Hi Everyone,
I had originally done a rather epically long 6 part update but AH.COM swallowd it up. As it is nearly bed time and I'm too demoralized to retype the whole thing again - I will update this every day till I make up the difference.
1934: Dark Clouds and Silver Linings
Part One: The Horst Wessel Affair,
Part Two: Of mice, men and Trotskyists
Part Three: The Duce and The Generalisimo - Sino-Italian Cooperation
Part Four: A brief analysis of foreign military missions
Part Five: "Plan C" The Chinese Naval Arnament Programme.
Part Six: Conclusion + Proper replies to everyone's replies
Before I carry on though, I'd like to extend a special thanks to Nivek, THe Vulture and OKH for their support for the Turtledove Award Thingy. Your loyalty and support will be rewarded by awkwardly written sex scenes featuring characters from this TL. (Check your PM inboxes now.)
Anyway without further ado I give you part one:
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1934: Dark Clouds and Silver Linings
Part One: The Horst Wessel Affair
A defining feature of a totalitarian regimes is their uncanny ability to convince their citizenry that black is white and white is black... To turn today's heroes into tommorow's villains and to turn today's villain into tommorow's heroes... Nowhere is this tendency more amply demonstrated than in the Horst Wessel Affair. A drunkard, phillandering, disgraced and exiled Chinese politician was granted a near mythical status and his long-suffering wife revered as a living saint while the 'criminal' a decorated 'rising star' within the Nazi Regime was turned into the german boogeyman.
- On Totalitarianism, Eric Arthur Blair
Horst Wessel was a rising star until a crime of passion led to his death and the near-destruction of the SA...
To this day the circumstances surrounding the 'murder' of Yi Min, the Chinse apothecary turned politician turned disgraced politician turned 'Jiangsu Special envoy to Germany' (effectively a sinecured position with no responsibilities or power) is still surrounded by uncertainty and murkiness. There is a myriad of competing theories to explain what happened and why they happened. There are so few facts that they inevitable spawn a slew a smogasbord of conspiracy theories.
So what do we definitely know about the "Horst Wessel Affair." These are the undisputed fact: We know that on February 16 Horst Wessel the Berilin Troopleader came back to the flat he shared with his girlfriend Erna Janicke. He found Yi Min and Erna Janicke
in flagrante delico and emptied his revolver into Yi Min. He and Erna fled the flat quickly attempting to reach the Austrian border before being aprehended by Munich police. He then turned the revolver on Erna and then himself.
What exactly Yi Min was doing with Erna remains unclear. Some sources claim that Erna was a prostitute and was performing her normal duties. Some sources claim that the two had been having a passionate love affair since Yi Min's posting to Berlin in early January. Some say that Erna was being raped by Yi Min - this is perhaps the most plausible, if the most politically inconvenient explanation. Erna did attempt to flee with Horst - suggesting that the act was perhaps not consensual.
Regardless, this journal is not concerned with gossiply tabloid style articles. The ramifications of the Horst Wessel Affair is much more important. After Horst Wessel's arrest a wave of SA demonstrations swept Germany, shop windows were broken, Chinese students hounded, Ernst Rohm the head of the SA publically attacked Hitler for siding with a
"Chinese mongrel dog over a fine speciment of Aryan." Clashes between the police and SA became more and more frequent and it seemed as if Germany tottered in the brink of a revolution. Ordinary Germans were shocked at the SA's violence and attacks against what most Germans saw as an allied nation and at the very least an important trading partner. Adolf Hitler seemed to be losing control of events. Ominously for Hitler President Hindenburg asked to see Hitler on February 24...
What happens next is one of history's most bold and barefaced treacheries. Adolf Hitler called an 'emergency meeting' where he invited the heads of SA troopleaders around the nation, party gauleiters and party bigwigs were also present. Many SA leaders assumed that the "National Revolution" had begun and were eager to attend. When Hitler asked the question "All who are ready for the National Revolution. Stay!" had gotten them worked up -believing Hitler was on their side. Perhaps the filing out of non-SA party members should have alerted them that something was amiss. Hitler then gave a 4 hour long harrangue where he described himself as the "National Revolution" accused Rohm and the SA of treachery and other very mean things. At the end members of the Shutzstaffel burst in with submachine guns to arrest many of the leading members of the SA. Rohm was given a lead pill and died of complications from taking a lead pill travelling at high velocity in the brain. In one foul swoop Hitler had removed the greatest threat to his regime and made him very popular. His audience with Hindenburg on February 24 ended with high praise indeed for Hitler. Politically, the Horst Wessel Affair was a boon for Hitler who used the opportunity to consolidate his power.
The opposite was true, unfortunately for Chiang Kai-shek. T.V Soong and Wang Jingwei had both come out to declare that
"All foreigners are foreign devils and we should stay away from them and maitain a neutral foreign policy (paraphrased)" Massive protests broke out in Nanking, Beijing, Shanghai, Canton and other major cities demanding 'reparations.' Needless to say, the climate was not conductive to friendly Sino-German relations - a visit by Hitler to China in late July was cancelled. Relations deteriorated somewhat. Although the cold snap in Sino-German relations would not last more than a year the long term effects were massive. Chiang looked for a new partner in Europe and he found this in Mussolini and Italy....
Next Update: Of Mice, Men and Trotskyists.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...archiv_Bild_146-1978-043-14,_Horst_Wessel.jpg
