Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 January 8

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January 8

Adolf Hitler's plan fr france

What plans did Adolf Hitler have for France after winning World War 2?

SS State of Burgundy gives a general idea. E.g. "Hitler's own objective towards France was to eliminate it permanently as a strategic threat to German security. ... extensive plans were made so that France could be reduced to a minor state and a permanent German vassal kept firmly in the state of dependence". Clarityfiend (talk) 00:53, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

A little more detail at After the Fall: German Policy in Occupied France, 1940-1944 by Thomas J. Laub: "He [Hitler] promised to undo 400 years of 'robbery' and 'oppression' by restoring Flanders, Alsace, Lorraine, the Ardennes, and the Argonne to the Reich". Alansplodge (talk) 02:13, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

The claim to Flanders must presumably have depended on its period spent as the Austrian Netherlands, which also incorporated Luxembourg. Surprising the latter wasn't explicitly mentioned. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.62.241 (talk) 02:28, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Or probably even further back to "Imperial Flanders" and the Burgundian Netherlands. Or even further back to Charlemagne, why not? Revanchism knows no limits. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:48, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Further detail at The French Who Fought for Hitler: Memories from the Outcasts by Philippe Carrard (p. 139):

"Hitler was not interested in creating a Fascist Europe, his only concern was to expand German Lebensraum and exploit the occupied territories. The Nazis' “new” Europe, therefore, would have been a “patchwork”, in which France and Belgium became “rump states" [pays croupions] with "amputated" territories and economies, whose sole function was to fulfill Germany's needs".

And in a footnote: "The Generalplan West presented to Hitler by Wilhelm Stuckart and his team in June 1940 is in this respect particularly revealing. According to this plan, Wallonie, Luxembourg, Alsace, Lorraine, as well as the industrial areas of northern and eastern France (about 50,000 square kilometres) were to be annexed to the Grosses Reich in postwar Europe". Alansplodge (talk) 15:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

We have an article on Generalplan Ost but not Generalplan West (there's a challenge for somebody!), but the plan gets a mention in Greater Germanic Reich, German military administration in occupied France during World War II and SS State of Burgundy, the latter being a brainchild of Heinrich Himmler. In common with much Nazi strategic planning, the whole thing was somewhat muddled by different departments competing to win the Fuhrer's approval. Alansplodge (talk) 15:57, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Apologies User:Clarityfiend, I forgot that you had already linked the Burgundy article, I got carried away... Alansplodge (talk) 16:17, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

World War I and II Impact on Global Demographics

Have there been any studies about how the global population would have been different if both world wars had never occurred. The majority of combatants who were killed would have been young men so this must have had a huge impact on the birth rates of the belligerent countries. Given that we know two things, that the death tolls in these conflicts ran across two generations of young people and that the deaths run into the tens of millions, and that birth rates would have been higher (because of the lack of widespread use of contraception), how much of a damaging impact on the growth of the global population did these conflicts have. Is it reasonable to assume that the world population would today be much higher had these conflicts not occurred? --Andrew 16:15, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

One major factor leading in the opposite direction is that Europe would have been considerably wealthier, early on, had they not suffered the destruction of both world wars, and wealthier nations tend to have lower birth rates. The US, on the other hand, might have been considerably poorer, without all it's competitors being knocked out economically as a result of the wars, and therefore have a higher birth rate. StuRat (talk) 17:41, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

A quick search brings up plenty of speculation, but I failed to find any sort of methodical study. Alansplodge (talk) 17:46, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

As a general rule, for most species, the reproduction rate is nearly completely determined by the number of reproduction-age females, not by the number of males (excluding the obvious limit case). This certainly includes humans. The world wars (especially WW1) killed much more males than females, so their influence of subsequent generations is less than the raw numbers should suggest. The US birth rate significantly increased after WW2 (as did the absolute number of births - also see baby boomers). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:24, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

The postwar economic boom and people not wanting their children to live in the Great Depression probably contributed to that. And if a woman is working in America and her partner's overseas they can't be having children. A relatively small percent of Americans died in the war compared to other major powers. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

...that reminds me of the old joke "...another hunter stood behind him with a real gun". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:52, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree with User:Sagittarian Milky Way that the USA was atypical of combatant nations. In the First World War, using the worst estimates, Serbia had a war-related mortality of nearly 28%, Turkey 15%, Germany and France both about 4.3%, UK 2.2% and US 0.13% (see World War I casualties). Alansplodge (talk) 20:02, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Specifically for the Second World War, see our World War II casualties of the Soviet Union article for an example of what research has been going on; among other things, it mentions the 6½ million Soviet women who died via military action, since many of them were partisans or otherwise directly involved in warfare. The more general article on World War II casualties discusses the impact on birth rates. Nyttend (talk) 01:22, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Note that genocide was widespread during WW2, committed both by the Germans and Japanese. Those deaths are not heavily weighted towards males, and may even have been weighted towards females, if the males were fighting elsewhere, or more likely to be left alive as slave labor. StuRat (talk) 05:18, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

• The 1918 flu pandemic killed many more people than did WWI. The droughts and famines in Russia and the Soviet Union during this era apparently killed more people than WWII(?), and are not easily separated from non-famine deaths related to the revolution and subsequent purges. There were other (possibly-war-related) famines, e.g. the Bengal famine of 1943, and at least three major famines in China (List of famines in China) during this period. I think it will be hard to distinguish the demographic effects of the wars from these other major occurrences. The Soviets also engaged in large-scale "ethnic cleansing" of ethnic germans in eastern Europe in the late stages of WWII. -Arch dude (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2017 (UTC)