betgo

If the military coup had worked and the conspirators took control of the German government. Would they have continued the war? How effectively? Would they have made peace with the Allies or a separate peace with the western Allies? Would the Allies have negotiated with them?

gregorian

The plan was to make peace with the Allies, so that they could fight the Russians.
I think peace with the Russians was long off the table. Too much hate. And the Soviet Union was winning and getting it's revenge. No reason to stop.

Would the Western Allies accepted a deal? After the war, captured German generals seemed surprised at how much the West was against Germany. I think there was a bit of wishful self delusion going on. In March 1944 Himmler tried to open up secret negotiation with the USA, which the Americans and British refused to seriously entertain. So, no.

sylla1

The Allies were working under the Unconditional Surrender principle of Casablanca; they would have never negotiated with any German government.

IMHO even with Hitler dead the chances of political success of the conspiracy were minimal at best; the other Nazi (under let say Göring or Himmler) would have quite likely crushed them in more or less the same way Hitler historically did.

gregorian

Indeed after the failed July 20 attempt, the Gestapo rounded up and shot over 3000 people. The Establishment was not so fragile as to crumble under it's leader's death.

Himmler though? He was weird and having escape fantasies by this time. Some very strange decisions might have come out of him taking charge.

Mephistopheles

How about if Hitler had been killed by Johann Elser's assassination attempt on 08 November 1939? Hitler missed being blown up by 13 minutes. I find that to be a more interesting counterfactual.

AlpinLuke

Absolutely.

Even if Germany was on the edge of its maximum power in that moment. The momentum was all on the side of the nationalists [Nazis and friends] and the Germans felt it was time to conquer again the place of Germany in history.

The question is: without such a leader, would have Nazi leadership "moderated" the pace of the war?

The invasion of France was still to come ...

amberroberts09

After all the things war have had to happen so I it may continues...

Ancientgeezer

Operation Overlord commenced on 6 June 1944, the Bomb exploded under the map table on 20 July, in that six weeks the Allied beachead was well established and the assault on Caen had already started and the us 5th Army had entered Rome.

It's fun to speculate---- had the July Plot suceeded and Germany surrendered in mid 1944, a lot of lives and damage would have been saved. Both the Axis and the Western Allies suffered the hghest propotion of their casualties betweeen D-Day and May 1945. (See graph). The period also saw the heaviest bombing of Germany by the RAF/USAAF--of the 1.6 million tons dropped, 1 million were dropped in the period, reducing Germany to rubble. Most of the Jews were bumped off in that period too.
Despite the "unconditional surrender" pledge, Churchill and Stalin would both have been happy to have negotiated an alternative if the opportunity had arisen provided that a WW1 situation of "we were not beaten, but just stabbed in the back" didn't arise again. Churchill especially would have been keen on the Russians stopping at the Polish border.
To get a deal the Allies would probably have had to deal with a military, but non-nazi government some of whom would have been unpalatable and a lower level of occupation and less than total disarmament. The Western Allies actions, had the Germans just withdrawn from France, Italy, the Balkans and Scandinavia, but carried on fighting Russia is good material for a discussion.

AlpinLuke

You're quite right. I was making reference to the further hypothesis that Hitler had killed in 1939. That had more probabilities to change something ...

Tairusiano

The western allies would not have accepted the peace a interesting fact Hitler hitler helped the Allies, in some ways
he thought he was a military genius now a thinking with Hitler death the defence of germany could have fallen into the hands of someone more capable perhaps the war would have lasted longer with more deaths, and
maybe even a nuke being droped in a german city (but the end was inevitable maybe with a death toll much greater)



Very interesting Hitler death in 1939 no war maybe, a great number of variables open in this scenario, and opens space for guys like Reinhard Heydrich too