Operation: Valkyrie

One must assume that order is restored after Valykrie under a leader with some sense.
Instead of surrendering, Rommell decides do withdraw the Western armies from most of France to this line. My pictures don't work on my computer. The line is the Iyselmeer to the Maas to the Vosges. The lines are shortened and the allies have much longer supply lines.
I would witdraw all troops in Italy to the Po, and occupation forces in Yugoslavia toward Trieste-Zagreb. I would let Horthy withdraw from the war and withdraw from most of Hungary, with a possible Balaton-Buda-Bratislava line. I would also withdraw the forces from Scandinavia as soon as posible.
With these withdrawals many more troops would be available for the Russian front. When the Warsaw Rising takes place, I would order the troops to stand down and gradually withdraw from in front of the Armija Kraiova, occupying only Pommern to Ost Preussen. Reminding the AK of Katyn, I hope that the Red Army would find some unrest.
With the Red Army facing much stronger opositon and dealing with restive Poles, I would hope that they would make a separate peace.
Failing that, I would gradualy withdraw the armies in the West to Lubeck, Berlin and points east. Then I would surrender. At this time the Russians would still be somewhere near Posen.

In this context you're looking at a completely different war, and the Soviets have a completely different set of options. They may well annihilate the entire set of German forces in the East during the period of command disarray and morale collapse facing their central army. They'll find the concept of dealing with the Poles later an easier one, and the democracies are going to have logistical reality set in no matter what happens in the East, they won't reach Berlin before winter, by which point the Soviets are going to be very much closer to it than IOTL.

The Poles for their part may think if they wait until after the war's over the Soviets won't resort back to what they were doing 1939-41 from a misguided view of what Stalin was going to do in victory and a mixture of opportunism, and then reality ensues.
 
There would have been short term chaos in Berlin, but that is all that is likely to have occured before Guderian cleaned house.

Now if you change the scenario even more that Rommel's car doesn't get strafed three days before Valkyrie things get even more interesting. Its true what BlairWitch says that he had a low opinion of the plotters and they him. But, he, Speidel, and von Kluge had their own plans by that point to surrender German forces in France to end the war sooner while seeing Anglo-Americans troops take Germany not the Red Army.

Their big fear was that they would give the order, Hitler would declare them traitors and reverse the order and most of the divisions in France would side with Hitler. Short term chaos in Berlin from Hitler's death served Kluge, Rommel and Speidel's purposes as there would be no contravening order from Berlin and the short term heavy demoralization of news of Hitler's death could have gotten even most of Waffen SS troops to go along with surrendering in France.

Now that would change alot as Guderian by the time he takes over would be handed a situation where the Western Allies have a straight shot to Berlin unless he moves forces from the Russian front to fight the Western Allies. My guess is that he shuts down the death camps, kills the top level of the SS and portays himself to the English and Americans as helping to save Germany from the evil SS while keeping the Soviet's out of central Europe.

The death of Hitler and the mass surrender of German forces in France would have a big demoralizing effect in troops in the East though. However, at that stage of the game they were fighting for their own lives and to try to avoid what they knew would be Soviet troops out of revenge and for kicks raping their wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, etc. The idea that if they hold on for somewhat longer the Americans and British would keep that from happening by occupying all of Germany first might keep morale from totally breaking.

Snake is right that Hitler's death (now with the added addition of a mass German surrender in France) would cause Stalin to alter his focus and place everything on getting to Berlin before the Western Allies. But, with Anglo-American forces moving unopposed I think the war offically ends some time in the late summer or early fall of 1944 with Guderian announcing the unconditional surrender of Germany only after the Western Allies have occupied as much of central Europe as they could. Russia would get occupation zones in Germany, but it would be different then OTL and the zones would likely be surrounded by American, French and British zones.

The worst months of the Final Solution end up being avoided and the democracies end up in a better position in Europe when the Cold War starts then actually happened. The Pacific is a different matter and the Soviet's likely would end up doing better there. Stalin would move forces there quickly. Does Japan surrender after the Soviet's declare war? If they don't they end up split as Germany was OTL with the Soviet's taking one part of the country and the Americans the other in a bloody invasion likely at or before the Spring of 1945. Communism ends up stronger in Asia and weaker in Europe then OTL.

Logistics will still cut into the WAllies in the West ITTL, German resistance or no resistance. The factors that limited it didn't happen against effective resistance IOTL, so that won't change ITTL. By comparison the Soviets have the relatively simpler logistics of barreling to Berlin overland from a much shorter set of jumping-off points.

Mind, just because the Soviet situation is easier doesn't mean they will have an easier time advancing, but the reality for the WAllies is that even with Marseilles they don't have the logistical steam to reach Berlin in 1944. Especially as prone to ammunition guzzling as they were.
 
That's assuming Rommel and Kluge had the balls to go through with it in the first place; and given their ultimate non support (at best indifference) to the plotters and both men's repeated failures to act on the thought of doing so at any point (when both had been discussing various versions of turning on the nazis since 1942) I would see that as unlikely

I would doubt Beck would even get to make his otl radio broadcast in the event of Hitler dying; Guderian had aids at Rastenberg, and not only that, as highest ranking guy floating around Zossen at that moment he would (and probably was) the first in the area to know what happened which means he would be mobilizing the panzer forces to march into berlin to hold order; when the Valkyrie order starts coming from Olbricht, Guderian will have his first round of targets, and knowing Olbricht's associations Guderian will now have a hit list to give to his panzer troopers to start sweeping berlin. The home army's command post would be lost in about 10 minutes once the first 88mm shell hits the building; the radio and telegraph stations would blaze with orders denouncing the traiters and Guderian would order his loyal people to execute any traitors; Leo taking care of the guys in the west and dietrich being recalled to take care of any trouble makers in the east... the panzer troopers would be ordered to storm the karinhall and himmler's quarters and would dispatch them and anyone around them with sub machine guns as Guderian would denounce them as traitors as well

order restored in 48 hours

48 hours? Now that would be lightening fast for a countercoup. I am not going to even begin to say I could guess how fast events proceed in Berlin in this situation. But, for the sake of argument lets say you are right and Guderian pulls it off that extremely fast and no order for surrender in the West had been immediately given. Kluge will back out of acting, his famous quote "Well – if the pig were dead" shows that he would have to think order isn't about to be quickly restored in Berlin for him to act. Rommel's next move given his personality would then likely be to attempt to talk about the war effort and reason with the new leader.

At that point Rommel was very clear that the Soviet's need to be held off as long as possible and even said to his family a month before he was forced to commit suicide that if ordered to he would fight on the Eastern Front because of what would happen to Germany if the Red Army takes it over before the Western Allies.

Rommel would tell Guderian that if Germany is taken by the Soviet's that they both know what would happen and Guderian would be lucky if Stalin just had a bullet put in his head and didn't have him tortured until he begged to die. Rommel would tell him that he is willing to fight with everything he has to see the Soviet's don't take Germany.

He would also tell him that he dealt with the Americans and British for years that they aren't anything like the Soviet's. That they pride themselves on being nice and understanding. That if he opens the gates for them in France that Germany and its new leadership will be well treated and are likely to retain many of the current political and military leaders when they reform the German government after the country is occupied. Rommel would then either be sent back with his troops in France or be put against the wall depending on if Guderian agrees with him or disagrees with him.
 
Last edited:
One idea I've been thinking about reading this thread is what if Rommel and Guderian had had the opposite assignments in 1944, Guderian in charge of combatting the invasion and Rommel with the Potsdam gig. What would the dynamics in that instance have been if Hitler was killed?
 
Top