Weber's Germany: The Veterinarian Totalitarian

[iddt3]

Let's do some calculations.

US war machine hasn't revved up as IOTL, so I give not 6 months but the whole 1942 to the japanese to roam the Pacific.

I see japanese high watermark being the invasion of Midway in june 1942, the invasion of New Guinea in late 1942 and possibly an attempt against Darwin around the end of the year.

From this point on, a slow, inesorable tide back to Japan. Since there is more to reconquer and the start is later, I see japanese islands under direct attack not before spring 1946.

There is no indication that Manhattam project has been started so I envision NATO nukes not earlier than summer 1946.

These dates mean that, if nothing happens in Europe, by VJ day Weber will have:

• a consistent amount of Type XXI subs with acustic torpedoes,
• Tabun and Sarin in large stockpiles, smaller stockpiles of Soman, samples of Cyclosarin,
• rockets with longer range than OTL A4, capable of at least reaching England and Moscow,
• not dive bombing He 177,
• possibly some Ho XVIII intercontinental bombers,
• Fw190s, Me 262 and Ta152H in large numbers.

My prediction is for the establishment, in the second half of 1940's, of a cold war between a European Community from Hell and NATO with weapons of mass destruction on both sides.

On the flip side, the British *have* fully revved up, and can afford to station a large portion of their fleet in the Far East. For the US, while it might have been moving more slowly than OTL, I assume there's still been a large increase in defense bills, even if there wasn't a peacetime draft, so I would expect that the US isn't going to be *that* slow to kick into gear.

But yeah the big thing here is that the British are in a *much* much better position than they were OTL, which likely means a more balanced Pacific conflict than OTL. I wouldn't be surprised if Singapore held for one.

 

[DaveB]

On the flip side, the British *have* fully revved up, and can afford to station a large portion of their fleet in the Far East. For the US, while it might have been moving more slowly than OTL, I assume there's still been a large increase in defense bills, even if there wasn't a peacetime draft, so I would expect that the US isn't going to be *that* slow to kick into gear.

But yeah the big thing here is that the British are in a *much* much better position than they were OTL, which likely means a more balanced Pacific conflict than OTL. I wouldn't be surprised if Singapore held for one.

Very much what I was going to say. Tom advised us to read the bit about Malaya carefully, and I notice that he says 'invasion of British Malaya through Axis co-belligerent Thailand', which to me implies no seaborne invasion of Malaya, presumably because there is a larger and better-balanced RN force at Singapore, and with no Middle-eastern campaign, hopefully a bigger garrison. As long as the RN can prevent the loss of Java and Sumatra, keeping Singapore re supplied should be possible.

On one slight quibble, on another recent thread I recall reading that inter-war, the USN strategy in the Pacific was not to relieve the Philippines, which they considered indefensible. Quite possible of course that politics caused this to be overruled on the basis of 'something must be done'. In OTL the losses at (and shock of?) Pearl meant there was no such attempt.

 

[stirlingdraka]

Wonderful update Tom Colton. I loved Churchill` Iron Curtain speech. I can`t wait for the next update in October about Weber`s Europe.

 

[dehantp]

A cold war between a European Community from Hell ...

How about calling it the Warshaw Pact? Germany owns the place and Weber may decide it is a nice site for the signature of a new set of treaties uniting military command of Germany and its East European sattelites?

Or something like that.

 

[alexcoppo]

How about calling it the Warshaw Pact? Germany owns the place and Weber may decide it is a nice site for the signature of a new set of treaties uniting military command of Germany and its East European sattelites?

Or something like that.

In a timeline of mine there are the

• Europäischen Wirtschaftsraum (european economic area, the commercial treaty)
• Europäische Sicherheitsbündnis (european security alliance, the military and security pact).

collectively known as the Aachen Pakte (Aachen having been chosen as the former carolingian empire capital).

 

[Historyman 14]

Even if the British do a lot better in the Pacific, it won't matter because how the war re-starts in Europe, it's going to be a total bloodbath that the Allies will hunt for years to come.

And maybe bad leadeeship, or poor decisions, Singapore still falls. Either way, the Empire is totally doom comes the war's end.

 

[Tom Colton]

Thanks, everyone! It's good to be back.

===
​

Re: Timeline structure

So it will be Germany/Asia/Germany/Asia for the next chapter?

Can you try and get the next chapter out on Oct 1st as that's my birthday.

Why don't you also do a compare and contrast of causalities from OTL and TTL?

Or Oct 5 since that's my birthday!

A good update as always, though I do find myself wishing they were a little meatier, and a little more frequent. But hey, that's the price of quality

No promises there, and I don't do requests. It'll be ready when it's ready!

Yeah, that's the plan concerning the updates; if I'm very free I can combine the Asia update with the "usual" one, but otherwise it'll alternate, perhaps up to the same month/year, perhaps not.

Hey, this update was nearly two thousand words in length (1987, if you like specifics)! You people...

As far as possible, that's about as long as I like to keep updates, so that I get more discussion over the fewer points I'm making, and it's about as long as I can write frantically over a couple of late nights without the wording descending into total incoherence.

===
​

Re: A Terrible Resolve

Well Japan is fucked beyond belief with America able to focus their entire rage upon them. I expect the war to end in early 45 at the latest. Also did the Big E survive Midway?

How plausible is it that the Kido Butai sinks it? I kept it vague because I'm not an expert on specific ship movements. For the purposes of this TL I kind of need Japan to hold on a little longer than OTL, but not by much.

Well, Japan's screwed. I knew Weber was going to avoid siding with them. He's been fairly smart about it, and he got himself a few years of peace. If it wasn't for what we know already, it almost makes you think he couldn't lose.
We need a map, though, to fully see how Germany looks after the wars.

Oh yeah. Remember when I said the balance of luck wasn't going to be even across the Axis? Japan is going to get its shit kicked in, and hard, what with nobody being distracted by the Western Front after 1940 and the Eastern Front having effectively ended. It's safe to say that Tojo and the military clique has bitten off much more than the IJN or the IJA can chew.

On the flip side, the British *have* fully revved up, and can afford to station a large portion of their fleet in the Far East. For the US, while it might have been moving more slowly than OTL, I assume there's still been a large increase in defense bills, even if there wasn't a peacetime draft, so I would expect that the US isn't going to be *that* slow to kick into gear.

But yeah the big thing here is that the British are in a *much* much better position than they were OTL, which likely means a more balanced Pacific conflict than OTL. I wouldn't be surprised if Singapore held for one.

Very much what I was going to say. Tom advised us to read the bit about Malaya carefully, and I notice that he says 'invasion of British Malaya through Axis co-belligerent Thailand', which to me implies no seaborne invasion of Malaya, presumably because there is a larger and better-balanced RN force at Singapore, and with no Middle-eastern campaign, hopefully a bigger garrison. As long as the RN can prevent the loss of Java and Sumatra, keeping Singapore re supplied should be possible.

On one slight quibble, on another recent thread I recall reading that inter-war, the USN strategy in the Pacific was not to relieve the Philippines, which they considered indefensible. Quite possible of course that politics caused this to be overruled on the basis of 'something must be done'. In OTL the losses at (and shock of?) Pearl meant there was no such attempt.

Even if the British do a lot better in the Pacific, it won't matter because how the war re-starts in Europe, it's going to be a total bloodbath that the Allies will hunt for years to come.

And maybe bad leadeeship, or poor decisions, Singapore still falls. Either way, the Empire is totally doom comes the war's end.

Good catch, DaveB, and the British are indeed doing better thanks to shall we say, new leadership (all shall be revealed with the first updates from A Brief Outline of the Great Asia-Pacific War) , along with some of the old getting a chutzpah upgrade. Matador was approved, forcing landings further north and giving the British just a bit more of an edge, and that's all I'm saying for now.

The expansion of the garrison in Borneo by the Dutch and the USI has also given them less of a disadvantage, but that's also a story for another time.

Nuts, I knew I'd gotten something wrong. Task Force 12 was probably among the closest to the Philippines and Guam and thus was sortied to make sure the Japanese weren't trying to strike further east along with a mission to try and divert any Japanese assets, but the surprise attack caught them off-guard, and Task Force 8 also got it when they tried to relieve Task Force 12.

===
​

Re: 2 Buch 2 Furious and AANW?

I don't think that it's fair to compare this to Zweites; while these boards, pre and post 1900 have a ton of Trembling For The Touch Of A Manly Grey Uniform timelines, this has hardly been on of them. Weber makes the occasional mistake, the occasional miscalculation, and the wearers of the snappy uniforms are constrained by the economic realities of the situation at hand.

Indeed, and while Weber's been doing pretty well when it comes to beating up on Eastern Europe and winning German dominance of the region in the short term, he's managed to isolate himself in the long run. When the shit hits the fan (aka once the US and the UK have finished beating the shit out of Japan, without needing to worry about fighting Germany at the same time), he's going to be staring down the combined industrial might of two of the largest economies on the planet, plus Turkey (who's a bonafide member of the WAllies here, as opposed to friendly neutral), the Low Countries, the USSR (which will get back into the fight eventually), and France (at this point its a question of when, not if, Petain falls and de Gaulle is elected).

At the same time, he's the same time, with Japan about to be on the receiving end of a pretty brutal 'whuppin, and Italy almost certainly going the way of Francoist Spain and sitting the whole mess out, his list of allies has grown pretty thin. This isn't some Wehraboo fantasy where Germany rolls twenties and everyone else rolls ones, this is more "the bigger they are, the harder they fall".

Yay, it's back

Oh no, Weber continues to not be an idiot. I'm hoping this doesn't end up like The Anglo/American-Nazi War.

Can't wait for the next update.

I think it's headed for a diet-version of the A-A/NW. Weber's going to end up staring down the Americans and the British, and the end is not going to be pretty for Germany (prediction: Germany eats a nuke or three, but Weber goes full Joker on Western Europe), but at the end of the day way more people will probably end up alive than in that timeline.

Sorry for going back to commenting on a long past comment, but I've just noticed it quoted in a more recent one.

I imagine Britain will be being quintessentially British and doing lots of perfidiously covert things, including stuff involving tubes and alloys.

Well, I do fully admit to having stacked the deck in Weber's favour as this is generally a timeline focusing on what it would take to have something which can arguably be called a Nazi Victory, and exactly what it would cost and what the consequences would be. The collapse of the GGR will indeed be something to behold, and don't count out those strange radioactive minerals too soon either.

Among potential scenarios for the Reich's agonising death, I think I'd rank the one I'm shooting for as 7 out of a potential 10 on a R(e)ichter scale of carnage - enough to permanently damage Germany proper but with not the worst amount of fallout imaginable everywhere across the continent. I have no interest in going full Uber, for example.

===
​

Re: Si vis bellum, para bellum

Let's do some calculations.

US war machine hasn't revved up as IOTL, so I give not 6 months but the whole 1942 to the japanese to roam the Pacific.

I see japanese high watermark being the invasion of Midway in june 1942, the invasion of New Guinea in late 1942 and possibly an attempt against Darwin around the end of the year.

From this point on, a slow, inesorable tide back to Japan. Since there is more to reconquer and the start is later, I see japanese islands under direct attack not before spring 1946.

There is no indication that Manhattam project has been started so I envision NATO nukes not earlier than summer 1946.

These dates mean that, if nothing happens in Europe, by VJ day Weber will have:

• a consistent amount of Type XXI subs with acustic torpedoes,
• Tabun and Sarin in large stockpiles, smaller stockpiles of Soman, samples of Cyclosarin,
• rockets with longer range than OTL A4, capable of at least reaching England and Moscow,
• not dive bombing He 177,
• possibly some Ho XVIII intercontinental bombers,
• Fw190s, Me 262 and Ta152H in large numbers.

My prediction is for the establishment, in the second half of 1940's, of a cold war between a European Community from Hell and NATO with weapons of mass destruction on both sides.

Good speculation - I might mine some of the points concerning tech and developments in the Pacific, but I do know that some forms of the Wunderwaffen are going to turn up later, and I have plans - big plans - for Southeast and East Asia.

How about calling it the Warshaw Pact? Germany owns the place and Weber may decide it is a nice site for the signature of a new set of treaties uniting military command of Germany and its East European sattelites?

Or something like that.

The name Warsaw Pact will probably turn up eventually, but not in this context. Weber isn't going to name his New Order after some Polish city.

In a timeline of mine there are the

• Europäischen Wirtschaftsraum (european economic area, the commercial treaty)
• Europäische Sicherheitsbündnis (european security alliance, the military and security pact).

collectively known as the Aachen Pakte (Aachen having been chosen as the former carolingian empire capital).

Currently, the EWG (or EEC) holds together the economies of the Tripartite/Anti-Comintern Pact powers, and the Tripartite Pact represents the political allegiance of most of the relevant Axis members, but I'm open to flashy new names for the New Order.

===
​

And last but definitely not least...

This is fantastic.

Thank you very much! I hope you stay on board when we return this October.

 

[Historyman 14]

I just realize something.

All of this, and the war's aftermath shall have unholy affects on pop culture and comics.

Could you do a update, or something on that? During and after the war?

 

[Remitonov]

Great update. It must be rather painful for Weber to realize that for all his calculations, he still made the mistake of making the wrong friends. Then again, those were the only possible friends he could make, with everyone else quite adamantly against him.

 

[lukedalton]

And maybe bad leadeeship, or poor decisions, Singapore still falls. Either way, the Empire is totally doom comes the war's end.

Well depend, while the Japanese had the usual lucky beginning, both UK and US can actively concentrate on a single front so things will go sour for them even quicker than OTL...hell i expect that the British sub will have a very happy hunting in the Pacific.

Regarding the new and improved Mitteleuropa, well the weak point will be always Italy, in OTL military but here the weakness is political.
Balbo (and a great part of the italian leadership, King included...as it better consider that with Benny dead the new boss will have less personal authority and it will be more a collective leaderships) is not a great fan of Germany or Weber and he know that Italy risk to become just a vassal of Berlin if she remain under the economic and military influnce of the Nazi, so it's almost assured that in any restart of the war Rome will take a lesson from Madrid and decide to skip it out.
At the same time Churchill and co. will try to woo the italians as Balbo opinions are not a mistery and frankly between the different treatment of the italian jew population (if they go in Africa it will be in a much more confortable way as real colonist of the italian empire) and other measures (like keep builiding the fortification in Trentino...just in case and done even by Benny) the diplomatic situation between the two big guys of the Axis are at the moment cold.

 

[Johannes Parisiensis]

Given that, TTL, Weber didn't engege the Reich along Japan in its war against the United States, how will Germany-United States be? On the hand, there is no DoW but on the other hand, Germany still signed a treaty with Imperial Japan.

And is Germany sending military observators to have a glimpse of the American military tactics?

Finally, I don't think the occupation of Indochina by Japan will make Pétain popular in France.

 

[HistLover]

alliances

I'm a little confused by who's friends with who. Can I get a brief outline on the alliance system as of the Sofia Treaty?

 

[The Undead Martyr]

Given that, TTL, Weber didn't engege the Reich along Japan in its war against the United States, how will Germany-United States be? On the hand, there is no DoW but on the other hand, Germany still signed a treaty with Imperial Japan.

And is Germany sending military observators to have a glimpse of the American military tactics?

Finally, I don't think the occupation of Indochina by Japan will make Pétain popular in France.

His is actually fairly interesting g. There were a LOT of Nazi supporters and fas lists in the US and the UK.... I recall there was a serious interview about whether Britain would go fascist for example. The Great Depression + World War left many disillusioned with democracy (and liberal dwmocracy &capitalism in the early 20th century was far from a field of roses for e.g. women, blacks, the poor...) And add in the various racial ideologies seeing the "Anglo Saxon race" as inheriting the earth...

I expect the US population would be rather indifferent to Germany. Isolationism was the predominant trend even in WWI. It was Wilson's hamfisted interventionism, and then Pearl Harbor and the German DoW that really kickstarted US hegemony. That plus everyone else being bombed to hell and back.

I don't recall much of Hills views, though I know FDR was hellbent intervention with the UK. So that's another factor against US involvement.

So ITTL I imagine there would be quite a lot of anti war sentiment especially if Weber has good PR and plays up the "amending Versailles and stomping icky Soviets for WASP glory" party line. Enough perhaps to keep the US out initially? Quite possibly.

 

[Hades]

I wonder what's happening in Latin America. With a more successful Nazi Germany, would the Integralists and Peronists be trying to woo Weber's attention or would the USA be too vigilant for that to happen?

 

[Tom Colton]

Re: For What Shall It Profit Der Führer...

Great update. It must be rather painful for Weber to realize that for all his calculations, he still made the mistake of making the wrong friends. Then again, those were the only possible friends he could make, with everyone else quite adamantly against him.

Thank you! Well, a remilitarised Germany was never going to have many friends, and it's almost sad to see Italy starting to shift uncomfortably away while Japan dives into a war which neither Weber or Balbo wants any part of, leaving him with Horthy and Antonescu as the closest things to friends.

Wow, that does kind of suck.

===
​

Re: The American Perspective

Given that, TTL, Weber didn't engege the Reich along Japan in its war against the United States, how will Germany-United States be? On the hand, there is no DoW but on the other hand, Germany still signed a treaty with Imperial Japan.

And is Germany sending military observators to have a glimpse of the American military tactics?

Finally, I don't think the occupation of Indochina by Japan will make Pétain popular in France.

His is actually fairly interesting g. There were a LOT of Nazi supporters and fas lists in the US and the UK.... I recall there was a serious interview about whether Britain would go fascist for example. The Great Depression + World War left many disillusioned with democracy (and liberal dwmocracy &capitalism in the early 20th century was far from a field of roses for e.g. women, blacks, the poor...) And add in the various racial ideologies seeing the "Anglo Saxon race" as inheriting the earth...

I expect the US population would be rather indifferent to Germany. Isolationism was the predominant trend even in WWI. It was Wilson's hamfisted interventionism, and then Pearl Harbor and the German DoW that really kickstarted US hegemony. That plus everyone else being bombed to hell and back.

I don't recall much of Hills views, though I know FDR was hellbent intervention with the UK. So that's another factor against US involvement.

So ITTL I imagine there would be quite a lot of anti war sentiment especially if Weber has good PR and plays up the "amending Versailles and stomping icky Soviets for WASP glory" party line. Enough perhaps to keep the US out initially? Quite possibly.

Well, in OTL, a majority of the polled American public said that Roosevelt should have declared war on Germany as well as Japan; of course, Hitler and Mussolini made that a moot point. That, however, was also based on sentiments concerning USW and its disruption to Atlantic trade. I thankfully have Hull's career as Secretary of State to base his foreign policy off, so it'll follow similar strands of internationalism. The shared front against Japan will go far for Anglo-American (and Anglo-Australian...) relations.

It's hard to tell who Weber's fooling any more, but it's not the British, and the longer he associates with Japan, it won't be the Americans any more.

Germany has military observers in Japan, but the longer he sits on his hands, the less welcome they'll be.

Les temps, les temps à-changent* in France, and Pétain's "maybe people won't bother us if we stop getting led by the nose by les rosbifs" is clearly becoming invalid.

*the best Google Translate can manage.

===
​

Re: Material for Part 7

I just realize something.

All of this, and the war's aftermath shall have unholy affects on pop culture and comics.

Could you do a update, or something on that? During and after the war?

Popular culture during the Reich's stay will comprise some of the next part. What kinds of heroes and heroines will be produced from these tumultuous times?

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

​

Well depend, while the Japanese had the usual lucky beginning, both UK and US can actively concentrate on a single front so things will go sour for them even quicker than OTL...hell i expect that the British sub will have a very happy hunting in the Pacific.

Regarding the new and improved Mitteleuropa, well the weak point will be always Italy, in OTL military but here the weakness is political.
Balbo (and a great part of the italian leadership, King included...as it better consider that with Benny dead the new boss will have less personal authority and it will be more a collective leaderships) is not a great fan of Germany or Weber and he know that Italy risk to become just a vassal of Berlin if she remain under the economic and military influnce of the Nazi, so it's almost assured that in any restart of the war Rome will take a lesson from Madrid and decide to skip it out.

At the same time Churchill and co. will try to woo the italians as Balbo opinions are not a mistery and frankly between the different treatment of the italian jew population (if they go in Africa it will be in a much more confortable way as real colonist of the italian empire) and other measures (like keep builiding the fortification in Trentino...just in case and done even by Benny) the diplomatic situation between the two big guys of the Axis are at the moment cold.

Balbo will be in an interesting position being saddled with a really shit legacy now that it's hit the fan in the East, but he's stuck with a much bigger and more powerful northern neighbour to whom he owes some kind of debt. Italy will be treading a fine, fine line in the years to come.

I wonder what's happening in Latin America. With a more successful Nazi Germany, would the Integralists and Peronists be trying to woo Weber's attention or would the USA be too vigilant for that to happen?

Very good questions: South America will indeed be a venue for the "Secret War" between Germany and the United States; how that manifests will be clear to me once I get my research there done.

Thus far, sections I know I'll be writing for Part 7, in addition to a month-by-month of the Asia-Pacific, include:

• The New Order
  • The Baltics and Belorussia
  • Ukraine
• The Final Solution (cont'd)
• Weapons development
• The Middle East
• South America
• General diplomacy
• Para bellum

These are subject to change, and I might skip some bits or (hopefully) add more.

===
​

Re: Whispers of Love, Whispers of Hate

I'm a little confused by who's friends with who. Can I get a brief outline on the alliance system as of the Sofia Treaty?

Sure, no problem.

AXIS (Anti-Comintern and Tripartite Pact Powers)
Germany (incl. Austria, Czechia, Gothica, German West Africa, Protectorate of Carniola and Styria, etc.)
Italy (incl. Albania)
Japan (incl. Korea, Manchukuo, etc.)
Bulgaria
Hungary
Romania (incl. Governate of Transnistra)
Slovak Republic
Spain

AXIS CO-BELLIGERENTS AND FRIENDLIES
Finland
Syrian Social Republic
Thailand

AXIS PUPPETS AND OTHER OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Baltic Federation
Belorussia
National Reorganised Government of China
Independent State of Croatia (incl. Principality of Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Denmark
Ethiopia
French Indochina
Monaco
Protectorate of Montenegro
Free City of Narvik
Serbian Autonomous Republic (incl. Free State of Banat)
Ukranian (Autonomous) Social Republic (sans Transnistra - to Romania)

===
​

NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY
United Kingdom
United States of America (incl. Commonwealth of the Philippines, Guam, Midway, etc.)

OBSERVERS AND OTHER FRIENDLIES
Cyprus
Netherlands
Turkey

AMERICAN CO-BELLIGERENT
China

BRITISH EMPIRE (as is relevant)
Australia
Brunei
Burma
India
Malaya
New Zealand

DUTCH EMPIRE (as is relevant)
United States of Indonesia

===
​

SOVIET UNION
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (sans Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukranian SSRs and part of Byelorussian SSR - to Germany)

SOVIET ALLIES
Chinese Communist Party
Communist Party of Korea

===
​

ARMED NEUTRALS
France
Norway
Portugal

ENFORCED NEUTRALS
Alsace-Lorraine
Belgium
Greece
Iceland
Luxembourg
Netherlands

NEUTRAL NEUTRALS
Andorra
Ireland
Liechtenstein
San Marino
Sweden
Switzerland
Vatican City
​

I think I got everyone; let me know if I've missed any particular country of relevance.

 

[De von Of]

Since you mentioned that you were going for a 7 out of 10 on the carnage scale, where would you put OTL on that scale, just so I can have an Idea about what's coming?

'Damaging Germany proper' could mean anything from losing east prussia, over an OTL result with Germany proper losing a large part of it's territory and getting divided, right up to nukes and full on Morgenthau.

I'm asking because I'm just not a fan of timelines ending with tens or even hundreds of millions dying to nuclear fire.

 

[alexcoppo]

'Damaging Germany proper' could mean anything from losing east prussia, over an OTL result with Germany proper losing a large part of it's territory and getting divided, right up to nukes and full on Morgenthau.

I'm asking because I'm just not a fan of timelines ending with tens or even hundreds of millions dying to nuclear fire.

I see only two possible scenarios:

1. Germany understands its nerve gas superiority, gets nukes and credible intercontinental delivery methods (Ho XVIIIb / A10). The confrontation cools into a Cold War which lasts up to 1980's with the eventual post Weber economic collapse of nazi empire
2. one morning of 1947, 100-150 B-36s enter german air space and within two hours 10+ million germans are dead and as much wounded (many of them dying afterwards due to the utter impossibility of treating so many victims).

 

[lukedalton]

Balbo will be in an interesting position being saddled with a really shit legacy now that it's hit the fan in the East, but he's stuck with a much bigger and more powerful northern neighbour to whom he owes some kind of debt. Italy will be treading a fine, fine line in the years to come.

Balbo and the rest of the italian enstablishment will try to fit two feet in one shoe as at the same time will try to keep at least cordial relations with Germany (as it's Italy most important commercial patner) but at the same time try to extert an independent politics as must show both internally and externally that Italy is not the 'first vassal of the New German Empire' but a Great Power on her own.
So expect in the short term a relations like US and France (allied but with very frequent stubborn and petty squabbles) and on the middle and long term like URSS and China (break up due to ideological question)

Regarding any debt, well everyone will think that with Italy partecipation on the Russian invasion, every due has been payed and if a new war start and Nato leave Italy alone...well Germany is on her own

 

[Penny for The Guy]

Post War Arts

Just a small note. Eric Frank Russell, the science fiction writer, worked in the same section with Ian Fleming, IIRC, and his stories were on a par with Fleming's fantastique, although not as profitable. (Wasp, Diabologic, etc.)

 

[Tom Colton]

Re: "Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...the dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together...mass hysteria!"

Since you mentioned that you were going for a 7 out of 10 on the carnage scale, where would you put OTL on that scale, just so I can have an Idea about what's coming?

'Damaging Germany proper' could mean anything from losing east prussia, over an OTL result with Germany proper losing a large part of it's territory and getting divided, right up to nukes and full on Morgenthau.

I'm asking because I'm just not a fan of timelines ending with tens or even hundreds of millions dying to nuclear fire.

I see only two possible scenarios:

1. Germany understands its nerve gas superiority, gets nukes and credible intercontinental delivery methods (Ho XVIIIb / A10). The confrontation cools into a Cold War which lasts up to 1980's with the eventual post Weber economic collapse of nazi empire
2. one morning of 1947, 100-150 B-36s enter german air space and within two hours 10+ million germans are dead and as much wounded (many of them dying afterwards due to the utter impossibility of treating so many victims).

Those are two possibilities but not the only ones. The Reich here will not last nearly as long as Kaiser K's over in A Valkyrie Rises Over Europe; this is not to argue of the plausibility of one longevity over another, I just don't want to have to depict the horror that is DISCO NAZIS. This thread has interesting discussions concerning the validity of nukes as instant-win buttons.

As for how this rates in comparision to OTL? I suppose OTL would be a 5/10 or 6/10. I'm reminded of most of the reaction to the premise of How Silent Fall the Cherry Blossoms, one of the few TLs I've read from start to finish (around 8/10-9/10 on the carnage-o-meter), where people were assuming that the American people would be calling for blood and the dissolution of the Japanese state if not its peoples, yet while still horrific, didn't indulge in its carnage. Neither will this TL. The New Order that will arise up until the Reich's collapse will undoubtedly claim more lives than OTL purely by dint of time elapsed, but I have no interest in wantonly chucking nukes every which way like For All Time, which scores a perfect 10/10 in its sheer fictional sadism.

What I'm trying to say here is you won't see this TL abruptly cut off with Fuehrer Josef Fritzl pressing the big red button as the Reich launches its first and final salvoes of nukes at the United States as led by President Theodore R. Bundy and the United Kingdom led by PM Peter Sutcliffe, MP from Yorkshire, who return in kind and ruin the world for the next dozen generations, all whilst "Equatorial Meat" is being shipped in from concentration camps in Kamerun to alleviate the German famine caused by Operation Vegetarian on crack and steroids.

===
​

Re: Weber and Balbo, Best Frenemies Forever?

Balbo and the rest of the italian enstablishment will try to fit two feet in one shoe as at the same time will try to keep at least cordial relations with Germany (as it's Italy most important commercial patner) but at the same time try to extert an independent politics as must show both internally and externally that Italy is not the 'first vassal of the New German Empire' but a Great Power on her own.
So expect in the short term a relations like US and France (allied but with very frequent stubborn and petty squabbles) and on the middle and long term like URSS and China (break up due to ideological question)

Regarding any debt, well everyone will think that with Italy partecipation on the Russian invasion, every due has been payed and if a new war start and Nato leave Italy alone...well Germany is on her own

Good analysis. The China-USSR analogy may well be spot-on; we'll just have to wait to October to see what I do with the two drivers in the same car.

===
​

Re: "My Name is..."

Just a small note. Eric Frank Russell, the science fiction writer, worked in the same section with Ian Fleming, IIRC, and his stories were on a par with Fleming's fantastique, although not as profitable. (Wasp, Diabologic, etc.)

An interesting suggestion and one I haven't heard of yet! Thank you!