Lord_Vespasian
Banned
The Crucible of Absolution
Chapter 1: An Unlikely Führer
May 7, 1945
The Führer is dead, he and his love, Eva Braun, thrown into a ditch to burn so as to spare them from the humiliation the Soviets would treat them with, dead or alive. He had been slowly losing it for several years, with virtually everyone grabbing power as he became more isolated and less involved, only re-surging three times, at Stalingrad, at D-Day and at the Battle of Berlin, all three ended badly for Germany. Most of the general staff within the Führerbunker along with Goebbels are also dead. The Luftwaffe is a shadow of it's former self, the Heer is on the ropes, the Kriegsmarine non-existent, it seems the end of the Thousand-Year Reich has come. Göring is considered an enemy of the Reich, slowly losing his power over the last few years, Speer is off to Hamburg while Jodl, Keitel and a couple of petty officers and general staff have, with a few dozen soldiers, made a miraculous escape out of Berlin and had headed north to Dönitz, the new leader of the Reich. The situation is, as the Führer himself said shortly before his death, "completely lost". The Allies are at the Maginot and the Ardennes and the Soviets have captured Berlin. It would seem November 1918 has come again.
On May 2, Dönitz and several high level generals and government officials convene in Flensburg to decide what to do next. It seems surrender, as hated as it is, is the only sane option. After 3 days of deliberation, they agree on an option which stuns everyone. The council agreed to continue fighting the Soviets but try and work with the Allies. During the meeting Dönitz and von Krosigk die unexpectedly. Since both heads of state had died, they began to argue over the successors. After even more deliberation, which delayed the council's adjourning till the 7th, they agree to elect Speer as the new Führer.
While this is considered extremely strange, as Speer was never interested in politics and had actually been entirely dropped from any successor government in Hitler's will, his impressive achievements in completely mobilizing the economy and improving supply lines underneath intensified Allied and Soviet bombing as well as his more moderate stance compared to others, something they hoped would appeal to the Allies more than a military man were enough to overlook these issues. A messenger is dispatched to Hamburg to retrieve Speer, bring him to Flensburg and inform on important matters.
The plan is to have Speer meet with Eisenhower and Churchill and convince them that Soviet's massive forces in Europe and complete lack of any offensive against the Japanese was a definitive sign they had no intention of sharing mainland Europe with them and that they needed the Wehrmacht and the SS to drive the Soviet's out of Europe. Whether or not this plan will work is anyone's guess and the final gamble for the Third Reich's survival has begun.
Chapter 1: An Unlikely Führer
May 7, 1945
The Führer is dead, he and his love, Eva Braun, thrown into a ditch to burn so as to spare them from the humiliation the Soviets would treat them with, dead or alive. He had been slowly losing it for several years, with virtually everyone grabbing power as he became more isolated and less involved, only re-surging three times, at Stalingrad, at D-Day and at the Battle of Berlin, all three ended badly for Germany. Most of the general staff within the Führerbunker along with Goebbels are also dead. The Luftwaffe is a shadow of it's former self, the Heer is on the ropes, the Kriegsmarine non-existent, it seems the end of the Thousand-Year Reich has come. Göring is considered an enemy of the Reich, slowly losing his power over the last few years, Speer is off to Hamburg while Jodl, Keitel and a couple of petty officers and general staff have, with a few dozen soldiers, made a miraculous escape out of Berlin and had headed north to Dönitz, the new leader of the Reich. The situation is, as the Führer himself said shortly before his death, "completely lost". The Allies are at the Maginot and the Ardennes and the Soviets have captured Berlin. It would seem November 1918 has come again.
On May 2, Dönitz and several high level generals and government officials convene in Flensburg to decide what to do next. It seems surrender, as hated as it is, is the only sane option. After 3 days of deliberation, they agree on an option which stuns everyone. The council agreed to continue fighting the Soviets but try and work with the Allies. During the meeting Dönitz and von Krosigk die unexpectedly. Since both heads of state had died, they began to argue over the successors. After even more deliberation, which delayed the council's adjourning till the 7th, they agree to elect Speer as the new Führer.
While this is considered extremely strange, as Speer was never interested in politics and had actually been entirely dropped from any successor government in Hitler's will, his impressive achievements in completely mobilizing the economy and improving supply lines underneath intensified Allied and Soviet bombing as well as his more moderate stance compared to others, something they hoped would appeal to the Allies more than a military man were enough to overlook these issues. A messenger is dispatched to Hamburg to retrieve Speer, bring him to Flensburg and inform on important matters.
The plan is to have Speer meet with Eisenhower and Churchill and convince them that Soviet's massive forces in Europe and complete lack of any offensive against the Japanese was a definitive sign they had no intention of sharing mainland Europe with them and that they needed the Wehrmacht and the SS to drive the Soviet's out of Europe. Whether or not this plan will work is anyone's guess and the final gamble for the Third Reich's survival has begun.
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