A More Dangerous Hitler Part 5

Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

A More Dangerous Hitler

By Michael W Moore

Part 5

Hitler was at first eager to proceed with his next adventures and attack something or somebody in the spring of 1943. He was however finally persuaded by his advisors, both military and civilian, to first consolidate his empire. 1943 was a time of ultimate triumph for Hitler!

By mid ‘43 Hitler’s ECDU (European Customs and Defense Union), with its Capital in Berlin totally dominates the European continent.

Sweden and Switzerland had tried to remain neutral and independent, but were completely surrounded by the other ECDU member states. By spring of 1943 they had given in to the inevitable and joined the union.

The lone holdout was Portugal and all new its days were numbered.

Germany proper now consisted of a pre-WWI Germany and, OTL Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia, the Crimea, the pre-WWII Russian SSR (all the way to the Pacific) and the pre-WWII Kazakh SSR.

The Crimea would be completely emptied of its indigenous population by mid ‘43 and was slowly being re-populated by Germans. It would in the future become known as the German Riviera.

The suffering of the Russian people had been nothing short of horrific.

A five-year plan had been implemented Jan. ‘43 to ethnically cleanse the former Soviet Union.

There were only three ways to survive the cleansing.

: Be of racially acceptable appearance i.e. light colored hair, eyes and/or complexion.

: Fall into a deemed, ‘useful occupational category’.

: Flee the country.

By the time of the Soviet surrender Jan. 20^th 1943 well over 20m Soviet citizens, civilian and military, were dead.

A hundred million more were in dire straits exposed to the elements and disease, starving, or in the process of being worked to death.

Many tried to flee, but Hitler’s minions blocked the way east and west. The only way out was south. The Caucasus were too heavily guarded, refugees had two choices:

: Through the loosely controlled Italian territory, (the former ‘Stans’ SSRs), and into Iran or Afghanistan.

: Or through a turbulent, Japanese controlled, China.

Hundreds of thousands would try to flee and most would die.

Those that did make it out told stories of murder and mistreatment on such a scale as to bring to mind the ravages of Genghis Kahn. By the end of 1943 a further 20 million former Soviets would be dead.

In the mid-east- Turkey, Egypt, the Caucasus Republic and Iran were ECDU members.

The German Mid-East colonies include- OTL Iraq & Saudi Arabia, the area is now known as German Arabia.

German West Africa stretches south from Kameroon to the Orange River.

German East Africa is comprised of the former Tanganyika and Mozambique.

Togo has reverted to German control.

The new German colonies, along with the former French, Belgium, and Portuguese colonies of Africa and the Middle East, have been lumped together as ECDU protectorates and are administered from Berlin.

The Italian administered portion of the ECDU consisted of Italy, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somaliland, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan.

Italy also controlled Greece, Bosnia, Serbia, Albania, Crete, and half of Cyprus.

As a prize for help extended in Barbarossa, Mussolini had also been given the former Soviet ‘Stans’ in central Asia.

Speer had been appointed to the position of ECDU Minister of the Interior. He was given full authority and control of all the sprawling resources and production of this ‘Greater Reich’.

By mid ‘43 Panzer and Motorized Infantry divisions numbered 30@, although many had been deactivated when it had been decided that there would be no new offensive operations this year.

Outside of equipping the new Panzer formations Speer had ordered production slowed on existing models of tanks and aircraft.

Emphasis would be placed on the next generation of equipment.

For the Luftwaffe, that meant jet aircraft.

The Me-262 fighter is in full production by midyear. (Note with no air war going on with Britain & the USA, Hitler this ATL has left production of aircraft largely in the hands of Speer and Goering and not screwed things up)

A second and third generation of jet fighters is already on the drawing boards.

The He-162 (the peoples fighter) enters production in late 1943.

Also by midyear prototypes of the worlds first jet bomber, the Arado Ar- 234, are flying. Full production is expected to commence by the end of the year.

The Mk VIII ( the Soviet T34 with a re-modeled 5 man turret) along with the Panther, are to be the standard fighting vehicles of the new Panzer formations, with smaller numbers of the Jad Panther and King Tigers.

A Panther II is being designed.

Speer has also commissioned a new Panzer, the Lion. The Lion is to be a 50 ton tank with a 105mm gun. Specifications call for 40 mph top speed, good night fighting capability, and the ability to fire on the run. Deadlines for prototypes is Jan. 1945

Knowing that there will be no offensive action in 1943 has given Germany a leg up on its competition. While all else labor to produce existing models of tanks and planes, the Germans can afford to slow or stop production on soon to be obsolescent models and concentrate on those of newer and deadlier design.

Great emphasis has been placed on the Rocket and Atomic Bomb projects.

A new naval expansion has been ordered by the Fuhrer. A five year plan that will effectively triple Germany’s existing fleet. Tripling Germany’s U-boats means 300 boat fleets for the Indian and Pacific Oceans as well as the Atlantic.

This time line the Bismark never sailed on her fateful journey, so it and the Hood are still with the living. The Bismark and the Tirpitz are the flagships for a Kriegsmarine that now possesses an aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin.

Also note that with no Pacific war the dominance of the aircraft carrier has not been demonstrated and most of the Admirals of the world still think ’Battleships’.

As 1943 draws to a close a nervous world awaits Hitler’s next move.

Jan. 1944- A move, which Hitler is now contemplating.

He has ordered the production of 500(A) Type freighters, the (A) is for America. These will not be ready until late 1945, so he will have to look elsewhere for mischief.

Britain is an armed fortress at this point and virtually impregnable.

However it has finally sunk in, it’s an island! Donitz now has his 300 U-boat navy and the Luftwaffe has been reconstituted. It might be time to blockade Britain and starve and bomb it into submission.

Several of his Generals have suggested rolling up the British Empire like an old carpet. A plan to seize for the Reich the ’vast storehouse’ that Hitler calls the continent of Africa, Operation Diamond Ring, has been planned for the spring. But Hitler hasn’t decided if that’s the way he wants to move.

Hitler has also considered taking from Japan her Asian Empire. One advantage here is that it would not provoke the British or the Americans into open warfare. He can settle with them after the defeat of the Japanese. A major drawback though in attacking Japan, he would be losing the potential use of their fleet to aid in future operations against the British or Americans.

However Hitler was not pleased when Japan had not participated in the attack on the Soviet Union. This had turned out to be a windfall because then he had not had to share the spoils with them. But still allies are supposed to be allies.

He also definitely does not want the whole of China to fall under the control of the Japanese. He has begun selling weapons to the Chinese on the QT.

Unbeknown to him the British have clandestinely begun to do the same.

He has even considered smashing Italy and taking it and it’s mini empire under German control.

But as the spring of 1944 comes and Hitler has still not made up his mind, he does nothing.

He will also do nothing in 1945. What the world will come to call the Second Great War is winding down.

Hitler had already accomplished more than he had ever contemplated and is satiated, although both he and the rest of the world will take awhile to catch on to the fact of it.

A further 20 million former Soviets will die in 1944, another 20 million in 1945, and the same in 1946 before Hitler decides the cleansing is complete. This was a scale of genocide the world of the twentieth century had not thought possible.

1947 is watershed year for a world that is just coming to grips with the reality of peace having broken out.

The ECDU and the British Commonwealth both have continued to make life as uncomfortable for the Japanese in their efforts to subdue China as possible.

Both will keep supplying ever more sophisticated weapons to the Chinese resistance until the Japanese decide in 1947 to call it quits and evacuate China proper entirely, in exchange for formal recognition of the rest of their Empire.

In 1947 the USA explodes the first atomic bomb, which pretty much closes the door on any resumption of hostilities that Hitler may have contemplated.

Germany detonates their first A–bomb in the desert of Mozambique 1 year later.

This causes a mini arms race between the USA and ECDU, but nothing on the scale of the OTL race with the USSR.

India is guided to a less troublesome independence, by a fitter British Commonwealth in 1947.

In 1947 there exists four major power blocks, the USA, ECDU, the British Commonwealth (BC), and the Japanese Empire. There were also two emerging potential players in India and China.

President Truman calls for an conference between these four power blocks to arbitrate the future of the world. All four attend the Four Power Conference in January of 1949 held in Iceland.

Delegates from India also attend.

China is in the midst of a civil war and no one could agree on who to invite so they did not attend.

Delegates from all the Latin American countries also attend.

The four powers agree to set up a Security Council of four full members, the BC, the Japanese Empire, the ECDU and the USA.

The USA, ECDU, BC, and the Japanese Empire, will have 1 vote each. All members will have full veto power over any military action taken by the Security Council, except in the case of defense against an agressor state.

All agree to abstain from any agressive acts against another Council member.

All agree to a mutual defense pact should any member attack another.

They further decide to admit as half members on the Council, India and China (if the Chinese can ever decide who is charge over there). They both will have a ½ vote and no veto power for 50 years, this in recognition of their emerging status as nations. India then, and China later, would protest this arrangement. But if they wanted to play with the big boys they had little choice and eventually went along.

In order to make this a world body, something would have to be done with the smaller nations of the world not encompassed within any of the existing 6 recognized power blocks.

The un-allied countries of the western hemisphere were to be lumped together as Latin America. They were invited to join the Security Council with the same status as India and China as soon as they could work out some way of representative government as a whole.

Any nation not already considered in any power block would have to pick one or another. Portugal, the only continental European country not in the ECDU elected to become part of the BC, mildly annoying Hitler.

Jan. 25th 1999, being the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Iceland Pact, would be the inclusion date that China, India, and Latin America would become full partners in the Security Council.

The first true World Government had been formed.

___________________

Hitler had during 1944 and 1945 created a overall governmental structure for the ECDU that all member nations would be legally subordinate to. The ECDU would have a USA style strong President and a bicameral legislature in which Germany would of course be over represented.

The first general elections were held in the fall of 1946 for President and the Legislature.

As only Germans were eligible to vote in the first Presidential election it was not surprising that Hitler won. Herman Goering was his Vice Presidential running mate and they received 100% of the votes tabulated. Which also was not surprising as they ran unopposed. The new ECDU President was to serve a six year term.

In 1951 Hitler was running for re-election with his new running mate Benito Mussolini. (Italians were eligible to vote along with the Germans in this second Presidential election)

However a crazed Russian patriot who had somehow survived the Soviet Holocaust, although his entire family had been wiped out, had a different idea.

From a window in suppository factory, using an old bolt action Italian rifle he managed to get off three shots in less than four seconds at Hitler’s passing motorcade, fatally wounding Hitler in the head.

As Hitler was being rushed to a local hospital the gunman tried to make his escape. He was run to ground almost immediately and was trapped in a neighborhood theater. The lone gunman named Nikita Kruschev was gunned down on the spot by SS troops.

Herman Goering was now President of the ECDU.

Goering replaced Hitler at the head of the Nazi Party ticket and kept Mussolini as his running mate. They won the 1952 election in a landslide.

In the next round of Presidential elections in 1958 all citizens of the ECDU would be eligible to vote. Not many would vote Nazi.

Hitler would go down as the worst mass murderer in history.

He would also be acknowledged has the Father of the ECDU.

He would be revered by many Germans and reviled around the world by many more.

The Four Powers of the Iceland Conference would compete and squabble for the next fifty years, but somehow manage not to go to war with one another.

Partially because of the talking place to resolve problems that the Security Council provided to the world.

Partially because the Four Powers all had the resources they needed to be successful.

Partially because the advent of Nuclear Weapons had made war alamost unthinkable.

Partially because no one member of the Security Council was prepared to take on all the other members pledged to mutual defense.

Partially because the only world leader that would have possibly been crazy enough to have taken on the rest of world in combat with nuclear weapons , one Adolph Hitler, had inexplicably mellowed and then died.

A MORE DANGEROUS HITLER had improbably led to a more stable second half of the Twentieth Century.

Some notable differences this ATL...

The Jews as a whole would fare slightly better, their death tole would be cut in half.

Israel of course died.

ALL of the surviving Jews in the ECDU were re-located to Madagascar where, as you would expect, eventually they thrived.

The horrific toll of the Jewish Holocaust would be totally eclipsed historically by the Soviet one.

No reliable figures were ever released to the rest of the world, but no less than an unbelievable 100 million Soviet people perished during the war and its terrible aftermath.

There would be no rising of a militant Islam, Hitler’s descendants would see to that.

In 1999 when China and India would become full members of the Security Council, they would enter it with surging economies.

They also would be the most populous members and the least endowed with natural resources. Not a good combination.

India would be a Democracy, China would not.

Latin America would never really get its act together. The LA Parliament would always resemble a three ring circus. There were just too many differences for the member countries to resolve. It would have splintered apart dozens of times if it had been allowed to by the other members of the Security Council.

The British Commonwealth would draw much closer together than in OTL. They would need each other in the face of the twin threats that the ECDU and Japan would represent for years after the war. Because of a comparatively earlier exit from the European War and no Pacific War, they would not suffer near as much damage physically or materially from the war.

Japan would probably benefit more that anyone except Germany in this ATL. By staying out of the war and still acquiring vast new, resource rich, territories she is poised to become a Super Power. Japan would have a constitutional government, but all real power would reside in a military dictatorship, the Shogun lives.

The USA comes flying out of the depression with all the build up to a war that never happens for it.

It does not suffer the losses experienced in OTL WWII.

It also stays more isolationist and smugly congratulates itself for not being drawn into Europe’s hassles this time around.

Post war it goes into a recession.

Roosevelt doesn’t run for a fourth term.

Ike never struts his stuff and never runs for President, he retires as a Colonel and lives on his military pension.

Instead of being the worlds only Super Power, it is one of four at century’s end.

The ECDU and Europe as a whole (not counting Russia) would come out way ahead this ATL assuming a peaceful transition to democracy after Hitler’s death.

I think it makes it. Goering was a much more practical man than Hitler and as the ECDU President he has enormous power, Hitler would have seen to that as he expected to occupy the position indefinitely.

Without the terrible air and land war fought in Europe in 1941 - 45, the continent is much less damaged and hugely more prosperous after the war.

Chances are as long as you wern’t a Jew, or a Gypsy, or a Russian, etc., the war this ATL was much easier and the aftermath much better.

The End

Author’s note: I had a lot of fun writing this, and once I wound it up, I was more curious than anyone to see how it would end.

It very much took on a life of its own, I never expected when I started that Hitler would just run out of gas.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Comment away if it pleases you.

Thanks,

Michael

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