Chapter 91: Sensitive Times

Can countries with different ideologies coexist like races with different faiths?

If the Soviet Union cannot be defeated, what will happen in the future?

If the Soviet Union had not mastered atomic technology, how should the direction of the war be adjusted if the real nuclear enemy was the Nordic Empire, which was half in front of the world and half in the dark, and which could at any time carry out a nuclear counterattack against the allies by any means?

Since the declaration of independence of the "Free Empire of Northern Scandinavia", several conquests by the combined forces of Norway and the United States, Britain and France have ended in failure, and the strength of the Liberal Empire has triggered a comprehensive conjecture from the outside world, especially in the United States, public opinion is divided into several major factions, and comprehensive discussions and fierce debates have been carried out in newspapers, radio and even official occasions around the prospect of war. Even as politicians have lived up to some of their expectations, arms dealers and big business have made a lot of money, and even though the United States has a strong country, the stimulus of war has greatly eliminated unemployment and poverty, and the whole country is running like an efficient machine, the anti-war voice is still getting stronger.

People are tired of endless military reporting, numb to the day-to-day wartime control, and even more afraid and hopeless about the imminent death notices -- under the combined onslaught of internal troubles and external worries of unfavorable battles, the number one winner of the two world wars, the premier superpower, has finally been shaken!

On the other side of the ocean, Britain, another pillar of the Western allies, is facing a similar problem as the United States. The difference is that Britain's economic and social conditions are even worse, two successive wars have greatly depleted the wealth accumulated by the empire in the previous hundred years, the living conditions of the people have deteriorated, and people feel more and more that this is a meaningless war, except for sending hundreds of thousands of British soldiers to military cemeteries, except for turning expensive heavy bombers into scrap metal, Great Britain has not gained anything commendable in the past two years, but has made the army generals and officers lose confidence and dignity, Whether the Nordic Empire inherited the dark power of the Third Reich did not attract sharp attention from the British public - even if these stubborn evildoers were to return to power in Germany, it would take them a generation to rebuild a navy strong enough to threaten Britain.

Attacking and defending, bombing and being bombed, the Poles were already in a state of extreme physical and mental exhaustion due to the large-scale war, coupled with the political turmoil in France, a less reliable ally, and the situation of the Allied camp looked worse than that of their opponents on the other side of the front, and it seemed that the war would soon come to an inconclusive end based on the news and commentary in the mainstream newspapers of various countries. ^/Very literary/^ Based on a similar judgment, the generals of the German Wehrmacht generally have a passive waiting mentality, as long as the Eastern and Western camps end the battlefield peacefully, the millions of German soldiers deployed on the front line in Eastern Europe can return to Germany smoothly, most of them will retire from active duty and return to civilian life, and the future German ** team will be reduced to an appropriate size depending on the European pattern, and focus on the quality of weapons and soldiers

In Lynn's view, these ideas of his colleagues are like a child's plan for tomorrow's life, ignorant, naïve, naïve, and more importantly, once the Western Allies and the Soviet Union have calmed down the war, the international situation will be extremely unfavorable to the survival of the Nordic Empire.

In the absence of charisma, Lynn's verbal communication alone was not enough to convince the generals who held military power, so he had to use the 7th Detachment to create a "motivation". Soon after, a number of ships carrying military supplies from the German mainland to the Polish front sank at sea, and German fishing boats and Norwegian freighters visually detected submarines in the waters north of Germany. But the bad news was like waves of the sea, and rumors of non-combat attrition due to the lack of supplies for the German ** team in the cold came from the Polish front, and the situation of German troops on the Allied front was artificially magnified, which once again dampened the self-esteem of the German people. Under the covert operation of the Baath Party, a wave of protests broke out in eastern and southern Germany, and although the cabinet and the army deliberately adopted a soft strategy, how could those who were good at fanning the flames take the opportunity to expand the contradictions between the German people and the Allied troops, and a series of man-made clashes and even casualties intensified the anger of the people. This irrational threat was unbearable for a considerable number of German generals. At this time, when Lynn spoke privately again, the mentality of the generals had changed a lot. …,

Lynn's efforts were significant, but it was the changes in the external situation that ultimately prompted the German government and military to change their strategic direction. In Northern Scandinavia, the Allied offensive was still difficult to defend against the combined defense of bad weather and tough opponents, but as the battle accumulated, they still captured a number of soldiers loyal to the Free Empire, including many mid- and high-ranking officers at the rank of colonel. Despite the unexpectedly strong wills of these men, the harsh interrogation methods still pry some people's mouths open, and the verification of personal identification information allowed the Allies to obtain much evidence of the true state of the Free Empire. After separate discussions, the top leaders of the United States and Britain decided to announce this discovery in an official name, so as to call on the whole world to jointly resist and strangle this extremely dangerous fascist force. Such a call would have garnered widespread support before the East-West clash in 1946, but the ongoing war had dramatically changed the understanding of justice, and the horrific toll of atomic weapons had left many fearful of terrible reprisals for annihilation. As a result, all the United States and Britain heard was an uproar, and only France, Poland, the Netherlands, and Norway, a few European countries that were deeply oppressed during World War II, supported a solution by force once and for all, but they had already sent troops to participate in the northern combat operations, and mere solidarity or partial increase in troops would not help to change the situation of the war at all.

The top leaders of the United States and Britain may not have expected that their revelations would instead allow the "Free Empire of Northern Scandinavia" to put aside its moral burden and see the situation clearly through the bland reaction of world public opinion. Tromsø sent a global telegram announcing that it was indeed the armed men of the former Third Reich who were defending the Reich of Freedom, but that they were not seeking to claim the lost territories of the past, but to seek a free way to survive.

On the sensitive and delicate issue of the head of the Reich, the United States and Britain did not disclose it, and the Reich of Freedom did not say a word about it in the telegram. Even so, within a few days the official rhetoric of both sides of the war was enough to cause a stir in some localities, with Germany bearing the brunt of the response, and after a brief period of collective silence, the government, the army, and the population responded in very different ways. After urgent deliberations, the new German cabinet issued a proclamation, announcing that the former Third Reich personnel who fled abroad were included in the list of war dead or missing, and that citizenship had naturally disappeared, so their actions had nothing to do with the German government, that Germany's democracy and ideas would not change because of this, and that German soldiers and civilians were not allowed to have any form of contact or contact with them. The joint proclamation of the Ministry of Defense and the Defense Forces Command was monotonous and rigid: German servicemen on active duty took the security of the country and the people as their own responsibility, completely discarded the erroneous ideas and pursuits of the Third Reich, and every officer and soldier swore to dissociate themselves from all relations with the former Third Reich.

In contrast, the reaction of the German people is the most complex and contradictory. Nearly three years after the end of World War II, the Germans have once again suffered the bitter consequences of defeat: the country is nearly divided, its territory has shrunk dramatically, and its dignity has been lost. Many people have lost their loved ones in the face of hunger and cold, many have swallowed tears in the face of the humiliation of the occupying forces, and many people have been disappointed, miserable and confused in the turbulent situation. After the transition of the provisional government, the establishment of the government by universal suffrage and the establishment of a new cabinet made it easy for people to see the hope of stability, but democracy has the disadvantage of democracy, and today's Berlin cannot be generalized with the brutal and resolute Berlin of the past, both inside and outside, the government's ambiguous attitude makes the withdrawal of the Allied troops still far away, and the millions of soldiers on the front line have no choice but to accept the drive of the Allied forces, and the people's grievances rise one after another, and the country is in a rather embarrassing situation. In these complex times, the tendencies of the people are different according to geography, age, and consciousness, and there are those who look forward to the return of imperial power, and those who fear dictatorship and arbitrariness, but the majority of the people hold a kind of neutrality that is resigned to their fate—they have difficulty judging which is better or worse, and they are powerless to influence the general trend of history, they are both expecting change and fearing the risks they will take, and they will accept it silently, regardless of the final outcome.

The German government and military have made it clear that they have dissociated themselves from the Reich, and that the Baath Party's recruitment of volunteers to Northern Europe has been explicitly forbidden. However, the impeacher's evidence was mysteriously killed overnight, and the investigators secretly dispatched by the Special Investigation Committee did not return, and what made people even more frightened was that the leaders and key members of the political parties who proposed impeachment had died one after another in various accidents and assassinations, and that neither the Cabinet nor the Diet could make any decision on the punishment of the Baath Party, nor could they forcibly expel its representative members from the National Assembly. Things dragged on and on until the snow melted and the spring breeze came. Clear