Under Hitler's leadership, Heinrich Himmler had been arguably been the second most powerful man in the Reich and after the Fuhrers death it was of no surprise that he took over the lumbering nation. He had inherited the crown jewels, only to find them rotten and rusty from inside and out. He knew that Germany needed radical, immediate change or face falling into collapse.
The ideals of
Lebensraum were axed. Germany was too weak, the Russians were too strong. The military cutbacks began by Hitler were even more drastic, the size of the armed forces was reduced to 1,000,000 men with a quarter of them becoming reservists. The vacant equipment would be sold to anyone who would buy. This turned out to be a large variety including South American dictators, arms dealers and secretly the Soviet Union and Peoples Republic of China. The soldiers dropped would become manual labourers for the duration of their service.
The high birthrates actively encouraged by Hitler are now dropped. Food is still scarce, the manual labour that many people have been forced into making them hungrier than before. If the population continued to increase there would be another famine. The Government grants to families of over 4 children were pulled and Abortion, Contraception and Euthanasia were made readily available. The legalisation of Euthanasia was taken to somewhat disturbingly in the tent cities, this was pinned on the high levels of Radiation sickness at the same time countless numbers of the residents were also arrested after accusation that these slums were being turned into communist states, many were executed for treachery. Soon they were broken up entirely with the remainder of people being rehoused. At the same time Germany enjoyed a large increase in Meat production. Himmler attributed this to the decline of radiation levels. The so-called "Meat Miracle" along with the decrease in population led to Himmler announcing that Germany was on a "solid road to reconstruction".