Bavaud kills Hitler: possible successors?

Who succeeds Hitler if he is assassinated on 9 November 1938?

  • Hermann Göring

    Votes: 24 85.7%
  • Joachim von Ribbentrop

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Rudolf Hess

    Votes: 4 14.3%
  • Heinrich Himmler

    Votes: 4 14.3%
  • Wilhelm Keitel

    Votes: 1 3.6%
  • Joseph Goebbels

    Votes: 2 7.1%
  • Reinhard Heydrich

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other (please specify in thread)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    28
  • Poll closed .
For this thread, I'm curious about the forum's views on who succeeds Hitler if he is assassinated in late 1938.

The PoD is a familiar one: have Maurice Bavaud successfully assassinate Hitler at the Munich parade on 9 November 1938. There are lots of possible consequences from this, but I'm interested in what the consensus is about his possible successors.

I'd have thought that Göring was the frontrunner at this stage (though he hasn't yet been named official successor), but there are certainly plenty of others who could make an attempt (successful or otherwise). I've listed the main ones I can think of in the poll options, but feel free to specify any others I've missed.
 
Göring had been named Hitler's successor at that point. Hitler appointed him as his heir in a secret decree dated 19 December 1934. Three copies of this decree were given to Hitler, War Minister Blomberg and Reich Chancellery head Lammers. The other ministers were informed in 1936. Hitler affirmed Goering's status as his successor on 23 April 1938. In November 1938, Goering is still extremely popular with the German people, the second most powerful man in the Reich and has not been humiliated by debacles such as Stalingrad and allied bombing of German cities.

However, the Heer would remember his role in the so-called Blomberg-Fritsch Crisis...though this did not prevent would-be putschists from thinking they could use Goering for their plans...and they hate Himmler/Heydrich a lot more. The Himmler/Heydrich duo has the secret police, but the Waffen-SS has yet to come into being - while they got really big during the war, at the time there's just a few small armed SS units. They can make things difficult for whoever takes over, but they don't have the means to seize power themselves yet. If Hitler is assassinated, it's quite possible that whoever takes over tries to scapegoat one or both of them.

Keitel is a nonentity...which is why Hitler made him Chief of the OKW. When Hitler asked Blomberg about him, the War Minister said that Keitel's just the guy who runs his office, and then Hitler was like 'that's the sort of man I want!'

Goebbels has his propaganda appartus (though he did not have full control over the press in Germany, since he had to share that with Otto Dietrich and Max Amann), but lacks a following and his prestige with Hitler was just damaged by his affair with Lida Baarova. He's been kind of eclipsed in 1938, though he would experience a rise during the war, especially when things started to go poorly for Germany.

Hess is 'Deputy Führer', but not energetic, is often mocked by the Party bigwigs, who don't consider him their boss. Ribbentrop has no power base and is disliked by everyone. One question is whether the army tries to stage a coup and put a junta in power, though given how feeble the abortive putsch plans of 1938-1940 were, I'm sceptical.
 
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