres happened in Yougoslavia but at the same time in the Warsaw Ghetto Jews worked, danced in their cafés, protected by their own police, lived in relative security. They were more secure in their Ghetto than the Poles outside.
Similarily in Germany German Jews worked, enjoyed not that bad food, were surrounded by quite friendly Germans.

After December the killings became systematic.

And really what it has to do with anything?
The point is pre-December the Nazis didn't intend to kill them all, they would gladly expel the Jews abroad.
Post-December it was "kill them all."

Pre-December the killings were no different from the others were doing: the Soviets, Turks, Japanese, Serbs, Croats.
Post-December they were different.
Last edited by wm on 13 Aug 2020, 17:24, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#28

Post by wm » 13 Aug 2020, 17:15

Sid Guttridge wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 16:53
"The final solution to the Jewish question" might reasonably be argued as the most destructive subsection of the "Holocaust", but not as a separate entity.
The pre-December final solution was:
I hope that the concepts of Jews will be completely extinguished through the possibility of a large emigration of all Jews to Africa or some other colony.
Do you know who wrote that, and who considered [it] very good and correct?
Last edited by wm on 13 Aug 2020, 17:22, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#29

Post by Mori » 13 Aug 2020, 17:22

wm wrote:
13 Aug 2020, 17:10
Massacres happened in Yougoslavia but at the same time in the Warsaw Ghetto Jews worked, danced in their cafés, were protected by their own police, lived in relative security. They were more secure in their Ghetto than the Poles outside.
Similarily in Germany German Jews worked, enjoyed not that bad food, were surrounded by quite friendly Germans.
It's not the first time you suggest that Jews enjoyed priviledged under the 3rd Reich.

In another thread, you explained that being deported to Riga was a way to be safe from Allied bombing and that non-Jewish Germans had reasons to be jalous of the Jews... I am waiting for your comments on how the women's orchestra of Auschwitz made it such a nicer place than working in a factory in the Ruhr.

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Re: If the SS was the secret police of Hitler's regime and had a part in the Holocaust, did the general armed forces kno

#30

Post by Ivan Ž. » 13 Aug 2020, 17:25

The Jews were persecuted, locked, deported and killed before December 1941 - because they were Jews plain and simple. That's the point wm is trying to ignore for some reason, as if the dating and terminology-nitpicking (security reasons/Commissar Order/Final Solution) changes anything. Millions couldn't have been killed in one day. It started with men (not "dangerous" men - all men, elderly included), then it was continued with women and children. Why were those civilians shot in October 1941, in the photo I posted link to? They were all civilians - and largely elderly people. As a reprisal? Yes, but why them? Because they were Jews, plain and simple. Why were the German soldiers volunteering to kill them, why were the soldiers in a good mood before, during and after the executions? Why were they sad because they couldn't kill everyone according to the order? Years of the brainwashing Nazi propaganda - or merely individual feelings of a common German soldier? Take a guess. Did you read any reports on such executions, see photographs, their faces, both of the victims and their executioners? I sure hope not, otherwise you'd hardly have an excuse for this pontless, so-called discussion.

Ivan

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