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Hi, this is a TL that focuses mainly on the cultural, social and philosophical effects of a Nazi-victory.

Yes, I know. The premise relies a lot on handwaving, the POD is 1940 and in the mind of some Nazis. I am not making them less brutal or Genocidal, I am just making them less stupid and more resourceful.
The setting is inspired by KaiserK's "A Valkyrie rises over Europe" and Rasts "A shift in priorities"
This is my first TL, so my style of writing might be a bit wacky.
Thanks to DerGreif and nlspeed for being kind of my betas.


But enough of that. Have fun:
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The Following article is about media in the EMVG (Europäische Markt- und Völker Gemeinschaft) or better known as Axis Europe.


Media in post war Germany and the colonies of the Reich was heavily state controlled, however from time to time directors and writers managed to hide some opinions and messages the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda wouldn’t support.

One of those pieces of art is the 1953 film “The Adventures of Old Shatterhand” starring Helmut Lange, which at the time wasn’t a big hit at the domestic marked due to the ongoing Mediterranean Crisis and the end phase of the economic changes following the Speer Reformen, it did well on the European market and inspired Horst Wendlandt and Preben Philipsen to make their 1963 alltime classic “Der Schatz im Silbersee” which spawned the famous “Winnetou “ series.



While Film, TV and Radio was heavily controlled in Germany during the time, the Film industry flourished in the late fifties and sixties. Not only in the Reich but in the entire EMVG (Europäische Markt- und Völker Gemeinschaft) the Film industry prospered. Notable classics are the Italian neorealism movies “In nome della legge“ (1948) , “Riso Amora” (1949) and Roberto Rossellinis epic final of his war movie trilogy, “Europa unterm Hakenkreuz” (1948) which was very popular in Germany and and the Balkan EMVG members.

In France, which was the big oddball in the EMVG with its semi-democratic system, Film was de jure regulated but depended heavily on the current government and the sensibilities of the Germans. During the war and in the immediate postwar years movie, radio and newspapers were heavily censored in order to not enrage the German occupation forces and to protect the governing elites. Nonetheless even there film media flourished. Typical for the time were Comedies’, Romances and rare war epics of young heroic French volunteers fighting on the eastern front or French sailors combating vile British naval men.

A famous example for the latter is the 1949 French epic “Commandant Teste”, which is about the fierce resistance of the French Navy against British attacks during Operation Catapult.

Of course, it would be outrageous to talk about French Film of the 20th century without mentioning Romy Schneider.

Being one of Germanys most famous Film stars when she decided to immigrate to France it was a huge PR coup for the then reining Salan government, which forced the German government to paint it as a wonderful example of friendship between the European people.
Having arrived in France Schneider started working on films that made her famous around the world and sold out cinemas from Chile to Korea.


But developments in film were always accompanied by developments in sound and music.


Music in the EMVG varied heavily from country to country.

The cultural development in the field of popular music couldn’t have been more different from nation to nation in the EMVG. On the one side we have Italy and France, that developed similar to the West and on the other side we have Germany, its eastern European allies and puppets and the Nordic countries.


We will skip the development of France here and focus more on the development of music in Italy.
Here change didn’t come from below, the people, but from the top, the elites.
Of course the broad population wanted something new too, but it would not have come if it hadn’t been for the Duce and his friends, family and allies who themselves were fascinated with new approaches. A successful musician of the highs of cold war who can not be overlooked when talking about Italy is Romano Mussolini. Romano being a Jazz musician who from time to time even communicated with his British colleagues helped introduce Europe to rock music. While some catholic elements in the Fascist party opposed such developments and only wanted to see their classical approach, they were a minority in comparison to the fascist avant-garde that formed around Romano Mussolini, Lelio Luttazi, Renato Sellani and Giorgio Gaslini.

The developments in Italy stood in sharp contrast to Germany.

Germany is the nation that underwent the most changes in their approach to popular music.

In the late 40s, Swing and Jazz were banned in Germany due to being “Negermusik”, ironically some of the strongest enforcers of this ban, like the GeStaPo chief of Hamburg Carl Kauffmann, had a private collection of American Jazz records.
Even Goebbels had a private Jazz band that operated under the authority of the RMVP.
While Jazz was banned inside Germany, outside of it, in the occupied countries under military administration and the allied axis nations Jazz was broadcasted over radio because it was highly popular with the young soldiers.


An entirely different child was the music in the new administrative districts alias the occupied territories of southern Wallonia and Poland.

From an article of the “Zeitschrift für Musik, July 1941”
“Because the Flemish Music of the early 20th century was heavily influenced by the German Romantik, especially by Wagner and Strauß, the forced introduction of the international Parisian style after the World war caused much irritation amongst the Flemish population.
The advocate of an healthy Germanic-Flemish art were heavily hindered and sabotaged in their doings and the only publishers who still wanted to work with them were mostly German.
It was the beginning of a period where the importance of high art was cheapened and musicians started to imitate Ravel and Strawinsky. At the same time the Jews started to meddle in the arts in order to get their piece of the cake, while an intellectual clique in Brussels did everything in their might to hinder the rightful Flemish cause. […] The German invasion ended this period of onesited cultural oppression. The empty niche that was created by the removal of *Volksfremder Elmente* was soon filled with music inspired by Berlin.”

The biggest benefactor of the new Germanic direction, was “Het Muziekfonds”, a Flemish union of orchestra musicians in Brussels. Together with Flemish Radio stations they developed a monopoly for broadcasting and producing music in what was once known as Belgium.

With the growing realization of an “groß-germanischen Blut- und Schicksalsgemeinschaft” (Great-germanic community of Blood and Destiny), Flemish and Walloon musicians started to see the German music as the only natural and powerful music and a source of power for the soul of the people.

In Poland on the other hand the bohemian school had great influences. Polka was the most widely heared music, but unique creations from componists like Max Posselt or Hubert Wolf regularly hit the charts.

The western areas of Poland and bohemia it self usually followed the normal german trends with rare exceptions, which were most of the time due to the fact that the Czech people got uppity from time to time because they knew that they had not to be afraid of extermination like certain other Slavic people.

The probably weirdest musical phenomenon of the 20th century was the so called “Ossi-Mucke”.

With the neue Ost-Politik in the 60s and 70s the plans for the full extermination and enslavement of the Russians ended and the administrative region of Ukraine, also known as “Freistaat und Reichsverwaltungsgebiet Ukraine” became an independent country (As independent as a east European country in the sphere of the Reich could be). While still a puppet of the Reich it could now issue its own currency and operate its own armed forces and issue certain laws that didn’t need approval from Berlin.

The Ukrainian people had mostly been spared the horrors of extermanitat the Russian people experienced because they were considered a Germanic like people with Germanic roots.

This was mostly due to Banderas political maneuvering and sympathies by various German officers and an relatively high percentage of Ukrainians in the Waffen-SS, Ukraine was administrated by the Reich as a “Reichsverwaltungsgebiet” (administrative district of the Reich), and was governed by a “Reichsverwalter” (Governor of the Reich, comparable to a Gauleiter but with more rights) until 1962.

The first Reichsverwalter after the end of the war was Generalmajor der SS Walter Schimana who wanted to prove to his superiors in Berlin that he was a talented administrator and could cleanse Ukraine of all Jewish, Polish and Russian influences in order to “refine the Ukrainian region and people to be worthy the seat on the table of Europe”.



More on the History of Ukraine in the Chapter concerning the development of eastern Europe.

The classical arts and the literature of the young Ukrainian focused a lot on the Gothic heritage of the Ukrainian people and Ukraines struggle against the Judeo-Bolshevistic and other eastern hordes. Especially in the Ukrainian army and their predecessor the Ukrainian Waffen-SS divisons a fierce combination of western battle songs with nationalistic lyrics and historical Ukrainian folksongs emerged. Examples are: “Марш до бою!“ (March to battle!) and modified versions of Ми сміло в бій підем (We’ll go in battle for Ukraine).





The Russians on the other hand felt the cruel whip of the Reich.
The original plan for the Reichskomissariate was quickly scraped after the end of the 2nd world war, because the people responsible for carrying it out realized they were not feasible and would harm the economy and the future colonists.
Instead a new plan was drawn up, inspired by the American policy towards the natives, Russians were confined to reservations. It was a recycled version of the Madagascar-plan only taking place in the fast areas between Moscow and the Urals.
The success of this plan was remarkable and even the leadership of the NSDAP and the SS was surprised by its success. At the end of 1973 there were only 2,5 million Russians left west of Moscow.


The suffering of the Russian people fueled their music and created marching songs they sung while marching towards the extermination camps or towards their reservations in the area around Perm and the Urals. Those marching songs were in their sadness comparable to the blues of the afro-American slaves in the south. Those songs inspired young German soldiers but also Baltic, Ukrainian and other SS volunteers to adopt those melodies and the style to make their own songs from them.

This led to some of the now most famous SS and Wehrmacht songs like “Unterwegs /Soldaten, Marsch!” and “Moskauer Jungs”.


Especially in the administrative district of Muscovy which today is known for its World famous music festivals in the ruins of Moscow and around the red lakes a generation of musicians and artists was born in the post-war years.


The ruins of cities like Moscow or Stalingrad and the wide wilderness of Russia inspired countless young painters who saw the area during their service in the Military or went there as settlers. This gave birth to the German art style known as “Neue Romantik”.

It united the use of wide and wild landscapes and ruins with modern architecture and objects.

Famous paintings of this period and style are “Moskauer Winter”, “Die purpurnen Flüsse” and “Die vergessenen Felder von Pleskau”.

This stood in sharp contrast with developments in France.
The French art scene surviving mainly untouched by the Second World War carried their traditions of progress in to the cold war. Abstract interpretations of the German Totenburg at Sedan,, sparked outrage across Germany and increased media interest for the French art scene in the western world.

The Italian art scene on the contrary, like their northern neighbors, focused more on classical elements, with the intention to mimic the greatness and style of the Roman era and the Renaissance.

Notable exceptions and change occurred in the late 50s with a group of artists who were also Fascist party members spearheaded by the sons of the Duce, Romano and Vittorio, even integrating of elements pioneered by the Spanish artist Picasso who, at the time was still seen as a deranged subject.

In the 70s Italian art tended to be closer to western standards than to EMVG standards.

Today media and art across the EMVG is starting to heavily copy the likes of Hollywood and London, but Hollywood and London themselves are adjusting to the new influences and the exchange brought by the cultural opening of the EMVG. Where this leads to only the future may know.




An article by Prof. Robert Altman and Sir George Henry Martin, published in the New York Times, November 1987; Excerpt from the Book "Europes destiny, Europes doom."
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