This is, in my opinion, the most interesting timeline.
I’ve heard conflicting stories, but it seems that the percussion cap was faulty – the copper chloride did eat through the wire that released the spring, but the cap didn’t do it’s job. I imagine a scene where some *SNAP* gives Tresckow a fright as he’s about to place the cap, and he drops it. Unable it to find it in the dim light, he grabs another, not faulty cap.
Thirty minutes later: BOOM
The news is relayed to Olbricht in Berlin. Operation Valkyrie in its earlier, less effective form is launched immediately, and Fromm decides to join. Over the course of the evening of 13 March, the Reserve Army seizes control of Berlin, Munich and Vienna. Himmler and Göering have heard news of the assassination, and Göering, after having telephoned senior Nazi leaders, orders them to Berlin.
Olbricht brings in Beck immediately, and Beck, the former Commander-in-Chief of the Army, knows how to take charge. Arrest orders for senior Nazi leaders are issued. Phone calls to Canaris, Küchler, Kluge, Manstein (Beck’s protégé), Witzleben, Rommel, Guderian, and other important Generals confirm most of the senior army leadership is firmly behind Beck. The old General knows he must use this momentum to seize the situation before enemies can react. Göering is arrested upon arrival in Berlin, and other senior Nazi party officials are also captured.
In the Ukraine, the Battle of Kharkov is nearing its finale – Manstein manages to persuade General Hausser to side with the Army, and the Waffen SS threat is temporarily swayed. Kharkov falls the next day, and by March 23 the Eastern Front reaches the spring impasse.
Meanwhile, on March 14 a supreme military council is convened. At this time, not all Nazi leaders have been arrested, but they are scattered and disorganized. Thanks to Beck, and Canaris and his Abwehr in particular, the Reserve Army has taken control of the Wehrkreise, further hampering the Nazi leadership’s ability to react. Rundstedt is called to Berlin for the Supreme Military Council.
The Supreme Military Council is general agreement: the War is lost and the only objective now is to seek the most tolerable peace in the quickest amount of time, to try and preserve Germany and save Eastern Europe from Soviet domination. The council believes the Nazi leadership has become a liability, and must be neutralized. Beck is confirmed as head of provisional government, and is given a mandate to appoint a provisional cabinet with the goal of ending the war on both fronts. A general wartime strategy is also agreed – an immediate evacuation from North Africa, and the army is to assume a defensive posture on the Eastern Front. The meeting and discussions last for over 20 hours with numerous interruptions as Beck receives information and gives orders for further action against the Nazi leadership. Following these agreements, the council is adjourned and a radio address is given by Beck to the nation that evening on 15 March.
In the following days, Beck recruits Ribbentrop (with promises of clemency) to seek a ceasefire with Russia. Goerdeler becomes provisional chancellor. Von Neurath is tasked with seeking a truce with the Western Allies. By early April, a ceasefire is agreed upon on the Eastern Front (something George Kennan, among others, believed Stalin was readily prepared to accept at that point), and the Axis powers fall back to the 1941 line. This presents the Western powers with a fait accompli. The Luftwaffe redeploys from the East to the Mediterranean, defeating the Allied operation “Flax”, and the Axis forces evacuate from North Africa. Mussolini is sacked in Italy and the fascist party is outlawed. Churchill is positive at the outlook of peace. British debt-to-GDP has reached over 150%, and continuing the war could bankrupt the Empire. Prohibitive losses in air combat over Germany and Tunisia help convince the Americans that an armistice is worth exploring, especially once Neurath confirms that Germany is prepared to accept most of the Atlantic Charter save disarmament for the simple reason Eastern Europe must be protected. Both the British and Americans see a point in letting Germany retain at least air and ground forces to deter Russia.
The German terms are reasonable – in exchange for a guarantee that the Munich Agreement will be respected, possibility for negotiation on the Polish corridor, an agreement to accept responsibility for the war and a promise to pay an undefined amount of reparations, but a tacit acceptance that a sound Germany is necessary to protect Eastern Europe against Stalin, and that reparations should be reasonable enough that Germany can afford them and a substantial army at the same time. With these terms, an armistice is accepted and the Battle of the Atlantic and the Air War immediately end.
The German army and air-force reorganize, reducing the number of formations but brigning them up to full strength. The Germans place full emphasis on fighter production and drop construction of more ground attack aircraft and other expensive projects. Most of the Army (over 3 million men) is still in the East facing the Russians, feverishly constructing the most elaborate defensive line ever built. The rapid withdrawal from Russian territory prevents the Russians from relaunching the war as they must build up their own lines and shore up defences. By fall 1943 German defensive preparations are so advanced an attack would be slaughter, and the German airforce is rapidly recovering and preparing for a defensive war.
The peace is concluded near the end of 1943 and Germany agrees to “surrender” to the Western Allies – German forces are evacuated, a third of the army is demobilized, Germany commits to pay reparations, including substantial reparations to Poland in exchange for territorial concessions.
The events of 1943 are a definitive victory for National Conservatism. The monarchies of Southern and Eastern Europe are saved. Following the war, senior Nazi officials are tried and executed for the horrors of the Holocaust. The education system and universities of post-war Germany reject all forms of radicalism, painting national socialism and communism in the same light. Germany’s Christian heritage and its synthesis with German warrior culture and Roman and Greek civilization become understood as the pillars behind the ascendancy of the West.
Goerdeler, who is Chancellor, a free-market economist, together with Hjalmar Schacht, who becomes the Finance Minister abolish price controls in 1945-6 as the German economy continues to experience dire shortages and a crushing burden of military spending to maintain a large Army on the Memel-Odessa line.
Abolishing price controls ushers in a wirtsschaftwunder as German economy grows rapidly. While the Marshall Plan retards economic growth in Western Europe, by 1950-1, the massive contraction of the German economy after the end of war spending is now recovered.