German government-in-exile during WWII?

What if a bunch of opposition/resistance types left Nazi Germany during WWII and established a government-in-exile? Maybe over time, maybe in a huge exodus in the wake of a failed Valkyrie-type coup, etc. Maybe earlier on, let's say former German royals/nobles voice criticism and lobby for the reestablishment of the monarchy.

I can't see any of the Allied governments liking them, but could they serve as a convenient group to be installed in power in postwar Germany? And for propaganda purposes, etc.
 
What if a bunch of opposition/resistance types left Nazi Germany during WWII and established a government-in-exile? Maybe over time, maybe in a huge exodus in the wake of a failed Valkyrie-type coup, etc. Maybe earlier on, let's say former German royals/nobles voice criticism and lobby for the reestablishment of the monarchy.

I can't see any of the Allied governments liking them, but could they serve as a convenient group to be installed in power in postwar Germany? And for propaganda purposes, etc.

Well first of all, when are they doing this? If it's post Fall of France, they really have nowhere to go (as before Barbarossa, the Soviets will execute them, and after it they'll have a hard time even getting there). So, it has to be in between Poland and May 1940. Presumably they escape via the Low Countries. But who is composing this bunch of exiles? No one would have any legitimacy, most of the people who would even want to do this are already jailed as of 1933 and Hitler's consolidation of power.

Governments-in-exile tend to have been governments before they went into exile, while in this case the group that is claiming to be so would have zero credibility in Germany, or indeed, wherever they go.
 
How even they could get any attention. There wouldn't be any place where they could go and Nazi government was generally recognised government so this alternate government haven't much changes get legal status.
 
the Social Democratic Party went into exile in 1933, under the name "Sopade" with a very effective spy network and published an underground paper through the 1930s, in 1941 the relocated Sopade united with others to form "Union of German Socialist Organisations in Great Britain" Willy Brant took on that name in the 1930s to avoid Nazis trying to hunt him, he was in exile in Norway and than Sweden during the Nazi Years, the Communists of course also kept an underground alive and its leadership was in the Comintern, the USSR in the dying days of WWII strongly thought about forming a communist government in exile out of the party headquartered in Moscow or maybe turning the NKFD into a previsional government, but worries about what the allies might as stopped that, plus Stalin wasn't about to allow a German government that quickly after the war.
 
To get that, you'd need the Nazi government to come to power through a coup or something like that. The current Kanzler and others manage to run away. They are then placed on a back burner for years - because the concept of governments in exile usually becomes useful only during a war.

The embarrassing problem is that the Nazi did not come to power illegally. They were elected. Then, sure, the Enabling Act is considered to be a violation of the Constitution - today. At the time, the German Supreme Court judged it acceptable. And no country considered the actual German government as illegitimate.

You'd have to change this, and probably you'd have to have a German civil war.
 
To get that, you'd need the Nazi government to come to power through a coup or something like that. The current Kanzler and others manage to run away. They are then placed on a back burner for years - because the concept of governments in exile usually becomes useful only during a war.

The embarrassing problem is that the Nazi did not come to power illegally. They were elected. Then, sure, the Enabling Act is considered to be a violation of the Constitution - today. At the time, the German Supreme Court judged it acceptable. And no country considered the actual German government as illegitimate.

You'd have to change this, and probably you'd have to have a German civil war.
Yeah, the Nazis were theoretically operating within the framework of the Weimar democracy.

It would not have been inconceivable for the SPD and a host of other parties to set up a purported exile administration in France, Britain or the Low Countries; their claim to legitimacy could be the 'illegality' of the Enabling Act, or the very nature of the Berlin regime. It's just difficult to see it gaining any serious recognition, even when the war kicks off.
 
Their official title was The Alliance to Restore the Republic, and Mon Mothma was a leading senator in the Old Republic before Palpatine's putsch.

It still counts as a rebellion, although it also highlights the differences of legitimacy of the two predecessor states - a government lasting many tens of millennia will have much more legitimacy than a coup-wracked, economically distressed government that is barely a decade old.
 
I guess the difference between real history and Star Wars is nationalism- the Allies would doubtless look down upon and ignore any attempted government-in-exile because they'd think it's those damn Germans who can't control themselves from inflicting yet another great war upon the world. Whereas with the New Republic it's almost like they're saying "the Empire is tyrannous and evil, it has lost the mandate of heaven, it needs to be overthrown for the good of all."

I guess what I'm saying, is that all of those earlier posts saying that a German gov't-in-exile would lack legitimacy because Hitler rose through the democratic process is playing semantics. Palpatine arose through democratic means. Just because a dictator arises through the will of the people doesn't mean a fraction of the people can't attempt their own rival government. The only reason why the Allies wouldn't support said rival government is because of racism. The Rebel Alliance never had to deal with such prejudice.
 
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