Disclaimer: To start, I'd like to acknowledge the definite influence that Kaiser K's has over the world that I have built. Her A Valkyrie Rises Over Europe timeline is, I believe, one of the best, most in depth, and perhaps definitive portrayals of an American-German cold war scenario not just on this website, but in all media attempting to depict this kind of alternate world. Despite some implausible situations appearing throughout the story, it has still had a major impact on how I personally view these kind of scenarios, and it is a great shame that the author herself was never allowed to complete her work.
So, whilst I've adopted some aspects of from the world of AVROE, I have nevertheless moulded it over the two years it has been worked upon into a more unique, and hopefully more plausible, spiritual successor to Kaiser K's original timeline. I shall start at the end, but I will over time expand on the nature and history of the world and all that entails. With that said...
The collapse of Nazi Germany and its vast, sprawling empire came as a shock to most when it fell over the Summer of 1989. A colossal monument to some of man's most insidious ideologies - totalitarianism, scientific racism, and rampant militancy - the Greater Germanic Reich stood for over 40 years in continued opposition to the United States-led Western Bloc in a prolonged, sometimes sanguinary struggle known as the Cold War. Together with its allies in the Potsdam Pact and beyond, the Nazi Regime led the charge of Fascism against the growing power of Western Democracy in the fields of ideology, diplomacy, science, and warfare, and over the course of this grapple for existence the world came the closest it ever has to absolute destruction. From Argentina to Vietnam to Cyprus to India, crises and war enveloped the world whole as no nation could escape the influences of this conflict. For 40 years democracy and fascism were locked in this 'Cold War', and to those living amidst the chaos of those changing times, it appeared that the conflict would continue being fought till the end of time.
Until it no longer did.
Beginning in the 1970s, economic contractions began to erode away at the economies of the Fascist Bloc. Underground demand for social, economic, and even political change was growing, and the price the fascist world faced in maintaining the totalitarian systems which kept it afloat was becoming dear. Across the world, men and women began to finally comprehend the true and horrifying extent of what fascist states were doing within their sphere, and the supporters outside those ostensibly mighty states began to wane with every coming year. The German Army, a force which brought half the world to heel and inspired fear in the other half, had become exhausted and disgraced in the wake of the German-Iranian War, and many fascist states were growing to realise the true costs of maintaining their empires.
The World - 1/1/1980
By the early-1980s, whilst ostensibly still strong, significant discontent was brewing underneath the surface of the Third Reich. Whilst the American public was largely unaware of any change in the social-political life of Germany, many who lived under the totalitarian system began to recognise that the support for the Nazi Regime was no longer the force it had been under Germany's almost divinely revered first Führer, Adolf Hitler. Rather, the growing difficulties in maintaining an overextended empire which stretched from the Atlantic to the Urals had become plain, and within both Germany-proper and the colonial Reichskommissariats, outright revolt could no longer be considered a distant fantasy. The pressures of an ideology that could no longer stand were now clear, and the Third Reich, together with the remainder of the Fascist Bloc, began almost to call for a leader to revitalise the decay; to lift the system again to its heights of the 1950s. They called out for a second Adolf Hitler.
Who they got was Achim Kreibel.
The new Führer was a reform fascist, a proactive, ambitious man who initially caught the eye of Führer Speer in 1972 and had before the age of 40 became the Deputy to Führer Koch, all before he was elevated to the leadership of Nazi Germany in 1985 at the age of 42. Kreibel's attempted reforms were rushed amidst the growing dissatisfaction with governments within the Fascist Bloc, as well as the deteriorating state of the Third Reich's economy, fuelled in part by the inability of the state to pay for the extensive public works programs which employed up to 10% of the population. The Reichsmark was collapsing wholesale, and across the Atlantic, the United States had by the late-1980s gained a considerable financial and military lead over their ideological foe; America boasting an economy twice as Germany. As a result, Kreibel sought to decentralise the bloated state apparatus to local administrative regions (Reichsgau), forcibly integrate all remaining non-Aryans in the Reichskommissariats into the Volksgemeinschaft, or 'people's community', as well as open up the economies of the Fascist Bloc to international finance.
All Kreibel's proposals were anathema to the substantial conservative faction within the NSDAP, led by Minister of Justice Wilhelm Shulz, and despite the presupposed 'total authority' the Führer maintained over Party and State, the conservatives were nevertheless able to push back several of Kreibel's suggestions despite his insistence on the urgency of reform. Whilst many would overlook the rehabilitation of political dissidents and the removal of market controls (the latter action bringing negligible change to Germany due to the continuing American boycott of German goods), it would be Kreibel's 'Eastern Emancipation' of Germany's non-Aryans which would bring about the collapse of his first government.
Führer Achim Kreibel - 1988
The decision to extend citizenship to those non-Aryans who had not yet been integrated into the state (or removed from serfdom) had provided Shulz the opportunity to rally opponents of the Führer, and in May 1988, a month after issuing the Eastern Emancipation, Kreibel was forcibly removed from office by the Reichstag (an illegal act under the Organic Laws of 1949), and placed under house arrest by his successor; Shulz's erstwhile moderate ally, Karl-Adolf Fisch.
The removal of Kreibel sparked a wave of massive anti-Nazi and pro-reform protest across the Third Reich, the largest and most public since the 1952 Uprisings. Throughout 1988, attempts to disperse the crowds through violence failed as the economy spiralled and those indignant with the decrepit and antiquated fascist system moved out onto the streets demanding Kreibel's restoration. Amidst this, the new administration in Germany had been readily receiving denunciations from both within the NSDAP (particularly from moderates and reformists) and foreign governments, especially those in the Western Bloc. Perhaps the most vocal of these critics was American President Bob Taft who had vocally supported Kreibel's overtures towards peace and reform, and in response to his removal renewed the US-led anti-fascist boycott. As a result, Führer Fisch moved to pass his own measure of reforms, though as 1988 turned to 1989, the situation devolved further as protesters massed and were fired upon.
Final attempts to definitively disperse protesters in Berlin, Kiew, Munich, and Vienna resulted in a massacre of those present in each city; an estimated 55 to 300 people dying as violence flared almost daily. Moving to reassert his control over the nation, Führer Fisch reconfirmed martial law (in place since May 1988) whilst removing from office numerous conservative NSDAP functionaries who opposed his even minor moves towards reform. As a result, Fisch moved forward on developing a new system which could have propped-up the fast deteriorating Fascist Bloc, promising an expanded (though still restrained) freedom and speech and movement, devolved government, a system of voting for individual Nazi Party members to the Reichstag, amongst other reform provisions. These proposals went beyond any which had been brought forth by Kreibel, though they still were still purely a means to retrench rule of the Nazi Regime. As a result, violent protests continued even after Fisch and the Reichstag passed the so-called 'Spring Laws'.
The result was a putsch.
Prompted by what they viewed as the decisive law which would dismantle the society and structure of the Third Reich, a conspiracy of conservative NSDAP members and high-ranking generals led by a diarchy of Wilhelm Shulz and General Gerhard Schilling surrounded the Reichstag whilst it was in session and besieged those inside, including Führer Fisch on May 1st, 1989. Over the course of the following five days, defenders at the Reichstag joined together with members of the public in defending the government against the reactionary coup attempt; the putschist army seizing control of most government buildings in Berlin before the 3rd. However, on that same day, Achim Kreibel was released from house arrest by anti-coup military officers who would support him in rallying the public and army against the putschists. Over the course of May 4th, Kreibel would broadcast several radio messages throughout Berlin asking the public to push back against Shulz and Schilling, claiming "the future existence of the German Race is dependant on our actions here today"; and after an estimated million Germans moved into the besieged streets of Berlin, several pro-coup officers broke ranks in favour of Kreibel. The following day, the Siege of the Reichstag was relieved, Shulz committed suicide, and Schilling alongside other high ranking officers were imprisoned, later executed.
German Tanks During The Putsch - 1989
Now with the support of the military in Berlin, the newly released Kreibel presented a movement before the liberated Reichstag requesting that he firstly be restored to his 'legal position' as Führer and Reichskanzler, and secondly that the German legislature implement the full measure of Karl-Adolf Fisch's Spring Laws. Fisch, knowing his precarious position in the face of the now wildly popular Kreibel, resigned, and on May 9th the former Führer was reinstated.
The result of the 'May Putsch' was as dramatic as it was immediate. Across Europe, pro-democracy, pro-reform, and anti-fascist protests sprung to life fuelled by the ostensible success of what would come to be known as the 'people's revolution' in Germany which had opposed the conservative plotters. It was the so-called 'Summertime of Nations' in which the totalitarian regimes which lingered for over half a century collapsed in just a few months. First Portugal, then Spain, then Italy, France, and Croatia; the governments of all fascist nations within Europe collapsing under the weight of popular protest and revolution.
Within Germany, the restored Führer moved fast in an attempt to stifle any form of similar popular uprising which could result in the wholesale collapse of Germany into either civil war or socialism (as what appeared shortly after Portugal's June Revolution). Moving forward to implement the Spring Laws, Kreibel pushed for a 'Fourth Reich' which would take a confederal form; a union between a federal Germany-proper and the four unitary Reichskommissariats (now theoretically dominated by emancipated non-Aryans), with full voting rights restored for the first time in almost 60 years. In July, in a decisive break from the previous regime, Kreibel finally moved to eliminate the NSDAP monopoly on power, the party mortally wounded by the events of the previous year. Announcing his own status as an 'independent member of the German Worker's Party', Kreibel further established that multi-party (though regulated) elections would be held in November for a new Reichstag, as well as the local Reichskommissariat governments.
To further this cause in weakening the NSDAP and fascist system to which he had lost faith, Kreibel provisionally opened selected archives detailing the history and government of the Greater Germanic Reich. Detailing numerous Nazi Regime attempts to rewrite history and cover-up the failings and crimes of the German State during the Cold War, the move was well received abroad, with Kreibel being hailed as a hero of liberties, whilst internally the move shook the nation to its core and led to outrage against the almost universally despised NSDAP. The foundation of the Third Reich and its founders had not been as peaceful or restorative as once though; the deified Hitler's internal documents being released to be publicly scrutinised, the Nazi Party's crimes and failings open for the world to see.
However, an unintended effect of the Führer's reforms was the gradual reemergence of nationalism in the Reichskommissariats, long buried by the weight of German fascism, strict social controls, and ideological fanaticism. Ukrainian and Russian nationalism especially, aspects of which survived the incomplete Germanisation process, had been an underground force which grew throughout the 1980s and exploded following the Eastern Emancipation, and even in other eastern territories, the German elite had developed their own sense of 'local nationalism' dependant on which Reichskommissariat they resided in. Germanised or partially-Germanised locals in those regions held some ties to their local government was well, and not the distant, seemingly-decaying Berlin. Of all the factors leading to the collapse of the Third Reich, it has been argued that this was perhaps the most damaging.
The elections of November 1989 were held on three levels;
1. For the national Reichstag;
2. For the the councils of Germany's 110 Reichsgau, and;
3. For the newly established Reichskommissariat administrative councils.
For the Reichstag, the Nazi Party, heavily damaged from the economic contractions of the 1980s and their association with poor governance resulted in them coming third in the overall tally, though vote rigging and electoral violence in favour of Kreibel's Independent German Workers' Party (UDAP) which came first with a majority of seats both in the Reichstag and amongst the Reichsgau. The Party of the German People, founded by the centre-right reformer Hans Luitpold who had tacitly supported Kreibel and his efforts to "democratise and dignify the Reich".
However, in the eastern territories, political upheaval had been continuing unabated as old and new nationalisms flared. Violence was common throughout the Reichskommissariats, particularly in Reichskommissariat Moskowien where the German leadership outright destroyed ballot boxes and refused voting rights for local Russians, even those which had been tentatively Germanised during the Speer Era. In Ukraine, Aryanised and non-Aryanised Ukrainians (together with other emancipated Slavs) successfully joined together in some jurisdictions in opposing attempts by German elites to limit their democracy, and together with Reichskommissariat Kaukasus, they elected pro-autonomy parties onto the administrative councils, in lieu of pro-independence parties (which had been explicitly banned).
The results of the elections resulted in upheaval in Germany's east, with remaining fascist functionaries joining with anti-autonomy unionists in opposing the assumption of power by the elected autonomists. Riots soon broke out, the most violent in Moskowien and Ukraine where Aryan Germans proved to be a minority; attacks against Germanised Slavs being supported by garrisoned military forces who killed an estimated 500 to 1,000 Russians and Ukrainians in the final months of 1989. In response, the Provisional Reichskommissar of Ukraine, Georg Saevecke (half-German, half-Ukrainian), raised a militia of largely-Aryanised Ukrainians in mid-November to forcibly install the elected councillors in the largely-German city of Kiew; the city's leaders requesting support from Berlin to remove the Saevecke from power and prevent an autonomist takeover.
German Tanks And Ukrainian Voters - 1989
The Führer, by now, had grown weary of forcefully imposing the laws of the Reich over the eastern territories, and instead sought to diffuse the situation through diplomacy, and over the course of three days Kreibel ostensibly attempted to reach an accord between the parties in Ukraine. However, unbeknownst to the German leadership in the Reichskommissariat at the time, Kreibel had following the election almost entirely written off the east, instead favouring back channel communications with Saevecke who he saw as instrumental in "divorcing the eastern mire from Germany-proper". The Führer no longer believed that it would be necessary to maintain a foothold over eastern territories, and any form of intervention would be as costly as it was bloody. As a result, a deal was reached between Berlin and the autonomists.
On November 21st, Achim Kreibel pronounced over all Germany's broadcasting channels the so-called 'renouncement speech' in which he, on behalf of the German Reich, renounced all forms of absolute tyranny, violence, and political totalitarianism; the speech shocking many around the world - most especially the newly elected American President Daniel Bremer - due to its frank denunciation of the former methods of control exerted by fascist regimes not just in Germany, but throughout Europe. In response to Kreibel's message, Georg Saevecke moved to install Ukraine's administrative council, and five days later, the region declared independence from the Greater Germanic Reich.
The boldness of Saevecke's declaration astonished and captivated the world in equal measure when it occured November 26th, 1989. Whilst many international observers expected some form of military retaliation from Kreibel's government, none, it seemed, was forthcoming. The Führer himself readily denounced the declaration openly when it was received, however, behind closed doors he was perhaps most relieved. The citizens of the Reich which lived in Germany-proper, whilst dismayed at sight of 'Germany's breadbasket' declaring independence, were nevertheless dismissive of the Eastern German's cries for intervention owing to the cratered economic situation and the years of anti-fascist insurgent violence which preoccupied Reich forces in the eastern territories. Now, the majority of those forces would be requested to stand down, effectively handing over authority to George Saevecke (who would go onto adopt the Ukrainian name Igor Sawczak by the end of the year).
The floodgates, it seemed, had burst open. In Reichskommissariat Kaukasus, local officials elected to the administrative councils declared effective autonomy from Berlin on December 1st, before declaring full independence on December 10th when Kreibel announced that he would negotiate away the future of Germany's eastern territories. On December 12th, Gothland - the only German-majority Reich territory outside of Reichskommissariat Ostland - declared formal autonomy as German refugees poured over the border as Sawczak solidified his hold over the Ukraine. A day later, Moskowien, dominated by its German minority, delivered a request to be fully integrated into the German Reich, prompting mass violence and protests by Slavic peoples and several attacks by anti-fascist insurgents. On December 18th, Ostland declared autonomy with a wave of support from both Aryan Germans and Aryanised non-Germans.
By 1990, the Third Reich was in territorial free fall, the growing crisis in Eastern Europe prompting several German military regiments in the region to break ranks in an effort to 'defend German blood' by establishing defensive lines around majority German population centres and attacking anyone which they considered to be an insurgent. With nuclear weapons stationed at numerous bases in Reichskommissariats, Achim Kreibel was growing pressured to intervene to ensure the situation would not spiral into conflict; neither internal nor external. As a result, the Führer moved to establish a definitive accord with its former eastern territories regarding the rights of Germans in the region, their migration back to Germany-proper, and the declaration of the region. Announcing that the process would begin in March of 1990, the move set the stage for the final act of the Third Reich's collapse.
The World - 1/1/1990
Perhaps the final nail in the coffin for the mortally wounded Greater Germanic Reich began just days before the Final Settlement negotiation were set to begin. As established by documents released by the German Government, interior minister Josef Anders came to his Führer on March 22nd bringing telephone transcripts of conversations between several high ranking colonels which detailed a conspiracy to assassinate Kreibel, reinstall the NSDAP, and commit to a military campaign to retake the eastern territories. Supposedly delivered by a defector from this cabal of colonels, Kreibel used the transcripts, true or not, as justification to 'scour' the military's upper echelons. With their faces printed in the state-owned newspapers and their names denounced over the air, seventeen military and political leaders whom the German leader felt were to sympathetic to the Nazi Regime were purged from their positions arrested in a string of raids; the NSDAP itself being officially banned by the Führer on March 30th with its final leader, Joachim Hofer, being arrested the same day.
The result of the so-called 'colonel's putsch' was the further disintegration of the Greater Germanic Reich as a political entity. Whilst many foreign nations and individuals within Germany praised Kreibel for how he dealt with the supposed plot leaders and liquidated the Nazi Party, many still had grown wary of their Führer and his authoritarian actions and limited rights reforms. Many political prisoners were still locked away, freedom of speech was restricted, and the press had failed to become transparent to any great degree since Kreibel returned to power. As a result, over the months that followed, political discourse in many Reichskommissariats moved away from autonomy within a Greater Germany, and towards independence from the all seeing eye of Berlin.
One-by-one, the eastern territories of the former Nazi Empire declared independence. First was Reichskommissariat Kaukasus which formally declared independence on March 28th and began drafting what is considered to be one of the most liberal post-fascist constitutions in Eastern Europe. In the two Reichsgau councils which embraced the former Kingdom of Norway, discussion between the two which had begun in late-1989 culminated on April 2nd when the two Gauleiters declared their intention of reestablishing the Norwegian state, and sought approval from Berlin to this end. Moskowien followed shortly thereafter, the flight of thousands of German settlers and administrators over the preceding months as a result of increased insurgent attacks and the lack of state intervention prompting the local Slavic majority to assert their power and seize the state apparatus a week before declaring independence on April 11th; George Koshin being declared Provisional President the same day.
Fear amongst Germany's soldiers stationed at the defensive Ural Line surged after this, with many believing that they would be stranded, without a state, surrounded by vengeful Slavic republics; Russia in the west, the Soviet Union in the east. As a result, Achim Kreibel sought to establish a perpetual frontier buffer zone with any 'purely Slavic state' (i.e. Russia). To this end, he included in the Final Settlement negotiations an open provision for Soviet involvement over the nature of post-Nazi borders, including the hated Ural Line. In early-May, the Führer again extended an fig leaf out to the Provisional State of Norway, though not to the growing Danish independence movement which was growing, though not as strong as in the more homogeneous Norway.
For Kreibel, the ultimate goal of negotiations (which had by mid-1990 centred around Stockholm) was focused on the long term viability of the new German state and the stability of its former eastern territories. Initially unwilling to involve foreign powers in the negotiations outside of those designated within the 'Eastern Europe Protocol', Sweden, a longtime satellite of Germany mediated the Settlement during its first months. However, American President Daniel Bremer was quick to establish some form of influence over the proceedings through his ambassador to Sweden, Philip Noakes.
Agreeing that the stability of post-fascist Eastern Europe was the primary goal of the Settlement, Bremer advanced through Noakes the goal to establish whether Kreibel would accept a buffer region composed of an autonomous Ostland and Gothland and an independent Ukraine, together with an independent Kaukasus, independent Norway, and a Russia with an option of joining the Soviet Union as a separate republic. Kreibel refused this, believing that any advance of the Soviets westward would place Germany under a direct threat of attack. This would continue throughout the summer of 1990, as hundreds of thousands of Germans marched westward toward Germany-proper and Europe began to stabilise following the collapse of the Fascist Bloc, tense negotiation loomed large over the corpse of the Nazi Regime.
In addition the international negotiations, internal negotiations within Germany were occurring at the same time as those of the Final Settlement. The Führer believed that by mid-1990 the collapse of the Greater German experiment was a result of the overly centralised, unitary, totalitarian state; Kreibel believing that even the smaller, yet densely populated Germany-proper being in need to 'federalisation'. As a result, Kreibel dictated to the President of the Reichstag and close ally, Martin Heisig, that a new constitution which would replace the Organic Law of 1949 and would establish what Kreibel viewed as the "modern state"; a semi-presidential, federal, and constitutional state. Work continued on this document throughout the majority of the year, with most of the Reichstag in favour of the government's structural provisions. However, many reformists found Kreibel's articles related to freedoms and liberties to be lacking, or too vague, and proposed stronger constitutional protections for the 'innate liberties' so as to prevent Germany from going down a road similar to that of the Nazis.
These proposals were struck down, and on September 1st, 1990, the new constitution was passed in the Reichstag, with the date set for constitutional transitional to begin on November 1st, 1990 and end New Years, 1991. Territorial borders established within the constitution were left intentionally vague pending the outcome of the Final Settlement, and the name of the country was restored to simply 'Germany' to avoid rousing anti-republican and pro-fascist sentiment. Additionally, the national flag was reestablished to that which was discarded in 1935; the black-white-red banner which proved to be the least offensive option out those 13 brought before the Reichstag. Nevertheless, despite the indistinct and often vague nature of the document, many Germans welcomed the news of the constitution - the legal status of the state finally reestablished after the chaos of the preceding years - though many still disregarded it, still holding out hope for a restoration of a fascist regime.
And it would be shortly after the passage of the new constitution in which the Final Settlement was settled.
On October 12th, 1990, representatives from the varying nations of Eastern Europe gathered to establish the new order of a new era. For the previous 50 years, the continent had been dominated by the Nazi Regime, controlling and totalitarian like no government has been before. Considered by most scholars to be a state founded upon crimes against the state and against humanity, it is widely believed to have committed numerous atrocities against numerous population groups throughout the entirety of its history, and its insidious ideology sought to envelop the entire world in shadow. However, through economic and social collapse, a wave of reform and revolution paved the way for a new era. Perhaps a brighter era. And in Stockholm, the newly established German state agreed to a division of its former territories and the establishment and recognition of new states; an agreement which would have been impossible just five years earlier.
The Final Settlement therein recognised the full independence of Ostland (or the Baltic Federation), the Kaukasus (recognised as Caucasia in English), and Ukraine. Gothland would be recognised as an autonomous region of Germany under the provisional governance of Franz Josef Gröhe, a former SS officer and Nazi functionary who was elected Gothland's governor in the 1989 elections.
Norway was to become an 'autonomous region' with an independence referendum to be held within a year of the Settlement coming into effect (January 1st, 1991). Russia would be granted nominal independence and would be granted the right to hold a referendum (within a year of the Settlement coming into effect) which would decide whether the state would join the maintain independence or join the Soviet Union; Kreibel having been convinced of the inevitability of such a move and the stability of the new border states. Additionally, the USSR would be permitted to occupy the Ural Line within two years of the Settlement coming into effect, and would have to pay the entire cost of repatriating those remaining German soldiers who now only nominally watched over the once imposing defensive assemblage, as well as the return of the equipment and infrastructure within the military border zone.
So, it would be November 1st, 1990 in which the new German state would arise from the ashes of the old Greater Germanic Reich; the old-new flag being raised over the blood-stained banner of the Nazi Regime. Throughout the history of the Cold War, from Switzerland, to Argentina, to Vietnam, to Iran, Germany had imposed its strong will upon the world in struggle to the death with the United States. Through ideology, it sought (and often fought) to establish a 'pure Aryan world' which it imagined it would ultimately lead; and it was through ideology that drove it to strive to that end, no matter what the means were. Violence, death, fear, want; all things which were almost customary under the Nazi Regime, and the 'racial strength' it attempted to projected into the world would ultimately crumble under the weight of the immoral and totalitarian system it helped create, and it would only be after the collapse of the Fascist Bloc in which the true extent of their crimes would be revealed to the world.
The World - 1/1/1991
President Daniel Bremer once remarked in the December of 1990 on the developments in Europe following the Summertime of Nations and the swift collapse of the Fascist Bloc;
Only time would tell if that was true.
So, whilst I've adopted some aspects of from the world of AVROE, I have nevertheless moulded it over the two years it has been worked upon into a more unique, and hopefully more plausible, spiritual successor to Kaiser K's original timeline. I shall start at the end, but I will over time expand on the nature and history of the world and all that entails. With that said...
END OF HISTORY
THE WORLD AFTER AN AXIS COLD WAR
THE WORLD AFTER AN AXIS COLD WAR
PROLOGUE:
THE FALL OF NAZI GERMANY
THE FALL OF NAZI GERMANY
The collapse of Nazi Germany and its vast, sprawling empire came as a shock to most when it fell over the Summer of 1989. A colossal monument to some of man's most insidious ideologies - totalitarianism, scientific racism, and rampant militancy - the Greater Germanic Reich stood for over 40 years in continued opposition to the United States-led Western Bloc in a prolonged, sometimes sanguinary struggle known as the Cold War. Together with its allies in the Potsdam Pact and beyond, the Nazi Regime led the charge of Fascism against the growing power of Western Democracy in the fields of ideology, diplomacy, science, and warfare, and over the course of this grapple for existence the world came the closest it ever has to absolute destruction. From Argentina to Vietnam to Cyprus to India, crises and war enveloped the world whole as no nation could escape the influences of this conflict. For 40 years democracy and fascism were locked in this 'Cold War', and to those living amidst the chaos of those changing times, it appeared that the conflict would continue being fought till the end of time.
Until it no longer did.
Beginning in the 1970s, economic contractions began to erode away at the economies of the Fascist Bloc. Underground demand for social, economic, and even political change was growing, and the price the fascist world faced in maintaining the totalitarian systems which kept it afloat was becoming dear. Across the world, men and women began to finally comprehend the true and horrifying extent of what fascist states were doing within their sphere, and the supporters outside those ostensibly mighty states began to wane with every coming year. The German Army, a force which brought half the world to heel and inspired fear in the other half, had become exhausted and disgraced in the wake of the German-Iranian War, and many fascist states were growing to realise the true costs of maintaining their empires.
The World - 1/1/1980
By the early-1980s, whilst ostensibly still strong, significant discontent was brewing underneath the surface of the Third Reich. Whilst the American public was largely unaware of any change in the social-political life of Germany, many who lived under the totalitarian system began to recognise that the support for the Nazi Regime was no longer the force it had been under Germany's almost divinely revered first Führer, Adolf Hitler. Rather, the growing difficulties in maintaining an overextended empire which stretched from the Atlantic to the Urals had become plain, and within both Germany-proper and the colonial Reichskommissariats, outright revolt could no longer be considered a distant fantasy. The pressures of an ideology that could no longer stand were now clear, and the Third Reich, together with the remainder of the Fascist Bloc, began almost to call for a leader to revitalise the decay; to lift the system again to its heights of the 1950s. They called out for a second Adolf Hitler.
Who they got was Achim Kreibel.
The new Führer was a reform fascist, a proactive, ambitious man who initially caught the eye of Führer Speer in 1972 and had before the age of 40 became the Deputy to Führer Koch, all before he was elevated to the leadership of Nazi Germany in 1985 at the age of 42. Kreibel's attempted reforms were rushed amidst the growing dissatisfaction with governments within the Fascist Bloc, as well as the deteriorating state of the Third Reich's economy, fuelled in part by the inability of the state to pay for the extensive public works programs which employed up to 10% of the population. The Reichsmark was collapsing wholesale, and across the Atlantic, the United States had by the late-1980s gained a considerable financial and military lead over their ideological foe; America boasting an economy twice as Germany. As a result, Kreibel sought to decentralise the bloated state apparatus to local administrative regions (Reichsgau), forcibly integrate all remaining non-Aryans in the Reichskommissariats into the Volksgemeinschaft, or 'people's community', as well as open up the economies of the Fascist Bloc to international finance.
All Kreibel's proposals were anathema to the substantial conservative faction within the NSDAP, led by Minister of Justice Wilhelm Shulz, and despite the presupposed 'total authority' the Führer maintained over Party and State, the conservatives were nevertheless able to push back several of Kreibel's suggestions despite his insistence on the urgency of reform. Whilst many would overlook the rehabilitation of political dissidents and the removal of market controls (the latter action bringing negligible change to Germany due to the continuing American boycott of German goods), it would be Kreibel's 'Eastern Emancipation' of Germany's non-Aryans which would bring about the collapse of his first government.
Führer Achim Kreibel - 1988
The decision to extend citizenship to those non-Aryans who had not yet been integrated into the state (or removed from serfdom) had provided Shulz the opportunity to rally opponents of the Führer, and in May 1988, a month after issuing the Eastern Emancipation, Kreibel was forcibly removed from office by the Reichstag (an illegal act under the Organic Laws of 1949), and placed under house arrest by his successor; Shulz's erstwhile moderate ally, Karl-Adolf Fisch.
The removal of Kreibel sparked a wave of massive anti-Nazi and pro-reform protest across the Third Reich, the largest and most public since the 1952 Uprisings. Throughout 1988, attempts to disperse the crowds through violence failed as the economy spiralled and those indignant with the decrepit and antiquated fascist system moved out onto the streets demanding Kreibel's restoration. Amidst this, the new administration in Germany had been readily receiving denunciations from both within the NSDAP (particularly from moderates and reformists) and foreign governments, especially those in the Western Bloc. Perhaps the most vocal of these critics was American President Bob Taft who had vocally supported Kreibel's overtures towards peace and reform, and in response to his removal renewed the US-led anti-fascist boycott. As a result, Führer Fisch moved to pass his own measure of reforms, though as 1988 turned to 1989, the situation devolved further as protesters massed and were fired upon.
Final attempts to definitively disperse protesters in Berlin, Kiew, Munich, and Vienna resulted in a massacre of those present in each city; an estimated 55 to 300 people dying as violence flared almost daily. Moving to reassert his control over the nation, Führer Fisch reconfirmed martial law (in place since May 1988) whilst removing from office numerous conservative NSDAP functionaries who opposed his even minor moves towards reform. As a result, Fisch moved forward on developing a new system which could have propped-up the fast deteriorating Fascist Bloc, promising an expanded (though still restrained) freedom and speech and movement, devolved government, a system of voting for individual Nazi Party members to the Reichstag, amongst other reform provisions. These proposals went beyond any which had been brought forth by Kreibel, though they still were still purely a means to retrench rule of the Nazi Regime. As a result, violent protests continued even after Fisch and the Reichstag passed the so-called 'Spring Laws'.
The result was a putsch.
Prompted by what they viewed as the decisive law which would dismantle the society and structure of the Third Reich, a conspiracy of conservative NSDAP members and high-ranking generals led by a diarchy of Wilhelm Shulz and General Gerhard Schilling surrounded the Reichstag whilst it was in session and besieged those inside, including Führer Fisch on May 1st, 1989. Over the course of the following five days, defenders at the Reichstag joined together with members of the public in defending the government against the reactionary coup attempt; the putschist army seizing control of most government buildings in Berlin before the 3rd. However, on that same day, Achim Kreibel was released from house arrest by anti-coup military officers who would support him in rallying the public and army against the putschists. Over the course of May 4th, Kreibel would broadcast several radio messages throughout Berlin asking the public to push back against Shulz and Schilling, claiming "the future existence of the German Race is dependant on our actions here today"; and after an estimated million Germans moved into the besieged streets of Berlin, several pro-coup officers broke ranks in favour of Kreibel. The following day, the Siege of the Reichstag was relieved, Shulz committed suicide, and Schilling alongside other high ranking officers were imprisoned, later executed.
German Tanks During The Putsch - 1989
Now with the support of the military in Berlin, the newly released Kreibel presented a movement before the liberated Reichstag requesting that he firstly be restored to his 'legal position' as Führer and Reichskanzler, and secondly that the German legislature implement the full measure of Karl-Adolf Fisch's Spring Laws. Fisch, knowing his precarious position in the face of the now wildly popular Kreibel, resigned, and on May 9th the former Führer was reinstated.
The result of the 'May Putsch' was as dramatic as it was immediate. Across Europe, pro-democracy, pro-reform, and anti-fascist protests sprung to life fuelled by the ostensible success of what would come to be known as the 'people's revolution' in Germany which had opposed the conservative plotters. It was the so-called 'Summertime of Nations' in which the totalitarian regimes which lingered for over half a century collapsed in just a few months. First Portugal, then Spain, then Italy, France, and Croatia; the governments of all fascist nations within Europe collapsing under the weight of popular protest and revolution.
Within Germany, the restored Führer moved fast in an attempt to stifle any form of similar popular uprising which could result in the wholesale collapse of Germany into either civil war or socialism (as what appeared shortly after Portugal's June Revolution). Moving forward to implement the Spring Laws, Kreibel pushed for a 'Fourth Reich' which would take a confederal form; a union between a federal Germany-proper and the four unitary Reichskommissariats (now theoretically dominated by emancipated non-Aryans), with full voting rights restored for the first time in almost 60 years. In July, in a decisive break from the previous regime, Kreibel finally moved to eliminate the NSDAP monopoly on power, the party mortally wounded by the events of the previous year. Announcing his own status as an 'independent member of the German Worker's Party', Kreibel further established that multi-party (though regulated) elections would be held in November for a new Reichstag, as well as the local Reichskommissariat governments.
To further this cause in weakening the NSDAP and fascist system to which he had lost faith, Kreibel provisionally opened selected archives detailing the history and government of the Greater Germanic Reich. Detailing numerous Nazi Regime attempts to rewrite history and cover-up the failings and crimes of the German State during the Cold War, the move was well received abroad, with Kreibel being hailed as a hero of liberties, whilst internally the move shook the nation to its core and led to outrage against the almost universally despised NSDAP. The foundation of the Third Reich and its founders had not been as peaceful or restorative as once though; the deified Hitler's internal documents being released to be publicly scrutinised, the Nazi Party's crimes and failings open for the world to see.
However, an unintended effect of the Führer's reforms was the gradual reemergence of nationalism in the Reichskommissariats, long buried by the weight of German fascism, strict social controls, and ideological fanaticism. Ukrainian and Russian nationalism especially, aspects of which survived the incomplete Germanisation process, had been an underground force which grew throughout the 1980s and exploded following the Eastern Emancipation, and even in other eastern territories, the German elite had developed their own sense of 'local nationalism' dependant on which Reichskommissariat they resided in. Germanised or partially-Germanised locals in those regions held some ties to their local government was well, and not the distant, seemingly-decaying Berlin. Of all the factors leading to the collapse of the Third Reich, it has been argued that this was perhaps the most damaging.
The elections of November 1989 were held on three levels;
1. For the national Reichstag;
2. For the the councils of Germany's 110 Reichsgau, and;
3. For the newly established Reichskommissariat administrative councils.
For the Reichstag, the Nazi Party, heavily damaged from the economic contractions of the 1980s and their association with poor governance resulted in them coming third in the overall tally, though vote rigging and electoral violence in favour of Kreibel's Independent German Workers' Party (UDAP) which came first with a majority of seats both in the Reichstag and amongst the Reichsgau. The Party of the German People, founded by the centre-right reformer Hans Luitpold who had tacitly supported Kreibel and his efforts to "democratise and dignify the Reich".
However, in the eastern territories, political upheaval had been continuing unabated as old and new nationalisms flared. Violence was common throughout the Reichskommissariats, particularly in Reichskommissariat Moskowien where the German leadership outright destroyed ballot boxes and refused voting rights for local Russians, even those which had been tentatively Germanised during the Speer Era. In Ukraine, Aryanised and non-Aryanised Ukrainians (together with other emancipated Slavs) successfully joined together in some jurisdictions in opposing attempts by German elites to limit their democracy, and together with Reichskommissariat Kaukasus, they elected pro-autonomy parties onto the administrative councils, in lieu of pro-independence parties (which had been explicitly banned).
The results of the elections resulted in upheaval in Germany's east, with remaining fascist functionaries joining with anti-autonomy unionists in opposing the assumption of power by the elected autonomists. Riots soon broke out, the most violent in Moskowien and Ukraine where Aryan Germans proved to be a minority; attacks against Germanised Slavs being supported by garrisoned military forces who killed an estimated 500 to 1,000 Russians and Ukrainians in the final months of 1989. In response, the Provisional Reichskommissar of Ukraine, Georg Saevecke (half-German, half-Ukrainian), raised a militia of largely-Aryanised Ukrainians in mid-November to forcibly install the elected councillors in the largely-German city of Kiew; the city's leaders requesting support from Berlin to remove the Saevecke from power and prevent an autonomist takeover.
German Tanks And Ukrainian Voters - 1989
The Führer, by now, had grown weary of forcefully imposing the laws of the Reich over the eastern territories, and instead sought to diffuse the situation through diplomacy, and over the course of three days Kreibel ostensibly attempted to reach an accord between the parties in Ukraine. However, unbeknownst to the German leadership in the Reichskommissariat at the time, Kreibel had following the election almost entirely written off the east, instead favouring back channel communications with Saevecke who he saw as instrumental in "divorcing the eastern mire from Germany-proper". The Führer no longer believed that it would be necessary to maintain a foothold over eastern territories, and any form of intervention would be as costly as it was bloody. As a result, a deal was reached between Berlin and the autonomists.
On November 21st, Achim Kreibel pronounced over all Germany's broadcasting channels the so-called 'renouncement speech' in which he, on behalf of the German Reich, renounced all forms of absolute tyranny, violence, and political totalitarianism; the speech shocking many around the world - most especially the newly elected American President Daniel Bremer - due to its frank denunciation of the former methods of control exerted by fascist regimes not just in Germany, but throughout Europe. In response to Kreibel's message, Georg Saevecke moved to install Ukraine's administrative council, and five days later, the region declared independence from the Greater Germanic Reich.
The boldness of Saevecke's declaration astonished and captivated the world in equal measure when it occured November 26th, 1989. Whilst many international observers expected some form of military retaliation from Kreibel's government, none, it seemed, was forthcoming. The Führer himself readily denounced the declaration openly when it was received, however, behind closed doors he was perhaps most relieved. The citizens of the Reich which lived in Germany-proper, whilst dismayed at sight of 'Germany's breadbasket' declaring independence, were nevertheless dismissive of the Eastern German's cries for intervention owing to the cratered economic situation and the years of anti-fascist insurgent violence which preoccupied Reich forces in the eastern territories. Now, the majority of those forces would be requested to stand down, effectively handing over authority to George Saevecke (who would go onto adopt the Ukrainian name Igor Sawczak by the end of the year).
The floodgates, it seemed, had burst open. In Reichskommissariat Kaukasus, local officials elected to the administrative councils declared effective autonomy from Berlin on December 1st, before declaring full independence on December 10th when Kreibel announced that he would negotiate away the future of Germany's eastern territories. On December 12th, Gothland - the only German-majority Reich territory outside of Reichskommissariat Ostland - declared formal autonomy as German refugees poured over the border as Sawczak solidified his hold over the Ukraine. A day later, Moskowien, dominated by its German minority, delivered a request to be fully integrated into the German Reich, prompting mass violence and protests by Slavic peoples and several attacks by anti-fascist insurgents. On December 18th, Ostland declared autonomy with a wave of support from both Aryan Germans and Aryanised non-Germans.
By 1990, the Third Reich was in territorial free fall, the growing crisis in Eastern Europe prompting several German military regiments in the region to break ranks in an effort to 'defend German blood' by establishing defensive lines around majority German population centres and attacking anyone which they considered to be an insurgent. With nuclear weapons stationed at numerous bases in Reichskommissariats, Achim Kreibel was growing pressured to intervene to ensure the situation would not spiral into conflict; neither internal nor external. As a result, the Führer moved to establish a definitive accord with its former eastern territories regarding the rights of Germans in the region, their migration back to Germany-proper, and the declaration of the region. Announcing that the process would begin in March of 1990, the move set the stage for the final act of the Third Reich's collapse.
The World - 1/1/1990
Perhaps the final nail in the coffin for the mortally wounded Greater Germanic Reich began just days before the Final Settlement negotiation were set to begin. As established by documents released by the German Government, interior minister Josef Anders came to his Führer on March 22nd bringing telephone transcripts of conversations between several high ranking colonels which detailed a conspiracy to assassinate Kreibel, reinstall the NSDAP, and commit to a military campaign to retake the eastern territories. Supposedly delivered by a defector from this cabal of colonels, Kreibel used the transcripts, true or not, as justification to 'scour' the military's upper echelons. With their faces printed in the state-owned newspapers and their names denounced over the air, seventeen military and political leaders whom the German leader felt were to sympathetic to the Nazi Regime were purged from their positions arrested in a string of raids; the NSDAP itself being officially banned by the Führer on March 30th with its final leader, Joachim Hofer, being arrested the same day.
The result of the so-called 'colonel's putsch' was the further disintegration of the Greater Germanic Reich as a political entity. Whilst many foreign nations and individuals within Germany praised Kreibel for how he dealt with the supposed plot leaders and liquidated the Nazi Party, many still had grown wary of their Führer and his authoritarian actions and limited rights reforms. Many political prisoners were still locked away, freedom of speech was restricted, and the press had failed to become transparent to any great degree since Kreibel returned to power. As a result, over the months that followed, political discourse in many Reichskommissariats moved away from autonomy within a Greater Germany, and towards independence from the all seeing eye of Berlin.
One-by-one, the eastern territories of the former Nazi Empire declared independence. First was Reichskommissariat Kaukasus which formally declared independence on March 28th and began drafting what is considered to be one of the most liberal post-fascist constitutions in Eastern Europe. In the two Reichsgau councils which embraced the former Kingdom of Norway, discussion between the two which had begun in late-1989 culminated on April 2nd when the two Gauleiters declared their intention of reestablishing the Norwegian state, and sought approval from Berlin to this end. Moskowien followed shortly thereafter, the flight of thousands of German settlers and administrators over the preceding months as a result of increased insurgent attacks and the lack of state intervention prompting the local Slavic majority to assert their power and seize the state apparatus a week before declaring independence on April 11th; George Koshin being declared Provisional President the same day.
Fear amongst Germany's soldiers stationed at the defensive Ural Line surged after this, with many believing that they would be stranded, without a state, surrounded by vengeful Slavic republics; Russia in the west, the Soviet Union in the east. As a result, Achim Kreibel sought to establish a perpetual frontier buffer zone with any 'purely Slavic state' (i.e. Russia). To this end, he included in the Final Settlement negotiations an open provision for Soviet involvement over the nature of post-Nazi borders, including the hated Ural Line. In early-May, the Führer again extended an fig leaf out to the Provisional State of Norway, though not to the growing Danish independence movement which was growing, though not as strong as in the more homogeneous Norway.
For Kreibel, the ultimate goal of negotiations (which had by mid-1990 centred around Stockholm) was focused on the long term viability of the new German state and the stability of its former eastern territories. Initially unwilling to involve foreign powers in the negotiations outside of those designated within the 'Eastern Europe Protocol', Sweden, a longtime satellite of Germany mediated the Settlement during its first months. However, American President Daniel Bremer was quick to establish some form of influence over the proceedings through his ambassador to Sweden, Philip Noakes.
Agreeing that the stability of post-fascist Eastern Europe was the primary goal of the Settlement, Bremer advanced through Noakes the goal to establish whether Kreibel would accept a buffer region composed of an autonomous Ostland and Gothland and an independent Ukraine, together with an independent Kaukasus, independent Norway, and a Russia with an option of joining the Soviet Union as a separate republic. Kreibel refused this, believing that any advance of the Soviets westward would place Germany under a direct threat of attack. This would continue throughout the summer of 1990, as hundreds of thousands of Germans marched westward toward Germany-proper and Europe began to stabilise following the collapse of the Fascist Bloc, tense negotiation loomed large over the corpse of the Nazi Regime.
In addition the international negotiations, internal negotiations within Germany were occurring at the same time as those of the Final Settlement. The Führer believed that by mid-1990 the collapse of the Greater German experiment was a result of the overly centralised, unitary, totalitarian state; Kreibel believing that even the smaller, yet densely populated Germany-proper being in need to 'federalisation'. As a result, Kreibel dictated to the President of the Reichstag and close ally, Martin Heisig, that a new constitution which would replace the Organic Law of 1949 and would establish what Kreibel viewed as the "modern state"; a semi-presidential, federal, and constitutional state. Work continued on this document throughout the majority of the year, with most of the Reichstag in favour of the government's structural provisions. However, many reformists found Kreibel's articles related to freedoms and liberties to be lacking, or too vague, and proposed stronger constitutional protections for the 'innate liberties' so as to prevent Germany from going down a road similar to that of the Nazis.
These proposals were struck down, and on September 1st, 1990, the new constitution was passed in the Reichstag, with the date set for constitutional transitional to begin on November 1st, 1990 and end New Years, 1991. Territorial borders established within the constitution were left intentionally vague pending the outcome of the Final Settlement, and the name of the country was restored to simply 'Germany' to avoid rousing anti-republican and pro-fascist sentiment. Additionally, the national flag was reestablished to that which was discarded in 1935; the black-white-red banner which proved to be the least offensive option out those 13 brought before the Reichstag. Nevertheless, despite the indistinct and often vague nature of the document, many Germans welcomed the news of the constitution - the legal status of the state finally reestablished after the chaos of the preceding years - though many still disregarded it, still holding out hope for a restoration of a fascist regime.
And it would be shortly after the passage of the new constitution in which the Final Settlement was settled.
On October 12th, 1990, representatives from the varying nations of Eastern Europe gathered to establish the new order of a new era. For the previous 50 years, the continent had been dominated by the Nazi Regime, controlling and totalitarian like no government has been before. Considered by most scholars to be a state founded upon crimes against the state and against humanity, it is widely believed to have committed numerous atrocities against numerous population groups throughout the entirety of its history, and its insidious ideology sought to envelop the entire world in shadow. However, through economic and social collapse, a wave of reform and revolution paved the way for a new era. Perhaps a brighter era. And in Stockholm, the newly established German state agreed to a division of its former territories and the establishment and recognition of new states; an agreement which would have been impossible just five years earlier.
The Final Settlement therein recognised the full independence of Ostland (or the Baltic Federation), the Kaukasus (recognised as Caucasia in English), and Ukraine. Gothland would be recognised as an autonomous region of Germany under the provisional governance of Franz Josef Gröhe, a former SS officer and Nazi functionary who was elected Gothland's governor in the 1989 elections.
Norway was to become an 'autonomous region' with an independence referendum to be held within a year of the Settlement coming into effect (January 1st, 1991). Russia would be granted nominal independence and would be granted the right to hold a referendum (within a year of the Settlement coming into effect) which would decide whether the state would join the maintain independence or join the Soviet Union; Kreibel having been convinced of the inevitability of such a move and the stability of the new border states. Additionally, the USSR would be permitted to occupy the Ural Line within two years of the Settlement coming into effect, and would have to pay the entire cost of repatriating those remaining German soldiers who now only nominally watched over the once imposing defensive assemblage, as well as the return of the equipment and infrastructure within the military border zone.
So, it would be November 1st, 1990 in which the new German state would arise from the ashes of the old Greater Germanic Reich; the old-new flag being raised over the blood-stained banner of the Nazi Regime. Throughout the history of the Cold War, from Switzerland, to Argentina, to Vietnam, to Iran, Germany had imposed its strong will upon the world in struggle to the death with the United States. Through ideology, it sought (and often fought) to establish a 'pure Aryan world' which it imagined it would ultimately lead; and it was through ideology that drove it to strive to that end, no matter what the means were. Violence, death, fear, want; all things which were almost customary under the Nazi Regime, and the 'racial strength' it attempted to projected into the world would ultimately crumble under the weight of the immoral and totalitarian system it helped create, and it would only be after the collapse of the Fascist Bloc in which the true extent of their crimes would be revealed to the world.
The World - 1/1/1991
President Daniel Bremer once remarked in the December of 1990 on the developments in Europe following the Summertime of Nations and the swift collapse of the Fascist Bloc;
"Never before in the history of the world has such change been witness in such short time. It has not been since the Fall of 1918 that the natural, innate desires of liberty and democracy been expressed in Europe by so many on such a scale. It is if we are exiting the midnight of fifty years and have finally breached the dawn."
Only time would tell if that was true.
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