Rosenberg's Reich: The Myth of The Twentieth Century

[jerseyguy]

This WW2 will likely strain the colonial empires less than in OTL. The sight of nonwhite Japanese troops defeating British, French, Dutch and American and occupying their colonial possessions helped discredit the idea of european superiority and the moral legitimacy of colonialism itself. The fall of Singapore to Japan was a humiliation the British Empire never recovered from.

In this timeline, Japan has only been fighting in China, Manchuria, and the USSR so the colony administrations of south and southeast asia will end the war more or less intact. The lack of a North African front will affect the trajectory of Arab nationalism and the middle east more generally.

Having an extant fascist Italy around is a good way to make the world much more authoritarian and repressive. Some cold war-era military dictators in the third world like Jean-Bedel Bokassa may have looked to Napoleon as a historical example, but they lacked an ideological to legitimate their rule. In this world dictators, military juntas, and anti-colonial nationalists have fascism as a complete ideological package to grab off the geopolitical shelf, so to speak.

The Park Chung Hees and Somozas of this would could label themselves as fascism with X country characteristics if they can get weapons or money from Italy, or try to rally their populations behind an ideology. OTL, El Salvador joined the Anti-Comintern Pact because the dictator in power at the time admired Mussolini and Hitler.

 

[X_X]

“Kill the rocket scientists, all of them. Burn their papers. This technology will not fall into American hands.” – Heinrich Himmler


“In the final days of Nazi Germany, Operation Scorpius would be implemented in the aim to destroy evidence of Germany’s advancements in rocket science. This would lead to dozens, if not hundreds of people being killed by the secret police, by the orders of Himmler, who was now paranoid of the power that such technology could have in Allied hands.”
-Excerpt from Gestapo: When Big Brother Wasn’t Fiction


“As the Allied forces marched rapidly eastward to Berlin, there was a mass feeling of dread and powerlessness in the air, as the people, at last, realized that these evil dreams laid out before them by their government were glided. Like mice, they had followed Pied Pipers to their doom. Overwhelmed and panicked the people grew madder still by an alarming report from the popular publication Der Stürmer, which had an audience in the hundreds of thousands even so close to the doom of the Nazis. They had leaked out testimony from an unnamed whistleblower that the death of Rosenberg was not from any British sniper, but rather coming from a coup. The publisher of Der Stürmer, Julius Streicher, one of the few men trusted to published without government consent (as the result of his rabid anti-Semitism and undying loyalty to Rosenberg) would devote mass coverage to the controversy in the issue. He deemed that the conspiracy was ‘100% true’ and called for the heads of the coup participants.

“The day before American forces would arrive in Berlin, the story was published, perhaps the only factual account Streicher’s slimy rag of a paper would ever produce. The Goebbels family intent on leaving the city that day, was shocked when a crowd of dozens of angry men arrived on the steps of their residence. Among them were members of Der Stürmer staff and a raging Streicher out for blood. With guns drawn the men broke into the Goebbels house and caught the “treasonous” Fuhrer and his family. The rioted wrecked and looted the house before allegedly made Joseph watch as they sodomized and killed his wife and daughters in front of him, before finally shooting the crying dictator in the head…”

-Excerpt from The Continent of Blood: The History of War, Authoritarianism, and Terrorism in 20th Century Europe



“GOEBBELS FAMILY FOUND MURDERED BY GANG: FINAL HOURS OF TYRANT BEING PIECED TOGETHER” -London Times, February 28, 1951


“MUSSOLINI DECIDING TO AVOID SOURED RELATIONS WITH USA: ITALY REFUSES TO GIVE ASYLUM TO NAZIS” -New York Times, March 1, 1951


“GORING, HESS, HIMMLER ALL CAUGHT ALIVE IN BAVARIAN ALPS AFTER MASSIVE JOINT BRITISH/AMERICAN MANHUNT” -San Francisco Chronicle, March 14, 1951


“RATLINES TO SOUTH AFRICA? REPORTS OF NAZI GENERALS FLEEING TO CAPE TOWN” - The Detroit News, March 19, 1951


“President Stassen tried not to show it in public, but he was deeply conflicted about the bombing of Munich. As more information was presented to him about the effects of nuclear radiation and the brutality of the deaths of the over 100,000 Germans civilians who were wiped out, he seemed withdrawn and somewhat regretful of his actions. He never wanted to talk about it at length in interviews post-presidency. Stassen would later detail his feelings in his 1995 autobiography, admitting that he felt terrible in the “necessary evil” of the act and had wondered for decades if he was worthy of heaven after authorizing the Munich Bombing.

“This emotional turmoil that would follow him to his grave seemed to play a part in his decision to not seek a second term in 1951, though he would also say the world needed a president entirely devoted to rebuilding Germany in the early 1950s. Stassen would be remembered as one of the great war presidents, and historians would look back on his leadership from 1950-1953 was a calming force from a man with an unlikely rise to be America’s most beloved. Yet, Stassen would in the decades beyond, stay mostly out of politics, choosing to happily retire with his wife Esther, rarely leaving the St. Paul area for the rest of his days. America humbly respected his privacy, for the man who ended the deadliest war in human history was now ordinarily walking among us, perhaps being a superhero growing bored with no one to save anymore.”

-Excerpt from The Presidents

 

[Anarcho-Occultist]

Assuming he lives the same length as he did OTL, Stassen gets to enjoy a 48-year post-presidency. Certainly a well-deserved retirement for the man who finished off the Nazis.

 

[Alpha-King98760]

Dammit! I felt bad for the Goebbels family.

 

[Gerbbro]

Joseph watch as they sodomized and killed his wife and daughters in front of him, before finally shooting the crying dictator in the head…”

That's a fucked up and sad end for anyone, even Goebbels.

 

[stirlingdraka]

That is a nasty fate for even Goebbels but at least we know how they caught Himmler. While I do like President Stassen`s moral conflict over the Munich nuclear bomb even though I would say he made the right call.

 

[Alpha-King98760]

That's a fucked up and sad end for anyone, even Goebbels.

Agreed, to have watched all that happening to those you most loved dear. Not even Goebbels deserved that.

 

[X_X]

“While dreams of a Greater Germany had crumbled, elsewhere in the world it appeared that ethnic nationalism was paying off. In West Asia, the Arabs, the second largest ethnic group on Earth after the Han Chinese, were increasingly taken by the concept of Arab nationalism. While Southeast Asia and Africa would remain colonized by Western Europe, the Middle East and South Asia would win their independence following the great war. One by one, countries became free throughout the 50s and 60s, loosening their ties to Europe, while still remaining sellers of oil to the west. Among the first of these countries would be Iraq and Kuwait.

“Iraq remained a Kingdom under the leadership of their King. King Ghazi bin Faisal had increased Iraqi influence in Kuwait; The King having been interested in a merger of the two countries for years now. The Kuwaitis, promised a prosperous future if they increased their ties to Baghdad, really had little choice in the matter. The King was powerful, an unstoppable force unchained by the British, and wee Kuwait would become a part of his kingdom. And so, in late 1951, with relatively little violence in regards to the matter, Kuwait was now a part of Iraq. It was a glimpse at the future to come for the Middle East.”

“With leaders such as King Ghazi working hard and diligently to create a unified pan-Arabic state, the next two decades would be great for the Arab nationalists. Though throughout all of this, some nervous far-right Iranians would be keeping a close eye on Khuzestan…”

-Excerpt from The Birth of The Modern Arab World

 

[X_X]

“After having a disastrous party division in 1944, followed by a safe ticket that lost in a landslide to popular war president Thomas Dewey in 1948, the Democrats saw 1952 as their time to shine. The fact that President Stassen would not be running due to his commitment to the rebuilding of central Europe, alongside the mental stress of the job making him greatly depressed, seemed like a heavenly gift to the Democrats. They wouldn’t have to fight against a beloved liberal Republican who had taken the helms following the death of his martyred predecessor and ended the war after barely a year in office.

“The populism of New Deal liberalism was the force during the primaries and saw Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver win handily with the working class that composed the Democratic base. Despite some strong opposition to Kefauver at the convention, the youthful senator from the Volunteer State would be the nominee. Comparisons in the press to Kefauver being a “Southern FDR” helped convince the public of the merits of his platform; he promised to start “A Fair Deal” that would keep the post-wartime economy strong. “Kefauver: A Man for A New America!” was a popular slogan seen in posters put up through the Midwest.

“If Kefauver had one flaw it was that he was rather conservative on civil rights, as most Southern politicians were at the time. Unlike President Henry Wallace, Kefauver did not run on an anti-Jim Crow platform. However, many Democrats recognizing the advantages of winning the approval of Black America decided that it would be best to give the civil rights faction of the party room on the ticket. Thus, Kefauver picked his fellow senator Hubert Humphrey to be his running mate. With two young photo-friendly liberals running together, it was the best chance Democrats had in 12 years to win the White House.

Kefauver and Humphrey meet Alabama Governor John Sparkman when the duo campaign in Birmingham

“Republicans meanwhile, having lost their Golden Boy from Minnesota looked for a new candidate to take up the helm. They would find one in Ohio senator Robert Taft. Taft was a powerhouse and a hero of the American right, yet as a true-blue conservative, it was a departure from the liberalness of the presidencies of Dewey and Stassen. Taft would double down on his conservative tenure by selecting Delaware Senator Clayton Douglass Buck. The senator from The Blue Hen State didn’t balance the ticket out much, but as a close ally of Taftian political philosophy, Buck emphasized a new direction that the party was exploring on the national level.”

-Excerpt from Alcoholics, Philanders, and Crooks: The Complete Guide to American Presidential Candidates

Harold Stassen being friendly with Senator Taft at a rare campaign appearance by the young President

Taft's man: C. Douglass Buck

 

[X_X]

Post-war Europe circa 1953:

The major differences to our 1950s are:

No break-up of Germany into West and East as, upon the insistence of Stassen, Attlee and de Gaulle, the Western Allies would occupy the entirety of the reconstruction zone. Moscow's use of biological weapons had raised grave concerns in the west of Soviets potentially committing war crimes against German Civilians in occupied territory, though the Soviets would keep control of all land the Slavs had won back over Germany before Berlin's surrender.

Italy is neutral and continues to be under fascist rule, as does Albania.

Yugoslavia has warmer relations to the Soviet Union, despite the differences in ideology between Tito and Molotov, and is considered a major European ally to the Soviets.

Portugal is neutral.

Finland is under control of the communists as the Soviets won the Winter War.

Sweden is an ally of the West rather than being neutral. This is because it shares a large oceanic border with a Soviet ally.

 

[stirlingdraka]

Your post war Europe is just as interesting as your post war Asia.

 

[Alpha-King98760]

I can definitely see Fascist Italy being an ally of the West against the Soviets.

 

[jerseyguy]

I could see Germany keeping Stettin if the western allies are closer to the Polish-German border. Even with the Oder-Neisse line as the new border, it makes more geographical sense to keep the port on the German side.

A screenshot from google maps was too large to upload, but the OTL Polish border oddly shifts to the natural boundary it followed south of Stettin as Stalin's final "screw you" to Germany.

 

[jerseyguy]

I can definitely see Fascist Italy being an ally of the West against the Soviets.

How would Italy lose land to Yugoslavia if it stayed neutral? Slovenian and Croatian speaking communities under non-communist rule on the Italian side of the border could provide a home base for Yugoslav dissidents from across the borders.
If Tito is closer to Stalin ITTL, he may be less willing to let his citizens migrate to the west for economic reasons.

 

[Alpha-King98760]

How does that have anything to do with fascist Italy being pro-West?

 

[andry2806]

Without any scandal, I think Kefauver will win easy.

 

[Gerbbro]

Kefauver is a great candidate. I am somewhat surprised that the DNC was willing to go with Humphrey as his VP, but it's another great choice.

 

[X_X]

“The populist credibility of the 1952 Democratic platform was emphasized in both members of the ticket. Kefauver and Humphrey both spoke to the working class, and the two “lunchbox liberals” won over millions of fans with their speaking of improving the country’s agriculture, education, healthcare, and labor legislation.

“Taft meanwhile stayed committed to preaching paleo-conservativism. His disdain for unions did not give him the appearance of a man of the people. Further troubling to many was his isolationist foreign policy; it was simply too soon after the high of winning the war to sing of non-interventionism. As well as concerns over both the possibilities of war with either the Soviets or Japan made many Americans nervous. As unlikely as those conflicts were, many were convinced of the need of a strong American military, alongside closer ties to the international community. Though Taft did support big government when it came to housing and veterans’ benefits, it was seen as a promise too little, too late.

“In the end the final results of the elections were unsurprising. Taft kept a strong lead in the Republican West and Northeast, but Kefauver had narrow leads in the polls for the final two weeks. The fourth President from Tennessee and the 36th president overall, Estes Kefauver lead a triumphant return of the Democrats to the White House. First order of business, the tricky issue of universal healthcare…”

-Excerpt from Alcoholics, Philanders, and Crooks: The Complete Guide to American Presidential Candidates

Oh hey, it’s the one-year anniversary of this timeline! Thank you all so much for reading through this. There will be plenty of more updates throughout 2019 as we explore the 50s and 60s. Get ready for the Kefauver presidency and beyond!

 

[Unknown]

Wonder if we're gonna see Colonel Sanders appear ITTL...

 

[stirlingdraka]

I am very happy that Taft did not win.