World War II: Difference between revisions
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The [[name]] "Adolf" virtually disappeared not only in Germany but all over the world due to its association with Hitler. This came to be known as "the Adolf Effect". ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Lights of Skaro (audio story)|The Lights of Skaro]]'') | The [[name]] "Adolf" virtually disappeared not only in Germany but all over the world due to its association with Hitler. This came to be known as "the Adolf Effect". ([[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Lights of Skaro (audio story)|The Lights of Skaro]]'') | ||
Hitler was resurrected along with the rest of humanity in the [[City of the Saved]]. He was promptly imprisoned in [[the Gaol]], which had been constructed in anticipation of his eventual death and resurrection in the City. He was made to serve six million consecutive life sentences in the highly-secured Gaol guarded voluntarily by many of his victims, a great number of them Jewish. His punishment became a topic of debate. Civil liberties groups and his supporters argued his sentence had been a form of vigilante justice and harmed prospects of rehabilitation; other groups tried to harm him within the City protocols. [[Marcus Americanius Scriptor]] tried to meet with him, and seemed to be in favour of Hitler's release, so that he could wander the world drowned out in anonymity. His meeting request was denied. He agreed to return when Hitler's sentence had been served. He had [[#Known Worlds|already met Hitler many times during his travels]] through the [[Known Worlds]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Warlords of Utopia | Hitler was resurrected along with the rest of humanity in the [[City of the Saved]]. He was promptly imprisoned in [[the Gaol]], which had been constructed in anticipation of his eventual death and resurrection in the City. He was made to serve six million consecutive life sentences in the highly-secured Gaol guarded voluntarily by many of his victims, a great number of them Jewish. His punishment became a topic of debate. Civil liberties groups and his supporters argued his sentence had been a form of vigilante justice and harmed prospects of rehabilitation; other groups tried to harm him within the City protocols. [[Marcus Americanius Scriptor]] tried to meet with him, and seemed to be in favour of Hitler's release, so that he could wander the world drowned out in anonymity. His meeting request was denied. He agreed to return when Hitler's sentence had been served. He had [[#Known Worlds|already met Hitler many times during his travels]] through the [[Known Worlds]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Prologue to Warlords of Utopia (short story)|Prologue to Warlords of Utopia]]'') | ||
==== Rebuilding ==== | ==== Rebuilding ==== | ||
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[[Germania I]] was the [[Terra Optimus]] of these worlds. Opponents either capitulated in the face of German aggression or were beaten in short, one-sided wars, aided by the development of atomic weaponry. A revolution with Russia overthrew Stalin who was sent to Hitler in chains. The Russian people welcomed the Germans as liberators but were confined to the cities where disease spread rapidly; Moscow was bulldozed and replaced with a lake without the population being evacuated. Britain was welcomed into the Reich by Hitler after being bloodily subdued, Hull and Coventry having been hit by atomic bombs. [[Switzerland]], Canada, India, Australia, Africa, Crimea, the Channel Islands and Mediterranean islands were incorporated into the Nazi Empire, for which [[Sweden]] generated electricity. A puppet government was also established in the US Senate. Blacks, Jews and anyone denounced as a communist were gassed or exiled – by 1950, there were no Jews left in Europe. Berlin was rebuilt by Albert Speer while other cities were flattened and rebuilt in the same style. On 30 April 1945, Hitler and Eva Braun gave birth to a son, [[August Hitler]], whose birth was celebrated for months and it was claimed he was a child prodigy before he was a year old. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Warlords of Utopia (novel)|Warlords of Utopia]]'') | [[Germania I]] was the [[Terra Optimus]] of these worlds. Opponents either capitulated in the face of German aggression or were beaten in short, one-sided wars, aided by the development of atomic weaponry. A revolution with Russia overthrew Stalin who was sent to Hitler in chains. The Russian people welcomed the Germans as liberators but were confined to the cities where disease spread rapidly; Moscow was bulldozed and replaced with a lake without the population being evacuated. Britain was welcomed into the Reich by Hitler after being bloodily subdued, Hull and Coventry having been hit by atomic bombs. [[Switzerland]], Canada, India, Australia, Africa, Crimea, the Channel Islands and Mediterranean islands were incorporated into the Nazi Empire, for which [[Sweden]] generated electricity. A puppet government was also established in the US Senate. Blacks, Jews and anyone denounced as a communist were gassed or exiled – by 1950, there were no Jews left in Europe. Berlin was rebuilt by Albert Speer while other cities were flattened and rebuilt in the same style. On 30 April 1945, Hitler and Eva Braun gave birth to a son, [[August Hitler]], whose birth was celebrated for months and it was claimed he was a child prodigy before he was a year old. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Warlords of Utopia (novel)|Warlords of Utopia]]'') | ||
In one world, Hitler had a more successful career in art and remained an anonymous painter. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Warlords of Utopia | In one world, Hitler had a more successful career in art and remained an anonymous painter. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Prologue to Warlords of Utopia (short story)|Prologue to Warlords of Utopia]]'') | ||
===== Greater German Reich ===== | ===== Greater German Reich ===== | ||
Revision as of 18:27, 19 March 2022
World War II was a major conflict and total war fought on Earth in the 20th century. The war began in Europe in September 1939 after a breakdown of the peace settlement implemented after World War I. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, AUDIO: Neverland, et al.) Fighting also broke out earlier in Far East Asia in July 1937, following a period of unrest which began in 1911 and escalated in 1931. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, Log 384) Worldwide hostilities formally ended in September 1945. (COMIC: Sky Jacks, PROSE: Base of Operations) Apart from a handful of neutral countries, it involved the whole of the Earth.
The name of the war was sometimes written as World War Two, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, Harry Sullivan's War) World War 2 (PROSE: Filthy Lucre) or shortened to WWII (PROSE: Nightshade, Eternity is Just for Starters) and WW2. (PROSE: Warlock, This Town Will Never Let Us Go) It was also known as the Second World War, Earth War Two, (PROSE: Just War) the Patriotic War, (PROSE: Oblivion) the Hitler war in Europe, (TV: The Time Monster) the Second Sino-Japanese War in China and the Pacific War in the wider Far East. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) Other notable theatres included the Western Front, (PROSE: Warlock) the Eastern Front, (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) the North Africa Campaign, (COMIC: The Instruments of War) the Italian theatre (COMIC: Treasure Trail, PROSE: Deadly Reunion, The Turing Test) the Far East Campaign (AUDIO: The Forsaken) and the South Pacific Campaign. (PROSE: Fugitives from Chance)
The Doctor stopped several groups from interfering with the war as Earth was distracted by its own chaos, including the Timewyrm, the War Lords, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus), the Players, (PROSE: Players, World Game), the Cybermen, (PROSE: Illegal Alien) the Daleks, (TV: Victory of the Daleks) the Heliyon, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) the Silurians, (COMIC: As Time Goes By) the Rutans (COMIC: The Instruments of War) and the Valbrects. (PROSE: Base of Operations) Eileen Younghusband also defended Earth from alien attacks during the conflict. (PROSE: The Last Duty) Several hostile extraterrestrial forces recognised the war as the point in Earth's history where humanity invented destructive technologies theoretically capable of causing its own extinction. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, Deadly Reunion, Endgame AUDIO: Storm of the Horofax, Entanglement, Human Conflict)
World War II was considered by the First Doctor to be an even darker period of human history than the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. (AUDIO: Entanglement) Tens of millions of lives were lost. In the words of the Seventh Doctor, the war was comprised of many terrible events that could be considered "crimes against the universe itself." Auschwitz, Pearl Harbor, Stalingrad, Dresden, Coventry, Hiroshima and Kwai were all locations which witnessed dreadful suffering during the course of the conflict, with further scars left by the Holocaust. (PROSE: Just War)
History
Napoleonic precedent
- Main article: Napoleonic Wars
At the end of the 18th century, the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte during French Revolution, (TV: The Reign of Terror) which sparked fierce wars in France, (AUDIO: Fields of Terror) spread hostilities to the rest of Europe. The Napoleonic Wars saw numerous military parallels with the later Second World War. In 1805, Admiral Horatio Nelson led the Royal Navy to victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, causing Napoleon to shelve cross-Channel plans to invade England and he instead sent the armies of France east into Russia. After a disastrous winter campaign, Napoleon was hurled back to the west. Also weakened by the concurrent Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal, Napoleon was surrounded by a two-front war and ultimately defeated by a grand coalition of nations at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. His failure to defeat the United Kingdom, in the long term, led to his downfall. (PROSE: World Game)
Darker ideological parallels also bubbled beneath the surface. In an alternate timeline in which Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo, in the Players' Game of Napoleon and Wellington, the French Emperor conquered much of Europe and his empire became a dictatorial regime. The Second Doctor, upon arriving in this timeline, identified the presence of "Fascism, repression, state terror" of the kind known to the 20th century in Adolf Hitler's Germany, Joseph Stalin's Russia and Mao Tse-Tung's China. A victorious Napoleon, he noted, "seem[ed] to have invented it early." The Doctor and Serena restored the original timeline and Napoleon's proto-fascist regime never came to be, (PROSE: World Game) but the Doctor continued to draw comparisons between Napoleon and Hitler into his next incarnation. (PROSE: Galactic Gangster, Soldiers from Zolta)
Foreseeing
In 17th century isolationist Japan, Asami of Clan Rikushira read Izzy Sinclair's mind using "Gaijin" technology to learn the future of her nation. Izzy's memories revealed that Japan would fight in the Pacific War where Hiroshima would be destroyed and Japan defeated. The revelation drove Asami insane and she vowed to wipe out the Western nations and change Japan's future before the Eighth Doctor convinced the Gaijin to stop her. (COMIC: The Road to Hell)
Ada Lovelace was temporally displaced from 1834 to 1943, where she was witness to the war-torn Paris, as well as learning from Noor Inayat Khan that the current war came following one of a similar scale. The Thirteenth Doctor noted that these were "dark times", but that they would not sustain. Ultimately, the Doctor removed Ada's memory of this experience as she returned her home to 1834. (TV: Spyfall)
In 1899, Winston Churchill was captured during the Boer War while working for the Daily Mail as a war correspondent in South Africa. He anonymously received a package full of supplies to help him escape which he believed came from the British government. The Sixth Doctor thought it was part of a trap given Churchill's somewhat lowly position, assuring him: "The day may come when the British Government will be ready to expend effort to save your skin – but not yet..." (PROSE: Players)
In 1903, after receiving a wealth of information from the future, Grigori Rasputin foresaw, among other things, the Second World War, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. (AUDIO: The Wanderer)
In February 1906, the launch of the Dreadnought by the Royal Navy sparked an arms race between the United Kingdom and Imperial Germany. Time travelling aliens recognised that the arms race would set in motion technological advances which eventually resulted in the creation of the atomic bomb and the Cold War. (AUDIO: Peace in Our Time)
Captain Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart encountered the First and Twelfth Doctors after he was displaced in time while fighting at Ypres in December 1914. The Twelfth Doctor accidentally referred to the conflict as "World War One", leaving the Captain contemplating the upsetting implication that there would eventually be another. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
On 18 November 1915, Churchill arrived in France for military duty on the Western Front, where the Count and Countess of the Players attempted to send him to Germany as a political prisoner. The Second Doctor let himself be captured by the Players to allow Churchill to escape in their plane. The Doctor's parting warning stuck with Churchill: "Your country needs you, now and in years to come!" (PROSE: Players) Had the Players succeeded in disgracing or killing Churchill in their Game of Hitler and Churchill, Britain would be left open to German invasion in 1940. (PROSE: World Game)
Origins
World War I and the Treaty of Versailles
- Main article: World War I
- Main article: Treaty of Versailles
Between 1914 and 1918, World War I was fought on Earth. Although global in scale, the war was primarily a European matter which saw the United Kingdom, France and Russia of the Allies fight against Germany and Austria-Hungary of the Central Powers. (TV: The War Games, PROSE: Human Nature, et al.) While Britain and France emerged victorious, Russia became engulfed by revolution in 1917 which toppled the old Tsarist regime and gave rise to the Communist dictatorship of the Soviet Union. (PROSE: The Wages of Sin, AUDIO: The Memory Cheats, et al.) Germany and her allies were defeated and the end of the war was marked by Armistice Day on 11 November 1918. (AUDIO: The White Room)
These powers, together with many other countries, would find themselves engaged in another war two decades later, the roots of which could be traced back to the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty, which formally brought World War I to an end, was signed in 1919 at the peace conference at Versailles. George Limb was among the attendees. Chief Inspector Patrick Mullen and the Seventh Doctor later suspected that Limb may have had a hand in sabotaging the treaty in some way, sowing the seeds for another conflict. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Under the terms of the treaty, Germany lost her empire, her colonies and much of her European territory, resulting in the emergence of newly independent countries like Poland, and was made to accept responsibility for the war. Nazi Colonel Oskar Steinmann later denounced the treaty as a "draconian" measure intended to punish Germany. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)
The Allies set war reparations that, in the eyes of many Germans, were obviously meant to be too high for Germany to be able to pay off, crippling her economically and preventing recovery. Kaiser Wilhelm II was deposed, although buildings and organisations such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute retained his name. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) Germany became a republic, known as the Weimar Republic. (PROSE: Almost Perfect) Aware that the Germans viewed the treaty as unfair, British agent Graham Greene proposed that he become an agent for German interests, but beyond one trip to the Rhineland, nothing came of this idea. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Europe and the rise of fascism
The Weimar Republic
- Main article: Weimar Republic
British society experienced “upheaval and change” after 1918. The coal, textile and ship-building industries went into decline, while electricity rose to replace steam power. Women were granted the right to vote and new cultural activities came onto the scene with the rise of jazz, films and the wireless. Although much of the period between 1918 and 1939 was remembered for the General Strike, the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression, the Twelfth Doctor noted more positive aspects. More people enjoyed a greater quality of life than did their forebears. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
Britain's period of optimism was not reflected in Weimar Germany, whose interwar period was a grim one. Her old foe Russia, now under Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks, continued to establish the new Communist power in the east which posed a threat to Germany. (PROSE: The Wages of Sin) This threat was demonstrated in 1919 when the Spartacist movement, (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) influenced by the the Soviets, attempted to spark a communist revolution in Germany, at a time when the Versailles reparations had stifled the nation's economic growth and her ability to recover from the war. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)
Several political groups emerged in Germany out of the chaos which resulted from defeat, most of which were minor and quickly faded into obscurity. However, one party would grow to significance. This was the National Socialist German Workers Party – in German, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (PROSE: Just War) or NSDAP. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) Founded in 1919 by Anton Drexler and Dietrich Erhart, the party selected a number of populist policies as its ideological stance, including a mix of nationalism, socialism and anti-Semitism. In the early 1920s, the NSDAP regularly met in beer halls around Munich, which normally ended in street fighting against Communists. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The party adopted the ideology of fascism, to be enforced by a ruthless military dictatorship which suppressed weakness and emphasised the importance of the fatherland. In particular, followers of fascism fought against communist agitators calling for a workers' uprising or "class war". (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
Among the membership of the National Socialist Party was a young Adolf Hitler. Hitler had dabbled in a career in art but he had failed in this endeavour and much more besides. He fought in World War I and, like many Germans, felt shamed by Germany's defeat. He grew up bitter, neurotic, resentful and hateful. Yet much of the NSDAP's success in the early 1920s was down to him and his speeches. Hitler was gifted with energy, passion, a strong will, a powerful mind, and an ability to move vast swathes of the population with his natural affinity as an orator. The Timewyrm recognised Hitler's potential and in his earlier years, she implanted herself inside his mind to control him as a vessel who could lead the world to destruction. Once inside, she found herself trapped and unable to fully exert her influence, although her presence did amplify Hitler's natural skills, making him even more charismatic and able to more strongly connect with even more of the German people. Hitler also attracted the attention of the War Lords and the renegade Time Lord known as the War Chief. Having failed to raise an advanced army of universal conquest through their War Games, the War Lords saw the opportunity to realise this by becoming the puppet masters of a world united by a triumphant Adolf Hitler instead. To this end, the War Lords observed Hitler's early political career and assisted and influenced events as required.
Germany's post-war situation failed to improve and in response, a significant political disturbance actively manifested itself on 9 November 1923. Hitler and Hermann Goering led a coup against the Weimar government at the German War Office in Munich, which became known as the Beer Hall Putsch. The NSDAP supporters rallied around WWI hero, General Erich Ludendorf, who acted as a figurehead but was becoming senile and ultimately had little idea what was really going on. Hitler roused the crowd with a speech denouncing Jews and the Treaty of Versailles. At the conclusion of the speech, the procession marched towards the War Ministry. They encountered armed police on the Odeonplatz who, although armed, were reluctant to fire in case they hit Ludendorf. As the crowd drew nearer, the police fired into the ground at their feet, showering them with chips of granite and ricocheting bullets. The procession scattered in a riotous attempt to escape. Goering was hit in the stomach by a shard of granite and staggered away. Hitler fell, dislocating his shoulder, and was trampled by the frenzied crowd.
The Seventh Doctor, seeking to preserve Earth's timeline to prevent an alternative future, witnessed the Putsch and helped Hitler back onto his feet after the crowds fled. Shamed, Hitler contemplated suicide but the Doctor convinced him to keep trying, and one day he would lead Germany. The Doctor's companion Ace had been disgusted by one of Hitler's speeches and tried to assassinate him with nitro-9a but the Doctor admonished her actions. He described Hitler as an "incompetent madman" who ruled Germany for twelve years, which was at least better than killing him and running the risk of a competent madman taking his place and ruling a dictatorship for that lasted closer to a thousand.
The NSDAP was banned from participating in future elections and it seemed to contemporary observers that the party was on its way back to the fringes. One such observer, Professor Karl Muller, wrote in his 1927 book Ballots, Blood and Bullets – Political Chaos in Post-War Germany that the failure of the Putsch ruined the party's last hopes of greater political success. Although the party eventually returned, it endured a decade of "dirty politics". Hitler was found by the authorities shortly after the Putsch and arrested on charges of treason. He was sentenced to five years in prison. However, his sentence seemed to enhance rather than hinder his political career. In the end, he was released after only six months and spent most of them as a VIP prisoner. Writing Mein Kampf during his sentence, he was eventually pardoned and returned to the streets as a hero. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Despite the failure of the Putsch, the incident brought Hitler to the attention of George Limb, who felt he had potential and was someone the British government ought to take seriously. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Hitler infectious charisma helped him rise to power in later years. This was also the case for Benito Mussolini, (PROSE: Warchild) who rose to prominence in the same period and established a fascist dictatorship in Italy. (AUDIO: The Rapture) Mussolini looked back to Rome's proud and ancient imperial history and resolved to create a new empire for Italy. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
Anglo-German relations remained uneasy following the Great War. In the early 1920s, the Third Doctor quickly sought to gain the trust of the staff at Denby prep school to fend off an attack by extraterrestrial shape-shifters. When his story only caused confusion, he made up a more-believable cover story about a German revenge plot to invade Britain using new flying machines, for which he, a member of His Majesty's Secret Service, had stolen the plans. (PROSE: Dream Devils) By August 1928, British Great War veteran Oliver Marks had heard rumours about a new movement in Germany formulating a further atrocity by planning another Great War. At first, he dismissed the rumours. (PROSE: The Glamour Chase)
Barbara Wright once raised the idea of a time traveller assassinating Hitler in 1930, asking what might happen. The First Doctor countered the suggestion by simply pointing out that Hitler wasn't assassinated. His reign was thus a fact of history which time travellers could not change. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Crusaders) The Third Doctor did acknowledge, however, that, as with Napoleon Bonaparte before him, history would have taken a very different course without Hitler. (PROSE: Soldiers from Zolta) Shayde identified the temporal period in which World War II was a part as a "crucial nexus point" in Earth's development. He warned Fey Truscott-Sade that the war could not be interfered with without disrupting the Web of Time. (COMIC: Me and My Shadow) The Eighth Doctor expressed the same concern. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)
The Weimar Republic hosted a vast scientific community at establishments like the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, including Max Planck as its director, (PROSE: Just War) Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Eugene Wigner, Fritz Haber, Werner Heisenberg (AUDIO: The Alchemists) and Wolfgang Pauli. The work of the latter two was followed closely by American scientist Robert Oppenheimer, while he was studying physics at Göttingen in Germany. Oppenheimer eventually returned to the United States to teach what he had learned at Caltech and Berkeley. This small development was to play a momentous role in the coming conflict. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
The elections of 1932
During the 1920s, the United States of America enjoyed almost a decade of “wealth and excess” but in October 1929, the Wall Street Crash brought it to a sudden end. The stock market crashed, leading to the ten years of the Great Depression, which affected other countries as well such as Britain and Germany. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
The Depression's impact on Germany's economy was disastrous, with unemployment rising to six million. The German people grew more angry, bitter and resentful with their government when it proved unable to cope with the problem. (PROSE: A History of Humankind) The economy was already crippled by the war and the Versailles reparations before the Depression hit. Germans began to feel neglected and abused by the United States. Jews received much of the blame for these problems, an attitude in Germany that dated back centuries. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) As a young NSDAP activist, Hitler denounced Jews as a race which "spread all over the world" and "conquered all the money markets". He described them as "rich in vermin, vice and pestilence, grimly determined not to serve us but to rule." His supporters accused the Jews of taking away money and jobs from others. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The Nazi Party was able to use the Depression to return to the political scene as a serious contender for power. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
Amidst all the nation's problems, an election was held in Germany in July 1932 which failed to deliver a majority. Another election was held in November of that year. Parties with the initials Z, DVP, KPD, SPD and the NSDAP were among those standing in the elections, all attacking the incumbent Chancellor Papen and vowing to fix the economy. Once again, no party achieved a majority, resulting instead in unsuccessful and unpopular coalitions. With no one in charge, authority effectively vanished and there was no way to deal with crime, unrest and unemployment.
The thuggish Sturmabteilung (SA), a private army owned by Hitler who claimed the real army was too corrupt and lazy, filled the void left by the unreliable police force and clamped down on unrest and subversive elements such as Bolshevists. The Nazis were aware that their violent methods could drive away potential supporters, so they attempted to remain behind the scenes, away from the public eye, in order to let the results of their actions speak for themselves. Germans began to feel more content with the gradually improving situation, despite the excesses employed to make it happen.
Landing in Berlin in January 1933, the First Doctor told Susan Foreman that the war was "in the wind" at this stage. With Hitler on the rise, Einstein left for the United States. Susan and the Doctor became entangled in a plot to kidnap Fritz Haber and have him extract gold from sea water. While German underground crime syndicates sought the secret to aid in the nation's economic recovery, Pollitt, a member of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) sought the secret as well. Susan wrecked Pollitt's chances of discovering the secret and potentially changing the history of the coming war. With history back on track, the Doctor and Susan later lamented that, if Germany had been in a better economic position, Hitler may not have come to power. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)
The Nazis were able to seize power with only 33% of the vote. (PROSE: Players) Hitler was finally appointed Chancellor of Germany (PROSE: A History of Humankind) on 30 January 1933. The Matrix recorded this event as being a part of the Web of Time. (AUDIO: Neverland) Mels told her history teacher at Leadworth Secondary School that "A significant factor in Hitler's rise to power was the fact that the Doctor didn't stop him." (TV: Let's Kill Hitler) Madame Berber and LeDuc later thought of Hitler as a small man who existed at just the right time to be able to poison the minds of millions. (AUDIO: The Dying Room)
The Third Reich
- Main article: Third Reich
As the Führer of the newly-proclaimed Third Reich, Hitler wasted no time in suppressing those he deemed his enemies. Before the end of 1933, the Nazis created a criminal state where their will was law. Jews were banned from working in any profession and their money and property were all confiscated or destroyed. They were banned from parks, beaten up by Nazi thugs and Synagogues were burned to the ground. Many Jews were murdered, left Germany or were imprisoned in concentration camps. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
It was not just Jews but minority groups, or anyone viewed as weak, who suffered under the Reich. Elections were totally abolished and books containing information which ran counter to the Nazi ideology were burned, while the people who wrote and read them were purged. (PROSE: Just War) Among such victims was Karl Muller, whose Ballots, Blood and Bullets was suppressed by the Nazis the year they came to power. The Nazis even publicly beat people up or murdered them in the streets if they refused to salute the flag. Anyone the Nazis so little as disliked the look of could become a target. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
The names of "non-humans" were taken by the government on official lists. Among those rounded up were a small number of people living as werewolves in Germany. They were locked up and starved in a camp reinforced with silver, but not outright killed while the Nazis decided what to do with them. (PROSE: Wolfsbane)
All political parties except for the Nazi Party were banned and the Nazis' political opponents were killed or sent to the camps. Alongside politicians, the Nazis also rounded up trade unionists, intellectuals and other opponents or potential opponents. Some disappeared silently, having been executed under the Reich's night and fog policy. (PROSE: Players)
Fritz Haber fled Germany when Hitler came to power and died in exile in the United States in 1934. As the German Army had done in the previous war, the Nazis later used Haber's process to produce explosives and poisonous gases that could be used to kill hundreds of thousands of people in death camps. (AUDIO: The Alchemists, PROSE: Nothing at the End of the Lane) Germany also had access to the industries located in the Ruhr valley. (PROSE: The Paradise of Death)
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the early 1930s, Ramsay MacDonald, turned a blind eye to the new regime in Germany and instead prioritised domestic economic issues of unemployment rates and political issues concerning the Conservative Party. For this, the Seventh Doctor opined that MacDonald was an idiot. (PROSE: Log 384) Winston Churchill, meanwhile, was one of the first people to recognise the danger posed by Hitler and the Nazis as well as Mussolini in Italy (PROSE: Players) but his warnings largely went unheeded. While serving the government as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Churchill and his own party became increasingly fed up with each other. (WC: Amy's History Hunt) In the words of Edward Grainger, Churchill was a "self-glorifying, arrogant has-been... Spouting all that rubbish about Germany and Nazis." Nevertheless, Churchill attracted allies and sympathisers from within the Security Services, (PROSE: Log 384, Players) another name for MI5. (PROSE: Endgame)
On 29 and 30 June 1934, fearing a plot against him, Hitler struck against his own private army and eradicated the leadership of the SA in the Night of the Long Knives. Two thousand people were executed in one day, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) at Wiessee near Munich, including SA leader Ernst Rohm. (PROSE: Wolfsbane) Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich helped the Doctor chase the Master through Berlin as this was happening. By his fifth incarnation, a part of the Doctor regretted that he could not have killed both men before they carried out the crimes they would eventually commit. (PROSE: The King of Terror) According to the memories of Emmeline Neuberger, which may have been externally manipulated, the Schutzstaffel (SS) recruited the captive werewolves to partake in the massacre inside Wiessee hotel. Neuberger, one of the werewolves, sought refuge with family in England in the aftermath. (PROSE: Wolfsbane)
The SA was effectively replaced by the Schutzstaffel, the "Elite Guard" (PROSE: Just War) or "defence echelon" who acted as Hitler's personal guard. The SS grew to encompass approximately a quarter of a million men who worked hard to suppress political dissent and demand loyalty to the Führer through acts of brutality. Its members were fanatics and elite fighters, (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) highlighted through the two-year training prospective recruits had to pass through before they were officially inducted. Among the standard training exercises, potential recruits had to set a live grenade off on their own helmet while they were wearing it. By the end of the training, they were effectively brainwashed. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) SS members all had to have A-positive blood (AUDIO: The Dying Room) and Aryan ancestry dating back to the 18th century, all checked by Himmler, the leader of the SS. Successful members received their SS dagger and ring, and a black uniform. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
Oppenführer Hans Grau's Waffen-SS subdivision took over the Wilhelmine-era Institute of Alien Technology, renaming it Project Hermod. Like its British counterpart, the Torchwood Institute, it was established to protect the country from extraterrestrial threats. (AUDIO: The Dying Room)
Hitler's notoriety quickly grew around the rest of Europe. As a young boy, Jocelyn Stevens heard Hitler giving speeches on Nazi radio stations. He remembered Hitler's use of the phrase: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!" (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Green Death) Cecelia Pollard became a member of the League of English Fascists and met Hitler. (AUDIO: A Blind Eye) Her parents, Louisa and Richard Pollard, cut contact with her because of her pro-fascists views. (AUDIO: The Fall of the House of Pollard) London builder's merchant George Ratcliffe of the Association took part in a march down Cable Street in the 1930s, denouncing Bolsheviks and Jews. The marchers advocated a fascist English government emulating the model of the German Reich. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) Sir Oswald Mosley, who led the British Union of Fascists, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) also tried to emulate Hitler by flanking himself with his "Blackshirts" (PROSE: Players) They tried to drive Jews from the streets, which brought them into conflict with Tommy Ramsey's gang. (PROSE: Amorality Tale)
Hitler sat at the top of the Nazi hierarchy and marvelled at the early progress made by his new regime. However, the Führer was not fond of hard work despite what his "superman" public image suggested. He enjoyed sleeping late, long lunches, conducting inspections of factories and new autobahns, and haranguing his subordinates. As such, the heavier responsibilities of state building and administration fell to the other high-ranking, loyal and ambitious ministers Hitler surrounded himself with: (PROSE: Players)
- Hermann Goering became Reichsmarshal, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) charged with ruthless policing of the Reich. (PROSE: Players)
- Joseph Goebbels became the Reich propaganda minister, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) controlling all the information circulating throughout the Reich through newspapers, radio broadcasts and films. (PROSE: Players)
- Heinrich Himmler became Reichsfuhrer, in charge of the police, the SS and the Gestapo, the Reich's secret police. He became a rival to Goering. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Ruthless terror and suppression of dissidents fell under his remit. (PROSE: Players)
- Reinhard Heydrich also played a leading role in the SS and Gestapo, becoming the Deputy Reichsführer. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
- Reichsleiter Martin Bormann became Hitler's personal secretary and the secretary of the Nazi Party, (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) responsible for various administrative and paperwork duties. (PROSE: Players)
- Joachim von Ribbentrop worked as the German Ambassador to the UK (PROSE: Players) and later on foreign affairs in Berlin. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
- Albert Speer was appointed at the Reich's head architect, producing a Nazi Classical style which Hitler greatly admired. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
The Seventh Doctor, before learning about the strengthening influence of the Timewyrm and the War Lords on Hitler, long considered it a mystery how such an assortment of individuals ever made it into power, given that they included among them:
A broken down drug-addicted ex-pilot [Goering], a failed chicken farmer [Himmler], an unsuccessful snob of a champagne salesman with a fake title [Ribbentrop] and a ratty little lecher embittered by a club foot [Goebbels]. A gang of total deadbeats, led by a paranoid failed art student [Hitler].
The Third Reich, which the ambitious Nazis extolled as the "Thousand Year Reich", (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) or der Tausendjährige Reich, (PROSE: Just War, Warlords of Utopia) was in part modelled on the Roman Empire. Superiors were addressed with a click of the heels and the response of "Hiel!", (TV: Let's Kill Hitler) based on the similar Roman response of "Hail!" The sadistic conduct of the Roman soldiers was also present in the Nazi ranks. Ian Chesterton and Vicki Pallister considered the Romans "quasi-Nazis" who bullied their way across Europe and the Middle East. (PROSE: Byzantium!) This was despite the ancient Germans' resistance against the Romans, a history which the Nazis exploited, somewhat ironically, for the purposes of national pride and propaganda. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass, Warlords of Utopia)
The swastika, hitherto known as a symbol of peace, (PROSE: Utopia) was appropriated by the Nazis and became the symbol and adorned the flag of the Reich, the black cross centred in a white circle surrounded by red. The Nazis gathered annually in Nuremberg for the party rallies. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The German people were taught of German science and achievements, and that they were not to trust Jews, democracy, Marxists, liberals (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) homosexuals, gypsies, disabled people or any subversives who spoke against the Reich or the Führer. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
The Nazi state rewrote the topics of biology, mythology, genealogy, history and geography to suit their own ends, actively removing works of genuine science and replaced it with works based on their racial doctrines. Germans were indoctrinated with the racist belief that the German people were a strong, beautiful and superior Aryan race in a world full of weak and decadent "subhumans". Nazi Germany came to believe that it was her destiny to sweep away the existing political systems and unite Europe and the world under the strength of Fascism, establishing a New Order under the prosperous "Thousand Year Reich", free of weakness, decadence, corruption, slums, crime, and economic destitution. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, Just War, AUDIO: Just War) This was despite the ancient Germans' history of resistance against the Romans, a history which the Nazis exploited for the purposes of national pride and propaganda. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass, Warlords of Utopia)
Atrocities in Asia
- Main article: Pacific War
Demise of the old order
Before Hitler came to power, another storm was brewing in Asia, engendered by the decline of China and the simultaneous rise of Japan. Only recently in her history, Japan had ended Sakoku, the policy of national isolation, first imposed by the Shogun in the 1630s. The policy was born out of a suspicion of Christianity and Westerners, who the Japanese considered "barbarians". Two centuries of Sakoku increased this suspicion, as well as a growing awareness that Japan's development had stagnated and fallen behind the rest of the world. In the mid-19th century, American warships arrived in Edo (later Tokyo) harbour and demanded a trade agreement with Japan. The Shogun chose to accept and ended Japan's seclusion, opening the country up to the rest of the world for the first time in over 200 years. In the years that followed, Japan very quickly modernised. (AUDIO: The Barbarians and the Samurai) Less than a century later, Japan had already founded the Japanese Empire, represented by a flag depicting a blood-red sun. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
China's period of decline followed the crippling of the Chinese Empire by Britain and France during the Opium Wars prior to the mid-1860s. (PROSE: The Nightmare Fair, The Eleventh Tiger, AUDIO: The Nightmare Fair) In 1911, the remnants of the Empire were swept away by Sun Yat Sen. Sun led an alliance of nationalist warlords in a revolution which succeeded in ousting the boy Emperor Pu Yi. The alliance formed into the Kuomintang which became the governing party of China. Subsequently, the Kuomintang turned its attention towards a growing communist influence fostered by the Soviet Union to the north. It fell to Chiang Kai-shek, Sun Yat Sen's successor as the leader of the Kuomintang, to combat the communist insurgencies. Chiang was successful in driving the Communists into the mountains of north and central China, bordering Mongolia, but the Nationalists were unable to dislodge the Communists further. Order in China eroded as the two ideologies fought each other into a stalemate.
Amid this confusion, the region of Manchuria in the north-east of China was threatened with trade strangulation by a new Russian railway stretching from Europe to the Pacific port of Vladivostok. Both Chinese and Japanese trade suffered as a result. Japan's expansionist ambitions on the continent were growing and the budding empire drew its attention towards China's natural resources, and the power struggle in the latter country presented an ideal opportunity. According to Major Ryuji Matsu of the Imperial Japanese Army, Japan sought to bring order to a China divided by Nationalists and Communists and attract trade back to the region. In 1931, the Sakura Kai engineered a fight between the Chinese to justify the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, claiming the Chinese had attacked first. By 1932, the Japanese occupation was complete, and the former Chinese emperor Pu Yi was enthroned as the ruler of the new puppet state of Manchukuo. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
The occupying Kwantung Army set the Manchurian peasant population to work constructing Zhong Ma Fortress. The Kwantung Army committed many atrocities against the Chinese which deterred the peasants from attempting to escape. Those that did were shot on sight. Zhong Ma was a prison and research facility where the Japanese conducted experiments intended to forward the development of biological weapons. These projects were headed by the young military scientist Ishii Shiro and sponsored by the Japanese Emperor himself. Prisoners were dissected, blood samples were taken, and subjects were deliberately infected with bubonic plague, so that the Japanese could learn more about the human body and how to weaponise germs. (PROSE: Log 384) Kwantung Army Intelligence set up their headquarters in Hsinking. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) The occupation was the first step on Japan's road towards her ultimate aim of creating the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)
Shanghai imposed sanctions on Japan, worsening the trade situations of both nations. Japanese soldiers stationed in the Shanghai International Settlement were deployed onto the streets in 1932 and briefly occupied the city. Some areas were subjected to air raids by aircraft launched from the aircraft carrier Hosho off the coast, and a number of the city's inhabitants were arrested and interrogated. Sung-Chi Li was captured by Ishiguro Takashi and interrogated by Ryuji Matsu, who promised Shanghai would one day fall to the Japanese. With Li becoming disillusioned with the capabilities of his own government to bring back stability, Matsu convinced him of Japan's need to bring order to China via their own rule and the two agreed on a partnership. Intervention by the Western powers, looking to protect their own trading centres, prevented the Shanghai crisis from escalating into full-scale war between China and Japan, at least for a short time. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
When Mai Ling was made a prisoner in Zhong Ma in 1933, the Seventh Doctor sought to save her before the Japanese inadvertently unleashed the ghost warrior within her, bringing untold chaos and changing the course of the war. In order to gain access to the necessary resources and information to infiltrate the fortress, the Doctor warned the Churchill's sympathisers in MI5 of alliance talks being conducted in secret between the Nazis and the Japanese. In response, MI5 began recruiting operatives to send on a spy mission to Manchuria. It was not sanctioned by the British Government. The Doctor recruited Edward Grainger for his rescue mission. The two were briefly captured by the Japanese and experimented on but escaped and survived along with Mai Ling. Afterwards, the Doctor put forward a recommendation that Grainger be recruited in an unofficial capacity as an operative for the British Government, to be made official once the war began. Major-General Vernon Kell sent such an offer to Grainger, who accepted. (PROSE: Log 384) His granddaughter, Linda Grainger, later recalled that Edward travelled a lot during the war. (PROSE: Childhood Living)
Tensions between Japan and China continued to grow as disputes over Manchuria/Manchukuo persisted. (PROSE: The Year of Intelligent Tigers) In Japan, where the government was run by army generals, (PROSE: Endgame) the Army split into two factions who disagreed on the best course of action, although both sides advocated expansion into other countries. The Kodo Ha, controlled by the Sakura Kai, pushed for further consolidation of Manchukuo and expansion into China to offset strategic advantages enjoyed by the Soviet Union. The Tosei Ha felt it better to adhere to the formal rules of engagement and achieve their ambitions while working within the political system. The Kodo Ha controlled the local commanders in Manchukuo and used them to assassinate various government ministers, including prime ministers, between 1933 and 1935 to influence government policy. In February 1936, the Sakura Kai engineered a revolt in Tokyo by the Japanese First Infantry Division, supporters of the Kodo Ha. Many government officials and civil servants were killed before the revolt was suppressed by imperial order. The Tosei Ha, at least nominally, maintained control of the Army but the Kodo Ha still held onto the control of the Manchukuo commanders and were able to exert pressure on the Tosei Ha, who made alterations to their policy. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
Fighting between the Chinese and Japanese occurred in 1936. The War Lords and the renegade Time Lord the War Chief (prior to their machinations with Hitler and the Nazis) kidnapped some of these soldiers to have them participate in the War Games, placing them in the Chinese sector.[2] The survivors were returned home by the Time Lords when the War Lords were defeated. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the War Games) It was after the failure of the War Games and their subsequent imprisonment that the War Lords turned their attention to Nazi Germany. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Finally, in July 1937, the commanders in Manchukuo who supported the Kodo Ha provoked a fight between a handful of Chinese soldiers at Marco Polo Bridge and justified their actions by claiming the Chinese had attacked first. With Japanese troops now engaged in ongoing hostilities, the Tosei Ha government was forced to move onto a war footing. The first stages of true war in Asia had begun. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) Over the ensuing years, the conflict would grow larger in scale and become known as the Pacific War. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas)
War in China
- Main article: Second Sino-Japanese War
The front lines opened up on the Manchurian frontier, almost 400 miles north-east from Shanghai. The Japanese Twelfth Army made efforts to push south into Shangdong province, where they gained control of everything north of Tai'an and the mountain of T'ai Shan. The Imperial Army Air Fleet launched air raids from Manchuria against Shanghai using Mitsubishi Ki-15 single-engined planes, "just to prove that they can," according to the Fourth Doctor. Mitsubishi A5Ms also harassed KMT troop trains transporting Chinese Nationalist troops to the north. However, the initial aim of the Japanese was not to advance but to consolidate Manchuria, meaning the fighting was relatively light for a time. Nationalist China, meanwhile, was disadvantaged by the need to divide forces between the Japanese front lines near Shangdong and the Communist-held regions near Mongolia.
Ishiguro Takashi began seeking revenge for the deaths of his brothers in the 1936 revolt in Tokyo. Hunted by the Sakura Kai, he deserted the Imperial Army and fled from Japan to Hong Kong and then China where he began plotting against the "traitors" who controlled Japan's military government. There, under the guise of Woo, the Hong Kong-born owner of Club Do-San in Shanghai, he sought to build a united front against the Kwantung Army before they drove south from Manchuria. Bigger Chinese criminal organisations were already preparing to resist further Japanese invasions. Woo worked as a vigilante, who became known as Yan Cheh, cracking down on crimes committed against others in China. Such acts only served as costly distractions at a time when the resistance to the Japanese military had to be as strong as possible.
In August 1937, Hsien-Ko and the Tong of the Black Scorpion sought to prevent Magnus Greel from travelling to 1872, in order to formally punish him and avenge the death of Hsien-Ko's father, Li H'sen Chang. Affiliating the Tong with the Kuomintang to do so, Hsien-Ko believed her success would, among other things, allow her to change time, preventing the invasion of Manchuria and China's war against Japan altogether. She had many encounters, often fatal, with Japanese forces while travelling in Manchukuo and Shangdong on her mission. Her efforts were ultimately thwarted by Sung-Chi Li who, working for Major Matsu as a double agent, wrecked Hsien-Ko's nuclear reactor and then manipulated the Tong members into fighting each other. Afterwards, the Fourth Doctor and Romana I used the TARDIS to time ram Greel's time cabinet back on course before Hsien-Ko created a temporal paradox.
Eventually, the Japanese Army moved into Shanghai. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
The data gathered from the experiments in Zhong Ma and its successor, Unit 731, led to the creation of biological weapons which the Japanese unleashed to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in China during the war. Germ-ridden packages were dropped on Chinese towns and villages throughout Manchuria. (PROSE: Log 384)
Europe on the brink
Growing strength of the Reich
Amid the growing tensions back in Europe, the Spanish Civil War occurred, between 1936 and 1939. Fascists fought on the side of the Nationalists. (PROSE: History 101) Spain stayed neutral in the World War. (AUDIO: Resistance)
Mussolini allied himself with Hitler with a vision of returning Italy to greatness. Edward Greyhaven opined that Mussolini was a "fool" to ally himself with a "monster" such as Hitler. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
George Limb attended another conference in Munich in 1936. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
The Allies adopted a policy of appeasement towards Germany. Rather than risk war, the British chose diplomacy and bargaining with the Nazis, giving Hitler the benefit of the doubt. (PROSE: Just War) Winston Churchill opposed the policy of appeasement. After Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland in direct contravention of the Versailles Treaty, Churchill began to fear what plans he had for the rest of Europe, more immediately with Czechoslovakia and Poland. (PROSE: Players) Also in 1936, the Royal Air Force and British bomber forces came under the control of Bomber Command. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
The arrangement suited Hitler very well as it staved off war, giving Germany more time to build up her military. This included the army, the Wehrmacht, (PROSE: Just War) the navy, the Kriegsmarine, (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) and the air force, the Luftwaffe, which was run by Hermann Goering. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) This was despite German companies in the 1920s and early 1930s being forbidden to produce fighter aircraft. (PROSE: Just War)
The Luftwaffe was signified by a black cruciform. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) and included the aircraft makes of the Heinkel, the Dornier, the Junkers, the Messerschmitt and the Storch. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
According to Oskar Steinmann, an advanced aircraft took six months to draw up specifications, after which aviation companies competed to consider the cost, requirements, and time of construction, which took a further nine to ten months. The Luftwaffe then contracted the company with the best bid to build the plane. Creating the prototype could take two and a half years. Top Luftwaffe pilots then ran test flights for a period of approximately sixteen months. Under normal circumstances, after these tests were completed satisfactorily, construction and testing could begin on a squadron for another two years. Finally, the Luftwaffe decided how many planes of that specific type they needed, which took another year. The whole process could take up to eight years but in some special cases, and in wartime, corners could be cut to speed up the process. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)
The Luftwaffe construction process was aided by Emil Hartung, a racing driver who constructed his own cars. Hartung was an expert in aerodynamics, physics, rocketry, mathematics, metallurgy and radio waves. In Cairo in January 1936, he competed in the Cairo 500 and won, thanks in part to modifications the Seventh Doctor made to his car. The two men and Melanie Bush met in the Grand Imperial Hotel that night when the sight of an owl sparked a conversation about sonar and radar properties in nature, the scientific research of which was beyond Hartung's time. However, his intellect and imagination helped him to connect some dots in his own knowledge, consequences the Doctor and Mel remained unaware of. Mel grew close to Hartung until she learned he was a member of the Nazi Party. The Cairo 500 turned out to be Hartung's last major public appearance. He later returned to Germany and pledged himself to the Reich. (PROSE: Just War)
Back in Germany, Hartung met Jason Kane when the latter was sent back in time to 1936. They ended up sharing a drink but when Kane found out Hartung was a Nazi, he too expressed his disgust for losses his family has suffered in the war, but Hartung thought he was talking about World War I. Before departing, Kane accidentally let slip further information from the future which strengthened Hartung's idea of inventing a plane that was invisible to radar detection at a time when radar technology was still in its infancy. (AUDIO: Just War)
In November 1936, Hartung began working with the Luftwaffe in Rechlin, north of Berlin, where he stayed for the next three years. The Reich afforded him any resources he required, be it men, materials or money. Despite the amount of time he spent working for the Luftwaffe and his membership of the Nazi Party, some of the racing drivers who knew him opined that he was opposed to the Nazis. Secretly, his grandmother was Jewish. Hartung immediately began working on the Hartung Project, the long but fast-tracked process of creating the advanced stealth bombers Hugin and Munin. At a cost of three million Reichsmarks, it was too expensive to produce a squadron, but they were covered in a new carbon foam which acted as a Jaumann absorber and Yehudi lights. The aircraft would be able to absorb radar and light energy. The material was sound-proof and even hard to detect with the human eye. (PROSE: Just War)
Anglo-German relations and the abdication crisis
- Main article: Abdication crisis
The Nazis were planning an ambitious expansionist programme intended to bring much of Eastern Europe under Germany's control, partially influenced by the British Empire and its control over the entire subcontinent of India with relatively few troops. Hitler considered the British an Aryan race whose superiority manifested itself in their empire, and he thought it right that the Germans should emulate the British model. To this end, he sought to cultivate positive relations with Britain and form an alliance to such a degree that Britain would become a German province in all but name.
Many people throughout Britain, including a number of the ruling classes, were in favour of some kind of alliance with Germany, either to avoid a repeat of 1914, or out of support or sympathy for the Nazi movement. These attitude were symbolised by the appeasement policy but they were not universal. Winston Churchill and his allies, particularly among the Security Services, highly distrusted Hitler, recognising the reoccupation of the Rhineland as a direct contravention of the Versailles Treaty which has implications for the rest of Europe. They dreaded Germany's massive rearmament programme, with a strong army and an air force which threatened the Royal Navy with obsolescence
For a time, the pro-appeasement factions within British society won out. The Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, disliked Churchill and excluded him from a Cabinet position. Churchill persisted in his efforts to warn people of the threat posed by Germany, and Italy, but in the immediate term, this only served to increase his unpopularity among the Conservative Party and his career entered another decline such as had followed the disastrous Dardanelles campaign in 1915. Appeasement continued and Churchill was only kept up-to-date with defensive developments only in an unofficial, even illegal, capacity by meeting discretely with friends in military intelligence, among them Colonel Jeremy Carstairs, who lamented that Churchill was not Minister of Defence. (PROSE: Players)
On 16 November 1936, King Edward VIII announced his irrevocable decision to marry Wallis Simpson. The Seventh Doctor contacted Churchill to advise him against supporting the King, warning that Simpson was a shape-shifter from Verossikon Prime. (PROSE: The Lost Diaries of Winston Spencer Churchill) The idea of a morganatic marriage among the Royals embroiled Baldwin's Cabinet in something of a national scandal. (PROSE: Wolfsbane) The matter was further complicated by Edward's strongly pro-German views. Simpson also grew close to the German Ambassador, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and spent a lot of time at the German Embassy. British Intelligence eventually discovered that sensitive diplomatic information had been leaked to the Germans from the King's private residence at Fort Belvedere. Simpson was the prime suspect and it was eventually decided that such information had to be withheld from the King, with his loyalty to his country brought into question. (PROSE: Players)
By 28 November, the press was reporting the marriage controversy. After an incident in West Country on that same night, Emmeline Neuberger was taken to a London research centre. A secretive British operation, anticipating another war with Germany, tried to harness her lycanthropy as a weapon. Had they succeeded, they planned to send her back to Germany to infiltrate and undermine their war effort. (PROSE: Wolfsbane)
On 30 November 1936, undercover Nazi agent Professor Kriemhilde Steiner of the Black Science Division unearthed a phoenix egg near the Crystal Palace in London. The Nazis believed the artefact to be the "Eagle of ultima Thule" that would grant the Reich great power. The Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams investigated her dig site and confronted her. When Steiner tried to retrieve the egg, the phoenix hatched, burning her to death and setting the Crystal Palace alight. Churchill later arrived to see the fire and lamented the spectacle as signifying "the end of an era." The Doctor warned Churchill that worse times were on the horizon but assured him that he would be the best man to lead his country through them. (COMIC: The Eagle of the Reich)
Despite Churchill's sinking popularity, Hitler remained bothered by his efforts, seeing "that gangster" and his allies as a threat to the Reich's standing in British public opinion. While ordering the main German Embassy gutted and remodelled by Albert Speer, Ribbentrop worked to counter the anti-appeasers by meeting with important British figures and promoting good relations with Germany. He was aided by the Count and Countess, who provided Ribbentrop with a list of all notable figures all across Britain with Nazi sympathies, including people in Parliament, the British Army, the Civil Service, the Police and the aristocracy. Ribbentrop gleefully reported on his progress to Hitler as he, the Players, and the King and Simpson began conspiring with each other to stage a coup. (PROSE: Players)
On 10 December, (PROSE: Wolfsbane) the crisis reached its climax. The Players and Ribbentrop attempted to remove Churchill and the newly-arrived Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown from the picture. Two assassination attempts were defeated and although Peri was kidnapped, she was rescued when the Doctor led a raid on the temporary German Embassy at 17 Carlton House Terrace. Ribbentrop's SS men were sent home to Berlin after serious injury or failure and his list was stolen after Peri knocked him out.
After repeated meetings with Baldwin, Edward announced he would abdicate if he could not marry Simpson. Secretly, he planned to announce the dissolution of parliament and instigate a pro-German coup by the listed Nazi sympathisers, potentially with Churchill as the new Prime Minister after misjudging his stance. However, the Embassy raid forewarned Churchill of the coup and he sabotaged the King's speech by having it locally recorded for use as evidence of treason rather than broadcast live over BBC radio. Troops under Colonel Carstairs and Rodney Fitzsimmons apprehended the accomplices attending the event, including Sir Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts filling in for Ribbentrop's men, while any sympathisers waiting to instigate the coup were either arrested or remained inactive.
At 10:00 pm that day, the King was forced to sign the Instrument of Abdication and delivered a speech pre-prepared by Baldwin and Churchill. Edward and Simpson were effectively exiled and the King's brother, the Duke of York, prepared to take the throne as King George VI. Edward and Simpson left England with apparently little memory of the attempted coup as if they had largely been under the Players' influence. (PROSE: Players) George's coronation was to take place on 12 May 1937. (PROSE: Wolfsbane)
Ribbentrop returned to Germany where he informed Hitler his promises of an alliance with England would not be fulfilled. His list of potential sympathisers had also been stolen and replaced by a worthless laundry list. The news sent Hitler into a violent fury and Ribbentrop fled his Chancellery office to return to England. Bormann was becoming more and more worried about the frequency and severity of these fits and decided to seek the service of a psychic adviser who had previously examined Hitler, and seemed had a calming effect on him, named Dr. Felix Kriegslieter. (PROSE: Players)
On 12 December, the Fourth Doctor freed Emmeline Neuberger from her imprisonment. Having chosen to believe her memories, she resolved to return to Germany and liberate the rest of her fellow werewolves from captivity. However, with the approaching war and the desire for both side to use werewolves as superweapons, the Doctor doubted she would succeed. (PROSE: Wolfsbane)
The devourer of Europe
Bormann's hiring of Dr. Kriegslieter (PROSE: Players) provided the latter with a new proximity to Hitler which allowed him to further his own agenda. Kriegslieter was in fact the War Chief, having assumed the German translation of his title. His standing with Hitler allowed the War Lords to more closely affiliated themselves with the Nazi Party, which they had been observing since the 1923 Putsch. The War Chief dismissed much of the Nazis' core beliefs as nonsensical pseudoscience but this mattered little while their interests coincided. Bormann remained suspicious of Kriegslieter but the situation left him little choice.
Kriegslieter and the War Lords – including the son of the original War Lord leader of the War Games – were able to win favour with Himmler by appealing to his obsession with Teutonic mythology and the occult. On the pretence that they were performing mystic rituals, the War Lords were granted a base of operations in the tower of Himmler's private castle of Drachensberg. They called themselves the Black Coven in order to maintain this pretence. Believing in the delicacy and importance of their work, Himmler usually left this wing of the castle alone.
Meanwhile, Himmler's Ancestral Research branch of the SS laboured to discover the occult origins of Aryanism. He was a follower of the Secret Doctrine of the Golden Dawn, and had interests in the Quest for the Holy Grail and Atlantis, reputed to be the secret home of the Master Race. He sent expeditions to Tibet in search of traces of the Secret Masters. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Tibetan occultists were recruited to play supernatural roles in the coming war. Hitler, in contrast to Himmler, was far from convinced of the value and validity of occultism. He allowed Himmler to continue his pet projects for reasons of propaganda and national morale. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
In 1937, the Hossbach Niederschrift was drawn up. The document effectively controlled Nazi thinking. Among its key elements was the need for Germany to begin a programme of expansion within five years, before German weapons grew obsolete an the army recruits grew too old. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
At Sedgwick College at the University of Cambridge, Professor Linus Woolf conducted secret experiments which sparked violence among the students. Woolf tried to fain ignorance by suggesting the violence was influenced by the rise of the Reich on the continent. Woolf actually believed that the human race was becoming too violent and sought to halt their scientific advancements, giving Hitler discovering nuclear power as an example of how this could lead to a catastrophe, although the First Doctor countered that there was no evidence that that would happen. Woolf was eventually exposed and stopped, but students Kim Philby and Guy Burgess felt that he was right to be concerned about the rise of the Nazis and considered playing a part in the struggle against Hitler by pursuing a working relationship with the college's new Soviet provost. (AUDIO: Entanglement) Philby and Burgess became converts to communism during their time at Cambridge and began working as Russian agents. (PROSE: Endgame)
The Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald had dinner in Berlin in 1937. The Doctor later reminded Clara that they did not and nor could they decide to kill Hitler afterwards as it was impossible for them to change the future. (TV: Kill the Moon) The Third Doctor claimed Jo Grant meeting with Grigori Rasputin in St Petersburg in 1916 was as reckless as seeking out Hitler in 1930s Berlin, although Jo objected to the comparison of the two. (PROSE: The Wages of Sin)
Also in 1937, a new German submachine gun, the MP 38, was manufactured by Ermawerke in Erfurt. It was issued at first to the SS in 1938, although some had been smuggled to China the previous year to aid Hsien-Ko and the Black Scorpion. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
In 1938, the Nemesis statue passed over Earth, influencing Hitler to annex Austria. Hans de Flores stood next to Hitler as he "ordered the first giant step towards greatness." (TV: Silver Nemesis) The event became known as the Anschluss. (PROSE: The Danger Men) Despite the Versailles settlement, the Germans met no international resistance in response to the annexation which further emboldened the Reich's ambitions. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
On the day of the annexation, Hitler drove to a museum in Vienna which held the Hapsburg crown jewels, as well as the fabled Spear of Destiny, used by the Roman Longinus to stab Jesus Christ on the Cross in Judea in 33 AD and later transported across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe by Odin and the Vikings in the 2nd century. (PROSE: The Spear of Destiny) Previously carried into battle by Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa in campaigns which built the Holy Roman Empire, the Nazis saw the Spear as a symbol of the Destiny of the German people. Some, including SS Captain Hartmann who accompanied Hitler to Vienna, believed the Spear was a direct channel to Heaven, (PROSE: Illegal Alien) and that it would grant invincibility to the army which possessed it. (PROSE: The Spear of Destiny)
Given its significance to German history, Hitler was eager to obtain the Spear and had it transported to Berlin to be housed in another museum. Unbeknownst to Hitler, the Spear was one of six Physical Temporal Nexuses, super weapons with the ability to shape reality to the will of those who wielded them. Ultimately, Germany's possession of the Spear throughout the coming war did not influence the outcome of the conflict in Hitler's favour. While some scholars theorised that the spear taken from Vienna was a 13th century fake, the Third Doctor hypothesised that it was authentic; it simply made no difference to the war as no one personally wielded it. Had Hitler known the true power of a PTN such as the one he had in his possession, his victory could have been easily achieved. The Doctor, however, subsequently replaced the Spear in 141 AD with a fake, to send the genuine PTN to the Time Lords. (PROSE: The Spear of Destiny)
The Nazis began rounding up Austrian academics. Jewish chemist and mathematician Zsasha Edelstein fled her academic field to find work in a munitions factory, believing she was safer, but she fled again when the Nazis took over the factories. She hid as an actress under the name of Zsa Zsa Straus but she was made to act in Nazi propaganda films. Soon she fled Austria altogether, unaware if her family had also managed to escape or if they had survived at all. (AUDIO: The Jabari Countdown)
German occupation of Czechoslovakia swiftly followed. Oskar Steinmann claimed that both Austria and Czechoslovakia welcomed German rule due to the Nazis' commitment to unite the world under the strong ideology of Fascism. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)
Another conference held in Munich tried to settle the resulting crisis peacefully. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain attended, but George Limb opined that Chamberlain let Hitler walk all over him, highlighting the Allies' lack of resolve. Chamberlain returned to the UK where he announced, "I have in my hand a piece of paper..." (PROSE: Illegal Alien) which promised "peace in our time." The Fifth Doctor thought Chamberlain made wrong decisions on this occasion but for the right reasons. (PROSE: One Wednesday Afternoon) As time would tell, peace was not what Hitler wanted. He expressed his ambitions for world domination, intending to attack Poland, then Russia, then Persia and then move into India and Asia. Britain guaranteed aid to Poland in the event she was attacked but Hitler did not expect Britain to honour the guarantee as she had previously backed down from similar promises. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The Third Doctor recalled Hitler said something along the lines of "Today [one conquest], tomorrow the world!" (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Green Death) A speech by the Master about "ultimate power" and "strong leadership" over humans also reminded the Doctor of either Hitler or Genghis Khan. (TV: The Dæmons) He also belittled Hitler as a "criminal thug" and "gangster conqueror" in the same vein as Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Attila the Hun. (PROSE: Galactic Gangster)
During the Czechoslovakia crisis, Hitler experienced another fit of anger which briefly allowed the Timewyrm some measure of control over him, appearing to grant him supernatural powers. An ageing General Staff Officer was present to witness it and died of a heart attack at the sight. Responding to his screams, Bormann found the office was wrecked, the General dead and Hitler, once again, unconscious. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
The Teselecta travelled to Berlin in 1938 where its crew executed Nazi officer General Erich Zimmerman on the charge of category three hate crimes. The Teselecta proceeded to Hitler's office to inflict on him the same punishment before realising they were too early in Hitler's time stream. Seconds later, Hitler was saved by the TARDIS crashing through his office window. The Eleventh Doctor told him that saving his life was "an accident" and warned him that "The British are coming!" before Rory Williams locked him in a cupboard. The Doctor, Rory and Amy Pond then left Hitler's office and pursued River Song through the streets of Berlin. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
In 1938 or 1939, the Nazis sent an expedition to Antarctica. They laid a claim to the region, planting swastikas around their territory. Their interest was ostensibly geological and archaeological in nature, but unbeknownst to the rest of the world, they constructed an underground base, built in the shape of a swastika. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) They named their territory Neuschwabenland. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror)
In 1939, Italy invaded and conquered Albania with what was mockingly viewed by the Albanians as an "army of toy soldiers." Their defeat at Italy's hand shamed them greatly. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) In the same year, Kim Philby joined MI6 and found that the operation was run nowhere near as professionally as he expected. (PROSE: Endgame)
The Polish crisis
Poland became Germany's next target. Not only did the Nazis view Poland as a product of the hated Versailles Treaty but millions of Germans also lived there prior to her gaining independence. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) Hitler continued to act despite the British and French guarantee of aid to Poland in the event of invasion. He still expected them to back down yet again as his advisers had been leading him to believe and, according to Joseph Goebbels, Hitler admired the British and viewed them as another Aryan race, although he was willing to crush anyone who resisted him. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Other senior elements of the German government also considered the British “Aryan blood brothers”. (PROSE: Just War)
Before invading, Germany signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. (AUDIO: An Eye For Murder) Although Hitler loathed the Soviets, regarding them as "Bolshevik scum", and fully intended to attack them, the non-aggression pact was intended to keep the Soviets off Germany's back while Poland, and then Western Europe, were dealt with. The pact stipulated that Poland be divided between Germany and Russia. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) George Limb was present in Russia shortly before the deal was struck. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) According to Isabella Zemanova, the pact gave Russians the impression that they would be spared another war with Germany, but her husband, Lev Zemanova, a schoolteacher who became a captain in the Red Army, felt that Hitler could not be trusted. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)
At the end of August, the Nazis held another rally at Nuremberg, where Hitler paid tribute to the Nazi Party's "Glorious Dead". After giving another speech, Hitler met the Seventh Doctor (calling himself Johann Schmidt) again, whom he recognised as the man who had helped him after the failure of the 1923 Putsch. The Doctor, still trying to prevent the creation of a divergent timeline, spoke to Hitler in his office that night and claimed to have psychic abilities which allowed him to see the future. He revealed some details about the start of the coming war in an attempt to influence Hitler to follow history's natural path. After the Doctor told him Britain would declare war on Germany if the latter invaded Poland, Hitler was overcome by another bout of anger as he ranted about his grander ambitions. The power of the Timewyrm briefly unleashed itself again until Hitler lost consciousness, and Bormann arrived at the scene of the disturbance again. The Doctor and Ace were sent to stay in Berlin for a number of days at Hitler's request. The Doctor still intended to monitor Hitler for any externally-generated instability and make sure history stayed on track.
Dr. Kriegslieter and the War Lords became concerned that Hitler's fits were becoming too erratic and posed a threat to their future interests. They considered replacing him with one of his more stable underlings, with their ideal choice being Himmler. Goering, on the other hand, was considered "too individualistic" and the War Lords thought it best to dispose of him. The Nazi hierarchy was not yet made party to this plan, although Himmler also considered that Hitler may have to be relieved of the burden of leadership at some stage. Out of loyalty, however, Himmler still favoured allowing Hitler to rule as king or emperor while someone else took on the challenges of office.
As the Poland crisis reached breaking point, Goebbels' Nazi propaganda painted Poland as the aggressor. In the last few days of European peace, German newspapers bore inflammatory headlines such as "Warsaw threatens bombardment", "Unbelievable agitation of Polish war madness" and "Poland against peace in Europe." It was all the opposite of the truth. Finally, Hitler claimed that the Polish had conducted an unprovoked attack on Germany soil which forced his hand. The war in Europe formally began on Friday 1 September 1939 with the German invasion of Poland. Hitler announced to the Reichstag at the start of the invasion:
I am wrongly judged if my love of peace and my patience are mistaken for weakness or even cowardice. I have therefore resolved to speak to Poland in the language Poland uses to us. Last night, for the first time, Polish soldiers fired on our territory. We have been returning the fire. From now on, bombs will be met with bombs!
He also declared that he was now but a simple soldier of Germany and vowed to wear his brown soldier's coat until the end of the war.
On the morning of Sunday 3 September, Hitler was quickly satisfied with the German progress in Poland and summoned the Doctor to his office in the Chancellery. He was confident Britain's guarantee of aid would come to nothing and challenged the Doctor's earlier prediction. However, Britain responded to the invasion with an ultimatum, demanding that the German forces in Poland withdraw or there would be war. Joachim von Ribbentrop received a communication to this effect from the British Ambassador. Ribbentrop and an interpreter named Schmidt reached Hitler's office at precisely 9 o'clock. Having long surrounded himself with sycophantic advisers, Hitler believed the British would back down yet again and expected the communication to contain nothing more than a mere message of protest but as Schmidt read on, Hitler realised that now Britain was serious and he had been given two hours to comply with their terms. He sat silently for ages and then asked Ribbentrop, "What now?" Ribbentrop responded, "I assume the French will hand in a similar ultimatum within the hour." Further enraged, Hitler shouted Ribbentrop and Schmidt out of the room. In Hitler's fury, the Timewyrm began to reassert control again. The Doctor intervened and implored Hitler to resist. The Führer calmed down just as Bormann, Goering and Ribbentrop reappeared with news of setbacks on the Polish front that required Hitler's attention. The calming effect of Bormann instilled more confidence in Hitler. He crumpled the ultimatum up and ordered Bormann to contact the British Ambassador and tell him the terms of the ultimatum would not and could not be fulfilled.
Consequently, Britain and France declared war on Germany two hours after the ultimatum reached Hitler's desk, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) another event which the Matrix recorded as being a part of the Web of Time. (AUDIO: Neverland) In a speech broadcast over the radio from 10 Downing Street on the day of Britain's declaration of war, Chamberlain delivered the news to the British public:
This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final Note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
The War
Hitler conquers Europe
Invasion of Poland
- Main article: Invasion of Poland
Even before the Western Allies declared war on Germany, the Wehrmacht flooded across the Polish frontier and made striking progress in the span of two days. Yet it was considered "far from satisfactory" that Warsaw had not fallen in that short amount of time, owing to setbacks faced by the German forces. This news prompted Hitler to travel to Poland and take personal charge of the invasion. Following the Doctor's intervention, Hitler learned how to control the Timewyrm inside his mind and channelled his amplified powers towards the war effort. Under his augmented leadership, the setbacks in Poland were quickly resolved, after which Hitler returned to Germany to prepare for the showdown in the West.
The Black Coven had been examining the timeline of the war and produced a strategy to help the Nazis win and achieve global domination. The first concern was ironing out "disastrous errors of judgement" the Nazis would make until Western Europe, including Britain, was defeated. It was calculated that this would keep the United States out of the war, owing to the strength of their isolationist party. Subsequently, Germany would abide by the terms of the treaty with Russia until the grip of the former on Europe had been consolidated and campaigns were launched to develop a presence in Africa, Asia and the Far East. Rather than invade Russia, the Coven favoured provoking a war between the Americans and the Soviets. The Coven also developed an early nuclear reactor and were in the process of creating atomic weaponry to subdue the vast landmasses of America, Russia and China, which could more easily soak up radiation. With a German monopoly on nuclear weapons, there could be no apocalyptic retaliation. In addition, the Coven's Aryan Research Bureau developed a more extreme version of the SS training programme, creating an army of totally-obedient, fearless Aryan SS soldiers. Once the Nazis had conquered the world, the War Lords sought to accelerate Earth's technological development to the point where they could travel into space and mastermind a Nazi conquest of the galaxy and the universe.
Proceeding with his ongoing investigation in the early hours of the war, the Seventh Doctor contacted Goering to warn him of treasonous activities being concocted at Drachensberg Castle. Goering left Berlin at the head of an armoured column and made for Drachensberg. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ace discovered the War Lord operations but were quickly imprisoned in the castle. Kriegslieter selected Ace to offer in a ritualistic sacrifice. The sacrifice had no purpose other than to keep up appearances during a visit from Himmler. The Doctor informed Himmler that the Coven sought to put him in Hitler's place as Führer, which appalled the loyal Reichsführer but the proceeding of the sacrifice placated him. Buying time before Goering arrived, the Doctor offered to perform the ritual himself, then disrupted it at the last second with a canister of nitro-9a. He and Ace escaped just as Goering's column arrived and stormed the castle, engaging with Kriegslieter's SS troops in battle.
Although fearless, the SS troops did not have a sense of self-preservation and in practise proved ineffective in battle. The Doctor and Ace blasted open the castle gates with an anti-aircraft gun and Goering's column quickly overcame Kriegslieter and his forces. Hitler, having returned from Poland, arrived in a plane to discover what all the activity at the castle was about. The Doctor reported that Himmler and Goering had both uncovered and foiled a plot against Hitler by Kriegslieter's inner circle. Pleased, Hitler took Himmler and Goering back to Berlin. The Doctor and Ace remained behind to clean up the War Lord technology. However, Kriegslieter and his SS troops had survived, through a literal realisation of the old Prussian military expression of "corpse discipline". As zombies swarmed the castle, the Doctor destabilised the nuclear reactor. After calling on the TARDIS and escaping, the reactor exploded and obliterated the castle. A radioactive cloud hung over the area for days and nearby inhabitants died of radiation poisoning or moved away. As the world did not yet know what radiation was, the area surrounding Drachensberg remained abandoned and was believed to be cursed. The Black Coven's influence over the events of the war was thoroughly ended. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
After Hitler's intervention, the Polish campaign continued. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Poland was quickly overwhelmed. The Polish Air Force, though a skilled organisation, did not last long against the Luftwaffe. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) SS officer Brigadeführer Kraus earned the reputation during the invasion as the Butcher of Cracow. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
In Britain, fearing attacks from German bombers, the government implemented the Black Out, the darkening of London's streets to deny enemy aircraft clear targets. (AUDIO: The Oncoming Storm) Ultimately, the restrictions on car headlamps and street lights at night resulted in more deaths from traffic-related accidents than from air raids. Blackout regulations were relaxed thereafter. (PROSE: Just War) The BBC television service at Alexandra Palace was also shut down to prevent the Luftwaffe from homing in on its signal. (AUDIO: I Was Churchill's Double) Elsie Jarman, the wife of Commodore Jarman, was killed during an early air raid. Her body was never found. In a similar occurrence, Fossbrook sent his brothers and his sister to Cornwall to keep them safe but they were killed in another air raid and it was weeks before their bodies were identified. Only Fossbrook and his mother were left alive in their family. Fossbrook joined the Royal Navy. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion)
With his warnings about Nazi Germany having been proved to be true, Winston Churchill came back into favour again. (WC: Amy's History Hunt) Finally returning to the Cabinet, he served as First Lord of the Admiralty and gained a secretary, Hetty Warner. He gained a reputation for working long hours into the night. (AUDIO: The Oncoming Storm) The Admiralty viewed Churchill as an ideal Prime Minister and felt it was only a matter of time before he got the job, although they preferred it to happen sooner rather than later. (AUDIO: Human Conflict)
The invasion of Poland lasted one month before the nation was crushed. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Oskar Steinmann claimed that Poland, like Austria and Czechoslovakia, also welcomed the Germans and their strong Fascist rule, (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) while the Soviet Union conquered the other half of the country. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Some of the Polish forces managed to escape. Pilot Officer Jan Ostowicz, leaving behind his family and friends, fled to Romania, then France and made eventually made it to England. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)
A number of skilled scientists also fled from mainland Europe to Great Britain at the beginning of the war, (PROSE: Losing the Audience) including Zsa Zsa Straus. (AUDIO: The Jabari Countdown) Some scientists of Axis extraction were deemed too untrustworthy to take part in very sensitive British operations such as those at Bletchley Park. However, they were still recognised as possessing expertise too valuable to ignore and were held at the Aylesbury Grange Detention Centre. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) Reich scientists, meanwhile, managed to break the sound barrier. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)
The point of no return
In October, the Germans announced that they were willing to negotiate with the British and French, but the Allies refused, leading to the continuation of the war. Nazi propaganda argued that this meant the Allies were the true aggressors responsible for the start of the war and its continuation. Steinmann was among those who deployed this argument. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) Colonel Fischer also argued the British were the aggressors for having declared war, while Germany's actions were brought about by a need to defend herself, a justification in which he genuinely believed. Churchill argued that the Allies were forced into action by Germany's aggression towards her neighbours. Both men claimed many people in their respective countries did not want war but were bound by necessity to fight. (AUDIO: Human Conflict) Even after the beginning of the war, there were an number of people in Britain who wanted to make peace with Hitler. (PROSE: Inferno)
As in World War I, (TV: The War Games, AUDIO: The Mouthless Dead) Scottish Highland regiments fought in the war as part of the British Army. (AUDIO: Resistance, The Forsaken) Indian soldiers were also part of the British imperial forces, although some hoped their efforts would ultimately help India gain independence from British rule. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) John Benton's father served in the British Army. (HOMEVID: Wartime) as did Arthur Ollis. (PROSE: The Three Doctors) Wilfred Mott lied about his age to join the British Army (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion) but never killed anyone during the war. (TV: The End of Time) Women, in some capacity, served in the British forces, while in Germany they were kept at home. (PROSE: Just War, Timewyrm: Exodus, AUDIO: Just War) On the British Home Front, the Women's Land Army performed important agricultural work. Propaganda posters encouraged everyone in the country to “Do Your Bit”. (AUDIO: The Survivor)
The coming of the war brought about the end of the Great Depression. The Twelfth Doctor noted that this "was hardly an improvement." (PROSE: A History of the Humankind)
Kim Philby joined MI6 and found it to be very poorly organised. (PROSE: Endgame)
A very sentimental song from the war concerned nightingales singing on Berkeley Square. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion)
The Germans developed magnetic naval mines which wreaked havoc on the Royal Navy. On 22 November 1939, a German bomber dropped a magnetic mine over the Thames Estuary. On 23 November, the Admiralty were able to recover the mine and study it, allowing them to devise countermeasures to its magnetism. At the same time, the British also discovered what they did not know was a Gallifreyan Augur's Stone. Upon touching the Stone, Abel Seaman Philips was granted vast amounts of knowledge. After a few minutes, he collapsed into a long coma. The Admiralty retrieved the Stone and placed it in protective storage in Admiralty House.
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In December 1939, Reactive Automated Trail Seekers searched London for Augur's Stone. They intended to develop their own artificial intelligence using the Stone as a means of augmentation. They invaded Admiralty House as Churchill, Professor Frederick Lindemann and Lieutenant-Commander Sandy McNish examined the Stone. The Ninth Doctor and Hetty Warner joined them. During the raid, Hetty touched the Stone while trying to remove it. She lost consciousness and the RATS retrieved it. The overwhelming knowledge caused them to overload and explode. The Doctor managed to help Hetty regain consciousness. Considering that Britain's "darkest hour" was upon them all, Churchill expressed a willingness to touch the Stone to be able to view the whole of Europe like a chess board and consider where Hitler would strike next, be it the Scandinavian countries, France or Belgium. His staff convinced him this was too dangerous while the Doctor assured him he would win the war as he was. Subsequently, the Doctor took the Stone away from Earth. (AUDIO: The Oncoming Storm)
By Christmastime, it became more difficult for people to obtain gifts such as toys and sweets. Joan Wright told her daughter Barbara that Santa Claus didn't have enough sweets for every child as a way to explain any shortages. Nevertheless, on Christmas Day, Barbara awoke to find a stocking filled with an apple, nuts, a peg doll and a large bag of barley sugar in spite of the wartime privations. (PROSE: All I Want for Christmas) Supply shortages led to the growth of black market operations. (AUDIO: Casualties of War)
Like the Romans, medieval warlords, knights, barbarians and nomadic tribes before them, the Nazis saw the strategic value of the ancient Kriegeskind Castle. Its high and remote location in the western German countryside made it an ideal stronghold from which to fend off an invasion of German territory. (AUDIO: Old Soldiers)
The Germans deployed an old First World War trick, whereby they imprinted a sector's troop movements on a soft-boiled egg using acetic acid. The egg was then boiled again so the shell absorbed the message but the imprint remained hidden on the white inside. The eggs were delivered across enemy checkpoints by women pretending to be civilians visiting relatives. The British had uncovered this trick numerous times during the First World War; it failed even then and the Germans knew it had failed, but refused to change it. The British were bemused to find that the Germans had employed the same tactic 25 years later with no alteration. In the first two years of the Second World War, the British caught German agents trying this deception tactic three times. The display taught British counter-intelligence important lessons about the rigidity of the thinking behind German espionage. (PROSE: Just War)
Blitzkrieg
- Main article: Blitzkrieg
In 1940, with a consistent failure to negotiate armistice terms, Hitler launched the Blitzkrieg, a "lightning war" against Western Europe, commanded by himself with Generals Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel at the front line. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Blitzkrieg tactics risked problems with supply lines and the potential for attackers to find themselves cut off and surrounded if they pushed too far ahead. However, it was initially to prove very effective, with the Germans throwing every man, plane, ship, tank and armoured vehicle possible at the enemy in overwhelming force and speed to smash the Allied defences. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) The Germans conquered Denmark (AUDIO: Human Conflict) and Norway. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) In May, Britain, France, Belgium and Holland all faced the might of the German forces who benefited greatly from Hitler's command, augmented by his control of the Timewyrm. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) Among them was the British Expeditionary Force, consisting of nearly half a million men. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion)
The Netherlands succumbed to the onslaught in just four days. Belgium too was overrun and very soon it became certain that France would follow. The German advance sparked a refugee crisis. Roads were blocked by people fleeing from Paris, leading the British to become trapped in traffic and burning away their fuel. Messerschmitts attacked the ground forces and killed strides of civilians in the process. (PROSE: Just War) Among the German forces were Parachute Divisions, who were considered among the elite. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
The Germans continued to steam roll the French and British armies back until the Allied forces were encircled. Guderian's Panzer Division pressed onwards, capturing the port towns of Abbeville, Boulogne and Calais. The Allied pocket was squeezed until all that remained under Allied control was one last port at the town of Dunkirk. The British forces found themselves at a critical state, teetering on the edge of total destruction as Guderian's Panzers closed in. It was not known to anyone at the time but the ensuing Battle of Dunkirk was ultimately to decide the outcome of the war.
As the Allies held out, their fate was decided one night late in the month at Felsennest, near Aachen, at Hitler's command post. The Seventh Doctor arrived and challenged the Timewyrm within Hitler's mind. Goading her with taunts of her inferiority and subservience to Hitler, the Timewyrm found the strength of will to escape and the Doctor fired her away through time, ending any influence she had on the course of the war. Losing his augmented abilities, Hitler's confidence was sapped and he desperately appealed to the Doctor for advice while he sat on the cusp of victory. The Doctor advised: "You must let the British Army go!" Reminding Hitler of his admiration for Britain and the British Empire, the Doctor argued that if the British Army survived and an invasion of England was postponed, Britain would eventually seek peace with Germany and the two nations could later commit their combined strength to a war against the Soviet Union. Convinced of the longer-term strategy, Hitler rang a field-telephone with a message for Guderian: "There is to be no further advance on Dunkirk." On Hitler's order, for reasons his generals never understood, the Germans' encircling advance was halted in one fatal last-minute delay. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
After learning the Germans had halted, the British calculated that they had been granted a gap of six days before the advance restarted. In London, Churchill called a tense meeting with Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay of the Royal Navy to discuss their options. The meeting produced Operation Dynamo, an ambitious evacuation effort which involved recruiting civilian boats and sailors to help ferry as much of the 400,000 besieged men as possible away from the beaches and onto the 42 available Royal Navy ships for transportation back to England. In the early hours of 26 May, Ramsay travelled to the White Cliffs of Dover, the hidden naval base of operations in the converted catacombs and war tunnels beneath Dover Castle. There, Ramsay began to get cold feet. He objected to the idea of sending untrained civilians into danger and contemplated disobeying the orders from London, finding himself facing an impossible situation. Unofficially, he cancelled Dynamo in favour of a different evacuation strategy.
As debate raged in Dover HQ, a Nemonite ship fell into the sea nearby, chased by the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble. The Nemonite attacked a German U-boat carrying Zyklon B to Germany for use in the concentration camps. The Nemonite slaughtered the crew, save for one man, Engel, who sent out a distress call before the Nemonite infected him as a host. The British picked up the call and brought Engel back to the base. From there, the Nemonite found another host in Chaplain Clayton and its children swarmed the HQ. They infected the water system and shut down the base's generator.
Finding a temporary safe room, the Doctor realised the date and the time, 3 o'clock in the morning. Knowing Dynamo had to go ahead in half an hour, he convinced Ramsay to uncancel the operation. Power was returned to the base using the captured U-boat and the Nemonites in the water were killed with the Zyklon B. Ramsay and his men contacted HMS Brazen for assistance in the coordination. After reaffirmation from Churchill, Operation Dynamo began. Commodore Jarman, driven mad by the death of his family and humiliation in his career, attempted a mutiny and tried to overload the base's generator. He died from a high drop in a confrontation with Ramsay. The remaining Nemoites were lured onto the U-boat and blown up by Fossbrook in an act of self-sacrifice. Donna later informed his mother of his actions. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion)
The evacuation efforts took place between 26 May and 4 June. (TV: Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart) 850 civilian ships set off from the south coast of England towards Dunkirk. (AUDIO: The Nemonite Invasion) The First Doctor witnessed the events. (PROSE: Byzantium!)
The trapped soldiers organised themselves in long lines stretching towards the sea under constant threat from Stuka dive-bombers. Yet the German ground forces still held back. The Royal Navy, aided by the fleet of "little ships", (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) evacuated 338,000 men across the English Channel back to Britain, 100,000 of which came straight from the beaches, although the evacuation generated some controversy. (TV: Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart) Corporal Gibbs, who was among those successfully evacuated along with Captain Clive Freeman, considered Dunkirk "a mess". (AUDIO: The Forsaken). Churchill wrote that Dunkirk gave Britain "a bloody nose", from which the nation was still reeling a year later. (AUDIO: Human Conflict)
Yet for all the controversy, the evacuation was to prove a decisive moment in the war. Kriegslieter had identified the halt at Dunkirk as a fatal mistake in Germany's war effort that required correction but after the events at Drachensberg, the Black Coven were no longer able to intervene. Rommel, in his secret diary, was very critical of Hitler's nervousness despite his success and called the order to halt "utter madness". Churchill reminded the British that "wars are not won by evacuations". Britain's position was still very precarious, but the British Army, the forces necessary to face the troubles ahead, had been safely brought back home. People in Britain viewed the deliverance from Dunkirk as a miracle. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Italy entered the conflict and declared war on Britain. (PROSE: Just War)
"The master of Europe"
France lasted less than a month before surrendering in the face of the German onslaught. Oskar Steinmann claimed that even Paris welcomed German rule. Victory marches were organised, passing the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Notre Dame in celebration. (PROSE: Just War) The French could only watch in horror. (PROSE: Angel of Mercy) Once in Paris, the Nazis began pilfering works of art with which they decorated the lavish hotel rooms in which they took up residence. (PROSE: City of Death) Despite the looting, Paris was largely spared from destruction, unlike other cities invaded by the Germans. Hitler visited the French capital some time after the occupation, during which various hotel wine cellars were emptied. Under Nazi rule, access to numerous luxuries was cut off. Available tea, for example, was comparable to mud. (AUDIO: The Dying Room) Some of the French began collaborating with the Germans. Bernard ran a business which served German officers as well as their wives. (PROSE: The Turing Test) The French Resistance formed to combat the occupation, but innocent French civilians faced the threat of being murdered by the Gestapo in reprisals for disruption or harm caused by the Resistance. Executions took place each dawn. (AUDIO: The Scapegoat)
The occupying forced established a puppet government in southern France, which sat at the town of Vichy in the so-called Zone Libre or "free zone", (AUDIO: Resistance) with Marshal Pétain as the head of the government. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth) However, the Germans remained the masters of Vichy France and, by extension, France's colonies in North Africa, including French Guinea (PROSE: The Turing Test) and the city of Casablanca. (COMIC: As Time Goes By)
The Germans turned their attention to the Channel Islands. The British government decided that it was no use trying to defend the islands as they were of no military value. Instead, they were demilitarised in the hopes of sparing them from German aggression. A "second Dunkirk" was organised to evacuate the inhabitants willing to leave. About one third of the population of Guernsey left but the rest stayed, being unable or unwilling to leave behind their homes or farms, and some out of a sense of patriotism. On the warm Friday evening of 28 June at 6:45 pm, Mayor Sherwill just finished delivering a speech intended to reassure the civilians when Luftwaffe aircraft appeared in the skies and began bombing the harbour. The island had no bomb shelters and so people in the vicinity of the harbour took shelter beneath vehicles. Many of them died as the Germans attacked the vans, which exploded in salmon-pink light. The Germans later expressed their regret for the people killed in the raid and claimed their intention had been to prevent the shipping of a consignment of tomatoes. Twenty-seven men and four women were killed, and forty more people wounded.
On Saturday, 29 June, the inhabitants were worried about the possibility of another raid or a gas attack. On Sunday, 30 June, three German planes landed at the airstrip but were quickly chased off by a Royal Air Force patrol. At 6:00 in the evening, the German returned in force and began circling above the island looking for ground defences that were no longer there. By 6:30, Major Lanz had assumed control of the island and he set up residence in the Royal Hotel. Much of the population hardly noticed until Lanz issued a declaration to that effect at a later point. The swastika was raised on every flagpole and tens of thousands of Nazi soldiers arrived in 178 low-flying Junkers. Private transport and British radio channels were outlawed and unlucky islanders were evicted from their homes or had their furniture looted for use by the invaders. A dozen German soldiers billeted in the Doras family's boarding house and paid them in worthless occupation marks; comparatively, the Doras family was treated quite fairly and were among the lucky ones.
The Germans claimed they had occupied Guernsey without firing a shot, ignoring the raid on the harbour two days prior, as well as the subsequent civilian executions carried out on people suspected of being spies or in reprisals for acts of resistance. The island's security was led by the ruthless SS Standardtenführer Joachim Wolff and Oberst Oskar Steinmann, head of the prisoner of war camp and the Luftwaffe zbV respectively. The British government issued an appeal, warning the island's remaining inhabitants not to risk their lives by committing acts of sabotage or resistance. On an island only twenty-four square miles in size, few acts of resistance, even passive resistance, could go undetected. Marcel Brossier was executed for cutting a telephone wire. One girl also killed herself after becoming pregnant with one of the hated occupiers. (PROSE: Just War)
On Jersey, a force of time travelling Cybermen from the 30th century, which arrived in 1939, fled to mainland Britain when the Nazis invaded. The Cybermen left behind a sleeper force in the Le Mur Engineering factory, which the Nazis began studying. The fleeing Cybermen set up a new base of operations in the Peddler Electronic Engineering factory in London. Meanwhile, the discovery of the sleeper force led to a power struggle in Berlin. Himmler, Goering, Rudolf Hess and other leading Nazis all began vying for a position under Hitler that would give them control of the Cybermen. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
The loss of the Channel Islands represented the first successful invasion of British homeland territory since the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The British assumed the Germans had taken the islands for propaganda purposes but the Germans soon commenced with a considerable build-up of air and naval forces. (PROSE: Just War)
In the words of the Sixth Doctor, the British retreat from the continent left Hitler "the master of Europe," (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure) but in spite of all the odds now stacked against her, and perhaps even against her own common sense, Britain refused to stand down. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) During time spent in wartime Britain, the Ninth Doctor reflected:
the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it. Nothing. Until one, tiny, damp little island says no. No. Not here. A mouse in front of a lion.
Britain defiant
"We shall never surrender"
With Europe under Nazi control by the summer of 1940, the Nazis began planning the conclusion of the Blitzkrieg in the form of Operation Sealion, the cross-Channel invasion and conquest of Britain. Documents found after the war detailed their intentions for the island. First was the swift arrest of civil servants, ex-officers, trade unionists, lawyers and MPs, as well as the liquidation of Jews, Gypsies and other "invalids". The German sympathiser, former King Edward VIII, would be restored to the throne with Wallis Simpson as his queen and a National Socialist Parliament would be appointed. Able-bodied males between the ages of 17 and 45 were to be forcibly enlisted in the so-called Voluntary Labour Force and deported to various places around the continent to construct the Nazi fortress. Blond-haired blue-eyed women would be rounded up and sent to Race Centres to have Aryan children with members of the SS. Those children would be educated in Germany and sent back to their home countries after they had grown into loyal Nazis. Valuable art, industry and artefacts would be relocated to Berlin. The remaining population would be left to rot, with possible replacement by a new Aryan population after it had died out. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
With few remaining allies, (WC: Amy's History Hunt) renewed calls were made for Britain to make peace with Hitler. (PROSE: Inferno) Winston Churchill became Prime Minister, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) inheriting the critical situation. As fear of invasion swept the country, Churchill almost found himself on the verge of despair. The Doctor convinced him to fight on, adding it could lead to his "finest hour". The Sixth Doctor later recounted that Churchill, in response, "... brightened up, lit one of his big cigars, gave me a victory sign, and went out and won the war." (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure) Seeking new allies, he urged the isolationist United States to enter the war (WC: Amy's History Hunt) and declared Britain's intentions thus:
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may he. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
The British code word, "Cromwell", would signal the start of an invasion. (PROSE: Just War)
Britain was not entirely alone. Through the British Empire, the British received assistance from Australia, (COMIC: The Instruments of War) Canada, South Africa, (PROSE: Just War) and India. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)
Britons became worried about Nazi spies. (PROSE: The Curse of Fenric) A British propaganda campaign warned “Careless Talk Costs Lives”. Anyone accused of collaborating with the enemy was persecuted under the 1940 Treason Act. (AUDIO: The Survivor) Train station names on the south coast were removed to confuse potential Nazi train-spotters. Trains were also unofficially reserved for military use and civilians making train journeys deemed unnecessary were frowned upon. (PROSE: Just War) German spies captured by the British were executed. British, French and Dutch spies captured by the Nazis were treated as military prisoners of war. Although Oskar Steinmann conceded that, under Reich policy, the spies were partially spared so that information could be extracted via interrogation, he argued that the fact that they were spared still meant the Germans were more civilised than the English. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) The Germans attempted to convince British prisoners of war potentially sympathetic to fascism to switch sides and join the Britischer Freikorps (British Free Corps). Hardly any British prisoners ever accepted the offer. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Sir Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Fascists, was imprisoned for the duration of the war. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) London builder's merchant and Association leader George Ratcliffe spoke out against Britain's part in the war, believing the country should instead be allied to Nazi Germany. He was also imprisoned, (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) under Regulation 18b. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) Sir Davenport Finch was suspected of outright collaboration and Churchill favoured locking him up. This proved difficult because of his family's high-standing, however, and so he was simply placed under house arrest in his Sussex manor, under the watch of British officer Hegley. (AUDIO: Operation: Hellfire)
Sylvia O'Donnell had married a Waffen-SS member named Heinrich after they met in Germany in 1933. He took his wife's surname due to the rise of anti-German sentiment. Sylvia remembered a lot of friendly correspondence between Britain and Germany before the war and believed Churchill had no business involving Britain in the conflict, eventually prompting her to move to Kenya. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings) Though she herself was British-born and grew up in Britain, Elizabeth Klein received abuse and suspicion during the war because her parents were German. She came to favour a German victory. (AUDIO: Colditz)
The Home Guard, made up of civilian volunteers, was established to defend the country from German invasion. Members such as Tom Wintringham also believed it should be used to launch a socialist revolution against the government if any attempt was made to make peace with Germany. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) The Home Guard were stationed at potentially vulnerable coastal areas and important military installations. Robin Sanford was denied active service due to a hereditary heart defect but he was made a private in the Home Guard at the age of 18. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror) Hidden bases full of supplies and weapons were established so British resistance groups could go into hiding and continue operating against the Germans in the event of an invasion (PROSE: Made of Steel) Four citadels were build under the surface of London, intended to allow the British government to continue operations if the worst happened. (AUDIO: The Fifth Citadel)
At the recommendation of Admiral Arthur Kendrick, the British founded the Scientific Intelligence Division (SID). The first British organisation to (officially) combine the work of British Intelligence officers with scientists, its task was to piece together as much information as possible based on all the intelligence retrieved. (PROSE: Just War)
In France, the Reynard Resistance Group retrieved information about the invasion plans and intended to send them to the British. The Gestapo under Colonel Reiner began hunting down the group, which was infiltrated by a German agent named Ilse, posing as a Frenchwoman named Yvette. The Third Doctor was arrested by the Gestapo at this time but turned his interrogation around when he subjected Professor Schmidt to a dose of his own truth serum and pretended to be an inspector working on behalf of the Führer. Afterwards, the Doctor made contact with the Reynard Group.
When the Reynard Group prepared to send their message to the British, Isle warned Reiner and the leaders were arrested. However, the Doctor helped them escape their cell and they kidnapped Schmidt, forcing him to contact Reiner and falsely inform him that the message had not been sent. With the Gestapo now believing them to be dealt with, the Reynard Group then went back into hiding with Schmidt as their prisoner, planning to send him and his serum to London. Reynard claimed he believed Britain was sufficiently prepared to repel the Germans, who would be "in for a nasty shock". (COMIC: Who is the Stranger)
The Battle of Britain
- Main article: Battle of Britain
Britain also enjoyed one clear advantage over Germany: strength at sea. The Royal Navy's superiority over the Kriegsmarine in the English Channel had succeeded in delaying the Germans from launching Operation Sealion. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) Before it could be resumed, the Germans saw it as essential to defeat the Royal Air Force and achieve air superiority. (PROSE: The Whoniverse) As a result, in the summer of 1940, (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks the focus of the war moved from the ground and sea to the sky in what developed into the Battle of Britain. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)
The Luftwaffe, under Hermann Goering, (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) began the battle by attacking British military targets for a successive number of weeks, which had to be defended by the RAF. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) British Spitfire and Hurricane pilots fought against German Messerschmitts, Junkers 88s, Stukas and Dorniers. (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet/) Other British aircraft types included the Wellington, the Whitley, the Hampden and the Blenheim. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
The British were aided by new secret technologies such as radar and Radio Direction Finding (RDF). These were incorporated into the national air-defence system. More “crude” but effective techniques also gave the RAF an edge in the air war: microphones set up on the coast allowed the British to better hear the sound of incoming planes. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
One British aerodrome was located one mile away from the village of Cragwell in West Country. (COMIC: Insect) Another was in Culverton. (PROSE: Last of the Gaderene) A further aerodrome was located at RAF Shandon outside Helensburgh in Scotland. It lay largely beyond the range of the Luftwaffe and served as a training school. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) An ideal tactic for aerial combat was for a pilot to fly at the enemy with the sun behind them so their opponents were blinded. (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune)
While trapped on Earth, an amnesiatic Eighth Doctor saw the desperation of Britain's position and tried to join the RAF. He was rejected as he lacked nationality papers proving he was a British subject. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Alec Whistler fought for the RAF in the battle. (PROSE: Last of the Gaderene) Rachel Jensen was also involved in some action during this time. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) Polish exiles in Britain also joined the struggle. However, because of the poor performance of the Polish Air Force during the Invasion of Poland, their counterparts in the RAF initially did not regard the Poles highly, limiting their activity. Yet many of the Poles were very well trained, determined to prove their worth, and hungry for revenge.
In August, the Heliyon, whose different blocs were at war, travelled to the war-torn Earth. Under Heliyon rules of war, the two blocs chose sides at random from another planet that was already at war; the outcome of that planet's war decided the outcome of the Heliyon war. Additional Heliyon interference in those wars was banned by Heliyon Prime but fanatics attempted to influence the outcome of the Second World War in their favour by preying on the RAF. As they engaged the Germans, several British pilots were killed by the cloaked Heliyon ship.
On 27 August, Churchill contacted the Eighth Doctor (long after escaping his Earth exile) via the TARDIS telephone, seeking help with the mysterious alien force threatening the RAF aircraft engaging the Luftwaffe. Without the RAF forces to spare to assist in the investigation, the Doctor and Liv Chenka enlisted the help of Polish Pilot Officers Jan Ostowicz and Wilhelm Rozycki and equipped their planes with force fields. During the aerial investigation, Liv and Rozycki found themselves briefly abducted by the Heliyon, who were worried by the Doctor's technology. The Heliyon ship was drawn back towards the RAF base for an attack. The rest of the Polish squadron was deployed against it. The Heliyon were fought off and began heading in the direction of London. The Doctor, Ostowicz, Liv and Churchill pursued them, with Churchill ordering the British squadrons to join the Poles in the fray. Losing, the Heliyon ship attempted a kamikaze attack on the city but Heliyon Prime intervened and arrested the fanatics on the charge of war crimes.
In recognition of their efforts against the Heliyon, the Poles were allowed to engage more fully in the Battle of Britain the next day. On the night of 28 August, Ostowicz and Rozycki battled the Luftwaffe. Rozycki was shot down and killed. Ostowicz was saddened by his friend's death but acknowledge that he died doing what he wished and fighting for good. (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour)
Both sides suffered heavy casualties (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) but ultimately the British and were victorious. (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet/) The Spitfires became a much-celebrated aircraft and largely replaced the less manoeuvrable Hurricanes as the RAF's main fighter planes. However, Hurricanes shot down more German planes in 1940 than all other British aircraft combined. Hitler never forgave the Luftwaffe for their failure. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
Unbreaking British resolve
The extra-dimensional Shakers approached the desperate British government, offering aid. A pact was agreed upon and Operation Shaker was planned out. The Shakers would conduct a secret war against the Germans; the British offered them India as Lebensraum in return, with no intention of keeping the promise. The men of the South Mendip Auxiliary Unit, who had been trained to fight a guerilla war against the Germans, were also part of the Operation. Scientists, meanwhile, studied ways to defeat the Shakers for when they were no longer needed. Ultimately, the invasion never came and Operation Shaker was never put into full effect. The Shakers were trapped in the fabric of the BBC Broadcasting House by factions of the British Government after the threat of German invasion passed. (PROSE: Losing the Audience)
The Home Army Operational Corps was formed largely in secret to assist the Allies. Enjoying wide executive powers, the Corps could be considered above the law, which Churchill made great use of. (PROSE: The Dogs of War) Edward Travers provided scientific assistance to the Home-Army Fourth Operational Corps (PROSE: One Cold Step) after he was recruited by Toby Kinsella in 1941. (PROSE: Night of the Intelligence)
The government seized fences and railings around Britain because of a desperate need of various metals required to make guns, ships and bombs. A number of buildings never had their railing replaced, although some metal gates deemed to be of excellent workmanship were spared. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils)
In Scotland, chemical weapons testing took place in a loch in Inverness. All the fish in the loch died and it remained emptied of wildlife for decades, with even birds avoiding it, earning it the name of Dead Loch. (PROSE: Harry Sullivan's War) Some ships were wrecked during the war off a small British island believed to be cursed. (PROSE: Scratchman)
The Royal Navy continued to engage in operations in the Mediterranean Sea. Chas Baxter joined the Royal Navy in 1940 at the age of 22 and served in this theatre while aboard HMS Audacity. He was gifted a knitted bobble hat that Christmas by the Second Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon, who Chas believed to be Santa Claus and his helper. However, he did not wear the hat much in the Mediterranean climate. (PROSE: The Christmas Presence) Navy personnel communicated with each other through speaking tubes, essentially a piece of hosepipe with a whistle screwed on the end. (PROSE: The Time Travellers) The Mediterranean became closed to peacetime shipping. Convoys bound for Egypt or North Africa had to do so via the Atlantic Ocean and the West African Coast. Freetown in Sierra Leone became the main port of call. The area became endangered after Charles de Gaulle's assault on Dakar. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
As the months went by, the war settled into a stalemate. Although she could boast a powerful army and air force, Germany's navy was not strong enough to launch an invasion of England. Conversely, Britain enjoyed naval superiority and strength in the air was rapidly expanding, but she had nothing close to the forces necessary to take the fight back to continental Europe. As the winter season drew near, the Nazis temporarily shelved Operation Sealion, claiming they were observing a Christmas truce, but the British expected preparations to resume in the spring of the following year. Oskar Steinmann claimed that London would be taken in one day after German paratroopers descended on the city come the invasion. (PROSE: Just War)
Churchill became dead set on defeating the Nazis. On numerous occasions, he attempted to steal the Doctor's TARDIS, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour, TV: Victory of the Daleks) even ordering the British Army to retrieve it if possible, with the offer of a reward to anyone who succeeded. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror) He once expressed that, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would give a favourable reference to the Devil." (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
The Blitz
- Main article: The Blitz
Rain of destruction
Beginning on 7 September 1940, the Germans launched the sustains and strategic bombing campaign of British cities which became known as the Blitz. (PROSE: A History of Humankind) Major towns and cities across the UK suffered under an intensive aerial bombardment. The attacks occurred nearly every night and necessitated the blotting out of every light to deny the Luftwaffe a target. When possible, the bombers were guided by moonlight. (PROSE: The Time Travellers) Much of the urban population spent the night in bomb shelters or underground train stations. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
Woman and children were evacuated from large cities to the safety of the countryside to escape the bombing. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe), although not every parent was willing to send their children away. (PROSE: Tell Me You Love Me) A number of children from London were sent to Wales. (WC: Alien File: Eve) Ross Grant experienced some of the horrors of the Blitz before he was evacuated to Kingsdown in Kent. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) When Sally Northspoon travelled to the small country town of Thisis during the war, she found it was largely unaffected by the Blitz. (PROSE: Verdigris) The village of Bramfield was also untouched, with only the occasional GI passing through during the course of the war, prior to the construction of Bramfield New Town. (AUDIO: The Hidden Realm)
Shoreditch was hit particularly badly by the Luftwaffe, (PROSE: Ash) as were Cheapside, (PROSE: The Time Travellers) Ironmonger Row, (PROSE: Amorality Tale) Shad Thames, (PROSE: Resurrection of the Daleks) and Hampshire. Despite the danger of the bombs, Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen, refused to leave London. Some shops such as Henrik's stayed open for business despite bomb damage. (AUDIO: Lost and Found) One woman and her husband resolved to continue working in their shop as normal despite waking up on 14 November 1940 to find the building destroyed. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) After a heavy raid on Coventry, rumours began to circulate which claimed Churchill knew the attack was going to happen but kept quiet in order to protect a secret code. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go) Churchill later admitted to feeling guilty about the fate of Coventry. (AUDIO: Hounded) Totterdown, a district of Bristol, was almost levelled by the Blitz. (PROSE: Rags) Southampton, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Hull were among other cities to suffer under the Luftwaffe. (PROSE: Just War)
Goodge Street Fortress was constructed near Goodge Street tube station during the war as a secret government HQ. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Web of Fear) Dozens of such tunnels were built for the same purpose throughout London. (AUDIO: Amorality Tale) The government continued to meet and operate in the relative safety of the Cabinet War Rooms, (TV: Victory of the Daleks) although Churchill regularly ventured up at the rooftops at night accompanied by various advisers to observe the bombs pounding London which caused the population so much suffering. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Ack-ack guns and barrage balloons sprang up to defend Britain from the Luftwaffe. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...)
The First Doctor and Susan were present in London during an air raid relatively early in their travels. Susan compared it to a Zeppelin raid they had witnessed in the previous war. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)
At 8:47 p.m. on 12 October 1940, the New Regency Theatre, owned and operated by the late Henry Gordon Jago in the 1890s, was destroyed in the Blitz, as was the hotel next to it. (AUDIO: Swan Song) The church of St Barnabas in Portsmouth was also destroyed. (PROSE: The Eye of the Giant) Mabel Carter was killed during the early stages of the Blitz. (PROSE: Pass It On) A woman named Joan living in London's East End was caught in an air raid one night and stayed in a friend's shelter instead of returning home. Her home was bombed that night and her husband Bill was killed. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...)
Verdigris, seeking to manipulate the Meercocks into eventually launching an ill-conceived invasion of Earth, sent the Meercocks fictional literature from a London library as sources of information. The Meercocks believed their spy, Leonard Bast (also one of Verdigris' fabrications), had smuggled these books while moving them to safety underground to protect them from the Blitz. (PROSE: Verdigris)
Barbara Wright was told stories about German bomber pilots who embarked on raids with enough English money with them to live on if they were shot down and stranded in Britain. It was believed Germans never came over with change, so pub owners kept on the lookout for any men who purchased a drink with pound notes instead of change. (PROSE: The Time Travellers)
Alien encounters and uncompromising wills
In November, the Cyber-Leader which led the group of Cybermen away from the Channel Islands was damaged by a bomb and went mad, committing a series of murders around London's East End to sustain itself. The Seventh Doctor used the Blitz to destroy this force of Cybermen by lighting up the Peddler Electronic Engineering factory, making it an easy target for the Luftwaffe. The following day, the Doctor travelled to Jersey to destroy the remaining Cybermen in the Le Mur compound and put an end to the Nazi research. After the Doctor departed, Patrick Mullen and Cody McBride discovered a third, much larger dormant Cyberman army hiding in the sewers beneath London in preparation for a later invasion. (PROSE: Illegal Alien)
Manchester was struck in December. The Free Trade Hall and the surrounding area was flattened. (AUDIO: The Vardan Invasion of Mirth)
Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart spent one night in a public shelter in Eaton Square. (PROSE: The Ghosts of N-Space) Ian Chesterton grew up in Blitzed London (AUDIO: The Time Museum) and came to recognise the sounds of falling bombs very well. (PROSE: The Time Travellers) Barbara Wright was also a young girl at the time. Her father fought in the war and was killed close to Christmastime of 1940.[3] When travelling with the Doctor and Susan much later in their lives, Ian and Barbara arrived in Blitzed London again on Christmas Eve, 1940, and spent the night in a public shelter in Hazel Street as air raid hit nearby Gable Street. On Christmas Day, they discovered the Bansharai, creatures who fed on love to survive and took the forms of dead or separated loved ones, including Barbara's father, to do so. The Bansharai departed once they reunited as a family. (PROSE: Tell Me You Love Me)
On Sunday, 29 December, London was struck by the worst raid of the Blitz. The bombing caused a firestorm that earned the name of the Second Great Fire of London. Paternoster Row was destroyed that night. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
Although the BBC television service was shut down in 1939 to avoid attracting the Luftwaffe, the transmitter above the studio at Alexandra Palace was put to use jamming the Germans' guidance systems. (AUDIO: I Was Churchill's Double)
John Ellis served as a fireman during the war, whilst Diane Holmes ferried planes. (TV: Out of Time)
For a short time on both sides, the Cardiff rift linked January 1941 and the 21st century, allowing Jack Harkness and Toshiko Sato of Torchwood Three to meet with the original Captain Jack Harkness and to cause suspicions in the members of the Torchwood Institute about Bilis Manger. On the day following their meeting, the original Jack Harkness would inevitably be killed in a firefight. The present-day Jack did not interfere with his final fate to preserve the timeline. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)
Famous pilot Amy Johnson died flying for the RAF Auxiliary Service in the war. (COMIC: A Wing and a Prayer) Peter Kane's father, Jason Kane's grandfather, was also killed during the war. (AUDIO: Just War)
Jimmy Mayhew and his friend Dennis lost their homes and many loved ones when their street was bombed. Following this, they joined the Royal Navy. (AUDIO: Dark Convoy)
The Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler landed in London during the Blitz while pursuing a Chula ambulance through time, lured there by Jack Harkness. The nanogenes inside attempted to heal a dead child named Jamie, killed while wearing a gas mask, but they did not know what a human was and resurrected Jamie as a zombie with a gas masked face. This acted as a plague, spread to others through touch. The nanogenes cured the plague when Jamie found his mother Nancy and repaired the human DNA. (TV: The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances) After his travels with the Ninth Doctor, Jack Harkness later returned to the period of the war and was killed, after which his immortality granted to him by the Bad Wolf revived him again. (TV: Utopia)
The Mayfield Terrace was mostly destroyed after it was struck by two bombs, as well as an unreported German Wunderwaffe. The weapon was intended to spread hate by awakening the tribal instincts of young people, to prepare the way for an invasion, but it never activated. A German Jewish refugee named Rosa, who owned a cafe on the street, saw the weapon fall and mistook it for a third bomb. She was mistreated by the locals who blamed her for the bombing. (AUDIO: Hunters of Earth)
Donna's father, an American, went to England during the war and witnessed the bombing of the cities and the deaths of even young children. (PROSE: Goodwill Toward Men) The President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, made efforts to keep the US out of the war. Cody McBride nevertheless felt that America was capable of dealing with Germany if hostilities began between the two nations. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) In spite of the bleak situation, the Eleventh Doctor assured Churchill that the whole world was watching Britain and her struggle. Her acts of resistance provided "a beacon of hope" to the conquered and vulnerable peoples of the world. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
St Paul's Cathedral was hit by a 500-pound bomb which knocked a hole in the roof and exploded over the high alter. However, the building absorbed most of the blast and survived. (PROSE: The Time Travellers)
Churchill visited a number of the blitzed areas, filling the affected communities with a sense of patriotism and pride. (PROSE: Amorality Tale) For all the death and destruction, the Blitz created a unity of purpose among the British people and hardened their spirits with a resolve to see the war through to the end. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
The Hartung Project
- Main article: Hartung Project
In February 1941, the Luftwaffe moved their attention away from London to other English cities, targeting British war industries. This granted London some respite but by the same token condemned other people to suffer and die. Churchill continued to feel the weight of the situation on his shoulders, but he continued to marvel at the persistence of the British public's morale. (AUDIO: Human Conflict)
Although it looked like London had received a respite, bombs still continued to hit the capital late in the month. In the late hours of 1 March, a large number of German bombers took off from the Channel Islands and struck London again. However, the bomber fleet was largely a cover for Emil Hartung as he piloted his prototype stealth bomber Hugin, which caused the vast majority of the damage that night with great accuracy. Hugin's path hit Greenwich, Bermondsey, the City of London and Regent's Park before turning around and striking Paddington, Soho and Southwark, remaining undetected by British radar all the while. Almost every bomb hit something important.
Hugin along with her sister aircraft Munin were more advanced than aircraft than should have been possible in the period. The subjects of the Hartung Project, Hartung had completed the testing phase on 28 February after over four years of work. The SID discovered evidence of the project and embarked on a mission to find out more information, sabotage the project and potentially help Hartung to defect, by exploiting possible anti-Nazi sentiments on account of his partial Jewish heritage. However, Hugin crashed on return to Guernsey and exploded in a crash caused by a fault with the fuel systems. Hartung died just after midnight on 2 March.
The Tomato Network operating on the Channel Islands and the northern French coast sought to gain intelligence on the project for the SID but on 4 March, the network was compromised by the Germans who killed all 30 agents. On 5 March, Admiral Kendrick met with the War Cabinet and they agreed to RAF bombing operations against the Luftwaffe zbV HQ in the northern French coastal town of Granville in the hopes of destroying Hartung's work, regardless of civilian casualties. After 6:30 pm, RAF bombers breached the sea wall and 30 German troops were killed when the fuel stores erupted, and a whole squadron of Messerschmitts, along with two dozen pilots, were bombed at the nearby airfield before they could get off the ground, granting the British air supremacy. The town was hit with incendiary bombs. Even a bomb shelter in the park was hit, killing everybody inside. The townhouse used as Luftwaffe zbV's HQ, built in 1715 by Jean Lassurance, was reduced to a crater. The raid lasted for three hours until the RAF returned home at 9:30 pm without losing a single plane. Every target had been destroyed. Bomber Command announced a 100% success. 1,450 people were killed, including 30 German officers.
Munin, however, was based in a nearby hidden airbase and survived the raid. In another attempt to bring the British to the negotiating table, Standartenführer Joachim Wolff deliberately allowed himself to be captured by the SID to relay the British an ultimatum from the German government: Britain was to reach an agreement with Germany whereby the two nations would cease hostilities on equal terms and join together to face the Soviet Union. The only stipulations were that France be demilitarised, troops be withdrawn from Iraq and armistice terms be concluded with Italy. Failure to reach an agreement would result in the destruction of English cities on the south coast by a new German weapon (Munin). The Germans target was Southampton, with a raid planned before the British could prepare the city's defences. Unwilling to take risks, Admiral Kendrick contacted the Cabinet and announced “Cromwell”, the German invasion. Church bells and air raid sirens rang throughout London and the south coast to warn the population.
The project was thwarted ahead of the Southampton raid on 6 March. With Bernice Summerfield and Roz Forrester working on intelligence gathering, Munin was stolen by the Seventh Doctor and Chris Cwej, who blew it up by exploiting the same fuel weaknesses which destroyed Hugin. Their mission had started after the Doctor realised he had given Hartung information from the future when they met in Cairo in 1936. With the threat of the superbomber neutralised, the invasion alert was called off and another planned RAF raid on Guernsey was aborted. Wolff, in British captivity, took his own life after the Doctor shook his faith in Nazism and Fascism. (PROSE: Just War)
Much of the same event was relived by Bernice Summerfield along with Jason Kane, (AUDIO: Just War) with both versions appearing to have taken place. (PROSE: Paydirt) Bernice was able to remember both experiences. (PROSE: Dear Friend)
Clearer skies
Leading Nazi Rudolf Hess embarked on a mission in a plane. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS) He was captured by the British and imprisoned in the Tower of London. (PROSE: The Domino Effect)
As London, Britain and the Empire continued to suffer under the German onslaught, Churchill became desperate for something that would give Britain an advantage over Germany. It was in this context that the last Daleks in existence arrived in 1941 and located a remaining Progenitor device. Unable to activate it as they were viewed as genetically impure, the Daleks passed themselves off as robotic war machines called Ironsides invented by Dr. Edwin Bracewell, himself actually an android, who approached the British military with plans for the so-called "Ironside Project". Despite his desperation, Churchill initially had his doubts about the Ironsides, seeing them as "too good to be true." (TV: Victory of the Daleks) He called the Eleventh Doctor for assistance, citing a "potentially very dangerous" situation. (TV: The Beast Below)
However, the Doctor arrived a month late. By then Churchill had become convinced of the Ironsides' effectiveness. They proved excellent at shooting down German aircraft flying over London and even produced new technologies which augmented the strength of the RAF by creating devices which went as far as to make their aircraft space-worthy. Churchill hoped to one day use the Ironsides in numbers to take the war to Germany. Ultimately, the Daleks were using themselves as bait to lure the Doctor to 1941 and confirm to the Progenitor, via his testimony, that they were truly Daleks. With this achieved, the active Progenitor produced the first Daleks of the New Dalek Paradigm.
Attempting to get the Doctor off their backs so they could escape, the new Daleks lit up every light in London, prompting German bombers to set off over the Channel at once to cause as much damage to the city as possible. However, the augmented Spitfires Jubilee, Flintlock and their leader Danny Boy flew into space and engaged the Dalek saucer above the Moon, knocking out the beam and plunging London back under the cover of darkness. The Daleks then set the Oblivion Continuum which powered Bracewell to detonate. With the whole of the Earth threatened with destruction, the Doctor had no choice but to leave the Daleks in order to deactivate the bomb, allowing them to escape the war via time corridor and rebuild their race. However, the Doctor and Amy Pond were able to defuse the bomb by helping Bracewell override it with his humanity. All alien technology was subsequently removed by the Doctor to prevent wide-scale tampering with history. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
Bracewell continued to work with Churchill and the British. Later that year, he brought a mysterious painting by Vincent van Gogh before Churchill. Regarding the painting, Churchill tried to contact the Doctor but reached River Song in the Stormcage facility instead. He warned her about the painting so she could pass on the message to the Doctor. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
The Eleventh Doctor later recruited Danny Boy and the augmented Spitfires to fight at Demons Run. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
In June, a small group of Germans, led by Lieutenant Koenig assisted by Miss Wyckham, secretly landed on the south coast of England. They used a piece of Chronosteel found in the Rhineland to block early warning systems, which they hoped would allow the Germans to invade Britain in full force. Clyde Langer and George Woods stopped them, with Clyde returning the Chronosteel to its rightful place with the Shopkeeper and Captain in 2010. (TV: Lost in Time)
Different dates were given as to when the Blitz ended. One account, later edited by the Twelfth Doctor, gave an exact date as 21 May 1941. (PROSE: A History of Humankind) The Seventh Doctor gave a rough estimate of July. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) The Germans themselves abandoned the strategy in early December, (PROSE: Just War) although the British had received some respite before then as the Germans moved their attention to the east. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) Despite the end of the Blitz, Britain suffered further bombing attacks even after that point, which continued for the rest of the war. (AUDIO: Hounded, Churchill Victorious, PROSE: Ash, Illegal Alien)
In retaliation, the RAF carried out its own systematic bombings of Germany, targeting the industrial centres of the Ruhr and the Rhine. (PROSE: Just War) which resulted in millions of German civilian deaths, far more than the British had lost in the Blitz. (PROSE: The Turing Test) The bombardment of Germany crippled Reverend Wainwright's faith. (TV: The Curse of Fenric) Oskar Steinmann claimed that the Luftwaffe only targeted industrial and military installations (which was false) while the RAF were responsible for many civilian deaths in Germany, and attacked with phosphorus bombs and dum-dum bullets, which German forces had banned the use of. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) Major Poetschke of the 1st SS Panzer Division considered the Blitz justified as it was merely a means of trying to "persuade" the British. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) As Ian Chesterton understood it, British docks had been the Germans' primary target, but all of London's East End had suffered as a result. (PROSE: The Time Travellers) Over 40,000 people were killed by the Blitz. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
Fortress Europe and Beyond
Under the Nazi jackboot
According to German Military Law:
- Local commanders of occupied territory may pass summary sentence on persons who are not subject to Military Law if the facts of the case are self-evident and if this procedure is adequate in view of the guilt of the offender.
In effect, this gave the Germans in the occupied territories license to execute civilians based on whether or not they felt they should. The same was true from Poland to France and Guernsey, although the last of these got off relatively lightly. In the winter of 1940, the Germans had consumed most of Guernsey's food and fuel supplies, but by March 1941, the islanders gradually grew used to the occupation, the number of executions decreased, the troops behaved in an orderly fashion around the women, and medicine supplies reached the island. Yet deportations of islanders to concentration camps still took place and would do until the end of the war. (PROSE: Just War)
The Nazi deported "degenerates" from occupied cities such as Paris as well (AUDIO: The Scapegoat) and sent them to concentration camps established across occupied Europe where they used prisoners as "subhuman" slave labour. Slaves were made to work helping their conquerors consolidate their grip on the continent by constructing the sea wall along the coastline, including those of the Channel Islands. (PROSE: Just War) in order to turn Europe into a Nazi Fortress. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The Silurians observed the war and the actions of the Nazis with disgust. They felt it constituted proof of their perception of humans as uncaring and barbaric. (COMIC: As Time Goes By)
Jews from all over occupied Europe were deported to death camps, where millions of them were to be systematically murdered in gas chambers for the remainder of the war. It was conducted in secrecy, sufficient enough for the Allies to hear nothing but rumours. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Nazi doctor Joseph Mengele interrogated prisoners using Scopolamine as a form of truth serum. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror) He also administered equal dosages of poison to twins to test if they took the same amount of time to die. Elizabeth Klein claimed Mengele had the best of intentions, but admitted that even Hitler found his methods questionable. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings) Xenobiologist Dr. Peter Morley later thought of Mengele as someone who was so caught up in his work that he never stopped to consider why he was doing it. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)
Oskar Steinmann spoke of British and French aggression, using the example of the British Empire moving into neutral countries such as Iceland, Iran and Madagascar, and explained that a German victory would see the British and French Empires wiped away. The Germans moved into Bulgaria. Romania, at an earlier stage, was also invaded. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)
In April 1941, the Germans invaded Greece where they clashed with the British. On 19 April, the Germans outflanked the British on the Pindus Mountains, forcing them to withdraw. On 23 April, the British began the evacuation of Greece. (PROSE: Just War) Partisan movements subsequently emerged in Greece and Bulgaria. They built paths to allow more secretive movements around their countries. (PROSE: The Touch of the Nurazh) Subsequently, the Germans occupied the Greek islands, (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) which became distant outposts of the Reich. (AUDIO: Persuasion)
Crete was evacuated and the British forces stationed there were ferried to Egypt. According to one story, a midshipman disobeyed the orders of a major-general to let him aboard a small landing craft when the midshipman was sure it was at capacity. The general still made it to Egypt and reported the incident to the commander-in-chief. The midshipman was summoned before the admiral and, after confirming the story was true, was praised for properly carrying out his duty. (PROSE: Island of Death)
Fighting also continued in North Africa, where the Italians sought to extend their control over the continent. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) British and Australian forces, with French forces under Charles de Gaulle, clashed with the German Afrika Korps, led by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel and Albert Kesselring, the Italians and their Tuareg tribesmen allies in the Sahara Desert, Libya. Tanks and aircraft were deployed by both sides during the campaign. (COMIC: The Instruments of War, PROSE: The Dying Days) The Fall of Tobruk occurred in this theatre. (PROSE: Just War) In the desert climates, some men witnessed mirages. (AUDIO: Amorality Tale)
The Soviet Union enters the war
- Main article: Operation Barbarossa
With Britain still undefeated, Germany turned her attention east towards the Soviet Union. They sought to capture Russia's countless resources of land, slaves, oil, grain and metals. Even before engaging in war against the Soviets, the Germans had been active in Eastern Europe, having already captured men from Georgia and using them as slave labour in the west. In June 1941, the Germans pushed into Eastern Europe in force, bringing the Soviets into the war on the side of the Allies. (PROSE: Just War) Lev Zemanova warned his wife Isabella Zemanova about the invasion on the day it began and urged her to flee with their two infant children to the safety of Stalingrad. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad) relieving Britain from the immediate threat of invasion. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) Churchill and Stalin allied their nations against the Germans, although Churchill was reluctant to do so, remembering that Stalin had come to agreements with Hitler a few years previously. (AUDIO: Human Conflict)
The invasion opened the Eastern Front. The Russians suffered terribly during Operation Barbarossa. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Almost two thousand Russian planes were destroyed by the Luftwaffe on the first day of the attack. The Baltic States quickly fell to the Germans, and the Army advanced forty miles into Russia with each passing day as they fought towards Moscow, which Oskar Steinmann claimed would take three weeks. They had problems establishing their supply lines fast enough to keep up. More than two million Red Army soldiers, more men than in the whole British Army, became German prisoners of war after the Battles of Bialystock, Kiev and Vyazma-Briansk. More Soviet soldiers were captured each day than the Germans could process. The astonishing speed and successes of the campaign were announced on German radio stations. Propagandists were soon told to tone down their reports of victories because German citizens were beginning not to believe them. (PROSE: Just War)
Torchwood agents LeDuc and his alien partner Gabriel travelled from Calais to Paris in search of Project Hermod. While travelling through Montroy, Nazi guards accidentally came in contact with Gabriel, whose abilities forced people to take on the form of their innermost self. This inadvertently caused a zombie outbreak which affected the SS ranks. Project Hermod's Oppenführer Hans Grau believed French socialite Madame Berber was responsible, working for Torchwood and the French Resistance. Grau interrogated LeDuc to receive a confession to this effect but when he threatened Gabriel as part of the interrogation, Grau became a victim of the contagion himself. LeDuc estimated that 5,000 Germans would be killed before they could neutralise the contagion. (AUDIO: The Dying Room)
As the war expanded, the alien arms dealer Bragnar made a deal to turn Earth into a radioactive wasteland suitable for habitation by the Gilan. To achieve this, she sought to escalate the war by selling hugely destructive weapons to both the Allies and the Axis. Seeing the Germans as the more aggressive side, she approached them first. She met with Colonel Fischer in occupied Denmark and demonstrated the potential of one of her weapons by destroying a mountain. A British plane, flying over Denmark on an intelligence-sharing mission to Russia, discovered the mountain had gone, as they were using it as a reference point on the return trip. Informed of the developments by Lieutenant Ian Fleming, Churchill ordered a covert mission to Denmark to discover more about the weapon, and if possible to destroy it or capture it. Despite the urging of the Ninth Doctor that Churchill not get involved, Churchill felt that Britain's situation was too grave to take no action, and that possession of the Germans' weapon would bring the war to a swift end.
Fleming led the mission to Denmark. His team landed safety and swiftly infiltrated the German compound. Bragnar was located and extracted and Fleming's team made their escape, pursued by the Germans. They were aided by crucial RAF support. Some pilots spend longer than was advisable on this mission and they barely landed back in Britain with any fuel to spare. Inevitably, there were some casualties but Fleming's team successfully travelled back to Britain over the North Sea in a Sunderland flying boat with Bragnar and arranged to meet with Churchill in his old Parliamentary constituency of Dundee. Bragnar directed Churchill to the Isle of Murrah in the Outer Hebrides, demanding a quarter of Britain's gold and jewel reserves for the weapon. Against the Ninth Doctor's continued insistence, Churchill decided to meet with Bragnar on the island. Fischer's Germans following from Denmark pursued Churchill and Connolly towards the harbour before they left for the Hebrides. British Army troops arrived to deal with the Germans, although Fischer escaped.
The British had ordered a squad of bombers to fly towards Murrah while the Germans summoned a warship. Arriving on Murrah ahead of their respective attacks, Bragnar brought Churchill and Fischer into a stand-off. The Doctor arrived and attempted to mediate between the groups. With the fate of the Earth at stake, Churchill and Fischer agreed to talk and came to an understanding while they raided Bragnar's ship with the Doctor to deactivate its shields. Fischer and his men escaped on a boat back to their incoming battleship while the British fled on the Sunderland after the bombers obliterated Bragnar's ship. With the alliance of convenience over, Churchill, with regret but out of necessity, ordered the bombers to attack the German battleship. (AUDIO: Human Conflict)
In Russia, Leningrad was surrounded by the Germans. With Panzer divisions just ten miles away, the curator of the Palace Museum prepared to evacuate all the valuables to Siberia so they would not fall into German hands. However, the Amber Room was too fragile to be moved. The curator attempted to hide it by papering it over and covering the floor with sand to make it appear as if it was a normal room, before leaving with the collection to Siberia. However, the Germans discovered the Amber Room within hours after reaching the Palace, stripped it from the Palace and had it transported back to Germany. (PROSE: Cabinets of Curiosities)
The long war
With the stress of the ongoing war, Churchill was frequently prone to black moods. Major Wheatley grew increasingly concerned given that Churchill was presently one of the most important men in the world. Wheatley sought after a way to control the Prime Minister's emotions. He recruited the aid of a Swami named Kahn Tareen, the host to an entity known as the Black Dog, and attempted to make Churchill believe the Dog had an affinity to him. One autumn night at his home in Chartwell, Churchill was having difficulty writing an inspirational speech about never giving in to force for the boys of his own former school in Harrow, London. During an early-morning circuit of the grounds, he was chased by inside by the Black Dog. Churchill put the matter down to a hallucination brought on by situational stress while the Security Services began questioning his sanity. Fearing for Churchill's safety, Hetty Warner contacted the Tenth Doctor for help.
Under Wheatley's supervision, Tareen released the Black Dog, which escaped, killing several people and running through the London streets. As the group chased it, Wheatley's plan and motives were exposed. He was killed by the Black Dog shortly after, as was Hetty in an act of self-sacrifice, before the Doctor's own "Black Dog", a manifestation of his darkest emotions, was summoned to defeat the hound. Hetty's funeral was held a week later at her home in the north of England. Her death was officially reported as a casualty of the waning Blitz. She was remembered for being able to stand up to Churchill, a feat which not even Hitler could achieve. (AUDIO: Hounded)
Into October, Churchill privately remained concerned about the fact that Bracewell was still at large, fearing his Dalek programming may reassert itself. He considered tracking Bracewell down and sending him to work on codebreaking at Bletchley Park, where he could be supervised by the likes of Alan Turing. (PROSE: The Lost Diaries of Winston Spencer Churchill) Other codebreakers included Rachel Jensen, (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy, The Scales of Injustice) Constance Clarke, (AUDIO: Criss-Cross) and Toshiko Sato's grandparents. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts)
Bletchley code-breakers were offered residence at their working establishments but they were forbidden from speaking about their activities. This was somewhat difficult for some of the men, including Turing, as they had avoided conscription but no obvious war contribution to speak of, thus garnering suspicion or resentment. (PROSE: The Turing Test) Nevertheless, the codebreakers proved vital to the British war effort. The Germans' ENIGMA and Lorenz cyphers were cracked without the Germans ever finding out, allowing the British access to German communications. Some historians estimated that this development shortened the war by four years. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
Professor Alec Palmer also served as a British spy. (TV: Hide) British intelligence eventually weeded out all the German spies operating in the country, (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) most of their agents being captured or turning themselves in. However, Lesley Kulcade, a "dyed-in-the-wool Nazi" working in MI5, secretly fed information to the Germans throughout the war in support of Hitler's vision. (AUDIO: Subterfuge)
Although not involved in the war, Turkey also operated agents in occupied territories. One of their male agents in Paris in a misguided attempt to blend in adopted the alias Chanel Parfum. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Another British spy included Fey Truscott-Sade. In November 1941, Fey and Jacob Gansmann were sent on a mission to Austria to retrieve enemy documents detailing the movement schedule of the Fifth Panzer Division. The initial recovery of the documents was simple as Colonel Kessler had left his headquarters poorly guarded, an error that threatened him with a demotion transporting him to the Leningrad front. Kessler pursued the spies before they could cross the border into neutral Switzerland and reach the safety of Zurich. Gansmann was killed on the mission, eaten alive by Kessler's dog Thor. However Shayde awoke within Fey's mind and allowed her to use his powers to kill Kessler and his men. Fey escaped with the documents and headed to Zurich by train. (COMIC: Me and My Shadow)
In November, British forces in North Africa raided the German headquarters in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Rommel. One month later, during a lull in the fighting in Cyrenaica, Libya, the German command was infiltrated by a Rutan spy disguised as German war hero Heinz Bruckner, searching for the Sontarans' lost superweapon, the Warsong. The Twelfth Doctor, Rommel, Kygon Brox's forces of the Eighth Sontaran Battle Fleet and even the Allied forces worked together to prevent the Rutans from using the Warsong to transform Earth into a weapon that could be used in the Sontaran-Rutan War. After its destruction, the fighting in Africa resumed. (COMIC: The Instruments of War)
Brian Galway was killed in North Africa. (COMIC: Memorial) Sam Bishop's great-grandfather fought with the Eighth Army, serving in North African battlefronts such as Gazala, Tobruk and El Alamein. (AUDIO: Earthfall) Captain Jack Harkness was present at El Alamein, (PROSE: Risk Assessment) as was the Doctor during one of his first five incarnations. (PROSE: The King of Terror) The Third Doctor cited El Alamein as one of the battlegrounds on which he may have been wounded in the leg, but misremembered if it had been during the Crimean War or the Gallipoli campaign instead. (TV: The Sea Devils) The Eighth Doctor claimed he had driven an ambulance there. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) Major Dakar recalled that the British executed "traitors and cowards" at El Alamein. (PROSE: Ghosts of India)
On the Eastern Front, the Germans suffered a major setback. Despite the great start to Operation Barbarossa, Germany's failure to defeat Britain meant that she found herself fighting a war on two fronts again, as had happened during World War I. The Germans had advanced 1,000 miles into Russia along a 2,000 mile front and came within sight of Moscow. However, the Russian winter then arrived and the snow brought the Wehrmacht grinding to a halt. The Russians, who were far more prepared for winter warfare, counter-attacked and the Germans were pushed back from the capital.
Oskar Steinmann and his Luftwaffe units were called into Russia from Guernsey to help stabilise the situation. They proved effective at halting Russian tanks, disrupting Russian supply lines, aiding in the fortification of strategic towns and providing supplies for the occupying German forces. However, Germany was forced to scale back the bombing campaigns against Britain and abandoned Operation Sealion in order to conserve resources. After Moscow, Germany's war became a defensive one. Early signs of panic began to sweep Berlin, with officers and civilians beginning to consider the possibility that Germany could lose the war. Anyone caught by the authorities of discussing this possibility was punished and purged for defeatism. Few Germans now even contemplated disobeying or questioning an order lest they be branded as a defeatist or traitor to the Reich. (PROSE: Just War)
The Asian and European wars merge
World war
With their goal of establishing the Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) Japan entered the wider war on Germany's side (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) and attacked the United States forces anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on Sunday, 7 December 1941. Ray Budnick, a civilian pilot, was the first American to engage the Japanese as their Zero aircraft opened fire on him while he was out on a morning flight over Honolulu. The Fourth Doctor considered Budnick, who escaped, as important a historical character as the US General and post-war President Dwight D. Eisenhower even though history would forget him. The Japanese proceeded to bomb the American naval base in what the Doctor called "the greatest airborne attack" of the 20th century. (PROSE: Only Connect) Jeff Kovacs, who worked in weapons manufacturing, heard that half of his family had been caught up in the attack, which fuelled his desire to fight against the Japanese. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) UNIT's Bill Filer considered Pearl Harbor a big "series of balls-ups." (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune) Nevertheless, the Eighth Doctor noted that "America woke up from an isolationist slumber" following the attack, bringing them into the war on the side of the Allies. (PROSE: Fear Itself)
Forty-eight hours later, on 9 December, the Japanese turned towards the American forces stationed in the Philippines. The Americans were confident that they would be ready to face the Japanese when the attack began. However, Lieutenant Terrence Moody was shot down and killed in his P-40 Warhawk above Luzon Island without ever catching a glimpse of the Japanese pilot that intercepted him. (PROSE: Happily Ever After Is a High-Risk Strategy)
Rumours spread that Roosevelt knew the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming but kept quiet so he could use it as justification to enter the war. (PROSE: This Town Will Never Let Us Go) With the United States finally in the war, Roosevelt and Churchill allied their countries in a great transatlantic bond. (PROSE: Loving the Alien) America mobilised the massive resources at her disposal to support Britain and the Soviet Union. With Germany beginning to crack under pressure from fighting both European powers, the entry of America into the war proved to be a disaster. In effect, it was no longer Britain but Germany who fought alone on the continent. (PROSE: Just War)
Sometime after the Americans entered the war, before the end of 1941, the Silurians attempted to reclaim the Earth. They infiltrated the French police force in Casablanca using the war as cover and sought to turn the city into the epicentre of a massive earthquake that would create a planet-sized tidal wave. However, their plans were delayed by the Silurian who was to become the new emperor; observing the British, French, Americans and resistance movements standing up against Nazi tyranny convinced him humanity was capable of good. He assisted the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond and Rory Williams in thwarting the genocidal ambitions of his brethren. The Doctor spared the Silurians but warned them not to return to the surface again unless they sought peace. (COMIC: As Time Goes By)
On Christmas Eve 1941 in the Mediterranean, HMS Audacity was struck and sunk by a U-boat. Chas Baxter survived, floating on a life raft, despite the freezing night-time conditions. The next morning, he woke up on the raft floating 500 miles west of Cape Finisterre. He lost his knitted bobble hat to the sea, but remembering that it was Christmas Day, he found a box of chocolates on the raft, left for him by the Doctor and Jamie. (PROSE: The Christmas Presence)
In January 1942, Nazis in occupied France forced Pierre Vedrun to build them a transmat machine which could be used to cross the English Channel and invade England. His daughter, Monique Vedrun, taken hostage, briefly used the machine to escape, unknowingly travelling through time to the 1970s. The Nazis, an SS group led by Kapitan Ernst Wolfgang Spiegal, quickly recovered her, but the Third Doctor was brought back to 1942 with them. When the Doctor revealed Vedrun had created a time machine, Spiegal sought authorisation from General von Werstberg to use the experiment to bring back weapons from the future, such as the atomic bomb. The General asked to see one of these weapons as proof of the experiment's viability before granting full authorisation. However, the Doctor and the Vedruns were freed from captivity by Marcel Sangenez's French Resistance fighters before Spiegal could proceed.
Spiegal ordered the school building in the village of Eglise de Sangenez besieged and threatened to murder the children inside if the escaped prisoners did not return and complete the experiment. In the little time they had, the Doctor and Marcel infiltrated Vedrun's laboratory at Château de Sangenez and sabotaged the time machine. Meanwhile, General von Werstberg informed Spiegal that the operation was to be halted as its continuation was something the Reich could no longer afford. Spiegal was called back to Berlin but disobeyed the order and proceeded with the operation when the Doctor and Marcel returned in time to save the children. The Doctor's tampering with the time machine allowed him to return home to the 1970s, while Spiegal travelled to England but still in 1942. He was sent to jail by British defence forces. The experiment was ended when Marcel tipped off the RAF, who targeted and destroyed the Château with Mosquito bombers. (COMIC: Timebenders)
The German and Japanese offensives of 1942
Reorganising on the Eastern Front as the winter continued, the Germans established a temporary base and began massing Panzer tanks and support vehicles, slowed by the snow, for later attacks in the direction of Stalingrad. The Soviet Air Force, from their own temporary bases, launched "disruption bombing" raids to upset the German preparations. The 588th Night Bomber Regiment, who became better known as the Night Witches by the Germans, was an all-female regiment of fliers which mostly attacked the Germans during the night in Polikarpov biplanes and other biplanes left over from the previous war, attempting to be as stealthy as possible. The Second Doctor reasoned that the Air Force was largely comprised of women because the men were fighting in the Army. Many of these women were farmers who wanted to play their part in the war effort, but they received little training and many of them were killed. The Russians began to run out of resources and even food, meaning they had to come up with alternatives such as making stew from tree bark.
After saving Lilya Grankin from the wreckage of her plane, the Doctor and his companions were taken prisoner by the Night Witches after they recognised Polly Wright as the complete double of their top pilot Tatiana Kregki. Commander Nadia Vansey, accused them of being enemy spies sent to assassinate and replace Tatiana, deliver information to the Nazis and break the morale of the Soviet Air Force by removing their recruitment poster girl. Her subordinates convinced her otherwise, but Nadia still saw a chance to perform a propaganda coup by allowing the Germans to capture and execute Polly to make it appear as if Tatiana had risen from the dead when she attacked them again. Meanwhile, a desperate Tatiana sought to fake her own death and impersonate Polly to escape the war. The Doctor and his companions sought to disentangle themselves from the events before the Panzers attacked the air strip. The TARDIS left as the tanks and biplanes engaged in battle. (AUDIO: The Night Witches)
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In the second week of February 1942, the Japanese escalated the Far East Campaign by turning their attention to the British Empire's Asian colonies and marched on Singapore. Outmatched, the British evacuated their soldiers and civilians by sea as the Japanese drew closer. Hindu brothers Prem and Kunal were among a British and Indian section stationed in Singapore at the time of the invasion. The section found a boat to escape but Kunal was killed during the evacuation. The Thijarians bore witness to his death. (TV: Demons of the Punjab)
On the island of Kenga which was away from the main assault against Singapore, Captain Clive Freeman and his men, including Corporal Gibbs and Privates Lawson and James Jackson were ambushed in the jungle by Japanese scouting parties and harassed by air raids for a week after the invasion began, before they could be evacuated. Freeman was killed in the ambush but his form was taken by the Forsaken which fed on the fear of the other men as they held out. The Second Doctor defeated it by having it feed on its own fear. Afterwards, the boat arrived to complete the evacuation. Churchill called the fall of Singapore "the largest capitulation in British military history." (AUDIO: The Forsaken)
Indian troops engaged in operations in Siam. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) Action also took place in the jungles of Burma (PROSE: Just War) where Major-General Scobie served in a number of excursions. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice)
In the Pacific, the US and Japan were separated by a huge number of islands throughout the ocean, each one occupied by fanatical Japanese soldiers who were prepared to die before they surrendered. The Americans had to take these islands one by one on their way to Japan. (PROSE: Endgame) The Japanese looked to their Emperor and their personal sense of honour for strength. (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon) In the US, Japanese-Americans were locked up in camps, regardless of whether they were patriotic Americans. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues) Anti-Japanese sentiment in the UK predated the Japanese attacks owing to British sympathy towards China's cause. (TV: Captain Jack Harkness)
The Pacific islands were covered in jungles and mountains. The vegetation afforded the Japanese many areas in which to find cover. The Imperial Army Air Fleet and the United States Air Force fought each other in dogfights above islands close to the fighting on the ground, and occasionally they tried to bomb enemy positions. (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon)
Now involved in a war of this scale, Roosevelt set up the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to redress the fact that the US had no real intelligence service, beyond the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which mostly dealt with crime. The new OSS operatives were trained by their more experienced British counterparts in Canada. The OSS itself was headed by Bill Donovan. (PROSE: Endgame)
While engaged in operations in the South Pacific Campaign, Captain Botega's ship was surrounded by Japanese torpedo boats. Before the ship was destroyed, the Melovians scooped it out of its own time and transported it to their planet, where it was made to battle other ships for the Melovians' amusement. Because of imperfections in the Melovian transporter beam, Botega's crew underwent metamorphosis after leaving Earth's atmosphere and Botega's own form was turned to glass. The Third Doctor negotiated a resettlement of the displaced crews, including Botega's, finding them all a new planet in which they could live in peace. (PROSE: Fugitives from Chance)
Graham Greene was posted to Freetown in Sierra Leone that year, helping to provide Allied agents with money, cover stories and means of communication as well as returning information to London. Sierra Leone ran along the border of Vichy French Guinea and it looked possible that the Allies could conduct an invasion of North Africa, so Greene frequently ran and met agents in the remoter parts of the country. He ran around 50 agents in total but later looked back on the post with disappointment over how little the network had actually achieved.
In June, a group of aliens identified simply as the "strangers" arrived on Earth in the Sierra Leone border village of Markebo. The resulting light in the sky startled the locals and the village was evacuated. Greene investigated Markebo and found only the strangers, though learned little about them. Greene met with one of his agents, Cray, in the village of D'nalyel the next day. Cray reported the activity was not the work of a French armoured brigade in the area; they thought it was an English weapon, while others suggested it was one of Germany's rumoured super rockets they had in development.
However, the meeting was interrupted by Luetnant Franz Schubert and his Waffen-SS squad. He blackmailed Greene for information by threatening Cray at gunpoint but the strangers reappeared and the SS men were all killed in a struggle. The strangers took their forms and returned to Vienna in their place. Greene lost trace of the strangers. He returned to Freetown and gave his report, omitting direct mention of the strangers. He lost Cray as an agent shortly after, suspecting that he had defected to the French. The development became known as the Markebo incident and sparked an investigation which lasted most of the remainder of the European war. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Alpha Wheeler travelled to Earth on a mission to save her people from the Jabari. She gathered together a team of mathematicians, consisting of the Austrian chemist Zsa Zsa Straus (Zsacha Edelstein), codebreaker Eleanor Blake and Battle of Jutland veteran Binkum Fray, to test their suitability, while pretending that the real purpose of the gathering was a secret mission against the Nazis. After an encounter with the Jabari, Fray was deemed extremely unreliable as a team player while Blake chose to join Wheeler. Straus decided to stay on Earth and concentrate her efforts more fully on the war effort, considering that a chemist, mathematician and actor, who was also Austrian, would be very helpful to the Allies. (AUDIO: The Jabari Countdown)
The British conducted a raid into occupied France in 1942, where they very effectively deployed a netting trap. (PROSE: Survival) Also during that year, The Times reported Rommel's advance along a railway and a mass attack on Blenheim. At that time, Churchill was due to attend a meeting in Ditchley, Oxfordshire, where he expected to receive a delegation from American intelligence. The usual location for such meetings, Chequers, was not deemed sufficiently secure. Aware of Churchill's upcoming meeting, Lady Louisa von der Eck, a member of the minor German aristocracy, viewed Hitler's war effort as an opportunity to get revenge for Imperial Germany's defeat in World War I.
Using her Utopia window, Louisa created a virtual universe in which Britain lost the last war and became a German vassal state. In this virtual universe, Winston Churchill became an extremist resistance leader with atomic bomb blueprints imprinted into his mind via hypnosis. When the real Churchill arrived in Ditchley, Louisa posed as an old maid in order to trap Churchill inside the Utopia window and replace him with his extremist double. The double, suddenly finding himself the most powerful man in the world, began plotting to kill half his cabinet on the grounds that they were subversive traitors. Louisa extracted the bomb blueprints from his mind and threatened to deliver them to Hitler. However, the Ninth Doctor and the real Churchill escaped the Utopia window from the inside, causing it to shatter. Louisa was dismembered by the shards of glass as she tried to save it. The Doctor then removed the blueprints before the real Churchill could consider utilising them for his own needs. (AUDIO: I Was Churchill's Double)
By August 1942, despite many setbacks, the Third Reich reached its peak of power. Hitler and a number of the Nazi leadership attended a ball in Berlin. Accompanying him was Bormann and Eva Braun, his ostensible secretary, but it was a very-well maintained secret that Hitler and Miss Braun were in love. The Sixth Doctor and Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart also attended as part of an investigation into the post-war Operation Myth. Posing as physician Major Johann Schmidt of the Fifth Medical Corps and Brigadier General Braun from the Eastern Front respectively, they met Hitler during his address.
Hitler, in need of a trustworthy physician, later asked the Doctor in private to take samples of his and Eva Braun's blood so they would be tested for compatibility. During the procedure, Hitler asked Lethbridge-Stewart about his experience on the Eastern Front, where the Germans were about to begin an assault on the city of Stalingrad. The Doctor told Hitler that the coming offensive at Stalingrad was "key" and the victor would "win the war." (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
The Axis falters
Germany feels the strain
In the autumn of 1942, the Germans mustered a huge army which advanced on Stalingrad. Large parts of the population tried to escape the city by crossing the Volga, but relatively few made it over before Stalin and the army generals ordered that they be stopped, as they felt the soldiers would fight harder to defend the city if they knew their families and the public were in danger. Upon reaching their destination, the Germans attacked and besieged Stalingrad, subjecting the city to months of artillery bombardment, persisting into the bitter winter.
The people of Stalingrad were deprived of food and fuel, and many starved or froze to death. Some resorted to cannibalism. Yet the Germans proved equally ill-prepared for a prolonged winter campaign. Inadequately supplied, their ammunition eventually began to run low, their uniforms deteriorated and their own fuel was used up. Civilians, German soldiers and Russian soldiers all scavenged the bombed streets looking for wood from which to start a fire.
Attracted by the scale of the battle, the Drofen Horde began consuming the city's dead and, in contravention to their own laws, the living. When Erimem, Andy Hansen and Tom Niven arrived in the city from 2015, Erimem helped Yuri Kurkov's men locate the Drofen ship. Erimem confronted the Horde Prime and demanded that his kind were to leave Earth peacefully. When the Horde Prime refused, Erimem signalled for Yuri's men to attack the ship. As planned, their own bombardment provoked a larger German bombardment on the same area and the combined force obliterated the Drofen ship.
Isabella Zemanova resolved to leave Stalingrad with her two sons after learning her husband Lev had become one of the Horde's victims. Erimem had met Isabella in the future and advised her on the route to take to safety: along the Volga to Saratov, then to Penza, Tambov – avoiding Moscow along the way – Kostroma, Konosha, Leningrad and finally Murmansk. The journey would take many weeks. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)
Remaining trapped on Earth, the Eighth Doctor, having left Britain in the autumn of 1940 and spent "the worst years of the war" travelling South America and Africa, arrived in Sierra Leone in October 1942 and heard about the Markebo incident. He investigated Nazi papers in Vienna which confirmed that Schubert and his men - leutnants "Mozart", "Brahms", "Beethoven", "Wagner", "Strauss" and "Bruckner" – all returned from Africa. He quickly surmised that those involved had got the names from listening to classical music on the radio. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
US troops arrived in Britain. Some of them became involved in black market operations and with prostitution. Jack Cooper, then 10-years old, found his mother sleeping with an American soldier. Shamed, Jack set fire to his house and joined growing gang activity on the streets, having developed a taste for arson. (PROSE: Amorality Tale)
Under the direction of Bomber Command, the RAF and US Air Force began the strategic bombing of Germany. The effort was hampered by inaccuracy caused by high-altitude flying and its overall effectiveness was overestimated, (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
In Africa, the British finally managed to defeat Rommel's Afrika Korps. After such a long struggle, the victory proved highly satisfying to some of the troops. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) The Americans sent to the West were deployed in North Africa (PROSE: Autumn Mist) in an invasion with spelled the end for Vichy France. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
On Christmas Eve 1942, Oskar Steinmann, promoted to the rank of Generalmajor, watched the first test of the new Wunderwaffen, the V1 flying bomb at Peenemünde. A teenage Unteroffizier expressed his admiration for the weapon, how it would strike fear into Germany's enemies and was the only hope left of defeating Britain. Conversely, Steinmann claimed it had no purpose as a weapon beyond the psychological and would not win Germany the war. His absolute faith in the superiority of Nazism had been shaken after the Hartung Project, when he found Bernice Summerfield's diary which recorded a chronology of the war right up to the Reich's defeat. As the conflict progressed, Steinmann realised that the events were coming true, but his warnings on these matters went unheeded and he became increasingly resigned to the inevitability of Germany's dark days ahead. The Unteroffizier accused him of defeatism, which Steinmann did not deny. He simply acknowledged: “we can't all be on the winning side.” (PROSE: Just War)
In January 1943, the Eighth Doctor was arrested in Sierra Leone for trying to sneak across the border without a passport. This may have been intentional, as he sought to meet with Graham Greene and discuss the Markebo incident. With the Axis grip on North Africa rapidly loosening, Greene was serving his last week in Sierra Leone when the Doctor convinced him to join with the investigation of the identities of SS men involved. After a short search of the area, Greene provided the Doctor with some ID and they both headed back to England, but went separate ways from there. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
The Battle of Stalingrad continued into 1943. One million Soviets were killed defending the city. (PROSE: Happy Endings) Colonel Katayev was one of the battle's veterans. (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune) In the end, the Russians broke free of the German encirclement and captured the invaders. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad) In victory, the Russians gained valuable experience from Stalingrad which was later put to use against German cities. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
The Allies organised naval convoys to run supplies to the Russians across the Arctic Sea to Murmansk. The ships, many of them corvettes, faced threats from the freezing snowy weather and icebergs, as well as German planes and U-boats. ASDIC and depth charges were the main defence against U-boats, while the US developed more sophisticated sonar technology. The Seventh Doctor and Ace helped the crew of Captain Thomas Fitzgerald on the HMS Thunder to rescue survivors from the sunken HMS Intrepid Ranger and dispatch a preying U-boat. However, the Thunder was hit by a torpedo and began to sink. The Doctor and Ace departed to prevent changes to history as the endangered crew evacuated. (AUDIO: Dark Convoy) Mike Smith's father, who was part of the Royal Navy, was lost along with his ship in 1943 during one of these convoys. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) After weeks of their journey out of Stalingrad, Isabella Zemanova and her sons reached Murmansk and were smuggled onto a British ship by William Dunn. He and Isabella were married by Dunn's Captain after two days in order to help her escape to Britain. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)
In 1943, Fenric was working with his Haemovores at Maiden's Point. Russia and Britain, while nominally allies, were plotting against each other in preparation for post-war conflicts. (TV: The Curse of Fenric)
New initiatives
At Los Alamos in New Mexico, a team of three dozen physicists and engineers led by Robert Oppenheimer and Niels Bohr continued their work at a ranch school converted into a research centre on what would be dubbed the Manhattan Project, the creation of the atomic bomb. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs..., Atom Bomb Blues) The team consisted of American and British scientists as well as scientists from other countries, (PROSE: Endgame) including German scientists from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute who had fled to the United States, and who discovered how the split the atom. (AUDIO: The Alchemists) Oppenheimer's knowledge of the work of Heisenberg and Pauli led to his recruitment into the Manhattan project on the outbreak of war. His expertise was required to calculate the critical mass of uranium 235. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues) Peter Morley later considered Oppenheimer as someone so caught up in his work that he never stopped to consider the reasons he was doing it. (PROSE: The Scales of Injustice) Early one Saturday evening in March 1943, the Third Doctor materialised the TARDIS in Bohr's office when nobody was there and inspected the professor's notes. The Doctor made several discrete corrections to the notes before departing, ensuring that the Manhattan Project would not fail. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...) The German Reich, meanwhile, was also undertaking its own nuclear project. A close-run race developed between Germany and the United States to be the first to develop the atomic bomb. (AUDIO: Colditz)
The Germans occupied the south of France in 1943. Although there were members of the French population who joined the French Resistance or stayed sympathetic towards the Allies, others collaborated with the Germans. The Milice, the French Gestapo, was formed, identified by their berets and brown uniforms. People seeking to avoid capture fled south in order to cross the Pyrenees into neutral Spain. (AUDIO: Resistance)
The Germans launched another aerial bombardment against Britain. Fountain Street in London was among those reduced to rubble by firebombs. (PROSE: Ash)
The British Army commandeered a village on Salisbury Plain in 1943 for military training purposes, evacuating the inhabitants but promising them they could return after the war. They introduced the Churchill Crocodile, a tank which terrified the Germans. (AUDIO: Sphinx Lightning)
In Berlin, the Nazis set up the Pendulum Institute, an early Psywar project. They hoped they would be able to locate enemy submarines using swinging pendulums over sea-charts stretched over copper plates. Some American scientists heard about the initiative and organised there own version but neither side gained much from it and it was largely forgotten about after a few years. (PROSE: Endgame)
The London Controlling Section (LSC) organised efforts to deceive the Germans. These took the form of Operation Bodyguard and Operation Graffham, intended to trick the Germans into believing the Allies planned to make landings in Finland or Norway. Yet the LSC was in turn deceived by its German equivalent, who made the British believe that an influential occult figure in Berlin named "Ernst Littmann" had defected to England. In actuality, he was a fabrication. (AUDIO: Operation: Hellfire)
The Allies launched a flotilla against Sicily, and then invaded Italy in 1943. Another flotilla was launched against Anzio. A landing craft fitted with a powerful amplifier and huge loudspeakers played recordings of gun-battles several miles away from the site of the Allied landings, luring the enemy to the wrong location. Germany occupied the previously Italian-controlled Albania. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
During his house arrest in Sussex, Sir Davenport Finch, the occult Nazi sympathiser, was able to turn Hegley and his other guards to his cause. He regained control of his manor and partook in devil worship and mystic rituals, believing he would soon be joined by the enigmatic Ernst Littmann. He also acquired the Amulet of the Wastelands after it was lost by the Time Lords. One of his followers, Daisy Chapel, infiltrated the LCS and planned to drop parcels of poisoned food from an airship to the British people in an as they endured rationing. The thousands of resulting deaths would break the morale of the country.
A Time Lady messenger recruited the Third Doctor and Jo Grant to retrieve the Amulet. With Churchill's approval, the Doctor and Jo joined Wing Commander Douglas Quilter of the LCS on Operation Hellfire, the attempt to locate Littman by seizing the Amulet from Finch. When Churchill and British Intelligence discovered Littmann was not real, the Prime Minister sent British troops to Finch's manor to support Quilter and the Doctor. Infighting broke out among the fascists, leading to the death of Finch. Chapel killed herself when her airship crew surrendered. The Doctor entrusted security of the Amulet to Quilter, unwilling to return it to the Time Lords. (AUDIO: Operation: Hellfire)
In Philadelphia on 20 October 1943, Professor Brian Tessler led the US Navy's "Philadelphia Experiment" ("Project Rainbow"). Using Albert Einstein's unified field theory, the Navy attempted to turn their warships and crews invisible within an electromagnetic field. When the experiment was conducted on the destroyer USS Eldridge, the Navy ended up breaking the laws of transdimensional physics. Trapped between dimensions, the Eldridge fell into a wormhole and travelled across the work before returning in an instant. Everyone on board was killed or went insane. (AUDIO: The Macros, GAME: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada, PROSE: Autumn Mist)
The Time Lords took steps to try and stop the experiment but the gateway was unstable and the Eldridge disappeared through it again. (GAME: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada) All that emerged was a green fog which dispersed to reveal nothing. (AUDIO: The Macros) Colonel Allan Lewis, working as an army observer to the navy yard, believed the whole ship, together with the sailors in the bar room, had been disintegrated by the strains of the energy. The Experiment was a failure and Allan was sent to the Western Front, although he considered him and the other men involved lucky not to have been stripped of their rank. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
The Eldridge remained trapped between two universes, rusting away as after images of the crew immediately prior to the experiments played repeatedly. (AUDIO: The Macros) Accounts differ on what happened to the Eldridge. According to one account, the Eighth Doctor intercepted it during its transdimensional journey and transported it to 1944 to end Sidhe interference in the Battle of the Bulge. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) According to another account, the ship landed in the 23rd century in flooded London, near the base of Poseidon 8. (GAME: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada) To cover up the experiment, the official story accounting for the disappearance of the Eldridge claimed that it had been renamed the Leon and gifted to the Greek Navy. (AUDIO: The Macros)
On 1 January 1944, Lucien, a member of the French Resistance, discovered a Furio in a crater. She explained that she fed on and removed negative emotions such as hate, fear and guilt, and had been attracted to Earth by the war. Lucian realised she could be directed as a weapon against the Germans and the collaborators in the Vichy regime. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth)
In Italy, a battle took place at Monte Cassino in 1944 which left the monastery in ruins. By that stage, the Allies had conquered much of southern Italy but the Germans remained in control of the north and came into confrontation with their former allies. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)
Pilot Officer Randolph Wright was shot down over France in February 1944. He was taken prisoner and eventually died in captivity in Germany. A Gestapo agent took his identity in order to infiltrate French Resistance cells and prevent them crossing the Pyrenees. He was exposed by Polly Wright and shot dead by Resistance members, who made good their escape. (AUDIO: Resistance)
The elite of the scorpion-like Wyrresters planned a military operation to Earth in response to their own mounting population crises on their home planet of Typholchatkas. The British and Germans both intercepted a coded radio signal originating from outer space. It proved difficult to translate even for the top codebreakers at Bletchley Park, and Dr. Judson before he began work on the ULTIMA project.
By March 1944, both sides had managed to translate it, discovering instructions for building an alien machine. SS General Hans Kammler led effort to develop Die Glocke ("Project Chronos") what they hoped, in their mounting desperation, was a Wunderwaffe (super-weapon). An increasingly delusional Hitler believed it had been sent by aliens to help him win the war. Concentration camp inmates constructed the test site at the Wenceslas Mine in the Sudeten Mountains in Poland. The site, named "the Henge" or "the Fly Trap", was powered by hydro-electricity from a local dam and looked similar to Stonehenge. When the SS tested Die Glocke, several scientists were killed as they were mutated, crystalising their bodies, dissolving them into black slime which then dissipated completely. Five of seven conducting the second test later died from exposure, as did the workers whom were murdered by the SS to keep the experiments a secret. Kammler and Die Glocke were removed from Poland via U-boat, which fled to the secret base in Neuschwabenland.
However, Allied agents revealed the German activities and so the British began construction of their own Bell ("Project Big Ben") in experiments that were to prove more successful. Aleister Crowley, an occultist working in Allied counter-intelligence, determined it was a matter of the type of energy used and concluded British success was due to the experiment's proximity to ley lines. The British later assumed the Germans had reached the same conclusion. Evidence was found suggesting an SS commando raid made an incursion to Scotland to use a Neolithic circle to test a smaller prototype, although this was unconfirmed. The British moved their experiments to The King's Guards, a Bronze Age Celtic monument in Ringstone, Wiltshire. Stonehenge, despite being an ideal structure, was deemed too obvious for security purposes. The 14th Wiltshire (Ringstone) Battalion Home Guard under Sergeant Desmond Hughes provided security. Ringstone's inhabitants were evacuated to Chippenham and a cover story was formulated by Military Intelligence. A black out was enforced to avoid detection by German spotter planes while a searchlight shone on the decoy site on Salisbury Plain.
On 21 March, the day of the vernal equinox, Professor Jason Clearfield arrived to observe the activation of the Bell. When it was activated at the moment of the equinox, a Wyrrester emerged and attacked the assembled team, infecting Clearfield with a neurotoxin. The Home Guard battalion were massacred in less than ten minutes, save Private Robin Sanford who was held back by his heart condition. With the brief intervention of the Twelfth Doctor and Charley Bevan who were investigating the origins of developments in 2014, Sanford turned the searchlight on the Bell as the Wyrrester began to summon the rest of its race. The Luftwaffe located the site and began bombing it. The Bell was blown up along with everything relating to its research and the Wyrrester killed. An unexploded bomb landed on The King's Guards, damaging one of the stones. Clearfield was caught in an explosion which burnt one side of his face to the bone but the neurotoxin and the Bell's residual mutagenic energy helped him to survive, with enhanced physical and metal capacities and agelessness. After the raid, the village church bells rang to sound the all-clear. Sanford and Clearfield were the only survivors. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror)
One month after the end of the Battle of Monte Cassino, the German Special Service Division working under the instructions of Hermann Goering were plundering Northern Italian villages, stealing thousands of priceless Italian paintings and treasures and transporting them back to Germany "for real appreciation." Goering began building up a private collection, much of which was never found after the war. Italian partisans operated against the Germans but were fearful of retaliation. The Time Lords send the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith to Borosini during the period to rescue a priceless Raphael possessed by Father Antonio and other treasures. The Doctor put into effect Operation Stop Thief. Giovanni's partisans ambushed and derailed the convoy on its way to Berlin and returned the paintings to Borosini. The Doctor and Sarah Jane departed with the treasures in the TARDIS ahead of the arrival of Lieutenant Schuler's armoured column. Upon the Germans' arrival, the treasures were nowhere to be found. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)
Allies on the offensive
Operation Overlord
- Main article: Operation Overlord
In May 1944, the shapeshifting Valbrects led by Reginta sought to invade Earth while the war weakened the planet, gain control of its minerals and ores and enslave the human race. They began by infiltrating a US Army base commanded by General Michael Heyman, with plans to replace the entire US Army and seize control of the planet. The Twelfth Doctor exposed them and Colonel Preston led the defence of the base. The Doctor forced the Valbrects to leave Earth by threatening to blow up their ship with an American bridge-buster bomb. (PROSE: Base of Operations)
The word "debrief" was an Americanism coined towards the end of the war. The computer was developed during the war by British codebreakers. They were kept a secret. (PROSE: Silhouette)
American troops were sent to Britain in advance of the Normandy landings, (PROSE: Base of Operations) codenamed Operation Overlord or D-Day. (PROSE: Trace Memory) G.I.s were stationed near Wookey Hole Caves and got several of Lizbeth Hayhoe's land girls pregnant. (AUDIO: Parasite) Warehouses in Cardiff were used to store the bodies of dead G.I.s. (TV: Combat) In response to events on the island of Guernsey, the Germans committed a significant amount of time and resources to fortifying the Channel Islands. Consequently, the French coast was left relatively undefended and was vulnerable to the oncoming Allied attack. The Seventh Doctor hypothesised that had the Germans fortified the French coast instead, it may have been possible for them to repel the invasion. (PROSE: Just War)
In May, the Allies began an ambitious deception campaign intended to lure the German 15th Army away from the intended target of Normandy to the false target of the Pas de Calais instead. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Allied deception measures during the war were largely carried out by a covert group known as the Magic Gang. Tasked with tricking the Germans into attacking the wrong targets, they used any resources available to them, creating plywood buildings, painted canvas aeroplanes and inflatable tanks. Entire armies that were no more than illusions were fabricated. (AUDIO: Council of War)
On 17 May, Flight Lieutenant Carl Smithson shot down a Vvormak ship over the village of Turelhampton in Dorset. The ship was not identified and the RAF feared it was a German weapon which threatened the expose the deception campaign with less than a month to go before the invasion. The crash was covered up after the British Army evacuated the villages' inhabitants. Although the crash site was supposed to be preserved and guarded with the utmost secrecy some of the soldiers took "souvenirs" from the ship. The most notable was Gerrard Lassiter, who acquired the Scrying Glass. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
In June 1944, the Allied troops launched the invasion of Normandy, gaining a foothold in mainland Europe. (PROSE: The Taint) Kenneth James Valentine, who joined the Royal Dragoon Guards in 1941 at the age of 15, was part of the Twenty Seventh Armoured Brigade which landed at Sword Beach. He was wounded in combat and was sent back to Britain where he spent the rest of the war. (PROSE: Trace Memory)
In the eighteen month after leaving Sierra Leone, Graham Green had been based in England while working under Kim Philby in MI6, directing intelligence operations in Portugal. Through the decryption of the ENIGMA codes, the British knew of all German agents in Portugal and created spy networks involving double agents, triple agents and even non-existent agents with information on non-existent resistance movements. Nothing was done that would alert the Germans that their codes had been broken but as a consequence, some agents went on missions without knowing about all the danger involved and some of them died. Around June, Greene left this role.
Also in June, the Allies were in the process of bombing Italian cities. One US bomber pilot, Captain Joseph Heller, grew conscious of the innocent deaths, especially since Italy was no longer an enemy nation. Wanting to go home, or at least sit out the war, Heller was sent to a hospital ward in Malta after faking insanity. There, the Eighth Doctor asked for his help by requesting a flight to Dresden while tracking down the strangers from Markebo, but Heller refused. Four days later, Heller was discharged from the hospital and sent back to bombing missions. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Also that same month, (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Germany launched V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets against Britain. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Young Barbara Wright was evacuated to the countryside during these attacks after she was burned by V1 wreckage in her street which left a scar on her back. (PROSE: Nothing at the End of the Lane) The flying bombs, also called buzz-bombs or doodlebugs, were robotic planes that destroyed large chunks of London. One also landed in the countryside on a road near Wootton outside Cambridge. (TV: The Time Monster) The V1 attacks took the British completely by surprise and the country had no effective means of stopping them. Although the attacks were ultimately withstood, they highlighted that the Germans were still capable of new initiatives and could possibly launch other advanced weapons in the future. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Gerrard Lassiter fought in Normandy, carrying the Scrying Glass as a good luck charm. It appeared to show him the future. Further inland, the rest of Lassiter's patrol engaged in clearing out Germans from one of the bombed towns. Lassiter fell behind when the Glass depicted his death at the hands of a German soldier. The soldier, Gunther Brun, later appeared and stabbed Lassiter to death, taking the Scrying Glass for himself as a trophy. Yet in the ensuing days, the possession of the Glass greatly unsettled him and he deliberately lost it in a card game against Waffen-SS Colonel Otto Klein.
Two weeks later, Colonel Klein had also become unsettled by the Scrying Glass when he was summoned before Himmler in Berlin. Himmler simply reminded Klein that "Any confiscated material or possessions of prisoners or victims of war belong to the state." Though no mention was made of the Scying Glass directly, Klein was prompted to surrender it to Himmler, who seemed to imply that he knew it was in the colonel's possession the whole time. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
Wing Commander Alec Whistler survived an explosion from what he believed was a buzz-bomb while at Culverton Aerodrome in East Anglia. Whistler was due to embark on another mission and had just proposed Alice Fey, who did not survive. Whistler was left with a scar on one cheek. He resolved to survive the war for his fiancée. In the wreckage, he found a jade-coloured crystal, which he kept as a lucky charm. The blast was in fact caused by the crash-landing of a Gaderene encoder transporting embryonic Gaderene to Earth. They marked the planet as they sought another home for themselves, and the crystal was one of the nine keys to their interplanetary breach. (PROSE: Last of the Gaderene)
On D-Day Plus 21, British Corporal Walter Curtis landed in France with a 400-strong battalion. They saw little fighting at Normandy was largely secure, as was much of the rest of France. The battalion was ordered forwards to join the front lines, intent on reaching Berlin.
Throughout June and into July, the British and Americans fought their way through France, liberating towns and villages from German rule. As the disheartened Germans fell back across the country, the Luftwaffe almost abandoned daytime operations while Hitler ordered a scorched earth policy to deny his enemies the spoils of victory, although this was only invariably adopted. The local inhabitants celebrated their deliverance, gathering in large crowds with makeshift French flags and signing "La Marseillaise" while throwing their adoration on their Allied liberators. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth)
An end in sight
Lucien, the French Resistance fighter who developed a connection with the Furio, continued to summon her to fight against the Germans. She took down many Luftwaffe aircraft and, on 4 July, burned down a 600-acre forest near Rouen to flush out hiding German soldiers. One, Max, was killed. The other two, Klaus and Jorgen survived but became POWs after capture by Walter Curtis' battalion.
On 5 July, the battalion stopped briefly in the village of Vestille during the local celebrations. Lucien led a public head-shaving of Clementine for collaborating with the enemy. The Sixth Doctor, Flip Jackson and Constance Clarke intervened. On 6 July, Lucien summoned the Furio to kill them but the Doctor tempted her with news of the "feast" of hate on offer in Berlin. The Furio tried to follow the British battalion to the German capital but halted when Lucien agreed to release her. The Doctor offered her a new home on Skaro. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth)
Also in July, the Sixth Doctor (at a different stage in his personal timeline) met with Churchill and Air Marshall Anthony Forbes-Bennett in the Cabinet War Rooms and asked to be air-dropped into occupied France. Tracking down the Scrying Glass, he hoped to present himself to Himmler as an occult adviser and be sent on a German raid to Turelhampton to retrieve the Glass, unaware that Himmler had already recovered it and his planned raid was intended to find other "arcane" artefacts that may exist at the crash site. The next day, 148 Squadron, which worked with MI6 on covert duties, dropped the Doctor and another agent over Clermont-Ferrand.
Himmler had assigned Otto Klein to examine the visions in the Scrying Glass. Klein determined that they presented a narrative and even appeared to show the future – mystic rituals involving the Glass were among them. Himmler believed the Glass depicted "the glorious future of the Reich" and performed many ceremonies to conjure more images. He gave Klein five days to plan the operation to raid Turelhampton and find more artefacts. Himmler reported the plan to Hitler, who instructed that the Doctor (Major Johann Schmitt of the Fifth Medical Corps) was to take part in the mission. The Doctor subsequently met Himmler in Wewelsburg Castle and was briefed on the mission.
The Doctor was kept separate from the rest of the raid and dropped in Ireland near the Ulster border from where he made his way to mainland Britain. He reached Turelhampton ahead of the Germans but found the Scrying Glass missing, and came to realise that Himmler already had it, hence how he knew to send the mission to Turelhampton in the first place. The Doctor waited for the Germans to arrive. When Captain Voss and his team came ashore, they recovered the ship's hibernation tank with a Vvormak inside but ran into British soldiers and fled. The Doctor feigned injury and was captured by George Henderson but he was let go after one of Churchill's generals recognised him. The Doctor reported that his intelligence had been faulty and that his mission was not over. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
In Germany, members of the armed forces came to oppose Hitler and his insanity and organised the Valkyrie. However, their plot to remove Hitler failed. Erwin Rommel was implicated in the plot and was offered a choice between suicide or the death of his family. He chose the former. (COMIC: The Instruments of War)
Paris was soon liberated from Nazi rule. The Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald visited the city, where they thwarted a plan by the Darapok Empire to brainwash humanity into destroying itself by destroying their transmitter on the Eiffel Tower. (COMIC: Trust)
Before fleeing form Paris, the Nazis loaded trains with Parisian artwork to be transported back to Germany. Hermann, as a young German soldier, was on the last of these trains to leave Paris one night ahead of the Americans reached the city. The journey was disrupted by resistance fighters, who blew up sections of the railway tracks and attacked the convoys. (PROSE: City of Death)
Ian Gilmore fought in France in 1944. He was haunted by the memory of the remains of two German soldiers having to be scraped off the inside of a pillbox. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) He also fought in combat at Arnhem. (PROSE: The Dogs of War)
As the Western Allies drew closer to Germany, German cities became increasingly vulnerable to Allied air raids. The 1st SS Panzer Division's Major Poetschke believed that, unlike the Luftwaffe during the Blitz, the US bombers intended to destroy the German nation completely. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) Most of the bridges over the Rhine were demolished by the bombing and many railway lines were struck, causing havoc for German transport. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
By August 1944, Bormann was considering the likelihood that Germany would lose the war. Remaining loyal to Hitler, he began planning for the future in Operation Eagle Flight, Nazism's continued struggle even after the war was lost. He called a secret meeting with German business leaders in Strasbourg to gather the necessary financial resources to fund such an ambitious venture. He set up more than 700 front corporations which he used to spirit away money, gold, bonds, copyrights and patents. None of this was detected by the Allies.
In September, Himmler had also become more aware that the war was rapidly turning against Germany and ordered the death camps to be closed. The order was ignored. Despite the dawning realisation, his faith in the Scrying Glass persisted. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
Numerous Allied prisoners of war in Europe were held in the castle in the German town of Colditz. They were fed mashed turnips every day, with some meat on Sundays, and occasionally enjoyed Red Cross packages which made their way through the front lines. Escape plans were made frequently, many of which were successful. An escape committee was run by Flying Officer Bill Gower. The committee decided who could be involved in an escape plan and excluded those not invited into the inner circle. POWs caught escaping were sent to solitary confinement. By October, the committee were in the process of constructing a glider concealed behind a fake wall. By this time, Germany's defeat was looking evermore likely, highlighted by increased Allied bombing raids on German territory. This worried Colditz POW Timothy Wilkins, a young war reporter trapped behind enemy lines. He was among prominent prisoners who would be used as hostages following the Allied invasion of Germany. (AUDIO: Colditz) Heinrich O'Donnell of the Waffen-SS was stationed near Colditz Castle for a time. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings)
The Seventh Doctor and Ace became prisoners at Colditz in the same month. Subsequently, Elizabeth Klein, travelling back from an alternate 1965 in which Germany won the war, infiltrated the camp command to extract the Doctor and his TARDIS to tidy up loose ends in her own timeline. The Doctor realised that Ace's confiscated Walkman could be used by the Nazis to study laser technology and tip the balance in the race to develop nuclear weaponry. He ensured to retrieve the Walkman before he and Ace fled Colditz, preventing Klein's timeline from coming to pass. Feldwebel Kurtz pursued them but was ripped apart as he stood in the TARDIS door as the ship dematerialised. Klein, meanwhile, remained at large, an anomaly in the restored timeline. (AUDIO: Colditz)
Many POWs had been sent to Germany. There were Italians, Poles and Russians in captivity as well as English. (PROSE: The Turing Test) The Eleventh Doctor attempted to lead a breakout in a German POW camp. He helped Simmons and other men to build a tunnel beneath the camp. However, the Doctor emerged in the camp commandant's office and the escape was exposed. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
In November, an Italian soldier, Bruno Trattorio, wrote a short letter to his wife Gigi, expressing his hope that the war would not keep them separated for much longer. (PROSE: The Novel of the Film) By then, Joseph Heller had conducted fifteen more bombing missions since he was discharged from the Maltese hospital in June, bringing his total number of missions to sixty. This took a toll on his physical and mental health and he landed poorly on his last mission, breaking the leg of the rear gunner, Heedle and damaging the aircraft. When Heller claimed he was going insane, it was thought to be another deception. He was imprisoned, subjected to a court martial and almost shot but the Eighth Doctor secured his release on the condition that Heller agree to assist him when called upon. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Hitler became more desperate as the war went on. At the end of 1944, German scientists performed experiments on an ordinary soldier, using procedures observed in the concentration camps. The soldier lost his humanity and devolved into a ravenous creature. The Germans also built a mock-up of London, sparsely populated by English caricatures, to train for an invasion. Maddox, a British agent working for the Germans supervised the project. She was killed by Hemmings, an MI6 agent who infiltrated the project and let the creature loose. He managed to kill it with the help of the Fourth Doctor and Leela, who considered it a mercy killing. Hemmings was shaken by his murder of Maddox but believed it was his only choice to protect his mission to infiltrate German High Command and bring the war to an end. (AUDIO: The Shadow of London)
The Battle of the Bulge
- Main article: Battle of the Bulge
By the start of December, British Intelligence was aware that the Reich was rapidly falling apart. Because of the urgent need to keep the situation favourable, the interception by Bletchley cryptanalysts of a single transmission from Dresden caused much concern. It was feared the Germans had begun using a new code, replacing the long-deciphered ENIGMA code and Kim Philby recalled Alan Turing to Bletchley Park. Turing hypothesised the Dresden code was just a test, but none of the methods he employed were able to decipher it.
On 12 December, the amnesiatic Eight Doctor met Turing and suggested the code was not of German origin. The Doctor was aware the code originated from the strangers due to his ongoing investigations of the Markebo incident and intended to travel to Dresden to find them. He accompanied Turing to Bletchley Park to help with the research but was affected by the code which cause him to scream and he fled the premises. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
On the Western Front, the Allies had established their main fields at Liége and Luxembourg City as they prepared to cross into Germany. Their progress was hindered by the West Wall, a series of defences comprised of various fortifications, embankments and towns. Before the Allies could bypass the West Wall, the Germans planned an offensive in the Ardennes region of Belgium, in what would turn out to be their last offensive of the war.
At dusk on 15 December, US Lieutenant Wiesniewski led a raid behind the German lines but it went poorly and most of the Americans were killed. Their bodies were taken by the Sidhe's "Black Dogs" to their realm. Wiesniewski fled back to the American lines after an encounter with one of the Black Dogs.
At dawn on 16 December, the German offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, began with Operation Greif, a deception tactic whereby Germans dressed in Allied uniforms to infiltrate the opposing lines as fifth columnists. In tandem with an artillery barrage on the forest, the American forces in the Ardennes where overwhelmed with confusion by the time German tanks and Parachute Divisions attacked the American positions down Losheim Road. The Germans bested the Americans and over the ensuing days, they captured Lanzerath, Bucholz Station and the 2nd Division's airfield. They began surrounding one of their main targets, Bastogne, as the Americans prepared to pull out of the rest of the area completely and form better defensive positions further back. Many Americans became prisoners of war. Those who were captured by the 1st SS Panzer Division were rounded up at Baugnez crossroads, where Major Poetschke ordered their execution, including Red Cross medical personnel. Dan Bearclaw witnessed the massacre and was able to escape to warn the other Americans. The bodies, Sam Jones among them, were taken by the Sidhe. The Eighth Doctor (earlier in his personal timeline, not yet affected by amnesia) attributed the massacre to the failure of Standartenführer Jochen Peiper to control his men.
During the battle, SS Sturmbannführer Jugen Leitz and US Colonel Allan Lewis both conspired with each other and the Sidhe king, Oberon. With Oberon's help, and the backing of Himmler and Wewelsburg, Leitz worked on a method to transport troops, vehicles and equipment to the Sidhe plane of existence. He had little faith in Germany's ultimate victory and instead believed his experiment would aid the Western Allies in a future conflict against the Soviet Union. The success of the experiment would allow future wars and battles to be fought in the Sidhe reality, thereby sparing the contested area from destruction. Oberon, however, only wished to spread chaos among his people. While the rift between the planes of humanity and the Sidhe remained open, the Sidhe blamed humanity as a whole. As such, they began kidnapping the dead and eventually moved onto the living as well. Emil Metz and his fellow paratroopers were all kidnapped and killed while searching for Americans on the Schnee Eifel.
Sergeant Jeff Kovacs overheard part of Lewis' betrayal and warned the Doctor and Dr. Ray Garcia. The danger was confirmed by the Sidhe queen, Titania, who asked the Doctor for aid. As such, they were able to interfere in a confrontation Leitz and Lewis had organised at Skyline Drive to shift their modified vehicles into the Sidhe realm. The Doctor's party set off the battle prematurely. Leitz and Lewis were killed and their modified vehicles were all wrecked, but Wiesniewski and Garcia did not survive. The Doctor and Fitz Kreiner closed the rift by bringing the USS Eldridge forward the time from the Philadelphia Experiment. Pursuing them, Oberon was ripped apart during the flight of the Eldridge due to the electromagnetism-based lifestyle of his species. Those same electromagnetic properties allowed the massive steel warship to close the breach, after which the Doctor buried it beneath the forests of the Ardennes. The fighting at Skyline Drive wore down after the breach closed. (PROSE: Autumn Mist)
The Battle of the Bulge was largely fought by the Americans (PROSE: Autumn Mist) but some British troops were also involved. George Woods fought at Ardennes the age of 16 and was later commended for his valiant actions. (TV: Lost in Time)
On 20 December, in London, the Eighth Doctor (the later one suffering from amnesia) contacted Turing again. He was arrested by Military Police out of fear that he may compromise British Intelligence but it was quickly determined that he was not a threat. The Doctor offered his assistance in investigating the Dresden code and asked that he and Turing be sent to France to conduct these investigations closer to the source.
By 24 December, Colonel Herbert Elgar (a guise of one of the "strangers") claimed that the Ardennes offensive was "making everyone in Paris feel jittery," mostly due to the French memory of the previous German invasions. However, there was little chance of the Germans advancing deep into French territory, and elsewhere the Germans were on the retreat. American Marines confidently claimed it would "all be over in a month or two," after which "nothing [would] ever be the same".
On that same Christmas Eve, the Doctor, Turing and Graham Greene (under the alias Mr. White) arrived at a military base north of Paris and met Elgar in the Hotel du Parc. In conversation, one of the Marines declared that after the war, there would be no more 'poor' people, which the Doctor dismissed. In a bout of drunken pessimism, Greene declared that "The gloom, degradation and purgatory of the postwar era will in time make the war seem almost an indulgence." He believed the code was connected with the mass murder of Jews taking place in the death camps (PROSE: The Turing Test)
The Ardennes offensive eventually collapsed, as numerous contemporaries had predicted, (PROSE: Autumn Mist, The Turing Test) leaving Germany open to Allied invasion. (PROSE: Made of Steel, Cabinets of Curiosities, et al.)
Endgame
The shrinking Reich
In Paris, Turing continued to work on cracking the Dresden code into the New Year of 1945. However, at the end of January, the Doctor was accused of murdering a woman named Daria (really another "stranger"). The Doctor and Turing tried to smuggle themselves to Dresden with the help of the French Nazi collaborator Bernard. Colonel Elgar exposed the mission and three people died in a confrontation with German border guards. Abandoning the journey by land, the Doctor telegraphed Joseph Heller on 31 January to make the journey by air rather than land. They met with the strangers in the crypt of a Dresden church, where the latter group was attempting to use a quantum resonator to encode themselves and leave their present reality as quantum particles.
The strangers could not depart while Elgar remained present; he was producing a form of interference to prevent this from happening. Elgar, accompanied by Greene, embarked on their own mission to Dresden to hunt down the Doctor. With Elgar posing as a Nazi officer and Greene as his prisoner, they passed many German checkpoints across the Rhine, through to Nuremberg, Chemnitz, and finally Dresden. The Doctor had prepared for their arrival and Heller apprehended them. On that February day, British and American bombers struck Dresden with incendiary bombs. The city was set ablaze and thousands of civilians were killed. Greene was unable to what the attack achieved. The men were forced to kill Elgar so the strangers could depart. Remaining trapped in burning Dresden, the Doctor, Turing, Greene and Heller went out into the city to help people in need. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
Ian Gilmore witnessed Dresden's destruction during a flight and tried to put it out his mind. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) Although fire destroyed the city, some people were able to survive among the rubble. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)
In February, a V2 rocket hit Piccadilly. Adam Wheeler helped people at the restaurant leave the area but when he found a bottle of whisky and passed it around to the rest of the orderlies, a policeman had him arrested on charges of looting. The broken street windows were boarded up and members of the Home Guard patrolled the area to ensure the safety of passers-by. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious)
The Allied leaders, Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, gathered at Yalta to discuss the partitioning of Europe. Official photographs showed them smiling but this was staged for propaganda purposes. (PROSE: Byzantium!)
Crete saw some intense fighting as the British landed to recapture the island and drive the Germans out. According to some accounts, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart saw action in this engagement and won the DSO and the MC in the final year of the war.[4] (PROSE: Deadly Reunion, Island of Death) Minos and other Greek islands were also liberated in the final months of the war. (AUDIO: Persuasion)
The British invaded Germany in 1945. Just as the British forces planned to do if the Nazis invaded Britain in 1940, groups of Nazis went into hiding in secret bases full of supplies and weapons. These resistance groups called themselves Werewolves. (PROSE: Made of Steel) According to Mahalia Nkansah Hernandez, the Russians and Americans were "racing across Germany to begin the Cold War." The Amber Room looted from Leningrad was not recovered, as it had been spirited away, but was presumed to have been destroyed in a fire. (PROSE: Cabinets of Curiosities)
Eventually, the Allies overran the Nazi missile sites and atomic research facilities. The German pioneering work on rocketry was far in advance of any Allied capabilities. The Seventh Doctor suggested that rocketry could still have won Germany the war even late in the game if the Allies had not stopped the research in time. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) The Ministry of Defence gathered together individuals with the necessary expertise to begin reverse-engineering the German rockets. (PROSE: Numb)
Colonel Rook was part of the invasion and played a part in liberating unidentified German artefacts that were related to the Wunderwaffen. (AUDIO: Hunters of Earth) Other Allied troops recovered more minor commodities, such as German chocolate bars. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) American troops liberated Dusseldorf in April. (AUDIO: Persuasion)
Stalin continued to purge many of his army officers on charges of treason. His ministers noted that the number of officers killed in the purges exceeded those of the soldiers killed on many battlefields against the Germans. (PROSE: Endgame)
Fall of Berlin
- Main article: Battle of Berlin
As the Soviets, commanded by Marshal Georgi K Zhukov, continued to advance on Berlin from the east, the city was effectively sealed off. Hitler, Himmler, Goering with his wife and six children, Goebbels with his wife Magda and their six children, Speer, Bormann, Hermann Fegelein and his wife Gretl, Otto Gunsche, Heinz Linge, Arthur Axmann and a number of other Nazis as well as Hitler's beloved Alsatian Blondi retreated to the safety of the Führerbunker beneath the Reichschancellery. On 15 April, Hitler's girlfriend and Gretl's sister Eva Braun joined them in the Bunker. For many Nazis inside the Bunker, Eva's arrival was a sign that their days were numbered, with many referring to her as "The Angel of Death".
On 20 April, Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday. This was the last day Hitler was known to have spent time outside the Bunker, as he refused suggestions that he flee Berlin to Southern Germany. He looked almost 20 years older than he actually was. A physical wreck, a far cry from his condition at the height of Nazi power, the Führer suffered badly from Parkinson's disease. His left arm shook uncontrollably and he was constantly taking several different medications, including strychnine and cocaine. Goebbels ordered that the Führer only be filmed and photographed from certain angles to hide his frailty. Hitler addressed the Hitler Youth Brigade, preparing them to defend Berlin. Despite the inevitability of the Reich's defeat, Hitler continued to order military operations to proceed. Himmler, once Hitler's closest and most trusted ally, saw the insanity in this and left the Bunker during the sombre birthday party, never to return. He sought to begin secret negotiations with the Allies in order to sue for peace. Recognised immediately in the uniform of a Sergeant-Major of the Gestapo, he was made an Allied prisoner. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
On 22 and 23 April, the Soviets reached the outskirts of Berlin. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass, Just War, AUDIO: Just War) Hitler declared "All is lost," and made clear his intention to commit suicide. He showed signs of both emotional and physical breakdown. Eva Braun expressed her intention to kill herself with him. Hitler tested cyanide pills on Blondi.
Berlin became the centre of a ferocious campaign as the Red Army painfully pushed forward in a costly advance towards the Reichschancellery. German and Soviet artillery tore apart streets and buildings in murderous exchanges highly reminiscent of the fighting at Stalingrad – a battle in which the Red Army gained much experience in close-quarter city fighting that they readily put to use against the German capital. So desperate was the German situation that the Soviets found themselves battling against children in the Hitler Youth, so young that their uniforms didn't fit. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) The age of conscription had been reduced to as low as ten years. (PROSE: Just War)
On 24 April, Albert Speer left the Bunker and was later brought into Allied captivity.
On 25 April, the Soviets captured Tempelhof Airport, the main airport of Berlin and advanced on the inner ring of the city, known as the Zitadelle. The area designated by the Russian generals as Sector Nine held the government buildings, including the Reichschancellery. The Soviets began hunting for Hitler, with rumours circulating that whoever found him would be proclaimed a Hero of the Soviet Union.
Himmler ordered his Tibetan occultists to sacrifice themselves in mystic rituals in order to conjure forth the forces shown by the Scyring Glass to fight for the Reich. Dressed in German uniforms, groups of Tibetans took cyanide pills in various locations around the city but Himmler had misread the visions (the Glass only sought to be returned to its ship) and nothing happened. Captain Yazov's Soviet troops, among them Ilya Petrova, found the corpses of seven Tibetans after fighting their way through inner-Berlin streets with flamethrowers. Unaware of their purpose, the Soviets mistook them for Chinese or Japanese troops in the German Army, but a Mongolian soldier known as Vlad identified them as Tibetan. By the end of the same day, Yazov was dead.
Pressured by Bormann, Hitler declared Goering a traitor. Goebbels and Bormann were the only top government minister to remained fully loyal to Hitler. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
On 28 April, Mussolini was executed (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) and strung to a lamp post by his own people. (PROSE: The Dying Days) Hitler found out about Himmler's secret surrender negotiations and branded him a traitor. He had Fegelein, one of Himmler's closest aides, executed for attempting to leave the Bunker.
On 29 April, Hitler married Eva Braun. Goebbels was sent out into the streets of Berlin to find an official to conduct the ceremony. Eva signed her name on the marriage certificate as "Eva Hitler". Afterwards, Hitler dictated his last "Will and Political Testament" to a secretary. Denouncing both the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe for their failure, he named the highest ranking Kriegsmarine commander, Admiral Donitz, as his successor, and blamed the start of the war on a Jewish conspiracy. In the afternoon, Joseph and Magda Goebbels held a party for their six children. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
The death of Adolf Hitler
In the morning of 30 April, Eva visited the garden of the Reichschancellery for the final time. Hitler and Eva then made their formal farewells in the main corridor of the Bunker. By some accounts, it was still morning, but the farewells were made after lunch. If a nearby clock tower was still working, it indicated that the fateful events took place at around 3 o'clock in the afternoon.
The Sixth Doctor, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and Claire Aldwych were forced to travel back to the bunker on that day by Adolf Hitler, Jr. and his bodyguard Hanne Neumann so Hitler Jr. could meet his father. After an escape, the Brigadier apprehended and killed Neumann using some of the leftover cyanide pills used on Blondi. Claire returned outside to the TARDIS.
The Doctor, the Brigadier and Hitler Jr. then met Hitler as Bormann escorted the Führer to his rooms. Hitler recognised the time travellers as Major Johann Schmitt and Brigadier-General Braun and assumed they had come to pay their final respects. Hitler Jr. presented himself as Hitler's son, which the latter scarcely believed and thought his unknown visitor to be an over-enthusiastic follower. Hitler Jr. pleaded for his news about the visions in the Scrying Glass to be heard and suggested they seek Himmler's advice. At the mention of Himmler, Hitler flew into a rage castigating all the time, effort and resources wasted by the treacherous Reichsführer on mystic projects when Germany should have been seeking to modernise. The endorsement of Himmler by Hitler Jr. had lost him any standing he may have had with his father.
Eva Braun entered and Hitler Jr. appealed to her. However, neither of them believed he was who he said he was. Hitler shot Hitler Jr. in the head which left blood on the bed behind him. The shot was heard by some people in the bunker, including Linge. Overhearing a mutter from the Brigadier, Hitler ordered Bormann to dump the body in the water tower.
Heinz Linge and Otto Gunsche were instructed to turn away anyone who tried to see them. A hysterical Magda Goebbels tried to speak with Hitler in the hopes of convincing him to spare his life, meaning she and her family would not have to kill themselves as well. She managed to speak to him despite the security but was unsuccessful in her plea. Arthur Axmann also tried to have some final words with Hitler, but he was unsuccessful.
Claire witnessed Bormann's disposal of the body of Hitler Jr. in the water tower. A future journalist who had studied this event, she began to piece together the missing information she had learned while in the company of the Doctor. The garden suddenly came under fire from Soviet artillery and Bormann, noticing Claire, ushered her inside. He caught her and then threw her into the path of one of the shells which left a crater in the garden. Claire survived but Bormann forced a cyanide pill into her mouth and clamped her teeth shut, killing her.
Hitler and Eva finally locked themselves in their room and sat down, both holding a gun and a cyanide pill. Hitler bit unto his pill and shot himself in the mouth at the same time. The bullet shot out of his head. Eva did not use her gun. When she was found, she appeared dead as if she had taken the pill. However, she and Bormann both knew that she was pregnant with the unborn Hitler Jr., and had made arrangements to save the child for the future of the Reich. Secretly aware of this, the Doctor pronounced both Hitler and Eva dead. Bormann made to dispose of both of their bodies.
The Doctor and Brigadier left the bunker and observed Bormann from a distance as he placed Eva's bodies in the crater. As they expected, Eva regained consciousness and unwrapped herself from the blankets and hid in a group of trees by the wall. Bormann rearranged the blanket with a double, whom the Doctor and Brigadier believed to be Hanne Naumann. After the corpse was prepared, other soldiers arrived with Hitler. The bodies were doused with specially-kept petrol and set alight. After the area was cleared, the time travellers investigated only to discover that Eva's double was in fact Claire.
Eva, Bormann and another man secretly boarded a plane in the Tiergarten and were flown out of Berlin by Hans Baur. The plane landed in Hamburg where Eva and Bormann boarded a submarine which departed for Neuschwabenland, before the British Army advancing in the region reached the city.
Hans Baur fell into American captivity and provided a brief testimony of events. Shortly after, he entered Russian captivity.
Joseph and Magda Goebbels murdered their own children and killed themselves shortly after Hitler. General Hans Krebs also died. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
VE Day
- Main article: VE Day
On 9 May (Russian time), Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel met with Marshal Zhukov and signed the documents of Germany's unconditional surrender, signalling the complete destruction of the Third Reich. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) The Allies' victory over Germany was marked by VE Day on 8 May 1945. A major celebration took place in Trafalgar Square in London. (PROSE: Magic of the Angels) Churchill appeared alongside the Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace where he addressed the nation. He told the British people that this was their victory. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) The Seventh Doctor and his companions Ace and Hex were present in London for the celebrations. Prior to this visit, Hex had never heard of VE Day. The celebrations lasted into the night. (AUDIO: Casualties of War)
Yet despite the jubilation, Churchill found himself in no mood to rest. After his address to the nation, he returned to 10 Downing Street and met with Field Marshall Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, urging that British attention now be turned towards the Pacific theatre to face the ongoing menace of Japan. Brooke, however, pleaded with Churchill to let the British people rest for a day. He agreed that Britain could make further contributions to the Pacific in due time but also argued that the Americans and Australians had the situation well in hand, with Japan's defeat a certainty. Churchill was also adamant about the planning for Operation Unthinkable, a pre-emptive strike against the Soviets now in Europe. However, his generals claimed this plan was unfeasible.
Seeking to raise his own spirits, Churchill went incognito as "William Churchyard" to investigate electrical shortages in Piccadilly which had no related to bomb damage. On his mission, he came face-to-face with Visguard the bounty hunter, who had captured the Tenth Doctor. When on the verge of defeat, Visguard appealed to Churchill, offering him weapons that would assure the success of Operation Unthinkable and end the Soviet threat to Europe. Churchill seemed to consider accepting the offer but he received a severe dressing down from Diane Wheeler who told him how much the wartime privations had exhausted the British people and they could not handle even more in another war so soon after. She threatened that the British people would throw Churchill out of office at the next election. Ultimately Churchill apprehended Visguard in a spur-of-the-moment decision. He later admitted in his diaries that he did not know if what he said about using Visguard's weapons described his genuine feelings or not.
Churchill returned to work, preparing to dissolve the government and call another general election. As he was greeted by the crowds cheering for him, he felt confident that he would win against Clement Attlee. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) According to some extracts from Churchill's diary, the Ninth Doctor met with his that evening and took him on a trip to ancient Rome during the celebrations.[5] (PROSE: The Lost Diaries of Winston Spencer Churchill)
A change of leadership
Roosevelt died towards the end of the war. Harry S. Truman, Roosevelt's Vice-President, succeeded him and oversaw the end of the conflict. He attended the Potsdam Conference with Churchill and Stalin to settle the fate of post-war Europe. (PROSE: Endgame) With the Soviets having failed to find the remains of Hitler or Eva Braun, Stalin told Truman at the conference that he thought Hitler had fled to Spain or Argentina. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
After calling an election, Churchill planned a campaign with a continued international outlook, with emphasis on the ongoing war with Japan and the new threat posed by Russia. Attlee's campaign, meanwhile, focused on domestic social reforms. Churchill's remained confident in victory as he maintained an approval rating of over 90% in the campaign's closing days. He was aided by the Monk, under the alias Simon Saunders, who wanted to change history by leading Churchill to victory. The Monk advised that Churchill dispense with passages in his speeches which compared the Opposition to the Gestapo. The Seventh Doctor arrived to counteract the Monk's machinations and reverted much of the speeches back to those which he knew would not play well with the public in order to prevent interference with a fixed point in time.
The election was threatened by Lesley Kulcade, the Nazi-sympathising MI5 agent. He orchestrated attacks in London using stolen Luftwaffe bombs and planned to escape the country with many paintings of importance to British culture as a final act of revenge. No civilians died in any explosions and most of the bombs were deactivated by the Sindrans he had been blackmailing, after which they left Earth. Kulcade himself was apprehended by the Monk. Nevertheless, both men were brought into custody once Churchill learned "Saunders" had fabricated his identity, although the Monk escaped and disappeared shortly after.
The results of the election were announced some three weeks after the polls opened. Attlee won a landslide victory and met with the King to form his new government, replacing Churchill as Prime Minister. Churchill felt manipulated by the Doctor who he realised had deliberately sabotaged this campaign and denounced his friendship with the current incarnation. (AUDIO: Subterfuge)
Pacific Armageddon
- Main article: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The US continued with the Manhattan Project. In the summer of 1945, the exiled Hungarian physicist Edward Teller feared an atomic blast would ignite all the hydrogen in Earth's atmosphere and destroy the entire planet. He had a heated argument with Oppenheimer who was still willing to take the risk and continue with the tests. The detonation test, codenamed Trinity, took place at 45 seconds past 5:29 am on Monday 16 July 1945 in the Jornada del Muerto desert. Teller, who had clung to his theories up until the moment of the Trinity detonation, was proved wrong. This caused him intense embarrassment and his arguments with Oppenheimer created a deep-seated resentment towards his American colleague. The successful test concluded the Manhattan Project, leading the way for the final development of the atomic bomb. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues) Oppenheimer's name became more closely associated with their creation than the other scientists in his team. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...)
Although the Allies were confident of eventual victory in the Pacific, fierce fighting against the Japanese persisted, claiming hundreds more lives. The US had developed the atomic bomb but many of the scientists involved hoped that, following a demonstration on an uninhabited island, the threat of the bomb alone would convince Japan to surrender; they were opposed to it actually being used. However, the Allies were concerned that this would not be enough and that clearing the Japanese troops from the Pacific islands could extend the war for another five years and lead to many more deaths. The decision ultimately fell to Truman, who chose to deploy the bombs against Japanese cities. (PROSE: Endgame)
Three bombs were dispatched to Japanese targets: Little Boy, Fat Man and Big Momma. On 5 August, the bomber carrying Big Momma, the Sky Jack, took off en route to Kyoto on a top secret mission travelling northwards from Iwo Jima. However, the escort was ravaged by Japanese Zeros, most of the crew were killed and the aircraft was severely damaged. The Sky Jack began losing fuel too rapidly for her crew to reach Kyoto. They could only reach as far as the Ogasawara Islands but did not want to let the bomb fall into Japanese hands and prepared to drop it into the ocean, hoping that the other two bombs would be able to reach their objectives. Before the crew could attempt anything, the Sky Jack suddenly fell into a black hole. The details of Big Momma and the Kyoto bomb were lost to history, unlike the other two bombs and their own respective targets. (COMIC: Sky Jacks)
A successful attempt was made on Hiroshima. With the power of 13,000 tons of TNT, the bomb eradicated the city and burned at least 100,000 men, women, children and babies to death, with many more dying later from radiation poisoning. Four days later, an even more powerful plutonium explosion bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. (PROSE: Endgame, Atom Bomb Blues) Those nearest the explosions were instantly vaporised, with some remaining only as silhouettes burned onto walls. (PROSE: Amorality Tale) The total death toll of the two bombing operations was a quarter of a million Japanese civilians. (COMIC: Sky Jacks)
The two bombs achieved the surrender of the Japanese, who surrendered to the Americans. (PROSE: Endgame, Log 384) The Emperor himself was forced to give the order. (COMIC: The Road to Hell) The Allies marked this as VJ Day, (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) or Victory in the Pacific Day. According to the Eleventh Doctor, this was celebrated by "one hell of a victory party". That date, 2 September 1945, (COMIC: Sky Jacks) saw the formal end of the war. (PROSE: Base of Operations)
Aftermath and legacy
Recriminations and the post-war climate
War crimes
Berlin and Vienna were both divided into four zones occupied by the United Kingdom, France, the United States and the Soviet Union. (AUDIO: The Anachronauts, Quicksilver) The Nazis had recorded their horrific activities in neat registers during the war. After Germany surrendered, these documents were recovered and revealed many of the atrocities perpetrated by the Third Reich. (AUDIO: The Paradise of Death)
Between 1945 and 1946, twenty-three senior Nazis were put on trial for war crimes at Nuremberg. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) Some of the defendants tried to defend themselves by claiming they were simply following orders. (PROSE: Hope) Others were so indoctrinated by the ideology that they expressed that killing Jews was "just common sense." (PROSE: The Turing Test) Heinrich Himmler was among those who committed suicide in captivity before they could be tried. Albert Speer was the only one to plead guilty, (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) attempting to look sorry to avoid a twenty-year prison sentence. (PROSE: Dead Romance) Oskar Steinmann was found guilty and was given a life sentence in prison. He was released in 1969 on medical grounds and died in 1972 at the age of 89 from a form a spine cancer. (PROSE: Just War) Rudolf Hess was sent to Spandau Prison. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS)
Groups of Nazi hunters were established, (AUDIO: The Tyrants of Logic) while numerous Nazi war criminals fled to South America, finding refuge in Paraguay, Argentina (PROSE: The Crawling Terror) and Brazil. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia) Hans de Flores and Elizabeth Klein were among them. Klein viewed de Flores as the ideal candidate to become Führer of the Fourth Reich. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings)
After the Japanese surrendered, they destroyed all of their biological warfare facilities before the American forces arrived and occupied their territory. However, the Americans quickly found out. Fearing that the Russians could benefit from this knowledge, and seeing an opportunity to learn from experiments that the US would never conduct themselves, the Americans granted the Ishii Shiro and the other perpetrators immunity for their crimes in exchange for the data. Some of the perpetrators went on to gain high positions in academia or powerful organisations. Unlike the Nazis, these Japanese war criminals were never persecuted and lived out lives of wealth and power. The Americans incorporated the data into their own medical knowledge and even deployed biological weapons against North Korea in the Korean War. (PROSE: Log 384)
The Americans, British and Russians all engaged in a race to learn from Nazi scientific secrets, given the advanced state of much German technology. (AUDIO: Persuasion) The British continued to experiment with rocketry after examining the German technology. (PROSE: Numb) The Americans did the same, contributing towards their space programme. (AUDIO: Persuasion)
"Today's allies, tomorrow's enemies"
- Main article: Cold War
This was symptomatic of the onset of the Cold War, brought on by deteriorating post-war relations between the capitalist West and the growing communist world, led by the Soviet Union, which spread into many countries formerly occupied by the Axis. Such a conflict had been foreseen by both sides as early as 1943. (TV: The Curse of Fenric) Churchill recognised the Soviet ideology as diametrically opposed to the British way of life, hence his support for Operation Unthinkable. (AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) American General Patton also expressed a willingness to push his tanks forward until they reached Moscow, but he was later killed in a car accident. Some members of the KGB suspected the Americans themselves had arranged Patton's death to prevent another war. Nevertheless, the Soviets decided to halt in Eastern Europe after the power of the atomic bomb became known at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (PROSE: Endgame) In 1955, the First Doctor said of the situation: "It is one of the eternal truths of history, that today’s allies become tomorrow’s enemies." (PROSE: Losing the Audience)
Poland and Czechoslovakia were ruled by communists after the war, (COMIC: The Broken Man, AUDIO: The Curse of the Fugue, Artificial Intelligence) although the city of Prague was largely spared from the fighting and much of its architecture remained unchanged. (PROSE: Across Silent Seas) Albania also experienced a Stalinist revolution aided by General Tito, fostering a new, more confident and aggressive identity for the nation to wash away the shame of the Italian and German occupations. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion) By 1951, the Communists had also come to power in China, (PROSE: Endgame) which came to view the United States as "imperialist" and the United Kingdom "barbaric". (TV: The Mind of Evil) China even fought the Western powers during the Korean War. General Douglas MacArthur advocated dropping an atomic bomb on Peking, for which Truman removed him from his post. (PROSE: Endgame)
Various Germans, Austrians, Poles, Russians, Hungarians, Yugoslavs and other Eastern European nationals came to Britain to escape fascism and, more pressingly, after the war, communism. They remained in Britain as exiles when the Soviet Union conquered their mother countries. Some of them, backed by the British Secret Services or the American CIA, hoped to liberate their nations from the communist rule. None were successful and many agents who travelled home for the purposes of espionage were quickly captured and shot. The Countess of the Players claimed that Stalin had much more blood on his hands than Hitler, with his Soviet regime slaughtering many more of his own people than had died fighting the Soviets in the Second World War. (PROSE: Endgame)
American soldiers remained stationed in Britain until they were demobilised at the end of 1946. (PROSE: Amorality Tale) Britain's four citadels set up in case of a Nazi invasion were maintained due to the threat posed by the Soviet Union. (AUDIO: The Fifth Citadel)
Some time after the war, a communist rebellion broke out in northern Greece. This alarmed the British, whose maps of the Greek Islands were six years out of date due to their expulsion from Greece by the Germans in 1941. His Majesty's Intelligence Corps sent regiments to the islands, tasked with clearing out and mapping them in order to gain intelligence that may be used against the communists in the event of a war against Russia. For a time, it was considered sending them to aid in the fight against the communists on mainland Greece but this plan never went ahead due to political developments back in Britain. The Royal Navy also patrolled the Mediterranean and the Peloponnese to deter the communists. The Albanians attacked some British ships travelling through the straits of Corfu, almost necessitating some delicate retaliation before diplomatic talks convinced the Albanians to back down. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
Crippled by war debts, the British Empire went into decline in the years immediately after the war. (PROSE: Endgame) India gained independence from the British in 1947 but it was divided into India and Pakistan by the Partition of India on 17 August. Religious tensions between Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs led to violent tribal divisions and millions of deaths. Prem bitterly expressed how the violence seemed to demonstrate that no lessons had been learned from World War II. (TV: Demons of the Punjab) In 1948, at the end of the British Mandate of Palestine, (TV: The End of Time) the British were involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which Spitfires were used in airborne operations. (PROSE: The Suns of Caresh) In 1953, the British in Kenya and Nairobi faced the Mau Mau Uprising. The Mau Mau wanted self-rule and attacked the white settlers. Ultimately, the British ended the fighting by diplomatic means and Kenya gained self-rule. Other countries were soon to follow. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings)
The far reaching consequences of the Pearl Harbor attack saw the United States take a leading role in the post-war world. In the words of the Eighth Doctor, America left its "isolationist slumber" and "looked to the next danger", that being the Soviet Union and the spread of communism. (PROSE: Fear Itself) The Office of Strategic Services was disbanded but went on to form the nucleus of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). President Truman, despite being viewed merely as a "caretaker" president after Roosevelt's death, won the election of 1948. He oversaw the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and the Marshall Plan, a massive aid initiative which aimed to help Europe rebuild after the war. (PROSE: Endgame) Germany recovered, adopted the Deutschmark as the country's currency and Volkswagens as popular car models, and eventually became allies with Britain. (PROSE: The Dragon of Hyacinth Lodge)
A few of the scientists who worked on the atomic bomb were so dismayed about its use that they passed the secrets to the Russians in order to break the US nuclear monopoly. The USSR developed its own nuclear weapons in 1949, resulting in a nuclear stand-off between the two superpowers. (PROSE: Endgame) The nuclear bomb became the new fear during the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union continued to work on their own nuclear bombs. By late 1963, as Barbara Wright calculated, they had enough to annihilate the entire population of Earth thirty times over. (PROSE: Nothing at the End of the Lane) Having started construction during the war, the Soviets also continued to build up the largest navy the world had ever seen, made up mostly of submarines. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Sea-Devils)
Various incidents occurred which threatened to spark a Third World War between Britain and America in the West and the Soviet Union and China in the East. Yet weariness of the recent war meant neither side ultimately truly wanted to take part in another, especially a nuclear war. Agents on both sides joined a secret organisation known as "Tightrope", which was committed to redressing any political instability which threatened another war. By 1951, the post-war political climate stabilised somewhat, highlighted by peace talks during the Korean War. (PROSE: Endgame) For much of the latter half of the 20th century, World War III and a nuclear war remained a potential disaster. (TV: The Mind of Evil, Day of the Daleks, Cold War et al.) However, such a disaster was ultimately avoided and the Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. (AUDIO: Protect and Survive)
Neo-Nazism
Despite the Third Reich's destruction, Nazism survived in the form of neo-Nazis. In 1983, Manisha Purkayastha was the victim of a firebombing attack (TV: Ghost Light) perpetrated by Neo-Nazis on the basis of her race. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) In 1988, Hans de Flores and his second-in-command Karl led a Neo-Nazi faction in an attempt to acquire the Nemesis statue and establish the Fourth Reich. The entire group was annihilated after crossing paths with the Seventh Doctor, Ace and the Cybermen. (TV: Silver Nemesis)
Between the end of the war and 1970, there were numerous reported sightings of Hitler and rumours of his survival. These sightings were collected together under Operation Myth but practically all of these reports were unverifiable. Some sightings could, however, be attributed to his secret son, Adolf Hitler, Jr.. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass)
According to both the Seventh Doctor and Bernice Summerfield, World War II was the last war of its kind for a very long time. (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War)
The name "Adolf" virtually disappeared not only in Germany but all over the world due to its association with Hitler. This came to be known as "the Adolf Effect". (AUDIO: The Lights of Skaro)
Hitler was resurrected along with the rest of humanity in the City of the Saved. He was promptly imprisoned in the Gaol, which had been constructed in anticipation of his eventual death and resurrection in the City. He was made to serve six million consecutive life sentences in the highly-secured Gaol guarded voluntarily by many of his victims, a great number of them Jewish. His punishment became a topic of debate. Civil liberties groups and his supporters argued his sentence had been a form of vigilante justice and harmed prospects of rehabilitation; other groups tried to harm him within the City protocols. Marcus Americanius Scriptor tried to meet with him, and seemed to be in favour of Hitler's release, so that he could wander the world drowned out in anonymity. His meeting request was denied. He agreed to return when Hitler's sentence had been served. He had already met Hitler many times during his travels through the Known Worlds. (PROSE: Prologue to Warlords of Utopia)
Rebuilding
Debris and deprivations
Wartime austerity measures continued to stay in effect in the UK for a few years after the conflict's end. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus, AUDIO: Churchill Victorious) Aided by the continued presence of American soldiers, black market operations persisted for some time as misappropriated cigarettes and military equipment made the rounds (PROSE: Amorality Tale) at a time when ration books, passes and general security checks all remained standard procedure. Numerous ex-servicemen moved to Blyth, Newcastle and other parts of Tyne which offered good living conditions and work in the shipyards. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)
The dawn of the nuclear age sparked a period of post-war optimism in anticipation for the introduction of cheap and plentiful nuclear power. However, the prospect proved disappointing in the ensuing decades. (PROSE: Harvest of Time)
Many children lost their fathers during the war. Single parents, who were traditionally frowned upon, became more common after the conflict. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) Countless people across Britain and Europe lost their entire family. Some such people became refugees. (PROSE: Numb)
Feeling "rejected" by the British people after being voted out as Prime Minister, Churchill turned his attention to writing histories, including A History of the English-Speaking Peoples. (AUDIO: Living History) His history books won him the Nobel Prize. (WC: Amy's History Hunt) He did not leave politics behind, however, and was re-elected as Prime Minister in 1951 and served until 1955, (AUDIO: Their Finest Hour) by which point he was over 80 years old. (PROSE: Childhood Living, AUDIO: Young Winston) Eventually, Churchill retired to his home in Chartwell after his physical health began to deteriorate. There, he committed to writing about his life experiences. For his leadership in both World Wars, he opined that he was not a hero but a man. Recognising his flaws and mistakes, he hoped to one day make up for them. (AUDIO: The Chartwell Metamorphosis) After his death, he become one of the few civilians to receive a state funeral. (WC: Amy's History Hunt) His memoirs went on to act as an inspiration to future Members of Parliament. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)
After departing from Operation Stop Thief in 1944, the Doctor and Sarah Jane were diverted by the Time Lords to Borosini in peacetime, April 1948, where they returned the secured paintings and treasures to Father Antonio and Giovanni. The recovery of the artefacts made the news but Antonio and Giovanni were sworn to keep the role of the time travellers a secret. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)
By 1948, the British Army had still not returned the commandeered village on Salisbury Plain to its original inhabitants, and it remained a restricted area. The Army continued to use it for military training, working on a project codenamed Sphinx Lightning. This was the testing of the new remote control Mk VII Churchill Crocodiles armed with flamethrowers and machine guns. (AUDIO: Sphinx Lightning)
Much of London took many years to be rebuilt after the destruction caused by the German bombing and the Blitz in particular. Children, including Ben Jackson and Polly Wright, took to playing among the wreckage in 1948. Polly's mother told Polly that it was the bravery of Londoners which helped the city to recover. (AUDIO: Lost and Found) London children were still played in wrecked streets by the 1960s. (AUDIO: Hunters of Earth) Some bombed streets were bulldozed for reconstruction, although this proved a slow process and numerous buildings remained condemned some decades later. (PROSE: Ash) As late as 1966, certain parts of London were still in the process of being rebuilt. (AUDIO: The Perpetual Bond) One such area was Bermondsey. (AUDIO: Threshold) Some of these areas became inhabited only by rats, cockroaches and weeds. (PROSE: Amorality Tale)
London's East End as a whole suffered lasting psychological damage as well as physical. With large numbers of bombed-out streets, privations and the loss of jobs as factory and dock activities moved elsewhere, the inhabitants' sense of patriotism underwent a decline. Various gangs attempted to pick up the pieces. Many gang members were ex-servicemen or deserters, often armed with firearms left over from the war. Some of the newer gangs realised the war had created a power vacuum, presenting them with the opportunity to take control of the streets. One recovery effort turned out to be a front by an Xhinn missionary force seeking to prepare Earth for colonisation. As a result of the planned invasion, between 4,000 and 12,000 Londoners died during the Great Smog of London from 5 to 9 December 1952. (PROSE: Amorality Tale)
After his release from prison, George Ratcliffe made use of his old contacts to receive work for his builder's merchant business. He took part in numerous projects during the 1950s helping to reconstruct London's Blitzed East End, which proved very prosperous. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks)
In July 1963, the bombed out Mayfield Terrace was taken down. This accidentally activated the signal of an inert German Wunderwaffe, which awoke tribal instincts within young people, turning them hateful and violent. In October, the First Doctor and Susan Foreman gained access to some of Colonel Rook's German artefacts and were able to block the signal. The Doctor then advised that the weapon be found and dismantled before the signal activated again. (AUDIO: Hunters of Earth)
Unexploded aerial bombs continued to pose a threat to British cities for decades after the conflict. Capsules containing the Movellan virus were initially feared to have been unexploded German bombs by the team that found them when they were unearthed in a warehouse in Shad Thames in 1984. (PROSE: Resurrection of the Daleks) Some of these bombs were SC250s, which were designed to explode if someone tried to defuse them. (PROSE: Subterfuge) However, most of London had been rebuilt by that the mid 1960s and the city returned to normal. (PROSE: The War Machines) Fortunately for London's inhabitants, the war saw the last major attacks against the city until the Daleks invaded the Earth in the 22nd century. (PROSE: Illegal Alien) Despite bomb damage, (PROSE: The Time Travellers) St Paul's Cathedral famously survived the Blitz and other German bombing attacks, as it had the previous war, and as it would would in World War III, World War IV and the Dalek invasion. (AUDIO: Frostfire) The church of St Barnabas in Portsmouth was rebuilt in the 1950s. (PROSE: The Eye of the Giant) Totterdown in Bristol had been unable to repair much of the damage and the town retained the look of a wasteland as late as 1979. (PROSE: Rags)
Moving on
Diane Holmes reflected that, once the war was over, women "were supposed to revert to being dutiful wives and daughters. Diane, however, continued as a pilot, having developed a taste for flying, adding that "no pig-headed man [told her] what to do." She purchased a Cessna, her first plane, after the war. (TV: Out of Time)
In 1951, the Festival of Britain was held in the UK, "a big party to cheer everyone up" after the war, as the Second Doctor described it. The Festival was about celebrating British historic and scientific achievements over the centuries, commemorated in the Dome of Discovery, and looking towards the future. The Skylon was, in essence, the symbol of the festival. It represented all the ingenuity which had gone towards the war effort having been "redirected to make a shining spearhead to the stars," and the end of post-war austerity. Some anti-aircraft guns were likewise re-purposed and made into radio telescopes capable of sending messages to the Moon, but this was apparatus secretly set up by the Vardans seeking to form an alliance with the British in order to spread Vardan ideas. In 1952, the festivals monuments were dismantled on Churchill's instructions, as he was wary of the vision of Britain's future which they represented. The scrap metal firm sold the remains back to the public in the form of hundreds of tiny aluminium mementos. (AUDIO: The British Invasion)
Mr Gamble made a lot of money during the war, which made him a very influential figure in his home of Lewes during the 1950s. (AUDIO: The Bonfires of the Vanities) Joseph Roberts suffered a lasting leg injury during the conflict. He received an army pension and continued to work in London in the decade after the war's end. (AUDIO: An Ordinary Life)
Naval mines left over from fighting in the Atlantic Ocean continued to pose a threat to sailors. Sean and Jacko reckoned that explained how they became shipwrecked prior to becoming slave workers in an Atlantean mine. (PROSE: The Underwater Menace)
Culverton Aerodrome was among the wartime aerodromes which saw post-war use. In July 1953, the aerodome performed an air show for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Circa 1964 or 1965, it was involved in the rescue of a stricken tanker off the East Anglian coast. It was finally closed down by the Ministry of Defence on one summer Saturday in the 1970s after Charles Cochrane MP forced unpopular defence cuts on the Chief of Staff, Jocelyn Strangeways. Its closure saddened the Culverton RAF veterans. Wing Commander Alec Whistler kept his Spitfire and preserved it. (PROSE: Last of the Gaderene) The aerodrome in Cragwell was also closed down. (COMIC: Insect)
Mass Observation carried out surveys during the war to determine the life expectancy of different parts of the UK population. After the war, the information gathered by the government led to the foundation of a committee named Death Watch, of which Liz Shaw's mother, Dame Emily, was a member. (AUDIO: The Last Post)
Computers, first invested and used by the British wartime codebreakers and kept a secret, became household items a few decades after the war. (PROSE: Silhouette)
The monastery at Monte Cassino in Italy was fully rebuilt by 1976. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)
Churchill's offer of a reward to the British Army for the retrieval of the Doctor's TARDIS was still in effect by 2014, much to the Doctor's annoyance. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror)
Alien activity
After the war, Naughton was appointed senior officer of MI5's covert Majestic Eight division, tasked with investigating unusual phenomena. The division was eventually disbanded and its former duties fell under the remit of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, (PROSE: The Dragon of Hyacinth Lodge) which formed from its own predecessor, the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks)
The Immortals, once worshipped by humans as gods, lost their strength and power as faith waned as a result of the advent of the Age of Reason. However by 1946, as Earth emerged from the Second World War, and particularly with the creation of the atomic bomb and the beginning of the Cold War, Hades saw a new opportunity to reverse this decline. He sought to challenge Zeus and usurp Him as the King of Gods, and to receive the worship of mankind once more by becoming their saviour. Hades' plan involved triggering a conflict between Britain and Albania which would inevitably pull in the US and USSR and escalate the Cold War into a Third World War so soon after the Second, transforming the world into a realm of chaos, violence and fear. Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart, Hermes and Persephone, and the intervention of Poseidon, thwarted Hades while British and Albanian diplomats defused the tensions between their countries. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
Circa 1947, the Players re purposed America's old Psywar project into Project Kali to ignite a Third World War as their Endgame. They practised its potential for psychic influence on numerous politicians and soldiers, resulting in random acts of aggression that were politically dangerous, although it each instance, the East and West agreed to hush them up. In 1951, the Players finally tried to use Project Kali on Truman and Stalin, seeking to influence their countries to attack each other. Kim Philby recruited the Eighth Doctor to halt their schemes on behalf of "Tightrope". The Doctor convinced the Countess to abort the game and she calmed Stalin's mind, then she influenced the other Players in Washington (Axel, Myrek and Helga) into killing each other when they tried to kidnap Truman. The Adjudicator declared the Endgame void. (PROSE: Endgame)
During the war, a large number of alien spaceships were shot down, generating a black market of alien artefacts. Norton Folgate and his colleagues at the Torchwood Institute were still dealing with this by 1953. (AUDIO: Ghost Mission)
The Shakers remained trapped in the fabric of the BBC Broadcasting House until the 1950s. The recording sessions of Max and Maxine's radio comedy show, Anyway, As I Say, produced the right conditions for them to escape. Believing they had emerged in an occupied Britain, they continued to follow outdated orders, covertly killing regular audience members whom they believed to be German occupiers or enemy collaborators. In 1955, the First Doctor forced them to reveal themselves. Learning that the promise of Indian Lebensraum had been broken, the Shakers announced they would declare war on the British Empire, but the Doctor destroyed them by making it impossible for them to exist in the same dimension. (PROSE: Losing the Audience)
The house of Joan Calder, her mother and grandfather was preserved by an unknown force after it was firebombed in 1943. In 1963, the First Doctor and Susan got lost and arrived at the house. They discovered something was wrong and that Mr. Calder was somehow involved. Susan smashed a mirror through which the unknown force was maintaining its hold over the house and it disintegrated and vanished as it should have in 1943. The Doctor and Susan never discovered how this could have occurred, although the Doctor guessed Mr. Calder may have discovered something terrible in the mirror while fighting in the trenches during the First World War. (PROSE: Ash)
The dormant Cyberman army discovered in the sewers of London by Patrick Mullen and Cody McBride (PROSE: Illegal Alien) awoke and invaded Earth over three decades after the war, in the late 1970s. (TV: The Invasion)
In line with an old theory, the Nazis' presence during their use of Kriegeskind Castle, as well as that of its other occupants throughout history, remained behind over the years as faint echoes. When UNIT's German branch occupied Kriegeskind and commenced with Project 995, Second World War German soldiers were among the mental phantoms conjured by the project's test subjects within the fortress and attacked the UNIT personnel. The phantoms disappeared when Kriegeskind and the project's final test subject, Kolonel Heinrich Konrad, were bombed as part of the Arc Light Protocol. (AUDIO: Old Soldiers)
A V1 bomb was displaced in time by the Master using TOMTIT to attack a UNIT convoy. The bomb, which originally exploded near Wootton in 1944, was brought forward in time and exploded in the same place in the 1970s. (TV: The Time Monster)
Gruppenführer Hans Vogel, a member of the SS who confessed to having a less than clean conscience after the war, was among Overseer Zim's clients seeking a new body. In the 1970s, Vogel's mind was transferred into the body of DCI Harry Finch and then the Third Doctor. The Doctor's surviving consciousness successfully fought back for control of his mind and collapsed the quantum field to Zim's realm and facility, undoing Zim's work and ejecting Vogel's mind. (AUDIO: The Hidden Realm)
The Daleks' intervention in the war and birth of the New Dalek Paradigm brought them back from the edge of extinction, allowing them to build themselves up (TV: Victory of the Daleks) after their near-total destruction in the Last Great Time War. (TV: The Day of the Doctor, Dalek, The Parting of the Ways, The Stolen Earth/Journey's End et al.)
The unprecedented scale and destruction of both World Wars attracted Arianda and the Horofax to the 20th century. The wars demonstrated humanity reaching its ability to obliterate itself, and the Horofax saw the potential of igniting the Cold War to achieve this. (AUDIO: Storm of the Horofax)
After Culverton Aerodrome was sold off by the MoD in the 1970s, it came into the ownership of Legion International, a front for the Gaderene. Seeking to colonise Earth with the help of the Master some 30 years after marking the planet, they expanded their influence over the village of Culverton. With their hosts in black uniforms and establishing an iron grip on the village, Alec Whistler and Jo Grant compared the Gaderene to the SS. Whistler closed the dimensional pathway by crashing his preserved Spitfire into the encoder, condemning the Gaderene to extinction. (PROSE: Last of the Gaderene)
One German U-boat, U-147, was among various ships captured by the Daleks. Its crew was brainwashed and the U-boat took part in the Daleks' raid on Sydney Harbour during the 1970s. (COMIC: *Sub Zero)
After the disastrous end to Project Big Ben in 1944, the Wyrresters were still able to maintain contact with Jason Clearfield, motivating him with promises of technological advancement for the benefit of humanity. They were convinced their plan could yet succeed if the Nazi Bell was recovered to replace the British Bell. Clearfield travelled South America in search of Nazi refugees for any information on Project Chronos. Eventually he discovered Die Glocke had been hidden in Neuschwabenland, and, through contact with neo-Nazi groups, gained access to the Nazi gold necessary to finance the continuation of the experiment. In 2014, Clearfield travelled back to Ringstone with Die Glocke and attempted to replicate the experiment. It failed again when the Doctor altered the British Army to the unexploded German bomb underneath The King's Guards monument, allowing them to blow up the experiment's focal point as the Doctor shut down the machine. C19 arrived to remove the alien remnants, including Die Glocke. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror)
On a primitive Earth colony, the Master subjected the inhabitants to mind control and made them believe they were members of the Home Guard, undergoing training to protect their home from "the enemy". The Master's experiment was intended to discover how poorly-armed and ill-trained humans could perform in battle against the planet's natives, a much stronger foe. The Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon, Ben Jackson and Polly Wright resisted their conditioning and helped capture the Master for trial. The human village already had a memorial erected to commemorate the first two World Wars. (AUDIO: The Home Guard)
Remembrance and memory
Living memory
After the war, General H. Popplewell wrote Reminiscences of World War II. Among the events it recounted were the Blitzkrieg and the Dunkirk evacuation. It was published in London in 1946. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
Having been sent from 2012 to 1938 by the Weeping Angels, (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan) Rory Williams and Amy Pond lived through the war. Though Rory was aware of the war's outcome, he was glad to see it finally over. In a message to his son Anthony recorded in 1946, an impressed Rory observed that people could "get through so much just by being brave and optimistic and resilient." (WC: Rory's Story)
Polly Wright visited a séance after the war in order to try and communicate with her late uncle Randolph. (PROSE: Invasion of the Cat-People)
John Wayne starred in a war film about the Seabees. Ian Chesterton was reminded of the film by the sight of a newly constructed airfield. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) Ace's mother, Audrey Dudman, watched a number of naval war films on Saturday afternoons while growing up. (AUDIO: Dark Convoy) Sarah Jane Smith also recalled a war film about a submarine. (PROSE: Neptune)
Alan Turing recorded a tape, together with a transcript, detailing his meeting with the Eighth Doctor and his mission to Paris to break the Dresden code. After Turing's suicide in 1954, the tape reached Graham Greene who contributed his own recollections by tying in the Markebo incident. However, he appeared unwilling to continue beyond the bombing of Dresden. After his death in 1991, the Doctor anonymously requested Joseph Heller finish the story in 1992. He revealed sensitive details, particularly about his court martial, that meant he was only prepared for the manuscript to be read after his death. He died in 1999, after which the Doctor edited the three narratives together under the name Dr. John X. Smith. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
The war was one element which influenced the growth of some aspects of the counterculture movement in the immediate post-war decades. (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune) The creation of nuclear weapons in particular was a shock to the post-war generation. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) grew from this shock in the 1950s and 1960s as Harold Macmillan in Britain and Charles de Gaulle in France began to develop their countries' own nuclear programmes. Some CND members expressed the view that a prolonged war against Japan would have been preferable to the creation and use of nuclear weapons. The Third Doctor, however, believed that as long as human morality progressed in time with human technology, nuclear weapons were no more immoral than older weapons such as the knife or firearm. He even believed there were times they would become necessary. (PROSE: Come Friendly Bombs...)
Some people in Britain remained suspicious of the Germans. Ian Chesterton once quipped that he hoped the advanced technology on Destination was not German in origin. (AUDIO: The Destination Wars) Mike Yates, before joining the army, expected that such a career would involve fighting against Germans or Russians. (AUDIO: Time Tunnel) Harry Sullivan heard many stories about the war while growing up and while serving in the Royal Navy, but never developed a prejudice against Germans. (PROSE: Wolfsbane) By contrast, Naughton, the former senior officer of the Majestic Eight division, lost friends during the war and highly resented reconciliation with Germany. He became jealous of the country's recovery at a time when Britain experienced growing economic problems and industrial strikes. He became an embittered nationalist who believed the United Nations and pan-European ideals were a ruse by the Germans who eventually sought to rise up and attempt to conquer Europe once again. (PROSE: The Dragon of Hyacinth Lodge)
New generations
By 1963, Coal Hill School had not begun to teach pupils about the history of the war. (PROSE: Tell Me You Love Me) Newsreels occasionally featured wartime footage. One such newsreel left Barbara Wright with vivid images of Nazi brownshirts. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) By the beginning of the 21st century, the war was being taught as part of subjects at high school level. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler, Co-Owner of a Lonely Heart)
On 1 April 1963, a riot in Shoreditch caused by the Cold Knights sent the Army onto the streets, while on 2 April, wirelesses were not on the air and there were no newspapers to cover the incident, and some people at Coal Hill School were dead. One Coal Hill art teacher compared the atmosphere to the Blitz. (PROSE: Time and Relative)
Jack Canning visited one of the Nazi death camps after the war. As he later recounted to his niece, Jo Grant, he could still feel all the atmosphere of fear, despair and death even years after the camp had been abandoned. (AUDIO: The Conquest of Far) Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was reminded of the concentration camps when Control showed him the Nedenah imprisoned by the CIA. (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune)
The Third Doctor mockingly asked if the Brigadier was planning to re-run the D-Day landings upon seeing how the private parlour of The Devil's Footprint was turned into a military HQ at Hob's Haven. (PROSE: Deadly Reunion)
The War Picture Library series ran during the post-war decades. It featured illustrated good-versus-evil wartime stories filled with lots of action, explosions and firefights. Germans were commonly depicted yelling "Aiiieeee!" when they were killed. (PROSE: Harvest of Time)
During the 1970s, a sea creature from another world sank a British ship off the coast. Ronald Henderson was the only survivor but his story was not believed by the tribunal and he was relieved of command. The official version of events therefore held that the ship had struck some debris in the North Sea left over from the war. This remained the case until the Doctor helped Henderson revisit the disaster, giving him the confidence to demand his command back. (AUDIO: Landbound)
In 1973, a pensioner in Thisis mistook a descending Meercock escape pod for a doodlebug. (PROSE: Verdigris)
Jo Grant compared the self-sacrificial tactics employed by the Hargarans against the Xoanthrax to kamikaze pilots during the war. (AUDIO: The Many Deaths of Jo Grant) The Brigadier also thought the same of the Skang descending above the HMS Hallaton. (PROSE: Island of Death)
Sam Bishop's great-grandfather regaled the young Sam Bishop with war stories of his time in North Africa, inspiring Sam to eventually join UNIT. (AUDIO: Earthfall)
The pupils at Bowman's Grammar School nicknamed their feared headmaster Hitler, although they all acknowledged that the nickname was an unfair one. One pupil realised years later that the joke may not have been a very original one. (PROSE: Potential)
Jocelyn Stevens channelled Neville Chamberlain when he announced new projects at Llanfairfach colliery: “I have in my hand a piece of paper which will mean a great deal to all of you. Wealth in our time!" (TV: The Green Death)
The Fourth Doctor found that barricades reminded him of the Siege of Leningrad. (PROSE: Scratchman)
The exact details of what happened in the Führerbunker remained unclear to historians for decades, as the Russians refused to release much of their own documents. After this changed in the 1990s, evidence released from the Russian archives helped to fill in some missing details. Claire Aldwych wrote and directed the documentary The Last Days of Hitler?, which premiered on the Conspiracy Channel on 12 August 1997. (PROSE: The Shadow in the Glass) Christine Summerfield watched a documentary on BBC2 about the Nuremberg Trials. (PROSE: Dead Romance) BBC2 also regularly aired documentaries about the Blitz. (PROSE: Mother's Little Helper) BBC3 produced a documentary series entitled Occult Secrets of the Nazis. (PROSE: Still Lives) The Third Doctor cited "endless documentaries about Hitler" as an example of historical atrocities almost becoming a form of entertainment for later generations, but this did not in itself turn other people into followers and instigators of further atrocities. (PROSE: The Wages of Sin)
The plot of the film The Great Escape involved a breakout (PROSE: The Pit) from a German prisoner of war camp. (PROSE: Autumn Mist) Saving Private Ryan took place during the D-Day landings. 'Allo 'Allo! was set in Nazi-occupied France. (AUDIO: Scorched Earth) The Nazis featured in the Indiana Jones film Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which they were searching for an ancient artefact. (PROSE: The Egyptian Falcon)
Inspired by his experiences as an evacuee, George Woods entered the field of radar development in which he worked throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In November 2010, at the age of 83, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his contribution to the field. Clyde Langer read an online article about his wartime and post-war life and exploits. (TV: Lost in Time)
One history textbook at Coal Hill School dating from the 1990s included some chapter relating to the war, covering the rise of the Nazis, the Blitz, Bletchley Park, Bomber Command and British secret weapons. A copy of the book was later taken and "corrected" by the Twelfth Doctor, who replaced or expanded upon passages in the book with his own experiences. These included his meeting with Hitler in 1938, the Empty Child, Dr. Judson and the ULTIMA machine, reuniting Madge and Reg Arwell, and the Ironside Project. (PROSE: A History of Humankind)
Robin Sanford of the 14th Wiltshire (Ringstone) Battalion Home Guard visited the local school in his old age to tell pupils about his time in the Home Guard. However, when he spoke about battling giant insects, he was disbelieved and teased by the village, until the Wyrresters invaded Ringstone again in 2014. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror)
In 2014, General Theodoru of Tanganyika compared the power of the Sentinels of the New Dawn to that of Hitler in the 1940s. He boasted that the main difference between the two was that, with their plans to cause an Ebola epidemic, no one would be able to stand against the New Dawn. (AUDIO: The Sentinels of the New Dawn)
In 2015, Isabella Zemanova, then Isabella Dunn, turned ninety-five, having grown another family with William Dunn. She met up with Erimem just shy of her birthday and told her her story and invited her friends to her birthday. From Erimem's perspective, she had not yet met Isabella; the meeting gave Erimem her determination to travel back in time to Stalingrad in 1942 in the first place. The part Erimem played in saving her life brought Isabella peace and she could move on from the horrors she experienced at Stalingrad. (PROSE: The Beast of Stalingrad)
When the Monks invaded Earth in the early 21st century and brainwashed humanity into believing an alternate history, they attempted to condition everyone into believing that they watched over one of Churchill's wartime speeches. (TV: The Lie of the Land)
In 2040, the British and Germans organised a re-enactment of the Battle of Britain for the 100th anniversary, held at an airfield in Hampshire which had been bombed by actual Stukas during the battle. The show concluded with a tribute to the pilots reading: "WE WILL REMEMBER THEM" in English as well as a German translation, "DIE GEFALLENEN BLEIBEN IN ALLE EWIGKEIT IN UNSEREM GEDENKEN", to acknowledge the improvement of European relations since the end of the war. (PROSE: /Carpenter/Butterfly/Baronet/)
Later memory
Later in the 21st century, when the Mnemosyne Cincture around Saturn's ice moon, Mnemosyne, was evacuated after an attack by the Blue Soldiers, the Second Doctor described it as "a veritable Dunkirk." However, no one around him seemed to understand the reference. (PROSE: The Wheel of Ice) Barbara Wright was reminded of the Dunkirk evacuation when she saw the formation of the Hydran flotilla facing the Voord on Hydra. (AUDIO: Domain of the Voord)
Witnessing London devastated by the 22nd century Dalek invasion reminded Susan Foreman of what she knew of the war and its effects on the city. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth)
Davros claimed to be familiar with Nazi history. (AUDIO: Daleks Among Us) Indeed, his own Scientific Elite was very reminiscent of Hitler's own party apparatus, as was Davros' own tyrannical ideology. His Daleks were so bound to the idea of racial purity that they killed their own Kaled creators. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) The Daleks went on to share many parallels with the Nazis, (PROSE: Just War) but never favoured an alliance with the Nazis as they believed there could only be one "master race". (AUDIO: Daleks Among Us)
In an exchange between the Sixth Doctor and Davros, supposedly following the former's first trial on Skaro, revealed on the Daleks' memory screen during the Seventh Doctor's interrogation, Davros demonstrated an awareness of Josef Stalin as the Doctor likened the two men. However, the Emperor Dalek did observe that the Seventh Doctor was attempting to distort his memories as the Daleks accessed them. (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!)
By 2400, the Churchill Mountains on Venus were named after Churchill by human colonists. Andy Stone remembered Churchill as "that great fighter for freedom" and a man who "was at his best when the odds seemed impossible." Andy looked to Churchill's example when he had to rescue his siblings, Jeff and Mary, during the Dalek invasion of Venus. (COMIC: Invasion of the Daleks)
During the 26th century, John Benton aided the inhabitants of the planet Kettering to fend off the Blatherians using deception tactics inspired by the deception tactics of the wartime Magic Gang. Although Kettering was a pacifist culture, they had many old weapon exhibits in the Kettering Military Museum from their Earth-based roots, including British and German uniforms. Margery Phipps rallied the resistance by channelling some of Churchill's speeches. (AUDIO: Council of War)
By the 30th century, on the human-colonised world of Avalon, the records of their history became scattered and muddled, with some genuine history becoming intertwined with myths, legends and fiction. Barbara Wright read an account of how King Arthur defeated the Nazi Armada off the coast of Cornwall with the aid of Merlin’s "Atome Fire", in what was supposedly the "last battle" before people migrated to Avalon. (PROSE: The Sorcerer's Apprentice)
In the 34th century, Vernon Terrell decorated the Adjudication Lodge on the Darkheart colony with murals he painted relating to the theme of triumph over adversary. Among these paintings was one of the Dunkirk evacuation. (PROSE: The Dark Path)
Alternative timelines
In one timeline where Nancy Grover became Goddess of the World after 1934 with the cooperation of Brokk, the Second World War never happened. Instead, humanity united in a fierce fight against an the Semquess in 1941. This timeline threatened to overwrite the original timeline before the Third Doctor and UNIT prevented it. In Plymouth, the old church of St Barnabas which was destroyed during the war began to reappear in place of the new one as a symptom of this overlap. (PROSE: The Eye of the Giant)
While on a fishing trip to an island to the Pacific Ocean on 25 July 1963, the Fifth Doctor discovered that the TARDIS had materialised in an alternative timeline, created by the Monk and the Ice Warriors, in which World War II had never ended. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) The Doctor met a loyal but, at heart, timid Japanese soldier named Fuji defending the island, who was killed by an American pilot downed in a dogfight named Angus Goodman. (COMIC: Lunar Lagoon) After being held at gunpoint by Goodman, the Doctor offered him the chance to get off the island, which was Japanese territory. Goodman accepted the Doctor's offer and became a short-lived companion. Together, they thwarted the Monk and the Ice Warriors. (COMIC: 4-Dimensional Vistas) However, Goodman was killed by the Moderator, a hitman in the employ of Josiah W. Dogbolter, before he could be returned in the United States in his timeline. (COMIC: The Moderator)
The Third Doctor speculated an alternate scenario in which Rasputin had not been assassinated in 1916 and the Russian Revolution never happened. Without the Communist element in World War II, Nazi Germany would have been able to throw all their forces towards an invasion of Britain without distraction. Subsequently, Germany would be able to invade Tsarist Russia and defeat the poorly-organised and ill-equipped army, capturing the oil reserves and industry before the United States decided to intervene, by which point it would be too late. Jo Grant was sceptical about this assertion, arguing that he could not know that events would play out in this way. Based on her own observations of Russia in 1916, she opined the Russian Revolution would have happened even without Rasputin's death. The Doctor conceded it was speculation on his part but the main point was that such uncertainties highlighted the dangers of tampering with history. (PROSE: The Wages of Sin) This speculation did not factor in that the threat of the Soviet Union was one of the factors which led to the rise of Nazi Germany in the first place. (AUDIO: The Alchemists)
The Timewyrm divergence
In an alternative timeline in which Hitler did not lose the power of the Timewyrm and the Black Coven was never wiped out, the war diverged from its natural course at the Battle of Dunkirk. Hitler never issued the pivotal halt order and German tanks advanced and defeated the British Army in a last stand. Operation Dynamo never happened. The Luftwaffe then swept aside the RAF in the Battle of Britain and caused huge amounts of damage to British industry and military targets. Subsequently, the Royal Navy defending the Channel was decimated in a series of freak storms, summoned by Hitler using the Timewyrm's powers. The storms then dissipated just in time for the Germans to launch Operation Sealion.
With the British Army virtually destroyed, and enjoying naval and air supremacy, General Strauss' 19th Army made an unopposed landing on the south coast of England and established a bridgehead between Folkestone and Worthing. The rest of the German forces followed and tanks rolled their way towards London against minimal resistance. They entered Whitehall before its inhabitants knew what was happening. Britain capitulated in six days and signed the Anglo-German Treaty, effectively the document of Britain's surrender. In 1947, Joseph Goebbels wrote an account of the Nazi victory in The Thousand Year Reich - The Glorious Beginning. The victorious Germans established a New Order with a new German Empire, with New Berlin at its heart.
The remnants of the British government fled to Canada and set up a government in exile. The Nazis put their post-invasion plans into action, starting with the arrest of subversive individuals, Winston Churchill among them, who was executed a war criminal. The fully-established Britischer Freikorps (BFK) were left with the duty of enforcing Nazi rule. Many areas of London remained bombed out. Hitler remained at a quandary as to whether to rebuild the city in Albert Speer's Neo-Nazi Classical style or to destroy it completely so New Berlin had no competition. The British Museum was renamed the Reichsmuseum, although Goering supervised the removal of most of the exhibits and sent them to the Adolf Hitler Museum in New Berlin.
The Festival of Britain was still held in May 1951, but the Skylon bore the swastika, as did many flags around the city, and the BFK patrolled the Festival site. The remains of Britain's population, industry and national artefacts were left to rot, for potential replacement by pure-blooded Aryans at a later time. An underground resistance movement consisting of old British Army soldiers performed acts of theft, sabotage and murder against officials of the regime. Some of these soldiers considered themselves to still be at war.
Hitler was still afflicted by the presence of the Timewyrm, which made him more impatient and angry even after victory, much to the worry of Bormann. The British resistance also heard rumours of the Black Coven and its role in planning Hitler's conquests.
The Seventh Doctor and Ace arrived in this timeline at the time of the Festival of Britain and successfully infiltrated the ranks of the BFK. The Doctor used his security clearance to discover where history had been changed in the Reichsmuseum archives and by meeting with the British resistance. SS General Otto Strasser soon discovered their deception but he was killed by a canister of nitro-nine and the time travellers departed to prevent the timeline from coming to pass. This they did by following Hitler's timeline in search of an external influence. It was finally negated when the Doctor wiped out the Black Coven and freed the Timewyrm from Hitler's control and convinced Hitler to let the British escape from Dunkirk. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)
The Colditz divergence
In another alternative timeline accidentally created by the Seventh Doctor and Ace's arrival in Colditz Castle in October 1944, Nazi scientists recovered the anachronistic laser technology in Ace's Walkman. After further research, they were able to use it to refine uranium and create nuclear weapons before the Americans. (AUDIO: Colditz) Ace was captured and executed but the Doctor escaped in the TARDIS. The Germans subsequently dropped atomic bombs on New York City and Moscow, forcing the surrender of the United States and the Soviet Union and winning Germany the war. (AUDIO: Klein's Story)
German influence expanded over the entirety of Africa. In the 1950s, the Mau Mau in Kenya and Nairobi rose up against Nazi rule. The German response was instant and overwhelming. The Luftwaffe carpet-bombed the tribal areas, wiping out the rebellion immediately. In the aftermath, German builders entered the tribes' lands to construct new buildings. Over the space of three years, most of the builders had been killed by the Chaelis, although it was believed to be some form of African plague. Hitler instructed Elizabeth Klein and a team of doctors to go to Africa and investigate but they were evacuated before they could uncover the truth. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings)
Circa 1954, the Doctor rematerialised in Germany and was gunned down by a sentry. The TARDIS was retrieved by the Germans and hidden in a bunker. Hitler was aware of the existence of aliens, but he ordered everything related to them kept secret to avoid the possibility of discovering a race superior to the Aryan. However, after his death in 1961, Nazi leaders began debating the costs and benefits of utilising the TARDIS to acquire time travel capabilities.
The Doctor, having regenerated into an alternative version of his eighth incarnation, went undercover as a German scientist named Johann Schmidt, and secretly helped prisoners of the Nazis escape the camps. He fabricated a "flight log" for the TARDIS and manipulated Elizabeth Klein into travelling back in time to Colditz in October 1944 on the pretext of retrieving the Doctor so that he could teach her to pilot the TARDIS independently. Major Jonas Faber saw through Schmidt's trickery but Klein had already decided to disobey his orders and make the trip into the past. Klein's arrival in Colditz alerted the Seventh Doctor to the impending alteration of history and he and Ace were able to prevent it. (AUDIO: Klein's Story)
Klein remained trapped in 1944 after her native timeline was wiped out, herself and her memories being anomalous remnants of what never was. She went into exile after the war until she encountered the Seventh Doctor again. The Doctor took Klein on as a companion, hoping to enhance her view of the world and encourage her to abandon her fascist ideology. (AUDIO: A Thousand Tiny Wings)
Parallel universes
In one parallel world later ravaged by the Inferno Project, World War II never occurred as the fascist Republic of Great Britain and Joseph Stalin's White Russia agreed to split Europe between each other. Adolf Hitler's Germany posed no threat to this. In Asia, the Co-Prosperity Sphere was successfully established and represented Asia collectively as a member of the Conclave. Following its destruction by the Inferno Project, the Master compared this world to Dresden, in that some people survived the cataclysmic event. (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy)
In another parallel universe, the Big Six of world governments, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Korea, Germany, France and the Great Eastern Alliance, put forward the Steinberg Agreement which banned all post-WW2 technology in an effort to combat global warming, which threatened to bring about the extinction of humanity. The only countries that did not sign the Agreement were New Argentina and East Korea. (AUDIO: The Flood)
The Utopia window
In a virtual universe created by a Utopia window owned by the von der Eck family, Britain was forced to withdraw from World War I after America stayed neutral. Reparations ruined the British economy and the rest of Western Europe fell under the control of the German Empire. In 1926, a socialist revolution broke out, forcing the British ruling class to appeal to Kaiser Wilhelm III for aid. The Germans arrived and crushed the communists but subjugated Britain in the aftermath. By 1942, the forces of General von Moltke were operating in Britain against the resistance led by Lady Louisa von der Eck and Winston Churchill, who had previously been captured and interned by the Germans in an experience which shaped him into an extremist.
This Churchill had had blue prints of the American's atom bomb imprinted into his mind via hypnosis, which the real-world Lady Louisa sought to extract from him. This world broke down when the Ninth Doctor and the real Winston Churchill disrupted the signal maintaining it. (AUDIO: I Was Churchill's Double)
The Chapel of the Red Apocalypse's multiverse gambit
In one parallel universe, World War II played out very similarly to how it did in N-Space. A potential disruption loomed when the dimension was infiltrated by Imperial Lee and Lady Silk, two 21st century N-Space Japanese-American cultists, who learned how to hop dimensions through their manipulation of gifted physicist Ray Morita. They travelled to the other universe in 1945 and replaced their respective counterparts, who were all innocent natives of the 20th century. They established a base in the Chapel of the Red Apocalypse in California, seeking to change the outcome of the war in Japan's favour.
Lee's dimensional counterpart, Stanley Wainwright, was imprisoned and eventually killed. Lady Silk replaced her own counterpart and became a Japanese propaganda singer, whose records were outlawed by the US. Morita replaced his own counterpart, an unambitious school teacher named Raymond Morita, and demonstrated knowledge so ahead of the time period that he was spared from internment and recruited to the Manhattan Project despite his Japanese ancestry. The cultists planned for Morita to apply his calculations which theorised the existence of the doomsday particle at the moment of the Manhattan Project's Trinity detonation. The aim was to destroy the entire universe through this chain reaction in an echo so big that it reverberated through the multiverse, altering the history of the war in every other universe to one in which Japan was victorious. The Japanese people killed in this universe by the explosion, they reasoned, would be participating in a kamikaze attack for the glory of the Empire. The Doctor considered the cult's plan insane and highly doubted its feasibility but thought it best to stop them just to be safe.
Through the Doctor's interference, Lee and Silk's followers were killed or captured during a raid on the Chapel by Major Rex Butcher. Lee and Silk's Trinity deadline was also missed when they attempted their plan too early, as the Doctor's influence had delayed the test by one day; Trinity occurred at exactly 5:00 am on Tuesday, 17 July 1945. Lee died trying to escape out of a window while Silk fled back to N-Space to warn her remaining followers that they had failed, which the Doctor hoped would discourage them from further activity. Silk's innocent counterpart was returned home and received an official pardon. Morita was returned home by the Doctor.
The Doctor's motives in visiting this universe had in fact been to convince Edward Teller that his calculations in the Manhattan Project were wrong. This would prevent Teller's public embarrassment and spare this dimension's Earth from much of the Cold War nuclear proliferation experienced by the Earth from N-Space. In this, the Doctor failed. (PROSE: Atom Bomb Blues)
Known worlds
Germania
- Main article: Germania
Marcus Americanius Scriptor discovered and explored the Known Worlds, many universes where Rome never fell, designated collectively as Roma and most of them joined together in the Empire of Empires. Searching for more Romas, Scriptor crossed the Divide and discovered another collection of worlds he designated Germania, worlds in which the Nazis won World War II. All of these worlds shared an identical history until a point of divergence after the end of World War I in the autumn of 1918. The deeper into the worlds of Germania one travelled, the tighter the Nazis gripped their control and the more successful their war effort. These victories came in many forms, hinging on many different developments.
In five of these worlds, London suffered air raids by German bombers in the first week of June 1940; one world's Big Ben was destroyed.
In Germania V, the Germans defeated the British at Dunkirk in early June and launched Operation Sealion within days. By 7 June, they had established a 12-mile long beachhead between Hythe and Dover and advanced a mile inland. Air raids against the poorly-defended capital signified the beginning of the Battle for London, followed by the arrival of SS and Wehrmacht paratroopers. The first wave landed in Hyde Park to lure the British troops away from the true target of Buckingham Palace, which was attacked by the second wave led by SS Haptsturmführer Otto Begus, who previously led operations to catch the Danish, Norwegian and Dutch Royal Families. Landing in the Palace gardens, some Germans were impaled on defensive spikes but the palace walls were quickly breached. The Royal Family had secretly fled to Canada two days prior and reasserted control of the British Empire, but soldiers and servants still fought in the Palace, often at the cost of their lives, to trick the Germans. The US remained neutral. Germany eventually conquered Europe, the Italians took Africa and the Japanese won Asia.
On other similar worlds, the Germans unsuccessfully tried to bring about the British surrender by threatening the Royal Family. In some worlds, the Royals were captured and the Germans murdered the princesses, which only strengthened British resolve.
In Germania LD, the Germans in Britain captured Coventry, Wolverhampton and Birmingham and pushed north up to the Midlands by the autumn of 1940. A British government in exile was set up in Canada, encouraging continued resistance back on the home islands. However, as the Germans prepared to attack York, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool, the British suffered badly. Ashford was reduced to rubble in a massive, swift, one-sided German assault and the sector was depopulated for the duration of hostilities. Fierce fighting was also ongoing in Russia, while the United States had agreed to a non-aggression pact with Germany. The Germans also developed the atomic bomb and demonstrated its power by dropping it on Hull. They threatened to drop one on another British city everyday until the British surrendered, starting with Coventry. The British gave in and Hitler arrived in the country to witness the signing of the surrender agreement.
In Germania LXVIII (alpha alpha nine), Hitler was a communist under the banner of International Socialism and leading member of the Spartacists. He wrote Mein Kapital and advocated worker ownership of the factories, opposing old families, banks and Jews. He came to power in the successful Spartacist uprisings in 1919. Although Hitler initially expected resistance from other countries like Russia, they eventually became allies.
In another world (beta alpha one five), Hitler was murdered by Ernst Rohm, who declared himself Führer circa 1933.
Another world saw the US conquered by both Germany and Japan. The Americans were actually grateful for the occupation, believing the invaders had rid the world of communism.
In another, Germany and the US became the two main military superpowers and fought each other into a stalemate.
In Germania XII, the Nazis spread over Europe after US President Richard A. Russell kept America out of the conflict, declaring: "The United States will survive as a happy and fertile oasis of liberty, surrounded by a cruel desert of dictatorship." The US remained neutral on more than half of the Germania worlds, either due to ideological reluctance to become involved in a "European conflict" or because of military unpreparedness. The Nazis saw no need to invade many of the neutralised American nations as they ultimately posed no feasible threat to the Reich.
Other developments which led to a German victory throughout the worlds included:
- Successful invasions of Britain or Russia in 1940 or 1941.
- The isolation or neutrality of the US, denying vital resources to Germany's opponents.
- The collapse of European resistance in 1943 or 1944.
- Failed Anglo-American invasions of France or Belgium, or the massacre of their armies inland.
- Nazi domination through diplomacy or de-escalation after skirmishes
- Different developments in the Spanish Civil War.
- Exploitation of the weakness of Russia's Red Air Force.
- A joint German-American alliance waging war against the British Empire.
- Fascist uprisings in Scotland or the North of England.
- The buying-off of the French.
- The honouring of non-aggression pacts with Russia, either preventing war or allowing neutralisation through other means. This occurred on one tenth of the Germania worlds.
Additionally, on a third of these worlds, the UK either agreed to pacts with Germany, thus avoiding war, or surrendered.
Germania I was the Terra Optimus of these worlds. Opponents either capitulated in the face of German aggression or were beaten in short, one-sided wars, aided by the development of atomic weaponry. A revolution with Russia overthrew Stalin who was sent to Hitler in chains. The Russian people welcomed the Germans as liberators but were confined to the cities where disease spread rapidly; Moscow was bulldozed and replaced with a lake without the population being evacuated. Britain was welcomed into the Reich by Hitler after being bloodily subdued, Hull and Coventry having been hit by atomic bombs. Switzerland, Canada, India, Australia, Africa, Crimea, the Channel Islands and Mediterranean islands were incorporated into the Nazi Empire, for which Sweden generated electricity. A puppet government was also established in the US Senate. Blacks, Jews and anyone denounced as a communist were gassed or exiled – by 1950, there were no Jews left in Europe. Berlin was rebuilt by Albert Speer while other cities were flattened and rebuilt in the same style. On 30 April 1945, Hitler and Eva Braun gave birth to a son, August Hitler, whose birth was celebrated for months and it was claimed he was a child prodigy before he was a year old. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
In one world, Hitler had a more successful career in art and remained an anonymous painter. (PROSE: Prologue to Warlords of Utopia)
Greater German Reich
- Main article: Greater German Reich
A group of Great Houses renegades fled the War in Heaven via Time Rings, seeking refuge in the Roma worlds. When use of the Time Rings led to the formation of the majority of around 2,000 Romas into the Empire of Empires, House Mirraflex sent a Cwej agent, "Herr Abschrift", to the Germania worlds to contain the situation, lest the Empire fall under the control of the Enemy. Abschrift influenced many of these separate Germanias to unite into the Greater German Reich, to fight against the Empire of Empires. The heart of its government was Germania I, where the Council of Hitlers met. Abschrift helped the united Germanias travel to other Germanias to either accelerate the Nazi victory in their own World Wars or alter their history and bring them under the Greater German Reich.
Germania LXVII's communist Hitler was deposed by the forces of the Greater Reich. The new National Socialist leaders passed the Enabling Law which granted everyone free speech; after a month the Law was reversed and people who had expressed anything deemed subversive were rounded up and suppressed. Stalingrad was destroyed by an atomic bomb, despite the standing alliance between Germany and Russia. The communist Hitler was beaten by people in the streets of Dresden and was ultimately murdered by Scriptor, who reasoned that he was the same evil man as every other Hitler despite his situation.
Scriptor was appalled by the barbarism and war found throughout the Germanias, and called for the Empire of Empires to lead a crusade to bring these worlds order and civilisation. Emperor Emmanuel Victorius of Roma I rejected the idea but Scriptor disobeyed his order and secretly conducted intelligence-gathering missions into Germania which grew into military campaigns. Because of the similarities between many of the worlds, the Empire of Empires became more experienced as the same operation was repeated. On 17 different Germanias in 1941, including Germania XIII, the Romans helped the British sabotage a German oil refinery at Hythe on the Kent coast via a coastal commando raid, starving the German tanks and aircraft of fuel. On the 18th such operation on Germania LXI, however, SS patrols ambushed the raid after Abschrift and the Greater Reich intervened. These were effectively early skirmishes of the new battleground of the War in Heaven. Scriptor was later captured and made a prisoner on Germania I for over 17 years.
Germania I also struck against Rohm in world beta alpha one five, wiping out his followers and executing him.
In some worlds, Hitler was assassinated by conspiratorial officers in July 1944. However, another Hitler from the Greater Reich was able to take his place. The conspirators' counterparts across all Germanias were rounded up and shot at their Bendlerstrasse, regardless of whether or not those same individuals on selected worlds were innocent or even loyal to Hitler.
On Germania V, the Americans began to fight the Germans who had established themselves on the continent, as well as in the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Unlike the Roma worlds, each Germania was held to ideological conformity. Difference was not embraced. By 1951 throughout all Germania worlds, barely a dozen of them had not yet succumbed to Nazi rule. Germania I developed rocketry and landed a man on the moon on 7 October 1957. On the Germania in which Germany and the US reached a stalemate, the Presidency of John P. Kennedy in the 1960s entered into a period of détente with the Reich, after expressing sympathy towards German anti-Semitism some years prior.
Second Time Front
- Main article: Second Time Front
Further assisted by Abschrift, the Greater Reich learned more about their Roman adversaries and their own world wars grew into the multiversal conflict of the Second Time Front. Abschrift and House Mirraflex hoped the Reich could topple the Empire of Empires and prevent the wider War in Heaven from spreading.
The Greater German Reich developed their own means of crossing the Divide, more sophisticated than the Time Rings utilised by the Empire of Empires, and began planning to take the fight to the worlds of Roma. On the many worlds on which Italy was allied to Germany, Mussolini was not made privy to the existence of Roma because of his own grandiose Roman ambitions.
Nazi agents travelling to Roma DCX and established a dimensional bridgehead. The invasion force captured the warring capitals of Rome and Constantinople in ten days. The Nazis consolidated their occupation over the next two years while fighting against the resistance. Roma I was slow to respond due to a succession crisis, but increased intelligence apparatus and an ability to detect travel between worlds allowed the Nazi threat to be contained to Roma DCX. Roma I's new Emperor, Prime Emperor Eugenius Victorius, declared that the Nazis from across Germania had to be totally destroyed or at least deprived of their ability to travel between worlds. Consobrinus Patreulis, a member of the Faction Paradox, aided the Romans with the build-up of forces capable of defeating the Nazis.
The Roman strategy was to invade the Germania across the Divide from Roma DCX, effectively besieging the latter world so it could be retaken while consolidating the former world as a bridgehead from which to strike at the Greater German Reich. Essentially, the Reich and the Empire of Empires were now officially at war and the two sides began building up their forces accordingly.
Eventually, the Greater German Reich prepared to launch a new blitzkrieg across the Roma worlds. Scriptor was freed from captivity by a Roman scouting party and was able to forewarn the Empire of Empire by secretly recording Hitler's declaration. However, the Nazis knew of the recording and August Hitler organised a devastating ambush. When the nineteen legions of the Roman Expeditionary Force arrived across the Divide in their new navispars, they cleared parts of central London of Nazi forces but were quickly wiped out in an atomic blast which largely destroyed the city centre. Another wave of legions led by Titus Americanius landed at Windsor and stormed der Windsorschloss. They killed this Germania's Hitler and captured scientists who worked on the atomic bomb, but August Hitler escaped to another world.
After gathering other legions, the Romans struck at five other Nazi worlds. On Germania V, the legions attacked a Nuremberg Rally and destroyed the Nazi gateway in Berlin, cutting off German reinforcements. Together with the three other attacks, five Hitlers were killed and anti-Nazi resistance movements were emboldened. On the Germania V bridgehead, the Romans met up with British, French, American and Russia leaders. After London was liberated, Scriptor set up his own command centre in the newly-converted Roman Palace. A more difficult campaign on Germania XIII lasted nearly a month. By its end, the Romans had liberated seventeen Germanias from Nazi rule and granted them dominion status under the Empire of Empires, ruled by the Emperor of Roma I.
The Empire of Empires fought deeper into the Germania worlds, prioritising those on which the Germans had not yet fully consolidated their control. As the war went on, German defences and coordination improved. Scriptor feared that victory could take a century to achieve, committing three or four more generations of Romans to the war against Nazism.
Fortunately for the Romans, the Greater Reich soon entered a succession crisis of its own. Each counterpart of Adolf Hitler grew older, and by the time they were collectively 75 years old in 1964, some had already died of old age. The Council of Hitlers voted 19-year-old August Hitler to succeed them once the last Adolf Hitler died, and any prominent generals who had played a significant role in winning any of the Second World Wars were purged to prevent the emergence of any pretenders to the throne. Shortly after, all of the remaining Hitler's on the Council were assassinated in a hydrogen cyanide gas attack secretly organised by August. Now Führer of the Greater German Reich, he granted himself emergency powers exceeding anything the Council had countenanced.
Consobrinus Patreulis helped the Romans create the Tramontane Gate, linking the Londons of Roma DCX and Germania V in the only practical way to cross the Divide. The Nazis were now on the defensive on their own worlds as the Romans launched their own hard-fought "blitzkrieg" against them. By 1970, enough worlds had been liberated to launch an attack on Germania I. The Empire of Empires attacked on four fronts and won the decisive Battle of the Rhine I, allowing for a march on Berlin. On 10 March, the German forces in Berlin surrendered. August Hitler made a deal with the Great Houses and was transported to the True Earth. This effectively heralded the close of the Second Time Front.
The forces of Roma had successfully defended the Empire of Empires but the Great Houses soon intervened and travel between the Roma and Germania worlds across the Divide was ended. In the decade that followed, Scriptor agreed with the Great Houses to oversee the former Nazi worlds and put an end to any remnants of the regime. In 1986, he broke the terms of his contract by travelling to the True Earth to hunt down August Hitler. In 1989, he found Hitler in the Amazon jungle in Brazil and killed him. (PROSE: Warlords of Utopia)
Behind the scenes
Chronicling the Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), the theatre of the war between China and Japan which began earlier than the accepted start date of the war in Europe (1939), has often been overlooked in Western historiography concerning World War II. It was subsumed into the Pacific War after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The conflict has not been named as such in the Doctor Who universe, but the Short Trips: The Centenarian entry, Log 384, refers to World War II and the Sino-Japanese War as the same conflict. Its origins are extensively explored in the Virgin Missing Adventures novel The Shadow of Weng-Chiang, the only Doctor Who story to be set during this particular conflict.
Hostilities between China and Japan during the 1930s were first alluded to in the Target novelisation, Doctor Who and the War Games, although not in the original televised version of the story. It was first referenced on television in the Torchwood Series 1 episode Captain Jack Harkness, where brief mention is made of China's participation in World War II in an episode set before the Pearl Harbor attack.
This wiki does have an in-universe page dedicated to this topic but aspects of it remain subject to conjecture. Consult the "behind the scenes" section of that article for more details.
Influence on the Doctor Who franchise
War stories
The TV series did not have a story set during the war until the penultimate serial of the classic series, The Curse of Fenric in 1989. The conflict was first mentioned directly on-screen in The Time Monster (1972), but this was preceded by comic stories; the war was first alluded to in Invasion of the Daleks (1964), through the franchise's first ever mention of Churchill. The conflict was first directly referred to as "World War II" in Insect (1970).
At the time of its release, nearly 26 years after An Unearthly Child, The Curse of Fenric was only the fifth story in the franchise to be set during the war, the previous four being the comics Timebenders (1971), Who is the Stranger (1973), Treasure Trail (1976) and Lunar Lagoon, together with the beginning of its immediate sequel 4-Dimensional Vistas (1983).
Two war-related stories, entitled The Nazis and Operation Werewolf, were proposed for the TV series during the 60s but ultimately dropped.[6] In the 80s, another two stories set during the period, The Macro Men and Illegal Alien, were also dropped, but were revived in later years as an audio drama called The Macros and a novelised Illegal Alien.
Several Target novelisations contain references to the war that were not present in the original televised serials. First and perhaps most notable is Doctor Who and the Crusaders from 1965 which, in an extended opening scene not present in The Crusade, became the first Doctor Who story to mention Hitler.
The revived series featured stories based around the war more frequently than the classic series, by which point the conflict had moved further into history. The first such story was Steven Moffat's 2005 two-parter, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances in Series 1.
Allegories
Other Doctor Who stories have explored various themes of World War II in an allegorical style, in particularly stories featuring the Nazi-inspired Daleks. Most notably, The Dalek Invasion of Earth was in part based on resistance films and the "what if...?" prospect of a Britain occupied by the Germans. [7]
Genesis of the Daleks is full of explicit Nazi parallels shown through the portrayal of Davros and the Kaled Scientific Elite. Willaim L. Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich served as one of the serial's sources of inspiration.[8] Stories like Just War and Daleks Among Us explicitly highlight some of these parallels.
In Robot, the Scientific Reform Society membership were noted to be thinly-veiled Nazis.[9]
The BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel The Final Sanction contains many parallels with the conclusion of the Pacific War.
The audio story The Sontarans was heavily inspired by the World War II adventure novel-turned-film The Guns of Navarone. (BFX: The Outliers)
Other matters
- According to the non-narrative book Doctor Who The Official Annual 2011 in an alternative timeline in which the Eleventh Doctor did not discover the Ironsides, they turned the tide of the war and took the fight to Germany. After the war was won, Churchill was pressured by Stalin and Truman into having the Ironsides destroyed by a nuclear bomb.
Footnotes
- ↑ The Soviet Union shared the spoils of the invasion of Poland in 1939 with Germany, under the terms of their non-aggression pact, but remained neutral afterwards (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus) until it was attacked by Germany in 1941. (PROSE: Just War, Losing the Audience)
- ↑ Another account claimed that the War Lords did not take soldiers from time periods beyond 1917 owing to the risk of their "greater technological knowledge." (TV: The War Games)
- ↑ Other accounts make passing references to Barbara's father being alive when she was older. (PROSE: Venusian Lullaby, The Face of the Enemy, Byzantium!)
- ↑ Other accounts suggest that Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart may have been too young to have fought in the war. He may have been 16 towards its end but whether he served as an officer is unclear. His father, Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, was listed as missing in action in 1945, instilling the young Alistair with a dislike for military service. (PROSE: The Forgotten Son) Alistair was called up for national service in the 1950s and was involved in the Korean War as a private, and only came to consider the importance of being an officer after meeting Second Lieutenant Spencer Pemberton. (PROSE: The Ambush!)
- ↑ This was contradicted by some of Churchill's later writings, in which he recorded that he did not travel in the Doctor's TARDIS until after the war. (AUDIO: Living History) However, the diaries recovered by UNIT were incomplete and sketchy, with some passages redacted. (PROSE: The Lost Diaries of Winston Spencer Churchill)
- ↑ http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/lostrz.html
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/dalekinvasion/detail.shtml
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/genesisofdaleks/detail.shtml
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/robot/detail.shtml
