Goering succeeds Hitler in 1940

[Hnau]

After concluding the surrender of France on June 22, 1940, Adolf Hitler insisted on taking a secret tour of Paris on the 23rd to relish in his accomplishments. Albert Speer was designated to be his guide. They visited the Paris Opera, then took photos in front of the Eiffel Tower, and afterwards made their way to Les Invalides which contains the Tomb of Napoleon situated under a giant dome. A hundred German soldiers stood guard outside while Speer and Hitler toured the building. Speer reports that Hitler spent quite a bit of time in contemplation at the Tomb.

It is a little-known fact that the Dome of Les Invalides is actually larger on the outside than the inside. This is because there is an empty space between the exterior and the interior. At this particular moment in 1940, some of the French Resistance had taken to hiding in this little-known space and they rested there these morning hours while Hitler pondered by himself virtually unprotected. What if, improbably, someone had alerted these members of the French Resistance minutes before Hitler's entourage arrived, and they subsequently summoned their courage to kill the Fuhrer of Germany?

These handful of French freedom fighters surge out of a nook and with what weapons they have they manage to put three bullets in Hitler and another bullet in Albert Speer. Speer will require hospitalization and will suffer pains forever after, but Hitler dies of his mortal wounds. The Third Reich mourns the death of the Fuhrer.

I don't anticipate a huge, open power struggle at this point. World War Two had been very successful to this point, so there is no need to oppose current Nazi policies and make a bid for power. Of course, there will be jockeying for position in the aftermath of Hitler's death, but this will take place largely behind the scenes, out of the public eye. It won't take long until Hermann Goering, President of the Reichstag and head of the Luftwaffe takes command of the Third Reich. At this point in 1940, Goering hasn't yet been awarded the prestigious Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, and Hitler hasn't written a last testament to formally make Goering his successor, but nevertheless, Goering is the man most likely to rise to the position. He had yet to make notable failures in the Battle of Britain and retained a large amount of popularity among the German people. His most prominent rival was probably Heinrich Himmler and the Schutzstaffel, but they had cooperated before and I doubt Himmler had the means to engineer a coup at this point when there weren't many dissatisfied with current policies.

Hermann Goering would keep a close eye no doubt on the Luftwaffe, but it wouldn't be long after his ascendancy when it would go to another man. Ernst Udet and Hans Jeschonnek were likely replacements... in OTL both served short stints administrating the Luftwaffe in Goering's stead after he lost interest in it. Though he was at odds with both of them, I believe he'd appoint Jeschonnek in mid-1940 because Udet refused to believe that the Battle of Britain was possible. Udet will be more influential than in OTL, however, and with his realism and the lack of Hitler's overoptimism, all plans for Operation Sea Lion are scrapped. Instead the objective of the Battle of Britain is to create "the illusion of invasion" and to create mass panic. Jeschonnek persuades Goering to begin terror bombing of residential areas by late September, much sooner than in OTL and doesn't focus just on London. Udet's increased influence also brings about a sooner end to the Battle of Britain, with remaining aircraft being sent south to operations taking place in the Mediterranean. There are more civilian deaths in the Battle of Britain, but this only serves to increase the resolve of the United Kingdom to oppose the Axis.

Before we go any further, it should be mentioned that Hermann Goering had some interesting differences of opinion with Adolf Hitler. He had originally espoused a foreign policy that would have involved much less warfare. He wanted Germany's 1914 borders and their pre-1914 colonial possessions and a sphere of influence over Eastern Europe. This was much more limited than Hitler's idea of Lebensraum. Goering also wasn't as much of a radical anti-Semite as Himmler or Joseph Goebbels, he probably wouldn't have pushed for the Final Solution that happened in OTL. He was also very pessimistic that Germany could achieve victory against the Soviet Union and wanted more time to prepare before a war against Communism. By the time he becomes the Fuhrer of the Third Reich, Goering will decide that in mid-1941 he won't launch Operation Barbarossa. This opens up some interesting possibilities in the Mediterranean...

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This isn't going to be a long-term TL, just a short one. I always wanted to do an alternate timeline for the Second World War, even though it isn't my specialty. Any help, suggestions would be welcome.

 

[Paul V McNutt]

So there would not have been an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941?

 

[Nietzsche]

So there would not have been an invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941?

Just because he's not out for Lebensraum doesn't mean he wouldn't like to knock Russia down a couple hundred pegs. Having Russia(or atleast most of the European bit) in their sphere of dominance would do wonders for German economic & military capabilities.

 

[Theodoric]

Ernst Udet disliked Goering so much he committed suicide. While of course it may be different if he's no longer his direct superior when it comes to the Luftwaffe, it's not exactly an improvement from his perspective.

An important thing to consider is that, while Goering did have some 'mild' views on some areas, he wasn't really a proponent of Germanic nationalism as the other Nazis were, nor did he bother to try to keep some friends in the occupied territories to fight against communism, instead preferring to outright plunder when he was in charge of economic affairs. He considered that his right as a conqueror. He's not going to be nicer to the countries his forces have occupied.

 

[Hnau]

I'm not going to look too much at butterflies... I want direct effects from the POD. So, Greece and Yugoslavia are conquered in early 1941 just like OTL, with slightly more German aerial superiority. Crete falls to the Germans, too. However, after June 1941, things start to diverge. I think you've all heard variations of the basic plan. Troops are transported from Balkans to Northern Africa and Erwin Rommel is given the resources he needs to work his magic. There are still-futile attacks on Malta. Tobruq falls, followed by El Alamein. Alexandria falls in September, and Rommel takes Cairo and the Nile Delta soon afterward. British troops defend the Suez Canal valiantly, but there are too many men and resources being put into North Africa by now. It falls and Germans begin marching on Gaza.

Jews in Palestine under David Ben-Gurion are authorized to raise an army and they put up a valiant defense. However, Rommel manages to take Southern Palestine despite active partisan resistance. Meanwhile, Cyprus has been conquered by a force led by Erich von Manstein (who spent much of the latter half of 1940 and part of 1941 administering harsh justice in Paris against the French Resistance and Parisian Jews for Hitler's death) and this was followed up by landings in French Syria and Lebanon. Palestine is soon surrounded and the pocket is conquered before the end of 1941. The Jewish population is, as always, treated harshly and the local Arabs are treated very well. Goebbels utilizes the conquest of the Jewish homeland extensively in his propaganda machine. Arabic nationalist governments sympathetic to the Axis powers are quickly established in Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait and Iraq while diplomatic moves are taken to assure Saudi Arabia's support. All of this is accomplished before March 1942.

I feel we need to go back a little bit more. First, more about power struggles in Berlin.

There are initial power struggles between Goering and Himmler, yes, however, it slowly coalesces into an alliance to buy time for political maneuvering. Goering establishes an early ally with Goebbels, and later a secret one with Reinhard Heydrich. In mid-1941 Goering helps Heydrich organize an internal coup of the SS and has Himmler arrested and executed. Heydrich becomes the new head of the Schutzstaffel. Also in mid-1941, Fritz Todt gets on Goering's bad side and his portfolio as Minister of Armaments is given to Albert Speer, who has mostly recovered from the bullet he took in Paris and has been riding a wave of national popularity. Some may argue that Goering and Speer were enemies in OTL, but I believe that that animosity wasn't there until Speer started rising in Hitler's government when Goering began to lose power. In any case, Speer's management abilities are hard to not recognize and put to use.

There's also the issue of satiating the Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. Goering is more amenable than Hitler, but he is still very hesitant to give up territory to the Communists. While Molotov insists on the annexation of Finland and a military pact with Bulgaria, Goering concedes other points to satisfy the Soviet ally. By early 1941 when the Soviet Union formally joins the original Tripartite Pact, Hermann Goering has conceded to Stalin: maritime rights in the Baltic Sea, enlarged rights of exit at the Turkish Bosporus, some minor corrections of the Romanian border, continued commercial agreements.

The attack on Pearl Harbor occurs much like in OTL. Here, however, none of the Axis powers declare war on the United States because Japan was the aggressor. The Nazi-Soviet alliance holds firm... though the Nazis are concerned with increasing Soviet industrialization and militarization.

 

[Hnau]

Just because he's not out for Lebensraum doesn't mean he wouldn't like to knock Russia down a couple hundred pegs. Having Russia(or atleast most of the European bit) in their sphere of dominance would do wonders for German economic & military capabilities.

No doubt. If it was just Goering alone that didn't like the idea of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, it might still have happened. But I believe the Wehrmacht was mostly against it in 1941, and many wanted to see an end to the war with Britain before launching a war against the Soviets. The opinion of the Wehrmacht would count much more with Goering, since he has less control as Hitler in his first years and would depend on alliances other authority figures and, I think, has a less totalitarian personality. He'd be much more willing to listen. No one is ruling out an eventual attack of the USSR in Berlin, just delaying it. That could be very bad for the Nazis though, giving the Soviet Union additional time to prepare.

Ernst Udet disliked Goering so much he committed suicide. While of course it may be different if he's no longer his direct superior when it comes to the Luftwaffe, it's not exactly an improvement from his perspective.

I assume he'd still commit suicide around the same time as OTL.

An important thing to consider is that, while Goering did have some 'mild' views on some areas, he wasn't really a proponent of Germanic nationalism as the other Nazis were, nor did he bother to try to keep some friends in the occupied territories to fight against communism, instead preferring to outright plunder when he was in charge of economic affairs. He considered that his right as a conqueror. He's not going to be nicer to the countries his forces have occupied.

That is a good assessment of the man. It does seem he was partly responsible for pissing off the Slavs in occupied Soviet territory, who would have welcomed in the Nazis as liberators. I have a tough time, though, thinking that Goering wouldn't treat the Arabs with some form of respect during a hypothetical campaign in the Middle East. What do you think? Do you think he'd piss off the Arabs just as much as he did the Slavs in Barbarossa?

Hey guys, so I've been reading this thread and it suggests to me that perhaps the United States will declare war against Goering's Germany perhaps in March 1942 after some merchant ships are destroyed. They'll be planning on entry into the European War pretty soon after Pearl Harbor, I mean, the writing is on the wall. Initially I thought they would be too scared to enter the war without the Soviets on their side, but I guess they'll gamble on the fact that the USSR won't declare war on the US and could eventually be switched over. Perhaps there is less of a "Europe First" mentality, though, with this delayed declaration of war against the Third Reich? That could be interesting. You know, this whole scenario could provide Stalin's dream of all the capitalist countries fighting between each other and then the Soviet Union sweeping through what is left. Scary.

 

[SAVORYapple]

hmmm......I think that with HItler gone, maybe uneasy peace with GB. Churchill, I think, was more Anti-hitler than Anti-Germany.

 

[hugh lupus]

Interesting Nazi Germany gets all the 'good' parts of WW2 and none of the 'Bad' parts BUT Stalin is now in control of the Baltic states and half of Poland which means Germany has still got an expansionist oppourtunistic 'friend' next door cant see that ending well no matter who is in charge after the fall of France, war with the USSR is still a real possibility.
Germany is still at war with the U.K and still on the verge of bankruptcy
The momentum left by Hitler is going to take some stopping ,there is now a thourghly aroused world which will take some convincing to accept the status quo.
Possibly Herman is the man to do this... if he does nothing.. so no Battle of Britain to unify the British public No battles in the North African side show ALL efforts go on preserving achieved gains and defending them against threats external and internal. There will be plenty of those, Hitler ran a series of power empires in Germany not a unified command structure with clearly defined areas of responsibility
Goering may have just the personality to achieve this .narccististic, morbidly sentimental,, prone to fits of lethargy still highly intelligent and with a finely sharpened sense of self preservation.

 

[Perkeo]

By the time he becomes the Fuhrer of the Third Reich, Goering will decide that in mid-1941 he won't launch Operation Barbarossa. This opens up some interesting possibilities in the Mediterranean...

Including loosing WWII there instead of the Sowjet Union: The more territory the Germans conquer, the more they suffer from long supply lines. OTOH the British - unlike the Sowjets - have the same problem.

Just because he's not out for Lebensraum doesn't mean he wouldn't like to knock Russia down a couple hundred pegs. Having Russia(or atleast most of the European bit) in their sphere of dominance would do wonders for German economic & military capabilities.

On the other hand, just about anyone would make a more realistic assesment of the economic & military capabilities that are needed to knock Russia down a couple hundred pegs.

hmmm......I think that with HItler gone, maybe uneasy peace with GB. Churchill, I think, was more Anti-hitler than Anti-Germany.

But somehow I think Anti-Hitler also covers Anti-Goering. There is no regime change unless you get rid of the top 5 or so of the Nazis.

OTOH, the regime suffers from the loss of one of its key elements: The personal cult around Hitler. The obedience - especially of the military - is going to be al lot more conditional than IOTL. That means no immediate harm to Göring - his military references were a lot better than Hitler's - but it could well remove the support for silly adventures like Barbarossa.

As for the Battle of Britain, I expect no changes in favor of Germany. He will go for air superiority and fail like he did IOTL, and then he will try strategic bombing and demonstrate the OTL misconceptions about what strategic bombing can and cannot do.

 

[Hnau]

Concerning the Final Solution, I think it has a good chance of still happening. Goring is more of a moderate, but he wasn't a humanitarian, and Heydrich, one of its most important proponents, is at the head of the SS whereas in OTL he answered to Himmler up until his assassination. My guess is that the Wannsee Conference still takes place in some form in January 1942, but things aren't so dire as in OTL, so the resolution mostly concerns the deportations of French, German, and Czech Jews to French North Africa. I don't think Heydrich will take it all that seriously, and may nevertheless authorize a few mass killings, so throughout 1942 in respect to the Jewish question, it will be business as usual. There will be many deaths through forced labor and the Jewish population will be concentrated in ghettos and camps that will suffer from high mortality rates, but the formal systematic killing won't begin yet.

That is likely to change after the equivalent of Operation Torch which I expect will still happen in late 1942. The Axis will have their hands free to prepare for an invasion and react to it when it happens, with the Soviet Union still providing economic assistance. It will no doubt make it more difficult for the Allies to take French North Africa, but by the time 1943 rolls around, opinions will change concerning the Jewish question. The Nazis will recognize that they face a long war to defend their territorial gains, so it may be better for them to get rid of the Jews as soon as they can. Heydrich will no doubt have already planned most of the procedures. The extermination camps begin to open up.

So, the full-force extermination is delayed for a year, but, Goering, being less ideological, will no doubt be a little easier on the Jews. One time I think he said something like "I decide who is Jewish", in other words, there may be some important or rich Jewish figures, culturally German, who might be pardoned whereas in OTL they were not. It isn't likely that many will be saved in this by Goring's influence, but some will. Also, the Nazis won't have Soviet territory, so the Jews there will be safe. But... they do have Palestine, and they will want to make friends with the Arabs, so, the Jews there will be treated very badly. In fact, by the time Palestine falls to the Nazis in early 1942, they might treat them like the Soviet Jews in the Operation Barbarossa, beginning mass killings by bullet with the justification that every Jew is an anti-Axis partisan. It could get very ugly.

 

[Deckhand]

I'm not going to look too much at butterflies... I want direct effects from the POD. So, Greece and Yugoslavia are conquered in early 1941 just like OTL, with slightly more German aerial superiority. Crete falls to the Germans, too. However, after June 1941, things start to diverge. I think you've all heard variations of the basic plan. Troops are transported from Balkans to Northern Africa and Erwin Rommel is given the resources he needs to work his magic. There are still-futile attacks on Malta. Tobruq falls, followed by El Alamein. Alexandria falls in September, and Rommel takes Cairo and the Nile Delta soon afterward. British troops defend the Suez Canal valiantly, but there are too many men and resources being put into North Africa by now. It falls and Germans begin marching on Gaza.

Jews in Palestine under David Ben-Gurion are authorized to raise an army and they put up a valiant defense. However, Rommel manages to take Southern Palestine despite active partisan resistance. Meanwhile, Cyprus has been conquered by a force led by Erich von Manstein (who spent much of the latter half of 1940 and part of 1941 administering harsh justice in Paris against the French Resistance and Parisian Jews for Hitler's death) and this was followed up by landings in French Syria and Lebanon. Palestine is soon surrounded and the pocket is conquered before the end of 1941. The Jewish population is, as always, treated harshly and the local Arabs are treated very well. Goebbels utilizes the conquest of the Jewish homeland extensively in his propaganda machine. Arabic nationalist governments sympathetic to the Axis powers are quickly established in Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Kuwait and Iraq while diplomatic moves are taken to assure Saudi Arabia's support. All of this is accomplished before March 1942.

I feel we need to go back a little bit more. First, more about power struggles in Berlin.

There are initial power struggles between Goering and Himmler, yes, however, it slowly coalesces into an alliance to buy time for political maneuvering. Goering establishes an early ally with Goebbels, and later a secret one with Reinhard Heydrich. In mid-1941 Goering helps Heydrich organize an internal coup of the SS and has Himmler arrested and executed. Heydrich becomes the new head of the Schutzstaffel. Also in mid-1941, Fritz Todt gets on Goering's bad side and his portfolio as Minister of Armaments is given to Albert Speer, who has mostly recovered from the bullet he took in Paris and has been riding a wave of national popularity. Some may argue that Goering and Speer were enemies in OTL, but I believe that that animosity wasn't there until Speer started rising in Hitler's government when Goering began to lose power. In any case, Speer's management abilities are hard to not recognize and put to use.

There's also the issue of satiating the Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union. Goering is more amenable than Hitler, but he is still very hesitant to give up territory to the Communists. While Molotov insists on the annexation of Finland and a military pact with Bulgaria, Goering concedes other points to satisfy the Soviet ally. By early 1941 when the Soviet Union formally joins the original Tripartite Pact, Hermann Goering has conceded to Stalin: maritime rights in the Baltic Sea, enlarged rights of exit at the Turkish Bosporus, some minor corrections of the Romanian border, continued commercial agreements.

The attack on Pearl Harbor occurs much like in OTL. Here, however, none of the Axis powers declare war on the United States because Japan was the aggressor. The Nazi-Soviet alliance holds firm... though the Nazis are concerned with increasing Soviet industrialization and militarization.

Dead hitler does nothing to improve the Italian merchant marine, or the ports in Libya. Rommel's limiting factor was supply for the men he had, more just makes it worse. It will literally take "magic" for him to get to alexandria. You can pour a million germans into africa, and they just starve faster.

 

[Hnau]

Well you talk sense. I'm not about to rebutt you completely but one argument is that Goering would have had the Luftwaffe concentrated on the Mediterranea by early 1941. And supplies that would have gone to the eastern front will be pushed southwards however successful that would have been.

 

[iddt3]

This, admittedly though you can improve Rommel's supply situation mildly, and the major limiting factor is still infrastructure that belongs to an allied power. The UK also isn't passing away convoys and gear trying too supply the soviet Union. As the german economy starts running into issues without more plunder and slaves, invading Russia is probably going to look increasingly attractive.

 

[Athelstane]

Hello Deckhand:

1. Dead hitler does nothing to improve the Italian merchant marine, or the ports in Libya. Rommel's limiting factor was supply for the men he had, more just makes it worse. It will literally take "magic" for him to get to alexandria. You can pour a million germans into africa, and they just starve faster.

Exactly.

Logistics were the real achilles heel for Rommel. A lot of that was a simple product of geography.

Of course, had Germany replaced all or virtually all of the Italian formations with German ones, that could have helped - you're supporting the same number of troops, but they're maximized in terms of effectiveness. Would it be enough? It's a close call; some of those Italian units fought fairly well, too. And Mussolini would fight being completely sidelined.

If there is a bonus from Goering, theoretically, it is that he might commit more vigorously to air supremacy in the Central Med. That might be especially true if he holds off on Barbarossa. Ultimately, however, the only thing that would have really helped Rommel would be taking out Malta.

Otherwise, I agree with Perkeo: Goering almost certainly will not have the clout to ram through Barbarossa, at least not in 1941. If that's the case, Germany might push more resources into the Med, given that conquering either Britain or Russia is out of the question for the time being, and that would be bad news for Britain.

2. Churchill would not be any more likely to make peace with Goering than Hitler. OTOH, if the war went badly, it cannot be ruled out that other figures in the cabinet wouldn't be...a little more open to some kind of discussion.

3. Would Goering appoint Rommel in the first place? That's a fair question. Rommel owed most of his advancement to Hitler's favoritism for him. Rommel didn't have anything like that kind of relationship with Goering. It would be more likely that someone like von Paulus draws the assignment, as the army high command would prefer that.

 

[Arachnid]

As weird as it seems now Paulus was something of a golden buy but he wasn't anywhere near prominent enough in 1941 to be given Africa, which would be the only active Heer command.

 

[Wolfpaw]

Well you talk sense. I'm not about to rebutt you completely but one argument is that Goering would have had the Luftwaffe concentrated on the Mediterranea by early 1941. And supplies that would have gone to the eastern front will be pushed southwards however successful that would have been.

But remember that a lot of the stuff used by Germans on the Eastern Front was plundered from the SSRs, food especially.

The Balkans are going to remain a partisan mess, with the Ustashe turning Dalmatia into a charnel house and Greece simmering. The Axis would do better to abandon it's adventure in Africa and invade Turkey, trying for Kurdistan and the gut of Soviet oil. Hell, Iraq blew up during the War and were quite pro-Axis when it came to the Colonizers.

Will the Axis be able to pull it off? Probably not. But that has never stopped fascists from trying something.

 

[Deckhand]

Hello Deckhand:

And Mussolini would fight being completely sidelined.
.

You could say that. Actually he would probably tell the Germans to go f*** themselves. Italy was the senior fascist power after all.

 

[Hnau]

I still don't have a conclusive rebuttal to these arguments and the timeline is subject to change. But, continued Nazi-Soviet alliance means continued Soviet exports to the Reich. That has to amount to something.

 

[Theodoric]

That is a good assessment of the man. It does seem he was partly responsible for pissing off the Slavs in occupied Soviet territory, who would have welcomed in the Nazis as liberators. I have a tough time, though, thinking that Goering wouldn't treat the Arabs with some form of respect during a hypothetical campaign in the Middle East. What do you think? Do you think he'd piss off the Arabs just as much as he did the Slavs in Barbarossa?

If he gets direct native support (plenty of Arabs were not happy with colonial rulers), it's debatable. Still, he was the type to not compromise on the distribution of resources of areas under his influence. That's partially ego, partially his very traditional mindset.

 

[jmc247]

3. Would Goering appoint Rommel in the first place?

No he wouldn't have the two disliked each other quite alot which was pretty well known.