5 ms·

They mention slaughterhouses in Ukraine. Does anyone know why Ukraine of all places?

DasIch 10y ago
There probably wasn't a good reason for doing it there specifically as much as there was a good reason for not doing it in Germany.
tomjen3 10y ago
Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet union, so presumably they also had many slaughter houses but at the same time they probably didn't have valid pre-existing agreements with distributors, so when the Nazi army took them, they were up for grabs and holding Hitler in the palm of his hand he could get them.
- serg_chernata 10y ago
  Makes sense, thank you.
whybroke 10y ago
It was part of a Nazi plan called "Lebensraum" where people of the wrong ethnic group would be killed, those of slightly wrong groups would be enslaved and those of the correct group would be indoctrinated into Nazi values. All vaguely steaming from looking at British, French and Spanish colonies were large numbers of their ethnic groups had taken hold. Also in the '30s Italy invaded Ethiopia and Japan invaded Manchuria to create belated empires though with less overtly genocidal intentions. (However dry the above description, I personally do not want to suggest that the Nazi project is equivalent to those other nation's actions) [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Ukraine [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum
- protomyth 10y ago
  "Japan invaded Manchuria to create belated empires though with less overtly genocidal intentions." Given the number of people the Japanese killed at Nanking[1] alone, I don't think this is a true statement. This site[2] (at and edu) puts it around 6 million total. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre 2) https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM
  - optforfon 10y ago
    The rational for killing the local population is fundamentally different Nanking was massacred as punitive action for resistance, not as a means of creating space for the Japanese. They Japanese did have "colonists" in Manchuria, but if you know any geography that's nowhere close to Nanking.
    - protomyth 10y ago
      6 million killed is a lot of punitive action and the second link is more than Nanking.
      - gozur88 10y ago
        That was six million from the 1937 to the end of the war, and it includes things like death from disease and forced labor. It's not that the Japanese had a plan to exterminate the Chinese. It's that they viewed the Chinese as inferior to themselves and didn't care about Chinese deaths. The Germans (or at least, the Nazis) had a plan, on paper, to kill everyone in the east and replace them with Germans. Hitler was a Malthusian who believed populations would grow until resources were exhausted, he viewed non-Germans as competition for those resources, and he thought birth control and abortion would reduce genetic competition and make the German race weak (like the French...). So the only solution was to kill everyone who wasn't German. Here's a quote from Himmler's wiki page: "It is a question of existence, thus it will be a racial struggle of pitiless severity, in the course of which 20 to 30 million Slavs and Jews will perish through military actions and crises of food supply." This was all planned out, and it was going to be on top of the deaths that actually occurred.

There probably wasn't a good reason for doing it there specifically as much as there was a good reason for not doing it in Germany.

tomjen3 10y ago

Ukraine was the breadbasket of the Soviet union, so presumably they also had many slaughter houses but at the same time they probably didn't have valid pre-existing agreements with distributors, so when the Nazi army took them, they were up for grabs and holding Hitler in the palm of his hand he could get them.

serg_chernata 10y ago
Makes sense, thank you.

whybroke 10y ago

It was part of a Nazi plan called "Lebensraum" where people of the wrong ethnic group would be killed, those of slightly wrong groups would be enslaved and those of the correct group would be indoctrinated into Nazi values. All vaguely steaming from looking at British, French and Spanish colonies were large numbers of their ethnic groups had taken hold. Also in the '30s Italy invaded Ethiopia and Japan invaded Manchuria to create belated empires though with less overtly genocidal intentions. (However dry the above description, I personally do not want to suggest that the Nazi project is equivalent to those other nation's actions) [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskommissariat_Ukraine [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum

protomyth 10y ago
"Japan invaded Manchuria to create belated empires though with less overtly genocidal intentions." Given the number of people the Japanese killed at Nanking[1] alone, I don't think this is a true statement. This site[2] (at and edu) puts it around 6 million total. 1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre 2) https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP3.HTM
- optforfon 10y ago
  The rational for killing the local population is fundamentally different Nanking was massacred as punitive action for resistance, not as a means of creating space for the Japanese. They Japanese did have "colonists" in Manchuria, but if you know any geography that's nowhere close to Nanking.
  - protomyth 10y ago
    6 million killed is a lot of punitive action and the second link is more than Nanking.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      That was six million from the 1937 to the end of the war, and it includes things like death from disease and forced labor. It's not that the Japanese had a plan to exterminate the Chinese. It's that they viewed the Chinese as inferior to themselves and didn't care about Chinese deaths. The Germans (or at least, the Nazis) had a plan, on paper, to kill everyone in the east and replace them with Germans. Hitler was a Malthusian who believed populations would grow until resources were exhausted, he viewed non-Germans as competition for those resources, and he thought birth control and abortion would reduce genetic competition and make the German race weak (like the French...). So the only solution was to kill everyone who wasn't German. Here's a quote from Himmler's wiki page: "It is a question of existence, thus it will be a racial struggle of pitiless severity, in the course of which 20 to 30 million Slavs and Jews will perish through military actions and crises of food supply." This was all planned out, and it was going to be on top of the deaths that actually occurred.