Sometimes I think about various questions relating to WW2. I thought I'd try a thread for when these come up.
My first question relates to the 20 July plot. What did the plotters plan to do after a successful coup? Were they prepared to surrender unconditionally? What did they expect would happen after the coup? And what would have been likely to happen?
I've never read details about the plans of the plotters. I hope that they didn't expect things to change dramatically in relation to the enemy countries and the war. Hopefully the Germans learned in WW1 that getting rid of the Kaiser didn't change much.
My understanding is that the coup plotters were going to set up a mostly-military government and try to either negotiate peace or try to turn the war into an anti-Communist crusade. I think they sincerely misread the status of relations between the Soviets and the West.
They'd probably surrender before Gotterdammerung, though.
Thanks, g. Hmm, yeah I can't shake the feeling that they may have been a bit optimistic about their chances to get a deal (especially having no Art Of The Deal to guide them :( ).
Another thing about the coup, of course there's the coup succeeds/coup fails scenarios, with Germany still under a single government (Hitler/Nazi non-Hitler/non-Nazi). Was there any chance, with Hitler dead, of some kind of split with different areas breaking off? Maybe with some parts ruled by the plotters and some parts by Nazi diehards?
Did Hitler have one ball?
The big question about the July plot is that of motivation. A primary motive was the knowledge that the Nazis were losing the war and that, without a settlement, defeat was inevitable; and clearly no settlement was possible with Hitler in charge. Whether any settlement was possible with a coup in charge is of course a question on which the coup leaders may have been highly over-optimistic.
The question I've seen disagreement on is whether the coup leaders were reacting against Nazi atrocities - that is, whether the plot had a moral outrage element to it. The consensus view appear to be that, while individual plotters may have hated the Nazi crimes, the real glue that stuck the plotters together was Nazi failure, not Nazi criminality. In short, the plotters were convinced that the Nazis would lose (and drag everyone down with them), and believed a coup was the way to avoid that, or at least have a chance of avoiding that.
That's right. There's a tendency to want Stauffenberg to be some great hero, and while he and the fellow plotters undoubtedly despised Hitler, I don't think it was for moral reasons at all.
Quote from: Caliga on June 04, 2021, 08:50:34 AM
That's right. There's a tendency to want Stauffenberg to be some great hero, and while he and the fellow plotters undoubtedly despised Hitler, I don't think it was for moral reasons at all.
I don't believe that your take is correct. von Stauffenberg turned against the Nazis after seeing atrocities in Russia in 1942 and referred openly to those killings as crimes.
Interesting, I was not aware of that. :hmm:
The things is that the conspirators covered a range of views. Some by the atrocities esp. on the Eastern Front, others by the military situation and Hitler's intransigence, etc. But you also have people like Eduard Wagner, quartermaster-general under whose responsibility countless Soviet POWs died and who may have been motivated by fear of Soviet revenge against him personally. Or Arthur Nebe, who was a leading member of the Einsatzgruppen on the Eastern Front and also executed 50 of the recaptured prisoners ("The Great Escape") - he was to provide units to arrest ministers but went into hiding. His motives seem unclear.
Von Stauffenberg clearly hated Nazi criminality.
The unknown issue is whether that was a major motive for the plot as a whole. On that, there is some disagreement - from what I understand, the majority view is that, while many in the armed forces truly hated Nazi criminality, it was Nazi military failure that was the major motive; had the Nazis been winning, the plot would have gained no traction.
Another question: what was the deal with the Hessian Haggis Hunt? Was it completely on his own initiative that he flew to the UK? The whole thing seems weird and stupid, which I guess Hess may well have been. By what mechanism did he think he could get peace? Even if he could get the King's ear or whatever, did he think the UK would just abandon the war? And that's not even accounting for Hitler's thoughts and feelings on the matter.
Quote from: The Brain on June 04, 2021, 05:57:27 AM
Sometimes I think about various questions relating to WW2. I thought I'd try a thread for when these come up.
My first question relates to the 20 July plot. What did the plotters plan to do after a successful coup? Were they prepared to surrender unconditionally? What did they expect would happen after the coup? And what would have been likely to happen?
I've never read details about the plans of the plotters. I hope that they didn't expect things to change dramatically in relation to the enemy countries and the war. Hopefully the Germans learned in WW1 that getting rid of the Kaiser didn't change much.
I have extensive knowledge of the plot after having read the Wiki page. :P
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_July_plot
It says they intended some kind of military/authoritarian plot, and figured on coming to a peace deal wherein either Germany would return to its 1914 borders, or at a minimum would keep Austria, Alsace-Lorraine and the Sudetenland. None of which seems very realistic by July 1944.
I think there's some kind of room in 1944 for a negotiated settlement short of unconditional surrender by Germany, but not on the basis the plotters were thinking.
Quote from: Malthus on June 04, 2021, 09:20:53 AM
Von Stauffenberg clearly hated Nazi criminality.
The unknown issue is whether that was a major motive for the plot as a whole. On that, there is some disagreement - from what I understand, the majority view is that, while many in the armed forces truly hated Nazi criminality, it was Nazi military failure that was the major motive; had the Nazis been winning, the plot would have gained no traction.
My readings indicate that the majority of the support for the plot was driven by the desire to avoid the consequences of military defeat, as you say. That's why the large-scale conspiracy couldn't get started until 1944.
Quote from: The Brain on June 04, 2021, 09:43:41 AM
Another question: what was the deal with the Hessian Haggis Hunt? Was it completely on his own initiative that he flew to the UK? The whole thing seems weird and stupid, which I guess Hess may well have been. By what mechanism did he think he could get peace? Even if he could get the King's ear or whatever, did he think the UK would just abandon the war? And that's not even accounting for Hitler's thoughts and feelings on the matter.
I think Hess had departed from reality by the time he flew to the UK. He appeared to genuinely believe that (a) there was a large anti-war movement in the UK (motivated by the belief that Germany was unbeatable by the UK alone) that was just waiting for a strong signal from Germany that a status quo peace was possible, (b) that he was infinitely persuasive and so could talk his way into meeting with the leaders of this movement, and (c) that he needed to act before Barbarossa, when the expansion of the war would give the UK hope.
I watched the Tom Cruise movie about Von Stauffenberg, enjoyable enough. I would be fascinated to learn what sort of peace or cease-fire the plotters thought they might be able to negotiate. We keep France? Sorry about our recent misunderstanding Josef, please don't steamroller all the way to Berlin? Always wondered what they hoped for beyond the most nebulous goals of ending the war.
Quote from: fromtia on June 04, 2021, 10:55:38 AM
I watched the Tom Cruise movie about Von Stauffenberg, enjoyable enough. I would be fascinated to learn what sort of peace or cease-fire the plotters thought they might be able to negotiate. We keep France? Sorry about our recent misunderstanding Josef, please don't steamroller all the way to Berlin? Always wondered what they hoped for beyond the most nebulous goals of ending the war.
My understanding is that they were willing to make concessions to the Western Allies in the hopes of splitting the alliance - after all, the UK and US were natural enemies of the Soviets, and surely would not want to help them gain a big empire in Eastern Europe as a result of the war (which as you know is what actually happened). They figure self-interest would lead the West to accept a peace deal that left the Soviets hung out to dry. After all, that would allow the Western allies to concentrate on the Japanese.
Then, they hoped to offer uncle Joseph a deal: the Germans keep some but not all of their gains in the east, no more war. They figured if Joe was on his own, he's be in more of a mood to accept, with no more lend-lease, facing the Germans alone, etc. The Plotters figured they would be in a better bargaining position.
I would imagine that there would be a unified reaction to the plot. Once H was dead everyone needed to get their shit together to not have the eastern front collapse. If a civil war were to break out the Soviets would crush everyone in no-time and every German leader knew it.
Quote from: grumbler on June 04, 2021, 06:26:03 AM
I think they sincerely misread the status of relations between the Soviets and the West.
Agreed - you cant read the situation in 44 based on what we know happened later. It also misreads how general opinion in the US and UK viewed Germany at the time - recall that it was a high ranking US cabinet official - Henry Morganthau - who in 1944 would propose his post-war settlement plan of a partition and permanent de-industrialization of Germany's core manufacturing areas. I don't see FDR selling out the Soviets and doing a separate deal, especially with what would appear to be a traditional militarist clique. The US and Britain had committed to the principle of unconditional surrender at Casablanca and I don't see how replacing Hitler with a military government replaces that.
Another question: sometimes you hear that the Western Allies could/should have advanced into Germany on a narrow front in 1944, rather than the broad front approach of Eisenhower, and if they did they could possibly have ended the war in '44. Was such an approach logistically possible? If so, would it have been a reasonably safe option given risk/reward, or would it have been a serious gamble that there was little reason to engage in when you're already winning the war?
If the plot succeeds, and the Allies firmly rebuff any proposed negotiated end to the war, I still thing the plotters come out ahead.
Not being crazy fucking megalomaniacs, the move at that point seems pretty obvious, at least to me.
If the Allies won't agree to a seperate peace, give them one anyway.
Strip the Western and Italian fronts, and simply refuse to fight the Western Allies and ship all of those men to the Eastern Front and resist the Soviets as long as you can, while the Western allies overrun Germany. Force the eventual unconditional surrender line as far east as possible.
Quote from: The Brain on June 13, 2021, 08:05:45 AM
Another question: sometimes you hear that the Western Allies could/should have advanced into Germany on a narrow front in 1944, rather than the broad front approach of Eisenhower, and if they did they could possibly have ended the war in '44. Was such an approach logistically possible? If so, would it have been a reasonably safe option given risk/reward, or would it have been a serious gamble that there was little reason to engage in when you're already winning the war?
I think that the Allied seizure of Antwerp with virtually no damage (go Canadians and Belgian Resistance!) offered the chance at such an offensive. But the Canadians had no orders to go on and trap the German 15th Army on the wrong side of the Scheldt estuary and open the sea route to Antwerp. That was a rather serious blunder by Montgomery, who seems to have been distracted by all the plans leading up to, and including, Market-Garden. In fact, Monty then stripped Canadian First Army of half its strength to hold the useless salient gained by market-Garden. Antwerp fell to the Allies on the 4th of September but didn't start receiving ships until Nov 28th, by which time the chance for a quick end to the war was gone.
Some British authors have argued that Monty didn't want to open Antwerp because that would have allowed the American Twelfth Army Group to be fully supplied and thus back in competition to be "the ones who won the war." Air Marshal Tedder seems to be the origin of this theory (he hated Monty far more than any American).
For whatever reason, Monty forwent the excellent chance to win the war quickly for the flashier but riskier Market-Garden. The real cost of Market-Garden was the failure of 21st Army Group to clear the Scheldt and bag a German army when it would have been easy to do so. The Canadians would lose 6,000 men doing it the hard way.