Had von Stauffenberg succeeded

simplybam

I've been wondering about that for a long time and if you google the subject, you'll find every imaginable answer, so I thought this could be an interesting thread.

In what way could it have changed the outcome of WW2 if Count Claus von Stauffenberg's assasination attempt on Hitler on July, 20th 1944 would have been successful?

Ok, the German armies were already in retreat at this point, but they weren't defeated yet. Also, especially the US were to some extent more worried about the Bolsheviks than the Fascists.

If something similar has already been discussed, please just post a link to the relevant thread, but I did do a search on the forum and the results I got had nothing whatsoever to do with my question.

marcsignal

I've often wondered that myself. There are so many possibilities.
One scenario is someone competent taking control of the military, Rommell for example.
This would have been a real headache for the Allied ground forces.

If all of the leading Nazis had been arrested, is it possible the new German Govt. could have made a seperate peace with the western Allies ?
Who knows ?

citizen_p

speculation and history don't go well IMO, what happened happened, there is no changing it and as you said yourself the possibilities are truly infinite.

Morlar

It can be interesting sometimes in it's own right.

I am not sure that it could ever have been a straightforward, relatively bloodless transfer of power as the plans seem to suggest.

I don't think there were enough high profile military and party figures involved on the side of the conspirators. If it had been Himmler, Goering, Goebbels, Speer etc (as well as more acknowledged and respected Generals) all on the side of the plotters, and the plot succeeded, then the profound psychological shock may have swung the bulk of the wehrmacht and population. As it was the list of proposed new govt members does not appear very convincing in my view.

Assuming the bomb succeeded, assuming they were able to take and hold control of the bulk of the population centres they targeted. This is still a far way from winning the hearts and minds of the entire greater nation and the 99.9% of the armed forces who had no involvement with the bomb plot.

You also have to consider the position of the approx 12 million ethnic germans outisde the per-war borders and what was going to happen to them.

Also that the bulk of the combat hardened frontline divisions may not have appreciated those far from the front using force to take control of the (then) legitimate and elected authorities of the state to put themselves in charge. For a lot of the armed forces the Oath was all important. Even non party members took their oath seriously.

I think it would also depend on any proposed peace terms, if the allies had insisted on a 'total surrender' to ALL allied forces (including soviet) then I think the plotters (had they managed to get that far) would have been removed and the war would have continued under new leadership.

Manach

Alternative history is a fruitful field in fiction writing. A book with a similar scenario is Fox on the Rhine.
My own opinion is that, the Germany army would have fought on. This is based on the popular myth post WWI that the only reason that they lost was due to a "Stab in the back". Thus knowing that a similar accusation could have been leveled against the plotters, popular opinion would have been against a ceasefire.

prinz

Probably the civil war that many feared would result. It would have been an almighty mess with Wehrmacht units turning on SS. Different generals taking on each other. Possible that some sections of the army would have tried to broker a peace/cooperation deal with the western allies, particularly for help dealing with the more pro-Hitler/Nazi elements, or that they may have been freed up to transfer east to hold up the Russians. Tbh I'd say the soldiers on the ground in the Wehrmacht IMO would have followed their own officers and generals whichever way they went, whereas the SS etc would remain loyal to the Party ideals first.

HellsAngel

prinz wrote: »

Probably the civil war that many feared would result. It would have been an almighty mess with Wehrmacht units turning on SS. Different generals taking on each other. Possible that some sections of the army would have tried to broker a peace/cooperation deal with the western allies, particularly for help dealing with the more pro-Hitler/Nazi elements, or that they may have been freed up to transfer east to hold up the Russians. Tbh I'd say the soldiers on the ground in the Wehrmacht IMO would have followed their own officers and generals whichever way they went, whereas the SS etc would remain loyal to the Party ideals first.

Yeah probably civil war between the reguliar army and the SS etc I must say the movie Valkyrie with Tom Cruise is very intense and a realistic interpretation.

BlaasForRafa

HellsAngel wrote: »

Yeah probably civil war between the reguliar army and the SS etc

Probably not I'd say. At least I doubt whether the elite waffen SS divisions would turn on the Heer, they had fought side by side for too long at that stage plus some of the senior Waffen SS commanders like Paul Hausser were ex-Heer. I recall reading somewhere, I can't remember where at this stage, that Hausser was actually sounded out by the conspirators and he was pretty ambivalent about it.

charlemont

Eamon De Valera could have offered his sympathies to the German people a bit earlier.

xflyer

Hitler consciously kept various sections rivalling each other at each other's throats. One of the key issues for Wehrmacht officers, the Prussian elite was their oath to Adolf Hitler. Puzzling though that is to modern perceptions. It was extremely important to Wehrmacht officers. With Hitler dead, all bets were off.

Hitler's death, whether natural or contrived would have resulted in conflict. You'd have had Goering, Himmler, Rommel and a number of other jockeying for power. There was a strong perception in the Wehrmacht that the real conflict was with Boshevikism. Guess what, this forum is an example.

Most probably it would have resulted in a precipitive withdrawal to German territory in the West and with an attempt to woo the western allies. How that would work is another issue. Remember too that at the end particularly in Czechoslovakia, the Americans took the surrender of many German troops. There are pictures of Germans carrying weapons alongside columns of US troops. There is even an instance of Wehrmacht soldiers fighting alongside US soldiers against SS fanatics. Dying too.

It's easy to see the Wehrmacht fighting the waffen SS.

Who knows though?

Tony EH

It would have been a fat disaster for Germany, but the war probably would have been over quicker.

Have to say, though, there's been an awful lot of ****e written and talked about regarding St. Claus, although it suits both the victor and the vanquished to pursue the myth. He's held up as some sort of heroic angel, but the reality is far from the case. Von Stauffenberg wasn't for "ending" the war, per se. He just wanted more favorable terms in the West. He had no problem with continuing the campaign in the East to any large degree and such a position wouldn't have been favorable at all to the Western Allies. There was no way the British and Americans were just going to stop in 1944 and let the Russians have carte blanche to all the post war booty in Germany.

Von Stauffenberg didn't want to remove Hitler because he felt that he was an obstruct to peace, or because "he was killing Jews", or anything of that nature. He wanted him gone, primarily, because he felt that his regime was corrupt and leading Germany in the wrong direction. He also didn't desire a total break from all the facets of the National Socialist system, much of which he was in accordance with.

The plotters, including Stauffenberg, had a rather childish, petty bourgeois, view of the war, as it stood and should have realised very clearly that even if Hitler was removed, the Western Allies weren't going to make peace, all of a sudden, except under THEIR terms only.

The only thing that the killing of Hitler would have succeeded in doing, is plunging Germany into extreme turmoil and given the enemy a voluptuous opportunity to exploit.

Foghladh

Roosevelt declared after the Casablanca conference in 1943 that 'the elimination of German, Japanese and Italian war power means the unconditional surrender of Germany, Italy and Japan'. This ruled out any possibility of a separate peace with Germany regardless of who the rulers were. Had von Stauffenberg succeeded and the Army filled the void the demand would have been the same; unconditional surrender. As has been noted the conspirators didn't appear to have qualms about the reasons for the war merely the way it was being conducted. I doubt very much that the professional officer corps would have agreed to lay down arms at that point in time, possibly earlier than they did eventually maybe.

doomed

There was no way the allies were going to accept a deal of peace in the west of europe but war in the east. There would have to have been a total surrender but perhaps it would have led to different postwar boundaries. Maybe Poland might have been restored to its independent state. Who knows. Good question though.

Foghladh

I don't think at that stage in the war it was ever likely that Poland was going to be reinstated as a democratic nation. If I recall correctly the Russians had crossed the Polish border in the week leading up to the von Stauffenberg attempt and they showed no signs of aiding the Poles in the uprising that followed the following month. In fact they passively opposed the the revolt to the extent of denying landing priviliges in Soviet territory to the RAF planes dropping aid. Mr Stalin most definitely had his eyes on holding onto whatever ground he gained

Morlar

Soviet union had previously attacked Poland in 1919-1921 (losing territory in the resulting peace treaty), not to mention their Sept 1939 invasion in co-ordination with Germany. I don't think it was likely they were going to give up their territorial gains of WW2, much of that land had originally been carved out during Versailles & had already switched hands several times at that stage. There is an interesting article giving some background to this subject here :

http://web.ku.edu/~eceurope/hist557/lect11.htm

Azwaldo55

Since the foundation myth of the Nazis was that Germany had been stabbed in the back by cowards in league with Jewish-Bolsheviks in 1918 it is obvious that had Hitler been killed that whomever of the Nazi bigwigs - either one of Himmler, Goebbels and Speer who were the smartest, the most politically adept and mercenary of Hitler's henchmen - who took over the reins of power upon his death would used the opportunity as Himmler did on Hitler's orders to purge and terrorize the German resistance into submission.
The majority of the senior German officers rowed in behind Hitler as did the German public in 1944 following the failed assassination so it is likely Hitler's successor would have exhorted the German armed forces and the German people to fight on as their dead Fuhrer would have wanted and the outcome would have been more or less the same.
We know from our timeline Himmler was working frantically behind the scenes to negotiate through back channels a conditional surrender of Germany with the Western allies with the delusional expectation that he would be retained in charge of the SS.
Had he succeeded Hitler he would have used the SS state to shore up his position against the Wehrmacht and tried to send out feelers to the Western allies. It is possible the Reich would have collapsed sooner as the SS fought against the German Army for supremacy accelerating the Soviet advance. Operation Bagration began in the summer of 1944 and was a catastrophic defeat for the remnants of Germany's forces in Russia and set the stage for the final collapse of the Reich in Spring 1945.
Instead of halting at the Elbe it is possible the Soviets would have gone all the way to the Rhine by December 1945.