What would help germany more in ww2?

  • '12

    It’s a myth that the German army was fully mechanized.  A former British colony with less than 1/6 of the German population produced more trucks than Germany+Italy+Japan+USSR combined during the war years.  The lack of full mechanization of German units and supply lines was not evident in France or Poland as they are tiny nations compared to the USSR and supply lines were short.  During the invasion of the USSR most germany artillery was horse drawn.  The German army relied on huge numbers of horses for logistics.  The horses required food and didn’t take to being exposed to soviet winters and died by the 100s of 1000s.

    Germany was fairly industrialized but was lacking in key areas.  It’s farms were less efficient and required several times the manhours per unit of food produced.  While they produced some great cars, they were out of reach for most german workers so there was a lack of mass production and related skills (read industrial logistics) whereas north america had a huge auto industry that could be tapped for mass production.  Allied tanks sucked (save the soviet tanks), I forget which model was called the ronson (as in lighter) but it was dark humour as the tank like the lighter ‘lit up with the first stike’.  However, quantity has a certain quality which the allies proved.

  • '12

    The Germany economy didn’t go on a war footing until late.  While the allies were vigorously rationing, Germany was not.  Why?  We like to think of Hitler like say Stalin or Saddam, you desent, you die.  However, Hitler treated the germans masses as if they were a democracy and he could be voted out of office.  Again, why?  Simple, he was part of the German military machine in WWI.  The army felt betrayed by the ‘home front’, the german people gave up because they were unhappy by fall 1918.  Starving to death has a funny way of making you sue for peace.  So Hitler felt it important to keep the home front happy by keeping luxury good available for as long as possible.

    While the Ukrainians and other conqoured soviet peoples truly hated Stalin, this hatred was not nearly as strong for average ethnic russians.  After attacked, people have a funny way of pulling together.  Do you think most Iranians love their political leaders?  I bet if you did a poll today then say attack their nuclear infastructure then take a poll you would find a sudden love for the mullahs umongst most Iranians.  I would not limit the poll to say kurdish regions inside Iran then extrapolate that poll across all of Iran.  That being said, having Ukraine on your side is significant and would have done much to help the food situation in the nazi empire.


  • @MrMalachiCrunch:

    The Germany economy didn’t go on a war footing until late.  While the allies were vigorously rationing, Germany was not.  Why?  We like to think of Hitler like say Stalin or Saddam, you desent, you die.  However, Hitler treated the germans masses as if they were a democracy and he could be voted out of office.  Again, why?  Simple, he was part of the German military machine in WWI.  The army felt betrayed by the ‘home front’, the german people gave up because they were unhappy by fall 1918.  Starving to death has a funny way of making you sue for peace.  So Hitler felt it important to keep the home front happy by keeping luxury good available for as long as possible.

    While the Ukrainians and other conqoured soviet peoples truly hated Stalin, this hatred was not nearly as strong for average ethnic russians.  After attacked, people have a funny way of pulling together.  Do you think most Iranians love their political leaders?  I bet if you did a poll today then say attack their nuclear infastructure then take a poll you would find a sudden love for the mullahs umongst most Iranians.  I would not limit the poll to say kurdish regions inside Iran then extrapolate that poll across all of Iran.  That being said, having Ukraine on your side is significant and would have done much to help the food situation in the nazi empire.

    The Sherman was called the Ronson and the Germans also quite famously called it “The tommy cooker” because one shell from a Panther would either blow it to pieces or light it on fire and the soldiers in the tank had an estimated 13 seconds to get away from the tank before it exploded. Had the German economy gone into rationing mode and full war production it would of been a very different war and a German victory would of been much more likely, where the Germans truly lacked was in the skies whether it be North Africa, France or the Ukraine they never seemed to have enough aircraft to acheive any sort of air superiority had the factories been mobilised for aircraft production the war would of been very different.

    I dont know how much the average Russian would “rally around the flag”, perhaps Iranians would rally around the flag but the Iranian government hasnt really done that much harm to the average Iranian. While on the other hand Stalin had murdered 20 million people so literally everyone knew someone who had just been taken away by the secret police never to be seen again.

    Needless to say I complete agree about the Ukrainians they could of done much to alievate the Nazi’s woes in both man power and food production. If the Nazi’s had of started rationing even from the start of Barbarossa, put German industry in war mode in 1939 and been nice to the conquered peoples they would of won the war on the Eastern front, the cost would of been staggering but a hell of a lot less staggering than there eventual defeat.

  • '12

    I think most of those 20 million killed were Ukrainians?  I think if you look at the stories of average russians during the war there is a great deal of patriatism and in many places you would not think such as tank factories.  Mind you, an arguable amount is due to the fear of what nazis would do to the 'average prolitariot (sp?).

    I’m amazed the german GDP was as great as it was considering that even during the battle of britain german factories were working at 1 shift!  Women were reveared as ‘mothers’ so they ought not to do the dirty work of working in factories……

    While logisitics are not glamours, they do win wars.  Getting my degree in comp sci required a great deal of math, much of it to do with algorithms and optimizations’ of such.  I was amazed at how many algorithms were develped in the wars years that relate to routing and scheduling.  These same algorithms that were ‘run by hand’ to help move things around to improve ‘workflow’ are used to help route internet traffic!

    An interesting paper I found on the net as it relates to math and war.  It’s a pdf file just a heads up.

    http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.143.2142&rep=rep1&type=pdf


  • @MrMalachiCrunch:

    I think most of those 20 million killed were Ukrainians?  I think if you look at the stories of average russians during the war there is a great deal of patriatism and in many places you would not think such as tank factories.  Mind you, an arguable amount is due to the fear of what nazis would do to the 'average prolitariot (sp?).

    I’m amazed the german GDP was as great as it was considering that even during the battle of britain german factories were working at 1 shift!  Women were reveared as ‘mothers’ so they ought not to do the dirty work of working in factories……

    While logisitics are not glamours, they do win wars.  Getting my degree in comp sci required a great deal of math, much of it to do with algorithms and optimizations’ of such.  I was amazed at how many algorithms were develped in the wars years that relate to routing and scheduling.  These same algorithms that were ‘run by hand’ to help move things around to improve ‘workflow’ are used to help route internet traffic!

    An interesting paper I found on the net as it relates to math and war.  It’s a pdf file just a heads up.

    http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.143.2142&rep=rep1&type=pdf

    It is truly remarkable that the German women werent working in the factories like the women on the side of the allies. Ironically feminists rarely cite World War 2 as a major cause of womens liberation but there was no greater liberator for women than the ability to work. You could even argue (in my opinion successfully) that not mobilising the women of Germany cost them the war, more factory workers = more production and more men to go off and join the armed forces. Unfourtunetly for the Nazi’s they were too busy getting mothers medals for providing another child for the third reich (this isnt a joke this is actual fact). I agree that logistics matter a great deal and Nazi logistics let the Nazi’s down many times in all theatres they fought in.

    I am just suggesting that politics and the opinions of the day matter an equal amount if not more. Its all well and good for us the people of today to look back with hindsight and say Hitler was evil but in the politics of the day he was considered a hero of the German people that saved from the depression and from being the pawns of the European powers. My fathers friends mother revered Hitler all her life and while she did not agree with his policy of racial hatred she did agree with his policies of German rearmament and Germany once again being a great power. Logistics are irrelevant unless the people at home are willing to fight the war to begin with, its all about like the US State department so eloquently puts it “Winning hearts and minds”, whether they be the hearts and minds of a conquered people or convincing your own people to fight a war for you, a war you start.

    I have heard a great deal about the patriotism of the Russian people, I once read a story of workers in a Tank factory at Stalingrad completing a T-34 and then taking it into battle themselves. Its amazing stuff, I just cant help but feel that if I were in their shoes and the Germans had of been compassionate liberators as opposed to brutal conquerors that more Russians would of collaborated with them. I think having the secret police watching your every move and hauling away anyone who didnt think along the same lines as the communist party would make all of us seem pretty loyal even if only in order to survive. If I was in the shoes of the average Russian (and the Germans were nice) and say for instance Stalin’s death squads killed my brother or my father I would of welcomed the Germans with open arms, asked for rifle, jumped on the front of the nearest Panzer tank and marched with them to Moscow.

    The greatest myth of the 20th Century is that Hitler was greater evil, Stalin was by far the worst, comitting atrocites on an entirely different scale to Hitler. Of course the western powers wouldnt want to publicise that we picked the greater of two evils to ally with. Nor would the Russians even today want to publicise what a brutal regime communism was under Stalin, they are still today trying to change Russian school books to portray Stalin as the great liberator of Eastern Europe not as the murderer he actually was. I’m in no means saying Hitler didnt have to be stopped they both did unfourtunetly the Germans werent brought into the fold of the Alliance of France and Britian before a man such as Hitler came to power.


  • I’m not sure it’s a myth. I haven’t seen anyone who think Hitler was worse than Stalin.

    By the way, keep in mind that sometimes the US acts badly as well. As my history teacher put it, during the cold war, we would overthrow democratically elected socialists(not necessarily communists) or pro-soviet, and install pro-US dictators. A good example is Iran, which may be why they took the hostages in 1979

  • '12

    Most americans don’t know the history of the phillipines that well.  I dated a filipino gal for a few years, got to meet her older brothers.  Yes, during WW II, there was a great deal of help by the filipinos, my gals dad was a guerilla fighter during WW II, no doubt why he ended up an alcoholic.  In any event, the phillipines had also been fairly loyal to spain and when their land was ceded to the US a long war against US occupation began and was brutally supressed.  The war between the phillipines and the United states started in 1898, the population was about 9 million in 1895 by 1908 the population was about 8 million.  In any event, it was much out of the norms for the time sadly.

    Stalin probably was responsible for more non-combat deaths during his tenure then Hitler was during his.  Is that the pure measure of evil?  Given a free hand, how many would they have killed?  Had Stalin had total control of all europe I doubt he would have continued to kill.  His initial killings were purges designed to control the population so to were Hitlers initially against the brown shirts and communists.  But, had Hitler gained total control of Europe we might have seen vast execution camps to get rid of the dirty slavs, jews. gypsies etc etc….  I am sure there are some sick little @#$!&*s out there that are even more evil than either of Hitler or Stalin but luckily they might only manage to kill and eat a few 100 children…


  • Out of the offered choices I’d say being nicer to the conquered peoples… but really, the Nazis conducting a successful Hearts & Minds campaign with untermensch?

    Might as well as ask for jetpacks and phasers.

    #590


  • Why is 1934 the best year to sac Hitler?


  • @calvinhobbesliker:

    I’m not sure it’s a myth. I haven’t seen anyone who think Hitler was worse than Stalin.

    By the way, keep in mind that sometimes the US acts badly as well. As my history teacher put it, during the cold war, we would overthrow democratically elected socialists(not necessarily communists) or pro-soviet, and install pro-US dictators. A good example is Iran, which may be why they took the hostages in 1979

    Its all about the media whether it be books, documentarys etc, how many people even know the basic story of WW2 let alone what occured under Stalin? Stalin is responsible for more deaths than Hitler by a factor of at least 2 and god only knows how many would of died if he had of controlled all of Europe like MalachiCrunch suggested. Stalin is by far the greater evil. So in my opinion and with the numbers to back it up Stalin was by far the greater menance to the world. As if our schools would have us being taught that we picked the wrong side in WW2?

    Our victory in WW2 was as Niall Ferguson put it was “A tainted victory if it could be called a victory at all”. The western powers collaborated with the one of historys greatest monsters who sent over 20+ million to their deaths (and that is based on pre 1941 numbers) that doesnt even include collaborators in the Soviet Union like the Cossacks who ended up in British custody after the war and then turned over to Stalin in return for promises of free elections in eastern Europe which never happend. Hitler ruled because the people allowed him to rule (he was even democratically elected), and the people even wanted him to rule. Stalin ruled because people feared him and people were to afraid to move against him. In siding with Stalin we created the cold war, we created communist China (because there was no counter balance post WW2 to all of the military aid flowing in from the USSR to aid Mao, Chiang Kai Shek didnt have that luxury and was relatively promptly defeated), Vietnam and Korean wars and thats just a few things that happend directly following the alliance of the “big 3” post WW2. Hitler was a monster there is no doubt about that, but Stalin was a monster on entirely different scale. Hingsight seems to agree with the opinion of both Winston Churchill and George Patton in late 1945,“give the Germans back their guns and lets take the fight to the real enemy the Soviets”. If that had of happend there would of been a bloody continuation of WW2 but we wouldnt have unreasonable communist China to deal with today and the cold war never would of happend (which cost 10s of millions of lives by proxy wars and deposing or installing dictators, ethnic cleansing etc)


  • Malachichrch suggested that Hitler was more evil but didn’t have the chance to kill as many people.

    Actually, Hitler wasn’t really democratically elected. Hindenberg just gave him the position of Chancellor, and it went downhill from there


  • @calvinhobbesliker:

    Why is 1934 the best year to sac Hitler?

    Just because to make him feel special for a year, then make him cry.


  • @calvinhobbesliker:

    Malachichrch suggested that Hitler was more evil but didn’t have the chance to kill as many people.

    Well I think his point was that Hitler was for flat out extermination whilst Stalin was no-holds-barred domestic security and imposition of communism.  Uncle Joe wouldn’t take it from anybody, or put up with anybody who might even be thinking about speaking out and he’d kick you when you’re down to make sure nobody ever got any wise ideas but he wouldn’t say the “only good X is a dead X”.

    And then that raises the question as to what is more evil.

  • '12

    Well, US public opinion was not against Germany until mid 1941….  I cannot help but think if the Nazi’s had at least hide their ultimate motives until the war was won that things could have been much different.  Capitalism was much more pure in those days and truly lacked nationalism, no doubt western corporations would influence politics to ensure profit.

    Imagine this.  Japan played much nicer in their war of conquest with China and used some PR to convince the US public that they were indeed ‘inferior’ to the ‘white man’ but did need some natural resources so lets do business.  US does not embargo oil exports to Japan, no Japanese attack required to secure the pacific because they can continue to grow in the east while trading with the west.  The Japanese perhaps go after western colonial powers to ‘liberate’ places like the dutch east indies to secure oil and other resources.

    Because Japan does not attack the US, Germany does not declare war on the US after pearl harbor.  Pearl Harbor was a mistake for the Japanese as it motivated the US public in a rabidly strong way.  By Germany declaring war, it lumped them in with the now HATED Japs empire.

    The Germans crank up their PR machine buying ads in US newspapers decrying how the european colonial powers were so unfair in the treaty of versailles.  How Germany was a democracy (remember, Hitler was elected by the people!) and treated their citizen workers really well, something an american worker surviving the great depresion would be envious of!  A plea to US coroporate interests to remind them that Germany was also a capitalist society that shared the american fears of communism.  I wonder how many Americans today would care if Germany invaded France as unlikely as that is never mind France’s nukes…just saying.  I would imagine with a good PR campaign it would be next to impossible for the US to declare war or spend much tax money helping out european colonial powers against a nice democratic, capitalist Germany who is just trying to get back what is theirs and paciify its neighbours to make it safe for all capitalist companies to do business with.

    You get to about August of 1939 and you wonder if maybe you wait 1 more year before attacking Poland.  When you (then the soviets) attack the Fench and English declare war on you.  You advertise to all nations in the world that it is the Anglo/French colonial alliance declaring war on non-colonial, democratic and capitalist Germany.  You have been preparing for a war footing economy but can’t fully sell it to your German people but now you can!  You take out France, concentrate on England before the USSR.  How would rommel have done with 25 of those 100 divisions sent to Russia?  You ‘liberate’ the former territories of the ottoman empire that were to be freed by the British but really were not.  You control the middle-east and make real nice with the Persians to prevent a soviet invasion.  England sues for peace and you don’t have to try to carpet bomb London as this didn’t help militarily and hurt relations with the US.  Maybe you hope a desperate Winston Churchill uses gas on Germany, now maybe the US takes the German side against England maybe not.

    Even with a neutral US, Germany now has puppet regimes in many european countries.  With England pacified but not invaded you really don’t need to invade Norway and a few other countries.  Now with all the oil you need, trading freely with England/commonwealth nations and the US you put your PR campaign to work against communism.  With tacit approval from western industrialists Germany and Japan combine to impliment regime change in the USSR.  Then if you are truly evil you have all the time in the world to develop nuclear bombs for total world control.

  • '12

    As for Hitler being democratically elected….  I think you need to understand how parlimentary systems work and the difference between the position of president and prime-minister (Chancellor) and how the ‘first past the poll’ in multi-party elections can influence things.

    First the argument that Hitler never got 50%+1 votes.  Well neither did Bush in a certain election and this in a two-party system.  I am not saying Canada is awesome but I am most familiar with its political system.  In many cases, each seat in parliment has 4-5 parties vying for it so the votes in that particular riding are split, the seat can be taken with 25% of the votes cast because the other 75% are split 4 or more ways.  Getting 24% when the other guy gets 25% means you get nothing.  you could get 20 % of the popluar vote and get NO seats in a parliment of over 300, no proportional representation.  You could get 35% of the popular vote yet get 65% of the seats in parliment and run the country like a dictator by ramming through bill after bill as long as the senate rubber stamps it.  Since you appoint your buddies to empty seats in senate you just wait a few years before doing anything really drastic.

    In parliments, after an election, the party with the most seats often has first crack to form a majority, if you have a majority simple, if not you have to form a colition.  ugh, screen jump

  • '12

    Hitlers party had the most seats in parliment but not a majority.  Hitler entered into a collition with another large party so had the largest block of seats.  President hindenburghs job is like that of the Canadian governer-general (the queens rep called GG) to declare who is chancellor, if Hitler had a majority its automatic, in a minority like Canada has its not so clear.  In Canada’s case no other parties came together to form a collition greater than that of the conservatives so the GG appointed the leader of the Party to become Prime Minister.  So, Canada has a government that not only does not have a majority of seats, the seats the conservatives did win probably contained more votes agasint them then for never mind the seats they didn’t win.

    Hitler came to power by being head of a large party that won seats democratically.  Formed a collition group and insisted he become the head not co-head ie co-chancellor and did so under the consitution.  Since they still did not have a clear majority it was up to the President to select who would be chancellor.  Due to senility and scare tactics he choose Hitler although personally hindenburgh did not like, again, all legal and under the consitution.


  • @221B:

    Can we get some numbers on the food shortages in the sphere of influence of Nazi Germany? I’ve read about the food shortages in WW1 but never for WW2.

    Below are some quotes from The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze. Tooze’s book has been praised by The Times (London), The Boston Globe, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, etc. From p. 168:


    One way or another, virtually everyone alive in Germany in the 1930s had an acute, personal experience of prolonged and insatiable hunger. [Due to the Anglo-French food blockade of WWI and the hunger during the Versailles Treaty.]


    From page 419:


    The rations set for the German population at the outbreak of the war had been relatively generous. But they could be sustained in 1940-41 only by making severe inroads into the large stocks of grain accumulated since 1936. . . . The shortfall in the European harvest of 1940-41 confirmed Herbert Backe’s worst fears. Unless Germany could find additional sources for millions of tons of grain, it would soon need to make serious cuts to food rations . . . And the situation in the urban centers of the occupied territories was, of course, far worse than in Germany. By 1941 there were already signs of mounting discontent due to the inadequate food supply. In Belgium and France, the official food ration allocated to ‘normal consumers’ of as little as 1,300 calories per day, was an open invitation to the black market. Daily allocations in Norway and the Czech protectorate hovered around 1,600 calories.


    From page 477:


    The second programme, which openly envisioned the killing of millions of people within the first twelve months of the German occupation, was agreed between the Wehrmacht, all the key civilian Ministries and the Nazi political leadership as early as the spring of 1941. Nor can the so-called ‘Hunger Plan’ be described as secret. It was referred to in official instructions issued to thousands of subordinates. And, perhaps most importantly, no effort was made to hide the wider rationale of the individual acts of brutality that the programme required. On the contrary, all German soldiers and occupation administrators were enjoined to understand and to commit themselves to its strategic logic. This genocidal plan commanded such wide-ranging support because it concerned a practical issue, the importance of which, following Germany’s experience in World War I, was obvious to all: the need to secure the food supply of the German population, if necessary at the expense of the population of the Soviet Union.

    As we have discussed, the ‘bread basket of the Ukraine’ played a key role in all the various military-economic assessments of the Barbarossa campaign prepared over the winter of 1940-41. For Hitler it was the key priority, to be achieved prior to any other military consideration, the importance of which was only reinforced by the alarming decline in German grain stocks. By December 1940 the entire military and political leadership of the Third Reich was convinced that this was the last year in which they could approach the food question with any confidence. Nor was this simply a German problem. All of the Western European territories which had fallen under German domination in 1940 had substantial net grain deficits.


    From page 539:


    Backe had not been bluffing in 1941. In light of the extension of the war into the indefinite future, Germany was facing a severe food problem. The German grain harvest of 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 swine herd had been reduced by 25 per cent 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. When the order to ship large numbers of Eastern workers to Germany for work was first given by Goering in November 1941, Backe protested vigorously. The 400,000 Soviet prisoners of war already in Germany were more than he could provide for. Goering had spoken casually of feeding the Eastern workers on cats and horse-meat. Backe had consulted the statistics and reported glumly that there were not enough cats to provide a ration for the Eastern workers and horse-meat was already being used to supplement the rations of the German population. If the Russians were to be given meat, they would have to be supplied at the expense of the German population.


    From page 541:


    Backe was in an impossible position. The Fuehrer had demanded more workers. Gauleiter Sauckel was dedicated to delivering them. Hitler and Sauckel now demanded that the workers be fed, which was clearly a necessity if they were to be productive. And yet, given the level of grain stocks, Backe was unable to meet this demand. What was called for was a reduction in consumption, not additional provisions for millions of new workers. The seriousness of the situation became apparent to the wider public in the spring of 1942 when the Food Ministry announced cuts to the food rations of the German population. Given the regime’s mortal fear of damaging morale, the ration cuts of April 1942 are incontrovertible evidence that the food crisis was real. Lowering the rations was a political step of the first order, which Backe would never have suggested if the situation had not absolutely required it. The Wehrmacht had prepared the way in 1942, by decreeing a ration cut for the fighting troops. When the reduction in the civilian ration was announced it produced a response which justified every anxiety on the part of the Nazi leadership. . . . [The morale effect of the cut] was, reported the SD’s informants, ‘devastating’ like ‘virtually no other event during the war.’ Studies by nutritional experts added to the leadership’s concerns.


    From page 549:


    The overriding need to improve the food situation actually created a perverse functional connection between the extermination of the Jewish population of the General Government [of occupied Poland] and the improvement in food rations that was necessary to sustain the labor force in the mines and factories of the Reich. . . . . In the summer of 1942 it was the concerted extermination of Polish Jewry that provided the most immediate and fail-safe means of freeing up food for delivery to Germany.


    Elsewhere, Tooze describe near-starvation conditions among the people of occupied Poland. He also described Germany’s inability to prevent starvation among the millions of Soviet POWs in German factories, despite the clear necessity of feeding Germany’s factory workers. The food situation in Germany and German-held territories was abysmal during WWII. Allied propagandists were able to persuade the general public that the suffering, starvation, and death which occurred in Nazi Germany were due solely to Hitler’s cruelty and racism; as opposed to being natural, inevitable consequences of the Anglo-American food blockade and the Soviets’ scorched earth policy.


  • @KurtGodel7:

    @221B:

    Can we get some numbers on the food shortages in the sphere of influence of Nazi Germany? I’ve read about the food shortages in WW1 but never for WW2.

    Below are some quotes from The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze. Tooze’s book has been praised by The Times (London), The Boston Globe, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, etc. From p. 168:


    One way or another, virtually everyone alive in Germany in the 1930s had an acute, personal experience of prolonged and insatiable hunger. [Due to the Anglo-French food blockade of WWI and the hunger during the Versailles Treaty.]


    From page 419:


    The rations set for the German population at the outbreak of the war had been relatively generous. But they could be sustained in 1940-41 only by making severe inroads into the large stocks of grain accumulated since 1936. . . . The shortfall in the European harvest of 1940-41 confirmed Herbert Backe’s worst fears. Unless Germany could find additional sources for millions of tons of grain, it would soon need to make serious cuts to food rations . . . And the situation in the urban centers of the occupied territories was, of course, far worse than in Germany. By 1941 there were already signs of mounting discontent due to the inadequate food supply. In Belgium and France, the official food ration allocated to ‘normal consumers’ of as little as 1,300 calories per day, was an open invitation to the black market. Daily allocations in Norway and the Czech protectorate hovered around 1,600 calories.


    From page 477:


    The second programme, which openly envisioned the killing of millions of people within the first twelve months of the German occupation, was agreed between the Wehrmacht, all the key civilian Ministries and the Nazi political leadership as early as the spring of 1941. Nor can the so-called ‘Hunger Plan’ be described as secret. It was referred to in official instructions issued to thousands of subordinates. And, perhaps most importantly, no effort was made to hide the wider rationale of the individual acts of brutality that the programme required. On the contrary, all German soldiers and occupation administrators were enjoined to understand and to commit themselves to its strategic logic. This genocidal plan commanded such wide-ranging support because it concerned a practical issue, the importance of which, following Germany’s experience in World War I, was obvious to all: the need to secure the food supply of the German population, if necessary at the expense of the population of the Soviet Union.

    As we have discussed, the ‘bread basket of the Ukraine’ played a key role in all the various military-economic assessments of the Barbarossa campaign prepared over the winter of 1940-41. For Hitler it was the key priority, to be achieved prior to any other military consideration, the importance of which was only reinforced by the alarming decline in German grain stocks. By December 1940 the entire military and political leadership of the Third Reich was convinced that this was the last year in which they could approach the food question with any confidence. Nor was this simply a German problem. All of the Western European territories which had fallen under German domination in 1940 had substantial net grain deficits.


    From page 539:


    Backe had not been bluffing in 1941. In light of the extension of the war into the indefinite future, Germany was facing a severe food problem. The German grain harvest of 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 swine herd had been reduced by 25 per cent 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. When the order to ship large numbers of Eastern workers to Germany for work was first given by Goering in November 1941, Backe protested vigorously. The 400,000 Soviet prisoners of war already in Germany were more than he could provide for. Goering had spoken casually of feeding the Eastern workers on cats and horse-meat. Backe had consulted the statistics and reported glumly that there were not enough cats to provide a ration for the Eastern workers and horse-meat was already being used to supplement the rations of the German population. If the Russians were to be given meat, they would have to be supplied at the expense of the German population.


    From page 541:


    Backe was in an impossible position. The Fuehrer had demanded more workers. Gauleiter Sauckel was dedicated to delivering them. Hitler and Sauckel now demanded that the workers be fed, which was clearly a necessity if they were to be productive. And yet, given the level of grain stocks, Backe was unable to meet this demand. What was called for was a reduction in consumption, not additional provisions for millions of new workers. The seriousness of the situation became apparent to the wider public in the spring of 1942 when the Food Ministry announced cuts to the food rations of the German population. Given the regime’s mortal fear of damaging morale, the ration cuts of April 1942 are incontrovertible evidence that the food crisis was real. Lowering the rations was a political step of the first order, which Backe would never have suggested if the situation had not absolutely required it. The Wehrmacht had prepared the way in 1942, by decreeing a ration cut for the fighting troops. When the reduction in the civilian ration was announced it produced a response which justified every anxiety on the part of the Nazi leadership. . . . [The morale effect of the cut] was, reported the SD’s informants, ‘devastating’ like ‘virtually no other event during the war.’ Studies by nutritional experts added to the leadership’s concerns.


    From page 549:


    The overriding need to improve the food situation actually created a perverse functional connection between the extermination of the Jewish population of the General Government [of occupied Poland] and the improvement in food rations that was necessary to sustain the labor force in the mines and factories of the Reich. . . . . In the summer of 1942 it was the concerted extermination of Polish Jewry that provided the most immediate and fail-safe means of freeing up food for delivery to Germany.


    Elsewhere, Tooze describe near-starvation conditions among the people of occupied Poland. He also described Germany’s inability to prevent starvation among the millions of Soviet POWs in German factories, despite the clear necessity of feeding Germany’s factory workers. The food situation in Germany and German-held territories was abysmal during WWII. Allied propagandists were able to persuade the general public that the suffering, starvation, and death which occurred in Nazi Germany were due solely to Hitler’s cruelty and racism; as opposed to being natural, inevitable consequences of the Anglo-American food blockade and the Soviets’ scorched earth policy.

    Thanks for the info. This is one area of WW2 i’ve never really heard much about or read about for that matter. I did hear from a former German soldier that at one point they actually ate their leather belts for food it was so scarce, I figured this was an exception not the norm, but it appears that is probably not the case. I will have to see if they have Tooze’s book at the library and have a good read.

    So judging by that info it seems that final solution wasnt the intended idea when it all began, I read sometime ago that Hitler planned on deporting all the Jews and “undesirables” to Madagascar using the remains of the British navy after the successful invasion of Britain. It doesnt make Hitlers and the Nazi’s actions less monstrous but it does make you understand why they did it, they felt within the confines of their belief system that they had no choice.


  • Between 1933 (upon taking power) and 1939 (going to war), Hitler’s government executed a few hundred people in non-judicial proceedings. Those executions occurred in 1934, at a time when the German Army consisted of rough,y 100,000 soldiers, and the (armed) SA had 500,000 members. The SA in general, and its head in particular, had become disillusioned with the moderate nature of Hitler’s then-government, and there was concern that the SA would rebel. The non-judicial executions were performed because Hitler believed an SA rebellion was imminent; and because he wanted to forestall the possibility of a civil war between the Army and the SA.

    In contrast, Stalin murdered tens of millions of innocent people before the Soviet Union went to war. While millions of the victims were Ukrainians (including 3 million Ukrainian children), millions of others were simply people who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time; and were murdered to instill terror in the remainder of the population. From http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MEGA.HTM


    I handled hundreds of signals to all parts of the Soviet Union which were couched in the following form:
    “To N.K.V.D., Frunze. You are charged with the task of exterminating 10,000 enemies of the people. Report results by signal.–Yezhov.”

    And in due course the reply would come back:

    “In reply to yours of such-and-such date, the following enemies of the Soviet people have been shot.”

    ----Former Soviet Spy-Chief Vladimir Petrov


    Assigning murder quotas to local authorities resulted in the deaths of people who thought differently or who seemed different than normal, people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and (on occasion) people who really were enemies of the Soviet communist government. This kind of terror killing appears unique to the Soviet Union, at least on that kind of scale. There is simply no comparison between mass murder on that scale and anything that occurred in Nazi Germany before the war began.

    During the war, the British and American governments imposed a food blockade on Germany; which in turn caused the starvation of millions of innocent people. Some people have used the deaths that occurred during that period to draw comparisons between the Nazi and the Soviet regimes. However, the food situation during the war was severe enough that the German government could not possibly feed everyone; so the only question was which people the Nazis would choose to starve.

    To fairly compare the Nazi and Soviet governments, one must look at what the Nazis did or attempted to do before the food blockade was imposed; as well as the actions they planned to take after Germany’s food crisis had been resolved. In 1938, Hitler had suggested relocating Germany’s Jewish population to a British or French colony. He suggested French Madagascar, but made it clear he didn’t care where the Jews were shipped as long as it was someplace far from Germany. Both the British and French leaders rebuffed this suggestion.

    During the war, German bureaucrats devised plans to relocate between 30 - 50 million Poles eastward into conquered Soviet territory. The lands vacated by these displaced Poles would be occupied by Germans. It was clear that if Germany and its conquered territories were still being starved by the food blockade, the deaths of large numbers of dislocated Poles along the way would be an acceptable way of reducing the number of mouths that needed to be fed. But there was not (so far as I am aware) any plan to starve or otherwise murder those Poles if the food blockade had been lifted.

    There is always the chance that the Nazis would have chosen to murder millions of innocent people even in the absence of a food crisis. However, I have not been able to uncover any actual evidence that they had planned to do so. Conversely, the Soviet government murdered tens of millions of its own citizens at a time when no food blockade had been imposed, and when it was actually exporting millions of tons of grain to fund Stalin’s industrialization program. Absent any evidence that the Nazis would have engaged in Soviet-style mass murder (except when forced to do so by a food crisis), there is no basis for concluding that the moral failings of the Nazi regime were comparable to the pure evil of the Soviet regime.


  • OK so aside from genocide, to get back to the thread topic: you chose waiting until 1945 as the option that would’ve helped Germany more in WW2?

    #603

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