operation valkyrie

Discussions on the propaganda, architecture and culture in the Third Reich.
offandonguy
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Re: operation valkyrie

#16

Post by offandonguy » 07 Jun 2009, 22:21

I agree with British Sapper's view the most. I think that had the plan succeeded the war may have gone better because the Wehrmacht may have been in a position where they could negotiate a surrender with the Allies, at least the Western ones. As for Germany's political leadership itself, it would have been a civil war like most of you have said. July 1944 was pretty late in the game to have saved Germany, most of the Allies were thinking Berlin by Christmas and it's tough to say whether they would have negotiated at all. It's too bad though, if peace could have been found many lives on both sides could have been spared.
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phylo_roadking
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Re: operation valkyrie

#17

Post by phylo_roadking » 10 Jun 2009, 21:19

it's tough to say whether they would have negotiated at all
Why would they??? They had said often enough that they wouldn't; it was a strange aberration on the part of many in GERMANY that they would :wink: In THIS circumstance - a power vacuum or struggle after Hitler's death - would actually give them even MORE reason NOT to...because whoever came out on top either temporarily or "longterm", would have weakened themselves in the process - AND fatally weakened one or the other element of the German capacity for resistance by defeating them themselves! 8O

Hitler's death/subsequent power struggle makes things even EASIER for the Allies to trundle in. They would have been "laughing all the way to the bank" - or to Berlin!


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106th Art.Reg.(TUR)
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Re: operation valkyrie

#18

Post by 106th Art.Reg.(TUR) » 10 Jun 2009, 22:08

As far as I know "Valkyrie" was actually a plan pre-designed to suppress possible civil unrest due to public dissatisfaction, caused by the ongoing war. Adolf Hitler did not forget the events after the sailor's mutiny in November 1918 that led to the proclamation of the German Republic, but also to Bolshevik uprisings and internal struggle. Therefore he had plans for such a scenario, so that a similar situation as 1918 could never repeat.What the leaders of the plot hoped to do was implementing the plan against Nazi institutions in order to avoid an armed struggle for power between the Wehrmacht on one hand and Nazi institutions on the other side. All power would have been transformed to army commanders, the Waffen SS and the party itself with all its suborganisations would have been put under army control. Their actual aim was to destroy any actual power of the NSDAP.
Therefore, in case of success I would think of a temporary military government that might over time have evolved into a more authoritarian center-right government. In order to think about the possible stand of the Allies, it might be possible to compare the situation in Germany with the overthrow of the Fascist government in Italy 1943.I don't really think it would have made sense to continue with the Nazi's extermination policy against the Jews, as the majority of the officer corps was not really obsessed by fanatical antisemitism.
Of course the plot was not really made to save jewish lives, but I think as a logical consequence it would have stopped the extermination. If Germany was hoping for somehow acceptable peace terms with the Allies, this policy could not have been continued anyway.
That's just a personal assumption, of course!
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phylo_roadking
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Re: operation valkyrie

#19

Post by phylo_roadking » 11 Jun 2009, 02:07

What the leaders of the plot hoped to do was implementing the plan against Nazi institutions in order to avoid an armed struggle for power between the Wehrmacht on one hand and Nazi institutions on the other side. All power would have been transformed to army commanders, the Waffen SS and the party itself with all its suborganisations would have been put under army control. Their actual aim was to destroy any actual power of the NSDAP.
Therefore, in case of success I would think of a temporary military government that might over time have evolved into a more authoritarian center-right government.
The problem is - the civil unrest Operation Valkyrie plan was where the Army would come unstuck almost immedaitely....for it took nothing into account about the degree to which the NSDAP had actually become involved in the administrative running of ALL life in Germany :wink: And the Army had nothing in ita arsenal or control to put in its place. The plotters hoped that by simply lopping off the top few layers of control they could take its place...without realising how far into German society the Party had actually got its claws.

And the NATURAL successor to Hitler and the higher-level NSDAP echelons and their position over German Society WASN'T the Army...it was the SS and individuals like Goebbels. It's a horrible thought - but by "mobilising"...controlling...the people and their opinions, the Poison Dwarf for example could paralyse Germany OR PUT GERMANY TO WORK in ways the Army couldn't hope to do.

Martial Law, soldiers on every street corner etc. are notoriously inefficient and non-productive circumstances :wink: You can't FORCE average citizens to work at the point of a gun - but you CAN lead them to it by the nose, which is what the lower Party levels could do, with a figurehead like Goebbels in charge of THAT side of the troika.

offizier1916
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Re: operation valkyrie

#20

Post by offizier1916 » 19 Oct 2016, 23:34

i will never understand the following behaviours/facts:

1. Stauffenberg knew, that - because of the heat - the briefings were moved to the storage barracks from the beginning of july 1944 on. Stauffenberg visited the Wolfsschanze in july already two times. It wasnt an unforeseeable event.

2. why didnt Oberleutnant von Heaften pull the triggers of the bomb as they were in the room of the sergeant? why it had to be the handicaped Stauffenberg? If it was von Haeften, they would have had the time to arm the second bomb as well.

3. even tough he didn have the time to arm the second bomb, why Stauffenberg didnt put the unarmed bomb just next to the armed bomb in his briefcase? both bombs would have exploded...

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