Jewish Free Republic of Bavaria.

At the end of the war there was a terrible problem with millions of Jewish holocaust survivors displaced and often finding they had no home on return to their native lands. There was also strong wish in some circles to dismember Germany. Austria had already been removed from the Reich.

What would be the consequences if something like the Morgenthau Plan had prevailed? Suppose that West Germany was divided into a Rhineland Republic, North German Republic and Jewish Free Republic (in what had been Bavaria). Millions had been displaced in the war and it was generally agreed the Germans had to suffer. The Bavarians were particularly identified with Nazism and so it would have appeared logical to punish them. Teh British would have supported the proposal as a way of defusing the Palestine problem. The Russian and Poles would have seenit as a way of disposing of troublesome Jewish residents who otherwise would want to return to homes in their country. American Jews might get behind the proposal. German Bavarians would have been displaced to the other West German Republics or Austria.

The Jewish Free Republic might have been an enthusiastic founding member of the European Union.

Its language might have been a modernised Yiddish. It would surely have been a succesful centre of science and culture.

What do you think?
 
East Prussia or Palestine.

It may be "logical to punish them," but would the Jews really like to live in Bavaria? Europe itself was regarded as "a graveyard," Bavaria was the pits of hell to them.
 

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Banned
East Prussia or Palestine.

It may be "logical to punish them," but would the Jews really like to live in Bavaria? Europe itself was regarded as "a graveyard," Bavaria was the pits of hell to them.

East Prussia makes sense as its already detached from Germany, and Its less land the Soviets can snatch up.
 
East Prussia or Palestine.

It may be "logical to punish them," but would the Jews really like to live in Bavaria? Europe itself was regarded as "a graveyard," Bavaria was the pits of hell to them.

Well Bavaria is at the heart of Europe. Wouldn't they feel more protected with Western allied occupation forces there than in Soviet dominate East Prussia. There are plenty of instances of Jews being murdered in Soviet dominated Eastern Europe. That was partly why so many Jews were fleeing to Palestine. Jewish communities stayed on in France and elsewhere despite what had happened.

In the end most European Jews did not go to Israel, they went to America, England and France.

Wouldn't they feel a certain ironic satisfaction in building a new state in a Deustchefrei Bavaria, knowing Hitler would be spinning in his grave?
 
East Prussia makes sense as its already detached from Germany, and Its less land the Soviets can snatch up.

I very much doubt Stalin would have given it up to the formation of a democratic republic. Don't forget he was becoming increasinly anti-semitic as he got older.
 
For its poetic justice and the fact that it was a centrally located so could serve as a good gathering place for European Jews, and because the Germans could be expelled to provide the housing and so on.

It would probably cause the greatest emigration crisis the world ever saw in recent history. Germany was already on the brink of absolute social collapse with Silesia and Pommerania taken. Bavaria would just ruin it.
 
to Quote David Ben-Gurion when the idea of East Prussia being turned into a Jewish State was floated by the British to him ""the only way to get Jews to go [to East Prussia] would be with machine guns."

Well Ben-Gurion was a militant Zionist. But most European Jews did not wish to go to Palestine and did not go.
 
Well Ben-Gurion was a militant Zionist. But most European Jews did not wish to go to Palestine and did not go.

true, the went to the US where many had family and those who didn't have family there were still tons of Jews, plus the "White Paper" on no Jews going to Palestine was in affect till 1948 so going there was illegal and very hard
 
It would probably cause the greatest emigration crisis the world ever saw in recent history. Germany was already on the brink of absolute social collapse with Silesia and Pommerania taken. Bavaria would just ruin it.

Yes, but (it may not be nice to dwell on it now) at the time a lot of people wanted Germany to be ground down and for Germans to suffer. Although things would have been crowded, they would still be far from living conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto or say Leningrad during the siege. I think it would be politically acceptable, even to the Germans who had been expecting to be punished for the crimes of the Nazis.

I personally think - because the Holocaust was such a stain on Germany's history - that most German politicians would have accepted the loss and sought good relations with the Jewish Free Republic (as they did with Israel in the post war period). No doubt many nationalists and the Christian Social Union would not be reconciled to it. But with the founding of the European Union (or EEC) Germans would have once more been ableto live and work in the Jewish Free Republic. That would take the edge off resentment.
 
At the end of the war there was a terrible problem with millions of Jewish holocaust survivors displaced and often finding they had no home on return to their native lands. There was also strong wish in some circles to dismember Germany. Austria had already been removed from the Reich.

What would be the consequences if something like the Morgenthau Plan had prevailed? Suppose that West Germany was divided into a Rhineland Republic, North German Republic and Jewish Free Republic (in what had been Bavaria). Millions had been displaced in the war and it was generally agreed the Germans had to suffer. The Bavarians were particularly identified with Nazism and so it would have appeared logical to punish them. Teh British would have supported the proposal as a way of defusing the Palestine problem. The Russian and Poles would have seenit as a way of disposing of troublesome Jewish residents who otherwise would want to return to homes in their country. American Jews might get behind the proposal. German Bavarians would have been displaced to the other West German Republics or Austria.

The Jewish Free Republic might have been an enthusiastic founding member of the European Union.

Its language might have been a modernised Yiddish. It would surely have been a succesful centre of science and culture.

What do you think?

There were around 250,000 displaced persons of Jewish descent after WW2.

Bavaria had a population of 9 million.

Do the maths - are you going to displace 9 million Germans to replace them with 250,000 Jews? No sane politician would suggest such a thing.

How would the state survive illegal German immigration back to Bavaria?

At best you're talking about an enormous ghetto suurounding by 40 times as many displaced Germans who didn't have the best of relationships with the Jews even prior to the Nazi years

The British would not have supported the proposal - Churchill and Eden were strongly against the Morgenthau plan and besides it would have traded one battlefield in the Middle East (which the British could and did withdraw from) for one that they would be unable to withdraw from in Europe.

Poland and Russia would not care if their Jews emigrated to Israel or Bavaria - they may care if they saw Bavaria being built up as and Anglo-American client state.
 
This is such an amazing idea....

especially since anti semitism in Europe was completely eradicated in May 1945.:p:p:p

While building a Jewish state in the birthplace of Nazism has a certain poetic justice to it, it really has no serious basis.

Many Jewish people who survived the death camps returned to their homes in Germany, Austria and Poland after the war and instead of being greeted with open arms, found they were met with suspicion and violence, anti Jewish massacres continued in Poland through 1946/1947 with locals angry at the Jews returning.

The majority of the surviving Jews left Europe altogether, in part to escape the continuing racism but also because the whole of the Jewish infrastruce was gone. In contrast in Israel it was exploding, why would any Jew prefer Bavaria to Israel, where things would have had to be started again.

Bavaria has traditionally been Germany's most distinct state with a culture quite separate from that of Germany as a whole. It is Germany's engine and was key to the rebuilding of West Germany as a democratic capitalist heartland in central Europe, quite at odds with the Zionist movement's ideal which was far more socialist, even communist. Had the allies promoted the idea of a Jewish state in Bavaria, it would likely be effectively run by American Jews to ensure the ties with Israel remained politically weak.

I anticipate that the Soviet Union would have allied itself with Israel and the US with a Bavarian Jewish state and the two Jewish states would have a difficult relationship.

As a predominantly Catholic state, I think it rather unlikely the Vatican would go along with one of its core regions being effectively handed over to the Jews.
 
especially since anti semitism in Europe was completely eradicated in May 1945.:p:p:p

While building a Jewish state in the birthplace of Nazism has a certain poetic justice to it, it really has no serious basis.

Many Jewish people who survived the death camps returned to their homes in Germany, Austria and Poland after the war and instead of being greeted with open arms, found they were met with suspicion and violence, anti Jewish massacres continued in Poland through 1946/1947 with locals angry at the Jews returning.

The majority of the surviving Jews left Europe altogether, in part to escape the continuing racism but also because the whole of the Jewish infrastruce was gone. In contrast in Israel it was exploding, why would any Jew prefer Bavaria to Israel, where things would have had to be started again.

Bavaria has traditionally been Germany's most distinct state with a culture quite separate from that of Germany as a whole. It is Germany's engine and was key to the rebuilding of West Germany as a democratic capitalist heartland in central Europe, quite at odds with the Zionist movement's ideal which was far more socialist, even communist. Had the allies promoted the idea of a Jewish state in Bavaria, it would likely be effectively run by American Jews to ensure the ties with Israel remained politically weak.

I anticipate that the Soviet Union would have allied itself with Israel and the US with a Bavarian Jewish state and the two Jewish states would have a difficult relationship.

As a predominantly Catholic state, I think it rather unlikely the Vatican would go along with one of its core regions being effectively handed over to the Jews.

Well clearly,as we have heard these ideas were in circulation.The idea of making East Prussia a homeland for Jews had been raised and Morgenthau's Plan involved the dismemberment of Germany. There was certainly a mood about that Germany must be punished. Poland and Russia took territory from her. It is not an idea in the realms of the absurd.
 
There were around 250,000 displaced persons of Jewish descent after WW2.

Bavaria had a population of 9 million.

Do the maths - are you going to displace 9 million Germans to replace them with 250,000 Jews? No sane politician would suggest such a thing.

How would the state survive illegal German immigration back to Bavaria?

At best you're talking about an enormous ghetto suurounding by 40 times as many displaced Germans who didn't have the best of relationships with the Jews even prior to the Nazi years

The British would not have supported the proposal - Churchill and Eden were strongly against the Morgenthau plan and besides it would have traded one battlefield in the Middle East (which the British could and did withdraw from) for one that they would be unable to withdraw from in Europe.

Poland and Russia would not care if their Jews emigrated to Israel or Bavaria - they may care if they saw Bavaria being built up as and Anglo-American client state.

Fair comment on the numbers (although it wasn't just official displaced persons of Jewish origins who needed a secure home). I think the TL might be amended to suggest that part of Bavaria, maybe centred around Munich was to be made into the Jewish Free Republic.

How does any state survive illegal immigration. People have got to live somewhere. No doubt some would return illegally but they wouldn't have homes to return to. I imagine initially a Jewish Free Republic would be very sensitive about that, but I think they would also be enthusiastic about the European Union project.

Yes, we know the British didn't support Morgenthau, but Morgenthau was very extreme - wishing to reduce the Germans to an agricultural status. This would involve simply some territorial transfer as was to happen elsewhere in the East and West.
 
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