The Man With the Iron Heart – What happens next?

Sumeragi

Banned
Anyway, I'm actually wondering about whether the National Socialists would gain power as many seem to think. While I can see them being a major force, it would seem to be pushing too much to assume that they would actually take control of the government.
 
Any insurgency would have been met with bloody reprisals.

Remember those scenes from Red Dawn, where they executed hostages after each terrorist attack? All the allied powers, especially the Soviets, would be doing that in the case of widespread insurgency. And they'd do it because it works, and after years of war and millions dead, no one was in the mood for restraint.

What he said.

Germany post-1945 is not Vietnam. It's not even Iraq post-2003. It is a defeated country that launched a world war that ended up killing tens of millions of people, including millions of Soviets, Jews and other "untermensch". Should large numbers of Germans be so stupid as to go start a guerrilla war that's doomed to fail, the Allies and especially the Soviets will have no qualms whatsover in killing as many Germans as necessary in order to crush the insurgency. If anything, such an insurgency would confirm, in the eyes of many, that there is no differentiating between Germans and Nazis. Collateral damage would be an unknown concept. If anything, the situation may resemble (in a much smaller scale, grant you) CalBear's Anglo-American/Nazi War TL (i.e. whole cities blown to rubble, mass executions etc.).
 
Let's make it more into a hamfisted analogy for the modern day.

Say the U.S. is pulling out in great numbers, and terrible attacks still occur, but the new German provisional government is slowly getting its act together, and the previous internecine warfare between the Nazi Werwolf insurgents and Bavarian Catholic militia dies down thanks to the "Awakening Movement" led by a coalition of Prussian Junker families. In fact, the Werwolf groups are quickly getting eliminated, but there is nervousness that Austria is regaining undue influence in Germany, as a neo-Dollfuß Austrofascist government is in formation there. Unfortunately, the U.S. troops have no choice but to pull out and redeploy its troops to Japan, to complete the war it had started earlier there, where Imperialist fighters continue to hide in the mountains...

I'm making this up as I go along because I haven't actually read the book.



Oh, COME ON


What I didn't find realistic was the presence of military families so soon after WWII
 
At first Ithought it sounded cool, but then after reading a summery of the plot I came to the same conclusion many on this site did. It was just a bad parralel to Iraq, which is an all together different animal.
 
So in other words the US will be invading 5 years later when Nazi West Germany acquires WMDS.

Oh yea, this is absolutely what Truman et al. were thinking.

Actually given that Germany had no infrastructure left to manufacture nukes and would be gripped by a raging famine (the Germans were being fed by the Allies at the time, and somehow I don’t see money being spent to feed them when the US Congress wont even allocate funds for it’s own troops) I also have my doubts on Piper getting hold of WMDs.

Added to that, the Soviets were only a couple of years away from having A-Bombs themselves in 1947. So they’ll nuke Germany themselves, without the need to occupy it all. So the main end result is West Germany is a starving irradiated wasteland. Europe’s economy being rather buggered up and maybe France annexing the Saar.& Rhineland.
 
There actually were a few Nazi insurrections here and there OTL, but which predictably died down with a few rounds by Shermans.
 
There actually were a few Nazi insurrections here and there OTL, but which predictably died down with a few rounds by Shermans.

Not really. Most had had enough, and the really hardcore Nazis were already on their way to South America or being smuggled out of Europe, often by the Americans themselves.
 
Or , we see a GDR encompassing Germany up to the Rhine in 5 years time , and the Werewolves are either eliminated , or co-opted into the Stasi.
 
Or , we see a GDR encompassing Germany up to the Rhine in 5 years time , and the Werewolves are either eliminated , or co-opted into the Stasi.

The Americans made it pretty clear that they won't tolerate any Soviet invasion. Stalin's best bet is for the communist party or something similar to the Socialist Reich party winning the elections. Otherwise he may face World War 3 over Germany.
 
Once the US retreats whimpering back to North America over this resistance the likelihood of the US returning in the face of Soviet drive west was simply non-credible. Especially if France or other Western European nations see the USSR as their last chance or partner against a Nazi resurgence.



Who's going to do it? The Democrats would if possible but their opinions and feelings of vindication, complete with massive reference to how this took place barely a quarter century after the Republicans ruined the post-WWI peace process, will be painfully clear.


As for the Republicans...not only does the party face a probable split, not to mention a question as to whether the GOP is even capable of handling foreign policy in a remotely competent fashion, but on top of isolationist Republicans who had to insist that they completely abandoned their positions after Pearl Harbor we now have another group of Republicans who are never going to be acceptable to millions of voters and whose positions have led the US to be seen as cowardly and weak, rewarded Nazi murderers and put the US in a position with several choices, none of them attractive.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
How no one read my post :(

I'm not quite sure of how to make of it. On the one hand you have the horrors of the Holocaust. On the other hand you have the group that "liberated" western Germany. Now, which way would the Germans swing? I've been thinking 1/3 supporters, 1/3 opposition, and 1/3 wavering. It could be an interesting ride as Germany is under constant political turmoil while under the US nuclear shield.

Also, given the stance of the "peace" lovers, I see a sort of doctrine coming up about how the US will protect its interests using the nuke whenever convenient.
 
I'm talking about how silly/interesting it is to try to map it out more similar to Iraq for the hamfisted dumb metaphor.

Wait, I got it. Either the Jews or the communists are the Kurds, so I guess East Germany can be Kurdistan, or for some reason the Zionist movement doesn't get as much traction and Jewish militias carve out an enclave. The Shia are the Catholics and Austrofascists, as I mentioned. The Sunni are I dunno regular Germans.
 
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