German Reich

**Germany** ('dʒə:mənɪ, German: Deutschland), officially the **German Reich** (German: Deutsches Reich), is a country in Central Europe. It's the third most populous country in both Europe and the  European Union after  Rome and  Russia. Germany is situated between the Baltic and North seas to the north, and the Alps to the south; it covers an area of 671,287 km², with a population of around 142 million within its 17 constituent states and occupied Baltic islands. Germany borders  Intermarium and  Hungary to the east,  Switzerland,  Liechtenstein-Alaska,  Yugoserbia and  Rome to the south, which aditionally borders the state to the west, and  Dutchland to the west. The nation's capital, largest city and largest urban area is Berlin, and its financial centre is Frankfurt am Main.

Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity. A region named Germania was documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the  Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the  Holy Roman Empire, the  German Confederation was formed in 1815. The German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated  German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the semi-presidential  Weimar Republic.

The establishment of a presidential dictatorship in 1930 paved the way to the abolition of the Weimar constitution and the reinstitution of the monarchy by Otto of Habsburg-Lothringen who declared himself German Emperor in January 1942. Germany joined World War II on the side of  Great Britain and the Allies and was eventually victorious in 1946, while it transformed into the world's leading super power and contested the Cold War against the fascists. After the war Germany occupied vast territories in Central, Northern and Eastern Europe and established  Mitteleuropa, an economic and political union that shared the same monarch and included a customs and monetary union.

Emperor Otto was deposed in 1968 after the outbreak of the Revolutions of 1968 and a new constitution was drafted in Frankfurt am Main that abolished the monarchy, eliminated the mistakes of the Weimar constitution and transformed the German Reich into a federal parliamentary republic. The new **Frankfurter Republik**, ruled by a social democratic government, remained the world's greatest power. After the Cold War ended in the early 1990s,  Austria united with Germany on 3 October 1994. Following the Scania War,  Denmark reunified with the Reich on 1 September 2023. As the world's leading technological power in nuclear and rocket science and engineering Germany was the first nation to ever transport a man into space, to the Moon, Mars, the asteroid belt and Venus.

Today Germany is a global super power with a strong economy; it has the second largest economy in Europe after  Rome and the world's fourth largest economy by nominal GDP and by PPP respectively. As a global leader in several industrial, scientific and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is recognized as a nuclear power and has the sixth largest standing army with a total of 1,310,000 soldiers. As a developed country, which ranks very high on the Human Development Index, it offers social security and a universal health care system, environmental protections, and a tuition-free university education. Germany is a founding member of the  United Nations, the  United Nations Security Council,  Čakovec Pact, the  Eurasian Treaty Organization (ETO), the  Defensive Council of Independent Nations (DCIN), the G16, the  European Union and Schengen Area,  Mitteleuropa, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It has the third-greatest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

## Etymology

The word German means the language of the Germans, the people of Germany.  The English word *Germany* derives from the Latin *Germania*, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. The German term *Deutschland*, originally *diutisciu land* ("the German lands") is derived from *deutsch* (compare *Dutch*), descended from Old High German *diutisc* "of the people" (from *diot* or *diota* "people"), originally used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic \**þiudiskaz* "of the people" (see also the Latinised form *Theodiscus*), derived from \**þeudō*, descended from Proto-Indo-European \**tewtéh* "people", from which the word *Teutons* also originates.

## History

The discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m (5.97 to 7.38 ft) length were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first ever non-modern human fossil was discovered; the new species of human was called the Neanderthal. The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans, similarly dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm. The finds included 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments ever found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man which is the oldest uncontested figurative art ever discovered, and the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels which is the oldest uncontested human figurative art ever discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra,  Upper Saxony. It is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme.

### **Germanic Tribes and Frankish Empire**

The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Nordic Bronze Age or the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south, east and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well as Iranian, Baltic, and Slavic tribes in Central and Eastern Europe. Under Augustus,  Rome began to invade Germania. In 9 AD, three Roman legions led by Varus were defeated by the Cheruscan leader Arminius. By 100 AD, when Tacitus wrote *Germania*, Germanic tribes had settled along the Rhine and the Danube (the Limes Germanicus), occupying most of the area of modern Germany. However, Baden-Württemberg, southern Bavaria, southern Hesse and the western Rhineland had been conquered and incorporated into Roman provinces: Raetia, Germania Superior, and Germania Inferior. In the 3rd century a number of large West Germanic tribes emerged: Alemanni, Franks, Chatti, Saxons, Frisii, Sicambri, and Thuringii. Around 260, the Germanic peoples broke into Roman-controlled lands. After the invasion of the  Huns in 375, and with the decline of Rome from 395, Germanic tribes moved farther southwest. Simultaneously several large tribes formed in what is now Germany and displaced or absorbed smaller Germanic tribes. Large areas known since the  Merovingian period as  Austrasia,  Neustria, and  Aquitaine were conquered by the Franks who established the Frankish Kingdom, and pushed farther east to subjugate  Saxony and  Bavaria. Areas of what is today the eastern part of Germany were inhabited by Western Slavic tribes of Sorbs, Veleti and the  Obotritic Confederation.

### **East Francia and Holy Roman Empire**

In 800, the Frankish king Charlemagne was crowned emperor and founded the  Carolingian Empire, which was later divided in 843 among his heirs. Following the break up of the Frankish Realm, for 900 years, the history of Germany was intertwined with the history of the  Holy Roman Empire, which subsequently emerged from the eastern portion of Charlemagne's original empire. The territory initially known as  East Francia stretched from the Rhine in the west to the Elbe River in the east and from the North Sea to the Alps. The Ottonian rulers (919–1024) consolidated several major duchies and the German king Otto I was crowned Holy Roman Emperor of these regions in 962. In 996 Gregory V became the first German Pope, appointed by his cousin Otto III, whom he shortly after crowned Holy Roman Emperor. The  Holy Roman Empire absorbed northern Italy and Burgundy under the reign of the Salian emperors (1024–1125), although the emperors lost power through the Investiture controversy.

In the 12th century, under the Hohenstaufen emperors (1138–1254), German princes increased their influence further south and east into territories inhabited by Slavs; they encouraged German settlement in these areas, called the eastern settlement movement *(Ostsiedlung)*. Members of the  Hanseatic League, which included mostly north German cities and towns, prospered in the expansion of trade. In the south, the Greater Ravensburg Trade Corporation (*Große Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft*) served a similar function. The edict of the Golden Bull issued in 1356 by Emperor Charles IV provided the basic constitutional structure of the Empire and codified the election of the emperor by seven prince-electors who ruled some of the most powerful principalities and archbishoprics.

Population declined in the first half of the 14th century, starting with the Great Famine in 1315, followed by the Black Death of 1348–50. Despite the decline, however, German artists, engineers, and scientists developed a wide array of techniques similar to those used by the Italian artists and designers of the time who flourished in such merchant city-states as  Venice,  Florence and  Genoa. Artistic and cultural centres throughout the German states produced such artists as the  Augsburg painters Hans Holbein and his son, and Albrecht Dürer. Johannes Gutenberg introduced moveable-type printing to Europe, a development that laid the basis for the spread of learning to the masses.

In 1517, the Wittenberg priest Martin Luther nailed the *Ninety-five Theses* to the church door, challenging the practice of selling of indulgences. He was subsequently excommunicated in 1520, and his followers were condemned in the 1521 Diet of Worms, which divided Western Christianity. In 1555, the Peace of Augsburg tolerated the "Evangelical" faith (now called Lutheranism) as an acceptable alternative to Catholicism, but also decreed that the faith of the prince was to be the faith of his subjects, a principle called *cuius regio, eius religio*. The agreement at  Augsburg failed to address other religious creeds: for example, the Reformed faith was still considered a heresy and the principle did not address the possible conversion of an ecclesiastic ruler, such as happened in the  Electorate of Cologne in 1583. However, in practice Calvinists were given protection under the *Augsburg Confession Variata* modified upon request by Philip Melanchthon. From the Cologne War until the end of the Thirty Years' Wars (1618–1648), religious conflict devastated German lands. The latter reduced the overall population of the German states by about 30 per cent, and in some places, up to 80 per cent. The Peace of Westphalia ended religious warfare among the Imperial Estates of the  Holy Roman Empire. Their mostly German-speaking rulers were able to choose either Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, or the Reformed faith as their official religion after 1648.

In the 18th century, the  Holy Roman Empire consisted of approximately 1,800 territories. The elaborate legal system initiated by a series of Imperial Reforms (approximately 1450–1555) created the Imperial Estates and provided for considerable local autonomy among ecclesiastical, secular, and hereditary states, reflected in the Imperial Diet. The House of Habsburg held the imperial crown from 1438 until the death of Charles VI in 1740. Having no male heirs, he had convinced the Electors to retain Habsburg hegemony in the office of the emperor by agreeing to the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713. This was finally settled through the War of Austrian Succession; in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Charles VI's daughter Maria Theresa ruled the Empire as Empress Consort when her husband, Francis I, became Holy Roman Emperor. From 1740, the dualism between the Austrian  Habsburg Monarchy and the  Kingdom of Prussia dominated German history.

In 1772, then again in 1793 and 1795, the two dominant German states of  Prussia and  Austria, along with the  Russian Empire, agreed to the Partitions of Poland; dividing among themselves the lands of the  Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. As a result of the partitions, millions of Polish speaking inhabitants fell under the rule of the two German monarchies. However, the annexed territories though incorporated into the  Kingdom of Prussia and the  Habsburg Realm, were not legally considered as a part of the  Holy Roman Empire. During the period of the French Revolutionary Wars, along with the arrival of the Napoleonic era and the subsequent Mediatisation final meeting of the Imperial Diet, most of the secular Free Imperial Cities were annexed by dynastic territories; the ecclesiastical territories were secularised and annexed. In 1806 the *Imperium* was dissolved; many German states, particularly the Rhineland states, fell under the influence of  France. Until 1815,  France,  Russia,  Prussia and the  Habsburgs (Austria) competed for hegemony in the German states during the Napoleonic Wars.

### **German Confederation and Empire**

Following the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna (convened in 1814) founded the  German Confederation (*Deutscher Bund*), a loose league of 39 sovereign states. The appointment of the Emperor of Austria as the permanent president of the Confederation reflected the Congress's failure to accept  Prussia's rising influence among the German states, and acerbated the long-standing competition between the Hohenzollern and Habsburg interests. Disagreement within restoration politics partly led to the rise of liberal movements, followed by new measures of repression by Austrian statesman Metternich. The *Zollverein*, a tariff union, furthered economic unity in the German states.

National and liberal ideals of the French Revolution gained increasing support among many, especially young, Germans. The Hambach Festival in May 1832 was a main event in support of German unity, freedom and democracy. In the light of a series of revolutionary movements in Europe, which established a republic in  France, intellectuals and commoners started the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states. King Frederick William IV of Prussia was offered the title of Emperor, but with a loss of power; he rejected the crown and the proposed constitution, leading to a temporary setback for the movement.

King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as the new Minister President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck successfully concluded war on Denmark in 1864, which promoted German over Danish interests in the Jutland peninsula. The subsequent (and decisive) Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the  North German Confederation (*Norddeutscher Bund*) which excluded  Austria from the federation's affairs. After the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, which has been caused by the coronation of Leopold I of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as king of  Spain, the German princes proclaimed the founding of the  German Empire in 1871 at Versailles.  Prussia was the dominant constituent state of the new empire; the Hohenzollern King of Prussia ruled as its concurrent Emperor, and Berlin became its capital.

In the *Gründerzeit* period following the unification of Germany, Bismarck's foreign policy as Chancellor of Germany under Emperor William I secured Germany's position as a great nation by forging alliances, isolating  France by diplomatic means, and avoiding war. Under William II, Germany, like other European powers, took an imperialistic course, leading to friction with neighbouring countries. Most alliances in which Germany had previously been involved were not renewed. This resulted in the creation of a dual alliance with the multinational realm of  Austria-Hungary, promoting at least benevolent neutrality if not outright military support. Subsequently, the Triple Alliance that included  Italy completed a Central European geographic alliance that illustrated German, Austrian and Italian fears of incursions against them by  France and/or  Russia. Similarly,  Britain,  France and  Russia also concluded alliances that would protect them against Habsburg interference with Russian interests in the Balkans or German interference against  France.

At the Berlin Conference in 1884, Germany claimed several colonies including  German East Africa,  German South West Africa,  Togoland, and  Kamerun. Later, Germany further expanded its colonial empire to include  German New Guinea,  German Micronesia and  German Samoa in the Pacific, and  Kiautschou Bay in  China. In what became known as the "First Genocide of the Twentieth-Century", between 1904 and 1907, the German colonial government in  South West Africa ordered the annihilation of the local Herero and Namaqua peoples, as a punitive measure for an uprising against German colonial rule. In total, around 100,000 people—80% of the Herero and 50% of the Namaqua—perished from imprisonment in concentration camps, where the majority died of disease, abuse, and exhaustion, or from dehydration and starvation in the countryside after being deprived of food and water.

The assassination of Austria's crown prince on 28 June 1914 provided the pretext for  Austria-Hungary to attack  Serbia and trigger World War I. After four years of warfare, in which approximately two million German soldiers were killed, a general armistice ended the fighting. In the German Revolution (November 1918), Emperor Wilhelm II and the ruling princes abdicated their positions, and Germany was declared a federal republic, the so called  Weimar Republic. Germany's new leadership signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting defeat by the Allies. Germans perceived the treaty as humiliating, which was seen by historians as influential in the rise of radical elements within the state. Germany lost around 20% of its European territory and ceded all of its colonial possessions in Africa and the South Sea.

### **Weimar Republic and Presidential Dictatorship**

**Weimar Republic and Presidential Cabinets**

On 11 August 1919, President Friedrich Ebert signed the democratic Weimar Constitution. In the subsequent struggle for power, communists seized power in  Bavaria, but conservative elements elsewhere attempted to overthrow the republic in the Kapp Putsch. Street fighting in the major industrial centres, the occupation of the Ruhr by Belgian and French troops, and a period of hyperinflation followed. A debt restructuring plan and the creation of a new currency in 1924 ushered in the Golden Twenties, an era of artistic innovation and liberal cultural life.

The worldwide Great Depression hit Germany in 1929. Chancellor Heinrich Brüning's government pursued a policy of fiscal austerity and deflation which caused unemployment of nearly 30% by 1932. The dire political situation of Germany and discord between the parties in the parliament prompted Reichspräsident Paul von Hindenburg to enact emergency laws and rule by decree. In the ensuing presidential dictatorship Hindenburg appointed his own governments without the approval of the parliament.

In 1933 after the last *Präsidialkabinette* had failed Hindenburg named Alfred Hugenberg, a powerful publisher, economist and leader of the right wing DNVP, as the new *Reichskanzler*. Hugenberg wanted to reunite the nation and therefore created a National Front in the Reichstag, an alliance consistng of DDP, DVP, DNVP and the populist SAF. The SAF, the Socialist Workers' Front, led by Gregor Strasser was a fascistoid ultranationalist party that followed a socialist economic policy and received nearly 40% in the 1932 election. Besides the majority in parliament Hugenburg also gathered monarchists, the large-scale industry and the *Stahlhelm* behind him. The Camarilla behind Hindenburg and Hugenberg was called the Schleicher Clique because of Kurt von Schleicher's great influence on both the president and the government.

After Hindenburg died in 1934 and Hugenberg replaced him as *Reichspräsident* while Schleicher became the new *Reichskanzler*, Schleicher advocated for a policy called *Querfront* to unite all sides of the political spectrum to battle the high unemployment and economic downfall of Germany. He also wanted to decrease the popularity of the radical SAF and passed many of the socialist reforms that Strasser and the SAF wanted to implement, however this achieved the contrary and strenghtened the SAF as well as angering many of his allies in the conservative military and industry. Schleicher's influence diminished in the late 30s when he withdrew some of the socialist reforms to reconcile with the Junker and large-scale industry in sight of a new World War. The *Reichskanzler'*s unpopular policymaking prompted the SAF to leave the National Front in 1940 whereby the coalition was reduced to less than 30% in the parliament.

Hugenberg who himself had mostly remained in the background since 1934 was now forced again to reign by decree and with great resistance within both the parliament and the population. Hugenberg who had achieved some successes in his early reign, when he had reconciled and allied with the British as well as remilitarized the  Rhineland, was merely seen as a figurehead of the Schleicher Clique by most of the Germans. His popularity began to crumble as early as 1934 when he created the *Stahlhelm* as the new German military and disregarded the Reichswehr. His appeasement and alliance policy with the  Soviet Union was very unpopular within the government and the nation who wanted to honor the alliance with  Britain to retake Germany's glory and conquer new eastern lands.

The appointment of Reinhold Quaatz, a personal friend of Hugenberg, as the new *Reichskanzler* in 1940 didn't do much to prevent the waning vogue and power of the Hugenberg Administration. Hugenberg who still didn't want to join  Britain against the Soviets when World War II broke out in early 1940 and even negotiated with the Kremlin remained stubborn and believed that the acquisitions of the  Sudetenland,  Danzig,  Memel,  West Prussia,  Poznan and  East Upper Silesia as well as a small Polish puppet state, called the  General Government of Poland, were enough to secure his victory in the upcoming presidential election of 1941.

**Otto of Habsburg's Presidential Campaign**

Otto von Habsburg-Lothringen, son of the former Austrian Emperor Karl, was raised in  Portugal and  Spain after the exile of his father as a future monarch by his mother. Later on he moved to Berlin because of the pro monarchist sentiment in Germany. There he graduated with a PhD degree in Political and Social Sciences in 1935 and became accustomed to the political elite and German politics. Otto was a staunch opponent of radical nationalism and Bolshevism and rejected a German annexation of  Austria to Germany, but he viewed Germany as a means to the Habsburg Restauration. The *Vaterländische Front* (Fatherland Front), the new fascist government of  Austria, was originally supportive for Otto to return to  Austria as Emperor but the new Austrian dictator Kurt Schuschnigg eventually declared all title claims of the Habsburg family to be void and banned all male heirs from ever entering  Austria in June 1938. This declaration was a follow-up event of the 1938 Habsburg Incident when Habsburg loyalists started a Coup d'État against the *Ständestaat* to end the fascist rule and put Otto on the Austrian throne.

The happenings of the 1938 Habsburg Incident effectively made  Austria an Italian puppet as Italian tanks crossed the Austrian border to restore order. After this an uncomplicated Habsburg Restauration became highly unlikely because of the bad relations between  Italy and its puppet  Austria and Germany as the Italians feared that Otto was highly influenced by German politics because of his long stay in Berlin.
After originally disliking the German policy-making Otto von Habsburg now turned to politics to achieve his own personal goals. In recent historiography Otto's motives for running for *Reichspräsident* are primarily attributed to merely selfish goals and not because he suddenly developed a liking for Germany or German patriotism and nationalism.

Otto, a young and charismatic man, was seen by many Germans as noble figure that could lead Germany in a better direction than the old men had done before him. So it was no wonder that his popularity in the public exploded after the announcement that he would run for president and subsequent election campaigns were attended by excited crowds. His royal Habsburg blood and the still huge popularity of monarchism in Germany also helped Otto styling himself as the savior and leader of a new Germany.
Public support wasn't the only thing Otto could count on in his election campaign. He knew that in order to establish and secure his power it was of utter importance that he had the industry, the military but also the SAF, Germany's most popular party, on his side.

In the second round of the German presidential election of 1941, Otto von Habsburg-Lothringen received more than 63% of the public vote and was thereafter sworn in as Germany's new *Reichspräsident* on 6 April 1941. To be able to execute his own agenda, Otto planned and carried out the *Osterschlag* on Easter Sunday 13 April. By disempowering the state governments, installing loyal *Ministerpräsidenten* and creating Gregor Strasser the new *Reichskanzler*, Otto secured his power in what is now known as *Gleichschaltung*.

### **Kaiserdiktatur and World War II**

**Kaiserdiktatur and Start of War**

The new Habsburg-Lothringen Administration swiftly reaffirmed the Anglo-German Alliance and took a hostile attitude towards the  Soviet Union. This culminated in the Avignon Conference, held in the French city of Avignon, to discuss the current war and events. All great powers except the  Soviet Union and  Japan, who thought the conference was a farce, attended the meeting. Initially not intended to create an alliance against the Soviets, the great powers agreed on the Seven Points of Avignon, a treaty describing the plans for an alliance of the great powers against the Soviets, later also against  Japan, and for a new order after the war. The six nations who ratified the paper were  Zarexium for  Atlantis,  China, Germany,  Italy, the  United Kingdom and the  United States, while  Red France didn't because of the Franco-Soviet Alliance, but they ratified it later in 1944.

On 9 May 1941, known as the *Wesertag*, Germany's reformed *Reichswehr,* that was reinstated as the country's primary military and merged with the *Stahlhelm*, executed Operation Weserübung and assaulted the  Danish Rige and  Norway. The invasion was meant as a test of the *Reichswehr'*s capabilities and explained to the  Soviet Union as a preventive measure against a possible British occupation of Scandinavia, yet in reality Germany planned the invasion together with  Britain, who occupied the Norwegian islands and coastline, to secure the supply lines of iron from  Sweden for the following Operation Barbarossa.  Denmark capitulated after 6 hours and was immediately reintegrated into Germany as the  *Reichsland* Denmark, while  Norway capitulated in late May, being administered similarly to  Poland as the  General Government of Norway.

Without a declaration of war Germany and its allies  Austria,  Britain,  West Finland,  Italy,  Hungary and  Romania invaded the  Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Back then Germany propagated a Soviet invasion of the  General Government of Poland, yet modern historiography agrees that Operation Barbarossa was an unprovoked and unjustified act of aggression by Germany and its allies and therefore an illegal war. The motivations of the Habsburg-Lothringen Administration for the invasion were satisfaction of the German populace, support of the British who were at war with the Soviets since the Greco-Italian War, acquisition of the Caucasian oil reserves and Soviet agricultural resources, creation of *Lebensraum* for the Germans and the exploitation of the local population as forced labor and their eventual extermination, as postulated in the Ostsiedlungsplan.

In the ensuing German-Soviet War, also known as the Eastern Front, over 4 million personal of the Allied Powers, the largest invasion force in history, invaded the  Soviet Union using Blitzkrieg tactics. The Allies swiftly conquered the Soviet puppet states of  Czechoslovakia,  Poland and  Byelorussia as well as the three Baltic SSRs in quick succession, establishing the General Governments of  Czechoslovakia and  Ostland in the process, while they failed to subdue  East Finland and Murmansk in the Continuation War and Operation Silberfuchs respectively. In parallel, southern Allied forces achieved significant victories by occupying  Ukraine,  Crimea by the invasion of Crimea, and economically important areas of the  Russian SFSR west of Moscow. Both sides inflicted heavy casualties on each other, for example in the Battle of Kyiv where German forces surrounded more than 700,000 soldiers in the largest encirclement in history.

Despite these early successes, the Allied offensive stalled in the Battle of Moscow at the end of 1941, and the subsequent Soviet winter counteroffensive pushed the Germans about 250 km back. The *OKR* had confidently expected a quick collapse of Soviet resistance, but the Red Army absorbed the Allied forces' strongest blows and bogged it down in a war of attrition for which especially the Germans were unprepared. Nevertheless, on 18 January 1942, exactly 71 years after the German Unification, *Reichspräsident* Habsburg-Lothringen proclaimed a soon victory against Bolshevism and himself German Emperor and Preserver of the German People. This act is seen as the start of the Kaiserdiktatur and as justification for the further expansion of his dictatorial powers, Otto's following in the monarchist footsteps of his father and ancestors and as an attempt to create a stronger claim on  Austria.

**Soviet Advance and Allied Counteroffensives**

Allied failure to reach the Arkhangelsk–Astrakhan line and the British having to divert troops to the Middle East and  Burma meant that Germany had to abandon its plans to retake the initiative (Operation Otto). The diminished Allied forces had to endure resounding defeats along the entire Eastern Front, leading to the subsequent abandonment of  Crimea and  West Finland, the latter kickstarting the Scandinavian War. By Spring 1942, German *OKR* had developed a new strategy to counter the Soviet numerical superiority known as *Kontrollierter Rückzug*, avoiding major clashes with Soviet forces and using scorched earth tactics, ushering a phase of great suffering for the local population. Throughout the Allied withdrawal from April 1942 to March 1944, major atrocities, famines, mass shootings and bombardments took the lives of more than 12.5 million soldiers and civilians. Modern estimates attribute the ability of the Allies to maintain such a long withdrawal to the great deal of lend lease provided by the  United States, who joined the war after  Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, to Germany,  Britain and  Italy.

After the Soviet winter offensive had deeply pushed back Germany and its allies, the Red Army's advance slowed down in April 1942 after their failure to lift the Siege of Leningrad and their front becoming overstretched after the  Soviet Union had invaded neutral  Sweden and Allied-occupied  Norway to cut off their steel shipments to Germany. Soviet dictator Stalin mistakenly believed the Germans would try to retake the initiative by starting another offensive on Moscow in Spring 1942 and personally halted further Soviet advancements, giving the Allies just enough time to regroup their lines and getting prepared for *Kontrollierter Rückzug*. After realizing his own miscalculation, Stalin became furious and ordered a sudden strike on Kursk. The German *Heeresgruppe Süd* didn't expect such an abrupt assault, yet *Generalfeldmarschall* von Rundstedt swiftly rallied the *Heeresgruppe*, which inflicted catastrophic damage on the Red Army, making the Battle of Kursk the most costly defeat in Russian history.

By December 1942, Allied forces were pushed back to the river Dnieper and the Belarusian borderlands of  Ostland, now known as the  Kingdom of White Ruthenia. After the 535 day long siege of Leningrad was lifted following the successful Leningrad-Novgorod offensive on 26 January 1943, the Red Army's advance up to the periphery of Stockholm, and the conquest of west-bank  Ukraine after the Dnieper-Carpathian offensive in May 1943, Stalin was confident that Germany would be defeated within the next year, however the Red Army's failure to capture the Narva Isthmus by August 1943 halted Soviet advance into the Baltics and their plans to invade  East Prussia, while the possibility to use the Baltic Sea in their war efforts was delayed for more than 7 months.

The Soviet invasion of the Baltics accelerated again after the Vistula offensive had facilitated a breakthrough for the Red Army in the Narva Isthmus in December 1943, encircling Anglo-German troops in  Lithuania, the  United Baltic Duchy and Königsberg in the process. Yet the long *Abwehrkämpfe* and the ongoing German naval and aerial superiority played a crucial role in the 1944 Atlantian naval invasion of the Baltics. Even though the Soviets had conquered all of Eastern Europe up to Berlin in Spring 1944, the  Soviet Union struggled to pressure the Allies into surrender. This was mainly due to the Red Army being incredibly overstretched and drained because of the sheer length of the front, spanning from  Norway to the Black Sea and into  Iran.

Germany, despite being close to collapse, correctly predicted that the Zarexians, French and Americans would soon reinforce Allied forces in Central Europe. Additionally the reinforcements were even able to open new fronts which was devastating for the Red Army as the Allies had gained the numerical superiority, leading to the Soviets not being able to maintain the entire front. By that the allies intended to prompt the Red Army to a tactical retreat. The fact that the  Soviet Union lost more soldiers in the last year of their offensive than in any before, while the Allies evaded most major battles and received a plethora of supplies from the  United States, was another big contributor to the front collapsing in May 1944.

Soviet morale dropped to an all time low in Spring 1944 after American troops arrived at Berlin to relieve the exhausted Anglo-German troops,  Italy,  Britain and  Atlantis starting simultaneous offensives in  Crimea and the Baltics respectively and  France moving troops to the Caucasus, joining the war together with  Turkey by opening the Caucasus Front. A few months prior, Otto had succeeded in convincing French Prime Minister Maurice Thorez to join the war on the Allies' side, leading to the Franco-German closing of ranks in Hohenstaufen Castle. In April 1944  Hungary was invaded by Allied forces and in October of the same year the Allies invaded  Romania which had previously switched sides following a coup d'état. Until December Allied troops advanced to the old border of the  Commonwealth and  Soviet Russia and Northern Caucasus as the Bolshevik troops were too unorganized, demotivated and badly equipped to defend properly.

After Moscow fell only a year after the Battle of Berlin, rumors arose that Joseph Stalin was slain by his own followers, however his body was never found. The Bolshevik leadership didn't capitulate and instead fled to Nizhny Tagil where they continued the war. In May 1945 The Reichswehr crossed the Volga and French troops conquered Stalingrad after previously besieging the city for several months, cutting most supplies for the Soviets. Additionally Germany dropped two atomic bombs, then known as Wunderwaffen, on the Russian cities of Gorky and Sverdlovsk, while their new focus on heavy artillery proved to be highly efficient. The last Bolshevik resistance was broken after the Red Army had been defeated at Perm, prompting the Soviet High Command to surrender unconditionally, ending the war in Europe after more than 6 years of fighting.

**Pacific War and Aftermath**

Throughout the entire Pacific War Germany was supporting  Britain and the  United States in their war efforts, most famously in the Battle of the Cape when a joint German-South African navy defeated the Japanese Atlantic Fleet, stopping the IJN‘s Operation Sunset. The German Pacific Fleet also played a crucial role in the island hopping warfare, being notably involved in Operation Causeway to conquer  Taiwan and Operation Iceberg to capture the  Okinawa Prefecture. By that Germany managed to take control over the  South Seas Mandate, reintegrating its former islands north of the equator, while additionally establishing a protectorate over reconstituted  Ryukyu. Immediately following the Red Army‘s surrender in August 1945 and the American Operation August Storm masses of German soldiers were transferred to East Asia to create the Asienkorps in order to assist the  United States in the upcoming invasions of mainland  China and  Japan.

On 1 November 1945 the Allies started the invasion of inner Japan known as Operation Downfall with around 3 million soldiers, making it by far the largest seaborne invasion in history. Operation Olympic, the first part of the invasion consisting of capturing Kyushu, was finished by early 1946 while Operation Coronet to conquer the Kantō Plain next to the capital Tokyo started on 1 March 1946. After establishing bridgeheads the war dragged on for several months with the defending IJA inflicting heavy casualties on the American-German forces with both sides having to endure millions of casualties. As the dropping of two nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 hadn't urged the Japanese into defeat, the USAF and *Kaiserliche Luftwaffe* returned to conventional bombardment. Following the Australian invasion of Shikoku, additional landings at Sendai, Mutsu and on Hokkaido as well as the Fall of Tokyo and the capture of the Tenno,  Japan eventually surrendered unconditionally on 2 September 1946, ending World War II in the process. In Asia Germany was awarded the aforementioned islands,  Qingdao as part of the  Legation Cities, a Chinese puppet regime and loyal warlords centered around Beijing and an occupation zone in  Japan.

Immediately following the surrender of the Red Army and the Bolshevik Exodus, the Allies established the Novgorod Conference held at Veliky Novgorod to establish a postwar order in both Europe and Asia. The  Soviet Union and other territories in Eastern Europe were partitioned into six occupation zones with Germany receiving the industrial heartland, while only being able to realize a handful of its prewar war goals, manifested in the Ostsiedlungsplan. This was mainly due to the establishment of  Intermarium, a neutral nation between the seas consisting of Lithuanian, Slavic and Romanian lands that would serve as a bulwark between Germany and  Russia. Germany established *Reichsländer* as part of the Reich directly controlled by the Reichsregierung Seiner Majestät (RSM), that being  Schleswig-Holstein,  Wartheland and  Sudetenland, and so called *Reichsnebenländer* which were under German supremacy but not legally part of the Reich. These pseudo-independent *Reichsnebenländer* were  Bohemia,  Danubian Swabia,  Denmark,  Hungary,  Norway,  Poland,  Slovakia,  Volga Germany and  White Ruthenia.

The oppressive German style of occupation became incredibly feared by the occupied subjects as the Germans established a harsh economically exploiting police and surveillance state led by the *Kaiserliche Geheimpolizei* (KaGepo) . This was especially true for  Russia and  Japan where the Germans enforced the doctrine known as *"Die Faust um den Osten schließen"* and often employed ex-Kempeitai and ex-Bolshevists in the dreaded KaGepo and VKB. In accordance with the Allied agreements made in Yalta and Novgorod, millions of prisoners of war were used as forced labor by Germany and its satellites, while millions of Slavic people in Eastern Europe were displaced or expelled. In the annexed *Grenzstreifen* and *Reichsländer*, the RSM implemented an intricate system of government that imposed Germanization on its subjects with varying degrees of success.

Emperor Otto was created king of several European countries during and after the war and this collection of German puppet states formed  Mitteleuropa, a confederation of states united by a common monarch and a monetary and customs union. This new institution, that included the economically dependent  Netherlands and  Luxembourg, allowed Germany great control over the economy, politics and trade of its satellites. The aforementioned countries had been brought into the German sphere of influence via so called *Schutz- und Trutzbündnisse* but otherwise remained sovereign to "not to give the appearance of coercion". The other Mitteleuropean countries were prone to Gleichschaltung as Otto delegated a permanent representative to them known as Reichsverweser who had complete control over all the state authorities, with the countries' governments always residing in Berlin and not in their respective capitals. This policy is known as *Ewiger Besuch* in German and was part of the grand *Vierstufige Verwaltung* model.

### **Postwar Period**

**Wirtschaftswunder**

Emperor Otto continued to shape the German political landscape in his own mind during and after the war. In 1943 many members, mostly entryist *"Rindersteak-Faschos"*, of the SAF had followed Joseph Goebbels in deserting to the Soviet satellite in East Germany, known as the German Democratic Republic. This was used as an excuse by Emperor Otto to purge the SAF's elite and other political dissidents in the Night of the Bloody Knives, a very controversial and influential event in German history. *Reichskanzler* Strasser was killed in the process, being replaced by Hermann Göring, the SAF was banned and supposed loyal elements of the party were integrated into the new mass party *Kaiserliche Partei* (Imperial Party). So called Imperial law gazettes undermined the Weimar Constitution, which had been suspended since the war but never formally outlawed. Otto created the *Kaiserliches Gremium für politische Angelegenheiten* (KGPA), an executive body able to effectively control the Reichstag, its members and the formation of parties. While the RSM allowed opposition parties like the SPD, DNVP or Zentrum, they had to subordinate to the KP and were only able to receive seats in the Reichstag through the *Einheitsliste*.

The time until the outbreak of the Yugoslavia Crisis, including the *Wirtschaftswunder*, is often called the Schacht-Erhard Era, named after the architects of Germany‘s postwar economic boom: *Reichswirtschaftsminister* Hjalmar Schacht and *Staatssekretär* Ludwig Erhard. The sprawling compulsory cartelization established under the SAF was limited by the *Reichswirtschaftsministerium* (RWM) in the late 40s, leading to a liberalization of the German economy while the RWM also regulated the country's gargantuan capitalist war economy, thus creating a social corporatist economy. The RWM under Schacht developed a complex system of economic dependence of  Mitteleuropa and  Russia on the German Reich, effectively controlling most economic enterprises, especially the oil and grain production, through the state-owned *Alldeutschen Volkswerke*, Ostöl, and RmWG.

Additionally the RSM had to deal with a lacking labor force because of the great death toll of the war and the eminent economic boom. This was compensated by foreign workers from the East, which were slaves in all but name, and a plethora of voluntary guest workers from third countries like  Turkey or  Yugoslavia. These foreign and guest workers were originally meant to return to their homelands after a few years but most of them were allowed to stay, creating a thriving immigrant culture and making Russians, Poles and Turks large minority groups in Germany. Erhard was later fired because of his opposition to the, as he called it, slave economy, but many of his ideas like the *Formierte Gesellschaft* (formed society) remained prominent for the entirety of the Kaiserdiktatur.

Göring‘s early years in his tenure as *Reichskanzler* were overshadowed by the continued engulfment of Germany in Asian affairs. The Japanese invasion of India had already devolved into a civil war by the end of WW2 with several divisions of the Asienkorps supporting the British government, the NVO and the AIML against secessionist forces like  Azad Hind,  Dravida Nadu and the  CCA. In 1946, Germany assisted its French ally in regaining control of  Indochina, however Franco-German forces were eventually unsuccessful in defending against the Viet Minh and  North Vietnam became independent, while  South Vietnam,  Laos and  Cambodia were swiftly conquered by fascist  Thailand, supported by  Italy. The Second Indochina War is seen as a major factor for the emerging Fall of France, while the Iran Crisis of 1947, that was eventually mediated by Germany, is additionally described as spawning the fierce Anglo-French rivalry that culminated in the 30th Anglo-French War. Germany continued to influence Iranian politics, culminating in Operation Ajax when the KSD and British MI6 covertly overthrew French-supported Mossadegh who had previously nationalized the Iranian oil industry.

**Crises and Détente**

In late 1946, the first major crisis hitting Germany occurred in the aftermath of MacArthur's Coup when the Eighth Route Army of the NRA, commanded by Mao Zedong, supposedly fired on American forces garrisoning the Yanmen Pass. General MacArthur, now de facto dictator of the US, painted the incident as a an act of aggression. In fact, the "American Caesar", who despised Huey Long's isolationism, had already preached his intent to obliterate the  United Front in order to wipe out the last remnants of communism and contain the Kuomintang, which he called "minions of fascism". Fearing the freezing of Marshall Plan benefits,  Britain was the first nation to answer the American call for war and  France and Germany soon joined suit. MacArthur was even willing to use nukes on territory controlled by the  United Front, a plan that was canceled after the Otto Incident.

To legitimize their intervention in the Chinese public, the Democrats carved out a collaborationist regime from their occupied territories centered in Shanghai. The Germans and French had already collaborated with leftist Li Jishen, leader of the RCCK and fierce rival of Chiang Kai-shek, in their occupation of East and South China, so he was chosen leader. Initially, the RCCK's control was limited to territories surrounding Nanjing and Shanghai as the rest was used as Democratic operational zones. North China, officially known as the  League of Four Cities, was under direct German administration until 1951. Things took an unexpected turn when Huey Long, who had successfully ended the Great Struggle, proclaimed the American withdrawal from  China. Following the American retreat, the remaining Democrats now stood alone in a war they didn't start let alone wanted. Nevertheless, they proclaimed to the Chinese public that they wouldn't betray them and instead would finish what the Americans had started.

After a failed offensive in January 1947, the war stalled down and it was only after 4 years of deadly gridlock in a war of attrition that the  Shanghai Government eventually conquered Chongqing and ended the civil war. It was the first time that the Allies of WW2 had faced each other in a conflict as  Italy and  Thailand had continued to support the Chongqing-based  United Front. The 2nd Chinese Civil War also coined the terms for the bipolar, opposing sides that would dominate world politics for decades. The Democrats, meaning  Britain, Germany and their allies, on one side and the Fascists,  Italy and its allies, on the other side.

The biggest crisis that hit Europe in the postwar period and nearly brought the world into a new world war was the Yugoslavia Crisis of 1955.  Yugoslavia had been divided in WW2 but it was later reunified in 1949 under an Italian-backed fascist regime that however lacked much of its prewar territory. Italy used the Yugoslav irredentism to demand the return of territories controlled by Germany and  Hungary, but the Yugoslav government rejected the Balbo Note as it didn't include Vardar Macedonia which had been annexed by  Bulgaria. The conflict spiraled out of control when clashes between IMTRO and Serbian-backed militias started, Germany threatened to retaliate against  Italy if they would try to conquer  Banat and  Vojvodina and Italo-Austrian troops rallied at the German border, ready for a war.

The crisis reached an unprecedented apex in a  UN Security Council meeting when Italian foreign minister Galeazzo Ciano boasted about the completion of powerful short-range missiles with nuclear warheads able to annihilate Germany. His additional propaganda speech to Italians in New York City resulted in President Long intervening in the conflict to resolve the issue peacefully. Ciano was fired and  America negotiated a conference in Beograd that became known as the Liquidation Conference. There,  Italy and Germany agreed on the return of former territories to  Yugoslavia, while  Italy was allowed to retain its possessions along the coast. Additionally,  Yugoslavia became an independent and neutral nation, acting as a mediator between Democrats and Fascists. In exchange for the surrender of  Danubian Swabia, Rome and Beograd agreed to pay compensations for 10 years.

Immediate consequences of the Liquidation Conference were felt throughout Europe as  Bulgaria refused to give up Macedonia and had to be invaded by the ANFC while a similar uprising in  Hungary was violently suppressed by *Paktbrigaden*. Nevertheless, the German grip over  Hungary was weakened, ushering the period of the "Royal Goulash Dictatorship". *Reichskanzler* Göring was fired and replaced by Otto's close confidant Joachim von Ostau because of the former’s unfortunate handling of the early stages of the crisis and the Hungarian Revolution. The soi-disant Liquidation Treaty had a strong but short impact on European politics as it made Italians and Germans allies, with Rome even proposing the possibility of  Austria becoming a part of Germany. However the 1956 Suez Crisis already rendered the alliance useless and in 1958, Germany finally canceled the treaty in the wake of the Fall of France.

**Fall of France and Scandinavian War**

The Asian civil wars, in addition to the 1952 Egyptian Revolution, put the former allies  and  Italy against each other. The rivalry culminated in the Suez Crisis of 1956. 4 years earlier,  Italy had supported the Free Officers Movement of Mohammed Naguib in their coup against King Farouk that made  Egypt an essential Italian puppet. In 1956, Naguib's government nationalized the Suez Canal and froze Franco-British assets, prompting the British and French to invade the Sinai. After initial opposition against the occupation, Germany was lobbied by  Britain to block an Italian UN Resolution and support them in exchange for a partition of the Suez Canal assets and a puppet known as the  Levante. Soon thereafter, Berlin, London and Paris exploited a division in the Egyptian military to topple Naguib and put Gamal Abdel Nasser in power, however Nasser immediately proclaimed his intention to retake Sinai and the Suez Canal and Egyptian-European relations cooled down to an all time low, with  France being the only true supporter of Nasser's  Egypt which soon became the  United Arab Republic. This events marks the end of the great power status of  Britain and  France as from then on both nations were unable to impose their policies without the help of Germany, the world's new superpower.

In the 1950s,  Red France was in a dire political and economic situation. While the country had initially profited from the Marshall Plan, the foundation of the  ESCS and the central planning of the Monnet Plan,  France's planned economy stagnated and fell off in comparison to Germany. Additionally, the independence of Indochina and the Algerian War aggravated the military and the fascists of Jacques Doriot who constantly exploited the precarious balance negotiated in WW2. In early 1958 Charles de Gaulle, a popular leader of the French Red Army threatened to topple Thorez' government if the prime minister wouldn't stop parleying with Algerian rebel leader Ferhat Abbas. This alarmed the British who believed that a military government allied with fascists would pose a serious threat to their country, leading to a partial mobilization and the issue of Defence Policy 33, a thorough invasion plan of  France, to the RSM. Emperor Otto, who disliked the French communist government, fancied the recreation of the  Burgundian State as a Habsburg private property. Following royal assent, the Imperial Party gave out a blank check of full support to the British in case of a conflict.

After Thorez ignored de Gaulle's warning, the French Red Army executed a coup on May 13, 1958, resulting in the fall of  Algeria and  Corsica, which would become  Free France, to the coup plotters as well as the May Days in European France. Thorez refused to resign and transfer the power to the military. In response,  Britain pledged support to the republic and deployed troops to  France to restore public order. The British forces arrived in Paris and began arresting generals and dissolving formations in the areas they occupied. However, the French government remained passive without taking significant action. Meanwhile, resistance movements formed within France, organizing themselves against the British occupation. This prompted  Britain to seek military support from  Belgium and Germany by promising them territorial expansions as they believed their chances of winning were slim if the Italian-aligned PPF aided the French Red Army. To counter the French 7th Army's plan to invade  Belgium, the *Reichswehr* cut through the Ardennes and encircled the French by advancing to the Channel. This so called *Sichelschnittplan* (sickle cut) destroyed the remaining parts of the French Red Army that had refused to lay down their arms.

Within six weeks, Germany achieved its objectives of recapturing Alsace-Lorraine and creating a reserved zone for German settlement in northeastern France which became the *Reichsnebenland  Burgund*. The other colonial powers took advantage of the situation and divided the French colonies among themselves, causing the rapid collapse of the French colonial empire. The French Liberation Army and Blueshirts began taking control over Southern France, starting the first war in Europe since WW2. The Anglo-French War dragged on for two years, with both sides considering a ceasefire. However, the Spanish occupations of Gibraltar and Tangier in September 1960 shocked the British, causing internal confusion about how to respond. Taking advantage of the chaos, de Gaulle launched a major invasion that was only partially successful but convinced Germany,  Britain's key ally, that victory was unattainable. As a result,  Free France entered into a separate peace agreement with Berlin, ceding Alsace-Lorraine and a Burgundian rump state in exchange for withdrawing from the war. With the loss of German support, the tide turned dramatically in favor of the French and soon Paris was reconquered. Realizing their defeat,  Britain proposed a ceasefire, leading to  Brittany,  Calais and  Normandy becoming independent and  Belgium receiving  Nord-Pas-de-Calais. The major parties involved,  Britain and  France, suffered significant losses, and their strained relations would endure for decades to come.

Concurrent to the Fall of France, fascist  Sweden exploited the situation to invade German-controlled  Norway to reunite both countries. Germany, unprepared for the sudden assault, struggled to fend off the Swedes as the latter made use of the mountainous terrain of Scandinavia and Norwegian guerrilla forces, like the Nasjonal Samling, that had resisted the German occupation for decades. This conflict also remained stale for years with fascist forces controlling the mountains and the *Reichswehr* controlling the sea and coastal cities. In 1961 resistance in the German public to the war, pressured the RSM to start peace talks with  Sweden. Germany agreed to the unification of  Scandinavia, while retaining control of the Baltic islands of  Gotland and  Åland and of  Scania through its puppet  Denmark as UN mandates. After the war, the germanized city of Nordstern, former Trondheim, was evacuated and Germany began blocking  Scandinavia for the next two decades. Following the 1979 oil crisis, Germany transformed the blockade into an embargo which would last until the 90s.

### **Cold War**

**Turbulent Sixties**

In  France, de Gaulle's government was toppled by the Blue Revolution, ushering the fascist  French State, while recession and radicalism led to the British Revolution and subsequently to the formation of the  Anglo-Celtic Commonwealth and the Royalist Exile. Losing its British ally and now bordering fascists in the West, North and South, Germany's  Mitteleuropa was isolated and increasingly pushed into a corner by  Italy's rising power. Germany began to heavily rearm and introduce the Habsburg Doctrine to contain the spread of fascism, which is usually regarded as the beginning of the Cold War, a conflict between Democrats and Fascists permeated by proxy wars but without direct military confrontation. Conflict took place in various forms including sports, space exploration and economics as Germany's economic boom had largely vanished in the early 60s mostly attributed to a large state sector, slave labor, old protectionist trade barriers and growing decadence. In contrast,  Italy's economy based on corporatism, free trade in the ANFC, the exploitation of African workers and natural resources experienced a steady growth throughout all of the 60s.

One of the first events of the Cold War was the British Question of early 1962. Unlike 3 years prior, when the Europeans had just agreed on partitioning the French colonies, the situation of the British colonies were more peculiar as no one knew if either the unionists in London or the royalists in Ottawa were the true rulers of the  British Empire.  Belgium,  Portugal and  South Africa sought to exploit this chaos, while  Italy behaved more cautiously because of the previous Kanem Crunch. Germany, tasked by the royalists to keep the colonies in line, humiliated  Belgium and scared off  Portugal, with Otto calling himself protector of the British territories in Africa. The humiliation angered  Belgium and turned them against Germany, eventually culminating in a war 6 years later. The British Colonial Scramble kickstarted independence movements and later proxy wars throughout the entire continent and Germany began to profit from some African economies because of the Organization of African Decolonization (OAD). Additionally, the RSM founded  Mittelafrika, the African equivalent of  Mitteleuropa, out of three protectorates it had acquired. These protectorates were  Kamerun,  Togo and  Zanzibar, while  Namibia joined later.

In October 1962 the weekly news magazine *Der Spiegel* published an analysis of the Reichswehr's performance in the two previous wars and Germany's military in general. The conclusion was that there were several weaknesses in the system. Ten days after publication, the offices of *Der Spiegel* in Hamburg were raided by the KaGepo and quantities of documents were seized. *Reichskanzler* Karl Ludwig von und zu Guttenberg proclaimed in the *Reichstag* that the article was tantamount to high treason and that the authors would be prosecuted. The publisher of the magazine, Rudolf Augstein spent some time in jail before being executed after a show trial. The public outcry over arbitrariness of the *Kaiserliche Garde* and the state's disregards for human rights became too loud to be ignored. Some members of Guttenberg's cabinet resigned from the government, demanding the resignation of *Reichsgardekapitän* Carl Aldrich and *Reichskriegsminister* Erwin von Witzleben who had decidedly overstepped his competence during the crisis. Otto fired von Witzleben however Aldrich remained in office. This episode tarnished the *Kaiserdiktatur's* reputation and noticeably undermined confidence in Otto and von Guttenberg's RSM. The German opposition painted Otto as an uninterested autocrat that doesn't rule but reacts.

Despite the prosecution of *Der Spiegel*, the *Reichskriegsministerium* (Reich Ministry of War) acknowledged the outdated state of the *Reichswehr* that rested on old successes. To combat the growing military decadence, the Reichswehr's high command was reformed and many war heroes were honorably discharged, like Rommel or Manstein. Based on the Habsburg Doctrine, the German army started modernization and rearmament. One of the first instances where the Habsburg Doctrine was applied was in  Vietnam. In 1954, Italian-backed  Thailand had invaded  South Vietnam and installed a puppet regime while  North Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh and backed by  China, Germany and  Zarexium, had since been resisting the fascist incursion. Despite previously fighting a war of independence against former German ally  France, socialist Ho Chi Minh allied with the Germans and requested military assistance in 1964. Up until 1968, the German Asienkorps amassed a massive force of 400,000 men, supported the Viet Cong, used vast amounts of defoliants and conducted devastating carpet bombing raids. The failure of the 1968 Tet Offensive furthered opposition to the involvement in the Vietnam War in the German public, heavily promoted anti-war and anti-establishment sentiments and acted as an accelerant for the ensuing revolution.

Concurrently, many disillusioned servicemen and officers decided to join the *Heeresgruppe "Freies Europa"*, led by charismatic social democrat Willy Brandt, in its struggle against the Kaiserdiktatur and the slave economy. The bulk of the rebels was active in the eastern territories and consisted of of armed foreign workers, discriminated minorities like the Poles and democratic socialists that opposed the parliamentary SPD's Burgfriedenspolitik. The situation in Greater Poland escalated when the *Ostministerium* started the eviction of Poles from the *Grenzstreifen* in 1965 after previous incentives had failed to provoke its germanization. In what would late be dubbed as the Sklavenaufstand (slave rebellion), armed rebels began attacking Corps troops while the *Garde*, which reputation had already been severely damaged, had directives to act with great caution in order to prevent the conflict from spilling over into the  Wartheland. The RSM began censoring reports from the border strip to cover up the difficulties it was having with the rebels since competing competencies had made it difficult for Corps troops to act decisively. This was due to the *Reichsländer* being in a state of lawlessness since civil administration had been established. Additionally, the RSM feared a loss of face if Germany's maltreatment of the Poles and weakness in dealing with the rebellion were revealed to the international public. This made Otto send Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, Minister for European and Overseas Affairs, to negotiate with rebel leader Brandt. Brandt and Coudenhove-Kalergi agreed on the Schröttersburger Memorandum to abolish the foreign workers slave labor, install Coudenhove-Kalergi, who was seen as a moderate by the *Heeresgruppe*, as new *Reichskanzler* and include the influential Kreisau Circle in the RSM to reform the German Reich.

The Schröttersburger Memorandum made Brandt an important voice in German politics as leader of the anti-Imperial opposition however it alienated more radical members of the *Heeresgruppe* that wanted to topple the Kaiserdiktatur in its entirety. One of the new government members was Erhard who had connections with Brandt and returned to replace Schacht as *Reichswirtschaftsminister*. Together with Coudenhove-Kalergi and the Kreisau Circle, he implemented the *Großer Deutscher Gesellschaftsplan* (GDG, Grand German Society Plan) to introduce liberal and economic reforms. At the time, the GDG was seen by many as a half-hearted last-ditch attempt of the *Kaiserliche Partei* to uphold power and contributed to the formation of the APO and leftist resistance cells. This contemporary viewpoint is rejected by most modern historians who believe that the GDG plan was a sincere effort to reinstall democracy, evident by secret postulations of the RSM to Emperor Otto which advocated for and end of the rule by decree and Otto's abdication in favor of his son to vest power into the hands of the RSM. It had lasting achievements in preparing a social market economy and guaranteeing freedom of assembly and the press. Its overall failure is attributed to the fact that most files labeled with GDG had been intercepted by the Imperial Chancellory and never reached Otto. The GDG directly impacted the events of the Revolution of 68 by strengthening the opposition and stimulating  Intermarium to arm Polish resisters despite its pledge to remain eternally neutral.

**Ottos Kaiserschlacht and Revolution of 68**

In early 1968, in what became known as the Prague Spring, mass rallies prompted Otto to replace collaborationist Emil Hácha with reformist Miloš Hlaváč as Prime Minister of  Bohemia. Hlaváč's reforms were targeted at granting additional rights to the citizens of  Bohemia in an act of partial democratization which included a loosening of restrictions on the press, speech and travel, as well as more independence from the German-nominated Reichsverweser. The reforms, especially the encapsulation from the RSM, were not received well by the Germans, who, after failed negotiations, sent Bohemian *Paktbrigaden* and all five *Doppeladlerverbände* to occupy the country in August. The more than 200,000 elite units were equipped with the most modern and sophisticated weapons in the German military and supported by tanks and aircrafts. Resistance was mounted throughout the country, involving attempted fraternization, sabotage of street signs, defiance of curfews, etc. While the *Gardehauptamt* had predicted that it would take four days to subdue the country, the resistance held out for four months until diplomatic maneuvers finally circumvented it.

Soon protests spread to the other *Reichsnebenländer* where ardent groups demonstrated for the abolishment of the dictatorship and equality within  Mitteleuropa. In Germany, the RSM tried to implement new emergency acts to once again restrict the freedom of speech and press despite an Imperial law of 1965 not to do so. These controversial acts allowed basic rights to be limited in case of a state of emergency, which had been declared after Maoist terror attacks and outbreaks of protests by the student movement known as the 68er Bewegung. This prompted the unification of several opposition groups into the so called Außerparlamentarische Opposition (APO, extra-parliamentary opposition), consisting of the 68er Bewegung, the extra-parliamentary SPD, former *"Freies Europa"* members and other left-wing groups (excluding leftist terror cells). Additionally, labor unions, independent from the corporatist system, began to form to cooperate voluntarily with the industry to liberalize the economy.

A major escalation of the protests occurred in June, when the Emperor of Brazil, Pedro III, visited Berlin. Several thousand demonstrators gathered outside the Opera House where he was to attend a special performance. Supporters of the Emperor, armed with staves and bricks attacked the protesters while the police stood by and watched. A demonstration in the centre was bloodily suppressed when hooded APO members began attacking security forces after a bystander had been shot in the head by a policemen. Protests against the Vietnam War, mingled with anger over the vigor with which demonstrations were repressed led to mounting militance among students. One of the most prominent campaigners was a young man called Rudi Dutschke. Just before Easter 1968, a young man tried to kill Dutschke, seriously injuring him. All over Germany, thousands demonstrated against the *gleichgeschaltete* newspapers and trucks carrying newspapers were set on fire and windows in office buildings broken.

Following the successful but violent crackdown of the Prague Spring, the enraged government of Intermarium ordered Polish rebels to attack government buildings in Greater Poland. This sparked an international crisis because Intermarium's neutrality was questioned with some German field marshals even calling for an invasion of the country, however the Belgian assault of Luxembourg obviated that. Belgium's king Leopold III was spurred to declare war as he tried to expand his country into the Low Countries and also to diverge the public attention away from the Revolution of 68. While Otto advocated for a war to fulfill his dream of a reunited Burgundy, the RSM was not so keen and with the help of the Americans accomplished to convene a conference in Arras to compromise with the Belgians. Meanwhile, in adopting the Reichenberger Program, the parliamentary SPD largely abandoned the Burgfriedenspolitik and reunited with the Brandt-led extra-parliamentary SPD which had previously dropped Marxist ideas and embraced the concept of the social market economy. The program is regarded as a major factor in the downfall of the Kaiserdiktatur as the entire SPD began to actively take actions against the regime and now sought to move beyond its old working class base to appeal the full spectrum of potential voters, including the middle class and professionals.

In September, negotiations broke down in Arras and Belgium and Germany prepared for war. The Netherlands had rejected the request to station troops in their country for the invasion on the grounds that the Netherlands wasn't obliged to partake in a German offensive war and out of fear that the superior Belgian Army would overrun the country within weeks. In general, the Dutch government, while not categorically opposed to an invasion of Belgium, was taken by surprise due to Germany's arbitrariness. They saw Otto's warmongering as a dangerous knee-jerk reaction that could jeopardize world peace. The OKR refrained from violating Dutch sovereignty to avoid UN sanctions and also because they concluded that they would face a similar situation to Bohemia if the revolutions spread to the Netherlands. Therefore the German high command changed its plan to penetrate through Luxembourg in order to bypass the Overstraeten Line and capture Namur and subsequently Brussels. On 16 September, the Heeresgruppe West began piercing through the hastily constructed defenses in Luxembourg, starting the Ardennes Offensive. In Germany, this campaign became known as *Ottos Kaiserschlacht* in analogy to the failed German spring offensive of 1918.

However unlike its counterparts elsewhere, e.g. the Heeresgruppen Burgund or Alpenland, the Heeresgruppe Westland had been deemed unimportant and therefore ignored by the 60s rearmament. The small and badly equipped army group only consisted of four army corps, amounting to roughly 180,000 soldiers. On the other hand, there was the entire Belgian Armed Forces, which was extremely motivated, excellently trained and armed to the teeth. After initial successes in Luxembourg and confident of victory, the Reichswehr rushed to Namur however this was planned by the Belgian high command, as Belgian forces began attacking the bulge. In October, the 6th Army had been encircled at Namur and subsequently destroyed which sent shockwaves through Germany and the world. It has been referred to as the most crushing fiasco in the German military history since the First Battle of the Marne in 1914. The defeat at Namur was burned into the German collective memory as the "Disgrace at Namur" and had a lasting psychological impact on the Reichswehr, the 68er Bewegung and Germany in general.

After the crushing defeat, the demoralized Heeresgruppe Westland began a rout to Luxembourg where it was ordered to barricade itself. Soon, the OKR was made responsible for the setback and deprived of the command over the invasion which was assumed by the Gardehauptamt. The Kaiserliche Garde relocated all three Doppeladlerverbände and most Corps troops fighting the Greater Poland Uprising which eventually led to the success of the Polish rebellion. The remaining parts of the Heeresgruppe was tasked with attacking the Overstraeten Line while the Garde was responsible for retrying attacking through the Ardennes. Many Reichswehr soldiers began a mutiny sanctioned by the OKR which believed that attacking the heavily fortified line was a suicide mission after which the Anklägerkorps accused them of high treason and began bloodily quelling the mutiny. Subsequently, the Anklägerkorps executed Generalfeldmarschall Lübbe, the commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr, which put the Reichswehr against the Kaiserdiktatur.

This proved to be a tipping point for the APO which announced a general strike which soon escalated into a popular uprising as on 17 November, Berlin descended into civil war-like conditions when Imperial security forces began firing tanks at peaceful, killing hundreds in the process. Emperor Otto was evacuated to his residence Hohenstaufen Castle by his guard of honor and no one was allowed to communicate with him except for the chief of the Imperial Chancellery. When he left Berlin, he notoriously reversed Roman Emperor Augustus' famous quote by proclaiming: "I came to Berlin when it was a city of marble and left it as a city of stone". In the early hours of 22 November, Willy Brandt led a hundreds of men strong group of SPD and reestablished KPD members, who were willing to sacrifice themselves, to occupy the Reichstag to demand the end of the regime by urging Otto to renounce the throne and transfer power to the Reichstag. In the nearby New Reich Chancellery, panic spread within the RSM over how to respond, and Chancellor Coudenhove-Kalergi hastily attempted to reach Otto, but his efforts were in vain. He then compiled a set of instructions and sent it to Hohenstaufen Castle.

Thereafter Reichsgardekapitän Aldrich, independent of the Emperor and the government, ordered his personal commando troops to "cleanse the Reichstag like in 44". Oberst-Gardekapitän Julius Waltz, leader of the Gardekommando "Habsburg", refused the order on moral grounds and took Aldrich into custody. It was later revealed that Waltz had been a sleeper agent of and long-term associate of the Kreisau Circle who had been infiltrated into the Garde. After the occupation of the Reichstag, confusion between the RSM and Otto arose when the Emperor didn't follow the procedures of abdication precisely described by the RSM. The instructions had been wrongly classified as a GDG document and subsequently withheld by the Imperial Chancellory. Unlike proposed in the instructions, Otto didn't hand power over to the RSM and instead gave it to the Reichstag and announced the end of Habsburg rule over Germany. Soon the events of that day became known as the Kaisersturz (Emperor's Fall).

After that he used a ratline to Yugoslavia where he began to attract Imperial loyalists around him who began organizing resistance against the new social democratic government of Germany. Among these loyalists was Aldrich who had been rescued by the Berlin police chief and evacuated to Banat, which became a hotbed of Imperials because of the region's autonomy and leniency of the Yugoslav king towards Otto. Other ratlines included the Vatican and Spain which transported tens of thousands of Imperials to South America, mainly Brazil, while some Imperials went north to establish a rump government in Flensburg which was soon subdued. It is suggested that some getaways were sanctioned by the Brandt Administration if the escapees provided intel about South American governments.

**Frankfurt Republic and German Autumn**

Before dissolving itself, the decimated Reichstag dismissed the RSM and proclaimed Willy Brandt as the new Reichskanzler, endowing him plenipotentiary powers until the election of a new Reichstag. Brandt then created a transitional government consisting of SPD and KPD, which also included Erhard, and invited all democratic forces to draft a new constitution. On 1 December 1968, the so called Parlamentarischer Rat (Parliamentary Council) met for the first time in the Frankfurter Paulskirche. The Council consisted of a heterogeneous group of former Einheitslistenabgeordneten (unity list MPs) of the Altparteien, namely BVP, DDP, DNVP, DVP, former parliamentary SPD, Zentrum, the Einheitsfront government, consisting mostly of former extra-parliamentary SPD and KPD, as well as controversially the reinstated SAF. The SAF was allowed to partake on the grounds of democracy and to avoid them radicalize and possibly align with the Fascist Block. The Kaiserliche Partei was not invited and later banned by the Council, however former members who had joined democratic parties were present.

While the drafting of a new constitution took months, Brandt actively combatted the consequences of the Kaiserdiktatur by beginning the reversal of Gleichschaltung. One of his first acts was allying with the Reichswehr and returning the control over the invasion of Belgium. Brandt announced that he wouldn't pursue a ceasefire with the Belgians and as they had illegally attacked Luxembourg and to topple Leopold III's autocratic regime. Before Germany was able to recommence the war, the Brandt Administration had to deal with the Kaiserliche Garde. Despite the fact that Otto's most valuable instrument of oppression had been leaderless since the revolution, it still had its tentacles everywhere because of its deep state character. The organization was made illegal and high-ranking leaders were interned and the SPD began it republicanization. Members were given the option to either swear fealty to democracy or be sent to re-education camps.

Those who had aligned themselves with the new republican leadership founded the Republikanische Garde (Republican Guard), which was nevertheless notoriously known for still being Imperial at the core. Most members of the elite combat units went underground and began a war of terror however most of them were later granted amnesia. This policy followed a broader social democratic agenda of "re-educating" the German population which had been prone to authoritarianism, the Führerkult and militarism for centuries. Within a few years, the education budget rose from 16 billion to 50 billion RM, while Brandt also advocated for the demystification of the Preußentum. The later was achieved by the Gebietsreform of 1971 that reformed Germany's constituent states and greatly reduced the size of Prussia, breaking its dominance over German politics.

Following the chaotic events of the revolution and the Kaisersturz, the new Reichskanzler Brandt announced the Wiederaufbauprogramm (Reconstruction Program) to renovate Germany both internally and externally. In foreign politics, he announced the Frühlingsprogramm (Spring Program) to reform Mitteleuropa, withdraw from the Vietnam War and build good relations within Europe. The program is usually seen as the precursor to Brandt's Neue Ostpolitik. Brandt's first state visit was to the Netherlands where he patched up the strained relations to convince the Dutch of partaking in the invasion of Belgium as a staging ground. He based this around the work already done by the RSM in the last days of the Kaiserdiktatur when the two parties who backed Leopold III's reign agreed to assist the Germans if their demands were fulfilled.

The far-right Flemish National League (VNV) wanted to united with the Netherlands to form a Greater Netherlands, better known as Dutchland, while the far-right Walloon Rexist Party under its pro-German leader Léon Degrelle wanted to reunite Wallonia with the German puppet Burgundy. Degrelle had grown fond of Otto's plan to reestablish Burgundy and also fancied the idea that Walloons were a Germanic people forced to adopt the French language. He still advocated for that idea even after the Kaisersturz and the new German government saw the VNV and Rex as a means of ending the war. On 20 January 1969, the flared up *Reichswehr* and *Krijgsmacht* attacked Belgium from the north and managed to defeat the country within three weeks. Despite Brandt's pledge not to make him a martyr, an enraged mob of Brusselians lynched Leopold III after which Dutch Queen Juliana assumed the title of Queen of Belgium and united both countries to form the United Kingdom of Dutchland.

However, only the Flemish part of Belgium, including French Flanders and Pas-de-Calais, joined Dutchland. Antwerp, which had been severely air raided in the war, was incorporated into Germany as the Reichsfestung Antwerpen to grant Germany direct access to Europe's second largest port. Brussels became a free city under German protection, in order to serve as the future European capital, while Wallonia joined Burgundy, which had been previously enlarged with Luxembourg as one of Emperor Otto's last acts.

To ease tensions between the Czechs and Germans, Brandt agreed to grant full autonomy to Bohemia by releasing it from bondage of the German Reich. Otto was formally dethroned, the Reichsverweser was dismissed and the Bohemian government became responsible for all internal matters. On 1 January 1969, Bohemia became known as the Czech Republic which received a status similar to the Netherlands when a temporary Schutz- und Trutzbündnis came into action. As a part of the program, Brandt encouraged a plebiscite to decide the future of Czechia. Under the impression of the cruel occupation in the year before, a vast majority of Czechs voted to withdraw from Mitteleuropa and become attached to Intermarium. Internationally, the Frühlingsprogramm helped Germany to establish friendly ties with Intermarium for the first time in decades as the transfer of Czechia to Intermarium greatly satisfied the Intermarians and especially President Stanisław Ostrowski who saw it as a deed of good faith. Internally, the loss of Bohemia was seen by many as a knee-jerk reaction exposing Germany's inherent weakness. It contributed to the outbreak of Imperial terror in the violent German Autumn.

**Hot Cold War and German Spring**

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### **Post-Cold War Period and Wandel**

**Wandel durch Annäherung**

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**Weltpolitik and War on Fascism**

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**Scania War and Zeitenwende**

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## Politics

*Main articles: Politics of Germany and Taxation in Germany*

Germany is a federal, parliamentary, representative democratic republic. Federal legislative power is vested in the parliament consisting of the *Reichstag* (Imperial Diet) and *Reichsrat* (Imperial Council), which together form the legislative body. The *Reichstag* is elected through direct elections using the mixed-member proportional representation system. The members of the *Reichsrat* represent and are appointed by the governments of the seventeen federated states. The German political system operates under a framework laid out in the 1968 constitution known as the *Frankfurter Verfassung* (Frankfurt Constitution). Amendments generally require a two-thirds majority of both the *Reichstag* and the *Reichsrat*; the fundamental principles of the constitution, as expressed in the articles guaranteeing human dignity, the separation of powers, the federal structure, and the rule of law, are valid in perpetuity.

The Reichspräsident (president), currently Friedhelm Weiner (SPD), is the head of state and invested primarily with representative responsibilities and powers. He is elected by the *Reichsversammlung* (Imperial Convention), an institution consisting of the members of the *Reichstag* and an equal number of state delegates. The second-highest official in the German order of precedence is the *Reichstagspräsident* (president of the Reichstag), who is elected by the *Reichstag* and responsible for overseeing the daily sessions of the body. The third-highest official and the head of government is the *Reichskanzler* (chancellor), who is appointed by the *Reichspräsident* after being elected by the party or coalition with the most seats in the *Reichstag*. The chancellor, currently Christoph Aschenberg (SPD), is the head of government and exercises executive power through his cabinet, known as *Reichsregierung* (Imperial Government).

Since 1968, the party system has been dominated by the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Union Parties German Centre Party and South German People's Party (Z/SVP). So far every chancellor has been a member of one of these parties. However, the smaller liberal German Liberal Party (DLP), the progressive ecopolitic Greens (Grüne) and the far-right völkisch populist Socialist Workers' Front (SAF) have also been junior partners in coalition governments. Since 1968, the far-left communist populist party Communist Party of Germany (KPD) has been a staple in the German *Reichstag*, though they have never been part of the federal government.

### **Law**

Germany has a civil law system based on Roman law with some references to Germanic law. The *Reichsgericht* (Imperial Court) is the German Supreme Court responsible for constitutional matters, with power of judicial review. Germany's supreme court system is specialised: for civil and criminal cases, the highest court of appeal is the inquisitorial Imperial Court of Justice, and for other affairs the courts are the Imperial Labour Court, the Imperial Social Court, the Imperial Finance Court and the Imperial Administrative Court.

Criminal and private laws are codified on the national level in the *Strafgesetzbuch* and the *Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch* respectively. The German penal system seeks the rehabilitation of the criminal and the protection of the public, however capital punishment is still legal in Germany. The death penalty hasn't been carried out since the early 1980s but many people have received a death sentence since then as it allows for convicts to be put in prison for more than 20 years. Capital punishment is only possible for high treason, multiple and severe counts of murder or rape by a mentally stable person.

Except for petty crimes, which are tried before a single professional judge, and serious political crimes, all charges are tried before mixed tribunals on which lay judges (*Schöffen*) sit side by side with professional judges.

Germany has a low murder rate with 1.18 murders per 100,000 residents as of 2016. In 2018, the overall crime rate fell to its lowest since 1992.

### **Foreign relations**

In Germany, foreign politics constitute the most prominent office in the *Reichsregierung* and it is known as the *Auswärtiges Amt* (Foreign Office) which is headquartered in the former Reichsbank building, Berlin. Germany has the largest diplomatic corps in the world with a network of 275 diplomatic missions abroad and relations with more than 135 countries. Germany is a member of  DCIN, the  ETO, the OECD, the G16, the World Bank and the IMF. It is a permanent member of the  United Nations Security Council, and home to a  United Nations secondary headquarters in Vienna.

It has played a leading role in the  European Union since its inception and has maintained an alliance with  Rome and other former fascist countries since the 1990s. However German-Roman relations have been strained since Germany's opposition to the Danish annexation of Scania and the subsequent Scania War. Germany promotes the creation of a more unified European political, economic and security apparatus, already prominent in  Mittelafrika and  Mitteleuropa. The governments of Germany and the  British Empire are close allies, forming the Berlin-Delhi Axis. Originating in World War II, cultural ties and economic interests have crafted a bond between the two countries. In the Hot Cold War, Strauß' National Front introduced Eurasianism which has been Germany's prevalent foreign ideology ever since. After Brandt's *Neue Ostpolitik* and according to Eurasianism, Germany and  Russia worked together to establish a "fraternal partnership" in which energy development became one of the most important factors. As a result of the cooperation, Germany imports most of its natural gas and crude oil from  Russia through shared oil companies like Rosneft.

The development policy of Germany is an independent area of foreign policy. It is formulated by the
Reichsministerium für Entwicklung und mitteleuropäische Angelegenheiten (Reich Ministry of Development and Mitteleuropean Affairs) and Development and carried out by the implementing organisations. The German government sees development policy as a joint responsibility of the international community. It was the world's second-biggest aid donor in 2019 after the  United Commonwealths. Germany's most well-known development program is a joint German-Imperial British venture known as *Afrikafond* (Africa Fund), postulated in the Agenda 21 which is commonly referred to as *Welt- or Afrikapolitik*. The *Afrikafond* is not without criticism as some NCOs accuse Germany of illegal economic and political exertion of influence financed by fund money.

## Spacefaring

### **First Space Race**

Precursors to the Space Race began on July 30, 1951 when Germany achieved the first successful satellite launch. It wasn't until a fear years later that Emperor Otto announced Germany's intent to shoot a man into space and eventually onto the Moon, kickstarting a Space Race between Germany, Italy and the United Commonwealths. The First Space Race, usually called the Moon Race, didn't directly involve Italy however it contributed to the acceleration of the conflict and the subsequent Second Space Race in the 80s. Germany's prestige project was spearheaded by Wernher von Braun, the inventor of the powerful V-2 rocket. The German space program rooted in symbolism and ideology but grew particularly out of the Reich's plan to demonstrate the superiority of the German people and political system and to promote its image as the most scientifically advanced nation in the world. A correlation between the nuclear arms race and the First Space Race is disputed because the space program started in a time of Italo-German détente and the Reichswehr had all the means to defend and attack with ground- and sea-based nuclear weapons, without possibly having to station warheads in space.

UC President Gerald L.K. Smith entangled America into a war of ideology on 30 July 1955 by proclaiming: "Any action targeting the space above Earth is an attack on America's sovereignty and we will respond as such. America is a symbol of democracy. We will be an example to the Free World plundered by fascists and imperialists". In reality, his argumentation was superficial as he actually wanted to whitewash his image and diverge attention away from his harsh treatments of Afro-Americans. Smith's plans to involve America into an international conflict were heavily criticized by hardline Longists on the grounds of violating the Neutrality Acts and distracting society to implement Jim Crow laws federally. The Space Race gained momentum when Germany sent the first human, Erich Hartmann, into space with the orbital flight of Kopernikus 1 on 4 October 1955 and the 1957 successful launch of an American satellite. These were followed by a string of other early firsts achieved by the Germans over the next few years.

On 19 July 1959, Germany achieved the 20th century's greatest technological achievement by landing a man on the Moon with Mani 11. When Josef Blaustein first stepped onto the lunar surface, he famously said: "I take this step for God, Emperor and Fatherland, knowing that today is but one small step on a journey that someday will take us all to the stars". The moon landing was broadcasted live to an estimated 550 million viewers worldwide and effectively proved German victory in the Space Race to demonstrate spaceflight superiority. Three years later the Americans followed suit when they landed Apollo 10 on the Moon on April 12, 1961. The war of ideology continued and the UC, under President John F. Kennedy, landed the first African-American and first woman on the Moon, helping the Kennedy Administration in passing the Civil Rights and Equality Acts to end the Battle for the Civil Rights. Both countries began developing super heavy-lift launch vehicles further, with Germany and the UC successfully deploying the T3 and Sea Dragon respectively, the latter being the largest rocket until the inception of the Sea Empress in 1992.

Following the American defeat in the Moon Race, they concentrated on Skylab, the first space station program, and establishing a moonbase. Meanwhile, Germany landed five more Mani crews on the Moon and continued exploration of other extraterrestrial bodies robotically, including the first landings on Venus and on Mars.
The Americans shocked the world when they established the first manned moonbase in 1964, dumbfounding the Germans who had believed the Americans didn't have the technology to do so. Germany followed suit by establishing Basis Otto later in the same year which, like the American base Jamestown, was situated around Shackleton Crater. However, both bases were abandoned during the 1970 oil crisis because of skyrocketing costs and a general lack of interest for spacefaring in the 70s.

The abandonment of the first moonbases is generally regarded as ending the First Space Race with a "decisive German victory" and competition was only gradually replaced with cooperation. A period of détente followed with the April 1967 agreement on a cooperative Apollo–Mani Test Project, resulting in the July 1968 rendezvous in Earth orbit of UC astronauts with German *Raumfahrer* and joint development of an International Space Station. In the Fascist Bloc, the American 1957 launch sparked the Juno Crisis a period of public fear and anxiety about the perceived technological disadvantage between Fascists and Democrats. Italy felt isolated on the political stage and reevaluated its détente policy as they believed that rapprochement and backwardness made fascism look inferior compared to the West and aligned nations might be incentivized to abolish fascism. This directly encouraged the Cold War and Italy set up its own limited space program, which only really took off after the Years of Lead in the late 70s.

### **Lunar and Martian Colonization and Asteroid Mining**

*Main article: German colonization of the Moon*