Similar on a FAR smaller scale, which didn't fully break the power Hitler had, though it turned a lot more officers over to resistance as they thought Hitler was losing them the war.
No it didn't. Pretty much all of the officers involved in the Valkyrie Plot were against Hitler well before Stalingrad or even the more recent disasters.
while his removal of officers that failed, like Guderian and von Brauchitsch (or at least he could claim that with a straight face) enhanced his power and removed dissenting voices withing the military (later too von Bock and Halder).
And that will have already been the case IATL.
By late 1942-early 1943 Hitler's reputation had been enhanced by battlefield results and the officer corps winnowed of people that were turning on Hitler or at least could be scapegoated for failures or at least the failures to comply with his will.
And your forgetting that was already the case in by the turn of 1941/1942. Hitler already had a massive string of almost unbroken successes under his belt by then. The mystique was already firmly entrenched by the winter of '41-'42.
Its overly reductionist to simply state that. It was a far more complex situation and their loyalty was largely circumstantial. Of course the German officer class was corrupt as fuck and were being bribed in one way or another (some outright, others with the promise of getting promotions thanks to the expansion of the military, some ideologically aligned with Hitler). I don't really buy the honor argument, that really seems to be more of a post-war rationalization to cover up the bribes issue, going along with a perceived winner, so weird father related emotional issues that Hitler helped fulfill, and their own cowardice to actually act against him. If you buy Halder's talk of wanting to shoot Hitler, he wimped out in the end.
You say I'm reductionist for noting the motivation of their loyalty stemmed from a complex series of personal, structural, and ideological views and then you turn around and basically say "It was because they were bribed." Yeah, sure Virginia.
In the case of guys that Hitler fired and brought back, I think it was less an issue of serving Hitler and more one of personal pride of being called back to service, not having to maintain their forced retirements ment in disgrace, having the ability to continue their profession, and even something as base as getting paid again.
Or it was because they respected and were loyal to Hitler and a number of principles he stood for, as they said at the time. After the war, they denied it of course because admitting they actually admired and respected Hitler was no bueno in the post-WW2 environment.
In 1941 Hitler doesn't control OKH yet,
Actually, he does. The encirclement and destruction takes place in the course of January-March 1942, according to the OP. Hitler took control of OKH in December 1941 when he realized the Army wasn't obeying his standfast orders.
he doesn't have the 'stand fast' success on his side,
What he does still have are the successes of Kiev, the initial triumphs in Barbarossa, France and the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Poland, and Munich. This is still quite a formidable repertoire. Furthermore, he can easily dilute responsibility by noting that the army disobeyed his stand fast order at the start and had they obeyed him from the start, everything would have worked out.
AG-Center suffers probably at least 1 million casualties (worse than Bagration),
Actually about as bad, if we consider the totality of the 1944 Soviet Summer Offensive from June to August of which Bagration was merely one part.
1/3rd of the entire eastern army as a result of the stand fast order, victory is off the table, Hitler had ordered them into the eastern war that went so bad, Hitler probably turns on the army and hamhandedly goes nuts firing people, the public is going to turn on him and the war, while peace post-Hitler is still possible without the US in the war and the unconditional surrender proclamation.
Military's response to 1/3rd of the Eastern Army being wiped out in the summer of '44 was to continue backing Hitler, Victory being off the table was the case OTL yet the German military kept backing Hitler, military was complicit in the Eastern War as Hitler liked to remind them, public turned on him and the war OTL and it didn't change anything, US already entered the war in December, unconditional surrender pretty much is already Allied policy in all but name.
I don't think you're figuring the magnitude of the sort of defeat that OP is proposing here in to your views about
No, I'm perfectly aware of the magnitude of the defeat here. I just think you're unaware of what the
German military's response to such defeats actually was historically.
Hitler political and probably psychological stability here, the German military IOTL wouldn't have suffered a defeat in a single battle of that scale until 1945;
1944, actually.
Strawman. They didn't do that out of a sense of personal loyalty, they did it because supporting Hitler meant promotion opportunities, increasing military funding, often bribes for upper level officials, crack down on communists/leftists, national stability (even at the point of a bayonet) which tends to be a core conservative principle, and a musclar foreign policy, while the murder of SA thugs in the Night of Long Knives was actually what the army wanted and proved to them that Hitler was a guy that was willing to work with them against their enemies.
Reductionist. German officers loyalty to Hitler was based on a much more complex combination of delusion, fatalism, military discipline, and honour, not anything so simple as just simple personal gain and self-interest. Had that been the case, they positively would have flocked to the Valkyrie conspirators banner in the aftermath of Kursk, at the latest, out of a sense of self-preservation.
A defeat that wipes out 1/3rd of the army based on the orders of Hitler in a campaign that he ordered (officers have a tendency to forget their own complicity in though sorts of things; victory has a 1000 fathers, defeat is an orphan...or Hitler's baby in this situation)
German officers didn't forget their complicity until after 1945, which is the earliest they could forget. This was mainly because Hitler wouldn't let them forget and was quite effective in reminding them of their own complicity. Such will be the case IATL.
shatters the mystique of Hitler being right in a big way and his freak out and relatiation against the officer corps will be outsizes as he tried to blame them for his failures and likely provokes a backlash.
All this happened OTL, multiple times. Every time, the response of the military was to double down in their support of Hitler's demands for absolute obedience without exception.
Yeah the Nazi have no hope in hell at this point. They were tolerated because of the association with Hitler. I'm not so sure that the terms would be that different if a post-Nazi government is willing to make major concessions, because the Allies aren't really as confident of total victory at an acceptable price.
No, the terms will be the same. The entire ideological-political impetus for unconditional surrender was already there in 1942, even if it hadn't been given expression in a single coherent policy. Plus, the Allies quite succinctly remember, or believe they remember, that letting the Germans walk away with just major concessions led to the current mess in the first place and are determined to prevent a repeat. And why wouldn't the Allies be as confident of total victory at an acceptable price? The Soviets just murderized AGC, as you yourself have pointed out, dealing a defeat that Germany OTL wouldn't experience until 1944. If anything, the Allies are gonna be even surer of that then they were OTL 1942 or even OTL 1943. Hell, just the fact that the Germans are coming to them and begging for terms is gonna be more then enough indication.