otl people were aware of mass killings of jews in the holocaust by bullets in 1941; churchill referred to it in a speech in the house of commons. id think that even if the camps are covered up it would still be widely known that germany committed mass murder of jews
Ghastly Victories: The United States in the World Wars
- Thread starter RamscoopRaider
- Start date
Brylyth
Banned
Knowing the famously antisemitic nazis have been killing jews in villages they run over with theor army andd knowing they have creates camps for industrialized slaughter of a entire ethinic group are two vastly different things.
Depending on how brutal WW2 and WW3 turn out, how long between them, what weapons are used and how it all goes it is perfectly possible the Holocaust would slip by thanks to the sheer volume of death. How do you tell that 6 million were killed in concentration camps when these camps have all been destroyed by artilery, the camps the dead were buried salted with nuclear fallout, and the people who did the killing all died from anthrax that theb went on to kill 20 million more who would fall on top of the graves?
Depending on how brutal WW2 and WW3 turn out, how long between them, what weapons are used and how it all goes it is perfectly possible the Holocaust would slip by thanks to the sheer volume of death. How do you tell that 6 million were killed in concentration camps when these camps have all been destroyed by artilery, the camps the dead were buried salted with nuclear fallout, and the people who did the killing all died from anthrax that theb went on to kill 20 million more who would fall on top of the graves?
Yup. And also, thank you for the reminder about the Anthrax. I wouldn't be massively shocked if Britain fired off Operation Vegetarian in this timeline, especially if the USA shows relatively little interest in sticking its arm into the grinder of a mainland European war a second time.
Sad thing is they will eventually. The US will ultimately get involved. And to quote the Phantom Menace here; "The death toll will be catastrophic."
The title of this is Ghastly Victories for a reason.
Last edited:
I'm wondering if the USA has to fight Germany and then march on to fight Russia after, because even an OTL WWII with limited WMD usage (in the European Theater) would still end in a less costly victory then fighting across the entire North European Plain against a massive and numerous enemy like Russia, who will be using and taking chemical weapons. Or fighting a land war in South America or on American Soil against an invasion by Britain or allies, either through amphibious landing or by Canada or Mexico.
Part 5-19 Into the Abyss
RamscoopRaider
Donor
…Following the failure of the French to respond to further Italain overtures at containing Germany, Sanna turned towards Germany to wring out further concessions. At a July 1937 with Hitler at the Berchtesgaden the two men came to an agreement regarding Austria. Germany would be allowed to annex Austria without Italain interference, so long as they could provide a façade of popular support for the annexation on the part of the Austrian people. In exchange Germany would turnover some of the mining rights it received as partial payment for aiding the Spanish Nationalists, would share certain key military and industrial technologies with Italy and would run interference for an Italian occupation of Albania and recognize the annexation whenever that came about.
There was however a problem that needed to be dealt with first, namely that Sanna had provided a personal guarantee to Engelbert Dollfuss that Austria’s independence would be preserved. However as someone heard Sanna saying this was a personal guarantee, “no Dollfuss, no guarantee, no problem”…
…Italain interest in Albania had existed since before WWI. In the racial classifications of the time Albanians were often identified with Italians as a fellow “Dinaric” folk while Italian nationalists looked at various tribal links predating the Romans to unite them. Historically Italy had been promised a protectorate over the country in the Treaty of London, yet following a revolt in the 1920’s was quickly kicked out by Albanian rebels.
Sanna upon taking power made it a priority to slowly but steadily undermine the Albanian state and make it a protectorate in all but name. First gaining a permanent voice in the Albanian cabinet, then veto power over cabinet appointments, then most favored nation status, a commercial treaty, control over Albanian economic policy, control over Albanian foreign relations and finally control over the Albanian military. All of this was achieved through a combination of conditional loans, economic manipulation and veiled threats.
Sanna however wanted more. To truly utilize Albania’s natural resources, including the second largest oil fields in Europe, he needed greater control of the country. Furthermore he wanted the country as a staging area to use against Yugoslavia or Greece in the next five to ten years. That meant he needed a military occupation.
Sanna wanted to annex the country as well, coastal Albania had historically been part of the Venetian Empire and thus owning it was something necessary for the glory of Italy. On that regard he was willing to wait until any backlash was modest enough to be easily dealt with. What he could not wait for was the occupation. Every day meant less time to build infrastructure for future wars and less return on any investments made in modernizing the backwards economy of the country.
While he was aware the Albanians were likely to miss a payment on their loans fairly soon and give him a good excuse, he was aware that would lead to a backlash from Britain and France. He wanted something that could distract them. Fortunately for him Hitler was amenable to being that distraction…
…Following the failure of the Proksch coup attempt of 1934 Hitler’s Germany turned towards economic warfare in an attempt to bring Austria into the fold. With an economy in the doldrums since the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire destroyed the supply chains it had relied upon German actions had a large effect on the state.
By 1936 the economic damage had become great and Dollfuss came to a three way agreement with Hitler and Sanna. Hitler would drop his pan-Germanist rhetoric and end the boycott of Austria, in exchange Dollfuss would release Volkist prisoners from his concentration camps, legalize the Austrian branch of the SVP, allow Volkist participation in government and firmly declare Austria as a German state.
For a period of months this satisfied Hitler. However by 1937 he wanted more. Austria was his home country, even if he gave up his citizenship in 1923 and became German in 1930, that it rejected him was a blow to his prestige. His economic advisers were also exerting continuous pressure on him for the annexation of Austria. Its Iron and Magnesium mines, along with the newly operational oilfields at Mätzen and its untapped hydroelectric potential would be needed to meet Hitler’s military production goals.
Of course annexing Austria meant running afoul of Sanna who had no desire for an expansionist German state gaining a land border with Italy. Sanna however was willing to tolerate it if given enough concessions…
…Following the Berchtesgaden agreement violence and rabble rousing by the SVP in Austria increased. Hitler’s goal was to generate enough unrest that German forces could enter the country to “restore order”, following which a rigged plebiscite would occur to legitimize the annexation of the country. Of course this increase in unrest was noted by Dollfuss and in December 1937 he planned a trip to Rome to ensure Sanna was still going to honor his pledge to defend the independence of Austria.
The crash of Dollfuss’s Junkers G22 airliner on its way to Rome was particularly convenient in many ways for Sanna. Given that his guarantee of Austrian Independence was a purely personal one to Dollfuss he no longer faced the prospect of having to publicly break his word. Whether he or Hitler actually arranged the crash is unknown, the airframe in question was not particularly new and there was a degree of troublesome weather that day making an accident plausible if suspiciously convenient. Certainly no evidence either way has been found…
…Dollfuss was replaced as chancellor by vice-chancellor Richard Stiedle. Stiedle was in many ways the worst man for the job. He had poor relations with many members of Dollfuss’s so called Fatherland Bloc and lacked support. Half the reason he been made Vice-Chancellor was as a way of keeping him out of a more important position; the other half being that if Dollfuss had been killed in another putsch Stiedle would react with maximum brutality against the Volkists. Furthermore Stiedle was known to have poor relations with Italy, having specifically founded a known anti-Italian paramilitary and was involved in the execution of several ethnically Italian members of the Austro-Hungarian Army during WWI on dubious charges. It was thus easy for Sanna to declare that he could not extend the guarantee he gave Dollfuss to Stiedle due to a lack of trustworthiness and a known anti-Italain sentiment.
The way was thus clear for Hitler to move forwards with his plans for his homeland…
-Into the Abyss: The leadup to the Second World War, Harper and Brothers, New York, 2009
There was however a problem that needed to be dealt with first, namely that Sanna had provided a personal guarantee to Engelbert Dollfuss that Austria’s independence would be preserved. However as someone heard Sanna saying this was a personal guarantee, “no Dollfuss, no guarantee, no problem”…
…Italain interest in Albania had existed since before WWI. In the racial classifications of the time Albanians were often identified with Italians as a fellow “Dinaric” folk while Italian nationalists looked at various tribal links predating the Romans to unite them. Historically Italy had been promised a protectorate over the country in the Treaty of London, yet following a revolt in the 1920’s was quickly kicked out by Albanian rebels.
Sanna upon taking power made it a priority to slowly but steadily undermine the Albanian state and make it a protectorate in all but name. First gaining a permanent voice in the Albanian cabinet, then veto power over cabinet appointments, then most favored nation status, a commercial treaty, control over Albanian economic policy, control over Albanian foreign relations and finally control over the Albanian military. All of this was achieved through a combination of conditional loans, economic manipulation and veiled threats.
Sanna however wanted more. To truly utilize Albania’s natural resources, including the second largest oil fields in Europe, he needed greater control of the country. Furthermore he wanted the country as a staging area to use against Yugoslavia or Greece in the next five to ten years. That meant he needed a military occupation.
Sanna wanted to annex the country as well, coastal Albania had historically been part of the Venetian Empire and thus owning it was something necessary for the glory of Italy. On that regard he was willing to wait until any backlash was modest enough to be easily dealt with. What he could not wait for was the occupation. Every day meant less time to build infrastructure for future wars and less return on any investments made in modernizing the backwards economy of the country.
While he was aware the Albanians were likely to miss a payment on their loans fairly soon and give him a good excuse, he was aware that would lead to a backlash from Britain and France. He wanted something that could distract them. Fortunately for him Hitler was amenable to being that distraction…
…Following the failure of the Proksch coup attempt of 1934 Hitler’s Germany turned towards economic warfare in an attempt to bring Austria into the fold. With an economy in the doldrums since the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian empire destroyed the supply chains it had relied upon German actions had a large effect on the state.
By 1936 the economic damage had become great and Dollfuss came to a three way agreement with Hitler and Sanna. Hitler would drop his pan-Germanist rhetoric and end the boycott of Austria, in exchange Dollfuss would release Volkist prisoners from his concentration camps, legalize the Austrian branch of the SVP, allow Volkist participation in government and firmly declare Austria as a German state.
For a period of months this satisfied Hitler. However by 1937 he wanted more. Austria was his home country, even if he gave up his citizenship in 1923 and became German in 1930, that it rejected him was a blow to his prestige. His economic advisers were also exerting continuous pressure on him for the annexation of Austria. Its Iron and Magnesium mines, along with the newly operational oilfields at Mätzen and its untapped hydroelectric potential would be needed to meet Hitler’s military production goals.
Of course annexing Austria meant running afoul of Sanna who had no desire for an expansionist German state gaining a land border with Italy. Sanna however was willing to tolerate it if given enough concessions…
…Following the Berchtesgaden agreement violence and rabble rousing by the SVP in Austria increased. Hitler’s goal was to generate enough unrest that German forces could enter the country to “restore order”, following which a rigged plebiscite would occur to legitimize the annexation of the country. Of course this increase in unrest was noted by Dollfuss and in December 1937 he planned a trip to Rome to ensure Sanna was still going to honor his pledge to defend the independence of Austria.
The crash of Dollfuss’s Junkers G22 airliner on its way to Rome was particularly convenient in many ways for Sanna. Given that his guarantee of Austrian Independence was a purely personal one to Dollfuss he no longer faced the prospect of having to publicly break his word. Whether he or Hitler actually arranged the crash is unknown, the airframe in question was not particularly new and there was a degree of troublesome weather that day making an accident plausible if suspiciously convenient. Certainly no evidence either way has been found…
…Dollfuss was replaced as chancellor by vice-chancellor Richard Stiedle. Stiedle was in many ways the worst man for the job. He had poor relations with many members of Dollfuss’s so called Fatherland Bloc and lacked support. Half the reason he been made Vice-Chancellor was as a way of keeping him out of a more important position; the other half being that if Dollfuss had been killed in another putsch Stiedle would react with maximum brutality against the Volkists. Furthermore Stiedle was known to have poor relations with Italy, having specifically founded a known anti-Italian paramilitary and was involved in the execution of several ethnically Italian members of the Austro-Hungarian Army during WWI on dubious charges. It was thus easy for Sanna to declare that he could not extend the guarantee he gave Dollfuss to Stiedle due to a lack of trustworthiness and a known anti-Italain sentiment.
The way was thus clear for Hitler to move forwards with his plans for his homeland…
-Into the Abyss: The leadup to the Second World War, Harper and Brothers, New York, 2009
So Albania is going to taken by Italy around the same time as Austria gets Anschluss? That's going to make things fun diplomatically. Also I'm wondering what the freak is Sanna's long term plan is.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Wait for Germany to fuck up and start a war with Britain/France, beat up Yugoslavia and Greece for loose territory while they are distracted, then take advantage of the USSR trying to expand into Eastern Europe during that chaos to form an anti communist alliance that serves as an Italain dominated economic bloc, through this raising Italy to a first rank power
Part 5-20 European Wars, Columbia's Sword, Steel Talons, Revisionist Viewpoints
RamscoopRaider
Donor
...The Nationalists made no plans for a major offensive until Spring of 1938. Time was on their side and the Popular Front was growing weaker by the day. They planned to wait and raise new forces to cover for the withdrawal of the German Condor Legion and half of the Italian contingent. Fate however would have something else in store for them. It started with a simple bombardment of a Popular Front blocking position at the town of Puerto Rey by the Nationalist heavy cruisers Canarias and Baleares in January. A few hundred 8” shells and half as many 4.7” shells were lobbed at an exposed frontline coastal position and the reserves immediately behind it, more to justify the Spanish Navy’s postwar budget than anything else.
That this bombardment resulted in the frontline forces fleeing and allowing their position to be taken by the Nationalists was not entirely out of left field. What was out of left field was the Nationalist forces acting aggressive enough to not only force the somewhat shaken reserves to withdraw but to seize the next river line before popular front forces could arrive. What was further unexpected was that the Popular Front forces immediately inland of there would disintegrate upon being outflanked rather than withdraw creating a true breach in the lines.
The gap would only continue to grow as even modest attempts by Nationalist leaders saw tertiary Popular Front forces seem to disintegrate on contact. In an uncharacteristic display of initiative the Nationalist Corps commander in the area took the opportunity to push his reserves through a gap in the mountains and take the city of Cartagena. That alone should have been the end of it but the fall of Cartagena, along with so much other bad news broke Popular Front morale on the southern front.
Blocking positions in the mountains of Murcia that should have taken Nationalist forces weeks and heavy artillery to break through often broke after the first desultory bombardments. Despite not wanting or planning it General Franco found himself with a general offensive going on as glory seeking commanders pushed their troops onwards. The Nationalist war leader quickly realized that he had to get ahead of things and deployed his air and naval forces to prevent the Popular Front from taking advantage of the overextended Nationalist forces.
On February 20th the port of Alicante fell and the situation utterly collapsed for the Popular Front. Only Valencia was left to provide a source of supply for the Popular Front pocket in central Spain, and that city was within range of Nationalist heavy artillery. It was soon clear to everyone that the Popular Front forces were about to be cut off and morale already faltering collapsed on the western and northern fronts as well. Units shot their commissars and went home, while efforts to recruit emergency units of old men, young boys and women to replace them proved fruitless. Only a small hard core of communist fanatics remained to resist the Nationalist tide and they were quickly overwhelmed, by the beginning of April only Catalonia remained in Popular Front hands...
-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004
...1937 saw the US Army reverse one of its long standing war plans. Until that point the Army had followed the lead of the Navy in the defense of the Philippines, given that the Navy had concluded for the past decades that they could not relieve the islands for at least 24 if not 36 months given a need to secure advanced bases and crash build auxiliaries, the Army had like them written the islands off. Nothing more than a tripwire force to deter rebellion and aggression was placed on the islands. If the Japanese attacked it was small enough to be an affordable loss, if the islands revolted it was large enough to hold Manila until reinforcements arrived. With the decision to grant the islands their freedom in 1944 rebellion became a distant concern as most would be rebels would not jeopardize a known date for American withdrawal and the Army garrison was drawn down further.
In 1937 however Army plans began to change. There are a number of reasons for this. The famous but apocryphal story is that a racist Army observer at a Navy Wargame saw that the Navy rated IJN crews as being as good as their own and since “Nips can’t fight like White Men,” concluded that the Navy was sandbagging and actually could immediately relieve the islands. The actual reasons were…
...Army planning focused on holding the Bataan Peninsula. Doing so would deny the Japanese the use of Manila Bay and make retaking control of the Bay easier when the Navy Relief force arrived. Bunkered stockpiles and prebuilt defense lines would be created there, along with an internal railway to move troops and operate railway artillery. Several additional heavy coast artillery batteries would be placed to cover the western side of the Peninsula while airfields would be built to protect the skies.
No plans were made to contest the beaches, given that it was assumed that the Japanese could bring together enough firepower to eliminate any beach defenses not covered by battleship grade artillery. This of course ignored that doing so was not IJN doctrine, something that the Navy would have been happy to point out.
Similarly there were no plans to fight a mobile campaign on Luzon, as that approach was thought to expose the defenders to more casualties than a fixed defense of Bataan would and would not expose the IJA’s lack of heavy artillery that a fixed defense would. While true this approach would also neutralize the IJA’s greater relative lack of mobile artillery and motorized transport, something that would be especially felt given the bottlenecks imposed by over the beach logistics. This was a matter that the Marine Corps had studied extensively in the interwar era, yet like the Navy they were not consulted on the matter…
...An alternative plan was floated later on in 1938 with input from the Navy and Marines. It called for a mobile defense of Luzon from the beaches all the way back to Bataan, where a much reduced stand would take place. The forces freed up by a smaller force at Bataan would instead be used to fight a combined land and naval guerrilla campaign in the countless islands that made up the center of the Philippine archipelago. This plan was wargamed and found to potentially allow forces to remain in being until relieved, unless the IJN was prepared to pay a very steep price in blood and ships to force them out. The Army brass refused to consider this plan...
-Excerpt from Forging Columbia’s Sword, The United States Army between the Wars, Norwich University Press, Northfield, 2009
...In 1937 Hitler formally established the Volkskampfverband or VKV as the successor to the myriad of Weimar era paramilitaries that had been unified as the Kampfbund with the creation of the German National Front. Following the Consolidation of the National Front into the SVP and the repudiation of the Versailles Treaty the paramilitaries had been allowed to languish and shrink. No longer needed for political purposes with Hitler’s consolidation of power and no longer useful as a hidden reserve with the expansion of the Heer the Kampfbund was surplus to requirements and generated too much bad PR with the law and order crowds to be worth it. By 1937 the organization was less than a tenth its 1932 size and shrinking.
In 1937 however Hitler saw a use for it. Officially it was used as a source of military manpower that would not stress the already full training and expansion pipeline of the Heer that could be used for third lines roles in occupations or internal security. Unofficially the VKV was created to counter the possibility of a coup by the Wehrmacht. While Hitler had not discovered any of the conspiracies to oust him that had floated around the Wehrmacht High Command he was aware that he was not well liked and that many saw his course of action as exceedingly reckless. Thus he desired to break the Wehrmacht monopoly on military force…
...Another key motivation behind the creation of the VKV was that as a purely political and ideological creature it lacked the ingrained traditions of honor and duty that permeated the Wehrmacht. Thus the VKV could be used for dirty work that the Wehrmacht would refuse to stoop to. Given Hitler’s plans to “purify” the areas he conquered the need for a military force without a conscience was clear...
-Excerpt from Steel Talons: Armed Forces of the Interwar, Dewitt Publishing, Los Angeles, 2011
…The Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht is an enduring one in popular consciousness. The idea that the VKV was responsible for all, or almost all, of the bad things that the German military forces did in WWII is well accepted. Careful collation of data in recent years casts doubt on this. While data on many of the worst crimes of the German state during WWII is difficult to come by, to the point that records of many atrocities are undoubtedly lost, data from American and British Commonwealth military sources has survived intact. This paper will show that data indicates that the Wehrmacht carried out a significant number of warcrimes on its own, ranking third in confirmed cases per capita behind the IJA and VKV during WWII…
...An obvious reason for the scapegoating of the VKV was its relatively smaller size. Quite simply far fewer Germans served in the VKV than the Heer. Given that almost all German men of appropriate age, and many above or below that line, served in WWII, accusing the Heer of committing large scale war crimes would be akin to accusing the entire population, something obviously not popular with that population. Blaming a smaller minority was thus far easier politically...
...Collation of Americans and Commonwealth regimental histories shows that recorded POW massacres by Wehrmacht units occur only 40% less frequently than those by VKV units after adjusting for differences in frontline strength...
-Excerpt from Revisionist Viewpoints in History Volume XXX, University of California Press: Berkley, 2020
Okay no word on my laptop so still borrowing a computer to write these, corrections may be slow in coming
That this bombardment resulted in the frontline forces fleeing and allowing their position to be taken by the Nationalists was not entirely out of left field. What was out of left field was the Nationalist forces acting aggressive enough to not only force the somewhat shaken reserves to withdraw but to seize the next river line before popular front forces could arrive. What was further unexpected was that the Popular Front forces immediately inland of there would disintegrate upon being outflanked rather than withdraw creating a true breach in the lines.
The gap would only continue to grow as even modest attempts by Nationalist leaders saw tertiary Popular Front forces seem to disintegrate on contact. In an uncharacteristic display of initiative the Nationalist Corps commander in the area took the opportunity to push his reserves through a gap in the mountains and take the city of Cartagena. That alone should have been the end of it but the fall of Cartagena, along with so much other bad news broke Popular Front morale on the southern front.
Blocking positions in the mountains of Murcia that should have taken Nationalist forces weeks and heavy artillery to break through often broke after the first desultory bombardments. Despite not wanting or planning it General Franco found himself with a general offensive going on as glory seeking commanders pushed their troops onwards. The Nationalist war leader quickly realized that he had to get ahead of things and deployed his air and naval forces to prevent the Popular Front from taking advantage of the overextended Nationalist forces.
On February 20th the port of Alicante fell and the situation utterly collapsed for the Popular Front. Only Valencia was left to provide a source of supply for the Popular Front pocket in central Spain, and that city was within range of Nationalist heavy artillery. It was soon clear to everyone that the Popular Front forces were about to be cut off and morale already faltering collapsed on the western and northern fronts as well. Units shot their commissars and went home, while efforts to recruit emergency units of old men, young boys and women to replace them proved fruitless. Only a small hard core of communist fanatics remained to resist the Nationalist tide and they were quickly overwhelmed, by the beginning of April only Catalonia remained in Popular Front hands...
-Excerpt from European Wars for Americans, Harper & Brothers, New York, 2004
...1937 saw the US Army reverse one of its long standing war plans. Until that point the Army had followed the lead of the Navy in the defense of the Philippines, given that the Navy had concluded for the past decades that they could not relieve the islands for at least 24 if not 36 months given a need to secure advanced bases and crash build auxiliaries, the Army had like them written the islands off. Nothing more than a tripwire force to deter rebellion and aggression was placed on the islands. If the Japanese attacked it was small enough to be an affordable loss, if the islands revolted it was large enough to hold Manila until reinforcements arrived. With the decision to grant the islands their freedom in 1944 rebellion became a distant concern as most would be rebels would not jeopardize a known date for American withdrawal and the Army garrison was drawn down further.
In 1937 however Army plans began to change. There are a number of reasons for this. The famous but apocryphal story is that a racist Army observer at a Navy Wargame saw that the Navy rated IJN crews as being as good as their own and since “Nips can’t fight like White Men,” concluded that the Navy was sandbagging and actually could immediately relieve the islands. The actual reasons were…
...Army planning focused on holding the Bataan Peninsula. Doing so would deny the Japanese the use of Manila Bay and make retaking control of the Bay easier when the Navy Relief force arrived. Bunkered stockpiles and prebuilt defense lines would be created there, along with an internal railway to move troops and operate railway artillery. Several additional heavy coast artillery batteries would be placed to cover the western side of the Peninsula while airfields would be built to protect the skies.
No plans were made to contest the beaches, given that it was assumed that the Japanese could bring together enough firepower to eliminate any beach defenses not covered by battleship grade artillery. This of course ignored that doing so was not IJN doctrine, something that the Navy would have been happy to point out.
Similarly there were no plans to fight a mobile campaign on Luzon, as that approach was thought to expose the defenders to more casualties than a fixed defense of Bataan would and would not expose the IJA’s lack of heavy artillery that a fixed defense would. While true this approach would also neutralize the IJA’s greater relative lack of mobile artillery and motorized transport, something that would be especially felt given the bottlenecks imposed by over the beach logistics. This was a matter that the Marine Corps had studied extensively in the interwar era, yet like the Navy they were not consulted on the matter…
...An alternative plan was floated later on in 1938 with input from the Navy and Marines. It called for a mobile defense of Luzon from the beaches all the way back to Bataan, where a much reduced stand would take place. The forces freed up by a smaller force at Bataan would instead be used to fight a combined land and naval guerrilla campaign in the countless islands that made up the center of the Philippine archipelago. This plan was wargamed and found to potentially allow forces to remain in being until relieved, unless the IJN was prepared to pay a very steep price in blood and ships to force them out. The Army brass refused to consider this plan...
-Excerpt from Forging Columbia’s Sword, The United States Army between the Wars, Norwich University Press, Northfield, 2009
...In 1937 Hitler formally established the Volkskampfverband or VKV as the successor to the myriad of Weimar era paramilitaries that had been unified as the Kampfbund with the creation of the German National Front. Following the Consolidation of the National Front into the SVP and the repudiation of the Versailles Treaty the paramilitaries had been allowed to languish and shrink. No longer needed for political purposes with Hitler’s consolidation of power and no longer useful as a hidden reserve with the expansion of the Heer the Kampfbund was surplus to requirements and generated too much bad PR with the law and order crowds to be worth it. By 1937 the organization was less than a tenth its 1932 size and shrinking.
In 1937 however Hitler saw a use for it. Officially it was used as a source of military manpower that would not stress the already full training and expansion pipeline of the Heer that could be used for third lines roles in occupations or internal security. Unofficially the VKV was created to counter the possibility of a coup by the Wehrmacht. While Hitler had not discovered any of the conspiracies to oust him that had floated around the Wehrmacht High Command he was aware that he was not well liked and that many saw his course of action as exceedingly reckless. Thus he desired to break the Wehrmacht monopoly on military force…
...Another key motivation behind the creation of the VKV was that as a purely political and ideological creature it lacked the ingrained traditions of honor and duty that permeated the Wehrmacht. Thus the VKV could be used for dirty work that the Wehrmacht would refuse to stoop to. Given Hitler’s plans to “purify” the areas he conquered the need for a military force without a conscience was clear...
-Excerpt from Steel Talons: Armed Forces of the Interwar, Dewitt Publishing, Los Angeles, 2011
…The Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht is an enduring one in popular consciousness. The idea that the VKV was responsible for all, or almost all, of the bad things that the German military forces did in WWII is well accepted. Careful collation of data in recent years casts doubt on this. While data on many of the worst crimes of the German state during WWII is difficult to come by, to the point that records of many atrocities are undoubtedly lost, data from American and British Commonwealth military sources has survived intact. This paper will show that data indicates that the Wehrmacht carried out a significant number of warcrimes on its own, ranking third in confirmed cases per capita behind the IJA and VKV during WWII…
...An obvious reason for the scapegoating of the VKV was its relatively smaller size. Quite simply far fewer Germans served in the VKV than the Heer. Given that almost all German men of appropriate age, and many above or below that line, served in WWII, accusing the Heer of committing large scale war crimes would be akin to accusing the entire population, something obviously not popular with that population. Blaming a smaller minority was thus far easier politically...
...Collation of Americans and Commonwealth regimental histories shows that recorded POW massacres by Wehrmacht units occur only 40% less frequently than those by VKV units after adjusting for differences in frontline strength...
-Excerpt from Revisionist Viewpoints in History Volume XXX, University of California Press: Berkley, 2020
Okay no word on my laptop so still borrowing a computer to write these, corrections may be slow in coming
Last edited:
Racism is biting the US Army. The communist in Spain is done and the Germans have their ITL version of the SS. And its confirmed that the Germans are the bad guys in WWII. So my hunch is we see a communist led effort to start WWIII in the mid 60s and will all the nuclear fallout that comes with it.
Well this sure does point in the "German atrocities aren't well-known TTL due to destruction of records" direction. Glad that there's enough to at least un-whitewash the Wehrmacht. How popular/respected is Revisionist Viewpoints in-universe? If it's well known I can imagine people would ask themselves: If Germany looks this monstrous just from what records survive, what horrible things might they've done that we don't know about?
Man, after the "Puerto Rey Offensive" I cannot imagine the military legacy of the nationalists being viewed favorable in TTL.
Man, after the "Puerto Rey Offensive" I cannot imagine the military legacy of the nationalists being viewed favorable in TTL.
Huh, interesting. Why did IJN doctrine not call for eliminating shore defenses using their big guns? It seems a logical thing to do.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Revisionist viewpoints is an academic journal, it is popular among historians and respected but otherwise not known by the public
Japanese doctrine is from OTL, capital ships are too valuable to be used on secondary missions like shore bombardment, that is a job for expendable cruisers. Capital ships are to be saved for the decisve battles
Japanese doctrine is from OTL, capital ships are too valuable to be used on secondary missions like shore bombardment, that is a job for expendable cruisers. Capital ships are to be saved for the decisve battles
Interesting. Sounds like there's a change attitudes in it might percolate to popular history given enough time... and most of what we see from Revisionist Viewpoints is published in the new millennium, some very close to the 'present', so I've the impression that the historical field is in a state of flux at the time.
Part 5-21 Into the Abyss, Mass Destruction
RamscoopRaider
Donor
…Events surrounding the brief war between Bolivia and Paragauy over the Chaco Desert in the early 30’s and H.C. Englebert’s popular 1935 book “The Merchants of Death” brought the topic of neutrality front and center. Engleberts book and the actions of several corporations in the Chaco War challenged well held notions about American Entry into WWI. Prior to that point the dominant narrative was of German diplomatic incompetence in sending the Zimmerman Note and failing to realize the consequences of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare. Failing that the next most common explanation was that American Entry was all Wilson’s fault for blatantly favoring the Entente in public, projecting weakness to the Germans and not building a sufficient military deterrent.
Englebert’s book proposed an alternate explanation. American entry into WWI was caused by a cartel of financiers and munitions makers in a quest for greater profits, not by Woodrow Wilson or German incompetence. They were afraid of their gravy train coming to an end and engineered American entry to protect their investments. Englebert’s book struck enough of a cord amongst a population made skeptical of big business and high finance from the Depression that a senate committee was formed in 1936 under Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota to investigate the Munitions industry.
The Nye committee lasted two years and interviewed about 200 witnesses. It found that huge profits had been made by the arms industry during WWI, that there had been price fixing, bribery and collusion, that undue influence was exerted by financiers and the arms industry over American foreign policy. It did not find any evidence of an actual conspiracy of munitions firms and financiers, either current or historical, to promote warfare but deliberately did not dispel the notion in their reports, which were deliberately shaded.
The Nye Committee recommended that the Arms industry be nationalized, that lending to belligerents be banned, that American travel on belligerent ships should be banned, that trade with belligerents should be banned in American hulls, that Arms exports should be banned to belligerents and tightly controlled otherwise and that foreign policy be subject to greater scrutiny.
The Committee’s recommendations on foreign policy and nationalization were not acted upon, both proposals died in committee. What was acted upon were the proposals to restrict lending, trade and travel to belligerents. These were combined in the form of a Neutrality Act in early 1938.
President Roosevelt was against the act, but he found that his options were limited. Large elements of his own party, especially in the South which through the seniority system controlled key committees, supported the measure. He could veto it, but in doing so he would alienate congressmen and senators that he needed to pass his New Deal Agenda. Instead he insisted that a sunset clause be inserted to end the Act after two years. This was accepted and the Act passed.
Notably the Neutrality Act of 1938 did not cover civil wars, an oversight which would be corrected next year…
-Into the Abyss: The leadup to the Second World War, Harper and Brothers, New York, 2009
…On November 18th 1935 Scientists at IG Farben in Leverkusen Germany under Otto Ambros spilled a tiny quantity of the organophosphate compound Tabun as part of research into new insecticides. After experiencing debilitating side effects that sickened them for a month they determined that the organophosphate compound had definite applications as a chemical weapon. Per German law a sample was submitted to the chemical warfare section of the German Army Weapons Office at Spadnau.
Ambros and his team were summoned to Berlin to give a demonstration for Colonel Rüdiger of the Chemical Weapons office in May 1936. After a successful demonstration a new laboratory was built in the Elberfeld suburb of Wuppertal to study organophosphate compounds…
…An experimental plant for production of Tabun was set up at the German Army’s Munster training area in 1938. This was followed by a full scale plant at Krappitz in Silesia that started construction in 1939. The Krappitz Plant, operated by IG Farben subsidy Anorgana, would have a capacity of producing 10,000 tons a year when complete…
…The Elberfeld Lab discovered three other organophosphate compounds of note. The first discovered in 1938 was named Sarin as a portmanteau of its discoverers names. This was followed by the variant Cyclosarin in 1941 and the related compound Soman in 1942, named from the Latin soma or sleep…
…The Japanese Togo Unit was formed in 1934 at the town of Pingfeng in Manchuria after extensive lobbying from Colonel Shiro Ishii as a combined biological warfare, chemical warfare and experimental research unit…
…The Togo unit quickly became infamous for its human experimentation. Its location in Manchuria allowed the unit to snatch victims right off the street for experimentation. Roughly 60-100 prisoners were consumed a month in such experimentation. The opportunity to do such work allowed the Togo Unit to attract many volunteers from the Japanese medical community…
…Much of the human research performed by the Togo Unit was in addition to being completely monstrous, utterly useless. Poor scientific rigor was shown and many so called experiments proved to be simple displays of sadism from which nothing useful could be learned even if appropriate rigor was present…
…The Togo unit studied use of plague, typhoid, paratyphoid, cholera, typhus, smallpox, anthrax, botulism, syphilis, gonorrhea and other diseases. By 1936 the first crude delivery systems for bubonic plague were ready for use…
…The Togo Unit is notable for having only three known survivors of at least 10,000 experimental victims. Any survivors of the experiments were killed after their use was ended, with only three managing to successfully escape. Furthermore an unknown but large number of babies, usually children of the rape of female prisoners, were murdered in addition to the experimental victims themselves…
…Little is known about the Soviet biological weapons program. It was established mere months after the USSR signed the Convention banning it. The program received priority in 1929 and tests were first carried out on the Aral Sea in 1936…
-Pandora’s Children: Weapons of Mass Destruction, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012
Okay update delayed fortunately only by the thunderstorm and not the accident with the axe. Was planning to supplement this but then discovered the tree lying on the wires on my way home so will probably lose power again today for it to get fixed
Englebert’s book proposed an alternate explanation. American entry into WWI was caused by a cartel of financiers and munitions makers in a quest for greater profits, not by Woodrow Wilson or German incompetence. They were afraid of their gravy train coming to an end and engineered American entry to protect their investments. Englebert’s book struck enough of a cord amongst a population made skeptical of big business and high finance from the Depression that a senate committee was formed in 1936 under Senator Gerald Nye of North Dakota to investigate the Munitions industry.
The Nye committee lasted two years and interviewed about 200 witnesses. It found that huge profits had been made by the arms industry during WWI, that there had been price fixing, bribery and collusion, that undue influence was exerted by financiers and the arms industry over American foreign policy. It did not find any evidence of an actual conspiracy of munitions firms and financiers, either current or historical, to promote warfare but deliberately did not dispel the notion in their reports, which were deliberately shaded.
The Nye Committee recommended that the Arms industry be nationalized, that lending to belligerents be banned, that American travel on belligerent ships should be banned, that trade with belligerents should be banned in American hulls, that Arms exports should be banned to belligerents and tightly controlled otherwise and that foreign policy be subject to greater scrutiny.
The Committee’s recommendations on foreign policy and nationalization were not acted upon, both proposals died in committee. What was acted upon were the proposals to restrict lending, trade and travel to belligerents. These were combined in the form of a Neutrality Act in early 1938.
President Roosevelt was against the act, but he found that his options were limited. Large elements of his own party, especially in the South which through the seniority system controlled key committees, supported the measure. He could veto it, but in doing so he would alienate congressmen and senators that he needed to pass his New Deal Agenda. Instead he insisted that a sunset clause be inserted to end the Act after two years. This was accepted and the Act passed.
Notably the Neutrality Act of 1938 did not cover civil wars, an oversight which would be corrected next year…
-Into the Abyss: The leadup to the Second World War, Harper and Brothers, New York, 2009
…On November 18th 1935 Scientists at IG Farben in Leverkusen Germany under Otto Ambros spilled a tiny quantity of the organophosphate compound Tabun as part of research into new insecticides. After experiencing debilitating side effects that sickened them for a month they determined that the organophosphate compound had definite applications as a chemical weapon. Per German law a sample was submitted to the chemical warfare section of the German Army Weapons Office at Spadnau.
Ambros and his team were summoned to Berlin to give a demonstration for Colonel Rüdiger of the Chemical Weapons office in May 1936. After a successful demonstration a new laboratory was built in the Elberfeld suburb of Wuppertal to study organophosphate compounds…
…An experimental plant for production of Tabun was set up at the German Army’s Munster training area in 1938. This was followed by a full scale plant at Krappitz in Silesia that started construction in 1939. The Krappitz Plant, operated by IG Farben subsidy Anorgana, would have a capacity of producing 10,000 tons a year when complete…
…The Elberfeld Lab discovered three other organophosphate compounds of note. The first discovered in 1938 was named Sarin as a portmanteau of its discoverers names. This was followed by the variant Cyclosarin in 1941 and the related compound Soman in 1942, named from the Latin soma or sleep…
…The Japanese Togo Unit was formed in 1934 at the town of Pingfeng in Manchuria after extensive lobbying from Colonel Shiro Ishii as a combined biological warfare, chemical warfare and experimental research unit…
…The Togo unit quickly became infamous for its human experimentation. Its location in Manchuria allowed the unit to snatch victims right off the street for experimentation. Roughly 60-100 prisoners were consumed a month in such experimentation. The opportunity to do such work allowed the Togo Unit to attract many volunteers from the Japanese medical community…
…Much of the human research performed by the Togo Unit was in addition to being completely monstrous, utterly useless. Poor scientific rigor was shown and many so called experiments proved to be simple displays of sadism from which nothing useful could be learned even if appropriate rigor was present…
…The Togo unit studied use of plague, typhoid, paratyphoid, cholera, typhus, smallpox, anthrax, botulism, syphilis, gonorrhea and other diseases. By 1936 the first crude delivery systems for bubonic plague were ready for use…
…The Togo Unit is notable for having only three known survivors of at least 10,000 experimental victims. Any survivors of the experiments were killed after their use was ended, with only three managing to successfully escape. Furthermore an unknown but large number of babies, usually children of the rape of female prisoners, were murdered in addition to the experimental victims themselves…
…Little is known about the Soviet biological weapons program. It was established mere months after the USSR signed the Convention banning it. The program received priority in 1929 and tests were first carried out on the Aral Sea in 1936…
-Pandora’s Children: Weapons of Mass Destruction, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012
Okay update delayed fortunately only by the thunderstorm and not the accident with the axe. Was planning to supplement this but then discovered the tree lying on the wires on my way home so will probably lose power again today for it to get fixed
You OK bro? What's this about axe accidents?
Fascinating, did something similar to the Nye Commission occur OTL? I'm wondering how much more hobbled than OTL the USA is here with regards to intervention.
New book, Pandora's Children. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of it. I don't think this research into chemical and biological weapons is very different from OTL, but given it's got a whole book title to it I predict they'll see more usage. Does Hitler still have his OTL aversion to using chemical weaponry?
Fascinating, did something similar to the Nye Commission occur OTL? I'm wondering how much more hobbled than OTL the USA is here with regards to intervention.
New book, Pandora's Children. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of it. I don't think this research into chemical and biological weapons is very different from OTL, but given it's got a whole book title to it I predict they'll see more usage. Does Hitler still have his OTL aversion to using chemical weaponry?
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Splitting firewood, banged my foot, a bit sore but otherwise fine
Yes it did, also led by Senator Nye. The Devil is however in the details, or more relevantly the lack of certain details
The ideas that lead to it and followed from it affected many parts of American life, AFAICT, including the comics industry (Superman and other heroes certainly seemed to believe it in-story).
Yeah, that sounds about right. The kinds of people that are going to be attracted to groups like this don't tend to actually care about the science.