Hitler ousted in 1938

[josephcaillaux1]

Chamberlain adopts a harder line regarding Sudetenland and the talks break down. Hitler decides to carry out the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and consequently gets overthrown and assassinated by the elements of the Wehrmacht involved in the Oster conspieacy. How do events proceed from here?
There is also the question how the plotters would sell this to the German populace & world. Obviously there is no other way other than blaming someone else like the SS for the coup, considering the high levels of support Hitler and Nazism had among the rest (vast majority) of the Wehrmacht and German people

And if they are successful, who is put in charge of the country? Obviously the army for the short term (or not) but long term? Could you see a civil war? While the Nazis have been ousted they are probably not replaced with anyone much better in the long term considering the broad support for antisemitic policies and Lebensraum

What happens with the rest of Europe? British and French response, Italy, Soviets, Poland and so on

 

[faddllz]

1. how ?
2. it can go worse, or it can go better :
a. a more moderate nazis take over, say göring or someone else
b. german civil war

 

[raharris1973]

So the Oster conspirators have a secret, real reason for the coup - they don't want to get into a war they will lose.

But they have a fake reason they tell the people - the SS killed the Fuhrer to seize power and wealth for themselves.

And the new leaders will continue to live with this double-talk and double-think- on the one hand not wanting to risk war with the great powers, on the other hand, posing as standing up against the great powers and for German national greatness?

How long can they keep up that high-wire act?

Without looting Czechoslovakia, they need to slow down both rearmaments and domestic spending and deal with unsustainable debt. How do they sell that to the public?
If somebody in the new junta gets the bright idea of solving it by conquering and looting a neighbor, do they get coup'ed next? Or do the German militaristic elites accept some years of austerity for themselves and the whole country?

Or, upon realizing the economic disaster, does the infighting over the bare cupboard lead to renewed agitation for democracy or socialism, or factional infighting over limited resources, leading to civil war and further destruction of the already limited resources?

 

[1962strat]

It should be pointed out that the Oster conspiracy planned a Hohenzollern restoration

 

[Mikestone8]

Chamberlain adopts a harder line regarding Sudetenland

He won't reject the demand outright, as he had privately conceded it as far back as March, but he might insist on a plebiscite.

 

[Tolkiene]

Apparently the plan was to arrest Hitler and then put him on trial. Yes, see, many conspirators had qualms about assassinating the head of state. The whole 'use a treasonous Party/SS coup as a pretext for the army to step in' plan came later during the war. We can't project the 1944 plans onto 1938. The 1938 September conspiracy wasn't the same as Valkyrie. However, Oster, being more radical than many of his colleagues, wanted to assassinate Hitler. Witzleben wasn't aware of this. Supposedly Oster and his pals Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz and Gisevius decided on this at a meeting on 20 September 1938 after Witzleben had left. Witzleben's support of the conspiracy was crucial since he was in command of the Berlin military district.

It's worth noting that it's still a matter of debate among historians how serious these plans were. For one, our main sources are the memoirs of Gisevius and Schacht, who aren't reliable. Furthermore, there doesn't seem to have been any concrete plans for what to do with influential Nazis in the government and military. The conspirators were largely motivated by fear of Hitler leading Germany into a ruinous war, not by opposition to the regime in totality, though they opposed certain aspects of the regime such as the SS due to the Blomberg-Fritisch affair and its military ambitions as well as corruption in the Party.

If you read Ulrich von Hassel's diaries for the 1938 - 1940 period, the idea that they could use Göring to establish a more 'moderate' regime was quite common in the conservative circles at the time. In 1940 Johannes Popitz, Prussia's minister of finance and a member of the conservative opposition, submitted a proposal for a new post-Hitler constitutional order that would've established a right-wing authoritarian government and preserved many Nazi institutions. If Gisevius is to be believed, Count Helldorf and Arthur Nebe, both dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, were involved too.

And Goerdeler, who was in contact with the British government in 1938 and trying to persuade them to take a tougher line, also demanded that the West be willing to give a new German government territorial concessions, including colonies.

 

[Resurgam]

And Goerdeler, who was in contact with the British government in 1938 and trying to persuade them to take a tougher line, also demanded that the West be willing to give a new German government territorial concessions, including colonies.

I would also add that this gentlemen's opinion on what was to come for the Jews of Europe was "it's terrible, but they kinda deserved it."

 

[Tolkiene]

I would also add that this gentlemen's opinion on what was to come for the Jews of Europe was "it's terrible, but they kinda deserved it."

Yep. Goerdeler was definitely an anti-Semite in the way many upper or upper middle class conservatives were in Germany. If you read his writings during the war, you find he's disgusted by the Nazis' murderous policies, but also subscribes to common anti-Jewish cliches.

He didn't think Jews could be German citizens, viewing them as a harmful, foreign presence, and wanted them to leave Germany and go to some random colony, with exceptions being made for certain categories, such as Jews who'd fought for Germany in WW1, which was again quite common in conservative circles. Popitz thought the same. Worth noting that at the time forced emigration (after disenfranchising and fleecing the Jews of all they'd owned) was still Nazi policy at the time, pursued by the SD/Gestapo.

After the November pogroms, Goerdeler's pal Constantin von Dietze, who advised him on economic matters, wrote a memorandum that basically says 'we should abolish the Nuremberg Laws because now there are too few Jews left to be a threat to us. But we shouldn't let them be German citizens. They should be treated as foreigners and leave.'

 

[Mikestone8]

After the November pogroms, Goerdeler's pal Constantin von Dietze, who advised him on economic matters, wrote a memorandum that basically says 'we should abolish the Nuremberg Laws because now there are too few Jews left to be a threat to us. But we shouldn't let them be German citizens. They should be treated as foreigners and leave.'

Istr that one upper-crust anti-Nazi said "What I really dislike about Hitler is that he has made it impossible for a gentleman to be an anti-semite"

Curious sense of priorities, but I suspect a widely-shared one.

 

[josephcaillaux1]

Resurrecting this thread. I recently found this article which contained a lot information that was initially hard to find https://winstonchurchill.org/public...ime-change-1938-did-chamberlain-miss-the-bus/

This passage in particular is interesting:

In the early morning hours of 28 September 1938, a fifty-man Stosstrupp, a commando raiding party, assembled at Army headquarters of the Berlin Military District, home to General Erwin von Witzleben’s Third Army Corps. Commanded by Captain Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz of the Abwehr (Military Intelligence) the group comprised young, hand-picked anti-Nazis, half of whom were serving officers. The men were issued automatic weapons, ammunition and hand grenades furnished by Lieutenant Colonel Helmuth Groscurth of the Abwehr, who had been ordered to do so by Abwehr chief Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.1

The Stosstrupp was to serve as an armed escort for General Witzleben when he went to the Chancellery to arrest Adolf Hitler the moment the Führer ordered an attack on Czechosolvakia. The plotters had every reason to believe this would occur later that day, since Hitler, meeting Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in Bad Godesberg on 22-23 September, had reneged on his previous agreement to accept a plebiscite in the Sudetenland, the German-speaking area of Czechoslovakia. Hitler now said the Czechs had until 2pm on the 28th to accept German occupation of the Sudetenland, with a plebiscite to be conducted later. Otherwise, Hitler vowed to “march into the Sudeten territory on October 1st with the German army.” Inasmuch as Hitler had promised the German General Staff that he would give them two days’ notice of his intent to invade, the Stosstrupp believed it would be swinging into action by mid-afternoon, after the 2pm deadline expired.2

Hitler’s Chancellery was surprisingly vulnerable, with only thirty-nine SS guards working three shifts. At most, fifteen men were on duty at any given time.3 Witzleben and the other plotters planned to take Hitler to a secure location where he would await trial for trying to take Germany into an unwanted war that senior military leaders, including Luftwaffe chief Herman Goering, opposed.4

Heinz and Lieutenant Colonel Hans Oster, the conspiracy’s mastermind and Abwehr second-in-command, had a different fate in mind for the dictator. Convinced that Hitler alive posed a continuing danger, they planned to have the raiding party open fire even if his SS guards offered no resistance, killing Hitler in the mêlée.5

Simultaneously, the Berlin police would arrest other top Nazis, while General Graf Walter von Brockdorf, commander of the 23rd Infantry Division in nearby Potsdam, would neutralize the SS in Berlin.6

 

[Fries]

Honestly, once Hitler is overthrown... what happens, really?

Nazi Germany probably still collapses under its own weight. If it doesn't go into full-blown civil war, it'll collapse economically and then probably politically, allowing the Wallies to scoop up the remains and probably the USSR to do some shenanigans in East Prussia. A pretty large portion of the population unironically supported Hitler and the old Nazi regime will still have the SS and significant portions of the Wehrmacht at its back. If the Wallies and USSR don't intervene then either a civil war, political struggle, or non-belligerent civil strife that's probably won by the remnants of the Nazis.

 

[RedSword12]

If it doesn't go into full-blown civil war, it'll collapse economically

The assumption that the German economy would've collapsed without going to war is a vast exaggeration. Would Germany have experienced an economic downturn without war? Sure. But economic collapse is unlikely.

 

[1962strat]

Honestly, once Hitler is overthrown... what happens, really?

The Oster conspiracy intended to install Wilhelm von Preußen, the grandson of Wilhelm II, as Kaiser.

 

[josephcaillaux1]

The Oster conspiracy intended to install Wilhelm von Preußen, the grandson of Wilhelm II, as Kaiser.

I've heard that before, but I can't find any sources on it. Wikipedia says something similar but the paragraph about it is uncited.

According to the article I linked, they were planning to install the president of the Reichsbank as the head of government.

 

[LordMartinax]

I've heard that before, but I can't find any sources on it. Wikipedia says something similar but the paragraph about it is uncited.

According to the article I linked, they were planning to install the president of the Reichsbank as the head of government.

From the book The Oster conspiracy of 1938, by Terry Passinen, page 132:

"While the 1938 conspirators were never as obsessed as later conspirators with the minutiae of hypothetical post-coup governments, they did endorse a revival of the monarchy under Prince Willhelm, the son of the crown prince, whom they respected as "a very upright, sincere and courageous soldier."

Later on that same page, contacts between members of the SPD and the conspirators are also mentioned, with the understanding being that in exchange for agreeing to the restoration, SPD would be allowed to engage in polliticall life. The conspirators were much less concrete in their polliticall goals then later groups, such as the Valkyrie group. One interesting thing in the book, most members didn't like Goerdeler. Halder for example only joined when informed that an interim government would be headed by Hjalmar Schacht, a much more respected politician and economiat.