Beyond Castle Wolfenstein would’ve been more historical.
I’m not German and have only studied “Standard German”, but it’s my understanding that the different German dialects are quite different indeed. When I visited Munich I met people from other parts of Germany who said they could hardly understand Bavarians at all. There are actually several different Bavarian dialects and accents, and I got the impression that they’re all pretty obvious to German-speakers from other regions. I couldn’t tell much difference myself, probably due to a combination of people trying to speak Standard German to me and my German being basic enough that there was plenty I couldn’t understand regardless of dialectical differences.
I believe that at least some of the same dialects are spoken in southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, but I don’t know how much the accents may differ. Maybe one of our German Dopers could say if it would be easy for say an Austrian to pass as a Bavarian, or vice versa.
That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. All the anti-Hitler plots that stood any chance of succeeding were looking for a separate peace with the western allies, which simply was not going to happen.
Had Valkyrie succeeded, it might have ended the war in Europe earlier than May 1945, but by mid '44 Germany was beyond done for. Things had long since swung against Germany militarily that the end was simply a matter of time. The West was not going to entertain ending the war while Germany continued it against the USSR. Even if in some bizarre alternate reality Churchill and Roosevelt had decided to accept peace with Germany based on the status quo, with Germany still occupying France, northern Italy, etc, the balance of power had long since shifted on the Eastern Front. The USSR alone was going to defeat Germany my mid '44 - actually long before then.
If the military had taken over Germany I think they would have known they were not in a position to push the allies for much in return for surrender. They knew they were finished and if they couldn’t push for peace with only the west, they would have faced up to inevitable. They could have offered something close to unconditional surrender in an effort to save Germany from the nightmare it surely faced. They could have maybe gotten clemency for themselves and their regular army buddies, but left Himmler, Goering and the like to the allies. The generals could have seen to it that none of their families were in the area that was to be under Soviet control before the takeover. That may not seem like much, but the plotters could have saved themselves, their families and their country from almost total destruction.
That’s a pretty bizarre statemant to make given that he murdered millions, and without him at the helm, none of it would have been possible. He was pretty extreme, believe it or not.
God, not really and not by 1944. Dropping poison gas on either London or Moscow wasn’t possible by mid '44. Human sacrifice? OK, if you want to go there I guess in a warped reality it could have happened.
Had Himmler been at the helm things would probably gone better- for the Allies that is. His terms as a military commander were complete and unmitigated disasters. He was more a massive military incompetant than Hitler by a long shot - which really is saying something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Himmler#Commander-in-chief
Since Hitler was the elected leader wouldn’t they have to have a new election?
Hitler wasn’t elected. He was appointed to the office of Chancellor by President Hindenberg. When Hindenberg died, Hitler abolished the office of the Presidency. So there was no legal authority left to appoint a new Chancellor.
No, he wasn’t, he was appointed. People like to say that Hitler was a democratically elected leader, but it really isn’t true. His brownshirts took a significant number of seats, but never a majority, and (arguably) only got a plurality by the fire they set in Reichstag, which was blamed on Communists. They mostly intimidated (and killed the opposition, replacing them with more tractable people) many of the current officeholders into supporting him, and thus persuaded von Hindenburg to appoint him Chancellor.
(Actual students of this era are welcome to correct me on any or all points.)
Just a couple:
The NSDAP first reached a plurality of seats in July of 1932, long before the Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire didn’t occur until a few weeks after Hitler became Chancellor, and the Night of the Long Knives didn’t occur until 1934.
I don’t believe I can fully explain how the opposition failed, but my understanding is that a large amount of it is due to the development of German politics post-1930, when the government (especially towards the very end) ended up in the hands of grandees with limited ties to any sort of popular support. Again, this is almost certainly not the best way to phrase it.
That is true he started as an appointed leader. Germany did not have a 2 party system. The Nazis got 44 percent which made them the biggest party.
Then after he took over they held a plebescite in which 85 percent of the people approved his takeover.
I really think this is where any difference would be found; post-war German politics. The outcome of the war was pretty much clear by the attempt, but I can easily imagine quite a lot of residual anger had Hitler been stopped from shaping the thousand year Reich. Hitler assassinated, stabbed in the back by Zionist sympathizers, the Fatherland betrayed by the money-grubbing (grabbing?) elites once again, etc. etc.
IMO…things might have turned out differently for Germany if Hitler had died and they succeeded in their coup followed by a vigorous attempt to end the war.
Most likely what would have happened is Germany would have tried to negotiate a peace and it would have been rejected. By the time the new government was willing to surrender it would have been too late.
If I was head of the new government and assuming I had the power I would have called the Allies to the peace table with an offer of withdrawl to the borders of Germany. When that was rejected I would offer to surrender to the England/U.S unconditionally. When that was rejected (It must include the Soviets) I would have resisted the USSR with all forces and allowed the Western Allies to waltz into Germany effectively forcing them to accept my unconditional surrender.
The Western Allies would still have forced surrender to the Soviets and Germany still divided but the time would be spent evacuating as many people as possibly into the Western zones and millions of lives would have been spared.
However, for the above to have happened, Germany would have had to have known that they were already lost and worked on minimizing the aftermath. I don’t think it would have happened.
This view was held by many in the general staff. The battle of the bulge was generally regarded as a bad thing by german generals mainly because the forces it marshalled could have been thrown at the reds while events in the west came to the inevitable conclusion. Without AH, greater and better-managed resistance would have been achieved on the eastern front while the US and Britain took Germany proper. This might have meant higher casualties for the western allies and fewer for Germany. The Germans were less likely to fight to the death against us than when facing commies. And our troops were more likely to accept their surrender instead of just killing them out of hand.