What if von Stauffenberg and co. succeeded?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Say they did manage to blow up Hitler. What happens after that? How do things change?

[Hans-im-Glück]

Stauffenberg and Co would be killed too. The Nazi have the total control over the country and the Stauffenberg Group haven't a chance to get the power. Göring will be chancellor and the war continue. Maybe the war ends 3 month earlier, but i don't think so.

The bad thing is because Hitler is dead, many people will say: "When this traitors don't kill Hitler we win the war".  It's better Stauffenberg haven't success to blow up Hitler.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Stauffenberg and Co would be killed too. The Nazi have the total control over the country and the Stauffenberg Group haven't a chance to get the power. Göring will be chancellor and the war continue. Maybe the war ends 3 month earlier, but i don't think so.

The bad thing is because Hitler is dead, many people will say: "When this traitors don't kill Hitler we win the war".  It's better Stauffenberg haven't success to blow up Hitler.

I agree that war would continue, as Allies were not interested (maybe Churchill in some degree, but absolulety not Roosevelt or Stalin) in anything less than unconditional surrender.

And that was actually what the world needed.

[big bad fab]

Göring maybe only as a compromise candidate, because Himmler, Goebbels, even Bormann or Speer would have tried to grasp power.

Himmler was quite powerful at the time and I think he may have succeeded Hitler.

No big soldier would have fit, with Rommel out and Dönitz not acceptable by the Stauffenberg conspiracy. But I'm not sure about Manstein. He may have been picked to have someone able to keep on fighting, but also with whom the Allies would accept to talk.

Apart from Goebbels, many Nazi leaders would have tried to take the opportunity to make peace with the West (even Himmler, well aware of his likely fate with the Soviets...).

That wouldn't have worked, of course.
But whatever Hitler's successor, there is one certainty: no counter-attack in the Ardennes in December 1944 and far less resistance to the US and British troops.
And maybe less resistance too in Italy (not sure, though, because of Kesselring and the SS influence there).

So, maybe a Germany entirely occupied by the Western Allies !

[Hans-im-Glück]

@ fab

Göring would be chancellor, no other. Himmler would be a powerful second man (behind him stand the SS). Goebbels was overrated. He don't have the importance in the leadership of the NSDAP. He was only loud and full of hate.

Nobody in Germany, only insiders, know about Bormann in this time. He was a important man, but only in the background. Speer is without Hitler in the NSDAP nothing and after this bombing from a part of the army, nobody would trust any general.

It's Göring in the lead and there would be some changes, but in the end it's the same. You're right, maybe the western Allies go faster to Berlin, but this is not sure. Roosevelt and Stalin want the unconditional surrender and nothing else. Maybe it comes 3 month earlier, but not more.

[big bad fab]

Göring reached his climax in the late 1930s. After 1940, he stayed only because he was the old friend of Hitler. Himmler hated him and I don't think he would have used him as a puppet Nr.1 (all the more that Göring would have refused to, so proud of himself and sure to be the real Nr.2 behind Hitler).

I agree with you on Goebbels and Speer: just saying they would have tried, but they hadn't many followers...

I've referred to Manstein only as a sign towards the West, put forward by Himmler and Bormann. But not on himself of course, the Army was too weak and divided at that time.

We can also imagine "wilder" solutions, with a hero picked by the big guns who would remain behind the scenes:
Hans-Joachim Marseille and Otto Kretschmer were already dead (Michael Wittmann was fighting, but was a Waffen-SS; Wünsche, "Panzer" Meyer also...), but Adolf Galland or Manteuffel might have been picked.
Very unlikely, but it's a what-if, you see...

[minionofmidas]

The Stauffenberg coup would have failed, of course, that is to say not worked out as planned and not worked out for anyone in it. But there would have been much more mayhem if Hitler had been dead. With not-entirely predictable results. Hans' minimum-change scenario is a likely one but not the only possible one.

[Hans-im-Glück]

Stauffenberg don't change the histoy when Hitler dies, maybe a tiny little bit. The only  assassination attempt, witch has changes to work was 1939 from Georg Elser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Elser

When Hitler dies 1939, then all the history will be different. Göring would  make a complete other strategy in the war.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, Elser's a forgotten hero.

[Mechaman]

I believe in this situation the German high command would focus all of their forces to the east with minimal resistance to the West to hold off the Soviets as long as possible from reaching Germany. The High Command would welcome a total Western Allied victory over Germany than welcome any possibility of a Soviet controlled East Germany.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Stauffenberg don't change the histoy when Hitler dies, maybe a tiny little bit. The only  assassination attempt, witch has changes to work was 1939 from Georg Elser http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Elser

When Hitler dies 1939, then all the history will be different. Göring would  make a complete other strategy in the war.

Goering was not really interested in war. He preffered a peace - of course a peace with him on the top position, so he can enjoy his life and power. I'm sure Goering would try to make a peace with France and Great Britian as soon as he could and not go against USSR.

Sources tell us that Goering was relucant about the war, was he loyal that's diffrent matter.

[big bad fab]

With Göring in 1939, Germany would have switched to a Mussolinian path... failures, ridicule, mess,...

I think he would have been ousted in a coup, 1 or 2 years later, after having screwed up the whole thing, probably by a coalition of military and police forces, with someone like Neurath or Frick at the head.

Afterwards, errr... I don't know !

[Хahar 🤔]

Göring seizes power and makes peace.

I had a timeline about it somewhere.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Goebbels was overrated. He don't have the importance in the leadership of the NSDAP. He was only loud and full of hate.

True. Goebbels position depended solely on Hitler. Unlike Goering, Himmler or Bormann, he had nobody behind him

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Göring seizes power and makes peace.

I had a timeline about it somewhere.

Goering surely would like to strenght Germany position and even enlarge, but he'd never go too far. He wanted a power and realized war is a threat for power.

Not that I like him. He was unpleasent man after all. I know this is irrevelant, but when he became Prussian Prime Minister in 1933, he personally ordered to replace a guillotine (used in Prussia, with Berlin exception) with hand axe and block "a German axe", he called, and personally designed an uniform for an executioner.

What a douche.

[big bad fab]

I'm really not sure at all that Goering would have prevailed over Himmler in July 1944.

Granted, in real life, Himmler's climax of power came just because of failed attempt of assassination by Stauffenberg.
Himmler then seized the command of the Army of the Interior. The Waffen-SS was authorized to grow very quickly by absorbing far more foreign troops. Some big SS commanders (Dietrich, Hausser, Steiner,...) began to take command of Armies with Heer troops inside them. The HitlerJugend became only a troop provider for the Waffen-SS. The armaments industry was, more or less, controlled by the SS.
And Goering remained in control of the Luftwaffe throughout the war, despite feudings with Milch and the (stopped) rise of brilliant men like Jeschonnek.

But Goering had reached his own climax in 1933-1938.
When Himmler and Heydrich got both the SS and the Police under one command (it was done by 1936),
when all the leftists in the Party were eliminated (1934 of course, but also until 1938),
when the Army was entirely controlled by Hitler (1938, after Blomberg & Fritsch ousted; 1940 with Hitler himself at the head of the OKH),
Goering was already dead. He survived because of his personal friendship with Hitler.
The sole fact he became "Reichsmarschall" meant he was out of real power... Give him some sweets and he was happy.
With failure in England, 1940, failures in Russia from 1941, and furthermore in 1943, with Allied bombings on Germany, he was completely down.

What is more, I think a part of the Heer and the Kriegsmarine (who were branches far more powerful in 1944, at least in prestige for the latter and in numbers for the former) would have more easily tilted towards Himmler.
In the Heer, Nazi or quasi-Nazi generals were very powerful at the time: apart from the dull Keitel, Jodl, Model, Schörner.
And inside the Luftwaffe, some, like Milch, Kesselring, Galland and even Student (paratroopers) would have been glad to avenge themselves by turning against Goering.

In RL, a failed attempt resulted in Himmler's big rise.
Why, with a successful assassination and the mess resulting from it, wouldn't Himmler have been able to seize power ?

The only way for Goering to prevail would have been to be supported by the NSDAP machine around Bormann.
But, well, the Red Army having been then out of Russia and with a war society and war economy, the NSDAP wasn't any longer a big place of power.

So, I think Himmler is the likeliest one.
With some very tiny chances for a guy like Manstein, on whom many can agree.
And with even tinier chances for Goering, in case of a very fragmented scene in Berlin.

Does any of you have solid elements to bring in favor of Goering in the environment of July 1944 ? I'm interested in !

As for the end, it's clear that the priority would have been, for any leader, to stop the Soviets.
So, not really a big change in the final year of war, but some BIG differences for the post-war period:
the whole Germany in the West, maybe even a splitted Czech republic, no neutral status for Austria.