Adolf Hitler was seen in Part 7. Since he had apparently completely lost his mind (And limbs) I would presume he's living the rest of his life in an asylum. Hopefully cared for by Jewish doctors/nurses.
On an aside, it sure sounds like Mussolini
Stupid Luck and Happenstance.
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
Adolf Hitler was seen in Part 7. Since he had apparently completely lost his mind (And limbs) I would presume he's living the rest of his life in an asylum. Hopefully cared for by Jewish doctors/nurses.
On an aside, it sure sounds like Mussolini
Part 11, Chapter 98
Chapter Ninety-Eight
17th April, 1932
Berlin, Germany
“You have to understand that among certain circles blaming the German Empire or it’s Government for every problem has become the constant answer that they always go back to” Augustus Lang said across the table to Fredrich Grossman “The truth is that we do not have the power to do half of what we are accused of even within our own borders.”
Lang had met the journalist in a posh gentlemen’s club and the two of them were discussing current affairs over lunch. He carried this conversation on knowing full well from his own encounters with Grossman that there was no such thing as off the record. Even Emil Holz, who avoided politics and publicity like the plague said he’d had a few encounters with Grossman over the years. Emil mentioned something about owing the journalist a severe beating or three.
“That’s the official word of the Government on the death of Benito Mussolini?” Grossman asked.
“No” Lang said “It’s my own perspective on the matter. The official view of the Government is that it’s an internal Italian matter.”
Lang wasn’t about to shed any tears over the death of the right-wing nationalist with ideas of restarting the Roman Empire, his ideas around corporate power alone should have been enough to keep him far away from the levers of power. For years, the German Government had been leaning on the Italians to keep that man out of power. Now it seemed that fate dealt them all a winning hand.
“That’s not the Italian Fascist party is saying” Grossman said.
“Of course, that’s what they would say” Lang said “Are you familiar with Occam’s Razor?”
That drew a look of incomprehension from Grossman.
“It works like this” Lang said “All things being equal the simplest answer is usually correct. Now, what’s the simplest answer here? We risked an International incident and a highly-trained asset to kill a leader of a foreign political party or a jealous husband shot the man who he thought was screwing his wife?”
Grossman just smirked at that, it was obvious what he thought the answer was. In Grossman’s mind, there was no such thing as a political party that didn’t try to pass the buck and everyone fucked around, especially politicians.
“I can pretty much guaranty you that whatever happened in Italy had nothing to do with the Germany” Lang said. Why not? As far as Lang knew that was the truth.
Wunsdorf-Zossen, Germany
“You’re lucky you didn’t blow the whole operation” Schultz said “Walking off the distance yourself hours before the op, what if you’d been seen? And that apartment? Yes, you’d made sure that the family was gone for the week but if there was even the remotest chance that anyone might have come home then you’d have ended up with more bodies to dispose of.”
“I understand that” Thorwald said “But none of those things happened.”
“I don’t care” Schultz said “At least tell me you properly disposed of the rifle.”
This arrangement was delicate. While Thorwald technically outranked Schultz in the Luftwaffe, Schultz was his handler and team leader in the Abwehr. That was why Schultz was handling the debrief.
“It went into the vat at a steel foundry in Turin” Thorwald said “By now it’s probably part of at least a dozen or so automobiles.”
“How did you pull that off?” Schultz asked.
“I paid off the local Mafioso” Thorwald said “I told them I had a body to dispose of and they didn’t ask any questions.”
“And you were sure that these Mafioso never caught on to your real purpose?”
Thorwald fell silent at that. While Schultz was fairly certain that the local criminals had no love of the man who Thorwald had killed. The idea that an agent of a foreign country had killed someone in their own backyard did strange things in the minds of locals. Even criminals could be patriots.
“The whole operation was sloppy and you left too much to chance” Schultz said “Now we are going to go over it step by step looking at what you did right and wrong so that next time you will be perfect.”
Munich, Germany
It was the smell of the hospital that hit Peter Holz first. Decay, urine and despair. He’d been pulled away from his work in Poland and sent here to Southern Germany. The Heer had said that they felt he needed to spend some time in an actual hospital. Peter suspected that it had more to do with the idea that he might go native in Eastern Poland. He had already applied for a different assignment, anywhere but here.
“We try to be as respectful of the residents as possible here” Doctor Rosen said “Not that they make it easy. The Great War destroyed a lot of men’s minds and bodies. Much of that is not properly understood, we keep them here as much for their own protection as anything.”
They were buzzed into the secured ward via a solenoid that was controlled by a man in a booth surrounded by reinforced shatter-proof glass.
“I understand you spent some time on the frontlines yourself in Poland, Doctor Holz?” Rosen asked.
“Yes” Peter said “As a combat medic and later I went back as a field surgeon.”
“Good” Rosen said looking at his clipboard “That might help you with some of them during their more lucid moments.”
Great, Peter thought sarcastically to himself, why was he here again?
“Our first patient of the day is low risk for obvious reasons” Rosen said “Please try not to stare, I understand that he was in a dugout shelter on the Western Front that received a direct hit and he was the only man inside to survive. Artillery fire does terrible things to people.”
Peter had the memory of the times he’d seen that first hand come unbidden to his mind. Even so he was surprised by the appearance of the patient, what was left of the man was a ragged stump. How could someone have survived that level of trauma?
“The Unteroffizer here requires around the clock care” Rosen said “There have been some unfortunate incidents with him saying offensive things to the staff with a Jewish or Slavic background but it turned out that it was nothing that a bit of electroconvulsive therapy couldn’t cure.”
Rosen was entirely too cheerful in how he said that. Peter also noticed that the man was holding his silence even while looking at Doctor Rosen with a look of profound hate.
17th April, 1932
Berlin, Germany
“You have to understand that among certain circles blaming the German Empire or it’s Government for every problem has become the constant answer that they always go back to” Augustus Lang said across the table to Fredrich Grossman “The truth is that we do not have the power to do half of what we are accused of even within our own borders.”
Lang had met the journalist in a posh gentlemen’s club and the two of them were discussing current affairs over lunch. He carried this conversation on knowing full well from his own encounters with Grossman that there was no such thing as off the record. Even Emil Holz, who avoided politics and publicity like the plague said he’d had a few encounters with Grossman over the years. Emil mentioned something about owing the journalist a severe beating or three.
“That’s the official word of the Government on the death of Benito Mussolini?” Grossman asked.
“No” Lang said “It’s my own perspective on the matter. The official view of the Government is that it’s an internal Italian matter.”
Lang wasn’t about to shed any tears over the death of the right-wing nationalist with ideas of restarting the Roman Empire, his ideas around corporate power alone should have been enough to keep him far away from the levers of power. For years, the German Government had been leaning on the Italians to keep that man out of power. Now it seemed that fate dealt them all a winning hand.
“That’s not the Italian Fascist party is saying” Grossman said.
“Of course, that’s what they would say” Lang said “Are you familiar with Occam’s Razor?”
That drew a look of incomprehension from Grossman.
“It works like this” Lang said “All things being equal the simplest answer is usually correct. Now, what’s the simplest answer here? We risked an International incident and a highly-trained asset to kill a leader of a foreign political party or a jealous husband shot the man who he thought was screwing his wife?”
Grossman just smirked at that, it was obvious what he thought the answer was. In Grossman’s mind, there was no such thing as a political party that didn’t try to pass the buck and everyone fucked around, especially politicians.
“I can pretty much guaranty you that whatever happened in Italy had nothing to do with the Germany” Lang said. Why not? As far as Lang knew that was the truth.
Wunsdorf-Zossen, Germany
“You’re lucky you didn’t blow the whole operation” Schultz said “Walking off the distance yourself hours before the op, what if you’d been seen? And that apartment? Yes, you’d made sure that the family was gone for the week but if there was even the remotest chance that anyone might have come home then you’d have ended up with more bodies to dispose of.”
“I understand that” Thorwald said “But none of those things happened.”
“I don’t care” Schultz said “At least tell me you properly disposed of the rifle.”
This arrangement was delicate. While Thorwald technically outranked Schultz in the Luftwaffe, Schultz was his handler and team leader in the Abwehr. That was why Schultz was handling the debrief.
“It went into the vat at a steel foundry in Turin” Thorwald said “By now it’s probably part of at least a dozen or so automobiles.”
“How did you pull that off?” Schultz asked.
“I paid off the local Mafioso” Thorwald said “I told them I had a body to dispose of and they didn’t ask any questions.”
“And you were sure that these Mafioso never caught on to your real purpose?”
Thorwald fell silent at that. While Schultz was fairly certain that the local criminals had no love of the man who Thorwald had killed. The idea that an agent of a foreign country had killed someone in their own backyard did strange things in the minds of locals. Even criminals could be patriots.
“The whole operation was sloppy and you left too much to chance” Schultz said “Now we are going to go over it step by step looking at what you did right and wrong so that next time you will be perfect.”
Munich, Germany
It was the smell of the hospital that hit Peter Holz first. Decay, urine and despair. He’d been pulled away from his work in Poland and sent here to Southern Germany. The Heer had said that they felt he needed to spend some time in an actual hospital. Peter suspected that it had more to do with the idea that he might go native in Eastern Poland. He had already applied for a different assignment, anywhere but here.
“We try to be as respectful of the residents as possible here” Doctor Rosen said “Not that they make it easy. The Great War destroyed a lot of men’s minds and bodies. Much of that is not properly understood, we keep them here as much for their own protection as anything.”
They were buzzed into the secured ward via a solenoid that was controlled by a man in a booth surrounded by reinforced shatter-proof glass.
“I understand you spent some time on the frontlines yourself in Poland, Doctor Holz?” Rosen asked.
“Yes” Peter said “As a combat medic and later I went back as a field surgeon.”
“Good” Rosen said looking at his clipboard “That might help you with some of them during their more lucid moments.”
Great, Peter thought sarcastically to himself, why was he here again?
“Our first patient of the day is low risk for obvious reasons” Rosen said “Please try not to stare, I understand that he was in a dugout shelter on the Western Front that received a direct hit and he was the only man inside to survive. Artillery fire does terrible things to people.”
Peter had the memory of the times he’d seen that first hand come unbidden to his mind. Even so he was surprised by the appearance of the patient, what was left of the man was a ragged stump. How could someone have survived that level of trauma?
“The Unteroffizer here requires around the clock care” Rosen said “There have been some unfortunate incidents with him saying offensive things to the staff with a Jewish or Slavic background but it turned out that it was nothing that a bit of electroconvulsive therapy couldn’t cure.”
Rosen was entirely too cheerful in how he said that. Peter also noticed that the man was holding his silence even while looking at Doctor Rosen with a look of profound hate.
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In TTL, he's a multiple amputee racist conspiracy theorist going nowhere. He reminds me of this scene from The Princess Bride:
The Great Depression is at it's height and the way that WW1 played out is going to have consequences.
Will the Great Depression be as severe in the current circumstances?
How will Germany be affected, obviously they will fare better than the Wiemar Republic did in OTL but still times wil probably get tough. I can't wait to see what happens.
I have always wondered if the Depression would be butterflied, lessened or exacerbated in a CP victory scenario. I have to admit I've only ever had a superficial understanding of exactly what factors contributed to the Great Depression being as bad as it was and how it began.
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Part 11, Chapter 99
The causes of the Great Depression are manifold but the misguided economic policies that preceded the crisis were in place before the POD. The stratification that took place in OTL happened as well as the years of chronic mismanagement that exasperated the crisis took place. In TTL the German economy was effected but unlike in the US it didn’t grind to a halt. Another thing is that some of the key figures who helped mitigate events in OTL were killed in France.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
28th July, 1932
Washington DC, USA
The shantytown that had been built the protesters across the river from the Capital was burning. As Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur had followed his orders. There had been no talking to these people. Most of these men had fought with him in France, many of them had brought their wives and children. This had ended as badly as he’d figured it would. There were several wounded and dead scattered here and there. Dozens more had been arrested at the moment they still were trying to sort out who the leaders were. They identified Walter W. Waters and several others who were loaded onto train cars, it was the last time that anyone ever saw them.
President Curtis had gotten exactly what he had wanted. It was believed by many that it was this incident that became the final straw as far as the American public was concerned, that would cost him the White House that November.
5th August, 1932
Wunsdorf-Zossen, Germany
It was a typical midweek afternoon. Here in Wunsdorf there wasn’t a whole lot to do except kill time until it was time to go home for the day. Horst was trying his best to keep the men busy in an effort to keep someone high ranking from happening along and giving them some real work to do. The problem was that it was a warm Summer day and no one particularly wanted to do anything.
What he’d read in the newspaper kept rolling through his mind. American Veterans from the Great War getting attacked by their own Government at a place called Anacostia Flats near the capital in Washington DC. All because they were asking for an advance payment on money they were owed anyway?
Horst couldn’t help but think that it was a glimpse of might have happened to Germany had the great war ended differently. What might have happened if Verdun had ended as another bloody stalemate or the peace at the end of 1917 hadn’t happened? If they’d been forced to take a peace treaty imposed by the revenge minded French who knew what chaos would have ensued. This was the US Army using tear gas, tanks and cavalry on their own people. It looked like what might have happened that day a decade ago if Augustus Lang had not offered a creative solution.
That was when a teenaged Soldat ran up “The General wanted you to have this” he said handing Horst a rifle case before running off. What was the latest skullduggery that Wolvogle had cooked up? When Horst opened the case, he wondered how the General had pulled this off. It was a factory new Mauser K31, the automatic carbine that the Luftwaffe had been refusing to share over the last few months. This one had the factory inspection stamps on the brass disk on the stock but the Luftwaffe stamp was absent. That showed where the General’s friends were. He saw that there was a stack of 30 round magazines, just like with a sub machine guns except curved.
“Hey, everyone!” Horst yelled “The General just sent us a new toy that we get to check out.”
That got everyone’s attention.
Wilhelmshaven, Germany
The High Seas Fleet was still processing the death of Admiral Franz von Hipper. Jacob himself was still trying to come to grips with his role on the SMS Dresden. When his orders had arrived, he’d been informed that his time as an Executive Officer was over. An experienced hand was needed to take over the light cruiser and he was it. Kapitan zur See Jacob Schmidt, master and commander of the Dresden. Quite a shift from the radio room where he’d started two decades earlier. This had come with the news that the Admiral had collapsed in his office in Wilhelmshaven and had died of a cause that had never been publicly disclosed. His longtime protégé Erich von Raeder had taken his place, still though Jacob felt that an era had just ended.
His orders were to take the Dresden to Constantinople, the infamous jumping off point for covert operations in the Black Sea. Russia and the Ukraine were likely the ultimate targets of this operation.
Berlin, Germany
Augustus Lang was busy trying to light a fire under the ass of Ferdinand Porsche who was taking his sweet time getting a product to market. The Austrian had made a lot of lofty promises to the prior Government had eaten up. It had eventually fallen to Lang to see to it that this happened in a timely manner and that the German Government recouped to investment. They had a prototype for the Type 1, jokingly referred to as the Beetle and a factory was being built in Wolfsburg. At this rate, they would be lucky if they had production going by the end of the decade. Lang needed that to change immediately.
The other headache on Lang’s desk was the proposed acquisition of Bramo, the division of Siemens that made aircraft engines by BMW. On its face the deal was a good one. However, it got complicated in a hurry when the implications were considered. Both of them made nearly identical products but if the deal happened it could easily create a monopoly on radial aircraft engines. It could also be argued that having two companies like this was a waste of resources.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
28th July, 1932
Washington DC, USA
The shantytown that had been built the protesters across the river from the Capital was burning. As Army Chief of Staff General Douglas MacArthur had followed his orders. There had been no talking to these people. Most of these men had fought with him in France, many of them had brought their wives and children. This had ended as badly as he’d figured it would. There were several wounded and dead scattered here and there. Dozens more had been arrested at the moment they still were trying to sort out who the leaders were. They identified Walter W. Waters and several others who were loaded onto train cars, it was the last time that anyone ever saw them.
President Curtis had gotten exactly what he had wanted. It was believed by many that it was this incident that became the final straw as far as the American public was concerned, that would cost him the White House that November.
5th August, 1932
Wunsdorf-Zossen, Germany
It was a typical midweek afternoon. Here in Wunsdorf there wasn’t a whole lot to do except kill time until it was time to go home for the day. Horst was trying his best to keep the men busy in an effort to keep someone high ranking from happening along and giving them some real work to do. The problem was that it was a warm Summer day and no one particularly wanted to do anything.
What he’d read in the newspaper kept rolling through his mind. American Veterans from the Great War getting attacked by their own Government at a place called Anacostia Flats near the capital in Washington DC. All because they were asking for an advance payment on money they were owed anyway?
Horst couldn’t help but think that it was a glimpse of might have happened to Germany had the great war ended differently. What might have happened if Verdun had ended as another bloody stalemate or the peace at the end of 1917 hadn’t happened? If they’d been forced to take a peace treaty imposed by the revenge minded French who knew what chaos would have ensued. This was the US Army using tear gas, tanks and cavalry on their own people. It looked like what might have happened that day a decade ago if Augustus Lang had not offered a creative solution.
That was when a teenaged Soldat ran up “The General wanted you to have this” he said handing Horst a rifle case before running off. What was the latest skullduggery that Wolvogle had cooked up? When Horst opened the case, he wondered how the General had pulled this off. It was a factory new Mauser K31, the automatic carbine that the Luftwaffe had been refusing to share over the last few months. This one had the factory inspection stamps on the brass disk on the stock but the Luftwaffe stamp was absent. That showed where the General’s friends were. He saw that there was a stack of 30 round magazines, just like with a sub machine guns except curved.
“Hey, everyone!” Horst yelled “The General just sent us a new toy that we get to check out.”
That got everyone’s attention.
Wilhelmshaven, Germany
The High Seas Fleet was still processing the death of Admiral Franz von Hipper. Jacob himself was still trying to come to grips with his role on the SMS Dresden. When his orders had arrived, he’d been informed that his time as an Executive Officer was over. An experienced hand was needed to take over the light cruiser and he was it. Kapitan zur See Jacob Schmidt, master and commander of the Dresden. Quite a shift from the radio room where he’d started two decades earlier. This had come with the news that the Admiral had collapsed in his office in Wilhelmshaven and had died of a cause that had never been publicly disclosed. His longtime protégé Erich von Raeder had taken his place, still though Jacob felt that an era had just ended.
His orders were to take the Dresden to Constantinople, the infamous jumping off point for covert operations in the Black Sea. Russia and the Ukraine were likely the ultimate targets of this operation.
Berlin, Germany
Augustus Lang was busy trying to light a fire under the ass of Ferdinand Porsche who was taking his sweet time getting a product to market. The Austrian had made a lot of lofty promises to the prior Government had eaten up. It had eventually fallen to Lang to see to it that this happened in a timely manner and that the German Government recouped to investment. They had a prototype for the Type 1, jokingly referred to as the Beetle and a factory was being built in Wolfsburg. At this rate, they would be lucky if they had production going by the end of the decade. Lang needed that to change immediately.
The other headache on Lang’s desk was the proposed acquisition of Bramo, the division of Siemens that made aircraft engines by BMW. On its face the deal was a good one. However, it got complicated in a hurry when the implications were considered. Both of them made nearly identical products but if the deal happened it could easily create a monopoly on radial aircraft engines. It could also be argued that having two companies like this was a waste of resources.
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True I guess, but it seems Charles Curtis is running the show. I wonder what happened to Hoover
Except its strongly indicated that Waters and other leaders were "disappeared" which did not happen in OTL. That will end badly.
Yeah, but Hoover was able to somehow survive after MacArthur in his infinite "genius" went in against orders.
Depends on what Curtis had ordered MacArthur to do. If it's like IRL, someone's about to find himself in Alaska counting trees.