The Final Solution: Why not kill them immediately?

neugierig · Post by **neugierig** » 22 Jan 2005 03:31

[This thread was split from the "Excursis on KL Auschwitz and Dachau" thread by the moderator - DT]

Quote:
‘[…]If extermination of large groups of people was the objective, and the technology has been proven effective, then the proliferation of such technology would be a natural development[…]”

This is it in a nutshell. If extermination was the objective, why not built the gaschamber in Dachau sooner and use it? Why not built one for every camp in Germany proper? Why waste all those resources to ship the Jews to some far away camps in Poland? And not only that, why experiment with steam, electrocution, diesel, etc.? Why not utilize this ‘effective technology’, i.e., killing with Zyklon B?

Those questions have never been answered, satisfactorily, IMHO.

Regards
Wilf

Agadanik · Post by **Agadanik** » 22 Jan 2005 05:42

neugierig wrote: why experiment with steam, electrocution, diesel, etc.? Why not utilize this ‘effective technology’, i.e., killing with Zyklon B?

Technology as a concept is dynamic, not static. Thus, search for improved or new killing methods does not put in doubt the existence of an objective (i.e. extermination of large groups of people). To the contrary, investment in technology proves that a genuine need existed. This is a true phenomenon throughout the history of mankind.

As to why Western European Jews needed to be transported East rather than murdered in the areas they inhabited - I don't know enough about Holocaust history to answer that. Perhaps David Thompson can help?
rgds -a

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 22 Jan 2005 06:54

neugierig -- You asked:

If extermination was the objective, why not built the gaschamber in Dachau sooner and use it? Why not built one for every camp in Germany proper? Why waste all those resources to ship the Jews to some far away camps in Poland? And not only that, why experiment with steam, electrocution, diesel, etc.? Why not utilize this ‘effective technology’, i.e., killing with Zyklon B?
Those questions have never been answered, satisfactorily, IMHO.

You're not seeing the opportunity here to maximize benefits to the people and state in the New Germany, neugierig. Extermination can take many forms -- gassing, shooting, starving, exposure to disease, or destruction through labor. Extermination can even be profitable, when it takes the form of killing or starving "useless eaters" (so you don't have to feed them), stealing their property (so you don't have to pay them), and working the ill-fed remainder to death in slave labor projects (so you can turn a profit on them before they die). The business of extermination, if handled properly, can even give dedicated and hard-working SS officers the chance to make a little money on the side. The proposition is much easier to understand if you think of the Nazi extermination program not just as genocide, but often as a form of genocidal capitalism.

The SS-WVHA: violent police entrepreneurs
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=63443
Cost of slave labor to SS industries
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 120#577120
Documents relating to "Aktion Reinhardt"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=64269
Testimony of Dr. jur. Konrad Morgen
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 0653#50653

One of your questions was:

Why waste all those resources to ship the Jews to some far away camps in Poland?

From "The program of the NSDAP (1920/1941)," at:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 467#624467

4. Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently no Jew can be a member of the race.

5. Whoever has no citizenship is to be able to live in Germany only as a guest, and must be under the authority of legislation for foreigners.

* * * * *

7. We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens. If it is impossible to sustain the total population of the State, then the members of foreign nations (non-citizens) are to be expelled from the Reich.

8. Any further immigration of non-citizens is to be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans, who have immigrated to Germany since the 2 August 1914, be forced immediately to leave the Reich.

Compare these irrevocable demands of the NSDAP program with what Heydrich said at Wannsee in January 1942 "to those participating in the conference to afford him their support in the carrying out of the tasks in connection with the solution":

The Chief of the Security Police and the SD thereafter gave a brief review of the battle conducted up to now against these enemies. The most important aspects are:

a. Forcing the Jews out of the various fields of the community life of the German people.

b. Forcing the Jews out of the living space [Lebensraum] of the German people.

In execution of these efforts there was undertaken -- as the only possible provisional solution -- the acceleration of the emigration of the Jews from Reich territory on an intensified and methodical scale.

* * * * *

III. The emigration program has now been replaced by the evacuation of the Jews to the East as a further solution possibility, in accordance with previous authorization by the Fuehrer. [The original shows the paragraph underscored by hand and on the margin a large exclamation point covering the length of the paragraphs.]

These actions are of course to be regarded only as a temporary substitute; nonetheless, here already, the coming Final Solution [Kommende Endloesung] of the Jewish Question is of great importance.

* * * * *

Under proper direction the Jews should now in the course of the Final Solution [Endloesung] be brought to the East in a suitable way for use as labor. In big labor gangs, with separation of the sexes, the Jews capable of work are brought to these areas and employed in road building, in which task undoubtedly a great part will fall out through natural diminution [natuerliche Verminderung].

The remnant that finally is able to survive all this--since this is undoubtedly the part with the strongest resistance--must be treated accordingly [entsprechend behandelt werden] since these people, representing a natural selection, are to be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish development. (See the experience of history.)

Minutes of the Wannsee Conference
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 748#579748

Agadanik -- You asked:

As to why Western European Jews needed to be transported East rather than murdered in the areas they inhabited - I don't know enough about Holocaust history to answer that. Perhaps David Thompson can help?

I don't think that the Nazis were very forthright or candid with their Axis allies and puppet governments in the occupied territories about what was happening to the Jews that were deported. The "evacuation" or "resettlement in the East" cover story was used to facilitate the deportations. It is unlikely that murdering the Jews in place would have gone unnoticed, and might have ended or substantially hindered any cooperative effort by the Axis allies and puppet governments in rounding up their Jewish citizens and residents. Remember that these deportations were taking place at the same time as the Nazi compulsory labor program started (began Apr 1942), which was not only a source of widespread discontent, but also put the formerly insignificant resistance movements of western Europe into overdrive.

neugierig · Post by **neugierig** » 23 Jan 2005 02:08

Mr. Thompson, since you started a new thread on this, I should at least answer. Up front, I have heard most, if not all of the arguments as to why the Jews were shipped half way across Europe to murder them. Alas, not one of them is convincing.

Agadanik writes:
“Technology as a concept is dynamic, not static. Thus, search for improved or new killing methods does not put in doubt the existence of an objective (i.e. extermination of large groups of people). To the contrary, investment in technology proves that a genuine need existed. This is a true phenomenon throughout the history of mankind.”

No argument here, but what the Nazis allegedly used for killing in Auschwitz and the Reinhardt camps was not an advancement, but several steps back. For Treblinka we have quite a few outlandish methods mentioned, but, they finally settled on diesel exhaust, as per the Düsseldorf Treblinka trial as well as the Munich Belzec trial. Now, if it is at all possible to use diesel exhaust for mass killing, it has to be the most cumbersome method one can think of and certainly not an advancement in technology.

My point. DEGESCH, the company that produced Zyklon B offered a gaschamber they had designed for the killing of lice and their nits in clothing. This was a fully automated design using the Kreislauf (circulation) principle, were heated air was blown onto the Zyklon ‘crystals’ which not only accelerated the release of the poison from the carrier substance, but also helped to distribute the poisonous gasses. Did the Nazis use this available technology? No. Why was the DEGESCH model not used? It was the most efficient and economical system available.

David Thompson:
“[…]It is unlikely that murdering the Jews in place would have gone unnoticed,[…]”

The killing of the Jews did not go unnoticed in other locations either, we are told. But I am not suggesting that they should have been killed on location. There were several KZ’s in Germany proper, why nor equip them with gaschambers and kill the Jews from France etc., which were unable to work, in them, instead of shipping them east. Why even built a gaschamber in Dachau that late? Why not built it following Hitlers decision to kill the Jews, sometime in 1941, (summer, fall or winter), although a direct order has not been found.

Any kind of fuel was in short supply. We used our car for the last time in the fall of 1942, after this, no more gasoline for pleasure use. Coal for heating was also handled like gold. So, why ship the Jews all the way to the Rheinhardt camps and waste all that energy? Why even built those camps? Why not ship them to Auschwitz, which was ‘underutilized’, according to Mr. Piper.

Many questions and I have yet to get an answer that makes sense. And, unless something new comes up, I am not interested in going around in circles again. Been there, done that.

Agadanik · Post by **Agadanik** » 23 Jan 2005 03:17

neugierig wrote:what the Nazis allegedly used for killing in Auschwitz and the Reinhardt camps was not an advancement, but several steps back.
DEGESCH, the company that produced Zyklon B offered a gaschamber they had designed for the killing of lice and their nits in clothing. This was a fully automated design using the Kreislauf (circulation) principle, were heated air was blown onto the Zyklon ‘crystals’ which not only accelerated the release of the poison from the carrier substance, but also helped to distribute the poisonous gasses. Did the Nazis use this available technology? No. Why was the DEGESCH model not used?

I am not familiar with the Degesch gas chamber, but am sure your description of its technological superiority is accurate. However, please remember that technology does not necessarily develop in a linear way over a short term, and in the case of extermination methods you are only talking about a few years.

This principle is particularly true in the case of non-market driven applications. The choice of killing technologies was made by a bureaucracy, and not by a true market force, such as, say, a consumer showing his preference by buying or not buying a product. Usually, in the case of regulated products, conflicting interests of different groups influence strongly the choice of technologies. There are great many examples in history,some of which you are undoubtedly familiar with, starting with disc brakes, which were patented at the beginning of the 20th century and are clearly superior to drum brakes.Yet, it took more than 60 years before they entered mass production.

I note you live in Canada, so chances are that a smoke detector in your house uses ionization principle, prevailing by a ratio of at least 10 to 1 over a vastly superior, environmentally harmless and commonly available photoelectronic technology. That too is a regulated product, where major decisions are made by a regulatory body and not by true market forces.

Over a long term, a superior technology generally wins - but a four-year window and a numerically small sample is simply not enough to ensure that the most effective product gets chosen. I am not sure if you will find this a sufficient explanation, but history of modern electronics is an ongoing illustration of that phenomenon.

rgds -a

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 23 Jan 2005 03:24

neugierig -- You said:

Up front, I have heard most, if not all of the arguments as to why the Jews were shipped half way across Europe to murder them. Alas, not one of them is convincing.

and

Many questions and I have yet to get an answer that makes sense. And, unless something new comes up, I am not interested in going around in circles again. Been there, done that.

This pretty much sums it up. Because you started with a false premise, and you ignore the explanations given by the Nazis themselves, its no surprise that you have been going around in circles ever since. The only remaining issue is, why ask questions about matters you don't want to discuss?

neugierig · Post by **neugierig** » 23 Jan 2005 03:57

Agadanik writes:
“[…]The choice of killing technologies was made by a bureaucracy, and not by a true market force,[…]”

With all due respect, Sir, this is not quite true. The decision was made to kill 11 million Jews, according to Mr. Piper. The facilities were designed by engineers. It is more than reasonable to assume that they would have used existing technology. They may have improved same to suit the purpose, but would have used the basics. They did not.

But this is off topic, the hammer will come down anytime, and rightly so.

David Thompson:
“[…]You started with a false premise, so its no surprise that you have been going around in circles ever since[…]”

Please remind me what this ‘false premise’ is, Sir. All I asked was: Why not built suitable killing facilities in the German camps, instead of shipping them half way across Europe? And I would like to add, why built the Rheinhardt camps at all when, as Mr. Piper states, Auschwitz was underutilized. Is this a false premise?

Regards
Wilf

drmessimer · Post by **drmessimer** » 23 Jan 2005 04:35

Neugierig: Agadamic and David Thompson have given you complete, detailed, and easy to understand, answers. So I wonder, what is your agenda? In any event, let me add that the Nazis were not efficient. Quite the contrary. They relied on primitive technology to dispose of the KZ prisoners because they lacked the resources to do otherwise. Killing millions of people in a controlled environment is expensive and there was a war on. The reason that they shipped most of the KZ prisoners out of Germany was just as David Thompson said; out of sight, out of mind. And killing them away from home avoided nasty political problems.
I suspect that you are confounded by the obvious inefficiency of the Nazi system, wondering why they did not take advantage of existing technology. The idea that the Nazis worked liked a well oiled machine is a myth. The truth is that they were mediocre at best, and the demands of fighting a war on two fronts drained their resources so that much of the modern technology was not available for KZ operations. In my opinion you are assuming too much of the Nazis who were in fact very inefficient and poor administrators. Dwight R. Messimer

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 23 Jan 2005 05:00

neugierig -- I remarked:

Because you started with a false premise, and you ignore the explanations given by the Nazis themselves, its no surprise that you have been going around in circles ever since.

You asked:

Please remind me what this ‘false premise’ is, Sir.

The false premise is your assumption that the Nazi extermination program was to kill all of the Jews immediately, rather than take the more profitable course -- extract everything of value from them, including their labor, and then kill them.

You also asked:

Why not built suitable killing facilities in the German camps, instead of shipping them half way across Europe? And I would like to add, why built the Rheinhardt camps at all when, as Mr. Piper states, Auschwitz was underutilized.

The reason is that the Nazis were using Jewish slave labor to improve the areas destined for German resettlement. The areas destined for German resettlement were in Poland, not Germany or Western Europe. KL Auschwitz already provided the requisite numbers of slaves for its region.

The "Aktion Reinhard(t)" camps were located in different regions destined for German resettlement, where additional work also needed to be done. Since the heavy redevelopment work (road-building, swamp draining, etc.) had to be done locally, the slave camps were placed in those localities -- like the "Aktion Reinhard(t)" camps.

The purpose of the homicidal gassing facilities was to cull out and kill those folks who were unsuitable or unnecessary for the task of being profitably and efficiently worked to death in these local camps -- "useless eaters." That's why there were two lines of people after the "selektion." One was for those who were to die quickly, and the other was for those who were to die slowly.

That's why we see statements like this:

Under proper direction the Jews should now in the course of the Final Solution [Endloesung] be brought to the East in a suitable way for use as labor. In big labor gangs, with separation of the sexes, the Jews capable of work are brought to these areas and employed in road building, in which task undoubtedly a great part will fall out through natural diminution [natuerliche Verminderung].

The remnant that finally is able to survive all this--since this is undoubtedly the part with the strongest resistance--must be treated accordingly [entsprechend behandelt werden] since these people, representing a natural selection, are to be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish development. (See the experience of history.)

Remarks of Heydrich, from the Minutes of the Wannsee Conference, 20 January 1942
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 748#579748

and this:

For us the end of this war will mean an open road to the East, the creation of the Germanic Reich in this way or that . . . the fetching home of 30 million human beings of our blood, so that still during our lifetime we shall be a people of 120 million Germanic souls. That means that we shall be the sole decisive power in Europe. That means that we shall then be able to tackle the peace, during which we shall be willing for the first twenty years to rebuild and spread out our villages and towns, and that we shall push the borders of our German race 500 Kilometres further out to the East.

Speech by Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler at Bad Schachen, 14 October 1943
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 790#622790

The later shift in Jewish slave labor employment to industrial production from swamp-draining and road-building was a change of priorities, but did not change the overall plan of destroying the Jews.

See also, in addition to the links which I have already provided:

Himmler: Treatment of Alien Races in the East (1940)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=63400
Hitler's plans for Ostland -- Fuehrer Conference 16 Jul 1941
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=60772
The German Resettlement Trustee Company (DUT)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=66094
Source Documents on "Germanization"
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=61091
Nazi occupation of Poland -- the Warthegau Nov 1939
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=54478
Documents on the Nazi occupation of Poland 1939-1944
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=54862
Nazi occupation policies for the USSR
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=61454

If you want to know why the Nazis acted the way they did, start by reading their documents.

Topspeed · Post by **Topspeed** » 23 Jan 2005 12:18

neugierig wrote:[This thread was split from the "Excursis on KL Auschwitz and Dachau" thread by the moderator - DT]

Quote:
‘[…]If extermination of large groups of people was the objective, and the technology has been proven effective, then the proliferation of such technology would be a natural development[…]”

This is it in a nutshell. If extermination was the objective, why not built the gaschamber in Dachau sooner and use it? Why not built one for every camp in Germany proper? Why waste all those resources to ship the Jews to some far away camps in Poland? And not only that, why experiment with steam, electrocution, diesel, etc.? Why not utilize this ‘effective technology’, i.e., killing with Zyklon B?

Those questions have never been answered, satisfactorily, IMHO.

Regards
Wilf

If you research this site thoroughly there were intentions to transport jews into camps in Russia possibly. Since the Barbarossa did not advance as planned the jews became a "storage problem" as the Conspiracy-movie tells us with the mouth of Reinhard Heydrich.
In the same movie Eichmann tells that Auschwitz will be able to terminate 28 000 jews / day. Everything the movie tells in not true but it gives a slight indication waht was going on. Many handy jews were worth a lot as workers. Just transporting that many people was a huge and timeconsuming operation.
In Denmark the locals protected the jews and managed to ship 95% of them to safety in Sweden. Catching and finding and killing people that can outsmart you is not easy business...especially when God was on their side....it is hard to say how motivated the gaschamber operators really were. We know that Himmler and several other nazi leader suffered from great stress caused by the "dirty business" they were associated with and possibly knew well ahead what was bound to happen to them in the future. Even how dirty they may appear they were human beings after all.
Some nazi scientists and doctors certainly tried to do some "serious" studies with humans to possibly benefit the mankind...all this as ugly as it may sound actually slowed down the pace of killing and more people survived from direct gassing in large numbers.

Possibly germans actually wanted to see jews suffer rather than die in the first place. I think germans pretty much blamed the jews for the bad economical prewar situation in Germany.

Of course for their wareffort they should have not killed them, but put them into front to fight with the others. What is alarming is that this kinda genocides take place even during our time for instance in Ruanda.

Agadanik · Post by **Agadanik** » 23 Jan 2005 14:34

neugierig wrote:The facilities were designed by engineers. It is more than reasonable to assume that they would have used existing technology. They may have improved same to suit the purpose, but would have used the basics. They did not.

OK, let me try again, because I am obviously not being clear enough.

1. Even with mature technologies,you are generally given multiple choices - your home may be heated by oil, or by gas, or by electricity, or by solar energy. In your city public transit may include streetcars, buses, subways and trolleys. Clothing you wear may be made of cotton, or wool,or synthetic fabrics, etc. Any college course in history of industrial development teaches that.

2. The institutions charged with killing large groups of people in Nazi Germany had no previous experience in such endeavour. No technology existed for application in an industrial process of mass murder. Therefore it is only logical that the bureaucracy would examine and test multiple and diverse methodologies - shooting, gas, exhaust fumes, electrocution, injections, poison, what have you. This is a standard management technique - in fact, given the scale of the enterprise, it seems to me the only logical and prudent choice.

3. As you point out, the Degesch chamber was

designed for the killing of lice and their nits in clothing

- not for killing people. Had the Nazis' planned to eradicate lice and their nits, I would agree with you that the Degesch chamber should have been the preferred choice. Thus, by your own argument, it becomes apparent that killing of lice was not the purpose of introducing Zyklon B into camps, as no Degesch chambers were used.

4. Finally, I agree with your observation above, that an existing technology would have likely been used. It was. The Nazis employed Zyklon B for the purpose of industrial-scale killings.

rgds -a

Erik · Post by **Erik** » 23 Jan 2005 17:26

Agadanik:

[..]However, please remember that technology does not necessarily develop in a linear way over a short term, and in the case of extermination methods you are only talking about a few years.

This principle is particularly true in the case of non-market driven applications. The choice of killing technologies was made by a bureaucracy, and not by a true market force, such as, say, a consumer showing his preference by buying or not buying a product. Usually, in the case of regulated products, conflicting interests of different groups influence strongly the choice of technologies. There are great many examples in history,some of which you are undoubtedly familiar with, starting with disc brakes, which were patented at the beginning of the 20th century and are clearly superior to drum brakes.Yet, it took more than 60 years before they entered mass production.

I note you live in Canada, so chances are that a smoke detector in your house uses ionization principle, prevailing by a ratio of at least 10 to 1 over a vastly superior, environmentally harmless and commonly available photoelectronic technology. That too is a regulated product, where major decisions are made by a regulatory body and not by true market forces.

Over a long term, a superior technology generally wins - but a four-year window and a numerically small sample is simply not enough to ensure that the most effective product gets chosen. I am not sure if you will find this a sufficient explanation, but history of modern electronics is an ongoing illustration of that phenomenon.

rgds –a

Later:

[…]
2. The institutions charged with killing large groups of people in Nazi Germany had no previous experience in such endeavour. No technology existed for application in an industrial process of mass murder. Therefore it is only logical that the bureaucracy would examine and test multiple and diverse methodologies - shooting, gas, exhaust fumes, electrocution, injections, poison, what have you. This is a standard management technique - in fact, given the scale of the enterprise, it seems to me the only logical and prudent choice.

Compare this view of the ”only logical way” of the Nazi genocide bureaucracy, applying ”the standard management technique” of testing multiple and diverse methodologies to fulfill the Führer’s will, with the ”harnessing” described by Prof. Browning:

From an interview with Prof. Christopher Browning:

[…]While it may have taken thousands of Germans to shoot down Soviet Jewry, a camp like Treblinka, where they murdered 950,000 people in one year, had a staff of 30 Germans, 120 Ukrainian guards, and 800 slave laborers from the prisoners and victims themselves. This is modern efficiency, this is industrial efficiency at its most horrifying, but it is also a striking example of the harnessing of modern capacities to an anti-modernist reactionary political stance.
[…]
B- My position is that in some essential way the Holocaust is unique. If one looks at the ideological drive behind it in the sense that here was a regime committed to killing every last Jewish man, woman, and child over an entire continent, that is not a common historical phenomenon. And if you look at the fact that this regime was able to harness virtually every organized aspect of German life, and especially the bureaucratic, administrative, and technological efficiencies of one of the modern nations of the world to this purpose, that, too, is a unique feature of the Holocaust.

www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/(emphasis added)

According to Agadanik, the Nazis let a ”regulatory body” choose the technology of the mass murder, in lieu of the ”true market forces” that would have arrived at the most efficient solution, given time. They HAD to, since they had this ”four-year window” where the ”true market forces” would be too slow to ”develop in a linear way over a short term”.

[…] technology does not necessarily develop in a linear way over a short term, and in the case of extermination methods you are only talking about a few years.

How come that ” in the case of extermination methods you are only talking about a few years”? Those methods have been developed during the complete course of human history, you’d think.

The Jews have been the target of such methods since time immemorial:

[…] The attempt to extirpate them has been made under the most favourable auspices and on the largest scale; the most considerable means that man could command have been pertinaciously applied to this object for the longest period of recorded time. Egyptian pharaohs, Assyrian kings, Roman emperors, Scandinavian crusaders, Gothic princes, and holy inquisitors, have alike devoted their energies to the fulfilment of this common purpose. expatriation, exile, captivity, confiscation, torture on the most ingenious and massacre on the most extensive scale, a curious system of degrading customs and debasing laws which would have broken the heart of any other people, have been tried, and in vain.
The Jews, after all this havoc, are probably more numerous at this date than they were during the reign of Solomon the wise, are found in all lands, and unfortunately prospering in most. All which proves, that it is in vain for man to attempt to baffle the inexorable law of nature which has decreed that a superior race shall never be destroyed or absorbed by an inferior.

Disraeli : Lord George Bentinck: A Political Biography, written in 1852.(emphasis added)

Did the Nazis know this before they planned the latest vain attempt to baffle the inexorable law of nature?

Agadanik · Post by **Agadanik** » 23 Jan 2005 17:49

Erik wrote:
How come that ” in the case of extermination methods you are only talking about a few years”? Those methods have been developed during the complete course of human history, you’d think.

Yes, but certainly not in terms of organizational and technological tools employed in an industrial process. I don't mean to imply - far from it - that history of extermination began with the murder of Jews during WW2. Sorry if this was somehow less than clear.

rgds -a

Erik · Post by **Erik** » 23 Jan 2005 17:52

Mr. Thompson:

You're not seeing the opportunity here to maximize benefits to the people and state in the New Germany, neugierig. Extermination can take many forms – […]
The proposition is much easier to understand if you think of the Nazi extermination program not just as genocide, but often as a form of genocidal capitalism.

Heydrich at Wannsee:

Under proper direction the Jews should now in the course of the Final Solution [Endloesung] be brought to the East in a suitable way for use as labor. In big labor gangs, with separation of the sexes, the Jews capable of work are brought to these areas and employed in road building, in which task undoubtedly a great part will fall out through natural diminution [natuerliche Verminderung].

The remnant that finally is able to survive all this--since this is undoubtedly the part with the strongest resistance--must be treated accordingly [entsprechend behandelt werden] since these people, representing a natural selection, are to be regarded as the germ cell of a new Jewish development. (See the experience of history.)

A hundred years earlier a U.S.Southern slave owner would have reasoned in a similar manner, but without the fear of the ”development” of the ”germ” – ”representing a natural selection” – that is implied in Heydrich's ”experience of history”.

The Southerner slave owner would probably have welcomed the development of such a ”germ”. He would have ”treated” this ”germ part”…”accordingly”, too -- with a proper combining of the sexes, for example.

The ”accordingly” treatment that Heydrich envisaged as a ”must”, implies their ”final” destiny to be similar to the destiny of the ”useless eaters” that were brought to the East simultaneously with the labor force. They were to be gassed.

This is also the difference between the Final Solution and the American Slavery Economy – and it also brings out the inherent contradiction in the concept of a Genocidal Capitalism, since the concept implies planned destruction of the labor force necessary for any Capitalism to develop. "Suicidal capitalism", really!!

How about Genocidal Socialism?

That’s National Socialism in a nutshell, isn’t it? The concept also makes comparison with other socialisms of history possible; like Scientific Socialism (Marxism).

The history of all hitherto existing society [2] is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master [3] and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

http://www.marxist.net/marx/m2frame.htm?manifesto.html

Scientific socialism will bring common ruin to all contending classes. It will bring a Final Solution to ”the history of all hitherto existing society”. The oppressor will disappear, the expropriatior will be expropriated.

A National Socialist would likely say the same sort of things concerning ”class struggle”---but would add that the ”constant opposition” described by Marx was the constant Jewish opposition to the others’ nationalisms, and that Scientific Socialism meant the reappearance of the oppressor in the form of the Jewish race, and the common ruin of the other races. Class struggle is race struggle in disguise.

This comparison with (the) other socialism brings out the ”historical experience” of the last century. National socialism more or less aped the Scientific Socialism in the treatment of its enemies -- Auschwitz as a Gulag, the Jew as a Kulak:

Friedrich A. Hayek. "Why the Worst Get on Top." The Road to Serfdom. U Chicago Press, 1972, Page 138:

The contrast between the "we" and the "they" is consequently always employed by those who seek the allegiance of huge masses. The enemy may be internal, like the "Jew" in Germany or the "kulak" in Russia, or he may be external. In any case, this technique has the great advantage of leaving the leader greater freedom of action than would almost any positive program.

http://liberalorder.typepad.com/the_lib ... right.html

Here is more from the same link:

Just as the democratic statesman who sets out to plan economic life will soon be confronted with the alternative of either assuming dictatorial powers or abandoning his plans, so the totalitarian leader would soon have to choose between disregard of ordinary morals and failure. It is for this reason that the unscrupulous are likely to be more successful in a society tending toward totalitarianism. Who does not see this has not yet grasped the full width of the gulf which separates totalitarianism from the essentially individualist Western civilization.
Friedrich A. Hayek. "Why the Worst Get on Top." The Road to Serfdom. U Chicago Press, 1972: Page 135

Repeat Mr. Thompson:

The proposition is much easier to understand if you think of the Nazi extermination program not just as genocide, but often as a form of genocidal capitalism.

Hayek would probably object to a concept like Genocidal Capitalism. Capitalists are unscrupulous, perhaps, but they cannot tend toward totalitarianism – free competition won’t let them! It would make no economic sense to a capitalist to gas the best, like Heydrich wanted!

And without free competition, they are no longer capitalists, are they? Just…industrialists? (An industrialist can just as well be a Socialist bureaucrat?)

Neugierig:
Please remind me what this ‘false premise’ is, Sir.
Mr. Thompson:
The false premise is your assumption that the Nazi extermination program was to kill all of the Jews immediately, rather than take the more profitable course -- extract everything of value from them, including their labor, and then kill them.

Agadanik wrote from the ”kill” premise:

2. The institutions charged with killing large groups of people in Nazi Germany had no previous experience in such endeavour. No technology existed for application in an industrial process of mass murder. Therefore it is only logical that the bureaucracy would examine and test multiple and diverse methodologies - shooting, gas, exhaust fumes, electrocution, injections, poison, what have you. This is a standard management technique - in fact, given the scale of the enterprise, it seems to me the only logical and prudent choice.

If the ”prudent choice” of the ”more profitable course” (Mr. Thompson) was opted for, there would perhaps be ”previous experience in such endeavour”-- that is, ”extract everything of value from them, including their labor, and then” NOT having to ”kill them”, but let them die from the ”industrial process” itself?

The ”industrial process of mass murder” is the industrial process of producing destruction. This destruction can be implemented by the method envisaged by Heydrich at the Wannsee (see above) --- and the ”profitable course” could also be combined with other ”wants” of the Germans….

Possibly germans actually wanted to see jews suffer rather than die in the first place. I think germans pretty much blamed the jews for the bad economical prewar situation in Germany.

(Topspeed).

They could just skip the ”technology” of the industrial process of mass murder, and let the enslaved labor force produce its own destruction? Industrially, à la Heydrich?

David Thompson · Post by **David Thompson** » 23 Jan 2005 20:52

Erik --

(1) You said:

The Southerner slave owner would probably have welcomed the development of such a ”germ”. He would have ”treated” this ”germ part”…”accordingly”, too -- with a proper combining of the sexes, for example.

The ”accordingly” treatment that Heydrich envisaged as a ”must”, implies their ”final” destiny to be similar to the destiny of the ”useless eaters” that were brought to the East simultaneously with the labor force. They were to be gassed.

This is also the difference between the Final Solution and the American Slavery Economy – and it also brings out the inherent contradiction in the concept of a Genocidal Capitalism, since the concept implies planned destruction of the labor force necessary for any Capitalism to develop. "Suicidal capitalism", really!!

You're overlooking the fact that there wasn't going to be a slave labor shortage under the Nazi regime -- the Germans planned to use the Poles, Russians and others, after the Jews were used up. Unlike the fate the Nazis envisioned for the Jews, the Nazis planned to keep these other "inferior" types around on a semi-permanent basis:

The population of the Government General during the next 10 years, by necessity and after a consistent carrying out of these measures, will be composed of the remaining inferior population supplemented by the population of the eastern provinces deported there, and of all those parts of the German Reich which have the same racial and human qualities for instance, parts of the Sorbs [Sorben] and Wends [Wenden].

This population will, as a people of laborers without leaders, be at our disposal and will furnish Germany annually with migrant workers and with workers for special tasks (roads, quarries, buildings): they themselves will have more to eat and more to live on than under the Polish regime; and, though they have no culture of their own, they will, under the strict, consistent, and just leadership of the German people, be called upon to help work on its everlasting cultural tasks and its buildings and perhaps, as far as the amount of heavy work is concerned, will be the ones who make the realization of these tasks possible.

Himmler: Treatment of Alien Races in the East (1940)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=63400

See also:

Documents on the Nazi occupation of Poland 1939-1944
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=54862
Nazi occupation policies for the USSR
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=61454

Nazi Slave Labor Program
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=14625
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=16879
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=15224
Slave Labor
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?p=32389
Calculation of wages paid to Eastern Workers
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 269#572269
Cost of slave labor to SS industries
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 120#577120
Slave labor in the Krupp industrial combine
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=64075

Nazi slaving in the occupied USSR

Document: *3040-PS; Description: Secret order of Reichsfuehrer SS, 2/20/1942, concerning commitment of manpower from the East. (USA 207)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 320#553320
Document: *016-PS; Description: Sauckel's Labor Mobilization Program, 4/20/1942. (USA 168)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 335#553335
Document: *EC-347; Description: Directives for operation of the Economy in Occupied Eastern Territories. (USA 320)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 395#553395
Document: *084-PS; Description: Interdepartmental report of Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories, 9/30/1942, concerning status of Eastern laborers. (USA 199)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 403#553403
Document: *017-PS; Description: Letter from Sauckel to Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories, 10/5/1942, concerning mobilization of foreign labor forces. (USA 180)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 407#553407
Document: *054-PS; Description: Report to Reich Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories, 10/7/1942, concerning treatment of Ukrainian Specialists. (USA 198)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 424#553424
Document: *294-PS; Description: Top secret memorandum signed by Brautigam, 10/26/1942, concerning conditions in Russia. (USA 185)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 428#553428
Document: 1381-PS; Description: Secret report of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories on Political and Economic Situation in these Territories, December 1942
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 223#554223
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 225#554225
Document: *018-PS; Description: Letter from Rosenberg to Sauckel, 12/21/1942, concerning labor in the East. (USA 186).
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 230#554230
Document: *407-II-PS; Description: Letter from Sauckel to Hitler, 10 March 1943, concerning difficulty in recruiting of workers in former Soviet territories. (USA 226)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 237#554237
Document: *019-Page; Description: Letter from Sauckel to Rosenberg, 3/17/1943, concerning draft of workers from the East. (USA 181)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 242#554242
Document: *3012-PS; Description: Order signed Christiansen, 3/19/1943, to all group leaders of Security Service, and record of telephone conversation signed by Stapf, 3/11/1943. (USA 190)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 246#554246
Document; *2280-PS; Description: Letter from Reichs Commissar for Ostland, 3 May 1943, concerning recruiting of manpower in Baltic Countries for Reich territories. (USA 183)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 250#554250
Document: *3000-PS; Description: Report, from Chief of Main Office III with the High Command in Minsk to Reicke, 28 June 1943, on experiences in political and economic problems in the East, particularly White Ruthenia. (USA 192)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 256#554256
Document: *265-PS; Description: Memorandum of oral report by Lyser to Rosenberg, 30 June 1943, on situation in district Shitomir. (USA 191)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 260#554260
Document: *290-PS; Description: Letter from Rosenberg Ministry, 12 November 1943, concerning burning of houses in Mueller's district. (USA 189)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 773#554773
Document: *254-PS; Description: Letter from Raab to Reichsminister for Occupied Eastern Territories, 6/7/1944, concerning burning of houses in Wassilkow district. (USA 188)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 778#554778
Document: *031-PS; Description: Memorandum, 12 June 1944, concerning evaluation of youths from the territory of Army Group "Center", and interoffice memorandum, Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories. (USA 171)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 785#554785
Document: 200-PS; Description: Confidential telegram from Berger to Reich Ministry for Occupied Eastern Territories, 7/8/1944 concerning forced labor of children
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 798#554798
Document: *199-PS; Description: Letter from Alfred Meyer to Sauckel, 11 July 1944, concerning forced labor of children. (USA 606)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 801#554801
How the Nazi occupation failed in Galicia/ Ukraine
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 283#431283

(2) You went on to say:

A National Socialist would likely say the same sort of things concerning ”class struggle”---but would add that the ”constant opposition” described by Marx was the constant Jewish opposition to the others’ nationalisms, and that Scientific Socialism meant the reappearance of the oppressor in the form of the Jewish race, and the common ruin of the other races. Class struggle is race struggle in disguise.

I don't think that this proposition ["Class struggle is race struggle in disguise"] is true, since "class struggles" also take place within a race -- as in ancient Greece and Rome, and modern Britain. It is something that can even be seen in primate societies, as a "pecking order" phenomenon.

(3) Then you remarked:

Hayek would probably object to a concept like Genocidal Capitalism. Capitalists are unscrupulous, perhaps, but they cannot tend toward totalitarianism – free competition won’t let them! It would make no economic sense to a capitalist to gas the best, like Heydrich wanted!

And without free competition, they are no longer capitalists, are they? Just…industrialists? (An industrialist can just as well be a Socialist bureaucrat?)

Free enterprise is a stage of capitalism, not an essential element. Capitalists prefer monopoly positions -- this has been the whole tendency of capitalism over the last 150 years -- and so did the Nazis. This can readily be seen by looking at the NSDAP's party program:

11. Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery.

12. In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).

14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.

The Program of the NSDAP (1920/1941)
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=69141

(4) You concluded:

They could just skip the ”technology” of the industrial process of mass murder, and let the enslaved labor force produce its own destruction? Industrially, à la Heydrich?

This approach fails to take into account: (a) the cost/savings benefit to the New Germany of not feeding "useless eaters;" and (b) the benefit to the Reich of preventing future and potentially vengeful generations of Jewish offspring, by killing mothers and their young children.

Axis History Forum

The Final Solution: Why not kill them immediately?

The Final Solution: Why not kill them immediately?

Why Not Kill Them in Germany?

Re: The Final Solution: Why not kill them immediately?