Race-German War of 1965

The Race-German War of 1965 was a brief and costly war fought between Germany and several of its allies and the Race in 1965. It ended in a Race victory, but also gave the Race cause for concern as it saw how greatly improved German weaponry had become since the World War II vintage weapons it had faced when the Conquest Fleet first landed on Tosev 3 twenty years earlier.

Background
At the Peace of Cairo conference, Atvar agreed to withdraw from most of the Race's European territories but refused to leave Poland. German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop demanded that Poland be ceded to the Greater German Reich, claiming that Adolf Hitler had not authorized him to sign any agreement that did not include this and threatening to walk out of the conference if his demand was not met. This alienated not only the Race but the Soviet Union, which was prepared to cede its own claim to Poland to the Race but not to Germany, and other Tosevite not-empires, who feared that unreasonable German ultimata would leave Atvar less willing to make the concessions they'd already won from him and expected to continue to win. Ribbentrop ultimately backed down when Atvar announced a new, more aggressive military policy: That he would respond to signs of human aggression by overwhelmingly liberal use of atomic bombs. After this, the Race's claim to Poland was recognized by all the major human powers, including Germany.

This was the status quo for the next two decades. The Soviet Union respected the Race's claim to Poland, as it provided a buffer between the Soviet Union and Germany; Vyacheslav Molotov was secretly delighted to have them there. In Germany, the Race's presence was only tolerated. Hitler hated it, as did his successor, Heinrich Himmler. Himmler was nonetheless canny enough to bide his time until 1964, when he convinced himself (based more on his ideological beliefs than on any concrete fact) that Germany could take Poland from the Race with minimal consequences to Germany. Although self-assured, Himmler nonetheless proposed an alliance to Soviet leader Vyacheslav Molotov, harkening back to the division of Poland in 1939. Molotov, remembering full well how Germany used Poland as a launching pad for the invasion of the USSR, and having a more realistic understanding of the Race's military power, declined.

Information of this meeting came to the Race's attention. Moreover, Race forces in Poland noted an increase in German troop activity along the Reich's border. The Race's amabassador in Germany, Veffani, and his aid, Felless, warned Himmler not to pursue such provocations. Himmler flatly denied any intention of launching a war.

Himmler's sudden death seemed to bring the crisis to a close. However, he was succeeded by Ernst Kaltenbrunner in 1965. Kaltenbrunner, a fire-breathing Nazi idealogue, launched a sudden, unprovoked invasion of Poland shortly after taking office.

The War Itself
German forces were joined by Romanian, Hungarian, and Slovakian forces. But the Soviet Union and the United States, which had been invited to join in the war and declined, maintained policies of strict neutrality, and even Germany's ally Britain wisely offered diplomatic support but no military aid. German forces were badly outnumbered by Conquest Fleet veterans led by Atvar and allied with Polish and Jewish militias, which made up the majority of the Race's infantry on the Polish front. German forces did not get very far into Poland before faltering, and a Race counteroffensive into Germany followed their repulsion from Poland; but the Germans did demonstrate some considerable capabilities: They destroyed nearly every major Polish city with nuclear missles as well as other Race-held cities across the globe (though the Race turned Germany into a nuclear wasteland); and their tanks proved capable of fighting Lizard landcruisers on a one-on-one basis, whereas twenty years earlier the Race had maintained a 5:1 kill ratio in armored combat.

The Race attempted to open a secondary front by invading southern France from Spain. This invasion was soundly defeated.

The Reich Rocket Force's launchpads were destroyed, so German space shuttles could not be reinforced. However, plenty had already been in orbit when the war started, and these battled starships of the Conquest and Colonization Fleets, with very limited success. The battles in orbit prevented neutral space-faring nations from launching new missions as well.

In the asteroid belt, a long-range nuclear missile destroyed the Hermann Goering.

At one point in the war, Romania attempted to make a seperate peace with the Race. Germany punished it by detonating an atomic bomb over Bucharest, and afterward Romania as well as Hungary and Slovakia loudly proclaimed their continued loyalty to the Reich until the very end.

End of the War and Aftermath
Kaltenbrunner and many other senior Wehrmact, SS, and Nazi Party officials were killed in the war, leaving General Walter Dornberger as the senior living German official. He assumed the Chancellorship and immediately instructed Ambassador Paul Schmidt to ask Soviet General-Secretary Vyacheslav Molotov to mediate a peace agreement. Schmidt and his Race counterpart, Queek, negotiated an agreement in the Kremlin. Thus ended the war as well as Atvar's last significant military command as Fleetlord of the Conquest Fleet.

The terms to which Germany was forced to submit were harsh. Germany would not be allowed to travel into space and would also not be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. In addition, France was to be yielded as a territorial concession and a Fourth Republic was proclaimed there. However, as it had after World War I, Germany found ways of subverting these restrictions; and like the Entente fifty years before it, the Race lost the will to enforce them. Within thirty years Germany was once again a space-faring country.

The demonstration of the Race's military might reminded Tosevite not-empires that, though they had made some gains since the Peace of Cairo, the Race was still the world's single strongest power. It was this reminder which would prompt US President Earl Warren to accept punitive measures from the Race after it discovered his role in the destruction of twelve ships of the Colonization Fleet, because he knew the US would not survive a similar war if he refused.

The elimination of Germany as a global power also forced a realignment of human states diplomatically. Before the war, a delicate balance had been maintained. Everyone knew that the Race was stronger than either Germany, the United States, or the Soviet Union, but no one knew whether it was stronger than all three; and acting in concert, the human powers were able to negotiate with the Race from a position of strength. With one of the three eliminated, the balance shifted much more in the Race's direction, and the United States and Soviet Union as well as other independent nations began cooperating much more closely. In 1966, when it looked like a war between the United States and the Race was likely, Molotov declared that the Soviet Union would ally with the United States in such a war (whereas it had been neutral in the Race-German War) rather than risk becoming the only powerful human nation on a Race-dominated planet.

Tremendous chaos throughout Germany and Poland followed the war, and much of the population was displaced. Many families were seperated, and some individuals even found themselves enslaved. Mordechai Anielewicz lost track of the atomic bomb he'd captured from Otto Skorzeny over twenty years before; the weapon fell into the hands of a group of violent Jewish fundamentalists. They attempted to detonate it inside Germany but found that it was no longer operational.

Shorn of its principal ally and fearful of Soviet dominance, Finland invited the Race to set up a military base in its territory, the first north of the Baltic. Britain lost its most powerful friend and permanently fell behind in terms of international prestige. Taken with the development of an alliance with the French Fourth Republic and of course the defeat of the Reich itself, these developments allowed the Race to take a position as the dominant power in Europe, with only the isolated Soviet Union as a rival.

Though a great victory for the Race, the victory rang somewhat hollow as its cost and the casualties suffered, both military and civilian, also served as a reminder that the subjugation of all of Tosev 3 would be an extraordinarily difficult and costly task, one which might even prove impossible.

Radiation resulting from the German-Race nuclear exchange spread to neutral countries, severely disrupting civilian life for decades to come.