As Hitler paraded through the heart of Berlin, cheered by millions of hysterical Germans, he worried.
Increasingly paranoid, he was certain that the Western monopoly on the atomic bomb would be taken advantage of. In a speech he mused that Berlin could be incinerated by a single bomber while Germany “lay helpless.” As far as the average German was concerned, the Third Reich was the greatest empire and superpower on the planet. They were entitled to the secrets of nuclear power too. But the country faced numerous commitments on its finances. The ambitious infrastructure plan for Poland and the other occupied territories would, the Germans hoped, pay for itself. The mass slaughter of the inhabitants was being slowed solely for lack of logistics. Many were instead forced into a lucrative form of serfdom. But fighting against partisans had begun to pick up. Field Marshal Walter Model, one of Hitler’s favourite commanders, was killed in Kiev when a group of insurgents stormed his command centre. Hitler personally ordered that two civilians be hung from every lamppost in the city, and on every street for one mile outside the city confines, as retribution. The death of Model compelled the Reich to deploy more forces to the most troubled regions of the former Soviet Union. In some places the fighting was merciless between both sides. One brand new settlement near Stalingrad, with a population of around 400 ethnic Germans, was wiped out in one attack. Whole towns would be burned down in response, with the preferred method being the trapping of civilians inside, and then the hanging of their charcoaled corpses throughout the streets.
In the Eastern Provinces, the official German term for everything east of the Polish border, there was an additional problem. Both the military and foreign ministry had raised the alarm that Western troops might deploy into unoccupied Siberia, able to surround Germany on two fronts. “Unless we have men standing guard in Vladivostok, Germany is not safe,” one official wrote. Hitler agreed. German troops hadn’t moved any further east than around Moscow since the war’s end. The rump Soviet state remained, utterly devastated economically and politically, but this only meant it would be easy for American or British forces to station themselves. And so in early 1947, Germany extended an “offer” to the Soviets. However, it was not so much an offer as it was a threat. Forbid the stationing of non-German foreign troops on your soil, and allow German forces unrestricted access to the rest of Soviet territory. In return, their full sovereignty would be guaranteed. Vyacheslav Molotov, the so-called leader of this warring mess one could possibly describe as a country, knew he wasn’t being given a choice. In the Kremlin, which Hitler had taken a liking to, the treaty was signed as German troops stood guard atop its ancient battlements. Hitler would adapt the design of the Kremlin for his Welthauptstadt Germania, the plans for the transformation of Berlin, creating gigantic fortress-like walls around the city.
With German troops beginning to scatter across what remained of the Soviet Union, the Western Powers found themselves frightened. Few seriously doubted that this was the first step towards a gradual absorption and annexation of the entirety of Russia. It fell to them to devise a firm response. On March 14th, 1947 two squads of American marines made landfall at Beringovsky, on the Bering coast, just a few hundred miles from Alaska. Washington was deeply concerned that the Germans might begin constructing launch pads for bombers within range of Alaska. They dared not deploy reconnaissance aircraft lest it provoke attack, and so the marines were sent instead. Unarmed, they watched as truckloads of equipment aboard lorries bearing the Iron Cross rolled down the unpaved roads. It soon became clear what was happening. Up and down the Bering coast, the Germans were crafting fortifications. Anti-aircraft batteries, coastal guns, tank traps, and minefields. They were building a wall to ensure the Americans could not enter. Similar scenes were happening on the other Russian borders. In Iran, British air patrols over the Caspian Sea reported that Soviet ships of the Caspian Flotilla had lowered the hammer and sickle and were now flying the swastika, while German-speakers began manning the borders at Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. The three million men still in the uniform of the Red Army found German “advisors” marching through their ranks, observing their training, and personally picking out the best, brightest, and “most Aryan” to be moved from the Motherland to the Fatherland. Slowly but surely, regardless of any treaty signed with Molotov, Germany was quietly annexing all of Russia. Throughout 1947, this only became clearer and clearer. The Molotov government was being reduced, one decree at a time, to a puppet government. New extermination camps were appearing in deepest Siberia, including the infamous Aichal in Yakutia. Amid the panic which gripped all Russia, as more Germans seemed to appear in the towns every day, millions more fled. No-one knows how many died in the chaos.
As Russia began to vanish, though such an ambitious endeavor would take time, the West responded. On May 1, 1947 the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland signed the North Atlantic Treaty, creating the NATO alliance. Within three months, Germany would renew her own alliances. Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary sent their respective dictators to Berlin to sign the Black Alliance, so-called for the uniforms of many of the fascists present. The alliance named all members as equal partners, but there was no real doubt about who was in charge. Some in the West made fun of it for sounding more like an affiliation of pirates. It was a more adept comparison than many may have realised.
So it was that the world happily carved itself up once more. On one side, liberal democracy. On the other, totalitarian evil. “Our empire will stand for a thousand years,” Hitler declared following the ratification of the Black Alliance. “And if outsiders wish to threaten us, our response shall never consist of mercy. They deserve no better.”