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alternatehistory.com
As you know I'm busy writing 'The Twin Eagles and the Lion' TL with General Zod. He is unresponsive and hasn't been online for some time so I decided to start a new TL out of sheer boredom. It's a Nazi-victory TL obviously (with the search option I found none and I've always wanted to do one).
Note: this post does not contain the PoD. If you don't know the ins and outs of Nazi Germany (or if you like my writing style ), you can read this summary
Have fun .
Reign of the Swastika
An alternate history of how Hitler won the war and Nazi domination of Europe
Prologue: Rise to power, Consolidation and early war years, 1919-1941
1933 would later prove to be a fearful year and fateful year in German, and indeed European, history even though it didn’t seem that way at the time. That year was marked by the rise of Adolf Hitler and his NSDAP or National Socialist German Workers’ Party, more a band of thugs than an actual party but a band of thugs that would come to rule Germany and later the European continent. That however was still in the distant future in 1933 as Germany was still in a vulnerable state at the time and Hitler was seen as nothing more but yet another tin pot dictator. The Nazi regime would prove to be more than just a banana republic. The NSDAP had evolved from the DAP (German Workers’ Party), a party founded in Bavaria by a certain Anton Drexler in 1919, in the aftermath of the Great War of 1914-1918. Germany had been punished harshly with its army shrunk to a mere 100.000 men, a police force by standards of the day. The navy was cut down to size on behest of the British who saw the German navy as a threat to their naval supremacy, the remainder of the once proud High Seas Fleet was a mere token force. A war guilt clause and massive war indemnities finished the job and were supposed to cripple German power forever. It did quite the opposite as the German people were incensed and hatred simmered but Germany was powerless to act. In the midst of communist street violence and a mini civil war, the Weimar Republic had been formed and it was the first time that Germany was a true democracy, unlike Imperial Germany which had preceded it. The Weimar Republic suffered from many ailments. First of all it was associated with the Treaty of Versailles which would forever tarnish its image in the minds of the average patriotic German. Hyperinflation skyrocketed and the communists initiated a revolution in 1919. For a moment it seemed as if they would take over but the Reichswehr (the army left by the Treaty of Versailles) and the so-called the Freikorps militias (the famous Stahlhelm among them) squashed the revolution and the republic maintained its hold on power, if a shaky hold. It was in this turbulent environment that a young man named Adolf Hitler started his rise to power.
The story as stated in Mein Kampf is the truth mixed with Hitler’s idealization of his past. The real truth has been pieced together by numerous historians over and over again, mostly by means of eyewitness accounts and has been told many times. I shall therefore limit myself to a brief summary. He was born on April 20th 1889 in the small, sleepy town of Braunau am Inn in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He grew up as the son of a customs official named Alois and his wife Klara and suffered from an unhappy childhood (although the boy’s own character flaws were partially to blame). As a young boy already Hitler wanted to become a painter and study at the fine arts academy in Vienna but his authoritarian father wanted him to follow in his footsteps, leading young Adolf to clash with his father frequently. In primary school he was a mediocre and unremarkable pupil. In high school he was a poor student as he refused to work for any subject but art. He also had a love for history although this wasn’t rewarded with good grades. His father died in 1903, ridding him of one burden. By 1905 he had gone to Vienna where he had been rejected for the art academy. He was told that he would do good as an architect but lacked the proper educational basis. He lived a bohemian life on an orphans’ pension and support from his mother in Vienna. She died in 1908 as a result of breast cancer and Hitler was reportedly devastated by the loss and mourned her, unlike he had his father. Hitler, being too lazy to get a job as he was an ‘artist’, ran out of money and became a bum. It was during this time that Hitler became an anti-Semite on racial grounds after seeing an orthodox Jew, and he was likely influenced by ideologist Lanz von Liebenfels and the polemics of Karl Lueger. He tried to live off his paintings and eventually left Vienna for Munich, avoiding service in the Austro-Hungarian army. He was arrested and returned to Austria but was deemed unfit for military service and thus he returned to Munich, a “real German city” where he came to admire Germany more and more. He joined the Bavarian army and became a corporal and was decorated no less than two times for bravery; Hitler frequently volunteered for dangerous errands (he was a courier, a dangerous assignment at any time). In 1918 he was temporarily blinded by a gas attack and was in a field hospital when he heard of the surrender and was infuriated. He remained in the army and entered the DAP via this canal as he was ordered to check it out (since the DAP seemed leftwing, judging by the name). He proved to be a great orator and within a few years he ousted the party’s founder Anton Drexler and took over. His popularity and nationalist, anti-communist and anti-Republic rhetoric secured him a following in Bavaria. In 1923 he felt strong enough to stage a coup which was put down. Hitler was arrested but spent only a year in prison where he wrote Mein Kampf, only to find the party in disarray upon his release. His rise continued although economic improvement slowed him down. The Depression hit in 1929, catapulting Hitler back to prominence. His party militia, the SA or Sturmabteilung, intimidated political opponents, preventing them from campaigning effectively. As of July 1932 the NSDAP was the largest party with 37% of popular vote but conservative President Paul von Hindenburg refused to make him chancellor. In 1933 the Reichstag was burned down and Dutch communist Marinus van der Lubbe was blamed (or framed, depending on who you believe). Hitler ranted against the Weimar Republic, the November criminals, communists, social-democrats and liberals alike and claimed he would restore German pride and make Germany strong again and put bread on the table which made him immensely popular. His ideology became messianic as only few demagogues can claim to have achieved. In the midst of this Hitler was involved in an affair with his niece “Geli” who committed suicide. This part of his personal life was kept secret and would any mention of it would be erased when he took power. Another mistress, Eva Braun, rose to prominence and remained by his side and he would eventually marry her as a reward for her loyalty. After the Reichstag fire he won 44% of popular vote and was granted dictatorial powers, only the remaining social-democrats opposed him. The constitution was suspended, civil liberties destroyed and the press censored. Hitler was dictator and Germany his police state, the rest is history.
The SA quickly intimidated remaining political opponents and dissidents and those who refused to comply, such as diehard communists, were locked away in prisons and in concentration camps such as the newly erected Dachau once prisons were full. The Nazis set about to absorb total power and founded the Hitler Youth to indoctrinate the generation of the future to create loyal Germans who had known nothing but the will of the Führer. The Gestapo and the SD quickly uprooted resistance and very soon the German people were loyal to Hitler alone. In 1934 Hitler assumed the title of Führer (Leader) when President Hindenburg died. It was a combination of the offices of President and Chancellor. The Nazi ideology was very Messianic but very soon the Nazis showed their true colours when Hitler ordered a purge of the SA as he believed that its leader, Ernst Röhm, was going to stage a coup. Many prominent SA leaders were killed and between 1934 and 1938 memberships dropped from 2.9 to 1.2 million and the organization was gutted. This was known as the Night of the Long Knives. The organization was a paramilitary storm trooper army, meant to intimidate enemies and take power and it needed to be more subtle but it was unable to do so but aspired for more power, leading Hitler to believe a coup was imminent. The SA was henceforth only used in ceremonial roles and became a band consisting mostly of old, fat war veterans. The SS took its place and became a racial elite for Aryans only. Yet, the danger that the Nazi regime posed was not recognised by the European powers, not even by those that Hitler threatened in his rhetoric such as Poland and Czechoslovakia. Hitler was seen as just another tin pot dictator such as Mussolini in Italy or Stalin in the USSR. He would prove otherwise.
One of the clauses of the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany from rearming and a small “Reichswehr” of 100.000 men was all that remained. Furthermore, this Reichswehr was not much more than an overblown gendarmerie as it was not allowed to posses tanks, heavy artillery and chemical weapons whereas Germany’s neighbours all had these. German generals of the 1920s predicted that the army in its current state couldn’t even fight a limited, defensive war against Poland or Czechoslovakia. Hitler took it upon himself to restore the armed forces, always a symbol of German pride and nationalism. In 1935 conscription was reinstated even though the Treaty of Versailles explicitly forbade Germany from doing so. New tanks such as the panzer II and III were built and heavy artillery was reintroduced. Britain and France stood by and watched but didn’t act on this defiance even when German forces marched back into the demilitarized Rhineland. An aerial arm was also created which became known as the Luftwaffe which under the guidance of its leader Hermann Goering became one of the most modern air forces in Europe and, indeed, the world. The navy was also expanded and several battleships were laid down, including the infamous Bismarck, originally classified as a 35.000 ton ship, it turned out to be a 50.000 ton vessel. It was joined by its sister ship Tirpitz and two other ships named Gneisenau and Scharnhorst. Several smaller battlecruisers such as the Admiral Hipper and its sister ships were also laid down in the thirties, against the Treaty of Versailles which only allowed for six battleships of 10.000 tons which the earlier Deutschland-class had already superseded. Several pre-dreadnoughts and light cruisers were also still in service, a shadow of the former Imperial German Navy. Also, new U-boats or gun calibres of more than 8 inches (203 mm) weren’t allowed. The Scharnhorst-class possessed 11 inch (28 cm guns) as did the Deutschland-class and the Bismarck-class went even further with 50.000 tons and 15 inch (381 mm) guns. New U-boats were also laid down and the British were acquiescent and appeased Germany by allowing them to have 35% of Britain’s tonnage but within a few years even that would go into the bin altogether along with the old Treaty of Versailles, Germany would break its chains and take off the muzzle imposed by the Allies. In 1936 the Spanish Civil War erupted between the conservatives, the army and the Falange on one side and the Republicans on the other. German battlecruiser Graf Spee was sent to Spanish waters along with the Condor Legion, a unit of the Luftwaffe. Italy, a fellow fascist state, sent some 70.000 men to support Franco. It was a test of Hitler’s new toys and a reaffirmation of German power. Franco won in 1939 and established his fascist-like regime, ending the threat of the Republicans who, according to rumours, wanted to regionalize Spain and even give the Basques independence.