What if Von Stauffenberg succeeded?

What if Von Stauffenberg succeeded killing Adolf Hitler?



A Peace Treaty?
Personaly I don't think there would've been a Peace Treaty.
Remember Conference in Casablanca (1943)

Von Stauffenberg wanted apart peace with America, England and France. But still wanted to fight against the Soviet-Union.

Who would have taken command then?
I think Hermann Göring.. But Von Stauffenberg and the rest would had
a plan not to let Hermann Göring taking command. Maybe Rommel or Von Rundstedt would.

 

Rommels role was to attempt negotiations with the Allies, and withdraw as much combat strength from the west to send east to fight the Soviet Army. His remaining soldiers and resources were to be withdrawn the the Reichs western borders.

Like so many German leaders Rommel & the other plotters did not grasp the conviction behind the "Unconditional Surrender". The Italian government had learned a bitter leasson in this ten months earlier. Ten months later in May 1945 there were German commanders who still thought the US and Britian would still allow them to continue fighting the USSR.

Rommel, or any other German leader would have been faced with the choice of imeadiatly surrendering his Army Group West and standing in custody while the Allies race east to meet the Red Army, or continuing to fight. It was simply out of the question to obtain a seperate peace.

Within Germany there had been a tenative outline for a interm government. It was to be headed by the most prestigious of the plotters, I seem to recall Blomberg was one of these, from a book published back in the 1960s. It is likely the Allies would have treated them as roughly as they handled Bagdoglios Facist government that arrested Mussolini and surrendered.

 

Bringing back old threads...in this case only one from the history archives...

http://www.ww2f.com/what-if/11893-hitler-assasinated.html

 

How about a little spin on this one?

The plotters swing into action before Hitler launches the ill fated Kursk operation of 1943, the plotters see the war in Russia is lost and the German army needs a period of defense and Hitler is throwing away that opportunity with the Kursk operation, so days before the offensive the plotters kill Hitler. What would be the outcome from this?

 

Well, that's a nice twist. Hitler had a penchant of throwing away his troops in useless "hold at all cost" orders.
With Hitler out of the way and the Kursk offensive stillborn, the next move I think would be for the Germans to consolidate their lines, even giving up ground for time to reconstitute their forces.
Looking at it from a purely military point of view, doing so might extend Germany's ability to wage a defensive war but still in the long run, Germany still wouldn't have the resources to win.
Even if we include the political aspect, I tend to think that the Allies and the Soviet Union wouldn't be amenable for any negotiations. However, I wouldn't close the door on this since when it comes to politics, personality quirks are involved.

The only chance I think Germany has of stopping the Russian juggernaut after Hitler is assassinated is to surrender but insist on stopping on the current battle lines, followed by a phased withdrawal to prewar borders. Doing so would allow the Allies to send in its own forces further east and reduce the USSR's advance into Europe.

However, such an action would open up the perrenial problem of Germany and the Allies going up against the Russians. Given the mentality of Stalin, he would move heaven and earth to demand his share of the pie and the Allies would have a big problem of accomodating his demands. It boils down to this, would the Allies risk going to war with Russia over Germany's early surrender? I think not.

 

I don't think that much would have been different, except many Germans after the war saying: "We would have won if Hitler survived!"

 

Quite true. Without the record of his last two years of 1944/45, nazi fans would be able to argue better Hitlers genius at strategy & operations.

We'd have folks arguing about how 'Citadel' would have finally broken the back of the Red Army with the hundreds of spanking new Panthers & Tiger tanks and the retrained refreshed grenadiers. But, Alas, all that was thrown away and Eastern Europe handed over to the Commies by those perfidious ploters.

 

A new "back stabbing theroy".

 

Amazon.fr : Nous voulions tuer Hitler : Le dernier survivant du complot du 20 juillet 1944: Livres, Livres en anglais, Musique, DVD, Vidéo, Logiciels, Jeux vidéo, Image & Son, Micro & Photo: Philippe Freiherr von Boeselager
We want to kill Hitler, memories from one last ploter (Philippe Freiherr von Boeselager )
I don't know if this book is translated in english
Many newspaper as Le Monde have a good opinion about this book (honesty, truth... )

 

The only thing that would have changed if the Allies agreed to a truce ( which was simply not possible IMO ) was that Stalin would have had all of Germany and Austria for himself.

Nothing short of complete destruction of Germany was acceptable to Stalin and the Soviet people who have suffered so much.