Idk, though i’m Curious to see why Heydrich kept him alive instead of shooting him immediately like with Bormann.
The Iron Eagle - The History of the Cold War
- Thread starter Kaiser of Brazil
- Start date
That may be a slight in the chapter, but Himmler is far too dangerous to be ever put on trial. Just as Bormann, he would end up dead and the blame put on the putschists.
XXVI - DER SCHWARZE KREIS
THE IRON EAGLE
DER SCHWARZE KREIS
DER SCHWARZE KREIS
There are always the men who do the dirty work of history behind the scenes, kept away from the grand halls for their presence is so disturbing that the guests leave with nightmares, fearing to have been targeted by just a glance. The Third Reich did not have a lack of these men, present in every regime that has ever had to do it's dirty deeds. Hitler was a man who rarely interfered, in fact many in the leadership of the Reich recognized the more... unsavory aspects of their system, from Speer to Göring, from Himmler to Hess, they all knew what was to be done to their enemies, especially the eternal enemy of the Aryans. Rudolf Höss was one of such men, a young southern German of a middle class catholic family who formed what was the profile of a large part of the SS. They had aristocratic tendencies and even a false classic sophistication, a nobility that contrasted with what everyone knew of them but none dared to speak. He was a Kommandant of the SS, specifically of a certain camp in the countryside of Upper Silesia, one who wanted to hide that nature of his' from the rest of civilized society when his service was no longer useful in there. Following the death of Göring and the immolation of Poland, there was not much else to work with in the region, so in 1947 he was transferred near the former Smolensk to run another camp, now in 1952, he had become more of a liability to the Neuordnung than an asset, a man who sullied the image of Hess' new regime which desired a Detente with Britain, and what a better way to achieve that than cutting back some of the past excesses?
Europe was "Free of Jews", as Heydrich once said in a meeting of SS officers in the aftermath of the coup attempt, now in his new positions as Reichsführer-SS and Deputy Führer of the Reich, as such it was time to start a new reorganization. Israel still existed of course, both the Jewish State and the United States were still considered threats by the worldwide Zionists to sabotage Germany, although Britain was excluded from the list of "Jewish Puppet States". Over 10 million Jews had perished between 1941 and 1951, the remaining million fled to places such as Britain, the United States, and Israel, the number of slavs was still unknown, and this was the pile of corpses that Hess wished to hide. Naturally he did not wish to end persecution, that would be insanity within the Reich's leadership and even the most "liberal" political figure still defended the war against the untermenschen. But the priorities had changed, no more death when their work was still useful, the growing interests of the leading industries such as IG Farben, Volkswagen, Porsche, Siemens, Krupp, Henschel, Daimler-Benz, among many others, desired to exploit further the pool of labor that the east offered. Not only were many technical experts "saved" from their fate by being essentially sold as slaves to oversee the work of these workplaces, but millions of slavs were being sent across train networks in large programs of ethnic cleansing that served the purpose of the German industry. The Camps were no longer the main destination of Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Poles or Lithuanians, rather they were a constant threat hanging over their heads: Rebellion or resistance would mean a return to such places, and the rebellious prisoners rarely survived to be sold again. The largest Slave system in the world, one even greater in numbers than the Atlantic or Arab slave trade of old, was existing in Europe, kept hidden from the population at large.
But back to Höss, his fate was sealed the moment the Death camps were closed. Differently from the others, the Reich's 10 camps, initially six and later expanded after the war due to the Generalplan Ost, these were not used with the final purpose being labor, they were used with the final purpose of death. Hitler kept the camps running and when he thought of closing them in the late 40s, the State of Israel was created, and so they now had a new purpose, they were to be the final destination of the Middle Eastern Jews once Saadeh's Little Wehrmacht swept over the Levant, and after that failed, they were prepared for the continuation of the War that Hitler planned, only awaiting for a nuclear detonation in order to match the American strength, that would be the destination of millions of slavs, jews, and other ethnicities once the Wehrmacht invaded and the SS marched behind to establish settlement. However, Hitler was dead, and Hess was not a man who wished for a war against the West. So, the camps were closed down, with the purpose of the untermenschen no longer being death, instead it would be to simply work and if death came along then so be it. Höss, however, was a man who knew too much, one that Heydrich knew that was a potential threat to the Reich's greatest secret. At first, he was simply transferred to a job in the Kaukasus, which was to oversee the extraction of Oil in the Baku fields, but that was never the truth of it, differently from Stalin, the NSDAP was less obvious in their ways to get rid of the undesirables. Sometime between March and June of 1953, he would be caught and executed by Chechen terrorists, a small private funeral would be given to his family with a closed casket and without any press coverage, whether it was true that the terrorist group which killed him even existed did not matter, his fate would be the kind of fate that happened to many of the Reich's enemies within Europe, a subtle and quiet disappearance into irrelevance, their job was fulfilled and the party thanked them for their service.
Reality inside Festung Europa, the fortress Europe which extended from the Atlantic to the Volga, was one far different from the one across the Atlantic, there were two fundamentally different societies centered around States which could barely be any more different from one another. The waning years of the Hitler golden age were arriving in the early period of Hess' rule, the honeymoon was almost over and the system was one which needed fundamental change on it's economical level. Hess, like his predecessor, never concerned himself much with the financial matters of the Reich, delegating such task to his subordinates. Despite the fact he was the most natural "Hitlerian" successor within the party as many recognized, Rudolf was a man fundamentally different from his mentor. While Hitler was one of decisive action and spontaneous activity, Hess was more reserved and unsure of himself, he was always a follower and not a leader, he was the one who stood behind with a glass of water while Hitler spoke and acted, and yet somehow he was the one who supposedly succeeded Hitler according to the Will of the late Führer's testament, which was treated almost as a Bible by the Party's college of Cardinals. Indeed there were many comparisons drawn by Third Reich leaders such as Goebbels between how the party functioned in private compared to the Vatican, but naturally those religious references would fade with time as the Führer's next enemies were being set for persecution. But for now, there was peace, the war economy set in 1950-1951 was deescalated and soldiers returned to their posts. The investments in military areas would be changed in priority according to Hess' Will now, one which desired a Detente while also being fascinated by aviation.
Hess was the public image, he had the charisma necessary to keep a crowd paying attention to his words, he had the credibility of being Hitler's successor, his words were considered by many of the most fanatical followers as coming straight from the Führer's tomb in the Linz Museum. Naturally, the idea that he truly was in an occultist connection with the late dictator is bizzare to say the least, and yet it was something he spoke of many times and he had frequent private visits to the Führer's mausoleum in Austria. He was a bizzare man leading a bizzare regime that with time was becoming a normal sight, the Swastika no longer was a shocking symbol of old mysthisism, but now it was a normal symbol that was synominous with Germany and Europe as a whole in many parts of the world. An entire generation was graduating, living in a world where they never heard anything but the NSDAP's ideology from craddle, and in many cases the parents would be shocked by their children's fanaticism. Despite the general tendency of rebelliousness from the youth, in the Reich the programs set up by the Party, led by the Youth Administration of Arthur Axmann, made sure that this energy was instead directed towards a fanatical loyalty to the Führer, the Race, the Party and the State. But what if these elements were in conflict with one another? After all, Hitler's "Revolution" in 1933 was never a complete overthrow of the German State as Ernst Röhm wanted, instead there was an essentially dysfunctional element of conflict between Government offices and Ministries against Party offices and agencies. That was not even counting how the SS, originally a bodyguard unit for Party leaders, ended up becoming a parallel power that included it's own army, economy, and perhaps even territory, a power that was personified by the figure of Hess' Deputy, the most feared man in Europe.
Heydrich cursed the day he became the Deputy Führer, not because of any extra responsibilities as that was natural of a man with as many offices as him, but due to the fact he was forced to use his high-pitched voice in public occasions, and each time he did so the aura around him weakened to the public. He was the Man with the Iron Heart, the Butcher of Prague, by all accounts the Reichsführer of the SS, head of so many agencies from the Gestapo to the SD, all grouped within the RSHA, the one who probably had more blackmail material on the German leadership than Hess himself, should have been a figure to be feared by many. Which is why he usually avoided these embarrassments by giving short speeches or not going into some events at all, delegating it to his Deputy Werner Best or even inviting a powerful party speaker such as Goebbels, but he could not have many absences without attracting attention. It was no secret that he was ambitious, a cold player of the Reich's political game who desired to set himself up as Hess' future successor, however for that being the Deputy was not enough. Hitler's will did not officially set that the Deputy had to be the successor, many argued, instead it only chose Hess to inherit his offices. But the truth that perhaps only Heydrich knew was that Hitler had never chosen Hess as successor, rather the Will which was published by Bormann was one which had key differences from the original: Hess was indeed praised by his loyalty and his credentials to the Party, but he was not appointed, rather Hitler called for a meeting of the notable figures of the party into a "Small Senate" which would function as a college of cadinals, ironically. But why Bormann, one of the biggest proponents of such system, did not call for that meeting? Perhaps the answer should be given by the aftermath of his death and the challenge Heydrich faced within the Party: The Control Faction.
Bormann, the Brown Eminence, was a man who spent over a decade increasing his control by using Hess' office to appoint party officials and influence the selection of Gauleiters within the Reich. He, alongside men such as Gerhard Klopfer, Hartmann Lauterbacher and Helmuth Friedrichs were the men who formed a circle surrounding Hess which pushed for a change in the German system and the conflict between Party and State. Differently from how Hitler purposefully kept a confusing and dysfunctional system for sake of his Darwinian ideals and the desire to keep power centralized in the Führer, Bormann and his clique desired a more orderly system, one which desired a unity of Party and State, where Gauleiters would become Empowered and the position of Deputy, which was responsible for managing the NSDAP's affairs, would centralize more of the powers over the daily affairs. The problem for Bormann was that, despite over a decade in his position as Hess' chief of staff, the faction was still not the dominant force on the political circles, especially with the expansion of the SS's power over the East during and after the war, many of the territories being essentially fiefdoms in the name of "Germanization" such as the Crimean Peninsula. It would ensure a smoother process if the succession was not put under test immediately, rather Hess would serve as a useful spokesman for the process while it happened behind the shadows as a transition. Of course, the Secretary never planned his own death and that Hess would believe Heydrich's manipulation to elevate him as Deputy, that put the Control faction in a paradox: Their policies were originally meant to empower the Deputy, in that time it was Bormann, but now doing so would mean placing the Party apparatus under the sole command of the SS. Besides, with both Bormann and Klopfer dying "due to the bloodthirsty putschists", the faction lacked a central figure. Lauterbacher was a relatively popular man, at least compared to the completely uncharismatic bureaucratic stooges that Bormann surrounded himself with, and yet he was not as much of a "senior" as his predecessor was. Hess technically was the leader of such faction, many times talking in his speeches how Hitler always returned to the old party to seek reliable supporters, but after the Fiasco in the Suez War, the very mental sanity of the Führer was being questioned.
The economical front of the Reich was no doubt lead by Albert Speer, a man as good in getting the credit and praise for the positives, as he was arrogant and distanced himself from the negatives. Speer was one of the big winners of Göring's death, as no longer the 4-Year Plan would stand in the way of his growing control over the Reich's economy. While Hitler lived, no doubt he benefited by being the "Golden Child" within the Party, sharing an access to the Führer that not even Bormann could stop, and yet now Adolf was dead and he had to fend for himself. His work on the German economy, or rather mostly the work of his subordinates, was appraised both during and after the war by the German public, but he had earned many enemies with the way he acted, always centering the decisions on his own personal brilliance and condescendely ordering Gauleiters to follow his commands in centralizing the economy. While the rhytm did stop after 1943, the German war economy was never put to sleep, and in 1947 Hitler began to dedicate himself towards a final confrontation with the West. That gave his Armaments Ministry full authority to ramp up the militarization once again, with a skyrocket in the levels of military spending in what Speer called "The Second Armaments Miracle", with the resources of Europe available either from conquest or through the Linz Pakt, the Reich's Luftwaffen overcame the RAF, the Kriegsmarine was working with the construction of ships from drydocks in all of Europe, and the Wehrmacht underwent a process of modernization to combat the logistical dificulties once found in the Soviet Union when it came to the Motorization of it's supply lines. By 1951, the Economy was being sacrificed in return for a war that ultimately never came, and despite the initial suspicions, Speer never joined the Putsch, instead he had the Entire Ministry of Economy to command now, and with Hess' rhetoric, it was time to transition to a civilian economy. Which was a task that was harder to do in practice than in theory, other than the brief period between 1943 and 1947, the German economy was one devoted towards the Armaments Industry, there was no long-term plan and Hitler's dismissal of economic affairs was one that was replicated by the Reich's leadership. Short term bursts of activity to reach an immediate goal was the modus operanti of the Party, replicating the Führer's atitude in the Principle of Leadership, however the priorities were changing now.
Within the leadership of the Reich, the immediate power struggle came through the conflict between Heydrich and the Party, more specifically the "Bormannite" or "Control" wing of the Party. Yet initially Heydrich did not approach them in complete disregard, seeing the potential that strengthening the position of the Deputy would give him, the Deputy himself. Of course, the desire to further strengthen the Security apparatus was in nobody's agenda within the Control Faction, instead they desired to find a way to remove Heydrich from his seat of power, giving not-so-subtle advice to Hess to stroke his paranoia of the SS, after all, if a man such as Heydrich had information on practically everything, then why did he not warn the Führer of the potential coup by the Wehrmacht in the Tag das Sieges? It was a fair question, perhaps because Heydrich did know about the coup and wanted to use it to his own ends by taking Himmler's place in the SS and eliminating the threat of Martin Bormann and his Bureaucracy. Now he was essentially being co-opted within this system by being thrown into the leading position of said bureaucracy, all for the sake of positioning himself as the most logical successor of a man who, by all accounts, was not in ill health, although his mental health could be put into question by most of the world's psychiatrists. Essentially, Heydrich was locked in a struggle for dominance within the StdF, the cabinet of the Deputy Führer, with figures who could not just be wiped away as the SS did with the SA leadership back in 1934. Ironically, the situation within the NSDAP was similar to their much hated counterparts in the Soviet Union back in the 1920s, a power struggle after the death of a leading figure, although there were many stark differences that make any comparison unable to go beyond the surface level: There was no Führer in the Soviet Union.
Hess, von Krosigk, Hilgenfeldt and Speer would have a meeting in 1951 where the realities of the economy were laid out to the Führer, the Reich simply could not retain the same level of military spending without continuously hurting the industrial productivity or demanding further sacrifices of the People. The recently created Ministry of Welfare had a misleading name, the intention was not exactly to further push for new welfare policies, but rather provide an illusion of it, coordinating programs such as the Winterhilfswerk (The Winter Relief), the KdF (Strength through Joy), Veteran bonuses, Marriage loans, etc, policies which were mostly already in place, and had to be sorted out between those "deserving and undeserving" of help. Truth is that the Welfare for Veterans which was promised after the war led to a sharp increase of the welfare system, and continuously extorting the German people through essentially compulsory donations could only go so far as to prevent a rise in the costs for the State. Besides, Hitler did reduce such donations after the war by claiming the German people had paid it's due sacrifice, that is until his Speech in 1947 when the West was declared an enemy of the Reich and old measures returned to prepare the nation for a war that never came. The rising costs in the military production had to be stopped and that was something Hess, a man committed to a Detente with Britain, was very much interested with. Naturally, the Wehrmacht protested, but after Huey Long's reelection and the British defeat in the Suez War, both the Reich's enemies were discredited as military threats for now, although Hess did insist on a new program to modernize the Luftwaffe coordinated with Kesselring in order to be rid of the antiquated Pre-1943 Air Force and modernize into newer Jet Planes such as the Me.1099. The Kriegsmarine would also finish the production of their Third Aircraft Carrier, the "Hindenburg", which was mostly for sake of prestige than to be an effective force as Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz would convince the Führer towards the idea of a worldwide nuclear submarine force, as their surface fleet could still not defeat the British Royal Navy in an equal battle, and likely never would with the USN nearby in Greenland and Iceland. Besides, in the spirit of a Detente, Hess did scale back on the investments to create a surface fleet, a long-desired plan of Hitler that his successor was actually bold enough to scratch, for now.
Still, the economy could only grow so much when the Reich lived in a closed environment, as shown by the Embargo placed by the Western Powers, the obvious fact that the Russians would never engage in normal diplomatic relations, and the feared rise of Communism closing China. The Linz Pakt officially followed the policy of Autarky, while the German Propaganda Machine has been in a long-term plan since the 1930s to "readapt" the tastes of the German, and European, consumers. The living Standards in the United States were to be seen as a weakness, the excessive fashion and brands from across the sea to be seen as decadence while the more idyllic lifestyle of the German Volk was exalted as a virtue, naturally that was not an easy idea for many, especially in France and Italy, to adapt to, makeup items were demonized to women, while the more strict and "spartan" style for men was not immediately accepted even after the war. This led to the rise of the Black Market schemes across Europe, and they all seemed to lead to one place in particular: Lisbon. Portugal was perhaps the only "Neutral" power left in the Continent, led by the Authoritarian Estado Novo, Salazar was not a man who liked Germania and it's "Paganism", enjoying relatively warm relations with Britain from an alliance which went back by centuries, but at the same time he always made sure to appease the Reich, joining the Linz Pakt as an observer State and giving up the Portuguese Jewish population after the war as part of Hitler's grand "worker project". He watched in Apprehension as Radicals overthrew Franco's regime across the border and installed the militant Falangist regime, and the independence of India put the territory of Goa at risk. However, there were many secret agreements happening in Lisbon, indeed the city became the "gateway into Europe" for the West, and an exit port to the world for the Reich. The German Embassy had a secret line of contacts to reach both the British and American embassies in the territory, in a very tense background that sometimes led to standoffs when dealing with an exchange, such as an exchange of spies in 1956, negotiated by the lawyer James Donovan, after a German spy plane was shot down over Scotland and the Germans delivered in return a British citizen who was caught in Belgium attempting to call the world's attention to the slave system within the Reich.
The Black Market was not just something consumers engaged with, rather it became a full-fledged operation by the Reich in some ways, in order to contraband weapons to friendly groups across the world beyond the Festung Europa. Hess was once the head of the foreign office of the NSDAP and his Foreign Minister Ernst Bohle was his successor in the area, the two were in the paradoxal situation of supporting a Detente with Britain while also combatting the influence of the United States around the world, which led to German weapons being found in places such as the Dominican Republic, Brazil, South Africa, and surprisingly even guerrilla groups in Equatorial Africa and Malaya. Pragmatism was something the foreign office had engaged before, the Soviet-German pact of 1939 immediately comes to mind in these cases. Despite ideological differences with the Integralist State in Brazil, there was no small amount of support by German agencies in hunting down communist guerrillas in places such as the Araguaia. Long personally despised this idea of a shadow war for imperialism, but in politics compromises have to be made sometimes, and he saw after the Integralist takeover that Latin America was creepily veering towards Germania. But the British foreign service was the main rivalry of the RSHA in the majority of these conflicts, and in many times, Hess was forced to pull back support for sake of his idealistic idea of a Detente with London.
But within Germania, the fight for power was never over, Heydrich and the Control Faction were locked in a struggle for power over the German Police, the final leftover of Himmler's Security Empire which was not fully under Heydrich's control. The proposal made by the Reichsführer was to create the Staatschutzkorps (SSK), the State Protection Body which would finally merge the SS and the Police into a single force, a matter which was a practical reality in many ways since the creation of the RSHA, being presented as part of the "Rationalization" process after Hitler's death. However, the creation of the SSK would also eliminate many of the remaining Carrer officers of the German police and internal rivals of Heydrich within the organization. The death of Kurt Daluege, who has been in a semi-vegetative state for years since a heart attack in 1943, was used as Heydrich's excuse to come to Hess with the proposal in December 1953, leaving the ORPO without a clear leader and the way open for the Deputy Führer to accumulate even more control. Needlessly to say, the Gauleiters, most of them with their own dirt under the police archives, were not any more thrilled for Heydrich to permanently merge the Police and SS, which would essentially stop any possibility of taking the police force away from the feared Man of Iron Heart.
The arguments raged behind the scenes within the Party, Lauterbacher and Friedrichs constantly pleaded for the Führer to veto the proposal, but it became increasingly difficult to reach Hess following his flight, as there was a growing questioning over his sanity within the Party. The SS looked like it was launching a shadow coup by isolating the Führer, with the guards under constant watch and Heydrich adding increasing difficulties for meetings between Party members and Hess without his oversight. On the other hand, there were other ways to reach to the Führer beyond the Party apparatus, ironically that meant the Control Faction would have to use the State mechanisms left behind by Hitler, the Reich Chancellery Staff under the aging, yet still always savvy, Hans Lammers, became a way to intermediate meetings with Hess by controlling access to him. Lammers was bureaucratic man by essence, of a similar vein to Bormann, and while he did not share the ambitions of a strengthened control by the Party over the State, as that would decrease his own leverage, he used his act as a middle man to discuss matters to his advantage. Hess eventually became aware of the situation he was put into, recovering his mental state after the Suez crisis, he kept Heydrich's proposal away as he was increasingly warry of the man's hold over the State, and now with his authority being restored, he began to make plans against his underling.
He could be fired, certainly the nature of a totalitarian state was such that Hess could literally order whatever he wanted, but he was nowhere near the level of power and influence in practice that Hitler once held over the NSDAP and the Reich. Neither did Hess have the skills necessary to play the high level of tact in the political game that would allow him to bluntly demote the leader of the SS without any risk of long term consequences, especially with the organization's power over German Society at the time. The SS was seen by many as an ideal, they were the perfect guardians of the European Order, the protectors and epitome of the Aryan Race, a new nobility of men, many being related to some of the most powerful figures in German society, even the Hohenzollern Princes were high ranking members of the organization. No, if Heydrich had to be removed he would have to do so by himself, be forced to resign his post by the pressure of those around him and establish a precedence of the Party's dominance. But there was no official organ that could allow a proper challenge to be made to a Party leader like him, which is where one of the Party's old proposals, and Hitler's original desire in his will was introduced: In March of 1954, Hess created the Small Senate by Führer Decree, a group of 64 members which included the high ranking figures of the Party, from Reichsleiters to Gauleiters to even SS men and other "notable members of German society". Needlessly to say, it was completely arbitrary who would be a notable member of Society, but Hess was fully engaged into the project once it was presented by the Control Faction, as a way to "control" Heydrich and the SS, grow the dominance of the NSDAP and fulfill one of Hitler's old desires, all three things that Hess was dedicated towards at the time.
The first session of the Small Senate was started by Rudolf Hess with a rousing speech about the Unity and the Future of the Party, perhaps one of Rudolf's best attributes was the fact he was still able to carry a crowd. It was finished with the shouting of "Heil Hitler", as Hess constantly refused to have his name replace his Mentor in the Party Salute. In contrast, Heydrich followed Hess as he was the Deputy Führer, technically responsible over the Party's affairs, delivering an unenthusiastic and short speech that clearly showed his discomfort on the account of his voice. This contrast was followed by the first vote to elect a President for the Senate, something which had originally not been in the agenda as Bormann had hoped the Deputy Führer would already act as President of the Senate, but his untimely death and Heydrich's rise meant that the control over the matters of daily governance and discussion would be under the unnaceptable control of the SS. That is when the vote was held and the result was a surprise to everyone, both from the Control Faction and Heydrich's clique, everyone except Hess was stunned by the result: The young Gauleiter of Vienna, Paul Wegener, ascended the podium after receiving the plurality of the votes, revealing himself as a charismatic and savvy political player. Wegener was congratulated by Hess, and the Führer had showed his card to both sides. He was the one who had placed Wegener into the winning position by getting the support of the Party's young guard and his own loyalists behind the scenes, perhaps his best political play came from the fact everyone underestimated him so much after the Foreign policy fiasco and eccentric behavior that they forgot he was still the man who served as Hitler's right hand for three decades.
Paul Wegener, a young man born in Varel who was only 10 when the First World War was over, became a rising star within the NSDAP as a part of the Bormannite faction. Born in Varel, graduated in a colonial administration school, he was the youngest Ortsgruppenleiter, or Local leader, of the Party in 1930, rising in the posts after Hitler's takeover by becoming one of Bormann's Adjutant, being called his "Golden Boy" by other members of the StdF. The Brown Eminence called him a reliable and hardworking man, with deep knowledge of the Party's intricacies and possessing an impressive charisma to win over a crowd, which set him above many within the Staff of the Deputy Führer which was filled with uncharismatic bureaucrats such as Bormann himself. Hess came into contact with the young Deputy Gauleiter of Kumark, who later became Gauleiter of Weser-Ems, and replaced von Schirach as Gauleiter of Vienna in 1950, being impressed by his work, the Wegener Memorandum. He was seen more as an underdog for the race, relatively unknown among the higher echelons of the Party where the fight between Heydrich and the Control Faction was consuming everything in it's path. But Hess favored a new approach, one even more radical that would push the Party to firmly establish it's supremacy over the State. With Wegener as the new President of the Senate, he now had a most favorable position to push his own proposals to the rest of the Party, presenting himself as the Führer's favorite while Hess was widely seen as the voice of Hitler and Hitlerism beyond the grave. However, that also made him a target, especially of a certain Albert Speer.
Speer was dealing with his own problems in 1954, the spectre of Inflation was coming to the Reich, as the enormous expenses after years of damaging policies such as the General Plan Ost, megalomaniac architectural projects made more for sake of prestige than practicality, a military spending dwarfed any other nation in proportion of the GDP, not even counting the destruction of small business by the War Economy and the favoring of large corporations in government contracts, finally caught up to the budget a decade after the war's end. The Golden era was over, and despite the fact the economy was still growing thanks to the sheer resources of the conquered territories, the monetary reserves of the Reich were cannibalized by the reckless militarization and the lack of a long-term economical plan. Most of all, the policy of Autarky and hostility by foreign states was to blame for many of Germany's current shortcomings. To the west, the British Empire and the United States already had the two largest consumer markets in the world closed down, Russia and Israel... it is not even necessary to state why any kind of commerce with these two states was impossible, China and India also had closed their commercial relations with Germania, and the fall of Japan prevented the rise of any potential partner in the Pacific. Only the Middle East and Northern Africa were still accessible, but Hess' very known hatred for the Arabs and the Reich's abandonment of Nasser's cause in the Suez War were already making nations such as Egypt and Jordan be far more hesitant in making agreements with the Germans. The isolation of Europe was something that could very well lead to stagnation, and this is in the best hypothesis of the United States continuing it's isolationist policies, because if Washington began to fully engage in a trade war, it could mobilize resources all across the world to isolate the Germans even further from places such as Latin America, where places like Brazil were one of the few neutral markets still open to the Reich.
Perhaps the inflation within Germany would have risen quicker if it wasn't for the "foreign worker system", established in mass numbers after the conquest of Poland where the conquered populations in the East were transported from their homelands to work in factories as a replacement for the military conscripts. After the war, the sudden influx of returning Veterans and the pool of workers from the east allowed for an enormous expansion in both agriculture and industry. There was tension between native Germans and foreign workers, the latter being far cheaper and in many cases being just as experienced as German artisans. Besides, the smaller and medium business suffered as they could not compete with the industrial conglomerates which employed millions of essentially slaves from the east in their works. In time, Speer now had to work on mediating between the interests of his powerful backers and the needs of the German population at large as inflation was rising and the wages remained stuck at low prices due to the competition and the monopolist practices of large corporations, including the "Aryanized" department stores, ironically one of the main complaints of small businessmen who first supported the NSDAP.
But as with every crisis in the Reich, that only gave opportunities, and Wegener was ready to begin exercising his influence within the NSDAP to push for the growing dominance of the Party in economic affairs. With the Control Faction cautiously behind his propositions, perhaps hoping to moderate them, he planned to start a takeover by the Party over the German industries, which still largely were under the guidance of the State, and wrestle it's control from the Ministry of Economy and Armaments. For that he reached Franz Xavier Schwarz, the veteran treasurer of the Party and one of the members of the Control Faction, to use the Party funds as a carrot for the German business, while also using Hess to pressure on the large industrials the need for members of the NSDAP to be assigned official seats in the board of directors of major corporations. Many businesses, after contracting enormous debts with the Reich's megaprojects, began to accept that offer, and that was exactly what Wegener planned: With members of the party increasingly gaining influence in return for bailouts, slowly Speer's influence as a state minister would be undermined by the Treasury of the NSDAP. As Wegener set his plans into action, he was quickly becoming an enemy of Albert Speer, perhaps the figure who most incorporated the "State" side of the conflict due to his powerbase.
Meanwhile, Heydrich and Wegener surprisingly saw eye to eye on some matters, notably by the latter's SS membership which technically made him one of Heydrich's subordinates. The relationship was far more complex however, due to the interest of Heydrich to make himself the successor to the Führer while Wegener desired to weaken the centralization of the Party and State towards the Führer. Initially there was little conflict between the Security Forces and the process of Partification that the Senate President represented, except for one: The Political Organization of the NSDAP, which Wegener wished to empower, was to have the overall policing control over each Gau. In essence, Wegener's program was a Reichsreform against the centralization in Germania and the State apparatus which empowered the regional leaders of the NSDAP and made them almost feudal lords over their regions. He also envisioned a restriction on the Party membership and a rationalization of the legal system that led to his own pet project: The Constitution. The Weimar Constitution was still technically in use, with the Enabling Act, the Reichstag Fire Decree, and other laws being the legal basis of the regime, but that created an uncertain climate, one which benefitted Hitler but did not do so to Hess as the extent of how "total" the Führer's power was still undefined. Many jurists argued that the very idea of a constitution was unnecessary with the Führerprinzip serving instead as the legitimacy of all law, but the traditional German obsession over bureaucracy finally won out in the mid 1950s and Rudolf Hess created a committee to elaborate on a New Constitution... presided by Paul Wegener.
Each faction desired a piece, to write an article, to amend a proposal, so many conflicting interests on the final makeup of the Reich threatened to destroy the project before it even started. Wegener was still a man with radical proposals, especially within the Control Faction itself as his desire to streamline and rationalize the laws and hierarchy threatened the high leaders of the party who accumulated power and influence by mediating these conflicts. Heydrich admittedly enjoyed watching Wegener conflicting with the Control Faction itself, but as long as Hess was backing him, the young "Golden Boy" had teeth to back his proposals, nobody could ever openly challenge the Führer, despite many questioning Hess' sanity at his best moments. The Deputy hoped to use the Constitution to push his proposal to create the SSK and officially absorb the Police into the SS, which was still seen as an overreach by the majority of the Party, in fact Heydrich was not a popular man outside the SS circles, and even inside the SS he had attritions with the Minister of the Interior Arthur Seyss-Inquart, who sometimes went against his orders on local disputes between the Police and the Schutzstaffel. Heydrich still possessed the powerful attribute of vetting the entry of new members into the bureaucracy and it did not take long before he began to influence the process of the Constitution with that.
The conflicts between Wegener and the Control Faction were only starting as Franz Schwarz began to oppose his plans for the decentralization, and money IS power even in the Third Reich. The octogenarian, but still sharp, Treasurer of the Party began to block Paul's efforts to weaken the audit powers of the Party Treasure Office over the Gauleiters, getting many of the Party's old princes to support him. That is when one of Bormann's concepts was pulled out of the office of the Deputy Führer with the support of Heydrich: Schwarz was confronted in 1955 with Wegener having the backing of both Heydrich and Hess to thank him for his services to the Party. As he reached the age of 80, the Führer approved a retirement age for Party members, 80 years by pure coincidence of course. That was still far from what Wegener desired, but he accepted the temporary measure and many old members of the Party and WWI veterans were retired over the year, opening up the Party Treasure office for Heydrich to place whoever he wanted, in return he conceded the office to Oswald Pohl, who Heydrich was glad to be rid of as he was removed from the Executive leadership of the SS Main Economic and Administrative office. Overall, the confrontation ended with the Party Treasure being much weakened, Heydrich placing the Economic office of the SS under a more controllable bureaucrat, and Wegener was one step closer to reaching his goal of Reichsreform.
Finally in the Annual speech to the Reichstag in 1955, Hess unveiled the German Constitution after over two years of intermittent arguments and power struggles behind scenes. The so-called "Nazi Constitution" was the ultimate enshrinement of Hitler's decrees and decisions, the core of the NSDAP's ideology being made into law and imposed across half a continent. In practice there was not much change from the Status Quo, merely confirming the Totalitarian system imposed within the Reich, but the devil was in the details (and in much of the rest too). The Party was declared as the sole representative of the will of the German Volk, the epitome of the Aryan Race, and while the title of Führer was given the authority of a god, the Party held something new: The power to elect the successor of the Führer through the Small Senate. Needlessly to say, that was something no man would have accepted in the position of Führer, except for Rudolf Hess who was one of the supporters of such measure. Instead of following the precedent set by Hitler, which was arguably either to have the Deputy Führer or someone appointed in the Will depending on who you ask, Hess allowed for the Party to have the control of perhaps the most important political decision in Germany. It was clear that the Control Faction had much influence in the drafting of the Constitution, as it also officially reorganized the German States into Reichsgaus, merging the titles of Gauleiter and Reichstaatalter, the leadership of Party and State were merged into one office in the administrative level. Wegener fulfilled his goal of pushing a Reichsreform, partially, as the Constitution helped ensure a more efficient system and give a minimal legal security on disputes that weakened the power of regional party leaders. The office of Deputy Führer was essentially renamed into the office of Parteikanzlei, or Party Chancellor, while keeping much of it's functions, it was solidified as the second most powerful Party office behind the Führer himself. Heydrich benefitted from the security of his position for now, but it was no secret that Wegener now had his eyes targeting it.
The inevitable showdown between the Blonde Beast and the NSDAP happened in April 1955 during a meeting called at Heydrich's request on the Small Senate following the Tag das Sieges. The Man with the Iron Heart entered in the Assembly to propose several laws to be approved by the Party before being sent to the Führer, primary of them concerning the Status of the German Police once more, as Heydrich made his move to consolidate the SSK once again, more confident after spending five years in his office and placing several supporters within the Party apparatus, either through blackmail and threats or gifts and promotions, he expected that the fight between Wegener and the Party princes had worn down one another enough to be able to have the Party support his efforts in order to "Restore the Order and Discipline" to the Reich. But the President of the small senate was far ahead of the "Policeman of the Reich", and every single proposal made by Heydrich failed to pass, even those which did not include any concerns about security at all. Furthermore, the Party members had declared their disapproval of several of his appointments, essentially launching a boycott of his decisions. The day was a humiliating affair that threatened to antagonize the SS against the Party, and Rudolf Hess refused to intervene on the matter to support either side, he would neither force Heydrich to back down and nor would he approve his proposals, which he was fully capable to do, without them being approved by the Party. A crisis within the Party was blowing up and, in the backrooms, both Wegener and Heydrich clashed against each other, but in the end, while Heydrich was a very capable administrator for the SS, he was not as savvy as he thought he was. A precedent was made once a deal was struck behind closed doors, perhaps because of the Reichsführer dislike of his own office and the public exposure, perhaps because of the threat that a new Chief of Police could be chosen outside of the SS, or perhaps because he desired to return to his own dominion as the office of Deputy no longer was an, admittedly shaky, base for succession after the Constitution. Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich would resign from the office of Parteikanzler on the 3rd of May 1955, in return his proposal would be passed, with the German Police and SS being restructured after Wegener had the proposal approved in the Small Senate on the very next session as part of the bargain.
With the Staatsschutzkorps (State Protection Corps) created to appease Heydrich, the blonde beast was taken out of the halls of power and Wegener finally became the Chief of the Party Chancellery, and considering Hess' predicament, he essentially became the Most Powerful man in the NSDAP. At the young age of 48, right on his birthday of May 5th, he was at a level of power that Martin Bormann, his former mentor, once held, but now without Hitler and instead with Hess in charge as a supporter of his whole Reichsreform process. The NSDAP was enshrined by the Constitution and, by consequence, had made Paul Wegener the leading representative of the German people. Next he would begin a change in the Party ranks, now fully using the new retirement schemes on members of the Old Guard. Oswald Pohl was removed from his position in the Party treasury, something which was only a matter of time after Heydrich left his office, and now both the Party's finances and the small Senate were under his command, and although he had reduced Schwarz's office into a more symbolic "advisory" level, an advice coming from the new "Eminence" of the Party was similar to an order, especially as he had begun to use the blackmail files collected over the years to his advantage, as well as the information in the office of the Party Chancellor. But Wegener had a new idea to further consolidate the future of Germany as a Party-State: The control of the Hitler Youth.
Artur Axmann, the Reichsjungendführer, or leader of the German Youth, was a member of the young wing of the Party, responsible for raising the next Generations of the German Volk. He was proud to say he was efficient in his methods, the natural "rebellious" tendencies of the Youth were tamed in the Führer's interests, and now the work being made easier each year as time passed and the old generations of resistant SPD voters was dying out in favor of committed supporters of the Party's ideology. Axmann was approached in 1956 to prepare the terrain for a great persecution, one not seen in the Reich ever since 1938, to begin directing the Hitler Youth against a new enemy, the last of the vile zionist influence in Europe. Joseph Goebbels did not have the best relations with Wegener and the new bureaucracy, but they both shared one interest, and so he began to compile the necessary narrative for what was to come. Heydrich, despite the previous confrontation, was still an obedient follower of the orders which came from Hess, and with the complete merger of the SS and Police, the next step would become an ideological explosion that was not seen ever since the war, and the SSK would not stand in the way, if anything they would be given instructions and lists to make the next blow as methodical as possible considering the whirlwind that would be unleashed.
Easter happened on the 21st of April, by coincidence the day after the Tag das Sieges, the largest demonstration of power of the Reich where fanaticism covered the people from war veterans to children, exactly the day where the decision was made to unleash all that fanaticism against the last force in Germany, and indeed in Europe, which could pose an unified challenge to the power of Germania: The Catholic Church. In the 1930s, men such as Alfred Rosenberg were calling for the fight against the "Jewish Christianity and Decadent Church", but being still so early in their power, the NSDAP could not fight against such a strong and traditional institution, with Hitler calling back his legions and signing a concordat with the Catholic church. That did not prevent persecution from happening, many times when priests projected Jews such as during the Kristallnacht, those were all actions that Germania would never forget, and indeed it was not uncommon for churchs to be "accidentally" burned in Poland during the war, many times as parts of massacres unleashed by the Einsatzgruppen. But the Reich bid its time, Hitler perhaps planned to launch these strikes once the war was over, the final war against Washington and London, however his death and the internal squabbling drained the energies of the Party. Now, there is a standard seen as whenever the popularity of the regime wavered, a wave of persecution was launched against internal enemies, and with the economic woes of the mid-late 1950s, which were only exacerbated once inexperienced, and many times corrupt, party stooges were placed on the directory board of companies and took decisions based around ideology and self-interest, the time had come. A second Kulturkampf, one far more violent than the one made by Bismarck almost a century earlier, was prepared to be unleashed on the night between the Tag das Sieges and Easter, a traditional holy day for the Catholic Church, it was seen as symbolic of the Party refusing to cede its control over the hearts and minds of the people during the night. To avoid casualties from parishioners, the stroke would be launched before the sun has risen.
In one night, all across the Reich, the SSK mobilized to form perimeters around churches and homes of priests. Despite the propaganda being directed at Catholicism, many protestant churches which refused to endorse the Party's takeover in the last two decades would also be isolated for the coming of the next blow. The SA neighborhood watches and the Hitler Youth took the lead with the radical actions, wielding torches to strike at the temples from small villages to even major cities in the Rhineland and Austria. It was something many had expected to come one day, and yet it was at the same time perfectly coordinated and surprising, the boldness of the Reich's actions could only be compared to it's actions against the Jewish people in the 1930s. Priests were awoken during the night and taken by men in black of the SSK, dragged and beaten into cars and taken to train stations which led to the Reich's "Detainment Centers", many times not even given an excuse, and when given those, they were outrageous and generalized. The people awoke during the night to see the churches, some of which have existed for centuries, being caught up in flames with young men surrounding them and burning down the buildings after they were stripped down from all the valuables. Looting was generalized, with very few temples being spared, most of them being in places such as Austria and Bavaria where locals had managed to form cordons that stopped the advance of the fanatics, confrontations happened and the police rarely, if ever, arrested any member of the Hitler Youth except for a few cases of "overzealousness".
In the village of Viechtau, the priest was warned by one of the parents of the coming blow just few hours before it happened. Communication by phone had been closed down, yet he went to the streets and awoke the most devout to come for a night Vigil before Easter, once they came he explained the situation, not wanting blood but only asking for the faithful to help him speak with the authorities. Once the SSK arrived at location and found the congregation on their knees with the priest leading a prayer, they ordered the people to disperse. That was not done, instead they remained on their knees, and onlookers began to wake up to see the commotion, the local Hitler Youth chapter arriving to mock the resistant. The stalemate continued for two hours until the local SSK-Gruppenführer, Albert Kleinfeld, ordered the SSK to remove them from the church by force except for the priest. The locals were forcefully dragged out of the church while chanting hymns, and when the priest was the last one left inside, the Hitler Youth set fire to the church to attempt to make him leave, he did not, and instead the town watched as the town church was burned down with the priest inside. There was no glamour in that action, even in the eyes of the Hitler Youth members who were denied an easy night and the SSK commander who would have that memory stuck in his mind forever. By the time Easter morning came, Goebbels went to the radio and television, denouncing a list of crimes made by the Catholic priests, foremost of them being accusations of pedophilia and corruption. The excuse of the persecution was given: A church in Lithuania which harbored guerrilla fighters after a terrorist attack, with the catholic clergy as a whole being named as Enemies of the Vaterland after years shielding the enemies of the Aryan people, the truth is that there was not even a catholic church in the town Goebbels claimed to have been attacked.
The persecution did not stop on that Easter night, it would only become worse, and within a week the majority of the "troublesome clergy" members within the Reich had been arrested and taken to the camps, most of the churches were not burned but suffered substantial damages. The wave of persecutions did not limit itself to Germany proper, the Reich had unleashed the horror from Narvik to Baku, Protestant and Orthodox churches alike were targeted. The Orthodox church was already under heavy persecution in the east due to it's close links to the Russian Empire and the idenitity of the Slavic peoples which the Reich was actively attempting to shatter for over a decade. After this wave of strikes, Wegener began to launch his own paperwork to reform religion within Germany. Although there were many supporters of "Völkish" religions within the NSDAP, Wegener was too pragmatic to ever take them seriously, and even Heydrich has been setting the neo-pagan ideals of Himmler aside within the SS, now SSK, a process that was accelerated by the incorporation of the Police force. The Vatican was accused of breaking the Reichskonkordat, and so Hess ordered the withdraw of Germany from this agreement, saying it was not worth the paper it was written on anymore, even before there was any official answer from Pope Pius XII. The Minister of Religious affairs Hermann Muhs, had long been a persecutor, but he was mostly contained up until now where he could finally unleash his plans. Although Wegener desired more preeminence for the Party in the persecution effort, as a follower of Bormann's anti-clerical policies, in the end it was Muhs who finally managed to convince Hess to allow the State Ministry to lead the effort to control the Church, with Alfred Rosenberg, Reichskommissar of Ostland, coordinating an old plan with the Minister to control the Christian churches of Germany by calling for a meeting with leading members of the Clergy of several Protestant churches. In May, the Party announced the return of Ludwig Müller's idea of a Nazified Christian Church, a proper and true religion which was freed from it's "Jewish influences", a tall order considering Jesus Christ was Jewish and an entire half of the Bible was written in the Jewish perspective, yet contradictions have never stopped the Party before.
The movement for "Positive Christianity" had finally crushed the "Confessor Movement" by the decisive action of the State, unifying Protestant Churches under the directive of the Reich's Ministry of Religious Affairs, Martin Niemöller would manage to flee to exile through Italy to London, where his poem "First they came..." became a symbol of the persecution that Christianity was suffering. The intention of the Reich was not an Atheist State, especially as the Constitution itself had no references to Atheism, but to make Christianity subservient to the Totalitarian System that now was under the control of all aspects of personal life, from finances to sexuality. The outside reaction was of outrage, especially from within the Linz Pakt itself, despite it not being enough to trigger a complete division yet, Italy, Spain, Croatia and Slovakia had all protested the German action, while the French government remained silent on the matter due to it's even greater dependence of Germania and the fears that 1951 would be repeated. The Vatican excommunicated all members of the NSDAP and all the clergymen who agreed with the new "Positive Christianity" movement, with Pope Pius strongly condemning the acts of persecution which inevitably drew comparisons to the Roman Empire under Nero. The already strained relationship between the Greater German Reich and the Italian Empire was on its limit, the only thing keeping it together was the Wehrmacht.
The internal fights within the Reich were not over only because Wegener was now the "top dog". While he was attempting to extend his control, and by consequence the Party's control, over the State, men such as Speer and Goebbels, whose power base resided on their powerful ministries, were resistant. Goebbels still held the control over the Propaganda machine of the regime, being the "public face" of the Reich after Hitler's death, he had accumulated prestige as a spokesman. Yet his power was restricted within the NSDAP as just the Gauleiter of Germania, and while that was a powerful position, it was still only one position. He was largely seen as an outsider, left out of the main power struggle between Party and State which was represented by Speer, who still had powerful connections as the Party Architect and Minister of Economy and Armaments. In fact, the fact the economy was beginning to stagnate due to the Party's interference was being well used by the Architect to pin the blame of the crisis on Wegener's ambition. Saying that Germany was in an economic crisis was a stretch, but it was undeniable that the golden age of prosperity was long behind them, and the blame game was something Speer knew well how to manipulate. He was a man who knew when to take credit for good and successful policies while throwing under the bus those who he blamed for terrible policies, some of which came from him. Goebbels was one who Speer had actually found an ally of in the struggle against the Party's growing overreach, especially as Wegener was attempting to wrestle the control of the Hitler Youth into the organization of his growing bureaucracy, as the Minister of Education was quite stubborn in keeping control over "Germany's future". As for Heydrich? He was beaten but not killed, despite his apparent attempts to do so by traveling with minimum to no security in places such as the Eastern Reichskommissariats, and consolidated his own parallel power through the SSK, watching from the sidelines as Speer struggled against Wegener. Perhaps out of vengeance, Heydrich sometimes gave support to Speer, and indeed the SSK and the Industrial interests of the Ministry were allied in many ways, including the SSK's Control over the "Workers Programs", but he was always careful not to empower Speer too much, as he had once done to Wegener by allowing him to overcome the Party's princes in the struggle for the Control Faction right under his nose.
The Ministry of Welfare, which mostly served as a way to determine who was worthy of government assistance in racial and ideological terms, and the Ministry of Labor, which was largely useless except for overseeing the German Labor Front and the "Strength through Joy" programs, would see themselves caught in the struggle between Wegener and Speer. The death of Robert Ley after an alcoholic coma in 1956 had led to an internal struggle over the status of the DAF, as Ley was largely seen as Speer's command over the faction. Wegener desired to put the "Union Question" under the final control of the NSDAP, which would allow Gauleiters to autonomously control the relations between the Union and Industrials within their Reichsgau units. Meanwhile, Speer wished to retain his control over the Union, which would keep his influence in leveraging the "negotiations" between the DAF and the large industries of the Reich, something which was largely settled through bribes to Robert Ley in the past but was growing increasingly contentions over the disputes between German Workers and "Foreign workers". Speer wished for Sauckel, the man responsible for the allocation of "labor" during the war, to take the command of the Union. Despite the fact he was initially a man nominated by Bormann for his job, Sauckel and Speer had worked in close cooperation for years, and Speer's centralization demands from Gauleiters were more allied to Sauckel's needs than the decentralization schemes of Wegener's Reichsreform. Wegener and Sauckel did not enjoy a good relationship during the 1950s, which drew the minister closer to Speer's "State" Faction. Hess was the one who was originally supposed to settle such disputes and normally he did so by taking Wegener's side, but by late 1956 he had become more isolated from the functions of his positions, largely delegating his powers to the Small Senate and the Parteikanzler. Speer was not one to quit easily, and while he knew he was unpopular with the Gauleiters, he still had a large amount of leverage through his position as Chief Architect. Megalomaniacal bulding projects were not something limited to Hitler, many Gauleiters seeked popularity and prestige through the construction schemes, and where did the labor and contractors come from? Speer's connections were still far stronger than Wegener's at the time. The Parteikanzler was given a defeat in the Small Senate as his recommended appointment was rejected by the Party. It was decided that Sauckel would resign from the Ministry of Labor and take up the leadership of the DAF. Hess dissolved the Ministry of Labor and it's functions were given to the Ministry of Economy. It was a great victory to Speer, but on the other hand Wegener would have his win in the Welfare.
The State functions of the Ministry of Welfare would largely be taken over by the Party in 1957 when Wegener managed to push a new proposal to end the Ministry of Welfare. As Speer spent much of his political credit to keep control over the Labor force, the benefits of the welfare system were left vulnerable against the Party's control. The NSV, the National Socialist People's Welfare program, was largely created by Goebbels in the 1930s until it became a state agency through the "Winter Program", which was essentially an extortion scheme to redistribute welfare to those Hitler found deserving. A Ministry had been established after the war, but it largely kept the functions of the NSV, which was one of the largest organizations within the NSDAP. Wegener did not enjoy the existence of a single centralized scheme in Germania under a Ministry to hold such a powerful tool as welfare, Hermann Göring was the one to blame for this as he desired to put the system of veteran pensions under state control, it remained after his death but no more. Wegener wished to abolish the NSV and the Ministry of Welfare, giving the Gauleiters full authority to determine those who were worthy of assistance within their territories. Goebbels was not able to form the same sort of resistance as Speer did, his power being mostly kept on the control over the German media, at least for the moment, and so Hilgenfeldt was left largelly on his own against the NSDAP's Parteikanzlei. Wegener abolished the Ministry with Hess' blessing in September 1957, placing the control of everything, from unemployment to social security to veteran pensions, into the command of the local Gauleiters, who now were free the use the mechanisms as a Carrot and Stick on their populations.
The Ural Mountains had long been a dream of Hitler, a natural frontier formed by tectonic plates eons ago who could form a barrier perfectly fit between the Reich and European civilization against the "Asiatic Horde". The first attempt to take it was stopped at the A-A line in 1943, the second attempt was an unsuccessful effort to place a Russian puppet regime during the Civil war, the third attempt ended right before it started with Hitler's death in 1951. Now in 1958, Rudolf Hess planned to finish Hitler's work after a sudden spark came to him years before, he claimed to some that it was none other than Hitler's spirit communicating with him, which attests to the general sanity of the plan. But there was a pragmatic concern: For ten years, the Russian Empire has been rebuilding, acting as a bulwark against the Reich's plans to the east, the fiercest ally of the United States. The Russian people was united more than it ever was, from Bolsheviks to Tsarists, all knew who the true enemy was in the east, with a Swastika over Moscow. In ten years the country had transformed not just from American investments but from the sheer effort of the Empire to be prepared for the inevitable next war. Guerrilla activities in the East were actively striking German colonists, imposing terror in a few regions that hindered the plans for the colonization of the East, despite the fact Hitler did want this in his region to be an active warzone in his plans. The Drang Nach Osten, the March to the East, had to continue, and while the Guerrilla activity was under control by the sheer brutality of the Reich's policies and the divide-and-conquer tactics of the SSK, the sense of insecurity was causing terrible costs that prevented the full economic exploitation of the east. The Party, the SSK, the State, the Military, all agreed that the rising threat of Russia could not go unpunished, and with the Catholic church largely put down by 1958, the time had come for the plans made in 1951 to be brought back to the table. The Wehrmacht was put back to prepare in the most militarized border in the world, to cross beyond Kazan and Samara, to reach the Ural Mountains and once more repeat the success of 1941-1943 by shattering the Russian State and make sure it would never rise again. The offensive, named "Unternehmen Hindenburg" nicknamed after the last Weimar President who commanded the German Eastern front to victory in WWI, would be launched on the 15th of May 1958 all across the East.
And so began the conflict history would call: The Ural War.
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I guess I owed something from the delays, I wonder why my German chapters end up getting so big in a German victory timeline.
Totalitarian States are quite intriguing, but there are surprising similarities in the ways that both the US and Germany do their internal politics. The same kind of corrupt, cutthroat behavior of power-hungry players can be seen in both sides of the Atlantic. One just happens to involve a whole lot more killing.
As the Wehrmacht motto says, it is not a war crime if they are not human.
I see the US being woken out of its isolationist slumber with the 'loss' of Brazil. When the Ural War begins I think they will provide as much help as they can short of outright war.
El_Fodedor
Banned
So we come to the most expected part of the TL: the beginning of the end.
It's up to Russia to save the world by giving Germany a bloody nose. After that, the house of cards may start to crumble.
@Kaiser of Brazil TL show de bola,irmão!
El_Fodedor
Banned
They may use it, but perhaps the US may dissuade them with a nuclear umbrella bluff.
Long certainly won't be able to get away with the "Wheeler Doctrine" after the loss of half of South America and with Patton constantly giving him headaches. He is a populist above all else, that means changing policies when convenient to keep himself in power. He is still as far from an Internationalist as one can be in the White House, but the US is done playing the same level of passiveness of it's first term.
Obrigado! If this is the beginning of the end, who knows, but Russia will be sure to show Goebbels and the Germans what a "Totaler Krieg" is.
I wonder if the Nazis have ever called a bluff coming from the Western powers before...
Don't forget chemical weapons with long-ranged missiles (Kazan is 2650 km away from Hanover, it's largely doable with 50s tech).
And clearly even the Isolationists in the 20th century USA always wanted to keep the Americas free from enemy/rival influence.
Honestly the anti-Catholic persecutions in Germany might force the Brazilian government to leave the Linz Pakt. And the USA will certainly try to encourage this.
Honestly the anti-Catholic persecutions in Germany might force the Brazilian government to leave the Linz Pakt. And the USA will certainly try to encourage this.
Man
I hate to the one trying to clean up the pieces when the Nazis finally fall and see aftermath of what they did. The population and cultural damaged to Europe is probably never going to be fixed and plague the continent for decades if not longer.
On a sidenote I kinda get Long choice on not wanting to get involved in Europe. I mean its not our job to be the hero, why should we be one to save the world when England and France dropped the ball on crushing Hitler before he rearmed Germany. Especially after the bloodbath that was the Pacific war. But at the same time ignoring the screams and cries of help can only work for so long before you realize its wont end until you do something.
I hate to the one trying to clean up the pieces when the Nazis finally fall and see aftermath of what they did. The population and cultural damaged to Europe is probably never going to be fixed and plague the continent for decades if not longer.
On a sidenote I kinda get Long choice on not wanting to get involved in Europe. I mean its not our job to be the hero, why should we be one to save the world when England and France dropped the ball on crushing Hitler before he rearmed Germany. Especially after the bloodbath that was the Pacific war. But at the same time ignoring the screams and cries of help can only work for so long before you realize its wont end until you do something.
Considering what happened between 1943-1948, I would be surprised if they did not know how to use the war crimes bombs.
Brazil is not a member of the Linz Pact, integrations famously hated the German racial obsession and neo-pagan flair of Nazism. If anything it's more likely they would join the United States than join the Third Reich by now.
Well, if you want to make sure Eastern Europe receives the treatment that American Natives had like Hitler wanted... this would definitely be effective.