What would WW2 been like if Hitler had not hated the Jews?

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Here is an interesting What If that I have been thinking about. What if Hitler did not hate the Jews? What if he did not put them in concentration death camps and try to kill them all?

You may be thinking this is a wiered topic to start up, but I think it is an interesting scenerio. A lot of Jewish scientists and engineers (Albert Einstein to name one) fled Germany to other countries including the United States to flee the Nazis and there terror.

We all know that Jews were forced to work in factories and labor camps making war materials including engines (such as Jumo 004 for the Me-262). Many of these Jews sabatoged there work so that they too could take there part in destroying the Nazi War machine.

Basically what I am getting at is what would the Jewish population that was being persecuted have contributed to the German war machine.

Would Germany have gotten the Atomic Bomb before anyone else with Albert Einsteins help?

Would the German equipment been produced quicker with the more manpower that the German Jews would have brought into it?

Would the extra manpower helped form new fresh Divisions for the Germans?

I know that most of the Jews that were in the concentration camps were not of German decent but it makes me wonder how this would have effected the outcome of WW2 had the Holocaust not happened?

I am interested in hearing other peoples thoughts on this because it is something that I have been thinking about.

[Parmigiano]

Interesting point, it opens also another potential discussion:

'Could the National-Socialist party live with a non-nazi minority who had control of big part of the economy without a clash?'

But to give my opinion on your questions:

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

Would Germany have gotten the Atomic Bomb before anyone else with Albert Einsteins help?

Possibly, more with the help of Enrico Fermi and his group than with Great Albert, whose theories were not of immediate practical use and well known by all the scientists.

Fermi was an Italian Jew who escaped in USA after the racial laws and was later one of the leaders of the Manhattan project. He was actually the first one to achieve a controlled nuclear fission.

The Italian nuclear research group in the '30 was the one closer to practical application, managed by Fermi and Ettore Majorana (who was the real genius of the bunch, and mysteriously disappeared with his latest documents)

Now IF Hitler had not the 'Jew issue', IF Fermi had accepted to work with the Germans, IF the Germans would had put money in Fermi's lab, likely the first controlled nuclear reaction would had happened in Germany. From there to the A-bomb the path was linear.

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

Would the German equipment been produced quicker with the more manpower that the German Jews would have brought into it?

No, Germans needed slaves to build their gear in 44-45 and whatever slave prisoner would had tried sabotage. The German citizens were more useful at front, and the German Jews would have been sent in combat.
Jews from Poland, Russia and other invaded Countries would have been slave workers like in real history.

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

Would the extra manpower helped form new fresh Divisions for the Germans?

Yes, there would have been some more soldier, in my opinion not enough to change the outcome of the war.


In my opinion a good 'strategic' question is : If Adolf was not such an @##-hole with the Jews, would the Americans be so determinated in defeating Germany?
Jew lobby was pretty strong in USA, if Hitler was not the primary enemy maybe there would have been some strong political pressure to join Germany against Stalin (who killed at least as many Jews as Hitler)

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Cool, thanks for your opinions and ideas. This has been a "What if" that I have been thinking about for quite some time and I am interested in hearing what others might think. There is no right answer or anything just ideas.

[plan_D]

As far as I'm aware the Western Allies knew little about the Jewish extermination. America saw no call to destroy Germany because of it's actions toward the Jewish people. In fact, I've seen many Americans on newsreels from 1936 - 1939 talking of how great Germany is and that Hitler was a great politician. The Jewish exodus from Germany had already begun by then, the tales of oppression must have leaked out. But America and the world still respected Germany?

More than anything the Jewish would have swelled the ranks of the Wehrmacht. Not only by an increase in manpower from the Jewish soldiers themselves, but from the manpower used to guard the concentration camps. But the labour force would have been reduced, and the cost of production would have risen I think. Slaves are free, to use non-slave Jewish workers would cost money.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Interesting idea as well.

I remember reading a Times artical from 1936 calling Hitler one of the men of the year.

The thing I wonder is if the German Jews would have put the fact that they were German before there religion had Hitler not tried to persecute them and done what they could to help the German war effort.

[syscom3]

Most of the Jewish victims were not citizens of Germany or its axis partners. The Jewish manpower available would have been minimal. That also goes for the resources used in manning the conentration/extermination camps. Not a lot of manpower was used.

I still think there would have been an exodus of the Jewish scientists though. The Nazi party was still anti-semetic to the core.

Perhaps the only change in the war wa sits moral dimension. It would have been regarded as another of Europes periodic wars, and not of one of genocide.

It is also important to remember that the so called "jewish lobby" in the US in the 30's did not have as much power as many people think.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yeah I noted that in the first post up there as well that most of the Jews were not of German dissent however the Jews were persecuted as well by the Soviets and other Eastern European Countries. When the German Army rolled into them they may have been able to recruit them. 6 million (which yes the number becomes less because a large number of them were women and children [however the women could atleast work in factories] would have been an added boost I would think, especially when you are helping to fight those that are oppressing you. Again this is all just theoretical What if that I am thinking about.

[syscom3]

The only scenario I could see, is if in eastern Europe, factories were put in the ghetto's and the Jews allowed to work there. If they maintain the production, then no harm would come to them. But there was always the suspicion that if any materials coming from the factories were defective, was it because of bad tooling or was it sabotage?

However, i dont see the Nazi party ever being accomodating with the Jews. Thats like saying the KKK could have been reasoned with in the deep south. Its quite conceivable the extermination and deportations would not have stopped, but not the anti-semitism.

Good "what if scenario"!

[Twitch]

Well Adler I have ponder a similar thing in that what if the Weimar Republic had begun a serious nuclear program to the degree that they did with missiles. The 'Aggregate' rocket program that became the V weapons were begun in 1919. If Einstein had been enlisted at a much earlier stage by the Kaiser to explore nuclear energy, before Hitler, how far would things have gotten?

What if the missile program had been accelerated even before Hitler? Would the A-9/A-10 had been toting a nuke to Washington or NYC by 1944?

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Syscom what you and me have been talking about brings up another interesting possibility that has been discussed before by many and that being if the Germans had not treated the Ukranians and hell even the Russians so bad, they may have one them over. We all know they did not really like living under Stalin and they may have stepped up and joined the German side. It all really is very interesting.

Twitch you bring up another interesting point as well. If Von Braun and other leading German scientists had started up earlier it may very well have led to something that would have been extremely scary by 1944 we say and in Germany's desperate last hours they may not have hesitated to use such a thing. The question though is would the technology been available that soon?

[syscom3]

I think if the Germans were not so vicious in Russia, then the whole eastern front could have taken a whole different turn.

As for the technology available to the Germans to allow them to build an A-Bomb? I doubt they could have pulled it off before they were defeated. Remember when pushing the state of technology and science to produce a radical new weapon, you just cant rush some things. Its a system and some systems take longer to produce (or understand) than others. Dont forget it was a huge industrial undertaking for both the US and UK to produce it, and only enough material had been produced by the end of WW2 to build three bombs (with a fourth being planned). Germany would be very hard pressed to make their own bomb before the allies could.

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

Still, if they had made the bomb first.......I wonder if it would have been Britain or Russia to have first experienced the effects of Nuclear power in warfare.


The US was a long way off. Still there is a urban myth about a Junkers Ju 390 coming within 12 miles of New York...............Highly unlikely since they wouldn't have destroyed New York very well with only one bomber anyway.


If Germany had the Atomic Bomb all ready before their defeat, they may have tried to do one last reprisal against the Allies. The German bombers had the range and there was "Amerika Bomber Project." And all they needed was one bomber with one A-bomb and a proud US city is blown away.

If New York had been hit back then, would 9/11 have seemed like less of a shock?

Same as if Pearl Harbor was hit today, it would almost seem like fate reworking itself?

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

If the Ju-390 did fly to within 12 miles of the NY Coast (read the books Luftwaffe Over Amerika and KG-200) it was carrying a bomb, but a test flight to see if it was possible. They were not just testing to see if they could get to the East Coast to bomb it, but rather also they were looking into building planes that could help tender the U-Boots off the East Coast to keep them there longer.

[Parmigiano]

Staying in the 'what if' world, rather than the Amerika Bomber the Germans had already more advanced plans for intercontinental missiles.
I do have some material at home and in case I could be more accurate, now what I remember for sure is that experiments were on going for a two-stage rocket, with the second stage being a winged V2. (I think it was called A9+A10).
Several wing shapes were tested, and it seems that at least one 'winged V2' launch was made. (without the booster stage).

The idea was to use both rocket power and gliding capability to reach the US east coast.
Stick the a-bomb in the nose and you have a weapon that would really harm the US, with no known defense.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Can you post some of that info that you have?