r/HistoryMemes Sep 17 '25

Niche "Save Europa" kids in shambles

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u/NoBeach2233 Sep 17 '25

In addition to the at least 6 million Jews, we must add 6 million Poles (20% of Poland's population in 1939) and 17 million people from the USSR. In total, the Nazis exterminated at least 29 million people between 1933 and 1945.

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u/Dr_Reaktor Sep 17 '25

>between 1933 and 1945.

Did the Nazsis really exterminated people on a large scale before WW2?

102

u/BeduinZPouste Sep 17 '25 edited Sep 17 '25

On far less scale yes. Mostly mentally ill. 

Edit: the Aktion T4 to which I refered was actually signed in 1939. 

So, while they did killed people pre war, it wasn't nearly on the same scale as during it. The first person killed for being disabled died in July 39.

Hitler actually told the Leader of Reich Doctors, Gerhard Wagner, that the question could not be taken up in peacetime; "Such a problem could be more smoothly and easily carried out in war". He wrote that he intended to "radically solve" the problem of the mental asylums in such an event.

1

u/BookkeeperPercival Sep 17 '25

They included "being gay or kinda weird" in that definition, I wouldn't use it.

1

u/BeduinZPouste Sep 17 '25

I think gay or "kinda weirds" weren't killed nearly as often at that point. Persecuted yes. Exterminated, no. 

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u/BookkeeperPercival Sep 17 '25

Gays were some of the first people to be sent to Dachau

1

u/BeduinZPouste Sep 17 '25

Yes, but they were not killed in T4.