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In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt suffers a stroke, that ends up killing him. John Nance Garner, who was far less popular than FDR, loses the election to Republican Alf Landon. Landon affirms the US isolationist position. Rumors of tensions grows when the United States signs with Japan the Pact of Pearl Harbor, a non-aggression pact with secret clauses : The US would not intervene if Japan invaded the European colonies, as long as Japan didn’t attack the Philippines or any other American island in the Pacific. Hachiro Arita, the Japanese foreign minister, proposed the pact in order to compromise with the growing power of the military and the politicians who knew that a war against the US would be unwinnable.
On May 26th, 1940, the German forces encircles the BEF and the French Army in Dunkirk. Mussolini is convinced by Hitler to declare war, in order to push into Egypt and France. The Italian attack is somewhat successful, with the Italians entering in Menton two days later. Albert Lebrun immediately asks Philippe Pétain to take over and form a government. He accepts, and quickly asks for an armistice with the Axis. In Sedan, Pétain, Laval and Darlan meet the German high command, represented by Hitler in person, and an Italian delegation, represented by Umberto di Savoia.
Instead of complete surrender, Laval proposes an alliance: Germany would spare the French army, and in exchange, France would join the Axis and offer territories and tributes. Hitler is hesitant, as he wanted to punish France for the humiliation of 1918, the occupation of the Ruhr and the Treaty of Versailles. The Italian delegation and the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht however realize that it is a golden opportunity: Not only could they ask virtually anything to France, but their navy was still one of the strongest in the world. Their colonial empire would force the British to spread their forces, something that could allow heavy bombardments of the British Isles, and maybe even naval invasions. Hitler accepts, and Pétain himself signs the Treaty of Sedan, the city where Napoléon III had been captured by von Moltke in 1870. The Treaty of Sedan’s secret clause stated that France would be given a month to declare war on Britain and its allies. Officially, it’s a peace treaty where Alsace-Lorraine was to be annexed by Germany, while Nice, Corsica and Savoy would be given to Italy. Tunisia and Djibouti fell under Italian colonial rule, and Japan, though not represented at the treaty, was invited to occupy Indochina, in order to “free” the Indochinese people. Germany also ordered that all Jews, German migrants, and other “degenerates” be surrendered by France, and that the Gestapo would be free to investigate in the country. Both nations also asked for monetary compensations. The Treaty is signed on May 29, 1940.
The next day, a group of French politician and military officers manage to form a government in exile in London, as Algeria is under the control of the nationalist government. Léon Blum is nominated President of the Republic, Edouard Daladier Prime Minister and with army and political leaders such as De Gaulle and De la Rocque around them. Winston Churchill, a great Francophile who had just been nominated Prime Minister of Britain, encourages the British people to be comprehensive of the French, and to support their government. However, in Dunkirk, the order is given to the French troops to surrender. The British, shocked, do not understand why the French are abandoning them; fistfights and clashes are happening between French and British troops. The French government or “Régime de Paris” as the “Régime de Londres” calls them, releases a diplomatic bomb: the “Affaire Overlord”, a supposed British invasion plan of France, signed by Churchill himself. The Overlord Plan would have British, Canadian, and Australian troops land in Normandy, bomb major cities and take over the French colonies in Africa. In reality, the entire plan that was supposedly found in a downed British plane is a fraud created by the French and German intelligence agencies, but it’s enough to turn the opinion. The army is re-mobilized, and the navy is put on high alert. Tensions arise between the London Regime and the British government, which maintains that the plan is a machination of the Axis. Pétain signs the declaration of war on June 5th, 1940, using as justification the sinking of a French destroyer by a British cruiser near Dunkirk. The German and French forces attack the BEF, whose evacuation was made nearly impossible by the French surrender, and only 100,000 British soldiers had been evacuated at that point. 200,000 Allied soldiers are captured by the Franco-German forces, almost 35,000 are killed, and thousands of tons of materials are captured on the 10th of June. Churchill immediately launches a pre-emptive strike on the French Navy stationed in Mers El-Kébir, in Algeria. Indeed, French troops have just arrived in Lybia in order to support the Italian push, as they got stopped near El-Alamein. However, the plan is discovered and as soon as the Royal Navy arrives near the port, it founds itself encircled between a reinforced French Navy and the Regia Marina. The Mediterranean British forces are destroyed on June 16th and the island of Malta, which had been suffering from bombardments for weeks, surrenders to Italy on the 18th.
Hitler uses the Allied troops as leverage, proposing their release in exchange of Britain’s surrender. Churchill refuses, and gives a speech to the radio on the 20th: “We shall never surrender !” But the British people isn’t convinced, and after the surrender of Malta and the defeats against France, he must resign. Lord Halifax is nominated in his place. British forces in the Middle East are surrounded, but they manage to hold on. Successes are scored against the Axis throughout Africa, with the British pushing the Italians up to Tobruk and Australian divisions entering Syria. By the end of July, the Italians have only captured Somaliland, and French colonial troops have sided with the Allies. Hitler agrees to send General Erwin Rommel to support the Italians. His panzers, and the entry of Iraq on the side of the Axis following a coup by the Golden Square, are enough to break the stalemate. He enters El-Alamein in mid-August, and the Pyramids of Giza can be seen through his binoculars by September. French and Iraqi troops are pushing into Palestine, taking Amman and Tel-Aviv in early September. Halifax orders a general retreat to the Suez Canal, and violent antisemitic pogroms are occurring throughout Palestine and Egypt. Mohamed Amin-al Husseini enters Jerusalem and invites Christians and Muslims to unite to get rid of the “Jewish parasites”. French troops turn a blind eye to the bloodshed. The Germans enters Cairo on October 1st, under the cries of joy of the Egyptian people. King Faruk declares a symbolic war on Britain and meets Hitler in Munich. The first cracks into the German-Italian alliance are appearing, as Faruk asks for German, not Italian, support. Hitler simply answers that “The Italian tanks should have rolled faster.” as Rommel visits the Sphinx, while he guarantees the independence of Egypt. The British forces are forced to surrender before they can blow the canal. The victories in Africa encourages Franco to declare on Britain. Spain takes over Gibraltar but loses Equatorial Guinea on October 12th.
Back in the British Isles, the Luftwaffe, supported by the modest French air force, manages to win a decisive victory against the RAF. Intense bombing of the industrial capacities of Britain have prevented the UK from rebuilding its aerial fleet, and Halifax begs the United States to send support. Landon agrees to send humanitarian help and small arms, but nothing more. The convoys however are easy prey for the German wolf packs. Halifax also faces unrests in the street, as Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, who haven’t stopped demonstrating since May, have monopolized the support for peace. In Ireland, German spies have passed deals with the IRA to launch attacks in exchange for weapons. Japan seizes the occasion and launches an invasion of Malaya, Indonesia, and Burma, forcing Siam to join them in their war against the western empires. Japan avoids the Philippines, as mentioned in the Pact of Pearl Harbor. The inaction of the United States deals a terrible blow to British morale, as the troops are quickly overrun by the “Japanese Flood”. Japanese secret services also manage to free Subhas Chandrah Bose from his cell in Calcutta and put him at the head of the Indian National Army, formed with captured Indian troops. The British, fearful of losing India, launch repression campaigns throughout the Raj to quell the support for the INA, though it has the opposite effect. Japanese troops enter Calcutta by mid-November, Bose delivering a powerful speech in the ruins of his former prison that sparks support across the subcontinent.
Throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, chaos reigns. The IRA’s open warfare, German bombardments, barely any convoys reaching the island, the BUF incessant troubles and the loss of the Empire. News came on November 29th that the Hood, the pride of the navy, and the Prince of Wales had both been sunk near Denmark by the German battleships Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, with support from the French battleship Richelieu. Oswald Mosley stormed the British Parliament, with support from a demoralized population. Halifax immediately resigned, and Mosley, with approval of George VI, officially surrendered to the Axis on December 6th, 1940.
On the 7th, German planes land near London, and Joachim von Ribbentrop, followed by Waffen-SS and Fallschirmjäger, shakes hands with Oswald Mosley before the now-empty 10 Downing Street. The Treaty of London made official the fall of the British Empire. Hitler, ecstatic as he visited Buckingham Palace, wanted to be fair with the Britons, as he viewed them as Aryans. The Empire however was to be divided: Africa to Italy, Spain, France and Portugal, who was offered colonies in exchange to siding with the Axis; Asia to Japan, with guarantee that they wouldn’t continue the war against Australia and New Zealand. The Americas would decide for themselves, though Argentina had seized the Falkland Islands without declaration of war. In Europe, The United Kingdom becomes the Commonwealth of Britain, loosing Ulster to Ireland, and Scotland being occupied by Germany. France annexes the Anglo-Normand Isles, and Spain and Italy now control the Mediterranean. Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, with support from Italy, creates a United Arab Republic by merging the states of Iraq and Transjordan. France soon lets Syria merge into the republic, but Lebanon remains a French protectorate. Amin al-Husseini supervises the genocide of Levantine Jews. The rest of the British colonies in Arabia are invaded by the Saudis, and Italy creates a protectorate in Yemen. In Britain, George VI abdicates, but Edward VIII refused to reclaim the throne, though the Germans weren’t opposed to the idea. The Windsor family establishes itself in Canada, leaving Mosley to proclaim himself Lord Protector of Britain. Britain retires its troops from all of its colonies, leaving India under the rule of Bose. South Africa immediately supports Germany, and Australia and New-Zealand aligns themselves with the United States. Canada supports the creation of the Union of Guyana and the Caribbean, a Franco-Anglo-Dutch state, where the French and Dutch government have fled after the fall of Britain and Indonesia. European government in exiles are also located here, in the “country with six monarchs”; Indeed, the country housed the Great-Duchess of Luxemburg, the Queen of the Netherlands, the Kings of Norway and Denmark and the King of Belgium, who had been authorized to leave by the Germans after their annexation of the entirety of Belgium and the carving of Congo. The captured Allied are sent home though out of the 200,000 prisoners, more than 25,000 of them died because of the harsh condition of the POW camps.
The German garrison in Britain is composed of Waffen-SS troops, who fill their ranks with English and Irish volunteers.
Hitler organizes the imminent invasion of the Soviet Union, the mortal enemy of Nazism. Yugoslavia, though favorable to the Axis, is invaded on the 15th of January, mostly by Italians, Hungarians and Bulgarians, with support from Romania and Germany. Puppet regimes are installed as Peter II flees to Guyana, in order to purge the country of their “subhuman” population. Two weeks later, Greece is attacked, and while they initially manage to fight back, the country is overrun by Italian and Bulgarian forces on February 1st. Hitler class the invasion “Operation Barbarossa” and fatidic date on April 4th. The Soviets are still bogged down in Finland, as a consequence of the Stalinian Great Purges. The OKW is confident that, based on the poor performances of the Red Army, the war should take a year. The Winter War between the USSR and Finland ends on the 13th of March. The losses are greater for the USSR, but proportionally worse for Finland. However, Marshall Mannerheim meets with German generals and assure them that Finland would side with them in the case of a German invasion of the USSR. April comes, and at 4:00, the first German sappers enter the Soviet Union. An hour later, 10.000 planes and 40.000 cannons are piercing the sky of the Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine and following them are 4.500.000 soldiers and 15.000 tanks breaking the borders. Stalin is shaken; he thought that Hitler would have waited an entire year before invading. Vyacheslav Molotov is asked to quickly sign a treaty of non-aggression with Japan, so that troops from Mongolia and the Far-East can be recalled. A week later, Japan agrees, creating a rift between Axis and Japanese interests. The force of invasion is composed of Germans, making the majority of the troops and followed by Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Finns, Croatians, French, British, Spanish and Portuguese divisions. Volunteers from the United Arab Republic, South Africa, Ireland and Sweden are following the “Crusaders” as Goebbels calls them. Minsk falls by the 20th, and Smolensk is encircled a month later. Hundreds of thousands of Soviets are taken prisoners, and all political commissars are shot dead. Jews are massacred or deported in Poland. The STAVKA is unable to form a concrete plan of action, and shortages of military equipment are starting to occur.
Demonstrations in the United States from socialists, Jews, intellectuals, and anti-fascists in general are begging the US government to start a support program to help the USSR. Wendell Willkie, who had just been sworn into office, was skeptical: He did want to support the USSR, but he also knew that the United States lacked the industrial capabilities to modernize their army and fuel another, six times larger. The Lend-Lease Act is passed by Congress on April 24th: Small arms, trucks, shells, food supplies and light tanks are sent to Vladivostok, with similar convoys from Canada joining the US fleet. Chinese minorities are protesting, as their countries didn’t receive support even though it was in a similar situation since 1937. The Japanese had encircled the Chinese around Nanyang and had taken Nanning in late 1939. The Allies, while deeply shocked by the massacre of Nanjing, had somewhat forgotten this conflict, especially since the US wasn’t allowed to intervene according to the Pact of Pearl Harbor.
In Europe, Vitebsk, Riga, and Odessa fall in mid-May. Stalin organizes a counter-offensive led by Budyonny before Kiev, but the Red Army is encircled once again; 1.5 million men are killed or taken prisoner. The Finns, followed by the French and Germans, are sieging Vyborg. The “Unstoppable Three”, Von Manstein in the North, Guderian in the center and Rommel in the south, are pocketing divisions after divisions. Vyborg, now Viipuri, falls by the 10th of June. Kiev, barely defended, is besieged and falls on the 26th of June. Leningrad, the second largest city of the USSR, is bombarded by French artillery commanded by Maxime Weygand on the 2nd of July. Hitler decides that the city is too vast to invade and decides to lay a siege. Finnish and French troops in the north, German and Spanish troops in the south, and all four of the remaining British aircraft carriers bombarding it day and night from the Baltic Sea. Dnipropetrovsk is taken on the 21st of July, securing Ukraine. Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko form a collaborationist government in Lviv, and pledge allegiance to Hitler. In the north, similar demands for recognitions are made by Latvian collaborators. The Führer and Goebbels aren’t convinced, but Alfred Rosenberg, minister of Eastern territories and with support from the OKW, justifies it: a collaborationist government would allow for easier control of the territories, anti-partisan activities, an easier removal of Jews and communists, and a good way to create chaos among the Slavic “Untermenschen”. Hitler agreed, as long as Rosenberg assumed the entire responsibility of the operations. Rosenberg allows Bandera and Latvian leader Voldemars Veiss to hold position of power under Erich Koch and Hinrich Lohse, their respective Reichskommissars. The Soviet power starts fracturing, as other minority groups behind the frontlines are seeking German support. Latvians and Ukrainians Nazis are tasked to massacre or deport all Jews, Soviet commissars, Roma, and ethnic Russians in their Reichskommissariats. Lithuanians are spared, for the moment.
The panzers are taking a halt on the Leningrad-Dnipropetrovsk line, waiting for the infantry and the air forces to follow. The Romanians launch a costly landing in Crimea, only to get pushed back by the 51st Army. Turkey allows the Italian and French navy to cross the Bosporus, and Sebastopol is bombarded by Italian Littorio-class battleships and the French aircraft carrier Béarn on July 30th. The race to Moscow is now a matter of five hundred kilometers. In the North, the Finno-French forces have taken the city of Loukhi, cutting in half the Murmansk road. German forces push back the Soviets to Belomorsk, securing the encirclement. Murmansk is besieged on August 16th. The OKW wants to immediately take Moscow, but Hitler, conscious that Stalin would never let the city fall, wants to secure the Caucasus first. The climate would be less difficult to fight in autumn, and Ribbentrop is securing an alliance with Turkey. On August 21st, Rommel enters Rostov, and a coup led by Fevzi Cakmak and Mehmet Peker remove Ismet Inonu from power in Turkey. Cakmak then orders the immediate invasion of the Caucasus, and sides with the Axis. Muslim minorities from Chechnya and Azerbaijan are galvanized and start insurrections, disrupting railways and attacking Soviet divisions. The repression is harsh, and Stalin orders the deportation of those minorities to Siberia, as far as possible from the frontlines. Soviet mountaineers manage to hold, especially Armenian divisions as they fear repression from Turkey. Voroshilovgrad is taken on August 30th, and the STAVKA has to pull forces from the North to defend and prevent an encirclement. Rommel passes the Don on September 10th, and the Northern forces complete their conquest of Karelia. The Murmansk pocket evacuates to Arkhangelsk by boat, but still loses 150.000 soldiers, dead or captured. Leningrad is completely ravaged by the siege, and thousands are dying of hunger. Kliment Voroshilov is ordered to break the encirclement by Stalin, who cannot let both Leningrad and Stalingrad be taken. Most of the tank divisions of the Red Army are sent to retake Leningrad, leaving gaps in the center and southern fronts. Guderian takes Orel and Kursk in a colossal pocket, encircling 350.000 Soviet soldiers. Moscow is bombarded for the first time on September 26th, the same day Rommel enters Kotelnikovo, south of Stalingrad. Turkish forces, supported by Italian mountaineers, enter Yerevan on September 27th. The Armenian resistance is strong, and Turkey is bogged down in the city. Between massacres of civilians and resistance bombing, more than a hundred thousand people are killed in the conquest. Batumi is taken the same day.
The Voroshilov offensive is a catastrophe: 200.000 soldiers are killed, fifty thousands are taken prisoners. They managed to inflict terrible tank losses however, as most of the Soviet tanks present were T-34 and KV-1. Leningrad is still encircled though, and in only 3 month of siege, more than 450.000 civilians have been killed by bombardments, and 250.000 from hunger and diseases. Voroshilov is humiliated publicly by Stalin and arrested. Andrei Vlassov is captured by the Germans and enraged by the abandon of his army by Stalin, decides to side with the Germans. He creates the Russian Liberation Army, with support from Rosenberg, hoping to create even more dissentions between the different people of the USSR. Hitler greenlighted the idea of a collaborationist government that would manage Siberia once victory had been achieved. Vlassov forms a high-command in Smolensk and is allowed to receive 350.000 soldiers, most of them in poor shape: Indeed, a substantial part of them had agreed to fight under the Nazi banner simply to leave the POW camps, where they were being exterminated by hunger. On October 12th, the largest pocket of the war is formed between the outskirts of Leningrad and Kalinin. Guderian and Von Manstein’s panzers have encircled 1.100.000 soldiers. Spanish and German infantry reduce the pocket, killing 200.000 and taking the rest prisoner. The Axis is at 50 kilometers from Moscow. Crimea still holds, even after the fall of Novossibirsk. Romanians and Germans launch a second amphibious invasion, successful this time, and the ruins of Sebastopol are conquered on the 16th of October. The Italian and French navy then raid the Black Sea coast, and land troops in Sochi. Turkish and Italian forces are besieging Tbilisi and Stepanakert.
Moscow is bombarded day and night. Stalin issues Order 227: “General evacuation or death.” An evacuation order for the entire population of the USSR. The systematic destruction of infrastructures is ordered as the population evacuates past the Urals. However, Luftwaffe pilots, alone in the sky since the Red Airforce had been destroyed on the landing grounds, strafe and bomb columns of refugees. Winter arrives, and the Axis is forced to stop its progression. From Maikop to Murmansk, the now 8.000.000 Axis soldiers present in Russia have to fortify their positions. Goering ensures that the Luftwaffe would be enough to destroy fleeing soviet citizens. Stalin is not confident: Him and Zhukov know that Moscow and Stalingrad will be attacked soon, and that Leningrad will not survive the harsh winter. The industries are starting to produce T-34 en masse, but not enough to push everywhere. The Red Army lacked the means to defend both Moscow and Stalingrad, even with the Far-East reserves and the survivors of the Murmansk pocket. The STAVKA defended the idea that the Axis would attack Stalingrad first, in order to encircle the Caucasus. General Vasilevsky would assure the retreat from the south to put all the remaining units behind the Volga river to form a defensive line. Stalin tasked General Rokossovsky of defending Vasilevsky’s troops by attacking Rommel at Kotelnikovo. This “Operation Uranus” would decide the fate of Southern Russia. Zhukov and Stalin supervise the defense of Moscow, with hundreds of kilemeters of trenches, barbed wire, planned destruction of railways and roads. Zhukov also proposes to evacuate to Yekaterinburg, but Stalin refuses: If the people of Moscow knew that he had left them, their morale would be reduced to nothing. Stalin gives a powerful speech on the radio, inviting every able men and women to take arms in order to defend the Motherland in this “Sacred War against the Fascist invaders.”
On the German side, Hitler orders to take Stalingrad as soon as possible. The Caucasus would fall, taking with it a fifth of the Red Army. He also discusses the plans to deal with Leningrad: Once the population dead or prisoner, they would destroy most of the buildings to turn the city into a military and naval base. Moscow was to be encircled after the fall of Stalingrad, as OKW intelligence noted the lack of armored divisions around the capital. Hitler and the OKW agreed that the Muscovites would never surrender, and that they would loose hundred of thousand of men in the ruins of the Soviet capital. The bombardments were not as effective as they were in Leningrad, since the population spent most of their live in the gargantuan subway. Stalin and his ministers were also to be captured alive if possible, in order to be publicly executed. The second phase of Barbarossa was to be launched between February or March if the weather allowed it. The terrible Russian winter taking its toll, with hundreds of tanks, trucks, horses and soldiers stuck in cold mud, their wheels broken by the ice and their flesh marked by frostbite. Visits by officials like Benito Mussolini or Oswald Mosley boosted their morale, but their condition was barely livable.
In January 1942, Hitler and Goering order Reinhardt Heydrich, second in command of the SS and governor of Bohemia-Moravia to put an end to the “Jewish problem”. Indeed, since 1940, camps and ghettos have been filled with Jews from across Europe, from Portugal to Ukraine, from Scotland to Crete. Heydrich is to organize an efficient genocide of the Jewish people. On January 20th he plans during the Wannsee Conference the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. Death camps are opened in Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, Chelmno in the Generalgouvernement of Poland, and at Babi Yar, Riga and Maly Trostenets in the Reichskommissariats. A camp is also opened near Mosul, in the United Arab Republic, in order to deport all the Jews that lived in Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Egypt. Arab SS of the “Zulfiqar Division” are also rounding up Kurds, and France agrees to house in Lebanon the Christian minorities of Syria and Egypt to prevent their massacre. Those camps’ sole purpose is to methodically kill the prisoners through work for German companies, gas the unfit and burn the bodies in ovens. Ghettos are liquidated, with people either being forcefully sent to camps or massacred in their houses. A minority of Jews has been able to flee to Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, or the Americas. Mussolini and Horthy are refusing to send their Jews however, and prefer to keep them in ghettos and camps, creating tensions between them and Hitler. Jews were accompanied by Roma, homosexuals, and any opponents to the regime in the death trains.
February comes and the winter is still raging. The month sees small-scale offensives by the Red Army near Kalinin and Voronezh. The winter hits hard the city of Leningrad, where the population has almost been reduced to a third of what it was. The Axis launches Operation Gericht on February 11th and enters the city, already in ruins. The resistance is present, but a winter of starvation and constant bombardment have rendered them physically inapt to fight. Finnish soldiers are the first to raise their flag on the St-Peter-and-Paul Fortress, followed by Spanish troops. The blue cross and the black eagle greet the Germans, angry that they got robbed of this victory. Goebbels contacts Leni Riefenstahl to direct a short propaganda movie called “Gericht” to film Hitler, Mannerheim, and Francisco Franco, who travelled across all of Europe to meet the Ejercito Azul, meeting in the ruins of the city. British and French troops are occluded, as the memories of the Western European campaign is too fresh in the memory of German citizens. An iconic shot of Hitler, Franco, Mannerheim, Weygand and Auchinleck, standing before the Winter Palace is taken, and is featured even in Western medias. The loss of Leningrad deals a terrible blow to Soviet morale, with Stalin delivering a speech to commemorate the “heroic sacrifice” of the millions that perished in the siege.
The Army Group North and its allies is sent directly to Kalinin, but the spring “Rasputitsa” hinders any large-scale operation. This sticky and heavy mud is enough to break the treads of tanks and the shoes of soldiers. The southern front however is less difficult to maneuver into, and on the 6th of March, Fall Blau is launched: The encirclement and destruction of the Red Army in the Caucausus. The Soviet reacts by launching Operation Uranus; the troops are evacuated by rail to Stalingrad or by boat through the Caspian Sea. While the Turks and Italians enter Baku and southern Dagestan, Rokossovsky launches his attack; 2.000 Soviet tanks are pushing Rommel’s northern and eastern front. Chechens partisans that weren’t deported disrupt the Soviets’ retreat in Grozny. The Romanians, from Kerch, and the Franco-Italian troops that had landed in Sochi, are taking Krasnodar on the 9th, and are stopped near Stavropol on the 12th. Rommel abandons Kotelnikovo. Dagestani insurrections are occurring in Makhatchkala, hindering the evacuation of the Soviet divisions. Turkish and Italian cannons siege the city on the 17th, and Ju-87 Stukas of the Luftwaffe are dispatched by Goering in order to sink the evacuation barges. 75.000 Soviet soldiers are killed or taken prisoners when the Turks raise their flag on the mosques of the city, and only 25.000 have managed to reach Kazakhstan. Rommel counterattacks on the 20th and pushes back Rokossovsky. Hitler orders him to rush Astrakhan, but Rommel, fearing to be encircled himself, pushes Rokossovsky. An offensive led by von Kleist almost encircles him, but he manages to reach Stalingrad. Rommel and Rokossovsky attack each other following the Volga. Only 300.000 out of the 2.200.000 men in the Caucasus have been evacuated, and when Rommel reaches the city, 250.000 soldiers are currently waiting in the train stations. They manage to stop Rommel’s course, but the Caucasus is completely encircled. German, French, Romanian, Italian and Turkish forces are closing the pocket. The Soviets manage to flee Astrakhan, saving around the majority of the ones that were waiting to be evacuated. They voluntarily destroy the city, and resistance makes its conquest difficult. Rommel becomes Feldmarschall by order of the Führer on April 5th, as he secures the city.
Operation Attila begins on April 15th. 5,000 cannons open fire on Stalingrad. Stalin orders Rokossovsky and Vasilevsky to defend the city or die trying. They arm the civilians that couldn’t evacuate in time and deploy the survivors of Astrakhan to defend the city. 350.000 Axis soldiers are facing 400.000 Soviet soldiers. The control of Astrakhan and the Volga prevents reinforcement and relief to be sent by boat, and the Luftwaffe dominates the sky. 800.000 soviet people, soldiers and civilians, are defending every street, every house, every room with courage. Children and women are armed, as they know that the Nazis won’t show mercy. By late April, the Germans had barely advanced. A systematic destruction of each building was done to prevent partisans from attacking from behind. The OKW issued the “Nobody in Stalingrad” decree, ordering that no prisoners were to be taken.
The end of April brought a better climate, ideal for offensives. Rommel was stuck in Stalingrad, and news weren’t good: soldiers died by the hundred every day. Encircling Moscow wouldn’t be difficult but conquering the Red Place and planting the Swastika flag on top of the Kremlin would cost somewhere between 500.000 and a million men according to the OKW. They estimate the number of Soviet defenders to be around 2.000.000, though without a lot of armor or rocket artillery. Fall Schwarz is designed to use the new Panzerkampfwagen VI “Tiger”, with its 88mm cannon, that should destroy T-34 with ease. Zhukov delegates the northern front to Konev, while the southern front goes to Timoshenko. Fall Schwarz is launched on June 5th. The Finnish launch an offensive to capture Arkhangelsk in order to cut the last Soviet western port, while the French, British and Spanish troops are taking Cherepovets, but are stopped a week later before Yaroslavl by Konev. The British airforce deploys its new long-range bomber, the Avro Lancaster, and Charles Portal, head of Bomber Command, launches a carpet-bombing campaign over Yaroslavl, Nijni Novgorod and Vladimir. All three cities are reduced to ashes by firebombs during two weeks of day and night bombardments. Goering is admirative of the method and Portal receives decoration from the German air minister, who asked permission from Hitler to produce licensed German Lancaster, the Me-264 Russbomber. During those two weeks, Von Manstein’s panzers push north and capture Tver with difficulties. In the South, Guderian and his Hungarian allies siege Riazan and manage to push the Soviets back. Knowing the Axis wouldn’t risk a frontal assault, Zhukov orders a counter offensive. Guderian loses Riazan, but Von Manstein holds. The Franco-Hispano-British divisions enter in the fuming ruins of Yaroslavl, forcing Timoshenko to send some of his divisions up north, allowing Guderian to Riazan. Hitler refuses to carpet-bomb Moscow, as he thinks that seeing the Heer parade in Moscow would be even more humiliating. He allows the destruction of Ulyanovsk, Kazan and Stavropol-on-Volga, though the Red Airforce, which manage to rebuild itself from scratch, is being aggressive from its Ural bases. In the south, Axis troop push north of Stalingrad, in order to relieve Rommel. Saratov is besieged on the 30th of June.
As July arrives, the Axis continues its offensive, with the Spanish entering Ivanovo on July 3rd. Cracks are appearing in the frontal defense of the Soviets, and the German infantry advance towards Moscow. The red towers of the Kremlin are visible through their binoculars on July 7th. Guderian takes the road of Vladimir and manages to reach the outskirts of the city. The Finns take Arkhangelsk on the 12th. Only a hundred kilometers separate the troops of Guderian and De Llano, the Spanish general. Stalin writes a political and military will: Zhukov, Timoshenko and Konev are to evacuate the city and shelter behind the Urals, in Yekaterinburg. He nominates Kalinin in his place and names a “Government for the Patriotic Defense of the Motherland” with Beria, Bulganin, Molotov, Kaganovitch and Mikoyan. Zhukov is to become Generalissimo of the Red Army, and Konev, Timoshenko, Rokossovsky and Vasilevsky are all honored with the title of Marshall. He states that if the Urals were to fall, the Soviet people should either die standing or flee and try to join the Americas to form a government in exile, and maybe motivate a socialist revolution there. He also states that if the Germans manage to take the city, he will be “killed by a fascist bomb as [he] protected Svetlana with [his] body.” A list of death penalty is also written, some urgent and others “in case of”: Beria, Khrushchev, Voroshilov etc. Saratov falls on July 12th, the same day the first German soldiers enter the city. Sharpshooters are in every building; every road is rigged with explosives and every child hides a grenade. Stalin gives his last speech, thanking the Russian people for their devotion. Vladimir falls and with it the escape route of the Moscow Red Army; 2.000.000 soldiers and 4.100.000 civilians are encircled, and ready to fight tooth and nail. Lenin’s mausoleum is dynamited to prevent the Germans from destroying it themselves. Rocket artillery is used at point blank, ravaging German troops and buildings alike. By July 30th, little progress has been by the Axis, other than the western European securing the encirclement. 100.000 Germans have already fallen in the destroyed outskirts of the Soviet capital. Voroshilov is freed and pardoned by Kalinin. He's extremely bitter and physically weak from torture.
In the south, progress has been made. With the fall of Saratov, Rommel progresses in Stalingrad. He reaches the Volga banks, and finally conquers the center of the city. The Soviets plan a counter-offensive through the river, to push back the exhausted Axis troop. In Yekaterinburg, the government led by Kalinin fortifies the Urals, and agrees to only keep fighting at Stalingrad. A general retreat is ordered, letting the Axis take Nijni Novgorod, Kazan and Ulyanovsk. A first defensive line, the “Kalinin line”, is formed between Perm, Oufa and Chkalov. The Germans manages to cross the Volga in Saratov and push up to Uralsk on August 20th. Autumn is coming and with it the terrible Russian weather. While the situation is great, as Moscow is encircled and Stalingrad can be easily defended, the winter will give several months of preparations for the remains of the Red Army to organize the defense of the Urals. Fall Schwarz is a success and Moscow is effectively cut off from the rest of the world. The Western public holds its breath, as Russia is on the brink of defeat. Germans are compared to the Mongol horde of old that conquered the Rus’. The news of the Massacre of Chongqing by the Japanese army, using gas, diseases, firebombs and other inhumane tactics aren’t relayed as much. The Imperial sun flies over the Chinese capital on August 19th.
Hitler and the OKW are hesitant on which strategy to use to capture Moscow: Leningrad was starved out, but the population and the garrison were smaller, and the city wasn’t as large. Von Kluge and Von Bock, the Feldmarschalls commanding the Army Group Center and South, and Hermann Goering are in favor of a prolongated offensive, leaving Moscow behind to starve and taking the Urals before winter, or else they’d become impenetrable. Hitler and Von Küchler however are of the idea that if Moscow was to fall and Stalin executed, Kalinin would surrender and if not, the German and British air forces would bomb him into oblivion. The Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line was already established. They all agreed that strategic bombing should be performed on the post-Ural cities. Rommel, still in the frontline, was consulted after, and was in favor of continuing the offensive. Hitler, trusting him, agreed to follow Von Kluge and Von Bock. On September 10th, the Panzers are stopped at Oufa. The divisions at Uralsk take the southern road to Guriev. Vasilevsky leaves Stalingrad in order to stop the German advance. Rokossovsky is ordered by Zhukov to evacuate the city. He destroys the remaining buildings, poison the water and burns everything behind him. The Battle of Stalingrad is finally over on September 18th. 1.150.000 Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed, with 750.000 casualties from Germany, Turkey, Italy, or Romania, and 15.000 more from starvation, poisoning or disease. Rokossovsky’s systematic destruction of roads and railways up to Aktyubinsk make it difficult for Rommel to follow him. Volgograd as it is now called is used to send supply up to garrisons in Saratov, Samara and Ulyanovsk, which has been renamed Hitlerstadt. By September 30th, the Axis is holding a colossal front, from Mezen on the White Sea to Kazan in central Russia and up to Uralsk in Western Kazakhstan.
Zhukov plans a grand offensive for the late autumn. He wants to encircle the Axis near Uralsk and push them back to the Volga. The Germans are exhausted after the Battle of Stalingrad. Turkish and German agents pass through Iran, which is neutral but leans toward the Axis, in order to motivate Turkic revolts in Central Asia. In Moscow, the situation is dire. The city has been encircled for three months, and the Axis has already lost 650.000 men, including 350.000 Germans alone. 650.000 Soviet soldiers and around 1.100.000 civilians have been killed. Children under the age of 12 and elderly women are staying in the subway, while their fathers and mothers are fighting in the streets. Food supplies are scarce for the Soviets, as the Germans prefer destroying them rather than using them. Rape and massacres are common, and the women serving in the Red Army, often as tank crews or snipers, prefer killing themselves than falling in the hand of the “Fascist pigs”. Hitler orders the systematic massacre of Muscovite prisoners: the “Judeo-Bolsheviks” have forfeited their right to live. SS and Heer soldiers alike, fueled by hatred, tiredness and bloodlust, execute dozens of soldiers and civilians, regardless of age. The Soviets do the same, mutilating the corpses and burning the piles of bodies, mixing the first snows in a bloody, ashy mud.
Zhukov launches his offensive on October 15th, and the T-34/76D of Rokossovsky are finally managing to overwhelm the powerful but sluggish Tigers of Rommel. Operation Saturn shattered the Axis front, forcing Rommel to leave Uralsk in catastrophe. Guderian is sent down south to help him, as the Axis holds a solid defensive line. They even manage to take Kirov, north of Kazan. Rommel stabilizes the front in between Saratov and Uralsk. Goering orders the Luftwaffe and its allies to be quickly deployed to support Guderian’s counter offensive. The Red Airforce, composed of Yak-1 and IL-2, regrew from nothing and achieved massive numbers, but the lack of modernization caused by the destruction of western Russia resulted in it being outclassed by the German Fw-190, the Italian C.205 and the British Hawker Hurricane. The steppes are turning tanks into easy targets, and the close air support tears through the armored divisions. The rest of the fighters and the bombers are sent north to ravage Perm, Chkalov and Oufa. Operation Walkyrie designates the terror bombing campaigns of the Havro Lancaster and the Me-264 Russombers. In a matter of weeks, the three main cities of the Soviet fronts are turned into fuming piles of rubbles. Indeed, the Red Airforce, focused on Operation Saturn and decimated by the Axis left the cities undefended. The Soviet forces are pushed back by Guderian’s counter-offensive on October 26th, and Uralsk is retaken on the 30th. He pushes to Chkalov, piercing the Kalinin Line. Axis forces up north launch small offensives, taking Glazov and Oktiabrski, ironically renamed Novemburg in reference to the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. The capricious climate of Russia comes in early November, forcing the tanks and trucks to stop their advances. With the destruction of the Kalinin line and the Red Airforce, breaches in the Urals allow Axis planes to pass over the mountains without risks of interception. Russbombers and Lancaster bomb Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk on November 15th. The government isn’t harmed but the industries are ravaged and civilians from Russia are starting to evacuate to Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk. The STAVKA fears the loss of the Urals, as it would be near impossible to form a line of defense in Siberia. While the Germans want to stop at the Urals, they know that they won’t stop until Marxism is eradicated. Two factions appear among the Soviet government: Beria, Khrushchev, Bulganin and Kaganovich supported a “defense till death” approach, scorching the earth everywhere and encouraging resistance; Molotov, Malenkov, Mikoyan and especially Zhukov, who represented the STAVKA, were favorable of a government in exile. Indeed, Molotov had personally sent reports with films and photos of the Nazi atrocities in the western parts of the countries, and the American people were deeply touched by this. The Soviet people had gained a lot of support in the US, and they could even manage to influence American politics. Kalinin tries to compromise: The Red Army would stand before Yekaterinburg and in northern Kazakhstan, but if the Axis managed to pierce this ultimate line, they would organize the evacuation of the country for the Americas. Mikoyan, the government’s premier, and Molotov are sent to San Francisco on November 21st. Thousands of people are here to greet them to show support to the Soviet people: Willkie’s lend-least act was more symbolic than anything else at this point. Outdated biplanes and tanks were being sent as the US president shook Mikoyan and Molotov’s hands. William Mackenzie King, prime minister of Canada, Manuel Avila Camacho, president of Mexico and representants from the Union of Guyana are invited to the Conference of San Francisco. Malenkov immediately states that the point of this conference is to negotiate a way for Soviet civilians and soldiers to find refuge in the Americas. All three American leaders are reticent, but they’re quickly convinced by Molotov’s two hour long exposé of the Nazi atrocities: Reports from Moscow and Stalingrad are read, and films and photos taken by Soviet and Polish agents are showed, causing nausea and terror to fill the room. Photos of infanticide, common graves, piles of bodies burned, and even testimonies from Polish agents who managed to infiltrate the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The three leaders agree to sign the Accords of San Francisco on November 24th, that would ensure naval and military support to transport the refugees from Vladivostok to San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, and the formation of a government in exile. The counterpart would be the transfer of Soviet war material, scientists, and industrialists to American authorities.
Back in Europe, as the front stabilized for winter, the organization of the eastern territories is discussed. Hitler agrees to let Himmler and the SS supervise the police, intelligence and military operations in the soon-to-be-colonized territories. Western Soviet territories are divided between four Reichskommissariats: Ostland, Ukraine, Kaukasus and Moskowien. Crimea, or Gotenland, is directly annexed by the Reich and Heydrich becomes Gauleiter of Gotenland, with Ernst Kaltenbrunner taking his place as vice-governor of Bohemia-Moravia. Himmler works with Rosenberg to organize a genocide on a scale never seen before, as part of the Generalplan Ost. They agree on an order of massacre, from most urgent to least urgent: Lithuanians, Byelorussians and Crimean Russians are to be removed as fast as possible, to begin the process of colonization. Then, Russians are to be enslaved. Finally, Latvians, Caucasian minorities, and Ukrainians, the “least problematics”, are to be terminated if their traits are still not Aryan enough after approximately fifty years of colonization. Himmler hopes to create an ideal society based on pagan rituals in those territories. While most of the Nazi high command despises Christianity, they despise Himmler’s paganistic delirium even more. Hitler prefers encouraging Islam in the Caucasus, as the Slavs had no point of existing anymore. By the end of 1942, four million Jews have already been murdered, and Soviet citizens are now sent through the “Arbeit Macht Frei” gates of the death camps. Red Army POW are voluntarily joining Vlassov’s army or the Waffen-SS Ukrainian, Latvian or Caucasian divisions, just to not starve to death.
Wehrmacht generals are more and more displeased and fearful of the growing influence of the SS. Indeed, across Europe, the RSHA, the SS intelligence service, has ears and eyes everywhere. Gestapo agents are arresting Jews and communists from Lisbon to Grozny. The Lebensborn program is also heavily encouraged, and the SS is viewed more and more as a privileged cast. Himmler’s proposals of legalized polygamy and knighthood of the SS soldiers are met with disapproval by Hitler, but his strength and insistence are gaining land in the Führer’s mind. Heydrich’s apparent submission to Himmler doesn’t fool the Wehrmacht: “Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich” is a popular joke among the Heer, especially to taunt SS soldiers. A fair part of them wouldn’t understand it, as they don’t speak German. SS recruiting centers have been opened in Paris, Rome, London, Jerusalem, Helsinki, or Grozny. The Waffen Grenadier Divisions “Hindustan” and “Showa” are composed of volunteers from India and Japan. Himmler’s fascination for Eastern religions pushes him to incorporate elements of Muslim, Shinto, and Hinduist practices in the SS’s religious customs. Those are met with skepticism from Heydrich and SS of Germanic origins, but Himmler ensures them that fasting, and meditation are necessary to ensure the mental and physical superiority of the Aryan race. In terms of religion, Christian persecutions are federating the party, as lots of high-ranking members considered that now that the synagogues had been destroyed, the churches are to follow. From hardline SS Odilo Globocnik, suppressor of the Polish ghettos and the mind behind the death camps, to Hitler’s most loyal lieutenants and Nazis of the first hour Goebbels and Bormann, anti-Christianism is becoming more and more common. The SS are encouraging people to abandon Christian beliefs and celebrate the solstices and to honor pagan kings like Widukind of Saxony. Museum are opened by the SS to display “Aryan” artifacts from across the globe. A clear racial purity chart is designed based on the Nuremberg laws, allowing Germans to marry Japanese or Finnish people.

Heydrich is tasked by Hitler personally to secretly organize the assassination of Rudolf Hess, Reichsstatthalter of Scotland. Hess, one of the first national-socialist, had become useless to Hitler, as he was replaced by Bormann as his secretary. Comments he made regarding a peace treaty with the Soviet government made him even suspicious. The RSHA arranges his car to be gunned down by Scottish SS of the “Alba” Division in Edinburgh, disguised as Scottish Republican Army’s fighters, the main group of resistant in Scotland, on November 30th. Submachine guns are emptied on his Mercedes, killing him and his driver. An anti-tank grenade is thrown under the vehicle to make sure he’s dead. The SS then flee the city. They used American machine guns, sold to Ireland, stolen by the IRA and sent to the SRA, only to be then captured by the SS during its anti-partisan raids. The assassination is used by Hitler as a way to burn a loose end and to replace him with Karl Dönitz. Heydrich has Hitler’s trust, and a violent anti-partisan campaign in Scotland burns the towns of Dalkeith and Loanhead to the ground.

Description

In 1936, Franklin Delano Roosevelt suffers a stroke, that ends up killing him. John Nance Garner, who was far less popular than FDR, loses the election to Republican Alf Landon. Landon affirms the US isolationist position. Rumors of tensions grows when the United States signs with Japan the Pact of Pearl Harbor, a non-aggression pact with secret clauses : The US would not intervene if Japan invaded the European colonies, as long as Japan didn’t attack the Philippines or any other American island in the Pacific. Hachiro Arita, the Japanese foreign minister, proposed the pact in order to compromise with the growing power of the military and the politicians who knew that a war against the US would be unwinnable.
On May 26th, 1940, the German forces encircles the BEF and the French Army in Dunkirk. Mussolini is convinced by Hitler to declare war, in order to push into Egypt and France. The Italian attack is somewhat successful, with the Italians entering in Menton two days later. Albert Lebrun immediately asks Philippe Pétain to take over and form a government. He accepts, and quickly asks for an armistice with the Axis. In Sedan, Pétain, Laval and Darlan meet the German high command, represented by Hitler in person, and an Italian delegation, represented by Umberto di Savoia.
Instead of complete surrender, Laval proposes an alliance: Germany would spare the French army, and in exchange, France would join the Axis and offer territories and tributes. Hitler is hesitant, as he wanted to punish France for the humiliation of 1918, the occupation of the Ruhr and the Treaty of Versailles. The Italian delegation and the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht however realize that it is a golden opportunity: Not only could they ask virtually anything to France, but their navy was still one of the strongest in the world. Their colonial empire would force the British to spread their forces, something that could allow heavy bombardments of the British Isles, and maybe even naval invasions. Hitler accepts, and Pétain himself signs the Treaty of Sedan, the city where Napoléon III had been captured by von Moltke in 1870. The Treaty of Sedan’s secret clause stated that France would be given a month to declare war on Britain and its allies. Officially, it’s a peace treaty where Alsace-Lorraine was to be annexed by Germany, while Nice, Corsica and Savoy would be given to Italy. Tunisia and Djibouti fell under Italian colonial rule, and Japan, though not represented at the treaty, was invited to occupy Indochina, in order to “free” the Indochinese people. Germany also ordered that all Jews, German migrants, and other “degenerates” be surrendered by France, and that the Gestapo would be free to investigate in the country. Both nations also asked for monetary compensations. The Treaty is signed on May 29, 1940.
The next day, a group of French politician and military officers manage to form a government in exile in London, as Algeria is under the control of the nationalist government. Léon Blum is nominated President of the Republic, Edouard Daladier Prime Minister and with army and political leaders such as De Gaulle and De la Rocque around them. Winston Churchill, a great Francophile who had just been nominated Prime Minister of Britain, encourages the British people to be comprehensive of the French, and to support their government. However, in Dunkirk, the order is given to the French troops to surrender. The British, shocked, do not understand why the French are abandoning them; fistfights and clashes are happening between French and British troops. The French government or “Régime de Paris” as the “Régime de Londres” calls them, releases a diplomatic bomb: the “Affaire Overlord”, a supposed British invasion plan of France, signed by Churchill himself. The Overlord Plan would have British, Canadian, and Australian troops land in Normandy, bomb major cities and take over the French colonies in Africa. In reality, the entire plan that was supposedly found in a downed British plane is a fraud created by the French and German intelligence agencies, but it’s enough to turn the opinion. The army is re-mobilized, and the navy is put on high alert. Tensions arise between the London Regime and the British government, which maintains that the plan is a machination of the Axis. Pétain signs the declaration of war on June 5th, 1940, using as justification the sinking of a French destroyer by a British cruiser near Dunkirk. The German and French forces attack the BEF, whose evacuation was made nearly impossible by the French surrender, and only 100,000 British soldiers had been evacuated at that point. 200,000 Allied soldiers are captured by the Franco-German forces, almost 35,000 are killed, and thousands of tons of materials are captured on the 10th of June. Churchill immediately launches a pre-emptive strike on the French Navy stationed in Mers El-Kébir, in Algeria. Indeed, French troops have just arrived in Lybia in order to support the Italian push, as they got stopped near El-Alamein. However, the plan is discovered and as soon as the Royal Navy arrives near the port, it founds itself encircled between a reinforced French Navy and the Regia Marina. The Mediterranean British forces are destroyed on June 16th and the island of Malta, which had been suffering from bombardments for weeks, surrenders to Italy on the 18th.
Hitler uses the Allied troops as leverage, proposing their release in exchange of Britain’s surrender. Churchill refuses, and gives a speech to the radio on the 20th: “We shall never surrender !” But the British people isn’t convinced, and after the surrender of Malta and the defeats against France, he must resign. Lord Halifax is nominated in his place. British forces in the Middle East are surrounded, but they manage to hold on. Successes are scored against the Axis throughout Africa, with the British pushing the Italians up to Tobruk and Australian divisions entering Syria. By the end of July, the Italians have only captured Somaliland, and French colonial troops have sided with the Allies. Hitler agrees to send General Erwin Rommel to support the Italians. His panzers, and the entry of Iraq on the side of the Axis following a coup by the Golden Square, are enough to break the stalemate. He enters El-Alamein in mid-August, and the Pyramids of Giza can be seen through his binoculars by September. French and Iraqi troops are pushing into Palestine, taking Amman and Tel-Aviv in early September. Halifax orders a general retreat to the Suez Canal, and violent antisemitic pogroms are occurring throughout Palestine and Egypt. Mohamed Amin-al Husseini enters Jerusalem and invites Christians and Muslims to unite to get rid of the “Jewish parasites”. French troops turn a blind eye to the bloodshed. The Germans enters Cairo on October 1st, under the cries of joy of the Egyptian people. King Faruk declares a symbolic war on Britain and meets Hitler in Munich. The first cracks into the German-Italian alliance are appearing, as Faruk asks for German, not Italian, support. Hitler simply answers that “The Italian tanks should have rolled faster.” as Rommel visits the Sphinx, while he guarantees the independence of Egypt. The British forces are forced to surrender before they can blow the canal. The victories in Africa encourages Franco to declare on Britain. Spain takes over Gibraltar but loses Equatorial Guinea on October 12th.
Back in the British Isles, the Luftwaffe, supported by the modest French air force, manages to win a decisive victory against the RAF. Intense bombing of the industrial capacities of Britain have prevented the UK from rebuilding its aerial fleet, and Halifax begs the United States to send support. Landon agrees to send humanitarian help and small arms, but nothing more. The convoys however are easy prey for the German wolf packs. Halifax also faces unrests in the street, as Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, who haven’t stopped demonstrating since May, have monopolized the support for peace. In Ireland, German spies have passed deals with the IRA to launch attacks in exchange for weapons. Japan seizes the occasion and launches an invasion of Malaya, Indonesia, and Burma, forcing Siam to join them in their war against the western empires. Japan avoids the Philippines, as mentioned in the Pact of Pearl Harbor. The inaction of the United States deals a terrible blow to British morale, as the troops are quickly overrun by the “Japanese Flood”. Japanese secret services also manage to free Subhas Chandrah Bose from his cell in Calcutta and put him at the head of the Indian National Army, formed with captured Indian troops. The British, fearful of losing India, launch repression campaigns throughout the Raj to quell the support for the INA, though it has the opposite effect. Japanese troops enter Calcutta by mid-November, Bose delivering a powerful speech in the ruins of his former prison that sparks support across the subcontinent.
Throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, chaos reigns. The IRA’s open warfare, German bombardments, barely any convoys reaching the island, the BUF incessant troubles and the loss of the Empire. News came on November 29th that the Hood, the pride of the navy, and the Prince of Wales had both been sunk near Denmark by the German battleships Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, with support from the French battleship Richelieu. Oswald Mosley stormed the British Parliament, with support from a demoralized population. Halifax immediately resigned, and Mosley, with approval of George VI, officially surrendered to the Axis on December 6th, 1940.
On the 7th, German planes land near London, and Joachim von Ribbentrop, followed by Waffen-SS and Fallschirmjäger, shakes hands with Oswald Mosley before the now-empty 10 Downing Street. The Treaty of London made official the fall of the British Empire. Hitler, ecstatic as he visited Buckingham Palace, wanted to be fair with the Britons, as he viewed them as Aryans. The Empire however was to be divided: Africa to Italy, Spain, France and Portugal, who was offered colonies in exchange to siding with the Axis; Asia to Japan, with guarantee that they wouldn’t continue the war against Australia and New Zealand. The Americas would decide for themselves, though Argentina had seized the Falkland Islands without declaration of war. In Europe, The United Kingdom becomes the Commonwealth of Britain, loosing Ulster to Ireland, and Scotland being occupied by Germany. France annexes the Anglo-Normand Isles, and Spain and Italy now control the Mediterranean. Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, with support from Italy, creates a United Arab Republic by merging the states of Iraq and Transjordan. France soon lets Syria merge into the republic, but Lebanon remains a French protectorate. Amin al-Husseini supervises the genocide of Levantine Jews. The rest of the British colonies in Arabia are invaded by the Saudis, and Italy creates a protectorate in Yemen. In Britain, George VI abdicates, but Edward VIII refused to reclaim the throne, though the Germans weren’t opposed to the idea. The Windsor family establishes itself in Canada, leaving Mosley to proclaim himself Lord Protector of Britain. Britain retires its troops from all of its colonies, leaving India under the rule of Bose. South Africa immediately supports Germany, and Australia and New-Zealand aligns themselves with the United States. Canada supports the creation of the Union of Guyana and the Caribbean, a Franco-Anglo-Dutch state, where the French and Dutch government have fled after the fall of Britain and Indonesia. European government in exiles are also located here, in the “country with six monarchs”; Indeed, the country housed the Great-Duchess of Luxemburg, the Queen of the Netherlands, the Kings of Norway and Denmark and the King of Belgium, who had been authorized to leave by the Germans after their annexation of the entirety of Belgium and the carving of Congo. The captured Allied are sent home though out of the 200,000 prisoners, more than 25,000 of them died because of the harsh condition of the POW camps.
The German garrison in Britain is composed of Waffen-SS troops, who fill their ranks with English and Irish volunteers.
Hitler organizes the imminent invasion of the Soviet Union, the mortal enemy of Nazism. Yugoslavia, though favorable to the Axis, is invaded on the 15th of January, mostly by Italians, Hungarians and Bulgarians, with support from Romania and Germany. Puppet regimes are installed as Peter II flees to Guyana, in order to purge the country of their “subhuman” population. Two weeks later, Greece is attacked, and while they initially manage to fight back, the country is overrun by Italian and Bulgarian forces on February 1st. Hitler class the invasion “Operation Barbarossa” and fatidic date on April 4th. The Soviets are still bogged down in Finland, as a consequence of the Stalinian Great Purges. The OKW is confident that, based on the poor performances of the Red Army, the war should take a year. The Winter War between the USSR and Finland ends on the 13th of March. The losses are greater for the USSR, but proportionally worse for Finland. However, Marshall Mannerheim meets with German generals and assure them that Finland would side with them in the case of a German invasion of the USSR. April comes, and at 4:00, the first German sappers enter the Soviet Union. An hour later, 10.000 planes and 40.000 cannons are piercing the sky of the Baltics, Belarus and Ukraine and following them are 4.500.000 soldiers and 15.000 tanks breaking the borders. Stalin is shaken; he thought that Hitler would have waited an entire year before invading. Vyacheslav Molotov is asked to quickly sign a treaty of non-aggression with Japan, so that troops from Mongolia and the Far-East can be recalled. A week later, Japan agrees, creating a rift between Axis and Japanese interests. The force of invasion is composed of Germans, making the majority of the troops and followed by Italians, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians, Finns, Croatians, French, British, Spanish and Portuguese divisions. Volunteers from the United Arab Republic, South Africa, Ireland and Sweden are following the “Crusaders” as Goebbels calls them. Minsk falls by the 20th, and Smolensk is encircled a month later. Hundreds of thousands of Soviets are taken prisoners, and all political commissars are shot dead. Jews are massacred or deported in Poland. The STAVKA is unable to form a concrete plan of action, and shortages of military equipment are starting to occur.
Demonstrations in the United States from socialists, Jews, intellectuals, and anti-fascists in general are begging the US government to start a support program to help the USSR. Wendell Willkie, who had just been sworn into office, was skeptical: He did want to support the USSR, but he also knew that the United States lacked the industrial capabilities to modernize their army and fuel another, six times larger. The Lend-Lease Act is passed by Congress on April 24th: Small arms, trucks, shells, food supplies and light tanks are sent to Vladivostok, with similar convoys from Canada joining the US fleet. Chinese minorities are protesting, as their countries didn’t receive support even though it was in a similar situation since 1937. The Japanese had encircled the Chinese around Nanyang and had taken Nanning in late 1939. The Allies, while deeply shocked by the massacre of Nanjing, had somewhat forgotten this conflict, especially since the US wasn’t allowed to intervene according to the Pact of Pearl Harbor.
In Europe, Vitebsk, Riga, and Odessa fall in mid-May. Stalin organizes a counter-offensive led by Budyonny before Kiev, but the Red Army is encircled once again; 1.5 million men are killed or taken prisoner. The Finns, followed by the French and Germans, are sieging Vyborg. The “Unstoppable Three”, Von Manstein in the North, Guderian in the center and Rommel in the south, are pocketing divisions after divisions. Vyborg, now Viipuri, falls by the 10th of June. Kiev, barely defended, is besieged and falls on the 26th of June. Leningrad, the second largest city of the USSR, is bombarded by French artillery commanded by Maxime Weygand on the 2nd of July. Hitler decides that the city is too vast to invade and decides to lay a siege. Finnish and French troops in the north, German and Spanish troops in the south, and all four of the remaining British aircraft carriers bombarding it day and night from the Baltic Sea. Dnipropetrovsk is taken on the 21st of July, securing Ukraine. Stepan Bandera and Yaroslav Stetsko form a collaborationist government in Lviv, and pledge allegiance to Hitler. In the north, similar demands for recognitions are made by Latvian collaborators. The Führer and Goebbels aren’t convinced, but Alfred Rosenberg, minister of Eastern territories and with support from the OKW, justifies it: a collaborationist government would allow for easier control of the territories, anti-partisan activities, an easier removal of Jews and communists, and a good way to create chaos among the Slavic “Untermenschen”. Hitler agreed, as long as Rosenberg assumed the entire responsibility of the operations. Rosenberg allows Bandera and Latvian leader Voldemars Veiss to hold position of power under Erich Koch and Hinrich Lohse, their respective Reichskommissars. The Soviet power starts fracturing, as other minority groups behind the frontlines are seeking German support. Latvians and Ukrainians Nazis are tasked to massacre or deport all Jews, Soviet commissars, Roma, and ethnic Russians in their Reichskommissariats. Lithuanians are spared, for the moment.
The panzers are taking a halt on the Leningrad-Dnipropetrovsk line, waiting for the infantry and the air forces to follow. The Romanians launch a costly landing in Crimea, only to get pushed back by the 51st Army. Turkey allows the Italian and French navy to cross the Bosporus, and Sebastopol is bombarded by Italian Littorio-class battleships and the French aircraft carrier Béarn on July 30th. The race to Moscow is now a matter of five hundred kilometers. In the North, the Finno-French forces have taken the city of Loukhi, cutting in half the Murmansk road. German forces push back the Soviets to Belomorsk, securing the encirclement. Murmansk is besieged on August 16th. The OKW wants to immediately take Moscow, but Hitler, conscious that Stalin would never let the city fall, wants to secure the Caucasus first. The climate would be less difficult to fight in autumn, and Ribbentrop is securing an alliance with Turkey. On August 21st, Rommel enters Rostov, and a coup led by Fevzi Cakmak and Mehmet Peker remove Ismet Inonu from power in Turkey. Cakmak then orders the immediate invasion of the Caucasus, and sides with the Axis. Muslim minorities from Chechnya and Azerbaijan are galvanized and start insurrections, disrupting railways and attacking Soviet divisions. The repression is harsh, and Stalin orders the deportation of those minorities to Siberia, as far as possible from the frontlines. Soviet mountaineers manage to hold, especially Armenian divisions as they fear repression from Turkey. Voroshilovgrad is taken on August 30th, and the STAVKA has to pull forces from the North to defend and prevent an encirclement. Rommel passes the Don on September 10th, and the Northern forces complete their conquest of Karelia. The Murmansk pocket evacuates to Arkhangelsk by boat, but still loses 150.000 soldiers, dead or captured. Leningrad is completely ravaged by the siege, and thousands are dying of hunger. Kliment Voroshilov is ordered to break the encirclement by Stalin, who cannot let both Leningrad and Stalingrad be taken. Most of the tank divisions of the Red Army are sent to retake Leningrad, leaving gaps in the center and southern fronts. Guderian takes Orel and Kursk in a colossal pocket, encircling 350.000 Soviet soldiers. Moscow is bombarded for the first time on September 26th, the same day Rommel enters Kotelnikovo, south of Stalingrad. Turkish forces, supported by Italian mountaineers, enter Yerevan on September 27th. The Armenian resistance is strong, and Turkey is bogged down in the city. Between massacres of civilians and resistance bombing, more than a hundred thousand people are killed in the conquest. Batumi is taken the same day.
The Voroshilov offensive is a catastrophe: 200.000 soldiers are killed, fifty thousands are taken prisoners. They managed to inflict terrible tank losses however, as most of the Soviet tanks present were T-34 and KV-1. Leningrad is still encircled though, and in only 3 month of siege, more than 450.000 civilians have been killed by bombardments, and 250.000 from hunger and diseases. Voroshilov is humiliated publicly by Stalin and arrested. Andrei Vlassov is captured by the Germans and enraged by the abandon of his army by Stalin, decides to side with the Germans. He creates the Russian Liberation Army, with support from Rosenberg, hoping to create even more dissentions between the different people of the USSR. Hitler greenlighted the idea of a collaborationist government that would manage Siberia once victory had been achieved. Vlassov forms a high-command in Smolensk and is allowed to receive 350.000 soldiers, most of them in poor shape: Indeed, a substantial part of them had agreed to fight under the Nazi banner simply to leave the POW camps, where they were being exterminated by hunger. On October 12th, the largest pocket of the war is formed between the outskirts of Leningrad and Kalinin. Guderian and Von Manstein’s panzers have encircled 1.100.000 soldiers. Spanish and German infantry reduce the pocket, killing 200.000 and taking the rest prisoner. The Axis is at 50 kilometers from Moscow. Crimea still holds, even after the fall of Novossibirsk. Romanians and Germans launch a second amphibious invasion, successful this time, and the ruins of Sebastopol are conquered on the 16th of October. The Italian and French navy then raid the Black Sea coast, and land troops in Sochi. Turkish and Italian forces are besieging Tbilisi and Stepanakert.
Moscow is bombarded day and night. Stalin issues Order 227: “General evacuation or death.” An evacuation order for the entire population of the USSR. The systematic destruction of infrastructures is ordered as the population evacuates past the Urals. However, Luftwaffe pilots, alone in the sky since the Red Airforce had been destroyed on the landing grounds, strafe and bomb columns of refugees. Winter arrives, and the Axis is forced to stop its progression. From Maikop to Murmansk, the now 8.000.000 Axis soldiers present in Russia have to fortify their positions. Goering ensures that the Luftwaffe would be enough to destroy fleeing soviet citizens. Stalin is not confident: Him and Zhukov know that Moscow and Stalingrad will be attacked soon, and that Leningrad will not survive the harsh winter. The industries are starting to produce T-34 en masse, but not enough to push everywhere. The Red Army lacked the means to defend both Moscow and Stalingrad, even with the Far-East reserves and the survivors of the Murmansk pocket. The STAVKA defended the idea that the Axis would attack Stalingrad first, in order to encircle the Caucasus. General Vasilevsky would assure the retreat from the south to put all the remaining units behind the Volga river to form a defensive line. Stalin tasked General Rokossovsky of defending Vasilevsky’s troops by attacking Rommel at Kotelnikovo. This “Operation Uranus” would decide the fate of Southern Russia. Zhukov and Stalin supervise the defense of Moscow, with hundreds of kilemeters of trenches, barbed wire, planned destruction of railways and roads. Zhukov also proposes to evacuate to Yekaterinburg, but Stalin refuses: If the people of Moscow knew that he had left them, their morale would be reduced to nothing. Stalin gives a powerful speech on the radio, inviting every able men and women to take arms in order to defend the Motherland in this “Sacred War against the Fascist invaders.”
On the German side, Hitler orders to take Stalingrad as soon as possible. The Caucasus would fall, taking with it a fifth of the Red Army. He also discusses the plans to deal with Leningrad: Once the population dead or prisoner, they would destroy most of the buildings to turn the city into a military and naval base. Moscow was to be encircled after the fall of Stalingrad, as OKW intelligence noted the lack of armored divisions around the capital. Hitler and the OKW agreed that the Muscovites would never surrender, and that they would loose hundred of thousand of men in the ruins of the Soviet capital. The bombardments were not as effective as they were in Leningrad, since the population spent most of their live in the gargantuan subway. Stalin and his ministers were also to be captured alive if possible, in order to be publicly executed. The second phase of Barbarossa was to be launched between February or March if the weather allowed it. The terrible Russian winter taking its toll, with hundreds of tanks, trucks, horses and soldiers stuck in cold mud, their wheels broken by the ice and their flesh marked by frostbite. Visits by officials like Benito Mussolini or Oswald Mosley boosted their morale, but their condition was barely livable.
In January 1942, Hitler and Goering order Reinhardt Heydrich, second in command of the SS and governor of Bohemia-Moravia to put an end to the “Jewish problem”. Indeed, since 1940, camps and ghettos have been filled with Jews from across Europe, from Portugal to Ukraine, from Scotland to Crete. Heydrich is to organize an efficient genocide of the Jewish people. On January 20th he plans during the Wannsee Conference the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. Death camps are opened in Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, Chelmno in the Generalgouvernement of Poland, and at Babi Yar, Riga and Maly Trostenets in the Reichskommissariats. A camp is also opened near Mosul, in the United Arab Republic, in order to deport all the Jews that lived in Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Egypt. Arab SS of the “Zulfiqar Division” are also rounding up Kurds, and France agrees to house in Lebanon the Christian minorities of Syria and Egypt to prevent their massacre. Those camps’ sole purpose is to methodically kill the prisoners through work for German companies, gas the unfit and burn the bodies in ovens. Ghettos are liquidated, with people either being forcefully sent to camps or massacred in their houses. A minority of Jews has been able to flee to Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, or the Americas. Mussolini and Horthy are refusing to send their Jews however, and prefer to keep them in ghettos and camps, creating tensions between them and Hitler. Jews were accompanied by Roma, homosexuals, and any opponents to the regime in the death trains.
February comes and the winter is still raging. The month sees small-scale offensives by the Red Army near Kalinin and Voronezh. The winter hits hard the city of Leningrad, where the population has almost been reduced to a third of what it was. The Axis launches Operation Gericht on February 11th and enters the city, already in ruins. The resistance is present, but a winter of starvation and constant bombardment have rendered them physically inapt to fight. Finnish soldiers are the first to raise their flag on the St-Peter-and-Paul Fortress, followed by Spanish troops. The blue cross and the black eagle greet the Germans, angry that they got robbed of this victory. Goebbels contacts Leni Riefenstahl to direct a short propaganda movie called “Gericht” to film Hitler, Mannerheim, and Francisco Franco, who travelled across all of Europe to meet the Ejercito Azul, meeting in the ruins of the city. British and French troops are occluded, as the memories of the Western European campaign is too fresh in the memory of German citizens. An iconic shot of Hitler, Franco, Mannerheim, Weygand and Auchinleck, standing before the Winter Palace is taken, and is featured even in Western medias. The loss of Leningrad deals a terrible blow to Soviet morale, with Stalin delivering a speech to commemorate the “heroic sacrifice” of the millions that perished in the siege.
The Army Group North and its allies is sent directly to Kalinin, but the spring “Rasputitsa” hinders any large-scale operation. This sticky and heavy mud is enough to break the treads of tanks and the shoes of soldiers. The southern front however is less difficult to maneuver into, and on the 6th of March, Fall Blau is launched: The encirclement and destruction of the Red Army in the Caucausus. The Soviet reacts by launching Operation Uranus; the troops are evacuated by rail to Stalingrad or by boat through the Caspian Sea. While the Turks and Italians enter Baku and southern Dagestan, Rokossovsky launches his attack; 2.000 Soviet tanks are pushing Rommel’s northern and eastern front. Chechens partisans that weren’t deported disrupt the Soviets’ retreat in Grozny. The Romanians, from Kerch, and the Franco-Italian troops that had landed in Sochi, are taking Krasnodar on the 9th, and are stopped near Stavropol on the 12th. Rommel abandons Kotelnikovo. Dagestani insurrections are occurring in Makhatchkala, hindering the evacuation of the Soviet divisions. Turkish and Italian cannons siege the city on the 17th, and Ju-87 Stukas of the Luftwaffe are dispatched by Goering in order to sink the evacuation barges. 75.000 Soviet soldiers are killed or taken prisoners when the Turks raise their flag on the mosques of the city, and only 25.000 have managed to reach Kazakhstan. Rommel counterattacks on the 20th and pushes back Rokossovsky. Hitler orders him to rush Astrakhan, but Rommel, fearing to be encircled himself, pushes Rokossovsky. An offensive led by von Kleist almost encircles him, but he manages to reach Stalingrad. Rommel and Rokossovsky attack each other following the Volga. Only 300.000 out of the 2.200.000 men in the Caucasus have been evacuated, and when Rommel reaches the city, 250.000 soldiers are currently waiting in the train stations. They manage to stop Rommel’s course, but the Caucasus is completely encircled. German, French, Romanian, Italian and Turkish forces are closing the pocket. The Soviets manage to flee Astrakhan, saving around the majority of the ones that were waiting to be evacuated. They voluntarily destroy the city, and resistance makes its conquest difficult. Rommel becomes Feldmarschall by order of the Führer on April 5th, as he secures the city.
Operation Attila begins on April 15th. 5,000 cannons open fire on Stalingrad. Stalin orders Rokossovsky and Vasilevsky to defend the city or die trying. They arm the civilians that couldn’t evacuate in time and deploy the survivors of Astrakhan to defend the city. 350.000 Axis soldiers are facing 400.000 Soviet soldiers. The control of Astrakhan and the Volga prevents reinforcement and relief to be sent by boat, and the Luftwaffe dominates the sky. 800.000 soviet people, soldiers and civilians, are defending every street, every house, every room with courage. Children and women are armed, as they know that the Nazis won’t show mercy. By late April, the Germans had barely advanced. A systematic destruction of each building was done to prevent partisans from attacking from behind. The OKW issued the “Nobody in Stalingrad” decree, ordering that no prisoners were to be taken.
The end of April brought a better climate, ideal for offensives. Rommel was stuck in Stalingrad, and news weren’t good: soldiers died by the hundred every day. Encircling Moscow wouldn’t be difficult but conquering the Red Place and planting the Swastika flag on top of the Kremlin would cost somewhere between 500.000 and a million men according to the OKW. They estimate the number of Soviet defenders to be around 2.000.000, though without a lot of armor or rocket artillery. Fall Schwarz is designed to use the new Panzerkampfwagen VI “Tiger”, with its 88mm cannon, that should destroy T-34 with ease. Zhukov delegates the northern front to Konev, while the southern front goes to Timoshenko. Fall Schwarz is launched on June 5th. The Finnish launch an offensive to capture Arkhangelsk in order to cut the last Soviet western port, while the French, British and Spanish troops are taking Cherepovets, but are stopped a week later before Yaroslavl by Konev. The British airforce deploys its new long-range bomber, the Avro Lancaster, and Charles Portal, head of Bomber Command, launches a carpet-bombing campaign over Yaroslavl, Nijni Novgorod and Vladimir. All three cities are reduced to ashes by firebombs during two weeks of day and night bombardments. Goering is admirative of the method and Portal receives decoration from the German air minister, who asked permission from Hitler to produce licensed German Lancaster, the Me-264 Russbomber. During those two weeks, Von Manstein’s panzers push north and capture Tver with difficulties. In the South, Guderian and his Hungarian allies siege Riazan and manage to push the Soviets back. Knowing the Axis wouldn’t risk a frontal assault, Zhukov orders a counter offensive. Guderian loses Riazan, but Von Manstein holds. The Franco-Hispano-British divisions enter in the fuming ruins of Yaroslavl, forcing Timoshenko to send some of his divisions up north, allowing Guderian to Riazan. Hitler refuses to carpet-bomb Moscow, as he thinks that seeing the Heer parade in Moscow would be even more humiliating. He allows the destruction of Ulyanovsk, Kazan and Stavropol-on-Volga, though the Red Airforce, which manage to rebuild itself from scratch, is being aggressive from its Ural bases. In the south, Axis troop push north of Stalingrad, in order to relieve Rommel. Saratov is besieged on the 30th of June.
As July arrives, the Axis continues its offensive, with the Spanish entering Ivanovo on July 3rd. Cracks are appearing in the frontal defense of the Soviets, and the German infantry advance towards Moscow. The red towers of the Kremlin are visible through their binoculars on July 7th. Guderian takes the road of Vladimir and manages to reach the outskirts of the city. The Finns take Arkhangelsk on the 12th. Only a hundred kilometers separate the troops of Guderian and De Llano, the Spanish general. Stalin writes a political and military will: Zhukov, Timoshenko and Konev are to evacuate the city and shelter behind the Urals, in Yekaterinburg. He nominates Kalinin in his place and names a “Government for the Patriotic Defense of the Motherland” with Beria, Bulganin, Molotov, Kaganovitch and Mikoyan. Zhukov is to become Generalissimo of the Red Army, and Konev, Timoshenko, Rokossovsky and Vasilevsky are all honored with the title of Marshall. He states that if the Urals were to fall, the Soviet people should either die standing or flee and try to join the Americas to form a government in exile, and maybe motivate a socialist revolution there. He also states that if the Germans manage to take the city, he will be “killed by a fascist bomb as [he] protected Svetlana with [his] body.” A list of death penalty is also written, some urgent and others “in case of”: Beria, Khrushchev, Voroshilov etc. Saratov falls on July 12th, the same day the first German soldiers enter the city. Sharpshooters are in every building; every road is rigged with explosives and every child hides a grenade. Stalin gives his last speech, thanking the Russian people for their devotion. Vladimir falls and with it the escape route of the Moscow Red Army; 2.000.000 soldiers and 4.100.000 civilians are encircled, and ready to fight tooth and nail. Lenin’s mausoleum is dynamited to prevent the Germans from destroying it themselves. Rocket artillery is used at point blank, ravaging German troops and buildings alike. By July 30th, little progress has been by the Axis, other than the western European securing the encirclement. 100.000 Germans have already fallen in the destroyed outskirts of the Soviet capital. Voroshilov is freed and pardoned by Kalinin. He's extremely bitter and physically weak from torture.
In the south, progress has been made. With the fall of Saratov, Rommel progresses in Stalingrad. He reaches the Volga banks, and finally conquers the center of the city. The Soviets plan a counter-offensive through the river, to push back the exhausted Axis troop. In Yekaterinburg, the government led by Kalinin fortifies the Urals, and agrees to only keep fighting at Stalingrad. A general retreat is ordered, letting the Axis take Nijni Novgorod, Kazan and Ulyanovsk. A first defensive line, the “Kalinin line”, is formed between Perm, Oufa and Chkalov. The Germans manages to cross the Volga in Saratov and push up to Uralsk on August 20th. Autumn is coming and with it the terrible Russian weather. While the situation is great, as Moscow is encircled and Stalingrad can be easily defended, the winter will give several months of preparations for the remains of the Red Army to organize the defense of the Urals. Fall Schwarz is a success and Moscow is effectively cut off from the rest of the world. The Western public holds its breath, as Russia is on the brink of defeat. Germans are compared to the Mongol horde of old that conquered the Rus’. The news of the Massacre of Chongqing by the Japanese army, using gas, diseases, firebombs and other inhumane tactics aren’t relayed as much. The Imperial sun flies over the Chinese capital on August 19th.
Hitler and the OKW are hesitant on which strategy to use to capture Moscow: Leningrad was starved out, but the population and the garrison were smaller, and the city wasn’t as large. Von Kluge and Von Bock, the Feldmarschalls commanding the Army Group Center and South, and Hermann Goering are in favor of a prolongated offensive, leaving Moscow behind to starve and taking the Urals before winter, or else they’d become impenetrable. Hitler and Von Küchler however are of the idea that if Moscow was to fall and Stalin executed, Kalinin would surrender and if not, the German and British air forces would bomb him into oblivion. The Arkhangelsk-Astrakhan line was already established. They all agreed that strategic bombing should be performed on the post-Ural cities. Rommel, still in the frontline, was consulted after, and was in favor of continuing the offensive. Hitler, trusting him, agreed to follow Von Kluge and Von Bock. On September 10th, the Panzers are stopped at Oufa. The divisions at Uralsk take the southern road to Guriev. Vasilevsky leaves Stalingrad in order to stop the German advance. Rokossovsky is ordered by Zhukov to evacuate the city. He destroys the remaining buildings, poison the water and burns everything behind him. The Battle of Stalingrad is finally over on September 18th. 1.150.000 Soviet soldiers and civilians were killed, with 750.000 casualties from Germany, Turkey, Italy, or Romania, and 15.000 more from starvation, poisoning or disease. Rokossovsky’s systematic destruction of roads and railways up to Aktyubinsk make it difficult for Rommel to follow him. Volgograd as it is now called is used to send supply up to garrisons in Saratov, Samara and Ulyanovsk, which has been renamed Hitlerstadt. By September 30th, the Axis is holding a colossal front, from Mezen on the White Sea to Kazan in central Russia and up to Uralsk in Western Kazakhstan.
Zhukov plans a grand offensive for the late autumn. He wants to encircle the Axis near Uralsk and push them back to the Volga. The Germans are exhausted after the Battle of Stalingrad. Turkish and German agents pass through Iran, which is neutral but leans toward the Axis, in order to motivate Turkic revolts in Central Asia. In Moscow, the situation is dire. The city has been encircled for three months, and the Axis has already lost 650.000 men, including 350.000 Germans alone. 650.000 Soviet soldiers and around 1.100.000 civilians have been killed. Children under the age of 12 and elderly women are staying in the subway, while their fathers and mothers are fighting in the streets. Food supplies are scarce for the Soviets, as the Germans prefer destroying them rather than using them. Rape and massacres are common, and the women serving in the Red Army, often as tank crews or snipers, prefer killing themselves than falling in the hand of the “Fascist pigs”. Hitler orders the systematic massacre of Muscovite prisoners: the “Judeo-Bolsheviks” have forfeited their right to live. SS and Heer soldiers alike, fueled by hatred, tiredness and bloodlust, execute dozens of soldiers and civilians, regardless of age. The Soviets do the same, mutilating the corpses and burning the piles of bodies, mixing the first snows in a bloody, ashy mud.
Zhukov launches his offensive on October 15th, and the T-34/76D of Rokossovsky are finally managing to overwhelm the powerful but sluggish Tigers of Rommel. Operation Saturn shattered the Axis front, forcing Rommel to leave Uralsk in catastrophe. Guderian is sent down south to help him, as the Axis holds a solid defensive line. They even manage to take Kirov, north of Kazan. Rommel stabilizes the front in between Saratov and Uralsk. Goering orders the Luftwaffe and its allies to be quickly deployed to support Guderian’s counter offensive. The Red Airforce, composed of Yak-1 and IL-2, regrew from nothing and achieved massive numbers, but the lack of modernization caused by the destruction of western Russia resulted in it being outclassed by the German Fw-190, the Italian C.205 and the British Hawker Hurricane. The steppes are turning tanks into easy targets, and the close air support tears through the armored divisions. The rest of the fighters and the bombers are sent north to ravage Perm, Chkalov and Oufa. Operation Walkyrie designates the terror bombing campaigns of the Havro Lancaster and the Me-264 Russombers. In a matter of weeks, the three main cities of the Soviet fronts are turned into fuming piles of rubbles. Indeed, the Red Airforce, focused on Operation Saturn and decimated by the Axis left the cities undefended. The Soviet forces are pushed back by Guderian’s counter-offensive on October 26th, and Uralsk is retaken on the 30th. He pushes to Chkalov, piercing the Kalinin Line. Axis forces up north launch small offensives, taking Glazov and Oktiabrski, ironically renamed Novemburg in reference to the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. The capricious climate of Russia comes in early November, forcing the tanks and trucks to stop their advances. With the destruction of the Kalinin line and the Red Airforce, breaches in the Urals allow Axis planes to pass over the mountains without risks of interception. Russbombers and Lancaster bomb Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk on November 15th. The government isn’t harmed but the industries are ravaged and civilians from Russia are starting to evacuate to Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk. The STAVKA fears the loss of the Urals, as it would be near impossible to form a line of defense in Siberia. While the Germans want to stop at the Urals, they know that they won’t stop until Marxism is eradicated. Two factions appear among the Soviet government: Beria, Khrushchev, Bulganin and Kaganovich supported a “defense till death” approach, scorching the earth everywhere and encouraging resistance; Molotov, Malenkov, Mikoyan and especially Zhukov, who represented the STAVKA, were favorable of a government in exile. Indeed, Molotov had personally sent reports with films and photos of the Nazi atrocities in the western parts of the countries, and the American people were deeply touched by this. The Soviet people had gained a lot of support in the US, and they could even manage to influence American politics. Kalinin tries to compromise: The Red Army would stand before Yekaterinburg and in northern Kazakhstan, but if the Axis managed to pierce this ultimate line, they would organize the evacuation of the country for the Americas. Mikoyan, the government’s premier, and Molotov are sent to San Francisco on November 21st. Thousands of people are here to greet them to show support to the Soviet people: Willkie’s lend-least act was more symbolic than anything else at this point. Outdated biplanes and tanks were being sent as the US president shook Mikoyan and Molotov’s hands. William Mackenzie King, prime minister of Canada, Manuel Avila Camacho, president of Mexico and representants from the Union of Guyana are invited to the Conference of San Francisco. Malenkov immediately states that the point of this conference is to negotiate a way for Soviet civilians and soldiers to find refuge in the Americas. All three American leaders are reticent, but they’re quickly convinced by Molotov’s two hour long exposé of the Nazi atrocities: Reports from Moscow and Stalingrad are read, and films and photos taken by Soviet and Polish agents are showed, causing nausea and terror to fill the room. Photos of infanticide, common graves, piles of bodies burned, and even testimonies from Polish agents who managed to infiltrate the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The three leaders agree to sign the Accords of San Francisco on November 24th, that would ensure naval and military support to transport the refugees from Vladivostok to San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, and the formation of a government in exile. The counterpart would be the transfer of Soviet war material, scientists, and industrialists to American authorities.
Back in Europe, as the front stabilized for winter, the organization of the eastern territories is discussed. Hitler agrees to let Himmler and the SS supervise the police, intelligence and military operations in the soon-to-be-colonized territories. Western Soviet territories are divided between four Reichskommissariats: Ostland, Ukraine, Kaukasus and Moskowien. Crimea, or Gotenland, is directly annexed by the Reich and Heydrich becomes Gauleiter of Gotenland, with Ernst Kaltenbrunner taking his place as vice-governor of Bohemia-Moravia. Himmler works with Rosenberg to organize a genocide on a scale never seen before, as part of the Generalplan Ost. They agree on an order of massacre, from most urgent to least urgent: Lithuanians, Byelorussians and Crimean Russians are to be removed as fast as possible, to begin the process of colonization. Then, Russians are to be enslaved. Finally, Latvians, Caucasian minorities, and Ukrainians, the “least problematics”, are to be terminated if their traits are still not Aryan enough after approximately fifty years of colonization. Himmler hopes to create an ideal society based on pagan rituals in those territories. While most of the Nazi high command despises Christianity, they despise Himmler’s paganistic delirium even more. Hitler prefers encouraging Islam in the Caucasus, as the Slavs had no point of existing anymore. By the end of 1942, four million Jews have already been murdered, and Soviet citizens are now sent through the “Arbeit Macht Frei” gates of the death camps. Red Army POW are voluntarily joining Vlassov’s army or the Waffen-SS Ukrainian, Latvian or Caucasian divisions, just to not starve to death.
Wehrmacht generals are more and more displeased and fearful of the growing influence of the SS. Indeed, across Europe, the RSHA, the SS intelligence service, has ears and eyes everywhere. Gestapo agents are arresting Jews and communists from Lisbon to Grozny. The Lebensborn program is also heavily encouraged, and the SS is viewed more and more as a privileged cast. Himmler’s proposals of legalized polygamy and knighthood of the SS soldiers are met with disapproval by Hitler, but his strength and insistence are gaining land in the Führer’s mind. Heydrich’s apparent submission to Himmler doesn’t fool the Wehrmacht: “Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich” is a popular joke among the Heer, especially to taunt SS soldiers. A fair part of them wouldn’t understand it, as they don’t speak German. SS recruiting centers have been opened in Paris, Rome, London, Jerusalem, Helsinki, or Grozny. The Waffen Grenadier Divisions “Hindustan” and “Showa” are composed of volunteers from India and Japan. Himmler’s fascination for Eastern religions pushes him to incorporate elements of Muslim, Shinto, and Hinduist practices in the SS’s religious customs. Those are met with skepticism from Heydrich and SS of Germanic origins, but Himmler ensures them that fasting, and meditation are necessary to ensure the mental and physical superiority of the Aryan race. In terms of religion, Christian persecutions are federating the party, as lots of high-ranking members considered that now that the synagogues had been destroyed, the churches are to follow. From hardline SS Odilo Globocnik, suppressor of the Polish ghettos and the mind behind the death camps, to Hitler’s most loyal lieutenants and Nazis of the first hour Goebbels and Bormann, anti-Christianism is becoming more and more common. The SS are encouraging people to abandon Christian beliefs and celebrate the solstices and to honor pagan kings like Widukind of Saxony. Museum are opened by the SS to display “Aryan” artifacts from across the globe. A clear racial purity chart is designed based on the Nuremberg laws, allowing Germans to marry Japanese or Finnish people.

Heydrich is tasked by Hitler personally to secretly organize the assassination of Rudolf Hess, Reichsstatthalter of Scotland. Hess, one of the first national-socialist, had become useless to Hitler, as he was replaced by Bormann as his secretary. Comments he made regarding a peace treaty with the Soviet government made him even suspicious. The RSHA arranges his car to be gunned down by Scottish SS of the “Alba” Division in Edinburgh, disguised as Scottish Republican Army’s fighters, the main group of resistant in Scotland, on November 30th. Submachine guns are emptied on his Mercedes, killing him and his driver. An anti-tank grenade is thrown under the vehicle to make sure he’s dead. The SS then flee the city. They used American machine guns, sold to Ireland, stolen by the IRA and sent to the SRA, only to be then captured by the SS during its anti-partisan raids. The assassination is used by Hitler as a way to burn a loose end and to replace him with Karl Dönitz. Heydrich has Hitler’s trust, and a violent anti-partisan campaign in Scotland burns the towns of Dalkeith and Loanhead to the ground.