Valkyrie successful: a different Cold War
- Thread starter General Zod
- Start date
Not so keen on this TL, probably the worst element of it is that it assumes that stauffenberg and co. didn;t know about the holocaust, or didn;t have any role in germanys racial policy that somehow despite most of the high ranking members having been involved in the army and/or in occupation governments across eastern europe they were somehow untainted by fascism. Also it assume that fascism was just a crazy cult taking power over a state, and not particular economic and political form which by the 40's had deep roots in society across europe.
Not that this stops the TL being feasable but it plays a pretty big part in the character of a new europe. Afterall the compromise might work in terms of real politic, but the idea that WW2 was an anti-fascist war will evaporate. Afterall when the allied soldiers ''liberate belsen'', they will do so under german escort, do you think this is going to make for a nice friendly liberal EU?
Theirs going to be a far more massive generational gap come the 60's when looking back on the concentration camps its going to be clear that a lot more people ''got away with it'' and that a lot more of those people are in power. De-nazification in germany is going to be a longer slower process, since the whole of germany will be a bulwark against the east in the cold war, less war criminals are going to be put on trial and a new version of the stab in the back myth will prevail among the older generation while younger germans will think oldr generations are guilty by association.
Italy is going to be leaning far more heavily to the left since the partisans won't be so heavily slaughtered by the SS, likewise the balkans as a whole would shift left as the greek communists themselves will not trust the allies and will probably receive backing from the USSR.
I don't see how a federal EU is going to emerge out of this situation.
Not that this stops the TL being feasable but it plays a pretty big part in the character of a new europe. Afterall the compromise might work in terms of real politic, but the idea that WW2 was an anti-fascist war will evaporate. Afterall when the allied soldiers ''liberate belsen'', they will do so under german escort, do you think this is going to make for a nice friendly liberal EU?
Theirs going to be a far more massive generational gap come the 60's when looking back on the concentration camps its going to be clear that a lot more people ''got away with it'' and that a lot more of those people are in power. De-nazification in germany is going to be a longer slower process, since the whole of germany will be a bulwark against the east in the cold war, less war criminals are going to be put on trial and a new version of the stab in the back myth will prevail among the older generation while younger germans will think oldr generations are guilty by association.
Italy is going to be leaning far more heavily to the left since the partisans won't be so heavily slaughtered by the SS, likewise the balkans as a whole would shift left as the greek communists themselves will not trust the allies and will probably receive backing from the USSR.
I don't see how a federal EU is going to emerge out of this situation.
Some of your ideas are good, but the Germans aren't going to be escortig anyone anywhere--once the Western troops enter German territory, they're in charge.
That's why I dislike CG's notion that TTL's Europe will be part of the American Empire with the Germans as the enforcers. Germany has not been ravaged in TTL, but they still LOST.
But getting back to your good ideas:
I do like your ideas about the youth in TTL's 1960s blaming their parents for Hitler. I think OTL some of them did--a bunch ran into a bar and did Hitler salutes to make some kind of point and the older folks reflexively rose and saluted back before they stopped themselves.
Even if a new "stab in the back" myth develops in TTL, it might come later, as a reaction to an angrier, more self-righteous hippie movement.
After all, in TTL, Germany *benefited* somewhat from Hitler--all the German-speaking lands in Europe are united. Prussia was lost, but I think the gain in terms of population and territory (Austria, Sudetenland, etc) outweighed the loss. Prussian exiles might feel backstabbed, but many would not. However, people annoyed with the excesses of the counterculture might not be as rational...
Of course, with the Holocaust and all that shoved in their faces, I don't know if anyone would get *too* nostalgic.
That's why I dislike CG's notion that TTL's Europe will be part of the American Empire with the Germans as the enforcers. Germany has not been ravaged in TTL, but they still LOST.
But getting back to your good ideas:
I do like your ideas about the youth in TTL's 1960s blaming their parents for Hitler. I think OTL some of them did--a bunch ran into a bar and did Hitler salutes to make some kind of point and the older folks reflexively rose and saluted back before they stopped themselves.
Even if a new "stab in the back" myth develops in TTL, it might come later, as a reaction to an angrier, more self-righteous hippie movement.
After all, in TTL, Germany *benefited* somewhat from Hitler--all the German-speaking lands in Europe are united. Prussia was lost, but I think the gain in terms of population and territory (Austria, Sudetenland, etc) outweighed the loss. Prussian exiles might feel backstabbed, but many would not. However, people annoyed with the excesses of the counterculture might not be as rational...
Of course, with the Holocaust and all that shoved in their faces, I don't know if anyone would get *too* nostalgic.
General Zod
Banned
Last revised version of the TL gave a somewhat more favorable peace deal to Germany: a referendum was called to decide the ownership of Sudetenland. Since the population of the area was overwhelmingly German, guess how they voted. Hungary got similar referendums about southern Slovakia and northern Transylvania: both voted to stay with Hungary, while southern Transylvania became West Romania. Similar referendums affirmed the independence of Slovenia and Croatia, while they confirmed South Tyrol to Italy (German nationals that had emigrated to Germany during WWII according to the 1939 Hitler-Mussolini Option Agreement were not allowed to return and vote).
General Zod
Banned
Or maybe they did know enough about Hitler's misdeeds to help motivate them to bring him down. Only it was not really feasible (or the attempts successful) until July 20, 1944. Hitler escaped several coup/assassination attempts before, you know. And bringing down a totalitarian regime under the Gestapo's nose is not exactly a walk in the park, you know.
Among the main Valkyrie plotters, Arthur Nebe is the only guy that had any responsibility of the kind you hint, and there is evidence that he took the position at the insistence of his fellow plotters, and he still managed to limit the body count down in his area of responsibility. A terrible position, yes, but revolutions often need double agents. As far as the TL's author is concerned, only being directly involved in war crimes and atrocities carries a serious taint, being a patriotic, if duped or misguided, soldier for your country does not, and bringing down the tyrant and his accomplices in atrocity and saving all the victims that would have perished from July 20 1944 and May 1, 1945 washes out a helluva lot of sin.
And what this would mean ? That Europe had to be drowned out in blood and fire to pay for the crimes of fascism ? This is the same kind of racist logic that spawned such crimes in the first place.
No. Denazification was still carried out, first by the Valkyrie government itself during and after the coup, then by the Anglo-Americans after they occupy Germany. There is a whole TL piece that details denazification during the occupation. Please read it.
The 60s counterculture rebellion is going to happen anyway both in Germany and in other Western nations, there were hard sociological factors fueling it that this PoD can do nothing to affect. But I have a couple ideas about butterflies affecting it. But more or less denazification took the same extension ITTL that it got IOTL.
Actually, the reverse happens: first the denazification occurs, then the Anglo-Americans rebuild Germany and other ex-Axis powers to be a bulwalk against the Soviets.
This is simply not true. Read the TL. Both the Anglo-Americans and anti-Nazi Germans have a common interest to cast the burden of guilt for Nazi crimes squarely on the back of the Nazi.
Not really. Germany got pretty much all the German-speaking lands of Europe united its rule, minus Prussia, which was lost to the Soviets anyway, became an economic giant, a pillar of the NATO and EU, and has a permanent seat in the UNSC waiting when Soviet veto can be removed. There is little to be bitter about.
Guilt by association is the same kind of nasty lousy logic that spawned Hitler's crimes in the first place, but unfortunately the youngsters are often irrational.
Inefficient SS antiguerrilla repression was not really any significant component for the success of the Italian far left, you know. Anyway, I have plans for them. Let it suffice to say that the Italian communists shall do something very rash and stupid in the heat of passion, and they shall pay a very hard price for it. If you wish an idea of what is going to happen, reread the thread. Italy shall not have a strong Communist Party for long ITTL.
In other words, nothing different from OTL as it concerns Greece, and the pattern shall repeat in Croatia. Communist insurgencies, yes they shall happen, they shall trouble those countries a lot for a while, they shall receive Soviet help for a while, the Americans shall pour a lot of help to local governments to compensate, a confrontation between the blocks shall happen elsewhere where Stalin shall have to choose between, among other things, stop giving help to Communist subversion of Western countries or eat nukes, aid shall stop, Balkan communist insurgencies shall be crushed.
Quite easily, actually. ITTL the NATO is born out of the Americans, who call the shots in the Western bloc, the British, who made an ironclad strategic parternship with them, the Canadians for obvious reasons, the ex-Axis nations (Germany, Italy, Hungary, Croatia), who were occupied and remade in the American image and shall do everything the Americans say, and all those nations (Norway, Sweden, Danemark, West Poland, West Romania, Greece, Turkey) who were far too concerned about Soviet threat on their backs to worry about everything else. The European countries in this group (first the most advanced ones: Germany, Italy, Hungary, Norway, Sweden, Danemark, then the others) shall form the federal EU out of willingness to integrate their economies for mutual advantage and quicker rehabilitation and their security for better protection against the Soviets and a proper "safe" supranational framework to German rearmement.
As a matter of fact, France and the Benelux shall react to this by walking out of the Western bloc in awowed self-righteous indignation that Germany and other Axis countries "got it too light", even if the real main motivator shall be French jealousy and nationalist frustration at American ascendance and German resurgence. And they shall build their third bloc. However, the pressures of politics shall make it so that in a few years France itself shall have turned into a nasty authoritarian-nationalist regime that oppresses minorities and slaughters plenty of natives in rebellious colonies in the happy company of fascist and racist satellites, to cling to its own waning great power status, while the federal EU is happily building its own social market democracy. Isn't history ironic ?
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General Zod
Banned
The beginning of the Cold War: USA 1945-1947
The victory of Tom Dewey and the Republican Party in the 1944 Presidential and Congressional Elections had brought back the GOP to power after a 12-year domination by the New Deal Democratics. Like the Democratic Party was divided between its New Deal, progressive, big-city wing and its conservative, Southern wing (a division that had become a rift in the 1944 election), the GOP was divided between its radical wing, which advocated a repeal to most of the New Deal programs, and a return to isolationism, and its moderate wing, which was willing to keep most of the New Deal programs in the books, and advocated a commtittment to collective international security.
The new President and his cabinet was firmly in the internationalist camp, and was decided to achieve a full victory in the war with Japan, followed by the rebuilding of an effective system of collective security for Western democracies, as well as the containment of Soviet and Communist influence, which had dangerously expanded in Eastern Europe during the last phase of the war. In Europe, he advocated the implementation of the London Accords, the uprooting of fascist influences from ex-Axis nations, and their rebuilding to become functional and responsible democracies. In Asia, a vigorous prosecution of the war with Japan was pursued, as well as strong support to Nationalist China, which the Administration saw as the most important ally to America in Asia.
Victory over Japan was achieved as well in late Summer 1945, even if the use of nuclear weapons was necessary to subdue Japan. The end of the war left America as the dominant great power in Western Europe and East Asia, a position of unprecedented opportuntiy and responsibility. The victory had charged the USA with the administration and restructuring of the Axis nations, and the Administration implemented a vigorous program of political and economic reforms aimed to uproot fascist and militarist infleunces and remold them in the American image. At the same time, Soviet actions in Eastern Europe, with the ruthless repression and imposition of Communist regimes and Soviet control in Soviet-occupied Finland, Finnmark, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Yugoslavia, as well as Soviert refusal to withdraw from northern Persia, and support of local Communists in Korea, Manchuria, North China, and Xinjiang, made the US government more and more wary and suspicious of Soviet actions, methods, and intentions.
The American public yearned for a return to "normalcy", so a massive demobilization of American forces was started and wartime controls on the economy were lifted, even if the Administration claimed that a strong permanent Army was necessary to provide for occupation responsibilities in Europe and Japan, support to Nationalist China, and containtment of Communist subversion. Therefore, the first permanent peacetime draft in American hustory was implemented, and the Armed Forces and the intelligence services were reformed to address the lessons of WWII and the needs of the post-war age, including the creation of the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, the National Science Foundation, and the Atomic Energy Commission.
The end of the wartime controls on American economy, including limitations to strikes, caused a mass of bottled-up social claims to explode in a massive wave of labor strikes. This alarmed the American public, and the Republican Congress, resulting in the Taft-Hartley Act, which greatly restricted the activities and power of labor unions. The Taft-Hartley Act prohibited jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, "common situs" picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. It also required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government. Union shops were heavily restricted, and states were allowed to pass "right-to-work laws" that outlawed union shops. Furthermore, the executive branch of the Federal government could obtain legal strikebreaking injunctions if an impending or current strike "imperiled the national health or safety".
Lingering concerns about New Deal expansion of federal intervention into the economy, as well as the expansion of Presidential power and effects of Presidential disability in a time of crisis (as exemplified by FDR's poor health in his late years) spurred the draft of three new Constitutional Amendments that mandated various meansures of fiscal responsibility and provided for the cases of Presidential disability and vacancy in the office of Vice-President. A limit was also sought to Presidential terms, although Dewey strongly opposed the measure if term limits were not also imposed to Congressmen and federal judges. A final compromise implemented a limit to consecutive terms for all major federal offices.
Amendment XXII
Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a three-fifths vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
Amendment XXIII
Section 1. Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.
Section 2. The President may approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill. In such case he shall, in signing the bill, designate the appropriations disapproved; and shall return a copy of such appropriations, with his objections, to the House in which the bill shall have originated; and the same proceedings shall then be had as in case of other bills disapproved by the President.
Section 3. Congress shall appropriate no money from the Treasury except by a vote of three-fifths of both Houses, unless it be asked and estimated for by some one of the heads of Executive Departments and submitted to Congress by the President; or for the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies; or for the payment of claims against the United States.
Section 4. All bills appropriating money shall specify in Federal currency the exact amount of each appropriation and the purposes for which it is made; and Congress shall grant no extra compensation to any public contractor, officer, agent, or servant, after such contract shall have been made or such service rendered.
Section 5. The principal officer in each of the Executive Departments, and all persons connected with the diplomatic service, may be removed from office at the pleasure of the President. All other officers of the Executive Departments may be removed at any time by the President, or other appointing power, when their services are unnecessary, or for dishonesty, incapacity, inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty; and when so removed, the removal shall be reported to the Senate, together with the reasons therefor.
Amendment XXIV
No person shall hold the office of the President, Vice President, or Representative of the United States for more than twelve consecutive years. No person shall hold the office of Senator or Judge of the United States for more than eighteen consecutive years.
The American public was also alarmed when Congressional inevestigation of the Roosevelt Administration, following charges of Communist infiltration raised during the electoral campaign, revealed that several high-ranking officers of the late Administration had been Soviet spies or Communist sympathizers that worked to extend the power and influence of the Soviet state and the Communist movement. Allegations were made that Wallace himself and several prominent members of FDR's Cabinet were Communist sympathizers that conspired to expand Soviet power in Europe. Prevailing popular opinion held that FDR himself was innocent of any major wrongdoing, but he was too ill and senile to check the conspiracies of Commie traitors in his Administration. Investigation was also extended to the Manhattan Project and revealed that several scientists were guilty of esponage on behalf of the Soviet Union, sending atomic secrets to the Communists. The Congress passed a bill extending the investigative powers of the FBI. It was soon revealed that Congressman Dickstein had been on the payroll of the Soviet Union for over ten years. A "Red Scare" of widespread Communist infiltration sweeped the nation. President Dewey assured the public that he and his cabinet would weed out the Communist traitors in the government and the military and implemented an extensive loyalty check program for all government employees. Charges of treason and espionage were brought against Dickstein, Alger Hiss, and several dozen former members of FDR's Administration and the Manhattan Project. The Congress voted to declare that former President Henry Wallace and several members of FDR Cabinet "gave aid and confort to an enemy power" and as such were barred to hold federal or state offices, according to the 14th Amendment. The FBI and the House Committe on Un-American Activities (eager to remove the embarassment from having had a Soviet spy as a member) begin an extensive investigation of Communist infiltration in many sectors of American society, notably the movie industry and the news media and broadcasting corporations. Increasing calls are made to outlaw the Communist Party of the United States.
Revelation of Communist infiltration in the united States, as well as Soviet repression in Eastern Europe and Communist activity in Western countries, decisively turn the American public opinion towards anti-Communism and defiance of Soviet expansion. In the face of renewed Communist insurgency in Greece and Croatia, which the local governments are hard-pressed to contain, Dewey announces that "One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures from totalitarian countries and movements" and asks Congress for extensive economic and miltiary support to Greece, Croatia, and Turkey against Communist subversion. The US government also announces a program of economic recovery and reconstruction (dubbed the Dulles Plan) for the nations of Western Europe. Despite the bitter opposition of the isolationist faction of the Republican Party, the Dulles Plan is implemented. It established the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) to administer the program. The participating countries (Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, West Poland, West Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States) signed an accord establishing a master financial-aid-coordinating agency, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (later called the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD). Its official mission statement was to give a boost to the European economy: to promote European production, to bolster European currency, and to facilitate international trade, especially with the United States, whose economic interest required Europe to become wealthy enough to import U.S. goods. Another unofficial goal of ECA (and of the Dulles Plan) was the containment of growing Soviet influence in Europe, evident especially in the growing strength of communist parties in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, and Italy. The Soviet Union bitterly denounced the Dulles Plan as a violation fo the sovreignity of independent nations and forbid its satellites in Eastern Europe to join the program. As a matter of fact, the implementation of the Dulles Plan saw the exclusion of the Communist parties from power in Western European countries, notably Blegium, France, and Italy. The Dulles Plan money was transferred to the governments of the European nations. The funds were jointly administered by the local governments and the ECA. Each European capital had an ECA envoy, generally a prominent American businessman, who would advise on the process. The cooperative allocation of funds was encouraged, and panels of government, business, and labor leaders were convened to examine the economy and see where aid was needed. The Dulles Plan aid was divided amongst the participant states on a roughly per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival.
This period also saw the implementation of the post-war political settlement for occupied ex-Axis countries in Europe: in Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Western ex-Yugoslavia, political and economic reforms were implmented to accomplish de-fascistization and democratization, although as time passed, American policies were aimed as much as to achieve thse objectives as well as to contain the influence of Communist movements, rehabilitate the economies of the occupied countries, and rebuild these nations as bulwarks against the Soviet threat and effective alles and trading partners of the USA. By 1948 all of the occupied countries were returned to political independence, although the peace treaties still mandated for Allied supervision, ostensibly to implement demilitarization. In accordance with the peace accords, referendums were called to settle the issues of various contested areas in Central and Eastern Europe. The results indicated that the Sudetenland was to be retained by Germany and southern Slovakia was to be retained by Hungary, whileas Italy got to keep South Tyrol (the German nationals that had left the area according to the Hitler-Mussolini Option Agreement of 1939 were not allowed to return or vote) and Istria. Czechoslovakia bitterly protested the outcome, even if it appeared to reflect the will of the majority of the population in the contested areas, and its Communist-influenced government moved to sever all political ties with the Western bloc, expelling all American troops. For a while it seemed like Czechoslovakia might switch sides and become a Soviet satellite. But the American and British governments, fearful for the security of demilitarized Germany and Hungary, sent a note to the Czechoslovak government declaring that a military alliance of Czechoslovakia with the Soviet bloc or the presence of Soviet troops on its territory would be an "hostile act". Terse negotiations produced the Prague declaration, by which the Czechoslovakan government, the Western powers, and the Soviet Union mutually recognized and affirmed the neutrality of Czechoslovakia.
Another set of referendum affimed the independence of Slovenia and Croatia (with Western Bosnia), and indicated that Hungary was to retain northern Transylvania. Southern Transylvania voted to set up a Romanian state. Repeated attempts between 1945 and 1948 to set up a unitary government and call nationwide elections in Poland and Romania broke down, owning to mutual distrust between the Anglo-Americans and the Soviets and between the rival authorities of Western-controlled and Soviet-controlled sections. In 1948 separate governments were officially set up for West and East Poland and Romania.
The victory of Tom Dewey and the Republican Party in the 1944 Presidential and Congressional Elections had brought back the GOP to power after a 12-year domination by the New Deal Democratics. Like the Democratic Party was divided between its New Deal, progressive, big-city wing and its conservative, Southern wing (a division that had become a rift in the 1944 election), the GOP was divided between its radical wing, which advocated a repeal to most of the New Deal programs, and a return to isolationism, and its moderate wing, which was willing to keep most of the New Deal programs in the books, and advocated a commtittment to collective international security.
The new President and his cabinet was firmly in the internationalist camp, and was decided to achieve a full victory in the war with Japan, followed by the rebuilding of an effective system of collective security for Western democracies, as well as the containment of Soviet and Communist influence, which had dangerously expanded in Eastern Europe during the last phase of the war. In Europe, he advocated the implementation of the London Accords, the uprooting of fascist influences from ex-Axis nations, and their rebuilding to become functional and responsible democracies. In Asia, a vigorous prosecution of the war with Japan was pursued, as well as strong support to Nationalist China, which the Administration saw as the most important ally to America in Asia.
Victory over Japan was achieved as well in late Summer 1945, even if the use of nuclear weapons was necessary to subdue Japan. The end of the war left America as the dominant great power in Western Europe and East Asia, a position of unprecedented opportuntiy and responsibility. The victory had charged the USA with the administration and restructuring of the Axis nations, and the Administration implemented a vigorous program of political and economic reforms aimed to uproot fascist and militarist infleunces and remold them in the American image. At the same time, Soviet actions in Eastern Europe, with the ruthless repression and imposition of Communist regimes and Soviet control in Soviet-occupied Finland, Finnmark, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Yugoslavia, as well as Soviert refusal to withdraw from northern Persia, and support of local Communists in Korea, Manchuria, North China, and Xinjiang, made the US government more and more wary and suspicious of Soviet actions, methods, and intentions.
The American public yearned for a return to "normalcy", so a massive demobilization of American forces was started and wartime controls on the economy were lifted, even if the Administration claimed that a strong permanent Army was necessary to provide for occupation responsibilities in Europe and Japan, support to Nationalist China, and containtment of Communist subversion. Therefore, the first permanent peacetime draft in American hustory was implemented, and the Armed Forces and the intelligence services were reformed to address the lessons of WWII and the needs of the post-war age, including the creation of the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Council, the National Science Foundation, and the Atomic Energy Commission.
The end of the wartime controls on American economy, including limitations to strikes, caused a mass of bottled-up social claims to explode in a massive wave of labor strikes. This alarmed the American public, and the Republican Congress, resulting in the Taft-Hartley Act, which greatly restricted the activities and power of labor unions. The Taft-Hartley Act prohibited jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, "common situs" picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. It also required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government. Union shops were heavily restricted, and states were allowed to pass "right-to-work laws" that outlawed union shops. Furthermore, the executive branch of the Federal government could obtain legal strikebreaking injunctions if an impending or current strike "imperiled the national health or safety".
Lingering concerns about New Deal expansion of federal intervention into the economy, as well as the expansion of Presidential power and effects of Presidential disability in a time of crisis (as exemplified by FDR's poor health in his late years) spurred the draft of three new Constitutional Amendments that mandated various meansures of fiscal responsibility and provided for the cases of Presidential disability and vacancy in the office of Vice-President. A limit was also sought to Presidential terms, although Dewey strongly opposed the measure if term limits were not also imposed to Congressmen and federal judges. A final compromise implemented a limit to consecutive terms for all major federal offices.
Amendment XXII
Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a three-fifths vote of both Houses of Congress.
Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
Amendment XXIII
Section 1. Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.
Section 2. The President may approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill. In such case he shall, in signing the bill, designate the appropriations disapproved; and shall return a copy of such appropriations, with his objections, to the House in which the bill shall have originated; and the same proceedings shall then be had as in case of other bills disapproved by the President.
Section 3. Congress shall appropriate no money from the Treasury except by a vote of three-fifths of both Houses, unless it be asked and estimated for by some one of the heads of Executive Departments and submitted to Congress by the President; or for the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies; or for the payment of claims against the United States.
Section 4. All bills appropriating money shall specify in Federal currency the exact amount of each appropriation and the purposes for which it is made; and Congress shall grant no extra compensation to any public contractor, officer, agent, or servant, after such contract shall have been made or such service rendered.
Section 5. The principal officer in each of the Executive Departments, and all persons connected with the diplomatic service, may be removed from office at the pleasure of the President. All other officers of the Executive Departments may be removed at any time by the President, or other appointing power, when their services are unnecessary, or for dishonesty, incapacity, inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty; and when so removed, the removal shall be reported to the Senate, together with the reasons therefor.
Amendment XXIV
No person shall hold the office of the President, Vice President, or Representative of the United States for more than twelve consecutive years. No person shall hold the office of Senator or Judge of the United States for more than eighteen consecutive years.
The American public was also alarmed when Congressional inevestigation of the Roosevelt Administration, following charges of Communist infiltration raised during the electoral campaign, revealed that several high-ranking officers of the late Administration had been Soviet spies or Communist sympathizers that worked to extend the power and influence of the Soviet state and the Communist movement. Allegations were made that Wallace himself and several prominent members of FDR's Cabinet were Communist sympathizers that conspired to expand Soviet power in Europe. Prevailing popular opinion held that FDR himself was innocent of any major wrongdoing, but he was too ill and senile to check the conspiracies of Commie traitors in his Administration. Investigation was also extended to the Manhattan Project and revealed that several scientists were guilty of esponage on behalf of the Soviet Union, sending atomic secrets to the Communists. The Congress passed a bill extending the investigative powers of the FBI. It was soon revealed that Congressman Dickstein had been on the payroll of the Soviet Union for over ten years. A "Red Scare" of widespread Communist infiltration sweeped the nation. President Dewey assured the public that he and his cabinet would weed out the Communist traitors in the government and the military and implemented an extensive loyalty check program for all government employees. Charges of treason and espionage were brought against Dickstein, Alger Hiss, and several dozen former members of FDR's Administration and the Manhattan Project. The Congress voted to declare that former President Henry Wallace and several members of FDR Cabinet "gave aid and confort to an enemy power" and as such were barred to hold federal or state offices, according to the 14th Amendment. The FBI and the House Committe on Un-American Activities (eager to remove the embarassment from having had a Soviet spy as a member) begin an extensive investigation of Communist infiltration in many sectors of American society, notably the movie industry and the news media and broadcasting corporations. Increasing calls are made to outlaw the Communist Party of the United States.
Revelation of Communist infiltration in the united States, as well as Soviet repression in Eastern Europe and Communist activity in Western countries, decisively turn the American public opinion towards anti-Communism and defiance of Soviet expansion. In the face of renewed Communist insurgency in Greece and Croatia, which the local governments are hard-pressed to contain, Dewey announces that "One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures from totalitarian countries and movements" and asks Congress for extensive economic and miltiary support to Greece, Croatia, and Turkey against Communist subversion. The US government also announces a program of economic recovery and reconstruction (dubbed the Dulles Plan) for the nations of Western Europe. Despite the bitter opposition of the isolationist faction of the Republican Party, the Dulles Plan is implemented. It established the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) to administer the program. The participating countries (Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, West Poland, West Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States) signed an accord establishing a master financial-aid-coordinating agency, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (later called the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD). Its official mission statement was to give a boost to the European economy: to promote European production, to bolster European currency, and to facilitate international trade, especially with the United States, whose economic interest required Europe to become wealthy enough to import U.S. goods. Another unofficial goal of ECA (and of the Dulles Plan) was the containment of growing Soviet influence in Europe, evident especially in the growing strength of communist parties in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, France, and Italy. The Soviet Union bitterly denounced the Dulles Plan as a violation fo the sovreignity of independent nations and forbid its satellites in Eastern Europe to join the program. As a matter of fact, the implementation of the Dulles Plan saw the exclusion of the Communist parties from power in Western European countries, notably Blegium, France, and Italy. The Dulles Plan money was transferred to the governments of the European nations. The funds were jointly administered by the local governments and the ECA. Each European capital had an ECA envoy, generally a prominent American businessman, who would advise on the process. The cooperative allocation of funds was encouraged, and panels of government, business, and labor leaders were convened to examine the economy and see where aid was needed. The Dulles Plan aid was divided amongst the participant states on a roughly per capita basis. A larger amount was given to the major industrial powers, as the prevailing opinion was that their resuscitation was essential for general European revival.
This period also saw the implementation of the post-war political settlement for occupied ex-Axis countries in Europe: in Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Western ex-Yugoslavia, political and economic reforms were implmented to accomplish de-fascistization and democratization, although as time passed, American policies were aimed as much as to achieve thse objectives as well as to contain the influence of Communist movements, rehabilitate the economies of the occupied countries, and rebuild these nations as bulwarks against the Soviet threat and effective alles and trading partners of the USA. By 1948 all of the occupied countries were returned to political independence, although the peace treaties still mandated for Allied supervision, ostensibly to implement demilitarization. In accordance with the peace accords, referendums were called to settle the issues of various contested areas in Central and Eastern Europe. The results indicated that the Sudetenland was to be retained by Germany and southern Slovakia was to be retained by Hungary, whileas Italy got to keep South Tyrol (the German nationals that had left the area according to the Hitler-Mussolini Option Agreement of 1939 were not allowed to return or vote) and Istria. Czechoslovakia bitterly protested the outcome, even if it appeared to reflect the will of the majority of the population in the contested areas, and its Communist-influenced government moved to sever all political ties with the Western bloc, expelling all American troops. For a while it seemed like Czechoslovakia might switch sides and become a Soviet satellite. But the American and British governments, fearful for the security of demilitarized Germany and Hungary, sent a note to the Czechoslovak government declaring that a military alliance of Czechoslovakia with the Soviet bloc or the presence of Soviet troops on its territory would be an "hostile act". Terse negotiations produced the Prague declaration, by which the Czechoslovakan government, the Western powers, and the Soviet Union mutually recognized and affirmed the neutrality of Czechoslovakia.
Another set of referendum affimed the independence of Slovenia and Croatia (with Western Bosnia), and indicated that Hungary was to retain northern Transylvania. Southern Transylvania voted to set up a Romanian state. Repeated attempts between 1945 and 1948 to set up a unitary government and call nationwide elections in Poland and Romania broke down, owning to mutual distrust between the Anglo-Americans and the Soviets and between the rival authorities of Western-controlled and Soviet-controlled sections. In 1948 separate governments were officially set up for West and East Poland and Romania.
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I think the swing against FDR and company is a bit too radical. Although this is obviously OTL, I don't see a lot of this happening.
The general public considered FDR a hero, even if the controversy over Valkyrie might have been enough to tarnish him a bit.
The general public considered FDR a hero, even if the controversy over Valkyrie might have been enough to tarnish him a bit.
General Zod
Banned
I've slightly edited that bit, and softened the public's judgement over FDR. They still hold a largely (but not completely) positive image of him, but they deem he was too old and senile to acknowledge and check the conspiracies of Commie spies and sympathizers in his administration (here I use a typical psychological mechanism the masses use when they grow unhappy with the policies of a charismatic formerly popular leader: they cast all the blame squarely on the back of his ministers). It's the likes of Wallace and Morgenthau that are singled out as Commie sell-outs.
As for the justification for this happening, think that: the controversy over Valkyrie indeed tarnished the policies of the FDR considerably, and allegations were made that it was all due to improper pro-Soviet influence during the electoral campaign. Now a new Administration and Congressional majority is in charge, and they are in the position to make all the necessary extensive investigations to show these allegations were largely right all along, and in all evidence the American policy in the war years was significantly unduly influenced by disloyal Communist/pro-Soviet sympathies, if not outright espionage. This ought to be sufficient to make the ATL Red Scare earlier and more severe than IOTL, causing an even more decisive rejection of FDR's policies than it had already happened in the 1944 election and a confirmation of a swing to a policy harsh to the USSR and lenient to the old Axis enemies. The wrath of the public focuses on the former Administration officers most involved in FDR foreign policy, while the old President is given a rather more nuanced and cautious judgement, as above (if you wish a comparison, much akin to the one given to Mao after his death in the PRC: he did most things right, but he did many wrong, or as PRC officials say: 2/3 good, 1/3 bad). Essentially ITTL, the Red Scare becomes a mix of the OTL phenomenon and an early foreign-policy Watergate. They don't dare make any official allegations against FDR, and he was in his grave anyway. As for Wallace and company, they are out of office, so they can't make a proper impeachment, but they still use a Civil War constitutional loophole to make a quasi-impeachment and bar them from holding federal or state offices.
Feels more plausible that way ? I really wish to have that sorry bunch of Commie-lovers in the FDR Administration the Watergate treatment they so dearly deserved.
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Just how much pro-Communist was the FDR administration?
They were a lot more tolerant of leftists--Wallace, for example--but they also had J. Edgar Hoover.
They were a lot more tolerant of leftists--Wallace, for example--but they also had J. Edgar Hoover.
Nice and thorough update on the first half of the Dewey adminstration Zod...How far do you plan on taking this tl? And I think there was a bit of a freudian slip there when you called Wallace former Vice President when IIRC Wallace did become the 33rd President even if it was just for a lil bit. Also nice touch extending the term limits to everal federal office and holding The Presidency to three terms. With Dewey being the youngest elected President(I think he would be still 42 on election day, as well as the first POTUS to be born in the 20th century) I think he would resonate very well with the Post War America...However might keeping a larger standing army affect the baby boom? And what Canidates are the Dem's going to line up to run against Dewey? Might we still see somekind of split? and as always keep it comming.
General Zod
Banned
As far as I get momentum and ideas for it. As always, however, finding free time to write down everything is the biggest limiting factor (I already have a couple TLs on long-term hiatus
), especially if each update has to be as detailed as I like them to be (even if I do plan to summarize about several issues, e.g. making some updates about geopolitical theaters instead of single countries, or it would truly take forever). I have ideas floating around for some countries running up to the '70s, when both the Soviet bloc and the French bloc should enter their death spiral, even if I am far from having ideas for all countries up to then. Yes, you are right.
I've always thought that term limits would work much better this way. With FDR defeated in 1944, the Congress would have less reason to enforce a limit as harsh and one-sided as IOTL, so I felt justified to introduce a nice butterfly about it. I'm rather proud of all the work I put in writing my signature US Constitution rewrite, so I like to steal ideas from there whenever I can.
Yes, he would. Kinda of an earlier Republican Kennedy, even if the times and events Dewey has to face are much more problematic, and he had to make much more dramatic decisions. I'm rather fond of him, he was the standard-bearer of the liberal Republicans in his time, the best from the GOP before the religious-freak madness. He already had to preside over the end of the war with Japan, the post-war settlment, the start of the Cold War, the onset of the Red Scare. He still has to face the creation of Israel, NATO, TTL's version of the Chinese Civil War and Korean War, which has a terrible potential to turn the Cold War nuclear-hot, the beginning of european unification and the split of the Western bloc... Watch for it in the next update, which ought to cover the second Dewey term. I'm still puzzling whether Dewey would get a third term, and what the long-term effects of the Dewey presidency could be. Given that we are at the verge of desegregation, which shall radically realign American politics for decades, the butterflies could be truly huge.
Probably not. ITTL the Far East War shall be rather bigger and nastier (if not necessarily longer), and this may well cause a larger standing US Army in the early '50s, but it shall also move the USA to push all the harder to build a pan-European army, and rearm ex-Axis countries fully under American aegis, which ought to compensate to a degree. So in the end, things ought to balance out with OTL.
Got the name for 1948, more or less. Anyhow, he's not that important, he shall be trounced against a popular and competent incumbent. Naah, the true issue is 1952, I'm not yet sure how to run that one, and the butterflies are important for that election.
Might we still see somekind of split?
The butterflies creating a three-party system in America is something I'm seriously considerating. Not yet sure it's feasible, although. As it concerns the 1948 election, well, then Dems kinda of split in 1944 already, so the possibility the split has not yet healed are definitely there. Mostly it depends whether the Dems shall raise the segregation issue, and hence split between big-city liberals and southern conservatives, or not. As it concerns the far left, ITTL they are even more radioactive than IOTL, with the earlier and more severe Cold War and Red Scare, Wallace gone Nixon and disenfranchised, and all.
Terlot
Banned
Unrealistic.
Valkyrie group believed in aristocracy and elite rule over masses. Some of them were not nazis but in more technical term fascists. Don't see how succesfull democracy would develop.
Don't see any possibility for Germany keeping Hitler's gains.
Silesia was important industrail centre and it was taken away from Germany not out of feeling of revenge but also to prevent it from fueling arms industry which it did before WW2. Also its eastern side was populated by Polish majority-which German occupation didn't change as they were considered volksdeutsche by Nazi regime.
The reduced "Poland" in form of Wielkopolska region is impossible-it would have nothing to sustain itself on in terms of economy, manpower. Anybody ruling such creation would be a German puppet and seen as such by Polish population. I don't see any Poles agreeing to giving away industrial Silesia vital for Polish state's existance in exchange for agricultural and underdeveloped territories of East Prussia. Neither are Soviets likely to abandon Kaliningrad-their warm port to Poles. Lviv is possible for negotation if Soviet side is weakened but that is it.
Why should there be no unity government ? It happened in OTL in the same months the coup happened.
Both communists and London government called for revision of borders in favour of Poland in Silesia and Pomerania-why should they change their mind ? In case of Upper Silesia they were supported both by Stalin and Churchill. Roosvelt needed votes of Polish electorate in states.
Valkyrie group will have to deal with Warsaw Uprising as it happened just days after the coup. It will happen again as Germany is weakened.
Don't see how people like Stauffenberg or Goerdeler would cooperate with Poles-they despised them, called cockroaches whose state must be destroyed(Goerdeler).
Why don't the Allies use the assets they used in OTL in Market Garden that happened just a couple of months after the coup ? In this scenario they would have bigger chance of winning.
Don't see how Germany run by a militaristic clique of nationalists would deal better with war criminals then West Germany-which in itself protected and spared a lot of them. I would expect this to be even worse as consequence in this Germany.
And nationalistic, right-wing Germany led by people who openly gave view of inferiority of Poles and desire to destroy their state will be easy to exploit by Stalin. We could actually have a finlandized Poland as the threat of Germans will be bigger then that of SU. People after all welcomed Soviets as liberators and memories of being treated like untermenschen and subject of genocide were alive. Soviets plundered and robbed but they were not going to exterminate Polish nation as Germans before them. Plus the Soviets on individual basis had good relations with Poles-drinking together, songs, attempts to forge relationships due to alledged common culture. The state was hated but people often liked. This wasn't happening with Germans which both as state and as people were hated. While Valkyrie coup as you portayed is impossible, it would led to Soviet friendly Poland...
Valkyrie group believed in aristocracy and elite rule over masses. Some of them were not nazis but in more technical term fascists. Don't see how succesfull democracy would develop.
Don't see any possibility for Germany keeping Hitler's gains.
Silesia was important industrail centre and it was taken away from Germany not out of feeling of revenge but also to prevent it from fueling arms industry which it did before WW2. Also its eastern side was populated by Polish majority-which German occupation didn't change as they were considered volksdeutsche by Nazi regime.
The reduced "Poland" in form of Wielkopolska region is impossible-it would have nothing to sustain itself on in terms of economy, manpower. Anybody ruling such creation would be a German puppet and seen as such by Polish population. I don't see any Poles agreeing to giving away industrial Silesia vital for Polish state's existance in exchange for agricultural and underdeveloped territories of East Prussia. Neither are Soviets likely to abandon Kaliningrad-their warm port to Poles. Lviv is possible for negotation if Soviet side is weakened but that is it.
Why should there be no unity government ? It happened in OTL in the same months the coup happened.
Both communists and London government called for revision of borders in favour of Poland in Silesia and Pomerania-why should they change their mind ? In case of Upper Silesia they were supported both by Stalin and Churchill. Roosvelt needed votes of Polish electorate in states.
Valkyrie group will have to deal with Warsaw Uprising as it happened just days after the coup. It will happen again as Germany is weakened.
Don't see how people like Stauffenberg or Goerdeler would cooperate with Poles-they despised them, called cockroaches whose state must be destroyed(Goerdeler).
Why don't the Allies use the assets they used in OTL in Market Garden that happened just a couple of months after the coup ? In this scenario they would have bigger chance of winning.
Don't see how Germany run by a militaristic clique of nationalists would deal better with war criminals then West Germany-which in itself protected and spared a lot of them. I would expect this to be even worse as consequence in this Germany.
And nationalistic, right-wing Germany led by people who openly gave view of inferiority of Poles and desire to destroy their state will be easy to exploit by Stalin. We could actually have a finlandized Poland as the threat of Germans will be bigger then that of SU. People after all welcomed Soviets as liberators and memories of being treated like untermenschen and subject of genocide were alive. Soviets plundered and robbed but they were not going to exterminate Polish nation as Germans before them. Plus the Soviets on individual basis had good relations with Poles-drinking together, songs, attempts to forge relationships due to alledged common culture. The state was hated but people often liked. This wasn't happening with Germans which both as state and as people were hated. While Valkyrie coup as you portayed is impossible, it would led to Soviet friendly Poland...
In reply to Terlot:
When you look at the Black Orchestra it had members from diverse parties, old right-wing nationalists/conservatives had a big share, but it also contained SPD members such as Julius Leber and Theodor Haubach. The Vice-Chancellor would also be from the SPD: Wilhelm Leuschner.
Goerdeler's economic ideas could hardly be considered fascist considering his emphasis on free markets. I consider the entire idea of Valkyrie basically being about as fascist and right-wing as nazism to be ridiculous and based on the classic amateur-historians mistake of judging what happened decades ago with the morals of today. For it's time, the Black Orchestra was simply a diverse group of politicians from both the right and the left (though right-wing conservatives definitely dominated it)
I do agree on how unrealistic it is for Germany to keep it's war gains. I'd say the Sudetenland would certainly have to be returned to Czechoslovakia, I'd consider the most positive scenario for Germany for it to gain the Danzig and Danzig Corridor, along with retaining it's old pre-war borders. I would like to remind you that by this point, Silesia is not yet in Polish hands and Kaliningrad is still German.
I would say that the Warsaw Uprising would still happen, but that there would be some deal between the Wehrmacht and the resistance, especially as in the early days after the coup the first priority of the Goerdeler-government would be to eliminate the SS, their prime contenders for power. Even had it wanted to, the Goerdeler-government would have been in no position to smack down on the Warsaw Uprising, by the time they would have fully defeated the SS, Warsaw would likely be taken already.
When you look at the Black Orchestra it had members from diverse parties, old right-wing nationalists/conservatives had a big share, but it also contained SPD members such as Julius Leber and Theodor Haubach. The Vice-Chancellor would also be from the SPD: Wilhelm Leuschner.
Goerdeler's economic ideas could hardly be considered fascist considering his emphasis on free markets. I consider the entire idea of Valkyrie basically being about as fascist and right-wing as nazism to be ridiculous and based on the classic amateur-historians mistake of judging what happened decades ago with the morals of today. For it's time, the Black Orchestra was simply a diverse group of politicians from both the right and the left (though right-wing conservatives definitely dominated it)
I do agree on how unrealistic it is for Germany to keep it's war gains. I'd say the Sudetenland would certainly have to be returned to Czechoslovakia, I'd consider the most positive scenario for Germany for it to gain the Danzig and Danzig Corridor, along with retaining it's old pre-war borders. I would like to remind you that by this point, Silesia is not yet in Polish hands and Kaliningrad is still German.
I would say that the Warsaw Uprising would still happen, but that there would be some deal between the Wehrmacht and the resistance, especially as in the early days after the coup the first priority of the Goerdeler-government would be to eliminate the SS, their prime contenders for power. Even had it wanted to, the Goerdeler-government would have been in no position to smack down on the Warsaw Uprising, by the time they would have fully defeated the SS, Warsaw would likely be taken already.
Terlot
Banned
Stripping Jews of citizens rights, deporting them to South America or use of slave labour weren't looked at favourably at that time as well I believe. Examples of some ideas the people in Valkyrie group had.
Silesia was part of Poland before the war(the Upper Silesian eastern part of it).
That would be unnaccaptable to the Allies as they guaranteed Polish western border(not eastern though, so Soviets could press for changes). Also controlling access to Baltic Sea for Central Europe allows Germany to dominate it economically-again unnaccaptable from Allied point of view. Corridor also has non-German majority. They could gain the city but not the Corridor.
I agree. Look at the consequences-with Warsaw taken the path to Oder line is open for Soviets and Allies can access Okecie airport. Meaning the transport of paratroopers and soldiers like in the failed Market Garden is possible. This would put Germany in seriously weak condition and allow Allies to gain ground. The Soviets faced would prefer a Finland-like Poland then Allied Poland i believe just as in OTL in 1945, so they would tone down anti-indepedence fighting against Poles in order to get to Germany.
General Zod
Banned
Ok, addressing some points:
As it concerns the Sudetenland, the Germans get to keep them in the conditional surrender agreement because they get the Western Allies to agree and deal with those territories on the basis of national self-determination. Therefore, it is agreed that a referendum shall decide the destination of the Sudetes (and Hungary uses this precedent in her own conditional surrender agreement to settle the issue of southern Slovakia and northern Transylvania). Since ITTL there is no ethnic cleansing in the Sudetenland (the Allied occupation forces do not allow the Czech to do one), it remains overwhemingly German, so the referendum goes in favor of Germany (the same happens for Hungary, southern Slovakia and northern Transylvania). Moreover, by the time the referendum occurs, the Czechs have shown a pro-Soviet/neutralist attitude, while the Germans (and Hungarians) have been dutifully obeying the Anglo-American occupation authorities, so the Western Allies have little motivation to help the Czech win the referendums. By the way, the Sudetenland was not a "war gain". It was ceded to Germany by a pre-war internationally-sanctioned agreement (and the same is valid for southern Slovakia and northern Transylvania). Important distinction at the peace table.
As it concerns Upper Silesia, there had been one referendum already, in 1921, it went in favor of Germany, but Poles cheated and gained the land by force after the returns. German diplomats are able to latch on that precedent. Also by late 1944 Upper Silesia is largely devoid of Poles, much like Prussia is largely devoid of Germans (they fled the approaching Soviets). Ratifying the status quo seems the most effective solution for all parties involved, it still gives Poland a rather large territorial compensation and it creates a clear ethnic boundary between Germans and Poles.
At that point, whatever demands the Polish London government might make on Silesia are simply overruled, and they are basically told "you already got Prussia, shut up". Previous preliminary agreements are changed in the face of the big novelty caused by Valkyrie. At this point, Churchill and the new American leadership, not to mention the majority of the British and American people, have come to the conclusion that they value the benefits (both in terms of ending the war in Europe much earlier, and in terms of containing Soviet expansion) of an early separate peace with Valkyrie Germany much more than carrying the war to the bitter end for the sake of appeasing Czech and Polish territorial claims. Those countries' independence is being restored, and that suffices. As it concerns Roosevelt and the Polish-American vote, they are simply overruled by all the other American electors that vote to end the carnage and refuse to waste American lives to aggrandize Stalin and a few greedy Czechs and Poles. Roosevelt dies early and his political successor suffers an humiliating electoral defeat, so Roosevelt's foreign policies are dashed away.
As it concerns Austria, theoretically the Western Allies could have called for a referendum about it too, but since there is no third country claiming Austria, and during the occupation they do not notice anything like a significant popular following for the restoration of Austrian independence, ultimately they do not bother.
Yes, eventually the division between big East Poland and little West Poland, with the former getting all the population and industrial centers but Posen, leaves the latter with limited resources. This is not the fault of the German-Allied peace agreements, but of the Polish division. A united Curzon Line Poland with Posen and Prussia would have been quite self-sustaining. As a result, the Americans and the EU shall reward West Poland for choosing their camp, with massive economic subsidies, starting with the Dulles Plan, since it is rather precious to them both for propaganda purposes and as a strategic buffer, throughout the Cold War. Think of West Poland as an ATL huge equivalent of West Berlin. If this gets West Poles to feel like puppets somewhat, they feel like American puppets first and foremost, since essentially the USA and later NATO are calling the shots in West Eastern Europe. And the vast majority of West Poles are massively grateful for being this side of the Iron Curtain. The role of the German-led EU to subsidize West Poland comes later, when TTL's EU (without France and Benelux, including Germany, Italy, Hungary, Sweden, Danemark and Norway as the core founding members) takes shape in the early-mid 50s and really starts to throw weight around in the 60s (when West Poland, Slovania, Croatia, and West Romania join the *EU). But by then, the wounds of the war are largely healing and the realities of the Cold War are paramount.
ITTL Stalin does not seriously bother to push the creation of a united neutral Poland since he already controls the vast majority of Poland. Sovietizing it gives him bigger economic, strategic, and political advantages than the alternative. And in TTL 1945 there is massive Soviet repression of anti-communist Polish activists and partisans. Combine this with memories of Soviet repression during the 1939-41 occupation of eastern Poland (Katyn, anyone ? ITTL, the cold War begins earlier, so the Western Allies are quicker acknowledging and denouncing Soviet responsibility for that), and you know why the vast majority of West Poles are no friends of the Soviets, and have no interest in ending up under the heel of Stalin, even if it costs them national unity. "Unity" government ITTL does not happen, since there is not a Soviet occupation throughout Poland to enforce it.
Moreover, the Valkyrie group only stays in power for a few months, then they make a conditional surrender to the Anglo-Americans (the French don't get an occupation zone, either), who occupy the country and implement denazification and democratization pretty much like IOTL. This in a short time leads to the resurgence of German democratic mass parties in the form of the CDU/SPD/FDP triad, and it cannot but do so. Valkyrie only effects this in the way that a) it gives right-wing anti-fascist democratic conservative/nationalist politicians much more legitimacy, so CDU and FDP fare somewhat better in post-war Germany than IOTL b) German people does not carry really much of a collective guilt since all the blame for the misdeeds of Hitler is cast squarely on the shoulders of the Nazi (hence the Valkyrie group first, then post-war German politicians eagerly partecipate in denazification) c) several popular and charismatic Valkyrie members reap successful political careers in democratic parties, most in the CDU or FDP but some in the SPD as well.
That's it. I really can't understand why people keep getting this mental image that Valkyrie success leads to a crypto-Nazi or para-fascist German regime for the ages, and sincerely I have got fed up and annoyed as Hell at people hijacking the thread to harp on the point, which has been debated to death anyway. I cannot but think that a lot of it comes from bad political bias, or willful ignorance of the basic political differences between a nazist, a fascist, an authoritarian conservative/nationalist, and a democratic conservative/nationalist.
As it concerns the Sudetenland, the Germans get to keep them in the conditional surrender agreement because they get the Western Allies to agree and deal with those territories on the basis of national self-determination. Therefore, it is agreed that a referendum shall decide the destination of the Sudetes (and Hungary uses this precedent in her own conditional surrender agreement to settle the issue of southern Slovakia and northern Transylvania). Since ITTL there is no ethnic cleansing in the Sudetenland (the Allied occupation forces do not allow the Czech to do one), it remains overwhemingly German, so the referendum goes in favor of Germany (the same happens for Hungary, southern Slovakia and northern Transylvania). Moreover, by the time the referendum occurs, the Czechs have shown a pro-Soviet/neutralist attitude, while the Germans (and Hungarians) have been dutifully obeying the Anglo-American occupation authorities, so the Western Allies have little motivation to help the Czech win the referendums. By the way, the Sudetenland was not a "war gain". It was ceded to Germany by a pre-war internationally-sanctioned agreement (and the same is valid for southern Slovakia and northern Transylvania). Important distinction at the peace table.
As it concerns Upper Silesia, there had been one referendum already, in 1921, it went in favor of Germany, but Poles cheated and gained the land by force after the returns. German diplomats are able to latch on that precedent. Also by late 1944 Upper Silesia is largely devoid of Poles, much like Prussia is largely devoid of Germans (they fled the approaching Soviets). Ratifying the status quo seems the most effective solution for all parties involved, it still gives Poland a rather large territorial compensation and it creates a clear ethnic boundary between Germans and Poles.
At that point, whatever demands the Polish London government might make on Silesia are simply overruled, and they are basically told "you already got Prussia, shut up". Previous preliminary agreements are changed in the face of the big novelty caused by Valkyrie. At this point, Churchill and the new American leadership, not to mention the majority of the British and American people, have come to the conclusion that they value the benefits (both in terms of ending the war in Europe much earlier, and in terms of containing Soviet expansion) of an early separate peace with Valkyrie Germany much more than carrying the war to the bitter end for the sake of appeasing Czech and Polish territorial claims. Those countries' independence is being restored, and that suffices. As it concerns Roosevelt and the Polish-American vote, they are simply overruled by all the other American electors that vote to end the carnage and refuse to waste American lives to aggrandize Stalin and a few greedy Czechs and Poles. Roosevelt dies early and his political successor suffers an humiliating electoral defeat, so Roosevelt's foreign policies are dashed away.
As it concerns Austria, theoretically the Western Allies could have called for a referendum about it too, but since there is no third country claiming Austria, and during the occupation they do not notice anything like a significant popular following for the restoration of Austrian independence, ultimately they do not bother.
Yes, eventually the division between big East Poland and little West Poland, with the former getting all the population and industrial centers but Posen, leaves the latter with limited resources. This is not the fault of the German-Allied peace agreements, but of the Polish division. A united Curzon Line Poland with Posen and Prussia would have been quite self-sustaining. As a result, the Americans and the EU shall reward West Poland for choosing their camp, with massive economic subsidies, starting with the Dulles Plan, since it is rather precious to them both for propaganda purposes and as a strategic buffer, throughout the Cold War. Think of West Poland as an ATL huge equivalent of West Berlin. If this gets West Poles to feel like puppets somewhat, they feel like American puppets first and foremost, since essentially the USA and later NATO are calling the shots in West Eastern Europe. And the vast majority of West Poles are massively grateful for being this side of the Iron Curtain. The role of the German-led EU to subsidize West Poland comes later, when TTL's EU (without France and Benelux, including Germany, Italy, Hungary, Sweden, Danemark and Norway as the core founding members) takes shape in the early-mid 50s and really starts to throw weight around in the 60s (when West Poland, Slovania, Croatia, and West Romania join the *EU). But by then, the wounds of the war are largely healing and the realities of the Cold War are paramount.
ITTL Stalin does not seriously bother to push the creation of a united neutral Poland since he already controls the vast majority of Poland. Sovietizing it gives him bigger economic, strategic, and political advantages than the alternative. And in TTL 1945 there is massive Soviet repression of anti-communist Polish activists and partisans. Combine this with memories of Soviet repression during the 1939-41 occupation of eastern Poland (Katyn, anyone ? ITTL, the cold War begins earlier, so the Western Allies are quicker acknowledging and denouncing Soviet responsibility for that), and you know why the vast majority of West Poles are no friends of the Soviets, and have no interest in ending up under the heel of Stalin, even if it costs them national unity. "Unity" government ITTL does not happen, since there is not a Soviet occupation throughout Poland to enforce it.
Moreover, the Valkyrie group only stays in power for a few months, then they make a conditional surrender to the Anglo-Americans (the French don't get an occupation zone, either), who occupy the country and implement denazification and democratization pretty much like IOTL. This in a short time leads to the resurgence of German democratic mass parties in the form of the CDU/SPD/FDP triad, and it cannot but do so. Valkyrie only effects this in the way that a) it gives right-wing anti-fascist democratic conservative/nationalist politicians much more legitimacy, so CDU and FDP fare somewhat better in post-war Germany than IOTL b) German people does not carry really much of a collective guilt since all the blame for the misdeeds of Hitler is cast squarely on the shoulders of the Nazi (hence the Valkyrie group first, then post-war German politicians eagerly partecipate in denazification) c) several popular and charismatic Valkyrie members reap successful political careers in democratic parties, most in the CDU or FDP but some in the SPD as well.
That's it. I really can't understand why people keep getting this mental image that Valkyrie success leads to a crypto-Nazi or para-fascist German regime for the ages, and sincerely I have got fed up and annoyed as Hell at people hijacking the thread to harp on the point, which has been debated to death anyway. I cannot but think that a lot of it comes from bad political bias, or willful ignorance of the basic political differences between a nazist, a fascist, an authoritarian conservative/nationalist, and a democratic conservative/nationalist.
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