I have heard (probably incorrectly) that Germans in WWII began to ramp up the genocide against the Jews as they were losing the war. Are there any cases of Confederate slave-owners who, instead of freeing their slaves after losing the war (or in preparation of losing), decided to kill their slaves?

by justthatguyTy

I am aware of the differences of these two situations but it was the thought of the first that spurned me to think of the other.

To my mind though, the sentiment that both (Nazi's and Confederates) believed in such "non-human" treatment, it seems to me both are very conducive to that same sort of action and I wondered if there was any evidence of that?

Darzin_

I am unaware of any cases like this and while there are some similarities with dehumanization and slavery (The Nazis war economy heavily relied on forced labor) Nazis viewed Jews very differently then how Southerners viewed slaves.

One of the Nazis war goals ie why they went to war in the first place was to "eliminate international Jewry" which in practice meant the murder of Europe's Jewish population. The Nazis blamed all kinds of ills on the Jews, they blamed Jews for the defeat of Germany in world war I, they blamed Jews for the rise of Communism, ect. Another of the Germans war goals was the colonization of the east their purpose in invading the Soviet Union was to enslaved, expel, murder, or resettle the population, most of which were slated to be killed or enslaved. Jews were always slated to be killed. Einsatzgruppen death squads had been formed with this in mind in 1939 and when Germany invaded the Soviet Union Heinrich Himmler ordered that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans and executed as such. This is a theme we see a lot with National Socialist ideology which the existence of the Jews themselves as a threat. Overtime the SS and the German state refined and industrialized their killing methods and the death camps as we know them were built but the German's war during world war 2 was always fought with the goal of murdering Europe's Jews. It is true that the Holocaust continued long after the German's had any hope of winning the war, but they had also started to implement it when they thought they could win the war.

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The Confederacy went to war because they felt the election of Abraham Lincoln threatened the institution of slavery. They didn't want to murder their slaves they wanted keep them alive, albeit in cruel and inhumane conditions, so they could profit off their labor. They also had a huge amount of capital tied up in slaves as they weren't cheap to buy. The idea of mass murder of slaves doesn't really make sense in the Southern ideological context. Both the Nazis and Confederacy relied on non-human treatment, but the ideologies leading to that are so different that I don't think the comparison works.