This article is about Germany as it appears in In the Presence of Mine Enemies. For other versions, see Germany
By the 21st Century, Germany was the dominant superpower of the world and its Greater German Reich was the largest land empire the world had ever seen. Its capital was Berlin, one of its largest cities.
History[]
During the Second World War in the 1930s to 40s, under the rule of Adolf Hitler, the Reich and its Axis allies defeated the United Kingdom, France and the Soviet Union and divided all of Europe, Africa, Asia and part of the Pacific Ocean among themselves. During the Third World War of the 1960s to 70s, the Reich (now under the rule of Heinrich Himmler) and Japan subdued the United States which had remained in neutral isolation during the earlier war.
The vast territories formally annexed as part of the Reich included Germany's boundaries, Britain, the Low Countries, and nearly everything eastward from there, through the former Poland and Soviet Union, deep into Siberia, the Caucasus, and India. Most of Africa (including former British, French and Belgian colonies) was also an integral part of the Reich.
In addition to the Reich itself, the "Greater Germanic Empire" included two other sub-categories: occupied but not formally annexed countries, including France, the USA, and Canada, and; "allies", including Sweden, Finland, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and the Italian Empire. Allies outside Europe included South Africa, Argentina and Brazil. Several of Germany's allies (Italy, Spain, and Portugal) had sizable empires in Africa and in the Middle East. However, these allies still received a great deal of input from Germany. Only Japan ruled a truly independent empire, encompassing much of Asia and the Pacific.
The Reich espoused racist views and the "superiority" of the Aryan race. All inferior races considered Untermenschen like Jews, Slavs, Roma, Arabs, Negroes and homosexuals were exterminated and/or enslaved.
However, by 2010, the Reich was growing far too dependent upon its Empire, and stagnating at multiple levels. When Führer Kurt Haldweim's health appeared to be on the decline, Germany felt the rumblings of discontent in the United Kingdom. While the country had been ruled by the British Union of Fascists since the 1940s, British Fascist Charlie Lynton began agitating for more a democratic approach to party politics. During a BUF convention in 2010, Lynton's faction was able to reintroduce elements of democracy back into the party, changing its party rules to allow the membership to elect its leaders. This move was predicated largely on the strength of the First Edition of Mein Kampf, Hitler's manifesto and one of the most revered works in the German canon.[1]
Upon Haldweim's death, the newly appointed Führer, Heinz Buckliger, began a process of reform. His first act upon his rise was to give a speech to prominent Party leaders at Nuremberg. While the text was kept from the German people, rumors quickly circulated that Buckliger had denounced certain of the Reich's past actions as criminal.
Buckliger seized upon the democratic ideas offered by the First Edition of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf to reintroduce the notion of representative government to the empire. In his first televised speech, Buckliger eschewed a Party uniform in favor of a plain gray suit. He lamented the dependence of the German economy upon the annual monetary tributes levied against occupied and annexed territory, and took steps to remedy this problem. For example, Buckliger recalled one division of German troops back from the United States, and reduced the tribute the U.S. paid to Germany.
Closer to home, the Dutch began demanding more national independence. Several Dutch demonstrators protested on the Adolf Hitler Platz, yelling the slogan Vrijheid (Dutch for Freedom and close to the German Freiheit) and carrying their flags. They were rounded up and arrested by the Security Police. However, they were not summarily executed as had been the custom.[2]
Naturally, Buckliger faced opposition at home. While Buckliger toured Scandinavia in 2011, Reichsführer-SS Lothar Prützmann, the head of the SS, acted behind the scenes to discredit Buckliger by ordering the publication of an op-ed piece entitled Enough is Enough. Alternatively, Rolf Stolle, the Gauleiter of Berlin, gave a speech that at once complimented Buckliger for his planned reforms, and attacked him for not being ambitious enough.
Buckliger took both of these attacks in stride, meeting them in moderate tones, and exhorting the people to continue on the path he'd set them on. Shortly after he returned from abroad, Buckliger gave a speech at Friedrich Wilhelm University, where he proclaimed the Reichstag a mere rubber-stamp for the Reich, that there would be free and fair elections to be held on 10 July 2011.
Events came to a head when Prützmann (under the guise of the "State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich") initiated a Putsch in 2011. The SS placed Buckliger and his wife, Erna, under house-arrest in their vacation home in Croatia. Minor bureaucrat Odilo Globocnik was made Führer. The Wehrmacht quickly sided with Buckliger. Global opinion also decried the Putsch, and the German people took to the streets to protest the SS.[3] Moreover, Rolf Stolle defiantly and bombastically refused to be arrested, gathering the people of Berlin to his banner. While popular support was already against the SS, rumors that Prützmann was Jewish expedited the Putsch's collapse. Prützmann committed suicide, Globocnik was beaten and killed by an enraged mob, and the Wehrmacht moped up the Putsch. Stolle became a national hero. Upon his return, Buckliger's relationship with Stolle changed. The Führer no longer had the stature in the eyes of the people, and Stolle had more legitimacy.
Sunday, 10 July 2011 saw the largest voter turnout the country had known in decades. With the people mobilized, the reformers won the majority, and the Reich took the first steps on the slow march to reform.
Government[]
Hitler's vision for a strong Aryan race and German supremacy required a government comprising an extensive and oppressive bureaucracy led by the Führer. By the early 21st century, Germany had agencies for every facet of the Reich, some of which overlapped in their responsibilities.
The Führer served as both head of state and government for the Reich. The Führer was the absolute ruler of the country, and enjoyed absolute obedience, irrespective of who actually held the office.[4] Despite their substantial power, the Führer did not designate a successor. Instead, officials within the government selected a new Führer upon the death of the incumbent.[5]
As its name implies, the Air and Space Ministry was responsible for air and space travel. This included manned tripped to Mars,[6] and planned trips to Jupiter.[7] Hermann Göring was the first de facto head the ministry. His influence was so dominant that the headquarters of the Air and Space Ministry was still known as the Reichsmarschall's Office in 2010, almost 50 years after his death. The roof of the Ministry was covered in elaborate gardens and grass, as a venue for his notorious orgies.[8]
The Justice Ministry was probably the most feared agency in Germany.[9] It oversaw the Security Police, including the SS and the Gestapo.
The Colonial Ministry was responsible for administering the most of the non-European territories the Reich, such as the farming villages of the Ukraine, the mining colonies of central Africa, and cattle herders in North America.[10]
Conversely, the Foreign Ministry was responsible for relations between Germany and its allies, but also between the Reich and the annexed and occupied governments that made up the empire.[11]
The Ministry of Propaganda controlled how all information was relayed in the Reich. This included news broadcasts and news broadcasters.[12]
Other notable ministries included the Interior, Transportation, Economics, Food,[13] and Heavy Industry.[14]
Education[]
The Reich's education system was completely subordinate to the Nazi ideology at every level. Grammar school required students to regurgitate "facts" that usually emphasized the grandeur of the state, the supremacy of the German race, and the "inferiority" of the Jews. Compliance with the state was deeply ingrained in students as they advanced through the grades. Poor students were subject to corporal punishment.
At the university level, things were much the same. Friedrich Wilhelm University was home of the Institute of Racial Studies, which classified Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, Arabs, and Negroes as inferior while Persians and Indians were classified as Aryan.[15]
List of Known Countries Part of the Reich[]
- Afghanistan
- Austria
- Czechoslovakia/Bohemia and Moravia
- Denmark
- India
- Iran
- Norway
- Poland
- Russia
- United Kingdom
- Yugoslavia
List of Known Countries Occupied by the Reich[]
References[]
|