The thing is, economic troubles don't automatically mean the dissolution of the Nazi state, nor is recovery or reform impossible.
The Iron Eagle - The History of the Cold War
- Thread starter Kaiser of Brazil
- Start date
True except just as IOTL a victorious Nazi Germany would eventually face a lot worse than mere economic “troubles” and any Allied sanctions or blockade wouldn’t help matters.
Nothing is impossible. My point is as long as fanatics and true believers like Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels are in charge it’s likely only a matter of decades before everything comes to a head and the rot becomes insurmountable. You can only move deck chairs on the Titanic for so long. The Nazi leadership and many of the people in positions of authority weren’t the most rational people to run a continental power (especially the ones picked for their ideological purity and not their competency or intelligence). Reality was a mere obstacle to fulfilling their ideology.
Nazi economic policy was idiotic, short sighted and based significantly off exploitation and plunder which can’t last indefinitely especially when the supply of slave labor is being killed off. The Nazi education system was rotten too. The fact is that Nazism and the Nazi state were far more flawed on a fundamental level than the USSR and their version of Socialism and I don’t think any of this is likely to change if they win the war. If anything it would only make them double down on the insanity since their victory would be a sign that they’re right and this doesn’t even take into account the various issues with Generalplan Ost. I say a victorious Reich would collapse by 1980 at the latest.
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The time is soon to come for the next chapter: It will probably be either "Fury of the dying sun" (Japan's fall and the end of the Pacific War) or "Dark Night" (The start of the russian "Decade of Darkness").
I wonder if Salgado gonna get elected in Brazil
Also, @Antonio the Komnenoi , is Brazil a democracy following the 1934 constitution, or it is an sham democracy?
Also, @Antonio the Komnenoi , is Brazil a democracy following the 1934 constitution, or it is an sham democracy?
Theoretically, the Constitution gave wide suffrage rights like the 1934 one, the President and Congress are both elected (Except for a third of the Congress). However, in practice, the elected positions have largely symbolic power, with the Council of State detaining the real power and being unelected, with the Military having a powerful position in the Ministry of War. While on the outside it is a Democratic Republic with just an empowered military, Brazil is actually an Oligarchical dictatorship with strong Stratocratic leanings and a sham democracy.
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X - THE LAST DAY OF THE RED ARMY
THE IRON EAGLE
THE LAST DAY OF THE RED ARMY
THE LAST DAY OF THE RED ARMY
There is perhaps no way more dramatic for a Great Power to fall than collapsing on itself, when a war for the national survival of a people is lost with it's wealthiest and most populous territories taken, it takes a man of great skill to be able to hold the structure together, and Iosef Jughashvili "Stalin", known also as Joseph Stalin, was not that man. The Soviet "Man of Steel", born in Georgia in 1878, was one that would never have risen to the top if it wasn't for the Russian defeat in WWI, so nothing more fitting that his own downfall would come through a similar defeat at the hands of the Reich. The tale of the Soviet fall could fill in entire books on it's own, and indeed many were written on the topic, from military analysis such as Mikhail Dombrowski's "Anatomy of a Disaster: The Eastern Front" to others watching it as a personal failure of Stalin such as Roland Stern's "Stalin's War". While giving the due credit to the writers of these books, it is simplistic to solely blame the defeat on Stalin's policies, as the later Red Army generals did in their memoirs, while not taking into account structural aspects of the Soviet Union itself and how millions initially welcomed the Germans as liberators from Communist rule in the Baltics, Ruthenia, Ukraine, and the Caucasus before the true intentions of the Reich were revealed. The Russian tragedy during the so-called "Decade of Darkness", extending from the signature of the Molotov-Ribbentropp Pact in 1939 to the end of the Second Civil war in 1949, was the deathliest and most catastrophic period in Russian History since the "Time of Troubles" in the 1600s, and at the very least an examination of the era is necessary to comprehend the full extension of the Reich's victory in the Tag das Sieges. Many wonder if things could've been different, if Stalin had not signed the pact, or believed the reports of an incoming German attack in June 1941, or if the disastrous winter counter-offensives in 1941 and especially 1942 had been handled differently. It is no surprise that this fascinating topic has been subjected to many fiction books on counter-factual history, such as Konstantin Karimov's "Red World", where Trotsky came to power in the Soviet Union instead of Stalin after Lenin's death and launched an attack in 1940 during the German attack on France, eventually ending the book where the "Communist International", a a superstate extending from Lisbon to Beijing declares war on the Anglo-American "Democratic Coalition" at the 1950s with the invasion of Britain. However, exercising such a fantasy as "Alternative History" is ultimately an exercise of pure imagination, sometimes used by propagandists such as Karimov who argued in favor of the benefits of the Communist system under Trotsky as a benevolent worker's utopia against an alliance of Capitalist Oligarchies, or just by those who like to speculate a world that never happened to reassure themselves that, ultimately, their own "reality" is not as bleak, and everything could've always been worse.
Is it wrong to start in 1942? The war itself, with the full extent of the almost-miraculous successes of the German army in 1941, from the capture of Leningrad to the great siege of Kiev and the Caucasian campaign, has already been greatly covered by many other military historians, this is instead an analysis on the Soviet collapse itself, and the Winter offensive of 1942 is no doubt the starting point. After the fall of cities like Kiev, Minsk, Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov, Astrakhan, Stalingrad, and Baku between 1941 and 1942, the logistical and military capacity of the Union was crippled, the loss of it's largest population and industrial centers, including the oilfields of the Caucasus were the greatest concern of the Red Army as the first snowflakes began to fall in November 1942. While manpower was certainly in no shortage, everything else seemed to be, with the German advance capturing most of the Soviet Industrial capacity even after Stalin ordered the evacuation of industries to the East, which proved to be too late in many cases, ammunition, food, medical supplies, fuel, armor, and even rifles were at terrible levels in 1942, with the lack of support from the allied powers, many considered that the Soviet Union was abandoned in it's struggle. However, even after the capture of Moscow, the Red Army refused to quit the fight, with the cream of it's most experienced forces, alongside most of it's remaining armored reserves and troops transferred from the East, preparing for one last attempt to turn back the invader. Stalin, now sitting with the Soviet Presidium and the Union apparatus in Perm, at the foot of the Ural Mountains, clashed with the Red Army Marshals, such as Zhukov, Vasilevsky, and Bagramyan arguing towards a Southern offensive to recapture the crucial oilfields of the Caucasus to fuel the armored divisions, while Stalin and loyalist Marshals such as Budyonny and Voroshilov argued for a central offensive to retake Moscow and it's logistical center, serving as a morale boost. Ultimately, Stalin would side with the Moscow offensive, claiming that the Soviet Union could not win the war as long as it's heart was poisoned by the German occupiers, and while he also flirted with the idea of attacking Stalingrad as a matter of personal pride, something Zhukov argued in favor of, the arguments of Marshal Konev would direct Stalin to the Moscow offensive, which would prove to be an ill-advised attack.
In November, after the long buildup at Nizhny Novgorod, detected by German intelligence, the Red Army prepared the attack with the newly formed "Special Moscow Military Front" being propagandized as a feared force to demoralize the enemy. However, the Abwehr would detect the incoming signals of an offensive, with Admiral Canaris first attempting to hide the information before being discovered by RSHA commander Reinhard Heydrich, which only didn't report Canaris for his "Anti-German sympathies" due to their previous friendship. After the OKW, headed by Wilhelm Keitel and his Chief of Staff Heinz Guderian, came to discover the Soviet plans due to an "accidental" leak by one of the Red Army aides, General Erich von Manstein and other members of the Wehrmacht would prepare to lay a trap on the Soviet forces, with Manstein, the planner of the previous Ardennes offensive and considered one of the most capable commanders of the Wehr, prepared the Panzer armies for a deathly strategy. On the 14th of November, the Soviet forces launched their attack, with over 1.2 million soldiers and the majority of the Soviet armored reserves being mobilized for the action, an impressive force on paper, but that in practice would prove disappointing as many of the tanks quickly began to run out of fuel, sometimes two soldiers would have to share one rifle, and the Air fleet was decimated by the Luftwaffe against Soviet expectations. That didn't stop the Red Army from achieving a decisive initial breakthrough, with the plan following the strategy first theorized by Marshal Tukhachevsky of "Deep Battle", which in many ways seemed an evolution of the German Bewegungskrieg, with thousands of German forces being routed and the initial line being broken in the first hours of the attack. Enthusiastic with the initial reports, Stalin, acting as the People's Commissar of Defense, would give the infamous "Order 227", called as the "No halting" order, demanding that the Soviet forces must give no break in their offensive, Moscow was to be liberated at all costs and retreating from the battle would be considered an act of desertion and treason. The growing influence of the NKVD, the Soviet Secret Police, could be seen during this period of the war, especially with the STAVKA, the Soviet high command, being more and more staffed by political loyalists and commissars being present at the front to oversee the "political loyalty" of the generals. However, the initial decisive breakthrough was exactly what the OKW expected and desired.
The plan of "Operation Uranus", the counter offensive to retake Moscow, was to push two pincers from Niznhy Novgorod and Yaroslavl towards the capital and encircle it, however, by the end of November, the offensive began to stall as the Soviets lost the Air Superiority before expected, with the arrival of newly designed fighters such as the experimental ME-262 winning decisive air confrontations while the Soviet Air forces began to suffer fuel problems, losing any hopes of capturing the German fuel depots when it was revealed many were relocated west of Moscow. Zhukov and other commanders would be cautious about the advance, the successes of the Red Army such as the capture of Vladimir seemed to be more optimistic than many expected, Stalin was approached by the STAVKA to request a halt on the drive towards Moscow to consolidate the flanks as partisans reported a buildup of German forces to the southeast of Moscow, however the Premier denied and the relentless drive onwards would continue. On the 29th of November, after the fall of Vladimir, Manstein sprung the trap by launching "Operation Edelweiss", with the German Panzer armies, protected by air superiority and the cover of the snow, struck against the overextended flanks of the southern pincer in a tactic nicknamed by the Field Marshal as "Backhand Blow", a tactic of elastic defense that was controversial to say the least, a risky gamble that paid off as the Soviet forces were forced to overextend themselves at the gates of Moscow. The devastating counter attack struck at Vatutin's southern spearhead at Murom, shattering the momentum of the Red Army's attack and pushing northwards to cut them off from Niznhy Novgorod, Zhukov pleas to Stalin would be ignored as he believed it to be a diversionary attack, on the 3rd of December, after the capture of Vyazniki, the Southern pincer was cut off it's main supply line, with Vatutin forced to stop the push towards Moscow.
The Northern pincer was now reaching the city outskirts at the northeast of Moscow, Stalin continued to insist that the capture of the city should be the first priority of the attack, while the generals called for the attack on the city to cease in order to relieve the surrounded Southern pincer, trapped in the so-called "Sobinka pocket". Field Marshal von Bock's "Army Group Center" would finally execute it's counter attack to stop Konev's pincer and prevent a relief of Vatutin's. On the 5th of December, the second phase of Operation Edelweiss would begin with a brutal counter attack by the German reserves, taking back the initiative from the Red forces and essentially halting Operation Uranus, 900,000 men of the German Wehrmacht launched a series of attacks at the flanks and front of the Soviet pincers, the troops were able to see the Kremlin at the distance, something they would never be able to reach again. Stalin's stroke on the 6th was even more compromising, many fearing that the Premier would never wake up, or worse, that he would wake up, this led to a period of indecisiveness in the midst of the German counter attack, with Zhukov eventually disobeying order 227, ordering the end of Operation Uranus, instead Konev was ordered to push southeast to link back the Sobinka pocket, while the "Pereslav salient" held against the German attacks. On the 13th of December, the Sobinka pocket would be relinked and Zhukov ordered a general evacuation, which ended up turning into a rout, with discipline breaking down and NKVD officers openly entering in conflict with Red army officers from the disobedience of Stalin's orders, Minister Beria ordered NKVD units to remain in position and obey the orders of the People's Commissar of Defense, many shooting incidents happening as the Commissars and Officers argued over the retreat. Eventually, by January the Red Army was forced to retreat to it's starting positions and lost the majority of it's heavy equipment, many tanks being abandoned due to the lack of fuel, and a German counter offensive would push the Soviets from Yaroslav and Kostroma, taking Nizhny Novgorod and digging down across the Volga river. Similar attacks by the Germans would take Samara and Archangelsk, reaching the gates of Kazan and finally settling down the Reich's war machine at the Astrakhan-Archangelsk line, with the Werhmacht beginning to fortify it's positions and the Red Army spending the majority of it's remaining reserves in an ill-advised offensive, the war would finally grind down to a halt, on the following months it would be reduced to border incidents at most, a peace treaty was never signed but in the minds of both nations, the war, for now, was over.
On the 17th of March 1943, Stalin finally would wake up from his stroke, receiving grave news from his doctors as most of the sensitivity from his right leg was numbed and he would have to walk with a cane for the rest of his life, his reaction was to blame the doctors for an incompetent treatment and order their execution for attempting against his life. His stroke caused an intensification of Stalin's paranoia and is believed to have caused him to develop a schizophrenic mind, believing even more that there was an enemy behind every shadow, his aides now would have to discuss on who was the unfortunate soul to bring him up to date with the recent military events. It is said that in a fit of rage, Stalin ordered Beria to execute the entire STAVKA, and the Minister would have to try to talk him down, which in Stalin's paranoid mind made him think Beria was conspiring against him, keeping information from him while he was in ill health just as he did to Lenin in his final years. Stalin summoned the remaining Party apparatus for a meeting of the Supreme Soviet, where he would accuse insidious counter-revolutionary elements and fifth columns for sabotaging the war effort and collaborating with the invader, while indirectly attacking the army for "the showcase of cowardice, if not treason by many in the leadership of the Red Army", from the moment of Stalin's "Traitor's Speech" onwards, the Soviet Union would begin to tear itself apart under the paranoia of a mad tyrant. The State of the Union was catastrophic to say the least, the loss of it's core territories was no doubt the single greatest Russian defeat in the modern era, the economy was in a calamitous situation and millions of refugees would soon begin to pour into the soviet territory as part of the Generalplan Ost, and even if the war ended de facto, the mobilization of the Soviet army remained, keeping millions away from work while the agrarian heartland of the USSR was lost. The immediate result is that the already low rations of the stockpiles began to dwindle, the strict wartime rationing was tightened and hunger would come to the Soviet Union in 1943, and with it would come a natural reduction of the people's natural immunity that would bring in diseases along, and with the war far from over, the four knights of the apocalypse would bring their wrath upon Russia.
In April, Stalin would approach a man named Ivan Serov, Beria's feared deputy in the NKVD. Born in the Vologda District in 1905, Serov was an ambitious cold-hearted sociopath, sometimes being said that if Beria was Stalin's Himmler, Serov was the equivalent of Reinhard Heydrich, which would be further proven by the ambition that he possessed. On the 8th of April, Beria would be arrested under charges of counter-revolutionary conspiracy with foreign powers to bring the Soviet defeat, alongside several cases of rape that were actually proven true (differently from most of the Stalinist show trials), he plead for his life desperately, crying every moment until a bullet to the head finally silenced the feared Minister of Internal Affairs. The NKVD was dissolved, instead the new "Ministry of State Security" (MGB) would be created with Serov at it's head, and on the aftermath of Beria's death, Stalin planned to begin a second great purge in order to eradicate the threat of "Counter-revolutionaries and foreign collaborators" within the Union, rallying it's people under a unified leadership and retake the Western territories, and Stalin's first priority was to rid the Red Army of it's perceived conspirators. However, one of Beria's old loyalists in the MGB would leak the plans to Marshal Zhukov, who became a figurehead of the Red Army and became increasingly disillusioned with Stalin, and while he was mostly apolitical, seeing the list of people to be condemned as enemies of the State including not just his name but the ones of several high-ranking officers, the Marshal would be forced to act preemptively. Several Red Army officers would come to a meeting in Izhevsk on the 16th of April, where Zhukov, Konev, and several other commanders finally decided to act, ellaborating a manifesto to the Soviet people, however the meeting would be discovered by the MGB, and as soon as agents of MGB units attempted to arrest the officers on conspiracy charges, local army units would stop them, a heated argument began during the night between the 16th and 17th of April, and once the first shot was fired, the second Russian Civil War began.
The plans of the army commanders had to be rushed into action, a confusing exchange of orders being given to frontline units to disarm and apprehend Commissars and former NKVD divisions while the opposite side was ordered to arrest the officers of the Red Army instead. The night of the coup would begin the first battle of the war between MGB units and the Red army garrison in Izhevsk, with the Security forces routed back to Perm, the conspirators had to act decisively, mobilizing local units to immediately march to Perm and arrest Stalin, all while the frontlines collapsed into chaos with Army and Security units openly shooting at one another, much to the confusion of the Germans across the Volga. Stalin and the Soviet Apparatus would be evacuated eastwards just hours before the Red Army forces took Perm, escorted by loyalist army units and the MGB to the city of Yekaterinburg across the Urals, later moving to Novosibirsk in Central Siberia. On the morning of the 17th, Zhukov would announce the "Perm Manifesto", accusing Stalin's decisions for sabotaging the Soviet War effort and guiding it into defeat while ignoring the advice of his commanders, while Stalin made a speech in Yekaterinburg accusing Zhukov of "Bonapartism" and for placing his personal ambitions above the welfare of the Soviet people. Units from the Far East, which remained mostly loyal to Stalin, were transferred Westwards while the MGB mobilized new units, promising gulag prisoners freedom if they redeemed themselves by crushing the treasonous elements attacking the Union. On the west of the Urals, Zhukov vowed to continue the fight, while MGB units were overwhelmed and arrested by army units, with the majority of the troops being transferred Eastwards following the Tag das Sieges, occupying the remainder of European Russia and several key Ural crossings. Millions would begin to be called to arms, refugees joining on both sides in return of rations and shelter, the military forces reorganized themselves as a temporary military Junta, still acting officially as Soviet officers and members of the Communist Party, Zhukov did not recognize Stalin's leadership as he was considered to be incapacitated by his stroke. Any attempts at compromising would fail and soon, the fate of the Soviet Union would be decided in the battlefields once more.
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DISCLAIMER: This is where much of the "Handwavium" had to be spent, the concept of a German victory on the Eastern Front is sketchy at best and Stalin's incompetence really had to be increased to 1945 Hitler levels in order to make this work. Assume the absolute worst case scenario had to happen with the USSR here, such as the factory relocation to the east starting off too late, a bigger siege of Kiev, a German focus in capturing the Caucasus instead of Typhoon, etc.
In the end, for story-purposes, great liberties had to be taken in order to make the Soviet defeat to happen, keep it in mind before going into the commentaries and accusing me of being some sort of Wehrmacht supporter.
In the end, for story-purposes, great liberties had to be taken in order to make the Soviet defeat to happen, keep it in mind before going into the commentaries and accusing me of being some sort of Wehrmacht supporter.
I think a more realistic way to get an Axis victory in the eastern front would've been for Japan to invade the USSR alongside Germany, thus making the Soviets fight a two front war. Then again, that's a whole other timeline. Has anyone done a Japan invades the Soviet Union instead of attacking the U.S. timeline? If so, let me know where to find it.
On another note, Russia is going to be a mess to say the least. I wonder if Communism in Russia is going to collapse entirely (although that'd probably lead to some sort of warring states period in Russia). I also wonder if the U.S. is going to intervene and create some sort of puppet state in the Russian Far East.
Either way, great work.
Thanks, the invasion of the Far East by Japan was something that would’ve never happened (at least not while the USSR is still intact) after the Japanese saw what happened in Khalkhin Gol, the Soviet land forces were far too much for the IJA to handle due to it’s technological and tactical edge. As for an expedition in the Russian Far East... you should be careful with what you wish for.
What generals right now could be considered Stalin loyalists (aside from the obvious ones like Kulik, Budyonny, and Voroshilov)? Maybe Rokossovsky and/or Konev?
I have to agree with this.
Khalkhin Gol pretty much "proved" to the Japanese that them attempting to invade the Soviets would've only gone poorly. And iirc the Soviets didn't pull troops from the East until they signed an agreement with Japan and Japan became too occupied in the Southern Strategy.
Realistically, I think you've the best you can to have a victorious Axis in the East without it becoming too insane handwavium.
Oh please, do that... and have MacArthur lead the expedition.
The amount of troops needed to invade Russia would require Japan to pull troops of the Chinese front, which could lead to them being routed. The Chinease could even march into Manchuria and cut of the troops occupying Russia's far-east. Its pretty obvious why they didn't do that.
Not sure Rokossovsky would side with Stalin here. He was loyal to Stalin and really quite naive about Stalin's role in the Great Purge that saw him imprisoned and tortured, but I'm not sure how long that loyalty would last if Stalin exhibited true insanity.
Will historiography of the Russian Revolution in this world play up the narrative of Lenin as a "German agent" sent to weaken and destabilize Russia, considering the pitiful performance of the Red Army and Soviet War Machine ITTL? I'm guessing Russian nationalists will see nothing of the value in the Soviet legacy, and instead they'll embrace counterfactual history novels where a non-communist Russia industrializes and holds back the German hordes.
Rokossovsky is dead, due to the butterfly effect he didn’t survive the Great Purge and had a different sentence more similar to Tukhachevsky. Another character who died here is Nikita “Corn Lord” Khrushchev, who was captured by the Germans during TTL’s Battle of Kiev (which was even more crippling than in OTL) and executed as part of the Infamous Commissioner’s order.