Europa Bund

The Europa Bund is one of the two major global superpowers in 1970.

Members of the Europa Bund:

* Germany
* France - repressive republic
* Denmark - Denmark´s constitutional monarchy is still theoretically in place but the country has become utterly subservient to Germany in foreign affairs and quite subservient even in internal affairs. Elections occur but participation is low and both the major political parties are pro-German and conservative (even though one is, ironically, called "The Left"). Although Denmark proper is a strategic backwater, Denmark's Atlantic possessions are of great interest to the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Vagar airfield on Faroe is nominally a Danish air force base but it has been expanded and fortified by the Luftwaffe, who have a long-range radar station and several warplane squadrons based there. Greenland also belongs to Denmark but by an agreement with Washington it is demilitarised.
* Norway - Very similar to Denmark, Norway´s constitutional monarchy is light on constitutionalism. Historically Norway has had quite a strong labour socialist tradition and, although this is semi-officially suppressed, it has ongoing problems with labour unrest and even some minor sabotage, which the German ambassador is always quick to demand be corrected, lest German-owned businesses suffer. Norway´s northern provinces are home to a major Europabund military base with a heavy German land, sea and air presence.
* Sweden - Like its neighbours, Sweden maintains a constitutional monarchy - the Crown Prince is married to one of Wilhelm II´s granddaughters, Princess Herzeleide, and is a popular figure in Germany. Like the Netherlands, Sweden is governed in turn by two large parties, one nominally social democratic, but they both strongly support the bund, and the social democratic party is increasingly conservative, especially on social matters. Although Hitlerism has never achieved political power in Sweden, there is a particularly strong culture of Hitlerist street violence in Swedish cities to which the authorities sometimes turn a blind eye, especially as it is usually directed against foreign labourers from the poorer south and east of the bund.
* Finland - The only one of the Scandinavian countries not to form a monarchy, Finland´s position on the border of the Soviet Union has made the country highly militarised, and a series of General-cum-Presidents in the 1940s and 1950s have made the country essentially a military dictatorship with a formal veneer of democracy. Several German and one Swedish divisons are present in Finland, guarding the Soviet border. Finland is one of the most belicose of the Europabund countries and a sizeable interest group wishes to recapture areas of the Soviet Union that are, they claim, theirs by right.
* Netherlands - The Netherlands has the dubious distinction of being the most free country in the Bund, although this is the equivalent of being the tallest person at the dwarf convention. Nonetheless, Dutch elections are reasonably free (although the poor cannot participate) and feature real debate and sometimes policy changes (although not in the area of foreign policy). There is even a nominally socialist party that has even provided a couple of Prime Ministers, although its leaders enthusiastically claim loyalty to the Bund. The Netherlands has been fighting a gruelling anti-insurgency war in its East Indies territories for more than twenty years, with assistance from Germany and France. Some Dutch politicians and public intellectuals have questioned the validity of the war and suggested a path to independence, but this has faced powerful resistance at the Bund level - France, Portugal and Italy do not want to see a precedent set, and Germany wants the East Indies to stay within the Bund, chiefly as a source of oil, but also as the Bund´s main frontier in the Pacific. Germany heavily subsidises the Dutch war, but the coffins of young men returning every month are imposing a heavy toll on the morale of Dutch society nonetheless.
* Belgium - In many ways similar to its northern neighbour, the Belgians are also fighting a colonial war in Africa, although for some reason there is less grumbling. Belgians are notable for being major enthusiasts for the Bund as an institution and are massively over represented in the Secretariat. Some feel the Belgians are too idealistic, more concerned with the ideals of a united Europe than the reality of German dominance. By informal but very binding agreement between Berlin and Paris, Belgium is considered France´s "backyard" and is the only country in the Bund where Paris, not Berlin, plays the hegemon role - although given the lockstep alignment between Germany and its junior partner, this makes little effective difference.
* Luxembourg - The Grand Duke of Luxembourg still reigns. The Luxembourgeois are just happy that the Bund allows their country to maintain its formal independence.
* Spain
* Portugal - Antonio de Salazar has the distinction of being Europe´s longest serving head of state, and in many ways his *Estado Novo* was a precursor for the Bund´s overall ethos, although his more refined theories about Catholic social theory as applied to economics are treated with, at best, polite interest in Strasbourg and Berlin. Portugal´s main focus over the last twenty years has been fighting a vicious colonial war in Angola and Mozambique. Portuguese forces are generally dominant in the battlefield (with generous German technical, logistical and intelligence assistance) but the demand for independence never goes away. Salazar is very old, and many thing he will not live to see 1971, although his successor, Dr Marcelo Caetano, has already been agreed and has been received in Berlin.
* Italy
* Yugoslavia - The King of Yugoslavia allows a rubber stamp parliament to exist but governs through a personal rule, appointing Prime Ministers - usually military men - at will. Yugoslavia has faced ongoing ethnic and religious conflict and it is rumoured that the mandarins in Berlin have sometimes considered splitting the state up, but the King is a loyal member of the Bund who has always obediently done what is asked of him, militarily and economically, so these ideas remain simply ideas. The King is not that old but he is very ill, often spending time in Copenhagen (he is related to the Danish royal family) for treatment of stomach illnesses. His son, who attended the Prussian Military Academy, married into the Bavarian royal family, and briefly served in the *Wehrmacht*, is considered extremely reliable by Berlin. Yugoslavia is one of the poorest and more dangerous countries in the Bund, and banditry and rural poverty are quite serious problems, especially in Bosnia and Macedonia.
* Hungary - Hungary maintains the same constitutional anomaly it has been in since the 1930s, when Admiral Horthy proclaimed it a Kingdom but did not crown a King. When Horthy died there were suggestions to crown the Habsburg pretender, but this was protested strongly by Austria. Some suggested instead importing a German, or even Swedish or Spanish monarch, but this would have caused problems in these countries. So forty years later Hungary is still in the strange position of being a monarch-free Kingdom, with the position of Regent held by Istvan Antal, one of Horthy´s proteges and a Great War veteran. Monarchy or not, Hungary is definitely not a democracy. It has a strong rivalry with Romania and still claims part of Transylvania, but Germany generally prevents tensions from spiraling out of control.
* Czechoslovakia - Czechoslovakia once struggled with its German minority, but joining the Europa Bund has largely quieted them, although many Czech nationalists grumble that their border areas are essentially part of Germany now, but they take care not to grumble too loud. Czechoslovakia has been ruled by a series of pro-German strongmen.
* Romania
* Bulgaria - The Bulgarian royal family is quite Germanophile and as such is regarded as a staunch ally, although the average Bulgarian may feel differently. Bulgaria has a very enthusiastic secret police which is not above assassinating Bulgarian refugees in London, to the slight embarassment of the Bund. The country is quite poor and pro-German feeling in the royal palace and Chancellery does not necessarily translate to the streets - in early 1969 the German consul in Sofia was stabbed to death on a back street, provoking a round of mass arrests of nationalist agitators.
* Greece - In 1936, with the approval of the King, General Metaxas suspended the Greek constitution. It remains suspended more than thirty years later. Metaxas is still hailed as a visionary figure and subsequent dictators have all been his political proteges, although the latest ruler, General Zoitakis, was only a low ranking officer at the time. The Greek regime is very strict about academic and literary censorship, and multiple works of classical literature deemed "subversive" are not allowed into the country.
* Poland - Poland had to swallow a bitter pill when it ceded Danzig to Germany in 1941, chiefly when it realised that assistance from France would not be forthcoming. This proved the final death blow to the *sanecja* regime. Realising that a relationship with Germany was inevitable, that the chief challenge of the Polish state would henceforth lie in integrating its eastern regions, and that the secret to doing so lay in a a Polish ethnostate which based rights on cultural identity, the Polish government fell into the hands of Roman Dmowski's national democracy movement. Dmowski himself having passed away in 1939, a group of mostly civilian "new nationalists" came to power, led by Tadeusz Bielicki. The 1950s and 1960s saw the Polish state engaged in a prolonged, painful and sometimes violent struggle with the Ukrainian and Belarussian minorities in its eastern borderlands. Bielicki has remained President for more than 20 years and shows no signs of relenting power, instead cultivating a new generation of nationalist activists. Poland is, along with Finland, the most anti-Soviet of the *Bund* states, often accusing the Soviet Union of repressing its own Polish minority while alleging that the NKVD is attempting to raise an anti-Polish revolt in the Polish borderlands - doubtless true, although it is unlikely the NKVD can achieve much in the face of a seasoned, tough Polish security apparatus.
* Estonia - Estonia is an autocratic republic governed by the elderly military strongman Admiral Aleksander Warma. Strongly pro-German, Estonia is home to a native Baltic German aristocracy who have found a second resurgence under the Bund. It hosts a German garrison to guard against Soviet incursions, and a major German naval base on Saaremaa.
* Latvia - Similar to Estonia, Latvia is an autocratic republic that keeps a careful watch on its eastern border. Due to the misdeeds of the German *freikorps* in the Baltic during the 1920s, the Baltic Germans are less welcome here, although a few of them can still be found in their estates. Latvia has a large Jewish minority who are subject to sporadic discrimination. Its President is General Janis Balodis, who is very elderly and will probably retire in the early 1970s.
* Lithuania - A third autocratic Baltic republic, Lithuania has a long running dispute with Poland over the Polish city of Vilna which it claims as its capital - however, Poland is too important to Germany for this claim to be entertained, so the two states exist in a state of frosty *detente* within the Bund. The elderly President Aleksandras Stulginskis died in 1969 and was replaced by Stazys Lozoraitis, a former foreign minister.
* Albania - Albania is ruled by Zog II, the second King of a parvenu dynasty with close ties to Italy. Albania is a small, poor and isolated state, but is nonetheless a member of the Bund. It is the only European country that is majority Muslim, although Zog has very little interest in promoting his religion. Like Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, Albania can be a dangerous place, and there is still significant banditry in the mountains.

The Bund is dominated by Germany, with France in the role of "junior partner" and all other states taking on subordinate roles. Cultural and economic commentators often comment on the existence of a "European axis" running from Paris, through Strasbourg, to Berlin and then on to Warsaw, as forming the centre of the Bund´s power as well as the historical heartland of modern Europe. Legally, the capitol of the Bund is in Strasbourg, France, which is where its formal institutions including a Supreme Court, Parliament and Secretariat sit. However the true economic, cultural and political centre of the Bund is in Berlin, the capital of Germany, its dominant member. The German Chancellor is always the President of the Europa Bund, and a whole wing of the Chancellery in Berlin is dedicated to the Chancellor´s European cabinet.

The Bund´s members share a common currency (the Ecu), contribute to shared projects of European significance (mostly nuclear power plants and international road and rail networks), and commit to a protective trade policy. There is, strictly speaking, no European military, with every country´s armed forces formally under national command. However one of the most important protocols of the Bund treaty states that in the event of a war all European forces will be placed under the control of the German commander-in-chief, roughly paralleling the arrangement practiced under the German Empire during and before the Great War. (The sole exception is the French *force de frappe*, which remains under French control, although it is less than one-tenth the size of the German nuclear arsenal).

While there is a fair degree of economic, cultural and even political diversity within the Bund, all of its states are autocracies of varying stripes. Generally the states of the Bund belong to four political "families". The first is made up of states that originally followed a Hitlerist nationalist-revolutionary ideology, such as Italy, Spain and Portugal. In 1970 all of these states have lost most of their nationalist-revolutionary fervor and their pretensions towards an ultranationalist ideology are generally treated with contempt even by Hitlerist nostalgists. Romania is somewhat of an outlier in this group in that its nationalist-revolutionary state has not degenerated but intensified, to the point that it is considered the most repressive state in the Union.

The second, and second-largest group, is one of constitutional monarchies that have become increasingly repressive and seen access to democracy tightened over time. This group is made up of the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Scandinavian countries (but not Finland). It is generally in these countries that the highest degree of personal freedom is obtained, although on the international scene they are all highly subservient to the German line. France could be considered to belong to this group, although it is not a monarchy, and is considerably more repressive.

The largest single group is composed of the descendants of the autocracies that formed in the wake of the Great War. Generally non-ideological or only lightly ideological they are often governed by military or technocratic cabals and tend to have cults of personality around historic military leaders such as Pilsudski, Mannerheim, Metaxas etc. This group is best represented by Poland, and includes all the Eastern European and Balkan states, Greece and Finland.

Germany stands alone with a unique system that blends features of all three groups.

The only parts of Europe that are not part of the Bund are Switzerland, Malta, Gibraltar and Cyprus (still owned by the UK), the UK itself, Ireland, the European Soviet Union and Iceland, which broke away from Denmark in the late 1940s.

Not technically part of the Bund, but nonetheless extremely important to it, are the swathe of mostly French, Dutch and Portuguese colonial territories scattered across the globe. This includes more than half of Africa, Syria and Lebanon, several small but strategically crucial islands in the Caribbean, the Dutch East Indies, the French possessions in Southeast Asia, and a few other scattered possessions such as Goa, Macao, Tahiti and New Caledonia. Since the 1950s the Bund has been engaged in a prolonged and seemingly endless struggle, known in Germany as the "colonies war", to retain control of these scattered territories. Successive leaders have claimed that the struggle is "turning a corner" but there seems little end in sight and anti-war protests are becomingly increasingly common. Even within the halls of power, sometimes it is suggested that a strategic retreat from some of the more troublesome or less valuable colonies might be a good idea. It is well known that visits of German warships to the Caribbean infuriates American military leaders (just as American warships docking in Malta or Iceland raise hackles in Berlin). Because these colonial conflicts are not technically wars, the Union´s German led military structure has not officially been invoked, and they are chiefly fought by national forces. However as the years have gone on Germany has become more and more involved with funds, advisors, equipment and eventually the deployment of regular troops.

The Europa Bund´s main rivals are the United States and its allies (crucially including the UK), the Soviet Union, and Japan. Of the three the USA is seen as the greatest threat. The Soviet Union is generally seen as too weak to pose a threat of invasion, although those living on the Soviet border often complain about refugees. Japan is known to covet the French and Dutch territories in the East Indies, but these are considered not to be strategically critical even if oil from the Dutch Indies is a useful strategic resource - however Japan´s recent drifting towards an agreement with the USA is seen as a very negative development.

The Bund´s main external allies are Iran and Turkey, who contain the USSR and provide bulwarks against Anglo-American influence in the Middle East; Argentina, which plays a similar role in volatile Latin America, and China, which is increasingly being cultivated as a counterweight to an America-leaning Japan, although given China´s economic and military weakness, it is a rather poor counterpoint. One of the major foreign policy concerns going into the 1970s is that all of these allies are quite unstable and there is a very real risk that any of them could see a rapid change of government in the face of a popular uprising or foreign subversion.