I still think a full, working Russo-German alliance would be unconquerable by conventional means; no les sthan a rain of nuclear death would have bene necessary to crush it. But it also couldn't certainly be born out of any pact between Nazis and Stalinists... At best, such an "alliance" would have seen the two "allies" fight parallel, largely independent wars with (very) limited exchange of intelligence, technical expertise and some weaponry.
The Twin Vipers: A TL of the Berlin-Moscow Axis
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MY MAN THE PRES!
In other words, excellent timeline BNC! I loved every passage of it.
Too many butterflies to make a call on that without everything that happened in between. After all, who in 1945 would have predicted that there would be no nuclear war, a peaceful fall of the USSR, and a couple dozen terrorists knocking down a pair of buildings would be the most significant event of the early 2000s?
China doesn't have a lot of ability to exert influence in the 1950s, and Chiang II is much more interested in finally fixing the country up from the inside. When China becomes powerful again in the '70s, who says they can't work with Japan and both support the new nations?
McCarthy would end up joining whichever fascist party ends up becoming the most important, and not amount to much. But his battle is over before he was there to influence it.
I won't say 'No' to that. If I can think of a good story for it, sure why not?
The British know how to build a bomb (their engineers were a part of Tube Alloys), but the recession and war debt meant that they don't have enough money to set up reactors and all the other stuff needed to build it. Japan, which is still rather less connected to world trade, already had its nuclear program going and made it work before the British did.
Oh well. A happy ending is always nice to read.
These kind of answer each other. I see the partition ITTL a bit like the split of Czechoslovakia - the two peoples are much closer, but believe that they would do better under separate states (the Muslims having only a fraction of the population of Hindus).
Nothing in alternate history is certain. Sure, the TL is closer to a best-case scenario, but as long as it seems reasonable, it is just one possibility of the thousands of TLs that can emerge. If anyone ever wants to make a version that goes the 'nuclear death' route, be my guest
I thought you would like that. President Patton is just way too cool to not have happen.
What? Me? I didn't do anything‘Divine Wind’ series of airliners- I see what you did there.
- BNC
First manned mission, he said...
Which might not be a bad thing. The OTL Moon landing in '69 was thanks to Cold War one-upmanship. ITTL, it could be that space development was slower but more thorough. So first a man in space, then space stations and gradually developing orbital manned and unmanned infrastructure, and then once the technology's fully mature...Moon landing
I can easily see the Germans being more thorough.First manned mission, he said...
Which might not be a bad thing. The OTL Moon landing in '69 was thanks to Cold War one-upmanship. ITTL, it could be that space development was slower but more thorough. So first a man in space, then space stations and gradually developing orbital manned and unmanned infrastructure, and then once the technology's fully mature...Moon landing
If anyone's still here and interested I put together a quick map for this scenario
The A4/V2 program got scrapped as soon as Stalin heard about it, which is inevitably going to set things back a bit. But an extra ten years of computer and radio technology getting improved is going to make an Apollo 1 incident much less likelyFirst manned mission, he said...
Which might not be a bad thing. The OTL Moon landing in '69 was thanks to Cold War one-upmanship. ITTL, it could be that space development was slower but more thorough. So first a man in space, then space stations and gradually developing orbital manned and unmanned infrastructure, and then once the technology's fully mature...Moon landing
Thanks mate!
Yep, although it took until 1948 to get it through Congress. A little hard to call someone who was planning on nuking Stalin off the map a communist.
Nice work!If anyone's still here and interested I put together a quick map for this scenario
Poland deserves the land. After getting invaded, turned into Holocaust Central, becoming an SS base and then under Red Army control, it is time for the Poles to get something back.
- BNC
@BiteNibbleChomp
Great story, loved it. Sad to see it go but it was a damn fine read. Can’t wait to see what you come up with next!
How bad was TTL’s Holocaust? Was it comparable to OTL or less since less Jews were under direct Nazi occupation?
And due to the war being not as easy for the Reich I’m assuming it wasn’t able to spare the resources to make industrial mass murder as rapid as OTL.
And though no pro-Nazi sentimentality sprung up in Germany post-war, I’m sure there will be a more widespread neo-Nazi movements across the world since much of TTL’s war crimes were committed either by the Soviets directly or in territory the Soviets occupied after Hitler s death which muddles who to pinpoint the murders on, especially since both the USSR and the Reich committed their fair share.
And I’m sure later generations (though still a minority) will once again say “Germany was stabbed in the back because out great Führer was assassinated” etc.
Great story, loved it. Sad to see it go but it was a damn fine read. Can’t wait to see what you come up with next!
How bad was TTL’s Holocaust? Was it comparable to OTL or less since less Jews were under direct Nazi occupation?
And due to the war being not as easy for the Reich I’m assuming it wasn’t able to spare the resources to make industrial mass murder as rapid as OTL.
And though no pro-Nazi sentimentality sprung up in Germany post-war, I’m sure there will be a more widespread neo-Nazi movements across the world since much of TTL’s war crimes were committed either by the Soviets directly or in territory the Soviets occupied after Hitler s death which muddles who to pinpoint the murders on, especially since both the USSR and the Reich committed their fair share.
And I’m sure later generations (though still a minority) will once again say “Germany was stabbed in the back because out great Führer was assassinated” etc.
Md139115
Banned
Actually, I'm not so sure about the popularity of Neo-Nazism in this world. Remember, the only successes Germany has had in this war were in the invasions of Denmark and Norway. The French invasion was bogged down into a repeat of 1914, and effectively, the Wehrmacht proved themselves to be either lesser or equal to their Imperial fathers. There hasn't been a great "triumph of Aryan supremacy" nor has Hitler established himself as any sort of supposedly brilliant leader. Germany hasn't even been the leader in this war, like it was in OTL. Rather it's more a junior partner of the Soviets in a way that the Italians were a partner to the Germans OTL. I don't think this is the sort of thing that impresses skinheads.
I'd say TTL's equivalent of the skinhead is the hardcore Marxist that emerges whenever there's a financial panic or scandal. On the most extreme, something like the Red Army Faction.
Maybe in this world the populist ultraleftists are seen a bit like Berlusconi or Marine Le Pen are IOTL, and have an authoritarian streak to them.
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The TL's not going anywhere, except maybe the Finished TLs forum when I decide to spend an hour copying all the posts over. Just come back to the thread whenever you like
Hard to say, because the idea of "the Holocaust" ITTL isn't terribly well defined - OTL it was "Germany did bad things", but ITTL Germany did some, Stalin did some, they worked together at times, and the SS did some killing of its own under no-ones authority.
Overall, I put the count of deaths carried out under Hitler's orders as quite a bit lower than OTL (no USSR prisoners, Jews east of Warsaw or anyone killed after ~2/44), but adding everyone Stalin killed after 1939 would put the figure a little higher than OTL's total.
Neo-Nazism ITTL wouldn't be an independent movement like it is IOTL, but a more radical faction of the more acceptable Fascist parties (a bit like within any communist party, there's followers of Lenin, those who believe in Marx, and others that follow Mao - here a fascist party would be divided between Mussolini/Francoists and Hitlerists).
I'm fairly sure that I addressed this a bit in the post-war notes. And it wasn't like Germany was doing that well in the war beforehand: Hitler dying just accelerated an already obvious collapse a little bit.
Where there are idiots, there are always followers. Hitler accomplished enough to be memorable among the far-right, just less of a "sole example" that he is IOTL.
- BNC
Well done, congratulations, and thanks! It was a good and brisk read!
I think you did a good job of showing how marginalized (even over OTL) nazism would be ITTL post-war. One possible side effect of that would probably be more mainstream flirtation with nazi kitsch. You hear about these themed bars and restaurants in south and east Asia IOTL, places where the horror had no direct impact. Maybe that fascination with aesthetics is more widespread ITTL. Like I had a friend in high school who wore a Red Army outfit for Halloween one year, as a big joke (she was a libertarian). I shudder to think what she would’ve worn ITTL...
I’ve got some questions about the post-war settlement. Just to point out the most obvious first, I don’t think you mentioned Finland gaining as much territory as is depicted in the map. It might just be a mistake, but I can see the security arguments in favor of it. It does leave a relative lot of Russians in Finnish territory (relative to the not-very-large population of Finland).
And that leads me to another question: wholesale population removal. IOTL the Soviets got away with lots of it, before, during, and for a while after the war. They did it to Germans in Czechoslovakia and new western Polish territories with tacit acceptance by the Western Allies. ITTL one might think the practice of wholesale depopulation- basically by modern time IOTL considered a form of ethnic cleansing- might be verboten right off the bat, as a favored and particular tool of evil-doers. And yet here’s Poland and Lithuania doing it (almost certainly with allied help), possibly Finland, possibly Ukraine, possibly Japan. I get that the tactic has a certain...brute practicality to it that’s hard to ignore, and we have such justification arguments over Hiroshima and Nagasaki IOTL. Perhaps that’s the comparison I’m looking for?
Another note on territory, I think the map shows Tuva under Chinese control as well, which seems reasonable if the timing works out (i.e. they can physically walk there before the war ends). It’s not ethnically Russian even today, after all. And it looks like the map also splits off at least part of Tajikistan for the Brits. Again, could be a zealous mapmaker, but a very minor “rush ahead and put a flag on it” campaign at the end could justify it.
I’m a little surprised the Northern Caucasus didn’t rebel sufficiently in the final months of war to justify independence, considering it’s impossible to clear the various peoples from those mountains and they love to rebel and had at least a tentative history of working together briefly in the form of the Mountain Republic. Now, post-war the place would be a shit show to make the Balkans look like a trip to the seaside, but that might just have Russia counting her blessings.
Be interesting to go into decolonization as well. With no alternative power bases to turn to for support, colonies might have little choice but to keep up ties with their former masters. But something tells me what it really means is a lot more power for the US. I can also see something like Pan-Africanism being a lot stronger ITTL.
I think you did a good job of showing how marginalized (even over OTL) nazism would be ITTL post-war. One possible side effect of that would probably be more mainstream flirtation with nazi kitsch. You hear about these themed bars and restaurants in south and east Asia IOTL, places where the horror had no direct impact. Maybe that fascination with aesthetics is more widespread ITTL. Like I had a friend in high school who wore a Red Army outfit for Halloween one year, as a big joke (she was a libertarian). I shudder to think what she would’ve worn ITTL...
I’ve got some questions about the post-war settlement. Just to point out the most obvious first, I don’t think you mentioned Finland gaining as much territory as is depicted in the map. It might just be a mistake, but I can see the security arguments in favor of it. It does leave a relative lot of Russians in Finnish territory (relative to the not-very-large population of Finland).
And that leads me to another question: wholesale population removal. IOTL the Soviets got away with lots of it, before, during, and for a while after the war. They did it to Germans in Czechoslovakia and new western Polish territories with tacit acceptance by the Western Allies. ITTL one might think the practice of wholesale depopulation- basically by modern time IOTL considered a form of ethnic cleansing- might be verboten right off the bat, as a favored and particular tool of evil-doers. And yet here’s Poland and Lithuania doing it (almost certainly with allied help), possibly Finland, possibly Ukraine, possibly Japan. I get that the tactic has a certain...brute practicality to it that’s hard to ignore, and we have such justification arguments over Hiroshima and Nagasaki IOTL. Perhaps that’s the comparison I’m looking for?
Another note on territory, I think the map shows Tuva under Chinese control as well, which seems reasonable if the timing works out (i.e. they can physically walk there before the war ends). It’s not ethnically Russian even today, after all. And it looks like the map also splits off at least part of Tajikistan for the Brits. Again, could be a zealous mapmaker, but a very minor “rush ahead and put a flag on it” campaign at the end could justify it.
I’m a little surprised the Northern Caucasus didn’t rebel sufficiently in the final months of war to justify independence, considering it’s impossible to clear the various peoples from those mountains and they love to rebel and had at least a tentative history of working together briefly in the form of the Mountain Republic. Now, post-war the place would be a shit show to make the Balkans look like a trip to the seaside, but that might just have Russia counting her blessings.
Be interesting to go into decolonization as well. With no alternative power bases to turn to for support, colonies might have little choice but to keep up ties with their former masters. But something tells me what it really means is a lot more power for the US. I can also see something like Pan-Africanism being a lot stronger ITTL.
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