Valuing Genocide

[Ser Clegane]

If the Germans hadn't carried out the Holocaust, the Blitz and the unrestricted uboat war, would they fear the consequences of surrender so much that they would keep on fighting for as long as they did? Moreover, would the British really care as much about continuing to pump in resources and lives of young men into the conflict if Germany had only been carried out a war of revenge against the actions of Napoleon I, Napoleon III and similar? After all, the French pre ww2 had the "drang nach osten" policy as well... There were additional factors however, that made hard British devotion to the war necessary: the Germans had made no secret of plans to create a "Grossmacht". The Holocaust and Blitz were the most crucial reasons why such strong opposition had to be mustered and the war had to be fought until unconditional surrender of the Germans, rather than a less extreme peace treaty being made in 1941 or so.


The German and Japanese philosophy in the war was one of attacking first before being attacked. They wouldn't have declared war on the US unless they wanted an excuse for launching a quick series of early strikes. Hitler also hoped to receive Japenese support for dealing with the British in India, because the British had refused to make peace because of the Holocaust, Blitz and German "grossmacht" plans which made it necessary to fight to the end rather than making a peace with Germany that would allow Germany to build up industries and economy to begin a new war against the British, this time with enough resources to defeat them. While this might seem like a long chain of assumptions, I think it's quite clear how it ties everything together. Simplify the entire model by just assume that amount of neutrals that will join the war against you is proportional to how much atrocies you commit, and the amount of effort put into the war by the opposition is proportional to number of atrocies as well.


I think this rule applies as well, of course with a small number of exceptions as always.

Now you are adding a lot of additional stuff into the mix - "Blitzkrieg", "Großmacht"-plans - all things I completely agree with.
But please let's stick to your original assertion (the one that I doubt):
That it was the Holocaust (and not just the war of aggression as such) that led to a backlash of even higher casualties among the Germans and that was a main driver for the allies to get involved in the war.

It seems that you are trying to back up your assertions by just making additional claims and assumptions and mixing other issues into your reasoning.
Please note that I do not consider myself to be an "expert" in WW2 history and am certainly open to receiving a lesson in this field - but this lesson should be based on some facts and not claims.

I can't help the feeling that you made up a theory based rather on gut feeling and then - after a number of cases that do not support the theory have been pointed out - try to make the facts somehow fit the theory instead of the other way around and/or declare "special circumstances" for the most obvious "exceptions" (e.g. military superiority - would that mean that genocide only really works if you are stronger than your opponents? Not really an eye-opener, is it?)

I think you are making a mistake if you are trying to approach genocide from the "logical" side (i.e. the perpetrator does not benefit from it) - it's (unfortunately) just not as simple as that.