AH Challenge: No More Germans

Or just a German SSR. I don't see any reason for the Soviets to not outright claim that all of (former) Germany is a legitimate part of their union.

I haven't thought about the name of that SSR until today and decided for Labe as it was purely geographical and not ethnic as the original concept was to de-germanize Germany.

Prussian SSR would be an insult to the Saxons, Thuringians and Mecklenburgians in this region and not make things easier. Besides, the term "Prussia" was to be purged from the map after World War II even in OTL.

However, I am in ASB-country there anyways - so feel free to let anything happen.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but several of the German dialects aren't understandable to someone who speaks the standard German dialect? So wouldn't that basically be teaching people an almost whole new language?

The dialects are a continuum - so somebody from a remote Bavarian village will speak a more strongly pronounced Bavarian dialect (possibly indeed not understandable to a non-native speaker) than somebody who lives in a place with frequent contact with alot of other Germans.
Basically the modern mass media started killing the unique dialects well before WW2, where they did not actively support the dialect (e.g. Switzerland).

But yes, a stereotypical rural Bavarian from say 1900 will probably not understand somebody from a North Sea coast village. It gets more difficult now since both the Bavarian and the Northerner have a TV in his home and a radio in his car and hears more-or-less standard German all the time.

It does not apply to Switzerland where Swiss German seems to be just before becoming an own language except for political reasons - there are Swiss German TV and radio programmes, Swiss German Op-Ed columns etc.
 
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