If Himmler tried to overthrow Hitler?

[hasdrubal barca]

This scenario is a bit ASB, but lets go with it anyway.

Say Himmler sometime in 1944-45 decides to try and overthrow Hitler.

Who could you see being part of a plot, by Himmler, against Hitler?

What would the reaction of the Waffen SS and Wehrmacht be to Himmler attempting to seize power?

 

[Tom Colton]

Unless my reading of politics at the time is wrong, the moderate factions would probably jump at the opportunity to string the creep up.

 

[LordKalvert]

Really don't see anyone joining such a plot least of all Himmler. By 1944, the game was up and everyone in Germany knew it. If Himmler somehow succeeded, the only result would be mass surrenders by the German army or the allies stop attacking and let the Germans fight their inevitable civil war

 

[Lalli]

I don't see why would Himmler would do that. And even he decide do that, he can get only support of SS. Wehrmacht hardly would accept Himmler as new führer. There would be soon civil war or new coup.

 

[hasdrubal barca]

I don't see why would Himmler would do that. And even he decide do that, he can get only support of SS. Wehrmacht hardly would accept Himmler as new führer. There would be soon civil war or new coup.

Himmler at the end of the war tried to bail and make peace with the Allies.

So lets say he gets the crazy idea in his head that if he deposes Hitler the Allies will magically make peace with him.

 

[LHB]

Unless my reading of politics at the time is wrong, the moderate factions would probably jump at the opportunity to string the creep up.

Assuming someone more ruthless within the SS doesn't beat them to the punch. Secret police officers have astonishingly short life expectancies in police states when the dictators protecting them are removed from office. Most of the Nazi leadership loathed Himmler much like how most of Stalin's Politburo felt about Beria and looking at how long the NKVD chief lasted post-Stalin I wouldn't give Himmler any better odds.

 

[hasdrubal barca]

I don't see why would Himmler would do that. And even he decide do that, he can get only support of SS. Wehrmacht hardly would accept Himmler as new führer. There would be soon civil war or new coup.

Shootout in the Reich chancellery between Hitlers bodyguards and the SS?

 

[GarrySam]

Considering the hierarchy of the Waffen SS absolutely hated Himmler , I'd say a Himmler coup against Hitler wouldn't even get out the front door.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

This is the man who, in his very own words, "was a slave looking for a master." I find it unlikely...

 

[hasdrubal barca]

This is the man who, in his very own words, "was a slave looking for a master." I find it unlikely...

Himmler as the leader of Valkyrie. Attempts to blow up Hitler and seize Berlin.


Basically this being actually true:

"In essence, the plan was to trick the Reserve Army into the seizure and removal of the civilian government of wartime Germany under the false pretense that the SS had attempted a coup d'État and assassinated Hitler. The key requirement was that the rank-and-file soldiers and junior officers who were supposed to execute this plan would be motivated to do so based upon their false belief that it was the Nazi civilian leadership who had behaved with disloyalty and treason against the state, and were therefore required to be removed. "

 

[AdmiralBlake]

asb.asb.asb.

 

[Realpolitik]

ASB. Himmler would quickly end up swallowing a bullet from somebody if he tried-there is no way that he'll be accepted by everybody as the new Fuhrer outside of the SS.

 

[Realpolitik]

Assuming someone more ruthless within the SS doesn't beat them to the punch. Secret police officers have astonishingly short life expectancies in police states when the dictators protecting them are removed from office. Most of the Nazi leadership loathed Himmler much like how most of Stalin's Politburo felt about Beria and looking at how long the NKVD chief lasted post-Stalin I wouldn't give Himmler any better odds.

Himmler was partially relieved when Heydrich died, you know. Heydrich could have probably beaten him in everything, and I don't put it beyond him to off Himmler if he could.

EXACTLY. Bormann faces similar problems in having great, GREAT power(I'd say stronger than anybody at a certain point), but it being utterly Hitler-dependent and in exchange for earning the loathing of the rest of the Nazi hierarchy. Though interestingly, Stalin had a position nebulously like Bormann in Lenin's last days*, and also had a similar MO and personality**. But that was a bureaucratic system that had time to develop without war post 1920, and Stalin could outmanuever his flashier rivals. Germany was also a different system, with different players.

There aren't enough WIs about Bormann. His influence on Hitler during the war was a national disaster, like Speer said.

** A rather boorish, crude bureaucrat that was dismissed and loathed by more cultured, charismatic ideologue rivals, and partially rose to power because he was underestimated. However, what they lacked in grace, they more than made up in bureaucratic intrigue and meticulousness.