did hitler really kill 11 million people?

Depressing thread. People who deny the Holocaust or the number of victims do not deserve this kind of attention.

Your calculation seems legit, but there are many groups missing from your list.

For example, there were many people imprisoned and killed because of their beliefs that in some way didn't fit into Hitler's idea of a new world - there were those
politically motivated (communists, former political leaders and later resistance activists)
motivated by religion (Lutheran and Catholic pastors who spoke up against Hitler)
in general many intellectuals and artists who stood up to the Nazis in public
ethnic groups, not only Jews and Roma, but also Poles and Serbs
and of course, a considerable number of prisoners of war

I hope my answer has shown you that you can't simply add up the groups, it won't work that way. If you want more information about concentration camps, you can ask me (in German schools everything is explained to the last detail) or look up on wikipedia for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camps

Your answer hasn't shown me anything. I have shown you that the groups I list (which aside from the jews are the most commonly mentioned victims of the concentration camps) amount to less than half a million.

I agree that people that deny the holocaust should be held in very little regard. But the court is still out on the numbers as far as I am concerned. I've seen nothing concrete that proves the six million jews or the 5 million others. In fact the more I read about it the more I question it.

I agree that people that deny the holocaust should be held in very little regard. But the court is still out on the numbers as far as I am concerned. I've seen nothing concrete that proves the six million jews or the 5 million others. In fact the more I read about it the more I question it.

That's the problem with having a functioning brain; it leads one to question things.

I am maybe in a different position than others who have contributed to this thread. Four members of my family were transported by the Nazi regime from Paris to death/concentration camps and died, two were hidden, escaped and survived, and two more lived under occupation but were not persecuted as like me they were Christians. My family only found out under five years ago because one of the two who escaped gave a testimony, the details of which are at the memorials in Paris and in Berlin. The family member who came to Britain to find work in the 1930s had lost contact with others in the family (was estranged) and so had no idea what had happened. We should remember that even in peacetime, not many people had a phone, and there was no internet or tv.

Whilst the exact number is unknown, I am sure it is many millions, and perhaps a third to a half of the victims were not killed because they were Jewish. The Nazi regime persecuted and killed other groups of people and large numbers in parts of what became after the war part of the Soviet empire.

The Nazis would have controlled tv and radio and the press so that the killings would not have been known to most in Germany, Austria and the other parts of their empire.

I welcome the Education Select Committee's report and statement about the teaching of the Holocaust. Other mass killings and genocides may have been worse in terms of lives lost and should be remembered too, but the Holocaust should not be forgotten.

I always wonder when these questions come up just how important an exact figure is. We know the Nazi's pursued a policy of deliberate genocide against Jews and other "undesirables". We know the death toll of this goes well into the millions. How important is the question of whether 6 million Jews were killed or 5 million? We know any number is going to be an estimate, given the great lengths the Nazi's went to to cover up what they did. They destroyed records, used death marches to move prisoners into Germany as the Soviets moved towards Berlin. I have to question the motives of those (not all since some debate should always go on) who obsessively question the numbers involved. Such debate invariably turns into someone talking about swimming pools, the red cross and how every one died of disease.

And as was pointed out, you missed several groups off your list.

That's not very convincing.

This wasn't my list. It was another posters. I'll leave you to list out and enumerate some more major categories. There's 4.5 million people left to find.

I don't have any motives other than an interest in historical truth. Now you say that numbers don't matter "How important is the question of whether 6 million jews were killed or 5 million"? you ask.

If numbers matter so little, why resist the discussion? Or why cast aspersions on those of us that are interested in such trifles?

I don't have any motives other than an interest in historical truth. Now you say that numbers don't matter "How important is the question of whether 6 million jews were killed or 5 million"? you ask.

If numbers matter so little, why resist the discussion? Or why cast aspersions on those of us that are interested in such trifles?

I'm not resisting anything hence this part of my post "not all since some debate should always go on". However it is fairly evident that the vast majority of discussion that goes on about the holocaust on this forum, as you can see in this thread by the OP, is not interested in historical truth. It is about finding ways to minimize and in some cases deny the holocaust ever happened.

then why did red cross say 271,000 dead

Well, let's start with an obvious question. Before WW2, Poland had more than 3 million Jews. By the end, it had maybe 300,000 at a very high estimate. Where did they all go?

then why did red cross say 271,000 dead

Source?

BS. My wife is Polish. Her grandparents lived under Nazi occupation. They actually liked it. The Poles weren't treated badly (unless they were Jewish obviously) In fact, if you speak to most elderly Poles they will tell you that they had it far worse under the Soviets than they did under the Nazis.

BS also that the Nazis killed anybody who didn't have blond eyes and blue hair. That's nonsense.