Gerlach-1

(Also referred to as “The Hitler-Heisenberg Gambit” and “A World Gone MAD”)

Current Year: July of 1945

''“In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquerors and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on and uninhabited planet.” ''

- William L. Shirer ,  The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany 

In early 1945, Hungarian-born nuclear physicist Leo Szilárd (co-inventor of the nuclear reactor with Enrico Fermi and one of the two scientists, the other being Albert Einstein, that proposed the Manhattan Project to President Franklin D. Roosevelt) drafted and circulated the Szilárd Petition.

The Szilárd Petition was a formal appeal signed by 70 scientists involved with the Manhattan Project requesting President Harry S. Truman to not use atomic weapons in warfare before staging a public demonstration attended by representatives of the Axis Powers, with the intention of allowing them a chance to surrender before such devastating weapons were to be used on populated targets where civilian casualties would be inflicted. In our universe, this appeal was ignored, and atomic weapons were deployed on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 6thand 9th of August in 1945, inflicting massive military and civilian casualties but also crippling the Imperial Japanese military and ending the war. In the Gerlach-1 universe, however, President Truman officially approved the motion.

A Quality of Mercy
On April 25th, 1945, while the Battle of Berlin is still ongoing in Europe, a full demonstration of a nuclear weapon (completed earlier in this timeline than our universe’s Trinity Test two months later due to the added pressure of the approved humanitarian proposal) is staged in New Mexico, attended by appointed delegates of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan (delegates from Allied powers attend as well, including the Soviet Union, France, China and Winston Churchill himself). After a demonstration of the weapon’s awe-inspiring power, an immediate armistice and cease-fire is called in both the European and Pacific Theaters, and diplomatic talks for conditional surrender begin.

However, for the spies of both the European Axis powers and Imperial Japan that have infiltrated the United States research department, this is exactly what they have been looking for. The rushed conclusion of the Manhattan Project allowed for some rare but vital instances of sloppy security procedure, allowing critical atomic secrets to fall into the hands of Axis spies, and consequently their commanders. In addition, the public demonstration of a detonation of an atomic weapon is proof for the Axis powers that the intelligence they have acquired is undoubtedly the path to follow to the creation of working A-bombs.

The Race to Build the Bomb
While the general public of the Allied countries feels relieved and accomplished that such a violent and destructive world war is ending not only in Allied victory, but with peaceful diplomacy rather than a costly and needless war of attrition, superior command in both the European and Eastern Axis powers intentionally draw out negotiations to be slower than they need to be. In secret, both poles of the Axis are fast-tracking their own previously flawed research into atomic weapons.

Walter Gerlach, a nuclear physicist and the head of the Reichsforschungsrat (the Third Reich’s department of scientific research), confirms the veracity of the intelligence gathered by Axis spies relating to the Manhattan Project on April 29th, 1945, and Adolf Hitler immediately declares that Germany’s remaining resources be diverted into crash-course covert research. On June 2nd, 1945, Werner Heisenberg, the scientist and engineer behind Nazi Germany’s Atomic Weapons Program, announces to the Reich’s command that he has completed a working 12 kiloton-yield atomic warhead, with four more in production. By June 14th, 1945, those warheads are completed, with an additional 10 now beginning production.

During the chaotic “disarmament preparations” being undertaken by the Axis powers during the surrender negotiations, agents of Nazi Germany are easily able to secretly transfer two prepped atomic warheads to members of the Imperial Japanese government as part of a previously negotiated exchange for critical classified information Japanese spies procured about the Manhattan Project months earlier.

Throwing the Nuclear Gauntlet
On June 20th, 1945, Adolf Hitler officially announces that neither he nor any other representative of Nazi Germany will continue to participate in surrender-negotiations, with Italy and Japan officially ending negotiations as well, to the shock of the Allied command and the public. The same day, mere hours after the surprise announcement, an 18 kiloton-yield atomic warhead is dropped and detonated over Moscow by a Nazi high-altitude bomber. The unprepared city suffers massive casualties in the range of 60,000 people, as well as the entire total of Soviet leadership that was in the Kremlin or any other government location in the city at the time of the attack, including Joseph Stalin himself. Simultaneously the previously decommissioned Nazi forces begin a massive surprise-attack on the standing Soviet forces occupying Eastern Germany.

Adolf Hitler officially announces that hostilities against the Soviet Union will be recommencing as Germany reclaims the territories it rightfully owns that were taken by the invading Russian forces. Hitler warns that any intervention from foreign powers with the actions of Nazi Germany or the actions of any of the Axis members will receive swift and brutal retaliation like that seen used on the Soviet Union’s Moscow. Officially revealing that the Axis European alliance as well as Imperial Japan has access to atomic weapons (officially stating that they have access to 20, which may be an understatement to strategically conceal a larger number of warheads in reserve, or a bluff to conceal a smaller number), the Allied nations and their leadership are sent into complete disarray.

On the same day, Imperial Japan resumes hostilities with American forces occupying Japanese territory with an incredible fury, simultaneously reversing progress made by the Chinese military as previously invaded regions are invaded again so soon after liberation.

The Reich’s advancement forces the Red Army to make a progressive retreat backwards into Eastern Poland and the Polish-Ukrainian border as they are pursued. With the top echelons of their leadership decapitated, a complete lack of reinforcements or resupplies and the unexpected return of the ambushing nature of blitzkrieg, the Soviet occupation in Europe is completely unprepared and suffers heavy losses of troops, equipment and ground. Nazi forces in Czechoslovakia and even Poland are actually welcomed by the civilian populous as liberators after the war crimes and mass-rapes perpetrated by the Soviet occupying force, with many surviving adult males even joining Nazi forces in expelling the Soviets.

Victory Denied
With the threat of atomic retaliation or mutually-assured destruction in response to any actions perceived as provocative in both the European and Pacific Theater, Allied leadership is completely frozen in the wake of the announcement. An emergency convention is called first between Harry S. Truman and Winston Churchill, and immediately after between them and Charles de Gaulle, fearing that Hitler’s ambitions will not be restricted to lands occupied by the Soviet Union in the near future.

The United States also faces an ultimatum, as Emperor Hirohito has declared that atomic weapons will be deployed unless all American forces withdraw from all land belonging to Imperial Japan by the end of July.

Neither pole of the Axis seems to care about the prospect of mutually-assured destruction and are instead almost suicidal in pursuing their goals despite the dangers to their own nations, making the situation all that more dangerous.

Sections of Allied troops stationed in various countries around the world have started experiencing military riots and naval mutinies as a result of the current situation. With how close and inevitable victory had been despite the cost of the war during the final months of conflict before the public demonstration of the atomic bomb, countless Allied soldiers feel criminally cheated and back-stabbed by Allied leadership. The acquisition of atomic weapons by the Axis and the current military deadlock threatens to render the incredible sacrifice of millions upon millions of soldiers null and completely meaningless. Seeing triumph in the war snatched away after it was so assured, and after losing countless friends and family members in order to get to that point, is enough to push many soldiers over the edge of loyalty to their government. Similar public riots are breaking out in the civilian populations of many countries. The refusal to utilize a weapon that could have immediately ended the war in a well-meaning but naïve and unintelligent gesture of mercy that delivered that same weapon into the hands of the enemy is seen as a grotesque betrayal by many in Allied countries, especially those personally related to casualties of the war. Public demonstrators are calling for the impeachment, and sometimes the lynching, of President Truman, as well as Winston Churchill and Leo Szilárd to a lesser extent. This chaos in both the military and civilian spheres significantly further complicates things for Allied leadership, as the institution of martial-law may be imminent in some places and vitally important military resources could become implements of an attempted coup d'état.

The United States currently has 12 atomic warheads ready for deployment in reserve, and 8 more currently being constructed. In the final days of the Second World War victory for the Allied powers was usurped due to the prioritizing of compassionate humanitarian virtues, and the world now stands on the brink of countless possible cataclysms with millions of lives in the balance as the Allies and the Axis stand in a precipitous nuclear stalemate. Any move made (or not made) by any party could be disastrous.