Holocaust is Propaganda, friend says

Well, early on the Germans went to great lengths to avoid sinking American merchant shipping. That being said, the Germans only sank about 22 United States merchant ships between September, 1939, and December 7, 1941 - with the vast majority of these sinking taking place beginning in August, 1941. So, it is some stretch to say that the Germans were sinking American merchies in an attempt to "choke supplies going to Europe," since much of Europe had already fallen to the Germans by the time they began to actively target American shipping.

A list of American merchants sunk prior to December 7, 1941 can be found here: http://www.usmm.org/casualty.html


The British sniper plot to kill Hitler was called "Operation Foxley", poison was also considered. The plan was drawn up in the summer of 1944 and submitted in November, '44.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/lesson17.htm

 

There is a thread over on the Axis History forum that goes into what was known when in regards to the Hollocaust. However the Germans hadn't started exterminating millions until after we entered the war, indeed I believe the mass exterminations didn't start until after 42. In any case the various totals and they do very to some considerable extent were post war I believe. Certainly the troops that liberated the camps were not expecting what they found.

The fact that the Japanese attacked us and the Germans and Italians declared war was reason enough I believe.

If you consider 4-6 million a "few" million he may be correct. As others have stated or implied it hardly diminishes the rational for going to war though does it.

 

Indeed - and more specifically I've often seen it in print that the change in policy was a direct result of the U.S. entry (by whatever mechanism/means) into the war. The Nazis suddenly found the mirror of worldwide public opinion controlled by the U.S. NOW firmly turned against them...and every other possibility for getting rid of the Jews....the Central African transfer, Madagascar etc....was suddenly closed to them.


I've yet to see it...or rather, I've only seen it in the most pus-filled cesspits of the Internet...said that the Holocaust was thus caused by the U.S.! But the impetus for finding a "domestic" solution to the "Jewish Question"...I.E. a solution within the bounds of the Greater Reich...was almost certainly given by the rest of the World still not in the war, and remaining Neutral, being suddenly shrunk to a handful of small nations in the arse-end of nowhere...

As noted elsewhere in the thread...the U.S. didn't actively seek an entry into the war - it was thrust upon them in both hemispheres - but December 7th-11th 1941 was the short period in world history that made the Nazis find and plan a "Final Solution" within the lands they controlled for the moment.

 

There are a lot of grey areas concerning the Holocaust, and a lot of smoke and mirrors obfuscating facts, but it is fundamentally undeniable, that it took place, that it was a deliberate attempt to commit genocide, and that it was on a scale dwarfing anything ever seen in Europe. The Jewish World Congress estimated 6 million dead soon after the war, and that is the most often-quoted number.

Sadly today, the whole debate surrounding the number has become very infected, and I'd not touch it with a ten-foot pole.

As to whether the USA "actively" sought war or not, it could be said they could definitely have been more passive. The entire Commonwealth owe a great deal to USA's willingness to not let itself be initimidated. The USA could very easily have turned the other check in those important years.

 

Although Wikipedia is not alway the most reliable source to quote from, this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
gives a fairly accurate state of what is known about WW2 casualties both military and civilian and also the holocaust victims.
Do not forget also that the ww2 genocide does not only involve jewish victims, but also gipsy, political, psychiatrical and other victims.

 

What is included in the Holocaust?

Psychiatric victims deliberated killed.
Jews starved or died from unsanitory conditions and vile diseases (Dysentry, Typhoid, ...) in Ghettos.
Einsatz squad killings, first in Poland (Polish intellectuals, jews, communists, dissidents) and then in perviously Russian held territory (Baltic states, Ukraine, Belorus, etc).
Prisoners in KZ's (Concentration Camps) that starved or died from unsanitory conditions and vile diseases.
Prisoners beaten to death or otherwise subjected to violence (shooting, etc)
Prisoners in Forced Labour, that collapse due to overwork and undernourishment.
Prisoners experimented on.
Prisoners that died due to lack of medical assistance or access to medicine.
Those gassed to death in the Death Camps.
Deaths on the vile transports to KZ's and Death Camps (dehydration, overheating in summer, freezing in winter, etc)

Most authorities probably don't include anti-partisan activities. Some may not include PoWs.

 

Holocaust is the systematic killing of the Jewish people by the Nazi's just beceause of their being a jew. So this would make the total victims of the Holocaust somewhere between the 5 and 6 million.
Genocide is the systematic killing of people by race, nation, people, also used for systematic killing of minorities by faith, birth, race etc. Apart from the holocaust victims it is estmiated that genocide victims are soemwhere between a same number of 5 to 6 million. Total estimates on the Genocide included the Holocaust vary between 11 and 17 million people.
This is without all other civilian victims.

Total civilian deaths in WW2, so included German civilians and othere than European Theatres of war are estimated between 38 and 55 million of which almost half of them are Soviet citizens.

 

Someone says tomato someone says tomarto.....Nazi genocide is all encompassing....Murdering barstewards all...

 

My apologies for just keeping to the formal international description of the words:
Holocaust: The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143
Genocide: legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention ans Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

 

No problem here mate...you misunderstand me...I was not having a go....or I was but at Nazi perpertrators...not you old chap.

 

My misuderstanding here. No harm done. Just trying to help the debate on the differences of Holocaust versus genocide victims numbers.

 

At least informally HOlocuast also include many of the other victims of the Nazi regime i.e. Roma, political prisoners, psychiatric patients, Slavs, homosexuals, etc.
Genocide should only include groups like the Jews, Slavs, and Roma. I.e. it is a subset of theHolocaust.

Some of the debate seams to imply that it wasn't much of a crime if only 2 or 3 million were killed or even 5 since some of the number range from 6 million up. I find the logic in that completely lacking.

 

Lou - "concentration" camps did of course exist...but did the systematic destruction of their inmates?

Remember, for example....Berlin's jews weren't "transferred east for resettlement" until 1942-43!

 

You must also realise that a lot of the "anti-partisan" sweeps on the Eastern Front had far more to do with the slaughter of unarmed Jews than they did fighting partisans, the monstrous excesses of 1st Waffen SS Brigade, the Waffen SS Cavalry and Waffen SS Batallion/Brigade Dirlewanger etc were a tool of the Holocaust.

 

Geeze, don't want to make waves. Would like the thoughts of the folks here...Now, am more confused. ..Thought the Holocaust was the persecution of only the Jewish... If 11 or 13 million perished during WW2, of which 6 million were generally attributed to be Jewish, what are the deaths of the other 6-7 million casualties known as? Weren't folk of colour, handicapped, homosexual, etc also persecuted?...Is the term "Holocaust" reserved for Jewish victims?...Please, I do not know, and ask for clarification. Forgive my ignorance.

 

Poppy, the term Holocaust was once made up from the greek words hólos (whole) and kaustós (burnt) and used in English for centuries to denote massacres.
Since the 1960's it became in use as notification for the Genocide of the Jewish People, for all the other victims and the Jewish, the term genocide was more widely used. That is just how the terms came to be in use. Nowadays some researchers include the mass murder of other groups also in the term. Others use the term Holocaust for the murder of all Nazi victims. Beceause of the use of the term Holocaust for more victims then only Jewish, the murder of the Jewish people often is described as the Shoah as also is preferred by the Jewish people themselves.

Personally I do not care wether Holocaust is used for the way it was intended or if it is used to describe all victims, but not knowing how the terms were used, will bring on discussion about numbers. There is many research where Holocaust is used as term for Jewish vicitms alone. This makes a number of 5-6 million for the Holocaust. If another study uses Holocaust to describe all victims you get 11-13 million and some people saying, look heere I have a research which states there were 'only' 6 million Holocaust victims and not 11-13 million. But by knnowing how the term is differently used, the differences in numbers of victims become more clear.

 

There is a lot of evidence that says the holocaust did indeed happen.

 

Thank you WilcoV. Had never heard the term- Shoah- before, learned something there-thanks for that.