Since the pages of DMP (Design Mod Project) will probably be of very limited use for a long time and downloads of the modifications there are not feasible, I will also place my DAW mod on these pages.
The core of this work are the mod campaigns, which are based on an alternative history from July 1934 onwards. Now, it is not unusual to come across fictional scenarios or entire storylines in this game, as in the Sealion campaign, for example. The special feature here is that the player is immersed in a changed history well before the start of the Second World War on 1 September 1939. In brief, the aim is to show how history could have developed without Hitler and Nazi rule in the German Reich from 1934 onwards, what repercussions would have been possible for the European neighbours and how latent conflicts could have slid into a warlike course even without a Third Reich.
The 5 campaigns of the modification are presented below. A special feature is the Allies Campaign, which is thematically not part of the DAW story. Here the player takes over the Allied side with the normal course of history. The actual 4 DAW campaigns build on each other, but can also be played individually.
Last edited by Sonja89_1 on Fri Dec 20, 2024 6:00 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Thank you Sonja.
I tried playing DAW a few years ago and lost heavily, but it was a very good and well put together mod (there might have been a problem with the player).
I hadn't realised there was an allied option. I will have to try that.
jfk2: Thanks for the good work, can you buy core units?
I assume you mean the first scenario of the first campaign (Saarland). This first mission is a special case and purely defensive. It is only about surviving as long as possible with a limited number of aux units. Usually, the player experiences a scenario from a completely different perspective. In the second mission, no core troops can be bought yet. It serves primarily to generate prestige points. The real action starts in the third mission (Dresden). There you start building up core troops.
captainjack: I tried playing DAW a few years ago and lost heavily, but it was a very good and well put together mod (there might have been a problem with the player).
I hadn't realised there was an allied option. I will have to try that.
The fact that you had difficulties with the DAW campaigns a few years ago is certainly not due to a lack of skills. I rather suspect that you did not use the appropriate "key".
To explain - in DAW the player has a whole range of advantages. These include a disabled soft cap, purchasable elite units, switchable artillery and anti-aircraft for direct ground combat (from AMULET part), more prestige on captured flags, slightly less cost for over-strength between missions. All these advantages need a counterweight to maintain a sufficient balance. For this I have worked a high number of enemy units into the missions. There are about 2 to 3 times as many units waiting for the player as in the Grand Campaign. Especially a higher number of planes can be very dangerous if you neglect the air defence. In these campaigns, AA units take on a crucial importance. With them you can lay the foundation for achieving air supremacy. Air superiority is the key to success in Panzer Corps in general. This is, incidentally, just as it was in fact in the Second World War.
Another tip is to bring the units to full over-strength between missions if possible. This is correspondingly more favourably designed at this point. On the other hand, you should buy as few elite reinforcements as possible during the mission, as it is then very expensive. If you act in a force-saving way, you can get by very well with the prestige you have. At the end of the fourth campaign, I had about 100,000 prestige points after the test games (at 'General' level). So it is also manageable with a higher difficulty level.
But here, too, I can only recommend every player to choose the setting that suits them best. What was suitable in the Grand Campaign does not necessarily have to be so here. Fine-tune it a little easier and slowly feel your way up. Use the advantages that are offered to you and keep your core troop in the game long enough until they have gained enough experience. Then you will end up with a force that will be hard to beat.
I have added the Allies Campaign as a bonus campaign in 2020. It is based on the official scenarios of the basic campaign, Africa, Allied and Soviet Corps. The special feature here is the possibility of using core troops from Great Britain, France, the USSR and the USA and being able to switch between East and West. So you can fight with British fighter pilots in Russia and Russian tanks in North Africa if you want. But you can also keep it strictly historical.
The final mission (Germany) takes place on a large map and shows the last 40 days from the end of March to the beginning of May 1945. Here the player can shape the race on Berlin from the Rhine and the Oder.
First of all, I'd like to thank you and everyone else who puts such an effort to develop large complex mods like this one, this is an impressive and excellent work!
Then, I'm trying to figure out if the colours of the scenario boxes in the campaign tree mean something... for example in 39/41 campaign, between Givet-Nordsee-Tirol paths (grey-yellow-green)... could you tell me if these are only for aestethic reasons, or there is a meaning?
Thank you
I've been playing the Allied Campaign and it's very good. I'm not playing at a difficult level, but had a few tough defences and scraped DV in everything except Crete where I managed MV and couldn't see how to get DV. I did have to replay Greece as the first time I got the mix of units completely wrong and made pretty much every other mistake possible. Battleaxe is progressing OK so far. Definitely enjoyable, definitely well made, definitely worth playing.
Thank you, guys, for these kind words. I am happy about every player who knows what to do with these campaigns. This creates joy for the modder as well as for the player in mutual feedback.
aldebaran83: Then, I'm trying to figure out if the colours of the scenario boxes in the campaign tree mean something... for example in 39/41 campaign, between Givet-Nordsee-Tirol paths (grey-yellow-green)... could you tell me if these are only for aestethic reasons, or there is a meaning?
Yes, the colours in the campaign tree have certain meanings. They stand for the respective enemy nation. In the first campaign (blue=France / light blue=CSR / pink=Poland) the second campaign (blue=France / green=Italy / yellow-blue=Belgium+France / blue-green=France+Italy) and so on.
In the Allies Campaign it is the other way round. The colours represent the nations with which you play against the Wehrmacht.
My aim is to be able to read as much as possible from such a campaign tree.
Since the pages on the German forum DMP will close at the end of the year and my quite extensive contribution to DAW will then no longer be accessible, I will gradually present some parts of this mod here.
The 4 main DAW campaigns are about a fictitious course of history that deviates from real history from 1934 onwards. For this purpose, the mod also includes introductory prologue texts as PDF files for each campaign. Since the English text versions were generated some time ago with a not exactly perfect automatic translator, I recommend having the German original translated into the respective native language with the now mature DeepL translator.
To give you an introduction to the DAW story right here, I have a corresponding version in English:
Adolf Hitler is dead. No, it is not 30 April 1945 and we are not in a destroyed Berlin.
It is 20 July 1934 and the body of this man, who had taken over the office of Reich Chancellor not quite 18 months earlier, lies on the edge of a small wood near Wolfenbüttel, shot several times in the body. With him is the body of a certain Heinrich Himmler, also riddled with bullets. The scene of the crime, as well as the position of the bodies, suggests that both men had been on the run shortly before their deaths.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves and take a look at the events that led up to this.
As is well known, Hitler took up the post of Reich Chancellor on 30 January 1933. Within a few months, with the help of his party, he succeeded in undermining or even eliminating the democratic structures of the German Reich. Those who were still convinced in January 1933 that they could keep this political adventurer in check were politically put out of action in the summer of the same year or at least put on a leash themselves. Less than 12 months after the Nazi seizure of power, the face of the country began to change profoundly.
The role of the Reichswehr in these days was conspicuously inconspicuous. In the fine German tradition, the leading military officers acted as apolitically as if there were a perfectly normal, democratically legitimised chancellor in office. And Hitler had been (more or less) elected to office by the German people, hadn't he?
So why should the military enter the dirty lowlands of politics? The Reichswehr Minister Blomberg, who came into office at the same time as Hitler, also lacked the stature to take action against this chancellor.
After all, there was a certain General of the Infantry Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord as Chief of the Army Command. He was a man who at least had a clear, inner opposition to Hitler and the NSDAP, and he had both the intellectual equipment and the determination and courage to take action against the Nazis. The Reichswehr Minister Blomberg was now placed in front of this man, which further reduced von Hammerstein-Equord's chances of bringing the Reichswehr into united opposition to the NSDAP. In autumn 1933, he took his leave with effect from February.
Thus, at the beginning of 1934, only one inner-party force remained as an antipole to the dictatorial power of the brown chancellor: the SA with the ambitious Röhm at its head. In the spring of 1934, an emerging power struggle between these former companions became visible to more and more observers. Röhm was interested in a more socialist form of the NSDAP with a powerful SA as a huge militia army at its centre, while Hitler wanted to see his own power fantasies realised, which amounted to an extensive war. A war that required a professional army, which could only be formed from the existing Reichswehr. The SA, which was in fundamental competition with the Reichswehr, was thus bound to become an obstacle for Hitler.
In June 1934, events slowly came to a head when, after intensive talks between Röhm and Hitler, no consensus could be found. In addition, the Reich Chancellor was troubled by his Vice von Papen, who gave a critical speech in Marburg on 17 June, the further dissemination of which a zealous Goebbels managed to prevent.
In the last two weeks of June, the events that later became known as the 'Röhm Putsch' finally took place.
This is where the following fictitious continuation of the story begins. How could everything have turned out if a certain person with not only a high level of intelligence (of which there were quite a few), but also with a high degree of initiative or, more simply, with character and courage, had been present in a decisive position in the Reichswehr? But let's leave further sentences in the subjunctive and dive into the story of the 'other way'.
To do this, let's first create a protagonist, let's call him Clemens von Vandenberg, born in 1894, raised in Bremen. His ancestors were mainly merchants and originally came from Bruges. In the late 17th century, they emigrated to trading partners in Bremen before Louis XIV's wars of expansion. Eventually, this northern German city became their new home.
His grandfather served as an officer in the Prussian army during the three wars of unification (1864 - 1871). After the victory over France, the family received the title of nobility.
After his father took up a merchant profession and eventually founded a brass factory, young Clemens was drawn to the military like his grandfather. He became a lieutenant before the outbreak of war in 1914. In the following 4 years, he succeeded in distinguishing himself several times, whereby, unusually, he was in action on various fronts, but not even on the Western Front until November 1918. He was spared this particularly frustrating form of war in direct experience.
In the years after the war, he remained in the Reichswehr throughout and experienced the Nazi seizure of power as a member of von Hammerstein's staff within the army command. The relationship with the leader was not only good, it was friendly. He greatly regretted von Hammerstein's departure at the beginning of 1934 and therefore kept in close contact with him. In mid-June he supplied Hammerstein with the latest information and also rumours from the office. There were sometimes controversial debates between the two men. Although they were equally opposed to the Nazi regime, von Hammerstein-Equord was still doubtful whether this was a suitable moment for a coup, while von Vandenberg was sure that he had to seize what he called 'the last opportunity'. He had reports from several men from the trade union, SPD and KPD who had been imprisoned in so-called protective custody camps without any legal basis. Their accounts were so stirring that the last doubts in his mind were dispelled. Action had to be taken before the whole country was turned into a camp or even more scoundrels were made wardens.
Vandenberg was well aware that it was not possible to overthrow the regime without using tricks and possibly violating his own sense of honour. He was also aware that it was a dangerous game he was playing. If he were to spread information and initiate manoeuvres to overthrow the regime and Hitler and his henchmen remained in power, his life would be forfeit.
Nevertheless, he remained determined. After the expiry of 20 June, he used a contact in the ranks of the SA to deliver concrete information on the 'decapitation action' at their head. Then he waited. At first nothing unusual seemed to happen. It was only on 29 June that there were some incidents that made an insider like him realise that something was on the move. The tension grew.
On the night of 30 June 1934, Hitler, together with Goebbels, who had only just been initiated, travelled by plane to Munich. He was planning to picket Röhm and his SA leadership in Bad Wiessee. For this purpose he had also ordered 2 companies of the 'Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler' there. Contrary to his plans, however, Hitler was met at the airfield by selected SA men and arrested together with Goebbels.
Under guard, Hitler and his men were driven towards Stadelheim, where Röhm was already waiting for them. On the way, however, the convoy was stopped in the early dawn by people of the Leibstandarte and the prisoners could be freed. This resulted in the first deaths of the day.
Sepp Dietrich, who led the Leibstandarte, had got wind of the SA's counter-action from an unknown source. Thus Röhm's counter-attack came to nothing. But Hitler had not succeeded in his planned coup either. He now had to deal with a startled SA leadership that was determined to do anything. The SA leadership acted quickly and took control of the radio station, first in Munich and then on the same day in most of the larger towns in southern Germany. They wanted to deprive Goebbels, this extremely windy agitator, of his most important mouthpiece. But Hitler did not simply remain inactive in Munich either, but set off together with Goebbels by plane for Berlin, where he arrived in the evening. There he encountered a completely confused situation. Most SA groups remained loyal to Röhm and engaged in skirmishes with SS men and some police squads who intervened on their side. The mass of the police, however, stood by passively, waiting to see what would happen. There was hopeless confusion with the most diverse messages and statements. An action to imprison Goering, as the official Prime Minister of Prussia, failed. The people became victims of the Gestapo. But this organisation created by Goering was also unable to break the resistance of the SA. Too many people were not sure which side to take. No one wanted to be found among the losers, because one could imagine what would happen to them. So the majority of all these 'heroes' behaved rather lukewarmly.
When 1 July 1934 began, a strange calm set in, interrupted at first only by Goebbels' first excited and rude later more skilful radio messages. He announced that an assassination attempt had been made on the Reich Chancellor and that an attempt had been made to kidnap Goering, which was more or less true. His own entanglements and illegal plans were kept quiet. On the other hand, there were reports, especially from South Germany, that Hitler was planning a reactionary coup that would lead to the complete elimination of the SA. As is so often the case, the truth was lied about by a hair's breadth. All the many reports and rumours, some of which contradicted each other, did nothing to clarify the situation. Hitler, who instinctively felt that it was now not only a question of the further successful expansion of his position of power, but that it came down to all or nothing for him and the NSDAP, decided to act energetically.
Together with Göring, Hess and Himmler as well as some SS men in tow, he went to the Reichswehr Minister Blomberg, with whom he had already spoken on the phone in the morning hours. The latter had assured him of his undivided loyalty and also included the entire Reichswehr in this. In fact, Blomberg was anything but enthusiastic about the course of the whole action and he was not comfortable in his own skin. How right he was was shown an hour later when two old acquaintances suddenly appeared before him - the ex-Reichswehr minister Schleicher and the ex-chief of the army command Hammerstein-Equord. In their wake was a company of battle-hardened soldiers. This group was now joined by several high-ranking employees of the ministry, among them Clemens von Vandenberg.
Briefly, Schleicher explained to the perplexed Blomberg that he was under arrest and that he himself would once again take over the office on a provisional basis. Before the slightly overtaxed Blomberg could loudly protest against this obvious military coup, Hitler and his followers arrived in the courtyard of the Bendlerblock. They first saw the marching soldiers with some surprise, but then assumed that the Reichswehr Minister had probably brought them here in anticipatory obedience to Hitler's order.
However, as the group with the round dozen SS men walked down the corridor towards Blomberg's office and heard some unpleasant, familiar voices, the volume of which kept increasing, the armed persons among them reached for their pistols. A squad of Schleicher's soldiers waiting in the side corridor recognised the danger and armed their weapons. The highly explosive situation was about to be discharged. Now Blomberg also saw the approaching Hitler and shouted a warning to him, but this was no longer necessary in view of the situation. Unarmed staff sprinted in crouched positions to offices as far away as possible and took cover. Already the first shots were fired, although later it was not clear from which of the two sides the first shot came.
One of the first shots hit Schleicher in the side of the head, whereupon he collapsed, fatally shot. Stray bullets also hit Blomberg, who was slightly injured, while von Hammerstein-Equord's projectiles flew around his ears, but he himself suffered no injuries.
Hitler's group soon realised that they would not be able to withstand a firefight for long, and Hess urged Hitler to leave the field as quickly as possible, which Hitler only reluctantly accepted. With a trick they managed to evade the mass of the company via a side exit, leaving only Hess shot in the leg.
Hammerstein and Vandenberg were only briefly shocked by Schleicher's death. Instead of Schleicher, von Hammerstein-Equord now took over the leadership of the ministry. The first thing he did was to have Blomberg transferred to the Charité under guard. He was to receive the best possible care. Hammerstein was not interested in making a martyr out of the man in the end. At the same time, the entire NSDAP leadership was declared enemies of the state. The police authorities were ordered to apprehend them and take them into custody. Admittedly, there were some authorities who were deliberately passive to these calls or even sympathised with the Nazis. The successes of the next few days were correspondingly small. Statements were issued to the press in which the Reich Ministry of Defence, under its new leadership, announced its intention to restore order in the country with the help of the Reichswehr. The vast majority of Germans were more than relieved about this.
Finally, on 1 July, Hammerstein went to see Hindenburg, who was not in good health. Hindenburg had deliberately not been made aware of Schleicher's and von Hammerstein-Equord's plans. Nevertheless, he retroactively gave his nod to the deployment of the two men. He, like the clear majority of the country, was interested in clear conditions. Besides, his weakened state of health was weighing on his mind. He felt that he did not have much time left.
The Reichswehr had the most severe problems with Röhm and his SA men. But despite their high numbers, their inadequate training as well as equipment did not make them a really serious opponent. The most decisive point, however, was that the break between Hitler and Röhm had broken their morale. Their transfigured and equally confused view of the world dissolved before their eyes like a mirage from a midsummer night's dream.
The fighting dragged on for almost two weeks until finally there were only isolated exchanges of fire. Until 12 July, the traces of the Nazi greats could still be traced quite precisely, but after that it became increasingly unclear. Röhm was last sighted on 18 July in Konstanz, whereupon he apparently disappeared from the face of the earth. Goering had left Hitler on 15 July and, as he had done once before in his twenties, fled to Sweden, where he was taken in by friends. He died there later of a stroke. The propaganda chief Goebbels fled first to Italy, then on to Paraguay, where he learned Spanish and became an advisor to various dictators. His 'skills' were in great demand there.
Heß, who had been arrested injured on 1 July, left Germany in 1935 after a short imprisonment via the United Kingdom to finally start a new life in Edmonton (Canada). He, too, did not appear politically again.
What happened to the main protagonist has already been briefly outlined at the beginning.
Hitler had left Hanover in the late evening hours of 19 July for Quedlinburg with his last confidant Himmler. What the two men planned to do there remained uncertain. All that is certain is that their journey ended near Wolfenbüttel. Death must have struck the two at around 1 a.m. in the night, when they were apparently caught by their pursuers. Who was behind the killing was ultimately not determined. Whether this was deliberately omitted also remains uncertain. In view of the many thousands of deaths that the power struggle had cost in those summer weeks of 1934, two more unclear acts of killing no longer upset anyone. Quite a few were even glad that the head of the NSDAP had been irretrievably eliminated from the world.
Thus the 'Nazi spook' in Germany was over even before Reich President Hindenburg died on 2 August. Even before his death, however, he arranged his succession together with von Hammerstein-Equord, who was appointed Reichverweser of the German Reich.
Afterwards, in cooperation with the political parties that were to be reinstated, new, more stable structures were to be established through which Germany would not again pass from one crisis government to the next. For this ambitious project, the military government wanted to give the committees 6 years. Regular elections to the Reichstag were not to be held until autumn 1940. Although this long time frame was too long for some political representatives, the plan was finally accepted. The horror of the 18-month Nazi dictatorship was still too much in the bones of most of those involved. The trust that the military, and von Hammerstein-Equord in particular, enjoyed paved the way for this solution.
At this point, a happy ending could now follow (without having to bother with Panzer Corps). Now, history does not end at just any point, but always continues, and this is also the case here.
The historical course was given a new dynamic by the assassination of the Austrian Chancellor Dollfuß, who was killed on 25 August 1934. A communist was identified as the assassin, although questions remained unanswered after the end of the investigation. The Minister of Justice Schuschnigg tried to establish himself as the successor, but only succeeded for two weeks. Carried by mass protests that numbered in the tens of thousands in mid-September, he resigned and a council consisting of representatives of all the previously banned parties was formed to bring Austria back to a democratic basis.
In the course of the protests, many voices had also been raised in favour of unification with the German Reich as soon as possible. The inclination towards an annexation to Germany had noticeably declined in large parts of the Austrian population after Hitler came to power. But after the collapse of the regime there, the proponents got a renewed tailwind. The unclear circumstances after the death of Dollfuß further fuelled the mood in this direction. Even Schuschnigg, in his last days before resigning, brought up the idea of a customs union, which had already been discussed in 1931 and was categorically rejected at the time by the former victorious powers, France and England, but also by Czechoslovakia. Accordingly, the European neighbours observed the goings-on in the Alpine country with suspicion. During October, the situation escalated, especially in Vienna and the surrounding area, but also in other larger cities. Once again, large crowds took to the streets and demanded immediate annexation to the German Reich. The Transitional Council finally took this development into account and contacted the German military government. This in turn set alarm bells ringing in Paris and Rome. The protests from Italy were limited to pithy statements by Mussolini, who was already more preoccupied with plans for East Africa. In contrast to three years earlier, England was also rather passively neutral about the unification of Germany and Austria. Churchill was even more in favour of it when he realised that the matter had already developed too strong a momentum of its own to be successfully prevented. Instead, he pleaded for actively shaping the development rather than just putting the brakes on it. However, the British government did not want to go that far and remained completely passive.
Thus France was largely alone in opposing the German-Austrian plan. But the world economic crisis had not left France unscathed. As late as February 1934, the government in Paris had resigned as a result of mass right-wing protests. Fear of a right-wing coup spread. On the one hand, this new development among its eastern neighbours drove France to adopt a tough stance in order not to offer the right-wing movement even more room for attack; on the other hand, the government was aware that the majority of the population was not in favour of an escalating conflict. Thus, similar to Italy, France was content with loud protests and vague threats.
The German leadership, which was not entirely comfortable with the development itself at first, seized the opportunity for a merger with both hands from mid-November onwards and, after a short-lived referendum in Germany and Austria, carried out the merger on 6 December 1934.
Now that this merger had actually taken place, France seemed to have awakened from a lethargy. Now the streets of Paris were filled with protesting people. Full of discontent, they demanded the resignation of the government and a new strong power. A certain Doriot managed to seize the opportunity. He founded the Parti Populaire Français (PPF) and put himself at the head of the mass movement. He also succeeded in absorbing considerable parts of the older, right-wing Croix de Feu movement. This was not without tension either, but a united right-wing front was able to form, which seized power in France shortly before Christmas 1934. Within a few days a new government of 'national renewal', as it called itself, emerged, which made no secret of its fascist background. Mussolini in Rome explicitly welcomed the new development in Paris, especially since the new president of France, Doriot, also had socialist roots like him. The rest of Europe, on the other hand, was rather perplexed, simply surprised, Britain even shocked at losing an allied democracy.
Doriot was aware that his power base was thin. He needed a safeguard at home, which was immediately initiated with a series of emergency measures, but even more urgently he needed success on the international stage, preferably against his eternal rival in the East, the German Reich. That's when the fate of the Saar region presented itself as a topic. In January 1935, the vote on the future of the Saar region was planned. Preparations for this were already well advanced at the end of 1934. A clear majority was emerging in favour of reincorporation into the German Reich. The fascists in France did not want - no, they were not allowed - to let it get that far. They loudly objected to an election at the present time and ultimatively demanded that the Saar region and the German Reich postpone the election. They openly threatened a military invasion.
Germany was well aware of the seriousness of the situation and exerted influence on those responsible in the Saar region. They were aware of the completely inadequate military possibilities. Finally, an agreement was reached with France that postponed the election for two years until January 1937. All sides had gained time and the rulers in Paris could propagate the continued special status of the Saar region as an important foreign policy success. However, this was at the expense of good relations with the United Kingdom, which noticeably distanced itself from the new French government. It was felt in London that the strengthened fascist bloc with Italy and France would pursue an increasingly aggressive foreign policy. This power structure needed a counterweight which could only be found in the German Reich. London and Berlin reached a naval agreement in the following spring, which was very close to the British hearts. They did not want to get into another expensive and not very fruitful naval arms race with the German Reich. In addition, the German side received full backing for an important leveraging of the Treaty of Versailles. As of 1 May 1935, the German Reich declared its full military sovereignty, including the reintroduction of conscription. The military circles in Germany were happy.
The French government, aware that it could only have prevented this step with an act of war, which it was not (yet!) prepared to take, reacted outwardly in an emphatically calm manner. In the summer, however, a massive rearmament programme was decided upon with great propaganda fanfare. They did not want the 'Boches' to become stronger than France again.
Otherwise, 1935 was another relatively quiet year for Europe. The turbulence of the previous year already seemed infinitely far away. Similarly far away as the conflict in East Africa, with which Mussolini sought to acquire martial glory and an extension of his scope of power. Unlike in 1896, however, the Italian attack on Abyssinia was successful this time. The country was occupied and annexed until May 1936.
In 1936, another country in Europe also came into the limelight, a country on the very western edge of the continent - Spain.
In July, the nationalist military putsched against the republican government. The coup was led by a certain Franco who, like Mussolini, Doriot and the failed Hitler, was in the process of forming a fascist state. However, the coup was not as successful as had been hoped and a civil war ensued, with many losses, which spread to the whole of Spain. The nationalists were openly supported by Italy and France. French ships and, for the first time, aircraft were used to transport Nationalist troops from Spanish Morocco to Europe.
In this explosive situation, the Olympics opened in Berlin in August 1936. Awarded in 1931 during the Weimar Republic, it was supposed to be a welcome international boost for the Hitler regime, but now fell into the lap of the military government. Although the participating states were not very happy about hosting the Games in a quasi-dictatorship, there was general relief that there had been no more racist exclusions in Germany for 2 years. Discrimination against Jews in particular seemed to have disappeared like a bad dream, even if a racist mindset remained latent in some people's heads.
While the Games were still being held in Berlin, another European capital was the scene of hectic, yet still covert activity. The fascist regime under Doriot, which had been in power in France for almost 2 years, did not want to and could not rest on the power it had achieved. They were looking for another foreign policy success. The choice again fell on the Saar region, which, according to the agreement of early 1935, was to determine its affiliation by election in 5 months. Even in the summer of 1936, there was little doubt that the Saarlanders would decide in favour of Germany. So action had to be taken beforehand. In 1867, Napoleon III had tried to acquire the small Grand Duchy for France in secret negotiations with Bismarck and the Netherlands. However, when the public got wind of the almost perfect deal, Bismarck had to reverse his promises and Luxembourg was given a neutral independent status. The French felt duped by the Prussians at the time. It was therefore not surprising that this was still remembered in nationalist circles in Paris in 1936. Now a good opportunity seemed to have come to deal with the Saar problem with this old history in one wash.
In a short statement, it was planned to cancel the second London Treaty, to give the government in Luxembourg 24 hours to open the border, as well as the administration in Saarbrücken, and then to occupy both Luxembourg and the Saar region with military units, including a narrow strip of the Rhine province between the two main areas. Although no significant resistance was expected, several divisions, officially assembled for manoeuvres in Lorraine, were earmarked for this purpose. Subsequently, considerable protests were expected from Germany, but no military readiness for conflict. The German Reichswehr, which had been renamed the Wehrmacht at the beginning of the year, simply did not yet have the necessary scale for this. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, they wanted to make use of their Polish allies and, in secret negotiations, got the government there to commit to taking action on the German eastern border about two weeks after the French action, in order to further split up the potential enemy's forces, which were not very strong anyway.
Thus prepared, the French government handed over the diplomatic notes at 6 p.m. on 30 August. London was appalled by this aggressive approach. They feared an escalation that could lead to a new world war. However, they themselves were not prepared to put their southern neighbour under military pressure on behalf of these small European states. This action would not influence the balance on the continent too much in France's favour. Thus, the main motivation for a strong countermeasure by the United Kingdom was missing. Nevertheless, preparations were being made to possibly exert economic pressure on the French fascists. The news was received with cool indignation in Berlin. Hammerstein-Equord, however, was not very surprised by this turn of events. There was even already a secret plan for appropriate countermeasures, which were now being applied. In contrast, these hours were really turbulent in Luxembourg and Saarbrücken. In Luxembourg, a hard line prevailed after heated discourse, which finally resulted in the alerting of militia troops. It was clear that they would not be able to resist successfully militarily, but they wanted to demonstrate that they were clearly opposed to this invasion and French appropriation. In the Saar region, organised militia groups had already been formed, two Freikorps mobilised and prepared to fight an underground battle, and the Fliegerclub Saarbrücken was able to send a few Arado 65s as a provisional 'Saarland Air Force' to a small, hardly known field airfield in the north of the Saar region.
On the other hand, on the eve of 1 September, a slightly nervous Doriot stood in his study in Paris. His personal future would be decided one way or the other in the coming days and weeks. What really gave him a headache was the reaction of the Germans. So far it had been surprisingly quiet from Berlin. How would they react? He remembered a statement Clemenceau had made shortly before his death 5 years earlier.
In it, he described a characteristic of the detested 'Boches' that he (Clemenceau) suspected:
"It is the nature of humans to love life. The German does not know this cult. There is in the German soul instead a morbid and satanic love of death. These people have a deity whom they contemplate tremblingly, yet with the smile of ecstasy, as if they were seized by a vertigo. And this deity is death. Where do they get that from? I do not know the answer to that. The German loves war out of self-love and because at its end the bloodbath awaits. War is a contract with death. The German meets it as if it were his dearest friend."
So let us finally turn to our supposedly dearest friend in a playful way.
I am not a fan of historical fiction but this is incredible. Are you a professional writer? There is a lot of detail in that writing that I do not think most people would think to include. Your writing has made me definitely want to try your mod once I am done with another little side project. What outstanding craftsmanship!
Thunderhog: Is the CSR a different government then the regular Czechoslovakia? Is it the Czech socialist republic?
In DAW, the CSR has the 'normal' democratic government. So no CSSR as a socialist variant.
Although I am not a professional in writing texts, I am a very interested reader of documentaries on history. This is not limited to the area of the two world wars.
I wrote this introductory text to the DAW mod to give the players a certain idea of the environment of the alternative history. In 'normal' campaigns, which follow the historical course as far as possible, a player can pick up a history book and easily acquire the corresponding knowledge of the environment. With DAW history, everything is somehow unclear at first. On the one hand, this is interesting, but on the other hand, it is also very confusing. The respective prologues, which can be found in the campaign folders, therefore serve as a better orientation.
I have pointed this out again here because these additional text parts, which would be too extensive to include in the briefings, can easily be overlooked.
I am extremely pleased that it has been positively received.
Hi, I'm playing this wonderful mod, but in the Rome scenario the briefing message told me to take Celano and Terracina before assaulting Rome in order to get a special unit, and if I lose this unit I lose 2000 prestige.
The problem is, I have taken Celano and Terracina but I did not get any unit... is there some other condition I have to satisfy?
Thank you, I'm very curious about this special unit, that according to the briefing can help me a lot...
Hello, aldebaran. There is no condition to fulfil other than the one you described. If these two places are conquered by the player, an HQ unit is placed at the top of the map north of Orvieto. There are 6 possible spaces reserved for it. I don't think you had all these 6 squares occupied with other pieces at the corresponding time, do you? However, there is no separate message. Is it possible that you overlooked this unit at the top, since the map is relatively extensive?
The "Rome" scenario is not easy to master. But you've already come quite far. I'm glad that you seem to be doing well with the missions. Pay particular attention to the "Sicily" scenario, which is coming up soon. It's a tough task.
Since the DMP pages are officially closing today, I am starting to present individual sample images of DAW here with this post. First, some screens of scenarios of the first campaign from the period 1936-37.
The first two pictures are from the mission "Dresden". First you can see the strategic map with the Elbe river in the middle of the picture in north-south direction and the Erzgebirge mountains in west-east direction. Afterwards you can see the German HQ placed in Dresden and the Czech troops attacking from the south.
The third picture shows a short strategic section from the mission "Stettin". Here a Polish attack is taking place in the north-west direction. Küstrin has already been lost. On the western edge is the Oder River, which flows into the Baltic Sea behind Szczecin.
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In the mission "Lemberg" (Lviv), the player takes over Soviet aux troops to fight the Polish army from the east. In the picture, it is just the mud period, with watery swamps on the northern edge.
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The "Bialystok" scenario falls in the wintertime. There, the task is to bring together German and Soviet troops from the West and East. The Polish defenders fight back doggedly.
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The last picture is from the scenario "Wachau". Here it is again against Czech troops who have invaded northern Austria. In the centre you can see Linz on the Danube. The own units have already formed a bridgehead on the northern bank.
Dir auch ein schönes neues Jahr, Hans. Und, ja - das Leben wird weitergehen, ob mit oder ohne DMP, mit oder ohne Slitherine und mit oder ohne uns. The show must go on.
