Stauffenberg and Successful Barbarossa

As a monarchist, I view von Stauffenburg, like the majority of the German officers who sided with the Nazis, as traitors to their rightful sovereign. I can somewhat admire people like von Bock, Canaris, and Beck, who quit when the Nazis were very much winning and because they didn't like the warcrimes they were seeing, but Stauffenburg? He was an opportunist, and he was a traitor to his Kaiser, but not to Hitler, as that implies he owed any form of loyalty to Hitler.

As a student of this period your appraisal is quite thought provoking, especially as one considers the alternatives in time.

As to the July 20 Plot my opinion is that it was desperation and at least to some a necessary if hopeless act to show the Allies that Germans were not a monolithic enemy or Nazis, in that vein the "heroism" was the suicidal attempt and how it in hindsight served to exonerate the Wehrmacht and buy a better peace, or at least I feel it has been bootstrapped and made the myth. To the post-war era their treason is a bright spot of resistance shined to a high polish. In fairness it is not meant as insult but perhaps a more sober view of history and its complexity.
 
Everybody loves a winner. Most of the plots/plotters became serious as the war began to go badly. They might not have liked Hitler's "low class" actions, attitudes, but as long as they were winning it was tolerable.

More to the point, everybody in Germany loved Hitler because he was a winner. Not literally everybody, of course, but when Hitler delivered glorious victories, the German people were enthralled. By late 1941, Germany was riding an enormous winning streak. Several of those successes had been achieved on Hitler's initiative when others had all prophesied defeat. It was politically impossible to overthrow Hitler and the Nazis under those conditions.

Halder, the chief of the General Staff, wrote in 1939-1940 that nothing could be done against Hitler until Germany met with a major setback. That finally came with the defeat at Stalingrad, and the lesser (but still major) defeat in North Africa. So in March 1943, the Schwartz Kapelle made their first attempt to kill Hitler - Operation FLASH, the timebomb planted on Hitler's plane at Army Group Center HQ.

If BARBAROSSA had succeeded, there would be no Stalingrad defeat, and North Africa would be very different.

However, it seems highly unlikely that BARBAROSSA could succeed before Pearl Harbor, which means the U.S. in the war. Germany is going to start losing in about 12-18 months. By 1945, Germany will definitely be losing.

And there is one key change: when the Allies demand German unconditional surrender, it will not include surrender to the USSR. The Germans were fearful of what the US and UK might do (e.g. the Morgenthau plan), but they were terrified of the USSR. And the US/UK could be more willing to talk to the SK if they weren't worried about what Stalin would think.

So eventually, yes, the SK would have tried to assassinate Hitler.
 
If you think no, should we then view them as closer to opportunistic traitors rather than anti-Nazi heroes?

The Schwarze Kapelle were a very mixed lot. Some were profound idealists, some were rank opportunists, some were snobs. Some were patriots who had always thought Hitler and the Nazis were wrong; some were "patriot-opportunists" who decided that Hitler was wrong when Germany started losing.

Were they traitors to Germany? They were in an awkward position. OT1H, they opposed the Nazi regime because they thought it was bad for Germany, becoming very bad, and in some cases because they felt bound by higher moral concerns than patriotism. OTOH, if they opposed the regime (say by killing its leader) they were siding with enemies of Germany, who were killing German soldiers and bombing German cities every day, and who included the monster Stalin and his criminal regime.

They finally agreed that they could best serve Germany by getting rid of Hitler, but it was not an obvious choice.
 
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