Berlin


 * BerlinFlag.pngBerlinmap.png the Canadian city formerly known as Berlin, see Kitchener, Ontario.

Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union. Located in northeastern Germany, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Area, comprising 5 million people from over 190 nations. Geographically embedded in the European Plains Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one third of the city´s territory is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers and lakes.

Berlin in After the Downfall
In April 1945 Soviet forces were storming Berlin despite desperate defensive actions by units such as Captain Hasso Pemsel's company. In the days to come, Berlin would fall but Pemsel would not be there to see it.

Berlin in In the Presence of Mine Enemies
In 2010, Berlin was the capital of the Greater German Reich which ruled the largest land empire in the world. It was a huge, bustling metropolis with skyscrapers, subways, and cosmopolitan shopping centers. The capital the home of key government offices and ministries including the Air and Space, Justice, Interior, Transportation, Food, Economics, Colonial, Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, the SS, the Reich's Genealogical Office, and the Führer's palace.

There were several monuments including the Great Hall, Führer's Palace, Adolf Hitler Platz, Soldier's Hall and the Arch of Triumph. Much of the monumental architecture was designed by Albert Speer. Berlin was also a destination for tourists from the territories of the Germanic Empire, the Empire of Japan and Latin America. There was also a siginificant foreign population in the city. There was a Japanese restaurant near the government district called Admiral Yamamoto, an American-style restaurant named the Greasy Spoon.

With the death of the third Führer Kurt Haldweim, Heinz Buckliger was chosen as the new Führer. He began subtly reforming the Reich by reversing many of the harsh policies of his predecessors by creating some degree of freedom of speech for discussion of hitherto-forbidden subjects, and eased - though by no means removed - the German yoke over dominated Aryan countries in West Europe and North America.

Reactionary opposition gathered around the still-powerful SS, while the populist Gauleiter of Berlin Rolf Stolle arose as the champion of accelerated reforms. Things came to a head when Buckliger set elections in the Reichstag which were relatively free.

Under the leadership of the Reichsführer-SS Lothar Prützmann, the SS attempted to stage a putsch, holding Buckliger prisoner in the Croatian island of Hvar and installing former High Commissioner of Ostland Affairs Odilo Globocnik as the new Führer. The pustch was stymied by a manifestation of "people's power" led by Rolf Stolle, to which the Wehrmacht eventually lent its support. The call "Deutschland erwache" ("Germany, Awake!"), an old Nazi battle cry which helped Hitler to power, was in this context used as a call to defend reform and democracy.

The Putsch was defeated based on the anti-Semitic assertion that the Reichsführer-SS and leader of the coup was himself of Jewish blood (a rumor, ironically, started by the hidden Jews themselves). In the aftermath, Prützmann shot himself, Globocnick was lynched by a mob, and several senior SS members were publicly hanged.

Berlin in Southern Victory
Berlin was the capital of the German Empire in 19th and 20th century. During the Great War, Berlin never saw any action due to the distance from the front lines.

During the Second Great War, the city came under attack from the RAF and the French. As the war dragged on and the Entente was forced to retreat, attacks on the city decreased, until the German Army liberated the Netherlands, removing the threat to Berlin altogether.

Berlin in The Man With the Iron Heart
Berlin was occupied jointly by the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union after World War II. Unfortunately, the unification that stemmed from the drive to defeat Germany vanished once it was in fact defeated. This meant that the German Freedom Front was able to act in Berlin, and that the Allies (particularly the USSR) refused to cooperate with one another to put the GFF down.

Noteworthy GFF acts in Berlin included the assassination of Marshal Ivan Koniev in May, 1945; a suicide truck bombing that killed several parading Soviet soldiers; and the poisoning of several key Soviet officials on New Years' Eve, 1946.

Berlin in The War That Came Early
Berlin was the heart and centre of the Third Reich when war broke out in 1938. Although a far journey for many bombers, Berlin was first bombed in October of 1938 by the Czechoslovak Air Force; Though this raid was only a pin prick. Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring made the boast that if any air force could raid Berlin again, the German people could call him "Meyer".

On New Year's night in 1938, the RAF made it's first serious bombing raid against the city. This was later followed by the Russians, and then the French. Although these raids weren't doing any damage, it was difficult not to notice and caused many Berliners to privately call Göring Meyer.

Berlin in Worldwar
Berlin was the first Tosevite city destroyed by an atomic bomb after the arrival of the Race's Conquest Fleet on Earth in 1942. Adolf Hitler escaped Berlin's destruction, much to the Race's (and many humans') lament.

After the war, the Nazi Party decided not to rebuild Berlin and relocated their capital to Nuremberg. Officially they claimed they wanted to leave the city destroyed as a testament to the danger and depravity of the Race. In truth, the Germans found the cost of rebuilding the entire city prohibitive.