AHC: Rommel and Guderian disbey further orders

During Fall Gelb, Rommel and Guderian disobeyed direct OKW orders to wait for infantry before advancing. They only halted their successful advance at Hitler’s direct orders, which lead to Operation Dynamo.

So here’s the first challenge: have them disobey these orders and continue their advance so that the BEF and any forces waiting for evacuation in Dunkirchen completely destroyed.

This is rather easy, but here’s the next one: have this incident lead to Hitler being deposed by the military, forming perhaps a military junta to lead Germany through the war.

Plausible?
 
That would be the third instance of Guderian disobeying a direct order in that campaign. IIRC, Kleist was already weary of Guderian and would probably react with "It's either him or me!" and cause a crisis in command. Rundstedt will probably side with him, as it was Rundstedt who initiated the entire "Stop" command. The panzers were already continuously advancing for almost two weeks with little pause.

If Guderian proceeds, he gets bloody nose and is forced to stop anyway, AFAIK. The British could defend Dunkirk and the perimeter.
 
That would be the third instance of Guderian disobeying a direct order in that campaign. IIRC, Kleist was already weary of Guderian and would probably react with "It's either him or me!" and cause a crisis in command. Rundstedt will probably side with him, as it was Rundstedt who initiated the entire "Stop" command. The panzers were already continuously advancing for almost two weeks with little pause.

If Guderian proceeds, he gets bloody nose and is forced to stop anyway, AFAIK. The British could defend Dunkirk and the perimeter.

Well apart from pointing out it would have been the French who likely did most of the work I concur entirely with the above.

Guderian's career comes to a crashing halt
 
They could disobey orders and keep going, but they would probably be stopped by the Allies, and it would slow Rommel's career down considerably and kill Guderian's. As much as we like to romanticize people who go out on their own and disobey authority in the military those traits are hated. Which makes sense because most of the time those traits lead to unnecessary casualties. Someone who can't obey orders doesn't have a place in the military, particularly when he disobeys orders and fails.

And the military regime is highly implausible. As much as the German generals liked to claim post-war they were not anti-Nazi. They were anti-losing. And by Dunkirk Hitler has just defeated the Allies in 6 weeks, when the estimates were that it would take months and leave 1 million Germans dead. He's overturned the Treaty of Versailles, and this is the pinnacle of his success (with the opening weeks of Barbarossa as a close second). A tactical error like not pursuing the British fully (which was ordered by both Hitler and the OKW) would not be enough of a reason for a coup.
 
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If Guderian proceeds, he gets bloody nose and is forced to stop anyway, AFAIK. The British could defend Dunkirk and the perimeter.

Rommel stated he reached the coast with only 25 operable tanks. The artillery ammunition used in the Arras battle may not have been replenished. The other leading Pz Div seem to have been in no better condition.
 
Rommel stated he reached the coast with only 25 operable tanks. The artillery ammunition used in the Arras battle may not have been replenished. The other leading Pz Div seem to have been in no better condition.

It would only take a few hours/days to get quite a few of those tanks back in action though given this was a speciality of the Germans.
 
It would only take a few hours/days to get quite a few of those tanks back in action though given this was a speciality of the Germans.

But it is not just the panzers. The people driving them have been going almost non stop for two weeks straight. It would take prodigious amounts of Panzer-chocolate to make them go further. Transporting the amunition, gathering the panzers that were immobilized all over the battlefield, all that would take days.

The terrain, AFAIK, is less than ideal for them anyway, so it would need more infantry and artillery. And for all the Germans knew, the French might still have mounted a counterattack from the south, south-west...
 
It would only take a few hours/days to get quite a few of those tanks back in action though given this was a speciality of the Germans.

The stop order only lasted 2-3 days. There was a reason why Hitler agreed to suspend an offensive - it's not like it's something he would do at a whim (irrespective of the the apocryphal stories he circulated afterwards).
 
But it is not just the panzers. The people driving them have been going almost non stop for two weeks straight. It would take prodigious amounts of Panzer-chocolate to make them go further. Transporting the amunition, gathering the panzers that were immobilized all over the battlefield, all that would take days.

The terrain, AFAIK, is less than ideal for them anyway, so it would need more infantry and artillery. And for all the Germans knew, the French might still have mounted a counterattack from the south, south-west...

They could catch some sleep as well. Panzer-Chocolate was pretty damn useful for making those extra hours go better and there was only a battalion in front of them at the time. Was the BEF really in better shape?

And given the Luftwaffe had wrecked every single French counter attack apart from Arras which was still a German victory and the Germans had ignored their flanks continuously and been rewarded for it. Living in fear of a French counter attack seems out of character.
 
Okay, so I guess any military takeover at this point is rather ASB.

However, can events like these lead to Hitler being a bit sidelined when it comes to direct involvment in miltary affairs? If yes, could this prove useful in the Eastern Front?
 
Okay, so I guess any military takeover at this point is rather ASB.

However, can events like these lead to Hitler being a bit sidelined when it comes to direct involvment in miltary affairs? If yes, could this prove useful in the Eastern Front?

First, the only option would be having Hitler MORE involved in this case. Having a crisis in command would be ideal point for him to come and take matters in his own hands, or at least appoint someone close to him to take charge.

And, no it wouldn't help on the Eastern front. No matter who commands, no matter what choices Germany makes in terms of battlefield options (realistic options, not options OOC to Nazi Germany) they are not able to win against USSR unless Red Army cooperates...
 
And, no it wouldn't help on the Eastern front. No matter who commands, no matter what choices Germany makes in terms of battlefield options (realistic options, not options OOC to Nazi Germany) they are not able to win against USSR unless Red Army cooperates...

I'm not talking about total victory, but maybe a little more success. I know it's far-fetched, but what I'm looking for is a way for the Germans to stall the USSR long enough for the Allies taking Berlin, and maybe even central Europe. An Iron Curtain more to the east, maybe.
 
I'm not talking about total victory, but maybe a little more success. I know it's far-fetched, but what I'm looking for is a way for the Germans to stall the USSR long enough for the Allies taking Berlin, and maybe even central Europe. An Iron Curtain more to the east, maybe.

Then you need to look at PODs in the Soviet Union and the Ostheer. The Panzertruppen did not stop out of the goodness of their hearts, they had reached a natural culmination point, the Allies would run into a similar culmination point going the other way in 1944 and the US experienced something similar in the 2003 Iraq War. The machinery of war simply has limits, the men (and in some armies women) who make those machines go have their limits.

Driving forwards at this point would have pushed up casualties but likely failed to have impaired the Dunkirk evacuation, even if say Dynamo had only gotten away say two thirds as many troops as we now know it could have it would have still looked like an idiot move and worse an idiot move by insubordinate simpletons.
 
Then you need to look at PODs in the Soviet Union and the Ostheer. The Panzertruppen did not stop out of the goodness of their hearts, they had reached a natural culmination point, the Allies would run into a similar culmination point going the other way in 1944 and the US experienced something similar in the 2003 Iraq War. The machinery of war simply has limits, the men (and in some armies women) who make those machines go have their limits.

Driving forwards at this point would have pushed up casualties but likely failed to have impaired the Dunkirk evacuation, even if say Dynamo had only gotten away say two thirds as many troops as we now know it could have it would have still looked like an idiot move and worse an idiot move by insubordinate simpletons.

I was looking for an early PoD that would make some precedent to such things in the Eastern Front, but if it's a dead end, so be it :)
 
For the result you want (Wehrmacht junta; German/Soviet iron curtain in the east) a better POD would be to have Hitler slip on a bar of soap in the bath and die during the early weeks of Barbarossa. If that happens, it's pretty likely you'll get a Wehrmacht junta with Goering as a figurehead Fuehrer. With the Wehrmacht already well into Soviet territory, they will probably just keep hammering the Russians until they feel they're in a strong enough position to offer the Soviets a Brest-Litvosk 2: Electric Boogaloo type of treaty, which is likely as long as it happens before the winter sets in. Stalin, ultimately concerned mostly with the the preservation of his own power, will probably accept, as pretty much everyone, including most of the Soviets at the time, were expecting a German victory, until the tide started to turn in winter. With the USSR cowed and a string of Reichskommisariats in the east, the Germans are in a good position to extend an olive branch to the British, who after seeing the Soviets collapse and having endured the Blitz for a year, may be ready to consider ending the war, especially now with Hitler out of the picture. Peach with Britain of course ends the tension with America as well.

It's still not terribly probable, as it requires a lot of dominoes to fall just right for the Germans, but its is on just this side of possible, and probably the most likely scenario for a Germany-dominated Europe after WWII.
 
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For the result you want (Wehrmacht junta; German/Soviet iron curtain in the east) a better POD would be to have Hitler slip on a bar of soap in the bath and die during the early weeks of Barbarossa.

This probably leads to Barbarossa imploding even more spectacularly then IOTL when they try to go for Moscow too early. Hitler at least was smart enough to avoid that trap and turn to deal with Kiev.

With the Wehrmacht already well into Soviet territory, they will probably just keep hammering the Russians until they feel they're in a strong enough position to offer the Soviets a Brest-Litvosk 2: Electric Boogaloo type of treaty, which is likely as long as it happens before the winter sets in.

Uh... no. The German generals during Barbarossa though on the same terms as Hitler: the annihilation of the European Soviet Union is not only doable, but desirable. There was no contemplation of a Brest-Litovsk repeat until it was far too late for Germany to win...
 
For the result you want (Wehrmacht junta; German/Soviet iron curtain in the east) a better POD would be to have Hitler slip on a bar of soap in the bath and die during the early weeks of Barbarossa. If that happens, it's pretty likely you'll get a Wehrmacht junta with Goering as a figurehead Fuehrer. With the Wehrmacht already well into Soviet territory, they will probably just keep hammering the Russians until they feel they're in a strong enough position to offer the Soviets a Brest-Litvosk 2: Electric Boogaloo type of treaty, which is likely as long as it happens before the winter sets in. Stalin, ultimately concerned mostly with the the preservation of his own power, will probably accept, as pretty much everyone, including most of the Soviets at the time, were expecting a German victory, until the tide started to turn in winter. With the USSR cowed and a string of Reichskommisariats in the east, the Germans are in a good position to extend an olive branch to the British, who after seeing the Soviets collapse and having endured the Blitz for a year, may be ready to consider ending the war, especially now with Hitler out of the picture. Peach with Britain of course ends the tension with America as well.

It's still not terribly probable, as it requires a lot of dominoes to fall just right for the Germans, but its is on just this side of possible, and probably the most likely scenario for a Germany-dominated Europe after WWII.

I can't imagine there would be war for another year to a year and a half with the British if the BEF is captured and Hitler hits his head a bar of soap and then after Nazis leaders kill each other for a few weeks or so until a military junta takes over led by mainly those two who lets say sweep into Berlin and 'solve the problem' the British are going to make peace if only so they can rearm and get their troops back to defend their Empire.

The British will try to maintain a balance of power on the continent still, but it will be far harder to do given America will be less then interested in backing them up in the matter if Britain itself isn't being threatened and the Germans are out of France.
 
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