Doing research for Twilight 2000

[Crajon39]

While I was doing research for bring TW2000 into 2016 , I found a very interesting item . Has anyone heard of KALININGRAD OBLAST . Well Kaliningrad Oblast is an Russian state that sits on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania .It is home to the Russian Baltic fleet , because of the warm water port there. The nearest Russian territory is a few hundred miles away .
Durning my research I have learned that Kaliningrad has requested from the Russian government to become an independent country but the Russian government has rejected this several times. The youths of Kaliningrad see themselves more as Europeans than Russians, this has led to several protest for independence.
Now for the fictional part , let us say if their was an Kaliningrad sovereignty party that was being brutality attack by the Russian government and this party formed an armed resistance group . This group was being chased by units of the Baltic Sea Naval Infantry and crossed over to either Poland or Lithuania, the Naval Infantry units followed them into Poland or Lithuania and attacked . Durning the fighting several Polish or Lithuania border guards were killed along with some civilians. I believe that this maybe a flash point for TW 2000 in 2016 .

[RN7]

Could lead to trouble with the Germans as it was part of East Prussia until the Second World War, and Poland and Lithuania also have some historical claim to it.

[Crajon39]

Very true .

[Matt Wiser]

There aren't any Germans left: they all got "removed" after WW II. The unlucky ones got expelled to West Germany. The really unlucky ones got sent East first to make little rock out of big rock in a Gulag before going to the West. The NKVD took care of the lucky ones.....need anything more be said about that?

[RN7]

Originally Posted by Matt Wiser

There aren't any Germans left: they all got "removed" after WW II. The unlucky ones got expelled to West Germany. The really unlucky ones got sent East first to make little rock out of big rock in a Gulag before going to the West. The NKVD took care of the lucky ones.....need anything more be said about that?

I know Matt Germany evacuated well over 2 million German civilians from East Prussia in 1945 including what is now Kaliningrad during Operation Hannibal, although many civilians were still trapped in Konigsberg when it fell to the Red Army in April 1945. I think there were less than 200,000 Germans left in the whole of East Prussia by May 1945. Its hard to know the precise figure for casualties as this region was Included in the Oder-Neisse border shifting that occurred after the Potsdam Agreement. Remaining civilians were expelled and soldiers sent to POW camps. But as late as 1950 Poland recorded that there was still 164,000 Germans living in Polish territory that was East Prussia before the war. However more Germans remained, they just hid their identities by Slavicising their names. I actually know a Russian of German origin from Kaliningrad who's family did that until the 1990's. He on the other hand never hid his German roots and was also a very large Soviet Marine with Spetsnaz training, so if he got a hard time in the Soviet military for being German it wasn't to his face.

The whole issue of the lost eastern German territories is still controversial and a touchy subject to many in Germany and Eastern Europe. The legitimacy of the border shifting after Potsdam is also controversial, as West Germany never recognised its legitimacy and refused to have any diplomatic relations with any country who did (including East Germany) until the 1970's after Ostpolitik. Many Germans and their children were born and have roots in East Prussia, and the lost eastern territories is one of the issues that the German far-right bang on about. Germany probably would have a legitimate case in any international tribunal to seek monetary compensation against Russia, Poland and others for losses incurred by the terms of Potsdam, although no German government would ever be likely to do that. However German legitimacy to ownership of Kaliningrad (Konigsberg) would be at least as solid as Russian claims to the Crimea.

[Blink_Dog]

Originally Posted by Crajon39

While I was doing research for bring TW2000 into 2016 , I found a very interesting item . Has anyone heard of KALININGRAD OBLAST . Well Kaliningrad Oblast is an Russian state that sits on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania .It is home to the Russian Baltic fleet , because of the warm water port there. The nearest Russian territory is a few hundred miles away .
Durning my research I have learned that Kaliningrad has requested from the Russian government to become an independent country but the Russian government has rejected this several times. The youths of Kaliningrad see themselves more as Europeans than Russians, this has led to several protest for independence.
Now for the fictional part , let us say if their was an Kaliningrad sovereignty party that was being brutality attack by the Russian government and this party formed an armed resistance group . This group was being chased by units of the Baltic Sea Naval Infantry and crossed over to either Poland or Lithuania, the Naval Infantry units followed them into Poland or Lithuania and attacked . Durning the fighting several Polish or Lithuania border guards were killed along with some civilians. I believe that this maybe a flash point for TW 2000 in 2016 .

Maybe mixed with that newly discovered oil deposits off the Kaliningrad and Polish shores to add some economic incentive to that scenario. Politically you could maybe have the Poles, Baltic countries vote in nationalist parties so the general population is more fired up against the Russians, it would give some NATO members like France, Spain and Italy little incentive to join in if NATO votes to take action (then the old modules would still work with the setting).

[mpipes]

I never liked the outcome GDW came up with for the aftermath of the war.

Long term, I've always seen Germany in the aftermath of the Twilight War as gaining control over Austria, Northern Poland and the western quarter of the Czech Republic. and even parts of France Poland ends up with Kaliningard and all its pre-WWII territory (less the Danzig Corridor) and Belarus and Ukraine get hundreds of square miles of Russia. Russia loses all of its territory north of St. Petersburg to Finland as well as the entire Kola Peninsula to Finland and Norway. Russia 25 years after the war consist of little more than a handful of essentially semi-autonomous city states with Siberia aligned with the US and Japan and all the Republics independent.

[Legbreaker]

And the USSR in China?
Poland is a wasteland. Why would they have gained anything? I'd have thought they'd be carved up instead.

[mpipes]

The Polish Free Congress inherits the country and Germany was a staunch supporter/ally for them along with the Baltic States, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Everyone "in the neighborhood" allied against the Russians and stood together in the end.

[Legbreaker]

So what about the other, "legitimate" Polish government. How about the Czechs, Hungarians, and other Pact members?
The Twilight War was a stalemate, not a western victory.

[Sanjuro]

I first learnt about Kaliningrad Oblast through a Gerald Seymour novel, Traitor's Kiss. Like all of his books, it is quite gritty and realistic, and unlike most thriller writers you never know till the end if the hero is even going to survive.
Highly recommended.

[mpipes]

Here are more of my notes.


AFTERMATH 2020
Central Europe is dominated by the United Central States, a federal republic similar to the US, but with far more autonomy for the member nations – the United German Republic (Germany, Austria, and Denmark), Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakian Republic, Slovenia, and Hungary. UGR territory encompasses the eastern fifth of the post WWI Czechoslovakia as well as most of northern Poland - the “Danzig Corridor.” Both Poland and Germany extend mostly to their pre-WWII borders. Gdansk is an independent city state with its shipping facilities operated by German and Polish companies, and Poland maintains a naval base that has been ceded to Poland. Poland controls the former Kaliningrad enclave; a concession by Germany to give its ally unfettered access to the Baltic. The Ukraine is closely aligned with the UGR, but remains politically independent. Belarus and Ukraine borders also include several thousand square miles of former Russian territory. Bulgaria and Romania maintain political independence, but these two countries are also closely aligned with the UCS. The population in these areas of central and eastern Europe collectively is about 45% prewar levels.
Finland encompasses the whole of former Soviet territory north of St. Petersburg and remains an active member of NATO as does Sweden and Norway. With only limited nuclear attacks, the population in these countries is about 85% of prewar level, though the former Russian territory incorporated into Finland was largely depopulated in the chaos of 1997-2004.
European Russia has been reduced to a collection of squabbling city states. The Free States of Siberia rule all of the former “Siberia” of the Soviet era and is closely allied with the U.S. and Japan. All of the former Soviet Republics are independent, but many still lack a functioning central government. The most stable are the Caucasus Republics – Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
France is ruled by a socialist, and totalitarian, “Emergency Council” that is increasingly at odds with its French Union partners and maintains power through martial law. A Free French Republic rules in the area of France occupied by Spain and Portugal in 1998 after the occupation of Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands by French troops, and NATO troops remain in the FFR as a deterrent to French invasion. There has been a low grade civil war going on in France for over 15 years; the product of a failed coup by disgruntled French officers opposed to martial law that still continues in France. The area between Marseilles and Montpellier, as well as all of Corsica are also part of the FFR. Economically, France remains stagnant compared to most European countries, as most of Europe’s companies refuse to do business with France, and the UGR bans all but agricultural exports into France. However, France remains almost the only European country with a current population greater than it was in 1997.
After ejecting the French and its Walloon supporters, Belgium and the Netherlands restored cold but cordial relations with France. Belgium forcibly expelled many ethnic Walloons from Belgium territory, and anyone found to have supported the French occupation was stripped of their citizenship and expelled along with their families, but Belgian has relaxed its lifetime ban on expelled Walloons from travel into Belgium in recent years. Walloons that can prove they supported the French occupation under duress have been granted pardons and their citizenship restored, and family members of those stripped of their citizenship and expelled have been allowed to travel into Belgium. Additionally, some of the most egregious war criminals from the occupation are still actively sought by the Belgians and the Dutch, and the occasional assassination still occurs in France or other countries. Finally, the socialists politicians blocking Belgium’s support for Germany in 1996 were mostly prosecuted for treason, and any politician that opposed NATO had their property and bank accounts seized and turned over to refugees and victims of the French occupation. These socialist politicians still remaining in Belgium are by and large barred from many occupations (e.g., lawyers and banking), and they and their families reduced to poverty and socially and economically (many go as far as even refusing to sell food to them) ostracized.
Italy is very closely allied with UCS. The 1997 revolt was very bloody and saw the most violence against Socialists and Communists, who were almost universally blamed and held accountable for the nuclear attacks. There are documented cases of entire families of prominent Socialists and Communists chained in squares and outside homes and systematically abused before they starved to death or died of exposure. The most infamous event occurred outside Foggia where almost 1500 people were locked into a heavily fallout contaminated prison and left to die of radiation and starvation. Informal “death squads” operated with little restraint between 1998 and 2000. Most Socialist politicians and many registered members (and their families) of the Communist Party and its affiliates had been hunted down and killed by 2000 (an estimated two million people!). Even now, anyone seriously advocating socialist or communist policies as a political position risks death. Italy’s population has rebounded to about 55% of pre-war levels.
Greece has no real friends and is generally treated as a pariah. It has been reduced to Third World status and has little trade outside the Balkans, Bulgaria, and Albania. Turkish, NATO, and Soviet mines still sink the occasional ship in its waters, which does nothing to improve its trade ties or facilitate movement between its islands.
England has mostly recovered, but it is much de-populated (55% of pre-war population) and plagued by bandit gangs in rural areas. Scotland and Wales also have been afforded semi-autonomous status, but there is radical nationalist movement active in both. Northern Ireland is still nominally part of Great Britain, but it enjoys much stronger ties to Ireland. The divide between Catholics and Protestants that drove pre-war relations between Ireland and Northern Ireland carry no relevance to the Irish of 2020, which saw a cultural forge and assimilation in the post-nuclear attack Irish Isles during the dark years of 2001-2010, when it was largely cutoff from England by Scottish and Welch rebels. Indeed, a formal transfer of Northern Ireland to Irish rule is seen as inevitable before the end of the century, but for now it remains part of Great Britain and is largely peaceful.
China is broadly partitioned into three regions. Southern China generally falls under Hong Kong control, which managed to retain a semblance order after 1997. Central China is ruled by a loose confederation of warlords. Northeastern China is mostly a collection of isolated city states with large unclaimed and ungoverned areas that remain essentially depopulated with roving gangs scavenging mostly abandoned villages and cities. Overall, China possesses a population of about 25% pre-war, with the largest portion in south China. Areas on the coast are in better shape, and a coalition of several cities owe allegiance to Taiwan, including Shanghai, and they are gaining increasing power and increasing their territorial rule. Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, New Zealand, and Australia are in fair condition, with stable central governments and mostly functioning economies and relatively few armed bands.
The Middle East in 2020 is far more peaceful and united. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and Georgia are the major political and military leaders of a broad military and political alliance that holds sway over much of the region. Iran and Iraq have never really been able to restore their central governments to full efficiency, and many believe that the French hold entirely too much influence over the disparate tribes that dominate the two countries and continue to undermine the weak and ineffectual central government. The other Persian Gulf states, led by Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, and the UAE still maintain a military partnership with the U.S., British, Australian, and New Zealand governments, though there is a reluctance to fully and strongly align with the other Arab states in the region. Furthermore, these Gulf States maintain good relations with France, while the Israel-Saudi-Egyptian alliance exercises frosty relations at best with France.
France also enjoys good relations with North African Arab nations.