Operation Valkyrie Successful-Peace Terms?
- Thread starter Sulemain
- Start date
If they're half sane they'll realise their business is to manage the surrender. Initiating meaningful negotiations will be extremely difficult given the Allies' commitment to unconditional surrender and every attempt at the tactics negotiating parties normally employ will just associate the new government more closely with the Nazi regime given that Germany's negotiating chips and the Nazis' ill-gotten gains are the same thing.
Too 'generous' an offer invites front line collapse (which is only weeks away in Normandy and the Balkans anyway). Even moderately demanding offers won't elicit a response even via secret channels.
An offer to withdraw to Germany's pre-war frontiers and disarm unilaterally over a 2-3 month grace period prior to occupation might be achievable. A lot could be done in that period but even over-eager punishment of war criminals could hurt Germany if it's perceived as an effort to brush Nazi crimes under the carpet.
Agreement on a single Allied occupational authority would obviously be a great concession as well, though the Soviets would see this for what it is: an attempt to shackle them to Western allies more dependent on public opinion.
Even without considering the Holocaust, the war in the East (including the Balkans and northern Norway) has criminalised the German officer class en-masse. This was Hitler's strategy from the start -- to get Germany 'all-in'. By 1944 wriggle room was all but gone.
Too 'generous' an offer invites front line collapse (which is only weeks away in Normandy and the Balkans anyway). Even moderately demanding offers won't elicit a response even via secret channels.
An offer to withdraw to Germany's pre-war frontiers and disarm unilaterally over a 2-3 month grace period prior to occupation might be achievable. A lot could be done in that period but even over-eager punishment of war criminals could hurt Germany if it's perceived as an effort to brush Nazi crimes under the carpet.
Agreement on a single Allied occupational authority would obviously be a great concession as well, though the Soviets would see this for what it is: an attempt to shackle them to Western allies more dependent on public opinion.
Even without considering the Holocaust, the war in the East (including the Balkans and northern Norway) has criminalised the German officer class en-masse. This was Hitler's strategy from the start -- to get Germany 'all-in'. By 1944 wriggle room was all but gone.
RousseauX
Donor
The plotters figure that they can make peace with the W.Allies, and then keep their eastern conquests....some how.
They are not the most realistic bunch, in all reality even if they kill Hitler Himmler's SS or Guderian or Kietel in the Heer have them all arrested and shot and take power for themselves.
Unconditional Surrender, in the wake of Bagration and Overlord the new government isn't exactly in any position to bargain.
Riain
Banned
We know from OTL that Germany can fight until April 1945, and that spheres of influence and occupation were not agreed to until October 1944 and February 1945, so if the July 20 plot and Operation Valkyrie were successful there is considerable scope for a surrender that was much better than OTL.
Would it go well for Germany if instead of dealing with the big 3 they instead dealt with the governments in exile? They could marry up the Free forces and governments in exile with local resistances and come to a number of peace treaties before the military power of the big 3 could enforce peace upon Germany as a result of having liberated these countries.
Would it go well for Germany if instead of dealing with the big 3 they instead dealt with the governments in exile? They could marry up the Free forces and governments in exile with local resistances and come to a number of peace treaties before the military power of the big 3 could enforce peace upon Germany as a result of having liberated these countries.
I don't think the USA, USSR and UK are going to let Germany be in charge of negotiating anything. Germany lives and dies at their command now, they are going to be the one's who determine it's fate.
Anaxagoras
Banned
This. By 1944, either the Germans unconditionally surrender or they are destroyed, no matter who is in charge.
.By 1944 it was a rush to Berlin, but the plan was to destroy Germany or at least bring it back to the Middle Ages regardless of if they surrendered or not.
Offer? This is well after the Casablanca Declaration, in which President Roosevelt basically left Stalin and Churchill no choice but to go along with a policy of giving no terms to the German and Japanese governments.
Basically the new German government, whose planned head escapes me, would have been hard pressed to get the Allies to accept anything less than Germany's military forces laying down their arms and an occupation of all lands held by the German state by Allied military forces.
The other problem is once peace feelers go out then you run the risk of the front collapsing. Who wants to peace the last person killed in a war about to end? The best option probably would be for probably a phased withdraw on the west front back to the Rhine if possible. However withdraws can quickly turn into routs. Slow down the Soviets as much as possible in the East and hope the Allies will negotiate. The Allies will probably insist on total surrender. The thing is the Allies will not want a repeat of WW1 where the German public thinks that insert Jews-etc. caused the loss of the war. The Allies want the German's to know they lost by having occupying troops.
Well, he left Churchill no choice. Stalin might not have thoughts of the idea of unconditional surrender*, but given previous events I really doubt he disliked it. The fact that it was an American conception was probably even a bonus to him in the political game: if the Western Allies started to falter, he could throw it in their face to shame them into staying in the war.
*For all of his Bolshevik trappings, Stalin had a lot of the same conceptions of international power politics as Churchill did.
Riain
Banned
So will the big 3 fight for 6 months or more to dictate details like border changes and zones of occupation? For example Germany may unconditionally surrender and submit to occupation but because this occurs before the Allies are actually on German soil the borders may be those drawn up at Versailles. The Allies may jump at this in order to avoid 6 months of fighting for better terms.
This is basically the point I meant to make with my last post here. Germany had literally no bargaining power by the time Valkyrie was initiated.
Unconditional surrender and occupation of Germany. The benefits for Germany are millions of lives saved (most Germans were killed in the final year of the war), less destruction and less rape. Europe gets a lot less bombed and looted.
On the negative side the Germans will later claim they were stabbed in the back and didn't really lose the war and that their new weapons would have turned the tide if only they held out longer. Hitler is seen as a martyr. The plotters are seen as traitors who surrendered their country when the soldiers were willing to fight. The Germans may have time to close the concentration camps and cover up some of the Holocaust before the Allies take over. War crimminals have more time to hide or disappear.
It might also depend on who will be in charge in a 'new' Germany.
IF Hitler is dead, I could even see Himmler trying to wiggle his way into it and try to become the next Fuhrer.
The cracks in the Alliance is starting to show up, I believe. Churchill is not unilaterally fond of Stalin and FDR is still a bit naive in terms of Stalin. Stalin is his usual self, I believe.
So, If a new Germany should capitulate to the UK/US forces, but not USSR, then what? It would be hard for Churchill/FDR not to accept it.
Could Germany at this tage trigger a real split? Operation Unthinkable in 1944?
Ivan
IF Hitler is dead, I could even see Himmler trying to wiggle his way into it and try to become the next Fuhrer.
The cracks in the Alliance is starting to show up, I believe. Churchill is not unilaterally fond of Stalin and FDR is still a bit naive in terms of Stalin. Stalin is his usual self, I believe.
So, If a new Germany should capitulate to the UK/US forces, but not USSR, then what? It would be hard for Churchill/FDR not to accept it.
Could Germany at this tage trigger a real split? Operation Unthinkable in 1944?
Ivan
Riain
Banned
I think one of the main objectives of Valkyrie was the army taking on much of the power of the SS, so I doubt Himmler would have wriggled into power if it was successful.
I agree with Devolved, much of the damage done to Germany was done in the last year of the war, if they manage a withdrawal from the war they could be spared a huge amount of death and destruction.
I agree with Devolved, much of the damage done to Germany was done in the last year of the war, if they manage a withdrawal from the war they could be spared a huge amount of death and destruction.
Yes, but no way Germany escapes unconditional surrender and occupation. The rest are only details in how the latter is implemented. Germany may not lose as much land as they lost OTL but I doubt they retain pre 1938 borders. If Germany is less damaged by early surrender there probably will be calls for more reparations.
Biggest question to me is whether occupation will keep Germany in one piece or will there be zones of occupation as per OTL...
Your forgetting the Allies dont know the future. The Normandy invasion is a huge risk for them, and could easily have been lost. As far they know they couldve lost the war and a Germany offeirng peace so soon before any invasion would be seen as a huge savior of life and materials, and there could be a much bigger chance of negotating than you think.
Thats what I hate about this forumn, its always how evil nations will get ther due becasue of OTL. But a butterfly effect can change anything. Lets say a butterfly effect a week or so, or longer, say a few months before, allows the Operatoin to kill Hitler, those butterflies could effect the entire war, and if the DDay invasion fails, the Germans would be in a higher position to negotiate.
Thats what I hate about this forumn, its always how evil nations will get ther due becasue of OTL. But a butterfly effect can change anything. Lets say a butterfly effect a week or so, or longer, say a few months before, allows the Operatoin to kill Hitler, those butterflies could effect the entire war, and if the DDay invasion fails, the Germans would be in a higher position to negotiate.
Riain
Banned
The devil is in the details, and they aren't minor details either: IOTL Poland was moved west and Germany lost a vast swathe of territory, a surrender in 1944 after a bit of housekeeping and other damage limiting moves could see Germany keep it's ante-bellum borders with massive repercussions for Cold War history. There would be no time for Yalta to assign zones of occupation after Bagration and even the Battle of the Bulge, German actions would thwart that and allow the WAllies could occupy most of the country and I doubt they'd hand much of it to the Soviets afterwards.