The Anglo/American - Nazi War - The on-going mystery
- Thread starter CalBear
- Start date
Was the Volkshalle ever built in Berlin following the 1943 ceasefire? I need a recap.
Not sure but if they did, them had descale that greatly since soil of Berlin is not sustainable such constructions and air conditioning would had been problem.
I can see to that. If the Volkshalle was indeed built, it won't be the towering hulking structure portrayed in fictional media (Fatherland, The Man in the High Castle, and Wolfenstein: The New Order), but it'll probably look like the U.S. Capitol Building.
You are correct that Berlin's soil and terrain could not support such weight. The German capital is built on a swamp and the Volkshalle is too heavy for that.
I'd still imagine it being a target by USAF and RAF bombers in 1954-1959. Plus, Berlin is contaminated from anthrax and chemical weapons that the whole place is basically a post-apocalyptic swamp land.
If I remember my phrasing correctly:
They said I was crazy to build the Volkshalle in a swamp but I did it. That one sank into the swamp so I built another, which fell over then sank in the swamp. But then I built a third one just to show them, and that one burned, fell over and sank in the swamp, but the fourth one I build is still standing!
Randy (With apologies to Monty Python
)DC is built on a swamp as well, but Capitol Hill is solid and would support an even larger structure in DC. It may depend on whether how well the land is analyzed. But I'm guessing that the answer to everything there is slave labor.
Not every city in a swamp is as bad for large buildings as New Orleans.
And given the historical number of canals on the Spree, would rerouting the Spree help with that?
Albert Speer probably knew what his proposals would be like. Slave labor is a supply of workers to build Hitler's megastructures. I'd see the Spree would be rerouted for sure to bring "Germania" to life.
A really dark story I read is that lot of labor and sourcing of materials for the Volkshalle came from concentration camps.
The mad dreams of Nazism were literally built on mass death. Again, this feels like a twisted perversion of the concept of progress, since moving forward crushes countless poor serfs.
Indeed, Speer's concrete pillars to test the soil of Berlin are among the last architectural works he left.
Might be a good symbol of how Nazism didn't left anyhting positive behind.
It could also be a symbol of how NUTS Nazi ideology was. How it sought power and conquest, and had little consideration for other values.
In reference to AANW Stalemate is it known what Beria and Malenkov planned on doing once they were in control of the USSR after Stalin’s death?
Did they plan on making peace with the Reich like Molotov eventually did ITTL or continuing to fight?
Did they plan on making peace with the Reich like Molotov eventually did ITTL or continuing to fight?
Probably they would had made peace. There just wasn't much what Soviets anymore could had done thanks of Stalin killing almost all of generals and marshals after disastrous Stalingrad and paralyzing remaining Red Army.
When you read about the Eastern Front, you get the impression that that theater of the war was two giant lunatics fighting over loot and then stomping all over it.
While Hitler micromanaged his entire army, Stalin still couldn't get over his pathological obsession with kicking people in the shin.
Someone once asked, "What would the barbarians who wrecked Rome think of Nazi atrocities?" I think I have a much broader question from that: what would pre-modern societies think of the Nazis, especially since many of them didn't exactly shy away from what we now call "war crimes."
My view is that many of these societies were products of their time. While we deride the barbarians for destroying Rome, we often forget the Romans weren't especially nice guys. As their empire declined, they also committed grotesque atrocities and betrayals of the barbarians, who often attacked out of vengeance. In short, many societies were products of centuries-long cycles of violence and revenge. Genghis Kahn deserves to be recognized as one of history's monsters, but he was the product of a brutal society of clans, intrigue, and internecine conflict in which cruelty was required to survive.
The premodern world was, to put it mildly, a harsh place. People in the past lacked conveniences that mitigated things like famine, illiteracy, and other social ails. You can see this in pre-modern morality, in which people who fought against one another in war tended to view the evils they committed against each other as regular business.
But the long-19th century saw massive and sweeping changes to the world order that gradually wore away at this kind of mindset: not just technology that made one horrific disease treatable and famine a remote possibility, but new political thoughts that argued for more democracy, more citizen participation in government, and the concept that people deserved rights and liberties. That's not to say the Belle Epoque/Concert of Europe era was all sunshine and lollipops, as atrocities were committed by practically every major country, but the fact that there were movements at this time to condemn such atrocities, such as the international outcry over the Congo Free State's red rubber, Britain's crackdown on the slave trade, and the rise of the NAACP in Jim Crow America was quite a shift from the previous few centuries. There's a reason the speculative fiction of this era was utopian.
In short, people in the pre-modern world would view this era as almost utopian: a poor Roman slave would marvel at the luxuries the European middle class enjoyed in the early 20th century and a woman from medieval Europe would shed a tear over the women's rights movements that preached to her that her opinions mattered.
Then comes along Hitler, a man who completely trashed this social progress in a two-decade-long campaign of terror just to feed an almost insatiable appetite for revenge against an imagined enemy.
The contempt people in pre-modern societies would have for the Nazis would resemble the contempt a refugee to a rich country would feel toward the native-born inhabitants who take it for granted. That refugee may have done terrible things in the past, but they came from a land that had no good options, and once they were given a chance to earn a living legitimately in a new land, they took it, and they mock the spoiled native-born inhabitants for taking for granted the opportunities their wonderful country offers them.
People in pre-modern societies would view Hitler and his acolytes with a tremendous amount of contempt: Hitler came from a world that, while not perfect, was one in which a person could live their life without having to commit evil to survive. And he torched that promise out of sadistic vengeance, turning entire nations into killing fields and corrupting country as an whole into being monstrous exploiters.
My view is that many of these societies were products of their time. While we deride the barbarians for destroying Rome, we often forget the Romans weren't especially nice guys. As their empire declined, they also committed grotesque atrocities and betrayals of the barbarians, who often attacked out of vengeance. In short, many societies were products of centuries-long cycles of violence and revenge. Genghis Kahn deserves to be recognized as one of history's monsters, but he was the product of a brutal society of clans, intrigue, and internecine conflict in which cruelty was required to survive.
The premodern world was, to put it mildly, a harsh place. People in the past lacked conveniences that mitigated things like famine, illiteracy, and other social ails. You can see this in pre-modern morality, in which people who fought against one another in war tended to view the evils they committed against each other as regular business.
But the long-19th century saw massive and sweeping changes to the world order that gradually wore away at this kind of mindset: not just technology that made one horrific disease treatable and famine a remote possibility, but new political thoughts that argued for more democracy, more citizen participation in government, and the concept that people deserved rights and liberties. That's not to say the Belle Epoque/Concert of Europe era was all sunshine and lollipops, as atrocities were committed by practically every major country, but the fact that there were movements at this time to condemn such atrocities, such as the international outcry over the Congo Free State's red rubber, Britain's crackdown on the slave trade, and the rise of the NAACP in Jim Crow America was quite a shift from the previous few centuries. There's a reason the speculative fiction of this era was utopian.
In short, people in the pre-modern world would view this era as almost utopian: a poor Roman slave would marvel at the luxuries the European middle class enjoyed in the early 20th century and a woman from medieval Europe would shed a tear over the women's rights movements that preached to her that her opinions mattered.
Then comes along Hitler, a man who completely trashed this social progress in a two-decade-long campaign of terror just to feed an almost insatiable appetite for revenge against an imagined enemy.
The contempt people in pre-modern societies would have for the Nazis would resemble the contempt a refugee to a rich country would feel toward the native-born inhabitants who take it for granted. That refugee may have done terrible things in the past, but they came from a land that had no good options, and once they were given a chance to earn a living legitimately in a new land, they took it, and they mock the spoiled native-born inhabitants for taking for granted the opportunities their wonderful country offers them.
People in pre-modern societies would view Hitler and his acolytes with a tremendous amount of contempt: Hitler came from a world that, while not perfect, was one in which a person could live their life without having to commit evil to survive. And he torched that promise out of sadistic vengeance, turning entire nations into killing fields and corrupting country as an whole into being monstrous exploiters.
I agree with you on this mindset. Julius Caesar is regarded as a masterful politician and military leader, but by modern standards he was guilty of war crimes and ethnic cleansing. Much of the reason the Roman Empire grew to the size it did was because the Romans (not just Caesar) either killed or enslaved anybody who resisted them. The ones who were spared had to "become Roman".
And tragically people at the time considered his actions to be the norm. Hell, as tragic as it was, the barbarian sack of Rome in 410 was fairly merciful by the standards of the time since 1) the Visigoths did spare some religious sites and 2) the sack was arguably revenge for Roman backstabbing.
But if those people found themselves in a world where you didn't have to commit violence to get the most basic goods...a lot of them would stop doing it.
I think that the late 1920s would be seen people by people in Ancient Rome as paradise, not just because of the technological and medical advancements but the existence of a League of Nations, an international organization that, nominally, lobbies for a more peaceful world, would be almost utopian to Romans who lived with the omnipresent threat of war.
For the Romans, it would be a stab in the heart to learn that Germany, despite living in an age of relative connectedness and peace, was taken over by a psychotically vengeful and gluttonous leadership that burned all this progress to the ground because of a madman with a massive chip on his shoulder.
See, for exemple, the British convicts sent to Australia, where most of them took the occasion to live honestly as farmers instrad of engaging in theft and robberies to get by.
Another exemple would be the founder of a family business, who worked for 50 years to develop his company, seeing his grandchildren took their wealth as granted.
The other issue is this: while, again, the pre-Hitler 20th century was NOT some paradise of compassion and cooperation, there were nevertheless major strides in human rights and international law unprecedented in human history.
While the colonialist early 20th century featured a ton of atrocities, you had elements of civil society that had the decency to denounce said atrocities. While Leopold II got away with horrors unimaginable, the fact that the Belgian government took away his colony and his subjects booed him at his funeral is something you would never see in the pre-modern world.
In America, enough people had enough self-awareness about America's past as a colony to denounce American interference in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Central America and prevent potential colonization of other places like Cuba. A nation with America's power showing a degree of restraint is something that would boggle the minds of the ancient Romans and Assyrians, who viewed brutality toward other groups as necessary.
The World War I-1920s period also saw other substantial steps toward international law: the ill-fated trials against the Ottoman killers, the League of Nations, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. While many of these things didn't work, they were again a massive shift from old-school attitudes toward things like war and atrocity.
Men like Eisenhower OTL were filled with genuine rage toward Nazi atrocities: as a man who came of age during the Belle Epoque, seeing Nazi Germany descend into such evil was outrageous and horrifying.
An ancient Roman who ended up in 1928 would have an even greater shock: this individual would view the whole era as, if not romantic, definitely one that has made substantial progress: technology is linking people together in ways that would be unimaginable, old school forms of government are giving way to democracy, women are gaining rights they never had, and after the shock of the Great War, humanity is embracing the idea that war is terrible and should be avoided. Even the poorest schmuck living in the middle of Oklahoma has access to goods through a Sears catalogue and can take his kids to the picture show.
And then comes along this maniac who manages to use all this progress in the service of extreme evil. Even the motion picture industry is used to spread hateful messages. But the key kick in the teeth for our ancient Roman is that none of this violence or cruelty was remotely necessary: the world was developing so that you could buy stuff rather than steal it by force.
While the colonialist early 20th century featured a ton of atrocities, you had elements of civil society that had the decency to denounce said atrocities. While Leopold II got away with horrors unimaginable, the fact that the Belgian government took away his colony and his subjects booed him at his funeral is something you would never see in the pre-modern world.
In America, enough people had enough self-awareness about America's past as a colony to denounce American interference in Hawaii, the Philippines, and Central America and prevent potential colonization of other places like Cuba. A nation with America's power showing a degree of restraint is something that would boggle the minds of the ancient Romans and Assyrians, who viewed brutality toward other groups as necessary.
The World War I-1920s period also saw other substantial steps toward international law: the ill-fated trials against the Ottoman killers, the League of Nations, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. While many of these things didn't work, they were again a massive shift from old-school attitudes toward things like war and atrocity.
Men like Eisenhower OTL were filled with genuine rage toward Nazi atrocities: as a man who came of age during the Belle Epoque, seeing Nazi Germany descend into such evil was outrageous and horrifying.
An ancient Roman who ended up in 1928 would have an even greater shock: this individual would view the whole era as, if not romantic, definitely one that has made substantial progress: technology is linking people together in ways that would be unimaginable, old school forms of government are giving way to democracy, women are gaining rights they never had, and after the shock of the Great War, humanity is embracing the idea that war is terrible and should be avoided. Even the poorest schmuck living in the middle of Oklahoma has access to goods through a Sears catalogue and can take his kids to the picture show.
And then comes along this maniac who manages to use all this progress in the service of extreme evil. Even the motion picture industry is used to spread hateful messages. But the key kick in the teeth for our ancient Roman is that none of this violence or cruelty was remotely necessary: the world was developing so that you could buy stuff rather than steal it by force.