TheSunGod

People are always talking about how the holocaust is the greatest crime ever committed.

I'm of the opinion that the high number of deaths is related less to a "genocidal" attitude than to the nature of modern warfare. Essentially, if you start a large war with modern technology, there will be millions of deaths no matter what. If that Army wishes to avoid a long occupation even just a little bit that number could easily quadruple. My argument is simply that with even the slightest inclination to kill someone, without an evil attitude, the result can be the death of countless millions and that person can not in actuality be held as a tyrant because they are simply slightly more violent than the average person during the course of war, which is the natural state. Perhaps it is because as Bernhardi said, "War is a biological necessity", and we are all predisposed to violence to acheive war aims, that modern technology simply gives a normal man the power to wreak unimaginable destruction, even if he has very little ill will.

Any agreement on this?

Zeno

The holocaust, iirc, is not the same as warfare. It was rounding up civilians and detaining them until they were killed/worked themselves to death. I agree both industialized warfare and industrialized genocide exponentially increased the effectivity of both, but they're different things.

Rongo

Somehow I don't see where this applies to systematically and deliberately herding millions of civilians into gas chambers.

diddyriddick

Agreed.

AlpinLuke

Focusing a thought on definitions:

the main trouble in considering the Holocaust as a "war strategy" is that a visible part of the Jews who met that destiny were German citizens.

Jewish Germans [Yiddish, overall] took part to WW I fighting for Germany like any other German. And the following generation served in German Army as well.

It's only in the environment of revisionism that we can find who sustains the German Jews were enemies of German.

So that, to be historically accurate, the Holocaust was, at least and to say the less, a discrimination strategy first of all internal to Germany. This is why it's not that correct [when not totally wrong] to see it as a "war strategy".

Koko the Monkey

I see your point, but I don't think it really stands against the facts. Genocides were committed before the massive carnage of the world wars so I don't think there's a relation between modern warfare and genocide. In fact, most genocides in the post war period arise from states that lack modern armies. Cambodia and Uganda both come to mind.

Naomasa298

Given that "genocide" is defined as the targetted killing of people of a particular ethnic group, would you not call the deliberate attempt to exterminate all members of a non-combatant group outside of the theatre of warfare genocidal?

PaulRyckier

Well said Zeno.

Kind regards and with esteem,

Paul.

Space Shark

Thirded.

And "millions of deaths" is not the same for all cases. The World Wars were much different from the many genocides this planet has seen the the past century.

Fiver

The high number of deaths in Holocaust had nothing to do with the nature of modern warfare. They were not soldiers. They were not collateral damage from attacks on military targets. They were civilians deliberately targeted for death in actions that provided no military benefit.