Hi DJ - the Nazis executed millions of Jews and other Untermenschen (Communists, Trade Unionists, homosexuals, retarded people, insane people, Catholic priests, Poles) who were not fighting back prior to the Wannsee conference. You probably already know this. I studied the history of the Nazi party at George Mason Univeristy as taught by Dr. Peter Black, the chief historian of the Holocaust Museum.
The killing started in 1933, but first it was the Communists and the Trade Unionists.
Then after they invaded Eastern European countries, e.g., Poland, Soviet Union, they started killing the Jews and Polish intellectuals in situ. Millions.
Prior to the building of the gas chambers in Auschwitz, etc., the killing was done mostly by Stalin-shots to the back of the head, which was very messy and upset the killers, who thought of themselves as nice people and didn't like killing little children and old women. And the burial pits tended to attract vermin and hungry animals.
For a while they tried vans with the exhaust piped into the back, but that was slow and cumbersome. Zyklon B was more effective, but still, the neighbors complained about the screaming and the smells.
They set up death camps with vans and Zyklon B, but there remained the problem of what to do with the bodies, and there were still so many left to kill, so they needed to speed things up.
So they decided to automate things. That appears to be what was decided at Wannsee, to apply good old German know-how to the problem of getting rid of all these Untermenschen efficiently. And so it was done. Special camps just for killing, equipped with trains coming in one end, with vast unloading platforms, barracks, gas chambers, ovens, warehouses for gold, eyeglasses, jewelery, clothing, shoes, luggage, hair, etc., and vast pits for the ashes. Out in the countryside so the neighbors wouldn't be annoyed by the noise and mess.
And nearby slave labor camps for the ones who still had a bit of meat on their bones and could be made to work a little longer.
Very clever people, the Germans. |
