Polish Coast, 1950
The small group huddled amongst the rocks, only fifty feet from the breaking waves. The night
air was cool, but thankfully not truly cold yet as it would soon turn come winter- that
would make the rowing easier. Andrezj carefully scanned the beach, but the coast seemed clear.
The war may have ended two years ago, but the young Polish resistance fighter
was still fighting against the Nazi occupiers. It was a hopeless battle,
Hitler's armies had conquered the whole of Europe and were now pacifying the occupied
Russian territories- there was no hope of freedom. But if not for himself, then maybe
for others. He and his fellow resistance members had changed tracks from removing the Nazis to
helping others escape them. Namely Jews, Roma, and other minorities who were being rounded up by
the millions and sent straight to their deaths in extermination camps across the continent.
Andrezj gave a low whistle. A moment later there was a return whistle- that was the signal all
was clear from the team that was watching for German patrols. He nodded reassuringly to the
four women and five children with him, as well as his two partners in arms. They only helped
children and women escape the Nazi's grip, it was the men's duty to stay and fight.
Following his cue, the group stood and began moving in a running crouch to the shoreline.
They crossed the distance quickly and began to dig at a sand dune. The dune was actually two
small boats that had been covered in burlap- to anyone who wasn't intimately familiar with
the area however it just looked like another of the beach's sand dunes.
Andrezj tossed the burlap aside, revealing the boats. But something wasn't right.
The moon was just a sliver in the sky making it hard to see,
so he used his hands instead. As he felt along the side of the boat his
hands moved across the strange shadows on the bottom of the boat- bullet holes.
Andrezj's cry of alarm was drowned out by the sharp sound of German whistles,
the type their patrol men and some police men use to alert each other. A dozen flash lights came to
life from the direction of where the resistance overwatch was supposed to be. It was a trap. He
could just barely see through the glare of the lights a figure he recognized as Filip.
Filip had been the one to give the all-clear signal, and he now had a gun to his head.
The Germans only took prisoners so they could torture them, and the civilians he
was escorting- well, they were dead either way. With a roar Andrezj unslung his submachine gun
and began to fire at the rushing flash lights. He screamed at the women and
children to get behind the boats, but then more flashlights lit up from behind them.
It was a well executed trap.
Bullets roared back at Andrezj and his group in an angry fury,
finding many members of his group. The muzzle flashes gave him something to aim at though,
and Andrezj turned his hatred on those unseen shooters, quickly expending one
magazine then another. He began to reload a third when he was shaken out of rage by
Dawid's voice. Fifteen years his senior, he'd fought in the short war to resist the Nazi and
Soviet invasion before joining the resistance. Andrezj held him in the highest of esteem.
“Andrezj, go! It's too late, swim! Go!” Dawid was vigorously gesturing at the lights of the
ship out in the open water. Andrezj was stunned- go? Leave them behind, what about the women and
children? But the figures where they had been huddling between the two boats all lay still.
“I can't, Dawid. I can't just go!”
“Go, you fool. We are all dead on this beach, go and live, find another way to fight!”
Andrezj's legs were lead. He felt like a coward. Dawid punched him hard in the arm,
practically pushing him towards the surf. “Go, you idiot!”
Andrezj went. He rushed to the breaking waves as Dawid unleashed a hail of gunfire to keep
the German's heads down. Before Andrezj dove beneath he waves though he heard the
distinct sound of Dawid's Blyskawica submachine gun go abruptly silent.
He felt the impact of bullets in the water around him, accompanied by a high
pitch shriek as they went from faster than the speed of sound to a standstill in just
a few feet. Andrezj dove until he hit the bottom, and then furiously pumped
his arms and legs as he fought the surf trying to push him back in to the beach.
In school he'd been an excellent swimmer, and motivated by the gunfire of two dozen furious
Germans he made it out to the surf line before surfacing for a desperate breath of air. As his
head broke the water he could hear the Germans still shooting, but they had no idea where he was
amongst the tossing waves. Filling his lungs, he dove under and started kicking out to sea again.
A few hundred feet off shore was an American destroyer accompanying a group of American
merchant vessels. Ostensibly, the US naval presence was to safeguard American shipping
to Europe in waters it called “potentially hazardous to neutral shipping”- despite the
war being officially over for two years. In reality it was a show of force by the US,
after the fall of Britain it was now the world's premier naval power and it wanted
Germany to remember that should it get any ideas about crossing the Atlantic.
Andrezj swam fast, and he could see search lights coming to life on the American destroyer. Crew
scanned the water and the shore both, alerted to trouble by the German shooting. In little time,
Andrezj was found and locked in the gaze of one of the big spotlights.
The other two spotlights on the ship were aimed directly at the shore- the American
sailors were blinding the Germans so they couldn't shoot in Andrezj's direction.
The United States had remained neutral during the war despite the pleas of Britain, France,
and Soviet Union. Agreements with the German Reich forbade it from loading
political refugees from Reich territory onto its ships- but rescuing sailors in distress was part
of international maritime law. Thus US ships routinely sailed near German-controlled coasts,
meeting small boats full of refugees and helping them onboard. The Reich
launched protest after protest, but the US considered these refugees to be sailors in
distress and deferred German diplomats to international maritime treaties.
A line with a flotation ring was thrown out at Andrejz,
and he clung to it gratefully. He was nearly at the point of fatal exhaustion,
and couldn't pull himself up the rope to the deck. Instead the sailors gestured and
did their best in broken Polish to encourage him to slip the ring over his head and under
his armpits. Working together, a team of sailors dragged Andrezj on board. He
was immediately greeted with a warm blanket, and a few minutes later a hot cup of coffee.
He was safe, on his way to America. But everybody else was dead.
Manchester, English Federally Administered Zone- Pacified Territories
Gerald impatiently waited his turn at the Reich's Cultural Affairs office. In the
last year the Nazis had set about to stabilize England and gotten on with the process of direct
administration. It felt strange to him, just a few years ago this was the kingdom of Great Britain,
the most powerful empire in the world with direct control over 25% of the world's economic activity.
Now it was just another piece of the Reich's territory- nominally
independent but in truth directly under the control of Berlin via proxy leaders.
Perhaps most surprising is how most of the population simply went along with it- the
Reichsmark had now almost fully replaced the pound as the Germans installed exchanges across
the isles. Sighing to himself, Gerald accepted that most people simply wanted to move on. Sure,
there were still groups of rebels out there in the hills and forests, but the truth was Britain
was beat through and through. The Americans had refused to come to their aid this time,
and even cut off their lend/lease program after German protests. Britain had stood alone,
cut off from its vital trade routes with overseas colonies by German u-boats who choked the island
nation off and starved it into submission. The RAF had fought bravely in the skies, but
with no American oil or supplies, the Luftwaffe eventually overwhelmed it. The entire countryside
still bore the scars of German bombers and the subsequent fighting that raged after the invasion.
Gerald's business had been one of the many destroyed in the fighting, and in exchange
for government grants to get himself back on his feet he was here at the Reich's Cultural Affairs
office along with dozens of his countrymen. It was illegal to operate or start a new business
within the Reich without a license from a local administrator, and the process inevitably involved
a trip to the Cultural Affairs office. Soon, he heard, it would be mandatory for every citizen-
but for now the Reich's bureaucracy was overstretched with reconstruction.
At last it was his turn to enter one of the five interview offices. The man seated behind
the desk was unmistakably German- not a British collaborator- but still greeted him with a polite
smile. Gerald wished he was looking at that smile from down the iron sights of his Lee-Enfield.
“Welcome, Mr...”, the bureaucrat looked over Gerald's file briefly,
“Gerald Adamson. I see you are here to complete your application for federal assistance.”
Gerald nodded. The bureaucrat's English was pretty good, with only the slightest hints of
a German accent. He wondered if he'd been trained for this job back home or if he had been one of
the thousands of spies and infiltrators who had sabotaged Britain from within during the war.
“Excellent. We are eager to see your business restored and once more profitable!” He didn't
doubt the German was being honest here, the Reich liked efficiency and productivity. For
all its evils, it was a very well organized institution and pretty good about bringing
order to the post-war chaos. “And I believe you brought your genealogy records, marriage license-”
“-my wife is dead. Killed in the bombings.”
The German blanched for a second. Maybe he was human after all.
“Ah ja, very unfortunate Mr. Adamson, you have my condolences. I am grateful that
unpleastaness is behind us now and we can turn to the task of rebuilding, together.”
'Rebuilding, together'- that was the Reich's favorite slogan,
plastered all over the occupied territories it held. Every week it seemed the Nazi's
propaganda ministry churned out dozens of new posters, films, and slogans but 'rebuilding,
together' was a classic that never really went away. The bureaucrat had clearly been trained
to use this phrase as often as possible, yet Gerald thought he detected a very real moment
of sympathy when he'd offered his condolences. He took the man in for a moment- he was young,
maybe young enough to have been in school during the fighting and recently graduated.
After the brief silence, the bureaucrat continued. “Your
current records will suffice, Mr. Adamson. A moment, please.”
The man went to work pouring over the assembled paperwork Gerald had presented him. It was
common business documents- tax records, insurance, statements- but also documents
personal to Gerald himself. Genealogy and family records, old wedding license,
birth certificate- the Reich called it 'proof of culture'. Everyone knew what it really meant,
just like everyone knew what happened to those individuals of 'unsuitable cultural
background'. Officially the Germans were only deporting these people, but Gerald had been
privy to intelligence reports during the war and he was pretty sure they hadn't shut down
their extermination camps. Unofficially he was pretty sure those camps were busier than ever.
He ought have been nervous, who knew what the German Reich would consider unacceptable to
their fanatical desire for pure bloodlines, but truthfully he felt very little anymore. He'd
faced death too many times on the battlefield only to end up surrendering to an enemy who
was evil incarnate. The same enemy represented by this boyish bureaucrat in a smart suit whom
had shown real regret at news of his wife's death. The more Gerald thought about it,
the more he was sure the kid really was young enough to have spent the war in school.
Shame, he thought to himself. Wasn't his fault, not really. But how many innocent
British kids had been caught up in the crossfire of a war they hadn't started?
“Mr. Adamson, all looks in order and I believe we can approve-” but the kid
never got a chance to finish his sentence as Gerald whipped his service revolver up and
right in his face. One trigger pull later and Gerald's application for federal aid was over.
Gerald sat down heavily on his chair as the offices around him erupted with
panicked screaming. He looked at the big clock on the wall in front of him,
wondering if the German's reputation for precision and timeliness had taken
hold even here, in the occupied ruins of Manchester. Exactly three seconds later,
as the clock ticked 2:35 precisely, the dynamite bundle in his attache' case exploded.
Votkinsk, Southern Ural Special Administrative Zone
“Absolutely not, there is no manpower!” Karsten Stengel,
Administrator of the Southern Ural Special Administrative Zone slammed his fist on
the table to punctuate his point. The sudden gesture surprised the normally
unflappable Schutzstaffel commander. Quickly recovering his composure,
Standartenführer Grossman narrowed his eyes at the man that was technically his civilian superior.
“Need I remind you that orders to expend all efforts possible in the advancement of the
Fuhrer's cultural advancement programs come from the Fuhrer directly?” The question was
more of a statement, or better yet a sharpened dagger held at Stengel's throat. But while the
good colonel may have gotten his way back in Berlin with such threats and bravado,
it wasn't worth a damn out here in the Reich's frontier. Facts were facts,
and the fact of the current matter is that there was simply not enough manpower.
“My dear Standartenführer, you're more than welcome to lend your men to assist in the
pacification efforts. I'm sure the Wehrmacht would appreciate the help of such... elite
soldiers.” The SS colonel's face went red with barely restrained rage. For
a moment Stengel thought he might unholster the pistol at his side.
For his part, Stengel struggled mightily to hide the tiny smile that stubbornly
crept into the corner of his mouth. Everyone in the Wehrmacht considered the SS mostly a joke,
pretty boys with fancy uniforms. It had been the army that had broken the French and the English,
and it had been the army who after crossing the channel and subduing England,
turned on the Soviet Union. While the fighting was at its fiercest,
the SS had busied itself murdering POWs and civilians who couldn't put up a fight.
The entire organization disgusted Stengel, and so did it's 'cultural advancement' programs.
Many in the army felt the same way. If Stengel gave orders for Wehrmacht soldiers to assist
the SS in rounding up communists, Jews, and god-knows-who-else they had a problem with,
he was pretty certain things wouldn't go the way Standartenführer Grossman hoped.
The southern Urals were far from the stable occupied territories of Europe,
and rife with partisans. The loss of an entire SS detachment wouldn't be entirely unlikely.
The Standartenführer stood, stiff as a board. “Very well, administrator Stengel,
I will inform Berlin of the delays- and your choice to not alleviate those delays.”
Stengel waved the SS man away and out of his office. Even if he could spare the
manpower- which with partisan activity rife throughout the Urals he couldn't-
he still wouldn't have done so. He knew where the SS's prisoners went,
and he wanted no part of it. Besides, other than putting him directly in one of the SS's camps,
there was little more Berlin could do to punish him than make him administrator
of a freezing territory in the former Soviet Union that practically swarmed with partisans.
Damned communists didn't know they had been beat. If only they'd reached Moscow
sooner during the war, lamented Stengel, they might have captured Stalin. Instead,
the bastard fled to the other side of the Urals and the Reich... well,
gave up wasn't the right term. 'Decided it wasn't economical to pursue into the worthless eastern
stretches of Russia' was more accurate. The Reich had all the important economic
and industrial centers as well as the rich oil fields of southern Russia- anything east
of the Urals was frankly not worth the money or manpower to take from the surviving Soviet Union.
With a sigh, Stengel turned back to reading the latest casualty
and material loss reports from the never-ending peacekeeping operations
against communist partisans. The issue of the SS camps nagged at his conscience
though. They'd grown in number out here in the east over the last few years,
and even more were being built to process the vast population of the occupied Russian territories.
He grabbed another stack of reports, this time from his urban development supervisor.
Chief amongst his many concerns was the issue of unpopulated homes,
which grew by the day. Entire population centers were becoming ghost towns. Wild
animals were spreading into the cities and bringing disease with them, an issue
for future German colonists. Not to mention they'd be moving into cities falling apart
around them from a lack of basic maintenance, a serious potential safety and health hazard.
His supervisor's recommendation was that vacated quarters simply be demolished,
future colonists would have to build from scratch. Berlin would be very unhappy about that.
Northwest Saudi Arabia Neutral Zone, 32,000 Feet
The roar of the B-36's engines was deafening, requiring the use of headsets for the crew to
communicate. Captain Johnathan Frawkes had to push his up against his ear to
hear his bombardier clearly. He'd already swapped his headset for a
backup but the issue persisted- must be an issue with the actual connector then.
He caught his co-pilot eyeing the horizon warily and he couldn't blame him. They'd both served in
the Pacific together during the war against Japan, and gotten into a habit of keeping
a sharp eye out for enemy fighters. Despite receiving an absolute wallop from the US Navy,
the Japanese still managed to put up a pretty stiff resistance of the home islands. Rather
than invade, America had opted to bomb and starve the Japanese into submission by destroying their
industrial centers and blockading all Japanese shipping. After four years, the Japanese were
starving to death and had little to no industry to speak of, prompting them to the negotiating
table. Their forces in Manchuria suffered little better- the Chinese nationalists had easily won
over the Communists after the collapse of the Soviet Union and a united nationalist
China backed up by the might of the US Army had pummeled Japanese forces cut off from resupply.
Perhaps if the US had split its forces between the Pacific and Europe Japan
might have stood a chance, but with a united American military in the Pacific even Japan's
Pearl Harbor surprise did little more than slow the US retaliation by a few months.
The big intercontinental bomber had been in flight for 16 hours already, taking off from a US base
in China and skirting the Indian border on its flight west since India was now administered by
the German Reich. It had no escort because no fighter aircraft had the range for it,
and if push came to shove the B-36 could climb to its maximum ceiling of 40,000 feet and avoid any
German fighter currently operational. Its mission was top secret, and there was a long, long list
of contingency plans to put into effect should the bomber crash and the crew and payload miraculously
survive. In fact, the Air Force probably preferred that nothing salvageable survive a crash.
His bombardier alerted him, they were now only a few minutes from their drop
point. Somewhere out ahead and below him in the desert were German positions- twenty
three thousand German troops threatening to cross into the neutral zone set up by
agreement between Germany and the US after the end of the war in Europe. Germany had driven a
spear deep into former British holdings in the middle east and then pushed deeper. Hitler's
ambitions threatened to place the entirety of the world's greatest stockpile of oil in German hands,
and the US had threatened war should it continue south and east. The truce had held,
but now German troops were gathering at the edge of the neutral zone. Hitler was either
testing the Americans or didn't believe they were serious about intervention.
The B-36 was here to prove otherwise.
Captain Frawkes began the climb to drop altitude. No doubt the Germans had been
warned- the US wanted them to have cameras ready and waiting for the show to come. America wanted
there to be no doubt amongst any of the Reich's leadership that a continued war in the Middle
East would end in disaster for them. With US troops so far from the region, it was difficult
to present a credible deterrent, but that's what Captain Frawkes' mission was all about.
The bomb bay doors opened with a shudder,
causing the whole plane to shake as its aerodynamic qualities were
compromised. In his headset he heard the bombardier calling for him to hold course.
Hold.
Deploy. Egress!
There was the audible 'thunk' of the payload being disengaged from the aircraft and Frawkes
didn't need his bombardier to tell him to begin egress. He'd seen film footage
of what came next and already had the plane in a steep banking turn. He'd
been assured there was plenty of time to egress, but he wasn't taking any chances.
The plane was already several miles from the drop point when it happened. A bright flash of light,
bright enough to compete with the sun, and moments later a supersonic shockwave that rattled
and shook the aircraft- but the B-36 powered through it unharmed. The eggheads had been right.
Frawkes had banked steeply left to put distance between himself and the bomb,
but flew roughly parallel so that the explosion could be filmed by three of
the gunners. With the bright flash dissipating, he ripped off the special eye protection they'd
all been assigned and took in the scene with the naked eye. The explosion was as
awe inspiring as it was terrifying. He'd heard that the US had these back towards
the end of the war with the Japanese, but never used them. Now he could see why,
besides with their island completely blockaded the Japs were no threat to anyone.
Nobody deserved these bombs raining down on their heads, but that's just what the US was
threatening to do if Hitler didn't respect Middle East neutrality. Surely the Germans
weren't too far behind in developing their own though. Watching the mushroom cloud growing
over the uninhabited desert just thirty miles in front of the German positions,
Frawkes wondered if he'd fired the opening shot of a brand new war.
Want to learn more about what would’ve happened if Hitler won World War Two?
Check out “What Actually Happened to Nazi Leaders After World War 2?”
or watch “Most Evil Monarchs in the History of Mankind” instead.