Talk:Oster conspiracy

Source for quotation??
I have been unable to find the source for the quotation "greatest statesman of all times at the moment of his greatest triumph". If the source cannot be identified, it should be removed and some other source used to support the contention that the plot could not have succeeded.Kennethjiles (talk) 13:27, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Need to distinguish
Here are some suggestions for improvement to this article. The article already notes that the conspiracy developed as a result of opposition to a "premature war" with Czechoslovakia, a point which be emphasized some more. At the meetings in Switzerland in February and April 1940 between James Lonsdale-Bryans and Ulrich von Hassell, the latter was most emphatic that Germany would never return the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia. That is just one example, but throughout World War II, the German conservatives made proposals for a "honorable peace" with the Allies which envisioned a greater Germany, which at a minimum called for the Reich to return to the "frontiers of 1914" plus keeping Austria and the Sudetenland. That was such the minimum which the conservatives to accept, and at times they beyond that, calling for Germany to keep considerably more (their demands varied from time to time, depending on who was doing the talking and how well the war was going). The problem that General Beck and General Halder was with the timing of Hitler's war with Czechoslovakia, not with the whole idea of attacking Czechoslovakia. If one reads Beck's numerous memos on the subject, he makes it clear that he wants Germany to rearm for five years before invading Czechoslovakia, or in other words, Hitler should be doing what he was doing in 1938 in 1943 instead.

Second, the issue of the Sudetenland was a just a pretext for war. Some diplomatic background is required here. In 1924, France and Czechoslovakia signed a defensive treaty of alliance. In 1935, Czechoslovakia signed a treaty of alliance with the Soviet Union, which however would only come into effect if France did declared war on Germany first. Great Britain had no alliance with Czechoslovakia; however, it was widely believed in London that France would not defeat Germany on its own and thus Britain would have to intervene as to allow Germany to defeat France would upset the balance of power too much. And it was for that reason that the British did involve themsleves so deeply in the Sudetenland crisis as to prevent a German-Czechoslovak war would turn into a Franco-German war which involve them. What was so upsetting to General Beck and his successor as chief of the General Staff, General Halder was that if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia, then would mean a war with France, the Soviet Union and probably Britain at a time when Germany was not fully rearmed. In other words, they were worried about Hitler causing a war which Germany would probably lose rather objecting to Hitler on moral grounds. If General Beck was really opposed to Hitler's regime as some of his fans around here like to claim; then why did he spent five years of his life as chief of the general staff working to build Hitler's war machine? That makes no sense.

In the Hossbach memorandum of 1937, the reasons Hitler gives for attacking Czechoslovakia are economic, namely that Germany needs to develop an autakic economy to survive a British blockade and is failing behind in the arms race. Hitler's solution to this was quite simple and brutal; namely that Germany would conquer Czechoslovakia and economically exploit it both to gain the lead in the arms race and develop autaky. Nowhere does he even mention once Czechoslovakia's treatment of its German minority as a reason for war. If Hitler really cared about the treatment of German minorities, he would never had allied himself with Mussolini. Fascist Italy had the worse record for treating its German minority in Europe as the Italian government tried very hard to stamp out the use of the German language in the South Tyrol region. The ethnic German of the Sudetenland were treated far, far better than the ethnic Germans of the South Tyrol ever were. And it is significant that Hitler in all his statements before the Munich Agreement talks about going to war to "smash Czechoslovakia" and of his desire to have all of Czechoslovakia, not just the Sudetenland. The objections of people like Beck to Fall Grün (Case Green) is that Hitler's assumption that France would just remain neutral if Germany attacked Czechoslovakia was absurd, and that Fall Grün would set off a world war instead of a local war in Eastern Europe as Hitler was so blithely expecting.

The original plan that Hitler drew up in the spring of 1938 called for Konrad Henlein to press Czechoslovakia for autonomy to the Sudetenland out of the expectation that President Edvard Beneš of Czechoslovakia would refuse to grant it, which Hitler expected would so alienate people in Britain that the British government would pressure the French government into abandoning the alliance with Czechoslovakia. Instead, the British pressured the Czechoslovaks into the "Fourth Plan" of 4 September 1938 which would granted the Sudetenland autonomy. Deprived of his pretext for war, Hitler raised the ante on 12 September by demanding the Sudetenland join Germany. When Chamberlain pressured Czechoslovakia into agreeing to that, Hitler further raised the ante by demanding he must have the Sudetenland by 1 October and that Czechoslovakia must settle its disputes with Poland and Hungary by 1 October or he would still attack Czechoslovakia, which was an absurd demand. The much maligned Munich Agreement of 30 September 1938 was actually a compromise. The point had already been conceded that the Sudetenland would join Germany; just under the Anglo-French plan that would happen within a couple of months while Hitler wanted it by 1 October.

The German historian Klaus-Jürgen Müller makes the very important point that the term "conspiracy" suggested a degree of organization that did in fact exist. There were actually two groups in the conspiracy. One, which was the smaller one, headed by Colonel Oster, was the "anti-Nazi" group that wanted to overthrow Hitler because they thought he was a bad guy. The other and much larger group, was the "anti-war" group, which was essentially loyal to Hitler and were only willing to overthrow Hitler because of their fears that he was about to start a "premature war" that Germany wouldn't win. It is significant that in his first plans for a putsch, General Beck only wanted a "house-cleaning" of the Nazi regime to get rid of some of Hitler's advisers and was planning to keep Hitler on as the leader. The "anti-war" group included people like General Halder and Weizsäcker who were not morally opposed to Hitler and would go on to loyally him afterwards. This article could really use a good dose of Müller's scholarship with the diversion between the "anti-Nazi" and "anti-war" groups. If one accepts the thesis that certain Wehrmacht generals who otherwise loyally served the Nazi regime were prepared to act against Hitler only of their fears for a "premature war" in 1938, then that explains much of the apparent contradiction.

Finally, I think this article should talk about the 1938 plot as been used as an alibi for all the generals and diplomats who loyally served Hitler in World War II. This objectionable argument like this; the Wehrmacht was going to overthrow Hitler in 1938, but the Munich Agreement stopped the proposed putsch, so it is really all the fault of the British that the Wehrmacht ended up fighting for Hitler. In 1939, the British did pass on numerous warnings to Hitler that they would declare war if he attacked Poland. On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland and on 3 September 1939 Britain declared war. And the Wehrmacht kept on fighting for Hitler. Poland, unlike Czechoslovakia was considered by the Wehrmacht generals to be a "primary target" instead of "secondary target". And in 1939, the Wehrmacht generals had more confidence in the Reich's ability to win a world war than had in 1938. Which is why they stayed loyal to Hitler. If the Wehrmacht generals were really opposed to Hitler on moral grounds, then didn't just overthrow him? Why was their willingness to act against Hitler always tied to what the British were doing? Just some suggestions for some improvements. --A.S. Brown (talk) 01:16, 11 September 2018 (UTC)