Author Topic: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful  (Read 6877 times)

Offline GTX_Admin

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20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« on: September 29, 2013, 05:29:50 AM »
A new scenario that I have been toying with as a way to get some different markings happening:  What if the 20th July 1944 bomb plot to kill Hitler was successful?

One theory apparently argued by some historians is that the plot would have still have failed in relatively the same fashion, but with Hermann Göring taking Hitler's place. A Nazi State under Göring would supposedly have been more receptive to peace with the allies and might also have "cleaned house" of several fanatical Nazis, including many senior SS and Nazi Party leaders.

Either way, I am using this as a turning point whereby the Germans (either under Göring or Generaloberst Ludwig Beck/Carl Friedrich Goerdeler) remove Hitler but then only make peace with the Western Allies.  The SS is reincorporated into the Wehrmacht.  The fight still goes on against the USSR but now possibly with Western involvement.

What thoughts/variations/inputs do you have?
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Offline Volkodav

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #1 on: September 29, 2013, 09:52:52 AM »
 ;D Yes!

Offline elmayerle

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #2 on: September 29, 2013, 12:35:10 PM »
Yes, that would be a lot better outcome than what occurs in Robert Conroy's Himmler's War though it does end with the Soviets much pruned back.  At least one of his other novels has the Soviets trying to force their way over all of Europe and having nukes used tactically on their headquarters.

As a side note, I can recommend highly any of this writer's novels; I've found them all to be excellent reads since his first one, 1901'/i], came out 15 years ago.

Offline Old Wombat

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #3 on: September 29, 2013, 10:16:51 PM »
My thinking, in a nut shell, is that a successful assassination of Hitler would have seen an end to the Nazi party in Germany, although not necessarily immediately or peacefully, but I doubt that it would have led to an East-West war. The USSR was an ally & considerable propaganda had been expended to make it "acceptable" as such. A byproduct of this was that "Uncle Joe" was quite popular in many Western nations at the time, even the USA, &, especially, Britain.

Furthermore, by this stage many allies were becoming exhausted by the costs, in both manpower & materiel, of the war. Australia, for example, at about this time was beginning to pull soldiers out of the war to return home to increase manufacturing & primary production because the cost to the country had become so great that it was struggling to maintain its war-bound exports & supplies to its own population. By late-1944 Australian civil rationing was even tighter than British rationing & the country's ability to supply its own troops & allies in South East Asia & the Pacific was falling off. Britain, too, was feeling the pinch, as it had lost large numbers of its fighting-age men even before the USA entered the fight. While the USA was still reeling (psychologically) from the massive losses it sustained on D-Day.

Turning around to fight the USSR at this time would be, I think, a physical & psychological impossibility unless as a war of defence, rather than offence. By this I mean if the Western allies moved forward unopposed to the eastern borders of Germany (proper) & were subsequently attacked by the USSR trying to "take its share", then there may have been sufficient support for a continuation of the war against this "new" aggressor.

:)

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Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2013, 02:10:10 AM »
quite possibly, though apparently in many parts of Europe the USSR was still seen as the greater threat, hence why as late as '44 you were still witnessing some volunteers to the Waffen SS (and not just extremists either).  I do agree though that some sort of action on the USSR's part would have been required as a trigger.

Either way, the purpose of this scenario is really just to provide an excuse for different markings on some platforms... ;)
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Offline perttime

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2013, 03:15:38 AM »
if the Western allies moved forward unopposed to the eastern borders of Germany (proper) & were subsequently attacked by the USSR trying to "take its share",
Unless the war in the west ends WITHOUT a total occupation of Germany.
... Then you could have the continued war between Germany and the Soviets. With others possibly joining?

Thinking closer to my home, things might have looked different on the Finnish front too. But which way? Would the "fall of Germany" have got Finland looking for cease-fire and peace even more eagerly, or would the possibility of Western support for fighting the Soviets have kept the fight going?

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2013, 04:08:39 AM »
Thinking closer to my home, things might have looked different on the Finnish front too. But which way? Would the "fall of Germany" have got Finland looking for cease-fire and peace even more eagerly, or would the possibility of Western support for fighting the Soviets have kept the fight going?

Interesting - not really sure.
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Offline Old Wombat

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #7 on: October 02, 2013, 11:24:11 PM »
if the Western allies moved forward unopposed to the eastern borders of Germany (proper) & were subsequently attacked by the USSR trying to "take its share",
Unless the war in the west ends WITHOUT a total occupation of Germany.
... Then you could have the continued war between Germany and the Soviets. With others possibly joining?

Thinking closer to my home, things might have looked different on the Finnish front too. But which way? Would the "fall of Germany" have got Finland looking for cease-fire and peace even more eagerly, or would the possibility of Western support for fighting the Soviets have kept the fight going?

This scenario could possibly see veterans from the Allied armies & many from the "free" forces (Czech, Polish, etc.) volunteering for service with non-Nazi German forces as mercenaries of one form or another (anti-communist un(/low)-paid volunteers or guns-for-hire) & the Germans possibly creating their own "Foreign Legion". Weapons, vehicles, armour & aircraft would be a mix of ex-Wehrmacht & Allied equipment.

For the Finns, some of these units may have been sent there to support for their resistance to the Soviets.

Now this could see some interesting markings & some pretty unique platforms, too!

:)

Guy
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Offline Diamondback

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #8 on: October 03, 2013, 03:09:13 AM »
I'm remembering a pair of novels where this timeline played out... really, I think Fox on the Rhine and Fox at the Front would be the best-case scenario: Rommel lives, gets unleashed to Play D His Way, sees he can't win and spearheads a German uprising against the Nazis, basically opening up a German Civil War. Patton and Rommel end up teaming up against Zhukov and Konev...

Offline jcf

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2013, 01:01:15 PM »
The most likely victor of the chaos following a successful assassination of Hitler would be the SS.
The conspirators in the Wehrmacht and the civil bureaucracies were too small in number to
gain control quickly. The SS had been building a State within a State since the late 1930s and had
their own parallel bureaucracy serving all the functions of old line pre-nazi governmental organization.
With Hitler dead they would have moved swiftly against the Wehrmacht, the civil bureaucrats and the Party.
They probably would have almost completely in control by that point in 1944 anyhow if Heydrich hadn't
been killed, his death delayed a process of take-over that he and his young technocrats had been
assiduously working towards. His death also strengthened the positions if the Party Old Guard
and Gauleiters against his young professionals who had openly opposed the 'wasteful' deportations
and exterminations in occupied lands. Along with the general corruption and and simple stupidity of
most of the Party faithful who were made Gauleiters and assigned control of the various occupied zones,
no matter how badly those idiots screwed up Der Fuhrer always backed his old comrades.
These young SS technocrats saw it all as a terrible waste of labor resources, to these guys spending
money for transportation and extermination was pointlessly wasteful when one could just work them to death.
 :-X
Heydrich's death meant that many of the more vocal of his young lions were shunted off into positions
where they couldn't do any harm, but they kept working on their plans.  Many of these folks were
also vocally opposed to the whole notion of colonizing the East, they found the Nazi Party fantasies
of a massive continent-spanning Germania populated with rosy cheeked farmers tilling the soil of
the conquered lands ridiculous in the extreme.
Sure take it over, get the resources, put the existing peasants to work as slaves on the soil, but live
there? What the hell for? They wanted to live in a modern technological German state, not some
19th century Volkish fantasy of peasants in lederhosen tilling massive Baronial estates.

So by the time of the assassination attempt, while many of their plans had been delayed, they had still
managed to build the mechanism of a complete new government, down to the local level, so you kill
Hitler, the Party structure is in disarray, the Wehrmacht is in disarray and the civil bureaucrats are
sitting there waiting to see what happens, guess who would be perfectly placed to step in and assert
control? The professionals of the SS.

So a Germany run by coldly pragmatic technocrats, that doesn't give a squat about controlling the East,
what moves would they make?

All of the fantasies about arming the Wehrmacht and fighting with them against the Soviets, are pointless
fantasies as the Wehrmacht was just as guilt of atrocities in the East as the SS and the police. It was a
war of racial extermination in which the Wehrmacht was fully complicit. So do you think Allied troops would
really want to side with those people?
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Offline Buzzbomb

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #10 on: October 23, 2013, 08:44:59 AM »

This scenario could possibly see veterans from the Allied armies & many from the "free" forces (Czech, Polish, etc.) volunteering for service with non-Nazi German forces as mercenaries of one form or another (anti-communist un(/low)-paid volunteers or guns-for-hire) & the Germans possibly creating their own "Foreign Legion". Weapons, vehicles, armour & aircraft would be a mix of ex-Wehrmacht & Allied equipment.

For the Finns, some of these units may have been sent there to support for their resistance to the Soviets.

Now this could see some interesting markings & some pretty unique platforms, too!

:)

Guy


Similar concept is pretty much detailed in http://www.redgambitseries.com/ by Colin Gee.. but the timeline starts with the current historical finish of WW2 after which the Soviets sense Allied weakness and invade the rest of Germany.


Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: 20 July 1944 Bomb Plot to Kill Hitler is Successful
« Reply #11 on: December 24, 2013, 05:26:04 AM »
A slightly different spin on this:  What if the 13 March 1943 "Bomb on plane" plot had been successful?  At this stage, the frontline in Russia was something like below:



This was also prior to Operation Citadel (the Battle of Kursk).
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it.