Hitler assassination successful?

(A friend of mine, M.F. actually came up with this one, but it REALLY got me thinking...)
We all know about the assassination attamept on Hitler in 1944; what if the bomb planted by Colonel Claus Graf von Stauffenberg had succeeded, and killed Hitler and some of the higher Reich officials (not sure offhand who else was there...)?
Some things to keep in mind-
By this point, the allies had decided at the Casablanca Conference in 1943 that they would only accept Germany's unconditional surrender...
The Eclipse plan of late 1944 dictated the general occupation zones the big three would take in post-war germany... and Stalin we know wanted even more territory than that...

 

I think hopefully with someone who wanted peace taking over, Germany could convince the Allies into a temporary cease fire to work out a peace plan. I dont know how the Allies would react though.

 

So close, so very close. One of the generals (?) put the Stauffenberg bomb on the other side of a table leg, and this is believed to have taken the explosion´s pressure so Hitler survived. Also it was a hot day, so the meeting was switched to a wooden house instead of a bunker which also helped as the pressure effect was minor.I think that Stauffenberg should have secured Hitler´s death and not try to save his arse like that. Even if it meant that he would have to shoot the man from point blank ( if possible ). The only thing that mattered was AH´s death, otherwise the plan was to fail. Of course if the plan would have been followed in Berlin and elsewhere it might have been that despite Hitler´s survival the leadership could have been taken by force. Now they just waited for the news of AH death, and when he was alive, the plan was cancelled altogether and and people just waited for the SS and sicherdienst guys to pick them up and shoot them!How stupid!

I believe that total surrender was the only way for Germany, but with Hitler dead some negotiations could have been made. Anyway it would have saved lots of lives to end the war by then, which is always a good thing!

 

One of the things that got me thinking here was the relatrions between Stalin and the western allies late in the war. By 1944, the cold war was practically going already- Churchill openly distrusted Stalin, and Roosevelt hoped he could control Stalin. But Stalin was determined to not only get more territory, but install communist governments everywhere he could. Had germany surrendered, we might have seen a situation where the western allies accepted a surrender, but Stalin continued his territory grabbing. Had tempers flared enough, it could have led to a conflict between russia and the western allies.

You're right, Kai- bombs never work well for assassinations- they are too unpredictable a weapon. Had Stauffenberg actually given his own life to take Hitler's, this topic probably would not be a "What If?"...

 

BAD!!!

Thank God that Adolf Hitler was not killed in July 21st 1944. I cannot imagine such worse thing. Stupid Stauffenberg would not have provoked the end of the war, he would have provoked a bloody civil war!!!

The assassination plan and take of the power was very bad planned. If Hitler and all the men there: Keitel, Jodl, Bodenschatz, Schmundt, etc. would have been killed it does not matter. The men who really mattered were Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels, and the plans to arrest or kill these men were bad. Specially Göring and Himmler would have fought for the power in Hitler's memory. Göring was designated in 1941 as Hitler's succesor and therefore he would have claimed for power with ALL the Luftwaffe behind him. And Heinrich Himmler and ALL the SS, Waffen and Allgemeine, those men who had sworn loyalty only to Hitler would have fought for their martir Führer. Add the fanatic Hitlerjugend, the normal people, the army commanders who would have not known which side to take... Because there would have been three sides: the provisional and weak military government, the SS and the Luftwaffe. Obviously, the Kriegsmarine would have remained out of it, but with a three sides civil war, the USSR, Great Britain and the USA in war... HAHAHA!!! Stalin would have taken the advantage and the Red Army would have reached the Rhein first or God knows what else... Definately, there could not have been any worse thing. Thank God it did not happen. Because then we would have lost the only thing we had: national cohesion.

 

I would have to agree with Friedrich on this one. It would not only have been bad news for the Germans as a nation but also to the Allied effort.

 

That's true on the civil war, Friedrich- I hadn't even thought of that one. That would have made it even easier and more likely for Stalin to plow in and start grabbing territory. And had Stalin taken all of Germany, Europe would have been in VERY bad shape...

 

I always got the impression that the assasins had a very naive view of the world and what the reaction of the allies would be.

Maybe there would have been Civil War. The Commander of the Home Army (whose name escapes me) showed very little drive until Stauffenberg got back from East Prussia. Even if they had succeeded in holding down Germany the gamble that the allies would have let the Germans fight the Russians off in return for a Locarno-style pact was certainly far-fetched by 1944.

What I find interesting is what if they had unconditionally surrendered, say by mid-August 1944? The postwar impact - a less destroyed Germany, fewer Germans dead or taken prisoner. It might have been possible...

Jumbo

 

No, it hadn't. No, with Hitler in power and with his gang all over the place.

Chief of the home army? Are you talking about the chief of staff of the Wehrmacht, GFM Wilhelm Keitel or the chief of staff of the army, which were three men since June and August 1944, GO Kurt Zeitzler, GL Adolf Heusinger or GO Heinz Guderian?

 

Right Friedrich! Goering, Himmler and Goebbels should have been arrested at the same time. Which shows again how bad a plan it was altogether! No real co-operation and the plan just crumbled to pieces after Hitler´s speech on the radio!

By the way, there were about 40 times ( I think ) they tried to kill Hitler since the 20´s, once there were bombs in champagne bottles as Hitler returned from Russian front ( in a plane ) etc. I wonder if anybody´s found a good site on this?

 

Not even in the army they had 100% of support. Many important officers did not cooperate, the most important men who "cooperated" were three field marshalls: GFM Erwin von Witzleben, GFM Günther von Kluge and GFM Erwin Rommel. And these last two were not very stick into it. If the plan succeeded, Von Witzleben would have become chief of the Wehrmacht, replacing Keitel. Please!!! What absurd...

 

If you read "A Man on Horseback" by S E Finer he gives a lot of interesting information about military coups. You do not usually need a lot of men, just enough to take key points. Most coups are undertaked by 5% of armed forces or less.

They key error was not arresting all the key Nazi's at once. This was a major error and again falls to the Commandant of the Home Army.

As to support elsewhere, if you quickly shoot the key Nazis then the whole of their organisation becomes headless.

You do not need majority support, just acquiescence. People shrug their shoulders and say "we must adjust" and try and get on with their lives in the new situation. Which military units would have revolted? Waffen SS? Not at the front I wouldn't have thought, so at home?

It's interesting to imagine what would have happened if Stauffenberg had succeeded and so did the Army command in Berlin.

Jumbo

 

Yes, but the plans to arrest and shoot all the main nazi leaders were very bad. That is why it would not have worked and it would have provoked a LOT of troubles. And really, we had a lot of troubles already.

 

Great thread Friedrich--I had never giver it a thought on what the russians would have done had the plot succeeded and then Germany being plunged into Civil War.

As a sideline though, I think that there were too many well-liked high-ranking members of the military who were in good positions to have allowed a general collapse of the entire war effort. I think that they would have tried to make peace much sooner and that some great disasters were going to be avoided--like the Battle of the Bulge, for instance.