Answers to Questions by Yair Davidiy (26 September 2017, 6 Tishrei, 5778)
Who was chosen to live, and die, in Nazi Germany?
https://www.quora.com/Who-was-chosen-to-live-and-die-in-Nazi-Germany/answer/Yair-Davidiy
Who Would Live?
German citizens who had no non-Aryan ancestry in recent generations were given preference.
They also needed in principle to be healthy, to have no congenital impairments or disease, no social affliction (drunkenness, etc), to be heterosexuals, to be gainfully employed or employable, and also not to look too dark or too non-Germanic.
In practice most leading Nazis were sexual perverts and predators. They mostly had some hereditary disability or other, e.g. Hitler lacked normal gonads, Goebbels had a club foot, Heydrich had womens hips, etc.
Leading Nazis were also sometimes drug addicts (e.g. Hitler and Goering) and not all even looked German (e.g. Streicher).
It was in fact something of a jungle in which the most ruthless rose to the top. This was in line with the Darwinist attitude of Nazi ideology and survival of the fittest.
The party line however had to be given lip service and to some degree adhered to.
If someone did not toe the party line then he could be taken away and disposed of.
Towards the end of the war a doctor told his lady patient not to look at the sky since that was Allied territory. She complained and he disappeared.
To some degree Nazi Germany was ruled from the bottom up.
The Gestapo and company were relatively few in number.
Ordinary German citizens would complain about their fellows and arrests would then be made.
Whether or not your neighbors tolerated you determined your chances of survival.
Who Would Die?
If you were black you would be sterilized or killed, possibly both.
Jews would be killed.
Part Jews who identified with Jews or who did not have exceptional value would also be killed.
In some cases part Jews would be made Aryans.
It was a capital offence to have been born Jewish.
If you had a serious congenital impairment you would be eliminated at some stage or other.
If you were a German but had been seriously injured in World War-1 and consequently were non-productive you would be killed eventually.
If due to drink, drugs, unemployability, criminal behavior, etc, you were considered a burden to society you would be killed.
They who were destined to be killed might temporarily be sent to work camps beforehand.
People who did not get on with their neighbors and lacked protection in higher quarters would also be eliminated at some stage or other.