Today marks the 74th anniversary of the most famous attempt on Hitlers life.

Cardiac Saturday said:

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Too bad it didn't succeed....

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This could make for a good what-if thread ( we might have had one a few years ago but..Im old and can't remember sheit so....

There is a huge divergence of opinions amongst military historians regarding the results of a successful take-over of the German Reich in 44 by the anti-Hitler gang. The things we do know is that they intended to approach the western allies with an immediate cease fire IN PLACE and total withdrawal to pre39 WESTERN borders. However no German would even begin to fathom ANY form of any negotiations with Stalin. They all believed that they were on a holy crusade to the death against the communists as it was a deeply held belief, even amongst the anti-Nazis in Germany, that Germany must destroy the Soviets or be destroyed.
Beck and his gang hoped to be allowed to continue the war in the east and even had visions of a Faustian alliance with the Brits and Americans to rid the world of communism. They completely mis-read and had no idea of FDR's love affair with Uncle Joe and the FDR and eastern establishments covert love affair with " benevolent communism" and the Soviet system. Only Churchill understood the true nature of communism, Stalin, and the eventual need to confront this tyrannical evil after the other tyrannical evil ( nazism) was destroyed.
There is a ton of speculation as to what path the new government would have taken after they were rebuked by the solid allied front and the reaffirmed demand for total surrender. The entire reason for the coup was to save the Fatherland from the looming total destruction. Had we continued our unified demand for a total and absolute unconditional surrender of whoever government was in Berlin , even one that had killed Hitler and removed most nazi officials , it is likely that the Provisional government would have had no choice but to continue the fighting. Probably the war would have ended a few month sooner since it is equally likely that the new government would not have gone all scorched earth valhalla awaits Gtterdmmerung like the Nazis did in 45 but the total military and bloody defeat of the Reich was still going to be required. The great positive result of a successful coup would have (probably) been an immediate end of the extermination camps and the dismantling of the SS slave system and empire. Hundreds of thousands might have been spared the gas chambers and horrible fate and Germany MIGHT have ended the war with a smattering of honor instead of the pariah universally scorned state that it was reduced to for much of the 20th century.

commando2004 said:

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Cardiac Saturday said:

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Too bad it didn't succeed....

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OTOH, maybe things would have been worse if the plot did succeed, in that it could have given rise to a new Dolchstosslegende. That is, loyal Nazis would be convinced that Germany would have won WW2, were it not for some treasonous Wehrmacht officers killing the Reich's brilliant leader at a critical time. And then WW3.

A more optimistic scenario is simply that WW2 ends a few months earlier. Great, but Europe has still had a 5-year-long war, millions of people are dead, and Stalin still insists on occupying a big chunk of the continent. And in 2018, people on the internet start threads wishing that Hitler had died in 1943 instead of 1944.

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Exactly. And I believe that everyone on our side knew this and why there was a virtually ZERO chance that the outcome that the plotters hoped for would have been achieved. It has even been speculated that most of the plotters , especially Von Stauffenberg, knew that peace on any terms other than unconditional surrender was a pipe dream and saw the plot as simply a means to save what little honor remained in Germany before the final and absolute defeat.
Possibly the world would be a better place as a new Germany not as guilt ridden and " pussified" as we see today could have eventually emerged ready to take its place as a STRONG freedom loving nation instead of whatever that present state calls itself.

I've heard "what-ifs" before that Hitler surving the blast was best for the war because he was an idiot and everyone was afraid to buck his orders (with good reason) so he hastened the demise of the German military with his delusional orders and have heard him dying could have prolonged the war by letting someone else come into power who either knew what he was doing or was smart enough to let the Generals running the war actually run the war.

I for one like wargaming the what if's from history and this is a big one. But too bad the mustard gas didn't finish him in 1918.

[nm. accidentally clicked quote instead of edit]

The Original AG 76 said:

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Cardiac Saturday said:

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Too bad it didn't succeed....

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This could make for a good what-if thread ( we might have had one a few years ago but..Im old and can't remember sheit so....

There is a huge divergence of opinions amongst military historians regarding the results of a successful take-over of the German Reich in 44 by the anti-Hitler gang. The things we do know is that they intended to approach the western allies with an immediate cease fire IN PLACE and total withdrawal to pre39 WESTERN borders. However no German would even begin to fathom ANY form of any negotiations with Stalin. They all believed that they were on a holy crusade to the death against the communists as it was a deeply held belief, even amongst the anti-Nazis in Germany, that Germany must destroy the Soviets or be destroyed.
Beck and his gang hoped to be allowed to continue the war in the east and even had visions of a Faustian alliance with the Brits and Americans to rid the world of communism. They completely mis-read and had no idea of FDR's love affair with Uncle Joe and the FDR and eastern establishments covert love affair with " benevolent communism" and the Soviet system. Only Churchill understood the true nature of communism, Stalin, and the eventual need to confront this tyrannical evil after the other tyrannical evil ( nazism) was destroyed.
There is a ton of speculation as to what path the new government would have taken after they were rebuked by the solid allied front and the reaffirmed demand for total surrender. The entire reason for the coup was to save the Fatherland from the looming total destruction. Had we continued our unified demand for a total and absolute unconditional surrender of whoever government was in Berlin , even one that had killed Hitler and removed most nazi officials , it is likely that the Provisional government would have had no choice but to continue the fighting. Probably the war would have ended a few month sooner since it is equally likely that the new government would not have gone all scorched earth valhalla awaits Gtterdmmerung like the Nazis did in 45 but the total military and bloody defeat of the Reich was still going to be required. The great positive result of a successful coup would have (probably) been an immediate end of the extermination camps and the dismantling of the SS slave system and empire. Hundreds of thousands might have been spared the gas chambers and horrible fate and Germany MIGHT have ended the war with a smattering of honor instead of the pariah universally scorned state that it was reduced to for much of the 20th century.

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I'm with you until the last part.

I would submit that (West) Germany by 1955-60 was storming back industrially much as the German nation did after WW1, fueled by American and other Western investment. It suffered universal scorn essentially only during and immediately following the war years, except for East Germany and that scorn had more to do with Soviet Russia than it did the war.

The word "pariah" would seem hard to apply when within a short period after each war virtually every industrialized nation, including the Soviet Union, was crawling over each other to get a piece of Germany's "recovery".

While true enough that The World shook it's finger, Nazism after the second war bore overwhelmingly that disapproval, not the German populace primarily.

WWI, while terrible and the first conflict to encompass so wide a footprint, commenced with the separate combatant's psyches rooted in the mores of traditional European warfare. This changed so quickly and violently that through the war and even after it's end philosophers, historians and governments were dazed and unable, as demonstrated by a defiant Germany's being permitted (not purposely) to return to dominating militancy in essentially 20 years, to come to terms with effectively restraining a sovereign power.

In neither case was Germany, in any real or lasting sense, universally scorned or made a pariah.

How many -- you, your parents or your children -- have owned a Volkswagen?

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How many -- you, your parents or your children -- have owned a Volkswagen?

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None of the above but I used to own a Mercedes that should have been left where I found it...

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In neither case was Germany, in any real or lasting sense, universally scorned or made a pariah.

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Maybe not universally, but in Germany they are very much obsessed with the belief that they themselves are pariahs. To the extent that they're psychologically damaged. In the 1940s, the Germans were obsessed with a bizarre hatred of the Jews. Since 1970 or so, the Germans have been obsessed with a bizarre hatred of...themselves.

They have been self-flagellating since then, and even today, are afraid to show pride. This is not to say they don't have the trait of pride, cultural arrogance or whatever still in them. They couch it in "Europe" because that's safe. But most Germans I've known outside of the military (which is more conservative) are a bit like whipped dogs when it comes to their national guilt. Which is pure nonsense, because a 35-year-old German is no more responsible for the holocaust than I am or a random person from Uzbekistan or Fiji is.

Aalan:

If I'm guilty for slavery, they are guilty for the holocaust.