Quote:
Originally Posted by Husker
According to Speer the 20th July plot was very close to success and if they had done something as simple as cutting off communications to Goebbels at the time it may have worked. Himmler seems to have disappeared for a bit while all this was going on...
The 20th July plot was in 1944 and by then the Allies were in Normandy preparing to break out and Germany had lost regardless of who takes over.
The plot itself was poorly organised and executed. Stauffenberg failed to prime one of the 2 bombs and left before confirming Hitler was dead. The communications between the various plotter groups were poor, so many of them chose to wait until Hitler's death was confirmed before acting.
A better plan imo would have been for Stauffenberg to shoot him and take the consequences.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Husker
So basically I'm looking at a scenario where there is a more competent military command going forward, however one that is willing to continue the fight.
Thinking on this, I still think Germany loses.
On the plus side they get a better fighter earlier, Stalingrad and Kursk are lesser disasters if they still happen. Perhaps more Ukrainians switch to the German side willingly.
Operation Overlord becomes a riskier proposition although Manstein and Guderian disagreed with Rommel and both supported holding the Panzers back away from the coast.
Germany gets a superior fighter aircraft ME262 earlier for use in the air defence of Germany. This could certainly save thousands of civilian lives as daylight bombing is abandoned, but the Allies probably continue the night raids
On the other side of the ledger.
Rommel still loses at El Alamein as North Africa is seen by the bulk of the General Staff as a sideshow and so is still starved of resources.
German policy is still to establish lebensraum in the East with large areas depopulated and repopulated by Volksdeutche. This has been a foreign policy objective since the early 1900's and unlikely to be abandoned when it seems to be coming true. No basis for a peace there.
Germany has no heavy long range bombers so can't reach the Soviet factories east of the Urals. In my view, this means the war in East continues with Soviet forces gradually increasing in strength.
Germany's production problems don't go away. The German economy is poorly organised and reliant on looting the occupied countries and a slave labour force. Many of the armament factories were established and run by the SS, using slave labour from concentration camps, POW camps and the occupied countries.
The more I think about it, I can see your proposed scenario extending the war in Europe but it leads inevitably to the atomic bombing of German cities in August 1945 instead of Hiroshima/Nagasaki ( as per the David Sklansky's post).