Technocratic alteratives to Wannasee

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Please read my question in full:

One of the things we overlook in the Wannasee Conference is that the claims of the impending food shortages were not made up, there were caused by Nazi maladministration and rapacious corruption but the issue was there. The Death camps were a “technocratic solution” to the issue, that solved, or at least delayed the issue of a proper famine that would incite revolt. Now, everyone including me will condemn this on humanitarian grounds alone, but there had to be better solutions the Nazi leadership could have pursued even at this point, even if Sparticus has made it UTTERLY and chillingly clear they had no intention.

So has any historian ever given an answer for what the most moral solution the Nazis COULD have done at this point that would have headed off the (self created) problem without mass murder? And what it would have taken in terms of expertise, reform, material and time?

I ask because I’m so disgusted with the Nazi regime and others in the 20th century doing things like this, that I don’t think it’s merely sufficient to say rapacious murder is evil. That’s true, but what’s appalling is how stupid and petty and wasteful it is. Technocrats like Heidrich are not uncommon and I’m sick of them cynically proposing “technocratic” solutions that technically solve a problem, usually self created, in the most brutal and nihilistic way possible. I want to beat them on their own turf: technical effectiveness.

With all due respect to my fellow Time Ghost Members, these totalitarians have an awe in the public mind as “evil” but as Sparty in particular points out, they’re really just dumbasses who are brutal because they lack finesse or imagination, or work ethic, or sense of long term consequences. And if people can point out how STUPID and venal these people are, with actual solutions that aren’t murder and robbery, the sheen will come off real quick, Evil is cool to some people (for reasons I’ve never understood), stupid appeals to none.

I know it shouldn’t need to be said but there are so many levels of “Oh God, I F*** hate Nazis!” I didn’t know existed until I started watching this.

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Yes, there are two levels, the moral one (it was evil) and the utilitarian one (it was a waste of resources and a squandering of effort).

On a management level, the German war effort was poorly run historically. As the aggressor, Germany maintained higher levels of civilian production and less control of industry in order to placate its civilian population. It didn’t switch to a ‘total war’ economy until 1943. If you’re superior and winning, why do you need to sacrifice?

Britain, OTOH, instituted a total war command economy and food rationing in 1939. The British never wanted for food. They may not have had luxuries, but everyone got a sufficient diet to allow them to work in a war economy. Nobody starved. That’s the simple management counterexample for food.

From a purely utilitarian perspective, every death train is a train not carrying iron, coal or ammunition. Every camp guard is a soldier not in the field serving a howitzer or mortar. Every deportation round is coal burned for nothing. It is logistical madness.

In Germany’s case, its enemies can and will fight a war of logistics and production. The Allies do not need fancy strategy or lunatic bravery, their generals just have to be smart enough not to lose and wait for their factories to drown Germany in lead. That is in fact what happened.

Therefore, every every German diversion from production is assistance to Allied victory. The fallacy of the ‘Jewish Question’ was a fallacy on so many levels.

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