Post by spanishspy on Jul 31, 2017 22:16:21 GMT
Preface: This timeline was originally posted on alternatehistory.com on April 27th, 2014.
Germany in the early 21st century was a nation tinged with regret and with shame, unable to have the healthy sense of nationhood and of patriotism that any great nation deserved. The entire European continent, indeed, was bereft of healthy nationalism, having associating all nationalism with a decidedly unhealthy nationalism that caused the destruction of the Second World War. Germany, in particular, feeling the guilt of seventy million dead, eschewed most forms of militarism and nationalism, branding itself the Land der Dichter und Denker, or Land of Poets and Thinkers, emphasizing its artistic heritage that is deserving of the emphasis that it receives.
As the decades passed from the 2000s and into the 2010s, 2020s, and 2030s, this national character of shame and regret gradually withered away as those who remembered the Second World War, or those who had personal connections with that war, gradually died of old age. This new generation understood the Holocaust and other butchery of the 1930s and 1940s as several decades, nearing a century, away; they felt little personal connection. One Internet commentator is on the record as saying:
“Why must we feel shame for the actions of our ancestors? Did I kill Jews or other ‘undesirables?’ Did you? No. We have nothing to be ashamed about so long as Germany does not go on such a rampage under our leadership.”
But of course, like everything else in the world of the 2030s, the German national identity changed with the invasion of Earth by the Tolekii-yarem, the alien species that devastated large swaths of the planet with their superior weaponry, only countered by human ingenuity and leadership in 2032. Nation after nation fell to the Tolekiian forces, hoping to prevent their homeland from being annexed by an interstellar power with imperialist ambitions, with Earth as its new target.
The Tolekiian invasion of Europe had several landings within the borders of the German state, with major landings in the Ruhr, in Bavaria, and Thuringia, as well as orbital shellings of Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Cologne, Nuremberg, Munich, and the Ruhr industrial area. The Bundeswehr scrambled its forces to fight the alien menace. NATO would only be at best a trivial aid to this task, as the United States, still the key player in the alliance, was busy in the domestic arena, such as the sieges of Houston, St. Louis, and Denver. Britain and France likewise were having their own problems; the British armed forces were busy clearing the mountains of Scotland from Tolekiian forces, as well as fighting in the English countryside of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, while the French were defending Paris, breaking the siege of Calais, or countering the Blitzes of Provence and Corsica. Germany, therefore, had to fight the Tolekiians on their own terms or not at all.
After the string of early defeats throughout the country, Bundeswehr forces defeated a Tolekiian battalion of ‘scorpions’ (due to their shape; most Tolekiians were mechanized and controlled from ships in Earth orbit) in the Thuringian town of Teichdel, where a brigade of tanks and infantry outflanked the alien advance and send them retreating. From there, the force was able to work with other German forces in retaking the city of Weimar from a Tolekiian battalion. After the retaking of Weimar, the German force, dubbed the Liberators of Thuringia, came to wrest control of Erfurt. When they marched into the main square of Erfurt, Anger Square, they came in flying the banners of the Federal Republic of Germany on their tanks and armored vehicles.
The domestic reaction to this display of patriotism was one of initial shock followed by agreement based on understanding. The most radical anti-nationalists in the country were afraid of a National Socialist-led reconquest of the country, something of which the Liberators of Thuringia were the first incarnation. However, many commentators (those that still commentated; the majority of the population was living in the ruins of a city or the countryside or serving in the Bundeswehr) said that whatever there was to boost morale would be of the greatest use to the country in surviving the invasion.
In a speech to the press in a bunker in Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhardt Saller, flanked by the German state flag, made what is now considered a landmark speech in the German war against the Tolekiian invasion, the “national identity speech.” In it, Saller said that is was the optimal time to reestablish the German national identity as “one that is not merely regretting the past at every conceivable turn, but actively working towards making the future a better place than the present. If we can win this for humanity, we will have proven Germany worthy of taking a place among the great nations of the world, unburdened by the shame and guilt of a century ago.”
This speech rallied the German people to action. Local militias conducted raids on Tolekiian patrols, while the Bundeswehr began the nationwide liberation campaign to take back Germany in the name of humanity. Resounding victories at the battles of Heenes, Ochtnedung, Schmallenberg, Habichtswald, Bovenden, Rosdorf, and Selmsdorf increased the patriotic fervor even further, with an overwhelming sense of positivity and inclusiveness integral to it. Within the year, Germany would be clear of Tolekiians, and German soldiers would go on to fight in the Netherlands, where the image of German soldiers treading through the muck of flooded Polders while fighting Tolekiian invaders will be remembered for centuries, and in Denmark and Poland.
However, urgent news arrived from France in early 2034, when Paris had fallen to a Tolekiian force that was now massing in the French region of Alsace. The Bundeswehr, in conjunction with Dutch, Belgian, Luxembourgish, Danish, and Polish battalions, began to coalesce around Freiburg, where it was expected that the Tolekiians would invade the region to strike the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and from there head northward into the Ruhr valley. Here, the German soldiers were noted as singing the century-old, controversial tune, Die Wacht am Rhien, a song dating back to the Rhine Crisis of 1840 and basing itself on the Franco-German enmity prevalent during this time, now being used ironically to fight those who had destroyed the French capital. This was met with minor controversy, but Chancellor Saller endorsed its usage as a morale booster.
Such was indeed a morale booster; the war-weary forces were able to repel the advancing Tolekiians, preventing them from taking control of the Rhine and hence not entering Germany. The Battle of the Rhine is now a staple of the modern German national identity, which bases itself around the German service to the human war effort against invasion by the Tolekiians. Critics of such a conceptualization see it as too American in its thought processes, as even now the United States is among the most patriotic nations in the world. Rather, in the ideas of historian Anselma Schermer and moany others, the change in the German national identity reflects a broader trend in Europe; the British, French, Italian, and Spanish national identities, among others, now stress the service to the international war effort (in the second case, now being a common point of remembrance on Bastille Day) as a point of national pride.
In Schermer’s words:
“Germany is not a Fascist state hell-bent on invading Poland for imperialistic reasons. Rather, its patriotism is one of ‘unity in diversity’ of all humanity, and that the display of anything German, anything human, even, was a defiance of the Tolekiian dare to invade humanity’s homeworld. The various new forms of patriotism and nationalism are not like those of the nineteenth century that brand fellow humans as enemies; only the aliens are given that treatment. It is an inclusive patriotism that belittles no Earth nations and promotes friendly competition.”
ES BRAUST EIN RUF WIE DONNERHALL
BY SPANISHSPY
BY SPANISHSPY
Germany in the early 21st century was a nation tinged with regret and with shame, unable to have the healthy sense of nationhood and of patriotism that any great nation deserved. The entire European continent, indeed, was bereft of healthy nationalism, having associating all nationalism with a decidedly unhealthy nationalism that caused the destruction of the Second World War. Germany, in particular, feeling the guilt of seventy million dead, eschewed most forms of militarism and nationalism, branding itself the Land der Dichter und Denker, or Land of Poets and Thinkers, emphasizing its artistic heritage that is deserving of the emphasis that it receives.
As the decades passed from the 2000s and into the 2010s, 2020s, and 2030s, this national character of shame and regret gradually withered away as those who remembered the Second World War, or those who had personal connections with that war, gradually died of old age. This new generation understood the Holocaust and other butchery of the 1930s and 1940s as several decades, nearing a century, away; they felt little personal connection. One Internet commentator is on the record as saying:
“Why must we feel shame for the actions of our ancestors? Did I kill Jews or other ‘undesirables?’ Did you? No. We have nothing to be ashamed about so long as Germany does not go on such a rampage under our leadership.”
But of course, like everything else in the world of the 2030s, the German national identity changed with the invasion of Earth by the Tolekii-yarem, the alien species that devastated large swaths of the planet with their superior weaponry, only countered by human ingenuity and leadership in 2032. Nation after nation fell to the Tolekiian forces, hoping to prevent their homeland from being annexed by an interstellar power with imperialist ambitions, with Earth as its new target.
The Tolekiian invasion of Europe had several landings within the borders of the German state, with major landings in the Ruhr, in Bavaria, and Thuringia, as well as orbital shellings of Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Cologne, Nuremberg, Munich, and the Ruhr industrial area. The Bundeswehr scrambled its forces to fight the alien menace. NATO would only be at best a trivial aid to this task, as the United States, still the key player in the alliance, was busy in the domestic arena, such as the sieges of Houston, St. Louis, and Denver. Britain and France likewise were having their own problems; the British armed forces were busy clearing the mountains of Scotland from Tolekiian forces, as well as fighting in the English countryside of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, while the French were defending Paris, breaking the siege of Calais, or countering the Blitzes of Provence and Corsica. Germany, therefore, had to fight the Tolekiians on their own terms or not at all.
After the string of early defeats throughout the country, Bundeswehr forces defeated a Tolekiian battalion of ‘scorpions’ (due to their shape; most Tolekiians were mechanized and controlled from ships in Earth orbit) in the Thuringian town of Teichdel, where a brigade of tanks and infantry outflanked the alien advance and send them retreating. From there, the force was able to work with other German forces in retaking the city of Weimar from a Tolekiian battalion. After the retaking of Weimar, the German force, dubbed the Liberators of Thuringia, came to wrest control of Erfurt. When they marched into the main square of Erfurt, Anger Square, they came in flying the banners of the Federal Republic of Germany on their tanks and armored vehicles.
The domestic reaction to this display of patriotism was one of initial shock followed by agreement based on understanding. The most radical anti-nationalists in the country were afraid of a National Socialist-led reconquest of the country, something of which the Liberators of Thuringia were the first incarnation. However, many commentators (those that still commentated; the majority of the population was living in the ruins of a city or the countryside or serving in the Bundeswehr) said that whatever there was to boost morale would be of the greatest use to the country in surviving the invasion.
In a speech to the press in a bunker in Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhardt Saller, flanked by the German state flag, made what is now considered a landmark speech in the German war against the Tolekiian invasion, the “national identity speech.” In it, Saller said that is was the optimal time to reestablish the German national identity as “one that is not merely regretting the past at every conceivable turn, but actively working towards making the future a better place than the present. If we can win this for humanity, we will have proven Germany worthy of taking a place among the great nations of the world, unburdened by the shame and guilt of a century ago.”
This speech rallied the German people to action. Local militias conducted raids on Tolekiian patrols, while the Bundeswehr began the nationwide liberation campaign to take back Germany in the name of humanity. Resounding victories at the battles of Heenes, Ochtnedung, Schmallenberg, Habichtswald, Bovenden, Rosdorf, and Selmsdorf increased the patriotic fervor even further, with an overwhelming sense of positivity and inclusiveness integral to it. Within the year, Germany would be clear of Tolekiians, and German soldiers would go on to fight in the Netherlands, where the image of German soldiers treading through the muck of flooded Polders while fighting Tolekiian invaders will be remembered for centuries, and in Denmark and Poland.
However, urgent news arrived from France in early 2034, when Paris had fallen to a Tolekiian force that was now massing in the French region of Alsace. The Bundeswehr, in conjunction with Dutch, Belgian, Luxembourgish, Danish, and Polish battalions, began to coalesce around Freiburg, where it was expected that the Tolekiians would invade the region to strike the state of Baden-Wurttemberg and from there head northward into the Ruhr valley. Here, the German soldiers were noted as singing the century-old, controversial tune, Die Wacht am Rhien, a song dating back to the Rhine Crisis of 1840 and basing itself on the Franco-German enmity prevalent during this time, now being used ironically to fight those who had destroyed the French capital. This was met with minor controversy, but Chancellor Saller endorsed its usage as a morale booster.
Such was indeed a morale booster; the war-weary forces were able to repel the advancing Tolekiians, preventing them from taking control of the Rhine and hence not entering Germany. The Battle of the Rhine is now a staple of the modern German national identity, which bases itself around the German service to the human war effort against invasion by the Tolekiians. Critics of such a conceptualization see it as too American in its thought processes, as even now the United States is among the most patriotic nations in the world. Rather, in the ideas of historian Anselma Schermer and moany others, the change in the German national identity reflects a broader trend in Europe; the British, French, Italian, and Spanish national identities, among others, now stress the service to the international war effort (in the second case, now being a common point of remembrance on Bastille Day) as a point of national pride.
In Schermer’s words:
“Germany is not a Fascist state hell-bent on invading Poland for imperialistic reasons. Rather, its patriotism is one of ‘unity in diversity’ of all humanity, and that the display of anything German, anything human, even, was a defiance of the Tolekiian dare to invade humanity’s homeworld. The various new forms of patriotism and nationalism are not like those of the nineteenth century that brand fellow humans as enemies; only the aliens are given that treatment. It is an inclusive patriotism that belittles no Earth nations and promotes friendly competition.”