"Operation Valkyrie" Topic

Yep, one chance in 365 (except in a leap year) that, coincidentally, today is the anniversary of Tom Cruise trying to kill old Adolf. Actually, in all seriousness, what a superb actor he proved in that film.

Let us give credit to von Stauffenberg, who genuinely seems to have been anti- Nazi and not just convinced that the war was lost. There is a huge difference. Like most idealists, he surrounded himself with incompetents.

One of the great "What ifs" and many a book written about it (my favourite is Markus Reichardt's) had it worked. How long would "Unconditional Surrender" have been maintained and, without it, what happens to Allied Soviet co-operation?

I don't know much about his inner circle, but Rommel supported this too, and he certainly was not an incompetent individual.

A real shame the plan didn't succeed, but even if it had, I'm not sure it would have changed things much, since I imagine there were still many loyalists who would have advocated for fighting on.

It would be nice to think though, it would and could have made a difference, ending the war earlier and with less bloodshed and destruction.

Rommel was a very good division commander. A decent "corps" commander. (Consider the opposition) Lousy at logistics.
As for being part of the conspiracy, the most that can be proven is that he heard about it, and did nothing. Guilt by association. If he was more active, he was an incompetent conspirator.

Valkyrie's success would have saved lives, but only by speeding an unconditional surrender. I'd say it was at least six months too late for Germany to get other terms. In 1942, anti-Nazi Germans in power could almost surely have worked out something. But every German disaster from Stalingrad to Falaise reduced the cost and risk to the Allies of putting an end to the German threat for their lifetimes.

Ask yourself whether you, had you been in Churchill's, Stalin's or FDR's place, would have been willing to leave Germany in a position to try again in 20 years because the new Chancellor seemed willing to quit when he obviously couldn't win.

I am not optimistic about the outcome of a successful Valkyrie. Even though they were anti-Nazi many of the backers of the plot were strong German nationalists who would have expected to keep some of Germany's pre-war and wartime gains. I believe a few had been involved with wartime atrocities and some thought that Germany would be able to cut a deal with the western allies that left Germany a free hand in the east. It was hardly the cast that would have accepted a Versailles style peace.

That they made the effort helped to make the postwar argument that German and Nazi were not the same. That they failed made it difficult for a new "stab in the back" myth to take hold.

The Allies had declared "unconditional surrender" at Casablanca and wouldn't accept anything else.

That they failed made it difficult for a new "stab in the back" myth to take hold.

I was about to make the same point, but seems like I was a bit slow. Had the assassination been succesful, there would probably be nowadays a whole bunch of Adolfite fanboys rabidly ranting about how the Fuhrer's brilliance would have saved Germany in late 1944 had he not been slain. And the Downfall movie would not have been made, never mind the asssociated memes.

That said, even the failed assassination attempt may have had an effect on Fuhrer. While his physical wounds were not particularly effect, there may have been an effect on his already less than stable psyche, making him even more paranoid (or so Guderian suggests in his memoirs). This, combined with the ruthless purges that followed (affecting senior military leadership) did not exactly help the German war effort during the last nine months.

'The Allies had declared "unconditional surrender" at Casablanca and wouldn't accept anything else.'

I agree the Allies wouldn't have accepted less by July 1944, Wackmole, but not because of the prior declaration. Are you really saying politicians wouldn't have gone back on their word?

Had Hitler been succesfully assassinated and Germany kept fighting under the new leadership, this would have probably allowed the generals in charge more freedom in commanding their forces.

Hitler had at least since autumn 1941 tended to insist that any ground captured must be held, whatever the cost, preventing withdrawals to more defensible positions. This rather costly policy was maintained until the end. This included designating various cities as strongholds to be held to the last bullet, whether any real preparations had been done to fortify or supply them in advance.

Towards the end, this was accompanied by his insistence to keep on launching over-ambitious offensives to push back the enemy. In the west, the most famous of these was the Ardennes offensive in December 1944, but various actions also took place in the eastern front.

The generals would almost certainly have been allowed more freedom, Griefbringer. And the generals insist this would have resulted in--what? One suspects a more efficient, better organized defeat.

When I look at the strategic differences within Germany post-Stalingrad, it keeps looking to me as though the generals were trying to draw things out until someone negotiated a peace, while Hitler was still looking for a way to win. But a negotiated peace and a German victory were about equally impossible by July 1944.

And the generals insist this would have resulted in--what? One suspects a more efficient, better organized defeat.

Probably exactly that.

On operational level, I presume this freedom might have in practice resulted in a gradual, controlled withdrawal from one defensible position to another, combined with occasional local and limited counter-attacks. This might have at least resulted in reduced losses for the Germans – who by autumn 1944 were more or less scratching the bottom of the barrel for manpower.

Speaking of manpower, on the strategic level the German conquests and commitments in 1939-1940 resulted in quite a number of German divisions in August 1944 being diverted to locations where they were of little use in the actual defense of the fatherland. This included such locations as Norway, Finnish Lappland, Courland (in Latvia), Denmark, Low Countries, Channel Islands, Southern France, Northern Italy and Balkans. Ambitious Adolf was not fond of withdrawing forces from these locations (and in some cases it could be rather difficult), but doing so would have provided manpower reserves in the final battles of 1945 – though probably all they could have been done was to slightly delay the defeat.