WW2 politics, and leading up to the War and beyond...

[Gadianton]

No nazis were 'distressed' at that?

that site I linked earlier explains that Zyklon-B had a nutty smell to warn of the toxicity. That caused "distress" for the Nazis, who knew the victims would smell it and know what it was. So the Nazis had the smell removed.

Therefore, it appears that the purpose behind removing the smell was a Milgram-like “balm to the…conscience”5 whereby although the victims still ended up dying, the perpetrators could tell themselves that they never saw death coming. That is, the removal of the nutty smell was a strain resolving technique of self-deception where the perpetrators made a slight change to the killing method that really did little more than making them feel a lot better about their extermination of other human beings.

Is a gas chamber really more humane than a bullet? I'm not so sure. I'd probably rather die by bullet. Gas is a more scalable and controlled method, that is the advantage. One person can press the trigger to end a hundred. The quick stats say that 1.5 to 2 million Jews were murdered in mass shootings vs. 2.7 million in the extermination camps. So after 1.5 million, the Nazis refused to kill any more with bullets because it was too hard to watch? Sure! Real believable!

As I pointed out earlier, soldiers who shot kids were able to justify it by thinking about the pain the child would feel alone without their families. I would think a fellow soldier making this argument to a hesitant soldier would be more effective than merely recommending using gas instead of a gun. The author has focused on certain kinds of stress and situations, but I think generally, it's about getting the right narrative (or excuse) for the occasion. I remember my parents commenting a couple of times on the death penalty. They were pro death penalty as Mormons due to the vestiges of the doctrine of blood atonement. They told me Utah has the firing squad because other methods don't literally "shed blood", which apparently deprives the executed from a proper repentance.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

“If international Jewry plunges the world into war again, the result will be the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” - Hitler, 1939

In short, Expulsion > Ghettoization > Mass shootings, > Industrialized murder. War radicalizes people. Hitler was already of the mind to “annihilate” European Jews, so as his plans fell apart (like the Madagascar plan) he simply ordered them destroyed and built extermination sites to destroy them at an industrial scale.

All this other blather is irrelevant and apologetic.

“The German people has no idea how much it is being misused by the Jews. The day will come when the most humane solution will be to eradicate them completely.” - Hitler, 1937

[canpakes]

Hey, not to upset you or anything, but you are the person who talked about Nazi stress. And apparently while trying to support Cooper’s Sad Nazi story.

Here you go:

viewtopic.php?p=2897775#p2897775

Why do you keep doing this to yourself?

Lol....again in what context.... this has gone full circle and once more you are to proud to just concede you you didn't know what you were talking about.

Did you have some other context aside from Nazis dealing with Jewish prisoners that you haven’t let on about?

You added your comments about stressed Sad Nazis while trying to defend Cooper’s comment about stressed Sad Nazis.

I will wait for you after all to counter my view with your view, in regard to the Jewish Question, and its evolution leading up to the final solution. It okay to explore this and it's okay to be wrong and learn.

I already told you my opinion. Here’s your link:

viewtopic.php?p=2898901#p2898901

I’m not thinking there there’s anything there trying to ‘counter’ the timeline on disposition of Jewish prisoners. Is there something there that you don’t agree with? Be specific, otherwise don’t bother just stamping your feet at me and everyone else who is wondering why Cooper - and you - are talking about stressed Sad Nazis who were forced to kill Jews for ‘humane’ (your and Cooper’s addition) reasons.

Did you even read my last post to you where I pasted what you just linked? I think that is a issue here is that you don't even bother to read what others say.

Did you even read my last post where I linked to where you posted about my other post linking to your post about my post’s quote of your post prior to quoting that one post?

Because you should reread that post.

[Markk]

It astonishes me that Markk would write that the SS were distressed at having to shoot to kill people, so the solution was to use gas to kill many more people.

No nazis were 'distressed' at that?

To me, it's still an attempt to minimize what was done by pretending considerations were humane, or that all these horrific things 'just happened' because he thinks they weren't 'planned.'. (again, markk's opinion, not facts.)

Why did Himmler write that in his diary....? You have no idea what you are even discussing.

Wiki: After a time, Himmler found that the killing methods used by the Einsatzgruppen were inefficient: they were costly, demoralising for the troops, and sometimes did not kill the victims quickly enough.[115] Many of the troops found the massacres to be difficult if not impossible to perform. Some of the perpetrators suffered physical and mental health problems, and many turned to drink.[116] As much as possible, the Einsatzgruppen leaders militarized the genocide. The historian Christian Ingrao notes an attempt was made to make the shootings a collective act without individual responsibility. Framing the shootings in this way was not psychologically sufficient for every perpetrator to feel absolved of guilt.[117] Browning notes three categories of potential perpetrators: those who were eager to participate right from the start, those who participated in spite of moral qualms because they were ordered to do so, and a significant minority who refused to take part.[118] A few men spontaneously became excessively brutal in their killing methods and their zeal for the task. Commander of Einsatzgruppe D, SS-Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf, particularly noted this propensity towards excess, and ordered that any man who was too eager to participate or too brutal should not perform any further executions.[119]

During a visit to Minsk in August 1941, Himmler witnessed an Einsatzgruppen mass execution first-hand and concluded that shooting Jews was too stressful for his men.[120] By November he made arrangements for any SS men suffering ill health from having participated in executions to be provided with rest and mental health care.[121] He also decided a transition should be made to gassing the victims, especially the women and children, and ordered the recruitment of expendable native auxiliaries who could assist with the murders.[121][122] Gas vans, which had been used previously to murder mental patients, began to see service by all four main Einsatzgruppen from 1942.[123] However, the gas vans were not popular with the Einsatzkommandos, because removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them was a horrible ordeal. Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma.[124] Some of the early mass murders at extermination camps used carbon monoxide fumes produced by diesel engines, similar to the method used in gas vans, but by as early as September 1941 experiments were begun at Auschwitz using Zyklon B, a cyanide-based pesticide gas.[125]

This is Wiki, if you want more, and it you want to have a real discussion about this history, let me know and I will provide more.

I'll add, the SS at different units and different roles. The Einsatzgruppen was the death squads, they dealt with this sort of thing.

Along with the Einsatzgruppen their were:

* Allgemeine SS, basically the police, the general branch.

* SS-Totenkopfverbände, they ran the concentrations camps.

* The Waffen SS, they were the elite military units, well trained and the best equipment.

* The Gestapo, under Himmler became under the SS umbrella

* Leibstandarte, an elite unit and Hitlers body guard, They were known as the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler

There are probably more.

[Morley]

Markk, to summarize the points that you're making in this thread about Nazis and Darryl Cooper:

1. The Nazis didn't always have their plans worked out concerning what they were going to do with the Jews.

2. ?

3. ?

4. ?

5. ?

I don't think anyone disagrees with # 1. Nazi strategy evolved until they came up with the idea of in-your-face, outright extermination. Most of the history I've read (and you've also undoubtably read) presents this same argument.

Number one is also the only thing that you seem to unabashedly agree with Cooper on. Please tell me if I'm wrong.

I'm not sure what your 2, 3, 4, and 5 are. Or maybe there aren't any other points? Keep it short and simple, if you would.

[Markk]

Cakes: Did you have some other context aside from Nazis dealing with Jewish prisoners that you haven’t let on about?

You added your comments about stressed Sad Nazis while trying to defend Cooper’s comment about stressed Sad Nazis.

That is just so weak Cakes.

This is from a book I have on the Einsatzgruppen:

A staff officer with Einsatzgruppe A in Riga reported similar problems. “After the first wave of shootings,” the officer testified, “it emerged that the men, particularly the officers, could not cope with the demands made on them. Many abandoned themselves to alcohol, many suffered nervous breakdowns and psychological illnesses; for example we had suicides and there were cases where some men cracked up and shot wildly around them and completely lost control.”

A German war correspondent stationed on a minesweeper in the harbor at Liepaja, Latvia, in July 1941 described witnessing a massacre and observing both extremes: “I saw SD personnel weeping because they could not cope mentally with what was going on. Then again I encountered others who kept a score sheet of how many people they had sent to their death.”

Rhodes, Richard. Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust (pp. 163-164). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

And further....

With Hitler’s authorization to expand the killing in the East to include women and children, Himmler ordered the formation of native auxiliaries that were expendable and thus could relieve his Germans of the worst of the dirty work. By November 1941, according to a German observer, Himmler had established mental hospitals and rest areas “where SS men are cared for who have broken down while executing women and children.” Following his own experience of mass killing in Minsk in August 1941, the Reichsführer-SS had also begun exploring less personal methods of mass killing. August Becker, who worked on the development of gas vans, testified to the connection later in the year:

Himmler wanted to deploy people who had become available as a result of the suspension of the euthanasia program, and who, like me, were specialists in extermination by gassing, for the large-scale gassing operations in the East which were just beginning. The reason for this was that the men in charge of the Einsatzgruppen in the East were increasingly complaining that the firing squads could not cope with the psychological and moral stress of the mass shootings indefinitely. I know that a number of members of these squads were themselves committed to mental asylums and for this reason a new and better method of killing had to be found. Thus in December 1941 I started working in [the RSHA, where my superior] explained the situation to me, saying that the psychological and moral stress on the firing squads was no longer bearable and that therefore the gassing program had been started.

Rhodes, Richard. Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust (p. 167). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This is you view on the Nazis dealing with, and the evolution of the Jewish Question? LOl...That's it?

Some Jews in camps initially had a very brief window to be granted a release, but release opportunities for Jewish prisoners were terminated in 1940, within several months after the invasion of Poland. I do not believe that after that point, there was ever going to be any resumption of releases, especially given the history of Nazis often killing their political prisoners even prior to 1940.

This obviously cannot be proven, but the eventual numbers killed support the conclusion, in my opinion.

I’m not thinking there there’s anything there trying to ‘counter’ the timeline on disposition of Jewish prisoners. Is there something there that you don’t agree with? Be specific, otherwise don’t bother just stamping your feet at me and everyone else who is wondering why Cooper - and you - are talking about stressed Sad Nazis who were forced to kill Jews for ‘humane’ (your and Cooper’s addition) reason"

LOl, well specifically I was wanting to know your opinion on the Jewish Question from when Hitler came into power, up until 1942 to 45, when the final solution to the Jewish question was solidified.

Cooper was not specifically speaking of Jewish prisoners, you keep forgetting that, he was speaking of 41 and Barbarossa.

Oh well.

[Markk]

Markk, to summarize the points that you're making in this thread about Nazis and Darryl Cooper:

1. The Nazis didn't always have their plans worked out concerning what they were going to do with the Jews.

2. ?

3. ?

4. ?

5. ?

I don't think anyone disagrees with # 1. Nazi strategy evolved until they came up with the idea of in-your-face, outright extermination. Most of the history I've read (and you've also undoubtably read) presents this same argument.

Number one is also the only thing that you seem to unabashedly agree with Cooper on. Please tell me if I'm wrong.

I'm not sure what your 2, 3, 4, and 5 are. Or maybe there aren't any other points? Keep it short and simple, if you would.

Specifically, Cooper said that they weren't ready for the millions of POWs, political prisoners and others, which would have included Jews no doubt. And he stated why he believed that. In that context #1 is correct, although folks doubt that and made it something it was not.

I disagree on Churchill, although I gained a little understanding why he felt the way he did.

Gad disagreed, at least in part, he said there were not millions of Russian POW's. But that is just undefendable. I have no idea what Cakes believes he is lost.

Morley, the thread, like all threads take rabbit trails, and one here, which is really important in my view....it the evolution of the Jewish Question, and how it grew in the end to the Final Solution to the Jewish Questions. It has been a good exercise. I have had to go and read through some of my books and re-remember things, and best of all learn new things.

One point that needs to be noted is Cooper is not a Nazi apologist in any way.

Another point is History matters, and blaming a person for telling a true history, even if inconvenient to the narrative does not make them the bad person.

Sorry, that about as short as I can make it. There is so much to explore and say about this subject.

[Markk]

“If international Jewry plunges the world into war again, the result will be the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” - Hitler, 1939

In short, Expulsion > Ghettoization > Mass shootings, > Industrialized murder. War radicalizes people. Hitler was already of the mind to “annihilate” European Jews, so as his plans fell apart (like the Madagascar plan) he simply ordered them destroyed and built extermination sites to destroy them at an industrial scale.

All this other blather is irrelevant and apologetic.

“The German people has no idea how much it is being misused by the Jews. The day will come when the most humane solution will be to eradicate them completely.” - Hitler, 1937

Well, I think we are in agreement here for the most part. Your wrote " In short, Expulsion > Ghettoization > Mass shootings, > Industrialized murder. "

I talked about the Beginning, the middle and the final solution in regard to the Jewish question. Expulsion was the beginning, along with dehumanizing the Jew (from Hitler gaining power to the summer of 1939). Putting them in the Ghetto and mass shootings was the middle (1939 to early1942). Industrialized mass murder...(from 1942-45).

There is a lot in between, and it was not as Christopher Browning wrote....

After several decades of debate, historians have reached relative consensus on a number of important points concerning the decisions for the Final Solution. First, there was no single decision, no “big bang,” that produced the Final Solution. Rather, there were a series of decisions taken incrementally; the decision-making process was cumulative and prolonged. Second, the Final Solution on Soviet territory did not result from a clear decision and unequivocal instructions given to the Einsatzgruppen prior to the invasion on June 22, 1941. Instead closure of this phase of the decision-making process was reached in mid-summer, and both awareness and implementation of the new goal spread unevenly across the Eastern Front. Third, there is more continuity than discontinuity between the decisions for the Final Solution taken in 1941 and those behind the policies of ethnic cleansing and demographic engineering—what the Nazis euphemistically called “population policy” or Bevölkerungspolitik—in 1939–40. Fourth, decision-making did not abruptly stop in 1941; vital decisions continued to be made in 1942 and even later. Finally, most historians agree that the decision-making process was an interactive one between the center and the periphery, and it was based on both consensus and polycracy. It must be studied from below as well as from above.

Hitler never signed or gave a order, it's hard to believe he did not verbally, but there is none. There are quotes like yours above, and there are others that show he wanted them simply deported. Which is why most historians will concede it is unclear as to what the plan actually was in regard to what no doubt came to be, the Final Solution.

Browning continued....

Also, on October 25, the same day that Wetzel met with Brack and Eichmann, and on which Rademacher submitted his report, Hitler met with Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler just back from Mogilev. In the previous days the vehemence of Hitler’s anti-Jewish tirades had already intensified considerably. Now, after referring to his Reichstag prophecy, Hitler proclaimed: “It is good when the terror precede us that we are exterminating the Jews….We are writing history anew from the racial standpoint.”42

In the fateful months of September/October 1941, the goal of Nazi Jewish policy fundamentally changed from a vision of expulsion and decimation to one of total and systematic extermination. Many decisions were still to be taken concerning how, when, at what rate, in what sequence, and with what temporary exemptions. But the “basic decisions” and “total clarity” sought by Höppner in early September were now there. Those working on the Jewish question were no longer in doubt about what “working toward the Führer” meant and what was expected of them. This new vision of total eradication—to be carried out in “reception camps in the east” through “special measures” such as Brack’s “gassing apparatuses” and encompassing even the Jewish women and children of Belgrade and the Spanish Jews in France—differed fundamentally from the old vision. Among the many decisions taken in the course of the evolution of Nazi Jewish policy, in my opinion, this was the single most important one. The watershed between previous policies and the Final Solution had been crossed.

[Moksha]

So after 1.5 million, the Nazis refused to kill any more with bullets because it was too hard to watch? Sure! Real believable!

If the Nazis were true conservatives, they would be happy to spare the wealthy German taxpayers the cost of all those bullets.

They were pro death penalty as Mormons due to the vestiges of the doctrine of blood atonement. They told me Utah has the firing squad because other methods don't literally "shed blood", which apparently deprives the executed from a proper repentance.

Gary Gilmore was accorded the forgiveness of Blood Atonement.

[canpakes]

Cakes: Did you have some other context aside from Nazis dealing with Jewish prisoners that you haven’t let on about?

You added your comments about stressed Sad Nazis while trying to defend Cooper’s comment about stressed Sad Nazis.

That is just so weak Cakes.

As I’m quoting back to you your own Sad Nazi narrative, then maybe you need to look inward to determine why you suddenly find this to be ‘so weak’.

This is from a book I have on the Einsatzgruppen

A staff
Oh, my. Those poor, stressed, Sad Nazis. Thank goodness they took a break from shooting their Jewish prisoners to re-evaluate their situation, and then decided to resume shooting their prisoners, along with also ‘humanely’ gassing them and ‘humanely’ burning them to ashes in human-sized ovens. with Einsatzgruppe A in Riga reported similar problems. “After the first wave of shootings,” the officer testified, “it emerged that the men, particularly the officers, could not cope with the demands made on them. Many abandoned themselves to alcohol, many suffered nervous breakdowns and psychological illnesses; for example we had suicides and there were cases where some men cracked up and shot wildly around them and completely lost control.”

A German war correspondent stationed on a minesweeper in the harbor at Liepaja, Latvia, in July 1941 described witnessing a massacre and observing both extremes: “I saw SD personnel weeping because they could not cope mentally with what was going on. Then again I encountered others who kept a score sheet of how many people they had sent to their death.”

Rhodes, Richard. Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust (pp. 163-164). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

And further....

With Hitler’s authorization to expand the killing in the East to include women and children, Himmler ordered the formation of native auxiliaries that were expendable and thus could relieve his Germans of the worst of the dirty work. By November 1941, according to a German observer, Himmler had established mental hospitals and rest areas “where SS men are cared for who have broken down while executing women and children.” Following his own experience of mass killing in Minsk in August 1941, the Reichsführer-SS had also begun exploring less personal methods of mass killing. August Becker, who worked on the development of gas vans, testified to the connection later in the year:

Himmler wanted to deploy people who had become available as a result of the suspension of the euthanasia program, and who, like me, were specialists in extermination by gassing, for the large-scale gassing operations in the East which were just beginning. The reason for this was that the men in charge of the Einsatzgruppen in the East were increasingly complaining that the firing squads could not cope with the psychological and moral stress of the mass shootings indefinitely. I know that a number of members of these squads were themselves committed to mental asylums and for this reason a new and better method of killing had to be found. Thus in December 1941 I started working in [the RSHA, where my superior] explained the situation to me, saying that the psychological and moral stress on the firing squads was no longer bearable and that therefore the gassing program had been started.

Rhodes, Richard. Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust (p. 167). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

This is you view on the Nazis dealing with, and the evolution of the Jewish Question? LOl...That's it?

Cakes: Some Jews in camps initially had a very brief window to be granted a release, but release opportunities for Jewish prisoners were terminated in 1940, within several months after the invasion of Poland. I do not believe that after that point, there was ever going to be any resumption of releases, especially given the history of Nazis often killing their political prisoners even prior to 1940.

This obviously cannot be proven, but the eventual numbers killed support the conclusion, in my opinion.

Oh, my. Those poor, stressed, Sad Nazis. Thank goodness they took a break from shooting their Jewish prisoners to re-evaluate their situation, and then decided to resume shooting their prisoners, along with also ‘humanely’ gassing them and ‘humanely’ burning them to ashes in human-sized ovens.