Civil War on Third Reich

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Flag of the Third Reich

The POD
September - October, 1941 - German 2th Panzer Army under General Heinz Guderian's command captures Smolensk and is about to launch the final assault to Moscow when he is ordered to turn south towards Kiev to reinforce the 17th Army and 6th Army of Army Group South, because the OKH --the German Army High Command-- wants to destroy the bulk of Soviet forces concentrated in and around the city. Disobbeying his orders, Guderian continues his advance and Moscow is taken by Christmas 1941. Due his insubordination, Guderian is removed of duty.

The remnants of the Red Army are pushed back beyond the Urals --which becomes the new Soviet border. Before the occupation of Moscow Premier Joseph Stalin and his staff has been evacuated. The new USSR capital is established in Vladivostok.

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German troops on the Red Square - Christmas, 1941

September 1942 - After the Battle of Alam El Halfa Field Marshal Erwin Rommel tooks ill. When he is in Germany recovering from his health problems, he suggests Guderian to the OKH as the only one who could replace him temporarily in Africa. Reluntactly, Hitler agrees with one condition: after his recovering Rommel shall command the German forces in the Eastern front. Rommel accepts Hitler's terms.

December 2, 1942 - University of Chicago. CP-1, (Chicago pile-1), the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, designed by the renowned Italian physicist Enrico Fermi, with the collaboration of Leo Szilard, discoverer of the chain reaction, is ready for a demonstration before a group of dignitaries. The pile reaches the critical mass for self-sustaining reaction at 3:25 p.m.

A criticality accident happens during the demonstration when a nuclear chain reaction accidentally occurs in the fissile material contained in the pile --in this case, enriched uranium-- after a young scientist named George Weil worked the final control rod. This releases neutron radiation wich is highly dangerous to humans and causes induced radioactivity in the surroundings. Fermi --who is monitoring the neutron activity-- immmediately realizing what has happened quickly shut down the device, unfortunately too late to avoid that himself and the rest of scientists and dignitaries nearby receives a fatal doses of radiation.

Enrico Fermi dies due to the effects of the radiation poisoning seven days later. Leo Szilard succumbs 20 hours after Fermi's death. The delay caused by the death of two major scientists of Manhattan Project causes that nuclear weaponry isn't available for the US to be used in Second World War. March 13, 1943 - Operation Spark --a plan designed by German anti-Nazis officers Colonel Henning von Tresckow and Lieutenant Fabian von Schlabrendorff-- succeeds and Adolf Hitler dies when a hidden bomb destroys his aircraft. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, second in command and Hitler's nominal sucessor, becomes the new Führer. He wants to reach an armistice with the Allies, but when he knows the notice SS-Obergruppenführer and Bohemia-Moravia Reichsprotektor Reinhard Heydrich --who has survived his 1942 assassination in Czechoslovakia in this timeline-- wants to continue the war "until the last breath", and claims Göring is a traitor.

A civil war in the Third Reich is coming.

1943
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Hermann Göring - Führer of the Third Reich

March 14, 1943 - In a radio speech broadcasted to all Germany, Führer Hermann Göring announces a suspension of hostilities. At the same time, Wehrmacht troops assault the SS and Gestapo headquarters in Berlin, arresting or killing most of its officers.

March 15, 1943 - Together with his Panzer staff, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel surrenders to Soviet troops. After the revelation of the Nazi atrocities Rommel expresses his will to continue the fight, this time against the Fourth Reich.

March 16, 1943 - Three days after Hitler's death the Bohemia-Moravia Reichsprotektorat, led with fist of iron by Heydrich, the General Government --which includes the part of occupied polish territories separated from Great Germany--, the Nazi-occupied Baltic States, Norway, Sweden, Belarus and Ukraine declares its independence from the German Third Reich (TR) and becomes a new country: the Fourth Reich (FR).

After the Berlin incident Heydrich SS troops replies with a series of bloody skirmishes in the Sudetenland border. This causes the Third Reich declares war to the Fourth Reich. In the Russian front the Red Army launches Operation Siegfried, the invasion of all Nazi-occupied eastern territories.

March 17, 1943 - After breaking their relationships with Germany, Italy and Japan formally recognise the Fourth Reich as a sovereign state and legal heir of the Third Reich in wich respect to its treaties with the rest of Axis powers.

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Reinhard Heydrich - Führer of the Fourth Reich

March 27, 1943 - Guernsey conference - A German delegation led by Germany foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop comes to the island of Guernsey, in the coast of Normandy, to initiate peace conversations with representatives of the United Kingdom --former british Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who is still alive in this timeline-- and the United States governments --former United States Ambassador to Britain, Joseph P. Kennedy. The Göring's plan is manage to prevent and Allied invasion of western Europe in order to reunite his forces to defeat the Fourth Reich 2th and 3th SS Panzer Army, wich are concentrating in the German South and East borders. The 4th SS Panzer Army is deployed by Heydrich along the Polish border to stop the Soviet advance.

March 31, 1943 - Guernsey Pact - The United Kingdom, the United States and Germany reaches a peace agreement. Germany agrees to return to 1938 borders. The National-Socialist party is banned and all its representatives are expulsed of the Reichstag. All the prisoners of the concentration camps must be returned to their respective countries. An international tribunal is stablished to judge the responsables of the Final Solution. In the following months the German government shall celebrate free elections and begin the return of German troops stationed in France, Italy and all the occupied territories formerly under the control of the Third Reich. Now, without the restraints of a two-front war and with the Allies appeased, Göring can send his army to Germany South and East borders, where Fourth Reich forces are concentrated.

April 2, 1943 - Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov establishes the Free German Army as a Red Army branch made up with German soldiers disillusioned with the Nazi regime, under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's command.

April 5, 1943 - Japan open its offensive towards India

April 13, 1943 - Katyn massacre revealed - Wehrmacht (FR) troops discovers thousands of Polish officers bodies buried in the Katyn forest, near Smolensk. Apparently they were killed by NKVD, the Soviet secret police. Following the advice of his Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, Heydrich decides to exploit the massacre to antagonise the United States and Britain with the USSR. Almost inmediately after the discovery of the corpses, he authorizes an International Red Cross mission to enter in the FR-occupied Polish territory with the purpose of investigate the mass grave. Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov claims that all is a Nazi propaganda trick.

April 15, 1943 - German (TR) troops begin withdrawal from occupied France, Luxemburg, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.

April 19, 1943 - Warsaw ghetto uprising

April 20, 1943 - Pétain arrested - Marshal Pétain, former Chief of State of Vichy France, is arrested by a French resistance patrol while he tries to cross the border into Spain at the Pyrenees.

April 23, 1943 - The Hague Trials - The International Tribunal for War Crimes (ITWC) is opened in the Hague to trial over 300 German war criminals. This included some of the attendees at Wannsee Conference, where the plans for the Final Solution were approved.

May 9, 1943 - A surprise massive air attack realized by Luftwaffe (TR) bombers against the oil refineries of Ploesti, Romania, causes a serious fuel shortage to the Fourth Reich troops.

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Anthony Eden - Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

May 11, 1943 - Churchill dies - Following a plan designed by SS-Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny, a Type-VII U-boat slips into British waters and drops a British Free Corps squad --a unit of the Waffen-SS made up of British fascists and renegades culled from POW camps-- onto shore. Their objective is to infiltrate in the tunnels beneath British House of Parliament to hide a large amount of explosives the night before Prime Minister Winston Churchill gives and speech in the House of Commons. The bomb explodes when Churchill has finished his speech, destroying the Houses of Lords and Commons and killing him and most of the Parliament members who were in the building at that moment. He is replaced by his Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden.

May 17, 1943 - Operation Herkules - The situation in the Russian Front becomes clearly insostenible for the Fourth Reich. Without fuel, the major part of its panzer units and supply convoys are unable to advance. The shortage of food causes that some SS troopers reccur, in their desperation, to canibalism. Heydrich launches Operation Gertrude, a plan originally designed by Adolf Hitler to invade Turkey and, trough Siria and Egypt, gain control of the Suez Channel and the rich oil fields of Arabia. The first step of the plan consists in the invasion of the estrategic island of Malta, the principal British enclave in the Mediterranean.

May 28, 1943 - A Japanese naval force under the command of admiral Boshiro Hosogaya attacks and destroys an american air base in Adak Island --Japanese forces are stationed in Attu and Kiska, the most western Aleutian Islands, since were invaded in June 3, 1942, and in this timeline never were recaptured by the US forces--. After complete the occupation of the island his orders are to use Adak as a staging base to invade Alaska and seize its vasts reserves of oil and coal.

May 30, 1943 - Eichmann dies - SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, one of the major responsibles of mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in German occupied Europe, is shot in the courtroom by a Holocaust survivor when he's declaring at the ITWC, and dies while is transported to a hospital. The German government protests energically, because Eichmann has died under Allied custody.

June 21, 1943 - Projekt Madagaskar

July 1, 1943 - Turkish Front - Allies begins to support Kurdish and Armenians partisans by weapons and supplies to overthrow the Nazi puppet regime in Ankara.

July 4, 1943 - Together with his Panzer staff, Generaloberst Heinz Guderian surrendered to Soviet troops

July 9-10, 1943 - Operation Husky - Allies begins the invasion of Sicily.

July 17, 1943 - Sicily succesfully captured by Allies.

July 18, 1943 - Operation Tannenbaum - One of the primary objectives in Heydrich's campaign against Germany (TR) is the occupation of Switzerland. When the invasion of Turkey succeeds he orders to reactivate Operation Tannenbaum. In 1940, after France surrendered, the Wehrmacht drawn up several plans to invade the Swiss Confederation. Operation Tannenbaum was the name gived to the third and most detailed of these plans. Although Hitler's military staff had planned the invasion, he never gave his aprobation by unclear reasons. Apparently, Hitler didn't consider Switzerland as a threat. Other reason could be he hasn't the effectives that Operation Tannenbaum needed, because in June 1940 a large number of troops were moved to the West to support the inminent invasion of Britain, and to the East to reinforce the Russian Front.

Heydrich doesn't want to make Hitler's same mistakes. He orders a massive production of assault rifles to equip his infantry, specially Sturmgewehr MP 43 rifles (one of the reasons why Hitler didn't invade Switzerland in 1940 was his troops would have had to cop with a well trained militia formed in its major part by Swiss reservists, equiped with the Schmidt-Rubin repeating rifle, at that time a firearm as good as the best German automatic weapons). SS-Hauptsturmführer Otto Skorzeny is put at charge of the plan. Before the invasion, Skorzeny send saboteurs to destroy the airfields.

The first hours of the invasion becomes a tactical nightmare for German Mountain troops. The decision to make a massive parachute drop at night proves to be an error. As a result, a half of the units were widely scattered and unable to rally. Taking advantage of the difficult terrain Swiss Commander in Chief, General Henri Guisan and his army, wich include a fifth of Switzerland's population, oppose a fierce resistance.

August 1, 1943 - Japan attacks USSR - After breaking the No-Aggression Treaty between the two countries Japan launches a surprise air strike on the port of Vladivostok, the first movement of its long time postposed plan to seize control of western Siberia.

August 2, 1943 - Kennedy dies - Lieutenant John F. Kennedy dies when his ship, the torpedo boat PT 109, is fired upon by the Japanese navy near the Solomon Islands. After the death of his son, Joseph P. Kennedy leaves the Democratics and joins to the Republican party.

August 27, 1943 - Mussolini dies - Riots in Rome. The Duce Benito Mussolini and his wife are killed by italian partisans when they are trying to escape trough the Albanese border before the american troops arrives.

September 8, 1943 - Eisenhower announces the unconditional surrender of the Italian army.

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Flag of the British Union of Fascists

November 1943 - Mosley released - After he's diagnosed with phlebitis Sir Oswald Mosley, former MP and leader of British Union of Fascists (BUF), is released of Holloway prison. The BUF is an anti-semite and anti-communist movement, inspired by Italian fascism. At the beginning of war he led a campaign for a negotiated peace with Germany, but after the invasion of Norway he was accused of sympathize with the Nazism and condemned to ostracism.

November 21, 1943 - The slapping incident - Newspaper columnist Drew Pearson reveals on his radio program that General George S. Patton has been relieved of duty after he slapped a soldier named Charlie H. Khul during a visit at a military hospital in Sicily.

November 28 - December 1, 1943 - Tehran Conference - Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President of the United States; General Charles de Gaulle, the President of the French Republic and Anthony Eden, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, meet together in the US embassy in Tehran, Iran, to design a joint strategy for the war against the Fourth Reich and its ally, the Empire of Japan. Joseph Stalin, the Premier of the Soviet Union, declines his assistance pleading a misterious flu. Heydrich see his negative as a sign of the division amongst the Allies.

December 5, 1943 - A cease-fire is signed between the USSR and the Fourth Reich.

December 7, 1943 - After the liberation of Italy, the Allied advance is stopped in the Alps by heavily armed SS troops.

December 9, 1943 - FDR dies - President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies of a stroke when is working in the Oval Office. Vice president Henry A. Wallace becomes the new President.

1944
January 1, 1944 - Operation Kismet - Russian invasion of Turkey. Stalin severs all diplomatic contacts with Allies.

March 13, 1944 - Comrade Von Braun - Fearing for his life and before Gestapo arrest him, Von Braun and his family defects to the Soviets.

April 20, 1944 - Failed assassination attempt on Göring's life

April 24, 1944 - The Purge - Following the failed assassination attempt, Göring orders the arrest and imprison of hundreds of army officers, journalists and politics, under the suspect of being involved in a plot to kill him and give a coup d'etate to replace the newborn German democracy by another fascist regime like Nazi dictatorship. His critics claim that this is just an excuse to eliminate the free press and other opposition groups.

May 7, 1944 - The second Reichstag fire

May 11, 1944 - Stalin begins to deport thousands of Kurds and Armenians to Siberia in order to be used as forced workers.

June 26 - June 28, 1944 - In the Chicago Republican National Convention Joseph P. Kennedy wins the nomination defeating the favorite, New York Governor, Thomas E. Dewey --the man everyone expected to received the nomination--, and becomes Republican party's candidate for President of the United States. The convention also approves his vice presidential nominee, Joseph R. McCarthy, to run with him in the same ticket.

19 July - 21 July, 1944 - Chicago Stadium. Democratic National Convention. Henry A. Wallace wins the nomination. In an attempt to silent MacCarthy's accusations of be a Reds sympathizer, and to attract the votes of the hesitants he chooses General George S. Patton, a renowned anti-communist, as vice presidential candidate.

Unexpectedly, the catchphrase "A vote for Wallace is a vote for the Reds!", which McCarthy uses for first time in one of his speechs, is a success and becomes the slogan of the Republican's party campaign. Kennedy promises a thougher policy towards the USSR if he is elected President.

The polls shows Kennedy is widening his lead over Wallace not only in red, but also in blue states.

October, 1944 - Operation Valhalla - The Operation Valhalla shall ensure that the former TR territories returns to the Nazi rule.

November 6, 1944 - Battle of Anchorage

November 7, 1944 - In the election Wallace scored a victory over Kennedy by a very narrow margin. Wallace believes the results prove that Americans are tired after six years of war and demand a quick victory.

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Henry A. Wallace - President of the United States

1945
February 2, 1945 - The Horten 229 first test flight begins in Oranienburg. The Ho 229 is a stealth jet fighter plane, able to avoid the radar and inflige serious loses in enemy air forces. Heydrich plans to use widely in Operation Sealion, the invasion of Britain.

March 1, 1945 - Due the shortage of oil and raw materials caused by the Fourth Reich air and naval blockade, Prime Minister Eden approves the nationalization of all banks and major industries in Britain. Riots in Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham. BUF black-uniformed paramilitary corps, nicknamed Blackshirts, attacks sinagogues and communist union locals in London.

April 1, 1945 - Operation Ikarus - Nazi invasion of Iceland.

June, 1945 - Black June - The irreplaceable RAF losses, in conjunction with the night attacks over coastal cities by FR new stealth bombers, spread demoralization throughout the British population, and made certain that the Luftwaffe (FR) would ever after move from the shore to the mainland. Food and electric energy are strictly rationed. Coal and oil reserves could last for a few weeks. The "appeasement policy" proposed by Sir Oswald Mosley gain support.

July 26, 1945 - BUF wins the elections. The results come as a surprise to almost everyone, including Mosley himself. After his electoral victory, when the new Prime Minister visits King George VI at Buckingham Palace to kiss hands, he refuses to receive him. This causes a serious government crisis: as to kiss hands is a constitutional term used in the United Kingdom to refer to the formal installation of Crown-appointed British government ministers to their office, Sir Oswald Mosley isn't yet officially at charge. Anthony Eden continues as provisional PM.

August 5, 1945 - The British Parliament revokes Treason Felony Act of 1848. This act made violation of the law punishable by lifetime imprisonment, however the Law Lords have stated that this not prohibit peaceful printed advocacy of anti-monarchic sentiments. It is felony treason to deprive the King of his crown, to levy war against the King or to "move or stir" any foreigner to invade the United Kingdom or any other country belonging to the King. Anti-monarchy protests spread in major cities. Jewish people are beginning to be persecuted.

August 21, 1945 - King George VI abdicates - Finally, to avoid a civil war that will cause thousands of deads, King George VI chooses to abdicate.

September 24, 1945 - Helsinki Treaty - Britain signs a separate peace with the FR.

October 1, 1945 - Operation Daedalus cancelled - Due the terms of the Helsinki Treaty PM Mosley denies his permission to the US to use its airfields on British soil to launch attacks against the FR. Operation Daedalus --the Allied invasion of western Europe-- is cancelled. The US concentrate all its ressources on the Pacific conflict.

October 10, 1945 - Second Anglo-Irish War - Britain invades Ireland. In a few days the British army crushes the relatively small Irish force. Irish Americans, specially former ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, manages to influence in the Senate and the Congress to bring the United States to the war.

November 1, 1945 - Operation Olympic - On X-Day November 1, a combined Allied naval armada begins the invasion of Japanese island of Kyūshū.

1946
January, 1946 - After the fall of the Fourth Reich most of the leading German scientists and engineers involved on war-time mass production of V-2 and V-3 rockets, including Wernher von Braun and Helmut Gröttrup, who had worked directly with him, were sent to Russia. With the war over, the USSR has taken all of Eastern Europe including Turkey, Greece, Switzerland and Germany.

January, 1946 - Operation Olympic - Y-Day. The Allies launches Operation Coronet, the amphibious assault of the Kantō Plain south of Tokyo, on the Japanese island of Honshū. US General Douglas MacArthur is put at charge of the invasion forces as Supreme Allied Commander. A few days later Vice President George S. Patton resigns and leaves office with more than two years of his first term left to run. Before he sends his resignation letter, Patton solicits President Wallace to leave the active reserve and to be reincorporated on duty, which is conceded to him.

June, 1946 - The United States, having won over Japan, is in no mood to enter a new war, and Americans accept the fait accompli of Soviet domination over most of Europe. With a Soviet-dominated Europe at their doorstep, France and Italy chooses more conservative leaders than in OTL.

1947
October 9, 1947 - The USSR establishes the Greater German Popular Democratic Republic (GGPDR) as an associated state in the German territory formerly occupied by the FR. Although Stalin declares the GGPDR is fully independent Soviet occupation troops will remain in its territory for an undetermined period of time.

October 31, 1947 - The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) announces that the Aurora I, the first Earth-orbiting satellite, has succesfully made one orbit and is transmitting. The day after the launching, in a speech at the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, Stalin announces the USSR will launch its first tripulated mission before the decade ends and will send a man to the Moon in late 1950s.

1948
June 21-25, 1948 - In the National Convention wich is hold in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy becomes the Republican party's presidential candidate. McCarthy chooses California Congressist Richard M. Nixon as his running mate.

June 21-25, 1948 - Philadelphia, PA. The delegates at the Democratic National Conventional elects presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace and vice presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson II.

December, 1948 - George Orwell finishes the manuscript of 1984.

1949
June, 1949 - 1984 is published, shocking critics and readers. Orwell has written a novel likening PM Mosley to his protagonist, ruthless dictator Big Brother, leading to his arrest, interrogation and exile. Asked why he writes a work so critical with the regime, Orwell answers that he feels writers have the responsibility to tell the truth about Mosley-ruled Britain horrors.