The Germanic Union

The Germanic Union (GU) is a political and economic community of seventeen member states, located in Europe and Africa. It was established in 1957 by the Nuremberg Treaty, adding new areas of policy to the existing Economic Union created by Reich Chancellor Albert Speer in 1946. With almost 300 million citizens, the GU combined generates an estimated 50%-60% share of the world's nominal gross domestic product.

The GU has developed a single market through a standardised system of laws which apply in all member states, guaranteeing the freedom of movement of people, goods, services and capital. It maintains a common trade policy, agricultural and fisheries policies, and a regional development policy. All seventeen member states have adopted a common currency, the mark.

It is a federal system of government with shared power between the overarching European Parliament and the legislatures of member states. It has supranational bodies able to make decisions without the agreement of members though local issues are largely decided by the states themselves. Important institutions and bodies of the GU include the Parliament, the Council, the Court of Justice and the Central Bank. GU citizens elect the Parliament every five years.

The GU traces its origins to the Economic Union formed among eight countries in 1946. Since then the GU has grown in size through the accession of new member states and has increased its powers by the addition of new policy areas to its remit. The Treaty of Munich, signed in December 1958, further cemented the GU as an overarching government body bringing signatory nations into a single governmental entity.

Economic Union
The political climate after the end of World War II favored Western European unity under German hegemony. To Reich Chancellor Albert Speer, the originator of the Economic Union, it was a method to draw Europe together for economic recovery and to forestall any future wars upon the European continent. One of the first successful proposals for Economic Union came in 1946 with the the European Economic Community (EEC) establishing a customs union between Germany and France. With increasing German control of French business, German pressure for a complete dissolution of customs barriers became too great to ignore. It was also seen as a step towards aiding the ailing French economy which had seen major economic drops following their defeat in 1939. Cheap French labor drew German investment with customs barriers between the two nations removed allowing for an easier transfer of capital and trade across the border. The Community's founders declared it "a first step in the federation of Europe", with the hope that this would enable the rebuilding of Europe and to pursue the development of Africa. The other founding members were Italy, Burgundy, Brittany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Rumania.

European Community
In 1949 the Economic Union enlarged to include Spain, Portugal, Finland, South Africa, Ukraine, Ostland, Muscovy, and Caucuses. The latter four, seen by many as German puppets, were spun off from official German control and recognized as states of their own (though still ruled by a German citizenry who worked closely with Berlin). This allowed Germany a political majority in GU policy. With a coalition between these four states along with Brittany, Burgundy, Italy, and South Africa, Germany was able to steer all decisions made by the union. The United Kingdom would join in 1956.

The first direct, democratic elections of members to the European Parliament were held in 1951. They allowed citizens to elect 300 MEPs to the European Parliament and were the first international election in history.

The Vienna Agreement in 1955 created largely open borders without passport controls between most member states. In 1956 the GU flag began to be used and leaders signed the Single European Act. This revised the way community decision making operated to take account of its greater membership, aimed to further reduce trade barriers and introduce greater European Political Cooperation.

Germanic Union
In 1957, the Nuremberg Treaty was signed recognizing the supremacy of the European Parliament over all member states. It drew all colonies under the member nations into the Office of Regional Development, established a supranational tax to support the Union, began military integration, and established a single currency. The treaty came into force April 20, 1957.

1958 saw the ratification of the Act for the Preservation of Germanic Character. It established the conditions of citizenship in the GU. It also gave authority to the SS under the auspices of the Germanic Union to begin marking citizens as fit or unfit for life in the new Germanic Union. Those marked unfit were to be removed and segregated in camps for liquidation in order to ensure the purity of Germanic blood and the eradication of radical elements.

Nations outside the Germanic Union have pressed for accession to the GU including the Confederate States of America, the Nationalist States of America, Argentina, and Chile. Though treaties have been signed creating a quasi-union between these nations and the GU including a dismantling of trade barriers and a cohesive foreign and domestic policy, no official treaty has been signed recognizing union between them.

Member Nations

Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Portugal Finland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania, Brittany, Burgundy, Ostland, Muscovy, Ukraine, Kaukusus, South Africa

Conservatives Win!

October 26, 1955 - Anthony Eden had become the new Prime Minister following the defeat of Labour at the polls. Many have cited the economic downturn of the nation as the contributing factor to Labour's fall from power.

Eden has vowed to initiate talks with Germany in order to join the Economic Union as part of his economic plan to salvage Britain's manufacturing sector. He has aslo sworn to cut military spending and to consider granting independence to what few British colonies remain.

Atlee's popularity has been declining since the last election in 1952. Failed wars with South Africa in Botswana, Rhodesia, Swaziland, and Lesotho coupled with Labour's socialist policies failing to stimulate the economy have led to a rush to embrace the Conservatives.

With the pounds value fast falling, many are afraid of what the future holds.

SOURCE: Manchester Guardian

Russia to the 1960s

Following the surrender to the Third Reich in 1940 and peace with Japan in 1942, the once mighty Soviet Empire had collapsed into a rump state of roughly 40 million. Ruled by a military junta headed by General Vlassov, moves were made to secure Russia's remaining raw materials and to rebuild lost industry.

With threats on both fronts, Vlassov made conscription mandatory with every citizen, including women, required to undergo military training and to remain in the reserves up until the age of 60. The military became the central facet of Russian existence roughly comparable to anicent Sparta. Well over 50% of Russia's budget was allocated to military spending. Vlassov also paid former Wermacht and Luftwaffe officers handsomely to come to Russia to train his soldiers in armor, infantry, and air tactics.

Foreign policy was also important. Vlassov ensured non-aggression treaties with both the Third Reich and Japanese Empire in order to secure his borders. The general became adept at playing both sides off against each other in order to preserve his country's precarious position. He understood the friction that began to develop between both parties and played up his place as a buffer between the growing super powers.

The economy was built on a war footing. Everything was subjugated to keeping the sword sharp against possible invasion. This was further reinforced by the occassional refugee who wandered into Russia either from the Third Reich or the Japanese Empire relating horrific tales of what was happening to Slavs abroad. Still, an embryonic consumer economy began to emerge among the population as fears of invasion from either side abated by 1955. This would later lead to double digit growth in the 1960s as military spending began to decline and consumer investment rose coupled with the government cutting imports.

Vlassov proved liberal in his later years allowing for the formation of a Duma elected by the people. Though it held little power, it allowed for the people to offer their opinions and open dialogue at the local level. By the 1960s, the Duma began to accumulate true legislative power as the population pressed for economic reform, tired of the spartan environment they were captured in. This led to further reforms and Vlassov eventually allowing for presidential elections which he won handily. Some claimed voter fraud though others believed the people embraced the general as their father, protecting them as he had for decades.

Attempts were made to woo back the lost Central Asian republics though prodding by Germany quickly ended this political action.

The Russian arts flourished beginning in the late 1950s. Fatalist in nature, garnering a romantic streak in later years, it served to intiate a movement which would migrate to the Reich and abroad with its stress on mortality and its acceptance of suffering.

SOURCE: SS Factbook

Apartheid

Apartheid (meaning separateness in Afrikaans, cognate to English apart and -hood) was a system of legalized racial segregation enforced by the National Party (NP) South African government beginning in 1943. It arose from a history of settler rule and Dutch and British colonialism, which became policies of separation after South Africa gained self-governance as a dominion within the British Empire and were expanded and formalised into a system of legitimised racism and white nationalism after 1943.

Apartheid legislation classified inhabitants and visitors into racial groups (black, white, coloured and Asian). The system of apartheid sparked significant internal resistance. The government responded to a series of popular uprisings and protests with police brutality, which in turn increased local support for the armed resistance struggle. In response to popular and political resistance, the apartheid government resorted to detentions without trial, torture, censorship, and the banning of political opposition from organisations such as the African National Congress, the Black Consciousness Movement, the Azanian People's Organisation, the Pan Africanist Congress, and the United Democratic Front, which were popularly considered liberation movements effectively crushing opposition to Apartheid policy.

White South Africa became increasingly militarised, embarking on the so-called border wars in Rhodesia, Basutoland, Bechuanaland, and Swaziland with the covert support of the Third Reich, and later sending the South African Defence Force into black townships.

Under Apartheid, South African blacks were stripped of their citizenship, legally becoming citizens of one of ten, theoretically sovereign, bantustans (homelands). The government created the homelands out of the territory of Black Reserves founded during the British Imperial period. These reserves were akin to the US Indian Reservations, Canadian First Nations reserves, or Australian aboriginal reserves. Many black South Africans, however, never resided in these "homelands." The homeland system disenfranchised black people residing in "white South Africa" by restricting their voting rights to the black homelands, the least economically-productive areas of the country. The government segregated education, medical care, and other public services with inferior standards for blacks. The black education system within "white South Africa", by design, prepared blacks for lives as a labouring class. There was a deliberate policy in "white South Africa" of making services for black people inferior to those of whites, to try to "encourage" black people to move into the black homelands, hence black people ended up with services inferior to those of whites, and, to a lesser extent, to those of Indians, and 'coloureds'.

When black South Africans began to rebel in the 1950s, the South African government took a more repressive approach adopting the concentration camps last seen in the Boer War. Situations within the camps were bleak with thousands dying of starvation, typhus, or beatings at the hands of guards. It was not long before these concentration camps became death camps to enact a final solution to South Africa's black problem. The South African problem would be liquidated within a decade.

SOURCE: Dames, Jan Dark Africa: The Brutal History of National Rule

Africa 1955

United States 1955

The National Socialist States of America

Though nominally under the leadership of Fritz Julius Kuhn, Occupied America found itself in the grip of Reinhard Heydrich. Far from an incompetent leader, Heydrich proved adept at building support among the American populace. Through minor concessions, intelligent planning, and the achievement of true economic results which served to stimulate the areas under his authority, Occupied America began to turn further and further away from the free states west of the Mississippi.

It was not unexpected. The situation in America had been bleak throughout the Depression. Under the Hoover and Garner administrations little economic headway had been gained. The national economy had contracted to between 25%-50% of its worth in 1929 with rampant unemployment and stagnated ever afterwards. Millions starved or sacrificed their pride and accepted government handouts. When Dewey was elected on the promise of turning the nation around, he instead pushed America into a war it was not ready for worsening an already bleak situation. Many Americans had expected to be crushed beneath the heel of Nazi oppression much like Poland, the Soviet Union, and other occupied territories. So it was with shock that most Americans discovered their situation improving throughout the fourties and fifties. Jobs were created, the hungry were fed, and the scars of war disappeared beneath an increasingly frenzied phase of reconstruction.

Heydrich had his reasons to push for a renewed America. It would serve as his powerbase in the years to come, a counterbalance to those states under his rivals in the Party. Economically it filled the coffers of the SS, that money used to bribe the proper officials in Heydrich's clandestine scheme to build enough support for his eventual coup in 1965 as well as to strengthen the SS for a possible showdown with the military. A second reason was Heydrich's desire to prove his administrative capabilities. Third, Heydrich attained numerous allies among the American population using it as a labor pool for his forces. Brilliant SS leaders would emerge from the occupied territories filling his ranks.

Of course negative repercussions arose from Heydrich's influence. A streak of racism would creep across Occupied America leading to the establishment of camps which were quickly filled with blacks, Poles, Jews, and others who did not slip across the Mississippi before the crackdown. These debilitating races were deemed responsible for the weakening of the American character and wiped from the face of her shores. America's cooperation in genocide served to cement a stronger bond between occupier and occupied and also to purge defeatist feelings as all that was weak was scapegoated; a sacrifice to regain a dark pride.

In 1954, Occupied America officially broke from the rump United States to form the National Socialist States of America. The United States recognized her independence under the terms that payment for occupation by German troops would end, reparation payments would likewise cease, and the border between the two nations would be demilitarized.

The National Socialist States of America would adopt the Reichmark as its currency and join the Economic Union. It would also include Canada which had also been occupied by Germany following the war. This new nation would be a powerful ally of Heydrich's in the years to come, its leadership personally chosen by the SS Reichsfuhrer to ensure his subtle control.

SOURCE: Arnold, Kevin The Dissolution of the United States

Ark of the Covenant Found!

30 January 1951 - Following an exhaustive search, Wilhelm Filchner claims to have found the Ark of the Covenant in Axum, Ethiopia. Following a trail of evidence which detailed the Ark's transfer from the ancient kingdom of Israel to the Empire of Ethiopia, Filchner and his SS supporters entered the Italian territory to discover if the legends were true.

At the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, Filchner's SS contingent subdued guards to enter the compound where they found what is believed to be the legendary artifact. The discovery is currently being transferred to Berlin for study. If found to be the legendary Ark, it may shed light on biblical studies.

There are those who state that, should this prove to be the Ark of legend, it may serve to undermine Christian status throughout the world. Though an object of great historical value, it lends a mortal view of an immortal principle: the greatness of God. SHould it prove nothing more than an ancient curiosity rather than an object of great power, God himself could be relegated to myth rather than further elevated as a symbol of Truth.

SOURCE: Deutsche Zeitung

The Algerian War

The Algerian War (1951-1957), led to the French adopting the policy of ethnic cleansing throughout its colonies. One of the most important colonization wars, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, use of torture on both sides and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. Effectively started on 24 July 1951 following the death of President Petain, the conflict shook the French State's foundations and led to its strengthening of ties with Germany. Under directives from Pierre Laval's government, the French Army initiated a campaign of "pacification" of French territory.

This "public order operation" quickly grew to a size where it could be called a full-scale war. Algerians, who at first were mostly in favor of peace and tranquillity, turned increasingly toward the goal of independence, supported by other Arab countries. Meanwhile, the French divided themselves on the issues of "French Algeria" (l'Algérie Française), of the maintenance of the status quo, the acceptance of negotiations and of an intermediate status between independence and complete integration in the French State, and complete independence.

Because of the instability of the French State, Premier Laval assumed the title of president fusing it with the office of Premier throughout the conflict. Laval's assumption of absolute power initiated policy geared towards Algeria's continued occupation and integration with the French Community. As the conflict wore on taking increasing tolls on the French State, Laval became more and more dependent on German military and economic aid. The conflict proved pivotal in France's decision to enter developing deeper ties with the Reich leading to the emergence of what would eventually be the European Union. To this day, the war has provided an important strategy frame for counter-insurgency thinkers.

Algerian Nationalism
Algerians (natives and Europeans altogether) took part in World War I, fighting for France as tirailleurs (such regiments were created as early as 1842), tabors, goumiers, and spahis. With Wilson's 1918 proclamation of the Fourteen Points, whose fifth point proclaimed that "A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined," some Algerian intellectuals — dubbed oulémas — began to nurture the desire for, if not independence, at least autonomy and self-rule. It is in this context that Hadj Abd el-Kadir (grand-son of Abd el-Kadir, who had spearheaded the resistance against the French in the first half of the 19th century, and a member of the directing committee of the French Communist Party (PCF)), founded in 1926 the North African Star (Etoile nordafricaine) party, to which Messali Hadj, also member of the PCF and of its affiliated trade union, the CGTU, joined the following year. The North African Party broke from the PCF in 1928, before being dissolved in 1929 at Paris' demand. Amid growing discontent from the Algerian population, the Third Republic (1871-1940) acknowledged some demands, and the Popular Front initiated the Blum-Viollette proposalin 1936 which was supposed to enlighten the Indigenous Code by giving French citizenship to a small number of of Muslims. The pieds-noirs (Algerians of European origin) however violently demonstrated against it, while the North African Party opposed it, leading to the project's abandonment. The independent party was dissolved in 1937 and its leaders were charged with illegal reconstitution of a dissolved league, leading to Messali Hadj's 1937 foundation of the Parti du peuple algérien (Algerian People's Party, PPA), which this time no longer espoused full independence, but only an extensive autonomy. This new party was again dissolved in 1939.

Independent leader Ferhat Abbas founded the Algerian Popular Union(Union populaire algérienne) in 1938, while writing in 1943 the Algerian People's Manifest (Manifeste du peuple algérien). Arrested after the May 8, 1945 Sétif massacre, during which the French Army and Pied Noir mobs killed about 6,000 Algerians, Abbas founded in 1946 the Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto (UDMA) and was elected as a deputy. Founded in 1951, the National Liberation Front (FLN) succeeded Messali Hadj's Algerian People's Party (PPA), while its leaders created an armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (National Liberation Army) to engage in armed struggle against French authority.

Beginning of hostilities
In the early morning hours of July 24, 1951, FLN maquisards — (guerrillas), or "terrorists" as they were called by the French — launched attacks in various parts of Algeria against military and civilian targets following the death of President Petain as the nation mourned their leader. They also attacked many French civilians, killing several. From Cairo, the FLN broadcast a proclamation calling on Muslims in Algeria to join in a national struggle for the "restoration of the Algerian state - sovereign, democratic and social - within the framework of the principles of Islam." It was the reaction of Laval who set the tone of French policy. On July 25, he declared in the National Assembly: "One does not compromise when it comes to defending the internal peace of the nation, the unity and integrity of the State. The Algerian departments are part of the French State. They have been French for a long time, and they are irrevocably French. Between them and metropolitan France there can be no conceivable secession." At first, and despite the May 8, 1945 Sétif massacre and pro-Independence struggle before WWII, most Algerians were in favour of a relative status-quo. While Messali Hadj had radicalized by forming the FLN, Ferhat Abbas maintained a more moderate, electoral strategy. Less than 500 fellaghas (pro-Independence) fighters) could be counted at the beginning of the conflict. The Algerian population radicalized itself in particular because of the increasingly brutal methods employed by French troops throughout the war.

The FLN
The FLN uprising presented nationalist groups with the question of whether to adopt armed revolt as the main course of action. During the first year of the war, Ferhat Abbas's UDMA, the ulema, and the PCA maintained a friendly neutrality toward the FLN. In April 1953, Abbas flew to Cairo, where he formally joined the FLN. This action brought in many évolués who had supported the UDMA in the past. The AUMA also threw the full weight of its prestige behind the FLN. Bendjelloul and the pro-integrationist moderates had already abandoned their efforts to mediate between the French and the rebels.

After the collapse of the MTLD, Messali Hadj formed the leftist Mouvement National Algérien (MNA), which advocated a policy of violent revolution and total independence similar to that of the FLN. The ALN, the military wing of the FLN, subsequently wiped out the MNA guerrilla operation, and Messali Hadj's movement lost what little influence it had had in Algeria. However, the MNA gained the support of many Algerian workers in France through the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Algériens (Union of Algerian Workers). The FLN also established a strong organization in France to oppose the MNA. "Café wars," resulting in nearly 5,000 deaths, were waged in France between the two rebel groups throughout the war years.

On the political front, the FLN worked to persuade — and to coerce — the Algerian masses to support the aims of the Independence movement through contributions. FLN-influenced labour unions, professional associations, and students' and women's organizations were created to lead opinion in diverse segments of the population but here too violent coercion was widely used. Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist from Martinique who became the FLN's leading political theorist, provided a sophisticated intellectual justification for the use of violence in achieving national liberation. He stated that only through violence could an oppressed people attain human status. From Cairo, Ahmed Ben Bella ordered the liquidation of potential interlocuteurs valables, those independent representatives of the Muslim community acceptable to the French through whom a compromise or reforms within the system might be achieved.

As the FLN campaign of influence and terror spread through the countryside, many European farmers in the interior (called Pieds-Noirs) sold their holdings and sought refuge in Algiers and other Algerian cities. After a series of bloody, random massacres and bombings by Muslim Algerians in several towns and cities, the French Pieds-Noirs and urban French population began to demand that the French government engage in sterner countermeasures, including the proclamation of a state of emergency, capital punishment for political crimes, denunciation of all separatists, and most ominously, a call for 'tit-for-tat' reprisal operations by police, military, and para-military forces. Colon vigilante units, whose unauthorized activities were conducted with the passive cooperation of police authorities, carried out ratonnades (literally, rat-hunts; synonymous with Arab-killings) against suspected FLN members of the Muslim community. The FLN terror and intimidation campaign gave these hunts strong motivation and starting points.

By 1952, with French colonials and Algerians murdering one another in greater and greater numbers devolving Algeria into a state of anarchy, Laval was convinced that the military was the only way to resolve the conflict.

After the Philippeville Massacre
The FLN adopted tactics similar to those of nationalist groups in Asia, and the French did not realize the seriousness of the challenge they faced until 1952, when the FLN moved into urbanized areas. "An important watershed in the Algerian War was the massacre of Pieds-Noirs civilians by the FLN near the town of Philippeville in August 1952. Before this operation, FLN policy was to attack only military and government-related targets. The commander of the Constantine wilaya/region, however, decided a drastic escalation was needed. The killing by the FLN and its supporters of 123 people, including 71 French, including old women and babies, shocked Governor General Jacques Soustelle into calling for more repressive measures against the rebels. The government claimed it killed 1,273 guerrillas in retaliation; according to the FLN and to The Times magazine, 12,000 Algerians were massacred by the armed forces and police, as well as Pieds-Noirs gangs. Soustelle's repression was an early cause of the Algerian population's rallying to the FLN.After Philippeville, Soustelle declared sterner measures and an all-out war began. In 1953, demonstrations of French Algerians forced the French government to increase the number of French troops in the region.

Soustelle's successor, Governor General Lacoste, a socialist, abolished the Algerian Assembly. Lacoste saw the assembly, which was dominated by pieds-noirs, as hindering the work of his administration, and he undertook to rule Algeria by decree. He favored stepping up French military operations and granted the army exceptional police powers — a concession of dubious legality under French law — to deal with the mounting political violence. He called for the establishment of camps to house both captured and suspected militants, a reality by the end of 1953, as well as other repressive measures to root out rebels including executions.

In August/September 1953, the internal leadership of the FLN met to organize a formal policy-making body to synchronize the movement's political and military activities. The highest authority of the FLN was vested in the thirty-four-member National Council of the Algeria Revolution (Conseil National de la Révolution Algérienne, CNRA), within which the five-man Committee of Coordination and Enforcement (Comité de Coordination et d'Exécution, CCE) formed the executive. The externals, including Ben Bella, knew the conference was taking place but by chance or design on the part of the internals were unable to attend.

Meanwhile, in October 1953, the French Air Force intercepted a Moroccan DC-3 that was flying to Tunis, carrying Ahmed Ben Bella, Mohammed Boudiaf, Mohamed Khider and Hocine Aït Ahmed, and forced it to land in Algiers. Lacoste had the FLN external political leaders arrested and executed on orders by Laval. This action caused the remaining rebel leaders to harden their stance.

France took a more openly hostile view of President Gamal Nasser's material and political assistance to the FLN, which some French analysts believed was the most important element in sustaining continued rebel activity in Algeria. This attitude was a factor in persuading France to participate in the November 1953 invasion of Egypt with Italy and Germany.

During 1954, support for the FLN weakened as the breach between the internals and externals widened. Aid from Arab nations dwindled in the wake of Egypt's collapse, pressured by the Reich not to intervene in what was considered France's private affairs.

Writer, philosopher and playwright Albert Camus, native of Algiers, often associated with existentialism, tried unsuccessfully to persuade both sides to at least leave civilians alone, writing editorials against the use of torture in Combat newspaper. The FLN considered him a fool, and some Pieds Noirs considered him a traitor. Nevertheless, Camus said that when faced with a radical choice he would eventually support his community. This statement made him lose his status among the left-wing intellectuals; when he died in 1960 in a car crash, the official thesis of an ordinary accident (a quick open and shut case) has left more than a few observers doubtful. His widow has claimed that Camus, though discreet, was in fact an ardent supporter of French Algeria in the last years of his life.

Battle of Algiers
To increase international and domestic French attention to their struggle, the FLN decided to bring the conflict to the cities and to call a nationwide general strike. The most notable manifestation of the new urban campaign was the Battle of Algiers, which began on September 30, 1953, when three women placed bombs at three sites including the downtown office of Air France. The FLN carried out an average of 800 shootings and bombings per month through the spring of 1954, resulting in many civilian casualties and inviting a crushing response from the authorities. The 1954 general strike was largely observed by Muslim workers and businesses.

General Jacques Massu was instructed to use whatever methods necessary to restore order in the city. Using paratroopers, he broke the strike and then in the succeeding months systematically destroyed the FLN infrastructure in Algiers. But the FLN had succeeded in showing its ability to strike at the heart of French Algeria and in rallying and forcing a mass response to its demands among urban Muslims. Later Massu's troops punished villages that were suspected of harboring rebels by attacking them with mobile troops or aerial bombardment and gathered 2 million of the rural Muslim population and marched them off to concentration camps.

Guerrilla War
From its origins in 1951 as ragtag maquisards numbering in the hundreds and armed with a motley assortment of hunting rifles, the FLN had evolved by 1954 into a disciplined fighting force of nearly 40,000. More than 30,000 were organized along conventional lines in external units that were stationed in Moroccan and Tunisian sanctuaries near the Algerian border, where they served primarily to divert some French manpower from the main theaters of guerrilla activity to guard against infiltration. The brunt of the fighting was borne by the internals in the wilayat; estimates of the numbers of internals range from 6,000 to more than 25,000, with thousands of part-time irregulars.

During 1953 and 1954, the FLN successfully applied hit-and-run tactics in accordance with guerrilla warfare theory, which was at the time being formalized, as "people's war". Whilst some of this was aimed at military targets a significant amount was invested in a terror campaign against those in any way deemed to be supporting or encouraging French authority. This resulted in acts of sadistic torture and the most brutal violence against all including women and children. Specializing in ambushes and night raids and avoiding direct contact with superior French firepower, the internal forces targeted army patrols, military encampments, police posts, and colonial farms, mines, and factories, as well as transportation and communications facilities. Once an engagement was broken off, the guerrillas merged with the population in the countryside. Kidnapping was commonplace, as were the ritual murder and mutilation of captured French military, pied-noirs of both genders and every age, suspected collaborators or traitors. At first, the FLN targeted only Muslim officials of the colonial regime; later, they coerced, maimed (cutting off ears and nose with a douk-douk was a favored torture) or killed village elders, government employees, and even simple peasants who simply refused to support them. Sometimes simply for smoking. Moreover, during the first two years of the conflict, the guerrillas killed about 6,000 Muslims and 1,000 non-Muslims according to a former paratrooper. Although successful in engendering an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty within both communities in Algeria, the revolutionaries' coercive tactics suggested that they had not yet inspired the bulk of the Muslim people to revolt against French colonial rule. Gradually, however, the FLN gained control in certain sectors of the Aurès, the Kabylie, and other mountainous areas around Constantine and south of Algiers and Oran. In these places, the FLN established a simple but effective— although frequently temporary — military administration that was able to collect/extort taxes and food and to recruit manpower. But it was never able to hold large fixed positions. Algerians all over the country also initiated underground social, judicial, and civil organizations, gradually building their own state.

The loss of competent field commanders both on the battlefield and through defections and political purges created difficulties for the FLN. Moreover, power struggles in the early years of the war split leadership in the wilayat, particularly in the Aurès. Some officers created their own fiefdoms, using units under their command to settle old scores and engage in private wars against military rivals within the FLN.

French Counter-Insurgency Operations
Despite complaints from the military command in Algiers, the French government was reluctant for many months to admit that the Algerian situation was out of control and that what was viewed officially as a pacification operation had developed into a major war. By 1953, France had committed more than 400,000 troops to Algeria. Although the elite colonial infantry airborne units and the Foreign Legion bore the brunt of offensive counterinsurgency combat operations, approximately 170,000 Muslim Algerians also served in the regular French army, most of them volunteers. France also sent air force and naval units to the Algerian theater, including rotary-winged craft (helicopters). In addition to service as a flying ambulances and cargo carrier, French forces utilized the helicopter for the first time in a ground attack role in order to pursue and destroy fleeing FLN guerrilla units. The French also used napalm.

The French army resumed an important role in local Algerian administration through the Special Administration Section (Section Administrative Spécialisée, SAS), created in 1952. The SAS's mission was to establish contact with the Muslim population and weaken nationalist influence in the rural areas by asserting the "French presence" there. SAS officers — called képis bleus (blue caps) — also recruited and trained bands of loyal Muslim irregulars, known as harkis. Armed with shotguns and using guerrilla tactics similar to those of the FLN, the harkis, who eventually numbered about 180,000 volunteers, more than the FLN effectives were an ideal instrument of counterinsurgency warfare.
Harkis were mostly used in conventional formations, either in all-Algerian units commanded by French officers or in mixed units. Other uses included platoon or smaller size units, attached to French battalions. A third use was an intelligence gathering role, with some reported minor pseudo-operations in support of their intelligence collection. According to military historian Helmut Klein, however, "the extent of these pseudo-operations appears to have been very limited both in time and scope... The most widespread use of pseudo type operations was during the 'Battle of Algiers' in 1954. The principal French employer of covert agents in Algiers was the Fifth Bureau, the psychological warfare branch." The Fifth Bureau "made extensive use of "turned" FLN members", one such network being run by Captain Paul-Alain Leger of the 10th Paras. "Persuaded" to work for the French forces, including by the use of torture and threats against their family, these agents "mingled with FLN cadres. They planted incriminating forged documents, spread false rumours of treachery and fomented distrust... As a frenzy of throat-cutting and disemboweling broke out among confused and suspicious FLN cadres, nationalist slaughtered nationalist from April to September 1954 and did France's work for her". But this type of operation involved individual operatives rather than organized covert units.

The French focused on developing native guerrilla groups that would fight against the FLN, one of whom fought in the Southern Atlas Mountains, equipped by the French Army.

The FLN also used pseudo-guerrilla strategies against the French Army on one occasion, with the "Force K," a group of 1,000 Algerians who volunteered to serve in Force K as guerrillas for the French. But most of these members were either already FLN members, or were turned by the FLN, once enlisted. Corpses of purported FLN members displayed by the unit were in fact those of dissidents and members of other Algerian groups killed by the FLN. The French Army finally discovered the war ruse, and tried to hunt down Force K members. However, some 600 managed to escape and join the FLN with weapons and equipment.

Late in 1954, General Raoul Salan, commanding the French army in Algeria, instituted a system of quadrillage, or block warden system, dividing the country into sectors, each permanently garrisoned by troops responsible for suppressing rebel operations in their assigned territory. Salan's methods sharply reduced the instances of FLN terrorism but tied down a large number of troops in static defense. Salan also constructed a heavily patrolled system of barriers to limit infiltration from Tunisia and Morocco. The best known of these was the Morice Line (named for the French defense minister, André Morice), which consisted of an electrified fence, barbed wire, and mines over a 320-kilometer stretch of the Tunisian border.

The French military command ruthlessly applied the principle of collective responsibility to villages suspected of sheltering, supplying, or in any way cooperating with the guerrillas. Villages that could not be reached by mobile units were subject to aerial bombardment. FLN Guerrillas that fled to caves or other remote hiding places were tracked and hunted down. In one episode, FLN guerrillas who refused to surrender and withdraw from a cave complex were dealt with by French Foreign Legion Pioneer troops, who, lacking flamethrowers or explosives, simply bricked up each cave, leaving the residents to die of suffocation.

Finding it impossible to protect all of Algeria's remote farms and villages, the French government also initiated a program of concentrating large segments of the rural population, including whole villages, in camps under military supervision to prevent them from voluntarily aiding the rebels — or to protect them from FLN extortion. In the three years (1954–57) during which the regroupement program was followed, more than 2 million Algerians were removed from their villages, mostly in the mountainous areas, and resettled in the plains, where many found it impossible to re-establish their accustomed economic or social situations. Living conditions in the fortified villages were poor. Hundreds of empty villages were devastated, and in hundreds of others, orchards and croplands not previously burned by French troops went to seed for lack of care. These population transfers were effective in denying the use of remote villages to FLN guerrillas who had used them as a source of rations and manpower, but also caused significant resentment on the part of the displaced villagers.

The French army shifted its tactics at the end of 1955 from dependence on quadrillage (block warden system) to the use of mobile forces deployed on massive search-and-destroy missions against FLN strongholds. Within the next year, Salan's successor, General Maurice Challe, appeared to have suppressed major rebel resistance.

End of the War
Overextended, with well over half of France's forces being used to hold Algeria, Laval knew the economy could not handle the situation indefinitely. The cost of the war threatened the French State with bankruptcy despite the fact that they had virtually won. Laval took radical measures to solve the situation.

In 1957, Laval approved Operation Autumn which called for all concentration camps to be transformed into death camps. When parts of the French Army balked at serving as cold-blooded executioners, the Pied-noirs stepped forward to fill the gap. Over 7 million "undesirables" would die in the camps. By the end of the operation in 1961, the Pied-noirs were the majority in the country with a population close to 1 million.

Death Toll
Algerians suffered deaths figured at approximately 8 million dead. French military authorities listed their losses at nearly 18,000 dead (6,000 from non-combat-related causes) and 65,000 wounded. European-descended civilian casualties exceeded 10,000 (including 3,000 dead) in 42,000 recorded terrorist incidents. According to French figures, security forces killed 141,000 rebel combatants, and more than 12,000 Algerians died in internal FLN purges during the war. An additional 5,000 died in the "café wars" in France between the FLN and rival Algerian groups. French sources also estimated that 70,000 Muslim civilians were killed, or abducted and presumed killed, by the FLN.

SOURCE: Phillipe, Henri France's Colonial Legacy

Changes to Our Timeline 1940 - 1949

May 1940 - Operation Babarossa launched

July 1940 - Siege of Leningrad begins

August 1940 - Kiev falls to Wermacht

August 7, 1940 - Operation Wotan launched

September 1940 - Moscow falls. Soviet Union surrenders

September 1940 - Mongolia falls to Imperial Japanese forces

October 1940 - Greece surrenders to Italy

November 1940 - Thomas Dewey elected President of the United States

November 1940 - Xinjiang declares independence

January 1941 - First SS Units enter the Congo

April 1, 1941 - Japan invades Siberia

April 8, 1941 - President Dewey enacts sanctions to cripple Japan's economy

April 1941 - Germany occupies Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan

April 20, 1941 - Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium annexed to the Reich

October 7, 1941 - Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor

October 8, 1941 - United States declares war on Japan

October 11, 1941 - Hitler declares war on the United States

October 11, 1941 - Siam surrenders to Japan

October 25, 1941 - Guam and Wake Island captured by Japan

November 1941 - Malaya falls to Japan

December 1941 - Singapore surrenders to Japan

March 1942 - German forces land in Labrador

April 12, 1942 - Japanese Imperial Navy defeats the US Navy at Battle of Midway annihilating American presence in Pacific

July 8, 1942 - Armistice ends conflict between Russia and Japan

December 7, 1942 - Early stages of Hawaiian invasion by Japan begins

January 1, 1943 - Panama Canal attacked

March 19, 1943 - Battle of Burnsville. American forces abandon Canada

April 1943 - Blitz begins (aerial attack by Luftwaffe on New York City)

May 1943 - National Party under DF Malan wins elections in South Africa

May 1943 - Battle of Troy. Patton and Rommel meet for the first time

June 1943 - Royal Indian Mutiny

July 1943 - Battle of New York

July 8, 1943 - Battle of Cape May. US Northern Atlantic Fleet decimated by Raeder and the Kriegsmarine

August 5, 1943 - First Battle of the Atlantic. Tactical victory of Kriegsmarine over US Atlantic Fleet

August 1943 - Ottawa surrenders to Guderian

August 1943 - Boston surrenders to Rommel

September 21, 1943 - Sichuan Clique allies with Wang Jingwei

October 1943 - Battle of Blue Water Bridge. German drive into Michigan via Canada

October 3, 1943 - Battle of Harrisburg

October 18, 1943 - Battle of Pittsburgh

November 27, 1943 - Chiang Kai-Shek executed by Provisional Government

December 1943 - Hawaii falls to Japan

February 1944 - UK and Japan agree to an armistice ending conflict in Asia

March 1944 - Atlee becomes Prime Minister via Labour victory in UK

April 30, 1944 - Indianapolis surrenders to Guderian

May 14, 1944 - Cincinnati falls to combined forces of Rommel and Guderian

June 6, 1944 - Battle of Charleston, largest amphibious assault in history

July 4, 1944 - Washington DC falls to German forces. President Dewey dies. Secretary of State Dulles made president

August 1944 - Armistice between US and Third Reich

October 31, 1944 - United States signs peace treaty with Germany

March 3, 1945 - Germany detonates first nuclear weapon

April 30, 1945 - Albert Speer made Chancellor of German Reich. Goering declared President

August 15, 1945 - India declared an independent state with Bose as president

February 4, 1949 - Strom Thurmond declares independence of southern states leading to resurrection of Confederacy

The South Rises Again

4 February 1949 - Led by President Strom Thurmond, the Confederate States of America re-emerged as a national entity. At the declaration of independence in Birmingham, AL were Reich President Goering, French President Petain, and King George VI.

The new nation is comprised of the former US states of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, and Arkansas with Birmingham as its capital.

The divide occurred over attempts by the federal government of the United States to exert greater control, increasing federal oversight. The United States government had also began a system of desegregation of American military forces which Thurmond and his supporters feared may be the harbinger of an end to Jim Crow laws and segregation policies. With the support of the German Reich, Thurmond and his allies officially withdrew from government following failed attempts at compromise.

Strom Thurmond stated in his address to those in attendance that he was not a traitor. It was the Democratic Party that was guilty of treasonous acts not only against the ideals of the party but to the nation in general and the South in particular. "They would resurrect a new age of Reconstruction. They would strip us of our traditions, our freedoms, our very dignity. Well I will say this to those traitors who turned their backs on the principles of the party. States rights are paramount, our dignity will be upheld, and I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the US Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches. Of utmost importance, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."

SOURCE: Courier-Journal

Albert Speer: Reich Chancellor

Albert Speer

Reich Chancellor: 30 April 1945 - 20 April 1965

Many have called Speer the most reluctant world leader to ever take the political stage. Yet that did not stop him from becoming the brilliant leader that he was.

An apolitical man, Speer was first drawn to politics at a Party rally he attended in December 1930. There, he was amazed to find himself swept up in the oratory of the Fuhrer. Speer claimed to have been quite affected, not only with Hitler's proposed solutions to the threat of Communism and his renunciation of the Treaty of Versailles, but also with the man himself. It was this attraction to Hitler that would draw Speer into the Party and up to the highest echelons of power.

Despite numerous offers during the early years of the Reich, Speer turned downed numerous posts, instead wishing to focus on the architecture that was making him famous throughout Germany. He was determined to leave a defining mark on the Reich, his obsession with his works bordering on the manic. It was only through Hitler's personal request that Speer accepted the post of Armaments Minister during the Atlantic War. In that post, Speer demonstrated an excellent ability to recognize and recruit talent, manage, and lead. It was also in this post that Speer realized the inefficient system of conflicting and overlapping offices that hindered productivity in the Reich. He would learn quickly how to overcome those who stood in his way, centralizing authority in his hands.

It was a surprise to Speer when he spoke to Hitler on the night of the Fuhrer's 56th birthday. Hitler's health was failing and he believed he could no longer fulfill the obligations of his office. Speer tried to counter Hitler's arguments, but the aged leader would hear none of it. Hitler was not bitter that his body was failing him and that his time to retire had come. The Fuhrer had returned Germany to its proper place as a world power. He had led the Reich to victories over all the western powers. Germany was whole again. His duty was done. But Hitler could not leave unless he was sure that his Reich was in proper hands. The Fuhrer had already decided to split his office back into its two former parts. Goering was to receive the office of Reich President. Hitler wanted Speer to take the office of Chancellor.

For Speer, the idea of accepting such a post was anathema to what he believed. He had only taken the post of Armaments Minister to see Germany through its war with America. He was not a politician. He was an architect. What he had seen of the political leadership sickened him. He had avoided the corruption of power thus far. To be besieged by such sycophants. Speer had been sure this meeting was Hitler's acceptance of his resignation. He had never dreamed the Fuhrer would offer him such power. But offer Hitler did. "I cannot accept your offer, my Fuhrer. I am no leader. Surely there is someone better suited for this than I."

"You say you are a builder," Hitler told Speer, that old fire rekindled in his blue eyes with Speer caught in the center of them. "What do you build for? You build for the future of the Reich. What I am offering you is the chance to shape the Reich itself. No man can understand this more than you. You are an artist. You see things others can't. You are not corrupted like everyone else. You are about the spiritual. The amorphous shape. You take from the ether and make the abstract real. You cannot deny your talents. I have watched you. Nothing is impossible when you set your mind to it. I have entrusted so many of my dreams to you." Tears shone in the Hitler's eyes as his body trembled. The frail Fuhrer put a shaking hand on Speer's shoulder. "These people need you. I need you. Do not forsake us."

As president, Goering proved more a figurehead than an all-powerful ruler. He was content to sit in the background, stepping out for grandiose state functions in glittering, gawdy outfits. He did little to impede Speer in his post as chancellor, instead wandering the vast halls of his presidential palace. But the threat to Speer's power would not come from above. It would come from below.

Speer came to discover that without allies, the system Hitler had constructed threatened to consume him. Gauleiters, Ministers, SS, and others all valued their independence, even against their ruler, battling over the pettiest things. Speer would form an alliance with Goebbels and Himmler against these men in order to push his agenda. Himmler proved quite adept at blackmailing many officials into compliance with his vast collection of data collected over the years through the Gestapo. Goebbels also served his purpose securing loyalty from the people while using his intellect to outthink many who would try to undermine Speer's authority. Goebbels was to be the public voice of the quiet, reserved Speer. Of course these men did not freely work for Speer. In exchange for the loyalty of the SS, Speer gave Himmler free reign to continue his racial policies aimed at extinguishing all untermenschen from the Reich as well as to pursue ventures like his soldier-farmer colonies in the Eastern Territories. Goebbels found himself elevated to the post of vice chancellor and President of the Reichstag as well as given free reign to begin his assault on religion, though Speer served to moderate some of Goebbel's actions in this regard.

Speer proved a practical ruler, pushing reforms throughout the Nazi system. One of his first acts was to clear the cabinet of many of Hitler's appointees and replace them with professionals. For the first time in thirteen years, the cabinet became a working organ in government. Speer would delegate his programs to these officials who in turn made his will happen. Speer was quick to clean up a vast amount of corruption in government, though the SS proved exempt from these drives. The average age of government would decrease under Speer to an average of 38. Speer had an affinity for young, driven men who focused their energies into their duties.

The educational system found itself completely overhauled. Appalled by the type of students produced under Hitler's reign, Speer curtailed many of the powers of the Hitler Youth in order to resurrect the intellectual traditions trampled by the Nazis. Many restrictive laws were relaxed allowing for greater freedoms for teachers in the classroom. Crackpot theories, political ideology, and other programs receded from the curriculum. Incentives were also created to encourage students to enter psychology and physics, now stripped of their pariah status as Jewish studies.

The economy would also see reform under Speer. He knew reparations money would not continue forever, that slave labor would only damage the economy in the long run, and that the massive military currently in existence was not necessary, especially with the nuke now in their arsenal. Demobilization was rushed through in order to cut military spending, though a sizable budget would remain. Slave labor was slowly removed from industry creating jobs for the soldiers returning home. Government was streamlined and many unnecessary projects halted, most especially Hitler's building projects though Welthauptstadt Germania would still be realized by 1964. To further encourage economic growth, Speer had an economic union established that included nearly all of Europe, Canada, and South Africa. It forged a single currency, stripped away tariffs, and allowed German business to dominate like it had never done before.

Great strides were made in agriculture boosting yields and turning the Reich into the breadbasket of the world. Advanced fertilizers, farm equipment, and more put Germany at the forefront of food production.

Germany would also establish the first space agency headed by Werner von Braun. Goals made by the agency were to launch the first artificial satellite (1955), to put a man in orbit (1958), to reach the moon (1964), to establish a lunar colony (1979), and to eventually venture out to other planets in the Solar System.

Technology and medicine would flourish during Speer's reign. He invested mass amounts of state funds into education and grants to spur technological growth, doing his best to get the greatest minds to interact with one another. The medical field made rapid gains, in part because of the use of untermenschen for experiments. The first organ transplants, human study (both physical and psychological), dissections, and more allowed for in depth understanding of the human form. Genetics were also pursued with the goal of eventually breeding out recessive genes and enhancing others.

In the shadows of this golden age, the Final Solution was ramping up. With the Jews of Europe wiped out by 1946, the SS added others to their list for extinction. This would include Slavs, Asiatics, Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Blacks, Homosexuals, Gypsies, the insane, the handicapped, the retarded, Jews outside Europe, and others. Camps began to appear in Africa, North America, and the Eastern Occupied Territories. They would gradually eat away at the pseudo independence of the Central Asian states as well, gradually turning them into reichskommissariats. Tens of millions would die over the next two decades with the SS declaring their work done by 1963 in all German territories. It is estimated that roughly 100-150 million may have died during this period (including in the expanded territories of the European Union).

The Economic union Speer had crafted would lead to the integration of states into the Reich which created a problem for the superstate. How was Germany to deal with this influx of individuals, many of whom may not be of Aryan stock? The SS would step in, doing racial histories and deciding what groups were worthy and which were meant for the camps. One shocking development saw the southern Italians deemed subhuman as well as the Albanians. Many would flee to independent Yugoslavia to avoid the camps. Despite pressure by Himmler, Speer would not authorize an invasion of the slavic kingdom.

With Europe integrating, German influence, and thus SS influence, spread. The SS would make its presence most known in Africa where it quickly rushed to wipe out the natives or use them as slave labor in the mines. By 1963, roughly 15 million blacks remained in the whole of Africa.

Media would undergo a revolution as television emerged. Goebbels proved the most adept at realizing its full potential, using the new media as a way to assimilate many into the regime including those nations newly added to the Reich.

Nuclear power would become the beating heart for this great regime, providing energy to millions at a fraction of cost.

As to religion, Goebbel's served to bring first all German churches and finally all European churches under state control. Dogma was altered to support the state and its goals. This revisionism saw alterations to the Old Testament which stripped out Jewish cultural history and replaced it with an Aryan motif.

The population of the Reich would grow by leaps and bounds. By 1960, the estimated population of the Reich (including those European states added through the union) stood at well over 300 million.

Over the years, Speer's power grew greater and greater as he centralized his authority. One by one he removed those gauleiters against him until all that remained were allies. In full control, the chancellor would make it law that he had the right to appoint and dismiss gauleiters at will. Speer would further undermine local authorities by having all taxes paid straight to the central government which would in turn be doled out to the local governments.

When Himmler died in 1964, Heydrich became the new Reichsfuhrer and a rift began to develop in the alliance Speer had once held with the SS. Though Germany had expanded greatly, independent states still existed such as the United States and Japan not to mention South America and Australia. This angered the Reichsfuhrer who believed that Germany should use their nuclear arsenal to force the world under their hegemony. There was also the issue of open elections. Speer believed it was time to allow for a gradual return to democracy, something many in the Party feared. Speer believed it would make the government more responsive to the people and also break up the stagnating influence of a single party with no challengers. The threat of elections would force those in government to become more dynamic and competive. It would also bring fresh voices to power. But above all, what proved the most damaging to the alliance between Speer and the SS was when it was discovered that Japan was working towards a nuclear weapon. Heydrich presented this information to Speer, advising the chancellor that Japan should serve as a warning to those who would think to challenge Germany's nuclear superiority. The Reichsfuhrer suggested that they nuke every major city in Japan destroying its industrial and cultural base and rendering it incapable of challenging them in the future. Speer was horrified at the idea. The chaos that such an act would bring. The casualties alone would be in the tens of millions. Then there was the threat of destablization throughout Asia following the fall of Japan which could threaten to spill over into German lands. Speer believed dialogue would work best.

Despite warnings from all corners, Speer believed himself safe from the Reichsfuhrer's wrath. The chancellor had the support of the military, the final arbiter of power in the Reich. He had also been gradually wittling away at SS authority, Himmler's obsession with the Final Solution and his colonies blinding him to Speer's eroding of SS authority, whether it be in factory ownership, independent funding, control over the nuclear arsenal, the dismantling of the Gestapo, or the gradual demobilization of the Waffen SS with those remaining divisions being placed under Wermacht control. By the time Heydrich had come to power, the SS had been reduced to a national police force with a foreign intelligence wing. But such a force was more than enough for Reinhard.

With the strength of the SS behind him, Heydrich launched a coup on April 20, 1965.

SOURCE: Blix, Heidi The Reluctant Chancellor

Asia 1945

Europe 1945

Republic of India Declared!

15 August 1945 - After two years of negotiations between the British government and various factions within the country mediated by the Japanese, India has finally formally declared indpendence.

It has been a grueling two years of bargaining, arguing, and threats which at times seemed destined to end in the partition of India into two separate, and possibly warring, nations. The INC, Muslim League, and various princes all sought the advancement of their own agendas in the near chaos despite the threats their plans posed to an overarching national government. Many would say Japanese bayonets were the only thing keeping all representatives at the table.

Partition seemed the greatest threat to India throughout the past two years. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the appointed President of India, had repeatedly stood against any outcome short of a whole, undivided India despite calls by Jinnah and the Muslim League for a split along religious lines. The issue of an independent Pakistan had arisen time and again as the only possible solution to future problems sure to arise between Muslims and Hindus in the future state. Many thought the divide between them was insurmountable, but Bose has proven his diplomatic skills once again.

In order to hold his fragile confederacy of states and kingdoms together, Bose has allowed certain compromises. Perhaps the most important was the consitutional clause creating a secular state. Further, to assure local rulers that he is not a tyrant, a federal system of government has been established. This has also served to mollify Jinnah, the Prime Minister, who had called for an autonomous state of Pakistan. Though short of a rump state within a state, the federal system served to empower Muslim majorities in various principalities where they hold the majority. It also guaranteed seats in Parliament for Muslims.

Bose and Jinnah celebrated together in front of the throngs of cheering supporters. Muslim and Hindu, hand in hand, the two men hope to keep India together in the years to come.

SOURCE: The Herald

Excerpt from SS Report on Diebner's Discovery

On 3 March 1945, the successful detonation of an atomic bomb was accomplished near Ohrdruf, Thuringia. Its destructive capability has proven greater than earlier expected at an estimated 10 kilotons of TNT. Detonation destroyed an area roughly stretching 160 meters in diameter with varying levels of destruction beyond that and shockwaves reaching as far as 60 miles from point of impact. All 700 prisoners located on site were vaporized by the weapon. The light of the blast is beyond description. The whole area was lit by a searing light with the intensity many times that of the midday sun. It was golden, purple, violet, gray, and blue. It lit the earth with a clarity and beauty that cannot be described but must be seen to be imagined. It was death in all her majesty.


Herr Dr. Diebner has proven his hypothesis that a small, transportable atomic bomb is possible. He has already requested greater amounts of uranium and other raw materials, better facilities and equipment, as well as an increase in funding for his project. It is my opinion that such requests be granted. This is an advantage beyond any power on Earth. It must be added to our arsenal.


SOURCE: Reich Historical Archives (Recently Declassified)