What if Hitler (and the Nazi party) hadn't gone against the Jews?

I thought the Germans robbed the countries under their power of food/money like France etc and lived suitably well at least for a couple of war years...

 

Even in Germany, during '41 the caloric intake was below recommended levels, albeit marginally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Germany_(1939%E2%80%931945)

"Despite Germany's industrial gains, food was another matter. Even in peace, Europe was unable to feed itself, and although Germany now held two-fifths of the green fields of Europe, Germans found that despite decrees forcing farmers to sell their produce and livestock and outright requisition, in terms of food the occupied lands represented a net drain on their resources that could not be made good.
While Denmark, the 'Larder of Europe', produced massive quantities of bacon, eggs and dairy products, this was heavily dependent on imports of fertilizer from Britain. Before very long, livestock was being slaughtered because of a lack of fodder – the pigs so undernourished that they broke their legs walking to slaughter. Danish farmers paid large taxes, and merchant sailors were driven to work as labourers in Germany because of the blockade. Likewise Holland, with its 2.7m cattle, 650,000 sheep, half a million pigs, and huge surplus of butter, cheese, meat, milk, margarine and vegetable oils, depended on Britain for its animal fodder. Much of the arable land had been ruined by opening the dikes during the Nazi invasion and many farmers refused to sell the Germans cattle, but soon there was such a meat shortage that the authorities had to confiscate bootlegged dog-meat sausages. Because the Germans forced Dutch fishermen to return to port before dark there was also a shortage of fish, and although Dutch overseas possessions were among the world's main providers of tobacco, it could not breach the blockade.

Life was particularly harsh in Poland. Cholera broke out in concentration camps, and mass public executions added to the estimated 3 million Poles already killed during the invasion. Thousands had already died of cold and from starvation during the first winter of the war and with its sugar beet, rye and wheat systematically stripped away, and with few farmers left on the land, conditions quickly grew worse. Norway, with extensive mountainous areas relied on imports for half its food and all its coal; shortages and hunger quickly effected Belgium which, despite being densely populated and producing only half its needs, was still subjected to the widespread confiscation of food.

France, normally able to feed itself, now had an extra 5 million refugees from other countries to care for. When the Germans stripped the farms of half a million horses and mules for their army, causing a large drop in agricultural productivity, they also took 11% of remaining food stocks, a million tons. The Germans held 1,500,000 French prisoners of war as hostages, feeding them on bread and soup so thin that grass was added to bulk it up, and most items were now heavily rationed, with a worker entitled to a daily diet of only 1,200 calories; many people rode bicycles into the countryside during the weekend to scavenge for food. German soldiers got double rations, but this was still only a modest daily diet, similar to that served to inmates in American prisons."

As 1940 drew to a close, the situation for many of Europe's 525 million people was dire. With the food supply reduced by 15% by the blockade and another 15% by poor harvests, starvation and diseases such as influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, typhus and cholera were a threat. Germany was forced to send 40 freight cars of emergency supplies into occupied Belgium and France, and American charities such as the Red Cross, the Aldrich Committee, and the American Friends Service Committee began gathering funds to send aid. Former president Herbert Hoover, who had done much to alleviate the hunger of European children during World War I, wrote:

The food situation in the present war is already more desperate than at the same stage in the [First] World War. ... If this war is long continued, there is but one implacable end... the greatest famine in history.

 

I have a genuine question on treatment of the Jews. What if the German used the Jews as "cannon fodder" in Operation Barbarossa. Say, the attack on Leningrad. As the Finnish did not attack or cut off the lines of communication to the city, how about letting foreign troops in the Army Groups be flying wedges onto the shores of Lake Ladoga to cutting off the lines? Meanwhile or afterwards, the Jews would assault the city using captured Soviet and French ordnance and machines.

If so, is it a war crime?

 

What would stop the Jews from turning their weapons on the Germans, or defecting en-masse to the Red Army?

 

That is interesting. How could the Germans guarantee the mutual destruction of the Jews and the Red Army at where the wehrmacht wanted?

 

These what ifs really are pointless and the nonsense here just proves the point.

 

Had the Nazis not wanted to exterminate the Jews, they wouldn't be Nazis.

 

Yup.

NSDAP 25 Points

The History Place - Rise of Hitler: The 25 Points of Hitler's Nazi Party

 

If and buts were candy and nuts and these guys probably would have enjoyed staying home. It would have been a whole different ballgame, if these kind of team players stayed home for Hitler and felt no remorse. Wernher von Braun already had his bags packed in 44' probably.

Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun Born: March 23, 1912, Wyrzysk, Poland, Died: June 16, 1977, Alexandria, VA

Albert Einstein - March 14, 1879, Ulm, Germany, Died: April 18, 1955, Princeton, NJ

Both were REALISTS.

 

This is a tricky question. Although Hitler didn’t obtain actual power by Jew-baiting (that was due to the Great Depression; the “Jewish problem” of Hitler’s warped imagination was of little moment one way or the other to the average German), his obsession with Jews as scapegoats for Germany’s surrender in WWI and subsequent myriad problems was essential to the foundation and growth of his overtly racist movement. Without it, I doubt he would have been in a position to take advantage of the upheaval caused by the depression as his party would have probably long since disappeared into historical oblivion like so many others. So to me the entire question comes close to being moot.

However, to answer the question, Jews were slightly less than one percent of the population when Hitler came to power. I doubt that the additional manpower for the military and war industries they would have provided would have been sufficient to turn the tide. As for financial support, the Nazis just took what they had anyway. As for leadership, although many Jewish men fought faithfully and valiantly for Germany in WWI, I know of no high ranking professional military officer who had been Jewish, let alone one of genius. (Erhard Milch was half Jewish, so Jewish by official Nazi standards. Goering insisted on making an exception in his case as he thought Milch was an indispensable asset to his Luftwaffe, and Speer thought highly of him as well. In truth, he was rather mediocre in his subsequent performance. However, that is irrelevant as he served throughout the war anyway.)

Erhard Milch - Wikipedia

 

Well said. Good points.

 

Thank you.