Alternative history: Hitler killed in March 1944

[#Oda#]

You will have read and heard what the mainstream media in the FRG has written in magazins and told on TV for many decades and you will have spoken to a lot of other respective Germans. No offence. I honestly don't blame you.

I knew you‘d answer like that and that you don't blame me. But also without Hitler and all what happened later, I am able to affirm that I would have disagreed to the whole movement that started in 1933. I know you don't believe that. Nearly all it was containing is profoundly abhorrent to me and not only to me. Provided I had been raised back then with the same timeless values I was, which are regardless to any Hitler - rejection of the whole movement would have been the inevitable impact.

[rothaer]

I knew you‘d answer like that and that you don't blame me. But also without Hitler and all what happened later, I am able to affirm that I would have disagreed to the whole movement that started in 1933. I know you don't believe that. Nearly all it was containing is profoundly abhorrent to me and not only to me. Provided I had been raised back then with the same timeless values I was, which are regardless to any Hitler - rejection of the whole movement would have been the inevitable impact.

Well, I guess it was something like 50:50 in 1933 and that the popularity in 1938 will have risen to something like 80+ %. Of course, this doesn't mean an agreement to all later measures. However, if you claim to have belonged to that 20- % dislikers that's possible, of course. Although it's both statistically unlikely and also due to the fact that I did never hear by you a criticism of anything that is represented by the mainstream. It's unlikely to by chance be in line with the mainstream in all aspects worth mentioning.

[Faklon]

It would certainly would have limited US influence in Europe.
Don't know if that would have limited American warfare R&D as much as to delay the invention of the nuclear bomb.

Whether the Soviets found a way to conquer Europe or they would find a more peaceful resolution is up for debate.
I think that Greece would have better odds of falling under communism though.

Anyways, all this is hypothetical.

[Kess]

Hitler dying in 1944 is too late to change anything.

[Blondie]

I don't think that it's by chance that Blondie is also a diaspora German (essentially) and not reached by that brain washing.

I did not see such thing. In short: Germany was the good guy during the WW2 according to hungarian history books. There was a very long part about the unfair Treaty of Versailles/Trianon, and France was the Satan from hungarian perspective. We have studied about the shuffering of german minority in Poland, Czechoslovakia. This is my experience in the hungarian schools. I did not see any self-hater propaganda, and i dont now any self-hater danube swabian. Its exist only in Germany.

[#Oda#]

Well, I guess it was something like 50:50 in 1933 and that the popularity in 1938 will have risen to something like 80+ %. Of course, this doesn't mean an agreement to all later measures. However, if you claim to have belonged to that 20- % dislikers that's possible, of course. Although it's both statistically unlikely and also due to the fact that I did never hear by you a criticism of anything that is represented by the mainstream. It's unlikely to by chance be in line with the mainstream in all aspects worth mentioning.

Me being in line with mainstream - that‘s an error of you. I was and am not in line with several mainstream aspects and anyway few of me as person and in biography is considered by mainstream views.
However, that now is indeed off topic.

[noricum]

Maybe I do but I'm not sure. Eventually both sides soon started to cooperate with their respective non-National Socialist collaborating Germans. How long time did it take? 1 year, 2 years? Pls consider that in my scenario a Stauffenberg-like government is in power, someone that is today celebrated as a resistance fighter against Hitler. He was a German patriot, nationalist maybe, yes, but who else cares about the country and its fate?

The Stauffenberg government would be seen as traitors by a large percentage of Germans, including non-Nazis. The Nazis wouldn't just disappear by killing Hitler. Thousands of Germans were deeply involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity. All previously occupied countries would want to see crimes investigated and convicted murderers killed. Saying we've shot Hitler and retreated, so let us be, is just cheeky and unacceptable.

Hitler even pretty late sabotaged and prevented an outcome that would have been much better. It's even more annoying to have missed something that would have been possible to grasp for a pretty long time.

A more flexible retreat, instead of pointlessly declaring any town as Festung,* cleverly using rivers or the Carpathian mountains,* might have saved German lives and prolonged the war.*
Chances are the US had eventually dropped Nukes on Germany.

Nothing but 9+ million well equipped and highly motivated German soldiers.

I think it's naive to believe that most Germans would have welcomed the death of Hitler in 1944. Anyway, it would have caused major upheaval and uncertainty within German society. A civil war-like situation, with Nazis and Conservatives going against each other, and maybe Socialists trying their luck seems well possible to me, causing a stark blow to German fighting morale.
I think it's naive to believe that most Germans would have welcomed the death of Hitler in 1944. Anyway, it would have caused major upheaval and uncertainty within German society. A civil war-like situation, with Nazis and Conservatives going against each other, and maybe Socialists trying their luck seems well possible to me, causing a stark blow to German fighting morale.
Such a retreat would further diminish the potential offensive power of Germany, with the German navy reduced to little more than a coast guard, outside the Baltic Sea. Such a retreat would further diminish the potential offensive power of Germany, with the German navy reduced to little more than a coast guard, outside the Baltic Sea.

[rothaer]

The Stauffenberg government would be seen as traitors by a large percentage of Germans, including non-Nazis.

This is indeed a problem and also why I did not presuppose the Stauffenberg assault to have happened here. I actually left open how exactly Hitler died. Let's assume - theoretically - that he killed himself (as he did in reality) and then made his known political testament installing Karl Dönitz as a successor. The latter had become a member of the NSDAP as late as in January 1944 and to my perception he was a flawless and responsibly acting German that I would have liked to have had as a leader even today. So presuppose him as an undisputed successor of Hitler in this scenario.

The Nazis wouldn't just disappear by killing Hitler. Thousands of Germans were deeply involved in war crimes and crimes against humanity. All previously occupied countries would want to see crimes investigated and convicted murderers killed.

This was true in reality as well. And only very few were killed in spite of that Germany became fully occupied by the enemies.

So the crucial question would become even more pronounced: Should the war be carried on with 10 million more dead for eventually killing 20 or 30 individuals as it was made in reality?

A more flexible retreat, instead of pointlessly declaring any town as Festung,* cleverly using rivers or the Carpathian mountains,* might have saved German lives and prolonged the war.*
Chances are the US had eventually dropped Nukes on Germany.

Absolutely. This is maybe the even most crucial aspect in the whole theoretical scenario. But consider that my proposal was a withdrawal in March 1944 which would imply that the Allies - after maybe some fights against already liberated France and Poland - would have been at the German border some month later, so however more than one year before the nuclear bomb was ready for use in July or August 1945.

Such a retreat would further diminish the potential offensive power of Germany, with the German navy reduced to little more than a coast guard, outside the Baltic Sea. Such a retreat would further diminish the potential offensive power of Germany, with the German navy reduced to little more than a coast guard, outside the Baltic Sea.

Yes, but as the military defence power was anyhow not sufficient, the plot of the discussed move is another. The plot is to satisfy the enemy kind of 90% and make the cost for the remaining 10% as high as half of a WWII.

[#Oda#]

@ rothaer (Dönitz):

Sorry for this interjection, but I just can‘t help it, the spontaneous feeling is too overwhelming although I did not recognize him and no, the orders are no trigger for me:
What a ridiculous, banal face in accordance with Hannah Arendt‘s term „banality of evil“.
That man a „leader“? However, this sentence at least clarifies the question I always have had, namely which kind of governance you are thinking of instead of your behated democracy. Now I finally now, but you really could work on your insight into human nature and as well taste.

[rothaer]

@ rothaer (Dönitz):

Sorry for this interjection, but I just can‘t help it, the spontaneous feeling is too overwhelming although I did not recognize him and no, the orders are no trigger for me:
What a ridiculous, banal face in accordance with Hannah Arendt‘s term „banality of evil“.
That man a „leader“? However, this sentence at least clarifies the question I always have had, namely which kind of governance you are thinking of instead of your behated democracy. Now I finally now, but you really could work on your insight into human nature and as well taste.

I find the "banality of evil" (which I consider applicable) very suitable regading the faces of Merkel and Scholz. However, can you elaborate the "evil" of Dönitz?

He was to my perception one of the few high ranked individuals that dutyfully cared for the future of our people in those likely darkest days in the history of Germany when many other unveiled to be patethic. Bad days show how people are, not the good days.