My version of the Axis Victory

(I saw some people do this early on, and now I've decided to take my shot at it. Hope you like it! Fair warning, some of this is fairly dark, but then again, you probably already know that.)




The UK: Crippled Empire

Despite Chamberlain’s best efforts, Hitler’s machinations saw the UK dragged into war. With the fall of France and the disaster at Dunkirk, the British realized they were in far deeper than they expected. Trapped on their islands, they called to America for aid. And America turned its back on them. The Kriegsmarine hunted every British ship in the ocean, and the Luftwaffe fought for control of the skies. The King and his Government could do nothing while Germans and Japanese tore apart the once proud British Empire. By 1942, Rommel successfully captured the Suez Canal, while Japanese forces marched through the Raj. Even under Churchill, every nation has its breaking point.

Buckling under the weight of severe rationing and supply shortages, the UK sued for peace. The Germans called it a “peace with honor.” It was a nicer way of saying that the British Empire was dead, proclaimed so with the swipe of a pen.

Today in 1961, even with many of its colonies intact, and even with its nuclear arsenal, the UK is no longer a world power. The effort to slaughter enough Indians to keep the Raj under control is using up all of its treaty-limited military. German diplomats charge into government meetings as if they own all of London. German propaganda plays on British radios and televisions, hardening hearts and softening minds. Life gets harder for Britain’s Jews, and many flee to Canada.  

Canada, meanwhile, sees itself as a bastion of freedom, constantly facing off with Hitler. British objections do nothing to stop the Canadians, and British apologies do nothing to appease the Germans. Even with the Allied Powers nominally following the UK, it seems they have a new leader. Why can’t they see that accommodation is the safest choice? Why won’t they choose peace?


The Soviets: Shattered Revolution

There will be no world revolution. There will be no socialism in one nation. In 1941, the fascist jackals charged into the Motherland. They underestimated the great Stalin’s will, and they underestimated the deadly power of winter. But inch by inch, mile by mile, the Soviet Union came under occupation. Stalingrad fell. Then the Caucasus. Finally, after a second attempt, the fascist armies took Moscow itself. Stalin was always a brave man, and he stayed in the city to the last. They say his body still hangs from the ruins of the Kremlin. Without Stalin’s iron fist to guide them, the Soviet Union imploded. The following years saw no grand counterattacks, no rallies, no recoveries. Just the death of millions. Even with no formal peace treaty, the Axis declared the war to be at its end in 1947.

The Soviet Union no longer exists as a nation. It has no government. Half its land is occupied or has declared independence. Its population has been decimated by war and genocide. But still soldiers and peasants fight on. Still they resist. And rightly so! The fascists must die! The revolution must prevail!


The United States: Behind Closed Doors

In 1933, an Italian immigrant named Giuseppe Zangara robbed America of its brightest hope when he shot and killed Franklin Roosevelt, blaming him for the plight of the common man. John Nance Garner took his place, but he was unprepared to face the wrath of the Great Depression. Even so, he still beat Landon in ‘36. No one wanted another Republican. And with America trapped in a world of misery without end, who cared about Hitler’s ranting? Who cared what the Japanese did so long as they kept buying oil? The British called for help, and the United States sent what it could, but that only got good sailors killed. Better to focus on what really mattered.

The war carried on, and neither Hitler nor Tojo so much as thought about the United States, trapped in its own troubles. Of course, no one is left alone forever… In 1946, Japan finally grew too hungry for its own good and invaded the Philippines. American and Filipino soldiers fell by the thousands, and everything seemed lost until America shocked the world by destroying the Japanese force with an atom bomb. They dropped another on Okinawa and yet another on Formosa. The giant had been awakened, but he had no interest in a prolonged fight.

By 1949, Hitler had his own bombs and talked about using them. But the United States would not go down easily. This wasn’t about liberty. Who cares about liberty? This was about survival. Even while building alliances and taking drastic measures to restart its economy, the United States poured enormous resources into building a nuclear arsenal. They spent even more putting those bombs on missiles and test flying those missiles into any body of water it could reach. Domestically, things are going better. Joseph McCarthy has recently taken the oath of office. Nazi spies are everywhere, but the FBI constantly roots them out. Luckily, new laws have passed which allows the government to put prisoners to work. Newspapers are no longer printing anti-American lies. The Canadians are fearful, and Hitler is wary. The citizens don’t complain. They do their work. They respect their leaders. They report on spies. They keep the blacks in their place. And they make sure their neighbors are as loyal as they are. After all, as Senator Kennedy said after the public execution of HL Mencken in 1955, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”


Free France: No Hope in Exile

Once the proudest nation in Europe, France found itself laid low by upstart Germans for the second time. The German’s puppet regime in Vichy claims the decadence of capitalist democracy had weakened the French nation. Maybe they are right. After fleeing into Africa, the Free French were constantly hunted, until they fled to the last remaining piece of French land: Guiana.

Even after so many years, Hitler has never bothered to finish the job. The French tricolor flies from every building, as if sheer numbers can give the flag meaning. People starve in the streets. Their only military equipment is what Britain can smuggle. And didn’t take long for the ambitious to seize control, making the nation free only in name. Officially, they are part of the Allied Powers. Unofficially, they are a joke, even in the crumbling corridors of London.


Italy: The Soft Underbelly

Hitler no longer hides the disgust he feels for his southern neighbor. With numerous tactical blunders during the war, Mussolini came out of the peace with Britain with far more land than he deserved. He made no significant contributions against either the Soviets or the French, yet he claims half of Africa?

Over the years, relations between the fascist leaders have soured. The Axis is no more, replaced by two competing fascist alliances. But Hitler wants nothing to do with Mussolini, who continues to shelter his nation’s Jews, even allowing them to move into Palestine. He refuses to follow Germany’s leadership. He deviates from proper fascism. He screeches about how his country is split in half by independent Croatia, as if he can do anything about it.

His nation struggles with constant Islamic terrorism as he pushes his influence into the Middle East. His nation’s industrial base is almost hilariously weak, good only for building civilian cars. His nuclear arsenal is new and small. His efforts to control his new colonies are bleeding Italy dry.

He will be a soft target when the Reich finally comes for him.


Hungary and Romania: Two Snakes in a Pod

In the years leading to the war, Romania saw great swathes of its land torn away by outside aggressors. One of those nations was Hungary, which met with Germany and Italy in Vienna and presented an ultimatum to relinquish northern Transylvania. These humiliations led to a coup by the Iron Guard and the military, who brought the nation into Hitler’s camp. But old hatreds still survive…

Today, the aging Antonescu and the younger Miklos Horthy Jr. both view war as an inevitability. The annexation of Soviet lands has done nothing to assuage the vengeful rage of the Romanians. Hitler’s attempts at mediating the situation have fallen apart over the past years, and now Romanian and Hungarian soldiers glare at each other across their contested border. Rumors abound of secret discussions between Horthy and Mussolini, but no evidence has arisen. Tensions are high, and newspapers warn that a single accidental gunshot could tear Hitler’s European Community apart.


Japan: Empire of Nothing

An empire goes to the strong, and the Japanese Empire has proven itself strong. But empire is only kept by the strong, and here the Japanese have problems. Japan’s victory over China and the western allies has proven to be a pyrrhic victory. Even after being forced to delegate power to corrupt and inefficient local warlords, Japan still struggles to control an Asian mainland seething with rebellion. Despite staggering bounties, Mao and Chiang are still at large, and both enjoy wide support among the Chinese people. The resources dragged from China and the other nations of the Co-Prosperity Sphere are simply reinvested in the costly occupation. Japanese troops can only occupy what they can see. The cities are under control, but the countryside might as well be independent. Scathing American newspapers call Japan an ‘Empire of Nothing.’

After the humiliation of being forced to accept white peace with the Americans, the Empire sought assistance from the Reich in building these new doomsday weapons. But Hitler denied them! Even as Japan aches to deliver the destruction the Fuhrer so richly deserves, the Empire must acknowledge the inferiority of its army’s technology. And they must acknowledge the fragility of the situation on the Asian mainland.

But Japan is the Rising Sun, and soon the Germans and Americans will soon know to fear the Empire.


Germany: Losing the Peace

Hitler’s stunning victories have made the German Reich proud and strong. Or so he wants the world to believe.

Media from Britain and america are polluting the minds of Germany’s new generation of Aryans. Censorship and oppression has done little to stop this, and domestic unrest is on the rise, with the massacres conducted by the Gestapo and the SS only serving to make things worse. Germany is under constant attack by terrorists, including Austrian nationalists, communists, Polish and Soviet resistance. Christianity is suppressed, but support for resistance remains high. Anti-war protestors, especially teenagers, take to the streets and are shipped to the camps in droves.

To the east, the Greater Reich Territories, under the rule of the SS, wait to be fully integrated into the Reich. But this can only happen when the communists and Slavs have been exterminated, and even now, resistance armies, Russian, Polish, or otherwise, still roam their former homelands, killing any German they find. The SS has burned tens of millions of Slavs, but tens of millions seem to remain. The Wehrmacht fights an endless war against these raiders as well as the remnants of the Soviet Union, and countless thousands of bodies are shipped home every year.

To the west, the actions of domestic and foreign subversives have revealed the Reich’s darkest secret: what really happened to those Jews who were "deported eastward." Germany is now a pariah state, loathed by the Italians, feared and hated by the British and Americans. Even Horthy seems quieter in his support for the Reich. This has only deepened the four-way nuclear standoff between the Americans, the Reich, the British, and the Italians.

And finally, just a year ago, these problems were exacerbated when Polish untermensch stole a nuclear weapon during transit and detonated it in Danzig, an action which very nearly resulted in a war with the United States. This was the worst crisis since Czech nationalists slammed a hijacked passenger airplane into the Volkshalle in 1959.

Hitler may have won the war, but his nation is losing the peace.

Cool scenario: I like how each major power's explanation is also sounding like it is form their own perspective showing what kind of government is in place.

It also shows that not every victory in a war leads to a complete domination in world affairs like a lot of other axis victory scenarios show.

Very interesting narrative of the political situation. I tend to think of alternate WW2 battle scenarios that might have made that map possible. If the Axis planned things out a bit more strategically, they might well have taken down the UK and the USSR one at a time and without involving the US. I hadn't really thought of a version like this where the Germans simply achieve victory on the ground without first settling with England.