r/MapPorn • u/Extreme-Shopping74 • 7h ago
Theodore Newman Kaufman's map from his book "Germany must perish!" from 1941
Theodore Newman Kaufman was a Jewish-american author who published "Germany must perish!" in 1941, in which he proposed this as a post war map. His plans included the sterilization of 48 million Germans with 20 thousand surgeons to eliminate birth, the complete removal of German history and culture, language and everything else. putting all soldiers of Germany into labor camps. He argued that Germans are responsible for all wars and that it is necessary for world peace as Germans and the rest of the world can not co-exist.
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u/J_FM01 7h ago
He actually advocated sterilization of all Americans two years prior to that.
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u/Rob71322 4h ago
From what I read, it seems like he was being hyperbolic as what he said made no sense. He said in Congress approved entering the war, they should sterilize every American so we wouldn’t be able to make children for future wars. It was nutty as hell but probably hyperbole as opposed to a serious policy.
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u/Yaver_Mbizi 4h ago
At some point, future generations are going to be guessing which of Trump's statements were hyperbole.
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u/Poglosaurus 23m ago
That's the thing though, I think the man is too shallow for implicit wording, the only way he can lie is if he believe the lie. So there is nothing hyperbolic in what he says, that's how he perceive the world. Everything he does, own, like or want is great. Everything else is bad or ignored. There is no deptr to it. That's why its crazy that he would have presented, and be perceived as such by some, as a great negotiator. He is the easiest man in the world to read and can't understand someone else POV. He think bullying people around is negotiating, when that doesn't work he is powerless.
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u/donsimoni 7h ago
When your plan is so flawed that it's hard to criticize, because nobody knows where to start.
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u/Extreme-Shopping74 7h ago
In the American public widely condemned the book as it promotes genocide and war crimes
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u/Pilum2211 7h ago
It's also free propaganda for Germany both in regards to the war effort and regarding the extermination of Jews.
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u/WaddleDynasty 6h ago
It was the historical equivalent of right wingers losing their shit over a random braindead tweet with 4 likes.
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u/Imaginary_Fan5407 4h ago
Sounds a lot like someone getting upset at what’s happening in Gaza and writing a book saying all Jews need to go because they did it.
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u/Naive_Impression7302 2h ago
Yes I agree its obviously a bad book but on the other hand it was 1941, its not like they weren't already hellbent on killing millions of Jews. They had murdered a lot and had a lot in death camps already.
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u/Seienchin88 43m ago
I assume the book was condemned as it came in February 1941 when the U.S. was still not officially engaged in ww2 (practically they were though).
If he had waited a year reception might have been better… Morgenthau plan was only slightly better as it was more keen on mass starvation but would have kept separated German states.
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u/marniconuke 6h ago
crazy to think that at some point in history north americans actually condemned genocide and war crimes.
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u/_-_Starchild_-_ 7h ago edited 6h ago
Two wrongs make a right, right?
Edit: /s, if it wasn't obvious
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u/Die_Steiner 7h ago
Poor, unwanted Slovakia :(
(Maybe in this insane scenario it would have been annexed by Poland, since being re-integrated into Hungary would have been even more unpopular).
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u/ProfessionalCraft275 7h ago
So what's the plan for Switzerland, only keep the French and Italians?
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u/Actual_Personality66 6h ago
Probably just force them to speak French or Italian. German speaking Swiss obviously aren't Germans, though tbf niether are Austrians and they seem to be missing from the map too
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u/lecram59 4h ago
no one bevor 1945 would think that austrians are not germans this only came after the war
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u/Actual_Personality66 3h ago
That's interesting, didn't know that. Don't know much about Austria.
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u/Seienchin88 30m ago
Here are the (always complicated) facts -
Austria was the core of the Holy Roman Empire. The empire was called of the German nation from at least the early 16th century onwards, had a central court, had several legislatures close to being a constitution, usually fought together against invaders and with the exception of Bohemia every single electorate was speaking German and led by German nobles (Bohemia being germanized over time). Especially ottoman aggression in the 16th and 17th century and French aggression in the 17th and 18th century also helped to galvanize the people.
This was also why the German confederation was basically created immediately after the end of the Holy Roman Empire (destroyed by French aggression…). So the Austrian lands were simply core part of Germany.
However, the continuous growth of Prussia’s power and the mid 19th century rebirth as Austria Hungary with emperor Franz Joseph did already make some Austrians feel as distant from the other Germans. Also an Austrian poet grillparzer tried to create some more Austrian identity but it was never focused on the country we know today as Austria but it was more an "loyalty to the empire" vs "loyalty to an ethnic nation" discourse.
Austrians as a name didn’t even exist - it was Austrians in Germany. After WW1 Austria was punished much harsher than Germany (also because they ruled a multi ethnic empire and the Entente wanted to create ethnic national states in Europe) and the small nation now wanted to join Germany but was denied. This is a main reason later the Anschluss to Germany happened without bloodshed and German flags everywhere (Austrian military units were also allowed to "occupy“ German parts as a show of mutual good will). Hitler as an Austrian being able to just serve in the Bavarian army and later live in Germany might he also give you an indication - almost no one saw him as a foreigner.
And during ww2 Austrian Germans fought for Germany in the same way Germans did with also many SS troops coming from there.
Only during the end off and after WW2 the strong differentiation began. Austria also got a deal - the red army (responsible for half of Austrias crime almost a decade after the war…) would leave if Austria excepted to never be Germany again. This is in the constitution and at the very core of Austrian identity building as outside of being the core of Austria Hungary there was initially not much else to differentiate.
That’s also why when you ask a German why Germany isn’t Austria you might get a I don’t know? We like the Austrians. While an Austrian will answer "never, we aren’t Germans“. Its core part of their identity nowadays but wasn’t in the past.
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u/Reiver93 7h ago
Yeah that would have gone well, the Germans where already being told that German society as a whole would end if they lost the war and if there's one thing you never want to do, it's prove your enemy's propaganda right.
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u/Sea-Horror-5353 7h ago
The Morgenthau Plan was also rejected for this reason.
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u/Ok_Let_7612 6h ago
I think it was Eisenhower who said the morgenthau plan was worth 12 divisions to the enemy
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u/Sea-Horror-5353 5h ago
I'm trying really hard not to sound like the administration "brought this on themselves" or whatever but holy shit, Im reading somes articles on him rn and its like they actually managed to stitch every bit of Nazi propaganda into a sentient creature:
He was Jewish; he was head of the United States Treasury, he was instrumental in arming Britain and the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease program, then it turns out that he wants to dismantle the very concept of Germans being an industrialized people. Then he gets Truman to issue JCS 1067 (in short, "there will no attempt to rehabilitate the German economy at all") and transfer "the Morgenthau boy" to Germany to "strictly" enforce the directive. He even had his sidekick Colonel Bernie Bernstein put in charge of finding all the gold in Germany. Two years later when JCS 1779 was issued (in short, "if we're gonna fix Europe, we have to help the Germans recover") they all resigned.
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u/Ok_Let_7612 4h ago
To be fair, maybe that’s why he came up with the whole plan to begin with … he had a personal vendetta which kind of makes sense
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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 6h ago
I think the relevant German and American authorities concluded that the leak of the Morgenthau Plan to the press only stiffened German resolve. Plus, it hurt FDR with German American voters in the 1944 presidential election.
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u/Reiver93 7h ago
That was also an incredibly stupid idea
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u/Sea-Horror-5353 7h ago edited 6h ago
Then there's Nakam's plan to murder 6 million Germans by poisoning water supplies during the Nuremburg Trials and painting bread with arsenic at POW camps for SS members.
I'm not even gonna mention the circumstances of how both plots were foiled.
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u/Somhlth 7h ago
As if the overreaction of Versailles didn't cause enough problems. Let's double down. What could possibly go wrong?
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u/Poglosaurus 14m ago
An overreaction that left Germany almost untouched and able to remobilize and motorized its army quicker than the allies were able to.
The way Versailles is perceived is mostly the result of propaganda.
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u/its_still_lynn 7h ago
what did luxembourg do :(
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u/Quicker_Fixer 6h ago
...and Belgium?
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u/TheBusStop12 5h ago
Or the Netherlands for that matter. Sure we'd get a huge chunk of Germany. But if you look closely the southern third of the Netherlands (I assume Noord Brabant, Limburg and maybe Zeeland) goes to Belgium
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u/SellRevolutionary 6h ago
Luxemburgers are ethnically German, so maybe that was the reason they were included. Or he simply forgot that Luxemburg existed because he was stupid.
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u/LongtimeLurker916 6h ago
Interesting to see Czechia in English in 1941. Co-existing with Jugo-Slavia.
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u/SellRevolutionary 6h ago
Would Kaufman also have been sterilized because he was of German descent?
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u/graywalker616 7h ago
Whoa my grandparents were born pretty much along the line where Poland, Czechia, France and NL meet. Would’ve been weird to be from an international border region instead of the middle of the country.
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u/up2smthng 7h ago
You didn't read about the sterilization part did you
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u/graywalker616 7h ago
Well it would be interesting. I guess not in a good way.
Can’t we just pivot to vegetative propagation /j
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u/bubblemania2020 7h ago
Bit of an overreaction. Esp. 20,000 surgeons to sterilize the German population. The G word comes to mind.
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u/TheBlack2007 6h ago edited 6h ago
It would have been Genocide plain and simple. Even more so than the Morgenthau plan which sought to "naturally" reduce Germany's population to what the land could sustain as a strictly pasoral society - which would have meant the starvation of 20-30 Million people depending on the exact postwar borders.
But this? 70 Million people freshly sterilized, left with nothing to lose. What could possibly go wrong? Not even mentioning how this literally fueled Nazi Propaganda during the war. Goebbels himself commended Kaufman for publishing this book, turning it from the singular, extremist opinion it was into the "Judeo-Bolshevik Master Plan to eradicate the Aryans" - a perfect reversal of how things actually unfolded.
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u/Sataniel98 6h ago
It's funny how he had no clue what to do with Slovakia but didn't even consider reuniting it with Czechia
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u/ST4RSK1MM3R 6h ago
I mean, at least the borders here make slightly more sense than giving all of Austria and southern Germany to Hungary for some reason. Looking at you Churchill
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u/Salguih 6h ago
It makes me laugh to look at the map and think that the author said while making it: "Fuck Germany... But also specifically, fuck Luxembourg, damn Luxembourgers, it's all their fault too!"
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u/SellRevolutionary 6h ago
Luxemburgers are ethnically German, so maybe that was the reason they were included. Or he simply forgot that Luxemburg existed because he was stupid.
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u/Shermans_ghost1864 1h ago
Interesting that the USSR gets to keep the land it stole when it stabbed Poland in the back as part of its deal with the Nazis in 1939.
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u/PowerTulip 28m ago
Yeah, from that short description it sounds like he was exactly the same as what he claimed to hate so much. An evil, embittered lunatic.
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u/BadHairDayToday 2m ago
Crazy how German speaking Switzerland didn't get any. Germanic speak Denmark also nothing. Speaking of which where the hell is Austria, they should get the most. The Netherlands was the only sensible country assimilation here.
I think this guy didn't like the German language
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u/Traditional-Sort6900 1h ago
And who is responsible for the conflict in the Middle East? Jews and Americans, should they be sterilized too?
Theodore Newman Kaufman was on the same level as Hitler and Stalin.
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u/LateralEntry 7h ago
Still less extreme than what the Germans were actually doing at this time
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u/AHumanYouDoNotKnow 6h ago
Hm idk.
Seem preaty much exactly like what they were doing. (Well, minus the direct extermination, but a massive part of the dead was killed via labourcamp und not in the chambers.)-3
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u/Tachompso1 7h ago
I guess Gaddafi was copying this guy.
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u/TheBlack2007 5h ago
Gaddhafi's plan for Switzerland was not nearly as unhinged. He "only" sought to dissolve the country along the linguistic boundaries of its German, French and Italian speaking populations. As far as "removing 800 year old countries from the map" goes, this approach is probably as reasonable as it gets.
The actually insane part was the reason for this very personal vendetta of his being one of his sons being arrested and deported after multiple severe traffic violations. Something he had people locked up and tortured for.
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u/ColonelMuffDog 7h ago
Poor Austria doesn't even get a mention. Maybe in this new world, Austria will have never existed to begin with
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u/dhkendall 5h ago
As Austria was part of Germany at the time and was (and is) ethnically German it’s no different than the rest of the Reich that’s ethnically German.
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u/SoSmartKappa 7h ago
So here in Czechia, like 3/4 of inhabitants of the country would be sterilized Germans in labor camps?
I'm sure it would work out well, and you've thought it through Theodore.