In this TL, a really crazy young dictator comes to power in Eastern Germany after WWII - already beginning with his actions under Soviet control, but even more so with increasing independence.
He's crazy enough for pursuing an extremely expansionist policy, but intelligent enough to actually push it through.
In the first months after wwii, everything happens similar to OTL: Getting homes for all the people who lost theirs in the bombing raids, partly by confiscating it from people who have too much of it (well, it's communism); making every available person work, to make sure as much food as possible is harvested and prepared to be harvested in the next season; repairing streets and other infrastructure; removing rubble and old weapons; and so on.
But then a few changes: Mothers are encouraged to have lots of children, even if they are single (many men were dead or imprisoned), while the birth rates are covered up and the death and emmigration rates are exaggerated, to avoid diplomatic trouble with the SU. Large hidden economies are created by building whole towns under wintergardens hidden under (artificial and natural) lakes or officially used for other purposes; that's also done to get as many people as possible to sign up for secret projects to avoid their emmigration. Many new lakes are created for that purpose, especially in mountaineous areas, partly under the (real) disguise of generating electricity or creating shipping lanes. Immigrants are inivited in large numbers - a lot of countries even poorer than war torn Eastern Germany on the map, especially once the recovery sets in. The diet is changed towards more plants, partly by secretly supplementing meat with plant products, also to cover up the food stats - a lot of the food officially important to feed the live stock is used for all the people instead. Step by step, the whole country is covered with a mass produced, modular system of green houses, which also deliver heat energy, collect water, and have enough room for housing, factories, and so on; officially, those structures are an extreme burden on the economy and not very efficient; but a lot of effort is taken to make sure the opposite is true; and they are also good to hide a lot of people and an according economy. To get over some of the inefficiencies of communist governments and economies, a few market reforms are taken and local councils are increased or decreased in covered area according to the success of them, for more competition.
With scientific progress, a lot of effort is taken to increase the speed of population growth even more: Artificial milk helps women get babies more frequently. Artificial insemnation helps women with no or unfertile partners. Test tube babies help unfertile mothers. And so on.
To help pay for all the costs, children are given tasks according to their age and abilities, and partly with learning on their mind, as much as possible. For instance, in computer classes, student's don't write something already written before - they write something needed by the information industry, like transferring programs to new computers, or writing databases, and the likes; in advanced classes, even the creation of new search algorhythms, new operating systems, new programming languages, and so on, are demanded; that also makes sure no-one can cheat by copying the work from the last year. Therefore, the age at which a child has contributed as much as it has cost gets lower and lower.
Against all odds, in my TL, this cracy dictator actually pulls it off - while there are some rumors about a hidden economy and population, no-one guesses their extent. And while there are difficulties, the dictator manages to feed all the people, and even make them productive.
With every year a few million children born (numbers growing exponentially), a few million immigrants coming in, and only a few hundred thousand leaving, One can guess how much population Eastern Germany will have after a few decades.
The fact that all those people grow more and more productive also means that after some time the country is able to arm itself considerably, to get a lot of progress in terms of technology and science, and so on. The know how in inhabiting lakes also helps to found underwater bases in not too deep areas of the oceans all over the world (like isles not quite surfacing), which are also useful for communication and other purposes. After same time, Eastern Germany even secretely develops and mass produces nuclear bombs.
In the 70s, there was reduced growth in most countries, partly because of rising oil prices, partly because of switching towards a consumer economy to reduce tension within (in the west more because of a more individualist philosophy), partly due to ecological worries, partly out of a lack of imagination which way to go. My crazy little country naturally doesn't have all those problems, and instead grows more and more, soon reaching a population of more than a billion people, while officially just as populous as Western Germany at that time.
In a sudden strike at the end of the 70s, Eastern Germany conquers Czechoslovakia and Poland. While the Russians are still preparing for counter measures, Eastern Germany moves most of her population and economy into safe areas. The West meanwhile laughs about the internal conflict in the East. When Russia starts a large offensive against newly extended Eastern Germany after a few weeks, their forces are crushed completely. The Russians threaten to use nuclear bombs, but the Eastern Germans threaten to retaliate likewise. With no clear target in view, the Russians accept staying conventional, making the war a test for the dominant power of the communist block. Eastern Germany wins, and controls the SU. Directly after the war, the former Warsaw Pact and other SU dominated parts of the world are made part of the German brand of communism. Many European and Turk countries are happy when they don't need to use the Cyrillic alphabet anymore.
While the West was sympathetic with Eastern Germany at the beginning, they slowly begin to realize that Eastern Germany might be even more of a threat than the old SU. But they can't change their minds that quickly, which gives Eastern Germany a few years time to unify all communist countries under one rule; officially an international government. After that, a few western pariah states are taken out: South Africa for their Apartheid, other criminal regimes for other crimes against humanity. That even creates popularity in the West, so that any reaction is slowed down. When the climate begins to get too tense, though, Eastern Germany (let me still call it that) agrees to not expand her territory anymore and let the West clean out their criminal regimes themselves - which they do.
This peaceful phase sees a new space race, a further exponential explosion of the population of Eastern Germany, and a series of reforms on both sides to better compete.
When Reagan in the 80s (I just assume he's not butterflied away) calls for SDI, the East also increases research in this direction and, having grown to several times the western population, is ultimately successful in the mid 90s. That leads to the "liberation" of a few more criminal regimes, religious dictatorships, and similar places. All of Nato declares war, unaware of population, economical, and scientific strength of the East. While the war is bloody for both sides, the East wins and the first real world government happens at about the year 2000...
I hope you liked this little satirical piece.
He's crazy enough for pursuing an extremely expansionist policy, but intelligent enough to actually push it through.
In the first months after wwii, everything happens similar to OTL: Getting homes for all the people who lost theirs in the bombing raids, partly by confiscating it from people who have too much of it (well, it's communism); making every available person work, to make sure as much food as possible is harvested and prepared to be harvested in the next season; repairing streets and other infrastructure; removing rubble and old weapons; and so on.
But then a few changes: Mothers are encouraged to have lots of children, even if they are single (many men were dead or imprisoned), while the birth rates are covered up and the death and emmigration rates are exaggerated, to avoid diplomatic trouble with the SU. Large hidden economies are created by building whole towns under wintergardens hidden under (artificial and natural) lakes or officially used for other purposes; that's also done to get as many people as possible to sign up for secret projects to avoid their emmigration. Many new lakes are created for that purpose, especially in mountaineous areas, partly under the (real) disguise of generating electricity or creating shipping lanes. Immigrants are inivited in large numbers - a lot of countries even poorer than war torn Eastern Germany on the map, especially once the recovery sets in. The diet is changed towards more plants, partly by secretly supplementing meat with plant products, also to cover up the food stats - a lot of the food officially important to feed the live stock is used for all the people instead. Step by step, the whole country is covered with a mass produced, modular system of green houses, which also deliver heat energy, collect water, and have enough room for housing, factories, and so on; officially, those structures are an extreme burden on the economy and not very efficient; but a lot of effort is taken to make sure the opposite is true; and they are also good to hide a lot of people and an according economy. To get over some of the inefficiencies of communist governments and economies, a few market reforms are taken and local councils are increased or decreased in covered area according to the success of them, for more competition.
With scientific progress, a lot of effort is taken to increase the speed of population growth even more: Artificial milk helps women get babies more frequently. Artificial insemnation helps women with no or unfertile partners. Test tube babies help unfertile mothers. And so on.
To help pay for all the costs, children are given tasks according to their age and abilities, and partly with learning on their mind, as much as possible. For instance, in computer classes, student's don't write something already written before - they write something needed by the information industry, like transferring programs to new computers, or writing databases, and the likes; in advanced classes, even the creation of new search algorhythms, new operating systems, new programming languages, and so on, are demanded; that also makes sure no-one can cheat by copying the work from the last year. Therefore, the age at which a child has contributed as much as it has cost gets lower and lower.
Against all odds, in my TL, this cracy dictator actually pulls it off - while there are some rumors about a hidden economy and population, no-one guesses their extent. And while there are difficulties, the dictator manages to feed all the people, and even make them productive.
With every year a few million children born (numbers growing exponentially), a few million immigrants coming in, and only a few hundred thousand leaving, One can guess how much population Eastern Germany will have after a few decades.
The fact that all those people grow more and more productive also means that after some time the country is able to arm itself considerably, to get a lot of progress in terms of technology and science, and so on. The know how in inhabiting lakes also helps to found underwater bases in not too deep areas of the oceans all over the world (like isles not quite surfacing), which are also useful for communication and other purposes. After same time, Eastern Germany even secretely develops and mass produces nuclear bombs.
In the 70s, there was reduced growth in most countries, partly because of rising oil prices, partly because of switching towards a consumer economy to reduce tension within (in the west more because of a more individualist philosophy), partly due to ecological worries, partly out of a lack of imagination which way to go. My crazy little country naturally doesn't have all those problems, and instead grows more and more, soon reaching a population of more than a billion people, while officially just as populous as Western Germany at that time.
In a sudden strike at the end of the 70s, Eastern Germany conquers Czechoslovakia and Poland. While the Russians are still preparing for counter measures, Eastern Germany moves most of her population and economy into safe areas. The West meanwhile laughs about the internal conflict in the East. When Russia starts a large offensive against newly extended Eastern Germany after a few weeks, their forces are crushed completely. The Russians threaten to use nuclear bombs, but the Eastern Germans threaten to retaliate likewise. With no clear target in view, the Russians accept staying conventional, making the war a test for the dominant power of the communist block. Eastern Germany wins, and controls the SU. Directly after the war, the former Warsaw Pact and other SU dominated parts of the world are made part of the German brand of communism. Many European and Turk countries are happy when they don't need to use the Cyrillic alphabet anymore.
While the West was sympathetic with Eastern Germany at the beginning, they slowly begin to realize that Eastern Germany might be even more of a threat than the old SU. But they can't change their minds that quickly, which gives Eastern Germany a few years time to unify all communist countries under one rule; officially an international government. After that, a few western pariah states are taken out: South Africa for their Apartheid, other criminal regimes for other crimes against humanity. That even creates popularity in the West, so that any reaction is slowed down. When the climate begins to get too tense, though, Eastern Germany (let me still call it that) agrees to not expand her territory anymore and let the West clean out their criminal regimes themselves - which they do.
This peaceful phase sees a new space race, a further exponential explosion of the population of Eastern Germany, and a series of reforms on both sides to better compete.
When Reagan in the 80s (I just assume he's not butterflied away) calls for SDI, the East also increases research in this direction and, having grown to several times the western population, is ultimately successful in the mid 90s. That leads to the "liberation" of a few more criminal regimes, religious dictatorships, and similar places. All of Nato declares war, unaware of population, economical, and scientific strength of the East. While the war is bloody for both sides, the East wins and the first real world government happens at about the year 2000...
I hope you liked this little satirical piece.