Something I've been slowly working on ever since
@KingCrawa made a throwaway comment about an article that seemed to imply that the Germans fought with the allies at D-Day.
Fight For Them on the Beaches
March 1944-May 1944: Henning von Tresckow (Nazi Party)
March 1944, Hitler is killed by a bomb attack and plotters seize control of portions of the army, claiming that the assassination was carried out by the SS. The situation was chaotic, with forces loyal to Himmler and to the army both claiming to be the true government.
May 1944-September 1946: Henning von Tresckow (Emergency government)
The facade of being Nazi loyalists did not last long, as the SS won the propaganda war but realised in the process how little Hitler's legacy was actually worth. The Emergency Government offered support to the allies on the western front, provided they were in turn protected from Soviet invasion. A new German Republic was established and Republican troops had their first test breaking through the Nazi lines at Normandy. This substantially sped up allied landings, but it was still not fast enough to avoid the Nazi sacking of Paris, an action that would motivate the revolt of Vichy France and the final liberation of France. By the end of July France was liberated under Marshall Petain and British and American troops were engaging in a war against Nazi remnants, who were mostly centred on the south of the country. Russia was, however, not willing to accept Republican Germany without major territorial concessions. The war between Republican Germany and the USSR would drag on until towards the end of August and would only end five days after the surrender of the remnants of the Nazi regime at the Berghof in Austria.
German forces were not involved in the Pacific Theatre, although a small number of technical advisors would provide advice on Axis strategies and weapons. The war against Japan would continue until June 1945, but in Europe the war devolved into lengthy discussions, which would involve the hand-over of German war criminals to the allies, the disarmament of much of the German army, sharing of confidential German technologies with America and Britain and finally, major territorial concessions. The Pomerania was handed over to Poland, along with Brandenberg almost up to the border of Berlin. Saxony was handed to the new communist state of Czechoslovakia. Saarland was handed to France. Large areas of west Germany were to be entirely demilitarised and French, British and American bases were allowed throughout Germany. Even Austria, now liberated under Otto von Hapsburg, and undergoing a thorough process of de-nazification, was expanded into formerly German territories.
The treaty was much worse than Germany had expected and while von Tresckow would continue in power, it was in a very limited sense, and he never even formed a party group capable of contesting the first new elections in Germany
1945-1970: Karl Dönitz (Coalition)
1945: Reinhold Wulle (DNVP) Konrad Adenauer (Centre) Wilhelm Pieck (KPD) Otto Grotewohl (SPD)
1950: Fritz Rössler (DNVP) Wilhelm Pieck (KPD) Otto Grotewohl (SPD) Konrad Adenauer (Centre)
1955: Max Reimann (KPD) Fritz Rössler (DNVP) Konrad Adenauer (Centre) Bernhard Rust (Socialist Reich Party)
1960: Max Reimann (KPD) Alfred Loritz (Socialist Reich Party)
1967: Walter Ulbright (KPD) Alfred Loritz (Socialist Reich Party)
Dönitz was
the leader of Germany during the Cold War. A strongman who dominated German politics for a quarter of a century. During which time he painted himself as the only solution to the two existential threats facing Germany - the threat of German business and enterprise losing out to war reprisals and mass arrests for war crimes, and the risk of the Communist bloc. Germany at the time was regularly taking in waves of ethnically German people from their former territories, as well as Czechoslovakia. Germans were made to be fearful of further territorial advances and unwilling to acknowledge their own culpability in the holocaust.
In this period the German economy stagnated, and Germany found itself at odds diplomatically with the Franco-British Alliance, as it slowly grew out to become the focal point of the West European Alliance.
1970-1978: Erwin Rommel (Coalition)
1970: Erich Honecker (KPD) Gudrun Himmler (Socialist Reich Party)
Rommel failed to win a majority but became Chancellor mostly due to complex internal wrangling between the communists and fascists, and threats from the WEA armies stationed around Germany, Elections were held off, the economy was in a terrible state and corruption was rife
1978-1988: Ulrike Meinhof (KPD)
1978: Erwin Rommel (Coalition)
1984: Günter Deckert (DNVP) Hans-Dietrich Genscher (Conservative-Liberal) (SPD) Hans-Joachim Ritter (Ecology) (Marxist Leninist)
The banning of fascist parties caused sufficient movement of voters in Germany to ensure the election of the first communist leader in German history, over an aging and increasingly corrupt Coalition. The country was bitterly divided, and Meinhof's government was never really popular. But it was responsible for important civic reforms such as establishing a nationalised health service and massive property law reform. It's main achievement was t re-write the German constitution in a way that would allow more consultation and democracy. This was supported by the West, who feared that the Soviets would consolidate their power. She was less successful at securing Germany's non-aligned status, with the weakened Communist bloc fearing Germany as a destabilising influence.
1988-2000: Martin Bangemann (Conservative-Liberal)
1988: Ulrike Meinhof (KPD) Hans-Joachim Ritter (Ecology) Rolf Schlierer (DNVP)
1992: Ulrike Meinhof (KPD) Hans-Joachim Ritter (Ecology) Rolf Schlierer (DNVP)
1996: Hans-Christian Ströbele (Ecology) Sieglinde Hofmann (KPD) Rolf Schlierer (DNVP)
Bangemann returned Germany to more standard economic policies, and was a strong advocate of German entry into the West European Alliance. Germany finally joined the alliance in 1994 and while this was unpopular, the fall of the Soviet bloc in 1996 created a wave of optimism in Germany that secured Bangemann's third term against all odds.
2000-2004: Hans-Christian Ströbele (Ecology)
2000: Martin Bangemann (Conservative-Liberal) Petra Pau (KPD) Karl Heinz Sendbühler (DNVP)
Green electoral success was in no small part due to their being less left wing than the Communists but more euroskeptic than the other parties. In government Ströbele made a major point of rejecting the Treaty of Copenhagen, which meant that Germany continued to be a member of the European Alliance, rather than joining the central bloc which created a parliament and was developing plans for a unified currency.
Nuclear power was banned across Germany and steps were made to reduce foreign military bases, but the biggest changes to German life were arguably, social. The Greens bought in congestion charges, a ban on smoking in public places, laws allowing gay civil partnerships and a ban on advertising tobacco products. Much of this was very ahead of its time, and Ecology movements around Europe looked on with some envy.
Diplomatically, Ströbele hoped to create a new alliance of left-wing eco-socialist pacifist states in the chaos of Eastern Europe. The policy was nor entirely successful, but renewed German strategic goals beyond just ensuring its continued existence as a country concerned the European Union and caused France and the UK to take more of an interest in countries of the periphery of the European Project.
2004-2016: Edmund Stoiber (Conservative-Liberal)
2004: Claudia Benedikta Roth (Ecology) Petra Pau (KPD) Rolf Schlierer (DNVP)
2008: Claudia Benedikta Roth (Ecology) Rolf Schlierer (DNVP) Petra Pau (KPD)
2012: Kat Boettge (Ecology) Rolf Schlierer (DNVP) Katja Kipping (KPD)
Stoiber was part of the more conservative wing of the CLP, and pushed back against LGBT rights and immigration from outside of the EA - a move that was rather undercut by his party's insistance on joining the EU and therefore signing up to free movement of people. It was clear, to most people, that Stoiber was not personally in favour of EU membership, and he spent a great deal of time in office fighting against adopting the European Dollar and signing the Bill of Rights and social chapter of the EU Constitution.
Domestically, Stoiber pursued policies of privatisation, including railways, hospitals and the postal service. He supported cuts to social welfare and a lean, low tax regime. While sales tax went up in 2009 to meet the financial crisis, when the recovery came in 2013 a flat rate of income tax provided massive tax cuts for those who were better off in society. Ever a radical government, this was a step too far for most people.
2016-20xx: Kat Boettge (Ecology)
2016: Angela Merkel (Conservative-Liberal) Katja Kipping (KPD) Alice Weidel (German Independence Party)
Kat Boettge was in some ways the opposite of Stoiber - a pro-European leading up an anti-EU party. Therefore her first act as Chancellor was to appease the anti-EU wing of her party (who has very much been responsible for their election) by holding a referenda on leaving the EU and on EA membership. She was very surprised when both motions passed and Germany decided the leave Europe entirely. The past three years of her time in office has been taken up largely with negotiating Germany's new relationship with a Europe that is increasingly split between the UK-France-Italy-Netherlands alliance on one side and growing German influence on the other.
The Greens were elected with an ambitious manifesto of fairer taxation, public private funding initiatives, ecological protections and social reform. But none of these have happened so far due to their small minority and the problems of negotiating the German Exit.
Plans to legalise gay marriage fell by the wayside as the matter was seized upon by the German transphobic movement, which is among the strongest such movements in the world. The argument was made that gay marriage erases homosexuals and is therefore homophobic. Similar arguments have been made against a gender recognition act, and LGBT inclusive education. Environmental measures have fallen by the wayside as Germany has found itself diplomatically isolated. Worse still issues of antisemitism and holocaust denial are once again raising their heads, with hate crimes on the increase year on year.
In 2019 - with Germany still in the EU - both Ecology and the CLP are regularly being outpolled by both the Communists and the German Independence Party. Next year's election is coming and nobody knows what's coming next.