corourke
Donor
here is a rough timeline I sketched out in German class today:
1939: Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the subsequent partition of Poland proceeds as in OTL, but Stalin's son is killed by Polish partisans in late 1939. This leads to a crackdown in Soviet Poland in which hundreds of Poles are killed and thousands deported to Sibera. Stalin develops a bitter distrust for the Poles. This harsh treatment of the Poles inspires the Nazis in Poland to pursue a policy of deportation rather than extermination. Polish are put in labor camps and promised land in the Ukraine and farther east when the time comes, but not murdered to the degree they were OTL.
1941: Operation Barbarossa. Some Poles on the Soviet side of the border see the relatively (relative being the operative word here) nicer conditions on the western side of the border revolt and join the Germans in their fight against the Soviets. It does not affect the German war effort much, but it is made out by the German propaganda machine to be a larger contribution than it is in an attempt to get other minorities under Soviet rule to revolt. This cements Stalin's hatred for the Poles.
1941-45: War on eastern and western fronts proceeds more or less as OTL and the war ends on schedule. Polish resistance to Soviet occupation is viciously suppressed.
1945: Stalin pushes Polish border back to that dictated in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but keeps german borders in the east the same, resulting in a very reduced Poland. Danzig annexed by Soviet Union as a warm water port.
1949: GDR declared. Includes OTL GDR as well as East Prussia. West Germany declared.
1951: Stalin, feeling competiton from a rapidly reindustrializing West Germany, sponsors plebiscites in Soviet-Occupied Austria and Chezchosovakia that lead to the addition of Soviet Austria and the Sudetenland to the GDR. The addition of the industrial regions of the Sudetenland and eastern Austria help the GDR to better compete with its western counterpart, though it is still eventually outpaced by the capitalists in the west.
1952: Plebiscites in Western Austria lead to the admission of Austria as a free state of the same approximate status as Bavaria in West Germany.
The red line is the border between East and West Germany.
Grey lines are the borders before 1952.
What do you guys think of this? What happens when the Soviet Union falls? Can the GDR stand on its own?
edit: don't pay attention to the provinces within each country. I forgot to change those.
edit2: updated map, removed split of Czechia and Slovakia:
1939: Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the subsequent partition of Poland proceeds as in OTL, but Stalin's son is killed by Polish partisans in late 1939. This leads to a crackdown in Soviet Poland in which hundreds of Poles are killed and thousands deported to Sibera. Stalin develops a bitter distrust for the Poles. This harsh treatment of the Poles inspires the Nazis in Poland to pursue a policy of deportation rather than extermination. Polish are put in labor camps and promised land in the Ukraine and farther east when the time comes, but not murdered to the degree they were OTL.
1941: Operation Barbarossa. Some Poles on the Soviet side of the border see the relatively (relative being the operative word here) nicer conditions on the western side of the border revolt and join the Germans in their fight against the Soviets. It does not affect the German war effort much, but it is made out by the German propaganda machine to be a larger contribution than it is in an attempt to get other minorities under Soviet rule to revolt. This cements Stalin's hatred for the Poles.
1941-45: War on eastern and western fronts proceeds more or less as OTL and the war ends on schedule. Polish resistance to Soviet occupation is viciously suppressed.
1945: Stalin pushes Polish border back to that dictated in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but keeps german borders in the east the same, resulting in a very reduced Poland. Danzig annexed by Soviet Union as a warm water port.
1949: GDR declared. Includes OTL GDR as well as East Prussia. West Germany declared.
1951: Stalin, feeling competiton from a rapidly reindustrializing West Germany, sponsors plebiscites in Soviet-Occupied Austria and Chezchosovakia that lead to the addition of Soviet Austria and the Sudetenland to the GDR. The addition of the industrial regions of the Sudetenland and eastern Austria help the GDR to better compete with its western counterpart, though it is still eventually outpaced by the capitalists in the west.
1952: Plebiscites in Western Austria lead to the admission of Austria as a free state of the same approximate status as Bavaria in West Germany.
The red line is the border between East and West Germany.
Grey lines are the borders before 1952.
What do you guys think of this? What happens when the Soviet Union falls? Can the GDR stand on its own?
edit: don't pay attention to the provinces within each country. I forgot to change those.
edit2: updated map, removed split of Czechia and Slovakia:
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