# Did the Allies abandon plans to assassinate Hitler due to fear of horrific reprisals? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 6, 2012, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026 "2012-11-06T00:40:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/21 "2012-11-14T06:30:23Z")
The idea that the Allies didn’t try to assassinate Hitler is just plain wrong. They did their best to get him assassinated, supporting any such plan they heard of. For example, the July 20th, 1944 attempt was made with explosive supplied by the Allies. The Allies generally did not send secret agents to assassinate Hitler, he was too well guarded, and why bother when there were plenty of Germans willing to try. Just give them the tools, and see if they will do the job. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/22 "2012-11-14T07:28:08Z")
> [@Fish\_Cheer](#): > > 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_? A surprising one. Japan’s ambassador to Germany was Hiroshi Oshima. Oshima was a big fan of Nazism and Hitler liked Oshima in turn - as a friendly outsider, Oshima was somebody Hitler felt he could relax with. So Oshima was often invited to have long conversations with Hitler, where Hitler would outline his thoughts and his strategic plans for the war. Oshima, a general, was also allowed to make inspections in German military installations. And Oshima, like a good diplomat, would telegraph the content of all these conversations and observations back to his superiors in Tokyo. And the Americans would intercept all of these messages and decode them. So the Allies had a great source into what Hitler was thinking. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/23 "2012-11-14T10:14:41Z")
If Allies would have assassinated Hitler, they might have found someone competent to put in charge. nm several posts too late 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2012, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/24 "2012-11-14T12:31:49Z")
The British SOE hatched a plan to kill him with a sniper when he visited the Berghof called [Operation Foxley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Foxley). As mentioned above the fear of someone more competent (remember that by this point Hitler’s stubbornness had led to the destruction of an entire army at Stalingrad) was a factor in it being called off; the former corporal’s tactical interference with the plans of his generals was an asset to the Allies. What was probably an even more important consideration was making Hitler a martyr (a concept the Nazis [were](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch#Martyrdom) [no](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel#Posthumous_fame) [strangers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Gustloff) [to](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Norkus)) or planting the idea that victory had been snatched away from Germany - post war Germans lamenting “If only our Fuhrer had lived, we would have triumphed!” The post war process of de-Nazification would have been far more difficult, the German people instead of seeing Hitler as a lunatic who dragged Germany to hell with him, he would have been a hero cut down in his prime. It would go down in the national psyche alongside the Treaty of Versailles. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/25 "2019-01-28T03:26:01Z")
Bumped. PBS will air the documentary _Operation Foxley: Mission - Liquidate Hitler_ on Feb. 21. Check local listings: [Please login to see this page | American Public Television](https://www.aptonline.org/offer/OPERATION-FOXLEY---MISSION-LIQUIDATE-HITLER) ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/26 "2019-01-28T17:40:20Z")
> [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](#): > > The idea that the Allies didn’t try to assassinate Hitler is just plain wrong. They did their best to get him assassinated, supporting any such plan they heard of. For example, the July 20th, 1944 attempt was made with explosive supplied by the Allies. > > The Allies generally did not send secret agents to assassinate Hitler, he was too well guarded, and why bother when there were plenty of Germans willing to try. Just give them the tools, and see if they will do the job. This is a misunderstanding. The Allies did not “supply the explosives” in any sense except that the German plotters intentionally used captured Allied materials to confuse the expected investigation: > [@](#): > > Loringhoven provided the detonator charge and explosives for the assassination attempt against Hitler on 20 July 1944. He was able to obtain captured British explosives from German intelligence (Abwehr) sources. British explosives were used in order to make it harder to detect who had supplied them, and also to infer that the British were involved in the plot, thereby diverting attention from the actual conspirators. Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessel\_Freytag\_von\_Loringhoven#20\_July\_plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wessel_Freytag_von_Loringhoven#20_July_plot) Sorry to reply so late, just noticed this. It is unnecessary to suppose military officers in World War II needed outside help obtaining explosives. ---
**Author:** ![JB99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/439d5e/32.png) [@JB99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JB99)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/27 "2019-01-28T18:06:03Z")
> [@Fish Cheer](#): > > Did the Allies have a source in the _Führerhauptquartier_? They had Rudolph Hess. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/28 "2019-01-28T19:54:57Z")
> [@JB99](#): > > They had Rudolph Hess. Was Hess considered a reliable source of (valuable) information? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/29 "2019-01-28T20:11:08Z")
> [@Fish\_Cheer](#): > > 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_? Admiral Canaris, for a time the head of the Abwehr , did feed the Allies some intel, but indirectly. One of his best games was sending totally incompetent agents into the USA and GB. Many of whom were turned and led to the Allies deception about D-Day. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/30 "2019-01-28T20:22:37Z")
While killing Hitler would be somewhat gratifying on some level, I’m not sure what advantage it would provide. The war would still have to be prosecuted. Hitler’s replacement, may have been more of an asset than Hitler would have been. And as was mentioned up thread, this time the allies were going to “finish the job” and ensure that allied soldiers marched through Berlin. Feelers to end the war early were not desired. In some ways he was a better figurehead to the allies than he was to Germans. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2019, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/31 "2019-01-28T22:50:43Z")
I suspect any reluctance to support a Hitler assassination plot stemmed from concern that his death would massively rally the German people around the regime. A similar concern was behind Jimmy Doolittle’s insistence that his 1942 Tokyo raiders avoid bombing the Imperial Palace at all costs, since the death of the Emperor supposedly would have unified the Japanese like no other event (though it’s difficult to conceive of a level of blind obedience greater than what the leadership enjoyed throughout the war). ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/32 "2019-01-29T20:00:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Was Hess considered a reliable source of (valuable) information? My guess is that the Allies were pretty confused by Hess, and would have taken anything he said with a big grain of salt. Anyway, he was captured in 1941, so by say, D-day, he couldn’t provide much info even if he wanted to. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/33 "2019-01-29T20:55:59Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > My guess is that the Allies were pretty confused by Hess But not remotely as confused as Hess was himself. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/34 "2019-01-29T22:16:55Z")
I’d say that the logistics of killing him was the biggest roadblock. It’s extremely difficult to plan a successful assassination, which is why most are by lone gunmen or the equivalent. To pull it off, you have to depend on a lot of luck, and no military planner is going to depend on luck alone. Further, a long assassin often doesn’t care if they are killed, but anyone you order in does want to survive. That alone makes it difficult. Even if the allies knew for a fact that Germany would immediately surrender if Adolf was offed, the difficulties of getting near him in the first place, let alone being able to succeed, makes it a dicey proposition. Remember: Amateurs talk strategy; Professionals talk tactics; and Generals talk logistics. Killing Hitler is a strategy. Coming up with a plan to do it is tactics. Implementing that plan is logistics. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/35 "2019-01-30T13:40:22Z")
Speaking of Hess. Someone found an old blood sample the Brits took of Hess and tracked down some of his relatives and it’s a [match](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/dna-test-squashes-decades-long-doppelganger-conspiracy-about-rudolf-hess/2019/01/25/abb231de-1e8d-11e9-8e21-59a09ff1e2a1_story.html). So the old “That wasn’t Hess in Spandau Prison.” theory has been debunked. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/36 "2019-01-30T15:03:34Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > My guess is that the Allies were pretty confused by Hess, and would have taken anything he said with a big grain of salt. > > Anyway, he was captured in 1941, so by say, D-day, he couldn’t provide much info even if he wanted to. More to the point, did he have anything illuminating to say about plans to invade the USSR a month later? It doesn’t look like it, AFAIK. Was he so far out of the loop that his flight was some mad attempt to make himself important again? As for the OP’s initial premise, there was one “freelance” suggestion of a plan to assassinate Hitler before the war, that the British government (not surprisingly) stamped on. > **[Noel Mason-MacFarlane](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Mason-MacFarlane)** > > Lieutenant General Sir Frank Noel Mason-MacFarlane, KCB, DSO, MC & Two Bars (23 October 1889 – 12 August 1953) was a senior British Army officer, administrator and politician who served as Governor of Gibraltar during the Second World War. > Frank Noel Mason was born on 23 October 1889, the son of a doctor. His father was convinced that war between Germany and Great Britain was inevitable and joined the Territorial Army\[citation needed\] to work as an army doctor. As a result, his father was fre... ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/37 "2019-01-31T20:57:01Z")
One point that often gets overlooked is that the Allies war goal was NOT simply to get a victory over Germany and Japan. They wanted to be sure that both nations were ground down and thoroughly beaten, and that the government and people knew it. So one thing they didn’t want was to kill Hitler, then have someone negotiate a peace or have the country descend into civil war, because they expected to have to fight Germany again in 20-40 years if there was any peace that didn’t involve grinding to unconditional surrender or that had a ‘stabbed in the back’ angle like a civil war. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2019, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/38 "2019-01-31T23:44:01Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > One point that often gets overlooked is that the Allies war goal was NOT simply to get a victory over Germany and Japan. They wanted to be sure that both nations were ground down and thoroughly beaten, and that the government and people knew it. So one thing they didn’t want was to kill Hitler, then have someone negotiate a peace or have the country descend into civil war, because they expected to have to fight Germany again in 20-40 years if there was any peace that didn’t involve grinding to unconditional surrender or that had a ‘stabbed in the back’ angle like a civil war. I am not disputing, but if this is so, when did it become policy - when the US got involved, or even earlier, say, June 1941, or possibly as late as June 1944? It is a plausible retrodiction but is there proof that this was the Allies’ intent? ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/39 "2019-02-01T00:25:16Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Speaking of Hess. Someone found an old blood sample the Brits took of Hess and tracked down some of his relatives and it’s a [match](https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/dna-test-squashes-decades-long-doppelganger-conspiracy-about-rudolf-hess/2019/01/25/abb231de-1e8d-11e9-8e21-59a09ff1e2a1_story.html). > > So the old “That wasn’t Hess in Spandau Prison.” theory has been debunked. However the "Hess didn’t commit suicide theory’ IMHO has a little leg. I don’t understand the angle…no I don’t believe he had the goods on anyone…but it does seem a bit suspicious. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2019, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026/40 "2019-02-01T05:16:28Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > I am not disputing, but if this is so, when did it become policy - when the US got involved, or even earlier, say, June 1941, or possibly as late as June 1944? > > It is a plausible retrodiction but is there proof that this was the Allies’ intent? Britain and America formally declared a policy of unconditional surrender in January 1943 at the Casablanca conference. The Soviet Union was about to win back Stalingrad. I doubt if anything less than unconditional surrender had seriously been on the agenda of any of the Allied leaders, and the sense of the tide turning in the Allies’ favour would made publicly declaring it a simple formality. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-allies-abandon-plans-to-assassinate-hitler-due-to-fear-of-horrific-reprisals/640026.md?page=3)