L'attentato del 20 Luglio 1944 riesce [What If]

Va bene, prendo atto che per te la Baviera per più di cento non era autonoma.

 

Io una mia visione su questa faccenda.
Se l'attentato fosse riuscito io credo che in un momento in cui la Germania era in grande rischio, assediada da nemici che ne chiedevano la resa incondizionata che la bombardavano incessantemente e che svolgevano una intensa campania d'odio contro i tedeschi, i Tedesci non si sarebbero divisi. Il popolo Tedesco ha sempre dimostrato di essere piuttosto compatto su questo, le divisioni interne il senso del dovere e la gravità del momento sarebbero prevalse sulle divisioni interne.
Credo che morto Himmler, che ricordiamo era il secondo principale obiettivo di quell'attentato, sarebbe stato ridimenzionato il ruolo delle SS.
Probabilmente il potere sarebbe stato preso da una giunta militare, non da un singolo.
E qui viene il bello.
Il problema principale della Germania era Hitler, secondo me, era la sua visione e interferenza nelle operazioni militari che ha provocato veri e propri disastri.
Senza di lui, io temo che la guerra sarebbe durata di piu e soprattutto sarebbe stata molto piu sanguionosa.
Di fronte ad un inasprirsi inaspettato della resistenza tedesca, morto Hitler e di fronte ad un nuovo governo aperto a soluzioni di compromesso, non è da esludere anche una linea piu morbita da parte degli Alleati, specialmente gli Inglesi ormai stremati da 5 anni di guerra. Anche i russi non so fino a che punto avrebbero continuato con lo stesso ritmo visto che anche per loro le risorse umane cominciavano a scarseggiare. Per cui ipotizzo o una qualche forma di armistizio, non una vera pace, oppure sempre la richiesta di Resa incondizionata ma una guerra che arriva al '46.

 

Resistenza tedesca dopo l'estate 1944? LOL!

 

Cosa non ti è chiaro Pandrea?

 

Piccola lettura sulla situazione Tedesca nel settembre del '44.

Hitler's Perspective September 1944

In retrospect, the German position after the summer reverses of 1944 seemed indeed hopeless and the only rational release a quick peace on the best possible terms. But the contemporary scene as viewed from Hitler's headquarters in September 1944, while hardly roseate, even to the Fuehrer, was not an unrelieved picture of despair and gloom. In the west what had been an Allied advance of astounding speed had decelerated as rapidly, the long Allied supply lines, reaching clear back to the English Channel and the Côte d'Azur, acting as a tether which could be stretched only so far. The famous West Wall fortifications (almost dismantled in the years since 1940) had not yet been heavily engaged by the attacker, while to the rear lay the great moat which historically had separated the German people from their enemies-the Rhine. On the Eastern Front the seasonal surge of battle was beginning to ebb, the Soviet summer offensive seemed to have run its course, and despite continuing battle on the flanks the center had relapsed into an uneasy calm.

Even the overwhelming superiority which the Western Allies possessed in the air had failed thus far to bring the Third Reich groveling to its knees as so many proponents of the air arm had predicted. In September the British and Americans could mount a daily bomber attack of over 5,000 planes, but the German will to resist and the means of resistance, so far as then could be measured, remained quite sufficient for a continuation of the war.
Great, gaping wounds, where the Allied bombers had struck, disfigured most of the larger German cities west of the Elbe, but German discipline and a reasonably efficient warning and shelter system had reduced the daily loss of life to what the German people themselves would reckon as "acceptable." If anything, the lesson of London was being repeated, the noncombatant will to resist hardening under the continuous blows from the air and forged still harder by the Allied announcements of an unconditional surrender policy.

The material means available to the armed forces of the Third Reich appeared relatively unaffected by the ceaseless hammering from the air. It is true that the German war economy was not geared to meet a long-drawn war of attrition. But Reich Minister Albert Speer and his cohorts had been given over two years to rationalize, reorganize, disperse, and expand the German economy before the intense Allied air efforts of 1944. So successful was Speer's program and so industrious were the labors of the home front that the race between Allied destruction and German construction (or reconstruction) was being run neck and neck in the third quarter of 1944, the period, that is, during which Hitler instituted the far-reaching military plans eventuating in the Ardennes counteroffensive.

The ball-bearing and aircraft industries, major Allied air targets during the first half of 1944, had taken heavy punishment but had come back with amazing speed. By September bearing production was very nearly what it had been just before the dubious honor of nomination as top-priority target for the Allied bombing effort. The production of single-engine fighters had risen from 1,016 in February to a high point of 3,031 such aircraft in September. The Allied strategic attack leveled at the synthetic oil industry, however, showed more immediate results, as reflected in the charts which Speer put before Hitler. For aviation gasoline, motor gasoline, and diesel oil, the production curve dipped sharply downward and lingered far below monthly consumption figures despite the radical drop in fuel consumption in the summer of 1944. Ammunition production likewise had declined markedly under the air campaign against the synthetic oil industry, in this case the synthetic nitrogen procedures. In September the German armed forces were firing some 70,000 tons of explosives, while production amounted to only half that figure. Shells and casings were still unaffected except for special items which required the ferroalloys hitherto procured from the Soviet Union, France, and the Balkans.

Although in the later summer of 1944 the Allied air forces turned their bombs against German armored vehicle production (an appetizing target because of the limited number of final assembly plants), an average of 1,500 tanks and assault guns were being shipped to the battle front every thirty days. During the first ten months of 1944 the Army Ordnance Directorate accepted 45,917 trucks, but truck losses during the same period numbered 117,719. The German automotive industry had pushed the production of trucks up to an average of 9,000 per month, but in September production began to drop off, a not too important recession in view of the looming motor fuel crisis.
The German railway system had been under sporadic air attacks for years but was still viable. Troops could be shuttled from one fighting front to another with only very moderate and occasional delays; raw materials and finished military goods had little waste time in rail transport. In mid-August the weekly car loadings by the Reichsbahn hit a top figure of 899,091 cars.

In September Hitler had no reason to doubt, if he bothered to contemplate the transport needed for a great counteroffensive, that the rich and flexible German railroad and canal complex would prove sufficient to the task ahead and could successfully resist even a coordinated and systematic air attack-as yet, of course, untried.

In German war production the third quarter of 1944 witnessed an interesting conjuncture, one readily susceptible to misinterpretation by Hitler and Speer or by Allied airmen and intelligence. On the one hand German production was, with the major exceptions of the oil and aircraft industries, at the peak output of the war; on the other hand the Allied air effort against the German means of war making was approaching a peak in terms of tons of bombs and the number of planes which could be launched against the Third Reich. But without the means of predicting what damage the Allied air effort could and would inflict if extrapolated three or six months into the future, and certainly without any advisers willing so to predict, Hitler might reason that German production and transport, if wisely husbanded and rigidly controlled, could support a major attack before the close of 1944. Indeed, only a fortnight prior to the briefing of 16 September Minister Speer had assured Hitler that German war stocks could be expected to last through 1945. Similarly, in the headquarters of the Western Allies it was easy and natural to assume the thousands of tons of bombs dropped on Germany must inevitably have weakened the vital sections of the German war economy to a point where collapse was imminent and likely to come before the end of 1944.


Hitler's optimism and miscalculation, then, resulted in the belief that Germany had the material means to launch and maintain a great counteroffensive, a belief nurtured by many of his trusted aides. Conversely, the miscalculation of the Western Allies as to the destruction wrought by their bombers contributed greatly to the pervasive optimism which would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Allied commanders and intelligence agencies to believe or perceive that Germany still retained the material muscle for a mighty blow.

Assuming that the Third Reich possessed the material means for a quick transition from the defensive to the offensive, could Hitler and his entourage rely on the morale of the German nation and its fighting forces in this sixth year of the war? The five years which had elapsed since the invasion of Poland had taken heavy toll of the best physical specimens of the Reich. The irreplaceable loss in military manpower (the dead, missing, those demobilized because of disability or because of extreme family hardship) amounted to 3,266,686 men and 92,811 officers as of 1 September 1944. Even without an accurate measure of the cumulative losses suffered by the civilian population, or of the dwellings destroyed, it is evident that the German home front was suffering directly and heavily from enemy action, despite the fact that the Americans and British were unable to get together on an air campaign designed to destroy the will of the German nation. Treason (as the Nazis saw it) had reared its ugly head in the abortive Putsch of July 1944, and the skeins of this plot against the person of the Fuehrer still were unraveling in the torture chambers of the Gestapo.

Had the Nazi Reich reached a point in its career like that which German history recorded in the collapse of the German Empire during the last months of the 1914-1918 struggle? Hitler, always prompt to parade his personal experiences as a Frontsoldat in the Great War and to quote this period of his life as testimony refuting opinions offered by his generals, was keenly aware of the moral disintegration of the German people and the armies in 1918. Nazi propaganda had made the "stab in the back" (the theory that Germany had not been defeated in 1918 on the battlefield but had collapsed as a result of treason and weakness on the home front) an article of German faith, with the Fuehrer its leading proponent. Whatever soul-searching Hitler may have experienced privately as a result of the attempt on his life and the precipitate retreats of his armies, there is no outward evidence that he saw in these events any kinship to those of 1918.

He had great faith in the German people and in their devotion to himself as Leader, a faith both mystic and cynical. The noise of street demonstrations directed against himself or his regime had not once, during the years of war, assailed his ears. German troops had won great victories in the past, why should they not triumph again? The great defeats had been, so Hitler's intuition told him, the fruit of treason among high officers or, at the least, the result of insufficient devotion to National Socialism in the hearts and minds of the defeated commanders and the once powerful General Staff. The assassination attempt, as seen through Hitler's own eyes, was proof positive that the suspicions which he had long entertained vis-à-vis the Army General Staff were correct. Now, he believed, this malignant growth could be cut away; exposure showed that it had no deep roots and had not contaminated either the fighting troops or the rank and file of the German people.

Despite the heavy losses suffered by the Wehrmacht in the past five years, Hitler was certain that replacements could be found and new divisions created. His intuition told him that too many officers and men had gravitated into headquarters staffs, administrative and security services. He was enraged by the growing disparity in the troop lists between "ration strength" and "combat strength" and, as a military dictator, expected that the issuance of threatening orders and the appointment of the brutal Heinrich Himmler as chief of the Replacement Army would eventually reverse this trend. At the beginning of September Hitler was impatiently stamping the ground and waiting for the new battalions to spring forth. The months of July and August had produced eighteen new divisions, ten panzer brigades and nearly a hundred separate infantry battalions. Now twenty-five new divisions, about a thousand artillery pieces, and a score of general headquarters brigades of various types were demanded for delivery in October and November.

How had Germany solved the manpower problem? From a population of some eighty million, in the Greater Reich, the Wehrmacht carried a total of 10,165,303 officers and men on its rosters at the beginning of September 1944. What part of this total was paper strength is impossible to say; certainly the personnel systems in the German armed forces had not been able to keep an accurate accounting of the tremendous losses suffered in the summer of 1944. Nonetheless, this was the strength figuratively paraded before Hitler by his adjutants. The number of units in the Wehrmacht order of battle was impressive (despite such wholesale losses as the twenty-seven divisions engulfed during the Russian summer offensive against Army Group Center). The collective German ground forces at the beginning of September 1944 numbered 327 divisions and brigades, of which 31 divisions and 13 brigades were armored. Again it must be noted that many of these units no longer in truth had the combat strength of either division or brigade (some had only their headquarters staff), but again, in Hitler's eyes, this order of battle represented fighting units capable of employment. Such contradiction as came from the generals commanding the paper-thin formations, some of whom privately regarded the once formidable Wehrmacht as a "paper tiger," would be brushed angrily aside as evidence of incompetence, defeatism-or treason.

But the maintenance of this formidable array of divisions and brigades reflected the very real military potential of the Greater Reich, not yet fully exploited even at the end of five years of what had been called total war. As in 1915 the Germans had found that in a long conflict the hospitals provided a constant flow of replacements, and that this source could be utilized very effectively by the simple expedient of progressively lowering the physical standards required for front-line duty. In addition, each year brought a new class to the colors as German youth matured. This source could be further exploited by lowering the age limit at one end of the conscription spectrum while increasing it at the other. In 1944, for example, the age limit for "volunteers" for the ranks was dropped to sixteen years and party pressure applied conducive to volunteering. At the same time the older conscription classes were combed through and, in 1944, registration was carried back to include males born in 1884.

Another and extremely important manpower acquisition, made for the first time on any scale in the late summer of 1944, came from the Navy and Air Force. Neither of these establishments remained in any position, at this stage of the war, to justify the relatively large numbers still carried on their rosters. While it is true that transferring air force ground crews to rifle companies would not change the numerical strength of the armed forces by jot or tittle, such practice would produce new infantry or armored divisions bearing new and, in most cases, high numbers.

In spite of party propaganda that the Third Reich was full mobilized behind the Fuehrer and notwithstanding the constant and slavish mouthing of the phrase "total war," Germany had not in five years of struggle, completely utilized its manpower-and equally important, womanpower-in prosecuting the war. Approximately four million public servants and individuals deferred from military service for other reasons constituted a reserve as yet hardly touched. And, despite claims to the contrary, no thorough or rational scheme had been adopted to comb all able-bodied men out of the factories and from the fields for service in uniform. In five years only a million German men and women had been mobilized for the labor force. Indeed, it may be concluded that the bulk of industrial and agrarian replacements for men drafted into the armed services was supplied by some seven million foreign workers and prisoners of war slaving for the conqueror.

Hitler hoped to lay his hands on those of his faithful followers who thus far had escaped the rigors of the soldier life by enfolding themselves in the uniform of the party functionary. The task of defining the nonessential and making the new order palatable was given to Reich Minister Joseph Goebbels, who on 24 August 1944 announced the new mobilization scheme: schools and theaters to be closed down, a 60-hour week to be introduced and holidays temporarily abolished, most types of publications to be suspended (with the notable exception of "standard political works," Mein Kampf, for one), small shops of many types to be closed, the staffs of governmental bureaus to be denuded, and similar belt tightening. By 1 September this drastic comb-out was in full swing and accompanied within the uniformed forces by measures designed to reduce the headquarters staffs and shake loose the "rear area swine," in the Fuehrer's contemptuous phrase.

This new flow of manpower would give Hitler the comforting illusion of combat strength, an illusion risen from his indulgence in what may be identified to the American reader as "the numbers racket." Dozens of German officers who at one time or another had reason to observe the Fuehrer at work have commented on his obsession with numbers and his implicit faith in statistics no matter how murky the sources from which they came or how misleading when translated into fact. So Hitler had insisted on the creation of new formations with new numbers attached thereto, rather than bringing back to full combat strength those units which had been bled white in battle. Thus the German order of battle distended in the autumn of 1944, bloated by new units while the strength of the German ground forces declined. In the same manner Hitler accepted the monthly production goals set for the armored vehicle producers by Speer's staff as being identical with the number of tanks and assault guns which in fact would reach the front lines. Bemused by numbers on paper and surrounded by a staff which had little or no combat experience and by now was perfectly housebroken-never introducing unpleasant questions as to what these numbers really meant-Hitler still saw himself as the Feldherr, with the men and the tanks and the guns required to wrest the initiative from the encircling enemy.

 

un riassunto?

 

In estrema sintesi:
Nel settembre del '44:
1) La capacità industriale Tedesca era pressoche intatta, eccetto il comparto petrolifero e derivati.
2) La volontà di combattere era al massimo.
3) Le risorse umane ancora lontano dell'essere pienamente utilizzate.
4) L'influenza di Hitler sulla guerra era pesantemente negativo.

 

1.avere capacità industriale intatta quando poi non hai i carburanti per far muovere carri aerei etc è qualcosa di inutile ,la realtà che a maggio del 44 la produzione di benzina sintetica per i tedeschi è definitivamente Kaput e la situazione a dir poco disperata come lo era già diventata dopo Stalingrado e ancor di più dopo Kursk,
tutti gli altri punti di conseguenza rappresentano poca cosa non dimenticando comunque il rispetto per i caduti compresi i civili.
Per quanto riguarda il topic credo che se l'attentato avesse realmente portato alla morte di Hitler probabilmente Rommel avrebbe cercato di trattare un armistizio con gli angloamericani se questo fosse andato in porto ,immaginare in quali termini, non so visto che c'erano da tenere presenti anche i russi,cose troppo complicate per la mia mente
Per quanto riguarda SS e Wehrmacht probabilmente Himmler sarebbe stato eliminato dal suo stesso ordine nero o dagli amici delle SA .Non escludo che invece la morte di Hitler avrebbe anche potuto far nascere un conflitto tra i cospiratori e coloro che non erano favorevoli all'eliminazione fisica di Hitler,ma anche su questo trovo molto difficile fare ipotesi io con i What If non ci so proprio fare

 

L'evoluzione del fronte nel 1944.

La Germania comunque, con Overlord effettuato, non poteva far altro che arrendersi. Secondo me i militari stessi, eliminato Hitler, avrebbero accettato la resa semi-incondizionata, con come unica condizione l'indipendenza della Germania.

Sarebbe stata più una riedizione della pace del 1918 che una sparizione dello stato tedesco come fu nel 1945.

 

I Generali, cioè quelli che avevano una visione chiara degli errori di Hitler, avrebbero accettato una resa semi-incondizionata
con potenze straniere che minacciavano l'annientamento della Germania.
Io credo avrebbero immediatamente avviato una trattativa, ma al tempo stesso, avrebbero cercato di porre immediatamente rimedio agli errori di Hitler. E come dicevo, secondo me, questo avrebbe allungato la guerra.

 

Se il colpo di stato fosse riuscito avremmo visto molto probabilmente più scontri interni tra Werhmacht ed SS di quanti non ce ne siano stati in realtà e magari anche vere e proprie battaglie come quella del castello Itter ma ovviamente in scala molto più grossa con la Wehrmacht che si arrende agli alleati e combatte al loro fianco contro le SS che ovviamente non considerano minimamente l'idea di arrendersi.

 

La Battagli per i Castello Itter avvenne il 5 maggio del 1945, a guerra praticamente finita. Fu un episodio cosi singolare e di piccola entità che non so se può prendersi come esempio. Soprattutto mi viene una domanda: se la Wehrmacht combatte contro le SS lo fa con quale scopo politico? Cioè le SS combattono formalmente per la Germania contro i nemici della Germania che ne chiedono la resa totale. E la Whermacht per cosa combatterebbe in una ipotesi simile?

 

Dicevo che sarebbe successo come a castello Itter perchè i soldati della werhmacht che poi combatterono contro le SS si erano arresi precedentemente agli americani quindi penso che sarebbe successa una cosa simile in scala più grande se il golpe fosse riuscito e il nuovo governo tedesco avesse accettato la resa mentre le SS avrebbero continuato a combattere come hanno fatto appunto anche dopo la morte di Hitler.

Lo scopo politico della wermacht è che appunto essendosi arresa diventava di fatto cobelligerante degli alleati contro le waffen ss che rifiutavano di deporre le armi.

 

Senza Hitler la Germania accetta la resa incondizionata e si risparmia un bel po' di danni e morti.
A livello politico però i russi a quel punto sono molto, molto lontani da prendere Berlino e con l'esercito tedesco ancora funzionante difficilmente si dividerebbe la Germania in due. Possibile che Germania-Austria restino tutte nel blocco alleato in funzione antisovietica

 

@Long Tom scusa, ma con queste forze, tu me la chiami battaglia? ho visto risse a scuola più frequentate.

Strength
Troops

• United States 14
• German Army 10
• Waffen SS 1
• French former prisoners
• One tank

Reinforcements

• German Army 2
• Austrian resistance 1

Troops

• Waffen SS 100-150

 

Vabbè ma viene chiamata comunque battaglia e poi il motivo per cui viene ricordata è il fatto che è l'unico scontro del conflitto a vedere waffen ss contro wehrmacht anche se si tratta appunto di 12 soldati, cioè la guarnigione del castello.

 

Quei dodici soldati avranno scelto per motivi condingenti, per paura forse... negli ultimi giorni della guerra i fanatici, per primi le SS, andavano giustiziando chiunque si arrendesse.
Da qui ad ipotizzare che la Whermacht nel suo insieme, quindi sotto una guida militare-politica, si cimenta in una guerra civile c'è ne passa.

 

Capisco il punto ma non lo condivido.

C'è l'idea di fondo che i Tedeschi (civili, Whermacht, SS, ma anche tanti volontari stranieri) abbiano combattuto fino all'ultimo solo per compiacere a Hitler.

Io credo che la situazione sia stata un pò diversa. Credo che nel '44 a nessuno Tedesco o simpatizzante nazista la situazione debba essere apparsa rosea. Anche i più fanatici ed ottimisti che ancora credevano nella vittoria, di certo non speravano di raggiungerla se non ad altissimo prezzo.
Nessuno combatte per sport o si fa ammazzare perchè Hitler cosi ha deciso.
I Tedesci in quel periodo si sono compattati attorno il loro leader, per quanto sicuramente a molti non piacesse, perchè la germania era assediata da nemici feroci che ne chiedevano l'annientamento.
I Russi gridavano vendetta, gli americani parlavano di pastorizzazione della germania, e gli inglesi dibattevano se fare o meno i processi ai criminali nazisti o semplicemente ammazzzarli.

Chiunque avesse preso il potere in germania dopo hitler si sarebbe trovato in un vicolo cieco.
Perchè gli Alleati si sarebbero dovuti sedere ad un tavolo con i Tedeschi? Perchè escludere da questo tavolo i Sovietici?
E se un tavolo diplomatico si fosse aperto, i Tedesci cosa portavano?

 

Potevano portare solo la resa incondizionata, esattamente come ha potuto fare l'Italia.
Si sarebbero risparmiati un bel po' di morti, ulteriori distruzioni delle città e, probabilmente, la divisione in due stati.

 

No aspè, non sto dicendo che la guerra è andata avanti per compiacere Hitler. La questione è che nel 44 la guerra era palesemente persa ed era solo questione di tempo. Non ci è chiaro se Hitler credesse davvero nella possibilità di una vittoria finale inaspettata o se andasse avanti perchè "perdere per perdere tanto vale". Comunque, un governo postihitleriano più pragmatico avrebbe certamente negoziato la pace il prima possibile. La carta su cui i tedeschi puntavano era l'odio comune per i comunisti, infatti inizialmente l'idea tedesca era di far pace solo ad occidente per continuare la guerra coi russi. Quello che potevano portare i tedeschi al tavolo era accettare la pace degli alleati occidentali, quindi di fatto l'instaurazione di un governo fantoccio filo USA che d'altra parte aveva il vantaggio 1- di non dividere il Paese in due aree, 2- di tenere la Germania sufficientemente forte da farne un cuscinetto contro i sovietici