What if Nazism wasn't anti-Semitic?

[UnrepentantSinner]

I'm not big on Alt History, but this is something that came to mind the other day and I'm not sure WW II would have turned out as it did if anti-Semitism was a key platform in Nazi ideology.

- All the Jews who fled or were put into concentration camps would have been availible for the war effort either as soldiers or on the homefront.
- The police/military wouldn't have to waste manpower on the extermination infrastructure.
- Jewish physicists who signed on for the war effort might have meant a nuke in Washington by 1944.

 

[geni]

I'm not big on Alt History, but this is something that came to mind the other day and I'm not sure WW II would have turned out as it did if anti-Semitism was a key platform in Nazi ideology.

- All the Jews who fled or were put into concentration camps would have been availible for the war effort either as soldiers or on the homefront.
- The police/military wouldn't have to waste manpower on the extermination infrastructure.

What about the Romani? Or the gays?

- Jewish physicists who signed on for the war effort might have meant a nuke in Washington by 1944.

They would have needed to improve their organisation a lot and then there is the question of if schrodinger was telling the truth about sabotaging the program.

 

[Moss]

The nazis would also miss out on the influx of confiscated/"aryanised" jewish property everywhere.

 

[catsmate]

I'm not big on Alt History, but this is something that came to mind the other day and I'm not sure WW II would have turned out as it did if anti-Semitism was a key platform in Nazi ideology.

This isn't a common theme in AH fiction/speculation; it's generally held that anti-semitism was too ingrained in Hitler's psyche. I'm not a psychologist, and the only detailed psychological analysis of Hitler that I'm familiar with is the Murray one prepared for the OSS in 43.

However there is one work that I recall that used such a divergence; on his way to enlist in the Imperial German army the young Hitler meets a seasoned naval PO who has such an effect on his that he joins the Kriegsmarine instead. I haven't read it in a while so some details are hazy but the non-com becomes a father figure and channeled Hitler's anti-semitism into a more acceptable Anglophobia.
I'm not sure about the psychological plausibility of this and it's Sunday morning so the psychologist in the house is still in bed and I can't get an expert opinion..........

If you're interested it's Wade Dudley's "The Little Admiral". It's published in one of Tsouras's AH collections, "Third Reich Victorious", Here's the blurb from Uchronia:

"The Little Admiral, 1939: Hitler and the German Navy".
Divergence: 1914 CE
What if: Adolf Hitler joined the Kriegsmarine at the outbreak of World War I, subsequently rising to become a naval officer steeped in Anglophobia because of the death of shipmates at Jutland.
Summary: How Nazi Germany built up its naval forces and on the outbreak of World War II was ready to destroy the British Home Fleet, isolate Britain from all external aid, and eventually invade England after preventing the BEF from escaping Dunkirk.

- All the Jews who fled or were put into concentration camps would have been availible for the war effort either as soldiers or on the homefront.

Yes

- The police/military wouldn't have to waste manpower on the extermination infrastructure.

Yes

- Jewish physicists who signed on for the war effort might have meant a nuke in Washington by 1944.

I doubt this. Maybe Moscow by 1946; even with a conquered/allied Europse Germany simply wouldn't have the resources needed for a nuclear weapons development programme on the scale of the Manhatten project. It would have been far slower. Of course there might not have been any competition.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

What about the Romani? Or the gays?

Since posting the OP I was thinking about that, playing out the war scenario simply excluding anti-Semitism doesn't take into consideration that "Ein Volk" including German Jews would, necessarily, exclude Slavic Jews, etc. I realized there might have been a concentration/extermination infrastructure for Slavs, Romas, et. al.

As far as the gays go in my alt-hist, all German Volk would be included.

They would have needed to improve their organisation a lot and then there is the question of if schrodinger was telling the truth about sabotaging the program.

Well, it was pure speculation on my part. Plus they didn't develop aircraft carriers or long range bombers like the UK and U.S. did so it would depend on the development of either those delivery systems, a viable U-Boat launcher for some sort of missle or the V-3. I was also mulling over what might have happened to Einstein. My thought is he might have eschewed participation in the development program and wound up under house arrest.

The nazis would also miss out on the influx of confiscated/"aryanised" jewish property everywhere.

Would that really have made much of a difference as opposed to the technological advantage, several more divisions of soldiers and workers on the homefront?

 

[Skeptic]

If Hitler were not antisemitic, Germany he might have won the war.

If Roosevelt were Siamese twins, the USA might have won in half the time.

I find the latter to be about as likely an alternate history scenario as the former, if not more so.

 

[theprestige]

And here I thought this thread were going to be about the characteristics Nazism shared in common with other implementations of fascism, instead of focusing on the uniquely Nazi flourishes.

 

[MaGZ]

I'm not big on Alt History, but this is something that came to mind the other day and I'm not sure WW II would have turned out as it did if anti-Semitism was a key platform in Nazi ideology.

- All the Jews who fled or were put into concentration camps would have been availible for the war effort either as soldiers or on the homefront.
- The police/military wouldn't have to waste manpower on the extermination infrastructure.
- Jewish physicists who signed on for the war effort might have meant a nuke in Washington by 1944.

If National Socialism was never anti-Semitic then the Jews would never have declared war on Germany when Hitler came to power. They never declared war on Mussolini when he came to power in Italy.

 

[MaGZ]

- Jewish physicists who signed on for the war effort might have meant a nuke in Washington by 1944.

German scientists did detonate a nuclear bomb in the Fall of 1944 near the Baltic Sea without the help of Jewish physicists and again in March 1945 in central Germany.

 

[Alt+F4]

I'm not big on Alt History, but this is something that came to mind the other day and I'm not sure WW II would have turned out as it did if anti-Semitism was a key platform in Nazi ideology.

- All the Jews who fled or were put into concentration camps would have been availible for the war effort either as soldiers or on the homefront.
- The police/military wouldn't have to waste manpower on the extermination infrastructure.
- Jewish physicists who signed on for the war effort might have meant a nuke in Washington by 1944.

Good points, but I don't think the Nazi Party would have been able to eventually control Germany if not for it's key selling point: anti-Semitism. And as you point out, it doomed them from the start.

 

[MaGZ]

This isn't a common theme in AH fiction/speculation...

What if Hitler after the war moved to New York City and became a science fiction writer?

http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Dream

 

[MaGZ]

Good points, but I don't think the Nazi Party would have been able to eventually control Germany if not for it's key selling point: anti-Semitism. And as you point out, it doomed them from the start.

The selling point of the NSDAP to the German people was never anti-Semitism. It was rebuilding Germany into a great nation. Jews were rarely mentioned in the elections leading to Hitler coming to power.

 

[ddt]

Good points, but I don't think the Nazi Party would have been able to eventually control Germany if not for it's key selling point: anti-Semitism. And as you point out, it doomed them from the start.

Except that it wasn't their key selling point in their rise to power 1928-1933.

 

[Thunder]

ooooh...the topic of ALL topics. i have thought about this b4.

if German National Socialism has simply been anti-Communist but not focused on the Jews, many if the Jewish brains that were killed or fleed Germany would have stayed put and possible assisted the war effort, and Nazi Germany may have obtained the nuclear bomb before anyone else..and used it.

hence, an Nazi Germany that was not anti-Semitic, would have won WW2.

 

[Thunder]

Jews were rarely mentioned in the elections leading to Hitler coming to power.

big deal. read the Nuremberg Laws.

 

[Thunder]

delete

 

[bigjelmapro]

German scientists did detonate a nuclear bomb in the Fall of 1944 near the Baltic Sea without the help of Jewish physicists and again in March 1945 in central Germany.

Speculation. Same goes with the alleged tests in Italy around the same period. The Nazi nuclear program was nascent at best which was all but confirmed with the detained German scientists detained during Operation Paperclip.

 

[bigjelmapro]

if German National Socialism has simply been anti-Communist but not focused on the Jews, many if the Jewish brains that were killed or fleed Germany would have stayed put and possible assisted the war effort, and Nazi Germany may have obtained the nuclear bomb before anyone else..and used it.

hence, an Nazi Germany that was not anti-Semitic, would have won WW2.

So here you are asserting that Jews were the gatekeepers of nuclear technology? Now I definitely know you're an agent of Stormfront.

Ridiculous.

 

[Thunder]

So here you are asserting that Jews were the gatekeepers of nuclear technology? Now I definitely know you're an agent of Stormfront.

Ridiculous.

three words: Einstein and Oppenheimer.

 

[aggle-rithm]

The selling point of the NSDAP to the German people was never anti-Semitism. It was rebuilding Germany into a great nation. Jews were rarely mentioned in the elections leading to Hitler coming to power.

Of course. They kept the really crazy stuff under wraps until they were firmly in control.

They were kind of like the Church of Scientology.