Hitler and the Jews 6 questions?

Question

I had no idea where to start on google search so I thought I'd ask here first.

I recently watched Band of Brothers episode 9 which is about the Final Solution.

It clearly states that 6 million Jews and 5 million Mixed ethnic minorities were killed by the Germans so as these numbers are often lower as they cannot actually find the bodies it could have been as much as 10 million.  

Either way if Hitler and his army had taken this 10 million and put them to work for the German army would it have changed the course of history?  

I can imagine that maybe only 3-4 million were fighting men but the rest could be in factories etc. or farms etc. all contributing to the plight of the German war effort.

Possibly with out the A-bomb defeat was inevitable but surely an extra few million soldiers and many more workers might have sustained the German war for longer.  Also all the time and considerable effort put  into the Jewish question (including the many german soldiers) would have been spent actually fighting their enemies and not each other.

So my question are:
1) Would these extra people and freed up resources have really helped the germans win?

2) How or why did the German army think this was a good use of their talents (killing jews etc)?

3) did the allies know about the extend of the atrocities (the genocide)?

4) did the average hard working intelligent presumably decent german really condone such madness (i.e. the systematic extermination)?

5) did the average german who went back to work rebuilding the country after defeat believe what had been going on behind the scenes i.e. were they all forced to see what had been done to fellow germans?

6) it never occurred to me that not all the soldiers died and many went home....were they still nazis among them and were they punished in some way (other than defeat) and did they still hate the jews and the allies?

People say that the Germans were just people like the allies but I am not aware the allies were rounding up and exterminating people in their millions in their own countries?

I understand this might be alot so maybe a joint effort or some links to places I can do some research please.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

1. would forcing the prisoners to work for the war effort have freed up resources?  Well, they WERE forced to work, in the labor camps and death camps, many were doing slave labor for years.  Only a fraction were killed immediately, mostly the old and children an women.  But what if they were forced to FIGHT for the Germans?  Well, that would take more resources, not less.  Uniforms, weapons, food, etc.  Then there were people like Schindler who were only pretending to help.  How many of these conscripted fighters would be working against the Germans from the inside?  Most of them, probably.  Not smart to have your enemy know your battle plans from inside your camp.  So no, they wouldn't have used prisoners as soldiers.

2. this had nothing to do with talent.  it was genocide for the purpose of bringing about a stronger, superior ruling race, the Aryans.  they were killing off the weaker, dirtier, less worthy people.  it was misguided hatred and ignorance, not a chance to use any talents.

3.i doubt we will ever know the true numbers.  the allies had a decent idea, sure, but like the Spanish Inquisition, we're probably underestimating by a good margin.

4/5.no, they didn't.  many Germans were disgusted by what was going on, IF they knew about it.  most didn't.  this was pre-internet, and there was LOTS of propaganda and insanely high pressure to 'go with it', for the good of the country.  Germany was already hurting from losing WWI, so they kind of needed this one to work out.  so lots of people turned a blind eye because they were convinced it would help the country if they won.  

sure, you had the die hard Nazi sympathizers, they were the ones who helped Hitler rise to power in the first place.  but think of it this way, how many Americans supported Bush?  About as many Germans as really liked Hitler?  many Germans left the country, many helped Jews, like Schindler, and were the equivalent of Harriet Tubman to the slaves.  psychologically, the Germans who weren't 'part' of the Nazi regime distanced themselves from their own neighbors and said 'it wasn't us! don't hate us! we were innocent!  we didn't want this!'

6. but then there were the ones who were 'part' of it.  psychologically for them, losing the war was a death blow to their egos and sense of self.  everything they believed in, everything they thought was right, that they had fought and died for... was now considered to be the greatest evil the world had ever seen.  and everyone hated them.  what do you think they did?  there was lots of suicide, moving out of the country, changed names, trying to hide pasts.  sadly, I fear that there were, and are, some who still believe that they were right and will never even think of apologizing.  We now call those people Neo-Nazis, skinheads, kkk, etc.

there's hundreds of documentaries on this subject.  I've seen at least 50 of them.  I'm half German myself and even though all this happened 40 years before I was born and I've never even set foot in Germany, I still feel some residual guilt.  Looking at the psychological implications and how someone can be so mentally twisted as to think that outright murder is the right thing to do makes for a fascinating, if morbid, study of humanity's worst moments.

Hitler and the Jews 6 questions?

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