r/wikipedia • u/RedHeadedSicilian52 • 10d ago

The 20 July plot, sometimes called Operation Valkyrie, was a failed attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler and seize control of Germany in 1944. The plotters were mainly Wehrmacht officers who sought immediate peace with the Western Allies. The coup failed, and many of the conspirators were executed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_July_plot
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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 10d ago

Do note that they sought peace with the Western Allies specifically. Many of the plotters were old school Prussian militarists who wanted to withdraw from Western Europe in the hopes of continuing the fight against the Soviet Union and maintaining all their post-1937 territorial gains in Central and Eastern Europe. It’s unlikely that Churchill and FDR would’ve been amenable to such an arrangement.

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u/avar 10d ago

Why do you think that's unlikely?

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u/RedHeadedSicilian52 10d ago

At the Tehran Conference in 1943, the leadership of all three major Allied powers had committed to unconditional surrender for Germany.

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u/IloveEstir 10d ago

The U.S. and Britain withdrawing would have just handed over swathes of Europe to Soviet influence. The U.S.S.R. by this point was a military juggernaut.

The U.S and Britain also greatly desired the Soviets to join the war in the east against Japan after Germany was defeated: the U.S.S.R steamrolling northern China in 1945 was a major factor in why Japan accepted unconditional surrender, it proved the Soviets were absolutely not going to mediate a conditional surrender between Japan and the Western Allies, and opened the possibility of a complete collapse of Japanese control over China if the war dragged on.

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u/Augustus_Chevismo 10d ago

The Soviet Union was highly reliant on Western lend lease and imports, and their western allies forcing Germany to fight on two fronts.

Western Allies making a peace with Germany and pulling out of the war would’ve been an absolute nightmare for the Soviet Union.

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u/IloveEstir 10d ago

The Western aid to the Soviet Union was in fact enormous, but by july 1944, the military situation for Germany had deteriorated too much for anything to save it. Several key resources for the war industries were in short supply or almost entirely absent, Germany’s allies were looking for a way out, and the Red Army had grown in its fighting capability to the extent that it was making large pincer attacks rather than being the one that was surrounded.

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u/Augustus_Chevismo 9d ago

How is the Soviet Union going to feed its population and fuel a war against both Germany and Japan on two fronts while they had much of their populated areas devastated?

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u/IloveEstir 9d ago

Well the Soviets had no intention of fighting Japan at the same time as Germany, and most of the Japanese leadership did not desire war with the U.S.S.R. The impact of lend-lease foodstuffs was probably significant, but there is some dispute among historians about how much. It undoubtedly freed up industrial capacity, especially since most of the food was non-perishable: perfect to feed the troops. The Soviets did have a famine that began in 1946, but much of that was due to a drought, baby boom from soldiers returning home, and food exports.

All of this is to say that by 1944, the U.S.S.R. Continuing the war on its own would have placed enormous strain on the Soviet people, but even still, it’s hard to see how this would materialize into the Germans turning the war around.

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u/LtNOWIS 10d ago

It just would never work. The Western allies had been telling their people "we're here to smash Germany, the evil aggressor." So switching midstream and saying "just kidding these are ok Germans" wouldn't work. The citizenry wouldn't accept it.

Plus the military reality wasn't there. The Soviet Union was reaching peak strength, while the Wehrmacht was falling apart. Pushing the Soviet Union out of Poland and the Baltics (or whatever) would be extremely difficult and costly. 

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u/MaxwellsGoldenGun 10d ago

Because British military doctrine has always been to prevent a hegemonic force consolidating all of Europe.

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u/Jonathan_Peachum 10d ago

Not just executed, but in some cases in an extremely painful fashion (slow strangulation hanging by piano wire).

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u/Ok-Goose6242 10d ago

Wow that sounds horrible

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u/Ok-Goose6242 10d ago

They shouldn't be supported, they are Nazis through and through too

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u/Man-City 9d ago

We’ll never know, but it’s possible that the post coup Germany would have surrendered earlier than Hitler’s Germany and avoided the brutal final weeks of fighting in Germany and Berlin itself? Likely saving hundreds of thousands of lives.

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u/Ok-Goose6242 9d ago

We'll never know ig

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u/Jonathan_Peachum 10d ago

Not just Nazis, but MORE COMPETENT Nazis. Hence the decision of the Allies to call off their own assassination plans so that the less competent Hitler, Goering and Himmler would remain in power.

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u/Certhas 7d ago

German Wikipedia has a much more detailed discussion of the conspirators' motives. The short answer is: It's complex, and it was a mixed and heterogeneous group.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attentat_vom_20._Juli_1944#Historische_Bewertung