WI Hitler makes peace by 1939 and turns his focus to the ‘Final Solution.' Would the West deem the Holocaust irrelevant and turn a blind eye?

[PakistaniGuyUK]

OTL: In March 1939, Lithuania proved to be the last territorial acquisition for Germany before World War II. Up to this stage, the United Kingdom and France followed a policy of appeasement, while Italy and Japan openly supported Germany. But instead of continuing his policy of expansion, what if Hitler decides to de-escalate and consolidate the territories Nazi Germany already controls after March 1939 thus averting World War Two? Pacts and peace treaties are eventualy signed with neighbours including the USSR from 1939 – 1941 as well as a slightly rehashed Munich Agreement which takes into consideration the new borders (seen below) which become the final borders of Nazi Germany. Hitler's personal hatred for the Slavs as 'untermenschen' and his disdain of 'soft' Westerners remain, nonetheless he is willing to put this to one side for the purpose of diplomacy and establishing diplomatic relations with neighbouring states. Furthermore not all within the Nazi Party share his intense hatred and he is willing to overlook this.

Hitler then shifts his focus to the expulsion of the Jews/Final Solution, eliminating all Jews in the lands Nazi Germany already controls. Expulsion on its own wouldn’t work so the concentration camps would of course become an inevitability.

However, internationally this ATL Hitler would now be viewed as a sensible pragmatist, a man of honour fighting for his nation, not a madman as previously thought, as well as many other superlatives. Europe and the West could breathe again and war would be averted. Chamberlain would feel vindicated. The USSR and Stalin would likely also express a great deal of admiration for Hitler and his military achievements in such a short space of time.

This more pragmatic Nazi Germany would also find a lot of admirers in the general public in countries like the UK, the USA, among groups such as the Blackshirts and the KKK. Fascism would likely get a shot in the arm in many places and gain in popularity. It could possibly inspire the organic rise of fascist governments in other countries with Hitler as the poster boy. Conferences like this one (below) in Madison Square Gardens, New York in 1939 would become more numerous and more widely attended. Hitler's ideology would find common ground with a large range of people within the United States, the UK, France and other Western nations. Possibly news of the Holocaust would leak through, and many of the public in these countries harbouring a level of anti-semitism anyway, would secretly admire what the Nazis were doing (?)

Meanwhile domestically and stealthily Hitler would proceed with his policy of exterminating the Jews through systematic concentration camps based within the borders of Nazi Germany. Given that this ATL would now be peacetime, this could possibly be done earlier and longer though it would still take a few months to put into practice. Another thing is of course, many territories in ATL would fall outside of Germany. So either camps such as Auschwitz would no longer be created and those unknown in OTL would spring up, or through negotiations and diplomacy Nazi Germany could still manage to create these (i.e. acquiring territory for this purpose, without necessarily invading the whole neighbouring territory).

OTL Death Camps and Concentration Camps

OTL Timeline:
Dachau opens (Germany, 1933)
Sachsenhausen (Germany, 1936)
Buchenwald (Germany, 1937)
Auschwitz (Poland 1940
Warsaw Ghetto sealed (Poland, 1940)
Transfer of Polish Jews to Warsaw Ghetto (Poland, 1940)
Anti-Jewish riots in Romania led by Romanian Fascists (Romania, 1941)
Heydrich appointed to implement the “Final Solution” (1941)
Babi Yar Massacre (Ukraine, 1941)
Auschwitz II (Birkenau) established (Poland, 1941)
Belzec and Sobibor exterminations begins (Poland, 1942)
Treblinka established (Poland, 1942)
Deportation of Jews from Belgium, Croatia, France, the Netherlands and Poland to concentration camps (1942)
Liquidation of ghettos of Cracow, Warsaw, Minsk, Vilnius and Riga (1943)
Deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz and Death March of Hungarian Jews to Austria (1943)
Death Marches for Jews in Auschwitz, Stutthof, Buchenwald (1945)
(source: museumoftolerance.com)


ATL Questions/What Ifs...
Would this ATL Holocaust last longer potentially killing more people considering it would be in peacetime and with Hitler now admired as a 'good guy'/passionate but likeable German Nationalist by most Western powers?

How receptive would neighbouring governments (Poland, France, USSR) be to Nazi Germany encouraging an introduction of a similar policy of eliminating Jews in their own lands or attempts by Nazi Germany to set up death camps by mutual arrangement?

Would there ever be an international/Western outcry at what was happening within Germany or would most Western nations simply turn a blind eye considering Hitler would be a respected international statesman?

Would/Could the Holocaust and the 'Final Solution' potentially become something that's openly supported and discussed as a model - in the print media (newspapers, books etc) and in public speeches by Western right-leaning thinkers and politicians (even senior politicians)s as well the common man/woman with right-leaning sentiments attending pro-Nazi rallies?

In this peacetime ATL Would there be any attempts at intervention to prevent the ‘Final Solution’ being completed and which country would be most likely to do so?

How would this altered timeline impact upon the formation/early years of the Israeli state, also considering Nazi Germany may end up existing alongside Israel by 1949 if OTL and ATL merge?

Edit:
Thanks for your replies guys but its not an AHC. I am asking you to imagine it happens. Suddenly, somehow, Hitler, the highly superstitious Hitler, has a vision, a premonition, whatever. A change of heart. And instead of carrying on as in OTL he decides to step down and reconsider and decides that (for now) Nazi Germany will settle with 1939 borders and attempt to revive the economy and (secretly) embark on the Holocaust. IMO Hitler had enough charisma to sell this ATL to the German Masses and get away with it without losing any support (and likely gaining much more support in the process - among both Nazis and non-Germans).

 

[CHKeeley]

Well there’s a few things going on under the hood here.

First off, I really don’t think this move would be “wise” under a Nazi government, or even necessarily very plausible. Not to be the one pulling the ‘Notzi’ card first, but… well… that’s what it would be. The entire promise and drive of Hitler was war with Germany’s enemies, and I really don’t think it would quite be enough to never deal with the “external question”, especially in regards to France and the Soviet Union. It’s also my understanding that the pre-war German economy under Hitler was a house of cards literally just counting the days until a war that would buoy it up on war loot and expansionism. I’m really not sure it could take the strain of the rearmament that allowed it to bully it’s way into these settlements without actually plunging into war.

Second, there’s the interesting question about the evolution of the Holocaust OTL and how it would play out here. The Holocaust was not necessarily a Holocaust by bullets and gas on day one. It was a process of cumulative radicalization in which the initial policy directives and basic template came from Hitler, but then much of the actually driving force that led to the eventual decision to have a “Final Solution” was a result of bureaucratic competition and the impossibility of their initial policies within a war context (deportation is no longer a real solution when you end up conquering the countries you just dropped your Jews off in and have nowhere to send them).. So this question touches upon something interesting, how would cumulative radicalization play out if, for the sake of argument, Germany stayed at peace? You say yourself that deportations won’t work and so naturally it would lead to the same concentration camp system as OTL, but honestly I’m not quite sure of that. It’s a complicated question, and while it’s possible It’s far from certain. Deportations were quite successful as far as Nazi policy aims went in the peacetime environment. When the Nazis took power in Germany, there were half a million Jews in Germany proper (or 1% of the population). By the time emigrations from Germany or the occupied territories is made illegal in 1941, there was just under half that number.

There’s also the question of what happens to a dormant Nazism. As with most macrodescriptions of Fascism, I believe Paxton said it best. He wrote that fascism either undergoes either radicalization or entropy. In a scenario in which there is no war, that would mean entropy. What that actually means? I really don’t know, and it would be hard to predict. Part of this problem of prediction is because it’s almost inherently “Notzi” for Hitler not to push his country to war, given his party’s philosophy and how the state was structured and aimed. But for the scenario, it would be interesting to discuss how an eventual defanged Nazism might emerge after a period deprived of outlets for radicalization? As Kershaw notes in his discussion of Mommsen’s cumulative radicalization thesis, Germany in the mid 1930s was undergoing something familiar to other fascist regimes - a winding down of hyperrepression. Of course, it was still a repressive system, but nowhere near the explosion that it underwent just prior to and then during the war years. The war sent the system into overdrive, and from there it ballooned into massive atrocity after massive atrocity. With peacetime and without the pressures of war and hard radicalizing factors, this might not happen.

Overall, I think the scenario is an interesting question although a bit implausible for a number of reasons. I disagree with the notion that a Nazi Germany that somehow decides it has had enough about the cession of Memel will still automatically go down the road of a “Final Solution” in the same way as OTL. As one scholar put it, the road to Auschwitz was a twisted one. It cannot be divorced with the context of the war, and without it I honestly don’t think we would see it.

To answer one of your other questions, I really don’t see how the Holocaust could even kill more people in this timeline. Just because it might ‘take longer’ in peacetime doesn’t help the fact that they have far less potential victims under their control. Pretty hard for a peacetime Germany with no occupation of even just the Soviet Union to match the horrors they carried out IOTL. Even if they decided to shoot every Jewish person under their control (which is as I’ve explained is a suspect idea), the Holocaust still would not be as deadly as OTL. The census of May 17 1939, counting Jews by the criteria of the Nuremberg Laws, only yielded 318,000.

Also, I absolutely see no reason Germany’s neighbors would cooperate in a Holocaust-like extermination policy even if it hypothetically were to happen. It really wouldn’t make any sense. I also think you overstate how popular Nazi ideology would be abroad, especially Stalin’s supposed great admiration for Hitler considering how bad relations between the two countries were until the late 30s when mutual economic interests in war preparation and the overturning of Versailles brought them into a Devil’s Bargain.

Would like to hear what others thinks!

 

[ordinarylittleme]

I highly doubt Hitler will agree to peace seeing as his rise to power was based on being strong enough to defeat those he hated in battle.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

Other nations would care and probably take diplomatic and economic means to try and prevent it, but I doubt they'd go to war over it. So you'd see lots of decrying it in the House of Commons or whatever, but very little direct action. No one is going to seriously suggest invading a decently strong Germany in order to protect a Jewish (and other targeted minorities) rights. Not in the 1930's and 40's. Besides, Hitler will just play the 'Look how bad the USSR is!' card at every chance.

 

[H.R (Slash) Pickens]

For the most part, nobody would do much, maybe some strongly worded condemnation, and "sanctions", but for the most part, letting Hitler do what he wants.

 

[Alias_The_J]

For the most part, nobody would do much, maybe some strongly worded condemnation, and "sanctions", but for the most part, letting Hitler do what he wants.

Which might actually work- Hitler's economy may have been on the verge of collapse, and may have done so had cutting off trade and focusing resources on human extermination or enslavement affected it.

Which brings up another point- one of the main purposes of deportation was so that extermination and slave labor had plausible deniability to the German people. In a no-war TL, this is very much not the case; the German people might resist harder if the Holocaust takes place in their own backyards.

 

[H.R (Slash) Pickens]

Which might actually work- Hitler's economy may have been on the verge of collapse, and may have done so had cutting off trade and focusing resources on human extermination or enslavement affected it.

Which brings up another point- one of the main purposes of deportation was so that extermination and slave labor had plausible deniability to the German people. In a no-war TL, this is very much not the case; the German people might resist harder if the Holocaust takes place in their own backyards.

really? you sure about that? you REALLY sure that they would. assuming they even know about it in the first place?

 

[Alias_The_J]

really? you sure about that? you REALLY sure that they would. assuming they even know about it in the first place?

Sure? No, that's why I said might, but there is precedent in how the German people reacted to the policies against the mentally and physically disabled. And as for knowing- the entire point of the deportations was to hide the Nazi's actions; people near the concentration and extermination camps generally had a clue as to what was happening; with only Germany to work with, the number of Germans knowing about it would likely be greater.

 

[H.R (Slash) Pickens]

Sure? No, that's why I said might, but there is precedent in how the German people reacted to the policies against the mentally and physically disabled. And as for knowing- the entire point of the deportations was to hide the Nazi's actions; people near the concentration and extermination camps generally had a clue as to what was happening; with only Germany to work with, the number of Germans knowing about it would likely be greater.

yes, its an authoritarian regime with a MASSIVE propaganda department. look at China and ********* ****** 1989 for example

 

[Clandango]

Lithuania ceded Memel in March 20, days after the Germans seized Czechia. People are not going to forget that, nor now many actually German populated areas are still on their borders. Surprised there is no mention on the Czechs here so far, actually. I feel people of Jewish descent are easier to remove by dumping them near a border or putting them on boats while blaming them for the economy collapsing (despite the Nazis defaulting on so many loans the Americans and others had given the Germans both to rebuilt and to pay reparations). Though half a million is an awful lot.... Hmmm.

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

OTL Death Camps and Concentration Camps

Is there a difference between a death camp and a concentration camp?

 

[pompejus]

Is there a difference between a death camp and a concentration camp?

Yes, a concentration camp is a place where people are (generaly against their will) concentrated. Often they are work camps or sometimes transition camps. I think that even prison of war camps are technically concentration camps.

Death camps are concentration camps that are designed to kill the people that are concentrated there. That does not mean that in (other) concentration camps noone dies, but they are not build for that.

 

[RedSword12]

Is there a difference between a death camp and a concentration camp?

Yes. Death camps were purely for killing, while concentration camps were dual-purpose. If you arrived at a death camp, you could expect to be gassed or shot immediately; in general, if you were Jewish and arrived at a concentration camp still capable of labor (if you weren't you'd probably be shot), you'd be allowed to live for a while until poor rations wore out your ability to work. Then you'd get shot or they'd force you to keep working until you're dead (Vernichtung durch Arbeit).

 

[Alias_The_J]

yes, its an authoritarian regime with a MASSIVE propaganda department. look at China and ********* ****** 1989 for example

1. Tiananmen Square is well-known in China.
2. There are differences- both in longevity, breadth, number of people directly affected, and in what happened- between Tiananmen Square and the Holocaust.
3. The only reason I can think of for bringing up propaganda is to claim that the Nazis would use it to justify the Holocaust to the Germans. I'm not sure this is relevant; in one case (and there were others you can look up IIRC, including some in the interwar years) there were extensive efforts by friends, family and strangers to save others from extermination; this is why camps were isolated to begin with. Propaganda certainly didn't convince nearly everyone of the "Jewish problem," let alone the necessary "solution." Certainly fear of the police were more effective at keeping people from interfering. Even then, intentionally misplacing paperwork or filing false reports could slow an attempted Holocaust in Germany, especially if the economy is collapsing at the same time.

 

[CalBear]

Short Answer - Germany collapses within 18 months from its own overspending.

Slightly longer answer - The only way the Reich managed to survive was creating a massive Ponzi scheme where it took money from the German people with promises that it had no chance of meeting. It needed each acquisition to move forward. The Czechs provided additional manufacturing, especially in the arms industry, and raw materials. Poland provided food, industrail capacity and raw materials. France provided food (especially dairy) and raw materials along with considerable industrial capacity. Without those acquisitions the Reich can not support its ever ballooning demand for arms nor can the Nazis provide sufficient "bread and circuses" to distract the population.

Territorial acquisition was also at the heart of Hitler's world view. His basic beliefs (as found in his writings) centered on a rather specific form of social Darwinism, namely that a "people" must expand and struggle constantly in order to remain superior (winning was generally an unspoken addition). This can, perhaps, be best seen in the end day of the Reich, when he stated that if the Volk could not defeat the enemy they deserved to be wiped out (this was in response to suggestions that parts of the Inner German infrastructure needed to be preserved for post war use).

The other absolute unquestioned requirements of the Party leadership was the elimination of "the Slavs" and the "Judoo-Bolsheviks" (Hitler took as an article of faith that Communist = Jew). Leaving the Slavs AND Communists intact would change the Nazis into a version of "Notzis".

 

[H.R (Slash) Pickens]

1. Tiananmen Square is well-known in China.
2. There are differences- both in longevity, breadth, number of people directly affected, and in what happened- between Tiananmen Square and the Holocaust.
3. The only reason I can think of for bringing up propaganda is to claim that the Nazis would use it to justify the Holocaust to the Germans. I'm not sure this is relevant; in one case (and there were others you can look up IIRC, including some in the interwar years) there were extensive efforts by friends, family and strangers to save others from extermination; this is why camps were isolated to begin with. Propaganda certainly didn't convince nearly everyone of the "Jewish problem," let alone the necessary "solution." Certainly fear of the police were more effective at keeping people from interfering. Even then, intentionally misplacing paperwork or filing false reports could slow an attempted Holocaust in Germany, especially if the economy is collapsing at the same time.

1. It is not.
2. ok? that doesnt change the fact that state propaganda and government policy deny Tiananmen Square, and what about the Armenian genocide, where not only do they deny it, they laugh at it, or the Japanese, who killed more people in china than the holocaust, for longer, yet they still deny it.
3. still those were rare cases. most Germans were apathetic to it at worse, and supportive at best. most Germans simply couldn't care less because they had bigger issues to worry about. sure in Germany it would ruffle a few feathers but what can they do about it? virtually nothing. The west wont do anything either because simply, Germans killing Germans in Germany is a German issue, and as long as Hitler can keep the Soviets away from everybody then why should the west care?

 

[GuildedAgeNostalgia]

Without the invasion of Poland occuring, what does the Soviet Union do? I think their response to Nazi Germany change of pace is far more important than that of the west, especially if they still decide to go after Finland.

 

[Garrison]

I would say look at the reaction to Kristallnacht. That led to the expulsion of diplomats in the US and serious threats of trade sanctions. If it comes out Nazi Germany is literally rounding people up and committing mass murder I suspect trade embargoes would be the very least of the reaction. All of this though ignores the reality of 1939. Hitler knew that the military advantage of the Wehrmacht was at its peak, British and French rearmament was accelerating and they could overmatch Germany because they were economically far stronger. They could commit GDP to rearmament without destroying consumer production or export industries. Germany was spending 20% of GDP on the military and that could not be increased any further in peace time even by the Nazis. In Hitler's world view the window of opportunity for a victorious war was closing and he was never going to just sit on his hands, he wanted war.

 

[Alias_The_J]

It is not.

Well known enough, at least, for major ongoing censorship operations to be required.

ok? that doesnt change the fact that state propaganda and government policy deny Tiananmen Square

Tiananmen Square didn't require years of work and the construction of industrial-scale facilities, nor did it require the disappearance of (at minimum) hundreds of thousands.

what about the Armenian genocide, where not only do they deny it, they laugh at it, or the Japanese, who killed more people in china than the holocaust, for longer, yet they still deny it

A fair point, but both of these were very similar to the Holocaust in ways which this scenario isn't- they started away from the civilian populations and to people who largely were never considered a part of the civilian population during wartime. (The Japanese especially.) My entire argument was that civilian resistance could make attempting a holocaust during peacetime far more difficult than it was.

It's also worth noting that, in both cases, it is not questioned whether the killings happened; the government-sanctioned extermination and whether the victims were likely wartime combatants are the points of contention.

still those were rare cases

Those were test cases. Quite explicitly, too, IIRC- the Nazis wanted to exterminate an "obvious" threat, but faced unexpected resistance; hence, they moved the concentration camps and death camps into Poland.

most Germans simply couldn't care less because they had bigger issues to worry about.

Those "bigger issues" were generally wartime related. This was aided, at any rate, by there generally not being any Jews in Germany.

most Germans were apathetic to it at worse, and supportive at best.

Statistics here were difficult to reconstruct; when most major surveys were conducted, de-Nazification was already being conducted and Germans were well aware of what their conquerors thought. That being said, surveys conducted in 1945 found that- even among those who believed in a Judeo-Bolshevik threat, ~30% of the total- none supported the systemic extermination of the Jews, and only 19% believed that some degree of corrective action had been necessary by 1939. (It's also worth noting that, even by war's end, at least half of all Germans didn't know about the Holocaust; of those who did, they knew that it was happening hundreds of miles away, that speaking of it might be dangerous, and that they knew few details and had no way to prove them.)

This was after people had been seeing the camps; however, in the scenario presented here, Germans would be in an easy position to meet escaped Jews and see the bodies- especially if the Holocaust started as it did IOTL, with slave factories and fitful massacres. These would also be, in many cases, friends who would be taken; this is also true of WWI veterans, who might band with "Aryan" ones to start fighting back. In other words, it is difficult to be apathetic to events happening in your own backyard, rather than a country away.

And you don't need "most" Germans to be against the Holocaust to disrupt it. Germany could be surprisingly progressive on a number of issues, and with surprisingly high public support; these may pull anti-Holocaust support higher yet. For that matter, you don't even need to object on moral grounds; the German government would be taking time and money that could be used for any number of other purposes. This isn't to say that this would be enough to completely stop the Holocaust; but it could be enough to slow it, delay it, or reduce its scope.

Sources: What we Knew by Eric Johnson
Postwar by Tony Judt

The west wont do anything either because simply

"The West" does have morality, and even if they didn't, Germans massacring their own citizens leaves questions about their stability. Expelling ambassadors, cutting off trade, and requesting payments for war debts could all be used to pressure Germany

 

[H.R (Slash) Pickens]

Well known enough, at least, for major ongoing censorship operations to be required.
Tiananmen Square didn't require years of work and the construction of industrial-scale facilities, nor did it require the disappearance of (at minimum) hundreds of thousands.

I concede here, but its the Chinese government. we may never know who disappeared, and reappeared or was "reeducated" Remember it wasnt just Tiananmen square. from Shanghai to Guangzhou there were protests. the entire nation was in a state of emergency.

A fair point, but both of these were very similar to the Holocaust in ways which this scenario isn't- they started away from the civilian populations and to people who largely were never considered a part of the civilian population during wartime. (The Japanese especially.) My entire argument was that civilian resistance could make attempting a holocaust during peacetime far more difficult than it was.

It's also worth noting that, in both cases, it is not questioned whether the killings happened; the government-sanctioned extermination and whether the victims were likely wartime combatants are the points of contention.

in China, they started along the Yangtze River Delta, from Shanghai to Wuhan, which was some of the most populated areas of China at the time. It was the reverse in fact, where the less populated areas could not be put under Japanese control, whereas the most urban areas, and not only in China. Hong Kong and Singapore were denseley populated and they still murdered how many. Civilian resistance means nothing when the choice is those two jews in your attic, or your neighbors, and family being lined up and shot. for example, the retribution of Czech civilians after Operation Anthropoid, was one of the reasons the allies never tried to assassinate high ranking nazi officials like that. and in the case of "its not questioned whether the killings happened..." it is. Turkey to this day denies that the Armenian Genocide ever took place at all, and Japan not only downplays it, but tries to pass off their warcrimes as either Commie Propaganda or western lies. Japan in schools never mentions these things such as the Bataan Death March, or the Rape of Nanjing, much like how CCP tries to downplay if not outright deny KMT participation in the war.

"The West" does have morality, and even if they didn't, Germans massacring their own citizens leaves questions about their stability. Expelling ambassadors, cutting off trade, and requesting payments for war debts could all be used to pressure Germany

of course the west has morality, but why would they? what do they have to gain other than being able to say "we did the right thing" even after all this, OTL, basically everybody denied the S.S St Louis access to their countries, and the people on those ships were sent back to Nazi Germany to be gassed and baked by the Nazis. The big thing here is the USSR and what they do because it impacts what the west does, and thus, how they view Germany.