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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
Summary
Years of efforts to temper or change the discrimination and persecution policies of Hitler's government, and times of confusion about whether it was the Führer himself or extremist elements that directed the outrages, went by before the multitude of laws and decrees, almost all of them published, left no more doubt about who was responsible. Failed attempts to enlist the British government in endeavours to bring Hitler down or at least force him to give the Jews better terms of emigration; failed plots against Hitler; and a string of Hitler's successes, seemingly unbroken until about November 1941: All this was discouraging yet also confirmed that the military arm was indispensable for regime change, and that military support for a coup d'état was not forthcoming in the face of success. At the end of 1941, however, the regime's situation seemed desperate and more promising for the conspirators. The British Empire, the Soviet Union, and the United States of America were at war with Germany, Italy, and Japan. Neither Japan nor Germany was a match for the resources of America and Russia. Hitler's strategy of waging war on one front at a time had collapsed; reality belied his predictions of victory over the Soviet Union, and his attempt to keep the United States out of the war by holding large numbers of Jews hostage had failed; it could look as though the days of his regime were already numbered.
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- Carl Goerdeler and the Jewish Question, 1933–1942 , pp. 114 - 118Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011