Waldgänger wrote:I don't think this memorandum is anywhere near as morally egregious as alleged gas chambers, Einsatzgruppen shootings, purposeful starvations of millions of POWs, or "death through overwork". He's outlining a basic strategy of subduing a conquered population. Do we find these distasteful in a democratic age? Probably most do, but looking at the history of conquests from ancient times until now, those who are determined to control a conquered area will do anything necessary to quell the locals. None of this was a crime before Nuremberg made it so.
But such statements or text portions are used to create a slippery slope. From saying not so nice things about Jews, Slavs or whatever towards gassing them first and then struggling to get them through an elevator to put them into an oven.
That's why it is necessary to get the context on any text and of course make sure the authenticity has been checked. Although I think that while there are examples of fake documents, the usual persuasion tactic is to gather snippets of text portions and then use them in arguments to support a thesis one wishes to convey. Simply get all the texts were NS-figures said something unfavorable about Jews and link it up with typhus victims. Most people can be easily made to draw the conclusion then that there must have been a Holocaust.
That Jews didn't figure that much in NS-publications most people won't know and will not be feasibly able to find out, because for that purpose they would have to scan millions of documents, before they could come to the conclusion that while the Jewish Question was a concern to NS, it wasn't that big a concern as one would conclude from the way that it is presented nowadays.
Martin Bormann was essentially the party secretary after Rudolf Hess wasn't available anymore. That's an important function, but not as important as he's made out to be nowadays. It seems lots of the controversial stuff was written, when Hitler was busy with more urgent matters. Within the NSDAP he was part of the more progressive wing that wanted to streamline everything and centralize decision making. Himmler had a similar attitude. Others where either more relaxed and Hitler even wanted affairs to be decentralized (let the people make decisions locally).
And of course you are right. An occupational power or alternatively a colonial power does have an interest to have a level of control over an area they claim authority over. They will prioritize their interest over the local interest of course. That's btw. also howe monarchs ruled and democracies are in no way different. The actual difference between Monarchy and Democracy is that the Monarch is only one person, with perhaps an entourage that needs to be entertained. In a democracy the groups of people that need to be entertained are far larger, since there are more people with potential say on who the government is going to be. In practice that means that a democratic regime has to loot far more resources from others to benefit it's constituency than a monarch would have to do. In practice there was of course always some easing with this. A colony was seen as source of commodities and off-set market for manufactured goods. So one wanted to get production going there and also that money was earned in the colony so the people there would purchase goods from the motherland. This would increase tax revenue without increasing the tax rates.
And well, the Nuremberg accused were all vast colonial empires. This accounts for the US, Great Britain, France, but also for the Soviet Union. The later did style themselves as the opposite of course, but Sovietism was for sure a mod of imperialism. The clique in Moscow did rule the Soviet Provinces as colonial subjects even while they pretended that "everybody was equal". There was a reason why many of the former Soviet republics wanted to leave. For the more traditional colonial powers like Britain and France the aftermath of world war two didn't age well, not at all. They lost most of their former colonial possessions and the subject became quite controversial even in the motherland itself. I'd guess their hypocrisy in Nuremberg came home for them. For investment firms it however also turned out that one didn't need to have Colonies to do foreign investment in commodity production or extraction. In fact the new governments in the former colonies turned out to be more corrupt and more incompetent than the previous colonial officials. That meant that one had more 'freedom' to do their as one pleased as long as the new officials got their payouts in the form of bribes and other benefits. The previous colonial powers so the Colonies as assets of the empire to be developed. While the new regimes saw the 'liberated countries' as objects to be looted as quick as possible.
Back from the excursion. For NS-Germany the occupied countries had to be productive as to support the war effort.... That didn't work in the same way for all of those countries of course. The Western occupied countries already had a functioning administration and economy. I doubt that would have been the case with e.g. the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. That had to be reorganized more thoroughly. That this wasn't without conflicts can be assumed of course. But they got production going for 1942 and 1943. There were also other issues with the administration and I think Rosenberg let people in on things there. That there were conflicts on which direction to go. Actually I think a lot of this was explained by the accused, but far-going ignored.
