Germany honors resisters who tried to assassinate Hitler

AP ^ | July 19, 2019 | GEIR MOULSON

[dfwgator]

Not to diminish Scholl herself, but many of the resistance only started when the. Nazis started losing and realized Germany would lose the war. I assert many were thrilled when they saw German troops in Paris.

[SkyDancer]

She and her brother were executed in 1943, their student movement started way before that. The same sort of anti-American rumblings in our government are happening now.

[dfwgator]

Sophie’s boyfriend was still serving in the Wehrmacht.

[Michael.SF.]

I think most of the planners were also considering the aftermath of a Hitler death. That needed to be considered as well,m orterwise the same stuff may have continued.

[Moltke]

Nice timing Germany,

Always check the date of the article...some posters put a notice in the headline or the first post, some can't be bothered...

[alexander_busek]

They just never got anyone brave enough to simply pull out a pistol and shoot him dead.

1. Before being allowed into Hitler's presence, all visitors were disarmed. (Don't know when exactly this practice was instituted, but it was before the assassination attempt at the Wolfschanze, East Prussia, on July 20, 1944.

2. If the assassination attempt had been successful, Hitler would have been succeeded by Göring and/or Himmler, and the war would simply have been continued - under more-competent leadership (or the Nazi leadership would have sued for peace, claiming that Hitler was the "real" fiend, and that they had tried to moderate him).

3. By this point in time, Hitler was actually hindering the German cause, interfering with the proper execution of the war. He was surrounded by sycophants and was convinced of his own infallibility. He was aware of the fact that any truce offering from Germany would not be believed / honored as long as he was alive, and was intent upon making it impossible for Germany to enter into serious peace talks as long as he was alive (see point #2, above). Thus, killing Hitler would have the (apparently) paradoxical effect of strengthening the Nazi war effort.

Regards,

[jmacusa]

In many ways you're right Alex. The edict against being armed was put in place after July 20th., 1944 bomb plot. And the Allies felt Hitler was screwing up the badly but that was actually helping the Allied cause.

Whether or not Goering or Himmler could have continued the war? Goering at least had been a military man, Himmler wasn't and the one time he did attempt to launch an attack in 1945 it ended in disaster.

If Hitler had been killed would the SS have stayed loyal to the regime? They did , after all swear allegiance to him and no one else.

[jmacusa]

If Hitler had been killed would the SS have stayed loyal to the regime?

[Michael.SF.]

Difficult to answer, would depend on who stepped in to take Hitler's place.

One of the reasons that the plan Bonhoeffer was involved in did not go forward was those involved could not get the head of the Army (Keitel, I believe) to agree not use the Army (this would be the old school Army leaders) to stand down as those plotting assumed leadership over the Nazi segments. That would include the SS.

The plotters feared a civil war could break out between the Nazi/Hitler loyalists and the Germans who were simply true Germans (i.e. not Nazi's).

[jmacusa]

There was a point , late in the war when Hitler mouthed off to Josef “Sepp’’ Dietrich , head of The Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler, his own body guard, something about them being cowards and Dietrich had his men cut off their cuff titles but I don't know if the rest of the SS followed suit. Plenty of those bastards ran like hell to give themselves up to Americans.

[dfwgator]

Hitler was so drugged up by then, who knows the crazy stuff he was spewing.

[GreyHoundSailor]

Did you grow up in Germany? You are absolutely wrong.