A Tale of Two Germanys: Essay From an Alternate World

This was originally part of a contest on CF.Net, to create an essay from an alternate world. I've chosen to post it here. Feel free to comment, criticise, rant about how implausible it is and so forth...

[FONT=&quot]A Tale of Two Germanys: Why did the DDVR fail?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In OTL, Stalin did not get all of Berlin, Erich Stahlmann (to the best of my knowledge) never existed, and the leader of the DDR did not suffer a fatal stroke in 1953.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]The long and sordid history of the DDVR begins in 1949, with the creation of the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik) out of the Soviet occupation zone. Although its name at first contained only one blatant lie (it was not in any way Democratic), it was to prove the beginning of a nightmare. In the beginning the DDR was under Soviet occupation – in 1953 the Soviet armies left and the NVA (National Volksarmee) [1] was created. And there the nightmare began.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]For, as the Soviets left, the leader of the DDR suddenly suffered a stroke that instantly killed him [2]. He was succeeded by the relatively young Erich Stahlmann, a hardened, brutal Stalinist who had been an Anti-Nazi partisan in the dying days of the Second World War. The Soviets thought that they could control Stahlmann easily. They were wrong. Stahlmann proved uncontrollable, instituting seven Stahlmanndiktaten in the years 1953-1955 alone [3]. These were:[/FONT]


  1. [FONT=&quot]The creation of the Rotwache, a military organisation that had as its primary missions guarding Stahlmann, purging all suspected dissidents and many other functions[/FONT]
  2. [FONT=&quot]The renaming of the DDR to DDVR or, in English, German Democratic People’s Republic[/FONT]
  3. [FONT=&quot]The total reformation of education to ‘instil the values of Communism at every moment of life’[/FONT]
  4. [FONT=&quot]The formation of the dreaded Ministerium für Lieben to ’re-educate and punish all dissidents’[/FONT]
  5. [FONT=&quot]The formation of the Ministerium für Arbeit to ‘provide suitable work for all adults’[/FONT]
  6. [FONT=&quot]The building of the secretive Treuenlagern or ‘loyalty camps’ designed to ‘make those that remain disloyal loyal through punishment'[/FONT]
  7. [FONT=&quot]The arrest and immediate ‘liquidation’ of all ‘capitalists and bourgeois-aristocratic scum’ that remained in the DDVR.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The Rotwache soon became, with their blood-red uniforms and merciless attitude, a terrifying government-endorsed gang of utter criminal thugs [4]. The only good thing that can be said about them is that they drove out the other, private-sector thugs. Stahlmann’s style of Communism was as different from Krushchev’s as Hell was from Heaven, and there soon ensued an almost-total split as Stahlmann constructed a massive series of fortifications along the borders with the FRG – not to protect his citizens, but simply to keep them inside the Hell he was creating. Stahlmann also began constructing the Worker’s Palace in Berlin [5] (Stalin had received the whole of Berlin at Yalta earlier) which was solely and utterly for himself, a monument to his egotism that killed many during its construction and damaged the economy greatly.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Stahlmann then built a host of massive skyscrapers in Berlin, and a massive triumphal arch was also built as a symbol of ‘the inevitable victory of Communism’. Again, many died during its construction, as Chinese peasants and enemies of the Emperor had died building the Great Wall of China. Their deaths had meant nothing to that Emperor, and so the worker’s deaths meant nothing to Stahlmann. He cared nothing – why would a Medieval lord cry over the deaths of peasants that lived only to serve him? Such was his dispassionate evil that overseers were specifically ordered not to help dying workers, presumably because it would slow down construction. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In 1957, Stahlmann released several more of his dictates, as well as a very long essay on The Need for Unshakeable Tyranny containing the famous passage, justifying and lauding totalitarianism:[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“For the People, not knowing Good from Evil, would not see that they were being exploited, nor that they were slaves or that what was being done to them was wrong – thus, we see the beginning of an inequality made law, the ultimate state of human existence.”[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]The free world was repulsed and horrified by Stahlmann’s blatantly power-seeking and totalitarian philosophy, but in North Korea Kim Il-Sung praised the essay as ‘a glorious look into the mind of man...powerful and compelling’. Such was the opinion of many other Hard-Left professors and intellectuals, one of whom praised Stahlmann as ‘a frank, honest man, at peace with himself...one of the few with the vision to save our world’.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Such thoughts could not be further from the truth of Stahlmann’s evil.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In 1959, in response to a perceived assassination attempt, Stahlmann set the Rotwache loose. The Midnight Purges, as they eventually became known, were nothing more than a massacre lasting for three days of utter horror throughout the nation [6]. Where the Red Guard did not go, the baying mobs did, ripping apart anybody suspected to be ‘capitalist-fascist’. In 1960 an East German student managed to escape Stahlmann’s hell, and revealed a series of films from the Purges that shocked the free world (the Soviets of course, immediately denounced them as ‘capitalist lies’) and were only seen in their unexpurgated version in 1999, as part of the NC-17 rated (in its uncut version) documentary The Nightmare State [7].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In 1961, Stahlmann was struck low by an illness for six months, and its recurrence would eventually kill him a decade later. This illness remains unknown – no medical records have survived, but it is known that after six months of intensive care he managed to recover. Nevertheless, Stahlmann announced that he had been poisoned – and permanently dissolved the lower and upper houses of the DDVR’s legislature, arresting the members and thus eliminating all opposition to him. He also made provisions for succession, declaring that his firstborn son, Ludwig Stahlmann, was to be his heir. Stahlmann was now nothing more than an autocrat of the past living in the present, for for all his talk of Socialism, his megalomania could guarantee no other course. Stahlmann was an insane megalomaniac, utterly convinced that he was a Great Man of history. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In 1962, he released a novel – Realpolitik, which was a horribly didactic book, espousing a sociopathic, Machiavellian and totalitarian philosophy, but one that was characterised by a mastery of language and nevertheless became popular among hard-left circles despite its banning in several nations. Critics worldwide savagely attacked it, and it did not sell much, but it proved that Stahlmann fancied himself an artist. In 1964 he invited the Beatles to play in Berlin, apparently seeking to be seen as cultured, but terrified, they refused. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In 1963, Stahlmann collectivised all agriculture and eliminated all those that tried to hold on to their farms, the resulting mismanagement leading to massive famines throughout the DDVR that lasted until 1966. Hundreds of thousands died, the result exacerbated by both administrative incompetence and the decision to deny food to areas suspected of being ‘anti-Communist’ [8]. As thousands died hideous deaths from starvation, the name of Stahlmann, their ‘Dear Leader’ was on their parched lips. It was a tremendous, abominable horror and an utter farce, people eating whatever they could, even, some rumours said, other human beings. Stahlmann reportedly ignored the reports of starving people and cannibalism, and although this may be a simple lie, it is by no means unlikely; such was his utter and abominable disregard for human and animal life. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Stahlmann then wrote a number of essays espousing totalitarianism, then his autobiography, a hagiography written by himself which every family was required to have, and which summarised his beliefs (full of out-of-context quotes from Machiavelli, Nietzsche and several others, most notably in the last chapter, entitled I am the Ubermensch). The number of executions and purges rose sharply and paranoia rose – everybody could be an informant, everybody could be an enemy. Stahlmann was the only constant in life, his face on the telescreens that were in every single city square, his voice on the radio exhorting the people to work harder for nothing at all. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]He was variously described as ‘a very handsome man...charming to be with, though in his eyes one could see the cruelty, the malice, and the will to dominate all life’ and ‘a very buffoonish figure...somewhat and somehow pathetic behind all the layers of tough rhetoric’. Nevertheless, most who saw them reported that the air grew cold in his presence, and that his eyes revealed his inner evil.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]By 1970, the Rotwache was recruiting directly from the prisons, from the very worst criminals that they could trust not to attempt to murder their comrades – and sometimes not even that, for several murders and attempted murders took place in the Rotwache, despite the best attempts to instil discipline. Mention should also be made of the DDVR’s Kampfmaschine, essentially a design and a series of test models for a walking piloted tank. That this was thought to be a good idea owes more to the utter stupidity and incompetence of many in the DDVR’s military than anything else. The Kampfmaschine took three test models and 39 deaths before the leaders of the NVA decided that it was an utter failure.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In 1971 Erich Stahlmann expired as a result of complications caused by a long-term struggle with illness [9]. He was succeeded by Ludwig Stahlmann, who continued his murderous legacy with a new set of brutal purges against the doctors who had ‘murdered’ his father. However, by this time in the FRG things had changed utterly. There were a new generation of Conservative thinkers rapidly gaining influence, composed of those that saw the DDVR as ‘a hard, if not the hardest challenge in the eventual unification of all German-speakers’. Therefore, reunification with the DDVR was seen as the very last, not the first step, and would have to come through military force. In the 1970s the newly formed German National Party went from strength to strength, winning the general elections in the early 1980s [10].[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]It believed as firmly in the welfare state and human rights as any other government, but was a firm believer that to be a strong nation, Germany needed to encompass all those who spoke German. In 1983, the FRG began talks with Austria for unification with Germany [11]. Meanwhile, in the DDVR things were getting much, much worse as Ludwig Stahlmann began new purges, worse than any that had come before. Nobody knew whether he or she might be next, as the Stasi, the Ministry of Love and the Rotwache began to work in unison to punish dissidents [12]. Erich Stahlmann was promoted from the relatively puny title of ‘Dear Leader’ to a number of ridiculous titles that in most cases had very little to do with Communism, and all depictions of him were altered to depict him as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan Ubermensch [13] rather than the black-haired, brown-eyed figure he had been in reality. Anybody saying otherwise was sent to the Treuenlagern to be tortured and set to hard labour, in many cases to death. All religion was banned, Bibles and churches being burned in the thousands [14]. However, religion remained, underground even as the Cathedrals were razed and Priests shot.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Meanwhile, the DDVR’s economy began to stagnate, as Moscow distanced itself from the actions of the DDVR’s government, but still supporting it militarily. In 1977 it was estimated that half the DDVR’s food came from the USSR, as well as military arms. These estimates were eventually revealed to be false – three-quarters of the DDVR’s food came from the Soviet Union in the years 1975-1991. Moscow also provided the NVA with equipment and sent military advisors, but due to the sheer size of the NVA (10 million, Stahlmann claimed, although most of these were untrained construction workers) this meant very little.[/FONT]


[FONT=&quot]In 1990, the Warsaw Pact collapsed and the FRG and Austria unified. The unification was celebrated throughout Austria, as the FRG’s capital was moved to Vienna, as that city was both much more prestigious and out of the way of the DDVR’s forces. Banners of the new flag ( the black-red-gold tricolour of Germany, containing a shield bearing the Austrian tricolour of red-white-red) were hung in the streets, a wave of national spirit swept across Germany. In the DDVR however, no note was made of this. It was simply banned from the airwaves and from conversation = the DDVR saw no need to let the people know that the Enemy they had defined themselves against had grown stronger.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot] In 1991, the USSR fell, and the DDVR entered the final stage of insanity [15]. From 1991 until its destruction in 2001, it presented itself on its own maps as the only German state, claiming to own all of Germany, Austria, and a number of other areas such as parts of the old Alsace-Lorraine [16]. In 1994 and 1995, after a long series of negotiations over the respective territories, Germany brought Eupen-Malmedy and the German-speaking parts of South Tirol from Belgium and Italy respectively, insisting that these were peaceful acts and not a prelude to war [17]. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]A fresh run of famines broke out in the DDVR, followed by the brutal November Purges on November 9 1999, which as it turned out was the air date of the American documentary focussing on the Midnight Purges of 1959, 40 years prior, The Nightmare State. In 2000, student protests at the Brandenburg Gate, hundreds of thousands participating, were crushed brutally and without remorse by the military, tanks and machine-guns killing every last student. The DDVR was a ghost from the Cold War, but even so, it was a ghost that needed a strong magic to lay it to rest.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]On September 11 2001, the unthinkable happened. Artillery fired from the DDVR’s fortifications across its border with the FRG, killing a number of soldiers and civilians. Why is unknown – perhaps the politicians and generals finally believed their own lies, or it was deliberate provocation. But regardless of what may have caused it, it was a perfect casus belli, and what followed was a total victory. The airpower of the Luftwaffe annihilated whole divisions as on the ground, Leopard 2s destroyed masses of obsolete Soviet-era tanks and obliterated thousands of terrified conscripts flung like cannon fodder before their guns. The much-touted ten-million strong NVA simply disintegrated and in three weeks the forces of the FRG and several other states (France sent a token force) had reached Berlin [18]. The fighting for Berlin was bitter. Stahlmann promised the FRG ‘the mother of all battles’ and he did not break this promise, unlike the many he had broken to the citizens of the DDVR. Brutal urban combat continued, the Red Guard, the dreaded and hated Rotwache, died to a man, so fanatical they were. But eventually, at dawn 6 weeks after the war had began, the flag of the FRG rose over Berlin and the DDVR surrendered unconditionally, due to be annexed and consigned to the dustbin of history. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]What followed remains difficult. Enfranchisement of those in the former DDVR remains limited, caused by fears that if it is done those enfranchised will vote for far-left parties that will do to Germany what the Stahlmanns did to the DDVR. Rotwache successor organisations spring up every week, and although Ludwig Stahlmann has been sent to The Hague, his trial continues, with the fear that due to a heart condition he will die before justice can be done. If he is executed, he will die a martyr for Communist groups the world over and if he is imprisoned, he will remain a symbol. Berlin remains as of yet too dangerous for the government to go there; it doesn’t even know what to do with the Worker’s Palace and other symbols of the Stahlmann regime.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Fin[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Sources[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][1] Engels, A Complete History of Germany[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][2] Engels, Ericb Stahlmann: The Monster of Germany[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][3] Engels, Ericb Stahlmann: The Monster of Germany[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][4] Kant, Rotwache: The Face of Evil[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][5] Williamson, Monuments to Tyranny[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][6] Clarkson and Engels, The Nightmare State[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][7] Clarkson and Engels, The Nightmare State[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][8] Engels, A History of Communism[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][9] Engels, Ericb Stahlmann: The Monster of Germany[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][10] Engels, A Complete History of Germany[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][11] Engels, A Complete History of Germany[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][12] Kant, Rotwache: The Face of Evil[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][13] Adlerssohn, Totalitarianism: Leviathan made Manifest[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][14] Romano, A History of Religious Persecution[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][15] Adlerssohn, Totalitarianism: Leviathan made Manifest[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][16] Adlerssohn, Totalitarianism: Leviathan made Manifest[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][17] Adlerssohn, Germany: A Story Worth Telling[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot][18] Danielson, The Six-Week War[/FONT]
 
There is virtually zero chance for Austria to unite with Germany post war, but interesting nonetheless.

Maybe the attitude changes in the face of insanity radiating from Berlin?

However, there is even less than zero chances for South Tyrol and Eupen/Malmedy to split from Italy and Belgium, respectively.
 
The four power treaty that allowed the formation of the Republic of Austria forbids reunion with Germany, and declares it a permanent Neutral. It is embedded in their constitution.

Austria is not now and has never been a member of Nato, and they actually think of themselves as another Switzerland or Sweden. "Austria is Neutral", is a very big cultural underpinning.

My sister married an Austrian and i have lived in Vienna. Even with crazy Erich in Berlin, who they don't have a border with by the way, the Austrians are not unifying with Germany. Any politician who suggested it would not have a job very long.
 
Top