'How the "Good Nazi" Built a Slave Economy - WW2 Special' has a very fundamental flaw

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Hello everyone taking their time reading this.

The special mentioned in the title scratches an itch I have. Maybe it’s just me, but maybe it will be you as well if you read to the end. But maybe I’m just a bit sensitive.

The Nazi economy was no slave economy. Not 50%, not 10%, but 0.0% slaves.
Please use another term, because ‘slave’ might seem like the worst term for taking the freedom of people and putting them to forced work, but I’d argue what the Nazis did was worse. Much worse. Even compared to the US and other, economically smaller examples where humans were legally made objects to extract wealth from them or with their labour capacity, but treated like single use objects instead of assets. As a European, old Roman and Hellenic reports come to my mind, where slaves in many occassions -not all- were seen as something very valuable and even could -theoretically- buy themselves free (unlike females, but that’s a completely different story).

And that’s my main issue right there: “humans legally made objects” - that’s a slave. A slave always is judged as and treated like an object. You can’t murder or hurt a slave. Only destroy or damage it (<- yes, it for it is an object). Sparty mentions a “slave market”, but from the short description it does not become clear if someone could be bought or who the buyers were. It could’ve also been a state distribution action, where a few officers of several branches divide shanghaied Poles among themselves.
And slaves are at least protected by civilian laws regarding property! The Poles Sparty uses as an example are not even that, if I take him literally.

The “business model” of Höss inside this system then is nothing more than two things:

  1. Billing of administrative fees for KZ-inmates put at the disposal of several German companies.
  2. Corruption, since he is not supposed to treat the inmates like personal property and make a profit out of it.
    Why he gets away with it? Well they’re not protected by ANY German law in a sense we would consider protection of any kind, i.e. having a legally defined status. And he probably bribes everyone who could harm him enough. Keep in mind he can’t share with the state, since by 1942 the party is the state for a while now and giving to “the state” simply means giving money to the right people in the party. By that time the German state -or its remnants- works despite the Nazis, not because of it.

The Nazis never owned slaves or let anyone own a slave as property. The Nazis distributed all forced labourers to companies by state agencies who nominally held the power over these people. If you killed them they got replaced. No recompensation, no punishment, they were to die anyways. Which you do not do with your slaves. Or at least try to minimize. The Nazis did the opposite. And that’s what makes them worse than i.e. the US slave economy which was riddled with examples of cruel and neglecting slave owners, but over all -on a state level- the slave states could not afford to loose too many slaves if they wanted to keep their slave economy. Nazi Germany had no such concerns. And not only out of stupidity, but out of pure disregard and hate for anything they saw not as slave, but subhuman. Apparently someone not even deserving the “status” of slave.
If a slave system for the jews had been in place Hitler could’ve never given the order for extermination, because companies would’ve tried to protect their property. But all Jews were distributed by the Reich. And the Reich gives and the Reich takes and gives you substitutes.

Now after I’ve first seen and then examined the video to find a way to scratch my itch, I come to the conclusion the title of the video is aimed for the masses. So it can be found and watched by as many people as possible. And ofc it will hopefully hit a lot of people who try to debate away the horrors of the forced labour system in Germany put in place by the Nazis during their regime.
And the introduction where Sparty basically summarises all differently horrible version of humans forcing other humans to serve them under any kind of exploitive system as “slavery” is to make even relatively uninformed people if not understand, at least grasp what was going on in Germany at that time in regards to forced labour.

So now my itch is scratched and I’ve made my peace with this video.
But still there is one thing that horrfies me to the bone. A system so horrible, cruel, inhumane and reckless even Spartacus Olson has to resort to a term which -as explained above, in my opinion- does not show the full scale of those things; what unthinkable kind of barbarity that system must’ve been… it frightens me. Especially since it was not only thought up, but actually put into place.

José Fosty at buchenwald.de (in english):
 José Fosty - Buchenwald Memorial

From Alex Hacker, a positive note to show you some light in all this darkness:
The page he prepared in Feb 1945 in his self made notebook for when he would be runited with his parents in Budapest: Geheime Notizen - Liberation Buchenwald & Mittebau-Dora

Thank you for reading, I’ll pass this on.

P.S.: I just read it again. And if some passages read like I justify or even glorify slavery. No, slavery is absolutely terrible and inhumane. But compared to what the Nazis did it was at least on paper a system with rules even for those in power of the slaves. So the Nazi system des make slavery look like a good thing only in comparison to the Nazi system. And maybe now you can get an idea why I’m horrified.

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Not just you, my friend. I’ve had an itch to scratch too, not only with the sensational presentation of the situation but also with regards to how the video talks about the female workers in Nazi Germany, which was pretty wrong and iirc didn’t reference these links (which explained women in the workforce far better than the video did):

Like with my post on their racism video, you can thank JD for helping me out with these. :slight_smile:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40402148?read-now=1&refreqid=excelsior%3A9ae92629fa6ba2372e2f3e37c9781e54&seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents

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@markuskoester85 Wise words, and I see your points. I have read the memories of Albert Speer, and I think it gives a view into the general German mindset. I was “just” the architect, I just followed orders, I tried to stay humane, the others did the same, what could i do, and so on.

A story constructed to escape from the common responsibility, by adressing the insignificance of one person.

I guess this is a very human way to think, but also a deadly threat to our democracy as a lot of people dont wote.

So, We must learn our kids that the responsibility starts at one person and what a group of people do, is the sum of the will of every single person.

And You pinpoint the dilemma between describing the war in the Press and media. Where to draw the Line between sensation and excitement and the fact that war is just cruel. Lost of museum experience the same dilemma.

I just stumpled across this https://www.bombercamp.org/
Spend your vacation on learning how to bomb the shit of off somebody
The dilemma will go on and on….

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OK but as a simple historian the question here is, is it true what he wrote?

He did write his memoires after the war and had climb very far up the career ladder not caring about the massive number of deaths he caused or that his work was in favour of the holocaust. The “Befehl ist Befehl” mentality was used to excuse everything making it same that Hitler was at the top and each level beneath him were held at gunpoint. Speer was not a Schindler he was a Nazi, very likely in it for the career, medals status or just hatred for non-Arians. Many perpetrators willingly volunteered to become mass murderers after all.

Actually Eichmann who was a extreme anti-Semite also claimed he was just a bureaucrat in an Israeli court. I don’t think he was recalling his thoughts but tried to get away from his punishment.

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“I just stumpled across this https://www.bombercamp.org/
Spend your vacation on learning how to bomb the shit of off somebody
The dilemma will go on and on….”

Hey I was on there, I hate to point out that the P-51 you want to fly wasn’t built to tow hippie banners ;-). It is a difficult to fly war machine which killed lots of people.

As for the Bomber Camp:
Yes it is fun but there also was a memorial service for the uncle of one of the female veterans who was Killed in Action in a B-24.
Also actually learning how the technology worked, bombsights problems(these are very complex), aerial gunner, how ball turrets work, V-Mail, WW2 Fire Fighting, escaping from a crashed plane and using a Radio with an antenna on a balloon in a raft, nav charts, getting in an old WW2 bus, eating K-rations and some very safe shootingetc etc

We also had a few historians and a TV program which used some footage(the TV show was crap). Actually experiencing old tech really helps in the understanding as opposed to just googling quotes.

Oh and it were just a bunch of cement bombs dropped in the desert on an old truck or earlier literally a pickle barrel. (My team got within 60 yards, which is not too bad for a first timer

The people organizing it are volunteers and mostly ex- Airforce themselves. The currently are working to extend the museum in Wendover as well as that in Stockton. This is not a commercial company which lets you shoot guns and the people who instruct often know what war is from first hand experience.

This has a balance between fun and being serious and also an hommage to all the people who trained there…

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No - it was ONLY build to look good and provice the perfect sound picture. Some dude found out afterwards that it could fight. Next time You try to bring a P51 in miscredit I will have to flag. :laughing:

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Not the slighest I think, My Point is he wrote a rosy picture to distance himselfes from the atrocities and build the picture of the good Nazi. And he was not the only one with that strategy. I read of a now a days funeral for at war flier. “Just by coincidence” 2 fighters from the modern Luftwaffe flew over. As You write, we have to find the balance between fun, excitement, remembrance, facts and the right way to present the history as it happend. Thats why I joined this forum.

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LOL, are you still after the badge :slight_smile: By the way the borders should be opening today so Florida / Stallion 51 and AVDOC will be easier to visit. :-). Note: The lakes are filled with frikking gators :slight_smile: :crocodile: :crocodile: :crocodile: :crocodile: :crocodile: So mind where you put it down!

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YeayhhI noticed. Been to Florida twice so I know about the gators. Last time in 2011 we watched the last Space shuttle take off. Take a lot of courage to sit on top of that fireball. Otherwise we spent most of the holiday with my wife saving turtels from the roads :sunglasses:
image

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so how many things have they gotten wrong by now. One was the National Socialists are not Socalists, two was the Yugoslavian one, three is Albert speer is a good nazi (that title should go to John Rabe), four is a slave economy by the Germans. Did I miss any?

It is impossible to get everything right in a project as big as this. But people will start to doubt whether the stuff presented in the other videos in true or false and lose interest and that is what I don’t want.

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Yes, their videos on feminism and that video on racism in the U.S. Army, the latter I critiqued in detail:

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Why would you disagree with that fact?

The Nazis indeed were not socialists, no matter how many times ‘cool and edgy’ modern day right wingers and libertarians keep claiming that they were or how many 5-hour-YT-harangues are produced which leave out all the key evidence that doesn’t fit the desired narrative.

The Nazis primarily were right wing nationalists, racial nationalists to be more precise.

The early list of members reads like a who’s who of late 1910s Munich’s radical right wing underground and the crackpot Thule Society which was a right wing conspiracy group who blamed everything on communists, socialists and freemasons and believed that the jews were Germany’s #1 enemy.

Nazism was not primarily an economic ideology, but a nationalist one which associated it self with everything-radical-right-wing such as the Freikorps, Organization Consul, the Harzburg Front and of course Erich Ludendorff who was not exactly known for his love of socialism.

The Nazis also promoted traditionalism which also does not place them on the left.

Speaking of German conservatives, didn’t they also help the Bolsheviks come to power?

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Interestingly, I recently was able to read the little book that (NS)DAP founder Anton Drexler wrote in 1923. Like Hitler also did at times he does identify himself as ‘socialist’ but then (like Hitler also did) proceeds to define ‘socialist’ as being ‘nationalist’ and basically blames actual socialists (who define socialism as socialism), social democrats and freemasons for the outcome of the Great War.

So it could come about that the friend of social democracy
the Jew Dr. Walter Rathenau — was
simultaneously the most influential adviser of the Kaiser and
that, after the beginning of the war, the nourishment and raw
material supply of the German folk, struggling for its existence,
was put into the hands of this man by the Kaiser. That man, who
belonged to a group of international high finance, which a few
years before the outbreak of the World War
programmatically predicted the dictate of
high finance instead of the rule of Kaiser and kings, who two
years after the overthrow could write “he had already at the
beginning of the war commented to a friend that world history
would lose its meaning (the dictate of high finance), if Germany
would win the war”, hence despite this view, or precisely,
because he did not want to change “the meaning of world
history”, took over the supply of the field and homeland fronts.
The allotment of army suppliers is another chapter. The German
business world was pretty much disregarded in the process; but
all the more so did the German-Jew and Eastern Jew business
world find consideration. Loyalty and faith in trade and business
were soon still only concepts “one” smiled over. Vilest
deception, swindle and usury were soon on the daily schedule.
Gold and silver, which one extracted from the producing and
struggling folk, wandered into the pockets of the military
suppliers and into Jewish steel safes. Instead of a compulsory
loan from the biggest profiteers from the war, one turned with
generous propaganda, signed by the best names of the real
leaders of the German folk, likewise to the whole producing folk
of the homeland and even to the poorly paid front fighters. “Give
money and gold to the Reich bank” was the slogan, but kept
quiet about it (even many signors of the proclamations knew
nothing about it) that the Reich bank was a private enterprise,
with primarily Jewish board members and only a very weak
influence from the Reich government.

But you, German folk, have not grasped the high task that the
World War put to you: The assertion of the German idea, in
which industriousness, honesty, loyalty to the folk, truly
Christian worldview are united against a spirit that was carried
into you by aliens [ie Jews], and which for decades, outside your borders,
drew together a terrible coalition in order to destroy you. You
succumbed to this spirit in the interior and that brought your
external defeat. The strength of a nation for self-assertion lies in
the homeland, in the folk. If the idea of homeland and folk are
crippled, i.e. decayed by foreign spirit, every fight for existence
must shatt

These two (translated) quotes I picked out (from amongst countless such in Drexler’s book) to highlight Drexler’s worldview which is clearly German nationalist above all with rejection of all that which be believes stands against it: Jews, freemasons, social democrats.

It also fits with other remarks from Drexler known from local newspapers at the time where he makes it clear that the party he founded intends to organize workers for German nationalism and away from social democracy and communism. One of the ways of achieving that was basically redefining socialist to more or less be synonymous with (German) nationalist.

But I guess TIK didn’t think that was worth mentioning… gee I wonder why.

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Welll… because I am an idiot who doesn’t understand what socialism is… what the left and the right is (and I ain’t gonna try to… my brain hurts now because of it). So… I believe what the other person is saying. For eg : If it wasn’t for Norman here, I would not know that the feminism video and the racism video is uh… wrong.

Probably that is what happens when you take certain person who knows history and put them on a pedestal and you assume that what they are saying must be correct because they know stuff and you don’t. Thankfully there are people like you to correct me.

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The whole thing about slaves in the Roman system needs to be finessed a bit. Personal slaves could be manumitted at 30, contingent on their having saved the cash to pay for it. Personal slaves were also manumitted on the death of their owner, if s/he willed it. However, agricultural slaves and industrial slaves had no such opportunities. Miners worked till they died.
Historical parallels are just that, they can never be exact. Terry Pratchett’s definition of evil - treating people as things - is a good metric. The good treatment of individuals in any slave economy cannot detract from the inhumane treatment of the mass of the sufferers, whatever period and culture we’re talking about. The Jewish or whatever workers in the Nazi slave labour system were treated no better nor worse than the silver miners in the Roman Mendips.

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So you dislike the term slave, but then what other term would you recommend? Perhaps the Nai system of dehumanizing forced labor was very dissimilar to other slave economies where they were treated more like a commodity. I still think slave economy is an appropriate term, even if all the slaves were state owned. That the slave system was not privatized doesn’t mean it’s not a slave system.

It is also important to note that not all slave systems are made equal. Some have more regard for human live and some less. Often within a system there is a wide range, but that does not take away from the fundamentality of it. I don’t think that being able to be purchased or sold is fundamental to being a slave, but being forced to work for an overlord who decides your live choices for you very much is.

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My wording towards the end is indicating very clearly I have no such term at hand, nor am I able to come up with one. But it is worse than slavery.

And I fundamentally disagree. A slave is a tradeable good. Otherwise it’s not a slave but something else. That also accounts for Roman mine slaves @michael and like I said in ancient Hellas (male) slaves are in some sources described as above women. Who were also not sellable, but fixed property of a certain male.

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If one starts to make distinguishment between the “Ostarbeiter” and anyone caught in the KZ forced death labour, the Ostarbeiter actually compare very well to Roman mine slaves.

Both were in reality completely neglected and “death by negligence” was the most common course. The Ostarbeiter had on paper a contract labour status (probably for the mentioned propaganda resons in the video and some legal stuff) but in reality were just used up as a very cheap, replacable workforce.
BUT towards the end of the war some companies started to improve the conditions of the Ostarbeiter for two reasons:
The “supply” dried up, so suddenly they became worth something. They could not be easily replaced anymore.
And since “the Russian” was coming, some companies feared a Ostarbeiter rebellion or acts of revenge once the war was over, so they started to show at least some appreciation and humanity.

And those two motivators highlight to me those people were more seen like at least company slaves and personal property. In contrast to the KZ forced death labourers, who were supposed to be dead after the war was won. Which luckily never materialised, so some of them survived.

Another contrast is how the reaction of the state was when “liberation” was imminent. The KZ inmates were put on death marches, not into improved housing facilities for them.

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I see your points, but it could be compared to the situation where African people were captured in their native country and taken away to work in another country. At some points they transferred from being free to become a slave, thus The Nazis made them slaves, as they looked upon them as they were tradable assets.

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about the slave part, it should be mentionned about the use of concentraion camp labor to build stuff such as the heinkel 162 or V2 so i’m not really sure there wasn’t any slave in the german economy