There's a TL that I think offers a very realistic scenario for how the coup could have played out, such that Nazi Leadership (Goering, Himmler, et el) don't succeed Hitler.
A much stronger Israel.
Iirc, half of all the Holocaust victims died in the last year of war, hence TTL most of these probably survive. Yet Europe, and Germany in particular, will still have little appeal for them after their experiences, so many will more than likely head for Palestine. Could be quite a big reinforcement.
It would've gone to Hell straight away. Even with the head of the Nazi leadership chopped off, there is no chance the Western Allies would've sought a separate peace with the new German government. At the Casablanca conference in 1943, the Allied policy became 'nothing but unconditional surrender'. And it was also agreed that no separate peaces would be made by any of the Allied powers.
On the German home front, there is absolutely no way in hell that the German Army would take orders from the people who have just assassinated the Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht. The most likely scenario is Germany falling into a civil war between those who support the coup and those who are fighting for a restoration of the Nazi government, led by the surviving Nazi government. While this is happening, the Eastern Front has become a turkey shoot for the Russians. With no legitimate orders from Berlin, whatever defence the Germans had against the Red Army collapses. While this attempt was going on, an entire army group was being annihilated in Operation Bagration. That operation drove the Germans from eastern Poland. Expect more disasters like these.
The same would happen on the Western Front. German defences against the Western Allies would crumble into non-existence. Paris falls earlier and Germany is crossed into earlier than in our timeline.
It would be more of a race to see who captures Berlin first. My money is still on the Soviets, though the Western Allies probably take a bit more of Eastern Germany.
The Marshals in the West were looking for an opportunity to begin unofficial talks about ending the war before any kind of surrender. Hitler death I have always believed would likely have meant chaos in Berlin, an illegitimate government in the eyes of the world and the Marshals effectively acting independent of any orders from Berlin.
Not long after his death I suspect you would have POWs going back and forth with verbal messages from either side on if they open up the front in the West or stage a battlefield surrender what if anything Germany gets out it. If the answers are unsatisfactory it means the war continues into 1945, but more competently fought by the Germans and with no Battle of the Bulge in the West.
If that is the case, I can imagine that the chaos would allow the allies to defeat germany sooner due to the chaos.
A much stronger Israel.
Iirc, half of all the Holocaust victims died in the last year of war, hence TTL most of these probably survive. Yet Europe, and Germany in particular, will still have little appeal for them after their experiences, so many will more than likely head for Palestine. Could be quite a big reinforcement.
Depends on what the WAllies signal they were willing to promote as terms to their superiors. The German divisions in the West would recognize Kluge as well Rommel once he got back from the hospital after a few days as where final authority rests if Berlin is in chaos.
I don't see the divisions having divided loyalties or warring with each other if that is what you are wondering and any idiotic orders from Himmler or any other high ranking party official like OTL's Operation Lüttich won't be carried out.
By this point in time Rommel and Kluge were looking for something akin to a Lee at Appomattox moment, but only I suspect if they could get some unofficial guarantees on Germany's future... like having one.
Germany is still going to lose the war and be occupied, but the biggest fallout is in the area of Germans ending the Final Solution early so many more Jews and others around like Anne Frank (who might become a popular author, but under very different connotations) as well as Germany's own self worth as a nation.
Iterations of this scenario differ, but by in large I agree with Peter Tsouras thesis that the army moves to take control of the camps. After executing some of the leadership they quickly realize how bad the images and video of the camps would hurt their bargaining position with the world, German wartime morale as well as Germany's post war position. They release a few very controlled videos of soldiers and nurses helping some of the inmates in better condition to the world and the German population to see. For the rest they are dispersed and the camps plowed under.
Stories get out and books are written, but without the videos of the worst horror the post war impact is reduced significantly. The effect on the German psyche is the events become taught as something very wrong that some Germans did and others ended.
It would have a very large impact on the German psyche and national sense of self identity today.
Do German generals want to be politicians or commanders? If there is a call for a cease fire in the west, and in Italy, Eisenhower and Montgomery would not let that chance go, no matter what Churchill or FRD say. of course a cease fire isn't peace but at least a start.
Doubt there will be peace with the Allies, only thing i can see happening is that the new German government keeps fighting on the East Front and opening the door on the West Front in order to get as much as Germany under Allies control.What if the 20th of July plot succeeds and Hitler and the others in the room are all killed, and peace with the allies is made, if that is possible?
Do you have a source for that? The bulk of Hungarian Jews survived until the Arrow Cross Regime took over in 44-45, but the worst levels of killing in the holocaust overall were between Barbarossa's beginning and 1943.A much stronger Israel.
Iirc, half of all the Holocaust victims died in the last year of war, hence TTL most of these probably survive. Yet Europe, and Germany in particular, will still have little appeal for them after their experiences, so many will more than likely head for Palestine. Could be quite a big reinforcement.