Item #: SCP-4025

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-4025 is currently kept in a top secret containment facility in Bonn, Germany. As per the 1949 National Socialist Anomalies Regulation Agreement between the Foundation and the Federal Republic of Germany, containment and research efforts are managed by the Foundation with German oversight. All historical literature affected by SCP-4025-A must be transcribed, with said transcriptions available to federal authorities for review after being screened by the current head researcher.

Description: SCP-4025 is the Blutfahne ("Blood Flag"), a National Socialist swastika flag originally used by the Nazi Party during the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923, becoming stained with the blood of a deceased Sturmabteilung (SA)1 member in the process. After Hitler's rise to power in January 1933, SCP-4025 became a highly revered symbol of Nazi Germany, and was often used in Party ceremonies to "consecrate" new flags. Following the defeat and surrender of Germany in 1945, SCP-4025 fell into civilian hands before being acquired by the Foundation via Marshall, Carter & Dark in 1947.

SCP-4025's anomalous properties manifest when it makes contact with any item which contains a physical nonfictional narrative relating to the history of Germany, Eastern Europe, or Russia2. Upon contact, the narrative (hereafter SCP-4025-A) will be transformed in such a way that it describes an alternate reality. While the realities described in each SCP-4025-A instance are not consistent with one another, the following commonalities are found in all instances:

The history of the described world remains identical to ours until a Point of Divergence (PoD) taking place no earlier than January 1933 and no later than May 1942.

Nazi Germany (usually referred to in SCP-4025-A by its official name, the Greater German Reich) successfully conquers most of the European continent at some point in the 1930s or 1940s by defeating the Soviet Union.

The United Kingdom and the United States remain unconquered.

Generalplan Ost, the postwar colonization and mass extermination plan developed for Eastern Europe by the Nazis, is partially or completely implemented.

Nazi rule over the European continent collapses no later than 1980, leading to widespread turmoil and destruction.

Examples of Media Produced by SCP-4025

Original Media: Poland - Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Culture (by Greg Allen: Kuperard, 2015)

Resulting SCP-4025-A Instance: Our Father, Who Art in Gdańsk: An Examination of the Polish Psyche (by Arthur Brand: Alliance Publishing, 2002)

Media Description: After briefly describing the reconstruction of the Polish state following the General Government's liberation from Nazi rule in 1957, the author puts forward the thesis that Polish nationalism resembles a secular religion more than a traditional cultural identity, as evidenced by the fusion of Roman Catholic worship with "an almost prophet-like reverence" for modern Poland's founders (especially the Polish Government-In-Exile) and national heroes.

Author divides the "Polish psyche" into three defining characteristics: Loss, Reconstruction, and Vengeance. "Loss" comes from 85% of the Polish population being exterminated by the Nazis during and after World War II, in addition to all Polish cities save Gdańsk being systematically destroyed by enslaved Polish laborers during the General Government period. The author points to "Warsaw, City of Memory" being the most popular Polish ballad as evidence to support the "Loss" phenomenon.

"Reconstruction" comes from attempts to preserve and revive Polish culture since the founding of the Third Polish Republic in 1959, with special attention paid to Gdańsk. Referred to by the author as the "Polish Jerusalem", the first half of the fifth chapter is devoted entirely to describing the various national ceremonies, holidays, and cultural revival events centered around the city. The second half discusses the "Gdańsk Contradiction" present in the Polish psyche: namely, the knowledge that "Danzig" was only spared from Nazi destruction due to its association with Prussia. Poles must therefore reconcile the mixed German/Polish heritage of the city with the fact that it is the only remaining area in the country with any pre-20th century Polish architecture intact.

Lastly, "Vengeance" is explored through an analysis of the "burning, unkempt hatred" most Poles have for the German successor states and their people. The author spends the seventh chapter documenting the various "questionable acts" the Polish military has committed in the Permanent Occupation Zone of Prussia, and the eighth chapter to the "boogeyman" role that Germans occupy in Polish culture. Pointing out that international criticism of Polish actions in Prussia has been virtually nil, the book ambiguously concludes that Poland has a history-based "blank check" to behave in any manner it wishes towards Germany due to the universal association of the latter with Nazism up to the present day.

Original Media: Under Fate's Wing: A Refugee Girl's Flight to Freedom in the Shadows of World War II (by Hillevi Ruumet: Syncronea Pulbications, 2015)

Resulting SCP-4025-A Instance: We Are Not Germans: My Life in Reichskommissariat Ostland 1941-1956 (by Lisandra Saar: Institute of German Historical Studies, 1970)

Media Description: An autobiography of an Estonian woman living in the Nazi-occupied Baltics (referred to as Reichskommissariat Ostland by the Greater German Reich), starting with the first German soldiers arriving in her hometown of Tartu in mid-1941 when she was thirteen and ending with the liberation of the territory by the Allies fifteen years later. After first greeting the Germans as saviors from Soviet oppression, she recalls her "heart gradually sinking" as Nazi plans for her country become apparent. An especially traumatic event which is referenced several times is the closure of her local school and the public execution of the entire teaching faculty.

The title of the book refers to attempts to "Aryanize" Estonians not selected for extermination: Estonian-language literature was banned and publicly burned in a manner similar to the "book burnings" taking place during the early years of Nazi rule, and the only education she received after the occupation was lessons in German (which she was expected to demonstrate fluency in within two years). After speaking Estonian in public became gradually restricted and then almost entirely banned, the author founded an underground resistance group dedicated to teaching young children the language in order to prevent its gradual extinction.

Two main motifs are present throughout the book: the author's missing sister, and the act of flipping a coin (referencing the genocide of 54% of native Estonians as part of Nazi population reduction goals). Her sister was deemed "Aryan" due to her blue eyes and blond hair and was forcibly taken from her parents (who later died during the deconstruction of Tallinn) at the age of five and assigned to a family in Breslau to be raised as an "honorary German". The fifth chapter is devoted to her thoughts on the concept of luck as it relates to her and her sister: a recurring dream she had throughout the occupation involved her sister having swapped hair and eye color with her, and the dream always ended with her being put on a train headed west.

The final chapter and epilogue describe the Allied occupation of the country following the end of the Long War. Recalling that her feelings towards her liberators were "mixed at best", she recounts screaming at an American GI that he "came too late" and harshly lashing out at him when he attempted to comfort her. Last section of the book describes the war crimes trial of the Reich Minister for the East, and the author notes with sadness that "the occupation will always be burned into my brain, for I cried when I saw the architect of my misery on the television - not just because of what he had done, but because he was speaking German and I could still understand every word."

Original Media: The Great War 1914-1918 (by Marx Ferro tr. Nicole Stone: Routledge Classics, 2002)

Resulting SCP-4025-A Instance: Prelude: A History of the First World War (by Nancy Lu: Cambridge University Press, 1999)

Media Description: Content describing the events of the First World War are nearly identical to the non-anomalous addition, with some minor deviations in style and wording. However, chapters devoted to analyzing the causes of the First World War are altered in such a way that the rise of the German state is seen as the sole factor which lead to the both World Wars, with one passage describing the Treaty of Versailles as "tragically lenient." The author strongly advocates against German reunification and implies that the majority of both academia and the general public share her view on the subject.

Original Media: The Holocaust: A New History (by Lawrence Rees: PublicAffairs, 2017)

Resulting SCP-4025-A Instance: Generalplan Ost: The Eradication of Eastern Europe (by Susan Smith: Memorial Publishing, 1990)

Media Description: Book is a detailed account of the colonization and destruction of Eastern Europe, with special attention paid to Poland and the former Soviet Union. First two chapters of the book mainly consist of "before and after" photographs of Warsaw, Minsk, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and other Eastern European cities which were demolished on the direct orders of Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders, alongside author commentary. One photograph, which is described as world-famous, depicts a Russian man putting a sledgehammer to the Church of All Saints in Moscow under SS gunpoint with tears in his eyes.

Middle section of the book is devoted to documenting the depopulation of Eastern Europe via "extermination through labor" and its colonization by German settlers. Author describes how all ethnic groups not considered "Aryan" by the Nazis were enslaved and deliberately worked to death on starvation rations, with a certain percentage of the population (15% in Poland, 33% in Ukraine, etc) kept alive to work as serfs on homestead farms established by the Reich on behalf of the settlers. The extermination of the Jews, Latgalians3, and Roma is noted as an exception to the policy, as all were sent to concentration camps and killed without being subject to normal "population thinning" measures.

Final section of the book examines the fate of Eastern Europe since the collapse of the Greater German Reich in 1971. While countries with boundaries similar to those that existed in 1939 were re-established, much of the former Eastern Reich is said to be "still a depopulated wasteland, filled with the empty villages and dead farms of those deemed 'subhuman' while the glorious Slavic cities of old can only be recalled in monochromatic photographs." With demographic estimates concluding that it could take up to a century or longer for the populations of these countries to reach their pre-Nazi levels, the author concludes that the damage done by the Reich will never fully be repaired.

Original Media: The Diary of Anne Frank (by Anne Frank ed. Otto Frank: Contact Publishing, 1947)

Resulting SCP-4025-A Instance: Blank book.

Media Description: Firsthand accounts of Holocaust victims are erased by SCP-4025. Additionally, no recorded SCP-4025-A instances make reference to primary sources on the Holocaust, even when directly acknowledging that it occurred and describing it in detail. Our Father, Who Art in Gdańsk contains a brief reference to "the difficulty of hearing the voices of Nazi victims when all were silenced (and their memories erased) before the truth was known to the world."

Footnotes

1. The original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party and predecessor of the more famous Schutzstaffel (SS). Eliminated during the "Night of the Long Knives" purge in June-July 1934.

2. Digital media is not affected by SCP-4025.

3. An ethnic minority native to Latvia.