As an abject failure in the case of Communism. Socialism is, as is the case IOTL, something of a mixed bag. Social programs including National Health Care = Good. Singing the International = "Are you kidding?"
The Anglo/American - Nazi War - The on-going mystery
- Thread starter CalBear
- Start date
Well that does raise a problem with an obvious solution. Namely build a volcano and start introducing fire ant colonies. I've always thought Poland didn't have enough Volcano's to throw SS men into.
And if anyone deserved it it was goddamned Dirlewanger. I cannot think of any possible condemnation worse then having literal Nazi Death Squad members consider him "A sick twisted sadistic fuck". When the guys who actively gun down thousands of unarmed women and children every week as a 9 to 5 Job consider someone a monster you know you've crossed the pale.
That and the fact that he got repeatedly seriously injured a ridiculous number of times (six times in WW1, another three times in the Spanish Civil War, at least another half dozen times in WW2) and kept refusing to die. I semi seriously attribute that survival to Satan being creeped the fuck out by Dirlewanger and not wanting to have to deal with him. Supposedly only the good die young. Dirlewanger got shot, bayoneted, or hit by shrapnel more then a dozen times and just kept coming back to commit more unspeakable atrocities for the sake of unspeakable atrocities. Maybe being ridiculously evil prolongs life.
Bookmark1995
Banned
I think communism is both "horrible" and "it just didn't work."
TTL Soviet Russia lost the war, became effectively a slave state/puppet of Nazism, collapsed into Somalia-style warlordism once Molotov's powerbase was gone, and relies on outside charity to barely function.
Definitely not a nation could inspire anything in the average anticolonial guerilla fighter besides pity and contempt.
By the way @CalBear ,whatever happened to poor Molotov after he was effectively trapped in Switzerland?
Obviously.
But again, you don't need a chemical imbalance in your brain to be an evil person.
It certainly helps though.
Swiss had to keep him. The Americans and British managed to get his family out using military aircraft and threats to the various militias that were so severe that the militia groups thought that the WAllies actually might mean them. They lived under Swiss diplomatic protection (with funding from reparations payments to the Tsarist Republic, at British "suggestion" to the entirely independent and not at all reliant on British good will for pretty much everything, Tsar) until his death in 1984 at the age of 94. Most of the family still lives in Switzerland, although one great- granddaughter has, very quietly, returned to Russia using a married name.
Had he walked back into the "USSR" the number of different groups who will declare him "a traitor" and come up with some seriously inventive and excruciatingly painful method of execution would fill out a softball league.
Probably the best solution to the question. Though, I'm surprised that the Americans and British went to so much bother to get his family out? Was it out of a belated sense of obligation to the USSR?
By the end of the Extended Timeline, it's a US state. It isn't going back.
At the end of the main timeline, it's already been under US rule for... about ten years, I believe? I think it's still unlikely to reunify. It's possible if whatever power holds Siberia is decently well off and organized, but that's unlikely given the state of Siberia after the Hot War.
brooklyn99
Banned
@CalBear
So, just a minor point of interest. In ANNW a partisan group called the "Russian Patriotic Front" is mentioned. Could you delve in a bit more info on these folks? Were they the ones who backed the Tsarist restoration?
So, just a minor point of interest. In ANNW a partisan group called the "Russian Patriotic Front" is mentioned. Could you delve in a bit more info on these folks? Were they the ones who backed the Tsarist restoration?
Bookmark1995
Banned
I can understand not sending him back to the "USSR". But he was still a Stalinist whose crimes were also terrible.
Does he get a pass because his crimes pale in comparison to the Nazis.
Honestly, I kind of think losing several of his family to nerve gas, becoming such a reviled figure that he couldn’t even return to his homeland, and basically being exiled is punishment enough.
The Volcanos in Europe run along two lines: 1) the Mediterranean from Turkey through the Greek Islands, extreme southern Italy and west from there and 2) those associated with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. As far as I can tell there are only two volcanos that erupted in the 20th century that are in areas that might have been controlled by the Nazis.
One in Jan Mayen, Norway and I can't see Jan Mayen falling to the Germans in the Warm war given the mostly continous control by the Allies during the war iOTL. (OTOH, I don't think Svalbard's story in the Warm War is dealt with in the TL, given how often it went back and forth during WWII, I can see it going either way)
The other is in Santorini , which I think probably was held by the Germans.
The Volcanos in the Caucuses are extinct and while the former Soviet Union does have volcanos, they are all in the Far East (as far as I can tell all in the State of West Alaska)
And Wikipedia doesn't show any articles for Solenopsis species in Europe, but most of the species don't have articles. However Fire Ants would be considerably easier to import than a Volcano.
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They were a constant source of friction between the claimant of Soviet leadership and the WAllies. At some point one group or another was going to do something monumentally stupid to "prove" they were the real authority. Easier and less expensive in the long run to get them out.
Zero, at least in any practical time period.
Yes. There is already really much of punishment when he is totally discredited and so deeply hated that probably him has live on endless fear that someone of his countryman is after him. Basically no one has not any respect on the man who just surrended to nazis and allowed them to do horrible things. I am actually bit amazed that Molotov didn't commit suicide after such discredit and living in exile under not so nice condition.
Leningrad was razed almost completely and most of Moscow was razed as well. They weren’t flooded.
Hitler did want Moscow to be turned into a lake for whatever reason but the Reich lost the war in 1960 ITTL so they didn’t achieve everything they desired (though it’s unlikely they could have turned Moscow into a lake within any reasonable time period).
Here’s a relevant quote:
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Bookmark1995
Banned
I remember reading an excellent book about Mobutu and his reign over "Zaire." The book claims that for the African ruler, dying exiled from his own country was the biggest disgrace of all.
Now that you mention it, I do feel a little sorry for Molotov: he had to sell his people out to keep his own head on his shoulders, he spent years in agony fearing for his own overthrow, many of his family members and associates were killed when he tried to end his tribute to the Nazis, his government collapsed, he was effectively exiled from his homeland, and he spent the rest of his life in fear of assassination, and he would be remembered as the worst ruler in Russia's history.
But...
He very much deserves this fate.
He happily took part in the Purges. The purges that weakened his own nation militarily and spiritually. And OTL, he spent his dying day defending those purges. He played a role in the TTL defeat of Russia.
He's even worse off, in terms of reputation and prestige, than Kerensky.
It is what he gets for working with a destructive psychopath.
We only wish that millions didn't have to suffer as well.
Rereading and have a tiny suggestion for change in the description of the St. Patrick's day raid...
Despite the best efforts of three full fighter squadrons five of the Ju-688s made it to the Washington DC area. Two were killed by Nike SAM before they could drop their bombs, but three of the German aircraft managed to drop their bombs on the outskirts of the American Capital, killing nearly 200 civilians. None of the Ju-688s made it back to open water before being blotted from the sky.
(New York information)
To put 36 bombs onto Manhattan, and an additional 18 bombs into Georgetown the Reich had expended 378 aircraft and over 4,000 men.
Even at the time of the POD (1942), Georgetown would not really have been considered the outskirts of the American Capital. And presuming growth of the Washington DC area over the following 12 years even somewhat similar to OTL, it definitely would not have been described that way.
Despite the best efforts of three full fighter squadrons five of the Ju-688s made it to the Washington DC area. Two were killed by Nike SAM before they could drop their bombs, but three of the German aircraft managed to drop their bombs on the outskirts of the American Capital, killing nearly 200 civilians. None of the Ju-688s made it back to open water before being blotted from the sky.
(New York information)
To put 36 bombs onto Manhattan, and an additional 18 bombs into Georgetown the Reich had expended 378 aircraft and over 4,000 men.
Even at the time of the POD (1942), Georgetown would not really have been considered the outskirts of the American Capital. And presuming growth of the Washington DC area over the following 12 years even somewhat similar to OTL, it definitely would not have been described that way.
Its possible the military build up slowed expansion, especially as the birth rate would be supressed far longer with the length of the war. Also that's in my (print) copy of Festung Europa so probably to late now I fear.
To be fair CalBear stated if Molotov hadn’t made the peace deal with the Reich he would have gotten killed by one thing or another in the chaos. I’d argue that Stalin had the. I’d argue Stalin was the most responsible for the USSR’s loss with his purges and wasteful offensives. I doubt Molotov was happy that he had to surrender and basically become a puppet of the Reich. He did what he felt he had to do to protect himself and ensure the survival of the Communist Party.
The USSR was basically already defeated and in the middle of an eight side civil war by the time Molotov took control after Beria’s death. Nothing anyone could have feasibly done would have stopped the Reich at that point.
Of course some have said on this forum that Molotov, the surviving Politburo and the remnants of the Red Army should have retreated behind the Urals where the Reich couldn’t reach them (besides with aircraft) and did their best to fight on instead of making such a crippling peace deal.
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