Germany had a relatively (compared to other belligerents of the time) brutal nationalist government during WW1, but it wasn't anywhere near that genocidal. The imperial government expected to rule over the inhabitants of conquered territory, not kill them all off. Hitler was a real divergence, planning from the beginning to starve Soviet POWs rather than treat them as ordinary captured soldiers (which was more the case on the western front). Jews were being shot in the "Holocaust of bullets" on the eastern front early on as well. Jews further back sent to camps might experience the "holocaust of gas" or be impressed into slave labor depending on whether there was a more pressing need for labor or food at the time. They also started trying to recruit Soviet POWs later on, so in that case it went in the opposite direction of prioritizing food over time from what you describe.
Hitler did indeed hope to gain resources by invading the USSR... but he was already getting those resources for cheap from Stalin. That's part of why Stalin refused to believe warnings that Hitler would invade. The Soviets of course sabotaged their oil infrastructure before the Germans could seize it, so they didn't get that much oil out of it (whereas they'd previously been buying that same oil).
Hitler was a Malthusian who thought Germany's population would starve if he didn't obtain more lebensraum. With the benefit of hindsight we can say he was completely wrong about that.
That might be right, I'm not an authority on WW2 by any means, but I think Tooze would respond to those arguments something like this :
From what I remember, Tooze claims pro-large-scale-genocide views were around during WW1 among nationalists, but weren't the mainstream view, and became more popular after the food shortages lost them WW1.
He didn't really give a clear answer why Germany couldn't just keep trading with the USSR instead of invading, but it was definitely a precarious position for Germany to be in, and presumably the terms weren't very favourable. I still think the invasion could be interpreted as a rational decision, particularly if Hitler expected an easy victory, like in WW1.
I'm not sure the timing of who got starved when, or who got shot instead of starved is very strong evidence, since the Nazis were acting in anticipation of future shortages more than reacting in the moment.
> I still think the invasion could be interpreted as a rational decision, particularly if Hitler expected an easy victory, like in WW1.
My understanding is that the General Staff did a wargame which concluded that the Wehrmacht would need a much larger invasion force than they had available to succeed. Hitler ignored that, because he was a gambler who had taken risks and succeeded when his generals were more cautious before.
> He didn't really give a clear answer why Germany couldn't just keep trading with the USSR instead of invading, but it was definitely a precarious position for Germany to be in, and presumably the terms weren't very favourable.
My recollection of TIK on Youtube discussing the issue is that they expected over time any trading partner would develop their own manufacturing capacity (and Germany was selling them manufactured goods useful for building that up), and then no longer want to trade raw materials for manufactured goods. Industrializing would also make the USSR harder to conquer in the future.
"arguably not too destructive to its national character, certainly it hasn’t led to “race death“."
Sure, ethnic Germans are just halving in number each generation.
Germany had a relatively (compared to other belligerents of the time) brutal nationalist government during WW1, but it wasn't anywhere near that genocidal. The imperial government expected to rule over the inhabitants of conquered territory, not kill them all off. Hitler was a real divergence, planning from the beginning to starve Soviet POWs rather than treat them as ordinary captured soldiers (which was more the case on the western front). Jews were being shot in the "Holocaust of bullets" on the eastern front early on as well. Jews further back sent to camps might experience the "holocaust of gas" or be impressed into slave labor depending on whether there was a more pressing need for labor or food at the time. They also started trying to recruit Soviet POWs later on, so in that case it went in the opposite direction of prioritizing food over time from what you describe.
Hitler did indeed hope to gain resources by invading the USSR... but he was already getting those resources for cheap from Stalin. That's part of why Stalin refused to believe warnings that Hitler would invade. The Soviets of course sabotaged their oil infrastructure before the Germans could seize it, so they didn't get that much oil out of it (whereas they'd previously been buying that same oil).
Hitler was a Malthusian who thought Germany's population would starve if he didn't obtain more lebensraum. With the benefit of hindsight we can say he was completely wrong about that.
That might be right, I'm not an authority on WW2 by any means, but I think Tooze would respond to those arguments something like this :
From what I remember, Tooze claims pro-large-scale-genocide views were around during WW1 among nationalists, but weren't the mainstream view, and became more popular after the food shortages lost them WW1.
He didn't really give a clear answer why Germany couldn't just keep trading with the USSR instead of invading, but it was definitely a precarious position for Germany to be in, and presumably the terms weren't very favourable. I still think the invasion could be interpreted as a rational decision, particularly if Hitler expected an easy victory, like in WW1.
I'm not sure the timing of who got starved when, or who got shot instead of starved is very strong evidence, since the Nazis were acting in anticipation of future shortages more than reacting in the moment.
> I still think the invasion could be interpreted as a rational decision, particularly if Hitler expected an easy victory, like in WW1.
My understanding is that the General Staff did a wargame which concluded that the Wehrmacht would need a much larger invasion force than they had available to succeed. Hitler ignored that, because he was a gambler who had taken risks and succeeded when his generals were more cautious before.
> He didn't really give a clear answer why Germany couldn't just keep trading with the USSR instead of invading, but it was definitely a precarious position for Germany to be in, and presumably the terms weren't very favourable.
My recollection of TIK on Youtube discussing the issue is that they expected over time any trading partner would develop their own manufacturing capacity (and Germany was selling them manufactured goods useful for building that up), and then no longer want to trade raw materials for manufactured goods. Industrializing would also make the USSR harder to conquer in the future.