REPUBLIC OF AMERICA
President of the First Republic
Charles Lindbergh (1948-1960)
National Alliance for the Rapid Realization of American Independence 1948-1951
Liberal Party 1951-1960
Few Germans or Russians could tell Americans and British apart, yet alone understand the intricacies of the former's relationship to the latter. In postwar planning, Hitler and Stalin merely drew a line through the far-flung British colony and gave it little thought aside from that. It was never a border drawn with men in mind --- indeed, the line split communities apart across the continent. It was a border of military convenience, nothing more nothing less. Just as the old empires had once divided the African continent among themselves, the new empires haphazardly cut into the American pie along the 38th parallel.
The American people, for their part, had little knowledge of these machinations. Indeed, no Americans had even been involved in the decision to divide their nation in the first place. With their colonial masters reduced to rubble, patriotic Americans began to establish an independent state of their own. The new government, a hasty compromise between socialists and more conservative nationalist elements within the anti-British resistance, had a brief life. Americans had barely finished cheering on their German liberators by the time the Reich deemed Roosevelt's People's Republic a communist front and had it outlawed. Its leadership was rounded up and sent to the newly built camps along with Jews, homosexuals, and other "degenerates".
"Berlin's Man in America", Lindbergh had little in the way of domestic support when parachuted in by the Germans to lead the new Republic of America government. Having lived out the last couple decades in exile in the Fatherland after the suspected murder of his own child, the former nationalist activist had lost most of the political network he had once built. But the anti-Communist hardliner's popularity with the Fuhrer soon won him over enough support with American elites to secure his rule. Still, the paranoid and corrupt Lindbergh had no intention of ruling as anything other than a Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in Republican drag. Those with the most to lose --- former British collaborators chief among them, clung tightly to President as he continued with his hamfisted reign of terror. In his first two years of rule, Lindbergh had rival nationalist leaders assassinated and suspected dissidents massacred.
Chief among these crimes was the Hawaii Massacre, where in an attempt to suppress a communist uprising, Republic of America forces killed nearly 100,000 men, women, and children --- nearly one-fifth of the population of the province. Even occupying SS men were horrified by the bloodthirsty nature of their American allies as entire villages were liquidated with an almost gleeful enthusiasm. And while Hawaii has become a symbol of the brutality of the era, it was only one of many such combustions in a nation crawling with communist insurgency --- both agents of the North and average Americans who were just eager to see their nation free of fascist tyranny.
Historians continue to debate which side shot first, but an increasing view is that the American War was merely an escalation of the military conflict that had been brewing across the continent since independence. Soon clashes along the 38th parallel turned to offensives and offensives to invasion. The Republic of America Army, intentionally hamstrung by the Germans so as to discourage Lindbergh's delusional ambitions, was little match for the People's Army of the more industrialized North. Richmond quickly fell, then Raleigh, Charlotte, and Memphis soon followed. Within a week, the Southern government was forced to evacuate Atlanta and retreat to the remote Florida Peninsula. But with its army reduced to 80,000 men, survival looked impossible without German intervention.
The American People's Army was nearly in Miami and plans had already been drawn up to form a government in exile in Havana by the time the Wehrmacht-led European Union forces intervened on behalf of the Southern state. With aerial supremacy, the Luftwaffe relieved the Allied forces as they pushed out of the Miami Perimeter and northward. Amphibious landings along the Atlantic coast further spelled trouble for the Northern forces. Carnage in their wake, anti-communist refugees fled to the safety of the territory behind German lines. Communists fled north as dozens of Hawaiis cropped up across the front. Two months after the Northern forces had advanced south the 38th parallel, Allied forces marched north of it.
Guderian, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, had visions of uniting the American continent under fascism, a vision which directly contradicted the Fuhrer's policy of vigilant coexistence with the Soviets. As Panzers rolled through the fields of Pennsylvania, many wondered if they might just drive all the way across the St. Lawrence. Hitler, who had initially been fearful of purging the popular general, was forced to act to prevent further escalation. The Werewolf of London was swiftly put down, and with his death died the dream of a unified America.
The war needlessly dragged on for nearly three more years. Brother against brother, American against American. By 1953, when a ceasefire was finally agreed upon, nearly twenty million Americans --- mostly civilians --- had succumbed to firebombs, bullets, or starvation. Sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers who had been taken prisoner by the North were doomed to a fate unknown to their loved ones, with the communist government continuing to refuse repatriation for "liberated" Americans. And while the North had suffered far worse, the South ended the war in a state one would hardly call enviable. Flooded by Northern refugees and reduced to an almost primitive state, economic life had been brought to a standstill. Barefoot families roamed unpaved roads, and mobs of Americans swarmed cities in the hopes of receiving meager rations from the European grain shipments.
Lindbergh, for his part, lived out the war in lavish luxury, siphoning off an unknown amount of money from German aid to enrich himself and his allies. While he remained popular with the Fuhrer, Lindbergh went out of his way to insult various allied nations he perceived as undermining the war effort. Between his decreasing popularity at home and abroad, it looked unlikely that he would be re-elected following the end of the war. Lindbergh made a similar observation, and committed to arresting every politician who opposed him. Congress was purged soon after the war, and Lindbergh affirmed for another term.
As the North rebuilt with the aid of the Soviets, the South under the increasingly tactless Lindbergh stagnated in squalor. As the secret police suppressed popular dissent, the President was re-elected to another term, which he swore would be his last, in accordance with the constitution. But even this wasn't enough for Lindbergh. Congress, which had been reduced to little more than a rubber stamp committee, approved a constitutional amendment that would allow the President to run for a third term. He was dutifully re-elected in 1960 following the mysterious death of his only permitted opponent, and declared another decade of "progress".
But the American people had had enough. The streets of Atlanta filled with demonstrators who began to concentrate around Lindbergh's residence. The panicked police, some of Lindbergh's last true allies, started to fire indiscriminately. But the angry mob soon overran the police line, tore down the fence, charged across the neatly manicured lawn, and stormed the White House. It was only the generosity of his German masters that prevented Lindbergh from meeting a bloody fate that day. Helicoptered out just as he'd been helicoptered in fifteen years earlier, Lindbergh got to live out the rest of his days in quiet exile in the German Pacific, a retirement most Americans agree was too good for their first President.