July 21st

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July 21 is a novel by the German author Christian v. Ditfurth , which was published in 2001 by Droemer-Verlag . In the form of an alternative world history , the topic is taken up what could have happened if Adolf Hitler had been killedin the bombattack of July 20, 1944 and Germany had had the atomic bomb before the Allies.

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1953: The protagonist is recruited by the CIA

The first part of the novel takes place in 1953. The Soviet dictator Josef Stalin has just passed away and in Moscow there is a fierce battle for the position of head of state between the high-ranking members of the government, with State Security Minister Lavrenti Beria being the strongest man. In this situation, the Soviet secret service receives an encrypted radio message in which the German government proposes cooperation to the Soviet Union.

At the same time, a German named Knut Werdin, who lives lonely on a small farm near the Mexican border, receives a visit from the CIA in the USA .

Werdin, formerly Sturmbannfuehrer the SD had the Allies informed in 1945 about the existence of German nuclear weapons. Thereupon the USSR and the Western Allies made peace with Germany, so that the Second World War ended "in a draw". As a result, America , the Soviet Union and Germany face each other as nuclear powers in the Cold War . As a result of the negotiations between Germany and the Soviet Union, the balance of power is now threatening to turn to the disadvantage of the USA.

So the CIA wants to recruit the "insider" Werdin to return to Germany and kill Heinrich Himmler . As Interior Minister in Germany, he is the driving force behind the rapprochement with Russia, while the conservative Chancellor Carl Friedrich Goerdeler is striving for an alliance with the USA. Werdin initially refuses to cooperate. But when CIA boss Allen Welsh Dulles presented him with a letter written to him in 1950 by his former lover Irma Mellenscheidt, he was puzzled.

Irma was apparently shot when they escaped from Germany in 1945. But the photo enclosed with the letter undoubtedly shows her and a boy who looks like Werdin. In order to find out the truth about the photo, Werdin agrees to allow himself to be smuggled into Germany.

Flashback to 1944/1945: The German atomic bomb

The second part of the novel is a flashback that reports what happened in Germany in 1944/1945.

Berlin 1944: Germany's defeat is only a matter of time. A group of civilians and the military plan to get rid of Hitler who opposes any peace talks. They do not consider that many Germans would see them as traitors and putschists for this. Himmler is in the picture about the conspiracy, but does not hand the conspirators over to the Gestapo, as he knows that the defeat will cost him his neck too.

For example, Sturmbannführer Knut Werdin received the order from SD chief Walter Schellenberg to contact the conspirators and to offer support to the SS, if it persists after a mutual agreement with the Allies. Werdin recruits the disaffected Wehrmacht major Gustav Rettheim, who lost his family and a leg at the front in an air raid, as a liaison with the conspirators. What nobody knows is that Werdin is a communist spy who only joined the SS to gather information for Russia.

During a Gestapo raid on a pub, he helps the young Irma Mellenscheidt and her mother (who has forgotten her passport). Both fall in love, although Irma also has strong feelings for Luftwaffe captain Helmut von Zacher. Meanwhile Werdin succeeds in convincing the conspirator Colonel Stauffenberg of the necessity of cooperation with the SS, since otherwise Germany is threatened with a civil war. With horror, however, he received orders from Moscow to prevent the attack. Stalin knows that if the war continues, he will win and, if Germany conquers, he will gain control of Eastern Europe. A mutual agreement would destroy all his expansion plans. Werdin and his espionage partner Fritz turn away from the USSR in disappointment. Shortly afterwards, Fritz is arrested by the Gestapo Standartenführer Werner Krause and betrays Werdin under torture.

The assassination attempt by Stauffenberg succeeds. After Hitler's death, the conspirators kept calm in Germany with the help of SS troops. It is officially reported that Hitler was killed in a British air raid. Göring hands over his position as head of the air force to Erhard Milch and becomes (powerless) President of the Reich . Carl Friedrich Goerdeler becomes the new Chancellor , Erwin von Witzleben Commander in Chief of the Wehrmacht and Ernst von Weizsäcker Foreign Minister . Himmler remains Minister of the Interior and Reichsführer of the SS, Ernst Kaltenbrunner becomes his deputy. Under the new German government, many high-ranking National Socialists ( Joseph Goebbels , Joachim von Ribbentrop , Adolf Eichmann , Julius Streicher ) were imprisoned and the concentration camps were converted into “normal prison camps”. The Gestapo is absorbed into the SD, whose boss is Schellenberg.

The war continues, however, because the Allies demand an unconditional surrender of Germany, which both Himmler and Goerdeler and the Wehrmacht leadership reject. Erich von Manstein takes command of the German troops on the Eastern Front and Erwin Rommel of the troops on the Western and Southern Front. The Wehrmacht retreated behind the Siegfried Line in the west and managed to slow down the advance of the Red Army in the east by means of flexible defenses . The armaments industry only builds jet fighters and anti-aircraft missiles instead of V-weapons and long-range bombers for the air force . Only simple and robust types of tanks are built in large numbers for the army.

Werdin, who is expecting his arrest, is, to his amazement, commissioned by Schellenberg to travel to Haigerloch in the Swabian region, where he is supposed to supervise the development of a new wonder weapon. Under the direction of Kurt Diebner , the atom bomb project neglected by Hitler was resumed there. At the same time, Zacher was given the order by the new Luftwaffe chief Milch to fly a special bomb weighing several tons after its completion in a specially converted Heinkel bomber over a still unknown city. Although Zacher does not understand the benefit of this individual action, he accepts.

While there are more and more calls for a negotiated peace in the USA and England and many employees of the Manhattan Project are on strike, in Haigerloch Diebner , Heisenberg and Weizsäcker continue to work feverishly on the development of a functioning atom bomb, for which Himmler has all the resources of the SS at the disposal of the scientists represents. When the Red Army has already crossed the German border and the Americans are on the west bank of the Rhine, Diebner Werdin triumphantly announces that they have succeeded in building 13 ready-to-use atomic bombs. Back in Berlin, Werdin learns from Krause that Schellenberg is now aware of his past as a spy and plans to arrest him soon.

On May 7, 1945, Zacher, protected by several dozen fighter planes, flies the Heinkel with the atomic bomb over the city of Minsk . This is completely destroyed in the atomic explosion and hundreds of thousands are killed. Goerdeler gives the shocked allies an ultimatum to enter into peace negotiations within 72 hours, otherwise further nuclear strikes would ensue. In the USA, many politicians have suddenly always been against a war with Germany, and in England the press is suddenly against another war with Germany. Himmler is gaining tremendous prestige among the German population because he has pushed the nuclear weapons program with all possible means.

Since Werdin is now threatened with arrest and there is no telling whether the Allies will accept the ultimatum, Werdin and Irma decide to flee Germany. While crossing the Rhine, on the other bank of which the Americans are standing, Irma is shot by German guards and falls into the water. Werdin thinks she is dead and escapes to the American side. He reports to the Allies that Germany actually has more atomic bombs.

1953: The further events

The third part of the novel takes place again in 1953. Werdin smuggles his way into Germany via Holland . However, he is identified by a Dutch collaborator who betrayed a group of the Dutch resistance to the SD during the war and has to kill him. However, this is observed and the SD becomes aware of it.

Grujewitsch, Beria's deputy and head of the Russian counterintelligence, has meanwhile been invited to Germany and, during a conversation with Schellenberg, checks the German intentions for rapprochement. At Gruyevich's instigation, Beria accepts Himmler's invitation and negotiates a German-Soviet friendship treaty with him.

Meanwhile, Schellenberg tells Krause, who only warned Werdin in 1945 on his instructions, the reason for this. The scientists working with Diebner only managed to build a single functional atomic bomb. Since Germany would destroy its only leverage during the "demonstration" in Minsk, the spy Werdin was sent to Haigerloch and convinced him that Germany had more than one atomic bomb. Werdin fled Germany and reported to the Allies about Germany's nuclear arsenal. Since Werdin, as a former Russian spy and overseer in Haigerloch, was a credible informant who himself believed in what he was saying, the Allies fell for the trick and made peace with Germany, which was actually completely defenseless.

Arrived in Berlin, Werdin visits Rettheim. He tells Werdin the truth about the Holocaust, which Himmler had to tell some Wehrmacht officers after the war, but which he keeps secret from the public. Werdin is horrified and begins to seriously consider whether he should risk an attack on Himmler with the support of Rettheim and a few other officers.

Nevertheless he wants to speak to Irma first. On the way to her house, he does not notice that he is being watched by SD investigators. Irma tells Werdin that she was only shot and arrested while trying to escape. At Zacher's instigation, she was released, whereupon she married him. Her son Josef is actually the child of her and Werdin.

When Werdin is with Irma, he recognizes the SD trap and lets them arrest him, but he kills Krause and is seriously injured himself. Subsequently, the SD arrested Irma for treason and high treason and her son as a witness. Zacher comes back during the house search and learns of the arrest, as well as Werdin's visit. He insists on her release, unsuccessfully. He then drives to the nearest air force base and takes off with a fully loaded bomber under the pretext of a test flight.

At the same time, Himmler held a meeting with the leadership of the SS at the Wewelsburg , at which Schellenberg and Kaltenbrunner were also present. With the backing of the Soviets, the SS plans to overthrow the former conspirators around Goerdeler and Stauffenberg in order to gain sole power over Germany. Suddenly Zacher's plane appears over the Wewelsburg. Zacher drops the bombs over her and steers his plane straight into the castle. Himmler and the entire SS leadership perish.

With Himmler's death, the prospective alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union collapses. Beria and Gruyevich are arrested by the other members of the collective Soviet government and charged as traitors.

Goerdeler and the Wehrmacht leadership use the opportunity and disempower the leaderless SS. Werdin receives a letter from Irma, who was released. In it she writes that Zacher has been a broken man since he learned of the huge number of victims in Minsk, and that he would never have been happy in life. She now moves away with her son to leave her past behind and forbids Werdin any further contact.

A few years later, Werdin in Switzerland is exchanged for a German spy (ironically, the spy is Jewish). Werdin returns to his lonely farm in America.

How the Cold War ends in this alternate universe remains to be seen. However, it is mentioned that after the overthrow of the SS, relations between the USA and Germany improved enormously.

The world of July 21st

In Ditfurth's novel in 1953, the world is dominated not by two, but by three superpowers:

  • The US is essentially similar to that of actual history. President is the anti-communist politician Joseph McCarthy , who seeks an alliance with Germany against the Soviet Union. But because of the Holocaust (which was stopped in 1944 after Hitler's death to promote a negotiated peace) and the great power of the SS in Germany, the American public is largely anti-German. The USA has the world's largest naval force.
  • After Stalin's death, the Soviet Union is officially ruled by a collective party government, but there are many internal power struggles. After the war and the German atomic bombing, the country is in a serious economic crisis and is practically isolated in terms of foreign policy. For this reason, the Soviet government is also responding to the German alliance proposal. The Soviet Union has the largest infantry and armored forces in the world.
  • In Germany, the Nazi dictatorship turned into a corporate state after the war . There are electoral communities in the cities and municipalities, but these are limited to regional matters. In the German government of the "National Reconciliation", the former conspirators around Goerdeler and the SS around Himmler lie in wait for each other in the struggle for sole rule. Racism , anti-Semitism and eugenics are no longer part of the official state doctrine, but they are openly practiced in SS circles. Himmler's black order has enormous economic resources. In addition, Himmler enjoys great respect among the population, since the atomic bomb that turned the tide of war was an SS project.

The general censorship was relaxed and Hitler is portrayed on the one hand as the man who brought Germany back to national greatness, but on the other hand as the quasi sole responsible for the Holocaust and the war. The country, weakened by the war, found itself in the economic miracle in 1953 with Ludwig Erhard as Minister of Economics . Germany is the leading country in rocket and aircraft technology, and the Wehrmacht already has hydrogen bombs .

In the peace treaty between Germany and the Allies, Germany was guaranteed the borders of April 1940. This means that Poland , the Czech Republic and Austria belong to the German state, and after the war in 1947 , Luxemburg and Liechtenstein integrated themselves “voluntarily” into the Reich.

Great Britain had to undertake in the peace treaty to reduce its army to a hundred thousand men and not to tolerate any foreign troops on its territory. Winston Churchill is in exile in Canada. The Wehrmacht has military bases on the Channel Islands .

France , Belgium and Holland are no longer occupied by Germany, but they have to tolerate German military bases in their territory and cooperate with the German secret services. A certain political independence of these countries is shown in the fact that they z. B. maintain trade relations with the USA, with which Germany is officially still at war.

Hungary , Romania and Slovakia are de facto satellite states of Germany and have to supply it with raw materials.

Italy , Spain , Portugal and the Scandinavian countries work closely with Germany (although Sweden is officially neutral).

In the former Yugoslavia there is civil war between Croatian partisans and the other Slavic ethnic groups.

The Switzerland remains untouched as a neutral state, however, depends on the wishes of the German government.

Many of the Latin American countries (namely Uruguay ) work secretly with the Germans.

Japan is officially still an ally of Germany, but in fact both states have different interests. Japan is described in the novel as a still strong military power to be reckoned with. It can be assumed that the Japanese joined the German peace negotiations after the atomic bomb was dropped and that they were not defeated or demilitarized by the Allies either.

China is neutral towards the great powers. It is implied that the country is still ruled by the Kuomintang , which is waging civil war against Mao and his communist partisans.

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