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  1. #1
    Senior Member Senior Member Brenus's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    As far as I am aware, the UK never declared war on the USSR to protect Poland. If I am wrong about that, please correct me.”
    France and UK declare war on Germany after the attack by Germany of Poland. That was the step too far and this time the 2 Allies decided to go for it.
    Unfortunately their armies and Air Forces were not up to the job, nor their generals and strategies…

    The Holocaust would have probably been quietly halted and covered up.”
    Yeap, but what to do? To stop the convoys (which would be use much better for reinforcing the Eastern lines) would be easy, but what with the millions of deportees? A lot of war industries were using the forced labour…
    What about the survivors of the Death Camps? To finish them off wouldn't be possible without the Allies to know, to release them wouldn’t help in gaining sympathy to Germany, even not in not any more Hitlerian one.
    Just trying to resolve this would be a logistical nightmare, just to stop the deportees to stop dying of typhus or Cholera, or hunger. How to increase their daily rations in a besieged Germany? What to do with them? And if the Generals were not aware of this, it would make their task even harder...

    Peace (alliance) with the Western Allies
    Why the Allies would accept a Peace that would save Germany, and under which conditions?
    As the debate on Versailles showed, a too lenient and soft Treaty just fuelled the next war…
    So even in a will to save what left of Europe out of Communism, would Churchill and Roosevelt (as De Gaulle was still not in full control of France at this moment) would have accepted the risk of a confrontation with Stalin (which Roosevelt trusted) in order to save a Germany they were fighting with the help of the Soviets?
    Even if the 2 leaders had no real idea of the scale of the holocaust, they knew what the Nazis were doing.
    As the German population, they couldn’t imagine the reality of it. To know and to accept the reality of it is different. I am one of think the Germans knew of the deportation, I ma not sure they were aware of the physical reality…

    More, as we know, Roosevelt always distrust De Gaulle as he was a general and he wasn’t elected… How and why he would have trust putchist German Generals?
    As mentioned, there is no more a political credible German opposition thanks to the efficient Gestapo.

    Now, if we look at the maps in July 1944, the Russian are deep in Europe.
    They can decide to halt THEIR offensive in the East, giving the Germans time to regroup and to stop the Allies offensive.
    They have in their ranks a political alternative to Nazism as they have a “German Communist Government” in Exile.
    In case of a successful coup, they could claim the throne…

    And considering the difficult logistic faced by the Allies in 1944, I am far to believe that the Allies would have been victorious in front of the Russians…
    And I don’t want to start again a comparison between Sherman and T 34 or JS, Patton against Zukov, Koniev or Vatutine.
    Defeating Bagration would have been indeed a difficult task but I am not sure that the British soldiers would have been so happy to fight the Russian even if they would be able to reach this front…
    As for the French Army fighting during Anvil operation, I quite sure that they wouldn’t.

    The full extent of the Holocaust and its cultural and historical significance emerged after the war.” Agree, but only for the civilian population. I interviewed during my research a Leclerc 2DB veteran and he was still horrified by what he saw in some trains in an abandoned railways station…
    So, the Allied soldiers who would have to see this kind of things would not fight to save Germany from Communism, as the horrors of communism became apparent even latter in history than the ones from Nazism…
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Voltaire.

    "I've been in few famous last stands, lad, and they're butcher shops. That's what Blouse's leading you into, mark my words. What'll you lot do then? We've had a few scuffles, but that's not war. Think you'll be man enough to stand, when the metal meets the meat?"
    "You did, sarge", said Polly." You said you were in few last stands."
    "Yeah, lad. But I was holding the metal"
    Sergeant Major Jackrum 10th Light Foot Infantery Regiment "Inns-and-Out"

  2. #2

    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    Quote Originally Posted by Brenus View Post
    The Holocaust would have probably been quietly halted and covered up.”
    Yeap, but what to do? To stop the convoys (which would be use much better for reinforcing the Eastern lines) would be easy, but what with the millions of deportees? A lot of war industries were using the forced labour…
    What about the survivors of the Death Camps? To finish them off wouldn't be possible without the Allies to know, to release them wouldn’t help in gaining sympathy to Germany, even not in not any more Hitlerian one.
    Just trying to resolve this would be a logistical nightmare, just to stop the deportees to stop dying of typhus or Cholera, or hunger. How to increase their daily rations in a besieged Germany? What to do with them? And if the Generals were not aware of this, it would make their task even harder...

    Peace (alliance) with the Western Allies
    Why the Allies would accept a Peace that would save Germany, and under which conditions?
    As the debate on Versailles showed, a too lenient and soft Treaty just fuelled the next war…
    So even in a will to save what left of Europe out of Communism, would Churchill and Roosevelt (as De Gaulle was still not in full control of France at this moment) would have accepted the risk of a confrontation with Stalin (which Roosevelt trusted) in order to save a Germany they were fighting with the help of the Soviets?
    Even if the 2 leaders had no real idea of the scale of the holocaust, they knew what the Nazis were doing.
    As the German population, they couldn’t imagine the reality of it. To know and to accept the reality of it is different. I am one of think the Germans knew of the deportation, I ma not sure they were aware of the physical reality…

    More, as we know, Roosevelt always distrust De Gaulle as he was a general and he wasn’t elected… How and why he would have trust putchist German Generals?
    As mentioned, there is no more a political credible German opposition thanks to the efficient Gestapo.

    Now, if we look at the maps in July 1944, the Russian are deep in Europe.
    They can decide to halt THEIR offensive in the East, giving the Germans time to regroup and to stop the Allies offensive.
    They have in their ranks a political alternative to Nazism as they have a “German Communist Government” in Exile.
    In case of a successful coup, they could claim the throne…

    And considering the difficult logistic faced by the Allies in 1944, I am far to believe that the Allies would have been victorious in front of the Russians…
    And I don’t want to start again a comparison between Sherman and T 34 or JS, Patton against Zukov, Koniev or Vatutine.
    Defeating Bagration would have been indeed a difficult task but I am not sure that the British soldiers would have been so happy to fight the Russian even if they would be able to reach this front…
    As for the French Army fighting during Anvil operation, I quite sure that they wouldn’t.

    The full extent of the Holocaust and its cultural and historical significance emerged after the war.” Agree, but only for the civilian population. I interviewed during my research a Leclerc 2DB veteran and he was still horrified by what he saw in some trains in an abandoned railways station…
    So, the Allied soldiers who would have to see this kind of things would not fight to save Germany from Communism, as the horrors of communism became apparent even latter in history than the ones from Nazism…
    All good points, especially about the difficulty in figuring out how to repatriate a population you were previously systematically killing.

    Essentially, my whole scenario hinges on the Allies viewing the assassination of Hitler as a dramatic change in German leadership and intentions and swallowing their moral and historical issues with Germany in the preservation of their own self interest, as they did when allying with the Soviet Union.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tincow
    You seem to be assuming that the USSR/West split had already occurred in July of 1944. That's simply not true. The Western Allies didn't begin to re-align themselves against the Soviets until early 1945, and even then the Cold War didn't really start until 1947. Despite the 'what-if' posturing a lot of people like to make, with numerous cites to Patton, there was essentially no chance whatsoever that the US and UK were going to turn on the USSR, even in 1945. The US, UK, and USSR were all extremelly committed to supporting each other against Germany in July of 1944. Unconditional surrender was first discussed at Casablanca in January of 1943, and it was all but accepted by Tehran in November of 1943. That's long, long before the events of Overlord and July 20th. Unconditional surrender was a near-certainty by that point. The Soviets had also demanded that Poland's borders be redrawn at Tehran... they would not have accepted an end to the war that left Poland in Germany's hands.
    Even at their most congenial, the West and the Russians were extremely suspicious of each other. Read Churchill's opinions on Stalin and communism as a good example. Their alliance was one of necessity, and while I agree with you wholeheartedly that there was no way the two would turn on each other as long as their common enemy, Nazi Germany, existed, the proposed scenario changes everything. With Hitler dead and the Nazis (presumably) out of power, Germany suddenly becomes the lesser of two evils/threats

  3. #3
    Bureaucratically Efficient Senior Member TinCow's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    Quote Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger View Post
    Even at their most congenial, the West and the Russians were extremely suspicious of each other. Read Churchill's opinions on Stalin and communism as a good example. Their alliance was one of necessity, and while I agree with you wholeheartedly that there was no way the two would turn on each other as long as their common enemy, Nazi Germany, existed, the proposed scenario changes everything. With Hitler dead and the Nazis (presumably) out of power, Germany suddenly becomes the lesser of two evils/threats
    I see what you're getting at, but I have difficulty believing that the US or UK would truly believe that Germany had been de-Nazified while it continued fighting and particularly while it continued to occupy foreign nations, such as Poland. Just look at the reaction Patton got when he tried to keep the civil servants around. If Patton, of all people, could be politically tarred and feathered over retaining that relatively minor amount of 'Nazism,' I cannot see the US or UK accepting a simple leadership purge as a good enough reason to completely cease hostilities. Perhaps if the Germans had engaged in massive, open, and public de-Nazification there might have been something to build upon, but such a drastic purge of Germany would have so seriously damanged their ability to wage the war that Germany would have been defeated even more quickly in the East.

    I've spent many years studying WW2 history, particularly the very entertaining 'what if' scenarios. While they are fun, there are honestly very few scenarios in which Germany could have won WW2 without deviating so signficantly from reality that the scenario becomes more fantasy than history. IMHO, Germany's only serious, realistic chance of victory was at Dunkirk. Had things occurred differently, and had the diplomacy been handled properly, peace with the UK could have been had then and there. That would have prevented the US from entering the war and would have let Germany fight the Soviets without one hand tied behind its back. After Dunkirk, the odds of a UK withdrawal from the war was negligible and the US entry was inevitable, even without Japan.


  4. #4
    Vindicative son of a gun Member Jolt's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    Quote Originally Posted by drone View Post
    Beck was slated to take over in the plot, but this assumes that the post-hit coup was successful. Himmler was not going to go down easily.
    As far as I'm aware, even with all the delays, the major operation behind the coup was running under rails until the Commander of the Reserve Army was called by Goebels, which was surrounded by the German reserve army in his ministry of propaganda, and Goebels put the Commander to speak with Hitler, which changed his alliegance immediatly. Other high military commanders were being ordered by the conspirators to arrest key SS members and commanders stationed in the same area of operations as themselves. Without Hitler being alive, the reserve army would continue doing it's job, and Himmler resisting would only lend credibility to the conspirators. It would be a case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."; I'm not sure what a chance Himmler would have at directing any resistance efforts if the whole SS and Nazi leaders were arrested in a couple of days.
    BLARGH!

  5. #5
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    1. Hitler's death was not enough. To succeed the coup had to kill or neutralize Hitler, Himmler, Goering, Borman, and Goebbels.

    Assume that they did.

    2. Germany is now headed by a half-military/half-civilian junta. The Holocaust is happening on autopilot until countermanded. The Soviets are attacking. The Western Allies have taken Rome and are established in a bridgehead in Normandy. Germany sues for peace.

    The Russians say no and continue -- which they will do regardless. They have no interest in stopping short of the Elbe and probably would have preferred to get to the Rhine. The Western Allies honor their alliance with the Soviets -- however grudgingly. The War continues and we end up with the same partition (though the Holocaust is quickly curtailed and some of the stupider "hold and die" orders are never given.

    But suppose the West did make a separate peace (however unlikely).

    3. The Russians get to the Rhine. Sorry PJ, but der Wermacht is a shell of what it was by this point. It is the Soviets who are punching holes with armored spearheads while the Germans use hastily trained conscripts and kampfgruppe "fire brigades" to stop them as best they can. German industry, revamped by Speer, is up to the task (especially if the Western Allies are not involved anymore) but the Germans simply do not have the time to train people or enough experienced cadre to use all the new wonders that had been cooked up. Moreover, the remaining elite formations are very likely being broken up by the new German government which cannot afford groups of SS troops or Luftwaffe troops of dubious loyalty to the new government. So maybe JV-44 sets an all time record for kills and we see that in competent hands the Jadgtiger really could knock out a JS-III, but it is still too little too late. The Soviets bleed a lot more, but they still get to the Rhine (or to the split line between them and the West).
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

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  6. #6
    TexMec Senior Member Louis VI the Fat's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
    German industry, revamped by Speer, is up to the task (especially if the Western Allies are not involved anymore)
    With the west out, German industry will collapse immediately. The millions of slaves must be released. There can be no more plunder either. The wholesale transfer of money, resources, products will come to a halt.

    Nazi Germany economically had come to fully rely on a pyramid schemes of conquest, plunder, and bills being pushed ahead.


    One must not forget the depths of depravity of Nazi Germany. How would a seperate Western peace work anyway? Would they check German factories to ensure Western slaves have been released, and just leave those of its former allies? Only leave the Russians?

    Would there be Western inspectors to check the rape camps the Germans had set up for their troops, leave the Czech girls and liberate the Belgian ones?

    What of Western reparations (or 'greedy and duplicitous punitive measures' for those who think reparations are not precisley that when it concerns Germany)? Would the West make a peace that leaves the plundered goods and money in Germany, only for the Russians to destroy and collect it to satisfy their claims? Or would the West prevent that and rapidly collect their restitutions themselves, with the immediate collapse of Nazi Germany's plunder economy?

    What of the looted art, antiques, valuables, much in the hands of millions of ordinary Germans? For banal plunder, mere thuggery, from the lowest to the highest rank, was the largest economical sector of Germany behind the military. The Nazis had the morality of a street corner gang of thugs, including their little 'cool' gestures, identification marks, uniforms, honour codes and utter disregard for their victims.
    Last edited by Louis VI the Fat; 05-20-2010 at 12:07.
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  7. #7
    Vindicative son of a gun Member Jolt's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    Quote Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat View Post
    With the west out, German industry will collapse immediately. The millions of slaves must be released.
    I fully agree with you. However, Speer would simply begin using German women ask a workforce for the industry. It was his original plan anyway. The other plan was use foreign forced labour (If I'm not mistaken, proposed by Himmler). The adopted plan was the second one.
    BLARGH!

  8. #8

    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    was it ever known what the would be assassins intent was? were they hoping to attempt some diplomacy? did they simply want to conduct the war on their own terms? killing the chief is just a step, is their ultimate goal known?
    "The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better."
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    Member Member Tsar Alexsandr's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    Quote Originally Posted by The Lurker Below View Post
    was it ever known what the would be assassins intent was? were they hoping to attempt some diplomacy? did they simply want to conduct the war on their own terms? killing the chief is just a step, is their ultimate goal known?
    Hitler was called a criminal by the conspirators and by Erwin Rommel. They sought to end his criminal regime, and take control of Germany themselves. Or, that's what it seems like. Either way it'd be better than Hitler in charge.
    "Hope is the Last to Die" Russian Proverb

  10. #10
    Crusading historian Member cegorach's Avatar
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    Default Re: What if the 20th of July 1944 Hitler has been "terminated"

    Elections in Poland occupy vast part of my spare time, but since I am already here (didn't log in for two weeks - I think) I will quickly refute some ideas which emerged in this thread.

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