I’ve just finished reading the quite wonderful Agent Zigzag by Ben Macintyre. One of the reasons I enjoyed it as much as I did was because it was full of many interesting little ‘asides’. By that, I mean, Macintyre peppered his book with allusions to various events, plots, etc. which, by themselves were often quite intriguing and/or provocative, independent of the rest of the text.
One such ‘aside’ had to do with the notion of the Allies plotting to assassinate Hitler (in fact, the protagonist of the book, Eddie Chapman, aka ‘Agent Zigzag’, might well have been able to pull it off). However, almost as soon as it was raised as a possibility, the idea of killing Hitler was nixed ‘from above’. Macintyre suggests that the decision not to pursue it was because of a very real concern that an assassination would engender absolutely horrific reprisals. Indeed, he points out that when Zigzag’s idea to finish off Hitler was raised, the atrocities at Lidice and Lezaky, in all their enormity, only several months past, were still very fresh in everyone’s minds. One can imagine the Allied PTB saying, “And that was just for Heydrich. Imagine what they’d do if we took out Adolf himself!”.
So, with that long-winded bit of background out of the way, my question:
Is there evidence that (from mid-1942 onward) that any Allied plan to assassinate Hitler was called off due to fear of reprisals if successful? Or, what is much the same thing, is there evidence that (subsequent to Lidice et al) the Allies refused to even consider assassinating Hitler because they could not accept the retaliation and suffering they believed would follow a successful operation?
Yeah, like, I mean,the Nazis never did anything horrific unless one of them got assassinated, right? And that Hitler, he was, like, a moderating influence on the others when he was alive.
What, they were afraid the Nazis would get mean?
I have a vague memory of the idea that the Allies didn’t want to kill Hitler because they figured his likely replacement(s) would do a better job than him.
Also, modern states tend to be resilient to such assassinations. FDR died mid-term and mid-war and the US continued on just fine.
I’d read that several assassination attempts were called off out of fear that in the ensuing power struggle a much more competent and dangerous leader would take control. Towards the end of the war, “Dolfykins” was making increasingly bad decisions and exhibiting classic symptoms of amphetamine psychosis. Someone like Guderian, Rommel, or another of the many highly skilled German military leaders would’ve likely avoided many of his mistakes; extending the war and costing millions more dead.
I was under the impression that the Allies didn’t want to kill him because he was incompetent (a megalomaniac drug addict with mental health problems). He would overrule his generals, try to take over the war effort himself, etc. and screw everything up.
I don’t think a reversal in the course of the war was feared. They just didn’t want to risk what was already shaping up to be a long and grueling push towards Berlin becoming even more difficult. Significant forces still remained, and under skillful leadership could have inflicted significantly heavier casualties and held out for much longer. The Germans still held thousands of miles of occupied territory as well as millions of civilians and POWs that could be used as bargining chips. I could easily see a new fuhrer offering to exchange that for the party leadership’s amnesty, or attempting to have the Western Allies join them against the Russians.
Well, the horrors that followed the Heydrich assassination, visited on every man, woman, and child indiscriminately without regard to religion or political affiliation, and on a scale involving many thousands was unique to that time - or at least the attention it got, and the revulsion it generated was. So, I’m not sure how to interpret your puerile-sounding response.
And, to everyone else, I should have made my question clearer and emphasized that I was asking whether the fear of reprisal was at least one of the reasons why assassination wasn’t pursued.
Some previous posters have mentioned the concern that any likely replacement would be more competent than Hitler himself. How widely known was his incompetence and tendency to make bad strategic decisions at the time? Did the Allies have a source in the Führerhauptquartier?
Do you have evidence that the Allied leadership thought that? Because we know now the opposite is true, Rommel at least would certainly have sought peace. That is why the Valkyrie plot chose him as their figurehead, to bring peace as soon as possible (delusionally, with the German regime and state remaining intact).
Hitler in fact deliberately extended the war as long as possible so that the remaining Germans, who by his lights had shown insufficient resolve, should suffer and die as much as possible.
The Valkyrie plot’s peace plan is illusory. Military officers wanted to whack Hitler and make peace while holding the gains Germany already had. The purpose was to get out before they lost it all. Since the Allies had previously agreed among themselves to specifically reject any such proposals, any proposal on those grounds would have been roundly rejected.
People like to talk about the Valkyrie Plot as a “what if,” but it would not have ended the war miraculously. It was much closer to a cynical grab at keeping what had been taken than a heroic resistance to evil.
Few things can rally a people like a martyr. Look at how much mileage they got out of Horst Wessel; I don’t doubt that Goebbels would have been able to make Adolf look like a Teutonic saint cruelly cut down by nefarious forces if any assassination plot had worked.
Only the Brits had the kind of organizational skills in theater to pull off such a mission and I suspect such a plan would have met resistance from the old guard who might not see assassination as quite playing cricket.
If fear of retaliation was a factor, it wouldn’t be out of concern for occupied Europe, it would be that the Germans might specifically target national landmarks or even the royal family in their bombing raids over London.
Accounts like that tend to strike me as postwar puffery from the intelligence services. “Well, we could have assassinated Hitler, but we chose not to.” The propaganda value from cutting the head off the Nazi regime would have been enormous, and the chaos of the ensuing power struggle would have benefitted the Allies far more than the possibility of a better future leader might have hurt. Removing Mussolini didn’t bring a more competent Italian leader to power, after all; it just stretched the Germans further.
As for the specific question, certainly Stalin would have had no reason to fear additional reprisals, given how Russian prisoners and civilians were already being treated by the Germans. And the US would have been largely out of reach except for its POWs.
Theory I have heard is that the Western Allies wanted no part of assassinating Hitler because they feared arousing Stalin’s notorious paranoia. They figured that an assassination plot would be seen by the Soviets as cooperation with the dissident German army officers who wanted to make a pitch for splitting the grand alliance - presenting regime change as a precondition for Western support at keeping the Soviets out of Europe (and incidentally allowing the Germans to keep at least some of their gains).
That this scenario was extremely unlikely or impossible makes no difference - Stalin feared it was possible (it was the sort of thing Stalin would have considered doing, and he tended to judge other leaders by his standard). The German officers who supported the Valkyrie plot were all for this of course - they, like Stalin, could not see that it was politically impossible.
This convergance of German and Soviet thinking basically killed any Western interest in an assassination.
There was a show (possibly History channel), 42 ways to kill Hitler. Apparently there were that many plots, some by Germans aside from the famous Valkyrie. They address the point of his decision-making, and the fact that some thought it better to leave him in charge of the German war effort. Nevertheless, the Brits sent a sniper team to Berchtesgaden (like a summer home). I don’t remember the reason this plot failed, but it was something of dumb luck like he had a cold that day didn’t go on his usual walk, & the Brit brass got nervous, didn’t wanna leave the sniper team there overnite, something like that. After the team was recalled, they decided not to try it again for fear of uniting the Germans against the Allies (!).
The Heydrich effort was a Czech homegrown idea, and carried out by Czechs. They must have known the Nazi response would’ve been brutal. Not that they could’ve predicted the town of Lidice would be wiped out, but they surely knew that many innocents would die - apparently they thought he was a high-value target to justify the loss. Hard to believe Hitler wouldn’t’ve merited the same cost. 1,000s would’ve died, but millions would’ve been saved.