The Kingdom of Prussia (German: Königreich Preußen) is the chief remnant and successor state of the German Empire. It was reestablished as an independent kingdom following the wartime collapse of the goverment authority alongside the subsequent Russian and Polish occupations.
The conditions that allowed its existence were tenuous, though the German government gambled on the fact that the Russians would prefer a swift end to hostilities. While their forces were still battling across the East, envoys of the Kaiser met with representatives of the Vohzd. In exchange for many compromises, an Independent state was ensured. In 1950 it remains, though it reigns dually with the Military Government in the Occupied Territory of Germany.
Formation[]
As 1945 dawned it became clear within Heer command that the war was lost. Forces were desperately diverted East and west, to and fro, to buy time. It was within this context that the general staff prepared plans for continuation of government. These plans would be presented to Wilhelm, and each was rejected. The exception to this was a contingency regarding flight to Tanzania. However, that plan soon became untenable. With more and more of the colonial garrison being drawn home to defend the Fatherland, Oberbefehlshaber Mittelafrika was unable to prevent the colony’s borders from slowly receding.
Later that year, more forces of the Ostheer found themselves pulled west to reinforce the collapsing front. French “inferno columns” had fully broken the beleaguered defenders. They were undersupplied, surrounded, and terrified by the FRAs rapid march across the Rhine. The new units were told to assemble at the new Elbe defensive line. The new line came under attack by French advance units before it was even properly reinforced.
On the 5th of September 1945 Erwin Rommel was promoted Field Marshal rapidly and assigned to the defense of Brandenburg itself. It was on his advice that what remained of the Westheer be reorganized into the “Panzerarmee Rommel”. This maneuver would buy time for the government and the caravans of refugees evacuate themselves to the few unoccupied territories.
This plan would require an even larger mass of soldiers be diverted from the East. The Ostheer that remained would be weakened by such departures to the point of no return. In addition, Russian high command was now desperate to seize portions of the Reich proper before the Franco-British alliance could. The Kaiser’s resistance had begun to soften, though he still maintained delusions of possible victory.
November brought yet another disaster. The Austrian K.u.K army was obliterated by a Franco-Italian offensive across the Solvene mountains, as well as a Russo-Hungarian invasion force from the east. Without the aid of the K.u.K “Army Group Southwest” was entirely trapped and surrounded.
The 8th of December saw the first shots of the legendary “Battle of Berlin”. Admiral Karl Von Doenitz was made new interim head of the navy. Naval operations had been underway for the last two years, in which Marine regiments themselves occupied northern costal lands to slow the advance. Doenitz would be promoted following the murder of his predecessor Erich Reader in the Kiel Canal, part of a raid by the so called “Free Germans” of the KPD.
Doenitz was enraged at his promotion. Like many in the high command, he had had enough of the delusional dictates of the aging Kaiser. In an incredible act, he opted to directly challenge the old man. It was a coup in all but name.
The “National Defense Junta” swiftly decapitated the feeble civilian government in Konigsberg, the provisional Capital. Naval Commander Doenitz presented Wilhelm with two options: oblivion under Red occupation, or negotiation with the Russians.
Discussions with the Kaiser reached a stalemate until January, when the battle of Memel occurred. The Lithuanian and Baltic reserve armies disintegrated. Russian soldiers had now breached East Prussia proper. Admiral Doenitz and his cabal were instantly validated. Wilhelm was forced to relent.
Moscow received a memo the next day stamped with the Kaiserreich emblem. It was the now infamous “Secret Dossier”. Russian Troops advanced through Southern Prussia virtually unopposed as negotiations continued, arriving on the outskirts of Berlin. Yet they were too late, as the French had already captured the city.
As was expected the Vohzd bundled extensive demands with the idea armistice and alliance. The Reich itself would be disbanded, a move deemed unwise considering it would anger the German people and delegitimize the new regime. Yet the Russian political situation demanded it, and so it was. Another demand was that of a post-war co-occupation of East Prussia. This was imposed due to Moscow fearing resentment from their Polish allies were the Prussian government to be entirely autonomous. The occupation was met with even more furious protest. In a few incidents these protests turned into outright violence. The hateful soldiers involved found themselves facing their own firing squads.
With cooperation finalized and demands agreed to, Russian forces would not be allowed to advance north. Instead, Colonel Boris would join forces with his former enemy for “Operation Masterdom”. It would become the largest infiltration operation in military history, a collaboration between Werewolf guerillas, Russian advance forces, and the Ostheer. Their objective would be the gathering and destruction of all materials related to the Reich's former nuclear program. Both sides agreed that it must be kept out of Socialist hands at all costs.
The Operation took Paris by surprise and was a stunning success. Every single facility was either detonated or cleared out by combat squads, and spearhead forces reached as far as Hamburg before the Operation's end.
By 1950, the health of Wilhelm III deteriorated due to the wound he received during the Rhineland Campaign by a RAF raid. Admiral Karl von Doenitz was made Regent and Chancellor of the interim provisional government until Prussian sovereignty could be reasserted.
The Polish War[]
After the Secret Dossier the armies of the Eastern Alliance were forced to halt their invasion of Germany. This decision outraged Poland, who had been fighting since 1943 to recapture ethnic polish lands.
The immediate post-war saw the Poles quickly resuming their plan to take Silesia, despite threats from Moscow. During the first Polish War for Silesia, internal Polish insurgents were defeated by the Prussians with assistance from Russian Military elements.
The war would end there. Neither side was punished, and both Poland and Prussia were swiftly reintegrated into the Russian Military Alliance.
Politics[]
The Russian Military[]
Despite Doenitz and Wilhelm's wishes, the Military Government in the Occupied Territory of Germany is the most powerful force in the region. It is currently headed by Mikhail Levitov, who was awarded the title "Marshal of Prussia" by Vohzd Kornilov following the war.
Officially, the military government functions as a a ministry for daily administration and advisory to the Prussian.
As per the Agreement of 1946, the total political sovereignty of the Prussian monarchy is respected.
Despite the power of the military government, its leader is a bit of a Teutonophile. As such, Konigsberg still controls its own territory directly. The Russian occupiers sleep with one eye open, but by 195p they mostly exist as a precaution rather than an hostile occupier.
Westheer and the Expellees[]
The term "Westheer" is both an informal name and the short lived official designation of the german armies that fought in the Western Front continuously after the double fronts begins. But in the post-war context of Prussia, this term is referring to the part of the German Army (Heer) that was raised in the Western parts of the Empire, from Rhineland, Saxony and Wurttemberg, etc.
While expellees refers to the German refugees that now assembled in Prussia from both directions, ethnic german settlers of Eastern Europe, the duchy and the most massive being the refugees fleeing from the West. After the Secret Dossier incident and the subsequent events to put the German Reich into the Russian alliance and the Empire dissolved. The "Westheer" was demobilised firstly due to concerns regarding their mutinious attitude by the end of the war to surrender to the Western allies due to certain anti-Prussianism created and intensified by defeatism of the late war (correspondent with the massive expansion of the Free German Army at the same times).
The collapse of the Reich economy made the situation intense, due to the fact these soldiers, their families and all the other expellees needs lands to settle, jobs and payments, which the state could not pay among other things, being the war repatriation measures like the seizure of Prussian industry, repatriation for the West Ukrainian famine due to grain requistitions and many other agreements with other states like Romania and Poland. The politics of the expellees and Westheer veterans are not unanimously coherent, but among its tendency is the feeling that the Reich and the Prussian leadership have betrayed them one way or another, and the humiliation enforced by Russia to sacrifice their German fatherland is unimaginable for the Prussian traitors to accept.
Among such organs of the Westheer veterans is the Bund der Frontsoldaten and the National Committee of the German Heer, politics among them could be divided into two camps, Reichpolitik and Westpolitik, the former referring to extreme animosity towards the socialists, collaborations and the Prussian elites that have lost their Reich, it wishes for a reclaimation of Germany, via a national purification of the traitors both east and west. Westpolitik refers to the tendency of unease with the East, with countries like Romania or Russia, feeling that they have fought and in vain the Prussian have abandoned Germany, however, they should not be pitched like dogs of war by either sides, especially German honour would not allow it to be the underling of a former disgraced backwater like Russia.
The Reichstag[]
The former legislature of the German Reich is permanently suspended although not disbanded, the Prussian Landtag, despite its aristocratic composition due to the class-system was also suspended due to the martial laws provisions passed by emergency powers granted by the Kaiser on the National Defense Junta. The Reichstag itself as an instutiton could not be said to be a political faction, however its suspended members, those that have committed to the national defense of Germany and did not accept collaboration still wanted a restoration to their powers, espcially among the SPD (National) and the Christian democrats. A restoration to parliamentarians and consitutional rule is desirable to these people. Civilians politicans have no power and thus mostly they rely on the Westheer for its backbone and represent the bureaucracy of the kingdom.
Gameplay: Leaders[]
