If the July 20 plot to assassinate Hitler had succeeded, would the Holocaust have continued?

a reply to: Potlatch

There are a lot of uncertainties about just what would have happened if the Farting Maniac had been killed by the bomb. What we have to remember is that the cabal of German Heer officers who were involved were an eclectic lot, unified pretty much only by their opposition to Hitler. Most were conservative nationalists that supported his policies to restore what they thought of as German land (but which the Poles, Czechs and French, etc, regarded as theirs).
They were all anti-Communist as well, so they hoped for a negotiated peace with the West whilst they fought the Soviets to a standstill (difficult - Army Group Centre was obliterated in June-July 1944 and AG South was being ground to pieces at the same time).
They also had no good plan to take care of Himmler or Goering, which is quite important as the latter was Hitler's sort-of designated successor (It's complicated, plus Bormann was undermining Goering's authority a lot). So even if they had blown the Farting Maniac up successfully, there's no guarantee that they could have seized power.

a reply to: Potlatch

Probably because people like Himmler would still be around or even take control.

The fact is it was not just Adolf Hitler responsible for the holocaust.

en.wikipedia.org...

I think that the assassination of one leader tends to push a country more to the extreme than lessen the extremes as a national direction of travel is more than just 1 person..

changes of leaders during war throw up pivots but not always the ones expected nicolas1 to alexander2 in crimea while reshaping the war gave us the period of the 3 emperors that in turn led to the triple entente and in turn the great war of liberal powers in 1914/18 that in turn helped deliver the bolshevik revolution

In the same way england pivoted into and out of catholicism with each new ruler yet each stuck managing a population of heretics.. its the same now as the country is on pm what 4 with no real change because its stuck going that way

germany was stuck going the direction it was, much of what germany did do euthanasia/sterilisation was what the other liberal countries wanted to do, it only fell down when the camps came to light showing the absolute horror of where that thinking leads.

the same today with those who throw around the idea of easy 50%+ population reductions to save the planet, there is no nice/cuddly way to reduce populations by any margin and not end up going down the path or cleansing or genocides of the wrong types.

the nazis are a perfect example of where that thinking leads but also how it takes the reality of the camps to derail that kind of thinking.. so hitler gone doesn't change where the country was..

originally posted by: andy06shake
a reply to: Potlatch

Probably because people like Himmler would still be around or even take control.

The fact is it was not just Adolf Hitler responsible for the holocaust.

en.wikipedia.org...

We'll never know when exactly Hitler gave the order to start the Holocaust. It must have been verbal, probably under one of his 'Under Four Eyes' meetings (just Hitler and one other person, no secretaries, no-one else at all).
There is anecdotal evidence of Himmler emerging from one such meeting in 1941, looking visibly stunned for a long moment and then pulling himself together and leaving. We know that the Einsatzgruppen that followed the Heer during the invasion of Russia had been organised beforehand, but it wasn't until the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 that everything seems to have been pulled together and more tightly organised under Heydrich and Eichmann.

a reply to: AngryCymraeg

Nasty bastards AngryCymraeg no two ways about it.

The fact of the matter is though, it's preferable the attempts on Hitler's life failed.

Because the next man who stepped up or took a hold of the nazi reins may have been a better tactician or even bothered to listen to his generals.

Hitler being assassinated may have actually prolonged the war or even taken it in the other direction.

a reply to: AngryCymraeg

Stephen Fry has a book about this premise. I have it but not got round to reading it:

www.wob.com... j0KCQiAx6ugBhCcARIsAGNmMbgjvvauyC4Mx63HPux_MH0AOZXoAyukZYGqoLwicIaVs7M4GglaxEwaAkZFEALw_wcB#GOR000528371