The Chinese barely noticed when the European War ended; Chinese Nationalists, Chinese Communists and various warlord factions were engaged in a bloody civil war from 1944 (after Japan was invaded), once the Japanese armies in China were either exterminated, repatriated back to Japan or absorbed into various Chinese militias. China remained torn apart by war until 1951, when the Chinese Nationalists – with a great deal of American assistance – defeated most of the warlords. The remaining Chinese Communists retreated into Manchuria and held out until the Nationalists finally agreed to a ceasefire. North China is now the only genuinely communist state on Earth.
China saw substantial economic growth after the end of the war, but an increasing bent towards authoritarianism saw China slowly slip into the German orbit. However, the combination of distance and wariness of German racial theories ensured that the Chinese were never full-blooded allies and, with the Chinese economy growing rapidly, the threat of a clash between the Chinese and Germans has become a viable possibility. Thankfully, the vast tracts of wasteland between China and Germany East ensure that war is unlikely to result.
Korea is a relatively stable democracy and an American ally. With the US unchallenged in Asian waters, most of the other states in Asia have followed suit.
Although the Reich appears stable, a number of problems bubble below the surface.
The first, and most prominent, is the South African War. What began as a genuine effort to assist South Africa against its black population has snowballed into a major war against an elusive and deadly enemy. Thousands of German troops have been killed and thousands more have been badly injured, with only a relative handful of the wounded formally acknowledged as such. The war has become a death match, sucking up German resources at the end of a very long supply chain while thousands of South Africans seek to flee their country as it is consumed by civil war.
The second is the constant arms race with the United States. Although Germany achieved a number of successes in the early stages of the Cold War, the defection of Von Braun in 1950 and the introduction of Nazi Ideology into German schools crippled German science and, despite their best efforts, Germany has fallen behind in the arms race. The deployment of the American ABM system has forced the Germans to invest billions of Reichmarks in building a new force of ICBMs, SLBMs and other weapons. Trying to match American deployment of smart weapons, stealth aircraft and other advanced systems may prove beyond the Reich’s capabilities.
The third, connected to the second, is a growing economic crisis. The Reich is simply not very efficient; in a sense, it has all the weaknesses of a command economy without any of the strengths, a problem caused by the division of German economic facilities among the various branches of the state. In particular, intelligent young men are fleeing Germany for America where they won’t have to work in an inefficient system. Furthermore, social security payments (particularly to mothers with more than three children) are slowly draining the system dry.
In trying to tackle these problems, the Reich may have sown the seeds of its own disintegration…
Appendix: German Words
Abwehr – German Military Intelligence
Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM) – League of German Girls/Band of German Maidens, female wing of the Hitler Youth.
Einsatzgruppen – SS extermination squads
Gastarbeiter – Guest Worker
Germanica – Moscow, renamed after the war
Hauptsturmfuehrer – SS rank, roughly equal to Captain.
Heer – The German Army
Herrenvolk – Master Race
Kriegsmarine – The German Navy
Luftwaffe – The German Air Force
Mutterkreuz – Mother’s Cross
Oberfeldwebel – Heer rank, roughly equal to Master Sergeant
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW, ‘Supreme Command of the Armed Forces’) – The German General Staff.
Obergruppenfuehrer – SS rank, roughly equal to Lieutenant General.
Ordnungspolizei – Order Police (regular police force)
Reichsführer-SS – Commander of the SS
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) – Reich Main Security Office
Sigrunen – SS insignia (lightning bolts)
Standartenfuehrer – SS rank, roughly equal to Colonel.
Sturmbannfuehrer – SS rank, roughly equal to Major.
Strumscharfuehrer – SS rank, roughly equal to Master Sergeant.
Untermensch – Subhuman.
Untermenschen – Subhumans, plural of Untermensch.
Unterscharfuehrer – SS rank, roughly equal to Second Lieutenant.
Vaterland – Fatherland
Volk – The German Population.
Wehrmacht – The German Military (often taken to represent just the army (Heer)).
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Cover by Brad Fraunfelter
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