Would people care about the Holocaust without WWII?

[EGarrett]

I just got done reading about Joseph Stalin killing twice or three times as many people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Terror) as Adolf Hitler. I'd heard it before but hadn't really done any research...and this fact seems pretty much shrugged off or lost in time compared to the Holocaust.

I can only guess that this is because Stalin went out fairly quietly (apparent stroke) instead of a World War that ended with the atrocities in his camps being discovered all at once. And perhaps also because part of his government system (communism of course) still survives and thus can't be strongly linked with all the murder.

So, I'm wondering about the Holocaust. If Hitler had gone out "quietly" via a heart attack or something similar, without a War...would people pay the same amount of attention to the Holocaust as they do to Stalin's "Great Terror" or Mao's "Great Leap Forward," as in something you read about in History books, but which is largely unknown other than that?

[Jontg]

Not in the least. The Holocaust may not have been the greatest genocide of the 20th century, but the methods used, the ideology behind it, and the thousand-year history of anti-Semitism of which it was the brutally logical end product make it uniquely repugnant.

[Soapy Sam]

I don't think it's that simple.

We know about Nazi extermination camps because Germany was invaded and occupied by allied troops - including Soviet ones. The Soviet Union was never so occupied.

Churchill's description of Russian policy- " It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; " hints at the degree of secrecy the USSR maintained before spy planes and satellites. That many European intellectuals were still strong supporters of Soviet communism long after the death of Stalin also suggests that people were blind to the evils of the regime.

On the contrary, Germany was an enemy. Finding out the extent of Nazi barbarism strengthened the moral grounds for the war against Hitler. The period after WW2 saw a huge power shift away from Europe to America. The Israeli* lobby in Washington - and the diaspora of Jewish intellectuals from Europe to America caused by the Nazis- ensured that the Holocaust stayed in the world's eye. By contrast, nobody had much to gain by trumpeting the fact that our ally against Germany had a record of atrocities to match- and the post-Stalin Soviet regime had no interest in advertising it either.

I think the truth about the camps would have come out eventually, had WW2 not happened - but we need to define what "not happened" means.
Had Hitler attacked Russia first and not invaded western Europe, I suspect Britain and America would have done nothing. Fighting on a single front, with the entire Wehrmacht in Russia, the outcome might have differed greatly. The physical geography of the final solution would then have moved east to territory less accessible to the eyes of the west.
But we're into "parallel universe" territory here.

*"Zionist" might be a more appropriate label for the late 1940s.

[MG1962]

There is a very good movie on just this subject. "Fatherland" is set in Germany 1964 in which the Westen Allies failed on D Day and signed for peace, the only front still active is the Eastern

However the story revolves around an American jounalist in Berlin to cover the US presidents visit and gets caught up in unravelling the greatest secret of WW2...........

[EGarrett]

Excellent posts so far, thanks.

[theprestige]

Churchill's description of Russian policy- " It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; " hints at the degree of secrecy the USSR maintained before spy planes and satellites.
Everybody always seems to omit the very next sentence in that passage, where Churchill presents the solution to the Russian ridmysgma.

[Soapy Sam]

That the key was the needs of Russia? True if anyone knew what they were. At the time he said it, the agricultural needs of Russia were being addressed by Trofim Lysenko. Hard to know what a nutter needs.

[Jono]

Well Soviet activities during, prior and right after WWII does not as much place in the educational curriculum as does the general Allies against the german Wehrmacht.
The reason the Holocaust is, for example, more documented and populary depicted, reflected et al in contemporary culture has nothing to do with how Hitler died. Neither would Soviet's crimes have had greater interest to the West had Stalin 'bought it' in the same fashion as Hitler, i.e of the roles were reversed.

As a sideline note (since I was just reading it before I surfed online to this thread) there's a rather good book detailing the post-war aftermath in West and East Germany that might interest you EGarret, it's about events and consequences that are more or less unknown for the average joe; "Crimes and Mercies: The Fate Of German Civilians Under Allied Occupation, 1944-1950" by canadian journalist/author James Bacque.

[oggiesnr]

Maybe more to the point. Had the Holocaust exterminated just the Gypsies (also killed), homo-sexuals (ditto), the mentally ill/handicapped (ditto) or the Socialists (ditto) would people have cared or been made to care?

Steve

[Jontg]

Well, it would have been much smaller in that case, so no, not as much.

[ponderingturtle]

I don't think it's that simple.

We know about Nazi extermination camps because Germany was invaded and occupied by allied troops - including Soviet ones. The Soviet Union was never so occupied.

Churchill's description of Russian policy- " It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; " hints at the degree of secrecy the USSR maintained before spy planes and satellites. That many European intellectuals were still strong supporters of Soviet communism long after the death of Stalin also suggests that people were blind to the evils of the regime.

On the contrary, Germany was an enemy. Finding out the extent of Nazi barbarism strengthened the moral grounds for the war against Hitler. The period after WW2 saw a huge power shift away from Europe to America. The Israeli* lobby in Washington - and the diaspora of Jewish intellectuals from Europe to America caused by the Nazis- ensured that the Holocaust stayed in the world's eye. By contrast, nobody had much to gain by trumpeting the fact that our ally against Germany had a record of atrocities to match- and the post-Stalin Soviet regime had no interest in advertising it either.

I think the truth about the camps would have come out eventually, had WW2 not happened - but we need to define what "not happened" means.
Had Hitler attacked Russia first and not invaded western Europe, I suspect Britain and America would have done nothing. Fighting on a single front, with the entire Wehrmacht in Russia, the outcome might have differed greatly. The physical geography of the final solution would then have moved east to territory less accessible to the eyes of the west.
But we're into "parallel universe" territory here.

*"Zionist" might be a more appropriate label for the late 1940s.

How would Hitler have invaded russia with out first invading poland and starting WWII?

[ponderingturtle]

I just got done reading about Joseph Stalin killing twice or three times as many people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Terror) as Adolf Hitler. I'd heard it before but hadn't really done any research...and this fact seems pretty much shrugged off or lost in time compared to the Holocaust.

I can only guess that this is because Stalin went out fairly quietly (apparent stroke) instead of a World War that ended with the atrocities in his camps being discovered all at once. And perhaps also because part of his government system (communism of course) still survives and thus can't be strongly linked with all the murder.

There are also those who even today are using Stalin as a national hero for Russia. In fact it is being played up more today than it was 10 years ago. It fits well into russian nationalism, you need great heroes for a nation, so they make Stalin such a hero. They think that nothing less harsh could have defeated the Germans.

[Darth Rotor]

There are also those who even today are using Stalin as a national hero for Russia. In fact it is being played up more today than it was 10 years ago. It fits well into russian nationalism, you need great heroes for a nation, so they make Stalin such a hero.
Which is funny, given that he was a Georgian. :)

[ponderingturtle]

Which is funny, given that he was a Georgian. :)

Hey, I never said that it was rational, or sane. But Putin is doing a good job of getting people to love the orrigional man of steel.