Determined to Destroy Us - An Axis Victory Cold War TL

[SirPaperweight]

DETERMINED TO DESTROY US
An Axis Victory Cold War Timeline by SirPaperweight

"When our party had only seven men,
it already had two principles.
First, it wanted to be a party with a true ideology.
And second, it wanted to be the one and only power in Germany."
Adolf Hitler​

Certainly, much could have been done to avert the great catastrophe of the twentieth century. The French could have stopped the militarization of the Rhineland; the Soviets could have attacked Germany while it was busy with Britain; the Americans could have stepped out of their shell of isolation. Regardless, the Third Reich sidestepped all opposition, crippling the French nation, dismantling the British Empire and conquering the Soviet Union. All of continental Europe was under the banner of the Axis by 1945. What followed was the greatest disaster in the history of humankind. The Nazis implemented their master plan for the domination of Europe, working with ruthless zeal to annihilate Slavs, Jews, homosexuals, Romani, disabled people, communists and anyone else who stood in the way of the Nazi ideals for a perfect society. By the time the Third Reich collapsed, Eastern Europe was thoroughly Germanized. The nation-state of Russia was permanently confined to the region east of the Ural Mountains.

All the while, the world teetered on the brink of nuclear war, as the Third Reich and the United States engaged in a frantic arms race, each trying to get the upper hand over the other. While the Cold War spurred on scientific development, it also saw immense suffering. Bloody proxy wars raged across the world, with guerrilla tactics employed on a regular basis. War crimes were frighteningly common. Behind the Atlantic Wall, Nazi authorities ruled with an almost inhuman brutality, but they eventually learned a harsh truth: even the bloodiest methods cannot stop an angered populace. In the trials it faced, the Reich found itself wanting; the United States emerged as the world's sole superpower, but it inherited an Earth scarred by genocide and war.

This is the story of that Cold War, from the establishment of a new European order in the Treaty of Theoderichshafen to the end of the Nazi regime.

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Hi there. Long time lurker who decided to try my hand at a timeline. It's a bit of a cliche topic, but it’s an interesting cliche; Nazi Germany is highly unlike any other state in history perhaps except the Soviet Union. My goal with this TL is to create a somewhat plausible US-Nazi Cold War, with Nazi Germany still run by Hitler and his crazy ideals. It'll start just after the end of the German-Soviet War (I'm going to be sparse on details about the wars, as this is a Cold War TL). I'll have to jump around in time as I cover different parts of the world. Sorry about that, but I couldn't get everything to flow right without breaking chronological order. I hope y'all enjoy reading this as much as I'm enjoying the process of making it.

 

[SirPaperweight]

PART I
A NEW WORLD​

Chapter I: A New Order

October 1945 saw the world change forever, twice. First, the Third Reich used atom bombs in war for the first time, annihilating Moscow and Leningrad in nuclear fire. Second, the Soviet Union surrendered just days later, asking for a ceasefire so the two powers could discuss terms. The German-Soviet War was over. A Soviet delegation led by Stalin himself arrived at Theoderichshafen (formerly Sevastopol) for peace talks on October 20. The terms were more than humiliating; they amounted to the near-annihilation of Russia as a nation. Germany was to annex all land up to the Ural Mountains apart from Karelia and the Kola Peninsula, which went to Finland. Japan was to receive a portion of the Russian Far East, effectively stealing most Russian warm-water ports in the Pacific. SS troops were to be stationed in the USSR's major cities, watching over industrial sites to ensure that only 1% of Soviet GDP could be devoted to military uses. In addition, the Soviets would be forced to give up their gold deposits and transfer $35 billion worth of industry back into Eastern Europe. The few foreign weapons the Soviets received during the war were to be sold to Germany at low rates.

Back in Berlin, there were a number of questions as to how to divide up the newly-gained conquests in Eastern Europe. All sorts of suggestions were discussed during the war, but the proposal that was ultimately carried out was thus: German Eastern Europe was to be divided into four Reichskommissariaten: Reichskommissariat Ostland, comprising the Baltic countries and parts of Belarus and western Russia; Reichskommissariat Ukraine, comprising Ukraine and land to its east; Reichskommissariat Kaukasus, comprising land on both sides of the Caucasus; and Reichskommissariat Moskowien, comprising the rest of European Russia. Each of the Reichskommissariaten would have a separate administration, but all four would fall under the ultimate supervision of the Reich Ministry of the East, led by Alfred Rosenberg.
​

Europe at the dawn of the Cold War​

​

Alfred Rosenberg oversaw the implementation of the first of the horrors that afflicted conquered Eastern Europe​

​

Joseph Stalin's health deteriorated rapidly after the German-Soviet War​

In the years following the signing of the treaty, the Germans deported seven million Russians east of the Urals. The mass deportations were merely the start of Germany's new plan for Eastern Europe, but for the Soviets, they were a valuable addition to a population that needed rebuilding. They largely settled in the major cities of Siberia such as Omsk, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg or the new Soviet capital of Krasnoyarsk. They formed the basis for a new, ambitious reconstruction plan that involved the rapid industrialization of Siberian cities over a period of ten years. Stalin, even after this great defeat, was forever ambitious.

However, the Man of Steel himself would not live to see the plan's implementation. The stresses of war (and perhaps more importantly the stresses of failure) weakened his body, and he found himself moving in and out of the hospital on a regular basis. His deteriorating health finally failed him on August 13, 1949, and he suffered a stroke that proved fatal. Nobody was terribly sad to see him go. His declining health in the years before his death opened up a vicious battle for succession. Court politics was, for better or worse, part of the Soviet political scene, and people in the highest levels of government clamored to curry favor with Stalin and undermine their enemies. The dictator's impending death only intensified this process.

The man who came out on top was Mikhail Suslov, a young ambitious propagandist who advanced up the ranks due to his making friends in high places. He was a hardliner who had Stalin's complete trust, and thus could easily position himself to succeed the ailing dictator. With absolute power achieved, Suslov pledged to continue down Stalin's path; the reconstruction plan would go ahead without revision, terror as a political tool would continue, and Soviet industry would remain dedicated to heavy industry as opposed to consumer goods. If international observers hoped for a change of course in the Soviet leadership, they were deeply disappointed.
​

Mikhail Suslov, the new ruler of the Soviet Union​

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter II: The Giant Wakes

1948 was an election year in America, and a significant one at that. President Burton Wheeler, a staunch isolationist who assumed office following Franklin D. Roosevelt's death in 1939, refused to run for reelection. He was leaving the White House with approval ratings in the low tens; he was hated for being, in the New York Times' words, "the man that lost Europe." Additionally, Wheeler was accused of enabling Japanese militarism in China and diplomatic maneuvering in Southeast Asia. Isolationism had been widely discredited in the American consciousness following the German conquest of Europe, and the people refused to dabble in it again. Democratic Party leaders were eager to remake themselves after a disaster of a presidency, and so isolationist candidates were shunned. Ultimately, Missouri Senator Harry S. Truman came out on top. He was a supporter of the New Deal (which was still a relatively popular program), but unlike Wheeler he also supported a United States that was more active in world affairs.

The Republicans, on the other hand, nominated New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey for president and California Governor Earl Warren for vice president. As leader of the GOP's more moderate "Eastern Establishment," Dewey largely supported the New Deal and called for a more internationalist foreign policy. On this, he clashed with Ohio Senator Robert A. Taft, who was a staunch conservative and non-interventionist. In a time of outrage over inaction abroad, however, Taft stood no chance at clinching his party's nomination; he won only a sixth of the delegates at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. The Senator would later become increasingly disappointed in America's new role in world affairs.

The outcome of the election was clear from the start. As much as he tried to distance himself from the sitting president, Truman carried Wheeler's stink with him wherever he went. Dewey's promise of a new vision for American foreign policy was much more convincing than Truman's, and his moderate views attracted many Democrats who might have otherwise abstained or voted Truman. Ultimately, Dewey won 56.12% of the vote and 416 electoral votes to Truman's 42.85% and 115 electoral votes. The Democrats held on to both houses of Congress. The presidential election of 1948 represented a dramatic shift in American foreign policy. Previously, the United States was strictly neutral, participating in international affairs only rarely and after great public debate. Now, America embraced a new role: Leader of the Free World. It was to do so gladly.

Truman (red) held on to the Democratic stronghold of the South while Dewey (blue) won the West and North decisively​

Thomas Edmund Dewey, 34th President of the United States of America​

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter III: The Road to Cold War

Adolf Hitler was curious about the incoming American president. He worried that a more assertive American foreign policy could drag the world into yet another Great War, threatening the entire Third Reich's existence in the process. He felt that he had to "size up" the new president. To do this, he invited him to a conference in Baghdad, the stated goal being to settle remaining land disputes in the Atlantic and to establish the status of post-colonial Indonesia. In reality, though, Hitler wanted to test the new administration to see if this "new foreign policy" was not just bluster. Thomas Dewey accepted, and arrived alongside Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on October 24, 1949. Hitler showed up with Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, partial namesake of the infamous non-aggression pact between Germany and the USSR.

The German delegation was surprised by the change of tone from the United States. They expected the Americans to be, as usual, somewhat reluctant in dealing with other nations; instead, they took a firm and active stance in defending their interests abroad. Dewey was indeed bringing the US out of isolation, much to Hitler's chagrin. Germany agreed to recognize the British annexation of Iceland, Greenland, Svalbard and the Faeroe and Shetland Islands, all of which were occupied during or after the Second Great War and were not returned to their now-Axis-dominated former owners. In return, the United States promised to recognize the State of Indonesia, the Axis-aligned government that took over Indonesia after the Second Great War. Additionally, the United States reaffirmed the Monroe Doctrine, warning that any fascist meddling in the Americas would be treated as an act of war.

Both parties left the negotiations satisfied, but nonetheless the Baghdad Conference represented a turning point in German-American relations. Both nations now saw each other as rivals competing for dominance over the world. For the American leadership, this became painfully evident when in February 1950 Ambassador to Germany John McCloy wrote a telegram titled "The Worldview and Intentions of the German Reich" and sent it to Washington. He later published it in Foreign Affairs magazine under the pseudonym "Mr. King." In the article, popularly known as the "King Telegram," he outlined his views and opinions of the Nazis. The concepts he proposed became the foundation of US Cold War policy:

• The Third Reich saw itself as the guardian of Aryan racial purity against forces such as Judaism, communism, democracy, capitalism, etc.
• The Third Reich always viewed its negotiations with other countries in terms of race. Whether or not a country was racially "pure" and Aryan determined how Nazi Germany would negotiate with its leaders.
• The Third Reich viewed itself in a constant race war with "inferior" groups such as Jews or Slavs.
• Nazi aggression was rooted in pan-German nationalism and racial hatred.
• The Third Reich would manipulate racial hatred in the peoples of the free world in order to gain controllable allies.
• The Third Reich would tout fascism as a means of national strength with the goal of gaining allies in the Third World.
• The Third Reich viewed Americans as a people polluted by Jews and "negroes," subservient to international capitalism.
• The foundations of Nazi ideology inhibited objective analysis of reality, and the Third Reich's views were ultimately not defined by logic and reason.

John J. McCloy, US Ambassador to Germany​

The US took McCloy's words as the bedrock of its new foreign policy. With the King Telegram as a guide to the Nazi worldview, Washington constructed a roadmap for the Cold War. Over time, the two superpowers across the Atlantic would grow to hate each other with vicious passion, stockpiling weapons in a desperate race to outdo each other. It became increasingly clear that while the war was over, the peace was not yet won.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter IV: To Dismantle a Raj

It is now worth backtracking in time to examine developments in India. In the winter of 1942 and 1943, the Indian subcontinent was gripped with unrest. Long considered the "Crown Jewel" of the British Empire, India was now struck by rising nationalism and separatist sympathies. Mohandas Gandhi began the Quit India Movement in the final months of the Second Great War in response to Britain sending Indian troops to fight in what many believed to be a useless war that was not of Indian concern. Gandhi advocated non-violent civil disobedience in order to compel Britain to leave the subcontinent. On the other hand there was Subhas Chandra Bose. Bose felt that passive resistance was getting India nowhere (indeed, many independence leaders found themselves imprisoned by the British), and saw the repeated victories of the Axis as a sign that a more violent resistance campaign was necessary.

Bose with Adolf Hitler in Berlin
​

With the blessing and support of both Germany and Japan, Bose founded the Indian National Army (INA) in 1942. It quickly swelled in size, reaching 100,000 members by the end of the year. The initial actions of the INA were minor, consisting mostly of sabotage of British colonial infrastructure. As the INA grew in size, however, it became increasingly militant. INA fighters began receiving military training and launched guerrilla attacks on British troops. Colonial authorities responded to the violence with crackdowns on dissent. Thousands were imprisoned and protests and strikes were broken up with force. Mohandas Gandhi himself died in prison after being beaten to death by an unknown British soldier. This fueled popular support for the INA; by August 1943, its membership reached 500,000. Most INA members were not combat troops at all; rather, they served a number of civilian roles with the goal of providing services to the Indian people. They built hospitals, set up schools, provided legal support to communities and more. Indeed, services provided by the INA proved so extensive that the organization began to resemble a something of a state within a state. To the average Indian, the face of the INA was not a militant soldier, but a doctor or lawyer or teacher. Eventually, the INA became the face of Indian opposition to British rule, as the Indian National Congress was falling apart in disunity.

British authorities had trouble keeping up with the INA. They couldn't just tear down the hospitals and schools that provided valuable services to their communities, and they had trouble rooting out INA members. Worse, another movement based around independence for Muslim Pakistan was emerging, and joining hands with the likes of Bose. Opinion in Britain was increasingly turning against wasting resources on pacifying far-away India, and so the government in London finally decided to let go of the Crown Jewel. Negotiations began in the early months of 1943, but slowed to a crawl as various groups found themselves in disagreement over a wide range of topics. Eventually, however, they reached an agreement, and India was thus partitioned between the states of India and Pakistan. On midnight on September 15 1943, the Republic of India and the Dominion of Pakistan formally became independent nations.

Bose and his supporters, however, found their lack of representation in the discussions disheartening, and feared that their movement would be shut out of any input in the proceedings. Bose returned to Bengal in August 1943 and called for a massive campaign of resistance to what he referred to as "sovereignty on British terms." The people answered his call. Millions of people staged strikes and protests, while the ranks of the INA militants swelled. The unrest was such that established governmental authorities lost all control in parts of the subcontinent. In Cuttack, Bose announced the formation of the Union of Free India, which claimed control over all of the former British Raj apart from Burma. Indian Republican troops clashed with INA militants, with little decisive victory.

INA troops in Bihar, November 1943
​

Bose believed that the more numerous and organized INA could easily overwhelm the Republican forces. He decided that an aggressive push to Delhi would be a "decisive saber blow" to the Republic. The Bihar Campaign began in October, and indeed initially the INA made great advances. However, by November the Republican forces managed to stop the INA at Patna, inflicting heavy casualties in the process. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru remarked that the Battle of Patna was "the start of a great victory for the Indian Republic." Perhaps he spoke too soon. The INA rallied back from Patna and halted the Republican counterattack at the nearby city of Nawada. From there, the largely infantry-based armies dug in, and the fighting devolved into bloody trench warfare reminiscent of the First Great War.

Meanwhile, the partition of India had the unfortunate side effect of driving ethno-religious violence in both countries. Muslims and Hindus were purged in vicious pogroms that lasted well into the 1950s. Additionally, the hasty nature of the independence negotiations meant that much of the border between India and Pakistan was in dispute. However, neither country was willing to act on the dispute yet, as India was busy fighting the INA and Pakistan was busy building a functioning government. It soon became clear to international observers that even if the Indian Civil War ended quickly, the violence in the Indian Subcontinent would not end for quite a long while.

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Hope I didn't make any egregious mistakes. Indian history is hardly my specialty, but I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. I'm going to aim to update on Mondays and Fridays, but that's not a rock-solid rule. Thanks to @Cregan for the suggestions on how to improve the plausibility of the chapter.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter V: The Indian Civil War

Historians often refer to the Indian Civil War as "the first major Cold War conflict," even though the Cold War began after it was over. It saw one force aligned to the Axis and its interests fight another force aligned to the West and its interests. Even if the war was not a proxy war per se, it was an ideological war between fascism, represented by Bose and the INA, and democracy, represented by Nehru and the Republicans. The war's inconclusive end paved the way for future conflict in the region.

Republican troops outside Patna, May 1944​

More immediately, however, the Indian Civil War was a devastating tragedy for the Indian people. Trench warfare along the front was exceptionally bloody, as each side resorted to desperate infantry charges to break the stalemate. Without any tanks or aircraft, the two armies could do little but dig in, build up their defensive fortifications, and hope. Hope was not enough for Bose, however; he still believed he could decisively win the war, and he thought he knew the trick on how to do it. He attained lucrative knowledge of chemical and biological weapons research from Japan, and began manufacturing large doses for use along the front. He believed wholeheartedly that all he needed to do was "launch one massive attack across the front with the Japanese weapons, and we shall have swift victory."

Bose hardly considered the ethics of using chemical weapons against his own people; indeed, he thought their use was actually humane. "After all," he told his generals, "was it not better for the people than the horrors of a long war?" Regardless, by early 1945, Bose was ready to put his plan to the test. On February 5, about 10,000 tons of anthrax, chlorine gas, phosgene gas and other biological and chemical weapons were unleashed upon the Republican forces. The gas soon spread, helped along by the wind, infecting cities, villages and farms hundreds of miles away. Chaos broke out along the front. Overnight, the unprotected Republican forces collapsed, and INA troops surged forward, often running right into the gas that they had just unleashed. In the end, Bloody February, as the attack came to be known, killed as many as 1.2 million people and injured countless millions more.

The international response was, sadly, muted. The world was busy with the German-Soviet War, which featured similar atrocities on a much larger scale. That said, INA leaders who had been kept secret about Bloody February were horrified, as were most of the common soldiers who witnessed the attack. Large-scale mutinies in March effectively ended any ability for the INA to take advantage of Bloody February, and Bose was forced to the negotiating table with Nehru. The border between the two Indias was defined as the border between West Bengal and both Bihar and Orissa. Everything east (except Burma) went to Free India. Everything west went to the Indian Republic. The peace satisfied nobody, but secured an end to the horrors that plagued the subcontinent, at least for the moment.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter VI: Armageddon - America gets the Bomb

Nazi Germany saw the potential in an atomic bomb almost immediately after the discovery of nuclear fission in 1938. The first efforts began in April 1939; when war broke out in September, Hitler exempted many notable scientists from conscription so they could work on projects like the atom bomb. As the war progressed, research and development of the Uranverein was taken over by the army. While its potential in war was sometimes questioned, Hitler refused to cut funding to the project, often cutting funds to other ventures (like the rocketry program) to pay for it. In April 1945, the Germans detonated the first atom bomb about 50 miles northeast of Kiev. The world had just changed forever.

The Germans first used their nuclear weapons on Moscow and Leningrad in the closing days of the German-Soviet War. These new weapons struck terror in the hearts of onlookers the world over, as their potential to annihilate entire cities began to be realized. Germany enjoyed its nuclear monopoly for a brief one year, however, as in May 1946 the United States successfully tested its first atom bomb in the Ares Test. The bomb, dropped in the Mojave Desert in Nevada, marked the start of the arms race that characterized the Cold War.

The Ares Test ended the German nuclear monopoly​

President Wheeler was hardly enthusiastic about the development of nuclear weapons (being an isolationist), but was ultimately convinced by General Douglas MacArthur to allow the project to go ahead. MacArthur argued that the Nazis' repeated victories made peaceful isolation impossible in the long term, and that America should work on developing weapons that could deter an invasion. The US worked in close cooperation with the UK and Canada, sharing knowledge, material and personnel throughout the course of the Manhattan Project. Even after the Ares Test was finished, Wheeler kept America's stockpile to only a few bombs; MacArthur could not convince him to do anything more.

Dewey's administration was far more interested in the development of atom bombs. He devoted much time and money to expanding America's nuclear arsenal, especially as the Cold War with Germany began heating up. He believed that America had to keep pace with Germany's nuclear arsenal if it wanted to remain an active world power. While the concept of mutually assured destruction had not been formed yet, both superpowers realized that a war would result in suffering on an unprecedented scale.

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Due to real life reasons, I won't be able to post another update until next Wednesday at the earliest. Sorry about that. Anyway, feedback is appreciated!

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter VII: Bastion of Liberty - Postwar Britain

Britain was a nation humiliated. It was forced to concede large portions of its empire after the Second Great War, and the crown jewel of India was falling further from its grasp every day. The United Kingdom's status as a superpower was ruined. Worse still, a hostile behemoth stood just across the English Channel, its guns pointed at the UK every hour of every day. Britons lived in fear not only of being besieged with submarines like in the Second Great War, but also of being drenched in nuclear fire.

Winston Churchill, embarrassed and hated, left office after a massive landslide victory for the Labour Party. Clement Attlee was now in the office of prime minister, and he intended to heal Britain's wounds. In 1949, he traveled to Baltimore to meet with the new American president. Dewey reassured Attlee that the United States would stand with the United Kingdom no matter the cost; after all, the British Isles were the final stronghold of freedom in the European continent. The UK thus became a key component of the fight against fascism; as the first line of defense against Nazism, Britain was to house tens of thousands of US troops. Artillery batteries and coastal forts lined the British coastline, ready to repel an invasion at any moment. Additionally, the US provided generous financial support to the UK, helping to revive its economy.​

Clement Attlee, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom​

The Attlee ministry, formed in the months following the peace with Germany in 1941, faced a daunting task. Britain was economically devastated, with poor living conditions and continued rationing. Luckily, US investment was generous; nearly $4 billion were spent on repairing the British economy. In addition to American aid, Attlee hoped that the nationalization of about 20% of the economy would speed up the process of recovery. The welfare state was expanded as well, with many new programs providing assistance in some form or another to the needy. A broad left-wing agenda was put into place with a bipartisan consensus.

Among other things, Attlee's agenda included the establishment of the National Health System; a system of flat-rate pensions; further sickness, unemployment and maternity benefits; public housing; family allowances; expanded sick leave; increased power for unions; nationalization of banking, coal mining, railways, electricity and gas, steel and other industries; food subsidies; and better education. The welfare state established by Attlee's government was a dramatic shift away from previous policy.

The Labour Party easily won re-election in 1947 and again in 1950, retaining a strong majority of seats in the British Parliament. While the Conservatives learned to accept the new direction for the economy, most British voters remembered the devastating loss in the Second World War and, rightfully or not, blamed Churchill and his party. As the left fell into temporary disarray in the US, it thrived in the UK.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Interlude: The Treaty of Amsterdam

I'll try and have another update ready later today, but in the meantime here's a summary of the peace treaty that ended the Second Great War.

• Germany will annex the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium and Eastern France.
• Italy will annex the Dalmatian coast, Corsica and Greece.
• The Axis-aligned governments of France, Denmark, Norway, Slovakia, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania shall be considered the true and legitimate governments of the entirety of their respective nations.
• Britain will surrender:
  • Gibraltar to Spain.
  • Malta, Egypt, Sudan, Somaliland and Palestine to Italy.
  • Tanzania and Namibia to Germany.
  • Hong Kong to Japan.
  • Jordan and Kuwait to Saudi Arabia.
  • Iraq to an independent Axis-aligned state.
• France will surrender:
  • Morocco and Mauritania to Spain.
  • Syria and Tunisia to Italy.
  • Togo, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo and Central Africa to Germany.
• Belgium will surrender Congo to Germany.

Germany, fearful of giving Italy too much land and influence, invited Saudi Arabia to seize land in the Middle East. Also worth noting that no economic demands were made of the Allies; the Axis leaders felt that they could make more territorial demands that way. However, this means that the the Axis is greatly overextended (especially in Africa), which will become a problem down the road.

Will there be a chapter discussing what's occurring in Eastern Europe?

Of course. I'll get to it after I finish a few updates concerning developments in various parts of the world, however.

Let's hope they don't dip into communism

That won't be a problem in Britain. The Labour Party's reforms ITTL are very similar to those OTL.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter VIII: Lines in the Sand

The Cold War officially began on May 12, 1950, when US President Thomas Dewey delivered an address to Congress announcing the commencement of a policy of containment, whereby the United States would financially and militarily assist any country threatened by the spread of fascism. The policy was developed in response to growing pro-Axis factions in the Middle East, South Asia and Latin America. While these nascent movements were not yet at the point of threatening their governments, they were part of a trend that Washington wanted to crush. To people in many nations, Germany represented national strength. America wanted to shatter that notion by proving that liberty could be just as strong, if not more so.

America was deeply interested in fostering close relations with the nations of the Middle East and South Asia. Dewey and his cabinet felt that the region could prove to be a valuable bulwark against German and Japanese aggression, but local disagreements prevented the formation of a united antifascist bloc. Thus, in August 1950, the US invited Republican India, Pakistan and Tibet to a conference in Atlanta to resolve an ongoing dispute that had already sparked some low-level conflict: that of Kashmir. All three nations claimed parts of Kashmir, and two (Pakistan and India) shed blood in small border skirmishes to defend their claims. The United States wanted to resolve these disputes in order to forge an alliance with both Pakistan and India. The naivety of that hope would become apparent in the coming days.

US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles​

Early on in the negotiations, Tibet agreed to renounce its claims in Kashmir. The Dalai Lama believed that involving Tibet in the Kashmir conflict distracted it from the goal of defending its independence from China and Japan. However, India and Pakistan found it much harder to agree. They each refused to renounce their overlapping claims, making negotiations near-impossible. US Secretary of State Dulles proposed forming an independent interim government in Kashmir that would last until a peaceful solution between Pakistan and India could be found. Negotiations initially proceeded smoothly, but ran into trouble when Pakistan and India clashed over who would run the new government. India wanted Kashmir to be run by Hindus, while Pakistan wanted it to be run by Muslims. The US felt that the dispute was unnecessary; after all, Kashmir was supposed to be a secular state. Still, the argument continued and Pakistan withdrew from negotiations.

Meanwhile, behind the Atlantic Wall, the German leadership felt that it had to secure its position in Europe in response to the growing American threat. While the nations of continental Europe were run by fascist governments, Berlin felt that they could easily be swayed into the American camp without an active attempt to promote friendly relations with the Third Reich. Diplomatic missions were sent out to the German allies and client states, convincing or coercing them to accept close ties with the Reich. The goal was to bind the fascist nations of Europe into a close-knit partnership aimed against the US.

On June 29, 1950, Hitler got what he wanted. Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Albania signed the Treaty of Vienna, forming the League of Intercontinental Cooperation and Collective Security (informally known as the European Axis or just the Axis), a military alliance primarily aimed at consolidating German power over Europe. Its text reflects this goal:

"…the signatories of this treaty recognize that the aim of peace among nations is threatened by international Bolshevism, Jewry and Capitalism; thus, active steps must be taken to ensure the mutual defense of the many nations on the European continent."​

The West responded in kind. In April 1952, representatives from the US, the UK, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil and Peru gathered in Rio de Janeiro to form a military alliance against Nazi Germany. The Treaty of Rio de Janeiro, signed on April 16, formed the Transatlantic Mutual Defense Treaty Organization (informally known as the Rio Pact), the bulwark of Western defense against German aggression. US President Thomas Dewey gave a speech to the assembled delegations, saying:

"We represent the last bastion of freedom on this Earth. We must stand together against the forces of oppression around the world, or else the flame of liberty will die out for good."​

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter IX: ¡Democracia! - Latin America

The late 1940s and early 1950s in Latin America were marked by an increasing democratization and a shift to the left, with the blessing of the United States. In Costa Rica, a short civil war resulted in the establishment of a democratic republic, backed by the United States. Nicaragua soon followed, with the US pressuring the government to liberalize and to dissolve its dictatorship. Anastasio Somoza García, previously supported by the United States, was forced to step down as president and was found dead in his home soon after. A general election was held in 1949, and while Somoza-backed Leonardo Argüello Barreto won the presidency, he showed a remarkable independence and successfully diminished the power of the military. A constitutional convention in 1951 cemented the democratization of Nicaragua. Similar pressure was applied in Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, where dictators stepped down and held elections.

In Cuba, the Batista regime found itself falling apart after leftist rebels under Fidel Castro began attacking government forces. The US had a falling-out with Batista after 33 people were killed when a student protest in Havana was met with violence. In 1953, after barely escaping capture by government troops, Castro got into contact with the CIA, which promised to help him provided that he ended the suppression of political dissidents, kept a high standard of human rights in his country and continued trade with the United States. Castro agreed, and in January 1954 Batista was captured and killed by Cuban rebels. The US then pressured the Cuban government to hold an election, and Castro won the presidency by large margins. The new Cuban leader began nationalizing a number of industries, much to the chagrin of American businesses.

Fidel Castro was a controversial figure in both Cuba and the United States​

Brazil and Mexico, allies of the United States, both experienced economic booms in the early Cold War. Mexico's government invested in education, agriculture, energy and transportation infrastructure, bolstering the Mexican economy. In Brazil, industrial growth led to a rising GDP. Additionally, Brazil sought to create a capital that was more geographically neutral. Construction on the new capital, called Brasília, began in the 1950s but would not be completed until 1960.

There were setbacks in the process of democratization, however. The US found itself unable to resolve the ongoing violence in Colombia, thus leading to that nation's temporary exclusion from the Rio Pact. Far more worrying, however, was the situation of Argentina. Juan Perón came to power in 1946, and ruled with an iron fist. He admired the policies of Hitler and Mussolini early in their reigns, but broke with them during the Second Great War. He refused to join the Rio Pact, however, frustrating American hopes that Argentina would move solidly into the American camp. Argentina thus cemented its future position as a major non-aligned nation.

Juan Perón was a frequent thorn in the side of the United States​

The US policy of permitting leftist economic agendas in Latin America frustrated business interests at home. The support of Fidel Castro was especially controversial, as his nationalization programs directly threatened the large percentage of the Cuban economy owned and controlled by US companies. However, Washington dampened these concerns somewhat by encouraging free trade between the US and Latin American countries, thus ensuring that customers in America still received goods produced in the region. While the situation was not ideal for US business interests, the public and the government deemed the political concerns more important.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I hope that's not too implausible; I'm unfamiliar with Latin America. Feedback is strongly appreciated.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter X: A Storm in South Africa

As India achieved its independence, South Africa suffered a period of turmoil and fear. During the Second World War, the Ossewabrandwag organized in opposition to the British Empire. It was sympathetic to Germany and the Nazis, and gained significantly from Britain's loss in the Second World War. Afrikaners largely felt that Britain no longer represented the interests of white South Africans, a feeling exacerbated by the fact that the UK lost the war against Germany, which many saw as representing white interests. The German victory emboldened pro-German South Africans, and they formed a mass movement dedicated to ending British rule in South Africa and establishing a fascist dictatorship.

D.F. Malan, leader of the National Party, saw this radicalization as an opportunity. In the months approaching the 1948 elections, he partnered with the OB to gather a base of support in opposition to communism, Judaism and nonwhite rights. Even many National Party politicians began to express sympathetic views toward the OB. The Stormjaers, the paramilitary troops of the OB, assisted by harassing those who opposed the National Party. Malan's coalition won a decisive victory in the elections, largely as a result of Afrikaner radicalization.

However, by allying himself with the OB, Malan unleashed a force greater than himself. On June 4, the day he became prime minister, thousands of Stormjaers gathered in both Pretoria and Cape Town to coerce the government into stepping down. The OB's leader, Johannes Van Rensburg, correctly believed that he could use the wave of fascist radicalization to gain control of parliament and then stage a coup. Malan was merely a means to this end, and when his job was finished he would be dispersed with. Facing the prospect of civil war, the prime minister stepped down and gave full control of the government to Van Rensburg and his supporters. Parliament then gave Van Rensburg the title of "Emergency Prime Minister."

Van Rensburg then proposed a wide-ranging series of laws that fundamentally transformed the nature of the South African state. In October 1948, the Union was dissolved and replaced with the State of South Africa, a fascist dictatorship led by the Eersteburger (first citizen), a title modeled after the one given to Caesar Augustus in 27 BC. Nonwhite South Africans were stripped of all their rights, and white non-Afrikaners were given only limited rights. He reorganized the military, modeling it after its German counterpart. Britain, its military shattered after the Second Great War, could only sit and watch.

Johannes Van Rensburg, Eersteburger of South Africa​

Flag of the State of South Africa​

Van Rensburg immediately pursued an alliance with Germany. In April 1949, South Africa and Germany signed the Treaty of German-South African Friendship, in which Germany promised to send material to South Africa in exchange for food and precious minerals. Additionally, as an act of goodwill to ensure Pretoria's future loyalty, Germany agreed to transfer Southwest Africa to South Africa. With the alliance with Germany sealed, Van Rensburg moved to consolidate his hold over the remaining British colonies in the region. Basutoland and Swaziland were the first targets; they were incorporated without issue. When South African troops invaded Bechuanaland and Southern Rhodesia in October 1949, they encountered fierce resistance. Native black people feared what would happen under the domination of a white supremacist government, and took up arms in guerrilla war to defend themselves.

The South African Bush War lasted until late 1952; without any outside assistance the guerrillas stood little chance at stopping the South Africans. The Bush War became notorious for the frequent war crimes committed by both sides. The South Africans resorted to slaughtering entire villages to root out guerrillas, and the rebels often murdered white people regardless of their political affiliations. Nearly 8,000 South Africans died in the war compared to 15,000 rebels and 28,000 innocents. Once Bechuanaland and Southern Rhodesia were pacified, South Africa moved further north. Assisted by German colonial troops, South Africa seized both Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland with ease and incorporated them into a growing empire.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter XI: The East is Red

It had been nearly a decade and a half since the start of the war in China. Millions had died on both sides, and Tokyo was still no closer to its goal than it was in 1939; Japan ruled the coastline, while China ruled inland. Neither could do significant damage to the other at this point. Japan's precious resources were being used up in a fight that even the most militaristic ultra-nationalists saw as increasingly pointless. Thus, in the summer of 1951, Tokyo sought peace with Chiang Kai-shek.

Chinese and Japanese representatives met in Taipei to discuss terms. Japan originally wanted to annex the entire Chinese coast, but Chiang outright refused. He knew the Japanese were war-weary, and wished to use that as leverage in negotiations. He demanded access to the coastline, which many in the IJA found unacceptable. Regardless, cooler heads prevailed and Japan allowed China to control a strip of coastal territory between Xiamen and Hangzhou, provided that it was not militarized and open to Japanese commerce. Puyi, last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, was made the puppet emperor of the Japanese puppet state on the Chinese coast. Additionally, Inner Mongolia was to be controlled by the Japanese puppet of Mengjiang. Thus, on June 19, 1951, the Second Sino-Japanese War came to an end after 14 years of bloody conflict.

Upon returning to China, Chiang found his rule vulnerable and tenuous. His army was exhausted, while the communist insurgents led by Mao Zedong were stronger and more popular than ever. It seemed like communists infected even the highest levels of government. Chiang lapsed into paranoia, distrusting even his closest confidants. His subordinates found it increasingly difficult to deal with their leader, who the people felt was growing insane. Ultimately, the Chinese dictator had a right to fear; on October 8, communist militias kidnapped Chiang and forced him to recognize a new government. Chiang refused, and was shot in retaliation. Some nationalist forces rose up in revolt, but found themselves plagued by desertion and mutiny. By the end of the year, Mao had complete control over what remained of China. The Republic of China was thus dissolved and replaced by the People's Republic of China, a socialist dictatorship much like the Soviet Union.

Mao Zedong was a zealous communist who wished to radically transform Chinese society​

Mao and his communists immediately set about organizing Chinese society along socialist lines. He redistributed land to the peasants, persecuted former landlords, nationalized all industries, established Laogai labor camps and sent diplomatic missions to establish friendly relations with the Soviet Union. The Soviets were somewhat distrustful of Mao's peasant-oriented socialism, but in the face of fascist aggression agreed to form a military alliance with China. The Treaty of Sino-Soviet Friendship and Partnership was signed in Krasnoyarsk in April 1, 1952, cementing the relationship between the world's only two socialist powers.

One of China's most urgent issues following the end of the war was its almost complete lack of heavy industry. China was an overwhelmingly agrarian nation, and needed an industrial base to produce equipment to defend itself from future attack. Additionally, Marxist ideology necessitated the construction of industry for the development of true communism, and while Mao felt that he could build socialism in agrarian China, he believed that industrial modernization was a goal to strive for. To resolve the problem, China agreed to borrow Soviet factory designs in exchange for generous agricultural imports. Thus, the socialist world began to slowly but surely recover from the troubles of the past. The 1940s were defined by almost apocalyptic disasters; the 1950s were defined by optimism and reconstruction.

Tokyo set up numerous puppet states in Asia that were in effect extensions of the Japanese Empire itself​

Of course, not all was well in the Middle Kingdom. Chiang supporters and other "enemies of the revolution" were hunted down and savagely killed in bloody purges that extended across the Chinese countryside. Left-wing death squads killed millions on Mao's orders, inflicting terror on the populace. Additionally, aggressive agricultural collectivization and incompetent policymaking led to sporadic outbreaks of famine in various parts of the country. While these famines were at the moment local in nature, they each threatened to spiral out of control, potentially affecting the entire country. Mao's regime was characterized by such suffering, even though China saw progress in industrial development during his reign. Ultimately, Mao's communist radicalism gave him a reputation as a butcher who brutally murdered millions with merciless abandon.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Interlude: The Tragedy of Fear

Stefan Eberhart was born in the town of Einbeck in 1904. Who his parents were is unclear, as is the nature of his childhood. What is known is that he left home to study mathematics in Hanover. There, he met the woman who later became his wife, Anna Hirsch. The two married in 1928 and settled down in Munich. By the time the Second Great War broke out, Stefan was too old to participate in it as a soldier; already in his mid-thirties, he worked as an accountant for the government, tracking tax money and making sure every mark was accounted for.

Stefan joined the Nazi Party in 1935, mostly as a pragmatic measure to divert suspicion away from his family. He was never fond of national socialism, and at home expressed deep nostalgia for the days of the Weimar Republic. He was a liberty-loving man with republican sympathies, a man who President Thomas Dewey said "would have made a fine American." Neither he nor his wife were particularly attracted to the racialist, militarist and nationalist rhetoric of the Nazis, and both secretly longed for a day when they could live as free people. That said, in public Stefan took care not to reveal his true sympathies, expressing devout support for national socialism whenever questioned.

Ultimately, his efforts were not enough.

Lucas, Stefan's son, was born in 1930. His schooling was defined by ideological indoctrination. He joined Hitler Youth and became an active, believing member, completely trusting the tenets of national socialism. His parents' words of dissent annoyed him to no end, and he began to outright hate them both. To him, they were not his parents; they were treasonous race-traitors. At age 18, he reported them both to Nazi authorities, and Gestapo agents came to take them away. In that moment, Lucas beamed with delight; he was doing his proper duty as a national socialist and as a member of the Aryan race; mere familial ties could not break his loyalty.

Stefan was transported to a number of different concentration camps, where he was subjected to forced labor and violence at the hands of sadistic Nazi authorities. He became thin and frail, his body unable to handle the stresses it was forced to endure. He lost most of his teeth after being savagely beaten by three SS guards, and lost his left eye after being attacked by a fellow prisoner. His faith in God was shattered irreversibly. At one point, Stefan acquired pens and paper and began writing a memoir. It took him years, but eventually he managed to complete it and smuggle it into the outside world under the nose of the guards. The Tragedy of Fear, completed in 1954, was reproduced and distributed in a black market for outlawed literature. In 1966, a copy was smuggled out of Germany and into Turkey, where it was again reproduced for the wider world. A copy found itself in Britain a year later, where it was translated into English and formally published.

The Tragedy of Fear became an instant bestseller, describing in detail the horrors of the Nazi regime and how they affected everyday citizens on a deep, personal level. It was a lesson in the power of indoctrination and in the dangers of fanaticism. Lucas' betrayal of his own family captured American readers, and the vivid descriptions of the brutality of the camps shocked and appalled them. It became a seminal work of anti-Nazi literature, and by the 21st century was required reading in most American high schools.

Stefan never saw this fame; he died of complications with tuberculosis just a year after completing his work. His body has never been found. Anna's fate is unknown; she was separated from her husband when they were taken away by Nazi authorities. As for Lucas, he joined the SS and worked for the government of Reichskommissariat Moskowien. It was said that his loyalty to the state was ironclad; his faith in national socialism was resolute; his belief in the racial superiority of the German was unshakable. When he found out that his wife was half-Jewish, he shot her, his children, and then himself.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter XII: Southeast Asia - A Region in Flux

Southeast Asia following the Second Great War was a very different place than it was beforehand. In negotiations with Japan, Germany agreed that the region would be in Tokyo's sphere of influence. Thus, the French were stripped of their colonies in Indochina and the states of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were created. Japan had a heavy influence in all three countries, ruling through leaders who owed their positions to Tokyo's influence. Additionally, Japan wished to exercise its influence in Thailand and Burma, but neither country was as easy to influence as those in Indochina.

Plaek Phibun, Prime Minister of Thailand, was facing growing opposition to his continued alliance with Japan. He felt that maintaining good relations with Tokyo was the best way to preserve an independent Thailand, but many in his cabinet felt otherwise. A tide of growing Thai nationalism put the Prime Minister in an uncomfortable position: should he continue the alliance, he risked losing his office and any real Thai independence. If he were to break the alliance, he risked an outright Japanese invasion.

Ultimately, he chose the latter position. In 1952, he dissolved the alliance with Japan and announced Thailand's neutrality in the "world's present hostilities between the superpowers." His gambit paid off; Tokyo decided not to invade, instead working to consolidate its relationships with Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Thailand would later become a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Plaek Phibunsongkhram, Prime Minister and military dictator of Thailand​

Burma became an independent republic after the Second Great War, and its first presidential election in 1950 saw it divided along Cold War lines. Ba Maw advocated for close relations with Japan, and clandestinely received funding from Tokyo for his campaign. His main rival, Aung San, was a socialist who nonetheless advocated for a more pro-Western position. He secretly received funding from the CIA, as the Americans felt they needed a friendly ally in the region. In the end, fears about Japanese domination led to Ba Maw's defeat. Japan's funding was for naught.

Meanwhile, Indonesians threw off the Dutch colonists, establishing an Axis-aligned state in their place. The Netherlands had been conquered by Germany during the Second Great War, leaving the Dutch East Indies as an independent nation ruled by an oppressive minority. This unstable arrangement did not last for long, and the Dutch government found itself beset by dissent and rebellion. Ultimately, the colonial relic was dismantled without civil war, but the new State of Indonesia had trouble receiving international recognition until the US agreed to recognize it in the Baghdad Conference.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter XIII: Kaboom - The Nuclear Arms Race in the 1950s

During the 1930s and 1940s, the Germans designed but did not test multiple concepts for ballistic missiles that could wreak havoc on enemy infrastructure. These designs were not built during the war to make way for the increasingly-costly atom bomb project. The A-4 rocket, finally put to the test in early 1947, was the most successful of these designs, reaching outer space during test flights. Indeed, German rocket designs, an afterthought in the early 1940s, were surprisingly effective and kickstarted the Reich's Cold War rocketry program. After the German-Soviet War, the Germans set about focusing their efforts in rocketry to the long-range delivery of nuclear weapons. Wernher von Braun led this effort, developing the first intercontinental ballistic missile, the A-11, in 1955.

The United States began the arms race with a significant disadvantage; it lacked the same knowledge of rocketry that existed behind the Atlantic Wall. To resolve this, Washington put significant effort into developing its intelligence. The newly-formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was directed to infiltrate German rocketry programs and steal knowledge of Germany's long-range missile capabilities. In this, the CIA was wildly successful. By 1951, the US had designs for the A-4 and information about the Third Reich's plans for future missile development.

The A-4 rocket was the base for many of Germany's spacefaring vehicles in later decades​

The Americans put their newfound knowledge to great use. While the US may have lagged behind in rocketry, it had the edge in the development of a new kind of weapon: the hydrogen bomb. These destructive devices were hundreds of times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Moscow and Leningrad. In Operation Arthur in November 1952, the US tested the world's first hydrogen bomb off the coast of the American Samoa. When the Americans successfully tested their first ICBM in October 1956, they found themselves with the upper hand in the arms race.

Operation Arthur nuclear detonation test​

 

[SirPaperweight]

Interlude: World Map, 1955

You should post a map of the world. I'd like to see all the land developments.

Your wish is my command. I hope I haven't made any mistakes.

​

Worth noting that in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia carved out sections of the British and French colonial empires at the request of Adolf Hitler. And Tibet still exists only because Mao Zedong has more important things to do right now.

That would work with China, but the Russian Far East is barely populated, and all the Russians probably left for the rump USSR long before. Putting it under direct military rule and homesteading the hell out of it isn't that problematic to Japan as doing that to Manchukuo would

You're right, I'll change it.

So South America us going through an economic miracle miracle similar to Japan/South Korea OTL?

Something like that, if not as dramatic.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter XIV: The Holocaust

Upon conquering all of Eastern Europe, Germany was free to implement Generalplan Ost, or the Master Plan for the East. It was the spawn of ruthless ideologues in the Nazi Party, like Heinrich Himmler, Reinhard Heydrich and even Adolf Hitler himself. They envisioned a future free of the "subhumans" that they believed prevented the Aryan race from realizing its destiny. They believed that millions of Jews, Slavs, Romani, Jehovah's Witnesses, freemasons, sexual deviants, the disabled, political dissidents and others would have to be removed, one way or another. What they meant by "remove" shifted over the years and varied by group, but they finally settled on a plan to simply murder all the undesirable groups, with some being kept alive as slaves to help bolster the colonial economy of Eastern Europe. And so, the Nazis began forming their plan to soak the continent in blood.

It started with legal discrimination. Undesirable groups within Germany faced legal and economic repression; Jewish businesses faced boycotts, Jews were excluded from the civil service and Jewish lawyers were disbarred. Eventually, the repression escalated to violence. The Kristallnacht saw massive pogroms break out across Germany, and Jewish emigration accelerated. When war broke out with Britain and France, the strategy of encouraging emigration turned into a strategy of murder. Party ideologues came up with the Final Solution: the industrial slaughter of ethnic and political undesirables within the Third Reich. The concentration camp system grew exponentially, holding millions of people by the end of the German-Soviet War.

Upon conquering Eastern Europe, the Nazis turned to starvation. The undesirable ethnic groups in Eastern Europe were subjected to a manufactured famine as SS troops carefully managed the food supply so that nothing went to the local Slavs. Meanwhile, thousands of German-Soviet War veterans were resettled in towns and villages whose inhabitants were now dead. Ethnic Germans were encouraged to settle east with a homesteading program not unlike those implemented in the 19th century United States. Thousands took up this offer, motivated by the prospect of a new life on new land, and began slowly repopulating the territories made vacant by the genocide. At first, most German settlers arrived in Ostland and Gotenland (formerly Crimea), but soon spread into Ukraine, Kaukasus and the major cities of Moscowien.

Eventually, the German government began doing more. Those who did not die of starvation were forced to work on farms or in factories as slaves, and if they were not fit to do that (starvation often rendered people physically incapable of performing hard labor), they were simply exterminated in death camps that dotted the landscape. As the pace of the genocide increased, the government intensified colonization efforts. Czechs, Latvians and other ethnic minorities considered to be racially between Germans and Slavs were forcibly settled across Eastern Europe, and they gradually underwent the process of Germanization. Their languages were banned, their identities were discouraged and in some cases their children were taken away and given to German couples.

Some tried to escape. They ran into the forests, hoping to make it across the Ural Mountains into Russia or across the border into neutral Turkey. They often didn't make it. The trek to Siberia was too much for the vast majority of those who attempted it, and to this day the bodies of the hopeful can be seen dotting the wilderness. Those who tried to go to Turkey found themselves threatened by ever-watchful Axis authorities, who searched trains and set up checkpoints specifically to catch any runaway untermensch. The more brave tried to cross the Black Sea, often dying on makeshift boats that couldn't possibly withstand the rigor of the sea. The few who did make it to Turkey found their lives ruined. They had nothing; no family, no possessions, no money. Many ended up as beggars on the streets. Either way, the Nazi-backed government of Bulgaria eventually closed the Turkish border, requiring special permits from the government to cross over.

Other minorities not subjected to genocide found that they lived as second-class citizens. Germany annexed the Low Countries and a stretch of Eastern France, and the identities of the peoples there were discouraged. An aggressive campaign of Germanization was undertaken in the conquered strip of France, which was named Burgundy in reference to the ancient Germanic tribe. Children grew up learning German, as other languages were outlawed. Switzerland too was subject to this treatment, after it was forced to submit in 1946 and found its lands divided between Germany and Italy. That nation was reorganized as a Reichskommissariat, to be fully integrated into Germany at a later date.

In the early stages of the Cold War, the West had a poor understanding of the nature of the Holocaust (the name that came to be used to describe the various campaigns of genocide by Nazi Germany). Most people agreed that something was going on behind the Atlantic Wall, but the exact details were unknown even to the highest layers of government. When they did become known, they had profound social and political implications on the world at large. It was nearly unthinkable to imagine such an evil existing, even in people's worst nightmares. But it did exist. And the reality was more horrifying than anyone imagined.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Interlude: Hoàng's Diaspora

When Hoàng Quảng Miên was given the title of Vietnamese ambassador to Germany in 1951, he beamed with pride. He had finally made his family proud by climbing the ranks of the nation's diplomatic corps, and he could rest assured that he would be doing a great service for his country. Perhaps it was a strange way to serve his country; most of his peers joined the army, a much more glorious, if dangerous, career path. But he was still proud nonetheless, as was his family. Little did he know that in this post he would do far more good than he ever expected.

Upon arriving in Berlin, Hoàng found that several closet Jews were looking to receive exit visas to escape Germany. Vietnam, while allied with the Axis powers, was a far more tolerant nation toward Jews than many others. He was sympathetic to their plight, and began issuing visas to allow Jews to flee the country. In order to ensure the refugees' safety, he falsified travel documents to hide their true heritage. Over time, he expanded this effort to include homosexuals, political dissidents and other people targeted in the Holocaust. Nearly 11,800 people fled Germany in this way between 1952 and 1955, often traveling from Vietnam to locations across Asia and Latin America.

In early December 1955, Hoàng was recalled as ambassador and sent back home to Vietnam. Due to either bureaucratic negligence or an active effort to look the other way, he managed to avoid any real punishment for his actions, and made a living as a writer and journalist until his death in 1987. In 1974, he was greeted at his home by a rabbi, who told the former ambassador that he was among the refugees who fled to Vietnam.

He expressed his shock in an interview with the BBC.

"I don’t think I truly recognized the impact of what I did until that moment, when the rabbi greeted me at the door. I didn’t realize that the people I helped saw me as a hero. I just thought that I was doing what I had to. What human decency demanded that I do."

By the time Hoàng Quảng Miên died, he was perhaps the most famous person to help the victims of Nazi oppression during the Cold War. In 1994, a film was made about his life and service. Hoàng's Diaspora received acclaim from critics and audiences alike, and has become perhaps the most well-known film about the Holocaust in Western minds.

 

[SirPaperweight]

Chapter XV: The Weakest Link

Happenings behind the Atlantic Wall were unclear to most Westerners. Information was scarce, and Axisologists often resorted to nitpicking and guesswork when analyzing the political situation in Axis-dominated Europe. Defections were few; most people who tried were unable to survive the trek across Siberia or evade scrutiny from Axis authorities. However, much was going on in Axis-dominated Europe, a fact that only became apparent after Nazi records became available to historians upon the fall of the Third Reich.

The 1950s were a time of reconstruction for the Axis. Germany's economy, funded by plunder in Eastern Europe, began the daunting task of recovery following the Second Great War and German-Soviet War. Unemployment remained low due to heavy government spending, although it was not near-zero like it was during the wars. Rationing declined, although remained in use for some goods, and the quality of life for the average German citizen gradually improved. Of course, not all was well; the German welfare state required significant deficit spending to fund, and some were concerned about the ramifications of rising debt. And of course, the only beneficiaries of the improved living standards were ethnic Germans.

Italy, meanwhile, focused on its own colonies. Thousands of Italians colonized coastal Libya as part of Mussolini's plan to reduce unemployment and overpopulation in Italy proper. The Libyan Colonization Society, the state-owned corporation in charge of the effort, built model villages and doled out the best land in Libya to incoming settlers. After the Second Great War was over, the effort expanded to include Tunisia and Egypt, each with their own Colonization Societies. By 1960, nearly three in five Libyans, one in three Tunisians and one in ten Egyptians were Italian settlers.

Tripoli, Libya, sometime in the 1950s​

France was another matter entirely. As a defeated nation, France engaged in no ambitious imperialist projects like Germany and Italy; rather, many French possessions were distributed to other countries. Morocco and Mauritania went to Spain, Indochina fell under Japan's influence, much of French Central Africa was seized by Germany, and worst of all, part of Metropolitan France itself now fell under the banner of the Third Reich. The French resented their government, believing (rightly) that is was no more than a German puppet. Philippe Pétain died in 1951, and the office of Chief of State was merged with the office of Prime Minister. Pierre Laval, seen as merely a weak-willed opportunist, was the favored candidate for the office, but the Germans exerted their influence and Pierre Pucheu, a much more pro-German figure, was chosen instead.

The discontent in France spread its way up to the highest layers of government; many of the leading technocrats in charge of the direction of the French State became disillusioned with the new German order, and believed that France was better off free from Nazi meddling. Chief of State Pucheu would have none of it, however, and had 18 government officials executed upon learning of their anti-Nazi sympathies. Still, the dissent spread, and on June 3, 1954, thousands of steel workers went on strike in Paris to protest poor working conditions and lack of Independence for unions. Troops moved in to stop the strike, but the situation eventually snowballed into a general strike first in Paris and then across France. As the strike grew, its nature became increasingly political, and those taking part called for increasingly radical measures. Soon, tens of thousands of ordinary people joined the strikers in protest, demanding the fall of the French government and the reestablishment of a republic.

It became a common French joke that Pierre Pucheu was the second most powerful man in France after Adolf Hitler​

The response was swift and brutal. French and German tanks lined the streets of every major city in France, gunning down the strikers whenever they put up resistance. Order broke down in the streets of Lyon, where strikers stormed barracks and fired back at the soldiers. In Marseilles, protesters drove out the local government and proclaimed a "Provisional French Government." In Paris, strikers tore down the fascist flag on the Eiffel Tower and replaced it with the flag of the government-in-exile. The violence continued until June 12, when the last of the strikers returned to work. The Lorraine Uprising (the Cross of Lorraine being a common symbol of the protesters) led to over 7,000 deaths (most of them dying in reprisal killings by the Nazis), and intimidated the French into giving up any hope of true independence. The "weakest link in the chain," as Hitler called France, was mended, at least for now.