Heil Himmler

setanta

Spring '43, the Fuhrer Adolf Hitler is dead. Himmler is his successor.

Some of the changes...
The Battle for Kursk is launched earlier, meeting with limited success, half of the Russians in the salient escape entrapment.

both sides fence but fail to punch through.

Himmler orders the mass production of Sarin gas....
Additionally he has stepped up the production and development of the V-1 and V-2, which he hopes to use to deliver the gas, to cities and to any attacking armada (D-Day).

Similar steps are taken for the east.

Possible?
What outcomes can you see?
 

Wyragen-TXRG4P

Banned
Me thought of a similar scenario, but with Himmler taking power earlier, spring 1941.
He mobilizes completely the German economy after the start of operation Barbarossa (8 days later than IOTL), keeps on the defensive in Lybia. Instead of concentrating first on Moscow and Leningard, his plan concentrates on the ukraine then the caucase (to deprive the red army of oil).
Then, the axis alliance moves toward Moscow, crench the city with chemical weapons to take it over quickly.
He threaten more chemical attacks on the Soviet-Union, which agree to an armistice, he expelle all Soviet citizens from occupied territories to burden the Soviet economy, then his forces moves through the caucase and the Balkanic allies to Turkey, from Turkey to Syria and Syria to Palestine and Suez, cutting off the British.
By the time Hitler can speak again, Egypt is under control. Armistice is signed with the west in 45, definitive peace treaty a few years later.
 
PhilKearny

PhilKearny

I think the Heer would have quickly killed Himmler because Himmler is so much more hated and feared by the Heer. Hitler had fans, Himmler did not.
 

backstab

Banned
PhilKearny said:
I think the Heer would have quickly killed Himmler because Himmler is so much more hated and feared by the Heer. Hitler had fans, Himmler did not.
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Spot on .... a lot of the high ranking Waffen SS Officers hated his guts. Sepp Deitrich , Paul Hauser and Felix Steiner would have never supported Himmlers attempt at seizing power and without the support of these three Himmler would have been left with concentration camp guards to fight with ..... epic fail.
 

The Red

There's only going to be one winner of a chemical war in 1943 and that's the allies. They have an effective bomber force which could decimate German cities with Anthrax compared to the feeble German ability to bomb Britain. And even if the V1's or V2's could carry gas (which they can't) they've still got a year of production to come.
 

setanta

Okay with Hitler dead in spring 43, who DOES take over?
I always assumed/heard that Himmler was the heir apparent.

I couldnt see it would be a difficult problem to overcome to have a V-1 deliver aerosol Sarin. Maybe, warn the allies, "Do not attempt to invade or we will gas your troops, we will not, as honourable soldiers of the 3rd Reigh, gas your cities."

As for the east, there would be less constraints on its use.
I'd advise focusing on Moscow till its taken. No diversion to the Caucasus.

Does Germany have the naval resources to launch and support an attack/invasion of the Suez canal area? The new Fuehrer may like using paratroopers again.
Make a deal, promise anything really to Franco to get him in on the Axis side, or at least take Gibraltar and seal the Med.

The same goes for Turkey

Would the most likely successor roll back on the Final Solution?
 

Tolkiene

Göring was heir apparent. During his speech to the Reichstag on 1 September, 1939 Hitler officially declared Göring to be his successor.

Of course, Göring lost most of his prestige after Stalingrad, though other factions might have still used him as a figurehead.
 

backstab

Banned
If Goering is named as Hitler's successor (Which I think he was) then I doubt that Himmler would have the support of the Waffen SS.
 

Urban fox

It should be said that Goring would have a lot of support from the German people, he was popular. And despite all his failings and drug-fualed hedonism Goring was still a major political figure in his own right and is thus the most likely of the Nazi bigwigs to have support from the army, and German people at large. In addition to his ‘’legal‘’ right of succession to Hitler.

Also through he was an embarrassing failure as airforce chief he was still a ace fighter pilot during WW1 and that counts for a lot when the other major Nazi leaders mostly hadn’t ever fired a shot in anger.

Himmler could never take charge for long, he was too wacky and eveyone else hated/feared him. The other Nazi leaders have too many drawbacks or enemies to make the leadership transfer from Hitler to them smooth. Goring as leader would the logical compromise. His degree of power depends when he takes over, and if he can kick his drug habit, lose weight and generally clean up his act a little, as he did OTL during the Nuremberg Trials.

Having said all that Himmler could take over but he woldnt last long particularly since the war is turning sour by 1942 -3 and he was a miserable coward who cracked under the strain of command, a about a week after Hitler put him in charge of an army group. So can any of you really imagine Himmler in charge of the war effort and dealing with the pressures Hitler faced daily and keeping the more of the nation/army up and keeping the generals under his thumb?

Nah me neither…
 

Glass Onion

Just a quick question, if you somehow kill Hitler and Goering more or less simultaneously what happens? I know Goering was the designated successor, but I'm not entirely sure what the line of succession was beyond him. I admit it isn't a very likely situation, but its all I can think of to produce a rather short lived Himmler led Germany.
 
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Wolfpaw

Banned
Glass Onion said:
Just a quick question, if you somehow kill Hitler and Goering more or less simultaneously what happens? I know Goering was the designated successor, but I'm not entirely sure what the line of succession was beyond him. I admit it isn't a very likely situation, but its all I can think of to produce a rather short lived Himmler led Germany.
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If Goering and Hitler both died more or less simultaneously, you'd have the Chief of the General Staff or some other Heer officer take control immediately; Himmler would be killed ASAP.

That being said, I think Himmler actually has a very good chance of becoming Fuehrer after the war is over and Hitler kicks the bucket.
 

JjeeporCreepor

Yeah, in that sort of "post-Nazis-win" scenario, I definitely think that Himmler was not to be underestimated. I mean, a lot of AH writers seem to write him off as some sort of nerdy chicken-farming boob, but I think that the OTL evidence suggests that he was a lot more ambitious, and a lot more adept at political back-stabbing than a lot of people seem to think. Even if his brief tenure in charge of Army Group Vistula suggests that he would be less-than-competent (putting it mildly!) were he actually to achieve a position of Supreme Power, I don't think it's out of the question that he would have the necessary drive and cunning to achieve that Supreme Power, even if he subsequently proved to be crap at actually wielding it.

So, in my own "Nazis win" scenarios, I always tend to imagine that Hitler dies mid-50s-ish (bearing in mind his fairly obvious OTL health problems), and is then succeeded as per the agreed line-of-succession by Goering (who may or may not be a useless prescription-drug-addict by this point), who is quickly supplanted by the far-more-grasping-and-ambitious-than-people-often-think Himmler. Who tries to institute some sort of nutty Nazi-fundamentalist Kulturkampf/Cultural Revolution, which results in sociopolitical chaos and a lot of otherwise-blameless people getting sacrificed to Wotan, before slightly more level-headed (by Nazi standards!) people like Goebbels and Heydrich (assuming he survived ITTL) conspire to "Beria" Himmler and set up some sort of relatively moderate Nazi regime headed by Albert Speer or somebody, which eventually goes under in the late-60s, early-70s and leaves Europe in a right mess...

Or at least that's the version I've always assumed... :D
 

Wyragen-TXRG4P

Banned
Glass Onion said:
Just a quick question, if you somehow kill Hitler and Goering more or less simultaneously what happens? I know Goering was the designated successor, but I'm not entirely sure what the line of succession was beyond him. I admit it isn't a very likely situation, but its all I can think of to produce a rather short lived Himmler led Germany.
Click to expand...


According to the valkyrie fanboys, there was this big-ass secret conspiracy within the the German military as early as 38, which could have seized power and was ready to restablish free elections and all.

Let us imagine there is some general that does attempt to overthrow Hitler soon after Stalingrad.
Instead, his conspiracy fails even more miserably than the 20th of July 44 one, he and his co-conspirators gets strung on piano wires (or meat hooks). Hovewer, Hitler and Goering are out of the picture, at least partially.
 

tez

Neither the Göring (in the 40s) nor Himmler (ever) had Hitler's charisma and standing in the population, and from reading Longerich's biography of Himmler he doesn't really strike me as someone who could serve successfully at the very top, more of a follower than a leader, totally reliant on Hitler to keep his position. Plus he's even more prone to go off on bizarre tangents of whimsy than Hitler. If you take Hitler out of the equation post-Stalingrad I too think there would be a major internal struggle.
 

tez

Wyragen-TXRG4P said:
According to the valkyrie fanboys, there was this big-ass secret conspiracy within the the German military as early as 38, which could have seized power and was ready to restablish free elections and all.

Let us imagine there is some general that does attempt to overthrow Hitler soon after Stalingrad.
Instead, his conspiracy fails even more miserably than the 20th of July 44 one, he and his co-conspirators gets strung on piano wires (or meat hooks). Hovewer, Hitler and Goering are out of the picture, at least partially.
Click to expand...

Well there was no bigass secret conspiracy but there were a lot of people in the military who considered overthrowing Hitler over Czechoslovakia. He replaced a lot of these guys with puppets, but as the early successes were replaced by setbacks a putsch got likelier again later in the war.
 
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