Covering up the Holocaust

[Fenwick]

Say that in 1943 (Allied invasion of Italy) or 1944 (Normandy landings) the German military begins a program of distancing themselves from the holocaust, and as so often occurs elements of the SS and Nazi high command get wind of this and likewise see the need to lessen their links to such a thing.

So the question becomes how do they do this? It is not so much just denying that the holocaust occured but setting up the conditions to make it scenario in which it is more likely then not much of the Nazis were not aware of or linked to the holocaust.

What would be the methods and considerations needed for the, what is at this time called, TherMilAk Society to focus on?

 

[Mr_Fanboy]

Does this mean that they stop actively killing Jews and other minorities? If so, that would have a huge impact in itself - my understanding is that most of the victims of the Holocaust, or at least a very significant percentage of them, died in the later stages of the war.

To be clear, this does not mean that Nazis will start treating Jews, Roma, and others who they were racist toward well - they will still be used as slave labor or consigned to ghettos for the remainder of the war. But at the very least, they could stop using gas chambers.

Of course, a huge number of Germans in important positions were already ideologically committed to genocide, so this by itself seems difficult to accomplish.

 

[The_Persian_Cat]

Why would the German military begin distancing themselves from the Holocaust? Anti-Semitism, anti-Ziganism, homophobia, etc etc. were all central to the ideology of the Nazi party, as was the need to purify the German race of all those groups (as well as people with disabilities, etc). I can't think of a reason for the German high command to suddenly do an about-face on their racialism, just because their enemies would find it embarrassing.

 

[Fenwick]

In my head it is:

1. Ensuring that a select group has little to no links to the holocaust at all, combined with placing all the blame on a handful of people (IE "Hitler and Himmler did it all!).
2. If not the limitation on murder then at least shifting camps to a more "starve them as we use them for labor" mentality.

The point is that the TherMilAk society (plus others) end the war with what is basically a free pass and TTL's holocaust is not 6 million Jews died, but 3 million Jews died and maybe 3 million laborers died.

Mostly it is at first a handful of people and then an increasing number of them realizing that "peace" for Germany requires the holocaust is not hanging over their heads.

 

[Llewwyy]

Let us be clear on the numbers. It was not 6 million that died in the camps but 11.9 million of whom 6 million were of the Jewish faith. I thought that they had accelerated their extermination or genocide program, towards the end of the war but ran out of time. The Nazi government spent alot of resources towards genocide, how are they to distance themselves from that?