Why didn't Hitler have a "Jewish Question" but not a"French Question"?

[Nightingale]

This is something I'm intrigued with. Firstly, I denounce any murder spree and I hate any attack against any race. But I just wanna ask, why did not Hitler have a "French Question" and exterminated Holocaust-style the French like he did with the Jews? France was really adamant to impose the Versailles Treaty on Germany in 1919, even occupying the Rhineland until 1935, and many Germans hated the Versailles Treaty, so they could have easily blamed Germany's political and economic woes on the French. So, what gives?

 

[BlondieBC]

When WW1 ended, Germany had lost almost no land to the enemy, so we get the "Stabbed in the Back" idea of why Germany lost. Since French are external, not internal enemies, they can't fit into this narrative. You need a population inside of Germany.

Then you have to look at the long history of blaming Jews for everything. Just to give an example, the first time I have been able to find the phrase "The Jewish Question" was not even by a German. It was by the Russian Ambassador to the USA in the NY Times before America entered WW1.

So it just all fits together in a simple narrative that is easy to use for politics.

 

[Napoleon IV]

Let's look at the roots of Hitler's racism (just to be clear: all of these theories are complete horseshit. But they're relevant to understanding the Holocaust):

1. 19th century racial science: According to some racial scientists of the time period both French and Germans were part of the Aryan race, however Germans were part of the Nordic race (which was a subgroup of the Aryans), while the French were a mix of the Nordic and Mediterranean races. According to racial scientists in Germany and other countries with large Nordic populations the Nordic race was Master Race, but the other members of the Aryan race were alright. They weren't quite as good racial stock as the Nordics, and should be kept out of the Nordic gene pool, but they were human and entitled to be treated as such. Meanwhile the Jews were descendants of Asian races (most notably the Armenoid race of the Caucasus and Levant), and therefore not Aryan. So from a racial standpoint exterminating the French would have meant genocide against part of the Aryan race, while exterminating the Jews was destroying an "inferior" race.

2. The Jewish Conspiracy: There had long been the idea that the Jews were secretly running the world. The most famous work promoting this idea was the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was allegedly the minutes of a meeting between Jewish elders discussing their plans for world domination (in reality it was a forgery by the Tsarist secret police). Hitler was a fan of the Protocols, stating "The important thing is that with positively terrifying certainty they reveal the nature and activity of the Jewish people and expose their inner contexts as well as their ultimate final aims" (that said, it's a matter of dispute how much the Protocols influenced Hitler's worldview). When viewed through the lens of Jewish World Order theories it becomes clear that the French, although guilty of hurting Germany, take a backseat to the Jews as the cause of Germany's troubles. Therefore Hitler figured that by getting rid of the Jews he would get rid of the source of Germany's troubles. There's no need to do more than occupy France.

 

[Zheng He]

Hitler's views of Jews were not unique or original and unfortunately they still exist (see recent events in Charlottesville, VA), he just took things to a whole new level or maybe several new levels.

Even making Jews wear yellow stars of David was not his idea, I think that first happened in England in like the 1200s or something like that.

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

Hitler regarded France as an enemy, Many Germans regarded the French as a race of degenerates who should become extinct (and probably would by "natural causes").

But the French were not especially dangerous. They stood up and fought in battle, but only their numbers gave them strength, and Germany could smash them (as in 1870, and almost in 1914, and in 1940).

The Jews were powerful far out of proportion to their numbers and diabolically insidious. They were present in Germany, where they infiltrated the financial system and the universities.

 

[CalBear]

Hitler regarded France as an enemy, Many Germans regarded the French as a race of degenerates who should become extinct (and probably would by "natural causes").

But the French were not especially dangerous. They stood up and fought in battle, but only their numbers gave them strength, and Germany could smash them (as in 1870, and almost in 1914, and in 1940).

The Jews were powerful far out of proportion to their numbers and diabolically insidious. They were present in Germany, where they infiltrated the financial system and the universities.

Would probably have generated a lot fewer reports if you have included "to Hitler's thinking" somewhere in this.

 

[ramdomperson]

Let's look at the roots of Hitler's racism (just to be clear: all of these theories are complete horseshit. But they're relevant to understanding the Holocaust):

1. 19th century racial science: According to some racial scientists of the time period both French and Germans were part of the Aryan race, however Germans were part of the Nordic race (which was a subgroup of the Aryans), while the French were a mix of the Nordic and Mediterranean races. According to racial scientists in Germany and other countries with large Nordic populations the Nordic race was Master Race, but the other members of the Aryan race were alright. They weren't quite as good racial stock as the Nordics, and should be kept out of the Nordic gene pool, but they were human and entitled to be treated as such. Meanwhile the Jews were descendants of Asian races (most notably the Armenoid race of the Caucasus and Levant), and therefore not Aryan. So from a racial standpoint exterminating the French would have meant genocide against part of the Aryan race, while exterminating the Jews was destroying an "inferior" race...

As a matter of curiosity, when did people start doing rigorous study (with statistical hypothesis testing!) of "racial characteristics" to check if their biases held any actual weight?

 

[David T]

You have to remember that to people of Hitler's frame of mind, the real enemy was always internal. There weren't very many French people in Vienna, but there were plenty of Jews... (Admittedly, the question of whether Hitler had already become a fanatical anti-Semite in Vienna, as he later claimed in Mein Kampf, may never be definitively answered; but he can hardly have been failed to be influenced by the anti-Semitism of mayor Karl Lueger and of the Vienna gutter press.)

 

[VictorLaszlo]

As a matter of curiosity, when did people start doing rigorous study (with statistical hypothesis testing!) of "racial characteristics" to check if their biases held any actual weight?

In the 19th century when the colonial powers needed a "scientific" justification for their colonialism. Then these "scientific" methods were applied to update other ancient prejudices, e.g. the term "Anti-Semitismus" was coined in the later 19th century since it was supposed to sound more scientific than the old term "Judenhass".

 

[Anarch King of Dipsodes]

Would probably have generated a lot fewer reports if you have included "to Hitler's thinking" somewhere in this.

I suppose - but that is the premise of the entire thread - what Hitler thought.

There is one other question that occurs to me: it was one thing for Hitler to fear and attack the Jews of Germany, who were disproportionately successful and influential in Germany. That was at least a vaguely plausible threat, and it could be linked to Communism, in which Jews played major roles (leading to such bizarre formulations as "judische-bolschewistiche plutokraten").

But the great mass of not very rich village and ghetto Jews across eastern Europe? What threat could they pose? Somewhere in the Wannsee proceedings, I suppose, there is some convoluted explanation of how the mere presence of Moshe the tailor and his family in Blitszelvlitszka adds to the danger from Rothschild, Trotsky, et al. It must have taken some spectacular mental contortions to believe such rot at all - much less to execute a cruel and costly program based on it. (And yes, the cruelty mattered. Many of the Nazis recognized that what they were doing was wrong by all ordinary morality, and had to argue themselves into justifying it. Even Himmler couldn't bear to see the actual crimes.)

It goes back to the initial question. Because the French, after all, were a martial people, concentrated in one area, numbering 10s of millions, with a long history of fighting and even defeating Germans. Whereas the Jews of eastern Europe were much fewer, dispersed, and not known for soldiering. And as noted, not plausibly connected to the Great Jewish Conspiracy. Why did they have to be killed?

Anti-semitism, of course, but... Even Germany's most notoriously anti-semitic allies didn't pursue Jews with the determination of Germany (e.g. half of Romania's Jews survived).

Hitlerian "reasoning" about this remains a question to be explored.

 

[ramdomperson]

In the 19th century when the colonial powers needed a "scientific" justification for their colonialism. Then these "scientific" methods were applied to update other ancient prejudices, e.g. the term "Anti-Semitismus" was coined in the later 19th century since it was supposed to sound more scientific than the old term "Judenhass".

No, I meant to ask when did people start applying critical thinking and actual evidence to challenge their biases rather than finding "evidence" that confirmed their biases.

 

[Matteo]

This is something I'm intrigued with. Firstly, I denounce any murder spree and I hate any attack against any race. But I just wanna ask, why did not Hitler have a "French Question" and exterminated Holocaust-style the French like he did with the Jews? France was really adamant to impose the Versailles Treaty on Germany in 1919, even occupying the Rhineland until 1935, and many Germans hated the Versailles Treaty, so they could have easily blamed Germany's political and economic woes on the French. So, what gives?

You are wrong.

Hitler did have a french question. Me in kampf is much more an anti-French or anti-Slav book than an anti-jewish book.

Hitler wrote in it that France was « that eternal enemy of the German people ». And when a French publisher translated the book, Hitler, then chancellor, sued him in a French court to have the book banned for sale in France.

And Hitler did not plan from the start to mass murder jews. He initially just wanted to separate Jews from so-called aryans and to expel jews away from Germany. Those Hitler wanted to slaughter (turning them into slaves and mass starving the others) from the start were Slavs, who happened to live in the so called lebensraum/vital space.

 

[Rambam23]

You are wrong.

Hitler did have a french question. Me in kampf is much more an anti-French or anti-Slav book than an anti-jewish book.

Hitler wrote in it that France was « that eternal enemy of the German people ». And when a French publisher translated the book, Hitler, then chancellor, sued him in a French court to have the book banned for sale in France.

And Hitler did not plan from the start to mass murder jews. He initially just wanted to separate Jews from so-called aryans and to expel jews away from Germany. Those Hitler wanted to slaughter (turning them into slaves and mass starving the others) from the start were Slavs, who happened to live in the so called lebensraum/vital space.

You are stating as a matter of fact issues of great historiographical controversy. Your analysis of Mein Kampf is just wrong. Virtually every chapter of Mein Kampf is focused on Hitler’s ravings about Jews. Hitler did not believe that the French were significantly racially inferior to Aryans. As opposed to Slavs (except for Slovakia and Croatia), he allowed some of France self-government. There was never any plan to eliminate the French. There was no idea of the “French Question.”

Your argument that Hitler didn’t plan the Holocaust until later is called “functionalism” in historiography and is highly controversial.

Hitler never planned to kill all Slavs. They were to be largely killed and enslaved, as dictated by Generalplan Ost.

The idea that Jews were a secondary target to Hitler is pernicious nonsense. Antisemitism was Hitler’s great obsession.

 

[Rambam23]

Then you have to look at the long history of blaming Jews for everything. Just to give an example, the first time I have been able to find the phrase "The Jewish Question" was not even by a German. It was by the Russian Ambassador to the USA in the NY Times before America entered WW1.

According to Wikipedia, the first time ”the Jewish Question” was used was in Britain in the debate of the Jew Bill of 1753. Marx wrote a whole piece “On the Jewish Question” in 1843.

 

[Roger II]

No, I meant to ask when did people start applying critical thinking and actual evidence to challenge their biases rather than finding "evidence" that confirmed their biases.

Not so much statistically, but of course there were philosophical opponents of racism and racial science almost from the outset-Anthony William Amo and Benjamin Lay come to mind of the top of my head. The most prominent writers to oppose racism from an empirical standpoint were initially(early in the 20th century) anthropologists and sociologists, who often worked on studies of how cultural and behavior is socially rather than biologically determined.

 

[Matteo]

You are stating as a matter of fact issues of great historiographical controversy. Your analysis of Mein Kampf is just wrong. Virtually every chapter of Mein Kampf is focused on Hitler’s ravings about Jews. Hitler did not believe that the French were significantly racially inferior to Aryans. As opposed to Slavs (except for Slovakia and Croatia), he allowed some of France self-government. There was never any plan to eliminate the French. There was no idea of the “French Question.”

Your argument that Hitler didn’t plan the Holocaust until later is called “functionalism” in historiography and is highly controversial.

Hitler never planned to kill all Slavs. They were to be largely killed and enslaved, as dictated by Generalplan Ost.

The idea that Jews were a secondary target to Hitler is pernicious nonsense. Antisemitism was Hitler’s great obsession.

Please back your assertions before morally denigrating others with such words as « pernicious ».

Did you read Mein kampf ?

Although Mein kampf is full of hate against jews, there is also hate against other so-called « inferior » races that can not be germanized because, to Hitler’s opinion, nationality is about blood and race and Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, ... etc, can not be turned into Germans, Mein kampf’s main purpose is not about jews.

Mein kampf was written by a German racist nationalist in the wake of Germany’s defeat in WW1.

The causes of defeat and the will and means to restore Germany is the issue of Mein kampf, through Hitler’s views.

Hitler does not propose extermination of jews in Mein kampf. And there is no historical material to prove that Hitler intended from the start to exterminate jews. The scholars’ consensus is that Hitler and nazis initially aimed to expel jews away from Germany through ever harsher discrimination and persecution.

But, Hitler expressly stated in Mein kampf that the eternal French-German conflict, which prevented Germany from conquering its vital space eastward that was necessary to make Germany a world power with the territorial critical mass to match the British empire, Russia, China, the US, could only be ended by suppressing France (chapters XIII and XIV of the second volume). For Hitler, that was the condition for Germany to achieve its political goal at the expense of the Slavs in Eastern Europe : building a 250 million German/Aryan people Reich by a century and subjecting « inferior » races to inferior legal positions.

Nazism was a racist racial nationalist Darwinism.

Hitler, the Nazis and Nazi Germany did not fight WW2 and cause the death of some 20 million Slavs, tziganes, ... etc, for the main purpose to exterminate 6 million jews.

Nazi hate of jews was more intense, more radical, than Nazi hate of other races. But the main goal of nazism was to establish German hegemony in Europe in order to turn Germany into a real world power.

 

[Rambam23]

Please back your assertions before morally denigrating others with such words as « pernicious ».

Did you read Mein kampf ?

Although Mein kampf is full of hate against jews, there is also hate against other so-called « inferior » races that can not be germanized because, to Hitler’s opinion, nationality is about blood and race and Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, ... etc, can not be turned into Germans, Mein kampf’s main purpose is not about jews.

Mein kampf was written by a German racist nationalist in the wake of Germany’s defeat in WW1.

The causes of defeat and the will and means to restore Germany is the issue of Mein kampf, through Hitler’s views.

Hitler does not propose extermination of jews in Mein kampf. And there is no historical material to prove that Hitler intended from the start to exterminate jews. The scholars’ consensus is that Hitler and nazis initially aimed to expel jews away from Germany through ever harsher discrimination and persecution.

But, Hitler expressly stated in Mein kampf that the eternal French-German conflict, which prevented Germany from conquering its vital space eastward that was necessary to make Germany a world power with the territorial critical mass to match the British empire, Russia, China, the US, could only be ended by suppressing France (chapters XIII and XIV of the second volume). For Hitler, that was the condition for Germany to achieve its political goal at the expense of the Slavs in Eastern Europe : building a 250 million German/Aryan people Reich by a century and subjecting « inferior » races to inferior legal positions.

Nazism was a racist racial nationalist Darwinism.

Hitler, the Nazis and Nazi Germany did not fight WW2 and cause the death of some 20 million Slavs, tziganes, ... etc, for the main purpose to exterminate 6 million jews.

Nazi hate of jews was more intense, more radical, than Nazi hate of other races. But the main goal of nazism was to establish German hegemony in Europe in order to turn Germany into a real world power.

The “Prophecy Speech” indicates that Hitler was already considering extermination in 1939.

What I found most galling was the suggestion that Slavs were more a focus for Hitler than Jews. Leaving aside that more Jews lived in the intended lebensraum than in Germany, Hitler very much intended to purge his interior of so-called racial inferiors before expanding.

I will concede that I have not taken the time to actually read the ravings of Hitler. I have only read summaries.

I apologize for using loaded language.