What if von Stauffenberg would have succeeded?

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Paul_PJ
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What if von Stauffenberg would have succeeded?

Post by Paul_PJ »

in assassinating Adolf Hitler?

How would the war have ended then? Would it have resulted in a straight military confrontation between British, Americans, Surviving Germans versus Russians?

By the way, what was Adolf's middle name?
Henrik Krog
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Re: What if von Stauffenberg would have succeeded?

Post by Henrik Krog »

There is no way the western Allies would have gone to war agaisnt the Soviets with the Germans. Roosevelt was essentially the driving force behind the western Allies, and he didnt view the Soviets as any threat at all.

The best the Germans could have hoped for in your scenario is less destruction and loss of life. But even a new government would have been unlikely to allow the total disarmament and occupation of Germany. If they fail to agree on Allied demands (no doubt the Soviets would oppose a deal with the Germans the most), the end result is probably something akin to the same as in OTL, maybe with a quicker collapse as the most stalwart nazis are removed from their positions.

If an agreement is made with the allies producing an occupation like in OTL, you have most power structures and physical structures left in place, and there is thus nothing to produce the loss of national pride the Germans have suffered. Expect a more beliggerent German policy int he post-war years.

In fact, expect a nazi-esque party to spring up with a new Dolchstoss-Legende. In OTL, the Sozialistische Reichspartei gained something like 10% of the votes in local elections. Expect this share to be bigger if they have a set of traitors to the nation to point towards. They will probably be banned just like they were in OTL, but you never know......

But, in short, to answer your original question: Germany still loses, and there is no war with the USSR. Unless Stalin goes nuts over the Germans who are stealing themselves away from the destruction they dealt out in the USSR. He could very well imagine a western conspiracy to build uo Germany to the point of launching another invasion of the USSR, and Stalin would surely start WWIII rather than let this happen.

Henrik

Paul_PJ wrote:in assassinating Adolf Hitler?

How would the war have ended then? Would it have resulted in a straight military confrontation between British, Americans, Surviving Germans versus Russians?

By the way, what was Adolf's middle name?
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Sam H.
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Post by Sam H. »

agreed ... The allies will still be looking for the unconditional surrender and occupation of Germany. At best, Germany lets the allies through while holding the line in the east, allowing the allies to occupy more of post-war Europe.
I can see Churchill favoring a plan like this, Roosevelt is going to be a hard sale.

And this is assumming that an ant-nazi people take control. I could just as easily see Himler or Goring siezing control.
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joscha
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What if Staufenberg had succeeded...

Post by joscha »

I must disagree with you, Henrik. In my view, had the bomb killed Hitler, and had the conspiracy succeeded everywhere else, then Stalin would never have stopped. He would have had wide open access to all of Europe...and Europe would have become the United Soviet Republics of Europe. Or something like that.

Stalin was even more maniacal then Hitler was when it comes to territory that gives ice-free harbors, industrial countries that could be enslaved, and people to be exploited and impoverished.

My 1.7 cents (US and Euro)... Joscha
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Re: What if Staufenberg had succeeded...

Post by Henrik Krog »

How do you mean he would have had "Wide open access" to all of Europe??

I dont see German resistance faltering just because the government is removed (but then again, I dont have first-hand experience from the time). But even if German resistance collapses, the western Allies have a free run also (they HAVE landed in Normandy, remember), and over territory with much better infrastructure.

If German resistance collapses, there is also no Market Garden, no Vosges campaign, no battle for the Huertgen forest, no Ardennes offensive to set back western Allied plans.

In fact, I think the western Allies might well have found themselves further east than in OTL when the war ended. Not that it would have mattered, though - in OTL they evacuated parts of what later became the GDR and Czechoslovakia so the Soviet could take it over.

I also dont share your view of Stalin. He was a pretty "normal" dictator in the vein of Hussein, Pinochet and the like: willing to kill off his own people as long as they threaten (or appear to threaten) his rule, and willing to grab territory around his periphery if they seem to be easy pickings.

But when all is said and done, all dictators want is power. If
faced with stable neighbours or determined resitance (like Finland), most dictarors prefer to stay at home and rule there. Stalin actually evacuated a number of territories he had seized during WWII (N-Iran, E-Turkestan, Manchuria, N-Korea, NE-Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Czhoslovakia, W-Berlin, W-Vienna, N-Norway and the Danish island of Bornholm), and at other times refrained from taking opportunities to make land grabs when they presented themselves, as he had promised the western Allies to stay out (Greece 1945-48).

Henrik
joscha wrote:I must disagree with you, Henrik. In my view, had the bomb killed Hitler, and had the conspiracy succeeded everywhere else, then Stalin would never have stopped. He would have had wide open access to all of Europe...and Europe would have become the United Soviet Republics of Europe. Or something like that.

Stalin was even more maniacal then Hitler was when it comes to territory that gives ice-free harbors, industrial countries that could be enslaved, and people to be exploited and impoverished.

My 1.7 cents (US and Euro)... Joscha
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territories

Post by Henrik Krog »

I actually dont think this would matter much in the end. Plans for the partitioning of Germany had already been drawn up, and the western Allies were going to accept the lines drawn. In 1945, they actually evacuated some territories that they had seized in E-Germany and Czechoslovakia east of the demarcation lines.

Henrik
Sam H. wrote:agreed ... The allies will still be looking for the unconditional surrender and occupation of Germany. At best, Germany lets the allies through while holding the line in the east, allowing the allies to occupy more of post-war Europe.
I can see Churchill favoring a plan like this, Roosevelt is going to be a hard sale.

And this is assumming that an ant-nazi people take control. I could just as easily see Himler or Goring siezing control.
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Hans
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What if Staffenberg would have succeeded

Post by Hans »

My mother tells me that the Americans who liberated (?) Nurnberg for instance were hell bent on getting to grips with the Russians and felt cheated for not being allowed to do so. A Colonel billetet with the family said the world would regret this folly.

Also read "Churchills German Army". Can't remember the author.

I believe that if Adolf had been removed and the replacement was favourable to the Allies a coalition against Russia would have resulted.

Anyway it didn't happen therefore it's rather poinless speculating.
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Sam H.
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Post by Sam H. »

Well the whole idea of the "What if" section is to speculate on what would have happened ...

No to be callous, but if you don't like speculating, :? stay on the main board.
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lennardg
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Red Army commitment

Post by lennardg »

One thing often forgotten in dealing with the possibility of the western allies joining up with germany against russia, is that at least the Americans needed russia´s support to chase the japanese out of Korea and Manchuria, and perhaps Japan itself, Stalin promised at Jalta to attack japan within a month after the german surrender (which he also did), at this time the japanese army was as weakened as the german, but still fighting for every foot of (occupied) ground, Eisenhower estimated a million men might be lost invading the japanese homeland, he needed the Red Army against Japan and could not risk a war with them instead by signing a separate peace with Germany.
Off course the A-bomb changed all this and forced a Japanese surrender.
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Sam H.
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Post by Sam H. »

While it is true that the US wanted Russian support against Japan and that Russia kicked the tar out of the Japanese army... it is also true that by the time the US got that support form Russia, Japan was a beaten country.

The most significant aspect of Russia's invasion of Manchuria was that it served as a signal to Japan that it was truely isolated and could not count on any other country to act as an intermediary with the US.

Without Russia's help, it may have taken a third atomic bomb to seal Japan's ate, or the US may have been willing to negotiate a surrender on more favorable terms to end the war quickly.
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Just as well the Bomb Plot failed?

Post by sid guttridge »

It is, perhaps, just as well that the Bomb Plot failed.

In November 1918 Germany was defeated, but was able to evade facing this reality because it accepted an armistice whilst its armies still everywhere stood on foreign soil. This allowed the growth of the "stab in the back" myth in which Jews and Communists at home were instead blamed for defeat. Exploitation of this pride-soothing line of argument helped Hitler to power and made the German population prepared to risk another major war under his leadership.

Had Hitler been killed by fellow Germans in July 1944, when his armies still everywhere stood on foreign soil, and a German collapse followed then exactly the same "stab in the back" rationale that had brought Hitler to power in the first place might have prevented future generations of Germans from again accepting their defeat as absolutely conclusive.

What then? WWIII?
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