soc.history.war.world-war-ii

> >While all of the major wartime leaders faced issues of personal security,
> >how many assasination attempts initiated by foreign governments did each
> >major leader experience?
> >
> >I know that Hitler, for example, was the target of several assasination
> >attempts, the best known of which is Stauffenberg's July 20, 1944 attempt.
> >But all the attempts I've ever heard about were by Germans. Were there any
> >concerted efforts by foreigners - or Germans acting on behalf of
> >foreigners - to kill Hitler?

Several. The Stauffenberg plot was in contact with US/UK via a german
OSS agent parachuted back to Germany. Besides guts he had good luck,
escaped after the coup and survived the war.

Another try probably by OSS was reported in a TV docu of ZDF station.
According an interviewed bombardier of 8th USAAF (IIRC) he got a radio
call during mission to open a sealed envelope. The new orders in it
was to bomb a "parking lot" in the Alp mountains. He did. After the
mission he got told he did good work "but unfortunately HE was not there".

(good stuff snipped)

> It can also be said that literally thousands of
> American and British airmen tried to kill Hitler -
> my own father being one of them. Dad told me that
> on his missions to Berlin as a B-17 bombardier,
> the target point was the Fuhrerbunker complex.
>
> I'd say dropping 1,000 lb bombs on the bunker
> was "concerted effort", if ineffectual.

Yes, I heard that too. But the images I saw from the garden of the
Reichskanzlei in June 1945 showed no impact there. Sad. From USSBS
I know that in case of visual bombing by 8th USAAF the target point
always was destroyed or at least got some hits. It seems the garden
above the bunker never was a target. Was it camouflaged that the
target was not correctly iddentified perhaps?


> The Axis had little or no opportunity to assassinate
> any Allied leader. There was no Axis apparatus in
> Britain or the U.S. to support such attempts.

no apparatus in US maybe, but I know of at least one agent who
was active in 1944 until caught by FBI. I heard some rumors that
perhaps another group in New York was never caught. But I have
no access to NYT of 1945-47.


> >After all, if Hitler was seen as the main problem, why wouldn't Churchill,
> >Roosevelt, or both have simply conspired to kill him, rather than taking on
> >the entire military might of the Axis?
>
> The Allies, to a substantial degree, regarded Hitler
> as being as much a symptom as a cause. There was a
> wide belief that Germany was controlled by a semi-
> secret cabal of "Prussianist" military men and wealthy
> arms manufacturers. The Nazis were merely the current
> face of this group - the same group that had started
> World War I. The General Staff was particularly
> demonized.
>
> Thus removal of Hitler, by itself, was not considered
> sufficient. Germany had to surrender, and the German
> army had to be dismantled completely. Many also believed

Well, surrender sure. But in case of 20 July 1944, the army would be
keept quite intact. The UK (or US/UK) plan was to land allied
forces at the German baltic coast and move south to occupy Poland
and CSSR. That way the SU forces would be blocked to get the most
valuable parts of "eastern Europe". (I saw the UK operations plan.
Name not sure, maybe it was RANKINE? The Warsaw uprising was a
leftover.) Do you realy think the West would disarm Germany under
such strategic conditions?


> that the German arms industry had to be dismantled, or
> even that Germany had to be stripped completely of all
> industry with any military potential.
>
> >Why wouldn't Hitler try to get Stalin or Churchill killed?
>
> How?

He ordered an attempt on Stalin in 1943 or 44. A large transport
plane of Luftwaffe brought "a police car" (SU account: motorcycle
with sidecar) with a male and female russian agent near Moskow.
They were caught quite fast according a SU account.

>
> >Or did they think the enemy regimes would simply
> >continue more or less unchanged under new leaders if the
> >assasinations were successful?
>
> Hitler certainly imagined that personalities
> were of vast importance. In 1945, when he was
> closeted in the bunker with Goebbels, they read
> Carlyle's _Life of Frederick the Great_, in
> particular the section on the "Miracle of the
> House of Brandenburg". In 1762, with Russian,
> Austrian, and Swedish forces closing in, Frederick
> was about give up and kill himself, when the
> Tsarina Elizabeth died. Her successor, Peter III,
> admired Frederick and so Russia immediately changed
> sides. When Roosevelt died, Goebbels seriously
> suggested that it could have similar effects.
> (Not that even he thought Truman would be a Nazi,
> but that the American-Soviet alliance would now
> rupture.)

This episode with Goebbels and Hitler I read in more detail.
My conclusion (and that of others) was that he had prior knowledge
of FDRs death. And it may well be of an assasination attempt. I heard
speculations about FDRs death several times. The most interesting
piece I found by Fletcher Prouty: JFK (1996), p. 16f. Its from FDRs
son:

Elliott told us that his father had invited him to attend the conference
because he wanted him to meet Marshal Joseph Stalin. This meeting in
Tehran between Elliott and Stalin became part of a most unusual incident
that took place only a few years later.

As reported in Parade magazine on February 9, 1986, Elliott Roosevelt
wrote that he had visited Stalin in 1946 for an interview. This had
reminded him of something quite extraordinary that had occurred
at the time of President Roosevelt's sudden death less than two months
after the Yalta Conference.

At that time, 1945, Soviet ambassador Andrei Gromyko had been directed
by Stalin to view the remains of the dead President, but Mrs. Roosevelt
had denied that request several times. While Elliott was with Stalin in
1946, this subject arose again. According to Elliott Roosevelt, this is
what Stalin said:

"When your father died, I sent my ambassador with a request that he
be allowed to view the remains and report to me what he saw. Your
mother refused. I have never forgiven her." "But why?" Elliott asked.
"They poisoned your father, of course, just as they have tried
repeatedly to poison me. Your mother would not allow my representative
to see evidence of that. But I know. They poisoned him!"
"'They'? Who are 'they'?" Elliott asked.
"The Churchill gang!" Stalin roared. "They poisoned your father, and
they continue to try to poison me. The Churchill gang!"

Just fantasy of a paranoid Stalin? Maybe. But elsewhere I read an account
that FDR was shoot and that, not the discoloration by a stroke, was the
reason he was not presented in public. I dont know. But I`m sure from a
lot of accounts I read his death certainly changed world history after
1945.


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