What if Hitler had contacted the Allies.

In the movie Der Untergang, Hitler is repeatedly implored to leave Berlin. Himmler asks him to contact the Allies to "discuss politics". Hitler refuses.

But what if he had taken Himmlers advice? What if Hitler had escaped from Berlin and made contact with the Allies to discuss an armistice?

I think it's likely that Hitler might have convinced the Allies (who needed little convincing) of the evils of Communism. I think he furthermore might have succeeded in forging a new (possibly secret) alliance with the Allies (or at least secured their tacit support) against the Russians.

A bargain may have been reached whereby the Allies guarantee Germany's western borders and cease aerial bombardment, in exchange for Hitlers assurance that he will push the Russians back inside their own borders - at which point the Wehrmacht will stop their advance and hold the line until the Allies can shore up the region. This would in effect be the policy of "Containment", but with Germany doing all the work.

 

...and after starting this thread I looked more closely at my search results. It appears to have been pretty well dealt with already.

My bad.

Still: feel free to comment on my scenario if you wish.

 

Not a chance!

Both Roosevelt and Churchill detested Hitler, and both had already announced that the US and Britain would fight until the Axis surrounded unconditionally. Fundamentally, both Churchill and Roosevelt felt that Nazism represented a danger far outweighing the danger of Communism.

The Soviets had experienced so much damage to their country and had lost so many casualties, both civilian and military, that their only objective was to crush Germany and put the leading Nazi's on trial as war criminals.

Himmler was a fool if he really thought there was any prospect that the Allies would enter into a discussion of "politics" with the Germans after 1940.

 

By the time this took place, Germany was already a goner and Hitler had nothing to offer the allies. Besides, Stalin already duped FDR into thinking his way. So there really was nothing to discuss.

 

Perhaps it is the fact that the German forces in Italy were negotiating a separate peace as well as the fact that several politicians were getting contacts to the Western Allied commanders , especially through Sweden, that led to some sorta negotiations and in the end these Himmler´s crazy suggestions. However these never lead anwyhere and as mentioned, the unconditional surrender was never put away from the terms for Germany.

BTW, was the unconditional surredner clause for Italy removed before the final surrender papers were signed? I recall something like that...

 

The terms given Italy were followed, "unconditional surrender" doesn't mean no terms, just that the terms are non-negotiable. Itlay was given terms and accepted them without alteration. That makes it an "unconditional surrender", and Stalin gave Eisenhower the authority to sign on his behalf, fulfilling the "no separate peace treaty" portion of the statement.

 

What would Hitler do about the 6 million Jews which he massacred?

How would the allies look in the eyes of the world for making such a pact? Why would they even consider such a move?


Not to mention that, by this time Hitler could have made an alliance with Jesus himself and still would be unable to stop the Red Army from reaching Berlin.

 

I don't see hitler trying to settle for peace with the allies at the end of the war in 45 he already said that since the germans had lost the war they all should die and perish. Himmler was such a fool to believe that the allies where really going to deal with him and make peace after 6 million people had died total nonsense. I don't see this working out at all.

 

By 1945 it was too late for Germany to make peace anyhow. They didn't have anything to offer and by then the Yalta Conference was over so the view of the Allies' post-war world was pretty much decided by then.

 

It was all a done deal for the Germans by 1945 since at Yalta Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt met and agreed that the only terms of German surrender would be unconditional surrender. The allies would not have negotiated at all since the Germans had nothing to negotiate with anyway even if the terms were not unconditional surrender. They would have simply tried Hitler at Nuremberg like the other Nazis they caught, and he would have surely been hung as well.

 

Stalin wasn't present when the "unconditional surrender" doctrine was voiced by FDR. That was at Cassablanca in 1943, and while Churchill later said he was "surprised", the minutes of the three days worth of meetings show that he was well informed of the idea.

I think he was "surprised" in that Roosevelt did it in a live radio broadcast without telling him he was going to do so.

Even at that moment Churchill had come to the realization that Great Britain was going to be a secondary player in the war as it developed. The "unconditional surrender" doctrine was also FDR's way of assuring the non-present Stalin that the western allies wouldn't seek nor sign a separate peace with the Axis powers without the Soviets knowledge.

 

The allies discovered the death camps in early 1945. Before that hitler could hope to live if he made armistice with the allies. However, since these camps were going to be discovered, them I think that there was no escape.

 

"What If Adolf had contacted the Allies?"

'The Allies' would have basically said;
"F you sunshine, we're finally winning this war, we've endured 6+ years of your unpleasantness and there is no sodding way you're being allowed to snivel your way out of it in the final days... you tosser. And as for attacking the Soviets? Are you F-ing mental Mr Hitler? We're sick of this conflict and want it ended, not launched into a further earth-shattering few years of blood and chaos.
You started it. We're finishing it. NO bargains! So there and no returns.


PS. We have Atom Bombs, and we'd love to use them."

Pretty much as they did to any other pathetic approaches made by senior nazis in the final days.


Sorry, been drinking.
Can you tell?

~A

 

But I wonder why they felt that way.

Hitler - invades Poland and attacks France.

Stalin - invades Poland and attacks Finland.

From Churchill's perspective they must have both looked bad.

 

Hitler had proven himself to be a liar and treaty breaker long before his troops invaded Poland. Stalin not so much. Both Churchill later, and Chamberlain before him had come to dis-trust Hitler before they formed much of any opinion of Stalin.

The USSR wasn't even recognized as a "nation" until the mid-thirties sometime when it was admitted to the League of Nations. What the west knew of the inner workings of the Soviet Union was and remained largely a mystery. Germany, not so much.

 

With all the atrocities and death camps found, there was no wa the allies would have dealt with Hitler or any Nazi leader. It's a shame that the truth about "Stalin the Butcher" came out so late. He was as big a murderer as Hitler. I'm not saying the war should have continued, but there were a lot of people in the former USSR that went on permanent business trips after the war, I have heard estimates as high as 20 million people were killed or imprisoned in Russia after WWII. I guess we will never know for sure.

 

Its no the couth syrup again.

 

Even if Hitler did have contact with the allies, it would do him no good. The Allies wanted nothing to do with him, other than kill him or have him arrested. But lets just say for a moment that the allies did negociate peace with Hitler and end the war in the west with the deal that Hitler surrender his power. The problem Hitler would face is that he would be arrested for the atrocities that he commited in Europe and the world . He would be tried and eventually executed. So for Hitler, the situation would end up bad which ever he picked.

The possible difference is that the soviets may have not advanced into Gemany (with the intervention of the allies)

And also, possibly many lives would have been saved (ex jews,civilians, soldiers, etc) depending again on the timing of it all.

But for Hitler none of that seemed realistic.. defeat was not part of the formula to the success of his thousand year reich. It was victory no matter what the cost. "fight to the last man"

 

No one on the allied side would settle for an end to the war without the occupation and division of Germany, to ensure that Germany would never be a strong military force again. After all, everyone remembers WWI. Stalin and the Russians are not going to settle for an occupation of Germany that doesn't involve the Russians.

Any substantial change, really, would have looked like, and indeed have been, a massive backstab of the Russians, who did all the dying in WWII. It'd have confirmed to the Russians their view from the beginning, that the West was always conspiring against them from the very beginning. You might end WWII early, but WWIII would be neigh on inevitable.

It's ridiculous to compare nazism to communism. Not one of the western allies can ever tolerate an ideology based on racial supremacy and which legitimises mass murder and the unprovoked invasion of other nations just to enslave them or take their stuff. Communism, well, they can take or leave, at this point, and Stalin's moves in Poland and Finland can be understood (and arguably should be understood) as defensive in intent, and not dissimilar to a variety of earlier European skirmishes (Alsace-Lorraine, France's Rhineland invasion, etc). Sizable communist or socialist groups existed in both the UK and the US. Western tolerance of Hitler prior to 1939 was predicated on the belief that he was kidding about all that stuff, and the war showed that he was anything but.