WWI: What if the U.S. stayed neutral?

[Ecthy]

Did you look that word up in some Polish textbook?

[Ned]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Don't forget about "Krystalnacht" (sp), the mass terrorizing of Jews in Germany well before the start of the war. Hitler began rounding up the Jews in Germany long before the war. Do you really think he was going to keep them alive at state expense for very long. There were efforts to get Jews out of Germany before the war too, but people were thrown into prison for assisting them. When you make it illegal for a people to live in a place but also illegal to leave you've narrowed the options for their future down to one thing - death. Please do take into consideration that there never was any evidence of a mass plot by the Jews to undermine Germany, that they did not own the majority of the banks or businesses, that they were not especially overly represented in the Communist Party, that they had contributed more than their fair share to Germany's culture and economy and had even willingly fought for Germany in the Great War.

I am far from puzzled by those who believe that Germany would have conducted genocide against the Jews of Germany assuming there was no war. The problem with this thesis is that he went out of his way to keep the Final Solution secret, including, as it was noted above, from the German people. He did this during a time of war. It demonstrates that he still had concern over his image among at least the German people, among his allies and friends, if not among others.

I think he would have found a "solution" for Germany's Jews that would have been more akin to mass expulsion to the Pale, to Palestine or to the United States.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned

I am far from puzzled by those who believe that Germany would have conducted genocide against the Jews of Germany assuming there was no war.

Why ? Kristallnacht happened before the outbreak of war.

For the first time, Jews were arrested on a massive scale and transported to Nazi concentration camps. About 30,000 Jews were sent to Buchenwald, Dachau, and Sachsenhausen, where hundreds died within weeks of arrival. Release came only after the prisoners arranged to emigrate and agreed to transfer their property to "Aryans."

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/kristallnacht/frame.htm

Still not read that book I recommended on the social history of the Third Reich, then ?

Pity.

The problem with this thesis is that he went out of his way to keep the Final Solution secret, including, as it was noted above, from the German people.

Oh dear.

Any Berliner unaware of the existence of Oranienburg Concentration Camp (or any Bavarian or Thuringian ignorant of Dachau or Buchenwald) within a year of the seizure of power was either an anchorite or obtuse to the point of cretinism.

'The Jews' ,from 'A Social History of the Third Reich', Richard Grunberger

There were still Jews in Germany, and others who were to perish alongside Jews in the Final Solution.

You have elsewhere claimed that the Nazis were 'more civilized' than German forces in WWI.

However these 'more civilized' forces carried out the mass murder of non-combatant Poles and Polish Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland- from the very beginning of the Nazi invasion.

They went on to carry out mass murder of Jews (amongst others) in the Baltic States, in Ukraine, the Crimea and Russia.

'You are permanently occupied in the extermination of the Jews'

a minor Westphalian Party official to a local Gestapo official 23rd November 1942- in a letter about railings!

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned

I think he would have found a "solution" for Germany's Jews that would have been more akin to mass expulsion to the Pale, to Palestine or to the United States.

I think you are talking out of your arse, and have spent too long perusing the internet equivalent of a sewage outflow.

Here's Hitler's 'retirement plan' for Jews, based on what he had thought all through his political career, and what he actually said in 1941:

When the other world has been delivered from the Jews, Judaism will have ceased to play a part in Europe...

Those nations who are still opposed to us will some day recognize the greater enemy within.

Then they will join us in a combined front, a front against international Jewish exploitation and racial degeneration.

Adolf Hitler, speech of 30th January 1941, from 'My New Order'.

[Ned]

Since this is more about WWI than Bush 41, I post this here.

- Jews in Germany, prior to the war, were fully integrated into German society and had reached the upper echelons of government, business, science and culture. Jews worldwide admired and supported Germany.

- In contrast, Jews worldwide despised the Czar because of the Pale and progroms.

- Jews were prominent in the German socialist movements. Socialists were generally anti-war across Europe.

- When Russia backed Serbia and mobilized, German socialists on the whole, with some dissenters, backed the war because it was against the Czar.

- In early 1917, the Czar abdicated and turned the government over to democrats.

- Immediately thereafter, the socialists began calling strikes in Germany, something they pledged not to do in 1914.

- The Brits negotiated what became the Balfour Declaration at this time. The Brits claim they did it to shore up Jewish support for Russia staying in the war by appealing to the Jews of the Pale. Clearly, though, the Brits wanted Jewish support woldwide regardless of country.

- Many American Jews who opposed America joining the war because of the Czar no longer had that reason to continue to oppose it and had the promise of a homeland should Britain win.

- Withing months of the fall of the Czar and the "Balfour" agreement that sought Jewish support for the Brits, America entered the war.

- At the close of the war, the Kaiser himself blamed Germany's loss on the Jews. Many Germans believed it.

- Historians who discuss this actually do not discuss it. They just state the British position on these issue and say the German position is without proof.

[Ned]

I was thinking about the above post. I think the reason historians downplay the effect of a change in Jewish opinion is that it may not have been decisive. Surely British propaganda and the likes of Teddy Roosevelt were far more effective in swaying the American republic than a last minute switch by a few prominent Jews.

Ditto Germany.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
Since this is more about WWI than Bush 41, I post this here.

- Jews in Germany, prior to the war, were fully integrated into German society and had reached the upper echelons of government, business, science and culture. Jews worldwide admired and supported Germany.

And this all meant that there was no antisemitism in Imperial Germany at all, nor in Austria-Hungary.

Is this what you're attempting, however crudely and obviously to say ?


I'm afraid you are dreadfully and demonstrably wrong- again.

The very success of Jews as fully-integrated citizens, whether it be in Germany, parts of Austria-Hungary or France seemed to provoke in some people the most uncontrolled and excessive antisemitism- as if somehow being patriotic and charitable and successful and creative or intelligent were not enough to overcome what these people felt was the intolerable fact (to them) of Judaism- even if the people in question were not professing Jews.

Historians who discuss this actually do not discuss it. They just state the British position on these issue and say the German position is without proof.

Which historians ?


Given that you're only advancing an unproven theory, why should any reputable historians discuss it, certainly if there's no proof to it ?

Reputable geographers tend not to take flat-earthers seriously. Do you think they should ?

[Ned]

Molly, no doubt what you say about pre-war Germany is true. But the widespread, even if inaccurrate and even if was promulgated by people who wanted to deflect blame from themselves, belief that "the" Jews cost Germany the war by getting America involved in exchange for a Jewish homeland commitment from the Brits was the major source of renewed anti-Semitism after the war. Perhaps this was just a pretext for latent anti-Semitism as you say. But it was the vehicle by which the right was able to get most Germans to agree with them. The Jews were not just rich and to be envied. They had "betrayed" Germany and were now its enemy.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
Molly, no doubt what you say about pre-war Germany is true.

It is. I know some German history. How about you ?

But the widespread, even if inaccurrate and even if was promulgated by people who wanted to deflect blame from themselves, belief that "the" Jews cost Germany the war by getting America involved in exchange for a Jewish homeland commitment from the Brits was the major source of renewed anti-Semitism after the war.

Where have you shown the link between postwar antisemitism in Germany and Austria and the Balfour Declaration or American Jewish support for a Jewish homeland ?

QUOTE SOME GERMANS FOR FU*K'S SAKE !!!!!


I'M NOT AT ALL INTERESTED IN YOUR ANTI-BRITISH OPINIONS, IN YOUR ATTEMPTS TO EXONERATE HITLER OR THE NAZIS OR GERMAN ANTISEMITES BECAUSE YOU APPEAR NOT TO KNOW HOW TO BUTTRESS AN ARGUMENT.


Now, if you can show that Hitler, for instance, blamed German or Austrian Jews for Germany's defeat because of the support shown by Great Britain for Zionists or because of the support shown by the U.S. for the Allied war effort, then do so- and by do so, I don't mean reprint the ravings of a prejudiced bigot like Freedman, which are entirely unsupported by anything remotely resembling a fact.

Because once again, you're taking at face value unsupported assertion AS FACT.

Which it ain't, and has never been.

[Ned]

I said it was the Kaiser himself who said it. As for support for this, see

"Many Germans blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I, some even claiming that German Jews had betrayed the nation during the war. In addition, at the end of the war a Communist group attempted to carry out a Bolshevik-type revolution in the German state of Bavaria. Most of the leaders of that failed attempt were Jews. As a result, some Germans associated Jews with Bolsheviks and regarded both groups as dangerous enemies of Germany. After the war, a republic known as the Weimar Republic was set up in Germany. Jewish politicians and intellectuals played an important role in German life during the Weimar Republic, and many non-Jews resented their influence.

On the basis of his anti-Semitic views, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler attacked the impressive role Jews played in German society during the Weimar Republic, especially in the intellectual world and in left-wing politics. He referred to them as a plague and a cancer. In his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle, translated 1939), which was published in 1926, Hitler blamed the plight of Germany at the end of World War I on an international Jewish conspiracy and used terms such as extirpation and extermination in relation to the Jews. He claimed that the Jews had achieved economic dominance and the ability to control and manipulate the mass media to their own advantage. He wrote of the need to eradicate their powerful economic position, if necessary by means of their physical removal."

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761559508

"In the early months of 1917 it appeared that the tide of the war was turning against the Allies. One element in the equation was the attitude of the five million Jews of Western Russia and Poland, who looked to Germany as their saviour from Russian oppression. The American Jews, in sympathy with their Russian brethren, were also considered to be important. And both were committed to Zionism, the dream of a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel, now falling under British control. Britain thus had a dual interest – the mobilisation of a body of opinion in support of the war effort in Russia and the US, and the legitimisation of its continued presence in Palestine after the war.

The result was the Balfour Declaration...."

http://www.ijs.org.au/IJS/MintDigital.NET/IJS.aspx?XmlNode=/Modern+History/The+Creation+of+Modern+Israel/The+Interest+of+the+Great+Powers+1914+-+1918

See: http://rabbiwein.com/modules.php?nam...rticle&sid=777

From a review of Elon, A., The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933 avail. on Amazon.com:

"Belief in the coming of the Messiah and a Messianic era of world peace is an integral part of traditional Judaism. Even secularized Jews, starting with Moses Mendelssohn and others, transfer this belief into an attempt to create a worldly utopia in the here and now while abandoning traditional Jewish observance. This explains why various universalist, utopian philosophies, such as Marxism, attracts secular Jews. Similarly, attempts to create an improved "Reform" Judaism, or a quasi-universalist Socialist Zionism attracted Jews who had abandoned belief in the Jewish religious tradition. Amos Elon, a Jew of this type, in this outstanding book, looks back at what seemed at the time, the most successful attempt of the Jews to shed their supposedly "parochial" traditions and to assimilate into what looked like a vital culture, Germany of the 19th and early 20th century which had such a flowering of music, literature, art, science and industry in which Jews played such a major role. Although most Jews abandoned religious tradition in the period, moving upward in the social and economic mileu of Germany, and felt that they were as German as any non-Jewish German, especially after having fought as good patriots in the wars of the 1870 and 1914-1918, the whole edifice of German Jewish assimilation came crashing down, dragging much of Europe into the abyss with it. Many Jews came into prominence in the highest levels of German society and politics, even into the Kaiser's entourage, and yet, when the crunch came with the defeat in 1918, the Kaiser and others blamed "the Jews" for the defeat, even though the Jews were the most loyal of all Germans. As Elon points out, many in Europe admired or feared the Germans, only the Jews loved them. And this love was totally unrequited, as the Germans, as a people, decided that the Jews were responsible for all their problems and that the Jews would have to be annihilated, even if it meant the destruction of their own country in the process."

http://www.amazon.com/Pity-All-Portrait-German-Jewish-1743-1933/dp/0312422814

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
I said it was the Kaiser himself who said it.

Oh. Where ?

More to the point- why on earth should anyone trust the word of someone who was responsible for bringing Imperial Germany into the war, and who was a known antisemite BEFORE the war began ?

"Many Germans blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I, some even claiming that German Jews had betrayed the nation during the war.

I know this. I've also mentioned, in some detail, the antisemitic movements in pre-war Germany, anti-semitic individuals and anti-semitic literature.

Righyt wing Germans also blamed international capitalists, Socialists, Liberals, and so on.

Claiming they were responsible is not the same as proving they were.

You seem unable to distinguish between the two concepts.

Jewish politicians and intellectuals played an important role in German life during the Weimar Republic,

Yes, German Jews such as Walther Rathenau, who was not a traitor nor a Bolshevik.

On the basis of his anti-Semitic views, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler attacked the impressive role Jews played in German society during the Weimar Republic

Views which he held before the outbreak of World War One, and for which neither the British nor the Balfour Declaration were responsible.

Hitler blamed the plight of Germany at the end of World War I on an international Jewish conspiracy

An 'international Jewish conspiracy'. Not the first time this has been promulgated:

The Protocols were actually written in Paris sometime between 1895 and 1899 by an agent of the Russian secret police Pyotr Ivanovich Rachovsky, who is known to have forged other documents for the various intrigues in which he took part. While the Protocols are overtly anti-Semitic it is believed that the Russian minister of finance, Sergei Witte, was also a target of the Protocols. At the time Witte was the leader of the movement to modernize Russia and limit the influence of the old Russian aristocracy. The Protocols attempt to discredit Witte's reforms of the Russian economy by linking Witte's program to a Jewish plot to destroy western civilization.

'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'- a Tsarist 19th Century forgery.

http://www.holocaust-history.org/short-essays/protocols.shtml

He claimed that the Jews had achieved economic dominance and the ability to control and manipulate the mass media to their own advantage. He wrote of the need to eradicate their powerful economic position, if necessary by means of their physical removal."

None of which shows any link between 'the Jews', the British support for Jewish emigration to Palestine or 'Jewish-induced' American support for the Allies and the blame for Germany's defeat.

"In the early months of 1917 it appeared that the tide of the war was turning against the Allies. .

Appearances can be deceptive, as we know.

One element in the equation was the attitude of the five million Jews of Western Russia and Poland, who looked to Germany as their saviour from Russian oppression.

Yeah, one element. Hardly a determining element.

The American Jews, in sympathy with their Russian brethren, were also considered to be important.

By whom, and with regard to what ?

And both were committed to Zionism, the dream of a Jewish homeland in the land of Israel, now falling under British control.

Very nice, but not very precise. Figures for the commitment to the Zionist movements in German occupied Western Russia and Poland might be useful, as would American Jewish commitment to Zionism

All this still is a long way from showing what you contended.

Britain thus had a dual interest – the mobilisation of a body of opinion in support of the war effort in Russia

That would be the Russia which was already at war with Germany, Turkey and Austria-Hungary, would it ?

the Kaiser and others blamed "the Jews" for the defeat, even though the Jews were the most loyal of all Germans.

So even though there was no connection between the German Jews and the defeat of Imperial Germany, in line with pre-existing antisemitic sentiments in Germany, they were blamed regardless.

Still far from showing that Germans blamed the Balfour Declaration or British support for a Jewish homeland for the defeat of Germany.

As Elon points out, many in Europe admired or feared the Germans, only the Jews loved them. And this love was totally unrequited, as the Germans, as a people, decided that the Jews were responsible for all their problems and that the Jews would have to be annihilated, even if it meant the destruction of their own country in the process."

This goes too far. Not all Germans were antisemitic, nor did all Germans blame 'the Jews' for the Allied victory.

Try to find some direct quotes from Germans blaming Jewish attempts to get the United States involved on the side of the Allies, or British support for a Jewish homeland for the defeat of the Alliance.

Otherwise, I ain't interested.

[Ned]

molly, there is a difference between trying to prove the Jews got America into the war and trying to prove the German's percieved that the Jews were responsible for Germany losing the war. You do seem to agree with that many in Germany (mainly the right) had the perception that the Jews were responsible for their loss. This is what I was trying to show.

Since we seem to agree on this, what happened when the right took over in Germany was somewhat predictable.




Surprisingly, Hitler never mentions the Balfour declaration in Mein Kampf or the theory that the Jews got America into the war. He talks mainly about his direct personal experiences during the war years. He does blame them for the strikes and for demoralizing Germany as a whole.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned
molly, there is a difference between trying to prove the Jews got America into the war and trying to prove the German's percieved that the Jews were responsible for Germany losing the war.

But that's precisely what you were saying- that 'the Jews' acting on the British (and through them the Americans) joined the Allies and increased the numbers of states fighting the Triple Alliance, and that post-WWI German antisemitism could be blamed on this and British diplomacy!

Really, don't you actually read what you write ?

It would help by the way, if you wrote more clearly.

The British machinations with the Zionists are to blame for this; and the Zionists should have been aware that German Jews would bear the brunt of German anger (even if they themselves were blameless) over a lost war when they did the deal with the British during the course of the war.

Once again, in a very weird twist of fate, British diplomacy caused a lot of collateral damage.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=163500

See ?

This is the kind of nonsense you assert, AS IF IT WERE ESTABLISHED FACT; then you say this:

You do seem to agree with that many in Germany (mainly the right) had the perception that the Jews were responsible for their loss. This is what I was trying to show.

and act as if you hadn't said the latter.

Which German leftists or centrists blamed 'the Jews' for Germany's defeat ?

Since we seem to agree on this, what happened when the right took over in Germany was somewhat predictable.

It's nothing of the sort. Given that it took the fall of the Weimar Republic for 'the Right' to take over, and that that was over a decade later and took place after a world-wide recession, I fail to see how the Nazi Party's plans for extermination of German and European Jewry was in any way predictable.

Of course, had I agreed with that assertion of yours, you would undoubtedly have found some way to blame Auschwitz and Treblinka on the Allies and the U.S. and 'the Jews'.

It might be a good idea to refrain from referring to such a disparate group of people as simply 'the Jews'; by doing so you keep assuming that somehow all Jews act or think alike, and that Rosa Luxemburg had the same views on a Jewish homeland as Herzog or Weizmann.

Surprisingly, Hitler never mentions the Balfour declaration in Mein Kampf or the theory that the Jews got America into the war.

It's hardly surprising at all, unless you persist in trying to blame deep-seated Germanic antisemitism on events that took place only in the second decade of the Twentieth Century.

But then that would suit your habit of trying to shift the blame away from guilty parties and transfer it to the British, or the victims....

He does blame them for the strikes and for demoralizing Germany as a whole.

And to those of us familiar with antisemitism, the self-serving memoirs of Ludendorff, this comes as no great shock.

It's far easier to lay the blame on the domestic front than to admit that the army or the militarists failed- which they did.

[Ned]

molly, there is nothing inconsistent with my two statements. The Brits did Balfour with the intention of gaining Jewish support in Russia and the US. Whether they succeeded or whether the Jewish support was decisive is quite beside the point. When the average German heard about this, what is he going to think?

As to the strikes, they were lead by socialists who were dominated by Jews. The intent of the strikes was to cripple the war effort. Whether they were successful in this is quite beside the point, once more. The actions of some Jews in persuing whatever cause they were persuing left the Jews in general open to the smear that they betrayed Germany even if a majority of German Jews were quite loyal.

BTW, I am quite sure the Balfour agreement had nothing to do with the German socialist-lead strikes. The socialists were for the war so long as the Czar was the enemy. They changed positions as soon as he abdicated and went into their traditional anti-war mode.

As to all this having no effect at all on what happened later, I am sure you really don't agree with that.

[Patroklos]

The regime managed to keep the German people in the dark about the killings. Peace was no protection, doofus.

The war, and the liberties war allows a government (especially Hitler's) to take is preciesly why he could keep it secret. It would have been impossible to conceal in peacetime, both from the population of Germany who was a little preoccupied with other things during the war, like war, and the allies who even if they knew the full extent of what was happening, which you haven't proven, were also a little preocupied with other things during the war. In peace time, without struggling for their own exisitance, the allies would have cared far more.

And you're assuming that Hitler would not have continued to the East had France and Britain stood down, despite his own words to the contrary.

And here you fall prey to your limited scope of sources. Your assumptions about what Hitler might do is based on his public speeches. Well lets go though Hitler and his cronies public speaches and separate the true and false and see what pile is bigger.

You ignore the conclusions of von Manstein, Guderian and von Loringhoven who say in no minced terms that it was the success of Blitzkrieg in the West that convinced Hitler that taking on Russia was possible rather than a nice pipe dream.

Are you running for assclown of the century

Your obviosly grinding an axe, whether your right above or not.