This means the average German lives slightly worse than the average OTL Portuguese.
AH Vignette - From the Atlantic to the Urals
- Thread starter varyar
- Start date
Though, does this cover German "residents" as well as citizens?
No, the guest workers aren't counted in the average, or else it'd be even lower.
VI – Entspannungspolitik
ENTSPANNUNGSPOLITIK – The policy of easing strained international relations, particularly in regards to the GREATER GERMANIC REICH and its main foreign peers, the COMMONWEALTH, the REPUBLIC OF CHINA and the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Initiated on an informal level in the 1980s by HEINRICH EHRHOFF at the GERMAN EMBASSY in Nanking. Reached a peak at the CAIRO SUMMIT in 1995, declined thereafter.
Bradley’s Guide to the Reich, Vol. 1 A-M (Leiter & Sons, New York, 2004)
Sibylle’s cabin is about the size of my flat back in London. It’s a two-storey affair, with a foyer (with a chandelier, of course) and sitting room on the ground floor, and a short, carpeted staircase leading up to her bedroom suite.
There’s a wine rack in the sitting room. A wine rack! Granted, it’s small enough to only hold eight bottles, but this is the first train, plane or automobile I’ve ever come across with an actual wine rack.
Sibylle sees me looking at it. “Pick your favorite.”
There’s a fine mix of European labels. A few Italian, a few French, a few Old Reich and a few from the German East (Caucasian reds are well regarded, I’m told). I’m not familiar with any of these particular brands, so I pick the oldest vintage, a 2006 Chianti.
“That’s not bad at all,” she says and then takes the bottle in one hand and my wrist in the other, tugging me towards the stairs to the first floor. There’s another sitting room, even larger than the one below, and a closed door to her inner sanctum.
A few minutes later, after some preliminary international relations, Sibylle presses one finger to my lips. “Pour us some drinks. I will be back.”
I do as told as Sibylle disappears into her room.
A few minutes later, she returns in a far more comfortable outfit which I can only describe as a dirndl minus everything except the bodice. It’s a very stimulating way of living your cultural heritage, I notice.
“I feel exceptionally overdressed.”
“Well, we’ll have to do something about that.” She smiles and drinks a little before setting her glass down. She disappears into the bedroom again.
This time, I follow.
It should be noted, for the record, that a 1. Klasse cabin aboard the Breitspurbahn is an exceptionally luxurious, very quiet and thoroughly private place to conduct one’s affairs.
* * *
In the middle of the night, somewhere in Reichsgau Baugland between Birkeburg (1) and Woyrschburg (2), I wake up. The quiet, heavy rhythm of the train doesn’t lull me back to sleep.
Somehow I wake Sibylle up without even moving. A woman knows.
“What is it?” she asks.
I tell her, fumbling, incoherent, about my nightmare. About the faces I keep seeing. Liesl, Hanne, Emma...
Sibylle’s eyes (brown, not blue) shine in the darkness. “Whoever they are... I can make you forget them if you want.”
What is wrong with her?
I pull her closer.
What is wrong with me?
We make love again as the super-train cuts its way through the corpse of White Russia.
1 - Formerly Brześć, Poland
2 - Formerly Baranowicze, Poland
ENTSPANNUNGSPOLITIK – The policy of easing strained international relations, particularly in regards to the GREATER GERMANIC REICH and its main foreign peers, the COMMONWEALTH, the REPUBLIC OF CHINA and the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. Initiated on an informal level in the 1980s by HEINRICH EHRHOFF at the GERMAN EMBASSY in Nanking. Reached a peak at the CAIRO SUMMIT in 1995, declined thereafter.
Bradley’s Guide to the Reich, Vol. 1 A-M (Leiter & Sons, New York, 2004)
Sibylle’s cabin is about the size of my flat back in London. It’s a two-storey affair, with a foyer (with a chandelier, of course) and sitting room on the ground floor, and a short, carpeted staircase leading up to her bedroom suite.
There’s a wine rack in the sitting room. A wine rack! Granted, it’s small enough to only hold eight bottles, but this is the first train, plane or automobile I’ve ever come across with an actual wine rack.
Sibylle sees me looking at it. “Pick your favorite.”
There’s a fine mix of European labels. A few Italian, a few French, a few Old Reich and a few from the German East (Caucasian reds are well regarded, I’m told). I’m not familiar with any of these particular brands, so I pick the oldest vintage, a 2006 Chianti.
“That’s not bad at all,” she says and then takes the bottle in one hand and my wrist in the other, tugging me towards the stairs to the first floor. There’s another sitting room, even larger than the one below, and a closed door to her inner sanctum.
A few minutes later, after some preliminary international relations, Sibylle presses one finger to my lips. “Pour us some drinks. I will be back.”
I do as told as Sibylle disappears into her room.
A few minutes later, she returns in a far more comfortable outfit which I can only describe as a dirndl minus everything except the bodice. It’s a very stimulating way of living your cultural heritage, I notice.
“I feel exceptionally overdressed.”
“Well, we’ll have to do something about that.” She smiles and drinks a little before setting her glass down. She disappears into the bedroom again.
This time, I follow.
It should be noted, for the record, that a 1. Klasse cabin aboard the Breitspurbahn is an exceptionally luxurious, very quiet and thoroughly private place to conduct one’s affairs.
* * *
In the middle of the night, somewhere in Reichsgau Baugland between Birkeburg (1) and Woyrschburg (2), I wake up. The quiet, heavy rhythm of the train doesn’t lull me back to sleep.
Somehow I wake Sibylle up without even moving. A woman knows.
“What is it?” she asks.
I tell her, fumbling, incoherent, about my nightmare. About the faces I keep seeing. Liesl, Hanne, Emma...
Sibylle’s eyes (brown, not blue) shine in the darkness. “Whoever they are... I can make you forget them if you want.”
What is wrong with her?
I pull her closer.
What is wrong with me?
We make love again as the super-train cuts its way through the corpse of White Russia.
1 - Formerly Brześć, Poland
2 - Formerly Baranowicze, Poland
Also, I had a brainstorm today and added a bit to an earlier scene at the station in Hitlerstadt:
Then comes a startling sight. Off the express from Kaufmannshafen (1) comes a pair of Asian men in smart business suits. In almost any other country in the world, something so pedestrian wouldn’t even merit a second glance. Here, though, I stop and stare. Then I recognize the older of the two. It’s Hsieh Hao-wei, the Ambassador of the Republic of China. I encountered him in passing a decade and a half ago, when he was the Consul General in Manchester, although the circumstances were such that probably he didn’t see me. There’s a cluster of Gestapo guards around the ambassador and his assistant. Neither the Reich nor the ROC wants any incidents.
After the ambassador and his retinue are gone, presumably heading back to Kurfürstendamm 218, a paunchy station worker loudly directs two guest workers to clean the floor where Mr. Hsieh walked.
I get back on the train before I get sick to my stomach.
(1) Copenhagen
Then comes a startling sight. Off the express from Kaufmannshafen (1) comes a pair of Asian men in smart business suits. In almost any other country in the world, something so pedestrian wouldn’t even merit a second glance. Here, though, I stop and stare. Then I recognize the older of the two. It’s Hsieh Hao-wei, the Ambassador of the Republic of China. I encountered him in passing a decade and a half ago, when he was the Consul General in Manchester, although the circumstances were such that probably he didn’t see me. There’s a cluster of Gestapo guards around the ambassador and his assistant. Neither the Reich nor the ROC wants any incidents.
After the ambassador and his retinue are gone, presumably heading back to Kurfürstendamm 218, a paunchy station worker loudly directs two guest workers to clean the floor where Mr. Hsieh walked.
I get back on the train before I get sick to my stomach.
(1) Copenhagen
I fear for what happened to the German east, aka the ex Soviet lands. A vast graveyard of millions of Russians, Ukrainians and Byelorussians, fed into the vast maw of Mammon and ideology.
Asami
Banned
I can't imagine the quality of life in the 'Ostland' being very high. You've literally exterminated all human life and plopped a bunch of lazy 'settlers' into the area with no experience. I have a feeling that even for Germans, there will be very little in the way of 'prosperity' unless you live in the cities like Kiev, or you're the local Gauleiter and his family-- and I think that the Ostland may be, ironically, the one place where political opposition prospers the most under the Iron jackboot; it's a big country, and you can hide away somehow.
TheLoneAmigo
Donor
Surely New Caledonia, with its population of Caledoches (European settlers, making up 27% of the population in OTL 2016), would be a stronger center of French power and culture than the smaller and less European French Guiana...
Yeah - I'm proud of the scene and a little uncomfortable about it at the same time.
I'll cover that more in depth in upcoming chapters.
(This post in the first story might give some idea of what it's like there.)
Oh - yeah, that makes sense. It's rather remote, though, isn't it?
TheLoneAmigo
Donor
So's French Guiana, really... I suppose it depends on the post-war flows of Free French refugees, ultimately.
Guiana is on the Atlantic, and not enormously far from the USA, though, compared to all the way over in the SW Pacific. (I can see FF elements that abandon Indochina ending up in New Caledonia, though.) Hrm. I don't know. I can go either way.
***
In other news, I'm thinking of adding setting info bits (like the chapter opening stuff) to all the inter-scene breaks. Any suggestions or requests along those lines, readers?
This is a hard one to pick, NewCal is much more economically viable than FG in the short run given the large natural resources and larger educated population (in the 40's) but FG is much closer to the Atlantic world and symbolically speaking, France. IMO a Free France that is reduced to essentially the OTL French Overseas Territories is likely to be highly decentralised, with Guiana being the centre for 'Atlantic France' and NewCal for 'Pacific France'; Reunion probably could make up a third 'France'. The actual location of the "capital" is probably Cayenne for military/diplomatic reasons, but I would guess its ability to govern the far flung territories of France is pretty low.
Great story, really interesting look at a modern conception of what the Reich would have become.
The next morning, early, I wake in an otherwise empty bed. Sibylle is in the shower. I hesitate and then take my leave. I’m honestly not sure what the best option is, so I choose retreat.
A half an hour later, just as I’ve showered and dressed myself, the porter in my carriage delivers a note.
Bitte komm zum Frühstück.
S
Well. How can I possibly refuse?
I make my way up the long length of the train until I reach Sibylle’s rooms again.
She’s waiting in the sitting room on the ground floor, wearing a negligee and a dressing gown.
“There you are.”
“I needed fresh underwear. And, once again, I feel over dressed for the occasion.”
Sibylle just beckons me to sit.
“Eat, please. The sausage is not so good. The eggs are fantastic.”
“If you can conjure up bacon, I may get down on one knee.”
She shakes her head. “Not until the next stop.”
“Tell me more about yourself.”
Sibylle looks at me. “I don’t know. You might be more interesting than me.”
“Please. What are you doing on the train?”
A heavy sigh, but she isn’t very reluctant to talk about herself. Sibylle is between films and took a vacation down to Linz.
I’ve never been myself, but I hear the art museum – full of priceless works plundered from every corner of Europe – is a wonder.
“Why didn't you just fly home?” I ask.
“There are no reporters on the train. Aren’t you glad? I am...” she purrs and then laughs at my expression. “But it’s true. I like some privacy.” She laughs at my expression again. “Sometimes!”
“It must not be easy.”
“It’s not. I’m not stupid! I know what it’s like for ordinary people, but it’s not easy for me all the time, either,” Sibylle insists. “A gauleiter’s daughter. A movie star. Do you know you’re the only thing that hasn’t been planned for me in three years?”
“No.” I don’t know what to make of that. I suppose it’s flattering. “I hope I’m not causing problems.”
Sibylle dismisses that with a flick of her wrist. “No, no. I like you, Herr England.” A glance down. “From top to bottom. Or middle to bottom.”
Christ. If only she was on our side, I think, then laugh.
“Enjoy the coffee before it gets cold,” Sibylle tells me.
I do.
The rest of the morning is rather engaging.
A half an hour later, just as I’ve showered and dressed myself, the porter in my carriage delivers a note.
Bitte komm zum Frühstück.
S
Well. How can I possibly refuse?
I make my way up the long length of the train until I reach Sibylle’s rooms again.
She’s waiting in the sitting room on the ground floor, wearing a negligee and a dressing gown.
“There you are.”
“I needed fresh underwear. And, once again, I feel over dressed for the occasion.”
Sibylle just beckons me to sit.
“Eat, please. The sausage is not so good. The eggs are fantastic.”
“If you can conjure up bacon, I may get down on one knee.”
She shakes her head. “Not until the next stop.”
“Tell me more about yourself.”
Sibylle looks at me. “I don’t know. You might be more interesting than me.”
“Please. What are you doing on the train?”
A heavy sigh, but she isn’t very reluctant to talk about herself. Sibylle is between films and took a vacation down to Linz.
I’ve never been myself, but I hear the art museum – full of priceless works plundered from every corner of Europe – is a wonder.
“Why didn't you just fly home?” I ask.
“There are no reporters on the train. Aren’t you glad? I am...” she purrs and then laughs at my expression. “But it’s true. I like some privacy.” She laughs at my expression again. “Sometimes!”
“It must not be easy.”
“It’s not. I’m not stupid! I know what it’s like for ordinary people, but it’s not easy for me all the time, either,” Sibylle insists. “A gauleiter’s daughter. A movie star. Do you know you’re the only thing that hasn’t been planned for me in three years?”
“No.” I don’t know what to make of that. I suppose it’s flattering. “I hope I’m not causing problems.”
Sibylle dismisses that with a flick of her wrist. “No, no. I like you, Herr England.” A glance down. “From top to bottom. Or middle to bottom.”
Christ. If only she was on our side, I think, then laugh.
“Enjoy the coffee before it gets cold,” Sibylle tells me.
I do.
The rest of the morning is rather engaging.
So in this world is there still an ongoing Cold War between Nazi Germany and the United States? Basically are both countries still training their armed forces to fight a hypothetical war against each other? Are American ICBMs still aimed at Hitlerstadt aka Berlin?
I could see the German military acting like the Chinese of our timeline developing weapons systems to defeat American Aircraft carriers for example.
It would be interesting if it is mentioned that some hardcore racists/white supremacists left the United States and went to live in the Reich after the civil rights movement. Perhaps in this timeline James Earl Ray made it to France and was given asylum by the Nazis. Maybe you have a expat community of Klansmen living somewhere in Germany.
Has Apartheid been ended in South Africa or did it ever come into existence? You could add some white supremacist Afrikaners to the mix as well living in what they consider "The White Man's Paradise".
I could see the German military acting like the Chinese of our timeline developing weapons systems to defeat American Aircraft carriers for example.
It would be interesting if it is mentioned that some hardcore racists/white supremacists left the United States and went to live in the Reich after the civil rights movement. Perhaps in this timeline James Earl Ray made it to France and was given asylum by the Nazis. Maybe you have a expat community of Klansmen living somewhere in Germany.
Has Apartheid been ended in South Africa or did it ever come into existence? You could add some white supremacist Afrikaners to the mix as well living in what they consider "The White Man's Paradise".
Yes on all fronts. There's a large US military presence in the UK, these days mostly planning to keep post-Nazi Europe (if and when such a thing ever appears) from completely exploding. The Chinese have a couple divisions on the east side of the Urals to keep the Germans in line.
STAY OUT OF MY BRAIN.
I mean, stay tuned for the next chapter.
Lunch, like breakfast, comes with cloth napkins, silver utensils and fine glasses. We’re early to the restaurant car and there’s only one other person here, a short, somewhat stout German with round spectacles and a toothbrush mustache. He looks rather like Manfred Schlöndorff if you inflated him by fifty pounds.
Lips loosened by half a bottle of Riesling, he’s happy to talk to us. (Sibylle gives me a look that suggests punishment is coming later on.)
His name is Gerd von Derben and he’s a big man in the East. He’s the manager of one of Krupp’s major tank factories, the one on Hitlerweg in Neuburg am Wolga. Before the war, it was the Gorky Automobile Plant. Now it’s just another piece of the Krupp system.
“We make the Ozelot. Do you know it? Ach! It is the best Jagdpanzer in the world!” he proclaims. He even thumps one fist on the table. Sibylle’s salad fork clinks against her glass. If looks could kill.
Von Derben is oblivious. He sees skepticism in my face, as well he might. The Ozelot is a generation behind the times, I’m told by people who know that sort of thing.
“It’s true. If we ever fight the Chinese, it will cut through their tanks like rice paper!” Again a thump of the table.
Sibylle pours herself more wine.
“Do you think that’s likely? War, I mean?”
Von Derben shrugs. “It would be good for business, a little war. We are all the time making the heavy tanks, but the red lice,” by which he means Slavs coming over the mountains, “that war is all helicopters and fast trucks and feet. No good for my factory! It is too bad we did not go into Iran. That would be tank country, jagdpanzer country.” He makes a noise that I believe is meant to replicate the boom of a tank gun, but it might just a smoker’s cough. He goes on, at length, about the wonderful engineering that goes into the Ozelot. Time seems to stretch out, seconds becoming minutes, minutes, hours.
“Maybe we still will,” von Derben continues, oblivious and ecstatic. “Iran means Aryan, you know. It should be part of the Reich. Maybe it will be.”
“I think the Iranians might object, don’t you?”
Von Derben laughs heartily. “It would be simple! We take the capital and the oil fields from the air, and the coast with our marines.”
“And then?”
“Bomb them flat! And for whatever’s left, our panzers. They’d run at the drop of the first bomb, of course. Let India have them, what’s another 30 million to them?”
(The population of Iran is almost 85 million.)
Sibylle looks at her watch, a Swiss masterpiece worth more than my car, and lightly taps one nail against the glass.
“Right, it’s time to go and... do the thing,” I tell Sibylle.
“If you ever see a Krupp jagdpanzer, remember me!”
I promise him I will as Sibylle hauls me out of the dining car.
Lips loosened by half a bottle of Riesling, he’s happy to talk to us. (Sibylle gives me a look that suggests punishment is coming later on.)
His name is Gerd von Derben and he’s a big man in the East. He’s the manager of one of Krupp’s major tank factories, the one on Hitlerweg in Neuburg am Wolga. Before the war, it was the Gorky Automobile Plant. Now it’s just another piece of the Krupp system.
“We make the Ozelot. Do you know it? Ach! It is the best Jagdpanzer in the world!” he proclaims. He even thumps one fist on the table. Sibylle’s salad fork clinks against her glass. If looks could kill.
Von Derben is oblivious. He sees skepticism in my face, as well he might. The Ozelot is a generation behind the times, I’m told by people who know that sort of thing.
“It’s true. If we ever fight the Chinese, it will cut through their tanks like rice paper!” Again a thump of the table.
Sibylle pours herself more wine.
“Do you think that’s likely? War, I mean?”
Von Derben shrugs. “It would be good for business, a little war. We are all the time making the heavy tanks, but the red lice,” by which he means Slavs coming over the mountains, “that war is all helicopters and fast trucks and feet. No good for my factory! It is too bad we did not go into Iran. That would be tank country, jagdpanzer country.” He makes a noise that I believe is meant to replicate the boom of a tank gun, but it might just a smoker’s cough. He goes on, at length, about the wonderful engineering that goes into the Ozelot. Time seems to stretch out, seconds becoming minutes, minutes, hours.
“Maybe we still will,” von Derben continues, oblivious and ecstatic. “Iran means Aryan, you know. It should be part of the Reich. Maybe it will be.”
“I think the Iranians might object, don’t you?”
Von Derben laughs heartily. “It would be simple! We take the capital and the oil fields from the air, and the coast with our marines.”
“And then?”
“Bomb them flat! And for whatever’s left, our panzers. They’d run at the drop of the first bomb, of course. Let India have them, what’s another 30 million to them?”
(The population of Iran is almost 85 million.)
Sibylle looks at her watch, a Swiss masterpiece worth more than my car, and lightly taps one nail against the glass.
“Right, it’s time to go and... do the thing,” I tell Sibylle.
“If you ever see a Krupp jagdpanzer, remember me!”
I promise him I will as Sibylle hauls me out of the dining car.
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