Part Four: The Second West Russian War (1972-1976)
ROA soldiers advancing through RK Moskowein, 1975.
In 1972, the Russian Republic was an almost completely re-unified nation, save for the lands that were once the heart of the Russian nation that were under the rule of the Greater Germanic Reich led by Martin Bormann and under the German colony of RK Moskowein, led by Reichskommissar Albert Hofmann. Almost immediately after what came be to known as the “First Russian Re-Unification” President and General Bunyachenko and the high command of the Russian Liberation Army began to make new plans for the final war for Russian Re-Unification, this being a war with the German Reich over RK Moskowein. In the minds of Bunyachenko and the ROA high command, this would be the war that would not only unify Russia and restore Russia to greatness once and for all, but the war that would redeem the KONR and the ROA, the rulers of the Russian Republic for their past-collaboration with the German Reich, a regime that the government of the Russian Republic now despised for their betrayal at the end of the West Russian War, their refusal to grant Western Russia self-rule and their re-conquest of Western Russia in 1967.ROA soldiers advancing through RK Moskowein, 1975.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the world, Führer Martin Bormann was diagnosed with a fatal case of cancer in December, 1972. With so many high-ranking members of the Nazi Party either dead and/or purged and with many economic problems, the German Reich was incredibly unstable politically, economically and socially. As a result, at the start of 1973, Bormann secretly named Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor and decided to declare a new war to distract the people of Germany from economic and social ills. That war would be the results of Fall Schwartz, the Burgundian War, which was being planned with the military of the German-aligned French State led by President Pierre Poujade. The war began on April 8, 1973 and, with high militarization of fanaticism of the SS armies, was one of the most brutal fought in Western Europe. Himmler desired to launch the Burgundian nuclear arsenal, but the French, Walloon and Flemish SS legions rose up in revolt, and Himmler was killed in an SS coup led by SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny . On January 8, 1974, the war came to an end, with Burgundy divided between Germany and France, with Belgium becoming Reichsprotektorat Belgium.
With the start of 1974, the perfect opportunity arose for the Russian Republic, the KONR and the ROA to get revenge on the German Reich for their lies and betrayal. On March 30, 1974, Führer Martin Bormann died of cancer in Germania at the age of 73 years old. With the death of Bormann, Admiral Karl Dönitz became interim-Führer of the Greater Germanic Reich. However, the internal situation of the German Reich was incredibly still incredibly unstable, and many in the government felt that the Reich was seemingly on the brink of collapse when the octogenarian admiral came to power. In the aftermath of the Burgundian War and the ascension of Karl Donitz, with the German army exhausted from their previous war and the German Reich in an unstable period of a transition of leadership, President Bunyachenko ordered an all-out attack against RK Moskowien on the morning of May 30, 1974. The Second West Russian War had begun. At the start of the invasion, the German armies in RK Moskowien were caught almost completely off-guard, but still managed to initially hold their defenses against the armies of the ROA. Nevertheless, in the face of a numerically superior Russian onslaught, the German armies began to fall apart and retreat in the face of the multiple Russian advances, and the ROA made numerous breakthroughs in battles along the Russo-German border. By the end of the summer, the ROA has advanced deep into the territory of RK Moskowien.
The climactic battle of the war was the Battle of Moscow, which began on July 29, 1974 with a lengthy artillery barrage and tank siege opening the battle, followed by an aerial bombardment the next day. The German armies in and around Moscow fought fanatically to the death, but the armies of the ROA continued to strategically advance in and around the former Soviet capital. On November 14, with the ROA finally entering more and more parts of Moscow and with the German armies losing more and more engagements, the government of the RK, led by Wehrmacht general and Reichskomissar Walther Wenck, who became leader of the RK after the death of Albert Hoffmann in 1973, fled to Brauchitstadt, formerly St. Petersburg. One day later, the ROA triumphantly entered Moscow to the celebration of the long-oppressed Russian residents of the city, with the remaining German residents of the city being the victims of vigilante murders by Russian nationalist partisans and ROA soldiers eager to prove they were no longer German collaborators at any cost.
Not long after the fall of Moscow, more and more major cities fell to the armies of the ROA, with many smaller towns in the countryside falling under the control of the pro-Russian partisans. All the while, many German settlers fled, with those not did not often being killed by Russian soldiers and partisans in war crimes known as "revenge killings", which were seen as revenge for the crimes of the Nazi Germans against the Russian nation, the motivations for these murders being the sheer anger Russians felt towards the Germans and, as touched upon above, the feeling that ROA soldiers needed to prove they were no longer collaborators with the hated German Reich. By July 1, 1975, over a year after the start of the war, most of RK Moskowien was under the occupation of the Russian Republic and the ROA began its invasion of RK Kaukasus. One major Russian city was still under German control; Brauchistadt, formerly Leningrad, Petrograd and St. Petersburg.
On July 12, 1975, the ROA encircled the aforementioned city with numerous infantry, armored and artillery divisions. That same day, the Battle of Brauchistadt began with a massive aerial and artillery bombardment. On September 4, 1975, the ROA finally entered the city and fought fierce hand-to-hand street battles against the German armies, with many German residents of the city caught in the fighting. After weeks of brutal fighting, with the German armies surrounded and decimated by the armies of the ROA, Reichskommissar and General der Panzertruppe Walther Wenck surrendered the German armies in Mosokwien the government of RK Mosokwien to Feild Marshall Georgy Nikolayevich Zhilenkov. With that, the armies of the paraded through the streets of the newly christened city of "Petrograd", with the long-suffering Russian residents of the city greeting the ROA as liberators, and with numerous unpunished acts of violence against the remaining German population. That same day, on the orders of President Bunyachenko, RK Moskowein was annexed into the Russian Republic, albeit without the recognition of the Greater German Reich, which due to political instability at home was unable to do much about the war in RK Moskowien, with most of the German armies in the RK being divisions that had already been posted to the German colony. Thus, the final phase of the Russian reunification and the “Second Russian Re-Unification” were finally complete, although armed groups of German settlers, mostly in the Volga region, continued to resist the ROA until the end of the war.
In October, 1975, with RK Moskowien under the control of the Russian Republic, the ROA began new invasions of RK Ukraine and RK Ostland. The ROA also continued to advance through the Caucasus and began a bombardment and invasion of the German Crimea. With all of this occurring in the eastern lands of the Greater German Reich and with interim-Führer Dönitz unable to keep peace in Germany proper and to stop the advance of the Russian armies, on November 11, 1975, General Hans Speidel launched a coup against the German government, arresting Admiral Donitz for “gross incompetence in wartime.” In the weeks after the coup, soldiers loyal to Dönitz and Speidel fought in the streets of Germania, and this led to more confusion in the eastern German colonies, which allowed the ROA to advance further and further into the Caucasus, Ukraine and Ostland. With the continuing advance of the Russian Liberation Army, an uprising of Polish militias began in the General Gouvernemnt of Poland, and similar uprisings took place in the Baltic region.
After weeks of chaos, Speidel’s loyalists secured control of Germania by the start of 1976. With the Speidel Coup finally complete, Germany offered talks with the government of the Russian Republic that January. At first, President Bunyachenko refused. This allowed the ROA to advance further into the Caucasus, Ukraine and Ostland, and Crimea fell to the ROA on April 30, 1976. The next month, the ROA had control over most of the Caucasus and Ukraine and most of Belarus. With the German Wehrmacht firmly under the control of Speidel's loyalists, a number of victories were won against the ROA in Ukraine and Ostland. However, soon afterwards the war degenerated into a stalemate between the German and Russian armies in the Baltics, Ukraine and Poland, and with the Polish Uprising and more instability on the home front, the German armies could not afford to fight with Russia for any longer. The armies of the ROA were also becoming worn down and tired. As a result, on August 3, 1976, a ceasefire was accepted by the two armies in Minsk. It was decided by Bunyachenko and Speidel that the two would meet in a neutral city to decide the final terms for the end of the war.
In September, President Bunyachenko and Führer Speidel meet in Stockholm, Sweden to discuss the final peace treaty for the Second West Russian War. The Treaty of Stockholm was finally signed on October 1, 1976. According to the treaty, the Russian Republic would annex RK Moskowien, RK Caucasus, RK Ukraine, the Crimea and Belarus. The Greater German Reich would retain control of the Baltics within RK Ostland. With that, the Second West Russian War ended in an amazing victory for the Russian Republic and President and General Sergei Bunyachenko. The German Reich was badly defeated in Eastern Europe, but in spite of this, still remained one of the premier world powers with control over Poland, the Baltics and the Low Countries, control of overseas territories in the Indian Ocean and alliances within the Einheitspakt with the nations of Denmark, Norway, Slovakia and Hungary, with France and Bulgaria having left the alliance after the start of the Second West Russian War in 1974. Nevertheless, with revenge against the German Reich achieved and with the final unification of Russia complete at last after twelve long years of warfare, a new era in the history of Russia had begun.
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