If the Germans never had plans to use France as 'lebensraum' for ethnic German settlers, why did they bother systematically killing the French Jews?

by tentanium

Let me try to make my question more clear.

First, I understand that the Germans had a deep hatred for all Jews and, in their sick, twisted thinking, believed that Jews had no place in their Aryan society.

That being said, the Nazis justified killing off all the Jews in the eastern European countries because that land would eventually be settled by ethnic Germans.

Since the Germans never had plans to take France after the war, what reason did they have, other than their blind irrational hatred, for killing the French Jews.

Talleyrayand

the Nazis justified killing off all the Jews in the eastern European countries because that land would eventually be settled by ethnic Germans.

That was a big reason, but that wasn't the only way the Nazis justified the extermination of European Jews.

Part of core Nazi ideology involved a conspiracy which held that Jews were actively organizing against the Nazi state, and as such should be considered both racial and political enemies (the two were intrinsically linked). When German occupation troops in France experienced resistance and there were assassination attempts against public figures, the Nazi leadership attributed these efforts to communists and Jews (which, again, were both linked in Nazi ideology; Himmler often spoke of "Judeo-Bolshevism") and urged a rounding-up of said "undesirables." To the Nazis, this wasn't "blind, irrational hatred"; it made perfect sense given their worldview.

Tens of thousands of French Jews were deported to concentration camps under this justification. Interestingly, though, the Vichy government was much more reluctant to deport Jews whom they considered "French," as Jews in metropolitan France were much more integrated than other Jewish communities in Europe. Nonetheless, French authorities ended up collaborating with the Nazis and arresting thousands of French Jews who were slated for deportation.

One final point: it's not completely true that no territory in France was slated for settlement. Alsace and Lorraine were re-annexed into the German Reich and ethnically German men living there were conscripted into the German army.

For more information, there are a couple of books to check out. The classic account of Jews under Vichy France is Michale Marrus' and Robert Paxton's Vichy France and the Jews. Paxton also has a fantastic comprehensive study of Vichy France entitled Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944 that covers the deportations. There are plenty of places you can read up on Nazi racial ideology and its role in dictating state policy; the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has a lot of material on this, and there are a lot of books that cover specific aspects of that ideology (Jews, communists, capitalism, homosexuality, socialism, nationalism, etc.).