20th July Plot: That improbable?

[Alcsentre Calanice]

Okay. Let's assume Stauffenberg simply uses more explosive, Hitler (and some other folks) die, Goerdeler forms his new government*.

*I omit the role role of the SS for the moment.

What the new government knows on the 21th of July 1944:
- Germany has lost the war on both fronts
- the Allies want an unconditional surrender
- Stalin, who was about to sign a separate peace until 1943, is not going to let the Reich go away after Bagration
- the war criminals, as long as their are still alive, are to be judged

So there is no real chance to end the war with a victory or to gain a beneficial peace/conditional surrender.

But one have still to remember that the conspirators are, in their majority, reactonary/conservative. They more or less hate communism and are willing to work together with the western powers. Here is my thought:
Roosevelt might stand on an unconditional surrender, but Churchill despises the Soviet Union as much as the Nazis. He is conservative like Goerdeler and the other 20th July folks, and even if he won't accept a white peace with the German Reich, I'm pretty convinced that he would accept a harsh peace securing Poland's and Yugoslavia's eastern borders against "evil communism".

Such a peace treaty could include (based on the OTL demand of the conspirators):
- Germany army leaves all occupied territories in the west (including Alsace-Lorraine)
- Germany has the right to continue defense in the east
- reparations?

Your thoughts?

 

[Alternate History]

The thing is, the Western and Eastern Allies were... well, allies in the war, who had pledged to fight together and accept only unconditional surrender from Germany. They will not leave the Soviets alone to fight; even if it makes sense from the perspective of the class war, much of the West had a somewhat favorable view of the USSR at that time and uniformly thought of not just the Nazis, but Germany itself as a great threat that needs to be extinguished. The Brits would probably be the only ones willing to consider anything less than totally dismantling Germany; France would be afraid of its traditional rival and the USA is willing to work together with the Soviets against Germany. Further, it is quite possible that the West would simply not be able to distinguish Stauffenberg's faction from the Nazis (and the Soviets would consciously try to erase the difference in its propaganda), just seeing it as a more moderate, less crazy faction of the same looney bin (especially if Stauffenberg's views on Poland and such are known).

All that will happen is that Stauffenberg will throw all troops eastwards and then surrender once the WAllies roll into Berlin. That way, the West has more influence in the peace negotiations.

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

No chance that peace talks with Britain are opened? I'm not saying that they would succeed, but is it possible that some informal negotiations start?

 

[ObssesedNuker]

No chance that peace talks with Britain are opened? I'm not saying that they would succeed, but is it possible that some informal negotiations start?

There would be informal negotiations, but they would go like this:

WAllies: "Are you going to surrender unconditionally on all fronts?"
Germans: "We want to surrender to you and the conditions we will surrender under are-"
WAllies: "So that would be a no. Come back to us when you're willing. Until then, GTFO."

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

There would be informal negotiations, but they would go like this:

WAllies: "Are you going to surrender unconditionally on all fronts?"
Germans: "We want to surrender to you and the conditions we will surrender under are-"
WAllies: "So that would be a no. Come back to us when you're willing. Until then, GTFO."

Maybe my oppinion on Churchill is really biased and based on what I heard in Soviet propaganda material. Though, I'm still suspecting he would have been interested in concluding the war in western Europe quickly to turn east with or without German help.

 

[Shaby]

Maybe my oppinion on Churchill is really biased and based on what I heard in Soviet propaganda material. Though, I'm still suspecting he would have been interested in concluding the war in western Europe quickly to turn east with or without German help.

Only it is not Churchill who gets to decide, but Roosevelt and Stalin. Besides, Churchill himself was all for occupying Germany and displacing Prussian military caste with a real democracy. He would not settle for anything less. Trial of war criminals was not about to be left to the Germans, the Allies have more or less decided on it by 1944. The Germans were not about to be trusted with disarmament and Alled occupation would be imposed.

 

[GarethC]

WSC is more concerned with avoiding another Great War, than forestalling or winning a Cold War. That's the whole point of unconditional surrender - say what you like about the evils of Communism, that ideology has killed a lot fewer British, French, and Americans than German nationalism has between 1867* and 1944.

von Stauffenberg would need to complete the coup in time to negotiate a surrender before Overlord, really, when there is at least the shadow of doubt over the operation in the minds of FDR and Churchill - and even then the Allies' terms will be "occupy the whole country, disarm all the armed forces, hang all the people we don't like, imprison quite a few more we're unsure of, and take anything we want - scientists, factories, pretty girls, all of it really."

Once boots are on Continental ground, that doubt is gone, leaving only the certainty of the need to make sure that in 20 years time, they don't have to do this all over again after another dolchstosslegende and a new demagogue's rise to power.

*publication of Das Kapital

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

WSC is more concerned with avoiding another Great War, than forestalling or winning a Cold War. That's the whole point of unconditional surrender - say what you like about the evils of Communism, that ideology has killed a lot fewer British, French, and Americans than German nationalism has between 1867* and 1944.

von Stauffenberg would need to complete the coup in time to negotiate a surrender before Overlord, really, when there is at least the shadow of doubt over the operation in the minds of FDR and Churchill - and even then the Allies' terms will be "occupy the whole country, disarm all the armed forces, hang all the people we don't like, imprison quite a few more we're unsure of, and take anything we want - scientists, factories, pretty girls, all of it really."

Once boots are on Continental ground, that doubt is gone, leaving only the certainty of the need to make sure that in 20 years time, they don't have to do this all over again after another dolchstosslegende and a new demagogue's rise to power.

*publication of Das Kapital

So, if Stauffenberg manages to kill Hitler before June 1944, there is a little chance that Britain and the US would consider a conditional surrender? For example, a capitulation only to the WAllies?

 

[jmc247]

So, if Stauffenberg manages to kill Hitler before June 1944, there is a little chance that Britain and the US would consider a conditional surrender? For example, a capitulation only to the WAllies?

The West completely bought it's propaganda on Stalin so Stauffenburg would get might actually get a deal with a capitulation to only the Soviets then he ever would the WAllies.

That would wake the WAllies up to the fact they had drunk their own Kool Aid on the issue of Stalin, but too late for them.

It doesn't matter in the end though the Field Marshals in the West wouldn't respect his authority and march their troops back to Berlin to give the WAllies no choice but to occupy as much territory as they are easily able.

 

[GarethC]

So, if Stauffenberg manages to kill Hitler before June 1944, there is a little chance that Britain and the US would consider a conditional surrender? For example, a capitulation only to the WAllies?

I don't think that it can work, and realistically Stalin would be righteously pissed.

The WAllies want every German out of uniform and armed with nothing more dangerous than a small knife for peeling fruit, with Allied troops free to move about Germany hanging Nazis from every lamppost from the Munich beerhall to the Baltic; a side effect of that is that nothing stops the RKKA from rolling across Poland and straight on through Prussia. A conditional surrender that leaves an actual German military actually fighting in the East is utterly unacceptable; what stops it turning West again?.

Yes, after that then there's the question of the Soviets, and that probably means that antebellum Poland is as dead as the victims of Katyn. That's realpolitik, comrade. Germany has to be stopped in the way it wasn't in 1918, and Soviet ascendancy in Eastern Europe is an inevitable consequence of that.

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

I don't think that it can work, and realistically Stalin would be righteously pissed.

The WAllies want every German out of uniform and armed with nothing more dangerous than a small knife for peeling fruit, with Allied troops free to move about Germany hanging Nazis from every lamppost from the Munich beerhall to the Baltic; a side effect of that is that nothing stops the RKKA from rolling across Poland and straight on through Prussia. A conditional surrender that leaves an actual German military actually fighting in the East is utterly unacceptable; what stops it turning West again?.

Yes, after that then there's the question of the Soviets, and that probably means that antebellum Poland is as dead as the victims of Katyn. That's realpolitik, comrade. Germany has to be stopped in the way it wasn't in 1918, and Soviet ascendancy in Eastern Europe is an inevitable consequence of that.

Bravo! You started a war about Poland and after long years of hard fighting, you only say: fuck you, Poland.

That's totally stupid. But that's nothing new to me. So, even before June 1944, there is no possibility of a conditional peace/surrender. Now let's analyze the second proposition:

The new german government throws every unit to the east, while the WAllies in the west can seize every German/non-German territory they want to occupy. The German reinforment in the east helps to stabilize the front on the 1939 Soviet-German border, until Britain and the USA capture Berlin.

How would Russia react in such a case?

 

[General Tirpitz]

Will the German Army go behind the coup? I mean, Hitler is murdered and you suddenly have this small group of officers declaring that they now rule Germany. Will everybody in Germany just go along them or will there be a counter-coup attempt (or even a civil war)?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Yeah, ultimately the Allies would not accept anything but unconditional surrender. The question is whether there is a civil war that collapses Germany early or whether the coup government is able to seize power and how quickly they realize they need to just accept unconditional surrender. I think either way the war ends in late 1944, because either the civil war implodes German ability to fight or the new government takes until then to realize they are screwed anyway, so might as well end the killing.

Assuming its the new government that cuts a deal over the winter a lot of people are saved by the early end of the war. Germany's infrastructure isn't nearly as badly ripped up, nor have some of the firebombings yet happened, so the situation after the war will be less precarious. They might even let the Germans keep the Eastern Niesse line and Breslau too given the early end to the war. This means Slaughterhouse 5 is never written for one thing. It also probably means the worst of the Holocaust from July 1944-May 1945 doesn't happen and to a degree Germany can say they ended it later on and it was all the Nazis, not the German people that are guilty for it. There probably will be a lot of resentment for far right people that blame the coupists for toppling Hitler and have some sort of new stabbed in the back myth, but most people are likely to be relieved that the war ended less badly than it could have. No late war offensives like the Ardennes and all the Eastern Front stuff probably saves 1 million lives just on the German side, while for the Allies its easily in the hundreds of thousands, if not even over 1 million combined.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_casualties_in_World_War_II#Russian_Sources

Soviet sources claimed that “In 1945 the German Army lost more than 1,000,000 men killed on the Soviet-German front alone.” [23]

The Soviets will probably still do some pretty nasty stuff at the end of the war, as will the French and others, but it will probably be muted due to the war ending without everyone having to conquer Germany. For one thing the 20k civilians killed in Berlin wouldn't likely happen without the battle there.

With the Holocaust ending sooner at least 400k Jews killed in 1944-45 wouldn't die, not sure about everyone else in the camps in terms of numbers saved.

Obviously it would have been better for everyone to have Hitler killed in July 1944 and the war to end by January 1945.

 

[EarlofChatham]

From Wikipedia on the Casablanca Conference

Behind the scenes, the United States and Great Britain were not, however, united in the commitment to see the war through to Germany’s capitulation. Some source material contradicts the official, reported accord between Churchill and Roosevelt, indicating Churchill did not fully subscribe to the doctrine of unconditional surrender. New York Times correspondent Drew Middleton, who was in Casablanca at the conference, later revealed in his book, Retreat From Victory, that Churchill had been "startled by the [public] announcement [of unconditional surrender]. I tried to hide my surprise. But I was his [Roosevelt’s] ardent lieutenant".[5][6]

According to former U.S. ambassador to Moscow Charles Bohlen, “Responsibility for this unconditional surrender doctrine rests almost exclusively with President Roosevelt". He guessed that Roosevelt made the announcement "to keep Soviet forces engaged with Germany on the Russian front, thus depleting German munitions and troops" and secondly "to prevent Stalin from negotiating a separate peace with the Nazi regime".[7][8]

I think Churchill would have been on board for a deal with the July 20 plotters. FDR seemed to play to Stalin at every chance. Honestly, the best move of the plotters is to move as many units from the West to the East. Slow the Russians down and have individual units surrender to the WAllies as they roll through France, the low countries and western Germany. Then surrender when the WAllies get to Berlin in September-ish 1944. The Russians would have been around the gates of Warsaw at that point. Maybe the Iron Curtain would have been drawn farther east.

 

[Alcsentre Calanice]

Will the German Army go behind the coup? I mean, Hitler is murdered and you suddenly have this small group of officers declaring that they now rule Germany. Will everybody in Germany just go along them or will there be a counter-coup attempt (or even a civil war)?

Stauffenberg kill both Hitler and Himmler this time. So civil war against the SS ich unlikely.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

From Wikipedia on the Casablanca Conference


I think Churchill would have been on board for a deal with the July 20 plotters. FDR seemed to play to Stalin at every chance. Honestly, the best move of the plotters is to move as many units from the West to the East. Slow the Russians down and have individual units surrender to the WAllies as they roll through France, the low countries and western Germany. Then surrender when the WAllies get to Berlin in September-ish 1944. The Russians would have been around the gates of Warsaw at that point. Maybe the Iron Curtain would have been drawn farther east.

Best move for who? By the deal any German on the Eastern Front would be Soviet PoWs, so it would be signing a death sentence for them. The best thing they could do in July-August would be to pull back as much as possible across the line and save their soldiers everywhere and negotiate; once that doesn't work they will have to surrender.

 

[Catspoke]

In this TL you could have successful Polish home army and Slovak army revolts. I doubt if in the state of confusion that anybody is going to send in the SS goons to crush the uprisings like in OTL. You could have real political factor in Poland after the war with an armed anti-communist force in Warsaw.

If the Soviets crush these themselves the cold war gets very frosty in a hurry.

Likewise Horthy will withdraw Hungary from the war in October, successfully this TL.

I wonder if Mussolini will try and get to Spain or someplace with more time to see the end coming.

However thwarted in Eastern Europe the Soviets might be able to declare war on Japan earlier than OTL and take a larger claim in the Pacific.