Hitler Killed, SS goes East?

[MRig]

Had an idea last night for a possible butterfly in a Hitler-killed-before-WWII timeline, and I want your opinions about where it stands on the plausible vs. ASB continuum. Pick your favorite Hitler death scenario for the PoD.

There's a struggle for power within Germany, and for purposes of argument let's say that the SS and the Nazi hardliners don't win. The losers, including the SS, some of the Waffen-SS, and right-wing elements of the Heer, decide to continue Hitler's legacy separately. They invade Poland on their own and (attempt to) establish an Aryan state on the Baltic. I thought they might call it the "Teutonic Nation."

How do Germany's new rulers (I'm figuring the Junkers get control, but that's just one possibility) react? What does the Entente do? How does the USSR respond? And above all, is any of this plausible?

 

[carlton_bach]

I don't think iut's terribly plausible. This is still Germany, without Hitler even more so. I guess it is possible that a faction inside the government would drive for an invasion, but a bunch of latter-day Freikorps heading off to incvade Poland is quite improbable. The Wehrmacht would certainly put the kibosh on that idea.

The only way I could see it would be as ther price for leaving the winners in control. in that case, the SS units would move across the border 'at the request of the oppressed Volksdeutsche' and Berlin wash its hands off them. Given the relatively poor state of training and equipment of the SS, the Poles will likely cut them to pieces. I don't think they will then declare war on Germany, though (France and Britain are unlikely to go along).

Very improbable. I mean, Himmler's nuts, but he isn't that nuts.

 

[Typo]

The Waffan-SS was insignificant before half-way through WWII. The heer really didn't like Hitler before 1940. Nazi Germany before the war lacked the states within state necessary to sustain a modern invasion of a foreign nation before late in the war.

Poland is too stable of a country in 1939 to have semi-private militias invading it ala 1919.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

How capable was the Waffen-SS of operating without logistical support from the Army? From what I understand it had tactical units, but couldn't really sustain an operation on its own.

 

[carlton_bach]

How capable was the Waffen-SS of operating without logistical support from the Army? From what I understand it had tactical units, but couldn't really sustain an operation on its own.

From what I've read, in 1939 they were barely capable of operating properly with logistocal support from the Wehrmacht. They may hae liked to think of themselves as an elite formation, but they were really little more than a bunch of fanatical thugs in designer uniforms at that point.

 

[Magniac]

They invade Poland on their own and (attempt to) establish an Aryan state on the Baltic.

No.

The Waffen SS was a single division at the beginning of the war. Even if they were the size they became in '44/'45 in OTL there's the little problem of logistics, the air force, and a whole other bunch of stuff I haven't thought of still being part of the Wehrmacht's establishment.

You don't fight mechanised wars as a small band of filibusters.

 

[MRig]

I'm not entirely surprised by the consensus against this. Didn't know the Waffen-SS was so small at the start of the war. I had figured that, even if the Nazi filibusters manage to pull this off, the U.S.S.R. is going to come in and crush them.

I still think it's an idea with good narrative possibility, but as mentioned too difficult to fit into a plausible AH. Perhaps with a much earlier PoD...

Anyway, thanks to everyone for your input. One of my favorite things about this board is how effectively its members can debunk various myths of Nazi supremacy.