reading "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich" and

Discussions on High Command, strategy and the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) in general.
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BakedAlaskan
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reading "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich" and

#1

Post by BakedAlaskan » 22 May 2002, 18:24

.....wondered how many times you have shaken your head while reading how"Operation Barbarossa"played out.It would have been so frustrating to deal with what the German generals had to deal with.Granted,they could have taken care of him before became a problem but didn't.

What would have been the perfect time to assassinate Hitler?Before the war?After the conquest of France?After the initial phases of Barbarossa?

Your thoughts?
Everyone is entitled to my own opinion.

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Starinov
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#2

Post by Starinov » 22 May 2002, 20:15

If they have assassinated Hitler there would be no war. He was behind it. The generals followed him. When war against Poland, France and USSR started, they were not 100% sure of the outcome.


Xanthro
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#3

Post by Xanthro » 22 May 2002, 20:41

There was NEVER a good time to assinate Hitler. If done before the Polish campaign the German people would have destroyed the Military in revenge as Hitler was very popular. If done after the fall of France, the German people's reaction would have been even worse.

Once the war turned against Germany, the German people still believed in Hitler and his ability to turn the war around. This made killing him difficult and you don't have the support of the populace.

Seriously, the only good time to kill him was when he was dead.

Unless, you could arrange his death in such a manner that would completely blame someone else. Such as the Soviets. That would be hard to pull off because of the competing departments in the Nazi hierarchy.

Xanthro

pdhinkle36ID
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War plans

#4

Post by pdhinkle36ID » 22 May 2002, 23:59

By the time Hitler came along, the Generals and the Industrialist were ready for him. He was the head of the body!!

Trooper
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Fact is....

#5

Post by Trooper » 23 May 2002, 00:59

The fact is that they never wnated to assisinate Hitler, until the tide of the war changed. He was a mastermind in most of the military's eyes. He brought them out of the Treaty Of Versaise, and had them rebuild. Many of the German Generals were Prussians, and military service was in thier blood.
Sep
"Prior Proper Planning, Prevents Piss Poor Performance, Period"-------called the 8 P's

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Scanderbeg
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#6

Post by Scanderbeg » 23 May 2002, 02:37

Trooper,
Actually tha's not completely true. For example he Venlo Incident. Himmler send one of his man to find what was going on bcause he knew that there were some generals who were trying to kill Hitler.

More on this later,
Besian

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GFM2000
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#7

Post by GFM2000 » 23 May 2002, 06:28

The fact is that they never wnated to assassinate Hitler, until the tide of the war changed.
Trooper's right. Members of the German resistance such as Canaris, Hans Oster and Dohnanyi, wanted nothing more than betraying Hitler's war plans, and hoped for a military defeat that would topple Hitler and bring an end to the war. I don't think any of the German generals seriously contemplated assassinating Hitler, at least until the Wehrmacht started suffering its first major setbacks (Moscow, 1941-1942) that more drastic measures were considered[/list]

Trooper
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Who

#8

Post by Trooper » 24 May 2002, 00:58

Who did Himmler suspect (Gernerals)? I have never heard this before. Maybe there were some civilians (Communits ect..) but I never heard of any General Officers prior to the start of defeat. If I am wrong, I am sorry.
Sep
"Prior Proper Planning, Prevents Piss Poor Performance, Period"-------called the 8 P's

Benjamin Fanjoy
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#9

Post by Benjamin Fanjoy » 24 May 2002, 08:37

They should have took Hitler out after he established the economy and building projects.'33-'39 :roll:

After this period he cleary was ready to lead Germany right down the hole, the Germans where not ready for a LONG term war on any front or theater, petrol, munitions, tanks etc. :idea:

Also his generals should have acted when he declared war on the world's strongest indutrial power the USA in '41.

Phaethon
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#10

Post by Phaethon » 24 May 2002, 13:19

It is often said that if Hitler had died in 1938 he would have been hailed for all time as Germany's greatest leader.

However I wonder just how much would have changed if just Hitler were removed. Many of the foundations for ' The Final Solution', such as the Nuremburg Laws, the anti-semitic propaganda, euthanasia programs for the variously handicapped, were in place as were the key players, Himmler, Heydrich et al. I don't believe that Germany under a Hittler-less Nazi party would have just stopped dead in its tracks, there was too much momentum and too many like-minded people in charge.

Militarily, I also wonder if Goring would have done anything differently. I don't know enough about Goring's character and behaviour to speculate in any depth, but would the war have progressed overall any differently under his command? Once he was handed the Chancellorship wouldn't his residual good military instincts have been corrupted absolutely by absolute power? Wouldn't he fall into the same ambitious hubris-trap as Hitler. And wouldn't his drug habit have done for Goring what Hitler's various psychoses did for him. And behind Goring, or whoever succeeded Hitler, would still be the 'usual suspects' - the manipulative sycophants who praised and goaded Hitler on and encouraged and nurtured his self-belief. Wouldn't these pressures come to bear full force on a successor to complete Hitler's plans and ambitions for conquest and cleansing, all clearly laid out in Mein Kampf - which would take on an even greater role as 'Bible for the Reich' had the author died in 1938.

Finally I also wonder, if Adolf Hitler had never been born, would history have been all that different? Would Nuremburg have rung to cries of Heil Goring or Heil Rohm. Hitler was a small man with a few key talents who got lucky and took advantage of the situation that Germany found itself in after the Great War. Surely if Hitler had not existed, someone else would have 'filled the void. There must have been many such dreamers in the slums and doss-houses of post-great war Germany and Austria.

You can really tie yourself in knots with this kind of thinking. It's either a great cure for insominia or a recipie for nightmares when your mind is turning them over before sleep (depending on the conclusions you draw) 8O

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GFM2000
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Re: Who

#11

Post by GFM2000 » 29 May 2002, 04:45

Trooper wrote:Who did Himmler suspect (Gernerals)? I have never heard this before. Maybe there were some civilians (Communits ect..) but I never heard of any General Officers prior to the start of defeat. If I am wrong, I am sorry.
Sep
Hi Trooper. Most generals were in fact, opposed to Hitler's plan of expansion. However, only a few dared to consider assassinating the Fuhrer, and moreover, a lot of officers were seduced by the promotions and honours heaped upon them by Hitler, especially during the unstoppable military successes up to 1942. Many officers understandably feared reprisals to stand up against Hitler - the dismissal of Blomberg and Fritsch was an example of Hitler's ability to exert a tremendous amount of power over the military command in the Reich.

Have you had a look at Padfield's "Himmler : Reichfuhrer SS"? It seems as if many viewpoints have been thrown when assessing how much Himmler actually knew about the conspiracy to kill Hitler. Many civilians of the plot were certainly arrested and interrogated as 20 July 1944 drew to a close. However, immediately after news of the assassination attempt were notified to Himmler, the Reichfuhrer SS did a surprising thing : he sent the Head of the Kripo, SS Gruppenfuhrer Artur Nebe, himself a conspirator, to investigate the crime scene. Does this mean Himmler had no idea who the conspirators were? Or is Himmler actually extremely well informed, planting Nebe into the Resistance, and hoped to get into the right situation to usupe his boss?

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Scragz
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#12

Post by Scragz » 29 May 2002, 06:01

It is quite incredible when you read about all the plans to kill Hitler and how they failed.

Like the Two British Limpet Mines that the Abwehr had captured, these were rigged with an acid fuse and put into a package and delivered to the airport to be placed on Hitlers plane. The story was given that the package contained two bottles of Brandy that Major-General Henning von Tresckow owed to his friend Major-General Helmuth Stieff at Hitlers HQ. A member of Hitlers entourage put the package on the plane after Tresckows co-conspiritor Lieutenant Fabian von Schlabrendorff had cracked the acid fuse to arm the bomb, the bomb was supposed to explode in mid air 30 minutes later looking like an aviation accident.

Waiting for confirmation of the explosion the Generals waited and waited, they received a call saying that Hitlers plane had safely landed at Rastenburg. Now the parcel with two unexploded mines was sitting at Hitlers HQ. So Tresckow sent his man Schlabrendorff to Rastenburg on Military Business under the pretext that the wrong brandy had been sent and the good stuff was comming. Then poor old Schlabrendorff had to pick up the unexploded package and defuse it in his sleeping compartment on the night train to Berlin, he could see no reason why the bomb did not detonate, they put it down to sub-zero temps in the plane affecting the detonator.

I believe there were nine attempts on Hitlers life and somehow he survived them all.

And the two mines that failed to fire on the plane ??? These were kept and used again in another attempt when Hitler was visiting a display of captured Soviet Armaments. Colonel Freiherr Rudolf von Gersdorff was head of preperation for the display so he voluntered to plant the bombs again with an acid fuse, unfortunately there was no where to hide the bombs so the Colonel put the two mines in his coat pockets and said he would stand beside Hitler during the speechs and set off the fuse , unfortunately the shortest fuse time was ten minutes so he would have had an agonising wait after he had broken the acid fuses.

Hitler arrived, Colonel Gersdorff cracked the fuses in his pockets and then stunned he watched Hitler fly thru the display and leave in less than two minutes, after Hitlers departure Gersdorff rushed to the cloakroom removed the active fuses and flushed down the toilet.

Of course the most famous attempt at his Rastenburg HQ by Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg everyone knows the story.

I believe this shows that there were a great many Generals and Civillians, Church Leaders etc who new what end was coming for Germany, and new that Hitler had to be stopped and a Military Leader placed as Leader under Marshall Law, more than Likely this would have been Canaris. If this had happened you would have seen a major purge of the NSDAP, the closure of concentration camps, the immediate retreat of German forces in the East to the Polish/Soviet border, and a retreat to the French/Reinland border in the West, and the start of immediate cease fire talks with the allies.

If these attempts had succeded you would see today a Germany strong, cultural, cleansed of the egomaniacs but strong and still very militarily orientated. I firmly believe the Nuremberg Trials would have occured in Germany run by Germans against Germans and Himmler would have been first on the list after the Heer had managed to restrength to ward off any attacks by SS in protest at their Leaders arrest. I would say possibly someone like Sepp Dietreich (Bad spelling sorry ??) would have been promoted to Reichsfuhrer SS and stabolized that sector.

What do you guys think ?

Who would you like to have seen take over if Hitler died ?

Sorry if this is out of the margins for this thread, just let me know and I will start another.

Hoo-Roo

Scragz

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