WHAT IF THE PLOT HAD SUCCEEDED?

PEACE WITH THE WEST, VICTORY IN THE EAST, GERMANY UNPUNISHED?

With Hitler assassinated and much of the rest of the Nazi hierarchy either dead or under arrest, the conspirators had two priorities: establish themselves in power, and turn the war back in Germany’s favour.

After broadcasting to the world that the dictator was dead, the plotters’ plan was to announce themselves to the nation over the air waves as the new government. Goerdeler would move into the Chancellery and institute his new cabinet, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin von Witzleben would assume command of the Wehrmacht, and Ludwig Beck would become the first president of Germany since Hindenburg’s death. The Nazi

Party – seen by the plotters as a bacillus within German society – was to be immediately abolished, and any opposition would be ruthlessly crushed. This would not be a democratic revolution – the monarchy would be restored, probably in the form of Prince Oskar of Prussia, and much of the status quo, bar the Nazi Party itself, would be left untouched until a new conservative constitution could be finalised and brought in.

However the war would not have stopped, and Germany would neither surrender, nor unilaterally order its forces to withdraw home to the Reich. The Holocaust would in all likeliness have ceased, and the camps and prisons would have been filled by unrepentant Nazis and opponents to the new regime.

All efforts would be made to turn the tide of the war. Günther von Kluge would be ordered to seek a ceasefire in Normandy, with the further offer of peace negotiations to the western Allies. That offer to the Angloamericans would be an end to the war in the west, and a German withdrawal back within the Reich’s 1914 borders. The disputed provinces of Alsace-lorraine would, however, remain German. Washington and London would also have to agree to the extinction of Poland, Berlin’s annexation of huge additional territories in the east, and the German subjugation of eastern Europe.

The fighting in the east would continue, with all the troops freed from battle in the west being transferred to face the Red Army, in an attempt to finally beat Moscow and at least partially win the war for Germany.

Erwin von Witzleben was in the first group of accused conspirators to be brought before the Volksgerichtshof German Panthers prepare to counter-attack in Normandy in 1944. If the Plot had succeeded these men would likely have been transferred east to face the Red Army