Nazi civil war trope

[CHKeeley]

Stalins purges occurred due to needing to suppress sectors of the population after disatrous military losses and disastrous social policies. Most of those eradicated had no tendency to unrest just being disliked by the NKVD etc.

Don’t have much to contribute to the conversation other than just pointing out that this is a complete misreading of the purges. Suppress sectors of the population after what military losses? The USSR was not involved in a major war during that period. The purges also was, generally speaking, focused on the party and not “sectors of the population.” And, as Getty and Fitzpatrick demonstrated in their research on the subject, the purges aren’t reducible to “the NKVD went across Soviet society and killed who they didn’t like.” It was a dynamic emanating within the party over a decade with steadily ramping fears of losing control over the party apparatus (real or perceived). Combined with political struggles at the top and ambition at the bottom. And the provinces were quite different from the center, with the whole language and social targets being different (one example Fitzpatrick writes is a local center in Voronezh where persecutions generally manifested themselves against corrupt party bosses for abusing the kolkhozy), etc etc. It was a party struggle that destroyed some of the highest leadership, not a top down suppressing of the population.

I don’t think theres much of an argument to be made that the purges were cooked up to suppress sectors of the population even though it did have that effect and spiral that way with the “sweep operations” and such.

A German civil war is literally not going to happen as any deviation from "normal" behaviour and you may end up as smoke in a chimney. The sheer speed at which the Gestapo would deal with possible agitators is insane.

Disagree because political repression does not really decide whether there’s a civil war or not. The Tsarist state had an amazingly effective secret police system which poked holes in almost every revolutionary group. They still barreled the nation into collapse and revolution. The Soviet Union maintained a strong secret police machine until the end and it still fell too. The DDR is another famous example and the Stasi wasn’t too effective when riots and protests broke out. Secret police are good for cracking down on secret and illegal political parties, rogue intellectuals and reading circles, or small acts of anti-state expression. They are almost useless when conditions drive masses of people into the streets for one reason or another. You can use the army in such cases, but they aren’t always reliable and it tends to create a spiral of resistance and repression (see Tsarist Russia again for demonstration). Frankly, if things get bad enough then Gestapo agents will be lynched in the street. Plus, almost all discussion of a Nazi civil war comes in the form of a violent breaking up of state ministries in a contest for power that gets out of hand. In a quarrel between elites, Gestapo suppression also means almost nothing. In fact, it becomes the question of who’s Gestapo? Of course, I agree that a full blown civil war is not likely, but I don’t think it will be because of the Gestapo.

 

[nbcman]

You cannot see how a britain unable to declare war (because of a troubles-on-steriods in India) on the nazis once the panzers start rolling into poland might affect a nazis-win-ww2 scenario?

How was it structured then? Because from what I can gleam from WoD and other works it was Keynesian economics avant-la-lettre combined with Dirigisme and both of those policies have proven to be effective so far.

This was only a later-wartime necessity. It wasn't ideological at all.

Economic shortages are a pretty unrealistic idea, keeping in mind that Hitler always wanted germany to achieve levels of affluence and prosperity that america possessed. That was the entire reason for lebensraum - germany could not prosper to american levels with what she had, and thus resource-rich areas had to be conquered.

Why would the UK and the Commonwealth be unable to declare war on Germany due to strife in India? They could still blockade Germany with the RN and aerial bombard Germany with the RAF.

Now if you are proposing that the UK may not be willing to give guarantees to France and Poland due to strife in India, that is a different scenario which would mean a different series of decisions by the UK and others throughout the course of the 1930s. Such as the French deciding without the strong backing of the UK to negotiate a deal with the Soviets to block German expansion which would lead to a different start to the war in Europe. And that would be bad for Germany to be at war with France and the Soviets in 1939 - and it would be even worse for Germany if they were at war with France/USSR in 1938.

 

[DiogenesFromSynope]

Hitler was very big on Darwinism, i mean he setup miniature civil wars between different departmens as matter of course so its not that surprising Nazis were pretty unstable.

 

[WunWun]

Why would the UK and the Commonwealth be unable to declare war on Germany due to strife in India? They could still blockade Germany with the RN and aerial bombard Germany with the RAF.

Now if you are proposing that the UK may not be willing to give guarantees to France and Poland due to strife in India, that is a different scenario which would mean a different series of decisions by the UK and others throughout the course of the 1930s. Such as the French deciding without the strong backing of the UK to negotiate a deal with the Soviets to block German expansion which would lead to a different start to the war in Europe. And that would be bad for Germany to be at war with France and the Soviets in 1939 - and it would be even worse for Germany if they were at war with France/USSR in 1938.

I'm proposing a scenario where major parts of the INC turn against the British with the intent of fighting for their independence. Which would lead to the British having to fight for or forget altogether their indian possessions.

The British Raj and it's army was very important in both world wars and it would seriously affect both the economic and military situation for the British in 1938/39.

A Franco-soviet alliance is a possibility certainly, but it was also a major fear of most of Europe at that point. F.e. the belgians broke off their alliance with France in the 30ies because the popular front was seen as a soviet puppet. This alliance essentially makes those fears a reality and you'd see conservative-democratic states like Belgium, the Netherlands, etc choose the German side.

Hitler was very big on Darwinism, i mean he setup miniature civil wars between different departmens as matter of course so its not that surprising Nazis were pretty unstable.

Could you give one example of those? Beyond the effects of the gleichschaltung (conflict between lander administration and party Gau) or personal ambition (himmler turning the SS from a bodyguard to a state-within-a-state).

 

[DiogenesFromSynope]

Could you give one example of those? Beyond the effects of the gleichschaltung (conflict between lander administration and party Gau) or personal ambition (himmler turning the SS from a bodyguard to a state-within-a-state).

Dont have examples on hand, but basically the way Nazi system was setup with Nazis jockeying for more power screwing each other etc trying to earn Hitler favor by sabotaging each other, that wasnt side effect but intention, basically strong survive approach to governance.

 

[Leonidas]

Economic shortages are a pretty unrealistic idea, keeping in mind that Hitler always wanted germany to achieve levels of affluence and prosperity that america possessed. That was the entire reason for lebensraum - germany could not prosper to american levels with what she had, and thus resource-rich areas had to be conquered.

Generalplan Ost was a total fantasy that relied on thousands of Germans being willing to give up their reasonably comfortable lives and become farmers in a region that would be rife with partisan activity. In its attempts to gain this prosperity, a victorious Reich would burn itself out even faster.

 

[RanulfC]

You need strong ideological, ethnic, religious or regional differences for a civil war. Elite Factions just end up with coups not civil wars.

I've never seen a plausible reason for an internal Nazi "Civil War" but yes, I've seen plenty of possible "coup/counter-coup" as some of the various blocks might look to seize power. But those are JUST "possible" and take conditions (after a general victory) worsening to put enough pressure on the factions to take direct action.
I have it happen in my CSU timeline but it's mostly for fiction purposes as I have to fit in that something like that happens to match the actual canon timeline.

In a more 'real-world' scenario they factions were under little pressure to make radical changes even when going down in defeat they would be far less inclined in a victory scenario and could afford to bide their time and make slower, less violent progress.

Randy

 

[CHKeeley]

Could you give one example of those? Beyond the effects of the gleichschaltung (conflict between lander administration and party Gau) or personal ambition (himmler turning the SS from a bodyguard to a state-within-a-state).

Dont have examples on hand, but basically the way Nazi system was setup with Nazis jockeying for more power screwing each other etc trying to earn Hitler favor by sabotaging each other, that wasnt side effect but intention, basically strong survive approach to governance.

Dallin’s German Rule in Russia 1941-1945 is required reading for this. One of the first few chapters will give you an excellent overview of the way the power structure was set up to overlay and overlap jurisdictions and create informal power networks competing with formal ones.

This chart explains it pretty succinctly. As you can see, The SS competed with the Party apparatus which both competed with Rosenberg. The army and the foreign office, informally linked and sheltered bubbles of the traditionalist elements, feuded with the SS and with Hitler. Rosenberg couldn’t control his own ostensible subordinate, Koch, in Ukraine while Lohse in Ostland was loyal to his patron but completely sidelined by local SS and army organizations. And all reported to Hitler, played off his favor, and used him to sanction their actions and subvert the established hierarchy. As Dallin says, personal disputes within blocs also plagued the system. The same setup repeats on down to the base units of local administration. This is why we see the ‘Nazi state’ undertaking seemingly contradictory things like dismissing any attempt at an indigenous administration and appeals to nationalism while also conscripting Cossacks and allowing the setting up of a Lokot collaborationist administration. Different elements with different goals at odds with each other and all given space to compete.

I saw it once described as a “Hobbesian War of All Against All” and I think that’s a fair way to describe it. While it’s absolutely a trope, I can see why many alternate histories project and utter breakdown in the German administration after the death of Hitler and the end of the war.

 

[Tolkiene]

I shall a quote a post I made on this matter fairly recently:

'I used to be a proponent of the Nazi civil war theory, but over time I've come to view it as less likely. For one, power struggles between Nazi bigwigs, while vicious, tended to be limited in scale. They had two internal purges within the power structure of the Reich/Nazi party. One was the Night of the Long Knives, and the other was the purge after a couple officers tried to blow up Hitler. The Night of the Long Knives was bloody, but the bloodletting was very limited compared to the Great Purge under Stalin.

The number of murdered Nazi officials (and the couple conservatives who were killed, which the Reichswehr ignored) is dwarfed by the number of Party and SA functionaries who simply lost their job after the killing was over. No one died during the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair. A bunch of generals and diplomats simply lost their jobs.

I'm not saying this to downplay how evil the regime was. If anything, it shows the opposite, since the Nazis didn't have to force complicity in their genocidal project at gunpoint (Germans were not killed for refusing to murder Jews. Actively trying to sabotage the genocide by say hiding Jews was another matter, but simply not wanting to shoot innocent women and children didn't get you executed or sent to a concentration camp).

If you look at the behaviour of Heer troops during the 20 July coup, they followed what they thought was the legal chain of command. The Replacement Army stopped arresting Nazi officials and turned on the plotters the moment they realised they'd been tricked, since they were loyal to the regime. Most of the bigwigs don't have clear access to armed force. This is particularly a problem for Goebbels and Bormann. Himmler has the Waffen-SS, but the oath of allegiance is not to Himmler, but the Führer. And the Wehrmacht officer corps is the exact opposite of an anti-Nazi group that's just waiting for Hitler to die so that they can kick the brown thugs out. This is not to say that a transition of power would be bloodless and peaceful. It definitely would not be. But I don't see civil war happening the moment Hitler dies.'

Worth noting that most Germans condemned the 20 July coup - even in the '50s many viewed the plotters as traitors. The military was loyal to Hitler, and the conspirators knew it. It's why Valkyrie was essentially one big Bavarian fire drill, and fell apart the moment the false pretense was discovered. Hell, even without that the conspirators faced the problem that the guys they were putting forward as the leaders of a new government were terribly implausible avengers of the Führer. I believe @LumineVonReuental Valkyrie timeline displays this very well.

There were Wehrkreis commanders who were sympathetic to the coup in principle, but followed Keitel's orders anyway...because they were legal. When Remer, after realising he'd been played, marched on to the Benderblock, he didn't get into a firefight with the soldiers guarding it. Heer soldiers didn't just open fire on each other. Hell, the plotters refused to shoot Fromm, which is what they should've done.

Yes, Nazi Germany is a mess of competing bureaucratic fiefs and shifting alliances...but for all the rivalry they were able to work together (and some of the rivalries have been exaggerated post-war by Nazi functionaries who wanted sell their memoirs and portray themselves as the 'good nazis'. Speer, for example, had instances where he bickered with Himmler and Goebbels over influence, but cooperated with them for most of his career instead of being engaged in a life or death struggle with the SS. You see the same nonsense with Stuckart, who after the war whitewashed himself as a defender of the rule of law who'd been hated by the Party/SS, when he was in fact just as much of a Nazi as the others and a dedicated member of the SS). Notwithstanding all the rivalry between the SS and the Wehrmacht on the upper levels, they tended to cooperate well on the battlefield or when it came to murdering alleged partisans and 'bandits'. And they can't all muster armed forces. Himmler's operational control over the Waffen-SS in the field was actually quite limited. Hitler dying won't suddenly compel the Heer to deploy tanks on the streets of Berlin. They like the Nazi regime, and thus don't meddle in it. It would take things really going to shit for that to change.

Disputes between bigwigs generally had more to do with influence than ideology. Frankly, the standard power struggle between Nazi principals was typical office politics nonsense taken to the extreme - fought by feverishly drafting memorandums, bureaucratic intrigue and trying to suck up to Hitler. Of course, this also helped fuel the radicalisation of the regime...with disastrous consequences for Jews and ethnic groups in occupied territories the Nazis deemed 'racially inferior'. Eastern and anti-Semitic policy are good examples for this. But there was also a good deal of consensus among the principals. Like, the Wannsee Conference was basically a rubberstamp. None of the people attending objected to the Holocaust, they just quibbled about how it should be organised administratively and wanted to protect the turfs of their ministries.

Himmler couldn't just order the Gestapo to murder any Nazi bigwig he didn't like. Same with Bormann. They weren't in the business of killing their own en masse. Nazis who fell out of favour were commonly just retired, given crap jobs or sent to the frontlines. Now I definitely think purges of some form will be on the cards. But that's not the same as the country suddenly blowing up the moment Hitler kicks the bucket. In my view, it would take more time for things to erode to such an extent, barring very dramatic developments, and even then it will probably be something a good deal more limited in scale than what say TNO portrays.

Now does this mean an AH scenario cannot have a Nazi civil war? Oh, it certainly can. It is, after all, a toxic, dysfunctional mess of a regime. But it would require a bit more development than 'Hitler dies and no matter the circumstances the Germans all start killing each other'.

 

[marktaha]

Coup and counter-coup is one thing-but why would it escalate into a civil war? Would that many Germans have been willing to fight for Goering/Himmler/ any other Nazi leader?

 

[Fratsup]

I would say why it happens so much in AH is wishful thinking and gameplay mechanics considering how one of the most popular AH to have such a scenario is a mod for HoI4 which has to have this just to make the game interesting.

As for a civil war in real life this depends so much on the circumstances that it's near impossible to say if it would happen. However I do believe that the Germans would want their nation to continue to exist and be powerful so even if some mass protests happen or even a civil war the people will try to keep the reich intact and a similar form to China and it's own internal conflicts.

 

[RanulfC]

Coup and counter-coup is one thing-but why would it escalate into a civil war? Would that many Germans have been willing to fight for Goering/Himmler/ any other Nazi leader?

Again it pays to keep in mind that there WAS a line of succession and that was for the most part Goering so he's the "legitimate" heir to Hitler. So in the ATL for the CSU when Himmler and the SS try for a coup they are already on thin ice and as Goering and the Reich represent stability and 'peace' not even the common citizens let alone the police and military rise up in opposition. End of coup attempt and the survivors flee Germany in disgrace...

Coup/Counter-Coup CAN lead to Civil War if it is disruptive enough or the 'sides' are balanced enough that the "quick" transfer of power takes longer and/or is less than complete and allows the opposition time to organize and deploy. But again to get to THAT part you have to have a fairly balanced and wide spread "support" system already in place which none of the Nazi "factions" really do. They are only 'part of' not the whole government and MOST of the real 'power' is still in obvious and stable hands. The Military is not going to let a Civil War break out, neither in the national Police or for that matter the majority of the Citizens. It is in none of their interests to allow it to happen.

Not touching on 'recent' events but in context the only way a "coup" succeeds is if it has built up overwhelming support in the military who are actively committed to supporting the coup. Without that even if you somehow manage to seize the mechanism of government the moment the military declines to acquiesce to your demands that they obey you, you have lost and will be removed. Full stop.

No 'faction' of the Nazis had a full lock on the military or state apparatus as the "government" was still in place with a clear chain of command and succession. The SS for example COUL launch a coup to replace Goering and if they were quick enough and had enough military support they might hold onto power afterwards.

But keep in mind they have also now set a 'precedent' where anyone ELSE who can manage to gain the support of the military is going to be in a position to do the exact same thing. This is a horribly bad precedent to set, which is why most nations and governments strenuously try and avoid doing so

Randy

 

[RanulfC]

I would say why it happens so much in AH is wishful thinking and gameplay mechanics considering how one of the most popular AH to have such a scenario is a mod for HoI4 which has to have this just to make the game interesting.

Exactly and it's not even really about Germany/Nazi's as much as it allows someone to tell a story they want to tell in a background where they can (usually) make clear there are 'good guys' and 'bad guys' and which side they are on. it's rarely if ever that cut-and-dried in real life.

Randy

 

[Legofan4]

I think that it still mostly because most stories have evil lose and the Nazis are evil and such even if they win they still have to lose hence civil war.

 

[Tanaka did nothing wrong]

Well, the civil war trope is, I think, an extrapolation of the constant infighting inside the State and Party machines.

To have a civil war, the two more likely ways to end up there are:
a) a vacuum of power for which there is no clearly defined and/or universally accepted mechanism regulating its filling
b) two sides which seem to be equal in terms of power unable to reconcile and having exhausted all other courses of action (a helps here).

In the case of Germany: at first glance, there is a clearly defined succession. Göring is the first line successor, followed by Hess (until his flight in 1941, unless he didn't do that ITTL) and, following these two, the Senate. In the first two cases (if Hess hasn't absconded), the succession is pretty straightforward. The Senate is roughly similar; in the original plan, Hitler seems to have decided that whoever would be elected by it would succeed him in all his offices and this would probably happen at the end.

However, if Hess has fled and Göring assumed the leadership only to die shortly after, and preferably before a new constitution had been pushed in place, the Reich would be in a peculiar situation, since there is no precise mechanism in place for determining the succession. Göring hasn't had time to nominate a successor; although the Senate does exist as a precedent-idea, there would be people who would argue that it wasn't a constitutionally enshrined mechanism to determine the succession.

Of course this doesn't mean that the state government would be headless: going by the pre-1933 text, which in this scenario has been kept and not replaced by a new constitution, the president of the Reichsgericht would become acting Head of State, while the Reichstag would elect a new Chancellor. In theory, whoever was to become Führer of the NSDAP would have an easy way to the office of Führer und Reichskanzler: since he would be Party leader, he could basically dictate the Reichstag to elect him as Chancellor, and thus become both head of state and head of government, per the provisions of the 1934 law that basically transferred the presidential powers to the office of Chancellor. However, there are various small problems:

a) the mechanism to determine the next Führer of the NSDAP. While the Senate would have the advantage of precedent, having been envisioned to play such a role by Hitler, there would most likely be at least considerable opposition to it. Some of the reasons for this:

1. its composition. How large would it be? Who would have the right to be a member? How would the members be chosen? These questions would steer many and rather acrimonious discussions: the Party Chancellery under Bormann and the other princes of the Control Faction, faithful to their general concept, would want a small body consisted of Gauleiters, most if not all of whom would be chosen by them, thus ensuring that the next Führer of the NSDAP would be someone of their liking. Of course, such an arrangement would shut out many other power players, who would in turn want a different arrangement: Speer fo example, who after Göring's death would have probably become the main figure of the anti-Control Faction groups and who would harbour ambitions, would push for a more "corporatist body", meaning a larger college including Party members outside the control of the PK, the Field Marshals etc, in order to make the result "more representative of the general German society" - ie derail the efforts to have the PK decide the election alone.
   
   
2. its legitimacy. Even if a Senate was set up (most likely by the PK), its presence wouldn't be exactly universally acceptable. Its opponents would build on the luck of any official mention of the Senate in the law in order to discredit it and they could perhaps call for an election of the next Führer by referendum.

Combining these two, and with some further problems, you could get perhaps a scenario where a PK-approved Senate elects one Führer and there is opposition to this; here, there is no Hitler with his "holy writ" sanctioning the body and despite it having been mentioned by him, by that time it would be water under the bridge, with many important figures seeing it as an attempt by Bormann to hijack the government. Party figures allied more to the State could perhaps lobby the acting President to refuse stepping down, considering the new Führer illegitimate (rather hard but not impossible I'd say, especially if Bormann was more aggressive than it would have been wise with regard to Partification in the years prior to this).

Another way, this time largely stemming from point 1, is that the Senate is locked in grindlock, which in turn radicalises the various sides and leads to more abrasive action from all sides that eventually reaches the point of low-level civil war ala early Weimar, with the army having to deal with various militias and at the same time trying to maintain the Reich's conquests (which would further help maintain the simmering tensions, with the OKW being stuck trying to maintain order in Germany and trying to keep the colonies and more restless satellite states down).

My thoughts, I hope they helped.

 

[Mitridates the Great]

Today I'd like to start a discussion about the reasons for the nazi civil war trope. I'm sure you all know scenarios like this but to make sure we're all on the same page here.
1) ATL where nazi germany manages to become hegemon over the european continent (not really important how it happens tbh, it's pretty ASB)
2) Hitler dies and he has no clear heir
3) somehow germany explodes in a thousand small states which wage a brutal civil war (See: the TNO mod for hoi4, plenty of other alt-his scenarios) and ends with massive purges which leave most of the german leadership(s) dead

Now I simply do not understand where the idea comes from or how people think it is a logical thing to happen. We've got a few purges and attempts at civil war right be fore and during the existence of the third reich and they're all unlike the "year-long civil war" and "stalin-esque purges" so popular in alt-his 3rd reich. For example:
a) Pre 1933 political violence: mostly low level, and except for a short period in 1918-1919 there was no serious civil war like the russian revolution
b) Kapp putsch: nothing really happened here
c) Beerhall putsch: (20 deaths and about a hundred imprisoned)
d) Blomberg-Fritsch affair: two officers purged, duration of about a month
e) night of the long knives: 85 (but more likely in the hundreds of victims) in three days
f) July 20th plot: about 5000 executed, but after a short coup attempt that failed within 5 hours
Compared to the great purge under stalin (700k to 1.2 mil over a span of two years) or the maoist cultural revolution (ten years with a death toll in the millions)

Then there are additional things to keep in mind:
a) Schorner managing to discipline the eastern front in 1945 instead of having it collapse: strict discipline could be enforced
b) Hitler had a designated heir, which OTL only became a problem because of the collapse of the 3rd reich and hitlers paranoia
c) the 3rd reich would be at it's zenith of prestige; conservative prussian officers would not be eager to start a coup like when they blew off the oster conspiracy.

Keeping all that in mind I would posit that it is more logical for nazi power plays to be small scale, with purges in the thousands instead of nationwide civil war.

The reason is very simple.

In the original novel The Man in the High Castle (1962), Phillip K. Dick took it for granted that a Nazi civil war would "logically" break out as soon as Hitler croaks. This was as part of his caricature of the Nazis as even more ridiculously evil than they really were. (Yes, I know it's hard to do that, but Dick did it.)

Subject to which he dedicated great efforts, including at least two chapters dedicated to analyzing the possible results of this German civil war (Spoiler: whoever wins, his first act as Fuhrer will be to sign a declaration of total nuclear war against Japan) and at least a mention in each of the other chapters.

The rest of the authors that came after simply assumed that such a cult (hey, he had two Hugos!) and immensely respected and famous author would have done his research well and ran with it.

In addition to responding to certain very common psychic impulses, such as assuming that, of course!, the enemy is so stupid and evil that it will necessarily begin to collapse and sink in on itself in a civil war as soon as they lack someone external against whom to fight. And it satisfies people's desire to schadenfraud to see how, naturally!, the Nazis begin to kill each other, doing strict justice!

Then the economy fetishists came along and added, of course!

...the hypothetical bad economic situation of Nazi Germany would cause a population and some elites that until then had remained quiet and silent... will start a civil war out of nowhere because "GDP is down 1% compared to the last quarter!" or some other macroeconomic stupidity that nobody really cared about at all.

This is why the Nazi civil war trope continued to be maintained even after all other claims made by Dick were proven to be blatantly ridiculous.

It satisfies the psychological need to see the bad guys "sow the seeds of their own destruction" and shoot themselves in the foot, so the good guys can join hands and sing along "The Nazis were stupid and evil and so So they were destined to fail."

 

[Gillan1220]

Another common trope: Hermann Goering vs Heinrich Himmler Civil War.

 

[Mitridates the Great]

Another common trope: Hermann Goering vs Heinrich Himmler Civil War.

And that war apparently lasts more than the time between Himmler orders the murdering of Goering and that murdering is done...

 

[Jürgen]

Honestly, even if the Nazis win WW2 then economic stagnation is probably bound to happen simply given the way the Nazi economy was structured. And unlike Soviet stagnation, I don't think this is preventable. The Nazi slave economy combined with German autarky can only be sustained for so long. I don't think this necessarily leads to a civil war, but depending on how bad it gets and how long Hitler lives it could definitely begin to spiral into social unrest.

Nazi Germany has a far more viable economy than USSR and it was far easier to reform.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

I'd say the typical variation of the trope is very unlikely and born out of revenge fantasies more than anything else. That said: I think a brief and small civil war (if what Austria had counts as a Civil War than the SS and Fallshimjdaegers going at it also counts) could happen before Hitler clarifies his succession (so it'd have to happen before WWII or in a no WWII TL) and it'd still require some additional pot stirring to raise tensions prior to Hitler's passing. Likely outcome: the Heer falls out of its chair laughing, and then seizes power (likely by way of propping up a compliant Nazi figurehead).