Weber's Germany: The Veterinarian Totalitarian
- Thread starter Tom Colton
- Start date
You should PM the author rather than posting it here because it will cause many to think there is an update. They're reasonable questions, but ones you shouldn't ask when a thread is on hiatus.
Popping in for a quick "This TL is almost but not quite dead" post.
Sadly, it was too much work to keep up, but there will be a summary of the Asia-Pacific War and how it affects this theatre of the German-Soviet wars in the next part. Although the initial goodwill has begun to dry up, France is still taking an isolationist stance following his polling results in 1944.
I've been too busy with work in this part of the year for consistent updates (and I've become more reluctant over time to elaborate upon an "Axis Victory" scenario given how political climates have changed from 2014 to now, but that's another issue entirely) but I haven't much on till I begin studies again this autumn. I'm trying to see if I can get an update out on time for VE Day (8th May), but no promises.
Good question! It's not that likely within this phase of the war as the Axis powers are wary of upsetting the careful peace around in the Bosporus and Italy is very slowly turning towards the Western Allies under the nose of the Germans, but the strategic value of the straits is obviously an important concern.
Thanks!
Sadly, it was too much work to keep up, but there will be a summary of the Asia-Pacific War and how it affects this theatre of the German-Soviet wars in the next part. Although the initial goodwill has begun to dry up, France is still taking an isolationist stance following his polling results in 1944.I've been too busy with work in this part of the year for consistent updates (and I've become more reluctant over time to elaborate upon an "Axis Victory" scenario given how political climates have changed from 2014 to now, but that's another issue entirely) but I haven't much on till I begin studies again this autumn. I'm trying to see if I can get an update out on time for VE Day (8th May), but no promises.
Admiral Halsey
Banned
To be fair this isn't an Axis Victory TL though. More an Axis Defeat later then OTL TL.
Thanks for the praise and for all of the likes.
You've chosen an excellent time to catch up, as the update should indeed be ready for tomorrow (8th May 2018, British Summer Time).
WEBER'S GERMANY WILL RETURN
(BUT NOT TOJO'S JAPAN)
stirlingdraka
Donor
Oh an update either about the Soviet Union or round 2 of the Eastern Front. Can`t wait.
Last edited:
Hint: That's a medal about the Soviet Union's victory over Japan.
stirlingdraka
Donor
Thank you. I should have gotten that from your message at the bottom but I thought that meant that Japan wouldn`t be mentioned in the update. So an earlier August storm.
My guess, the Soviet Union in part to recover their former glory and in part for opportunism will enter in Pacific War (which anyway will go much worse for Japan than OTL thanks to having the US concerned only with them), taking Manchuria, all Korea and perhaps even Hokaido.
IIRC Stalin originally wanted the Nationalists to win the Chinese Civil War.
After such victory I think that maybey Stalin will decide to go for a round 2 with Weber.
I love this TL but I hope that this does not end with most of Eurasia turned into a radiactive wasteland.
IIRC Stalin originally wanted the Nationalists to win the Chinese Civil War.
After such victory I think that maybey Stalin will decide to go for a round 2 with Weber.
I love this TL but I hope that this does not end with most of Eurasia turned into a radiactive wasteland.
8.2 A Return to Arms
Well-guessed, but the motivations were slightly different.
Shall we begin?
The Abwehr, following its takeover by first Reinhard Heydrich, then managed by his successors after his transfer to Kamerun to enact the Final Solution, had numerous victories under its belt by the time hostilities re-opened such as the Danzig incidents preceding the invasion of Poland, the preparations for Operation Barbarossa including the organisation of the Reich’s “puppet-liberators” in the Baltic States and Ukraine and the masterpiece of misinformation which was Operation Schnitzel. The Kryptos conspiracy was the capstone of its achievements; certainly, it would never reach that level of success again.
The means of operation of the Kryptos conspiracy has been described as a “conspiracy within a conspiracy” as early as the first stages of the return of hostilities, and although somewhat more complex than is reducible to a single phrase as such, it is a good starting point to understand the methodology of the Abwehr. Following their studies of Soviet mentality, specifically that of Stalin’s, Heydrich and his colleagues knew that Stalin’s paranoia, which had manifested in the Great Purge amongst numerous other lesser purges in subsequent years, even during the fighting of Operation Barbarossa, was a key trait which would have to be manipulated. However, the Germans here may have taken too much credit for themselves for the former of these through their sending missives suggesting internal treachery through Edvard Beneš prior to their ousting of the Czechoslovakian leader, and at any rate given that any goodwill between the two great powers had dissolved after Barbarossa, such direct suggestions would be ineffective in the future, with more subtle means being necessary.
This manifested in the issue of what to do with the Soviet prisoners-of-war taken during the first round of hostilities. Although the OKW had tried their very best to murder them through negligence through the “Ration Plan” during the course of the war, the pause in hostilities meant that they had to be returned, at the very least in exchange for the Wehrmacht and Axis prisoners taken by the Red Army. Here, Heydrich and his successors Alfred Jodl and deputy Karl Wolff [1] saw an opportunity to play upon Stalin’s paranoia by suggesting that like with the “puppet-liberators” in the Baltics and Ukraine, the returning POWs were in fact infiltrated to the brim with saboteurs fearful of reprisals from the commissars and their political apparat, who upon the reopening of hostilities would set forth to sabotage key installations in return for privileged roles in the German-backed occupation.
The credibility of these claims would be strengthened through the promulgation and development of the Russian Liberation Army in the UASR as led by the Soviet defector Major-General Mikhail Meandrov [2], and that these saboteurs were being organised in cells answerable to his overall command. The first goal that would be achieved through the fostering of this idea would be that the purges, which as mentioned above continued into war-time, would continue, sapping the Red Army of vital resources prior to the second phase of the war. The second of these goals would be to mask the real conspiracy – although these clandestine saboteurs would provide a decided advantage and contribute towards the Wehrmacht’s aim of so-called “total strategic surprise”, their effect would be minimal compared to the success of the Kryptos conspiracy’s true aim.
Figure 8: Colonel Aleksandr Lukavitch Tomarov, double-agent in the employ of the Abwehr and trigger-man of Operation Meteorite, the central plot of the vast Kryptos Conspiracy [3].
This was the infamous Operation Meteorite, a lightning-strike intended to behead the entire Soviet military and political apparatus through achieving nothing less than the death of Stalin. Given that Stalin had, through the successive rounds of purges, reduced the Soviet Union into such grave dependence upon him and his whims, the confusion and internal factionalism which would result from his sudden death would achieve far more than detonating bridgeheads or sabotaging munitions ever could. However, such a gambit, once revealed, would surely show the German hand so obviously that the only outcome could be war.
Therefore, it had to be disguised so thoroughly such that even the NKVD with all of its prowess would not discover the plot until it was far too late. The key instrument of Operation Meteorite would be Colonel Aleskandr Lukavitch Tomarov, who had been “turned” during Barbarossa and would be the key triggerman for the assassination. In return, he was to be rewarded with total anonymity and the impunity to do as he wished in the “liberated” Russia; Tomarov actively disavowed any reward to do with prominence in the new government as he knew that his role would surely put him at severe risk from reprisals by GRU and the NKVD.
In order to protect their glorified hitman and place him within striking distance, the Abwehr made him a key figure in the uprooting of the outer layer of the Kryptos conspiracy, throwing their false saboteurs under the bus to elevate his position as spy-catcher; practically all other aspects of the conspiracy were considered expendable relative to Tomarov. Although the NKVD did open a file on Tomarov, their suspicion was never raised to critical levels, and he even was posted as an aide-de-camp to the Stavka’s inner circle, a position which he used to decisive and deadly effect when hostilities reopened.
However, before discussing the events of the Operation Meteorite, it is crucial to take a step back to examine the wider geopolitical situation and its impact on the timing of the second phase of the Great Patriotic War. In the time between the end of first round of hostilities and the signing of the Treaty of Sofia and their reopening through the invocation of the Tripartite Pact, the Great Asia-Pacific War had consumed the entirety of East and Southeast Asia, along with the various Pacific Islands separating the United States and Japan.
With the death of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek during his evacuation from Burma early in the war, the emergent triumvirate of his brother-in-law President T. V. Soong, his sister Soong May-Ling (ergo “Madame Chiang”) and Generalissimo Chen Cheng marked a realignment of the Kuomintang government towards their allies in the United States, and cooperation deepened between the two states to level not seen previously [4]. Although the Soongs and Chen Cheng proved to be popular in the United States, especially with their new President Cordell Hull, Communist sentiment back home surged due to the perception that their fears of foreign domination of Chinese affairs had been confirmed all too well [5].
The halt of the Japanese advance in Johore in Malaya, and their failure to seize the East Indies south of Borneo, meant that the Allied South-West Pacific Command could supply Chinese efforts from Australia through Singapore and Batavia, and before long the tide turned against Japan [6]. A two-pronged effort on the Asian mainland, firstly through the China-Burma-India Front by General Archibald Wavell and secondly through the Malay Peninsula, led by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, broke through Japanese lines, and with a rare instance of cooperation from the thus far immobile French leadership, slowly overran Japanese holdings in Indochina; by late 1945, the IJA had been pushed out of Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian, and had been rolled back to their pre-Midway holdings. In the meantime, the greatest naval conflict in human history raged across the Pacific Ocean, culminating in an “island-hopping campaign” which had resulted in a concurrent easterly “roll-back” to the Home Islands [7].
Figure 9: Soldiers of the Chinese Expeditionary Force stationed in Mong-yu, Burma (now Myanmar) in preparation for the strike through the Burmese border into Yunnan. Late 1945.
The rapidity of the Allied advance in China and in the Pacific had not gone unnoticed by Stalin and his comrades in the Chinese Communist Party, whose guerrilla campaigns centred on Shanxi, Hebei, and Shandong had continuously harassed Japanese assets in Northern China long before Anglo-American intervention. Having fostered a deep distrust for the Anglo-American apparat as codified in NATO and the ASWPC and feeling relatively secure on his own Western Front with the Reich due to the apparent diplomatic victory in Crimea, Stalin overcame began preparations to intervene in China through the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Mongolian borders and formally recognise Mao’s control over these areas as the reformed “Chinese Soviet Republic”, beginning with the three provinces invaded by Japan in 1931 and called “Manchukuo” by the Japanese establishment [8].
Mirroring Stalin’s distrust, the Allied leaders urged the Japanese government to surrender unilaterally to them and them alone, with an implicit offer to oppose Communist advances and prevent the division of China into a Communist-controlled North and a Nationalist-controlled South. When the Japanese proved immovable on this point despite extensive “terror-bombings” involving mass destruction of Japanese cities by fire-bombs, to which their traditional wooden houses were especially vulnerable, the ASWPC began preparations for the single largest military operation (to that date): Operation Shogun, the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands from Okinawa and the Bonin Islands, with a strategic reserve in Formosa and a mainland staging base of Fujian.
Figure 10: Soldiers of the American V Corps in the Koshiki Strait about to assault Kagoshima on “Omaha Beach” in Operation Market. Allied casualties in taking Kyushu alone amounted to nearly half a million troops. June 6th, 1946 [9].
The planning of Operation Shogun, comprising of Operation Market, focused on seizing Kyushu, and Operation Garden, intended on landing on Honshu itself and capturing Tokyo, was primarily based upon lessons learned during the Americans’ advance through the Pacific Ocean, where Japanese units, refusing to surrender, fought to the last, inflicting massive casualties on the landing Americans; casualty estimates alone for the landings on Kyushu had led to the production of 500,000 Purple Heart medals, regularly issued to injured American servicemen. By the time the landings were finished, more than half of them would be used up (bearing in mind the figure only applied to American soldiers), with this majority increasing as Anglo-American force pushed towards Honshu.
Unbeknownst to the American public at the time, President Cordell Hull had in fact suffered a fatal stroke resulting from stress from managing the war aggravating his lifelong ailment of sarcoidosis during the landings themselves, passing away on the night of June 6th, 1946. His final words were those desperately asking his aides if the news of the landings had arrived yet; upon being informed that the Allied forces had seized a foothold on Kyshu, he breathed his last. In truth, the news was only confirmed after his Vice-President, Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler, had been sworn into office, and the President’s death was only released to the public on the subsequent evening, long after the news broke of the landings’ success.
Figure 11: Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler, 34th President of the United States, in Blair House in the evening of 6th June 1946, also known as “the last day he ever was happy”; despite leading the United States to victory over Japan in the Great Asia-Pacific War, he would be the last Democratic President for nearly a generation until the election of Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr. in 1960 [10].
Realising the impact of the Allied manoeuvres, Stalin authorised the Red Army’s plan to overrun the Yalu River and invade the Korean peninsula and the Japanese island of Hokkaido, knowing that in doing so he was directly contravening the Tripartite Pact signed between Germany and Japan. The Red Army in the West was placed on high alert and the Stavka was set to have an emergency meeting in the Kuybyshev Air Raid Shelter, best known as “Stalin’s Bunker” [11]. As expected, Weber furiously declared war on the Soviet Union on July 20th as the first Soviet forces landed on Hokkaido from the Kuril Islands, announcing that “[Stalin’s] intentions to spread the Third International were now apparent for the world to see” and that “Soviet domination of the Western Pacific is almost inevitable, unless the free forces of the world unite in their commitment to oppose the Comintern’s intentions”.
Missives offering to renew the lapsed Quadripartite Nonaggression Pact to Churchill and Pétain, which were ignored by both parties; nevertheless, neither country opted to declare war on Germany as the majority of British and Imperial military assets were tied up in Asia and France would have been powerless to act on its own, notwithstanding the looming threat of the thermobaric bomb. Given that the nucleonic bomb was not tested until August of that very year, precluding any meaningful countermeasure at that point. Millions upon millions would be dead, with horrific tales of barely-armed Japanese civilians throwing themselves en masse at the Anglo-American military machine haunting occupying forces for many years, before peace finally came to the Asian Pacific coast; even then, they were too late to prevent the entrenchment of Soviet-backed Communist rule in Manchukuo, Korea and Hokkaido.
Figure 12: Red Army troops cross the Songhua River in Heilongjiang, Manchukuo (later the People’s Republic of China) during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Mid-1946.
It was within Stalin’s Bunker that the methodology of the Kryptos Conspiracy and Operation Meteorite would finally bear fruit. It was through Tomarov that the Abwehr learned of the Bunker and the intention of organising emergency meetings there, and the precise mechanisms of Operation Meteorite began to form. If a powerful enough explosive device could be introduced into the bunker and detonated, the shape of the bunker would concentrate its force within the structure; with that and the subsequent collapse within the 37-metre deep shelter, everybody inside would almost certainly be killed [12].
All that remained to do was to detonate it during this emergency meeting with a timer, decapitating the entirety of the Soviet leadership and also granting enough time for Tomarov to escape to Ukraine before his duplicity was exposed; as dedicated as he was to toppling Stalin (though for purely personal aggrandisement), he was no zealot ready to die to fulfil this end. This meant that although he had successfully primed an improvised device and left it within the bunker and also managed to flee the scene of the crime, there were several hours between then and its scheduled explosion where it remained unattended within an attaché-case; the amount of explosive contained therein fell far below reasonable estimates for destroying the entire bunker from within, and was only likely to kill everyone in the same room, and for this reason it was left under the table in the convention hall, where undoubtedly the chief Stavka personnel would assemble during their discussion of Red Army strategy.
Figure 13: Interior of the Convention Hall in Stalin’s Bunker after the failed assassination of Stalin on 20th July 1946.
In fact, the convention hall was still mostly empty when the device went off as most of the general staff were in the rooms above, with Stalin himself in his own quarters in the room opposite the hall. The most infamous fatality was that of Stalin’s chief political commissar Nikita Khrushchev, who had found the attaché-case and was in the process of moving it to be inspected when it detonated, causing a partial collapse of the convention hall and Stalin’s quarters. It is said by eyewitnesses afterwards that there “was no trace left of Nikita”, save some scraps of his boots scattered to opposite ends of the corridor.
Stalin himself had barely survived, with his clothes torn off him by the force of the detonation and suffering from partial deafness due to two perforated eardrums to the end of his days. However, these facts were totally unknown to Tomarov, who had reported to the Abwehr that the operation was a “total success” upon hearing of the detonation of the bomb within the Stalin Bunker. Little did he and they know that far from being the death of Stalin, that this was just the beginning of one of the worst continuous periods of suffering in human history [13].
Ironically enough for Tomarov, he would not live to see his deviousness bear fruit; he was captured by the GRU before he could cross the warfront into Ukraine and was executed by being left to hang by his neck from a tree to die either from asphyxiation or exposure [14]. However, like the many “False Dmitrys”, his survival of this execution in many different disguises was fabled in Russia for many years afterwards, with his machinations becoming something of an urban legend.
[1] Heydrich wasn't on great terms with OTL successor in the RSHA, Ernst Kaltenbrunner; Karl Wolff is something of a more organic follow-up here.
[2] Hostilities ended before Vlasov was captured, so Meandrov is the highest-ranking "turned" Soviet commander.
[3] This is, of course, a still of Telly Savalas as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and part of the punchline that a great deal of this TL has been leading up to.
[4] Refresher here.
[5] If Stalin previously had been more inclined to support the nationalists, there's no such motivation here now given the much stronger animosity between the USSR and the "Western" Allies.
[6] See [4] for the different strategic situation in Southeast Asia / Western Pacific.
[7] Overall, due to the smaller success in Japan's initial offensives and the "China First" lobby in the United States, the Asia-Pacific War quickly becomes a massive slog through the East/Southeast Asian mainland, stretching the conflict into 1946. But the worst is yet to come...
[8] As discussed earlier, given both the drubbing dealt to them in the first half of the Great Patriotic War and the severe distrust between the Anglo-American allies and the Soviet Union, Stalin is going to be pushing for some satellite states in East Asia as a buffer and a panacea for lost national pride; this, however, will prove to be his undoing.
[9] For "Shogun", read "Overlord/Downfall"; for "Market" read "Olympic", for "Garden" read "Coronet", and go and read "Decisive Darkness".
[10] Hull's only the first ATL/OTL world leader I'm killing off this update. Thanks to Arisoto for helping me out here so long ago.
[11] For more information about Stalin's Bunker, see here.
[12] Behold, a weaponised Operation Valkyrie!
[13] Yes, folks, Lex Luthor (Alexander Lukavitch Tomarov; the Superman animated series' Luthor had his character design based on Telly Savalas) once again failed to kill the Man of Steel with Kryptonite (Kryptos + Meteorite.) I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not.
[14] It is unclear if any of them said "He's branched off".
Shall we begin?
===
A RETURN TO ARMS
A RETURN TO ARMS
“The Soviets expect treachery on our part, and we would be foolish or fraudulent to claim that we are not already preparing for the next war. They will expect us to draw up plans for the next invasion, to sabotage their defences, and target their commanders, like a switch ready to be thrown at a moment’s notice. And we shall give them everything they expect, just so that when the hammer falls, they will be all the more astounded.”
Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, addressing subordinates in his role as Abwehr chief and outlining the principles of the Kryptos conspiracy.
Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, addressing subordinates in his role as Abwehr chief and outlining the principles of the Kryptos conspiracy.
Figure 7: Soviet prisoners-of-war captured by the Wehrmacht during Operation Barbarossa. Their slow return during the interbellum period would form the outer layer of the “conspiracy within a conspiracy” that was the Kryptos conspiracy. Spring 1942.
The Abwehr, following its takeover by first Reinhard Heydrich, then managed by his successors after his transfer to Kamerun to enact the Final Solution, had numerous victories under its belt by the time hostilities re-opened such as the Danzig incidents preceding the invasion of Poland, the preparations for Operation Barbarossa including the organisation of the Reich’s “puppet-liberators” in the Baltic States and Ukraine and the masterpiece of misinformation which was Operation Schnitzel. The Kryptos conspiracy was the capstone of its achievements; certainly, it would never reach that level of success again.
The means of operation of the Kryptos conspiracy has been described as a “conspiracy within a conspiracy” as early as the first stages of the return of hostilities, and although somewhat more complex than is reducible to a single phrase as such, it is a good starting point to understand the methodology of the Abwehr. Following their studies of Soviet mentality, specifically that of Stalin’s, Heydrich and his colleagues knew that Stalin’s paranoia, which had manifested in the Great Purge amongst numerous other lesser purges in subsequent years, even during the fighting of Operation Barbarossa, was a key trait which would have to be manipulated. However, the Germans here may have taken too much credit for themselves for the former of these through their sending missives suggesting internal treachery through Edvard Beneš prior to their ousting of the Czechoslovakian leader, and at any rate given that any goodwill between the two great powers had dissolved after Barbarossa, such direct suggestions would be ineffective in the future, with more subtle means being necessary.
This manifested in the issue of what to do with the Soviet prisoners-of-war taken during the first round of hostilities. Although the OKW had tried their very best to murder them through negligence through the “Ration Plan” during the course of the war, the pause in hostilities meant that they had to be returned, at the very least in exchange for the Wehrmacht and Axis prisoners taken by the Red Army. Here, Heydrich and his successors Alfred Jodl and deputy Karl Wolff [1] saw an opportunity to play upon Stalin’s paranoia by suggesting that like with the “puppet-liberators” in the Baltics and Ukraine, the returning POWs were in fact infiltrated to the brim with saboteurs fearful of reprisals from the commissars and their political apparat, who upon the reopening of hostilities would set forth to sabotage key installations in return for privileged roles in the German-backed occupation.
The credibility of these claims would be strengthened through the promulgation and development of the Russian Liberation Army in the UASR as led by the Soviet defector Major-General Mikhail Meandrov [2], and that these saboteurs were being organised in cells answerable to his overall command. The first goal that would be achieved through the fostering of this idea would be that the purges, which as mentioned above continued into war-time, would continue, sapping the Red Army of vital resources prior to the second phase of the war. The second of these goals would be to mask the real conspiracy – although these clandestine saboteurs would provide a decided advantage and contribute towards the Wehrmacht’s aim of so-called “total strategic surprise”, their effect would be minimal compared to the success of the Kryptos conspiracy’s true aim.
Figure 8: Colonel Aleksandr Lukavitch Tomarov, double-agent in the employ of the Abwehr and trigger-man of Operation Meteorite, the central plot of the vast Kryptos Conspiracy [3].
This was the infamous Operation Meteorite, a lightning-strike intended to behead the entire Soviet military and political apparatus through achieving nothing less than the death of Stalin. Given that Stalin had, through the successive rounds of purges, reduced the Soviet Union into such grave dependence upon him and his whims, the confusion and internal factionalism which would result from his sudden death would achieve far more than detonating bridgeheads or sabotaging munitions ever could. However, such a gambit, once revealed, would surely show the German hand so obviously that the only outcome could be war.
Therefore, it had to be disguised so thoroughly such that even the NKVD with all of its prowess would not discover the plot until it was far too late. The key instrument of Operation Meteorite would be Colonel Aleskandr Lukavitch Tomarov, who had been “turned” during Barbarossa and would be the key triggerman for the assassination. In return, he was to be rewarded with total anonymity and the impunity to do as he wished in the “liberated” Russia; Tomarov actively disavowed any reward to do with prominence in the new government as he knew that his role would surely put him at severe risk from reprisals by GRU and the NKVD.
In order to protect their glorified hitman and place him within striking distance, the Abwehr made him a key figure in the uprooting of the outer layer of the Kryptos conspiracy, throwing their false saboteurs under the bus to elevate his position as spy-catcher; practically all other aspects of the conspiracy were considered expendable relative to Tomarov. Although the NKVD did open a file on Tomarov, their suspicion was never raised to critical levels, and he even was posted as an aide-de-camp to the Stavka’s inner circle, a position which he used to decisive and deadly effect when hostilities reopened.
However, before discussing the events of the Operation Meteorite, it is crucial to take a step back to examine the wider geopolitical situation and its impact on the timing of the second phase of the Great Patriotic War. In the time between the end of first round of hostilities and the signing of the Treaty of Sofia and their reopening through the invocation of the Tripartite Pact, the Great Asia-Pacific War had consumed the entirety of East and Southeast Asia, along with the various Pacific Islands separating the United States and Japan.
With the death of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek during his evacuation from Burma early in the war, the emergent triumvirate of his brother-in-law President T. V. Soong, his sister Soong May-Ling (ergo “Madame Chiang”) and Generalissimo Chen Cheng marked a realignment of the Kuomintang government towards their allies in the United States, and cooperation deepened between the two states to level not seen previously [4]. Although the Soongs and Chen Cheng proved to be popular in the United States, especially with their new President Cordell Hull, Communist sentiment back home surged due to the perception that their fears of foreign domination of Chinese affairs had been confirmed all too well [5].
The halt of the Japanese advance in Johore in Malaya, and their failure to seize the East Indies south of Borneo, meant that the Allied South-West Pacific Command could supply Chinese efforts from Australia through Singapore and Batavia, and before long the tide turned against Japan [6]. A two-pronged effort on the Asian mainland, firstly through the China-Burma-India Front by General Archibald Wavell and secondly through the Malay Peninsula, led by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, broke through Japanese lines, and with a rare instance of cooperation from the thus far immobile French leadership, slowly overran Japanese holdings in Indochina; by late 1945, the IJA had been pushed out of Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Jiangxi and Fujian, and had been rolled back to their pre-Midway holdings. In the meantime, the greatest naval conflict in human history raged across the Pacific Ocean, culminating in an “island-hopping campaign” which had resulted in a concurrent easterly “roll-back” to the Home Islands [7].
Figure 9: Soldiers of the Chinese Expeditionary Force stationed in Mong-yu, Burma (now Myanmar) in preparation for the strike through the Burmese border into Yunnan. Late 1945.
The rapidity of the Allied advance in China and in the Pacific had not gone unnoticed by Stalin and his comrades in the Chinese Communist Party, whose guerrilla campaigns centred on Shanxi, Hebei, and Shandong had continuously harassed Japanese assets in Northern China long before Anglo-American intervention. Having fostered a deep distrust for the Anglo-American apparat as codified in NATO and the ASWPC and feeling relatively secure on his own Western Front with the Reich due to the apparent diplomatic victory in Crimea, Stalin overcame began preparations to intervene in China through the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Mongolian borders and formally recognise Mao’s control over these areas as the reformed “Chinese Soviet Republic”, beginning with the three provinces invaded by Japan in 1931 and called “Manchukuo” by the Japanese establishment [8].
Mirroring Stalin’s distrust, the Allied leaders urged the Japanese government to surrender unilaterally to them and them alone, with an implicit offer to oppose Communist advances and prevent the division of China into a Communist-controlled North and a Nationalist-controlled South. When the Japanese proved immovable on this point despite extensive “terror-bombings” involving mass destruction of Japanese cities by fire-bombs, to which their traditional wooden houses were especially vulnerable, the ASWPC began preparations for the single largest military operation (to that date): Operation Shogun, the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands from Okinawa and the Bonin Islands, with a strategic reserve in Formosa and a mainland staging base of Fujian.
Figure 10: Soldiers of the American V Corps in the Koshiki Strait about to assault Kagoshima on “Omaha Beach” in Operation Market. Allied casualties in taking Kyushu alone amounted to nearly half a million troops. June 6th, 1946 [9].
The planning of Operation Shogun, comprising of Operation Market, focused on seizing Kyushu, and Operation Garden, intended on landing on Honshu itself and capturing Tokyo, was primarily based upon lessons learned during the Americans’ advance through the Pacific Ocean, where Japanese units, refusing to surrender, fought to the last, inflicting massive casualties on the landing Americans; casualty estimates alone for the landings on Kyushu had led to the production of 500,000 Purple Heart medals, regularly issued to injured American servicemen. By the time the landings were finished, more than half of them would be used up (bearing in mind the figure only applied to American soldiers), with this majority increasing as Anglo-American force pushed towards Honshu.
Unbeknownst to the American public at the time, President Cordell Hull had in fact suffered a fatal stroke resulting from stress from managing the war aggravating his lifelong ailment of sarcoidosis during the landings themselves, passing away on the night of June 6th, 1946. His final words were those desperately asking his aides if the news of the landings had arrived yet; upon being informed that the Allied forces had seized a foothold on Kyshu, he breathed his last. In truth, the news was only confirmed after his Vice-President, Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler, had been sworn into office, and the President’s death was only released to the public on the subsequent evening, long after the news broke of the landings’ success.
Figure 11: Albert Benjamin “Happy” Chandler, 34th President of the United States, in Blair House in the evening of 6th June 1946, also known as “the last day he ever was happy”; despite leading the United States to victory over Japan in the Great Asia-Pacific War, he would be the last Democratic President for nearly a generation until the election of Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr. in 1960 [10].
Realising the impact of the Allied manoeuvres, Stalin authorised the Red Army’s plan to overrun the Yalu River and invade the Korean peninsula and the Japanese island of Hokkaido, knowing that in doing so he was directly contravening the Tripartite Pact signed between Germany and Japan. The Red Army in the West was placed on high alert and the Stavka was set to have an emergency meeting in the Kuybyshev Air Raid Shelter, best known as “Stalin’s Bunker” [11]. As expected, Weber furiously declared war on the Soviet Union on July 20th as the first Soviet forces landed on Hokkaido from the Kuril Islands, announcing that “[Stalin’s] intentions to spread the Third International were now apparent for the world to see” and that “Soviet domination of the Western Pacific is almost inevitable, unless the free forces of the world unite in their commitment to oppose the Comintern’s intentions”.
Missives offering to renew the lapsed Quadripartite Nonaggression Pact to Churchill and Pétain, which were ignored by both parties; nevertheless, neither country opted to declare war on Germany as the majority of British and Imperial military assets were tied up in Asia and France would have been powerless to act on its own, notwithstanding the looming threat of the thermobaric bomb. Given that the nucleonic bomb was not tested until August of that very year, precluding any meaningful countermeasure at that point. Millions upon millions would be dead, with horrific tales of barely-armed Japanese civilians throwing themselves en masse at the Anglo-American military machine haunting occupying forces for many years, before peace finally came to the Asian Pacific coast; even then, they were too late to prevent the entrenchment of Soviet-backed Communist rule in Manchukuo, Korea and Hokkaido.
Figure 12: Red Army troops cross the Songhua River in Heilongjiang, Manchukuo (later the People’s Republic of China) during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Mid-1946.
It was within Stalin’s Bunker that the methodology of the Kryptos Conspiracy and Operation Meteorite would finally bear fruit. It was through Tomarov that the Abwehr learned of the Bunker and the intention of organising emergency meetings there, and the precise mechanisms of Operation Meteorite began to form. If a powerful enough explosive device could be introduced into the bunker and detonated, the shape of the bunker would concentrate its force within the structure; with that and the subsequent collapse within the 37-metre deep shelter, everybody inside would almost certainly be killed [12].
All that remained to do was to detonate it during this emergency meeting with a timer, decapitating the entirety of the Soviet leadership and also granting enough time for Tomarov to escape to Ukraine before his duplicity was exposed; as dedicated as he was to toppling Stalin (though for purely personal aggrandisement), he was no zealot ready to die to fulfil this end. This meant that although he had successfully primed an improvised device and left it within the bunker and also managed to flee the scene of the crime, there were several hours between then and its scheduled explosion where it remained unattended within an attaché-case; the amount of explosive contained therein fell far below reasonable estimates for destroying the entire bunker from within, and was only likely to kill everyone in the same room, and for this reason it was left under the table in the convention hall, where undoubtedly the chief Stavka personnel would assemble during their discussion of Red Army strategy.
Figure 13: Interior of the Convention Hall in Stalin’s Bunker after the failed assassination of Stalin on 20th July 1946.
In fact, the convention hall was still mostly empty when the device went off as most of the general staff were in the rooms above, with Stalin himself in his own quarters in the room opposite the hall. The most infamous fatality was that of Stalin’s chief political commissar Nikita Khrushchev, who had found the attaché-case and was in the process of moving it to be inspected when it detonated, causing a partial collapse of the convention hall and Stalin’s quarters. It is said by eyewitnesses afterwards that there “was no trace left of Nikita”, save some scraps of his boots scattered to opposite ends of the corridor.
Stalin himself had barely survived, with his clothes torn off him by the force of the detonation and suffering from partial deafness due to two perforated eardrums to the end of his days. However, these facts were totally unknown to Tomarov, who had reported to the Abwehr that the operation was a “total success” upon hearing of the detonation of the bomb within the Stalin Bunker. Little did he and they know that far from being the death of Stalin, that this was just the beginning of one of the worst continuous periods of suffering in human history [13].
Ironically enough for Tomarov, he would not live to see his deviousness bear fruit; he was captured by the GRU before he could cross the warfront into Ukraine and was executed by being left to hang by his neck from a tree to die either from asphyxiation or exposure [14]. However, like the many “False Dmitrys”, his survival of this execution in many different disguises was fabled in Russia for many years afterwards, with his machinations becoming something of an urban legend.
[1] Heydrich wasn't on great terms with OTL successor in the RSHA, Ernst Kaltenbrunner; Karl Wolff is something of a more organic follow-up here.
[2] Hostilities ended before Vlasov was captured, so Meandrov is the highest-ranking "turned" Soviet commander.
[3] This is, of course, a still of Telly Savalas as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and part of the punchline that a great deal of this TL has been leading up to.
[4] Refresher here.
[5] If Stalin previously had been more inclined to support the nationalists, there's no such motivation here now given the much stronger animosity between the USSR and the "Western" Allies.
[6] See [4] for the different strategic situation in Southeast Asia / Western Pacific.
[7] Overall, due to the smaller success in Japan's initial offensives and the "China First" lobby in the United States, the Asia-Pacific War quickly becomes a massive slog through the East/Southeast Asian mainland, stretching the conflict into 1946. But the worst is yet to come...
[8] As discussed earlier, given both the drubbing dealt to them in the first half of the Great Patriotic War and the severe distrust between the Anglo-American allies and the Soviet Union, Stalin is going to be pushing for some satellite states in East Asia as a buffer and a panacea for lost national pride; this, however, will prove to be his undoing.
[9] For "Shogun", read "Overlord/Downfall"; for "Market" read "Olympic", for "Garden" read "Coronet", and go and read "Decisive Darkness".
[10] Hull's only the first ATL/OTL world leader I'm killing off this update. Thanks to Arisoto for helping me out here so long ago.
[11] For more information about Stalin's Bunker, see here.
[12] Behold, a weaponised Operation Valkyrie!
[13] Yes, folks, Lex Luthor (Alexander Lukavitch Tomarov; the Superman animated series' Luthor had his character design based on Telly Savalas) once again failed to kill the Man of Steel with Kryptonite (Kryptos + Meteorite.) I would say I'm sorry, but I'm not.
[14] It is unclear if any of them said "He's branched off".
Probably, the war had a more smaller scale with Japan's extention being smaller.