Did the holocaust contribute to Hitlers defeat.

Yes and no, without the boogyman he probably does not rally people quite so fanatically... but by cutting out a segment of society that would have happily fought and struggled to help Germany he under cut himself.

Add in once word started to leak out he strengthened the resolve of his enemies, while undercutting people in other countries that would have been inclined to help Germany.

Least thats this yanks opinion.

a reply to: crazyewok

A lot of times they went with extermination not concentration camps..

I know hitler would surround cities and starve them rather than taking them...

Hitler wanted to remove the present population and repopulate it with Germans. Not take over the countries and have new subjects.

a reply to: crazyewok
No, the holocaust did nothing to Hitlers war defeat. As for the logistics of building the camps that pales into insignificance when you take into consideration of what Hitler did to Germany's infrastructure, the autobahns etc.
What did for Hitler was one major thing only and that was invading Russia. Just the logistics of supply lines and vast territory led to his downfall.
If he had not done that he wouldn't have had a second front and could have concentrated his forces on Western Europe and Britain and the US would not have stood any chance of invasion.

I doubt it. The men needed to run the camps is pretty much a drop in the bucket compared to the German army as a whole. I'd also argue that without painting the Jews as scapegoats Hitler wouldn't have had such an easy time rising to power and unifying Germany.

Hitler's biggest mistake was opening up the second front before getting Western Europe under control. This mistake was further compounded by pulling his troops out of Russia when Russia was on the verge of capitulating.

a reply to: crazyewok

I don't think it was the resources spent... but the push back from potential allies who found out if hitler wins , they all die..

No good in surrendering and playing ball then.

It did.

Keeping it brief...

The manpower and logistics requirements did not help the war effort in any way. Trucks and trains were needed to ferry supplies and men to the front, the Germans also suffered from absolutely crippling manpower shortages since the outbreak of the war. Eventually they started stripping the camps of non-essential personnel and sent them to the front, the camp guards even had their own unit, the SS-TV Division.

Before the camps came about they used Einsatzgruppen death squads. Not just for Jews but everyone in the occupied USSR they considered subhuman. Which was everyone. These had a severely demoralising effects on the German Army, since regular soldiers don't like rumours that they are massacring defenceless women and children.

There was also the loss of labour. Exterminating millions of men & women who could otherwise be building bullets, shells, uniforms and all the other stuff you need to fight a war obviously doesn't make any sense. Albert Speer was one of the first to realise this and did everything in his power to prevent exterminating the jews and other "subhumans" so they could be used as a slave labour force.

The Germans were generally very good at making stupid decisions that crippled themselves.

Of course the war was lost for the Germans from the 22nd of June 1941 anyway. In the grand scheme of things it probably didn't make a massive difference to an already futile lost war.

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
a reply to: crazyewok

I don't think it was the resources spent... but the push back from potential allies who found out if hitler wins , they all die..

No good in surrendering and playing ball then.

Nobody knew about it until they actually found the camps and mass graves. It was unimaginable that the Germans would be capable of such a thing until they saw it for themselves.

A lot of people on the Western Front thought that when the Soviets reported places like Auschwitz after their liberation that it was propaganda, until they saw it for themselves.

a reply to: crazyewok

The Holocaust obviously happened, but the logistics of killing 11 million people seem rather impossible to achieve given the manpower, time frame and execution methods available, then there is the issue of dealing with all the bodies.

Think the numbers may have been fudged somewhat for whatever ulterior motives i have no idea.

Which does nothing to make the horrific event any less acceptable.

As to whether or not the holocaust directly contributed to Hitlers defeat, possibly, but the fact that Hitler bit off more than the Axis powers could chew and a nasty Russian winter war which Germany was ill prepared for pretty much sealed Germany's fate and his own.

a reply to: Xcalibur254

I've heard that if he hadn't showed up killing all the peasants, they turn on Stalin and help hitler.. he might have doubled his forces with Russian defectors...

But instead he showed up genocidibg the peasants and Stalin started looking real good in comparison.

originally posted by: Ohanka
Nobody knew about it until they actually found the camps and mass graves.

That's not accurate. There were reports of them almost immediately after their construction which was verified by aerial reconnaissance. What nobody wanted to believe is that it was actually happening.

a reply to: andy06shake

Only if your only counting deaths in camps..

The were executing people on sight and with artillery and such... alot..

that Doesn't take long at all..

a reply to: JoshuaCox

I wouldn't be surprised. Ukraine sided with Germany thanks to the Holodomor. I can't imagine the rest of the USSR was exactly thrilled with Stalin knowing they might be next. But then Hitler forced them to deal with the genocide on their doorstep as opposed to the potential future genocide from Stalin.

a reply to: Ohanka

Plenty of Jewish people made it to Great Britain and told there tales about the ghettos, of what was happening, or what was about to happen.

But back then Great Britain could have gone ether way in that war so i don't imagine there claims were heavily entertained.

Chances are our intelligence services knew all the same but early on not all of the general public.

a reply to: JoshuaCox

That's also true i suppose, God only know as to the real total?

I herd it estimated as much as 22 million people and as low as 8 million.

Fact is something is very fishy regarding the figures any way that you look at it.

Probably worth considering who profited from both sides during the conflict in question?

The answer seems to be corporations and banking houses, some even in our own nations.

originally posted by: crazyewok
Then you have the waste in human lives. 5 million jews and millions of more polish, gypsy, Russians ect. Why kill them? Why make enemys of people you could CONSCRIPT and use in your war ?

Nazi Germany consigned millions to slave labour camps, so they did "conscript" people to work for their war effort. In addition, the Jews were also used as forced labourers and that's how many were exterminated.

By 1944, slave labour made up one quarter of Germany's entire work force, and the majority of German factories had a contingent of prisoners.[12][24] The Nazis also had plans for the deportation and enslavement of 50% of Britain's adult male population in the event of a successful invasion.

Wiki Nazi forced labour

The Soviets were also up for forced labour, including deportations. Sadly, the Soviets continued their brutality after WW2, but that's another topic.

a reply to: andy06shake

I think the number is usually around 13 million.

A lot of people say 6 million which completely ignores all non-Jewish victims.

a reply to: paraphi

The Soviets killed and imprisoned more people than the Nazi's and SS did, that's a given.

a reply to: Ohanka

Certainly is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, but why?

a reply to: crazyewok

I'd have to say yes, it did. Or certainly contributed to it. I don't think they'd have won anyway, like you said, three superpowers--The USSR, the US, and Great Britain. They were having enough trouble with just two, once the third, the US, came onto the scene, and was fully ramped up, the Nazi's were doomed.

Yet through all of it, they kept those trains running people to the camps, day in, day out, night in, night out. Trains that could have been carrying war supplies to which ever front. The men, and women, used as guards could have been better used elsewhere.

So, yeah, I'd have to say the pathological hatred of those different cost them big time.

a reply to: Ohanka

Not to mention the many thousands, possibly millions, murdered outside the camps in Occupied Europe.