Assassination

[Damato, Anthony A]

My understanding of what happened is that some German generals realized by
1943 that Hitler was leading Germany to ruin.  This was not an easy
realization to come by, since Hitler had done so well in expanding Germany
up to the summer of 1941 (against all military advice).  Even Operation
Barbarossa in June 1941 could have worked if Hitler hadn't run the military
operation.  Hitler increasingly trusted only his own military strategy; he
stared at maps all day long; generals who disagreed with him were fired and
replaced.  Stalingrad was a botch; it never should have been
attempted.  The real goal was the oil fields, which Hitler's armies could
easily have taken over, and then leisurely disposed of Stalin.

The German conspirators took their case (through intermediaries) to
Churchill.  But Churchill and his advisers, who were not dummies, saw the
same thing that the conspirators saw, namely, that Hitler was proceeding to
lose the war for Germany.  By 1943, and clearly by early 1944, Hitler was
the Allies' best secret weapon.  Thus, it would not have been in Britain's
best interests to cooperate in assassinating Hitler; he would surely be
replaced by someone with more military and strategic intelligence.  So,
Churchill gave the conspirators the run-around.  They went ahead and tried
anyway without British help, and almost succeeded.

Tony D'Amato

At 05:17 PM 3/24/2004, you wrote:

>Just a point about Mr Cowley's query - I assume the study will include
>assassination in war.  I have the impression that the British plot to
>assassinate
>Hitler encountered reluctance on moral/practical grounds even though it was =
>to
>be mounted in the end
>
>michael herman

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