The Iron Eagle - The History of the Cold War

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HESS’ CABINET
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    • Kaiser of Brazil

    Kaiser of Brazil

    THIRD REICH
    Hess Cabinet (1952-???)


    POLITICAL LEADERSHIP

    Führer (Rudolf Hess)
    Deputy-Führer (Reinhard Heydrich)
    Chief of Chancellery (Hans Lammers)
    Minister of Public Englightenment and Propaganda (Joseph Goebbels)
    Minister of Education and Culture (Joseph Goebbels)
    Minister of Economy (Albert Speer)
    Minister of Armaments and Production (Albert Speer)
    Minister of Church Affairs (Hermann Muhs)
    Minister of Foreign Affairs (Ernst Wilhelm Bohle)
    Minister of Science (Werner Heisenberg)
    Minister of Food and Agriculture (Herbert Backe)
    Minister of Youth (Artur Axmann)
    Minister of Justice (Roland Freisler)
    Minister of the Interior (Arthur Seyss-Inquart)
    Minister of Finance (Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk)
    Minister of Labor (Fritz Sauckel)
    Minister of Transport (Robert Wagner)
    Minister of Postal Service (Werner Naumann)
    Minister of Welfare (Erich Hilgenfeldt)


    MILITARY LEADERSHIP

    Chief of the OKW (Wilhelm Keitel)
    Chief-of-Staff of the OKW (Heins Guderian)
    Head of the Wehrmacht (Ferdinand Schörner)
    Head of the Luftwaffe (Albert Kesselring)
    Head of the Kriegsmarine (Karl Dönitz)


    REGIONAL LEADERS

    General-Government (Hans Frank)
    Ostland (Alfred Rosenberg)
    Ukraine (Erich Koch)
    Moscowien (Siegfried Kasche)
    Caucasus (Arno Schickedanz)
    Norway (Vidkun Quisling)
    Sweden (Sven Lindholm)
    Bohemia-Moravia (Ernst Kaltenbrunner)
    Netherlands (Hanns Albin Rauter)
    Belgium-Nothern France (Josef Grohé)


    SECURITY SERVICES

    Reichsführer-SS (Reinhard Heydrich)
    Head of the RSHA (Reinhard Heydrich)
    Head of the Gestapo (Heinrich Müller)
    Head of the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (Adolf Eichmann)
    Stabschef SA (Paul Giesler)


    ​
     
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    • Glory2Cabinda

    I wonder if theirs going to be an uptick in anti-Catholic sentiment during the cold war due to the association with Fascist France, Italy and Spain.
     

    Tanaka did nothing wrong

    An interesting timeline thus far. I hope you keep up the good work!

    Some comments/potential suggestions:
    • As far as I am concerned, at least, I think an SS coup is generally implausible. First of all, the Reichsführer SS wasn't the supreme commander of the SS; he was probably more like what the Deputy Führer at first and later the Parteikanzler was for the Party: a person tasked by the Führer to administer the organisation. Yes, he might have run the whole thing, yes, he could do almost as he liked, but at the end of the day, the Führer was in command. Secondly, the armed wing of the SS, the Waffen SS, were at least IOTL under the command of the army leadership and in case of a situation like that, they would most likely obey the side that would seem most legitimate (and in this case, it would be both the Führer and the OKW). If Himmler attempted something like this, it wouldn't have been Valkyrie; it would have been at the top most, so to speak, more like the August 1991 coup (and that's if we give them some good luck). And the mid 1950s would have been rather early to empower the position of RF-SS to such a degree that he could even start having good chances to pull this off. Also, Heydrich managing to get such deal even if he did, he would always have a big mark on his back and Hess could soon afterwards, after the situation has calmed down somewhat, strip him of all offices and titles: the Party would support him, the whole affair would have caused many cracks and divisions in the SS. These positions weren't independent, they were given and taken by the Führer.

      Now, perhaps the coup could happen if an event had happened that would throw Berlin in chaos and force a lockdown; then the RSD could plausibly move ministers to isolated locations or lock them in their homes and departments. If someone was to be killed, it might be preferable to try to have him be away from Berlin, better even out of Germany and close to a troubled region (for example, if Bormann had gone to RK Belgien, it would be easy to claim at least some plausible deniability). The coup would still unravel, but it might be more plausible as a course of events. Or modify the coup: Hess was hypohondriac and continuously complaining of ailments; so you could perhaps have Himmler place an SS doctor near him to cultivate these fears and convince him to seek treatment in an SS - controlled hospital. Ever since Morell would have been accused of poisoning the Führer*, there would be increased security over this, so the doctor could be found out. This in turn could perhaps make Himmler very nervous about being discovered, so he could have the doctor die while in protective custody and engineer an event in Berlin that would allow him, as chief of police, to place the city under lockdown. (not very good, but another option)

    • Hess is in an interesting position. He has prevailed, but on the other hand he has lost the person who dealt with almost all the administrative minutiae in the Party and someone with important organisational skills. So this sort of allows other players to enter the fray and attempt to exploit the resulting void. Of course, the StdF (?)/Party Chancellery* wouldn't be completely helpless in this. Hess would be equally committe to the idea of partification, while Bormann would have left more than a few subordinates capable of continuing his work. If Hess thought that abolishing the office of Deputy Führer would add quite a lot to his plate, he would probably keep it and appoint a figure from/ under the influence of the "Control Faction". Perhaps Adolf Wagner, one of the more trustoworthy Gauleiters and a member of the Inner Circle could be an option, with Bormann's lieutenants (Friedrichs, Klopfer etc). taking to some extent the position of their former boss. Perhaps Albert Hoffmann, a major fixer in the Parteikanzlei IOTL and a man Bormann usedin various difficult situations could rise to become a sort of a second Brown Eminence, although with Wagner being more interested in the affairs of his office and Klopfer and others also being around his position wouldn't be that unique. So things wouldn't change that much.

      Heydrich as Deputy Führer is almost impossible; he would be lucky for having remained RF SS. While I think I understand the motive (co-opting him), the position would be one neither Hoffmann/the StdF stuff nor Heydrich himself would want the latter to have: the former for obvious reasons, especially if the office has retained its previous functions, since Heydrich would be very difficut to control/influence and could perhaps even start using this position of control over Party affairs to start shifting the balance of power more in the SS' favour on a number of issues, and Hess agreed on the goal of partification. As for Heydrich, the position would be problematic he would have to attend all sorts of ceremonies that would be time-consuming but not that important and be in the limelight, as well as deliver speeches (it ay seem trivial, but his pitched voice would be seen as somewhat embarassing, considering his reputation) and he would be co-opted in the inner Party structure, so in effect it would limit him to some extent).

    • The SS are in for big trouble, Not only Himmler has been neutralised, but they have given the Party the rope with which they are to be hanged. The StdF stuff would be quick to capitalise on this, by removing the Police (and the Interior Ministry, if Himmler had occupied that position as well) from the SS and entrusting the administrative positions at least to Party people. In the Interior Ministry, Kloper might perhaps be appointed as State Secretary, with SS allies being purged and replaced by Party people. It would mark a decisive moment, since with control of that portfolio, partification could proceed with less opposition from the traditional centres of the civil service; with the new Interior minister being perhaps dependent on Klopfer and the position of Chief of Police being abolshed and direct control of the police forces being restored to the minister's office, the Party could weaken the SS significantly and gain another means of control. Of course, this could be less spectacular, if Himmler had managed to create the Staatschutzkorps before the coup (ie fusing the Gestapo and other state agencies into a purely SS organisation - ie de facto integration of the Police in the SS), since in that case, Heydrich, with his appointment as RF SS would maintain most if not all of the functions of his predecessor.

      An area where the Party could be considered perhaps to have won more decisively would probably be the East; with Himmler dead and Heydrich probably more interested in running the RSHA than dealing with settlement blueprints and lists of settler criteria, the Party could succeed in securing control of such agencies as the RuSHA and gain a hegemonic position in Eastern administration and settlement policy (the RKFDV is more tricky, since Heydrich would realise its potential and thus wish to maintain control). The SS economic empire would probably be rather curtailed as well; the management of its assets (or those confiscated/transferred) would probably be a cause for discord in the Party, since the Party Chancellery would probably want to place it all under its trusteeship or at least the trusteeship of a Reich agency it could influence, in order to control its disposal in the future, while the Gauleiters would probably want them to be placed immediately under their economic offices.

      (I don't know whether Hess would keep the office, his second in command in the StdF was Bormann and Bormann would want none of the public functions of the office, so perhaps Hess could agree to create an analogue of the Party Chancellery with Bormann at its helm; it would suit him since he would most likely still like the public activities of the Deputy Führer so he could continue doing them as Führer, which in turn would mean that the office of deputy Führer would become an almost completely bureaucratic position; furthermore, much

    • Another person who now finds himself in an interesting position would be Speer.

      Before the coup, Speer's fortunes would have most likely be on the decline, mainly because he and Bormann would be at each other'sthroats. IOTL (and probably ITTL as well) the enmity between the two largely started when Speer tried as Armaments Minister to place the whole economy under his control in order to mobilise it for total war, among other reasons; this, alongside his haughtiness, actually sealed the fate of his relationship with the Gauleiters, who were livid at this momentous move to cut into their powers and limit them, as well as cause troubles for them at a local level (closing down the civilian economy and reducing living standards wouldn't be popular at all with the polulation). For Bormann, it was this attempt to dramatically expand his powers, as well as the fact that Speer was probably one of the very few people who still had direct access to Hitler not controlled by him that made the Speer an enemy of his; and as Speer proved his ability for empire-building and amassing more powers, the competition became more brutal.After the war, this situation would have most likely persisted: as Hitler would launch the various construction projects, Speer would become more powerful. His commisions to rebuild Berlin and other German cities and also, build settlements in the eastern territories and rebuild cities there would place him perhaps in control of one of the largest budgets in the Reich (the eastern building programme alone was estimated to cost at least 700 - 750 billion Reichsmarks); his organisations, expanded as they would be for the purposes of these projects, would give him an almost decisive level of control over labour, both German and foreign; the combination of these would give him unparalleled influence in the economy, since he would be able to spend as he saw fit, rewarding supporters and punishing opponents. With many Gauleiters being invested in the construction projects both from a political (more jobs in their Gaus, construction is an easy way to gain popularity) and personal reasons (enrichment opportunities for themselves and their assocites, also the fact that many of them would want to leave construction projects as their legacy - and who better to commission to build these than the architect of the Führer himself), there would be the real danger that Speer, if he wanted to, could start undermining the position of Bormann and the StdF, by using material incentives to get the more anti-Bormann/Control Faction Gauleiters to support him. Although it's true that Speer's character would probably do him more harm than good, considering his stance towards the GLs during the war and Bormann would probably use the planned postwar purge of the Party ranks of "unworthy"/ not sufficiently committed members and make entrance more difficult and streamlined, as well as the lowering of the retirement age to throw out many "Old Fighters" and opponents and replace them with younger, more dependable faces, the danger would still be there.

      So when Hess becomes Führer, Bormann would have every reason to want to bring Speer down a peg or two, for starters. There were more than a few competitors for the latter inside the various organisations he led, such as Franz Xaver Dorsch in Organisation Todt (who actually had a somewhat close relationship with Bormann) and Karl - Otto Saur in the Ministry of Armaments and Industry; therefore it wouldn't be impossible for him to strip Speer of his ministerial status and confine him to his architectural projects, for the moment. As for the Economy Ministry, Bormann might try to place people from the Economic affairs department of the StdF (such as Bärmann, who seems to have revitalised the department after he was placed in charge of it in 1940) to actually run it and place a bureaucrat as a sort of "face", until the conditions were ripe for a Party appointment - perhaps the Minsitry's state secretary.

      Now Bormann is dead; while Hoffmann and Wagner wouldn't like Speer very much, they wouldn't be totally opposed to him. So, if Speer would probably continue as GBI and some other projects, but he would control neither any of his old ministerial departments, nor OT, nor the eastern construction projects, all of whom would remain and/or be placed under Party control. However, if he somehow managed to create with Hess a sort of relationship like he did with Hitler (perhaps their common liking of athletic outside activities and music? - in any case it would be difficult, since the StdF people would control access quite tightly), perhaps he could manage to make a sort of comeback, although he would still be a long way before returning to the position. His best case scenario would have been if Hanke or Kaufmann hadn't been purged/neutralised inside the Party by Bormann and Hess chose either of them to serve as Deputy Führer (preferably both, Kaufmann as Deputy Führer, Hanke as his second in command); with these two in such a position, Speer could manage to start reclaiming his old positions one by one; but this is very difficult to happen.

    • Bohle getting the Foreign Ministry is a good idea, since Bormann would probably try to exploit every window of opportunity and after the coup, Office VI of the RSHA and Schellenberg wouldn't be in a position to continue their efforts to increase their influence there. Still though, the SS are still rather powerful and after some time, its people could resume the battle inside the department, which would make Bohle's position interesting.

      * I didn't understand exactly why would they claim such a thing. I mean, Himmler would be displeased, for it would imply that he had failed in his chief task, the protection of the person of the Führer; Goebbels would have not liked this as well, for it would show that someone like Morell had been allowed to operate for so long unopposed, which in turn would imply incompetence both on the Party's and the inner circle's part; Speer would probably see it as complicating things; Bormann would probably see it as leading to questions about his inability, as the Führer's secretary, to get wind of this. So this would explanation would most likely leave no one satisfied.
     
    Kaiser of Brazil

    Kaiser of Brazil

    Tanaka did nothing wrong said:
    An interesting timeline thus far. I hope you keep up the good work!

    Some comments/potential suggestions:
    • As far as I am concerned, at least, I think an SS coup is generally implausible. First of all, the Reichsführer SS wasn't the supreme commander of the SS; he was probably more like what the Deputy Führer at first and later the Parteikanzler was for the Party: a person tasked by the Führer to administer the organisation. Yes, he might have run the whole thing, yes, he could do almost as he liked, but at the end of the day, the Führer was in command. Secondly, the armed wing of the SS, the Waffen SS, were at least IOTL under the command of the army leadership and in case of a situation like that, they would most likely obey the side that would seem most legitimate (and in this case, it would be both the Führer and the OKW). If Himmler attempted something like this, it wouldn't have been Valkyrie; it would have been at the top most, so to speak, more like the August 1991 coup (and that's if we give them some good luck). And the mid 1950s would have been rather early to empower the position of RF-SS to such a degree that he could even start having good chances to pull this off. Also, Heydrich managing to get such deal even if he did, he would always have a big mark on his back and Hess could soon afterwards, after the situation has calmed down somewhat, strip him of all offices and titles: the Party would support him, the whole affair would have caused many cracks and divisions in the SS. These positions weren't independent, they were given and taken by the Führer.

      Now, perhaps the coup could happen if an event had happened that would throw Berlin in chaos and force a lockdown; then the RSD could plausibly move ministers to isolated locations or lock them in their homes and departments. If someone was to be killed, it might be preferable to try to have him be away from Berlin, better even out of Germany and close to a troubled region (for example, if Bormann had gone to RK Belgien, it would be easy to claim at least some plausible deniability). The coup would still unravel, but it might be more plausible as a course of events. Or modify the coup: Hess was hypohondriac and continuously complaining of ailments; so you could perhaps have Himmler place an SS doctor near him to cultivate these fears and convince him to seek treatment in an SS - controlled hospital. Ever since Morell would have been accused of poisoning the Führer*, there would be increased security over this, so the doctor could be found out. This in turn could perhaps make Himmler very nervous about being discovered, so he could have the doctor die while in protective custody and engineer an event in Berlin that would allow him, as chief of police, to place the city under lockdown. (not very good, but another option)

    • Hess is in an interesting position. He has prevailed, but on the other hand he has lost the person who dealt with almost all the administrative minutiae in the Party and someone with important organisational skills. So this sort of allows other players to enter the fray and attempt to exploit the resulting void. Of course, the StdF (?)/Party Chancellery* wouldn't be completely helpless in this. Hess would be equally committe to the idea of partification, while Bormann would have left more than a few subordinates capable of continuing his work. If Hess thought that abolishing the office of Deputy Führer would add quite a lot to his plate, he would probably keep it and appoint a figure from/ under the influence of the "Control Faction". Perhaps Adolf Wagner, one of the more trustoworthy Gauleiters and a member of the Inner Circle could be an option, with Bormann's lieutenants (Friedrichs, Klopfer etc). taking to some extent the position of their former boss. Perhaps Albert Hoffmann, a major fixer in the Parteikanzlei IOTL and a man Bormann usedin various difficult situations could rise to become a sort of a second Brown Eminence, although with Wagner being more interested in the affairs of his office and Klopfer and others also being around his position wouldn't be that unique. So things wouldn't change that much.

      Heydrich as Deputy Führer is almost impossible; he would be lucky for having remained RF SS. While I think I understand the motive (co-opting him), the position would be one neither Hoffmann/the StdF stuff nor Heydrich himself would want the latter to have: the former for obvious reasons, especially if the office has retained its previous functions, since Heydrich would be very difficut to control/influence and could perhaps even start using this position of control over Party affairs to start shifting the balance of power more in the SS' favour on a number of issues, and Hess agreed on the goal of partification. As for Heydrich, the position would be problematic he would have to attend all sorts of ceremonies that would be time-consuming but not that important and be in the limelight, as well as deliver speeches (it ay seem trivial, but his pitched voice would be seen as somewhat embarassing, considering his reputation) and he would be co-opted in the inner Party structure, so in effect it would limit him to some extent).

    • The SS are in for big trouble, Not only Himmler has been neutralised, but they have given the Party the rope with which they are to be hanged. The StdF stuff would be quick to capitalise on this, by removing the Police (and the Interior Ministry, if Himmler had occupied that position as well) from the SS and entrusting the administrative positions at least to Party people. In the Interior Ministry, Kloper might perhaps be appointed as State Secretary, with SS allies being purged and replaced by Party people. It would mark a decisive moment, since with control of that portfolio, partification could proceed with less opposition from the traditional centres of the civil service; with the new Interior minister being perhaps dependent on Klopfer and the position of Chief of Police being abolshed and direct control of the police forces being restored to the minister's office, the Party could weaken the SS significantly and gain another means of control. Of course, this could be less spectacular, if Himmler had managed to create the Staatschutzkorps before the coup (ie fusing the Gestapo and other state agencies into a purely SS organisation - ie de facto integration of the Police in the SS), since in that case, Heydrich, with his appointment as RF SS would maintain most if not all of the functions of his predecessor.

      An area where the Party could be considered perhaps to have won more decisively would probably be the East; with Himmler dead and Heydrich probably more interested in running the RSHA than dealing with settlement blueprints and lists of settler criteria, the Party could succeed in securing control of such agencies as the RuSHA and gain a hegemonic position in Eastern administration and settlement policy (the RKFDV is more tricky, since Heydrich would realise its potential and thus wish to maintain control). The SS economic empire would probably be rather curtailed as well; the management of its assets (or those confiscated/transferred) would probably be a cause for discord in the Party, since the Party Chancellery would probably want to place it all under its trusteeship or at least the trusteeship of a Reich agency it could influence, in order to control its disposal in the future, while the Gauleiters would probably want them to be placed immediately under their economic offices.

      (I don't know whether Hess would keep the office, his second in command in the StdF was Bormann and Bormann would want none of the public functions of the office, so perhaps Hess could agree to create an analogue of the Party Chancellery with Bormann at its helm; it would suit him since he would most likely still like the public activities of the Deputy Führer so he could continue doing them as Führer, which in turn would mean that the office of deputy Führer would become an almost completely bureaucratic position; furthermore, much

    • Another person who now finds himself in an interesting position would be Speer.

      Before the coup, Speer's fortunes would have most likely be on the decline, mainly because he and Bormann would be at each other'sthroats. IOTL (and probably ITTL as well) the enmity between the two largely started when Speer tried as Armaments Minister to place the whole economy under his control in order to mobilise it for total war, among other reasons; this, alongside his haughtiness, actually sealed the fate of his relationship with the Gauleiters, who were livid at this momentous move to cut into their powers and limit them, as well as cause troubles for them at a local level (closing down the civilian economy and reducing living standards wouldn't be popular at all with the polulation). For Bormann, it was this attempt to dramatically expand his powers, as well as the fact that Speer was probably one of the very few people who still had direct access to Hitler not controlled by him that made the Speer an enemy of his; and as Speer proved his ability for empire-building and amassing more powers, the competition became more brutal.After the war, this situation would have most likely persisted: as Hitler would launch the various construction projects, Speer would become more powerful. His commisions to rebuild Berlin and other German cities and also, build settlements in the eastern territories and rebuild cities there would place him perhaps in control of one of the largest budgets in the Reich (the eastern building programme alone was estimated to cost at least 700 - 750 billion Reichsmarks); his organisations, expanded as they would be for the purposes of these projects, would give him an almost decisive level of control over labour, both German and foreign; the combination of these would give him unparalleled influence in the economy, since he would be able to spend as he saw fit, rewarding supporters and punishing opponents. With many Gauleiters being invested in the construction projects both from a political (more jobs in their Gaus, construction is an easy way to gain popularity) and personal reasons (enrichment opportunities for themselves and their assocites, also the fact that many of them would want to leave construction projects as their legacy - and who better to commission to build these than the architect of the Führer himself), there would be the real danger that Speer, if he wanted to, could start undermining the position of Bormann and the StdF, by using material incentives to get the more anti-Bormann/Control Faction Gauleiters to support him. Although it's true that Speer's character would probably do him more harm than good, considering his stance towards the GLs during the war and Bormann would probably use the planned postwar purge of the Party ranks of "unworthy"/ not sufficiently committed members and make entrance more difficult and streamlined, as well as the lowering of the retirement age to throw out many "Old Fighters" and opponents and replace them with younger, more dependable faces, the danger would still be there.

      So when Hess becomes Führer, Bormann would have every reason to want to bring Speer down a peg or two, for starters. There were more than a few competitors for the latter inside the various organisations he led, such as Franz Xaver Dorsch in Organisation Todt (who actually had a somewhat close relationship with Bormann) and Karl - Otto Saur in the Ministry of Armaments and Industry; therefore it wouldn't be impossible for him to strip Speer of his ministerial status and confine him to his architectural projects, for the moment. As for the Economy Ministry, Bormann might try to place people from the Economic affairs department of the StdF (such as Bärmann, who seems to have revitalised the department after he was placed in charge of it in 1940) to actually run it and place a bureaucrat as a sort of "face", until the conditions were ripe for a Party appointment - perhaps the Minsitry's state secretary.

      Now Bormann is dead; while Hoffmann and Wagner wouldn't like Speer very much, they wouldn't be totally opposed to him. So, if Speer would probably continue as GBI and some other projects, but he would control neither any of his old ministerial departments, nor OT, nor the eastern construction projects, all of whom would remain and/or be placed under Party control. However, if he somehow managed to create with Hess a sort of relationship like he did with Hitler (perhaps their common liking of athletic outside activities and music? - in any case it would be difficult, since the StdF people would control access quite tightly), perhaps he could manage to make a sort of comeback, although he would still be a long way before returning to the position. His best case scenario would have been if Hanke or Kaufmann hadn't been purged/neutralised inside the Party by Bormann and Hess chose either of them to serve as Deputy Führer (preferably both, Kaufmann as Deputy Führer, Hanke as his second in command); with these two in such a position, Speer could manage to start reclaiming his old positions one by one; but this is very difficult to happen.

    • Bohle getting the Foreign Ministry is a good idea, since Bormann would probably try to exploit every window of opportunity and after the coup, Office VI of the RSHA and Schellenberg wouldn't be in a position to continue their efforts to increase their influence there. Still though, the SS are still rather powerful and after some time, its people could resume the battle inside the department, which would make Bohle's position interesting.

      * I didn't understand exactly why would they claim such a thing. I mean, Himmler would be displeased, for it would imply that he had failed in his chief task, the protection of the person of the Führer; Goebbels would have not liked this as well, for it would show that someone like Morell had been allowed to operate for so long unopposed, which in turn would imply incompetence both on the Party's and the inner circle's part; Speer would probably see it as complicating things; Bormann would probably see it as leading to questions about his inability, as the Führer's secretary, to get wind of this. So this would explanation would most likely leave no one satisfied.
    Click to expand...
    Thank you for the reply, I shall do my best to address your concerns and questions.

    As far as the coup goes, Himmler was acting on the behalf of Hess in order to suppress a Wehrmacht coup, which did in fact happen. Hess is not a very well respected man as a Führer, he was a sycophant who lacked the ambition and drive for leadership the others had, he only desired to follow Hitler and do his bidding. In fact, the Party Salute continued to salute Hitler rather than Hess, the oaths of loyalty were given to Hitler and Hess did not renew those before the coup attempt, which is one of the excuses the Wehr plotters used to convince more reluctant conspirators. Hess does have the power to replace Heydrich, however he lacks the decisiveness to do so while Reinhard has material to blackmail him, and from the way the coup was launched, Heydrich did show himself loyal to him by defusing Himmler's conspiracy. Himmler originally planned to do launch a preemptive coup after the RSHA discovered the plot for that day, and use the chaos in order to eliminate enemies of his own. He made two main mistakes: He left Bormann alive and trusted Heydrich with the task to neutralize Goebbels. Bormann was supposed to have died that day in order for the "Loyal Heinrich" to take the place of Deputy, but the coup was launched too soon, before the Wehrmacht made it's move, and to have him die would be either a show that the SS could not protect the Second man in the Party, or reveal their complicity. There were many SS officers who were unsatisfied with Hess, during his short tenure as a Führer he had publicly shown himself as a weak and vacillating man who pulled out from the war preparations that Hitler ordered and wanted a Detente with Britain, even backing down during the Dakkar crisis. It goes into the core of the Social Darwinianism of the National Socialist ideology, the leader is supposed to be the incarnation of the Nation to which all obey, and a weak leader would necessarily lead to a weaker nation. Publicly they could not oppose Hess, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't secretly plot to bring a more worthy man in charge.

    Heydrich would certainly not be opposed to being Deputy Führer for the simple fact that position is made far more powerful after Hitler's death. Officially the Deputy was never supposed to be a successor, but as Hitler's Will established the precedence of the "throne" passing on to the Deputy-Führer, it is a position many loyal hitlerites would adopt within the Party. Hess and others will attempt to limit the power Heydrich has in the office, but Heydrich already used the coup as an excuse to unleash a purge, the Second Night of the Long Knives. Sure, it was mostly targeted at Wehr officers, former Weimar politicians, and associates of the Schwarze Kapelle, but he did make sure that some of Bormann's loyalists, ended up on the list on the following days. With Europe seeing a surge in rebellious activities, it was not hard to disguise the deaths of certain Gauleiters or party officers as resistance attacks or plane crashes, such as what is implied to have happened with Göring. He is still far from solidified in his newfound power, and will need allies in order to stay afloat, or end up on a ditch like so many others.

    The Police is still under the command of Heydrich as he was given Himmler's former offices, although the Ministry of the Interior was given to Inquart. The Majority of the Police forces and powers, including the Gestapo, have been integrated as part of the RSHA as the Cold War would force the Reich to centralize it's security apparatus to deal with the MI6, OSS, and Mossad which will constantly seek to destabilize the newly conquered European Empire.

    Adolf Wagner was a figure I was thinking of including in the Hess Führership due to his ideas, however I had to cast him aside after seeing the Chronic Alcoholism and his deteriorating health even back in the early 40s. Geisler took his offices and now leads the SA after his death. As for Speer, I plan to go over the details in a future chapter about the three members of the "Triumvirate" (Heydrich, Goebbels and Speer), who are the main obstacles to any plans Hess may have for Partification. While Bormann certainly would've been a bigger threat if alive, Hess is a man who has the power, but lacks much of the will to use it other than continuing Hitler's memory, you could almost stretch it in calling the Reich under Hess as a Necrocracy, a nation ruled by a dead man. Am I making Hess excessively submissive? Perhaps that is a matter one could discuss as to what extent he had a will of his own or he was just blindly following Hitler's desires with a sense of Naivety? After all he is the man who did fly to Britain in one of the most bizzare events in WWII. The notion I have is that Hess was a man Hitler put in the position he was because he would never pose a threat to him, and a Hess that stays in his position for another decade where Hitler just managed to seem like a Messiah to him, would be even more dependent. At that point, Hess would be more of a spokesman, a hype man for Hitler that was kept around because he was a loyal old friend from the early days, with Bormann usually taking up his duties, what would Hess do after both Bormann and Hitler are gone? He could either become more assertive, using his power in order to act for the Party's interests and defeat his trio of powerful underlings, or he would slink more and more as a mere shadow of Hitler, acting as if he was still a deputy to a man he spent 30 years being nothing but fanatically loyal towards.

    Comes in the question of Morell. I myself had some hesitation on Hitler's death and what would be publicly announced. There weren't many options, the NSDAP in it's propaganda always showed Hitler as a strong and healthy leader, delivering powerful speeches and seemingly being invulnerable as he defeated every foe in his way. He was still 61 by the time he died, which was below the usual expectations of a man that always had a carefully crafted image. IOTL, the propaganda films always did their best to hide Hitler's frail state, and the same would happen in here. Saying that he died of something as simple as a flu would be a disaster to that image, as he was still relatively young and just recently had made public apperances in Germania. The alternative was to say he was killed by a foreign agent, but not only that also would be terrible PR for the Security agencies, that would make the war essentially inevitable. Very few in the leadership truly wanted to start a war, Speer knew that the Reich did not possess the nuclear capacity to challenge the US, and a hundred german cities would be destroyed before even a single nuke could be deployed. The SS, despite their outward fanaticism, still was led by Himmler, the same man who was desperately trying to jump the boat in 1945 and would not want to risk that Speer's theories are true when he had a chance of ruling an intact Europe. Bormann had a similar line of thought, his efforts were mostly directed towards the internal fighting for the Party's control. Heydrich knew from the RSHA that the United States was a far more formidable opponent than Hitler would admit, and Speer's thoughts that at least a nuclear parity had to be reached before any conflict made sense. There are only so many options you can use without making Hitler look weak (After all their whole legitimacy to power came from him and the image created of him) or incompetent (It doesn't fit well to say the truth that Hitler was a hipocondriac who overdosed himself). Yes, Morell makes things tricky for them and is not the most pleasant scapegoat, but in the limited array of options they had, it was less of a damage to take a temporary hit than to let the carefully crafted image of Hitler be hit, something a man like Goebbels would know. Besides, they all hated Morell and considered him a charlatan so that was a convenient way to get revenge on him.

    Any further questions?
     
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    Kaiser of Brazil

    Kaiser of Brazil

    Amon34 said:
    since you are back I have a question that was left unanswered. What is the status of the Horten Ho 229?
    Click to expand...
    I plan to cover the military equipment and technology in the future German chapter. But after Göring’s death, Kesselring has worked to “rationalize” the German Air Force from the Iron Marshal’s more... morphine-filled Dreams. The Ho 229 did see some limited production as a heavy fighter, but the German Luftwaffe has learned lessons from the battles with the British Air Force in the Mediterranean, focusing on a modern offensive force to strike Britain, as well as crossing the Ural Mountains. The Ho designs have instead evolved into the “stealth” bomber H. XVIII, and there is a number of long-distance bombers made in order to strike the US, many being already adapted as a means to deliver a nuclear payload. However, with Hess seeking a more friendly atitude with Britain, it’s expected that he will divert more funds into Rocketry, Submarines and long-range bombers to strike America instead of short-distance bombers aimed against Britain.
     

    Amon34

    I'm thinking, do you have any ideas for the crazy Nazi UFO projects?
    OVNI.jpg
     
    Kylia

    Kylia

    No? They were all stupid failures. And with Hitler and Himmler dead, the two most delusional leading nazis are out of the way (The two *most* delusional. Obviously plenty of them still are delusional)

    Unrelatedly, I wonder if the Nazi regime could ever survive a Dehitlerification, the way the USSR did Destalinization. Obviously it's not gonna happen here and now, but could a future Fuhrer pull a Kruschev's secret speech and try to turn on Hitler's reputation?
     

    Amon34

    Kylia said:
    No? They were all stupid failures. And with Hitler and Himmler dead, the two most delusional leading nazis are out of the way (The two *most* delusional. Obviously plenty of them still are delusional)

    Unrelatedly, I wonder if the Nazi regime could ever survive a Dehitlerification, the way the USSR did Destalinization. Obviously it's not gonna happen here and now, but could a future Fuhrer pull a Kruschev's secret speech and try to turn on Hitler's reputation?
    Click to expand...
    this is likely to be very difficult as the majority of the population sees Hitler as a god
     
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