Weber's Germany: The Veterinarian Totalitarian

[Tom Colton]

(Awesome title card courtesy of SargentHawk)

"La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas."
("The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist.")
Charles Baudelaire, Le spleen de Paris, XXIX (1862)​

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PROLOGUE

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THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GREATER GERMAN REICH​

Foreword by Dr. Norman Iverson​

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Part 1: The Death of Hitler and the Rise of Weber​

The Rise of Hitler
The Beer Hall Putsch and the Death of Hitler
Weber Takes Control of NSDAP
NSDAP Seizes Control of Germany​

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Part 2: One People, One Reich, One Leader​

The Night of the Broken Knives
Racial Laws
Gender Laws and the Feminine Ideal
/ Sterilisation Laws
Economic Recovery and Development
/ Rearmament​

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Part 3: The Foreign Policy of Germany Under Weber​

Austria and the Anschluss
The Sudetenland Crisis and the Munich Agreement
The Axis Powers
The Soviet Pact
Arabia, Africa and America​

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Part 4: All Hell Breaks Loose​

The Danzig Crisis and the Invasion of Poland (2)
The Nuremberg Decree
The Phoney War and The Winter War
The Scandinavian Campaign (2)
The Battle of France (2, 3, 4)
The Treaty of Gutenberg (2, 3)​

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Part 5: The Calm Between the Storms​

The Occupation of Poland
The Final Solution
Occupied Western Europe
(Denmark, Narvik, Alsace-Lorraine)
The Romanian Situation
The Third Balkans War (2)​

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Part 6: Drive to the East​

The Rising Storm (2)
Opening Moves
(North, Centre, South)
Development and Sacrifice (2, 3)
Check and Resignation
The Treaty of Sofia (2)​

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Part 7: Pax Germania​

The New Order (2)
Life in the Greater German Reich
(Hauptstadt Europa, The Cult of Hitler)
The Warsaw Uprisings
Mitteleuropa
The Axis Sphere of Influence
(Ukraine, The Balkans, The Iraq War)
The Second Exodus
Weapons Development

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Part 8: Come and See

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Part 9: The House of Cards Falls

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Part 10: The Shape of Things to Come​

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"BONUS" CONTENT​

The Canadian Queen of England
Swing Low, Sweet Grasshopper​

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FRIEDRICH WEBER (DR.)
1892 – 19██​

CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY
1933 — 1939​

FÜHRER OF THE GREATER GERMAN REICH
1939 – 19██​

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“Of course, our primary goal has always been the end of Bolshevism as propagated by the Russian devils. Were they to have their way, they would destroy every class and every culture and plant Soviets in every nation between them and the Atlantic Ocean. The victory over Bolshevism will be achieved by the destruction of Russia. However, we must consider the longer historical legacy of the Greater German Reich, and the conversion of the Slav-dominated lands into Germanic ones.”​

“When we train an animal we speak to it in human tongue and treat it as though it was human – to reasonable extents. We use words as our first recourse and violence as our last. Convince an animal it is human and it will follow our commands to the death. The Slavic peoples will never make achievement and their lands will never prosper without the firm hand of the Germanic people at their leash. As we train our hounds and our bullocks and our horses, so too must they be trained to accept their servitude.”​

“Why should we fear being outnumbered by animals? So long as they are fed and the pens are locked, the farmer does not live in fear of being outnumbered. We do not live in a fantasy world where the bullock, tired of pulling the plough, takes up arms against the farmhand, or where the chickens smash their eggs against the wall to stop the farmer from collecting them.”​

“If a dog is rabid it is for its own benefit that it is put down. If it has bitten its fellow hounds they too must be culled to prevent the infection from spreading further.”​

“The principle of artificial selection is simplicity itself. When we desire milk cows we breed those best suited for milk together. When we desire meat cows, we do likewise. We must hence seed out the purest of each population and encourage their proliferation. Just because a cow produces less milk or meat than its fellows, we do not remove it from the herd – we simply sequester it from the bulls and do not permit its breeding. Until it is dead it is still useful for milk; beyond that it is still useful for meat.”​

- Excerpts from various speeches by Friedrich Weber, leader of the National Socialist Party of Germany (NSDAP) and Führer of Germany.​

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Hi guys! This is my very first timeline ever, and it's primarily an exercise in exploring what if Nazi Germany had pursued a somewhat more pragmatic policy in World War II. It's generally understood that wouldn't be possible with Adolf Hitler as the Fuhrer, so I've picked a PoD where a certain Friedrich Weber instead ends up as the leader of Germany.

A search of the forums reveals nobody else really mentioning Dr. Weber, so you can find a brief outline on Wikipedia over here. Given that he went into private veterinary practice following the Beer Hall Putsch, Friedrich Weber is somewhat of a historical enigma, freeing me to transplant whichever attitudes I so choose. His leadership of the Friekorps Oberland suggests his strong anti-Communist attitudes, which will go on to strongly inform his polices in the war to come.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...
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[Tom Colton]

I can see Henry A. Wallace, plant and animal breeder (besides being VP) taking a major role in US propaganda ITTL.

That's an angle I didn't think of. The implications on the US political climate might be affected...assuming the war goes beyond 1944, that is.

I get the same technocratic vibe. His quotes seem to indicate he wants to be in total controle, and run his state like a ranch, with himself the rancher and everybody else the livestock. Maybe this is misleading, but I'll be following this TL, wonder what his germany looks like.

And I don't think getting into clinical professions meens you have to be compassionate... some just do it for the money, the prestige, the interesting research, because your family forces you.... As so little is known about him, you can set his chracter as needs to be for an interesting story.

But but but veterinarians are nice!

Well, everyone knows Hitler loved his dog. As for Weber's "rhetoric", which I wrote, he's speaking to his fellow Nazis, so he's going to be playing up the racial theories. I do like the chilling implications I put right at the end.

Regarding to what extents the anti-semitism will be played up with regards to the anti-Communism and irridentism, removing the theories of racial supremacy over the Jews and the Slavic people would make the Nazis stop being Nazis, which isn't the point of this timeline. I'd just like to reaffirm, although Germany will (probably) not follow genocidal policies, their actions cannot in any way be considered 'nice'. They'll still be the same aggressive, expansionist, racist and ruthless assholes they were IOTL, just more sensible about it.

Well, Stalin certainly is going to be less willing to take this man at his word... will we still see an alternate version of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact?

And of course, in some ways being more pragmatic will actually backfire on Germany.

It'll still form part of (both) Germany and Russia's plans to bide their time and build up resources before their inevitable war.

Okay, on to the first part!

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THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GREATER GERMAN REICH

BY PROF. THOMAS COLTON and DR. NORMAN IVERSON​

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INTRODUCTION​

It is remarkable, if a sobering reminder of our world’s lack of vigilance towards megalomania, how a soft-spoken veterinarian managed to get himself – and his nation – where he did. The Nazi Party was as ruined after the failed putsch as Germany itself was following the Great War, and yet still he managed to essentially get himself appointed Dictator-for-Life, and at its height, German-occupied territories stretched from France in the west to a line drawn between the Baltic and the Black Sea in the East.​

In both cases the method was identical; selective representation of facts, manipulation of those around him, and finally coercion with force. As for his personal rise to power, it was perhaps a simple matter of historical coincidence that he was perfectly poised to seize Hitler’s legacy, but it was his own personal ambition and savvy which let him capitalize upon it in such the effective manner which he did.​

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PART 1​

THE DEATH OF HITLER AND THE RISE OF WEBER​

“It is vital that these words see print. The destiny of Germany depends upon them.”
The last words of Adolf Hitler, leader of NSDAP, said to Friedrich Weber.​

It is an oft-repeated truism that the history of the world as we know it pivoted on certain crucial decisions or simple quirks of luck. Had the chauffer of Archduke Franz Ferdinand been better informed of the Archduke’s intentions to visit the hospital where the wounded from the previous attempt on his life were being treated and not made that fateful wrong turn, the Great War may have been averted entirely, although the interlocking systems of alliances that had split Europe and the world in twain by then probably merely required another spark to set the powder keg of the world’s armies off.​

The rise of Doctor Friedrich Weber, a veterinary student who served in the Bavarian Cavalry, can similarly be traced to such a single moment in time, although as will be made abundantly clear, it was his own actions and decisions which enabled him to act upon this opportunity presented to him. Indeed, had he chosen to act differently in the aftermath of the death of Adolf Hitler, the leader of the National Socialist Party of Germany, from wounds sustained in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, the fate of the world would have been markedly changed.​

To understand the context of Weber’s rise to power, it is necessary to briefly recount the state of Germany by the end of the Great War, and likewise the state of the NSDAP Party on the cusp of the Beer Hall Putsch. The Treaty of Versailles had left Germany humbled and reduced, territorially and in prestige. Its colonial empire had been stripped and doled out to the victorious Allied Powers, its military reduced to effective nonexistence and the economy subjected to massive reparations to be paid annually.​

To the remnants of the Kaiserreich, this was an ludicrous price to pay for a loss which in the eyes of many Germans had not even occurred on the battlefield. Blame was placed on the businessmen and the Jews, encouraged by the military personnel, eager to avoid shouldering responsibility. Conspiracy theories were abounding that the nation had been sold out by these oligarchs to strengthen their hold over what remained of the German economy – the so-called “stab-in-the-back” theory.​

One subscriber to these theories was a man called Adolf Hitler, who had served in the War as a regimental runner, and been awarded the Iron Cross for his actions in it. Like many disaffected Germans, he saw no reason for this sudden capitulation, and expressed his frustrations in politics following a failed entry into the art industry, joining the German Workers’ Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - DAP) led by Anton Drexler. The party soon re-established itself as the NSDAP (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei).​

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Figure 1: Adolf Hitler.
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Hitler swiftly rose in the ranks of the party, enchanting many with his speeches in Munich, a hotbed of anti-Communist activity. Among his early allies were Rudolf Hess, Hermann Göring, Ernst Röhm and, of course, Friedrich Weber. Hitler had absorbed the writings of Weber’s father-in-law, Julius Friedrich Lehmann, as collected in Germany’s Renewal, and taken its messages of racial supremacy and anti-Semitism to heart.

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I'd just like to add one caveat: While I have a rough idea of the "plot" of this timeline, I am by no means an expert on the rise of the Nazi Party or World War II (although I would say I know more than most of my friends). I've borrowed The Third Reich by Hildebrand, The Hitler State by Broszat and The Second World War: A Short History by Parker to help me out on this front.

If any of the points I'm making are too fantastic, feel free to chip in. Also, I might make appeals for specific details on how certain actions, political processes and troop movements might work.

Thank you!

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[Tom Colton]

An academic Nazi leader?!

Be afraid...be very afraid...

That's a rather tender subject. Another slice, anyone?

This summer, Mads Mikkelsen IS the Fuhrer in Weber: The Rise of Evil!

...nahh.

On to the next part!

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(still)
PART 1​

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When 9 November 1923 rolled around, seeking to emulate the example of Benito Mussolini in Italy, who had seized power through his infamous “March on Rome” in the previous year, Hitler sought to similarly do so in Munich, by leading a revolution from a popular beer hall there. Supported by Erich Ludendorff, joint head of Germany’s war efforts in the last months of the Great War and a promoter of the so-called “stab-in-the-back” theory, Hitler gathered the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary branch of NSDAP, and prepared for his coup.​

At this stage, Weber was the commander of the Freikorps Oberland, an anti-communist militia which formed the core of the SA. Thus, when Hitler marched through the streets of Munich, so did Weber. Hitler interrupted a speech by State Commissar Gustav von Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller (Munich Beer Hall), declaring the formation of a new government with Ludendorff. When Kahr refused to collaborate, Hitler led the SA onto the streets, eventually deciding to march on the Bavarian Defence Ministry, as suggested by Ludendorff.

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Figure 2: Hitler and Weber, during the Beer Hall Putsch.​

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It was to prove a costly decision. There, at the Odeonsplatz, the 2000 or so NSDAP supporters encountered a force of about 100 policemen, and a gun battle broke out, killing 17 NSDAP members and 4 police officers. Among these was Max Erwin von Scheubner-Richter, a top NSDAP leader, who clutched at Hitler’s shoulder and dislocated it as he collapsed to the ground, having been shot in the lungs.

At this critical moment, it was reported that a shot rang out from one of the two buildings (later the Bavarian State Ministry of Finance) adjacent to the road leading to the Palais Ludwig Ferdinand. A bullet struck Hitler in the chest, instantly knocking him onto his back. His breathing was weak and laboured, but he still lived. Bavarian police later proceeded to storm the building, leading to a singularly inexplicable mystery.

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Figure 3: The only known photograph of the mysterious Paul Driscoll, as he was brought to his holding cell.​

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The shooter was identified as an American, Paul Driscoll, armed with a Gewehr 98 rifle. When questioned by the police, he had no comment to give except that “My mission is done. Future generations will be spared the horrors of that madman’s ambitions for all time.” When prison guards arrived to question him the next morning, he had vanished from his holding cell as though he had never been there. The meaning of his words, his motivations, or his knowledge that the clash would occur there are all queries lost to the mists of supposition. [1]
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Regardless of the circumstances of Hitler’s injury, the damage had been done – the NSDAP supporters were quickly rounded up by the police, and those not directly involved in the confrontation, including Hess and Göring, escaped to Austria. Eventually, Adolf Hitler, Friedrich Weber, Erich Ludendorff, Ernst Röhm, Heinz Pernet, Wilhelm Frick, Hermann Kriebel, Wilhelm Brückner and Robert Wagner were hauled up before the Munich Special Court and tried for various degrees of treason in 1924.
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Figure 4: The defendants of the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. Weber is second from left, Hitler fourth from right.​

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Weakened as he was, Hitler used the trial as a platform for his patriotic ideals, and the sympathetic judges gave him and the other NSDAP leaders very lenient sentences, or even released them, such as the cases of Röhm and Frick. Incredibly, Ludendorff entered the same defence he had at the trial for the previous Kapp putsch – that he was there purely by coincidence – and he was believed and acquitted. Despite the good living conditions at Landsberg Prison, Hitler’s health began to deteriorate quickly – he had rejected surgery to remove the bullet, fearing the operation would do him more harm than good. [2]​

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While incarcerated, he began to dictate his autobiography to Weber, who dutifully recorded it down. His thoughts soon went beyond his own life story to the philosophies he had envisioned for the NSDAP. As mentioned above, these philosophies were strongly influenced by Germany’s Renewal by J. F. Lehmann as well as The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant, another polemic on the alleged superior Nordic race.​

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Figure 5: The imprisoned NSDAP leaders in the Landsberg Prison common room.​

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Owing to his poor health and his good behaviour, Hitler and Weber were released from Landsberg on 26th October, 1924, after serving a mere six months of their sentences. Hitler’s health did not improve, though, and he spent his last few months alive frantically finalising the volume which he intended to name Four and a Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice. On his deathbed, he urged Weber to finish the work he had begun, send it to print and keep the NSDAP alive. He expired on 20th December 1924, aged 35.​

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It was thus through this set of circumstances that Friedrich Weber, a former instructor in veterinary medicine at the University of Munich, and a primary instigator of the failed Munich Putsch, was left with the only copy of what amounted to the National Socialist Manifesto in existence. It is unknown just when or how he realised the massive potential within his hands, but it appears to have been a moment which he would return to time and again later in life.​

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[1] That's right, Twilight Zone fans - he actually succeeded this time! (If that makes this timeline ASB, I'll change it to Hitler getting shot by a Bavarian policeman instead.)

[2] IOTL, he refused or simply didn't get access to good help with his shoulder, leading to a lifelong stance issue.
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[Tom Colton]

This timeline will get more notice here. I'd leave it as is for now, with Driscoll as the shooter.

Yeah, Driscoll does make it ASB. Nice update otherwise.

I like the Driscoll bit, as long as the rest of the timeline plays out without any other time-travelers shooting important officials.

Paul Driscoll makes it near-litterally ASB.

All right, noted. I'll leave it as it is, and this will indeed be the extent of meddling prescient teleporting Americans in this TL. I fully realise I could make it slightly more plausible, but I just couldn't resist. Everything else will change based purely on the personalities of the people involved and the butterfly effect.

I got this gut feeling Weber is going to be worse than Hitler.

The first chapter suggests that he was ultimately defeated, but it looks like a much naster war in the process.

Well, it does say "Rise and Fall" right there in the title... As pragmatic and arguably more successful Germany will be ITTL, taking away the bits of it which made it inefficient and unsustainable would be to make the regime Nazi in name only, which as I've stated isn't quite the point of this timeline. As to the precise nature of the "fall", I still haven't envisioned that yet, but I probably will soon.

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(still)
PART 1
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Weber acted quickly. He spread the word of Hitler’s death to extant branches of NSDAP, and made enquiries to Hess and Göring, who were still in Austria, asking them to return to Germany. Pooling together their limited funds, Weber arranged for a public funeral for Hitler, conducted on Christmas Eve, where he made a heartfelt dedication to the former leader of NSDAP, and proceeded to shock the assembled supporters with the revelation of “The Great Document”, which he stated that Hitler had bequeathed unto him, outlining the direction of the Party after his death.​

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When the NSDAP and SA members dispersed following the funeral, Hess took Weber to one side, demanding access to “The Great Document”. Weber agreed to it, and between the two of them, they eventually produced the volume titled Der Deutsche Kampf (The German Struggle), with a heavy focus on anti-Semitism, anti-Communism, and German irredentism.​

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Figure 6: Cover of the first printing of Der Deutsche Kampf, 1925. [1]​

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We can see the beginnings of Weber’s machinations from these two events. By organising Hitler’s funeral and setting himself as chief speaker, he had implicitly coalesced attention and authority onto himself, and made it explicit by ensuring Hess’s cooperation in editing Der Deutsche Kampf, which he also employed, enforcing that his name was printed directly underneath Hitler’s in all printings. The message was clear – he, Friedrich Weber, and no other, was the successor to Hitler, and he would lead the NSDAP and Germany to complete Hitler’s mission.​

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Figures 7a and 7b: Himmler (left) and Röhm (right), both dismissed by Weber after the Putsch.
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Weber’s stay in prison had not disjointed his continued leadership of the Freikorps Oberland, and he used his hold over this core of the SA to consolidate control. Although the SA had been banned, Ernst Röhm had created the Frontbann as a workaround – wearing the same uniforms and bearing essentially the same insignia, minus the added Stahlhelm. However, the ban on the SA was quickly lifted, and Weber, sensing a potential rival in Röhm, rejected his proposal to reincorporate his 3,000 or so Frontbann recruits into the SA, prompting Röhm to leave Germany for Bolivia, never to return [2]. Göring was instead eventually invited back to Germany to take over his old post commanding the SA, while Weber positioned himself to the fore, having won the support of Hess and Göring. Without the influence of Röhm, Weber moved the focus of the SA away from the “class struggle” and the social reformation of Germany, which he felt “bore the stench of Communism far too much for my liking” to focus on the German racial identity and irredentism [3].​

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In the meantime, Weber also rejected proposals by Heinrich Himmler, an eager member of the Saalschutz (“Hall-Guard”), essentially a bodyguard force for NSDAP leaders, to convert it into an elite branch of the SA, citing redundancies in the system should another paramilitary branch be set up. Personally, Weber would note he was “deeply disturbed” by Himmler’s fanaticism for the dead Hitler and rumours of his occult obsessions, and was unwilling to let such a figure head any branch of the party, public or otherwise. When the incumbent head of the guard (Erhard Heiden) resigned, Weber instead chose Wilhelm Brückner, a fellow inmate at Landsberg as his chief bodyguard and Schutzführer. It would not be the last he would hear from Himmler [4].​

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The uncertainty caused by Hitler’s death and the fragmentation of the party had led the NSDAP to suffer at the polls, barely even reaching single digits of seats won in the elections of 1924. Popularity began to resurge with the publication of Der Deutsche Kampf, and Weber exploited the martyrdom of Hitler for all the political capital he could manage, often making public appearances with the Blutfahne (Blood-flag), allegedly stained with the blood of dead NSDAP men, decrying the loss of Hitler as a loss to all of Germany [5]. ​

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It is worthwhile here to mention the oratory of Friedrich Weber. While Adolf Hitler was well known for his fiery speeches, exaggerated gesticulations and dramatic rhetoric, Weber was not a trained public speaker, although the sincerity of his funeral address had been a critical factor in gaining the sympathy – and support – of the disunited NSDAP members. Understanding his lack of experience, he contacted Erik Jan Hanussen, an Austrian hypnotist and Hitler’s former mentor in elocution. Weber, in contrast to Hitler, never raised his voice except at key moments, and relied on prolonged, tense, silences to keep the crowd hanging on his every word. Whether his veterinary experience in being able to read subconscious cues contributed to his ability to lead audiences is purely a matter of speculation.​

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Figure 8: Joseph Goebbels.​

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Under Weber’s instruction, Joseph Goebbels, a prominent NSDAP journalist and activist, replaced Gregor Strasser as the party’s chief propagandist. The move was strategic for two reasons: Goebbels had expressed doubt over Weber’s repudiation of the class struggle, and it had taken promises of compromise on his hard-line stance and the promotion to appease Goebbels; furthermore, Strasser and the Berlin branch of NSDAP had grown too independent for Weber’s liking and was focusing on intellectualist issues Weber felt the party had no time for. While an astute move, the snub to Strasser would have long-term, violent, consequences.​

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The NSDAP capitalised on the Barmat scandal, which had struck the ruling party, Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), to its foundations, claiming Communist infiltration and corruption in the entire democratic system. However, despite these overtures, the NSDAP failed to perform beyond indifferently in the polls, managing a meagre 7 seats in the Reichstag in the 1928 elections. However, events overseas soon tipped conditions in Weber’s favour. Germany suffered greatly when Wall Street crashed in 1929, prompting the Great Depression and massive amounts of poverty and economic uncertainty in the rest of the world.​

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NSDAP campaigned heavily against the capitalist and democratic system which had brought Germany to fiscal destruction, with Goebbels writing vitriolic article after article about the weaknesses of the SPD-led government. However, poor economic conditions and the discrediting of the central government alone could not ensure the ascendancy of NSDAP. Weber then conducted his political masterstroke – he commanded Göring to use the SA as a force for stability and defend dole lines and maintain order in the streets, which mainly involved fighting Communists. Gobbels and Rosenberg capitalised on this, presenting the SA not merely as an adjunct to the weakened governmental forces, but as a possible legitimate alternative. Any suggestion of a takeover or another putsch, however, was downplayed, with propaganda (occasionally literally) depicting the SA and the government working hand-in-hand. An SA leader named Horst Wessel had composed a patriotic song, Die Fahne hoch, which Goebbels was quick to rename it the Adolf-Hitler-Lied, with the Blutfahne being dramatically raised as the first line – “Die Fahne hoch” (“The flag on high”) – was sung [6].​

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Under these circumstances, the NSDAP breakthrough finally arrived – of a sort. Come the 1930 elections, the party won 95 seats – the second highest among all of the political parties, and an increase to 1400% of their seats won in 1928. However high this was, it still lagged far behind the SPD with their 144 seats, and was a mere 6 seats ahead of the KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Communist Party of Germany). Still, Weber and the NSDAP had won the initiative, and it was now up to Weber to convert it into momentum.​

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This is as appropriate a time as any to expound a little on Weber’s personal life. In the frantic campaigning for the 1930 election, Weber was invited to Goebbels’ headquarters publishing the Völkischer Beobachter (People’s Observer), the printed propaganda arm of NSDAP. It was there that he encountered a talented clerical supervisor (not a secretary, as is commonly and wrongly stated) named Wilhelmina “Mina” Kneller. To what extent their meeting was happenstance is a matter of debate; Weber recalled Goebbels making a large show of ordering Kneller to bring in certain documents, and ensuring she was never far from him during the tour. This has been used to support suggestions that Goebbels, not fully trusting Weber at that point, intended to use Kneller as an ‘inside woman’ in the vein of Mata Hari. Mina Kneller’s memoirs are silent on the topic, merely introducing Weber as having entered the offices of Völkischer Beobachter one day. Whichever the case was, Weber was smitten with Kneller, although the two would not marry until the eve of outbreak of war in Poland [7].​

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Figure 9: Mina Weber (nee Kneller).

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[1] Compare and contrast with the cover of the first print run of Mein Kampf. The change in title is not simply a difference for its own sake; while Hitler made an excellent martyr, Weber needed to establish his authority in his own right.
[2] In OTL Rohm did indeed go to Bolivia and ended up holed up in the German embassy during the revolution until Hitler called him, saying "I need you." As Weber already has the loyalty of the SA, Rohm never gets that call.
[3] This change of philosophy, as well as the dismissal of Rohm, means that the threat of the "Second Revolution" never comes about, leading to massive butterflies in the early '30s.
[4] Well, this too, obviously.
[5] This is indeed a thing, and gains even more currency with Hitler's martyrdom.
[6] The Horst-Wessel-Lied in OTL. Horst Wessel ITTL probably avoids that fatal argument with his landlady.
[7] Mina Kneller is an entirely fictional creation as I don't want to associate any more people with the Nazi regime than I have to. "Kneller" is a cognate of "knell", as in a loud bell; rather apropos for someone in Gobbels' apparat. Her character will be markedly different from Eva Braun's, but I haven't decided her significance to the events of this timeline quite yet.

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[Tom Colton]

Will Weber still enact euthanizing mentally retarded, physically crippled (if they were born that way) and a few other cases or sterilization to "purify" the German gene-pool.

Also will the concept of Germanic/Nordic Aryanism survive the Party change in leadership? Will it be a core tenet if so

Patience, patience! They haven't even gotten into power yet!

Speaking of which...

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Despite the NSDAP’s large gains in the elections at the expense of the liberal bloc, the Catholic Centre Party failed to see issues beyond its own voter base and did not act against NSDAP beyond pushing for Paul von Hindenburg to run for President against Weber in the 1932 presidential election. Even then, Hindenburg was pressured to remove Chancellor Heinrich Brüning from power, as his measures to check the Depression had proved ineffective, and replace him with the Catholic monarchist Franz von Papen, who was supported by Minister of Defence Kurt von Schleicher. In a climate of continued political violence, where KPD and SA agitators continued to clash in public (all while Weber attempted to restrain the SA from conducting reprisals in the name of appearing to be the collective “better man”), Papen launched a putsch against the leftist government of Prussia, and attempted to consolidate his power by calling for elections immediately afterwards. He failed miserably, and NSDAP won a plurality of seats – 210 out of 608 – in July 1932.​

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This, however, was not enough to form a majority government, and von Papen continued as Chancellor until the December elections, in which NSDAP maintained its performance. His former backer Schleicher then convinced Hindenburg to sack von Papen. Göring, in his new position as President of the Reichstag, pushed for severe punishments for “political violence” – these punishments would be applied to devastating effect on the enemies of NSDAP. Schleicher’s government did not last long due to animosity with his own Cabinet, the rest of the Reichstag and the Reichswehr as led by Werner von Blomberg, who was convinced Schleicher would only stay in power by declaring martial law (which they would not agree to), and was eventually replaced by Hindenburg with a government led by Weber with Papen as vice-Chancellor, Papen believing that he could “box in” the NSDAP as they had yet to achieve a parliamentary majority.​

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Figures 10a and 10b: Papen and Schleicher, the last two Chancellors of Germany before Weber’s takeover.
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However, the left hand of Schleicher’s machinations would clash so violently with the right hand of Papen’s plans that the result essentially destroyed the democracy of Germany. In his political exile, Schleicher contacted the disenfranchised Gregor Strasser and his brother Otto Strasser, promising them positions in his government should he return to power, aiming to drive a wedge into NSDAP and split it [1]. Then a new player re-entered the political game – Himmler, leader of the revived Frontbann, which had absorbed former Röhm supporters as well as members of the fascist (but not NSDAP-leaning) Stahlhelm organisation, presented himself to Scheicher and Strasser, promising the support of the Frontbann for a position in Schleicher’s government. With the support of Strasser and Himmler, Scheicher felt confident in taking on NSDAP. Recognising the threat to NSDAP, Weber denounced Strasser and berated him publicly in a NSDAP meeting; outlawed Himmler’s Frontbann under the measures passed by Göring and declared von Schleicher a “vile opportunist”. Himmler, for his role in organising a rival fascist organisation, came to be sarcastically referred to as "der treue Heinrich" (the loyal Heinrich) [2].​

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Then, on the night of 17th February, 1933 – in circumstances which are still unclear even to this day – an incredible explosion either caused by a bomb, a leaking gas main, or some form of sabotage, tore through NSDAP headquarters in Berlin, killing several members of the party staff. Weber had left the building a mere half an hour prior to the explosion. At the same time, Himmler was addressing an assembly of Frontbann supporters a few city blocks away, denouncing Weber and the NSDAP. Upon hearing the explosion and recognising its source, Himmler mobilised the assembly to march on the headquarters and attempt to gain political capital by restoring order following the explosion. It totally backfired, and SA forces poured out of the building, interpreting the massed Frontbann men as attempting a putsch. The street fighting that ensued was so intense that the night was eventually named Kristallnacht (“Crystal Night”; the name was a mocking reference to the broken glass littering the streets.) Himmler was killed in the fighting, his body found in a nearby tailor’s shop.​

​

​

Figure 11: Himmler’s corpse.​

​

Weber, when informed of the clash, was further convinced by Goebbels that Schleicher and the Strasser brothers were also plotting to overthrow the government, and ordered their entire group arrested. Weber told von Papen to contact Hindenburg immediately to grant him emergency powers, in what would come to be known as the Kristallnacht Decree. Having learned that some of the Frontbann supporters were rumoured to be disenfranchised members of the KPD, Weber was quick to associate Schleicher as plotting with the KPD and the Frontbann in an “opportunistic coup”, and employed the powers granted by the Kristallnacht Decree to detain as many opponents as he could. Having suppressed as much opposition as he could manage, Weber assembled the Reichstag to vote on the Enabling Act, which would allow him to pass legislation without the approval of the Reichstag. With the building surrounded by SA men, the Act passed without much objection, not even from Papen, who essentially had voted himself into irrelevance. The NSDAP takeover of Germany was almost complete. When Hindenburg passed away on 2nd August 1934, Weber installed Hess as President, fully understanding the latter would have no will beyond Weber’s.​

​

[1] Schleicher attempted this in OTL but got Night of the Long-Knived for his trouble. Here he gets his comeuppance even earlier.​

[2] He was called this in OTL, although sincerely.​

​

=======​

NEXT: Weber's Germany.

​

 

[Tom Colton]

Extremely adept. He would be able to uncover criminal plans easily, plot ambushes or surveillance opportunities(he had a prefabricated trashcan he could hide into, to tap into street criminals). Or plot a course, literally- thrugh a sewer system. Because his brain was like Superman's strength. If Weber can do one third of Nick's feats, the Allies are screwed.

Well, Weber won't be a supergenius, but he might avoid some of Hitler's hubris. We'll see...

One relatively simple difference that could mean quite a lot: go after Danzig before the post-Sudetenland rump of Czechoslovakia. Given that neither the French nor the British much liked the Poles, and that Danzig was seen as about as legitimate a German claim as the Sudetenland was, chances are that the Poles either fold or get stomped when they go it alone.

The other major difference would be if the Germans continue to favor China over Japan, possibly based on an analysis of who would eventually win that war. Heck, more German observers there might even influence German occupation policy during the invasion of Russia, in so far as that they take the IJA as an example of how not to do it rather than as competition for the gold medal in the Atrocity Olympics.

Interesting suggestions. I'm looking into ways of how the Anschluss and the occupation of the Sudentenland could be handled, to better fit Weber's pragmatic and calculated approach as opposed to Hitler's brinksmanship.

Germany will still probably end up as allies with Japan, due to the Anti-Comintern Pact (which hasn't been signed yet ITTL but you know what I mean), and Japan's meddling with French and British colonies will only work to Germany's advantage on the Continent.

Keep the strategy suggestions coming!

Seems strange to have Hess be Reich President. So Weber is "only" the Reich a Chancellor and Führer. Strange but not necessarily bad. Is Hess Deputy Führer as well?

Hess is essentially a "rubber-stamp" president. Weber does eventually become Führer, though. And that's all I'm saying for now.

Looking forward (or not?) to TTL's Nürnberger Gesetze...

That's coming in the next update. In the meantime, enjoy this (or not)...

========

Prelude
Introduction to The Rise and Fall of the Greater Germanic Reich
PART 1: The Death of Hitler and the Rise of Weber
- The Rise of Hitler and the Munich Putsch
- The Death of Hitler
- Weber Seizes Control of NSDAP
- NSDAP Seizes Control of Germany

=======

PART 2

ONE PEOPLE, ONE REICH, ONE FÜHRER

Figure 1: The Flag of Germany from 1935 onwards. Note the addition of the Reichsadler with the swastika.​

​

“The victory over the insidious forces which had threatened to destroy Germany from within has been won. The Sturmabteilung has served gallantly in this role, and we commend their bravery and steadfastness. To continue the fight and liberate the rest of the world from the poisonous influence of Bolshevism, I urge the loyal members of SA to enlist in the Reichswehr, to continue serving the Party not only within the Fatherland but for the salvation of the rest of the world.”​

Chancellor Friedrich Weber, dissolving the Sturmabteilung on “The Night of the Broken Knives”.​

​

Between the passing of the Enabling Act in the aftermath of Kristallnacht and Hindenburg’s death, the NSDAP-led government took up several measures to ensure its total control of the German regional governments and the trade unions. To this end Weber appointed Reichsstatthalter (regional governors) to take command of the individual states of Germany, with the power to appoint or remove prime ministers and parliaments, and to enforce laws by themselves.

The trade unions were disempowered and placed under the authority of the NSBO (Nationalsozialistische Betriebszellenorganisation [National Socialist Factory Cell Organization]), which was massively reorganised and placed under the authority of Wilhelm Frick, previously Minister of the Interior. Frick had previously issued discomfort over the arrests leading to the Enabling Act, and Weber decided he was thus unfit to lead the law enforcement forces.​

​

To further consolidate the Party’s control, a new police force was set up, absorbing Göring’s Secret State Police, the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei). This was to be led by Rudolf Diels, Göring’s deputy and an instrumental figure in organising the purges and arrests following the Kristallnacht Decree, under the newly formed Ministry of Internal Security (Reichministerium für Staatssicherheit), nicknamed the Stasi.

The Stasi, acting in the role of counterespionage and internal security and dressed in their trademark Payne’s grey (locally referred to as Prussian grey) uniforms, would become one of the most feared symbols of the NSDAP regime. Internment camps were built around the country in order to control political dissidents and vagrants, or whomever the regime chose to withhold freedom from. When Göring, now only Minister of the Interior, feeling as though he had been excluded from the process entirely, aired his grievances to Weber, Weber confided that he would soon have “considerably more pertinent duties”. These were to manifest in the Five Year Plan – Germany’s economic expansion, and subsequent rearmament.​

​

​

​

Figure 2: A Stasi officer in the typical "Prussian grey" uniform.​

​

Before this could be achieved, however, Weber had to gain the cooperation from the Reichswehr – the army, which had coalesced into a “state within a state” during the Weimar Republic’s days. Thankfully for Weber, Blomberg, the Minister of Defence, was conciliatory, having been impressed by the stabilising role of the SA acting in partnership with the German police. To endear himself to the NSDAP, he had expelled the Jews from the Reichswehr. However, in a meeting with Weber, he expressed that he distinctively had no desire for the Reichswehr to be subservient to the SA in any form. To his surprise, Weber agreed fairly readily, and in a subsequent conference involving him, Blomberg and Viktor Lutze, the commander of the SA following Göring’s appointment to the Reichstag, Weber announced his plans for the dissolution of the SA.​

​

In many ways, Weber’s background as a veterinary officer in the Bavarian Cavalry and former leadership of the SA worked to his advantage: unlike, for example, Hitler, who had never been respected by the officer corps, with Hindenburg famously calling him “that little Austrian corporal”, Weber was well-known to and respected by the officers; furthermore, Lutze felt he could trust Weber to act in the interests of the membership of the SA and not “sell them out” to the Army. After less than an hour of discussion, it was decided that the SA would be dissolved and its core reincorporated into the Saalschutze, which would be renamed the Staatschutze (SS, State Guard) and placed under Lutze’s command, with Brückner being reassigned to an elite personal guard, the Leibgarde.

The rest would be recruited into the Reichswehr, which Blomberg would order to swear an oath of allegiance not merely to the people and the Fatherland (Volk und Fatherland) but directly to the office of President (who at the time was still the ailing Hindenburg), and later Führer.It was thus that on June 30th 1934, Weber, eyes glistening with unshed tears, announced the dissolution of the SA to an audience of thousands. In the final part of the address, Weber produced his ceremonial SA knife – the SA had used these as symbols of intimidation in lieu of actual weapons, as those had previously been banned by the Reichstag – snapped it at the hilt, and discarded it on the floor, prompting the assembled SA members to do the same in what would be known as “The Night of the Broken Knives”.​

While most of the faction of the which would have opposed Weber at this stage had joined Himmler’s Frontbann and thus already been purged or deported to concentration camps in the wake of Kristallnacht, Weber ordered the Stasi to ensure compliance of the SA in this transformation. It is estimated that up to 185 of the less compliant SA members were rounded up and deported in the month of July. In the same period, the Stasti ransacked the offices of Vice-Chancellor Papen, and held him under house arrest on accusation of inciting a rebellion in the SA. His treatment was so upsetting to him that he eventually resigned, removing the last obstacle to the NSDAP’s total domination of the cabinet.

However, the size of the army was heavily constrained by the Treaty of Versailles, and would be flouting its terms by expanding to incorporate the millions of SA members. As a workaround, the Volkssturm (People’s Militia) was created by Göring, with its members to be trained by Reichswehr personnel while the process of rearmament continued apace. Of the 2.9 million members of the SA prior to The Night of the Broken Knives, about 1.7 million joined the Volkssturm. These two would eventually be united in the Wehrmacht, in the lead-up to Germany’s mobilisation.
​

=======
​

Next up: Insight into Weber's philosophy, and - as promised - the Racial Laws.
​

 

[Tom Colton]

And here were are: The first of the racial policies which will transform Weimar Germany into Weber's Germany.

=======

(still)
PART 2
​

Before discussing Germany’s rearmament and associated economic and foreign policies, the internal changes to German laws and societal policies shall be discussed first, broadly divided into its new imperatives regarding race, gender and healthcare. Central to all of these was the philosophy which Weber referred to as “Scheuleder” (blinders), which can be translated more idiomatically as “the illusion of freedom”, or “the illusion of choice”. Weber enunciated this in a meeting with senior Party leaders a few days following the Enabling Act:​

​

“This, then, is the principle of ‘Scheuleder’: As long as the view of the work-horse is constrained to whatever is directly in front of it, it will accept any incentive placed at its nose. The moment the blinders are removed and it sees what its fellows are being fed and it notices any inequality, it will demand an equal share and will be unruly until it is appeased. Then one of its other fellows will notice the increase and complain until the same end is met, in an endless cycle of waste. However, if the horse knows no better, it will only ever notice rises and falls in its own field of view. Even then, should its fodder need to be cut, it can be told that its fellows are also suffering similar shortfalls, and it will accept the change – within reasonable limits. By enacting gradual changes in such a fashion, order and compliance to the Reich will be maintained.”​

​

As will be demonstrated in these fields and beyond, especially in German-occupied territories, Scheuleder would be applied time and again by apparently granting Jews, indigenous populations, women and so on opportunities for representation or social advancement while actually repressing them. Arguably, the over-application of Scheuleder was one of the factors leading to the long-term instability of the National Socialist regime, especially manifesting in the counter-propaganda movement known as Offenbarung (Revelation), revealing the inequalities and atrocities in the latter days of the Greater German Reich.​

​

========​

​

RACIAL LAWS​

​

Once their hold over the German government was complete, NSDAP began to enact an escalating set of racial policies to alienate and sequester the Jews, as well as the Gypsies and any minority which deviated from the ideals of the one Germanic race envisioned by the authors of Germany’s Renewal, The Passing of the Great Race and, of course, Der Deutsche Kampf. Weber himself was less obsessed with the origins of the Nordic race than with its future – to him, unless he acted to save the Germanic population from the economic and political influence of the Jews, they would drive Germany to destruction just like they had in the last war. Furthermore, he felt the Greater German Reich would only prosper through expansion, particularly eastwards into the Soviet sphere of influence. The masters of the new lands were to be Germans, with the Slavs forming a convenient agricultural and industrial base.​

​

To this end, the purity of the Germanic race was to be maintained through controlled and selective breeding, with the repression of the other races. Weber drew his inspiration from the Americas – where “separate but equal” treatment clearly was nothing of the kind. The “Jim Crow” laws, designed to take advantage of the low education of the blacks, was probably a key contributor to Scheuleder. The ban on mixed-race marriages in the Philippines would directly inform later German policies. However, the attempted acculturation of native Mexicans to appear more “white” to rise in social status was unacceptable – the Jews could not hope to overcome their genetic weaknesses through such means. Unlike the Slavs, the Jews and Romani simply had no place within the Reich – they were to be shut off from the Germanic population, socially and physically, as much as possible. It was this line of thought which eventually led to the Endlösung (Final Solution), which was executed during the war.​

​

The first of the racial laws passed was the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, which was a pretext for NSDAP to change the entire civil service as they saw fit. The wording of the Law targeted those “who, on account of their past political activities cannot guarantee that they have always acted wholeheartedly for the national state” and those who could not guarantee their Aryan descent. The former were to be “reviewed for competence”, which almost invariably led to their summary dismissal; the latter were to be reorganised into the Hilfsdienst (Auxiliary Staff), which was to be kept separate from the rest of the civil service and represented by a (Aryan) representative, with occasional meetings with central bureaus. Furthermore, only non-Aryans were permitted to teach, operate on, or otherwise professionally interact with non-Aryans. Non-Aryans were to be removed from the judiciary altogether, although non-Aryans could still legally represent other non-Aryans. The law also stated that non-Aryans were to be “exempt” (i.e. rejected) from serving in the armed forces. ​

​

The law was proposed as a means of streamlining the civil service; in practice, the Hilfsdienst was underfunded, understaffed, and almost incapable of operating properly, perfectly demonstrating Scheuleder. This, however, was not enough for the more hard-line supporters of the Party, who wished to see the Jews totally ousted from the civil service. Between 1933 and 1935, incidents of violence between the SS and the Jewish population increased, prompting Weber and Frick to step in, demanding an end to the clashes. Realising he had a perfectly good pretext to further sequester the Jews, Weber and the NSDAP leadership ordered the Stasi and the Volkssturm to round up the Jews and enforce their confinement within the ghettoes, whose borders were more clearly defined and augmented with barbed wire and gates in order to prevent “further outbreaks of racial-based violence.”​

​

Figure 3: A chart explaining the Hess Laws.​

​

In the meantime, the laws designed to further disenfranchise the Jews were drawn up. As they were passed under the presidency of Rudolf Hess, these came to be known as the “Hess Laws”. To better define who was a Jew and who was not, the definition was constrained to those with at least three Jewish grandparents. However, those Mischling (mixed-race) who had up to three Jewish grandparents would come to be officially excluded too. Under the laws, interracial marriages were to be banned, as was extramarital sexual contact between Jews and non-Jews. The only public offices Jews could now run (and vote) for were those of the newly-formed Judenrat (Jewish Council), which consisted of a lone Judendelegierter (Jewish Representative) for each city, and one for each Gau (replacing the state), who would promptly proceed to be mistreated and ignored by the Germans during council meetings. Jewish passports were to be marked with a large bold J, which would be checked by SS personnel at the entrance to each ghetto, allegedly for the purpose of “preventing further racial violence”. These passports could be used to exit Germany but not re-enter it without a special visa. ​

​

The practical effect was to even further alienate the Jews from the state, and those entering and exiting the ghetto for reasons “presumed to affect state security” were sent to the Stasi, and probably next to a concentration camp. Under these circumstances, it became nearly impossible for Jews to conduct business outside of the ghettoes. These would be further enforced by subsequent laws, which eventually led to the confiscation of all Jewish property outside the ghettoes, the creation of exclusive “Jewish schools” and “Jewish hospitals”, all of which were as dysfunctional as the rest of the Hilfsdienst.​

​

​

Figure 4: A German passport held by a Jew. Note the stamped ‘J’.​

​

[1] Sorry, bad pun. I couldn't resist.
​

========
​

As disenfranchising and depowering all of these laws were, they still had more legal basis and are dressed up in far more placating terms than the Nuremberg Laws IOTL, which should really tell you something.

The next update concerning women's rights (and then moving on to sterilisation programmes) is being written, meaning that I'll release it in a couple of days when I build up a sizeable buffer. In the meantime, feel free to discuss the implications of these laws and possible directions Weber could take Germany's foreign policy. I've got a rough idea of how the situation in Europe will end up, but suggestions are always welcome.
​

 

[Tom Colton]

One thing I don't think I commented on earlier is the way that you bring in Weber's veterinarian knowledge and have him fuse it to his strain of Nazism. It's both hilarious and creepy.

Thank you. Those were fun to write (as far as writing totalitarian and racist philosophies gets, anyway .) I think it comes in full force in the next part here...

Loving this timeline.

Couldn't resist commeenting on "Not to mention the implications of Weber's War in the Far East...".

Unless Weber's Germany goes all out maritime power, builds or steals a powerful fleet and grabs a few naval bases/colonies in the far east, then Germany is going to need allies. Japan comes to mind of course against pretty much anyone out there, but once the bullets start flying (unless it's German intervention against China?) then any German forces out there will be cut of for the duration. Just can't see Weber going in for that kind of foreign distraction. Waiting with bated breath.

Thank you! As for the "War in the Far East", at the risk of spoiling that, I would caution you against making assumptions. Let's just say that it will look quite different from OTL's Asia-Pacific War.

On to the next part...

=======

(still)

PART 2

GENDER LAWS AND THE FEMININE IDEAL
​

Like the Jews, the women of Germany under Weber were also subject to Scheuleder. NSDAP doctrine clearly set out strict roles for the genders: men were supposed to work in the fields and factories, and to serve in the civil service and the army, while women were to follow the tenet of “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” (Children, Kitchen, Church) promulgated by the deposed imperial monarchy. Weber and NSDAP took measures to reverse the relative emancipation of women during the Great War to convert them to the agenda of NSDAP. This came in the form of both organisational restructuring and an aggressive propaganda campaign, organised by Goebbels.​

​

The first of these measures involved the women’s associations, which were all subject to an “immediate review”, the results of which would lead to the dissolution and incorporation of the majority of them. The remaining women’s associations were all consolidated under the Deutsches Frauenwerk (Germany Women’s Work), a new government administrative body led by Horst Wessel [1]. Under his direction, the agenda of the associations was changed to promoting the NSDAP ideals. Many of these, instead of letting themselves be controlled, chose to close down instead. Similar to the policies regarding Jews in the civil service, there were strict limitations on female participation. Many departments were given a strict upper limit on their quotas, and women were barred from the higher echelons of the judiciary. Female doctors were similarly reorganised under a department of Deutsches Frauenwerk, and barring those fields immediately related to women’s health, many were instead reassigned to “nurse supervisors” (Krankenschwesterleiter), which had significantly lower responsibilities.

Instead of doctorates, women now only qualified for the title of Schüler (Scholar), and were barred from holding university positions besides those in social fields. A new bill was passed by the Reichstag, denoting new guidelines for the distribution of women’s as opposed to men’s work, dramatically limiting women’s work hours in an attempt to grant them more time at home for housework and for raising children. Acknowledging the non-negligible proportion of the workforce that women represented, Goebbels promoted the idea of the “Working Wife.”

Figures 5a, 5b: Gertrud Scholtz-Klink (left), leader of the NS-Frauenschaft, and Horst Wessel, head of the Deustches Frauenwerk.​

It was compulsory for girls to enter the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM, League of German Girls), and strong incentives were given for women to continue participation in the NS-Frauenschaft (National Socialist Women’s League) headed by Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, both of which were subordinate to the Deutsches Frauenwerk, as well as serving as propaganda arms of NSDAP promoting the feminine ideals as formulated by Weber, Goebbels and the NSDAP leaders. These ideals covered the concept of women as the raisers of the next generation of Germans, and as such they were expected to present an image of modesty. Women who wore excessive makeup were barred from NSBO meetings, and those repeatedly caught smoking in public, after a series of rapid warnings, would be expelled entirely, making their future employment prospects uncertain.

Motherhood was considered the ultimate feminine ideal, and strong financial incentives were granted for each child born, and gaining the Cross of Honour for the German Mother upon their fourth child. Ceremonies where German mothers were celebrated were broadcast on public radio and television. In contrast, the abortion process was tightly monitored, with severe penalties being levied even when the abortion was approved. Goebbels’ wife, Magda, whom he married in 1931, was promoted as a symbol of German motherhood, along with the spouses of the NSDAP elite. The wedding of Weber and Mina Kneller, following the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland, was a small-scale but lavish affair, broadcast on public television. Only the very daring humorists joked that the two territories constituted the most expensive dowry in human history.

Within schools, the BDM ensured that German girls were taught the geography of Germany as well as the history of the Holy Roman Empire and the Kaiserreich (the First and Second Reichs), entrenching irredentist claims in their minds from early on. They were further expected to learn about the history of NSDAP, especially the sacrifices of the early days such as Adolf Hitler. Rassenschande (Racial shame) was to be avoided at all costs, with sexual relations between German women and foreigners being denounced. During the German occupation of Eastern Europe, women who entered relations with the foreign workers were shaved and shamed in public, and barred from marrying German men, while the foreign worker in question would be sterilised and sent to a harsher work camp, or an internment camp. Exceptions were made where it was deemed possible to “Germanise” the child, in which case the mother was expected to conform to strict regulations in educating her child. The NS-Frauenschaft taught its members home economics and also afforded courses for gymnastics and music, all geared towards the NSDAP feminine ideal.

Figure 6: A gymnastics performance by the[FONT=&quot] Bund Deutscher Mädel.[/FONT]​

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===​

STERILISATION LAWS​

​

Weber applied his lessons in artificial selection and combined them with the contemporary understanding of genetics and evolution in formulating the sterilisation and euthanasia policies which would eventually culminate in one portion of the Final Solution. The end goal was simple: the expansion and growth of the healthy Germanic population of the German Reich at the expense of those deemed to suffer from mental and physical deformities, which were felt to lead to a potential weakening of the German race, especially considering his expansionist ambitions. Furthermore, the economists of the German government considered constructing homes and facilities for the mentally ill a drain of money and resources which could instead be funnelled to the rearming and remilitarisation of Germany.

To this end, the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring was passed, demanding mass registrations by physicians and a screening process conducted by the newly set up Erbgesundheitsgericht (Hereditary Health Court), all under the central authority of Dr. Karl Astel, a contemporary of Weber in the Freikorps Oberland. The Law was nominally a voluntary one, although the screening process almost always ruled in favour of sterilisation, and tax incentives were offered for those agreeing to the process. The surgical means was vasectomy for men and ligation of ovarian tubes for women. Experiments conducted by Viktor Brack, a leading member of the Hereditary Health Courts, using X-ray irradiation, would go on to inform the methodology of the Final Solution. Subsequent marriage laws demanded that prospecting couples undergo a medical examination to prevent the likelihood of “physically or mentally deformed children”.

Figure 7:Dr. Karl Astel, Oberrichter of the Hereditary Health Supreme Court​

This eventually graduated from a policy of sterilisation to euthanasia, especially for those “physically or mentally deformed children”. The Hereditary Health Courts would review all children with “serious hereditary diseases” and provide recommendations for euthanasia. Parental consent was required for the final decision, but “review board” staff would conduct increasingly frequent visits – even accompanied by Stasi personnel – until the parents caved in. Those who still refused were informed that they would not receive government funding for special care for their children, and the children would eventually be sterilised under the existing Law.

When the war broke out in Eastern Europe, the concern of housing wounded soldiers in the Eastern Front began to arise, and an obvious target was the asylums. Under the "Charitable Foundation for Cure and Institutional Care" led by Brack, Doctoral personnel in mental hospitals of the occupied territories were informed they faced three choices regarding longstanding patients: 1) Immediate discharge into their families’ hands, where they would receive no special funding for their care; 2) Use in labour camps for the reconstruction of infrastructure; 3) Forced euthanasia. Moral and religious objections generally favoured the former two, although the courts would order the lethal injection thousands of mental patients. Under this guise of voluntary nature, the programme continued well into the invasion of the Soviet Union, until the first cessation of hostilities on the Eastern Front. [2]

​

Figure 8: A propaganda poster, reading “This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too."​

[1] Given that Horst Wessel in OTL was shot by a Communist because his landlady was complaining about his pimping, consider this some historical dark humour.
[2] IOTL protests from Church groups and concerned family members rose to critical levels as mental patients were taken from hospitals en masse and shot to death led to the end of the T4 policy by 1941, whereas it's somewhat more insidious here.

========
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The second section regarding sterilisation laws deserves a close read as it carries a whole ton of implications regarding foreign and racial policy, the Eastern Front, and, of course, this timeline's version of the Final Solution...

Next: The economy and remilitarisation of Germany.
​

 

[Tom Colton]

I see and that might be fairly plausible. I just wanted to point out that just because you are better than Hitler doesn't mean the Ukrainians will welcome you and give you all of their housing, women, foodstuff and clothes. Utilizing Ukrainian sentiments against Stalin and the Russian-Soviet dominance is not a free ticket to rapid advancements in Ukraine as some people on this forum consider it.

Given however the well written, researched standard in this timeline I have no doubt that it'll remain fairly plausible, although with some artistic freedom given that not that much is known about Weber.

One thing to consider is that Moscows extreme dominance of Ukraine territory "worked" because it was enforced with long roots and partly during peace time. An invading force while having the luxury of posing as liberators does not have the stability that Stalin had. Post civil war Soviet was not stable but it was more stable than an invasion will ever be.

-KZ

All good points, and duly noted. The extent to which Weber and co. can pull the proverbial wool over German, Slavic, and international eyes will be a key theme of this TL.

On to the next part!

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ECONOMIC RECOVERY AND DEVELOPMENT​

The economy which Weber and NSDAP took over when they claimed control of Germany was in desperate need of reinvigoration. Unemployment was at a high of 30%, and national income was at an all-time low. Weber placed Hjalmar Schacht, a former member of the German Democratic Party and a fierce opponent to Germany’s war reparations and the policies of the SDP, as the Minister of Economics. Schacht used the freedom of the gold standard to keep interest rates low and budget deficits high, and used public works programmes such as the Autobahn to reduce unemployment – to great effect.

Unemployment in Germany fell faster than any other country in the Great Depression over this brief period. Revenue was also generated through privatisation of banks, metal industries and utilities. As mentioned above, the NSBO ensured that strikes, sacks and lockouts were outlawed, and the concept of workers and employers working together as families, each member having a distinct role, was promulgated by Wilhelm Frick and the NSBO. Retail businesses came under close supervision, and the economic power of large department stores, traditionally run by Jews, was reduced. Another of Schacht’s innovations was the MEFO bill – a promissory note used to circumvent the legal interest rate, and more importantly, terms of the Treaty of Versailles which limited military spending [1].

Figure 9: Hjalmar Schacht, President of the Reichsbank.​

Economic rebounding, however, was not sufficient for the ambitions of Weber, and he placed pressure on the Reich Ministry of Economics to build up towards rearmament. Although the military Keynesianism of military spending had driven unemployment nearly down to zero as Germans started to populate industries and factories, there were shortages in food and clothing for these same German citizens, and rationing was reintroduced. Caught between the two factions in his government – one advocating reducing military spending in favour of economic development, and the other pushing for the exact reverse – Weber decided in favour of the latter in appointing Göring in charge of the Five Year Plan. Germany was to rebuild its armed forces and be prepared for full-scale military operations by no later than 1941, in order to pre-empt British, French and Russian mobilisation.

​

Figure 10: Hermann Göring, former head of the SA, head of the Gestapo until its dissolution, then the head of the Reichsbank and the Five-Year-Plan, and subsequently Reich Aviation Minister and Reichsmarschall of the Wehrmacht [2].​

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Under Göring’s leadership of the Reichsbank, the state and state-based corporations soon grew in economic power at the expense of the industrialists, and the production of rubber, steel and textiles were declared as critical goals to be met. World prices for the raw materials constituting these were on the rise, accompanied by falling prices for the manufactured goods that marked the bulk of German exports, meant that Germany was in an economically precarious position. Autarky was deemed impossible due to Germany’s lack of raw resources, so Weber increased economic interaction with other Southern and South-Eastern European countries in order to acquire these. Some of these partners: Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, would go on to become German co-belligerents in the Axis Powers, eventually to be incorporated into the short-lived European Economic Community (Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft; EEC/EWG).

The dominance of military spending and production led Germany into a vicious cycle of sorts: the inefficiency of military production due to a lack of specialised labour, and associated social unrest due to the lopsided economy, meant that unless Germany expanded its territory using the products of its military industries in order to incorporate resources from elsewhere, the entire system would collapse into itself. Certain historians have taken this to theorise that Germany was forced into a “flight into war” by its own economic policies, and the overheating of the economic system left it no other choice other than to declare war and expand at the expense of Russia.

However, it is massively clear that the shift into militarisation was done at the behest of the top NSDAP leadership given Göring’s direct intervention and several particularly informing memos issued by Weber himself, emphasising the importance of Germany’s military readiness. Therefore, although the nature of Germany’s economic development may have made war a necessity to avoid self-destruction; its ultimate aims were perfectly in line with the political goals of Weber and the NSDAP leaders.

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REARMAMENT​

As mentioned above, Weber embarked on a policy of rapid (and technically extra-legal) rearmament in preparation for what he felt to be the inevitable clash between the forces of National Socialism and Bolshevism, which would manifest in the expansion of Germany into Soviet territory and culminate with the total destruction of Communism as a political force in Russia. Naturally, such an undertaking would require hitherto-unseen amounts of manpower, materiel and support. However, the Treaty of Versailles, deliberately drawn up to prevent Imperial Germany from having a military resurgence, clearly limited the size of the German armed forces and military spending. The creation of the Volkssturm and the use of MEFO bills were means used to circumvent these limitations.

In 1935, Weber and Blomberg announced the formation of the Wehrmacht – combining the forces of the Reichswehr, which was now defunct, and the Volkssturm – expanding the size of the army to 300,000 soldiers, with a “civilian reserve” (i.e. the remainder of the Volkssturm) of nearly a million men. As mentioned above, the soldiers of the Wehrmacht were now bound to swear an oath directly to the office of President (and later the office of Führer), who was currently Hess, along with allegiance to Volk und Vaterland.

These developments did not go unnoticed: England, France and Italy proceeded to sign the Stresa Agreement to deny Germany any further violations of the Treaty of Versailles. Italy’s participation, dictated by Mussolini, was less due to animosity with Germany, which he had at most lukewarm relations with following the failed Austrian NSDAP putsch in 1934, than it was to him attempting to gain at least tacit approval to invade Abyssinia. However, this agreement failed when the British signed the Anglo-German Naval Treaty, permitting Germany to expand the Reichsmarine,subsequently called the Kriegsmarine, and was totally defunct when Mussolini eventually invaded Abyssinia.

It is worthwhile to consider the attitudes of the British and French governments with regards to Germany’s rearmament and clear violations of the Treaty of Versailles, especially considering the implications over the next few years, generically labelled as “appeasement”. Neither party was willing to go to war over the issue as both were still suffering from the effects of the Great Depression, and it was felt by the British that by clearly defining the limits of the German navy that it would be able to manage, with some amount of definiteness, the threat posed by it. The French decided to pursue a defensive strategy against potential German aggression, done through means such as building the Maginot Line to multiply the effectiveness of minimal troop numbers and to redirect German advances.

Furthermore, due to the subversive nature of Germany’s racial policies, its primary goals appeared to be those of anti-communism; it was hoped that with the Anglo-German Treaty and a common stance against communism, that the two countries could come to common terms, as British relations with the Soviet Union then were at best tense. Germany would make similar overtures during their preparations for Operation Barbarossa following their invasion of France, but the Cabinet as headed by Churchill was not particularly receptive to these offers, refusing to consider any treaties with Germany as long as their troops occupied Czechia and Poland.

Thus free to ignore these restrictions, the Heer (Army), Kriegsmarine (Navy) and the Luftwaffe (Air Force) expanded quickly, with production of their weapons and equipment being accelerated by the Five-Year-Plan. The Heer featured new weapons such as the Karabiner 98k, replacing the older Gewehr 98 (the weapon which had taken the better part of a year to kill Hitler), 88mm Flak 18 anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, which would be refined over the years, and the first generation of Panzer tanks, which would also be developed throughout the war. By the war’s outbreak, the Heer numbered nearly 4 million soldiers – numbers which would rise to 5 million on the eve of Operation Barbarossa [3]. The Volkssturm remained as an auxiliary army of sorts, left to defend the Siegfried line as the Wehrmacht invaded Poland, and various Volkssturm branches would be established in German-occupied territories (e.g. 30 Waffen Grenadier Division der Volkssturm-weißruthenische, “30th Volkssturm Grenadier Division [1st Byelorussian]”) as they absorbed collaborators [4]. Army doctrines concentrated on encirclement and pincer manoeuvres, and their augmentation with motorised and airborne forces gave rise to the “Blitzkrieg” concept by military commentators.

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Figure 11: Großdeutschland Division soldiers during Operation Barbarossa.​

The Kriegsmarine grew to the proportions afforded by the Anglo-German Naval Treaty. The naval strategies were generally defensive, with ships built in reaction to potential French incursions in the event of the invasion of Poland. Achieving supremacy in the Baltic Sea would also be critical in the coming war against the Soviet Union. Admiral Karl Dönitz recommended a return to unrestricted submarine warfare in order to contain Britain should Germany be drawn into conflict with it. While the campaign in France was shorter than almost anyone had expected, the enlarged navy and submarine force would prove crucial in the Mediterranean War and especially the Eastern Front as battleships and cruisers augmented Army Group North during the Baltic Campaign.

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Figure 12: The Bismarck, Germany’s (and Europe’s) largest battleship of the time.​

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The Luftwaffe proceeded under the doctrine of army support with land-based operations, leading to the development of various types of dive-bombers, which proved critical in the initial advances into Poland and France. While Walther Wever, chief of the Luftwaffe General Staff until his untimely death in 1936, had pushed for a strategic bomber doctrine, he was largely ignored by Göring, now the Reich Aviation Minister, and Ernst Udet, the head of the Air Ministry Technical Office, until the Sudeten Crisis, where Germany’s unpreparedness to conduct a strategic air war was highlighted, and more pertinently during Operation Barbarossa, where the necessity of destroying Soviet industrial and manufacturing facilities far beyond the reach of army forces was deemed critical in removing Russia’s ability to make war [5]. The ability for the Luftwaffe to develop a strategic bomber force was also highly constrained by petroleum limitations, although these would be somewhat relieved by developments in the Middle East granting Germany an increased supply of oil. The expanded petroleum reserves there as well as in the Ukrainian Autonomous Socialist Republic would prove crucial to expanding the Luftwaffe and the Wehrmacht, allowing it to compensate for Russia’s remilitarisation in time for the resumption of hostilities.

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Figure 13: Junkers Ju 87, “Stuka”, dive-bombers in operation.​

The role of the military intelligence, the Abwehr, was also recognised in the rearmament process. Formed following the Great War, the Abwehr initially only consisted of about ten officers and ex-officers and clerical staff, although its manpower increased over time. Captain Konrad Patzig was fired as chief of the Abwehr following conflicts with the Army over reconnaissance flights over Poland, and was replaced with Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who proceeded to massively reorganise the Abwehr, and attempted to hand-pick his staff to maintain personal control over the service.

However, Canaris’s nearly overt resistance to Weber in the Sudetenland Crisis would prove to be his downfall as Weber realised the dangers of an overly independent intelligence service. The upper echelons of Canaris’s staff were purged and reassigned to the Volkssturm, and Canaris himself was sent to the Foreign Office and kept on a tight leash. Hermann Bauer, a retired admiral, was chosen to replace Canaris and a promising SS member and officer from the Stasi, Oberst (Colonel) Reinhard Heydrich, was reassigned as Bauer’s deputy. It soon became clear that Heydrich effectively was the head of the Abwehr, with Bauer as a convenient figurehead [6]. Under Heydrich’s leadership, the Abwehr proved to be a highly effective intelligence service during the War.

Figures 14a and 14b: Hermann Bauer (left), chief of the Abwehr, and his deputy, Reinhard Heydrich (right), subsequently chief organiser of the Final Solution.​

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[1] All as per OTL.​

[2] That is a ridiculous amount of titles for one man. It's bad when you can't tell the caricature from reality...​

[3] Statistics from here.​

[4] No SS-Waffen, but the Volkssturm instead, which will be utilising (and using) more collaborators in occupied zones...​

[5] In OTL, obsessions with dive-bombers ruined the capability of the He 117 and grounded (pun intended) any "Ural Bomber" plans. ITTL, the understanding that the Eastern Front will last longer means that German forces will actually have the possibility of hitting something close to the A-A line.​

[6] That should clean up Germany's intelligence situation a little bit, and yes, Canaris was outright plotting against Hitler during the Munich crisis. It's a wonder he didn't get sacked there and then. Bauer served in WWI, announced himself available for the Kriegsmarine in 1939, but never got called up IOTL.
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Next update: The Foreign Policy of Weber's Germany (i.e. Anschluss I and II)...
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[Tom Colton]

On to the next update, regarding foreign policy. This is going to be a long one - which just means more reading pleasure for youse guys!

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PART 3​

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THE FOREIGN POLICY OF GERMANY UNDER WEBER

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“My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”​

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British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, following the conclusion of the Munich Conference.​

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Figure 1: German propaganda poster in Austria advocating Anschluss with Germany. The text reads: “Greater Germany [vote] Yes!”​

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Once in power, Weber and NSDAP proceeded to develop their broader plans for Germany. Their consensus was that the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were too restrictive to permit any plans for expansion, and as outlined in the chapter above, they proceeded to violate it and build up the Wehrmacht, bringing them into conflict with Britain, France and Italy. In order for Germany to proceed any further, Weber and the NSDAP leadership realised that Germany would have to gain allies supporting its militarism, based on the common stance of anti-Bolshevism.

The right-wing factions of Hungary and Bulgaria found themselves drifting towards Germany, as well as the Iron Guard in Romania, although it would not align with the Axis powers until the War was well underway. Initial hostility with Mussolini’s Italy, particularly over the issue of Anschluss with Austria, soon would transform into an alliance, the Pact of Steel, and Italy found itself throwing its lot in with Germany when war broke out.

Germany’s relations with Britain and France were considerably more complex, with the latter two parties wishing to avoid another destructive war at all cost while checking German influence, thus adopting a series of policies broadly described as “appeasement”. These policies would lead to the cession of the Czechoslovakian Sudetenland to Germany, emboldening Weber to make the opening moves to the invasion with Poland over the Danzig crisis, and subsequently plunge Europe into another war.

The latter of these points was only possible with the signing of the Molotov-Neurath Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, superficially a non-aggression pact, but with a secret clause dividing Poland between the two seemingly irreconcilable rival powers. The annexation of Poland under the General Government would prove vital to the successes of Operation Barbarossa, when Germany repudiated the Pact on a trumped-up casus belli of aiding Finland by the terms of the Finno-German Treaty of Friendship, signed in secret during the Interim Peace.​

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AUSTRIA AND THE ANSCHLUSS​

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Following the end of the Great War and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, pan-German nationalism proved a strong current in both the successor republics in Germany and Austria. The union of Germany and Austria was also expressed by Hitler, a native Austrian, in Der Deustche Kampf, and Weber and NSDAP inherited these ideological views. To Weber, the annexation of Austria also provided clear benefits of increased manpower, especially skilled labour, and a boosted economical base, and he worked to empower the Nazi Party in Austria while attempting to improve relations with the Austrian government. Unfortunately, Weber made certain miscalculations in his early overtures.

Emboldened by German support, the leader of the Austrian DNSAP (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei, German National Socialist Party), Theodor Habicht, made demands of the Austrian chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, which Dollfuss refused to accept: although Dollfuss offered Habicht’s party seats in the government at the expense of the pro-independence paramilitary Heimwehr, whose influence was growing to dangerous levels (dangerous to Dollfuss, Weber and Habicht), Habicht demanded fresh elections. Dollfuss rejected the proposal, knowing that DNSAP would make major electoral gains. Weber interpreted this rejection as a major risk to the DNSAP, and the possibility of being pushed into irrelevance. Therefore, Weber put pressure on the Austrian government while the Austrian SA protested for new elections, under the claim of preventing a Heimwehr-dominated state – which was, of course, a totally hypocritical position given the NSDAP stranglehold over German internal affairs. [1]​

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Figure 2a and 2b: Engelbert Dolfuss (left), Austrian chancellor and dictator, and Theodor Habicht (right), leader of the Austrian National Socialists.​

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Dollfuss actively moved to suppress opposition in a series of policies termed “Austrofascism” by later historians. Germany did not make overtures of actively attempting to intervene in Austrian politics, with Weber advising Habicht to stick to a publicly prominent, but otherwise non-violent policy, presenting DNSAP as an acceptable alternative to the Heimwehr. However, this proved to be an extremely equivocal position as Austrian DNSAP members were integrated into the SA (and later SS) as the so-called “Austrian Legion”, nominally a platform for pro-union voices, but interpreted as a possible base for an invasion force.

Therefore, Dollfuss looked to foreign aid, particularly but not exclusively to Mussolini’s Italy, the most powerful military between the three. The Austrian question was a microcosm of the greater issues of the balance of power in Europe between the British-French faction, Germany and Italy, and thus all parties involved saw Austria as a platform from which to check the power of the other two. Under-Secretary Vansittart of the British Foreign office, a staunch anti-German, stated in an eerily prescient manner:​

“Austria has only been chosen for the first breakthrough of the renewed will to power because it is the easiest point…The future of Europe largely turns on the fashion of our facing the German challenge over Austria, in which we are at present likely to lose. The seriousness of the challenge can only be realised if it is not seen as an isolated case, in which the country has no direct interest, but as the first of a series of challenges, each one of which will carry with it a nearer threat to this country.” [2]

As such, Vansittart actively backed Dollfuss and the Heimwehr as he regarded them as the only force strong enough to prevent German interference in Austrian affairs. By appealing to the League of Nations, Dollfuss had alienated Mussolini, which sought to preserve his dominance over Austria. Furthermore, Mussolini, while opposed to German manoeuvres in Austria, recognised its rising power and as a potential ally against France, whose interests were incompatible with Italian expansionism. However, Weber rejected stronger German-Italian cooperation at the expense of giving up the Austrian question at this stage, fully realising it would be at a massive disadvantage to the militarily weak Germany; the addition of Austrian manpower and a boosted Wehrmacht would grant it more legitimacy at the negotiating table.

By August 1933, it was clear that Mussolini’s attempts at a tempered response in the hopes for a “special position” with Germany came to naught, and he thus increased his interference with Austrian affairs, encouraging incorporation of new elements and a move to totalitarianism to strengthen Dollfuss’s position. Dollfuss soon found these “suggestions” to be intolerable, subtly stating his wishes to be free of Italian domination, and opened secret negotiations with Habicht in January 1934. However, once plans of these leaked, Heimwehr and pro-independence factions led by Emil Fey and Ernst Starhemberg threatened to arrest Dollfuss and Habicht. More diplomatic manoeuvring around between Austria, Germany, Italy and Britain, ensued to no meaningful conclusion.​

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Then, the brief Austrian Civil War between Dollfuss’s government and the Socialist and Communist bloc broke out. DNSAP took no role in the conflict, correctly assuming that any violent action on their part would be interpreted as anti-government violence, granting Dollfuss a perfect pretext to smash them once and for all. The Austrian position in the League of Nations was totally compromised by the events, and the decree by the French to preserve Austrian independence was only given at face-value as France had no internal coherence with which to enforce it, instead begrudgingly accepting that it would have to accept an Italian-Austrian-Hungarian bloc to prevent Germany in gaining in power.

However, the Hungarians chose instead to side with Germany, perceiving more benefits, and declared its neutrality in the matter. Germany signed a tariff pact with Hungary, undermining the bloc. A further obstacle to Italy’s meddling arose from the rivalry between Dollfuss, Fey and Starhemberg. In order to check Fey’s dominance of the Heimwehr, Starhemberg sent out a detailed proposal in secret to Habicht, and then DNSAP, suggesting he be placed as Reich Regent until Anschluss was achieved, that Austria’s foreign policy was to be aligned to Germany’s, and that the Austrian SA and SS were to be incorporated into the Heimatschutz, another Austrian paramilitary. Fey sent out a counterproposal through other channels, directly to Habicht. [3]​

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To this end, Weber decided to throw in his lot with Starhemberg, supporting his bid for the presidency on the condition that elections were to be held as soon as possible. Weber at no point deluded himself on Starhemberg’s future; he was simply a stepping-stone to German control of Austria, but DNSAP had to reach out to an “inside man” in order to bring the system down from inside. On his part, Weber instructed Habicht to move DNSAP into direct support for Starhemberg while resisting any attempt to be assimilated into any of the Austrofascist movements. Fey was arrested based on the leaking of his separate negotiations with DNSAP and his asking the Hungarian Minister President his country’s stance should a putsch be made against Dollfuss. However, there remained one major obstacle – Dollfuss.

While willing to open negotiations with DNSAP, he refused to dissolve parliament if the result would lead to the loss of Austrian independence. Thus, the Austrian situation was stalemated unless Dollfuss’s last backer – Italy – could be convinced to lose its interest. In the meantime, Fey wasted no time in accusing Starhemberg of “guilt by association” with DNSAP despite making identical manoeuvres through different channels himself. Starhemberg and DNSAP refused to commit to a coordinated putsch as each feared betrayal from the other should the attempt fail. Thus both seemed doomed to irrelevance, until international events proved otherwise. [4]​

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Figure 3: Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg, final leader of Fatherland Front and the last chancellor of Austria until the collapse of the Greater German Reich.​

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As mentioned above, the Stresa front designed to prevent Germany from militarisation failed when Italy invaded Ethiopia in the 1935 Italo-Abyssinian War. Germany chose to covertly back Italy in the conflict in order to gain its favour. Britain and France were caught in the vice of ambivalence over the issue, where each of their conflicting policies led to no intervention against Italy’s aggression. The turn of public opinion against Italy meant that it now looked to Germany for support, where Mussolini informed the German ambassador von Hassel, that it would accept Austria as an independent satellite to Germany. In contrast to Weber’s attitudes in 1934, Germany was considerably more ready to accept such an agreement, having strengthened the Wehrmacht by 1936.

Without the interference of Italy, Starhemberg had a considerably stronger position, and contacting Göring through his friend Franz Hueber, who was the former Minister of Justice, an advocate for Anschluss, and most importantly, Göring’s brother-in-law. Mussolini had also tired of Dollfuss’s intransigence, and pressured him to dissolve parliament and announce elections. Dollfuss, seeing the writing on the wall, did so, and the DNSAP-based movement won the 1936 Austrian parliamentary elections. Starhemberg reigned as chancellor for less than a year before Weber demanded a plebiscite regarding Austria’s incorporation into Germany. In a massively coerced election, where DNSAP supporters freely terrorised voters, 93% of the electorate voted for Anschluss. Austria was declared a component of Germany on 31 December 1936. Starhemberg was made Reichsprotektor of Austria – a meaningless title now that the Fatherland Front had been outlawed, and the entire administration filled with German bureaucrats.​

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[1] As per OTL.​

[2] This is an OTL speech. You can't make this stuff up if you tried. ​

[3] As per OTL.​

[4] In OTL, Hitler vacillated between the two, seeing which he could rely on (or be a useful patsy). When nothing happened, the frustrated Austrian DNSAP were about to riot when the German Nazis advocated an organised putsch, killing Dollfuss but achieving nothing beyond an extremely pissed off Mussolini. Another reason why any real offers failed to materialise from Dollfuss and co. was because Dollfuss was looking at the SA situation (i.e. Rohm and the Night of the Long Knives), trying to exploit weaknesses in the Nazis. No such fissure happened in TTL.​

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Next: You all get one guess.
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[Tom Colton]

So many questions about US intervention...well, we're hardly out of 1936 as of the last update, were we?

Onto the Sudetenland crisis!

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PART 3​

THE SUDETENLAND CRISIS AND THE MUNICH AGREEMENT​

The next international crisis which Weber found himself embroiled in was that of the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. Much like Austria, annexing the German-majority Sudetenland would bring the vast majority of the industries of Czechoslovakia under German control, with the additional benefit of massively weakening another potential obstacle to the German dominance of Eastern Europe. The Sudeten situation bore these similarities – the former two as well as Franco-British involvement in the situation while having marked differences: the pro-NSDAP SdP (Sudetendeutsche Partei, Sudeten German Party) was considerably stronger in the Sudetenland among the Sudeten Germans than DNSAP was in Austria, there was no single totalitarian movement controlling Czechoslovak affairs and by the time the Sudetenland crisis came about, there were no neighbouring great powers who could interfere.

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Figure 4a and 4b: Edvard Beneš, President of Czechoslovakia and Konrad Heinlein, leader of the Sudetendeutsche Partei.​

The first steps Weber took to realising this annexation involved meeting with Konrad Heinlein in mid-1937, encouraging him to raise demands to Edvard Beneš, the president of Czechoslovakia including full recognition of Sudeten Germans and the autonomy of the Sudetenland. Beneš responded, saying he was willing to grant the Sudeten Germans more minority rights, but autonomy was out of the question. Weber used this as a convenient pretext to claim oppression of the Sudeten Germans, and conducted military exercises involving the Wehrmacht and the expanded Volkssturm in Bavaria and Austria, while leaking messages to the German embassies and thus to the Western powers that “interventionist action” was planned should the Czechoslovak government resist. To Weber and Heinlein’s total surprise, Beneš submitted a proposal outlining Sudeten national self-determination. Although this was massively beneficial to Germany, Weber decided to go one step further and take steps to dismantle the entire Czechoslovak state in order to make its annexation to Germany even easier in the future. Heinlein was instructed to reject the proposal and stage demonstrations to provoke police action from the Czechoslovak government, which was exactly what occurred. The Czechoslovak army conducted a mobilisation, sparking responses from the British and French. The French, unwilling to be drawn into conflict with Germany, took the lead from Britain, now run by Neville Chamberlain.

Weber then conducted a rally in Nuremberg in September 1937, condemning Czechoslovakia as a “false state created by the accident of diplomatic history” under which “oppression of Poles, Hungarians, Slovaks and Germans thrived”, and that the aggressive action undertaken by Czechoslovakia would draw Sudeten Germans into conflict with Germany, that “brother would take up arms against brother” in the name of an oppressive regime – an incredibly ironic piece of rhetoric given the German Reich’s actions in Eastern Europe during the War – and that Germany would be ready to “take decisive actions to protect the minority rights” of the aforementioned ethnic groups. This prompted a diplomatic response from Chamberlain, who arrived in Germany to conduct discussions with Weber. Weber made his stance clear – to ensure the continued positive Anglo-German relations and to dismantle Soviet influence in Eastern Europe, the Sudeten Germans would were to be free to decide their own fate. The British and the French put a proposal together where areas with a German majority were to be ceded to Germany. This proposal was rejected by the Czechoslovaks and the British and French opposition. Benito Mussolini spoke on 20th September, announcing that Italy would come on Germany’s side in the event of a conflict. Realising he was surrounded and compromised, Beneš stated he was willing to reopen negotiations, culminating the Munich Conference involving Weber, Chamberlain, Mussolini, Beneš, Édouard Daladier, the French Prime Minister and Kálmán Darányi, the Hungarian delegate, among delegates from other powers. Negotiations began on the 23rd of September.

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Figure 5: Neville Chamberlain, British Prime Minister, holding up the signed Munich Agreement, declaring its signing ensured “peace for our time”.​

In a carefully staged action, Weber led Chamberlain and Daladier down a corridor, discussing the planned cessions, speaking uncharacteristically loudly as he came to the door, declaring he was willing to accept the terms of Beneš’ proposal, but he did not wish to upset the balance of power in Central Europe to do so, while opening the door to reveal the Italian, Polish and Hungarian delegates who appeared to have been listening to the entire conversation. Round after round of discussions ensued, which resulted in the Munich Agreement where the Sudetenland was to be ceded to Germany, Poland would absorb Zaolzie, an area with a Polish plurality, over which the two countries had fought a war in 1919, and Hungary would receive the southern third of Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia. Beneš was present during the negotiations and was powerless to act as the British and French moved to avoid a multi-polar war in Central Europe and was browbeaten by the other delegates to accept the Munich Agreement. Chamberlain emerged from Munich on the 1st of October, gleefully announcing the results of the Munich Conference, declaring the arrangement “peace for our time” – a statement which was to be proven extremely ironic less than two years later.

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Figure 6: Cheering Sudeten Germans welcome the incoming German troops.​

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As the vast majority of military fortifications of Czechoslovakia were located in the border regions which had been surrendered thanks to the Munich Agreement, Czechoslovakian independence was de facto non-existent, and thanks to an escalating series of increasingly unequal treaties between Germany and Czechoslovakia throughout 1938, such as a customs union and the “Treaty of Friendship” which permitted the Wehrmacht free passage through Czechoslovakian territories (and technically the reverse, although Czechoslovakia by then had no military power to exercise this.) The death blow came when a plebiscite was arranged, with the Wehrmacht conducting military exercises within Czechoslovakian territory, and it was decided that the country would be split into Czechia, which was to be a direct satellite state to Germany, and the Slovak Republic, which would retain nominal independence but was still bound to the previously signed unequal treaties.

N.B.: The Munich Agreement happens a year earlier since Weber technically has a larger army (i.e. the Volkssturm) than Hitler did at the time and the Anschluss also occurred earlier. ITTL Chamberlain's naïvete is also chalked down to the fact that it was one of the first few things he did as PM.

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Next update: The Axis and the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
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[Tom Colton]

Oh, what do you know, I'm procrastinating on my revision. Have a mini-update!

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THE AXIS POWERS​

The transformation from Italy from regional rival to full-fledged ally has already been briefly touched upon in the events leading to the Anschluss. To recap several key points, Mussolini blocked Weber from achieving his goal of annexing Austria any time before Mussolini’s Italo-Abyssinian War, which marked a turning point in Italo-German relations. Mussolini was reportedly unimpressed by the German dictator, especially after his failed intervention following the Austrian Civil War, allegedly stating “That man [Weber] would do better to find employment in a stables than in a chancellery.”

However, this attitude would change remarkably due to successive events. Prior to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, Italy had taken measures to curb German rearmament by signing the Stresa Accord, which agreed to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. However, Mussolini did so as a move to endear himself to the British and the French in the hope they would grant him a free hand in Ethiopia. When events proved otherwise, Italy was left isolated, and turned to the remilitarised Germany for aid, offering Austria as the dowry. Weber accepted from his new position of strength, and the foundations of the Pact of Steel were laid down at that point, eventually bringing Italy into the war started by Weber in the hopes of territorial colonial gains.

Figure 7a and 7b: Signatories of the Tripartite Pact: Benito Mussolini (left), Duce of Italy, and Fumimari Konoe (right), Prime Minister of Japan.​

The Anti-Comintern Pact, which eventually grew to incorporate Italy, was first signed between Germany and Japan. As first envisioned, its aims were to curb Communist influence in China, and possibly bring China into the Japanese sphere of influence, but the plan fell through when the Chinese Nationalists refused to participate. The pact was nonetheless signed between Germany and Japan, and the writing deliberately crafted to clarify that their alliance was against the destabilising effects of Comintern and not directly against Soviet Russia, although a secret clause indicated that were one to be drawn into conflict with the Soviet Union, the other would enter a state of “benevolent neutrality”.

Italy signed the Anti-Comintern Pact in the following year, and then the Pact of Steel which meant that Germany and Italy would conduct war together, forming the basis of what would be called the Axis Powers, which technically referred to the signatories of the Tripartite Pact, which would be signed once hostilities began. Despite German military and materiel aid to the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War, the victorious General Francisco Franco was initially reluctant to be tied to the Axis, but eventually signed the Tripartite Pact when it became obvious the tide of the war was in Germany’s favour.

On the economics side, Germany consolidated several tariff treaties into the EWG (Europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft, European Economic Community), promoting trade between the authoritarian powers of Central and South-Eastern Europe. Weber sought to increase trade with sympathetic regimes, with a particular interest in Romanian oil fields, knowing that trade with Britain and France and resources from their colonial holdings was at severe risk were war to break out in a fashion barring him from dictating terms. Signatories included Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, with Spain eventually also being incorporated into the EWG as a platform for paying its war debts. Attempts to broaden the EWG into the Entente powers were rejected, and reconciliation with Britain became impossible once war broke out.

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No annotations for this one as it's essentially OTL, with the EWG and a pithy quip by Mussolini added.

Next update about the Communazi Pact will be on time, i.e. next week.
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[Tom Colton]

Thanks, guys! In celebration of my first exam concluding today, have an update. And what an update it is, because it's here...

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(still)
PART 3

THE SOVIET PACT​

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Of all of the diplomatic manoeuvres conducted by Germany, the most surprising at the time was probably the “Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”, better known by its colloquial name: The Molotov-Neurath Pact, so named for its signatories. The Pact is now widely understood to have been the product of mutual pragmatism – to ensure as much time as possible for both parties to build up to their inevitable confrontation. The signing of this pact was surprising not only due to the massive ideological differences between the parties, given that Weber had risen to power by smashing Communist influence in Germany, specifically the Bavarian Socialist Republic, from origins within the anti-Communist paramilitary Freikorps Oberland, but also due to the diplomatic situation that had arisen from the 1938 Czechoslovakian plebiscite that had essentially signed the entire country, directly or indirectly, into German control. The British and French, alarmed at this turn of events, turned to Moscow to attempt a “containment” policy in order to prevent German expansionism from moving any further.​

​

However, talks broke down due to Joseph Stalin, leader of Soviet Russia, and his insistence on an ironclad alliance and the promise of a two-front war. Stalin was paranoid of a conspiracy between the British and French to allow Germany and Russia to exhaust and neutralise each other in their inevitable war. In a certain sense he was to be proved correct by their diplomatic actions, along with those of the United States, in the aftermath of the Pacific War, when the Soviet invasion of Japanese territories prompted the anti-communist reactionaries in the three governments to advocate a policy of “passive containment” to prevent the expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence.​

​

Furthermore, Stalin’s demands that the Soviet Union be given a free hand in Poland and the Baltic States to check German expansionism were interpreted as expansionism on his own part, and as such, no agreement could be reached. Furthermore, the British and French also believed that the Soviet Union would be in no shape to conduct war against Germany due to the Great Purge of Soviet army officers (this was at most partly true, given their strong performance against Japan on the Manchurian border), and were also morally disgusted by the full extent of the Great Purge as leaked by Nikolai Yezhov, the disgruntled former chief of the NKVD (Народный комиссариат внутренних дел, People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) and chief perpetrator of the Purge.​

​

Figure 8: Nikolai Yezhov, also known as the “Vanishing Commissar”, chief of the NKVD, primary perpetrator of the Great Purge and its final victim.​

In an attempt to consolidate control over the Red Army, Stalin had conducted several rounds of Moscow “show trials” beginning in 1936, involving confessions forced out of political targets through torture. There is evidence to show that some of this was done at the urging of Weber, who had suggested that certain elements of the Soviet government were disloyal, sending these “suggestions” through the intermediary of Beneš. A large percentage of top-ranking Red Army officers, including marshals, admirals, corps and division commanders, and commissars were removed from their positions and executed.

By 1938, Stalin had realised that these purges had deprived the Soviet Union of a large proportion of its own administration, and ordered that the purges be stopped. However, it was far too late, and the unreadiness of the Red Army in response to Operation Barbarossa is at least partly accountable to these purges. Naturally, for the purges to remain secret, the chief triggerman had to be put out of the way. Stalin allowed Lavrenty Beria, the NKVD leader of Georgia, to usurp Yezhov in his position as head of the NKVD, eventually dismissing Yezhov in November 1938, several days after the suicide of Yezhov’s wife, Yevgenia Feigenberg, who had done so out of fear of herself being purged.[1]​

​

With nothing left to lose, Yezhov decided to take Stalin and the Party down with him in spectacular fashion. He contacted Malcolm Muggeridge, a leading English journalist who had exposed the Holodomor in the early 1930s. Meeting in Odintsovo in early 1939, Yezhov proceeded to reveal some details of the Purge to the horrified Muggeridge. Before the two could meet again, Beria’s agents had caught up with Yezhov, and Yezhov was promptly executed. Muggeridge had left for England and had already sent his report through the diplomatic bag.​

​

​

Figure 9: Malcolm Muggeridge, British journalist who exposed the Holodomor and the Great Purge.​

​

Although initially met with scepticism and firmly denied by Stalin, stating that Yezhov was “a rightist traitor to the Party who only sought to slander it”, Muggeridge’s report on the Great Purge irrevocably soured international opinion against Moscow. Chamberlain mused that entering an alliance with Russia with this knowledge would be akin to the fable of the scorpion – Stalin’s own paranoid nature would mean that he would eventually step over any agreement, regardless of its aims, in his own self-interest. Once again, this was to prove a self-fulfilling prophecy, as British reluctance to lend aid would in turn lead to Russian distrust, leading to a vicious cycle where neither was willing to act first against Germany, essentially granting Weber a free hand on the continent.​

​

Thus snubbed by Britain and France, Stalin came to give more and more interest to Weber’s proposals for a pact. Germany’s interest in Soviet Russia came as early as during the fallout from the Munich conference, when Weber realised that a hostile Britain would be able to isolate Germany, prompting a search for new trade partners for crucial resources. While the EWG was able to supply some of these, even put together the signatories could not match the industrial power of the Soviet Union, and with the exposure of the Great Purge, Russia found itself in a broadly similar position.

Thus, the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement, signed in August 1939, served as a prelude to their political and military pact. The Commercial Agreement and the Non-Aggression Pact were masterminded by Joachim von Ribbentrop, the German ambassador to the Far East and executed by Konstantin von Neurath, the German foreign minister. Although Neurath had initially voiced concerns that German military adventurism in Eastern Europe would inevitably bring Britain and France into conflict with Germany, their lukewarm response to the Anschluss and the Sudetenland on their part, combined with the assurance of non-aggression from Russia, no matter how temporary, mollified him. [2]​

​

However, without his knowledge, Ribbentrop and the Russian foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, also agreed on secret terms defining the German and Russian spheres of influence in Eastern Europe, both nations essentially giving each other a free pass to invade Poland and other countries so long as they did not interfere with each other.​

​

​

Figure 10: Planned and actual territorial changes emerging from the Molotov-Neurath Pact. [3]​

​

Under these terms, Germany accepted that Finland and most of the Baltic States, along with Bessarabia and all of Poland east of the “Curzon Line” would fall into the Soviet sphere of influence while Germany would occupy Poland west of the Curzon Line. Typical of Weber’s euphemistic language, the treaty technically only specified that Germany and Russia would accept each others’ “emergency police actions including movement of troops and temporary occupation as each power sees fit to manage the crisis in question, without interpretation as aggression between the two states” – which, of course, would effectively be permanent. Thus, when war broke out, Germany and Soviet Russia fulfilled these terms (with some modifications), partitioning Poland for the fourth, but not final, time in modern history, and setting the stage for Weber’s gravitation towards Finland as a co-belligerent against Soviet Russia, given the Finnish revanchism over losses in the Winter War, when he inevitably violated the Molotov-Neurath Pact in executing Operation Barbarossa.
​

[1] All OTL, and Stalin was content to let Yezhov rot for several months between his dismissal and his inevitable execution, so this is at least within the realm of possibility.​

[2] In OTL, he and Blomberg reacted violently during the Hossbach conference (although both would come around to agree to an extent), but since the Anschluss and the Sudetenland annexation have gone off fairly smoothly, no such objections are raised or are less intense than OTL.​

[3] Compare and contrast.

​

========​

Next update: A little bit more foreign policy, regarding Arabia, Africa and South America, and then...
​

 

[Tom Colton]

Just read this timeline, I'm loving it. Very creepy and plausible. The quotes at the beginning of this timeline are especially sinister.

Thank you! I did try to give the sense of barely-veiled horror to those.

Great. It's Naziism that lasts longer and is more ruinous to all involved.

That's the name of this game; everybody loses.

The post-Nazi world order in TTL, much like ours, however, will contain the spark of hope amidst the sombre aftermath of the collapse of the Reich. Perhaps it will emerge a better world for it. Perhaps not.

To quote Tolkien, as adapted by Jackson:

How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.

On to the next update!

=======

(still)
PART 3

ARABIA, AFRICA AND AMERICA​

It is worthwhile to briefly touch upon Weber’s foreign policy regarding the Arab world and the former African colonial possessions of Imperial Germany, as well as the Americas. The former presented opportunities for Germany to expand its sphere of influence into the Middle East and disrupt British and French dominance in the region, which fed well into the plans of Mussolini, while the second represented additional resources which could be exploited by Germany in an attempt to avoid economic confinement, especially by the Royal Navy.

The ideologies of National Socialism, especially the anti-Semitic rhetoric, proved popular in the Arab world, particularly in the Mandates of Palestine and Syria. When meeting the Saudi envoy, Weber expressed praise at the Prophet Mohammed’s intentions of expelling the Israelites from Arabia, stating that he had similar goals for the Jews of Germany – and indeed, all of Europe, if he had his way. Germany realised the disruptive potential of Arab nationalists in causing trouble for their European colonial authorities, and German and Italian envoys would engage similar-minded factions in the Arab world increasingly through the years. However, the German policies of deliberately letting Jews flee Germany into Mandatory Palestine led to strife in the mandate, eventually culminating in the Palestinian Revolts. Weber and the German leaders thus realised that they would need to change their slant on the issue of immigration to ensure further cooperation from sympathisers. [1]

Of these, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) stood out. Their strong nationalist bent led to their outlawing by the French colonial authorities, and their leader Antun Saadeh’s concepts of “Greater Syria” would, if realised, lead to severe disruptions to the balance of power in Arabia – perfectly feeding into German policy of causing Britain and France as much trouble as possible. Furthermore, the Syrian population was increasingly frustrated by France’s refusal to ratify the 1936 Treaty recognising Syrian independence, as they (correctly) feared German influence in North Africa and Arabia. To this end, Neurath contacted Saadeh and Sami al-Hinnawi, a SSNP politician serving in the French-Syrian army, stating that Germany was ready to negotiate for Syrian independence on their behalf and supply weapons aid in return for Syria adopting similar racial measures to disempower their Jewish population as a solution to the political strife caused by their immigration as well as exclusive petroleum drilling rights. While no formal agreement was made, both parties acknowledged the potential for further cooperation, although this would not come to fruition until the German invasion of France during the war.

​

Figures 11a and 11b: Antun Saadeh (left) and Sami al-Hinnawi (right), two leading politicians in the SSNP (Syrian Social Nationalist Party).​

Weber and NSDAP, unlike the monarchists or other irredentist right-wing groups, did not give particular attention to the return of the German colonial empire which had been surrendered due to the Treaty of Versailles, although they acknowledged its economic potential. In the discussions during the Munich Conference, Chamberlain had attempted to tempt Weber away from his continental ambitions, offering the restitution of some of Germany’s colonies. While Hjalmar Schacht, the former president of the Reichsbank, had responded positively to such offers, Weber retorted that the liberation of German minorities could not be bought off with a few colonial ventures [2]. However, as the prospect of war drew ever closer, the idea returned to the forefront of mediating discussions. Of particular attention were the value of the cash crops and potential for rubber in Togoland and Kamerun. The latter resource was of exceptional note due to British dominance of the rubber trade and the ineffectiveness of synthesising rubber, which would have led to the self-destruction of the German military machine in the face of continued British animosity.

Weber and NSDAP distrusted the United States, believing its upper echelons to be dominated by Jewish influence, but also recognised the strength of its massive industrial power. German policy was to avoid needlessly antagonising the United States, acknowledging that Germany's prime opponents were the British, the French and the Russians. The American ambassador was withdrawn when war broke out, but diplomatic relations were not terminated [3]. German policy regarding South America was a balance between that in Arabia and in Africa; while the German had economy thrived on exports from Brazil and Central America during their period of rearmament, and while Argentinean oil fields were particularly appealing to German military interests, any naval containment from the British would strangle trade from them, and prevent any form of meaningful collaboration. When Britain inevitably turned against Germany, Spanish merchant vessels and ports were used as neutral intermediaries to conduct trade and communications, albeit at a massively reduced level. Dictatorial regimes in Argentina and Chile would imitate many fascist conventions, being impressed at their use of militaristic ideology to dominate state affairs. German and Spanish intelligence agencies opted to develop extensive espionage networks in South America, a decision that would bring the Axis in competition with the United States. As the war settled into stalemate, the various South American tensions became a front for competing American and Axis interests, as both sides supplied weapons to competing governments.

[1] As in OTL.
[2] Chamberlain in OTL thought that the repatriation of African possessions was the key to checking German expansionism. Hitler flatly rejected him, stating he could take those by force if he wanted to...which he didn't, reckoning they were too troublesome anyway. Weber lets Chamberlain believe this slightly more, although it still wasn't really a priority...at the time.
[3] In OTL, they withdrew their ambassador after Kristallnacht, which never happened ITTL thanks to the stricter racial measures proscribed by the Hess Laws. (As loyal readers will know, "Kristallnacht" was TTL's *Reichstag Fire.)

=======
​

This seems like as good a time as any to present this:
​

FRIEDRICH WEBER (DR.)

1892 – 19██
CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY
1933 — 1939
FÜHRER OF THE GREATER GERMAN REICH
1939 – 19██

=======​

Next update: All hell breaks loose.*
*I apologise that this video makes the Nazis and the Wehrmacht look way cooler than they have any right to be.

It won't be until next weekend, though, as I have two exams next week!

However, if you all have any questions about TTL's Nazi Germany up till 1939, feel free to ask; I'll be happy to answer them!
​

 

[Tom Colton]

This timeline is one of the best I have seen on this site, very fascinating and thought provoking, definitely interesting to see where the madness of "Der Veterinarian" takes the world.!

Thank you!

As for the latter: Nowhere good.

But Weber is making the "right" moves then, insofar as there are right moves when one is going to war with 75% of the rest of the world.

I'm trying to do the bare minimum to plausibly keep some form of the Nazi state afloat even beyond 1945 and Tube Alloys. I hope I can set that up well enough.

In other news...We're back, baby!

=====
​

PART 4

ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE

“The lights are going out all over Europe; but there is still time for those to whom freedom and parliamentary government mean something, to consult together. Let me, then, speak in truth and earnestness while time remains. […The] cause of freedom has in it a recuperative power and virtue which can draw from misfortune new hope and new strength. If ever there was a time when men and women who cherish the ideals of the founders of the British and American Constitutions should take earnest counsel with one another – that time is now.”​

Winston Churchill, paraphrasing and rejecting Sir Edward Grey’s comments prior to the Great War: "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time" [1].​

​

​

Figure 1: The announcement of the British, and impending French, declarations of war on Germany.​

​

By 1939, it was manifestly clear that a turning point in European affairs had been reached. Germany had managed to annex Austria and half of Czechoslovakia essentially unopposed, and had signed a secret pact with Soviet Russia which permitted them to similarly swallow up half of Poland. British and French authorities decided that unless they acted to stop Weber from going any further, his ambitions would make him overlord of Europe by trampling over the corpses of his enemies – and there was no guarantee that he would stop there once he succeeded. To this end, they signed a joint defence treaty with Poland, which both acknowledged would be the next victim of German aggression. It was this treaty that would lead both parties to declare war on Germany when the Danzig crisis escalated to the point of no return, and plunge Europe into its second major war in two decades.

===​

​

THE DANZIG CRISIS AND THE INVASION OF POLAND​

Unsurprisingly, the spark which ignited the powder keg of Europe in 1939 was to be found in Poland. The terms of the Molotov-Neurath Pact gave Weber a free hand to snatch up the country, and when the Russians completed their half of the Pact simultaneously, the Polish Army would be totally unable to mount any form of coherent defence as they were attacked on both sides. Even without this particular knowledge, British and French analysts acknowledged that Poland was bound to be Weber’s first stop on his bloody path of conquest in Eastern Europe; although it was true that Poland had also benefited from the Munich conference, Hungary was a German ally, and Romania and Bulgaria were signatories of the EWG, precluding their vulnerability to German interests.

Rearmament programmes began nearly as soon as Chamberlain returned from Munich; however, these were initially lethargic and half-hearted before the 1938 plebiscite which divided Czechoslovakia into Czechia and the Slovak Republic, carving two satellite German states out of a formerly independent republic, after which British production accelerated to match German remilitarisation. It would prove to be insufficient, as Germany had begun their programme earlier and also absorbed the manpower and resources of Austria, the Sudetenland, and then all of Czechia.

Figure 2: German propaganda poster, stating that “Danzig is German”. [2]​

The incident that formed Weber’s casus belli was rooted in the status of the Free City of Danzig (currently known as Gdańsk), created as a result of the Treaty of Versailles appeasing Polish interests, primarily access to the sea. Danzig was chosen but was not fully incorporated into Poland due to its German majority. Despite this, it was essentially a subsidiary of the Polish state, a state of affairs which distressed the German population and drove them to support NSDAP to represent their interests. Over time, their power base in Danzig only grew stronger and stronger, and Weber contacted Arthur Greiser, President of the Senate of the Free City of Danzig and a fanatical NSDAP man, instructing him to suggest a plebiscite which would decide Danzig’s independence from Poland. Beyond a demand for Danzig, or a road connection between the German border and East Prussia, or even German control of the entire Polish Corridor, Weber wished to use the Danzig situation as a casus belli for the invasion and conquest of Poland. In this way Weber’s methodology was highly similar to his strategy in Czechoslovakia, further acting on the historical basis of Polish mobilisation in response to previous suggestions of unification of Danzig with Germany, made soon after Weber's ascendancy to the Chancellory [3].

The ink had barely dried on the Molotov-Neurath Pact signed on 23rd August 1939, assuring Weber that Stalin would not interfere with his actions so long as they remained west of the Curzon Line, when the Wehrmacht was positioned on the German-Polish border, ready to execute Fall Weiss (Case White), the invasion of Poland, scheduled for the 26th. However, the British quickly signed a defence arrangement with Poland two days later on the 25th and gave the appearance that they were willing to negotiate for the Corridor [4]. Deciding that every day they waited was a day that the Poles were able to mobilise, Germany acted quickly. NSDAP sympathisers clashed with Polish authorities in Danzig, near the Danzig Central Station (Danzig Hauptbahnhof) on the 26th, somehow eventually leading to a massive fire breaking out in the station, claiming 20 lives and injuring close to 40, and subsequently causing even more outbursts of violence throughout the city. Declassified documents generally attest the destruction to Abwehr saboteurs, commanded by Heydrich. This “Danzig Station Fire” and the subsequent clashes were capitalised on by Weber, who denounced the Poles as “totally antithetical to the cause of beneficent German-Polish relations and bent on the oppression and destruction of the German people within Polish borders” and issued an ultimatum that unless German troops were allowed to enter the Corridor to “ensure the safety of the German population” by midnight on the 26th, Germany would have “no choice but to take necessary actions to defend the safety of the German people” – it would be war.

Figure 3: The Danzig Station Fire, one of several incidents of German-Polish violence used to justify Germany’s invasion of Poland [5].​

​

Frantic negotiations between the powers ensued. Weber specifically instructed Konstantin von Neurath, the German Foreign Minister, to ignore any offers for negotiation from Poland unless their representative was fully empowered to permit German troops to cross into the Corridor and into the rest of Poland as well. When the Polish envoy Lipski arrived in Germany, he was detained and delayed for so long that by the time he arrived at Neurath’s office, he had forty minutes to present the Polish government’s offer. Neurath, on Weber’s orders, insisted again and again that the Wehrmacht be given unlimited access into Poland as well as full annexation of Danzig and the Corridor. When Lipski attempted to contact the Polish government from the Foreign Office, his call failed to connect thrice, and when it finally got through, Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski, the Polish Prime Minister, retorted that they would not sign the country away as Czechoslovakia had done. When Lipski reported this to Neurath, all Neurath did was to look at the clock, which read five minutes past midnight and turn back to Lipski, announcing that negotiations were over. Even as Abwehr saboteurs had already conducted covert operations at the Jablunkov Pass and Mosty railway station before midnight, allowing the Heer to subsequently pour into Silesia from the so-called “Jablunkov Gap” [6], Weber announced Germany’s declaration of war on Poland at 3:30am on 27th August, over “the unacceptable conduct of the Polish bureaucrats in authorising the oppression and murder of ethnic Germans in Danzig and within the Polish state”.

[1] Just slightly tweaked from OTL.
[2] Image source.
[3] As in OTL-ish.
[4] As in OTL.
[5] Image source - it seemed a bit tasteless to use an actual other tragedy purely for a fictional illustration. Also, no Operation Himmler.
[6] In OTL, communications broke down and the operation went too far ahead of schedule and had to be withdrawn. In TTL, Heydrich has a better grasp over the operation, and it gets pushed back a day.

=======
​

Next update: The invasion of Poland proper. It might be a little bit delayed as I still have one last exam, but it should be posted before Thursday next week.

 

[Tom Colton]

And as promised...

(still)
THE DANZIG CRISIS AND THE INVASION OF POLAND​

The rapid pace at which events had unfolded meant that the Polish armed forces simply did not have enough have enough time to mobilise before the Wehrmacht thundered across the German-Polish border. Even the Polish plan to evacuate their navy to British dock facilities, termed “Operation Peking”, was only partially executed, with the vast majority of their vessels sunk or captured in the Battle of the Gdańsk Bay. Even those vessels which had begun their departure as early as the morning of the 27th were intercepted by a squadron of Kriegsmarine vessels in the Battle of Øresund as they attempted to pass through the channel. Of the entire Polish navy, only ORP Błyskawica managed to reach Britain unscathed [1].

It is commonly and inaccurately stated that the Polish air force was destroyed on the ground – operations to move the aircraft had begun practically almost as soon as Weber announced his ultimatum, and more than half had been moved to temporary airfields further inland prior to Luftwaffe bombings. Nonetheless, the Luftwaffe was able to achieve air superiority thanks mostly to its immense numerical advantage – about 277 Polish aircraft managed to survive the destruction of the air bases, while the Luftwaffe fielded more than five times that number [2]. By the first week of the war, the Polish Air Force had either been destroyed or evacuated to Romania. The success of air superiority meant that the Luftwaffe was free to wreak havoc on Polish transport and supply lines, and further confuse their defensive situation, meaning that mounting an effective response to the Heer incursions was practically impossible for Poland.

​

Figure 4: A photo taken from the ORP Blyskawica of ORP Grom and ORP Burza during Operation Peking. Of the three vessels, only the ORP Blyskawica would arrive in Britain intact.​

The British and French were initially slow to react to the invasion, with the French Foreign Minister George Bonnet stating that the French would not be able to respond until their national assembly convened and that its armed forces would require more time to mobilise, in the hopes of creating another Munich-style settlement [3]. Chamberlain made an emotional speech in the House of Commons in evening of the 28th, laying blame for the conflict on Weber and Germany, rejecting their casus belli of the Danzig Station Fire and its associated outbreaks of violence, stating that “[If] the German Chancellor and President truly desire peace and security for the German minorities of Poland, they will cease the incursions conducted by the German armed forces and be willing to discuss a peaceable settlement to the clashes between these two states”.

The Cabinet was unconvinced by the diplomatic route and began demands for an ultimatum to be given to Germany, while Chamberlain attempted to cover for Bonnet, stating that communications with Paris were difficult at the time; nonetheless, an ultimatum would be drawn up for their approval by midnight. The Cabinet reacted exceedingly poorly to this, as many of its members were aware of Bonnet’s intentions [4].

Finally, the ultimatum was presented to Berlin on the morning of the 29th, giving German forces two hours to withdraw from Poland. When no such thing occurred, Chamberlain addressed the British public by radio, announcing that, “This morning, the British ambassador in Berlin, handed the German government, the final note, stating that unless we heard from them, by 11 o'clock, that they were prepared at once, to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now, that no such undertaking has been received, and as a consequence, this country is now at war with Germany”.

With that, Britain and elements of the British Empire, as well as France, were at war. However, there were no major military operations conducted by any of these parties beyond several skirmishes between the French army and the Volkssturm-Vaterland along the German defensive line (Siegfried Line), and the unsuccessful execution of Operation Peking, which was another major blow to Chamberlain’s reputation – a notable political cartoon shows a weeping Chamberlain in his bathtub, complaining he has lost his toy boats, while Weber absconds through the window with them in tow [5]. This lack of Western action has been termed by certain Poles and historians as the “Western Betrayal”.

​

Figure 5: Neville Chamberlain announcing the declaration of war with Germany.​

As mentioned before, the Polish armed forces, and particularly the army did not have enough time to mobilise before Germany declared war, having had 24 hours between Weber’s ultimatum and the first incursions at the Jablunkov Gap. The “Battle of the Border” encompassed rapid encirclements originating from the borders between Poland and the German mainland, the exclave of East Prussia, and a small force from the Slovak Republic. Their primary target of all three manoeuvres was Warsaw. The Polish line was overstretched due to the Polish generals’ unwillingness to abandon key industrial and military areas in the west, and their fear that Germany would be able to negotiate for their permanent cession in the event of even a limited German victory; furthermore, the Polish strategies of encirclement were confounded when the German advance proved too rapid for Polish armies to complete their manoeuvres. The result was that the Polish defensive lines were overrun within a week, prompting deeper incursions by the Heer.

By that point German armoured divisions were advancing on the Bug River and assaulting Warsaw. The sheer ferocity of the German assault meant that there was no coordinated counterattack conducted by Polish forces, which were rapidly divided into disparate pockets which were quickly mopped up by the advancing Heer and Luftwaffe bombers. The siege of Warsaw began on 9 September 1939, with the Heer finally catching up with the progress of the Luftwaffe, which had been conducting bombing raids soon after the establishment of air superiority. Once it became clear that maintaining defence around Warsaw had become impossible, the Polish government and the bulk of the surviving armed forces were withdrawn southeast towards the Romanian bridgehead, in the hopes of evacuating to their neutral neighbour. This was to be all for naught, as the Soviet Union would shortly enter the war to fulfil their part of the Molotov-Neurath Pact.

​

Figure 6: German and Slovak soldiers celebrating with civilians in Komańcza, Poland.​

​

From the beginning of the invasion, Weber and the German government had attempted to contact Molotov, to bring the Soviet Union into the conflict. However, the Red Army was still constrained by the undeclared war between them and Japan, and thus only entered the conflict on 17 September, following the conclusion of the agreement between Molotov and Shigenori Tōgō, the Japanese foreign minister, with Stalin citing the incursion as legal on the grounds that they were “protecting the Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities of eastern Poland since the Polish government had abandoned the country and the Polish state [had] ceased to exist". Although the Wehrmacht was running into difficulties catching up to the withdrawal to the Romanian Bridgehead and subsequently assaulting the Polish forces, with surprising numbers of casualties despite the other relatively smooth preceding operations. However, with the entry of 800,000 soldiers from the Red Army, and meaningful defense along those lines was now totally impossible. Trapped between the two invading armies, the Polish forces were rapidly mopped up, with many German units encountering Red Army ones along the Curzon line. By 1 October 1939, the last of the Polish holdouts had surrendered.

EDIT FROM NEXT POST:

Weber entered Danzig in a triumphant parade, announcing the new status quo in Europe, deliberately mentioning the enabling role of Russia in the events which had unfolded in order to acknowledge its temporary ally as well as tar Russia with the same brush, and to prevent the possibility of Western sympathy for Russia when he eventually turned against it. This latter had already been helped by the revelation of the Great Purge, and both contributed to the limited military support afforded to the Soviet Union during the first phase of the Great Patriotic War. Weber addressed thronging crowds assembled by the Danzig branch of NSDAP, announcing that “This renegade state of Poland will never arise in the form of the Versailles Treaty. This has only been achieved through the cooperation of the forces of the German Reich and the Red Army.”

Much like Austria before it, the German-occupied portions of Poland were fully incorporated into the Greater German Reich as the Reichsgau (administrative areas) of Danzig-Westpreussen and Posen, later Wartheland. Arthur Greiser, leader of the NSDAP in Danzig and instigator of the incidents which led to the Danzig Station Fire, was made Gauleiter of Reichsgau Posen and Albert Forster, his nominal superior in the Senate of Danzig, was made Gauleiter of Danzig-Westpreussen [6].

===​

​

[1] In OTL, war hadn't been declared yet by the time they passed through. Here, the Kriegsmarine ships in the Baltic intercept them, meaning that only the ship named after B. J. survived.
[2] Fewer planes make it compated to OTL due to the earlier DoW date; most of the operations to move the planes only began on the 31st IOTL.
[3] As in OTL.
[4] As in OTL, with one MP commenting that Chamberlain had discarded his reputation within those few minutes. I considered Chamberlain having a stronger stance, but France's concerns seemed too immediate to butterfly away.
[5] The opportunity for France and Britain to knock Germany out of the war early on is somewhat countermanded by the stronger Volkssturm along the Siegfried line at this point. The toy boats thing is an invention of mine, but it's a fun mental image.
[6] As in OTL. I saw no reason to change these personages.

========
​

Overall, the Polish campaign goes even better for Germany than OTL due to greater Polish ability to mobilise and consequent unpreparedness given Germany's four-day headstart compared to OTL. I hope that's not too much of a Naziwank.

Next update (earliest next Tuesday): We wrap up in Poland and move on to the Phoney War.

Also, Weber finally becomes Führer.

 

[Tom Colton]

And here we go. Sorry, the Phoney War is going to have to wait till the next update.

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THE NUREMBERG DECREE​

The procession that Weber entered with to make his announcements regarding Danzig and Poland were nothing compared to the congregation which the German government assembled in Nuremberg on 9 November, 1939, which was specifically chosen as the 21st anniversary of the beginning of the German Revolution which had unseated the monarchy and eventually established the Weimar Republic, and the 16th anniversary of the Beer Hall putsch which had started the now-irrevocable rise of Weber and NSDAP. Germany stood at a crossroads at this point. Although Poland had been subjugated, the Wehrmacht’s strength was at critically low levels due to the campaign, and Britain and France were now at war with Germany. Even the massed Volkssturm units assembled along the Siegfried Line would not have been a match for the French Army had they struck in force during the period immediately following the collapse of Poland. Weber’s task at Nuremberg was thus a daunting one: he had to assuage the German public of the future of Germany, while also preparing them for the prospect for a bitter war with Britain and France and a prolonged struggle. A show of national and personal strength was critical.

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Figure 7: The Nuremberg Rally of 9 November 1939, a turning point in German internal affairs [2].​

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Weber thus enunciated the gravity of the “new German struggle”, recalling the title of the seminal Der Deutsche Kampf, and denounced Britain and France as mere stooges of “the false Polish state, carved out of the flesh of the Fatherland by who would seek to see the strength of Germany reduced to the state permitting the November traitors (recalling the Versailles Treaty) to sell the Fatherland out in the greatest act of treachery in German history”, before going on to state that “[this] no longer remains the case. In place of weakness we have instead regained strength. This strength is the strength of the German people, with which we shall forge a Reich ensuring prosperity for all Germans for a thousand years and beyond. I thus call upon this great race to lend its strength to this end, to stand together, unbent and unbowed, never ceding even an inch, not till Germany overcomes all those who would see it humiliated once again, and demonstrates the strength of the German people to the whole world.” [3]

The crowd was thus convinced of Weber and the government’s confidence. Spurred by SS supporters planted in the rally grounds, the congregation cheered wildly at their pronouncement of their intentions to defend the Fatherland to the bitter end against Britain and France. However, Weber had one final surprise for Germany. After the cheers had subsided, he gravely addressed the assembled supporters, stating that “The German government has seen fit to adopt an emergency measure, to guide our nation through these times of struggle. To better coordinate the German Reich, the positions of Reichspräsident (President) and Reichskanzler (Chancellor) are to be folded into one office, effective as of today, 9th November 1939.” For a few brief moments, it was unsure whose office was to be devolved to whose, although it was manifestly clear that Weber and not Hess was the prime mover in the government. In confirmation, he continued, saying “The German people express their greatest gratitude to Reichspräsident Rudolf Hess, who has dutifully served the Reich through half a decade of immense struggle and change. He is to immediately be appointed Reichsprotektor of Germany as a reward for his exemplary service to the German Reich.”

At this, Hess arose from his central seat and stood alongside Weber at the podium, raising his arm in salute second to Weber, as was right for the President, as Weber presented the token of appointment to him. However, when Weber lowered his arm following the presentation, Hess’s remained raised, as he proudly shouted, “Heil dem Führer!” ("Hail to the Führer!") [4] before returning to the seat which had been occupied by Weber. Once again spurred on by the planted supporters, the crowd was driven into a patriotic frenzy, all raising their arms in the straight-arm salute, alternating between screaming “Heil dem Führer!” and “Sieg Heil!” ("Hail to Victory!") again and again.

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Figure 8: Rudolf Hess, last President of Germany until the fall of the NSDAP regime, and later Reichsprotektor of Germany [5].​

The title of Führer, simply meaning “Leader” and often appended to the party or department the leader in question was responsible for (e.g. Fremdenführer, tourist guide), had its origins in Hitler’s concepts of leadership, in turn cribbed from the pan-German politician Georg von Schönerer, whose followers commonly referred to him as the Führer and who also used the Sieg Heil-salute. Another key inspiration was Italian Dictator Benito Mussolini, with his unofficial title of Duce. The “Führerprinzip” (“leader principle”) was a core tenet of National Socialism, promoting the idea of the autocrat with total power over his domain, answering to no authority beyond God and the people.

Thus, under Weber and NSDAP, elections to even local councils became increasingly constrained as higher-level authorities were empowered to pick and choose subordinates as they wished, with now Weber as the Führer at the very top of German hierarchy. Autonomy was only permitted as far as it presented solutions for leaders to select at their will. Totalitarianism thus became a defining feature of Germany under NSDAP [6]. The route to this state of affairs had been a gradual and insidious process, as seen in Chapter 2, with the gradual disempowerment of the unions and local councils, and had now finally manifested itself at Nuremberg with the destruction of the democratic positions of Reichspräsident and Reichskanzler, leaving total control in the hands of Führer Weber, a position which he was to hold until his death.

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[1] As in OTL. I saw no reason to change these personages.
[2] The Nuremberg rallies stopped in 1938 in OTL, due to the invasion of Poland. In TTL, Weber has a rather important annoucement to make, so it gets pushed to 9 November.
[3] All written by yours truly. I'm getting seriously concerned that I would make a good Nazi speechwriter...
[4] As alluded to before, Weber is creating a cult of personality around the office of Führer and not merely himself (see "Rearmament", second paragraph), in the aims of creating a Nazi state that would outlive him. Whether this works or not will all be revealed in due course...
[5] It doesn't make a lot of sense for Hess to be made Deputy Führer after already having been President, so he's been given the (mostly) ceremonial title of Reichsprotektor of "Lesser" (i.e. not including Austria, Czechia or the annexed Polish territories) Germany.
[6] I do believe we have a (rather indirect) title drop!

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Next update regarding the Phoney War and Norway, if not up by this Saturday (31 May 2014), will be up earliest by 13 June 2014 as I have to go for a field trip in the south of England for my course. ​

 

[Tom Colton]

And here we go! (Dat punctuality.)

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(still)
PART 4
THE PHONEY WAR AND THE WINTER WAR​

Figure 9: Two women learning how to wear gas masks, a cautionary measure taken up during the Phoney War.​

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Between the conclusion of the invasion of Poland and the beginning of hostilities between Germany and the forces of Britain and France, as well as those of Denmark, Norway and the Low Countries, the period known as the “Phoney War” ensued. This is often considered to be the first of the three “Cold Wars” – periods of antagonism without land offensives in the broader period referred to the “Second World War(s)”, extending either from the Second Sino-Japanese War or the invasion of Poland to the final collapse of Germany under NSDAP [1]. Any means of diplomatic negotiation with the British and the French to legitimise the German occupation and annexation of Poland came to nought, with Chamberlain categorically stating that “Past experience has shown that no reliance can be placed upon the promises of the present German Government.” The First Lord of the Admiralty (and later Prime Minister) Winston Churchill concurred with Chamberlain’s assessment, saying that “[Weber] could trick you into signing your own death warrant, then proceed to sell you the pistol and bullets you were to execute yourself with.” [2]

The term “Phoney War” is somewhat of a misnomer, as while there were no major ground offensives by either side during its duration, the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine engaged in heated conflict around the northern coast of Britain, and there were minor clashes between their respective air forces. Nonetheless, compared to the intensity of the Norwegian campaign and the Battle of France, it is indeed true that this was considered a lull. The British government, remembering the horrors of the last war, practiced air-raid drills and began issuing gas masks en masse to civilians as they anticipated extensive bombing and gas campaigns. These fears would prove to be unfounded, however, as the tensions dragged on, and the Luftwaffe did not carry out any major civilian bombing campaigns during this period, and Weber initially was incredibly reticent to employ chemical weapons, having seen their devastating effects on people and animals first-hand.

An invasion of France was deemed necessary by Germany to force France, and especially Britain, to the negotiating table due their aforementioned unwillingness. Weber and the German economists reckoned that if the Royal Navy continued to blockade imports, especially those of iron ore from Sweden which had to pass through the port of Narvik in Norway, the entire system would collapse in on itself. The German plan was thus to first protect their commercial interests with their naval assets, and then mount an offensive aimed to strike deep into France, driving a wedge between British and French forces, destroy as many of their troops by encirclements as possible, and hold those occupied territories hostage until the British and French were willing to negotiate. Failing that, Germany would have no choice but to use the occupied territories as bulwarks against British counter-offensives, and dig in for a protracted war. For the maximum effect, it was further decided that the best option was for a joint German-Italian strike, to create a two-front war and overextend the French defensive lines [3].

Figure 10: The Palais Coburg in Vienna, site of the Coburg Conference where the overall strategic direction of the Battle of France was decided.​

To this end, Weber and Mussolini met in the Palais Coburg in Vienna in December 1939, to discuss the overall strategic direction to be taken. German military analysts had already planned for the strike to occur in the spring of 1940, as the Wehrmacht had been exhausted by the Polish campaign, and Weber communicated this to Mussolini, stating that it was “in the collective interest of both the powers of Germany and Italy to strike as one”, in accordance with the Pact of Steel. Mussolini retorted that the Italian merchant fleet was scattered across the globe and the Italian armed forces were not ready to conduct an extensive campaign into France. Privately, Mussolini’s marshals Pietro Badoglio and Italo Balbo were also opposed to chaining Italy to Germany, as they were not convinced of Germany’s ability to defeat the Anglo-French alliance.

Weber, however, restated the Pact of Steel, reminding Mussolini of his obligations, and offered him the opportunity of completing Italian irredentist ambitions in France and even possibly in Africa with a vague promise of further aid, even outright stating that “If you wish to see your ‘Roman Empire’ formed, there will never be a better time”. After much discussion, it was decided that the Germans would take up most of the offensive, most probably striking through the Low Countries, while the Italians would contribute a major diversionary attack along their border with France, forming a “troop sink” which would spread French forces out to unsustainable levels, permitting the German death-blow to fall even more heavily. Nonetheless, neither Weber nor Mussolini left the Coburg Conference with much faith in the other – tensions which would be further exacerbated in the subsequent Balkans Campaign.

EDIT:

In the meantime, following the end of the Polish Campaign, Stalin turned his eye towards Finland and the Baltic States, emboldened by the Molotov-Neurath Pact stating that Weber would not interfere with his plans there. While there was little that the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could manage to prevent their annexation and conversion into Soviet Socialist Republics, the Finnish armed forces bitterly fought against Soviet aggression, in what would be termed the “Winter War”. Western opinion quickly turned against the Soviet Union, especially given that the Russia appeared to be engaging on a similar policy of aggressive expansionism to Germany, and the British and French made plans to assist Finland through Norway – plans which would be re-adapted to strike against Narvik in an attempt to strangle the German war production.

Despite valiant resistance from the Finns, the Red Army was still able to drive the Finnish government into signing a humiliating peace treaty which surrendered vast amounts of Finnish land and resources into Soviet hands. This brief war would have long-lasting consequences; Finland drew closer to the Axis camp, even cooperating as a co-belligerent when Weber finally turned against Russia, especially aiding Germany in the campaigns in Murmansk and Leningrad, and the weaknesses of the Red Army which had been revealed emboldened Weber to believe that the Russians would capitulate in the face of German aggression. Germany and Finland thus signed a secret “Treaty of Friendship” where Germany would construe the actions of the Soviet Union in Finland as breaching the Molotov-Neurath Pact and act in the “defence of the right to independence and national self-determination of the Finnish people” when the time came.


[1] Not gonna lie; the histirography of *WW2 is going to be a little difficult.
[2] Yes, he's fine ending a sentences with a preposition.
[3] In OTL, Italy joined at the very last minute, Mussolini saying he only really needed a little blood for his demands. Here, Italy has a good 6 months or so to actually prepare. Will it be enough for the Italians not be known as jokes? Time will tell...

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Next update: A little bit about the Winter War, then we move on to Norway and Denmark...

Speaking of The Wall, what will become of 2nd Lt. Eric Fletcher Waters, of Z Company, 8th Royal Fusiliers? Will he remain in Britain as an ambulance driver, or will he still enlist? If the war is different from OTl, his death at Anzio and the effects it had on Roger Waters could be butterflied! Does he survive the war, and what effect might that have on Pink Floyd's future?

Let's just say the career of Roger Waters ought to be the least of your concerns. If anything resembling The Wall ever comes out ITTL, it would be radically different.
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[Tom Colton]

THE SCANDINAVIAN CAMPAIGN
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Figure 10: German soldiers march through Bagn, Norway.​

The first major campaign of the phase of the Second World War known as the “Second Great War” (due to similarities in the combatants to the Great War) or the “Spring War” (as it was fought between the months of April to June 1940, and as a contrast to the Winter War) occurred in Norway and Denmark, for the reasons broadly outlined in the previous chapter [1]. The Allied forces believed that the key to crippling German military production was to interdict iron ore supplies from neutral (but German-leaning) Sweden, which had to pass through the Norwegian port of Narvik. Furthermore, being able to dominate the seas around Norway would go a long way in staunching German sea advances and the ability of the Kriegsmarine to strike at England. To this end, plans were drawn up during the Winter War to use assistance for Finland against Russia as a pretext to occupy Narvik.

However, the rapid end of the Winter War forestalled this, necessitating a new strategy. These would manifest in the plans Operation Wilfred, the mining of Narvik to prevent exports of iron ore to Germany, and Plan R4, the invasion of the Norwegian mainland in response to the inevitable German reaction, which would accompany the engagement (and hoped destruction) of the Kriegsmarine by the Royal Navy. Both of these plans marked a direct violation of Norwegian neutrality, a key point capitalised upon by German propaganda in justifying their invasion of Norway and subsequently Denmark. The Altmark incident, where a German vessel was assaulted and boarded in Norwegian waters by the Royal Navy, further exacerbated the legitimacy of the German party line – although, as events which followed demonstrated, their key interest clearly revolved around Narvik and the non-interference of the Norwegians in their subsequent schemes.

A key figure in the German efforts in Norway was Vidkun Quisling, former Defence Minister and leader of the fascist Nasjonal Samling (National Gathering, NS) party, subsequently appointed Minister-President by Weber for his contributions to the German intercession and occupation of Norway. Under his own initiative, Quisling visited Germany following the outbreak of war and discussed how Norway could maintain independence through assisting Germany in coming to terms with the British and the French. Quisling believed that he could avoid German occupation of Norway by throwing his lot in with Weber, then taking over the Norwegian government and permitting Germany to use Norwegian land and ports to fight the British, thus allowing Germany to force terms with Britain and France and end the conflict quickly with minimal destruction in Norway. Although the response to Quisling was mixed at best, the similarities between his proposals and those promoted by Weber following the Battle of France are at the least remarkable, although as mentioned in the previous section, the broad outline of Weber’s strategy already followed similar threads.

Regardless of who first developed these ideas, Quisling and the NS would be richly rewarded by Germany following the post-Spring War settlement. The exact motivations and thus the overall legacy of Vidkun Quisling and the NS are extremely ambivalent, within and outside of Norway. The traditionalist account, espoused by infuriated Norwegians and local historians such as Turteldue, states that Quisling sold Norway out in exchange for political power, contributed to its status as a pariah state, himself eventually dying as a martyr for collaborationism, while revisionist historians such as Gordian instead argue that it was Quisling’s skilled negotiating power which removed Norway entirely from the war following the Battle of France, allowing it a unique position in the following conflicts mostly free from molestation by the Allied or Axis powers. Whichever the case, Quisling’s personal stake in his proposals or overall ideological bent cannot be ignored in this assessment [2].

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Figure 11: Vidkun Quisling, Fører of the Nasjonal Samling party, subsequently Minister-President of Norway, then that of the Free City of Narvik.​

Weber’s orchestration skills, well-honed by Kristallnacht, Austria and Danzig would come into play once more. When Winston Churchill, as First Lord of the Admiralty, ordered the mining of the port of Narvik (Operation Wilfred) on 8 April 1940, Weber and Quisling acted in concert, Weber denouncing the British violation of Norwegian neutrality, stating that “It is clear from their recent actions, that despite espousing the course of independence and liberty, that the British in fact harbour no such wishes in reality. Already the lives of nine brave Germans have been lost in Norwegian waters (recalling the Altmark incident [3]); how many sons of Norway shall Chamberlain and Churchill sacrifice in their aim to destroy German freedom?”, and Quisling making a radio announcement, representing the NS, declaring, “The people of Norway will not tolerate British aggression […] we implore the British government to end their suppression of Norway, to free Narvik and not drag Norway into the singularly destructive conflict which it apparently so desires.”

Posters with “Frigjør Narvik (Free Narvik)!” were circulated by the NS almost immediately, and were distributed far and wide throughout the country even as the invasion continued. Weber knew that in order to play the role of liberator, he would have to navigate the next few steps very carefully. Even as the bulk of the German invasion force had already crossed into Norwegian seas and were preparing to execute Operation Wezerseit, which called for a full-scale invasion of Norway as it could not be assumed that Quisling would be able to sway public opinion in Norway in favour of Germany, Weber made an “ultimatum” to the British.

In the text of his speech, he condemned Chamberlain and Churchill again, and announced that “[Unless] the Royal Navy withdraws their forces and commences demining operations in Narvik within the next three hours, the Wehrmacht will have no choice but to act in the name of Norwegian liberty. I, Friedrich Weber, speaking as Führer of Germany, express my deepest regrets to King Haakon of Norway in undertaking this extreme measure. We shall aim to liberate Norway from British oppression with minimal loss of life.” Churchill, upon learning that Weber had made comparisons between himself and the Devil in his ultimatum, is alleged to have retorted privately that “If that is truly the case, I am esteemed to be in company which that man deems infernal.” [4]

[1] As I've implied before, this is going to be a messy historiography.
[2] "Quisling" still remains a by-word for "traitor" in British propaganda, but thanks to the way events pan out, it's not exactly as easy to slap that label on him.
[3] Actually it was 5 dead and 4 injured, but why let facts get in the way of a good story?
[4] I do so like coming up with Churchill-isms.

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Next update (earliest 01 July 2014): The Norwegian Campaign gets underway proper...

 

[Tom Colton]

THE SCANDINAVIAN CAMPAIGN​

The German ultimatum, and ship movements which had been spotted by Royal Air Force (RAF) spotters, was enough to call for the execution of Plan R4, entailing planned landings in Narvik, as well as Trondheim and Bergen further south, closer to Oslo, the Norwegian capital [1]. This further outright violation of Norwegian neutrality provoked a mixed response. Anti-British sentiment was whipped into frenzy by Quisling’s radio announcement of the incursions, denouncing the invasion as a move of aggression, angrily berating the British, stating that “Norway is not your staging ground!” However, public sentiment, while angered by the violation of their neutrality by the British, still feared the Royal Navy more than it did the Kriegsmarine, and was not as warm to Weber’s ideologies as it was to the British in general.

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Figure 12: Quisling announcing, on behalf of the Nasjonal Samling, the “Norwegian People’s” rejection of British intervention, and subsequently the acceptance of German intervention.​

As a move to gain air superiority in southern Norway, it was deemed necessary to invade Denmark, an affair which lasted less than half a day, namely 10 April 1940, from Weber’s “formal request” to King Christian X and the Danish government for “unrestricted access” through Denmark for Wehrmacht operations, to total capitulation from Denmark. As critical as the military goals were, when the rapid conquest of Denmark was used by Curt Bräuer, the German representative to Norway, in his discussion with King Haakon, promising “limited occupation and interference” should the Norwegian government cooperate, the response from the government was a curt “Denmark was not your staging ground either” [2], preceding a total rejection of German proposals.

With that move, Weber’s (and Quisling’s) rhetoric that Germany was acting in the interest of Norwegian neutrality rang increasingly false, and the Danish campaign, although successful, only served to drive Norway closer to the British camp. Weber had totally won the war in Denmark, only to lose the peace in Norway. Norwegian forces conducted a rigorous defence against advancing Wehrmacht forces while offering barely any resistance to the British, with soldiers instead diverted to evacuating civilians from areas where British and German forces were engaged in combat [3].

The Wehrmacht was able to make effective footholds in southern and western Norway, where manoeuvres remained in operational range of the Luftwaffe, but found fierce resistance elsewhere, especially at Trondheim and Bergen, where British and German forces fought in the most bloody battles of the Spring War in terms of pure numbers of casualties per day. Delaying actions by the Norwegian armed forces permitted the evacuation of King Haakon, who had further announced his intention to abdicate should any Norwegian government surrender, and the rest of the royal family from Oslo.

Upon learning this, Quisling continued to broadcast, announcing that “in the absence of government at Oslo, which has chosen to respond to offers of foreign aid by adopting the unreasonable measure of mobilisation and needless bloodshed…the Nasjonal Samling shall, under the auspices of the Norwegian people, attempt to end the conflict between powers fought on Norwegian soil, claiming Norwegian lives. After intense consultation with the German representative, assuring respect for national independence and Norwegian lives and property, the Nasjonal Samling has opted to take up the duties of government to preserve the Norwegian people’s interests, and our nation’s security and independence, and accept the terms of German aid to save the populace from the hopeless situation the Nygaardsvold Government has created for it.” [4]

The reaction from the civilian populace and the armed forces was, as before, mixed. Where the Wehrmacht had made breakthroughs, such as in Southern and Western Norway, Norwegian troops had already surrendered unconditionally, and NS supporters attempted to promote capitulation. While impassioned, Norwegian defences simply were not up to scratch compared to either the British or Germans, and the lack of meaningful cooperation between Norway and Britain, as the latter was still considered an aggressor, meant that the Norwegian Campaign was doomed to failure with regards to preventing German advances.

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Figure 13: Wehrmacht soldiers advancing through a destroyed Norwegian village.
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As a result of failing to actively choose sides, Norway was reduced to watching Britain and Germany use its territory and its seas as a proxy front. The conflict was ultimately resolved through neither German or British military brilliance, nor Norwegian resistance, but the simple facts of strategic considerations. The British-German stalemate in Norway, with the Norwegians caught in the middle, came to an abrupt halt when British troops were withdrawn to reinforce France as German encirclement manoeuvres threatened to overrun French defenses as they had those of the Low Countries.

With the withdrawal of the British, the Wehrmacht was free to secure major population centres and declare Norway as a protectorate “until such time that order is restored in Norway”, with Curt Bräuer appointed as Reichsprotektor of Norway, representing the wishes of Germany there [5]. Bräuer’s orders overrode even those of Vidkun Quisling, who declared himself Minister-President under the auspices of Germany, ignoring Haakon VII’s continued position as head of state, which the Norwegian resistance still acknowledged instead of Quisling and the NS.

However, Bräuer’s and Quisling’s reign over Norway would be incredibly brief, as the Battle of France came to abrupt halt soon after Norwegian capitulation, prompting realigning treaties which restored the majority of Norway to the control of Haakon VII and the legitimate government. Although this did not mark the end of German intervention in Norway, there were no further hostilities there until the collapse of the NSDAP regime, where a “bloodless coup” finally restored total control of Norway to its government. Norway has since remained outside the post-war alliance system and subsequent European federalism efforts, officially adopting a policy of armed neutrality similar to Switzerland’s [6].

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Figure 14: King Haakon VII of Norway, symbol of Norwegian resistance and neutrality.​

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[1] Plan R 4 would have been executed as long as the Germans made the intention of invading Norway, so it's entirely possible the British get a bit too eager in acting first. Thankfully it isn't Gallipoli Mk. II for Churchill.​

[2] Ohh snap!​

[3] Thanks to aforementioned overeagerness, the British don't get Norwegian cooperation, leading to an even worse show in Norway​

[4] Slightly modified from his coup d'etat speech in OTL. Here it's slightly more justified thanks to circumstances, and slightly better accepted by the public (but not by much.)​

[5] No Josef Terboven yet as he only replaced Bräuer in September 1940 in OTL. I have plans for Terboven, too; big plans...​

[6] The more things change, the more they stay the same. Norway is the only Nordic country not to join the Eurozone as of 2014.​

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A little insight into the writing process here: I was inspired by the threads regarding Norway joining the Axis, and it seemed that the execution of Plan R4 was a possible mechanism for this outcome. But I came to realise that:

• Quisling and the NS weren't exactly popular at the time of the invasion.
• Germany would probably have invaded Denmark anyway to guarantee air superiority, given the first point.
• Weber's public relations bit would have fallen apart given point two.
• Also, Weber has essentially been rolling diplomatic double sixes (or at least double fives). He had to turn up snake eyes at some point.
• Hence, no Norway in the Axis, but not in the Allies either.

So yes, you can blame Quisling and Weber (as well as Chamberlain and Churchill) for ruining Norway forever and making it isolationist ITTL.

Next update: One guess.

Index has also been updated!
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