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WARNING: This tape discusses topics that some might find unsettling. Viewer discretion is advised.
Alternate history documentary exploring a world where Axis powers won WWII, leading to a nuclear Cold War and global superpower rivalry.
Key Takeaways
- Axis powers winning WWII drastically reshapes global power dynamics and initiates a tense Cold War.
- Nuclear weapons become central to international power struggles among Germany, the US, and Japan.
- Genocidal policies and mass oppression continue under Nazi rule in occupied Europe.
- Space exploration emerges as a new frontier for superpower competition.
- Political upheaval and realignment occur in the US following its defeat and nuclear humiliation.
Summary
- The documentary presents an alternate history where Germany, Italy, and Japan won WWII, establishing dominant empires.
- Germany becomes the world's most powerful empire, reshaping Europe under National Socialism and pursuing mega projects like Germania and a Nazi space program.
- Italy expands its influence across the Mediterranean but remains a junior Axis partner.
- Japan controls East Asia through the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere and becomes a rising superpower with nuclear capabilities.
- The United Kingdom is reduced to a German puppet state with King Edward VIII reinstated under Nazi control.
- The Holocaust and genocidal policies continue unabated in Central and Eastern Europe under German occupation.
- The United States suffers defeat but develops nuclear weapons, igniting a nuclear arms race with Germany and Japan.
- The Cold War begins among the three superpowers—Germany, the US, and Japan—each developing thermonuclear weapons and engaging in a space race.
- Political instability in the US leads to Thomas Dewey becoming president in 1948, with shifting party dynamics post-war.
- The documentary highlights the dangers of nuclear proliferation and the geopolitical tensions shaping this alternate atomic age.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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The most destructive conflict ever witnessed in history ended with humanity reaching the atomic frontier.
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Harnessing the fundamental power of the universe, the force from which the sun draws its power, and then proceeding to use this immense energy in acts of untold and unprecedented destruction to bring the Second World War to a rapid and fiery close.
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Out of this burning, lethally radioactive fallout emerged the new order of the atomic age.
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Over the course of the two most destructive wars in history, Germany lost everything only to gain the world.
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The Thousand-Year Reich soared over the Allies and crushed all resistance.
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The German Reich now presides over the most powerful empire on Earth.
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Gone are the Union Jack and Hammer and Sickle. Now only the Swastika stands atop the world.
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Behind Germany stands the second powers of the Axis, the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan.
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Both countries fulfilled their own ambitions, gaining swaths of land to rule over.
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In Asia, the Rising Sun shines from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean.
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United under the banner of the Co-Prosperity Sphere, East Asia was reduced to a shattered phantom in forced subservience to its new master, the Empire of Japan.
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Although not possessing atomic weapons, Japan was a rising superpower in the making.
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As for the conquered lands of China, the country was reconstructed into a series of vassal states, the largest of these being the reorganized government of the Republic of China.
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The Kingdom of Italy, now the Italian Empire, projected its new power across the Mediterranean and enjoyed the vast spoils from its new overseas possessions.
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Italian seemed to have benefited the most from the alliance despite their largely lambasted efforts in the war itself.
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It was clear to all, Italy was not considered an equal partner with Germany.
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For the time being, the Axis powers remained together, but cracks in the alliance were already forming.
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The German Reich wasted no time following its victory, immediately it embarked on reshaping Europe in its own image, one of National Socialism.
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Most countries became puppet states of the Reich.
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In Western Europe, during the war, France was divided between a northern occupied zone and a German sympathizer regime in the south.
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With the war over, France was reunified as the French State, a client nation of Germany.
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In the East, brutal Reich Commissariats were created, more accurately described as colonial administrations.
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Their purpose being to extract all the resources of the occupied lands and prepare them for Lebensraum.
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Across the English Channel, the United Kingdom was no more.
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The fallen Kingdom of England was now controlled by a German collaborationist government.
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Unlike other German puppets, however, England maintained the veneer of its pre-war democracy, retaining both its Parliament and the monarchy, now under King Edward VIII, the former king who abdicated in 1936 and now formally reinstated by the Nazis.
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The only substantial difference in governance was that the King now chose the makeup of his government.
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To ensure English loyalty, a German military garrison was stationed in the southwestern tip of the country.
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As for the German Reich, Adolf Hitler, the undisputed master of Europe, began to reconstruct the continent as he had always dreamed.
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Sparing no expense, he began the greatest construction project in history, tearing down Berlin and in its place, building Germania.
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Which he envisioned as a world capital to rival achievements of the ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Babylonians.
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At a tremendous cost and built on the backs of slaves, Germania would see completion by the 1950s.
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Hitler would not halt Germany's massive spending, pursuing other mega projects such as the Congo River Dam in Central Africa and the Nazi space program.
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The German economy itself was fueled by the largest slave apparatus the world had ever seen.
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Funding for the military ballooned with the German hair becoming the largest and most powerful army in the world.
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In the occupied parts of Europe, mass terror and mass slaughter were carried out.
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The Nazis ruthlessly pursued their genocidal goals of the Lebensraum project, which was the mass deportation, extermination, and enslavement of the populations of Central and Eastern Europe.
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These plans were outlined in the General Plan OST, the master plan for the East.
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Due to the economic and logistical difficulties in accomplishing these goals, they did not pan out in the long run.
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Most Slavs in these regions were either imprisoned, enslaved, or exterminated.
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In Central Europe, the peoples whose lives were considered unworthy of life, the Jews, the Roma, and the disabled and other undesirables.
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Were systematically destroyed by the German State.
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Unlike the General Plan, this genocide continued unabated.
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Exact figures and details about these atrocities remain indeterminate.
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Over in the New World, the United States was still reeling from its loss in the Second World War.
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The baptism of nuclear fire over Pearl Harbor had humiliated and shaken the country to its very core.
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Although it came too late, the United States successfully detonated their first atomic bomb in the closing days of the war.
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Now, both Germany and the US were nuclear powers, thus the nuclear arms race would begin, setting the stage for the Cold War.
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Both governments started spending massive amounts to increase the quality and quantity of their nuclear arsenals over the next decade.
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Adolf Hitler ordered the German military to create a nuclear weapon that could reach the continental United States.
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In secrecy, the Japanese Imperial Government was working on building its own atomic weapons, while American experts had predicted that Japan would not have nuclear weapons until the mid-1950s.
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The first Japanese bomb was detonated on July 4th, 1949.
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Now there was no question that Japan was the third major superpower in the world, alongside Germany and the US.
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The Japanese ended their association with the Axis powers and focused on preserving the block of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
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Although Japan's natural enemy was the United States, Hitler's new order was seen as incompatible with Japan's Pan-Asian new order of East Asia.
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The two powers would have competing spheres of influence in the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.
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With the three superpowers of the world standing against each other, the Cold War had truly begun.
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Mankind now had the weapons to destroy itself.
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The three nations quickly began the development of thermonuclear weapons which would achieve vastly greater explosive yields.
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The United States and Germany were engaging in an intense competition for nuclear superiority, while Japan sought to catch up.
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The advent of ballistic missiles that could launch objects into space made another arena for competition as the space race commenced.
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The Nazis considered space to be the final front and poured resources into the project.
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They soon announced their intention to launch small Earth-circling satellites designed by the DLR, the German Aerospace Center, under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun.
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At the same time, President Dewey signed the public order creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, a federal agency dedicated to America's space exploration.
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In the US, the politics of the post-war period were a mess.
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The 1948 presidential election saw five different candidates carrying states and no single candidate won an outright majority.
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When the vote went to the House, Thomas Dewey defeated President Harry Truman, becoming the 34th President of the United States.
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Due to the war, support for the Democratic Party plummeted.
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Seen as the losers of the Second World War, the Democrats tried to place the blame on former President Kennedy.
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The new President, Thomas Dewey, embraced internationalism, but still encountered resistance from the isolationist wing of the GOP.
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Meanwhile, as Hitler tamed Europe, the dictator turned his attention to Africa.
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With the colonial units stationed in the Dark Continent, Germany invaded the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique.
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In response, the Prime Minister of Portugal sought assistance from the international community.
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Both Spain and Italy objected to the invasion but stopped short of opposing Hitler.
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President Dewey promptly chose to intervene, but he did not seek formal authorization from Congress.
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Believing that most legislators would support his position.
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This would come back to haunt him later when the conflict concluded.
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Due to extensive defense cuts and the emphasis placed on building a nuclear bomber force, none of the required US military services were in a position to make a robust response with conventional military strength.
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Before the US could even deploy a military force, the Portuguese defenders surrendered to the invading German forces.
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Ending the conflict in just under one month.
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The colonies were annexed into the Nazi colonial empire.
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Portugal had no choice but to accept the outcome.
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And as a result, drew closer to Spain for future protection.
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Although in reality, there was little the President could do, Dewey came under fire for yielding more ground to the Nazis and losing a potential European ally in Portugal.
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Germany celebrated yet another victory, but in their thirst for dominance, they ignored their increasingly distressing financial reports and excessive spending.
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Consequently, all at once, the walls fell in.
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The Nazi economy collapsed in on itself in spectacular fashion, taking the rest of Europe with it.
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The illusion of Aryan supremacy shattered.
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Trying to fix the situation, various factions within the Reich offered methods to solve the crisis.
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However, in the East, the fractured remains of the Russian state saw a growing opportunity.
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When the Soviet Union fell in 1941, the question of who was Russia's legitimate government arose.
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Nikolai Bukharin, the last official leader of the USSR, had gone missing, presumed dead by most sources.
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The Soviet Presidium quickly elected NKVD Director Genrikh Yagoda as their provisional leader.
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He mobilized the surviving NKVD divisions and evacuated the Soviet government to the Far East Siberian city of Irkutsk.
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From there, they attempted to retain control over the Far East, but their grip slowly began to crumble as warlords and bandits rose up to take the land for themselves.
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In Central Siberia, many Russian intellectuals fled to the city of Tomsk, where they formed a democratic republic, the Central Siberian Republic.
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At this time, Russia was split into four distinguishable zones, although the warlords disputed these borders.
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The four regions were the West Russian Revolutionary Front, the West Siberian People's Republic, the Central Siberian Republic, and the Far Eastern Soviet Socialist Republic.
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It was May 1950, the same year as the German economic crash, that the Far Eastern Soviet, led by Yagoda, had begun massing its armies on the Central Siberian Republic border.
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Jealously eyeing the Republic's food supplies and factories, Yagoda soon launched an invasion of the Republic to secure his own position in the East.
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Beginning the First Siberian War, the first major Russian war since the end of World War II.
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The initial assaults and counterattacks of both armies were easily repelled by the harsh climate and easily defensible terrain of Siberia, quickly stalling the front lines.
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Some weeks after the war started, local authorities in many regions of the Far East started revolting against Yagoda's tyranny.
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Nikifor Kolyada was the first partisan leader to rise up in the town of Aldan and quickly occupied the surroundings.
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Not long after that, fascists from Harbin in Manchuria and White Emigres established a fascist government in the southeast.
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The few remnants of the Soviet Pacific Fleet declared independence in the Kamchatka Peninsula.
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The lack of military presence in the northern Far East resulted in the collapse of any government in the region.
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The Republic saw an opportunity to strike while Yagoda's government was busy fighting the rebels and assaulted the Soviet lines.
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While everything was going well during the offensive, many high-ranking generals and officers also started revolting against the Central Siberian government.
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Many of the locals in Bratsk, as well as military personnel from the Republic, revolted against both sides and proclaimed independence as the Siberian Black Army.
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Nikolai Krylov was ordered to reconquer those territories in a new offensive.
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But it was put to a halt as Nikolai Andreyev and his soldiers betrayed Krylov, establishing a military-guided democracy in the southwest.
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In Novosibirsk, Alexander Pokryshkin and the local garrisons of the area declared independence from the Central Republic.
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The war ended without a treaty as both nations collapsed.
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As his Republic crumbled, Yagoda's government secured its position in their capital province of Irkutsk.
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The region of Buryatia, under Valery Sablin's rule, was the next to revolt, advocating for a libertarian socialist state.
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Yakutia, Oyrotia, and Kemerovo would declare independence not long after the war.
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The inner fighting between the Harbin fascists culminated in the creation of two other military cliques, Chita and Magadan.
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Meanwhile, the United States was mustering allies wherever it could.
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Surrounded by existential threats from both East and West, the United States invited the democratic nations of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to sign the New York Charter.
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An agreement establishing a mutual defense alliance called the Organization of Free Nations, or the OFN.
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The United States drew a line, declaring its enemies shall never cross it.
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No matter the cost and state of affairs, the superpower swore.
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Its leaders and armies will faithfully keep watch over the thin border it had formed between sanity and madness.
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In recognition, the governments and oppressed peoples alike turned toward Washington for guidance, security, and material support.
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In reaction, Hitler largely downplayed the OFN, likening them to the vanquished Allies.
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In the US, as the 1952 presidential election loomed, Dewey's re-election prospects seemed hopeful.
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Though there was a deep-growing dissatisfaction with the establishment.
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A new right-wing nationalist party formed and nominated General George S. Patton.
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The Democrats, still reeling from their previous loss, needed a secret weapon to win.
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They would find that weapon in General Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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His stalwart defense of the United Kingdom and his service in the war had made him something of a living legend.
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Hailed as a war hero, the Democrats successfully persuaded him to run.
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His enormous popularity saw him launched into the presidency.
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The Nationalists and a revived Progressive Party soon became home for those disaffected by the mainstream parties.
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Back in Europe, Hitler had chosen a new target for conquest.
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He deemed the neutral country of Switzerland to be an eyesore on his map of the continent.
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The Swiss had remained the last bastion of democracy in Europe, now surrounded by only fascist governments.
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As German forces prepared for invasion, Benito Mussolini, the Duce of the Italian Empire, finally recognized that Germany would never stop its wars of aggression and that one day, the Reich would invade Italy.
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After asking Hitler to stand down and being refused, Mussolini defied the Führer and issued an Italian guarantee of Swiss independence, which was then followed by a US guarantee.
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The Führer was furious, but Mussolini stood his ground on the issue.
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The Axis alliance was now in turmoil.
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As tensions mounted, the aging Mussolini feared the real possibility of war with Germany.
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As such, he tasked his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano, with finding new allies.
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Mussolini would pass away the following year, in 1953.
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His final order as leader was inviting thousands of undesirables, including Jews and other ethnic minorities, into Italy as a last act to spite Hitler.
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The mantle of Duce went to his chosen successor, once again, his son-in-law, Ciano.
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For the time being, the Germanic Reich begrudgingly backed off from invading Switzerland.
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The saber-rattling of Germany pushed Spain and Portugal together.
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Both nations agreed to unification, forming the Iberian Union, and aligned diplomatically with Italy.
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In Western Russia, a Soviet warlord state was plotting its revenge.
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During World War II, as the Soviet Union burned, its loyal Red Army refused to yield to the German invaders.
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In the dark days following the Soviet government's collapse, the remnants of the Red Army in the West reorganized in the city of Kuybyshev under the leadership of Grand Marshal Alexander Yegorov.
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Across the former territory of the Soviet Union, loyal Red Army units flocked to his banner.
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Including Marshals Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Georgy Zhukov, respectively.
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With powerful mechanized forces and an alliance of prominent political figures, the newly formed West Russian Revolutionary Front was able to exert its authority over all of the shattered remnants of the Union, which remained west of the Urals.
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The bordering warlord state, which spanned from across the Urals to the city of Omsk.
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This Republic was another self-declared Soviet successor state.
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This one was consolidated by Joseph Stalin, the old rival of Soviet leader Nikolai Bukharin.
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While Marshal Yegorov reportedly did not trust Stalin, both men were united in their hatred against the Nazis.
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In his final act as President, Eisenhower tore up the Akagi Accords.
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Formally supervising Hawaii's admission into the Union and resuming an all-out embargo against the Japanese Empire.
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The President declared that Hawaii was a US state under Japanese occupation and he stated that it would eventually regain its freedom.
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Japan perceived this as a blatant act of provocation.
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Nixon would go on to defeat NPP candidate Henry M. Jackson in the 1960 election.
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It was clear that if the NPP wanted to become equal to the RDs, something major would need to happen.
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It was late into 1961, the first year of Nixon's presidency.
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An American U-2 spy plane flew over the island of Hawaii.
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Photographing pictures of nuclear missile sites being built by the Empire of Japan.
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Nixon met in secret with his advisors for several days to discuss the situation.
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After many long and difficult meetings, President Nixon addressed the nation.
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Revealing the presence of these missiles and announcing a naval blockade of the island.
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The US Navy's First Fleet was ordered to surround and contain the island.
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The United States demanded the removal of the missiles and made it clear that the introduction of such weapons in Hawaii was considered a grave threat to national security.
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Deploying its Imperial Navy, Japan positioned itself to confront the US fleet.
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Resulting in a tense standoff between the two nations.
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Both sides faced the risk of a catastrophic nuclear conflict.
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Japan demanded that the US withdraw and highlighted the hypocrisy of the US placing missiles in Australia.
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Fortunately, the Japanese accepted the resolution from Kennedy.
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The United States would remove its own missiles from Australia in return for the Japanese doing the same in Hawaii.
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A collective sigh of relief swept across the world as the threat of nuclear war diminished.
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This was a major victory for Kennedy.
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Who was hailed as a hero across the country for resolving the crisis.
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President Nixon, meanwhile, largely abstaining from the negotiations, faced widespread criticism for his perceived lack of involvement and received little credit.
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Although the Hawaii missile crisis was over, the question of Hawaii's sovereignty still lingered.
Topics:alternate historyCold WarWorld War IIAxis victorynuclear arms raceGermanyJapanUnited Statesspace raceNazi Germany
