German-American Cold War Interest/Concept thread

[Barapam]

Maybe the Germans were more pragmatic in this timeline, so Barbarossa were more of an anti-Bolshevik crusade rather than a race war (but still with Lebensraum motives), so basically the European parts of the Soviet Union become parts of Nazi Germany, but while the elite is German, a lot of jobs are done by "Aryanized" Slavs? Non-Aryanized Slavs would pretty much be serfs. The SS would mirror the Oprichnina, from Ivan IV:s reign.

Also, I think Finland should conquer all of Karelia and Kola, but still be a democracy.

[Plzen]

I adapted my history from a different RP to suit this one's global history.

The roots of the Nordic Commonwealth can be found in the depths of the Second World War, and the British interference along the Norwegian coast. When the Second World War began, the four nations of northern Europe were relatively stable democracies just beginning to pull out of the Great Depression. Despite the effects of the Great Depression, the Swedish Social-democratic Labour Party emerged as the largest party in parliament in both the 1932 and 1936 elections, while Denmark and Norway saw similar results and Finland elected a centrist agrarian party into power. In all four countries, the spectre of fascism and communism that so haunted other European nations were still an arm's reach away - something that happened to other countries, but not at home.

As the Second World War was starting in earnest in 1939 with the German-Soviet joint invasion of Poland, then under guarantee from the United Kingdom, Norway came under increasing diplomatic pressures from the British government, including demands that the Norwegian merchant marine provide Britain with transportation at low freight rates, that Britain be permitted to mine Norwegian waters to prevent Soviet and German warships from crossing the North and Norwegian Seas, and that Norway join in the blockade of the Soviet Union. To enforce its demands - and to deny the partitioning powers access to Norwegian waters - the Royal Navy began activities in Norwegian waters, exercising conventional gunboat diplomacy. On the 19th of November, 1939, the Norwegian government rejected all British demands, beginning what is now known as the Crisis of the Sea. In response, Britain began laying mines in Norwegian waters, ignoring the Norwegian protest, and harassing the winter export of Swedish iron ore to Germany, which, due to the winter freezing of the Gulf of Bothnia, happened along the Norwegian coast. The Norwegian government protested these breaches of sovereignty twice on the 21st and 22nd of November, and on the 24th announced that Norway can and will protect its neutrality by force. Denmark, concerned about similar breaches of its own neutrality by Germany and Britain and about their right to trade, announced their solidarity with and support of Norwegian neutrality.

The crisis finally flared when a task group led by the Norwegian destroyer Æger confronted the British battleship Royal Oak. After a short radio exchange, the Norwegian vessel fired on Royal Oak. Neither ship was lost as Royal Oak, concerned about the prospects of war with both Denmark and Norway, left Norwegian waters. After some discussion with Norwegian authorities, the British government announced that it would respect Norwegian neutrality on the 1st of December, 1939, in exchange for some token concessions regarding trade. The incident had a result of dramatically souring Scandinavia's relations with Britain, while improving its cordial relations with Germany.

Crisis then flared on the east, with the Soviet Union making territorial demands on, and then on the 30th of November 1939 invading, the Republic of Finland. Although the Republic of Finland made requests to the international community for assistance against this unprovoked act of aggression, no real response came. The Swedish government expressed its "sympathies" for Finland, but refused to commit its armed forces. Nonetheless, almost fifteen thousand volunteers - some of them Swedish soldiers in reserve - went to the Karelian front of their own free will, while several right-leaning organisations organised aid of armaments and supplies to Finland, reinforcing the increasingly popular concept of pan-Nordic solidarity. It proved, however, ineffective in anything except public perception. After seven months of gruelling war, in which Stalin proved perfectly happy to pave a road into Finland with the corpses of Soviet soldiers, and after the brutal Second Battle of Viipuri in which the Soviet forces successfully captured the city, the Republic of Finland agreed to cede 11% of its territory in exchange for peace. Even more so than the Crisis of the Sea, this event shocked the Scandinavian states - it proved, if it needed any proving, that in this new, more dangerous world, neutrality extended as far as one could defend it. For small neutral states such as those in Scandinavia, that meant that their neutrality meant almost nothing at all to the great powers of Europe. Another result of this war was the reinforcement of pan-Nordic solidarity, with Swedish volunteers, although ineffective, becoming almost a symbol of Scandinavian partnership in Finland.

With the Soviet invasion of Germany bringing Germany into the allied camp, for necessity makes strange bedfellows indeed, Britain intended to invade and occupy Norway to deny the Soviet Union access to its coast and therefore means of disrupting Swedish-German trade on the 5th of September, 1941, but the plan was scrapped due to concerns of the Royal Navy's ability to protect transports over the North Sea. Nonetheless, leaked rumours about this plan prompted the Scandinavian nations to once more declare their solidarity. In the east Finland, upon seeing the Soviet Union once more embroiled in a war, joined in Germany's defence as a co-belligerent, starting their Continuation War to recover their lost territory from the aggressive Soviet Union. Plenty of Scandinavian volunteers joined the front. By and large, the Scandinavian governments were willing to ignore the copious transfer of men and material from their cities into Finland, despite the protests of the Soviet government.

With their neutrality increasingly under threat and, in Finland's case, violated, the Nordic states came to the realisation that not only could they not defend their neutrality alone, but also that their more powerful neighbours were both capable and interested in seizing Scandinavia for themselves. Talk of a common defence treaty first surfaced while Finland was still at war with the Soviet Union in late 1941, and popular support behind it, fuelled heavily by an increasing notion of Scandinavians as "brother peoples," slowly grew. Finally, the Norwegian government capitulated to popular demand and invited a delegation from Sweden and Denmark for negotiations. A delegation from Finland was also invited on the 10th of July, 1942, although this move drew considerable protest from the Soviet Union, which argued that Finland could no longer be "realistically considered a neutral state," being at war with the Soviet Union at the time. Nonetheless, a common defence pact was agreed upon on the 30th of September, 1942, after long and controversial talks that were so divisive in Nordic politics, although Finland conceded that Scandinavia was under no obligation to aid Finland in wars that began before that date.

The Soviet Union surrendered in August 1945, and Finland once more returned to peace having gained most of Kola and Karelia.

The post-war peace, the period after the Soviet Union's capitulation in 1945, was a booming time for Scandinavia - as it was for pretty much every nation that escaped the devastation of war relatively unharmed. With much of Europe devastated, the Scandinavian states were able to grow rapidly off its export revenue from industrial goods. With the industries of Germany and her allies partly destroyed and the rest firmly geared towards war, Scandinavia was able to export its surplus consumer goods and industrial capital, and with rapid economic growth came development and relative stability. Solidarity between the four nations of the Collective Security Pact was at that point a given fact of reality, and pressures to further their integration, this time to protect their prosperity and neutrality from the turning tides of the growing tensions between Germany and her allies and the rest of the allies, grew. The Treaty of Copenhagen, signed in 1946, laid the groundwork for this integration, improving the Nordic Collective Security Pact into the Nordic Commonwealth. Later in 1947, this Commonwealth organised a common foreign policy and played a vital role in the decision to form a currency union, slowly but surely becoming the representative of Nordic will and interest in the world stage as a whole. With the chill of the Cold War freezing Europe around them, the Commonwealth came under increasing diplomatic pressure from the United Kingdom to cut its significant and highly developed economic and military ties to Germany, which over the years cemented the status of the Commonwealth as a quasi-Axis power, despite its nominal neutrality. The social-democratic bloc won the Commonwealth's first common elections in 1947 with a 42% plurality, but this did not stop Scandinavia from continuing to provide diplomatic, military, and humanitarian aid to the Axis powers.

After the war, an atmosphere of mutual aid and national solidarity developed, and as a result social-democratic interests began dominating the internal politics of the Scandinavian nations, with the social-democratic bloc performing well in the 1955 elections, and then absolutely sweeping the 1960 elections. The economy was fundamentally restructured, with Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson's ambitions of a People's Home being carried on by his successors not only in Sweden but in the Commonwealth as a whole. Labour movements grew bolder and more tightly integrated, with even the notoriously indecisive SAC beginning to establish offices in the other Nordic states. The landmark 1959 agreement between the SAP government and a coalition of commercial interests that transferred almost three quarters of Swedish industry to collective worker ownership was rapidly followed up by similar agreements elsewhere, most notably the First Copenhagen Agreement (1959), the Second Copenhagen Agreement (1961), and the Norwegian Industrial Restructuring Act (1961). This left the Nordic economy a capitalist one only in name, with most real productive power falling to the newly established industrial communes or, in other cases, the state, at both the national and association levels. This sudden and massive restructuring of the economy caused a small recession, but due to the ravenous need for Nordic exports in the reconstruction of Central Europe, Scandinavia recovered quickly. Despite the recession, furthermore, economic restructuring dramatically raised the standards of living for most people in the Nordic lands. Workers collected dividends, not wages, and could actively advocate for themselves in the boardrooms - which were usually filled by similar interests anyways. Naturally, these policies were quite popular with the majority of the voting populace, and the labour parties continue to hold their iron grip over the Commonwealth's politics. Scandinavia played a very prominent role in the reconstruction of post-war Europe, and this combined with access to German industrial technologies and investment triggered another period of rapid economic growth following the small recession.

These policies, however, did have the result of causing some ideological friction between the Nordic Commonwealth and the German Reich. Although the Germans completely approved of the Scandinavians' developments towards a unified national community with a unified national identity and the increasing trends towards the nationalisation of Nordic industry, the continued liberal-socialistic internal and social policies of the Nordic Commonwealth disturbed the Germans, and so did the Scandinavians' continued insistence that the Jewish population of Scandinavia, although now stripped of much of their wealth, were integral citizens. Unlike other German allies whose capitals were within easy reach of German tanks however, Stockholm lay behind the Baltic Sea behind a largely self-sufficient and advanced armaments industry, and the Germans were not comfortable with the idea of enforcing national socialism by force. This sentiment was not helped by the Nordic nuclear program's success in detonating an atomic bomb in 1957 and subsequently a hydrogen bomb in 1961. Thus, Scandinavia remained a relatively autonomous part of Germany's new European order, sending diplomats to Berlin and providing support to the common European space program but remaining relatively disinterested in a military alliance or international integration.

Twenty years after the re-establishment of peace, the Scandinavian Commonwealth boasts one of the world's highest standards of development and relative security in the new European order. But time only will tell if this will last...

Act of Citizenship (1945)

The Act of Citizenship was a special law passed on 1945 October 19th by the Finnish parliament, regulating the official legal status of those people present in the territory ceded to Finland by the Soviet Union after the successful German defeat of the Soviet Union.

Background

The Nordic nations have often served as a host to refugees fleeing the chaos of war, greatly irking certain parties involved. Despite the demands of the war and the German occupation, the Swedish embassy in Warszawa remained open, and once Sweden adopted an open-arms policy in 1941, thousands of Poles and Jews were granted refugee status in Sweden through this embassy, through which they escaped persecution in Germany. The Germans made several diplomatic protests but, unwilling to spark a diplomatic incident with the increasingly integrated Nordic bloc, simply responded by restricting access to the embassy. Although the Nordic nations never interned its own Jews or Communists, during the Continuation War against the Soviet Union, Finland did come to an informal agreement with the German Reich that foreign Jews or Communists, such as those that escaped to Finland from German occupation, would be repatriated to Germany.

With the allied victory over the Soviet Union in 1945, however, this informal agreement was tested to the limit, with Finland absorbing a territory that included thousands of Jews, Russians, and Communists. Finland made preparations to slowly transition from a military occupation of this area towards integrating the area into Finland proper, but Germany insisted that Jews and Communists in the occupation zone could not be considered Finnish and demanded that they be handed over to the Reich's authorities.

After some weeks of internal and diplomatic tensions, the parliament of Finland passed the 1945 Act of Citizenship, in which Finland declared that it would hand over most refugees to German authorities, but insisted that those people resident in the occupied zone was to be considered Finnish residents. After some difficulties, Germany accepted this compromise.

Act

The 1945 Act of Citizenship applied to all those people who did not, as of the day of its passing, hold Finnish citizenship but did, on the same day, was present within those territories ceded by the Soviet Union to Finland on September 26th and held citizenship in the Soviet Union or another country occupied by the German Reich. This included somewhere between 1,400,000~1,500,000 people, although many left Finnish territory in favour of seeking refugee status in the New World before their status in the Collective Security Pact could be properly defined.

Within this population, the Act defined as an eligible Finnish citizen those people who could demonstrate proficiency in at least one Scandinavian, Finnic, or Sami language or could present proof of their residency within the ceded territory. These people were to be provided the choice between Finnish permanent residency with an option for citizenship in the future or, if they did not desire it, repatriation to either the German Reich or Russian Siberia.

All others were given until the 15th of April, 1946 to either seek alternate means of remaining in Finland, such as refugee status or labour-residency, or leave Finnish territory.

Criticism

The Communist Party of Finland made very clear their opposition to the Act in general, and to the exclusion of "persons active in politics," which often meant Communist Party members in the Soviet Union, from being granted refugee status.

Although the Community Party was sidelined in Finnish politics and discourse at the time, there were also considerable dissent regarding this Act from the main political parties. The Social-Democratic Party initially opposed the Act, stating that it was their moral duty to save people from political persecution of all kinds, but accepted the center-right argument that this was a necessary part of co-operation with Germany after being granted a few concessions regarding Russian and Sami residents of the ceded zone.

On the other hand, IKL criticised the Act for being too destructive to the concept of Finland as a nation-state. Finland's small population of three or four millions meant, they argued, that the acceptance of half a million Russians as permanent residents in Finland seriously threatened the national unity and identity of the small republic. Despite being provided diplomatic support from Germany, IKL's campaign against the Act sputtered, and it passed with a solid majority on October the 19th.

Results

The number of applicable people who voluntarily left Finnish territory to seek alternate homes before 15th April 1946 is unknown, although it is estimated at 100,000~200,000, mainly absorbed into Sweden.

By this date, 544,270 people sought permanent residency in Finland, 87,016 opted for repatriation to Russia, and 11,932 opted for repatriation to the German Reich. Although much of this population were residents of the ceded territory, a mix of Karelians, Russians, and Sami, a surprisingly significant number of Estonian refugees were found eligible for permanent residency, due to a class action suit in late 1945, where a Court of Appeal found, under advice from linguists, Estonian to be a Finnic language and thus speakers of Estonian to be eligible citizens.

Of those not considered eligible citizens, 74,105 were provided refugee status, which provides the same rights as permanent residency under Scandinavian treaty law, in Finland. This group primarily included Soviet refugees from the Baltic nations and radical socialists that sought refuge in the Soviet Union from Germany or Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Although many ethnic Russians and Jews applied for refugee status in Finland or in the other Scandinavian nations, due to intense German diplomatic pressure only a few were granted. Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were also categorically denied refugee status.

615,259 people who were still residing in the ceded territory without a legal status in Finland or a Scandinavian nation as of 15th April 1946 were forcibly repatriated into Russia. These primarily included refugees from central and western Russia who sought to escape German persecution by fleeing to the Finnish occupation zone during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their exact fate in German-controlled Russia is unknown, but it is generally agreed upon that they were likely interned.

[Hypnoss]

I made a quick mock up of what I think this scenario might look like.

https://i.imgur.com/GLvJHAg.png

[Aunsend]

Neat concept. Bookmarked.

[ThePhantomThieves]

I made a quick mock up of what I think this scenario might look like.

https://i.imgur.com/GLvJHAg.png

Newfoundland will be apart of Canada.

[Prussian Polish Commonwealth]

So...can I into underground German monarchist group?

[Zarzadon]

With some more interest that seems to have been generated in recent days I will most likely create the proper OOC soon I have just been busy.

So...can I into underground German monarchist group?

Yes. I don't see too much problem with it.

[UniversalCommons]

You do realize a lot of the cold war is about Mittelwerk where the Soviets and the United States captured the A-4 german rocket and then had an increasingly competitive race to perfect rocket technology leading to ICBMs. You might have a future where Americans drop multiple nuclear warheads using B-52s and the Germans strike New York with chemical rockets. It would most likely end in a one sided nuclear war where the Germans would end up having to capitulate.

You could make it more interesting by Admiral Yamamoto not being where they expected him leading to a stalemate in the Pacific, Japan would own most of the Pacific, large parts of China and portions of Russia creating a kind of cold war between Imperial Japan, The Third Reich, and the United States. You would have a situation where Yamamoto becomes a kind of unofficial shogun controlling the imperial family.

[Zarzadon]

You do realize a lot of the cold war is about Mittelwerk where the Soviets and the United States captured the A-4 german rocket and then had an increasingly competitive race to perfect rocket technology leading to ICBMs. You might have a future where Americans drop multiple nuclear warheads using B-52s and the Germans strike New York with chemical rockets. It would most likely end in a one sided nuclear war where the Germans would end up having to capitulate.

You could make it more interesting by Admiral Yamamoto not being where they expected him leading to a stalemate in the Pacific, Japan would own most of the Pacific, large parts of China and portions of Russia creating a kind of cold war between Imperial Japan, The Third Reich, and the United States. You would have a situation where Yamamoto becomes a kind of unofficial shogun controlling the imperial family.

While I do understand your concern, Nuclear war is pretty much off the table in the vast majority circumstances because nobody would gain anything from it. Everyone would be dead. Perhaps while they where allies they shared the rocket technologies believing they could use it on the Soviets?

While your Japan scenario is interesting, I really have no idea what to do for Asia. I was pretty much going to leave it up to whoever wanted to be Japan

[Zarzadon]

I adapted my history from a different RP to suit this one's global history.

The roots of the Nordic Commonwealth can be found in the depths of the Second World War, and the British interference along the Norwegian coast. When the Second World War began, the four nations of northern Europe were relatively stable democracies just beginning to pull out of the Great Depression. Despite the effects of the Great Depression, the Swedish Social-democratic Labour Party emerged as the largest party in parliament in both the 1932 and 1936 elections, while Denmark and Norway saw similar results and Finland elected a centrist agrarian party into power. In all four countries, the spectre of fascism and communism that so haunted other European nations were still an arm's reach away - something that happened to other countries, but not at home.

As the Second World War was starting in earnest in 1939 with the German-Soviet joint invasion of Poland, then under guarantee from the United Kingdom, Norway came under increasing diplomatic pressures from the British government, including demands that the Norwegian merchant marine provide Britain with transportation at low freight rates, that Britain be permitted to mine Norwegian waters to prevent Soviet and German warships from crossing the North and Norwegian Seas, and that Norway join in the blockade of the Soviet Union. To enforce its demands - and to deny the partitioning powers access to Norwegian waters - the Royal Navy began activities in Norwegian waters, exercising conventional gunboat diplomacy. On the 19th of November, 1939, the Norwegian government rejected all British demands, beginning what is now known as the Crisis of the Sea. In response, Britain began laying mines in Norwegian waters, ignoring the Norwegian protest, and harassing the winter export of Swedish iron ore to Germany, which, due to the winter freezing of the Gulf of Bothnia, happened along the Norwegian coast. The Norwegian government protested these breaches of sovereignty twice on the 21st and 22nd of November, and on the 24th announced that Norway can and will protect its neutrality by force. Denmark, concerned about similar breaches of its own neutrality by Germany and Britain and about their right to trade, announced their solidarity with and support of Norwegian neutrality.

The crisis finally flared when a task group led by the Norwegian destroyer Æger confronted the British battleship Royal Oak. After a short radio exchange, the Norwegian vessel fired on Royal Oak. Neither ship was lost as Royal Oak, concerned about the prospects of war with both Denmark and Norway, left Norwegian waters. After some discussion with Norwegian authorities, the British government announced that it would respect Norwegian neutrality on the 1st of December, 1939, in exchange for some token concessions regarding trade. The incident had a result of dramatically souring Scandinavia's relations with Britain, while improving its cordial relations with Germany.

Crisis then flared on the east, with the Soviet Union making territorial demands on, and then on the 30th of November 1939 invading, the Republic of Finland. Although the Republic of Finland made requests to the international community for assistance against this unprovoked act of aggression, no real response came. The Swedish government expressed its "sympathies" for Finland, but refused to commit its armed forces. Nonetheless, almost fifteen thousand volunteers - some of them Swedish soldiers in reserve - went to the Karelian front of their own free will, while several right-leaning organisations organised aid of armaments and supplies to Finland, reinforcing the increasingly popular concept of pan-Nordic solidarity. It proved, however, ineffective in anything except public perception. After seven months of gruelling war, in which Stalin proved perfectly happy to pave a road into Finland with the corpses of Soviet soldiers, and after the brutal Second Battle of Viipuri in which the Soviet forces successfully captured the city, the Republic of Finland agreed to cede 11% of its territory in exchange for peace. Even more so than the Crisis of the Sea, this event shocked the Scandinavian states - it proved, if it needed any proving, that in this new, more dangerous world, neutrality extended as far as one could defend it. For small neutral states such as those in Scandinavia, that meant that their neutrality meant almost nothing at all to the great powers of Europe. Another result of this war was the reinforcement of pan-Nordic solidarity, with Swedish volunteers, although ineffective, becoming almost a symbol of Scandinavian partnership in Finland.

With the Soviet invasion of Germany bringing Germany into the allied camp, for necessity makes strange bedfellows indeed, Britain intended to invade and occupy Norway to deny the Soviet Union access to its coast and therefore means of disrupting Swedish-German trade on the 5th of September, 1941, but the plan was scrapped due to concerns of the Royal Navy's ability to protect transports over the North Sea. Nonetheless, leaked rumours about this plan prompted the Scandinavian nations to once more declare their solidarity. In the east Finland, upon seeing the Soviet Union once more embroiled in a war, joined in Germany's defence as a co-belligerent, starting their Continuation War to recover their lost territory from the aggressive Soviet Union. Plenty of Scandinavian volunteers joined the front. By and large, the Scandinavian governments were willing to ignore the copious transfer of men and material from their cities into Finland, despite the protests of the Soviet government.

With their neutrality increasingly under threat and, in Finland's case, violated, the Nordic states came to the realisation that not only could they not defend their neutrality alone, but also that their more powerful neighbours were both capable and interested in seizing Scandinavia for themselves. Talk of a common defence treaty first surfaced while Finland was still at war with the Soviet Union in late 1941, and popular support behind it, fuelled heavily by an increasing notion of Scandinavians as "brother peoples," slowly grew. Finally, the Norwegian government capitulated to popular demand and invited a delegation from Sweden and Denmark for negotiations. A delegation from Finland was also invited on the 10th of July, 1942, although this move drew considerable protest from the Soviet Union, which argued that Finland could no longer be "realistically considered a neutral state," being at war with the Soviet Union at the time. Nonetheless, a common defence pact was agreed upon on the 30th of September, 1942, after long and controversial talks that were so divisive in Nordic politics, although Finland conceded that Scandinavia was under no obligation to aid Finland in wars that began before that date.

The Soviet Union surrendered in August 1945, and Finland once more returned to peace having gained most of Kola and Karelia.

The post-war peace, the period after the Soviet Union's capitulation in 1945, was a booming time for Scandinavia - as it was for pretty much every nation that escaped the devastation of war relatively unharmed. With much of Europe devastated, the Scandinavian states were able to grow rapidly off its export revenue from industrial goods. With the industries of Germany and her allies partly destroyed and the rest firmly geared towards war, Scandinavia was able to export its surplus consumer goods and industrial capital, and with rapid economic growth came development and relative stability. Solidarity between the four nations of the Collective Security Pact was at that point a given fact of reality, and pressures to further their integration, this time to protect their prosperity and neutrality from the turning tides of the growing tensions between Germany and her allies and the rest of the allies, grew. The Treaty of Copenhagen, signed in 1946, laid the groundwork for this integration, improving the Nordic Collective Security Pact into the Nordic Commonwealth. Later in 1947, this Commonwealth organised a common foreign policy and played a vital role in the decision to form a currency union, slowly but surely becoming the representative of Nordic will and interest in the world stage as a whole. With the chill of the Cold War freezing Europe around them, the Commonwealth came under increasing diplomatic pressure from the United Kingdom to cut its significant and highly developed economic and military ties to Germany, which over the years cemented the status of the Commonwealth as a quasi-Axis power, despite its nominal neutrality. The social-democratic bloc won the Commonwealth's first common elections in 1947 with a 42% plurality, but this did not stop Scandinavia from continuing to provide diplomatic, military, and humanitarian aid to the Axis powers.

After the war, an atmosphere of mutual aid and national solidarity developed, and as a result social-democratic interests began dominating the internal politics of the Scandinavian nations, with the social-democratic bloc performing well in the 1955 elections, and then absolutely sweeping the 1960 elections. The economy was fundamentally restructured, with Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson's ambitions of a People's Home being carried on by his successors not only in Sweden but in the Commonwealth as a whole. Labour movements grew bolder and more tightly integrated, with even the notoriously indecisive SAC beginning to establish offices in the other Nordic states. The landmark 1959 agreement between the SAP government and a coalition of commercial interests that transferred almost three quarters of Swedish industry to collective worker ownership was rapidly followed up by similar agreements elsewhere, most notably the First Copenhagen Agreement (1959), the Second Copenhagen Agreement (1961), and the Norwegian Industrial Restructuring Act (1961). This left the Nordic economy a capitalist one only in name, with most real productive power falling to the newly established industrial communes or, in other cases, the state, at both the national and association levels. This sudden and massive restructuring of the economy caused a small recession, but due to the ravenous need for Nordic exports in the reconstruction of Central Europe, Scandinavia recovered quickly. Despite the recession, furthermore, economic restructuring dramatically raised the standards of living for most people in the Nordic lands. Workers collected dividends, not wages, and could actively advocate for themselves in the boardrooms - which were usually filled by similar interests anyways. Naturally, these policies were quite popular with the majority of the voting populace, and the labour parties continue to hold their iron grip over the Commonwealth's politics. Scandinavia played a very prominent role in the reconstruction of post-war Europe, and this combined with access to German industrial technologies and investment triggered another period of rapid economic growth following the small recession.

These policies, however, did have the result of causing some ideological friction between the Nordic Commonwealth and the German Reich. Although the Germans completely approved of the Scandinavians' developments towards a unified national community with a unified national identity and the increasing trends towards the nationalisation of Nordic industry, the continued liberal-socialistic internal and social policies of the Nordic Commonwealth disturbed the Germans, and so did the Scandinavians' continued insistence that the Jewish population of Scandinavia, although now stripped of much of their wealth, were integral citizens. Unlike other German allies whose capitals were within easy reach of German tanks however, Stockholm lay behind the Baltic Sea behind a largely self-sufficient and advanced armaments industry, and the Germans were not comfortable with the idea of enforcing national socialism by force. This sentiment was not helped by the Nordic nuclear program's success in detonating an atomic bomb in 1957 and subsequently a hydrogen bomb in 1961. Thus, Scandinavia remained a relatively autonomous part of Germany's new European order, sending diplomats to Berlin and providing support to the common European space program but remaining relatively disinterested in a military alliance or international integration.

Twenty years after the re-establishment of peace, the Scandinavian Commonwealth boasts one of the world's highest standards of development and relative security in the new European order. But time only will tell if this will last...

Act of Citizenship (1945)

The Act of Citizenship was a special law passed on 1945 October 19th by the Finnish parliament, regulating the official legal status of those people present in the territory ceded to Finland by the Soviet Union after the successful German defeat of the Soviet Union.

Background

The Nordic nations have often served as a host to refugees fleeing the chaos of war, greatly irking certain parties involved. Despite the demands of the war and the German occupation, the Swedish embassy in Warszawa remained open, and once Sweden adopted an open-arms policy in 1941, thousands of Poles and Jews were granted refugee status in Sweden through this embassy, through which they escaped persecution in Germany. The Germans made several diplomatic protests but, unwilling to spark a diplomatic incident with the increasingly integrated Nordic bloc, simply responded by restricting access to the embassy. Although the Nordic nations never interned its own Jews or Communists, during the Continuation War against the Soviet Union, Finland did come to an informal agreement with the German Reich that foreign Jews or Communists, such as those that escaped to Finland from German occupation, would be repatriated to Germany.

With the allied victory over the Soviet Union in 1945, however, this informal agreement was tested to the limit, with Finland absorbing a territory that included thousands of Jews, Russians, and Communists. Finland made preparations to slowly transition from a military occupation of this area towards integrating the area into Finland proper, but Germany insisted that Jews and Communists in the occupation zone could not be considered Finnish and demanded that they be handed over to the Reich's authorities.

After some weeks of internal and diplomatic tensions, the parliament of Finland passed the 1945 Act of Citizenship, in which Finland declared that it would hand over most refugees to German authorities, but insisted that those people resident in the occupied zone was to be considered Finnish residents. After some difficulties, Germany accepted this compromise.

Act

The 1945 Act of Citizenship applied to all those people who did not, as of the day of its passing, hold Finnish citizenship but did, on the same day, was present within those territories ceded by the Soviet Union to Finland on September 26th and held citizenship in the Soviet Union or another country occupied by the German Reich. This included somewhere between 1,400,000~1,500,000 people, although many left Finnish territory in favour of seeking refugee status in the New World before their status in the Collective Security Pact could be properly defined.

Within this population, the Act defined as an eligible Finnish citizen those people who could demonstrate proficiency in at least one Scandinavian, Finnic, or Sami language or could present proof of their residency within the ceded territory. These people were to be provided the choice between Finnish permanent residency with an option for citizenship in the future or, if they did not desire it, repatriation to either the German Reich or Russian Siberia.

All others were given until the 15th of April, 1946 to either seek alternate means of remaining in Finland, such as refugee status or labour-residency, or leave Finnish territory.

Criticism

The Communist Party of Finland made very clear their opposition to the Act in general, and to the exclusion of "persons active in politics," which often meant Communist Party members in the Soviet Union, from being granted refugee status.

Although the Community Party was sidelined in Finnish politics and discourse at the time, there were also considerable dissent regarding this Act from the main political parties. The Social-Democratic Party initially opposed the Act, stating that it was their moral duty to save people from political persecution of all kinds, but accepted the center-right argument that this was a necessary part of co-operation with Germany after being granted a few concessions regarding Russian and Sami residents of the ceded zone.

On the other hand, IKL criticised the Act for being too destructive to the concept of Finland as a nation-state. Finland's small population of three or four millions meant, they argued, that the acceptance of half a million Russians as permanent residents in Finland seriously threatened the national unity and identity of the small republic. Despite being provided diplomatic support from Germany, IKL's campaign against the Act sputtered, and it passed with a solid majority on October the 19th.

Results

The number of applicable people who voluntarily left Finnish territory to seek alternate homes before 15th April 1946 is unknown, although it is estimated at 100,000~200,000, mainly absorbed into Sweden.

By this date, 544,270 people sought permanent residency in Finland, 87,016 opted for repatriation to Russia, and 11,932 opted for repatriation to the German Reich. Although much of this population were residents of the ceded territory, a mix of Karelians, Russians, and Sami, a surprisingly significant number of Estonian refugees were found eligible for permanent residency, due to a class action suit in late 1945, where a Court of Appeal found, under advice from linguists, Estonian to be a Finnic language and thus speakers of Estonian to be eligible citizens.

Of those not considered eligible citizens, 74,105 were provided refugee status, which provides the same rights as permanent residency under Scandinavian treaty law, in Finland. This group primarily included Soviet refugees from the Baltic nations and radical socialists that sought refuge in the Soviet Union from Germany or Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Although many ethnic Russians and Jews applied for refugee status in Finland or in the other Scandinavian nations, due to intense German diplomatic pressure only a few were granted. Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were also categorically denied refugee status.

615,259 people who were still residing in the ceded territory without a legal status in Finland or a Scandinavian nation as of 15th April 1946 were forcibly repatriated into Russia. These primarily included refugees from central and western Russia who sought to escape German persecution by fleeing to the Finnish occupation zone during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Their exact fate in German-controlled Russia is unknown, but it is generally agreed upon that they were likely interned.

This is really good, don't get me wrong. But Stalin is dead, Trotsky is in power at that time. You can just change the name, not that big a deal.
And while the 50s 60s lore is interesting I think I will have the thread start on January 1, 1950.

[UniversalCommons]

Why you might include the Japanese part is that comparatively the United States lost far fewer people than Russia. Japan prevented the United States from entering the European theater earlier. If Yamamoto had not died it could have been a very different war and could have ended up with a stalemate in the pacific and a much smaller D-day invasion at a later date which could have had different results. It would have also pinned down Australia from entering the war on the mainland. This would change the outcome of the war in the Middle East and Africa. Rommel probably would have fallen and Italy as well.

If you wanted to make it really interesting. You have Franco die and the republicans takeover Spain creating an odd counterbalance to Russia. The United States successfully prosecutes the war in the Middle East and Africa, taking over Italy, but cannot penetrate into Europe.

For some reason, the Ottomans do not enter into World War II and the Ottoman Empire still stands.

There is a lot which can happen.

[Zarzadon]

Why you might include the Japanese part is that comparatively the United States lost far fewer people than Russia. Japan prevented the United States from entering the European theater earlier. If Yamamoto had not died it could have been a very different war and could have ended up with a stalemate in the pacific and a much smaller D-day invasion at a later date which could have had different results. It would have also pinned down Australia from entering the war on the mainland. This would change the outcome of the war in the Middle East and Africa. Rommel probably would have fallen and Italy as well.

If you wanted to make it really interesting. You have Franco die and the republicans takeover Spain creating an odd counterbalance to Russia. The United States successfully prosecutes the war in the Middle East and Africa, taking over Italy, but cannot penetrate into Europe.

For some reason, the Ottomans do not enter into World War II and the Ottoman Empire still stands.

There is a lot which can happen.

While this is a good scenario, the idea we 're going with is the Axis and the Allies reluctantly work together to defeat a more expansionist Soviet Union. I might be reading this wrong but I'm not sure if you saw that, no offense.

[UniversalCommons]

Why you might include the Japanese part is that comparatively the United States lost far fewer people than Russia. Japan prevented the United States from entering the European theater earlier. If Yamamoto had not died it could have been a very different war and could have ended up with a stalemate in the pacific and a much smaller D-day invasion at a later date which could have had different results. It would have also pinned down Australia from entering the war on the mainland. This would change the outcome of the war in the Middle East and Africa. Rommel probably would have fallen and Italy as well.

If you wanted to make it really interesting. You have Franco die and the republicans takeover Spain creating an odd counterbalance to Russia. The United States successfully prosecutes the war in the Middle East and Africa, taking over Italy, but cannot penetrate into Europe.

For some reason, the Ottomans do not enter into World War II and the Ottoman Empire still stands.

There is a lot which can happen.

While this is a good scenario, the idea we 're going with is the Axis and the Allies reluctantly work together to defeat a more expansionist Soviet Union. I might be reading this wrong but I'm not sure if you saw that, no offense.

The other option is for Asia to be a neutral power focused on selling goods to both sides.

[Zarzadon]

While this is a good scenario, the idea we 're going with is the Axis and the Allies reluctantly work together to defeat a more expansionist Soviet Union. I might be reading this wrong but I'm not sure if you saw that, no offense.

The other option is for Asia to be a neutral power focused on selling goods to both sides.

That's the idea I kinda had in mind. A Japanese-German split. This makes it so the Axis doesn't own too much but the allies don't either.