Intro[]
Seal of the House of Romanov
This is the hub page for the "Das Rote Kaiserreich".
"Das Rote Kaiserreich", or the Red Empire, is a timeline revolving around a multiple of points of diversion, the most important ones being a barely German victory in WW II and the re-institution of the Romanov monarchy afterward. In the OTL, neither event happened, while here we look at them as though they happened and their consequences.
Outline[]
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A Soviet-German agreement is signed at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War: Soviets will supply the Second Spanish Republic with arms while the Germans test their tanks, aircraft, tactics and arms against the Soviet arms. The Soviets don't see through the façade and go ahead.
This plan works as expected, but the revelations disappoint the German high command. The German light divisions turn out as the biggest failure. They are scrapped in favour of motorised and mechanised divisions.
Later, Second World War starts over Danzig and the Corridor. The Heer crushes the outdated Polish army within a month and turns to France.
Fall Gelb proceeds as planned, and France falls quickly. On June 19, 1941, Operation Barbarossa is launched and on October 19, after a long battle, Moscow falls. The Soviet Government flees to Novosibirsk and national morale drops; still the Soviets keep on the retreat. On January 4, the next year, Leningrad falls as well and the Soviet line of defence falls back to the Ural mountains. After a long and bloody siege of the defence line, the German government signs a peace treaty with the Soviet Union on August 13, 1943, claiming all land up to the Ural Mountains. This defence costs the Soviets an estimated six million lives as every able-bodied man east of the Urals (along with refugees) is conscripted.
After something more than a year, on September 9, 1944, the Allies sign a peace treaty with Germany, thus ending the bloodiest war in human history.
On October 13, 1946, the first German nuclear test is conducted, on a remote fjord in the north of Norway. Exactly two years later, on the anniversary of the test, the first nuclear power plant is declared operational.
Without Soviet help, the Chinese Civil War drags on for years after the Second World War and slowly the Kuomintang and the Republic of China advance on the Communists.
During the 50's, the Soviet Union annexed Tannu Tuva, Mongolia and eventually Manchuria and talks were underway with the Communist Party of China; the Soviets were to provide military aid if after the war Communist China joins the Soviet Union. At first, Mao outright refuses such an act, but on February 19, 1957, signs the Soviet-Chinese Pact of Alignment. Three weeks later, the infamous March Push begins and by the end of 1958, the Kuomintang retreats to Taiwan and signs a ceasefire agreement (the Soviet Union agreed because a naval invasion of Taiwan would be impossible given such a high amount of Nationalist troops and machinery).
During the early 60's period, a trilateral cold war becomes noticeable: on one side the Axis Pact, then the Communist International, and finally the Allies.
During the 60's, the Korean, Vietnamese and Thai wars saw the Axis and the Allies ally against the common, red threat. Such an alliance often lasted as long as the invaded country, and soon afterward the already fragile agreement falls apart.
In 1967, the Allies restyle themselves as the United Nations. Britain is left out, surrounded by Axis members from all sides, recently including Ireland, as well.
On July 14, 1968, the first manned space flight is conducted by Germany, the pilot being Theodor von Below (aged 21), the son of Nicolaus von Below. He safely returned to land. Soon afterward he was awarded with the title of Oberführer in the SS, although he did little to use that rank. During the same year, Germany develops an efficient intercontinental ballistic missile system. It at first had the capacity of only one nuclear warhead, but soon the design allowed for more and more. It was designed by Germany's finest, doctor Wernher von Braun.
On February 19, 1971, Adolf Hitler dies in Munich Military Hospital after a long disease. He surpassed all lifespan expectations. Aged 82, he was Germany's first Führer. Aged just 32, Helmut Christian Göbbels, is inaugurated three days later, the same day that project Welthauptstadt Germania was completed. A month of mourning was declared and Adolf Hitler, even though he never managed to see the grand project complete, he is buried in the Große Halle.
During Helmut's reign, the Führer cut down the power of the Gestapo, SS and other shady organisations that were formed during his predecessor's era. The SS turns into a purely policing force, while the Gestapo has several bans enforced on it. Only minor words of protest come from Heinrich Himmler, aged 71 when Helmut became Führer.
Helmut also gave the remaining few Jews some rights, including the right to a court order. Some other reforms are put in place, namely the right to form trade unions and the right to minor protesting. These decisions marked Germany's transition into a softer form of dictatorship where the citizens aren't subject to random arrests and murders, concentration camps are prohibited by law and the press receive a bit more freedom. These reforms are collectively called the "Munich Papers" or the "Munich Laws" and replace the previous Nürnberg ones.
During this uneasy period, the (for now) overlooked Romanov Family Association is formed, its task to organise the Romanovs throughout the world. In 1974, the Association is officially formed.
In the next fifteen years, proxy wars, uprisings, invasions, and sometimes outright annexations marked the already grim history when the invasion of Britain on Easter 1982, simply called "Die Invasion" forced the British to join the Axis and install a puppet government made up of the already influential British Union members.
On November 3, 1983, the first manned space station is opened after years of construction. It's named "Versöhnung" and the UN representatives are invited for a visit. Germany receives an outright refusal.
The huge food uprisings in China, Korea, Vietnam and Thailand made the Soviet government, with the central government in Novosibirsk on the verge of collapse. On September 6, 1984, Leonid Brezhnev attempted to restore Soviet command over the country by installing a puppet Romanov government (it was a horribly desperate attempt to satisfy the monarchist majority in the vast country, yet the Romanovs were not planned to be emperors, just governors during the emergency). The Romanovs were cautious and at first refused, but the extraordinarily generous propositions of the Soviet government made some family members consider twisting the Soviet government's position against it.
Grand Duke Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov is installed as a governor on September 28, and soon he begins with his plans. The whole family is transferred to Novosibirsk via various ports, including Shanghai, Vladivostok and others. Day by day, he makes subtle changes to the law, gaining more and more power. By the end of the year, Brezhnev had no power at all, neither de jure nor de facto: there were no members in the communist party and the Politburo had no effect on anything above district level.
On the Orthodox Christmas of 1985, Leonid Brezhnev died of a massive heart attack, aged 79. This event marked the collapse of the Soviet authority in Siberia and China, and for the first time in history had such a major power left as a government-in-exile outside a war. The Soviet government fled over the Urals and through Ostland, to Berlin (Germany was the only nation that accepted them, in an attempt to gain future influence).
The collapse of the Soviet system was met with mixed emotions from either remaining superpower: it was a welcome change to lose the Communist enemy, but the new government may be as bad as it may be good.
On the Christmas of 1988, the imperial Novosibirsk palace is completed and the nation is renamed as "The Great Russian Empire". By this time, Russia has grown enough to swallow the entire of China, southern Japan, the Korean Peninsula, northern India and half of Persia.
On Easter of 1989, a manned space mission lead by Theodor von Below with a crew of 5 launches into space on a course set for Mars. At first, they were to get supplies from the Versöhnung after leaving Earth, then fly to Mars and back. The spaceship, named simply "Das Vaterland", was to carry two years' worth of food supplies. Now aged 43, the national hero was supposed to be the first man to set foot on Mars. By the end of the year, they reached orbit around Mars and on January 1 landed on Mount Olympus. The flag of the Reich was planted on the highest point on the planet. The rocket, titled A19, being 105 meters high and weighed at an approximate 2,950,000 kg (2950 metric tons), was the best rocket the Reich had to offer and was used to transport the men onward. It was semi-disposable and most parts could be reused in some way. It was the first rocket whose details were revealed to the public. On return to Earth, engine failure made the crew land in the middle of the Sognefjord. Luckily, due to safety features, the crew got to safety. One man nearly drowned.
On March 19, 1990, the UN fused into the Democratic Confederacy, seated in New York. The UN council became the main governing body. In this confederacy, the USA, Canada, Central American states, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbeans, Colombia, Equador and Bolivia are the founding members, with India, South Africa and Greenland as watcher members. The US dollar, now restyled as the "Confederate Dollar". The old currencies were to be used for at most ten more years. Due to Russian-Japanese trade deals for the Chinese coast, Siam/Thailand, Indonesia and local islands, relations between the Axis and the Empire improved. On the other side, due to a joint Argentinian, Peruvian and Chilean force invasions into Bolivia and Brazil.
On the twentieth anniversary of Hitler's death, a huge parade was held through Berlin. The day afterward, February 20, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay joined the Axis, thus polarising the only non-aligned continent.
On a cultural matter, by the 1990's, Germany's society evolved into a fairly liberal one, although homosexuality, vulgarity against the State and Government and it is still a punishable offence to marry interracially, or even interreligiously. The Führer still holds absolute powers in the Reich, and the people don't challenge it. The Confederacy itself was devolving into a Federation, with the central Council gaining more and more power in the state. Each Councilperson is elected from his respective home country. The Russian Empire, up until the beginning of the 90's faced a mild growth caused by the lower value of the Ruble. Being an autocracy, inflation was kept under 10% for the first few years of the empire, and after 1990, the inflation was left to fluctuate by itself.
Musically, by the end of the century, it was clear that the predominant influence was a tie between German and Confederate. In the mid-90's, certain groups with rather controversial music started popping up. Their style (which now we would refer to as heavy and industrial metal) was popular amongst younger people. After some time, this style of music became commonplace on the radio. It soon became known as the "Neuer Nationaler Schall" after the group named "Rammstein" released its first album in Munich, in 1994. The name is assumed taken from the site of a huge explosion only revealed later on that killed 189 people in Ramstein-Miesenbach.
The turn of the millennium was celebrated wildly throughout the world. In the span of just ten years, computers and electronics evolved wildly. The first 4 GHz CPU was launched in Germany in 2000, synthetic oils and fuels reached around 93,790,000 barrels daily world-wide, with an estimated 60 million barrels in Axis countries only. In Russia, current methods of fertilising, intensive farming and machinery led to an industrial revolution. Novosibirsk reached 17 million inhabitants sometime in 2001, with Berlin reaching the 20 million mark in late 2001. Serbia and Greece were expected to unify somewhere along 2001, but the predictions were moved first to 2005, and then to 2009. The UN started focusing their industry on war in 2001, while Russia and Germany split their focus mostly between war and electronics.
By 2002, both Japan's and the UN's economy started collapsing, while Russian and German economies were booming. Secretly funded by the Axis pact, Russian armies invaded Australia through Japanese Indonesia on July 9, 2002. The ensuing war, commonly known as the Summer War. With a daily influx of 20 million Reichsmarks during the whole of July and September, the Imperial Army, 13 million strong, advanced through half of Australia by September 1, and UN forces in Australia were at their last stand at Sydney's borders by September 19. After most of the troops retreated to Canberra, stealth bombers detonated 48 nuclear devices, each over 20 megatons, in and around Sydney. The last-ditch effort killed seven million Russian soldiers and an estimated 100,000 tanks, and the now 4.5 million strong army retreated slightly northward out of the radiated zone. A peace agreement signed at Darwin, Northern Territory, ended the war. The agreement, called the Darwin Peace, divided Australia very unfairly between Russia and the UN. Queensland, Western Australia, Northern Territory and the half of Southern Australia were given to Russia while the remainder was released back to the UN. The whole of the Australian populace, Aboriginal peoples included, was evacuated to the UN territory while Russian and Chinese settlers were to colonise the newly-made Authority of Imperial Australia which was to be integrated fully into the empire by 2010.
In 2003, the Axis expanded additionally to encompass the remaining countries that remained unaligned. After over fifty years of negotiations, Switzerland agreed to become a German dependency, its population to benefit from the German Central Bank and to be included in the census, but not outright annexed.
On June 7, 2004, the Treaty of Peace was secretly signed between the Axis and the UN, thus beginning the Coalition for Peace. Some time later, at an undisclosed location, the German-Russian pact was signed in preparation for an invasion onto North American soil.