A corrupt Socialist (yes I know he was just a union boss but this is the 60s) and a left-wing African-American? You would single-handedly resurrect the Democratic Party with that ticket.
The Iron Eagle - The History of the Cold War
- Thread starter Kaiser of Brazil
- Start date
True, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Democrats would win though.
That would depend on who the Republicans put on their ticket.
If it's Goldwater or McCarthy, their chances are slim.
But it's Nixon, Kennedy or Reagan, then the Populists might be in trouble.
Minor Question, What are the current activities of a certain "Francis Parker Yockey?" and is there a version of a Nazi party in America?
You mean that lunatic lawyer? Caught up in the Grey Scare and detained for some time due to his previous association with the German-American Bund, released and now writes up propaganda for the Syrians denouncing Israel and the US control of it.
As for Nazis in America, they likely would have gone through a similar persecution as the Communist Party of the USA went through, officially banned around the time of Long's second term. But I can tell George Lincoln Rockwell, will have a different role on this Timeline. Rockwell remained in the military and served during Operation Sunset and Patton's expedition on Russia. He was very supportive to both MacArthur's and McCarthy's campaigns, coming in to oppose Long's "Communistic" Policies. Although he does have a certain admiration for Germany and believes China and communism is the enemy the US should focus on, as well as having a vitrolic hatred of the Japanese, he is not a Nazi in this world and there is the possibility I will use him for a major role later on.
To be fair, Yockey is just a wacky writer. If he was a spy? Sure. If he was actually able to incite, say, a lynch mob or even a organize a neighborhood watch? Yeah straight to jail. But the guy was just a mediocre lawyer who not even the RSHA/SD would bother with. His writing is a ramble which is borderline unreadable, if you want to go after someone who's actually a threat to democracy and is minimally competent to lead a Nazi America, then look for the types of Rockwell, not Yockey.
My apologies if I am taking too long for these next chapters, I am dealing with a Writer's block due to the coming test week and cannot be as active as I could, I have also realized I may need to rewrite much of the Indian chapter (Ethnic/Religious tensions you know) in an attempt to ensure India won't fracture after Independence like the partition did. I could also just have Britain decide to completely ignore the interests of the locals and create a United India just out of spite desire to have a strong Asian ally against Germany, but that is pushing it a little too much.
And I am quite tempted to make the last chapter be something more general than focusing on a single country, either with changes to Pop Culture or the start of the Space Race.
And I am quite tempted to make the last chapter be something more general than focusing on a single country, either with changes to Pop Culture or the start of the Space Race.
I hope to not disappoint if I reduce the length of the chapters. The Russian chapter, in specific, is mostly about the game of diplomacy to end the Ural War and the last moves of the conflict, it would be painfully long to stretch it to 10 thousand words.
Its fine, these chapters are good enough quality wise that waiting for them is always worth it.
Also feel you should save the Space Race for when we go to the 60s/next thread of this TL.
Tbh i have been interested in a Pop Culture chapter of this TL for a while now, though i would prefer a chapter on Military technology (even if that was only mentioned way back in 2021 alongside a chapter on former Yugoslavia, and i doubt we’re getting either anytime soon).
Also feel you should save the Space Race for when we go to the 60s/next thread of this TL.
XLI - OSSENY POKOY
THE IRON EAGLE
OSSENY POKOY
OSSENY POKOY
The end of the Ural War would not be any less intense than the war as a whole had been, Hess was dead, Goebbels quietly let the date of the Ultimatum pass by without further provocations, relief came to the world as it's destruction was avoided. But in the Southern Urals, the war continued as intense as ever, the leadership of Germania had yet to send any new instructions and the plans for the so-called "Operation Mars" had to be implemented before the time which the German intelligence expected due to the desperation. Chuikov and Prince Fyodor both had planned this move on the Southern front following the fall of Orenburg, a city the increasingly sick Romanov held for months before during the initial German offensive, as the German troops reached Orsk and Aktau, there was a real danger of a push into Central Asia that could spark an uprising of the local Turkic tribes, or they could drive north to industrial cities such as Magnitogorsk and circumvent the Ural Mountains entirely. Walther Wenck, commander of the German Forces in the East since his predecessor died of a bad case of lead poisoning in his brain, knew the importance of the Southern Front. Striking at the North towards Perm did not make as much strategic sense in forcing a Russian surrender, the Wehrmacht was out of it's elements in the forests and hills near the irradiated remnants of the City. He had refused further use of Nuclear Weapons so far, instead he wanted to cross the River Or and strike around the Ural mountains across the mostly flat Kazakh Steppes, using the Caspian Sea and the Or river as a safer route for supplies avoiding the partisans and bringing the precious fuel from Baku through a direct route to the North.
That is why the South was so crucial, a diversionary offensive was launched from the North in the Bashriki campaign in an attempt to reach Orenburg and cut off the German forces from their main logistical hub, it failed and exhausted many resources which had to be diverted from the North. Despite this, Wenck did not order an offensive on the North, holding the strategic pre-war positions on the Volga river and concentrating the War effort on the South. From Germania, Goebbels began to install himself in his new position and his new doctrine had no time to bog himself in the East. The German people was apprehensive over losing their hard-earned conquests, the war took it's toil, a number of losses unseen since the previous war that had reached over a half million casualties, many did not expect the prisoners to ever return after all the terrifying propaganda spread by the State. Hess, Goebbels decided, had misinterpreted Hitler, especially as the Führer's second book wrote about who their final enemy was meant to be, but before any action could be taken, they had to divert their energies to the inside. Goebbels, now the Führer of the Greater Germanic Reich, took a plane to Samara where he met Wenck in his Headquarters there.
Walther Wenck was glad to have someone who was more sane of mind to talk with, that is just how low the standards were when it came to Hess' instructions. Goebbels was not exactly a sane mind in the traditional sense, but he could see that he was one determined to follow his vision. But as the meeting progressed, the Marshal worried about how his superior made questions about his past, of his own loyalty to the National Socialist movement and relationship with the late Adolf Hitler. Once the matter was put aside, the two spoke of the war in the East and Goebbels received a more complete picture which he could not access before. The War was not going to end in a victory so long as Germania continued to treat it as a limited conflict, Albert Speer had continuously underproduced armaments due to his focus on keeping the civilian sector of the economy satisfied at home, meanwhile the Russians were fighting with a "Totalitarian Economy", a Command System of pure discipline, as Wenck described, which added to the almost endless supply of armaments provided by the North American and British Industry, would leave the Wehrmacht outgunned. Air Superiority was no longer assured, the Russian reserves were bolstered by Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, Caucasians and several ethnic groups which were once expelled by the Germans in the East and resettled in Siberia, who were described to have been as fanatic as the "Hitler Youth on a Victory Day Rally".
That left Joseph Goebbels with a Dilemma, he could fully escalate the war into a total conflict, risking his own shaky position to be usurped by a man such as Speer or even Kaufmann, with also the added risk that nuclear weapons would begin to fly again and spending the energies of the volk in an eastern adventure. But he could also scale back, enter in contact with the Western Overlords of the Judeo-Slavic nation in Washington, reach a peaceful conclusion to the war while keeping the territories of the east intact. A status-quo could be cold to the German people as a successful preemptive strike that devastated Eastern Russia, while the bloodthirsty desire for conquest was fruit from a radical group centered around Wegener and the Party Control Faction. Goebbels himself had a good reputation to raise this point, he had been an outsider in the making of decisions that led to the catastrophe in the east and ended the career of a Party Chancellor and the life of a Führer at minimum. He could blame the unpopular war on his old rivals to justify his next great moves, but until Hans Ludin made the first high level trip of a German Minister to the United States, the Wehrmacht had to ensure they had the upper hand at negotiations, mainly to keep control of cities such as Kazan and Samara, as well as to demand a demilitarization of the Russian border with the Reich, if necessary, he "joked", they could detonate enough bombs to make the Russian side of the Volga completely demilitarized in a more "clear" way.
The Operation, nicknamed "Operation Mars", was to be launched later that month, but the Ultimatum and the imminence of annihilation motivated the Russian command under Chuikov to launch the attack before they expected, it worked out in their favor because the Germans also did not expect the attack to happen so quickly. Over 600,000 Russian forces struck at the Southern Urals as the attack on Orenburg from Bashrikia failed, facing a force of 400,000 German troops with the aim to capture Aktau, Orsk, Orenburg and Oral, pushing the Wehrmacht back to the West across the Or river and towards Samara. With many of Wenck's forces at the North of Orenburg, The Russians pushed from the Southeast and fought the 3rd SS Panzerkorps under Felix Steiner in open battle. Von Manteuffel was the commander in charge of the German Southern Forces in the region and faced an imminent crisis by the sudden Russian attack at the start of August. The Steppes, however, were a favorable terrain for the open battles the Wehrmacht excelled with. The 4th Tank Army was able to dislodge the 3rd SS Panzerkorps, but only after suffering three times the casualties of the German troops and advancing far less than expected, it was not only a matter of coordination, but simply because very few nations could challenge the Heer in a Tank battle. The American tanks, despite being very effective at combatting infantry-centered forces, lacked the sheer armor and firepower of the German MBTs, the lessons of this war were still being learned by the United States Army.
In the skies, the Luftflotte II, responsible for keeping aerial dominance in the Southern Front, would be attacked by not only the Russian Air Force, but also of 5 Air Groups of the USAAF, a substantial force of over 200 planes, most of them being fighter jets. One of the largest aerial battles in Eurasian History up until that moment would come as the German airforce suffered it's first major defeat, losing 234 planes compared to the Russo-American 163. With a break in the sky, the Russians renewed their advance while Wenck ordered Manteuffel to retreat his overextended forces, giving up the last chance of the Wehrmacht to go around the Urals through the south. The Battle for Kazakhstan, as some called, was a Russian strategic victory despite the Russian Imperial Army suffering one and a half soldiers for each German loss. Over the month, Russian forces advanced as the Germans retreated from Orsk, Aktau and Dimitrovskiy, taking positions behind the Or River as the Russians threatened to siege the city of Orenburg. Wenck diverted forces from the North, where the only action of note was the recapture of Archangelsk by the Wehr, and struck the Russian spearhead at Bikkulovo from the west, launching also a diversionary attack towards Ufa further north which was halted at Bebeley by a combined force of Ukrainian and Polish divisions.
As September came, so did the stalemate, the Germans began to dig down behind the Or River, with the Russians unable to push from Bashrikia to cut off the city, the war had turned into a bloodbath as Russian Artillery rained down upon Orenburg, determined to dislodge the Germans. The Russian Army had gained an enormous amount of equipment since the previous year, but manpower was a worry of the High Command in Novosibirsk, as the Empire did not possess an advantage in overall population as the Soviets once did. Despite the millions of Refugees who fled to Russia, the decade-long struggle from the Stalinist purges to the end of the Civil War caused a shortage in comparison to the last war, even if the troops were more motivated than ever to secure their own survival and of their families. The Germans, on the other hand, still did not mobilize into a total war to the scale the Russians did, and there was the constant fear in the Imperial high command that a large concentration of troops could lead to a nuclear strike if discovered, which is why the Russians had to adopt squad tactics up to a certain level, dispersing their forces instead of using their old and traditional advantage of overwhelming their enemies with numbers and firepower.
Orenburg, much like the largest cities in West Russia, was turned into rubble over the year and a half of conflict, even more so considering the city was heavily contested due to it's logistical hub and positioning as the gateway to the Southern Urals. The Germans have avoided facing the Russians on the mountains themselves throughout the war, a wise choice all things considered as the defense of the Urals was a priority in the Russian military thinking for years, leading to the construction of formidable defenses. Walther Wenck's orders were no longer to go on the offensive, rather to consolidate the German control over the region as negotiations were made with the Russians and Americans through backchannels as no side wanted to claim loss in the war. While some hawks in the Russian government desired to push into Moscow at the start of the counter-attack in the 1958 winter, the nuclear threat made such delusions impossible, at least until Russia could develop it's own arsenal to threaten Germany into fighting a purely conventional war. Huey Long and his government were pushing towards a peaceful solution, but were not backing down from defending Russia against the German ambitions. As for the Germans, this was Wegener's war, as far as Goebbels was concerned, Hess' war coming from his ideas. While Joseph Goebbels of all people was far from a pacifist and indeed he would have chosen to ensure the control of the Ural Frontier if it was up solely to his will, he was pragmatic enough to see the public mood.
The German economy has not been in a good place, and the war revealed to all in German society that the cracks were far deeper than the Government would ever admit, and to a Propaganda Minister this was a nightmare, the numbers did not lie, the war was unpopular and the people was apprehensive, especially after the Ultimatum where it would take almost a week for the panic over a Nuclear War to be forcefully put down, including the deaths of a few rioters by the Security Forces. Goebbels was inheriting a situation he had long become popular by criticizing, he could not allow himself to be seen as an equal to the "Vermin of the Party", figures such as Wegener and the Party Bureaucracy which had pushed for this war, had to be the ones to blame, to be pointed as scapegoats.
Hans Ludin had a great task before him, and above all it was one meant to be done in secrecy. It was hard enough to reach a neutral State in order to make contact between the German and the American embassies after Hess threw an atomic bomb at any sense of goodwill in August. For that reason he reached the German Ambassador Eduard Hempel, in Dublin, as Ireland was considered a "Neutral" State in Europe. With Edward VIII cracking down against the IRA in Northern Ireland, the Germans could give some reasonable trust in the Taioseach, although many bridges were burned by the attack on the Catholic Church in 1956. The US, thanks to the diaspora, did have friendly relations with the Irish government, especially in Massachussetts where the Governor, John Kennedy, was from an Irish descent family. The American ambassador would be contacted by the Irish government and, despite the heavy suspicion, agreed to meet Ludin on the 10th of September of 1959, and from there he would rely the information to Secretary Dean Rusk: The Germans wanted to make a deal.
The atmosphere was delicate, but Rusk gained Long's approval to seek terms with the Reich. The Secretary would fly to Ireland under the guise of an agreement over the sale of Irish Beer to the United States, which was considered plausible, the end of the Prohibition meant several new import agreements had to be ratified, which is why the meeting was nicknamed "The Bar Talks" when later the information was given to the press. On the 13th, the two diplomats would meet in the residence of Irish Taioseach Éamon de Valera in the morning and the meeting would last until the evening. It did not even start and there was already confusion about which language should be spoken as Ludin at first insisted on only speaking German, to which Rusk declined, he wanted it to happen in English. In the end Ludin acquiesced for sake of fulfilling his Führer's command, with a tradutor being present to help the Reich's representative when he faced a word he did not comprehend.
Goebbels believed he was being generous on his terms, he merely desired to settle the borders as they were, with the Germans keeping the lands west of the Or river, including Orenburg and Oral, with the return of the German Prisoners of War and an indemnity paid by the Russian government over the Rostock bombing. Rusk, despite being surprised that the terms were being discussed rationally to begin with, was still a negotiator, and he pushed for a settlement of the border along the Volga River, including the return of Samara, Orenburg, Archangelsk and Oral to the Russians, with the prisoners from both sides being returned (as the German diplomat never mentioned Russian prisoners until that moment) and a compromise of the German government to never attack the Russian nation again, that also would include German reparations for the nuclear attacks. The Negotiations were still preliminary, and while they happened, the Russians continued to press to capture Orenburg, over 4 thousand men from both sides died while the talks were being held after another failed crossing of the River Or by the Russian forces. Nothing conclusive was reached at the end of the first day when it came to the War itself, but both Ludin and Rusk agreed to continue trying to reach an agreement on the following day, the most crucial matter was the status of Orenburg, which was vital for the connection between Russia's western and Siberian territories.
The 14th of September was a Monday, and the talks would continue between the German Foreign Minister and the American Secretary of State. Rusk spent over an hour speaking to Huey Long that night and their main concern was how to approach the Tsar with that fact, these meetings could not be kept a secret forever and nobody wanted to be remembered as Neville Chamberlain, discussing the selling of Czechoslovakia without even consulting the Czechs. The American President spoke with Tsar Andrey about the German willingness to conduct peace talks and had to calm down an obviously irate Emperor for not including them in the conversations, furthermore, the British MI6 discovered the presence of Hans Ludin in Dublin. There was a fear that the Irish government could apply to join the Linz Pakt as a reaction to the crackdown on Northern Ireland, which led to some in London to suggest a preemptive strike at Ireland, but that was a radical option and cooler heads prevailed, instead Rusk would be contacted over the British concerns, especially of a possible detente between Germany and the United States. As the German embassy was closed after the dismissal of Bevan, there was no longer a direct form of contact between London and Germania, and the tensions between the two were higher than ever since 1951.
The Russian ambassador in Ireland would follow the American Secretary of State and the German Foreign Minister in meeting up at de Valera's home again that Monday after an almost sleepless night for most diplomats. The MI6 was reassured once information came of the Russian presence in the meeting, after all nobody with a sane mind would ever expect a normalization of relations being negotiated with a Russian diplomat in the same room as a German diplomat. The meeting was also considerably more tense once the discussions for peace began to be made again, meanwhile Ludin was interrupted with the news that a renewed Russian advance from the North captured Novosergiyevka, cutting off the main supply road from the west to Orenburg and threatening one of his main cards in negotiating for the city. Unfortunately for him, the Russian diplomat already knew of the capture, or he was bluffing and quickly realized it was true by the German reaction. Either way, Orenburg was now under threat of being fully isolated with over 150 thousand troops in the area under threat of encirclement from the North and South. Hanns finally came to an agreement on the following day with the Russian and American diplomats after conversing with Goebbels, the Germans would be able to save face from a retreat if they were allowed to keep the city of Samara and Archangelsk, as well as return of all German captives and German civilians living in Russia.
Around a million Volga Germans, descended from settlers of the 18th Century, had been deported to Siberia by the Stalinist regime and lived under discrimination by the Russian government, or so Germania alleged. Truth is that the Volga Germans were hardly connected to the "Mainstream" German people, and this was more of a propaganda boom that Goebbels hoped to have, and besides it would free up a million extra settlers for the Lebensraum. Essentially it was a return to the Status Quo when it came to the borders, the Russian government would issue a public apology for the Rostock attack and deport a million "Volga Germans" to the West across the Volga. In return, the Germans would retreat and the Reich would publicly withdraw their designs for a Ural frontier, which was an ideological blow as Hess had repeatedly stated it to have been Hitler's will. The Prisoners of War from both sides would be returned, although neither Russians nor Germans had treated their prisoners in anywhere close to humane conditions, only a majority of them returned, and those who did were in terrible conditions, speaking of the horrors they saw behind the lines.
Ludin and Rusk shook hands and made the formalities as the Russian and German governments were to formally sign a Peace Treaty. Dublin was an appropriate site, as for now a armistice would be kept. The main concession of the Russian government, although the Germans had no way to enforce it, was to recognize the loss of the lands west of the Volga, once the heartland of the Russian nation, in return for the German retreat from the lands East of the Volga, although they still kept the city of Samara, a bridgehead for another push towards the South if it came to it. Truth is that neither nation believed this peace would last, no Russian would forget Moscow, and no German would ever admit Hitler to be wrong or that they were beaten by an untermenschen. This peace was a ceasefire, the world needed a breather after almost a year and a half of tensions that included nuclear bombardment and the dismemberment of Portugal, as well as even a war in the Middle East. Both sides met again on the 18th of September of 1959, this time to publicly sign the Treaty of Dublin, putting an official end to the Ural War. When the guns fell silent and the Germans retreated across the Volga (although they kept the pre-war border between Astrakhan and the Oral river), there was nothing but a sense of loss and relief at the same time amongst the Russian people. There was celebration, unlike any ever seen up until that moment, what many believed to be their end had instead ended up with what many Russians considered a victory: Survival.
But what was left behind, was an empty victory, When Russian forces entered Orenburg on the 20th, they saw a ghost city, in the night explosions were made as many Germans did not bother to bring back the set mines and explosives made for the city's defense, rigged buildings were detonated and the Germans left during the night. The population was reduced and over the next months, many fugitives who fled across the Volga claimed to be citizens of Orenburg, kidnapped and hauled west during the German occupation like cattle. As soon as the priorities were changed by Goebbels' government, the region of the Oblast was ransacked, as well as much of the territory east of Samara and the city of Oral itself. Plunder was an official policy during the invasion and the kidnapping of tens of thousands of citizens in cities such as Oral and Orenburg were only part of the crimes, in others entire villages disappeared and were set alight by the SS, the old Einstaatzgruppen being widely used to crack down on partisans in the region.
Germany continuously denied to have been beaten conventionally, perhaps if the Wehrmacht had properly mobilized and used it's assets since the start of the war, the Ural Frontier would have been achieved, perhaps without nuclear weapons there would be less sympathy for the Russians in the West and East alike. And yet this was the end of the Ural War, for the Reich it meant the loss of between 400 thousand and 600 thousand soldiers, as well as almost a million wounded or captured. For the Russians, over a million soldiers were lost, with at least an equal number wounded, one of the reasons for the higher death figures among the Russians is the fact tens of thousands of prisoners never returned to the east. That is not even including around 2 million civilians, living from Archangelsk to Aktau, who were either killed or enslaved by German forces, with a rare few ever returning. The War ended with Russia's survival, which could be considered a victory, while the Germans had their invencibility mythos shattered with far reaching consequences in the internal politics of the Reich as the defeat led to the fall of the German establishment and widespread discontent among the people, anger and frustration grew as the facade made by the regime over the years finally collapse, revealing a failing system that was canibalizing itself through infighting while the economy was isolated and stagnant, if not self-destructive due to the Government's costly eastern policies. The War led to the fall of some of the most powerful men in Europe: Reinhard Heydrich, killed by partisans from the people who suffered the most due to his tyranny, Paul Wegener, the ambitious bureaucrat taken down by his own system, Ferdinand Schörner, the rabid aggressive hound whose aggressiveness and pride led to his own death, and Rudolf Hess, the seemingly almighty Führer who fell victim to his own madness. And out of these ashes, from a chaotic transition of power that brought the world to the brink of the apocalypse, came the rise of a man as fanatical as Hess, but lacking the same schizophrenia, one who knew how to play the politics of the Reich and was determined to strengthen Germany from the inside and purge those he blamed for this failure, striking against the vices who caused their decadence.
And with the rise of Joseph Goebbels, Europe would take another step into the abyss.
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So the war took the last of the Nazi old fighters. The Russians showed the world they could fight. Western militaries could examine German weapons and tactics and much of the fascist block would see the cracks in the German armor.
