By
Professor Duncan Anderson
BBC.co.uk
Adolf Hitler standing in his car as he travels through
Towards the end of World War Two, the British Special Operations Executive considered an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler - an attempt that was never made. Duncan Anderson considers what might have happened if Operation Foxley - as the plan was named - had gone ahead, and had succeeded.
Adolf Hitler was the centre of the Nazi system. Around him revolved a loose confederation of fiefdoms, whose leaders engaged in a ceaseless struggle to protect and enhance their power. If Operation Foxley, the plan devised by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) to assassinate Hitler, had succeeded, this system would have been thrown into chaos.
Count von Stauffenberg and various fellow conspirators, whose courage was equalled only by their ineptitude, were plotting a similar operation from the German side. There was, however, not the slightest possibility that they could have taken advantage of the chaos.
German Nazi leader, Hermann Goering, speaking at a rally c. 1943 ©
Rather more likely was the
emergence of a coalition of the major fiefdoms, with Hermann Goering as Reichsverweser (literally state caretaker),
co-existing uneasily with Heinrich Himmler, Albert
Speer, Karl Doenitz and a clutch of popular generals
such as Erich von Manstein and Erwin Rommel.
The most plausible date for SOE's assassination of
Hitler would have been around 13-14 July 1944. By this time the Russians had
reached the old Polish-Soviet frontier. From what is now known about the frame
of mind of many prominent generals in
'The most plausible date for SOE's assassination of Hitler would have been around 13-14
July 1944.'
For Himmler and the SS even a negotiated peace would have posed serious problems. He would have been worried about how he was going to explain the 'final solution' (the extermination of all Jewish people, and other 'untermenschen', in Nazi-held territories) to the outside world, and might well have decided to close down the gas chambers, and tried to pass the death factories off as labour camps.
Germany
still in control of Europe
Nazi propaganda poster, showing a helmeted
soldier in front of swastika flags, with the slogan
in
German, 'Victory Will be Ours', c. 1942 ©
At
this stage, however, a reversal of policy would have been prudent rather than
pressing.
Moreover, the propaganda machine run by Goebbels
would have both lionised the martyred Führer - the modern Seigfried -
and hinted that with the Führer now in
'...
the propaganda machine run by Goebbels
would have both lionised the martyred Führer ...'
How would the death of Hitler have
affected the Reich's production of war material? Overall very little, except in
one important area. In June, Speer and Goering had
pleaded with the Führer to abandon the conversion of
the ME262 jet fighter into a bomber, but to no effect. With Hitler gone, the
Luftwaffe might have had twice as many ME262s available in the autumn of 1944,
not enough to establish air parity with the Allies, but enough to have made the
air war in the west less one-sided.
Hitler's death would have had a much
greater effect on the conduct of operations. On the Eastern Front, Erich von Manstein, Heinz Guderian and
others had already proposed withdrawal from the
A new line on the Front would have
emerged, running south along the heavily fortified border of
'With
Hitler gone, Margarethe II would have swung into
action ...'
The army already had a contingency plan, Margarethe
II, for the occupation of
Operations in the west, too, would
have been profoundly affected by the Führer's demise.
On 28 June Hitler had rejected a plan, put forward by von Rundstedt
and Rommel, which suggested a German withdrawal back
to the line of the
'The
early withdrawal from
Instead a defence
of the Seine would have been followed by a defence of
the Somme, and then the Meuse and
Hitler's demise, then, would have
allowed
'...
without Hitler there would have been no
Moreover, without Hitler there would
have been no
The disparity in production and
manpower between the Allies and
In our alternative world, it is
difficult to see how the Vistula -
On 23 January, Soviet forces reached
the Oder, only 60 miles east of
They hoped the Allies would thus be
drawn in to join with
'Goering and Himmler, now weak and
discredited, would have gone to the wall ...'
Would it have become policy? It is
possible, given that the crisis produced by the Vitula-Oder
offensive would have fractured the loose coalition running
Winston Churchill,
The
But if the plan had been followed,
suddenly
If the Germans had taken the
initiative, and had begun pulling back from their western defences,
it is difficult to see how Anglo-American forces could have avoided being
sucked into the resulting vacuum, and pushing on to face the Russian advances,
no matter what political decision had been made in London and Washington.
By ending the war three months early,
The long-term political impact of the
way the war ended would have been immense if Operation Foxley
had succeeded. If it had, and Stalin had been excluded from the Balkans or from
'...
the Cold War would have started with a bang ...'
In this scenario, the Cold War would
have started with a bang the moment the Anglo Americans reached the German side
of the Eastern Front. In June 1945 Churchill, worried by increasing Soviet
belligerence, actually did propose the re- mobilisation
of German forces as a way of opposing Stalin, a suggestion that was quickly
buried by the chiefs of staff. In the post-Foxley
world, he may have got his way.
The spring and early summer of 1945
would have been the period of maximum danger, as Russian and Allied troops
faced each other. This confrontation would have eased only with the first
successful test of the American atomic bomb on 16 July, which would have
dictated a policy of prudence to Stalin.
This end to the war would have left a
bad taste in many mouths. The political left in the west would have railed
about the betrayal of the
The legacy of betrayal could only
have served to make the post-war world more dangerous than it actually was. The
Soviet Union, faced with a resurgent, psychologically undefeated
These crises might have been
containable, but it is unlikely that the world would have been as lucky as it
actually was, in October 1962, when the Soviets deployed missiles to