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The plot to kill Hitler - a missed opportunity.

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  • 02-05-2017 12:40am
    #1
    political analyst
    Registered Users Posts: 4,464 ✭✭✭


    The insistence of some of the July 1944 plot conspirators that, at the bare minimum, Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler had to be killed at the same time as Adolf Hitler meant that an opportunity to kill Hitler on the 15th day of that month was missed.

    Obviously, Colonels Claus Graf von Stauffenberg and Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim were frustrated by their co-conspirators' hesitation.

    On the 15th, Stauffenberg was informed, after he had arrived at the Wolf's Lair, by General Helmuth Stieff that the co-conspirators had insisted that Himmler also be killed. Stieff aborted Operation Valkyrie when it became clear that only Hitler would be present at the briefing on that day. Why Stauffenberg was not informed before he started his journey to the Wolf's Lair on the 15th that the co-conspirators' insistence on Himmler's death is unknown (See "Kill Hitler: Operation Valkyrie 1944", written by Neil Short and published by Osprey Publishing, page 26).

    Why did the co-conspirators believe that killing Hitler alone was not enough for Valkyrie to be successful?


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    #2
    ohnonotgmail
    Registered Users Posts: 40,200 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    Why kill hitler only to have somebody like himmler replace him? Himmler was a better organiser, better at delegation and was more pragmatic.


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    #3
    political analyst
    Registered Users Posts: 4,464 ✭✭✭political analyst


    ohnonotgmail wrote: »
    Why kill hitler only to have somebody like himmler replace him? Himmler was a better organiser, better at delegation and was more pragmatic.

    Wasn't Himmler useless as Head of the Replacement Army, which he became after the Wolf's Lair explosion?

    Furthermore, many Wehrmacht personnel who adhered to their oath to Hitler right to the end of the war may not have stayed loyal to the Third Reich if Stauffenberg's attempt had been successful - they probably would have been loyal to General Ludwig Beck, who would have become Head of State if Hitler had been killed.


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