Characters / TNO Germany

Main Character Index Superpowers: Großgermanisches Reich (Heydrich's Germany) | The United States of America (1964-1968 American Presidents | 1972 American Presidents) | Dai-Nippon Teikoku Major Powers: Regno d'Italia | Iberian Union | Republic of Turkey | Ordensstaat Burgund Other Countries By Region: Africa: Northern & East Africa | West Africa | Southern Africa | Post-Colonial Central Africa Asia: Mainland China & Oceania (State of Guangdong | 1964-1972 Guangdong Chief Executives | Guangdong Flavor Characters) | Southeast Asia (Republic of Indonesia) | South Asia | Middle East | Central Asia Europe: Northern & Western Europe (British Isles | French State) | Southern Europe | Eastern Europe (Reichskommissariat Ukraine | Reichskommissariat Moskowien) Americas: North America | South America (United States of Brazil | Argentine Republic | Oriental Republic of Uruguay) The Russian Anarchy: West Russia (West Russian Revolutionary Front | Komi Republic | Communist Party of Komi | Passionariyy Organization | Taboritsky's Russia) | Southern Urals | Western Siberia | Central Siberia (Siberian Black Army) | The Far East (Harbin Three) | After Midnight Miscellaneous: Antarctica | Miscellaneous Content | Non-Canon Content

Großgermanisches Reich

^{Flag of Speer's Germany}

^{Flag of Bormann's Germany}

^{Flag of Göring's Germany}

^{Flag of Heydrich's Germany}

^{Flag of Schutzzone Germania}

^{Einheitspakt, aka: Unity-Pakt}

^Zollverein

Official Name: Großgermanische Reich der Deutschen Nation^Tr.Great Germanic Reich of the German Nation

Ruling Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei^note National Socialist German Workers' Party

Ideology: National Socialism

By chance, circumstance, or even fate, Hitler's Reich had triumphed in WWII and brought Europe under a new order. But as costly settlement replaced profitable conquest in peacetime, the Reich's future quickly slipped from the Führer's hands, as the economy stagnated and the society despaired. As "a thousand years" turned into "a lost decade", the Reich's future now rests in the hands of the desolate Führer's Inner Circle, each with their own vision to remake not just the Reich, but Europe as a whole.

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General Tropes

• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • Before Hitler was forced to choose a successor, Germany would've attempted détente with the United States by creating a "red telephone" to permit direct communication between the Führer and President during times of crises, mirroring the Moscow-Washington hotline in OTL.
  • The Einheitspakt's emblem resembles that of the OTL European Union (though with a circle of swastikas instead of stars) and the Warsaw Pact (the image of a handshake in the center). Like the former, the Einheitspakt is a pan-European organization dominated by Germany; like the latter, it is a hegemonic defense alliance led by a totalitarian dictatorship that enforces, with varying degrees of leniency, its ideology upon other members.
• Ape Shall Never Kill Ape: One of the reasons why Germany just doesn't crush the rioting students by the start of the game is that the government doesn't want to make it look like they are killing pure German Aryans and their children, and they only try to contain the protest. Of course, there are people in the Reich who think that students should be dealt in a much more blunt manner, and they usually can be found among Göring's or Heydrich's loyalists.
• The Assimilator: Some ethnic groups, like the Czechs, are not outright exterminated, but are instead allowed to sign for Volksliste status and become culturally Germanized, such as how German traditions are enforced in foreign countries or one's children can become German if a woman marries a German man. Those who reject or lose Germanized status are treated as second-class citizens.
• Bait-and-Switch: Germany has a large opening focus tree with lots of foreign and local focuses, but only the first focus in this tree can be taken since it is forcibly swapped after Hitler is attacked by an assassin and has to name a successor.
• Big Bad: It's an Alternate-History Nazi Victory, so it's only natural. Nazi Germany is the reason the world is the Crapsack World that it is; they invaded Britain and France, destroyed Russia, and are currently setting their eyes on the United States. That being said, plenty of Big Bad Wannabes are hoping to usurp their role.
• Big First Choice: Early in the game, a player-controlled Germany has to choose a contender to play as during the civil war (and subsequently after the civil war is won). The choice has a major impact on both the story and the gameplay of Germany for the rest of the game, as each potential Führer has different game mechanics and very different ideas about leading the country and the rest of the Pakt as a whole.
• Blind Obedience: Any chance of discourse or debate is void in the Reichstag. Everyone must blindly obey the wills of the Führer and Party, or else they get purged.
• Civil War:
  • Hitler feared that one would occur if he harshly punished Himmler due to the fanaticism of the SS and its role in the Reich. He sought to prevent this by creating the Order-State of Burgundy.
  • Germany collapses into one once Hitler announces his successor and dies. Rather than accept the choice, every faction splits into its own territory and begins gunning for the position, and it has the chance to devolve with more potential successors and enemies if it is not resolved sooner. Doubles as an Enemy Civil War if the player is not doing a Germany playthrough.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When the Reich reasserts control over its eastern colonies after the Civil War, those who fail to negotiate with Germania (or cannot do so in the first place) are doomed to a quick defeat. The developers have stated that in Eastern Europe (except for Kaukasien), they only give a full decade of content to those who can avoid war with Germany.
• Do Wrong, Right: With the antifascist movement decidedly in a pit (though by no means entirely gone), the vast majority of Germany's ideological squabbles have to do with the "proper" implementation of Nazism, with Pragmatic Villains, worshippers of orthodoxy, Wehrmacht Blood Knights, and "Spartanist" cultural puritans all feuding for the future of the Nazi Party.
• The Dreaded: The most powerful country in Europe, Germany is not shy about invading smaller, neighboring countries if they cannot be cowed to submission. Thus, many of the independent European countries are terrified of a German invasion and will do anything to prevent it, whether it be collaboration (Sweden) or bending to Europe's other great power in Italy (Switzerland).
• Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: Each of Hitler's potential successors is depicted in clothes that reflect his faction's beliefs.
  • Speer, the ambitious reformist, wears a black civilian suit. In the 70s, he will switch to a brown NSDAP uniform and cap if he retains power but continues wearing his suit if he becomes a puppet.
  • Bormann keeps his brown Nazi uniform, signifying his adherence to traditional Nazism.
  • Göring, the representative of the militarists that believe in an economy fueled by conquest, dons a grey military outfit.
  • Heydrich, the fanatical leader of the SS in Germany, an ally to Himmler and a Spartanist, keeps his black SS uniform.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Not all of Hitler's inner circle made it to 1962.
  • Joseph Goebbels was attacked by Russian partisans during a visit to RK Moskowien and finished off by Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorff, who subsequently blamed the murder on the Moskowien SS. According to the developers, this was done because it was implausible that every prominent Nazi could survive until 1962.
  • Wilhelm Keitel was assassinated during the West Russian War by Abba Kovner and his partisans.
• Dystopia Is Hard: Systematic oppression has done nothing but cause trouble for German society, and Germany is on the verge of collapse because of the NSDAP's incompetence and hubris. It's not even like the existential problems facing the Reich are that far-fetched, as the German war effort in real life was badly kneecapped by the same kind of extensive corruption and wastefulness. Had the Reich somehow survived in real life, it probably would have faced similar dilemmas to what's depicted here.
• The Empire: During the Second World War, the Greater Germanic Reich conquered many other countries and significantly expanded its territory. By 1962, Germany is one of the dominant world powers, controlling large swathes of land in Europe and Africa.
• Enemy Civil War: The German Civil War between 4 contenders for the Führership starts almost immediately after Hitler dies. After the German Civil War ends, Germany proper might also come into conflict with the Reichskommissariate, depending on who came into power after the eruption of the German Civil War.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Germany's alliance with Italy and Japan during World War II only lasted for as long as it was useful to pool their resources against the Allies. Once the conflict was over, Germany had no use for them and became fierce rivals afterward, unlike how Italy and Japan still maintain cordial relations with each other.
  • The mock focus tree features one branch dedicated to foreign diplomacy, where either Speer or Bormann would propose thawing relations with the United States to unite against their mutual enemy, Japan.
  • Should Reinhard Heydrich be doing too well in the German Civil War, the three other contenders will put aside their differences and join forces in an Anti-Heydrich Pact, which quickly falls apart once Heydrich is defeated.
  • Upon the outbreak of the Oil Crisis, the OFN, Sphere, and Pakt all attempt to support friendly governments with arms and volunteers to end the wars in the Middle East and secure their oil supplies. With America backing most of the liberal democracies and Japan lending support to the "apolitical strongmen" and theocrats of the region, the only faction left for Germany to support is the left-wing nationalists, leading to a downright surreal situation where Nazi troops can fight alongside Ba'athists, Nasserists, and communists. The hope in Germany is that any ideological qualms the socialists have about giving the Nazis their oil will be negated by the sheer amount of aid Germany provides. The only exception is in Iran, where Germany already has a preferred regime in the form of the Imperial State, and its continued existence is crucial for the sustenance of Germany's oil demand.
    • To make things even more surreal, if the Comecon decides to help support the Baathists, then it will result to the Nazis and the Soviets fighting side by side.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Most Nazis hold nothing but hatred for the SS led by Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, as even they find their Esotericism and Spartanism, respectively, too extreme and self-destructive.
  • They are completely bewildered at the insane ideology of the Aryan Brotherhood, hardly reciprocating the same respect the Brotherhood has for them.
• Evil Colonialist: Germany has conducted a brutal colonization effort of their Eastern European territories, waging genocide and committing slavery against the indigenous people to create "living space" for themselves.
• Fascist, but Inefficient: Germany's economic, social, and military problems have created a nearly failed state by the 1960s, held together only by strict repression. An inevitable civil war results, which need not be the end of the crisis should the victor not attempt useful reforms, though reformist paths will be extremely difficult.
• Final Solution: Horrifically, the Holocaust has been completed, with most of the Jewish, Roma, disabled, and other 'undesirable' populations now exterminated and only hovering around the hundreds in Europe. The Nazis have since initiated the next phase of their plan, Generalplan Ost, the colonization of Central and Eastern Europe.
• Foil: The Einheitspakt shares and contrasts traits with the Organization of Free Nations and the Co-Prosperity Sphere, other collective bodies of several nations.
  • They and Japan rose to prominence after the Axis victory in WWII, resulting in cruel fascist spheres becoming the enemy in the Cold War. They contrast with the Japanese establishment and the public at large, sincerely believing that the Empire liberated the oppressed peoples of former colonies across Asia, and they become surprised when their colonies begin to revolt against their rule. The Nazis have no regrets for establishing their crushing reign, but they can acknowledge that their Reichskommissariats and territory will face trouble if reform isn't applied soon.
  • The OFN seeks to curb the power and influence of the Einheitspakt, ideologically democratic and vowing to keep fascism at bay, but they have done some very questionable actions in the name of defending democracy, though it may never compare with the industrialized horror of the Nazis. Though the OFN starts as effectively an extension of American hegemony, it also has an equal chance of becoming The Federation. The Einheitspakt starts out Fascist, but Inefficient, making Germany forced to address its flaws even if their new policies will strip the defining features of Nazism away. While the OFN was made to stop fascist spheres yet has the potential to simply be a glorified American replacement, the Einheitspakt was established to keep fascist spheres but can reform under the likes of Speer and the Gang of Four.
• Gratuitous German: Most localizations refer to the German Civil War by its German name, Bürgerkrieg.
• Insane Troll Logic: Subverted. When a class of German high school students speculates, at the teacher's direction, as to why the German government is throwing its support behind the socialists and communists of Arabia in the Oil Crisis, they keep trying to tie it into the Nazi Party's complex ideological and racial theories, when really it's just plain Realpolitik. They never figure this out, and the teacher eventually yells, "IT'S THE DAMN OIL!".
• Invincible Villain: If Germany invaded a minor European power, it would be impossible for the latter to resist them head-on. The military difference is simply staggering. The only way for an anti-German nation to survive is if they bring in another, larger power to back them:
  • There are multiple partisan groups in Ukraine who could destroy the Reichskommissariat and restore Ukrainian independence. However, Germany will inevitably return and snuff them out with ease. Even if the Ukrainians somehow gained the military advantage, Germany will nuke several of their cities, including Kyiv. Thus, some Ukrainian paths will not have 10 years of content because Germany will not tolerate their existence.
  • It is possible for HMMLR to win the British Civil War, but Germany will waste little time to draw up a second Operation Sea Lion and bring the British Isles back to the fold. If they invade, HMMLR stands no chance against the amphibious invasion. HMMLR's single chance of survival lies in the United States, calling for their help and threatening nuclear war to force Germany to the negotiation table or face a cataclysm.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: Though the Oil Crisis deals a massive blow to the economy, it also represents an opportunity for Germany to back the Ba'ath revolutionaries in the Middle East and deny influence over the region from Italy, Saudi Arabia, or any of their other rivals.
• The Man Behind the Man: Germany allows Vichy France to hold some of their overseas territories, but it's only a pretense for the fact that these colonies are really run by the Germans. In Madagascar, at least, they drop the act during the Second Malagasy Uprising and take full control of the island.
• Meaningful Rename: The German economic sphere is initially named "Großraum", but this gets renamed to "Zollverein" in Speer's route. It represents the potential reformation of Germany into a more democratic superpower, albeit under the behest of the Gang of Four rather than Speer himself.
• No Swastikas: Averted. Unlike the base game, TNO doesn't shy away from showing the swastika on flags or in imagery.
• Not So Invincible After All: After their sweeping military victories in World War II, Germany appeared to be an unstoppable juggernaut, until the subsequent economic crisis and West Russian War defeats revealed their weaknesses. Even though the Reich would endure through these troubling times, they've never been able to recover their once invincible status to the international community.
• Paper Tiger: At the game's start, Germany looks to be one of the strongest nations on Earth, owning the largest swathe of territory out of the three superpowers. However, this image doesn't illustrate the straining economy under the moribund slave economy, the weak position of the Reichsmark on the international exchange, the incredible instability of their colonies, and the increasing factionalism that will result in a civil war.
• Please Select New City Name:
  • As part of Albert Speer's Welthauptstadt Germania project, Berlin was renamed to Germania.
  • Germany annexed several territories from their neighbors, which renamed plenty of cities to Germanized ones, including Poland^{Full list of city names}Bromberg (Bydgoszcz), Garten (Grodno), Thorn (Toruń), Posen (Poznań), Litzmannstadt (Łódź), Kalisch (Kalisz), Weißberg (Białystok), Kattowitz (Katowice), Graudenz (Grudziądz), Gotenhafen (Gdynia), Augustowo (Augustów), Lumbsee (Łomża), Schröttersburg (Płock), Sudauen (Suwałki), Hohensalza (Inowrocław), Leslau (Włocławek), Denmark^{Full list of city names}Ripen (Ribe), Yugoslavia^{Full list of city names}Marburg an der Drau (Maribor), Domschale (Domžale), France^{Full list of city names}Mülhausen (Mulhouse), Straßburg (Strasbourg), Czechoslovakia^{Full list of city names}Ostrau (Ostrava), Aussig (Ústí nad Labem), Reichenberg (Liberec), Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary), Eger (Cheb), Troppau (Opava), Iglau (Jihlava), Brünn (Brno), Pilsen (Plzeň), Budweis (České Budějovice), Prag (Prague), Königgratz (Hradec Králové), Pardubitz (Pardubice), Olmütz (Olomouc), and Luxembourg^{Full list of city names}Luxemburg (Luxembourg).
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Nearly the entire cast in Germany is a devout Nazi or shameless participant in the chauvinistic power structure they've created. Only a few exceptions subvert this trope, like the Gang of Four and Speidel.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Despite the Nazis' heavy focus on racial purity and genocidal ambitions, some populations of deemed untermensch still exist in Germany, like the Polish in Wartheland and Bialystok. Though treated as second-class citizens, they are not killed outright because extermination would deprive those states of useful labor.
  • Despite having no genuine care for them, Germany will sometimes help their independent partners, like Romania in the Odesa hostage crisis, because they have a vested interest in protecting their sphere of influence.
  • Germany is relatively hands-off in the Balkans, not really prioritizing their ideology and caring more about what tangible benefits they can get from them. They let Yugoslavia join the Axis (for a couple of days) in World War II and only expressed mild dissatisfaction about Rumania democratizing, willing to (at least, temporarily) tolerate their existence if they uphold their treaties.
  • Even though the Arrow Cross party in Hungary are Germanophilic, Germany isn't too fond of their potential coup because their reign would be too unstable and create a refugee crisis they need to deal with. For this reason, they greatly prefer a pro-German Imrédy instead.
• Propaganda Piece: In a Bormann-led Germany, the government produces a Nazi propaganda cartoon called Heil Zeit! It features a superpowered knight version of Bormann fighting whoever posed as his latest political opponent and encouraging the viewer to heil Hitler and Bormann as a sing-along.
  • Some recurring antagonists are the other German Civil War participants, including Speer as a communist, Göring as an obese, rabid dog, and Heydrich as a wicked puppet of an off-screen Himmler.
  • Other mentioned villains are Süß the Jewish Bolshevik and John Smith the American Mongrel.
  • If the militarists were purged in the First Dismantlement, his propagandized version fights Ferdinand Schörner or, derisively, "Fat Ferdinand". He serves as Göring's top lieutenant and gets defeated alongside his master. When Bormann is about to forgive his crimes, Schörner goes crazy and bites Bormann's hand, leading the Führer to beat him silly and stuff him in the same dog kennel as Göring.
  • Meanwhile, if the reformists were purged, Hans Speidel or "Speidel the Snake" is depicted as a treacherous midget who refuses to help Bormann against the other German Civil War contestants. When Bormann tries forgiving him, Speidel not only rejects it, but takes off his Wehrmacht uniform to reveal that he's a Bolshevik, just like Speer. Enraged, Bormann slices Speidel in half with his sword, crams him in the same cannon with Speer, and fires them off to distant Russia.
  • In the last episode before the Herbst, Bormann fights in the Oil Crisis, helping the German army against a vague threat in the Middle East and riding on a white horse with a golden lance.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Germany ultimately won the West Russian War, but the war caused the German economy to further go down the gutter, caused a crisis in the SS that led to Himmler creating Burgundy and going rogue, and greatly increased unrest within Germany. The war dealt such massive damage that the German Civil War can be directly attributed to it.
• Realpolitik:
  • In some countries like the West Indies Federation and Iceland, Germany will manipulate their elections and votes to turn them away from the United States and fracture the American sphere of influence, often by supporting isolationist politicians. Germany doesn't truly care about the well-being of these countries; it just wants to screw over the OFN.
  • Despite the animosity between Germany and Japan, it is possible for the companies in Guangdong to expand into the Einheitspakt under Speer or Bormann. While some of the more conservative and traditionalist citizens will decry the "sinister Asiatic-Jewish plot" supposedly at play, many embrace the new products, whether they be Sony's radios and televisions, Matsushita Electronic's air conditioners, Fujitsu's computer mainframes, or Hitachi's construction.
  • Despite their opposing ideologies, Germany will back the Ba'athist factions in the Oil Crisis conflict, hoping to subvert Italian dominance in the region and destroy the other proxies backed by the United States and Japan.
• Red and Black Totalitarianism: The Nazis obviously use the red-and-black swastika as their flag and they've built one of the most cruel regimes in history, built off of police suppression, slavery, and the graves of millions of civilians.
• Regime Change:
  • Unlike the Reichskommissariats in Eastern Europe (which are de jure integrated into the Reich itself), Germany installed several puppet regimes for their subjugated nations in Western Europe, which includes the United Kingdom, Vichy France, and Denmark. These countries' pre-existing governments are in-exile elsewhere.
  • One of the first things that both Speer and Bormann do after they win the Civil War is reintegrating the former Pakt members, especially its Reichskommissariate (which will usually fall to coups, revolutions, or civil wars), back into the Pakt. If the reintegration happens by coups or invasions, Germany will usually install a new German friendly government in these countries.
  • Germany can successfully navigate the Channel Crisis and block an American guarantee on HMMLR's independence. With nothing left to stop them, the Nazis immediately order an amphibious invasion of the British Isles and install an occupation regime far more tightly leashed than the previous BPP regime.
  • Germany can back Imrédy in the power struggle with Horthy in Hungary. In exchange for placing a garrison in the country, Imrédy will appoint Germanophiles to the government and permit recruitment into the Hungarian Waffen-SS.
  • The Nazis will balk at an independent Serbia, but they will absolutely not tolerate a Red Serbia in their sphere of influence, invading them to install Borivoje Jonić in their place.
  • Even though the Segundo Ejército Patrióta are the least powerful side in the Colombian Civil War and control the least amount of territory initially, they still can't be counted out of the game because they have the backing of Germany, a fellow National Socialist superpower, to take over the Republic and eliminate the other factions. Not only would this add to the Pakt's global influence, it would also deal a dent to the American sphere, which has traditionally covered all of Latin America.
  • If the Iberian Collapse happens, Germany will funnel support to the Falangists, who are the most compatible faction to their interests, more than the old, Caudillo duumvirate regime.
  • With controversy stirring in Iceland about the American presence, Germany will dabble in their 1971 election to get the anti-OFN coalition in power, which would make Iceland (and also the Faroe Islands) leave the alliance and cripple the United States' spear directed at Europe.
  • In Central Asia, Germany could switch their proxy in the Turkestan Legion from Kayyum to either Hayit or Muhammad, forcibly removing the former.
  • The Middle East implodes in the Oil Crisis and Germany sends aid to the Ba'athist factions, hoping that they will overthrow the existing pro-Italian regimes in the region. Provided that every proxy war is won, Germany could install anti-Italian factions in Yemen, Oman, Iraq, Egypt, and Sudan.
  • Germany is a potential backer in Daoud Khan's Republican coup in Afghanistan, turning it into a National Socialist state.
• Settling the Frontier: Millions of Germans have been settled into former Polish territories annexed into Germany, primarily Wartheland and Bialystok.
• Short-Lived Leadership: Right after Hitler dies, a Reichstag Emergency Council made up of neutrals and unpopular bureaucrats is convened to act as de jure authority until a new Führer is selected. The Council doesn't last long before Germany explodes into civil war and destroys any semblance of peace.
• Slave Race: After learning the hard way that genocide operations like the Holocaust and Generalplan Ost were massively unprofitable, Nazi Germany converted them into slavery programs to prop up the failing German economy. By 1962, most of the Untermenschen are enslaved instead of being exterminated, and slavery forms a massive component of the German economy, with a counter in Speer's menu saying that over 38 million people are enslaved following the end of the GCW.^note To put this in perspective, the Confederate States of America only had a slave population of 3,500,000, while Ethiopia in the 1930s had an estimated 8 to 16 million slaves.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Their economy is fueled by slave labor, whose ranks are made from those that the Nazis consider subhuman, an idea proposed by Speer after the German economy crashed and the Final Solution turned out to be impractical. Speer's path will eventually have to face a growing resistance movement that seeks their liberation.
• Space-Filling Empire: Germany can still be one under Bormann, who can choose to annex the Generalgouvernement, Reichskommissariat Niederlande and Reichskommissariat Ostland during the Opulence.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The glory days of military conquest in World War II have long since ended and Germany has now stagnated, with economic problems growing out of their moribund slave system and widespread corruption infecting nearly their entire colonial empire.
• State Sec: Though most of the SS has been kicked to Burgundy after Himmler's attempted coup, a large section of the SS has remained in Germany, now under Reinhard Heydrich's command, and are still fanatically loyal to Himmler and his ideals despite everything.
• Succession Crisis: Even though Hitler will name a successor before his death, the factional division in the Nazi Party has reached such an extent that a succession crisis immediately begins after Hitler dies, instantly collapsing Germany into a civil war.
• Take That!: In one of the more light-hearted moments in Bormann's campaign, the mod takes a potshot at cheesy medical advertisements, with a stereotypical sitcom family giving a tonic to the mother figure, spouting terrible dialogue, and having their skit end with a long warning text about the harmful side effects of using the product.
  "Who reads those things anyways?"
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Despite all claims to the contrary, the Heer is riddled with infighting between the militarists and moderates. The former is made up of warhawks who believe that the Reich's glory can only be restored with renewed conquest, while the latter opposes this direction as suicide for Germany.
• Vestigial Empire: Germany may be the world's most powerful country, but this belies the severe issues crippling the Reich. Its economy is stagnant, its military is growing increasingly incompetent, its politics are fractious and factional, and the farthest reaches of the Nazi empire are gradually slipping from Germania's grasp. The only thing keeping Germany together is an old, senile Adolf Hitler. When he dies, the German sphere collapses upon itself.
• Villain Protagonist: While there are several other playable nations, Germany is the most prominent of them, being the one responsible behind the mod's setting and the default country on the selection screen.
• Villainous Legacy: Regardless of what happens in the Reich, the precedent set by the Nazis' triumph has inspired various movements across the globe, from the Yockeyites in America to Konstantin Rodzaevsky's hardline Clerical Fascists in the Russian Anarchy. Even if Nazism dies in the Reich, there's a chance one of these could long outlive the original ideology.
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: Germany's backstory could be summed up like this as while Germany won the Second World War, things will be crashing down in a violent civil war, and the country is in the middle of an economic collapse.

Führer

Adolf Hitler

^{New Hitler portrait, coming in Victor & the Judge}

Role: Head of State

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei^note National Socialist German Workers' Party

Ideology: National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}How does one begin to define Adolf Hitler, Führer and Reichskanzler of the Greater German Reich, the undisputed tyrant of 19 countries, the architect of Welthauptstadt Germania, Supreme Commander of the Wehrmacht, Führer of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, and Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938, 1946, and 1961?

A man of humble beginnings, the son of Austrian Innkeepers, he was educated in Munich and Vienna and served with distinction with the German Army during the First World War. His rise to power was meteoric, none can deny, and even failed attempts like the Beer Hall Putsch served only to further his ambitions. His combination of violence and showmanship drove the communists and democrats out of the Reichstag and placed him into its highest office. Under his leadership, Germany broke the chains of the Versailles Treaty, developed a terrifying new military, and forced the other nations of Europe to their knees until the Swastika flew over all of Europe, from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea. Under his guidance, the Reich built such wonders as Atlantropa and Germania, and under his watchful eye, the Undesirables of Europe were viciously exterminated and fed to the flames.

But the lord and master of all Germany, of all Europe between the Urals and the Pyrenees, has grown old. Where his voice could once command a crowd's rapt attention there is now only quiet rasping, and a cold calculating mind of steel has gone to rust. The hands that penned Mein Kampf constantly tremble now, as he adds the final touches to a watercolor of those long-dead faces slipping from his memory. The greatest conqueror the world has ever known since Alexander and Napoleon is an old and frail man. In 1962, he is 73 years of age, and some dare to whisper that he is not long for this world. The fear of all the world is that once the Führer's funeral pyre is lit, it will spread the great conflagration of war all across Europe once more.

The most influential man of the 20th century and the architect of the Nazi empire, the all-powerful Führer, Adolf Hitler, has at present partially retired from German politics. Facing deteriorating health and chaotic court politics, the Führer has increasingly delegated his powers for his subordinates to administrate the Reich. But there is still one last act that the Führer must enact himself: who will succeed him when he passes from this world?

---

• Alas, Poor Villain: If it's at all possible to portray the greatest monster in the history of the Western world with a degree of humanity, the event describing Hitler's death manages to do just that without downplaying or overlooking his crimes. There's something pathetic about seeing such a feared and powerful figure reduced to an old man who can only half-remember his life's accomplishments through a haze of senility and morphine. His last thoughts end up being of his wife Eva Braun rather than any of the wars and atrocities he orchestrated. It's as though none of it mattered in the end, which is apropos given that the empire of greed, cruelty, and hatred he built starts to collapse after his death. It's a reminder of the frailty of human life to see death finally catch up with someone as important as him (in much the same way it catches up with all men).
• Assassin Outclassin': Hitler's bodyguard manages to save the Führer's life during an assassination attempt early into 1962, but rumors of Hitler's death still spread across Germany, causing even more instability in the Reich.
• Awesome, but Impractical: One of Hitler's largest scale projects was the Breitspurbahn plan, which would double the railway gauge in the Reich. Even the rest of the NSDAP recognized how impossible such a goal would be and, when Bormann picks up the project, he scales down the objective to just a one-third increase.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: By 1962, Hitler is a decrepit old man who isn't long for this world. He's required increasingly intensive medical care for his fragile health in the years leading up to the start date, which has deprived the Reich of his leadership at a time when it's more badly-needed than ever before.
• Cassandra Truth: One event has Hitler off-handedly say that Speer's promises of reform are all a ploy, despite calling him "a foolish idealist" a moment earlier. If Speer wins the civil war and encounter the slave revolt, the Gang of Four soon finds out that Speer only wants to reform the Reich just so Nazism can last longer and win the cold war while the Gang actually wants to put Germany on the path to democracy.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Hitler's Generalplan Ost was intended to exterminate every untermensch in Eastern Europe to pave the way for German colonization. Though Hitler's plan killed tens of millions, it ultimately failed to completely ethnically cleanse the region due to severe logistical issues and Generalplan Ost has largely been shelved, even if systematic genocide is still being carried out.
  • In the aftermath of Himmler's failed coup, Hitler offered Burgundy as the Schutzstaffel's fiefdom so that Himmler would be preoccupied with keeping control over the naturally-rebellious French and Belgians, until he could be properly dealt with after Germany resolves the issues following its economic crash and the West Russian War. Hitler could not foresee the further and ongoing instability of the Reich, which meant that any plans to properly address Himmler and the SS would never come to fruition. Though, to be fair, Himmler's own incompetence can indeed eventually do himself in at some point and not require the intervention of Germany until his fiefdom has already collapsed.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Event texts suggest Hitler was genuinely devastated when his wife Eva died before the game's events, and his last thoughts on his deathbed are of her.
• Foil: To the other superpowers' initial heads of state, Nixon and Hirohito as well as Japanese PM Funada Naka, oddly enough. They are all the starting figures of their powers but also do not have as much influence as one might think from the surface, and they will eventually give their countries' powers over to representatives of different ideologies. They execute this idea in different ways.
  • Hirohito shares the role of being an Axis power's leader that is suffering from their self-destructive governing style, and they must decide the course for their nation with a successor. Their countries' decisions are ceremonial and temporary, with clashes breaking out to decisively end the conflict. Hirohito remains alive but with very little real power despite his reputation, whereas Hitler dies of his age and health risks with the entire government reliant on him keeping everything together.
  • While Hitler will make the choice, Funada is on the receiving end of the succession, as Emperor Hirohito will move in to choose the temporary leader. Both Funada and Hitler are cut off from their power after a certain event, but Hitler retains his reputation after an assassination attempt while Funada is ousted and shunned. Their nations' focus trees do not last long before they are forcibly swapped, though Funada can still make some actual choices during his reign.
  • Both he and Nixon portray the story with their Focus Trees, and they make the Big First Choice that decides the course and leader of their nation. Nixon's political action indirectly influences the upcoming elections, but Hitler's decision holds little impact when the player can simply choose to play as a different successor. Hitler starts clean in his focus tree before it is forcibly swapped, while Nixon has already made plenty of decisions and forces the player to stick with them.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: From his humble beginnings as a street urchin from Vienna and an unnoteworthy Regimental messenger runner with delusions of grandeur, Hitler would rise to become the Führer of Germany and master of Europe.
• King on His Deathbed: By 1962, when the game starts, the German Führer's health has been in decline for a while. Not long after, he dies, kickstarting the German Civil War as his underlings start their bid for power.
• Minor Major Character: Though Hitler is a mostly irrelevant character by the time 1962 rolls around and will die shortly into the game, the whole world of TNO came to be because Hitler got what he wanted. Without Hitler, the entire world of TNO wouldn't exist.
• Our Founder: In the Opulence period of Bormann's rule, a statue of Hitler is commissioned in the city of Linz as part of its reconstruction into a "German Budapest".
• Plot-Triggering Death: Hitler's death triggers the German Civil War, where the next Führer will be decided on the battlefield. This, in turn, sets off a chain reaction across the world, causing new civil conflicts as German trade halts and dissent breeds. The German bombings in Africa and Russia also stop, allowing the petty states there to start their own power struggles. The end of the German Civil War also marks a new beginning of the world, as the new German superpower poses to shape the world in its leader's ideals. Hitler's death effectively kicks off the entire plot of TNO.
• Puppet King: Hitler is a mentally-deficient elder being propped up by his underlings.
• Racist Grandpa: At the game's start, he is 73 years old, but age hasn't softened any of his anti-semitism or other unsavory qualities.
• Reluctant Ruler: At some point after World War II, Hitler abstained from making decisions, acting more as an advisor to the Reichstag than its sole dictator.
• Retired Monster: Notably, his initial focus tree he doesn't get the chance to enact has got a section where he unleashes Heydrich's SS on protestors, then scapegoats them for the resulting bloody mess, suggesting that, despite Hitler's deteriorating physical and mental state, he still has the same vicious instincts and talent for using brutality to solve problems while maintaining plausible deniability that served him well in his youth.
• Scatterbrained Senior: Hitler's old age and decades of substance abuse haven't done wonders for his mental health.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Hitler's xenophobic doom-mongering about a horde of barbaric Slavs hellbent on annihilating the German people will be fully realized posthumously if the All-Russian Black League unifies Russia.
• Straight Edge Evil: Just like in real-life, Hitler outlawed smoking in Germany out of personal apprehension to drugs. If Bormann wins the civil war, he lifts such restrictions so that he can enjoy this unhealthy habit.
• Strong Empire, Shriveled Emperor: Hitler is almost on his last breath when the German Reich enters 1962 and his minions are setting the ground for the inevitable struggle for his legacy after Führer's death.
• Together in Death: When Hitler finally dies, his last thought is that of his dead wife.
• Vetinari Job Security: The German Führer is the only thing that prevents Germany from tearing itself apart. When Hitler dies, whatever German unity there is dies with him.
• Villainous Legacy: After the Axis victory in World War II, Europe has been subdued under the horrors of Nazism. Centuries of tradition, values, and history have been warped, twisted, erased, and reshaped to fit the values and views of a madman, and although that madman is not long for this world, Europe may not survive his passing. The only 'hope' they have is a reformist Nazi being less evil than the other Nazis. The alternatives are collapse, genocide, eternal war, or nuclear apocalypse. Even if the Reich were to fall and Europe was to 'liberate' itself, it will never be able to reach its previous position on the world stage. The National Socialist ethos has been proven to work and is credible to enough people to keep it politically relevant. The tyranny of Nazism can be partially but never fully eradicated, save through burning the world in nuclear fire.
• Villain with Good Publicity: As the leader who won Germany World War II and who paved the way for her to become a superpower, Hitler is recognized as the father of modern Germany and remains a beloved figure among the German people despite all his shortcomings; unlike real life, where he is Germany's greatest shame. Even world leaders who have no affection for him are forced to recognize him as an equal, with both Emperor Hirohito's representatives and John F. Kennedy attending his funeral.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Hitler dies in October 1963, 22 months after the start of the mod, leaving the declaration of a successor as the only considerable impact. And even in that case, many people in the Reich disagree with their leader's decision.
• What the Hell, Player?: Completing any focus in Germany's starting focus tree except "A Man on the Moon" (which requires the use of console commands) triggers a joke event where Hitler storms out of his bedroom and rants at Speer about the player cheating before ordering them to restart the game and play fairly this time.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Hitler is dying from Parkinson's, and a variety of other health problems brought about or exacerbated by his old age and drug use.

Albert Speer

^{70s Speer portrait (Assertive Reformist)}

^{70s Speer portrait (Gang of Four puppet)}

^{70s Speer portrait (Oberländer puppet)}

Role: Reichswirtschaftsminister^note Economy Minister (Hitler cabinet), Head of State (German Civil War victor)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Speeristen^note National Socialist German Workers' Party - Speerites

Ideology: Reformed National Socialism^note National Socialism, Transitioning Democracy^note Paternalism (Gang of Four puppet), Idiosyncratic Nazism^note National Socialism (Oberländer puppet)

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Many things are said of Albert Speer, yet none can deny his ambition.

Unlike many others, he did not join the NSDAP that fateful day in 1931 for the late Führer's fiery rhetoric. It was Adolf Hitler's calm and collected speech given during a rally in Berlin that intoxicated the young architect, leading him to join the Party the year after.

What started as a favor to a fellow member became a recommendation to Joseph Goebbels; the recommendation became a commission to renovate the local NSDAP headquarters. Before long, he had drawn the personal interest of the Führer. Hitler became a passionate admirer of his vision, and together they drafted plans of a new Germany.

By the war's end, Speer was a close friend of the Führer, presided over his own ministry and touted a reputation as the man who transformed the Reich's economy into a war-winning machine. No matter the cost of life, the dream of a new Germany had been realized. Reputation is rarely truth - but he made sure that everyone knew of his.

It was in the midst of Germania's construction that the economy crashed, and his lofty dreams with it. Pinning the blame was easy. Slavery, the very system Speer created to win the war, doomed Germany in peace. It was an unprecedented disaster - one that Speer could not ignore. The Reich and Volk deserved greatness. His dreams deserved reality. Reform was necessary.

Years of open criticism of NSDAP policy followed, and he soon found himself somewhere unexpected once again: as the figurehead of the largest reform movement Germany had seen in decades. Speer's ambitious goals and reputation as a dissenter enveloped countless of young dreamers and old rivals around him in a political maelstrom unlike any other.

And as he now walks this perilous tightrope he crafted, he balances not only his own future but also that of the Reich.

In-Game Biography (Assertive Reformist) ^{Click to Show}No longer was Albert Speer merely the architectural genius behind many of Hitler's grandiose plans. No longer was Albert Speer the Minister of Armaments and War Production during Germany's finest hour. He was not the side-character who pulled Germany out of failure when it sunk to its depths before he took the reins. No longer was Albert Speer the political webspinner and silver tongue that got a loose alliance of vaguely-loyal liberals and yesmen to back him as he spun an image of being a reformist force. Albert Speer was no longer the "good" National Socialist.

Now he stands as the representation of a new National Socialism, fit to serve the modern era, and the modern man.

The fruitless endeavors of the past NSDAP - the need to exterminate the East, to turn Germany into the ultimate pariah state, to close it off utterly and let it wallow in bitter autarky. None of those policies belonged in his vision of a new Reich. His Einheitspakt and his Zollverein would be a well-oiled machine, propagating German domination not through wasteful pits of death that would only antagonize its colonies, but instead through a showcase of cultural, moral, economic and military supremacy. As Germany soars with a bureaucracy purified of degenerate liberals and bloodthirsty hardliners, Albert Speer finds himself at the top as the architect unmatched.

Hitler may have set the grounds for Germany's wings to fly high, but Speer will make sure that it will fly victorious.
Forever.

In-Game Biography (Gang of Four Puppet) ^{Click to Show}National Socialism has failed. It has failed all of the challenges it has met, and it is now doomed to extinction... and who is to blame?

Albert Speer finds himself with daggers pointed everywhere around him, but he knows that it is the NSDAP that has ruined him; the liberals that have degraded the moral fiber of German society; the wretched Gang undermining him every step of the way. How he ever could have trusted those three; Tresckow, Erhard, and most especially Schmidt - it was beyond him. Most days he spends staring blankly in his office, absent-mindedly shuffling paper after paper, knowing that the power of the Führer is merely a ploy. If only he had played his cards better.

As the future begins to leave the architect behind, and his vision yet fades while the NSDAP falls apart, a new path has opened up, promising many things, though nobody can say for sure what it will contain. As countless Germans still march against National Socialism, they demand something robbed from them half a century ago. Something Speer is deathly afraid will crush Hitler's dream now and forevermore. The calls for elections, for the abolishment of permanent posts, the rallying call of what was once a delusion, now rapidly approaching reality...

Democracy.

Albert Speer has failed. Or so it may seem. A defanged and depowered Führer delegated to mere rubber stamping, with eyes surrounding him and watching his every move, and yet, at the same time, the Gang treats him as a fool and a puppet, a disgrace to Hitler's vision and nobody of importance.

How foolish they are.

In-Game Biography (Oberländer Puppet) ^{Click to Show}There was a time where Albert Speer could stand in front of a podium on a crowd of thousands and speak words that would get any normal German man ousted as a traitor, and shot for cowardice and Bolshevism. Of course, he never was committed to most of what he had said, merely words spoken to rile up his base and strengthen his support. Yet Albert Speer overestimated his prowess, and underestimated the hardliners.

What fate awaited him at the hands of the Gang of Four was now merely a passing thought. His worries of being a puppet to the liberalistic whims of the students seemed almost like paranoia now, as he follows the orders of Theodor Oberländer and his clique in the NSDAP. His image as the 'reformer' of the Reich has dissolved, and all the remains is a man whose vision has been stomped underfoot by the degeneration of National Socialist ideology.

There are no more days where Albert Speer can smile and think to himself that he is building a new Reich, for the new German man. Now he follows orders and attempts to slow the grinding crusher that will tear his ideology into pieces. He cannot imagine that Adolf Hitler would look at him and consider his achievements worthy of respect.

Not anymore.

In-Game Biography (Hitler cabinet) ^{Click to Show}Albert Speer is a silver-tongued politician, knowing what to say on just the right occasion; an expert in getting people over to his side with honeyed words and promises tempered by his background as Minister of Armaments and War Production in the Second World War. Under his reign as the Minister of Economics, however, the economy has seen a steady decline, from the massively inefficient post-war economic system of slavery showing its undeniable flaws, to the general sensation of stagnation in Nazi policies. Yet, even though Speer was arguably one of if not the most important man responsible for engineering the mass slavery in Germany's colonies, today he speaks against the same creation he partook in and encouraged.

After a period of moderate obscurity in the '50s, Speer began an intensive campaign of rallying his support. His supporters are the apathetic men and women who lost their jobs or had their family killed in wars, the technocrats and the reform-minded NSDAP members, the disillusioned National Socialists who were not awarded their promised Aryan utopia, and as a token yet active minority, and the small but slowly growing group of students banking on Speer as their only hope for more radical reform. Each hopes for a different facet of Speer's promises, but nevertheless create a shaky united front of 'reformed' National Socialists.

Germany's chief architect, minister of armaments, and a close personal aide of the Führer. Disappointed by Hitlerist economy's inefficiencies, which he, as the slave system's creator, partially caused, Speer publicly pushes for systematic reforms that go against the Party's overwhelmingly conservative trend. His appeals eventually coalesced into a reformist political faction under his lead, with supporters ranging from reformist old guards to liberal student activists. Facing diverse supporters with diverse demands, only time will tell which vision of Germany will Speer pursue should he come to power.

---

• All for Nothing: If the Gang of Four have their way, Speer's reformist pretensions and drive to stay in power ultimately lead to him becoming nothing more than a glorified figurehead, while they proceeds to undo the Nazi dream. It's also possible for something similar to happen in the Idiosyncratic Nazism route, with him becoming a puppet of Oberländer's hardliners should the latter grow too powerful.
• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • If he lost to Bormann in the civil war, Speer flees to the United States as a political refugee, where he writes Inside the Third Reich, an autobiography which whitewashes himself and denies his complicity in the Reich's crimes, just like what the real Speer did after he served his 20-year prison sentence following the end of the war.
    • In exile, Speer can be assassinated with an ice pick much as Leon Trotsky was in real life; Trotsky himself was was killed with a sledgehammer in TNO.
  • All of the generals that fight for Speer's Germany during the Civil War and afterwards all played a role in OTL's July 20 plot.
  • In Speer's Reformed National Socialism path, the reinvigorated Nazi Germany bears more than a passing resemblance to the People's Republic of China after Deng Xiaoping's passing: purged of the worst excesses of the Nazi ideology, yet carrying on everything else in a much more insidious, subtle manner.
• The Alternet: Albert Speer's Germany will eventually create the NetzRAM ("Netzwerk des Reichsamtes für Militärforschung"), an equivalent to the ARPANET that connects all computing devices in universities and government offices across the Reich.
• Ambition Is Evil: Speer ultimately is far more ambitious than Bormann and his conservatives, and desires to create an efficient Nazi Germany that can lead the world as a true fascist superpower.
• The Atoner: Part of Speer's motivation for reforming the Reich is his personal regret for his role in creating the slave system. It's not solely for moral reasons, though: a paid laborer with legal personhood and a separate employer are easier to tax than a MegaCorp who already pays so little.
• The Bad Guy Wins: If Speer successfully manages to resist both the Gang of Four and the Nazi hardliners and institute his true Reformed Nazi Reich, he will create a Nazi Germany that is actually terrifyingly efficient, giving him a very good chance to win the Cold War and lead Nazism into the modern age.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Speer hopes to present an image of reform and change through propping up the Gang of Four. If he's not careful, he would get more than what he bargained for and wind up unwittingly bringing an end to Nazism.
• Being Good Sucks: While "good" is a more relative concept concerning Speer, he is still the most liberal and reform-minded candidate for the Führership, and that's what makes him an enemy to many people in Germany, who will try to sabotage his actions and remove him from power. This is eventually subverted when it is revealed that Speer has never been reforming out of the good of his heart, but instead to strengthen his own power and save the Reich. He feels bad not because the "good things" he's doing are hard, but because his liberalizations are taking away his own powers.
• Beneath the Mask: Speer is usually unflappably calm and composed...until the Slave Revolt, at which point he absolutely snaps, descending into deranged antisemitic rants and fantasizing about crushing the rebels with military force.
• Decoy Protagonist: Speer for most of the mod's development and even in the mod itself is depicted as the main hope for liberalizing Germany. Speer seemingly is the one Reich leader who can put Germany on the path towards democracy ...except as it happens, the path that leads to the return of democracy to Germany is also the one where he becomes a Puppet King to the Gang of Four, and Speer himself is dragged to the point of maximum liberalization kicking and screaming, angrily declaring the democratization an utter betrayal of Nazism.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: In the Reformed National Socialist path, Speer not only has to contend with the Gang of Four, but also ensure that Oberländer's hardliners know their place, or else wind up as their Puppet King. It takes a considerable effort, but it is possible for him to emerge as the unquestioned ruler of Nazi Germany, free to conduct his greatest engineering "project" of all and ensure that Nazism would be seen as a viable ideology by the rest of the world, instead of a discredited one like in real life.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Speer's path allows one to reform Nazi Germany and put it onto the path for Democracy (the Paternalist path), but it's a hard one riddled with numerous obstacles, as he has many enemies spread across the country who resist any of his attempts at reforms even after the Civil War. However, it turns out that this trope does not actually apply to Speer, but to the Gang of Four, the genuine reformers in his cabinet; Speer himself remains committed to fascism and has no desire to create a democratic Germany. There's a crucial distinction between Germany's best ending (in which the Gang turns Speer into their puppet and begins the Reich's transition to democracy) and Speer's personal best ending (in which he sidelines the Gang and has the freedom to build his Thousand-Year Reich).
• The End... Or Is It?: When the Gang of Four coup Speer, it seems like Germany is safely on the path to democracy, but Speer's bio hints that he's not out of the game just yet and may try to wrest power back from his former cabinet.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Regardless of which path Speer goes down, he has no love for Himmler or his plans. He thus has no qualms with invading Burgundy to finally put an end to the SS once and for all.
• Evil All Along: By 1972, Speer is revealed to be, at the end of the day, committed to his own "efficient Nazism" vision of National Socialism above all else, and would do anything to suppress reform if it gets out of hand and starts pulling Germany away from Nazism. The Reveal of his true nature comes after the Slave Revolt - in the Reformed National Socialist path, Speer forces the Gang of Four to follow the party line, refuses the democratisation proposals by the rebels, and reaffirms his commitments to Nazism, and while he can still establish the Koalition der Nationen, the event which he does so◊ reveals his intentions are to empower Germany as the head of a global power bloc, to effectively conquer the world with diplomacy when his opponents would try and fail with warfare, going so far as to believe he is acting as the true heir to Adolf Hitler's throne. In the Paternalist path, where the Gang of Four reduces Speer to their pen pusher, he berates himself for "failing" the cause of National Socialism.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In the Paternalist path, the Gang of Four's reforms will set Germany on the road to proper democracy, but Speer is miserable because he feels that such reforms have dealt a deathblow to National Socialism.
• Faction Motto: In the final Slave Revolt resolution tree for the 60s content for Speer, the two branches of the tree both feature three mirroring focuses that are named after the national mottos of Nazi Germany and the Federal Republic of Germany, corresponding to the Speer path ("Ein Volk", "Ein Reich", "Ein Führer") and the Gang of Four path ("Einigkeit", "Recht", "Freiheit") respectively.
• False Prophet: Speer has good publicity among some more liberal reformers, who believe that he is a genuine light of freedom who will turn Germany away from Nazism. However, it is all a lie and Speer is just interested in making the Reich stronger and more sustainable.
• Fate Worse than Death: In the Paternalist and Idiosyncratic Nazism paths. He's stuck as a defanged Puppet King and has to watch as either the Gang of Four completely dismantle the Nazi dictatorship, or as Oberländer's clique reverses the reforms and once again sets Germany on the path to ruin, and in either case, no one will help him.
• Full-Circle Revolution: Speer's end goal in the Reformed National Socialism path is revealed to be this, in effect. He has no real intention of actually instituting a democratic government. Instead, he uses a reformist veneer to re-engineer Nazi Germany in his image of Nazism.
• Internal Reformist: The more charitable view of Speer places him as an Internal Reformist (in contrast to him as a Pragmatic Villain), as he tries to eradicate the worst excesses of the Nazi system, such as slavery, racist policies, and saber-rattling militarism, and seems to have some regrets over some of the evils he's created. This is Subverted following the slave revolt, as Speer reveals that his reforms are not genuine and are made in an attempt to bolster his own power. His "regrets" are not out of personal reasons and actually out of pragmatism.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Should he lose the Civil War to Bormann and flee to the United States, he'll write a book attempting to absolve himself of his involvement with the regime. Bormann, later in his focuses, has the option to have him assassinated, either making the execution public or making him disappear discreetly.
• The Last DJ: Speer's reformist views are completely unacceptable in pre-Civil War German politics, and he is widely hated by the other factions, but as a personal confidant of Hitler, there is nothing they can do to get rid of him, at least until Hitler is no longer a concern.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Although Speer is the best candidate to lead the Reich, he's still an avowed Nazi who made extensive use of slave labor to aid the Nazi war effort, just as he did in real life. In this continuity, he took it even further and helped to establish a codified slavery system for the entire Reich. It's unclear how much of his drive for reform is rooted in genuine remorse or a pragmatic desire to save the Reich from destruction, though it has been confirmed that he is genuinely remorseful for creating the slave system. He's regretful, but primarily because it gets in the way of his dreams for his Nazi utopia, and that a paid laborer with legal personhood is far easier to tax. He is ultimately still A Lighter Shade of Black, but because he is a Pragmatic Villain and not because he is an Internal Reformist.
• Long Game: Many of Speer's policies are geared towards both the long-term survival of Germany as a superpower and the codifying of a Reformed National Socialism that would far outlast him.
• Lonely at the Top: In a very ironic sense. Should either the Gang of Four get their way or Oberländer emerge triumphant, Speer is reduced to a powerless figurehead. Though nominally master of the Reich, he has no one to help him and lacks sufficient support within the government to exert his authority. He is thus, utterly alone.
• Meet the New Boss: Speer can reorganize Eastern Europe into a series of Reichsländer, which are puppet states with native Nazi collaborator governments that have limited self-rule but are still treated as integral parts of the Greater Germanic Reich; in essence, RKs with a coat of "native rule" paint.
• Never My Fault: A consistent trait of Speer through both OTL and TNO. Speer is always happy to showcase and denounce the crimes committed by Bormann, Göring, and Heydrich, but he never admits his personal involvement in the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities, correctly assuming that it wouldn't help his image as an open-minded reformer.
• Only Sane Man: Between the status quo candidate and protector of slavery, the military expansionist, and the batshit insane Spartanist, Speer actually gives Germany the best chance to remain as a superpower in the Cold War, as well as avoiding nuclear war. He's also the only one of the Reich's would-be rulers who's aware of how Orthodox National Socialism is doomed to fail although he doesn't intend to liberalize in any form.
• Pet the Dog: Speer was a wartime colleague of Erhard Milch. When Göring became a rival of Milch and tried to persecute him, Speer intervened on Milch's behalf and convinced Hitler to spare Milch as a Field Marshal.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The less charitable view of Speer places him as a Pragmatic Villain (as opposed to an Internal Reformist). He performs needed reforms against corruption and cuts back on the worst excesses of the Nazi system to strengthen the fascist Reich and prevent it from future collapse. This is the real personality of Speer, a man who is willing to both enact reforms and then betray these reforms to protect National Socialism. This becomes obvious in 1972 following the slave revolt, since Speer tries to crack down on the slave revolt by force and roll back some of his reforms because they are now threatening his power. Him being puppeted by Oberländer also shows his pragmatic evil side as he pains over the fact that Oberländer will just drag Germany back into ruins.
• Puppet King: Führer Speer can eventually become a puppet of either the Gang of Four or the NSDAP's hardline conservatives led by Theodor Oberländer. In the game, when this happens, Germany's ideology (and Speer's, by extension) changes from National Socialism to Transitioning Democracy or Idiosyncratic Nazism, representing the Gang of Four's and the Oberländer clique's views (respectively), instead of Speer's. The biography for the Gang of Four version, however, implies that Speer might be beaten, but he is not entirely defeated, and he is actively plotting to get out from under the Gang's control.
• The Purge:
  • Early on in Speer's route, Speer launches a purge of his opponents in the party through a series of show trials by a specially-convened Sondergericht.
  • In his Reformed National Socialist route, he prepares to kill Schmidt and sidelines the rest of the Gang of Four. In the Paternalist route, he fails and is threatened to sit down or his involvement with Nazi atrocities will be revealed to the world.
• Pyrrhic Victory: During Schmidt's negotiations with Brandt in the Slave Revolt, Speer can sic his men to sabotage the meeting and arrest all those involved. At first, Speer boasts about having triumphed over the Gang of Four after years of perpetual fighting with them, but him taking a hardliner stance against the slaves gives the conservatives enough power to overtake Speer's and turn them into his Puppet King, effectively rendering his victory null.
• Rebel Leader: Speer is seen by dissident students as the leader of the resistance against the conservative establishment and as an embodiment of the values of free Germany. Of course, Speer is a bit more complicated than that, but he is a favorite of the rebellious youth who are ready to die for him if necessary.
• Repressive, but Efficient: Speer's ultimate goal is to reform the Reich in his vision of fascism, deprived of its most self-destructive insanity, but still possessing its worst ideological qualities. Unlike Hitler's Reich before it, Speer's Reich is not a total disaster that trips on itself. If Speer succeeds in sidelining both the Gang of Four and the Nazi hardliners, his Nazi Germany stands a very good chance to win the Cold War and remain a superpower well into the 21st century.
• Sanity Slippage: The more that the Gang of Four strips Speer of his powers and renders him their puppet, the more angered and unhinged Speer grows. It's to the point where he imagines and daydreams himself killing Schmidt.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If he loses the German Civil War, Speer flees to the United States before his underlings formally announce their surrender.
• Sequel Hook: His new bio in the Gang of Four ending hints that he may still have ambitions at regaining power.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Speer's initial portrait has him wearing a civilian suit. If he manages to hold onto power, his 70s portrait has him wearing a brown NSDAP uniform. If he becomes a puppet (of either the Gang of Four or the hardliners), he continues wearing a civilian suit in the 70s.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Speer's faction consists of pragmatic reformers like himself as well as younger radicals and supporters of democracy who disagree with him on certain issues but see him as the best opportunity for reforming the Reich. While Speer and his radical support base can't exist without each other, their unresolved differences can prove to be their mutual undoing.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Speer rapidly goes off the deep end as the slave revolt commences and especially if the Gang of Four beats him in the power struggle, attempting and failing to kill Schmidt, and being reduced to a Puppet King as a result.
  • If he loses power to the conservative faction, Speer becomes completely withdrawn, dejected by the fact that his own party will undo all of the pragmatic reforms he previously implemented and slowly doom Germany through their wasteful attempts to revitalize the old, corrupt Nazi ideology.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: An otherwise competent example, but he mainly sees Germany and its place in the world as one giant engineering "project" that he could tweak and modify to his heart's content, whether others want it or not. This is true whether it's in the Paternalist or Reformed National Socialist path.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: Leader of the Core Speerites (Speer)

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Core Speerites) ^{Click to Show}What defines a 'Speerite'? What manner of ideological convictions sets a follower of Speer apart from 'orthodox' National Socialists? Truthfully, the answer is: "Not many at all".

Albert Speer himself has, for some ten years, advocated for change at almost every level of the Reich - Individual freedoms, economic liberalization, the rejuvenation of the NSDAP. However, to refer to his position as distinct from National Socialism would be in error - above all else, the purpose of Speer's ideology is to save the Reich from itself and undo the failures that have led it to near-ruination.

Those who look to Speerism as the light of freedom are chasing a will-o'-the-wisp, a false hope gleaming within the fog of totalitarianism. Those who mistake reform for freedom and pragmatism for compassion will find themselves profoundly disappointed in time... but for those seeking to preserve Hitler's dream, Speerism is the only truth that matters anymore.

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• Do Wrong, Right: Speer is still a devout Nazi, but believes that economic and societal reforms are needed to save the Reich. These reforms broadly include economic liberalization and broader individual freedoms, but the various foci in the Speer facelift teaser shows that the exact nature of these policies can vary.
• Egocentric Team Naming: Speer's personal clade in his facelift teaser are named the Core Speerites.
• Enemy Mine: According to his teased clade description, Speer commands a great number of followers who want to rollback on the regime's totalitarianism, contrary to his own ambitions of merely reforming the NSDAP regime. For now, though they remain united against the rival clades.
• The Hermit: Speer stops making many public appearances immediately after his victory in the Kampfzeit from his facelift teaser. This is problematic for the Propaganda Ministry and a source of discontent as discussions circle of whether to not he is living up to his promises, despite just coming to power. This provokes Speer to try and give a Rousing Speech on the needs of reform at the Nuremburg rally.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • If Speer gives the institutional reformists a token gesture of good faith in his facelift teaser, he will reshuffle and empower the Reichstag committees to give them some sovereignty. In combination with coordinating and aiding Jordan and the party reformists, Speer hopes that these measures will accomodate his reforms in the long term. Speer's motives are recognizes by Oberländer and Kiesinger, as they know Speer is trying to empower himself and recall his willingness to bulldoze his opponents as Armaments Minister.
  • Alternatively in the Speer facelift teaser, he can empower organizations like the DAF, SA, NSDStB, and Hitler Youth, with the goal of indoctrinating the youth to his teachings and guarantee support for the state from the bottom-up. He also hopes that this can be a Long Game of providing a new pool of loyal bureaucrats.
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: In the Speer facelift teaser, the Führer will attempt to reconcile with Japan, as matters have cooled over who should own the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian Ocean. The primary motivation is to find some unity against the OFN and to access the vast markets of the CPS.
• We Have Become Complacent: Speer believes this to be the reason that Germany stagnated after its victory in the Second World War. As he argues in the Speer clade teaser, there were Nazis who treat National Socialism as a rigid and dogmatic ideology, which left them blinded by petty rivalries. Thus, Speer calls for reforms according to the state's needs and to tolerate some differences in opinion in the interests of National Socialism.

Martin Bormann

^{70s Bormann portrait (SPOILER)}

^{Bormann portrait coming in Europas Narben}

Role: Parteiminister^note Head of Government (Hitler cabinet), Head of State (German Civil War victor)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Konservativ Faction^note National Socialist German Workers' Party - Conservative Faction

Ideology: National Socialist Orthodoxy^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Nazism has always relied primarily on two things: nationalistic sympathies towards one's own nation, and a central strongman smart enough to trample his enemies in the political game and sway the masses. None of Hitler's potential successors embodied this more than Martin Bormann; who learned closely from The Führer in his time as his secretary and strives to emulate him in every way. In doing so; Bormann has honed in on the nationalistic sentiments of the population to convince them that he is the only man in the Reich able to keep them safe and their nation secure. Often calling himself the 'Second Hitler' to cheering masses as he fed them exactly what they wanted.

The political arena has proven to be less of a battlefield and more of a shooting gallery to Bormann as well. While Bormann oft paints himself as an anti-intellectual and a simpler man to the masses, in the Reichstag he has proven himself to be a fierce negotiator, power player and deceiver to many. While Germany is divided between himself and the others who dared fight him, the Reichstag has always been firmly under his boot. Truly, if politics could win wars, then Bormann would have long ago conquered the world.

70's In-Game Biography (Warning: Unmarked Spoilers) ^{Click to Show}The Brown Kaiser sits on his bloody throne in the heart of Germania as the Party fawns before him. His opponents are dead. The Reformists, the Militarists, the dissident Conservatives – all have been extinguished. The institutions that threatened his rule have been annihilated. Bormann is Germany, and Germany is Bormann.

Yet the clockwork of the bureaucratic apparatus grows rusty and stiff. His Party comrades gaze at him not with respect or love, but pure fear. Mass protests, violent riots and deadly terrorist attacks have seized the nation and refused to let go. The threat to the east looms ever larger, and the recent cancer diagnosis raises the grim question:

Who will succeed the Führer?

In-Game Biography (Hitler cabinet) ^{Click to Show}The masses cheer Hitler, the army salutes Göring, and the intellectuals admire Speer's oppressive architecture. Yet how many Germans would recognise Parteiminister Martin Bormann, the little grey man lurking in the Führer's shadow?

Men of grand goals often boast humble beginnings. Born to a postman at the turn of the century, Martin Bormann lived through the First World War to become an estate manager of a farm. Violence was never far behind the young man. He was imprisoned for assisting the brutal murder of a school teacher, became a treasurer for the Freikorps, and leapt into the SA with thuggish vigor. An obsessive administrator with bureaucratic finesse, Bormann eventually joined Hitler's Inner Circle as the Chief of the Party Chancellery.

Over the last two decades, the Brown Eminence has weaved a web of deception, bribery, and blackmail, coalescing power around himself with appointments, promotions, and firings. He sits at the heart of this web, smoking a cigar, fawning pathetically before his superiors while treating his subordinates like cattle. His opponents consider him a crude and uncultured parvenu who has transformed the NSDAP into his own corrupt plaything; his supporters preach loyalty so long as they can maintain their positions of power. While despised by many, the Parteiminister has entrenched his position by standing firm against the growing forces of revision and reaction.

As the Führer's health fails, will the Brown Eminence finally step out of the shadows?

The Parteiminister of the NSDAP, Bormann is a political veteran and one of the Führer's closest confidants. Acting as the the leading voice of Party conservatives, Bormann has wide-ranging support amongst the many strata of the German society. Yet politics, like war, is no simple affair: even if Bormann comes to power, he will have to triumph over disagreeing voices both within and without Germania, to truly live up to his promises of stabilizing the Reich.

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• Abusive Parent: He is extremely neglectful of his eldest son, Martin Bormann Jr. When he disappears during the South African War, his father expresses no concern on his whereabouts and refuses to see him when he returns, dismissing him as a failure.
• All for Nothing: Played with. Upon learning that he has at best only two more years to live due to terminal lung cancer, it sinks in for Bormann that he doesn't have enough time to keep the Reich going, and that all he's really done is delaying the inevitable. That said, he still tries, even if in vain, to find a way to ensure the survival of his Thousand Year Reich.
• The Alternet: Later down Bormann's path, he will fund an alternate version of Project Cybersyn known as the Entscheidungsnetzwerk, connecting all the Reich's major economic centers into a single centralized digital network to assist in economic decision-making and improve the Reich's economic efficiency.
• Ambition Is Evil: Bormann is always hungry for power and, by the end of his campaign, he will concentrate even more power to the Führership than even Hitler did.
• Animal Motifs: Dogs, and more specifically, bulldogs. Bormann is described as rather short and stout, making his authority loudly known thanks to a short temper and wanting to keep an edge against his perceived rivals. This is especially present with the events where the US Presidents meet with him, who usually make comparisons between him and bulldogs. He even has a pet bulldog of his own, named "Adolf."
• Assassin Outclassin': In the Anti-Military Dismantlement path, Schörner tries to assassinate Bormann with a rigged car bomb, but the Führer's Orpo agents save his life.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Entscheidungsnetzwerk or "Cybersyn" is an incredible system that can help balance the national budget, but any disturbance to it, like the Oil Crisis, will be enough to render it crippled, making Bormann's dream of an economist-less economy realistically unfeasible.
• Bad Boss: Just like Hitler before him, Bormann is an unpleasant man to work under, having little patience for failure and having his men possibly executed if he's sufficiently angered.
• Bald of Evil: Bormann was already balding in the last years of his life IRL. By 1962 in TNO, he is completely bald.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Bormann sees himself as the continuation of Hitler, and acts accordingly to live up to that image. By 1972, he can find himself in a very similar situation to his predecessor, dying of cancer while the Reich is debilitated by widespread riots and terrorist attacks.
• Believing Their Own Lies: Especially once the Opulence happens, Bormann falls for his own propaganda of being an untouchable, unstoppable Führer. Coincidentally, this also marks the point wherein the flaws of Orthodox National Socialism really start rearing their head, setting the stage for the "Herbst" and the Reich's instability.
• Berserk Button: True for a short fascist dictator, his height is one for him. If Bormann visits President LeMay in the White House, the latter goes straight for it by calling him "Little Martin" and "squirt" to his face, at which Bormann immediately loses his composure utterly and breaks into angry, shrill screaming and making death threats.
• Blatant Lies:
  • During reconstruction after the civil war, Bormann lifts all restrictions on smoking, even falsely claiming that Hitler told him on his deathbed that "Smoke does not harm the Aryan body". Nobody questions this obvious lie.
  • If Bormann wins the civil war and Speer escapes to the United States, the latter will publish a book to reveal Bormann's lecherous nature and sexual predation. To his inner circle, Bormann angrily denounces these claims as lies, even though there are several events showing otherwise.
• Big Brother Is Watching: Bormann can monitor all of his citizens through the Orpo's surveillance and he even cultivates this image by planting propaganda posters of himself everywhere, giving the impression that he's always overlooking the people.
• Blood from the Mouth: Bormann's 1972 portrait has blood stains from hemoptysis on his collars—a symptom of progressing lung cancer.
• Book Ends: An early event during Bormann's tenure follows a young German excitedly watching the propaganda cartoon Heil Zeit!, glorifying the Führer as a superhero defending the Reich from its enemies. In the last few events of the Opulence, the same boy grows up to be a teenager, now seeing through the lies of the Nazi regime and joining the protestors' chant "Fuck Bormann, fuck the Nazis!"
• Boring, but Practical: Unlike Speer's borderline revolutionary Gang of Four, Bormann's reforms are relatively mundane. Instead of freeing the slaves (or adopting them into "Führer's Own" work battalions), Bormann simply repatriates the slaves (technically freeing them and sending them to their country of origin where they'll be working for low wages out of sight) and promotes Germans to get the jobs in Germany. Instead of dismantling the corporations and taking them over via threats, while actively pumping money into small businesses and nationalization, Bormann makes deals with said megacorps and reins in their power with sweet talk, leaving the German capitalist system alone. He will take over some corporations, but only if their leaderships are revealed to be plotting against him. Rather than doing revolutionary research projects and setting up the Internet, he funnels money into a computerized "decision network" to patch up the leaks in the economic system and increase efficiency. Unlike Speer, who will either change the world for the better thanks to his subordinates puppeting him, or cement fascism, Bormann fixes the leaks in the boat and stops the rocking. And it works almost as good as Speer's. Until the Opulence hits, and Bormann begins truly indulging in excess. Then the RAF starts its rampage.
• Break the Haughty: In 1972, it's implied that Bormann is all but broken when finding out about his terminal lung cancer, especially upon realizing that he simply wouldn't have enough time to avert the Reich's seemingly inevitable spiral towards collapse once he dies.
• Chekhov's Gun: Bormann's abolishment of Hitler's ban on smoking seems irrelevant at first, but it becomes relevant in 1972 when Bormann is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.
• Cliffhanger: Bormann's Germany currently ends with the arrival of the Herbst and Bormann getting diagnosed with terminal cancer. With his house of cards collapsing around him, and getting informed of his cancer by his doctor, Bormann simply stays silent and declares:
  Bormann: "I've made up my mind. A Thousand Years is not enough. A Thousand Years will never be enough."
• Corrupt Politician:
  • To ensure the loyalty of the Orpo, Bormann illicitly offers them large sums of cash as a "reward for their service".
  • After dismantling Siemens for their role in the Reformist Plot, Bormann will bribe their assets to the other three megacorporations in exchange for their loyalty. All other independent buyers, who aren't so easily swayed by money, will be kept loyal through blackmail of their dirtiest secrets.
• Cruel Mercy: If Bormann orders the HVA to assassinate Kiesinger and Erhard, Kiesinger is paralyzed from the neck down while Erhard flees the continent. Bormann then calls off the hunt, pardons Kiesinger and leaves him to his fate.
• Cult of Personality: Bormann cultivates a strong cult of personality around him just like Hitler before him, and there is a series of events in Bormann's Germany showing that he has created a children's TV show called Heil Zeit! that turns him into a superhero who protects the Reich from its enemies like Göring.
• Cutting Corners: One of his more foreboding responses to the Oil Crisis is to build Hochleistungskanalreaktors, or high-power channel type reactors, that are cheap to build, but very unstable and could easily blow up in the Reich's face, if the solution goes wrong.
• Dark Lord on Life Support: By the beginning of the 1970s, Bormann's smoking has led to lung cancer and his health hasn't been improved by his growing paranoia after the assassination of Walther Hewel, as he can barely get any sleep due to his nightmares of an assassin lunging at him too. By the end, Bormann is a tired, old man who has no more than two years to live.
• Didn't Think This Through: It turns out that enacting two widescale purges in just a decade which eliminate most of your competent and powerful supporters leaves a massive power vacuum for anti-Nazi resistance movements to fill in and begin launching terrorist attacks.
• Dirty Old Man: Bormann is in his 60s, but he continues to have a promiscuous life behind closed doors, even boasting about using his Führer position to take advantage of female employees and young actresses, whether they want it or not.
• Do Not Go Gentle: A villainous example. Even after learning of his cancer diagnosis and that he'd have only two more years left to live, he still refuses to let go of the Nazi dream of a Thousand-Year Reich, however impossible it increasingly becomes.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Subverted. Both his allies and enemies insultingly call him "the Brown Eminence", but Bormann doesn't care, being more focused on his duties than his character.
• Enemy Mine: In the immediate reconstruction of the civil war, Bormann must side with either Speidel or Schörner to sideline the other and solidify control of the Wehrmacht. Bormann doesn't like either of them, but he'll have to form a truce if is to rule as Führer.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Upon being informed of Schmidt's exile to the United States and protection under the FBI, Bormann deduces these facts as evidence of Schmidt being an American spy, sent to sabotage the Reich by helping Speer.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: ZigZagged. He remembers fondly of his wife Gerda, but ultimately thinks of her as a tool to breed more for the Aryan race. He also doesn't inquire about the disappearance of his son, Martin Bormann Jr., after his participation in the South African War, only recognizing that he had served Germany well. However, when he learns that his son actually survived and has returned to Germany years later, Bormann is genuinely stunned, but he tells the messenger, Gerhard Klopfer, to just release his son, refusing to see him face-to-face. However, Bormann does briefly mutter his son's nickname "Little Kronzi" in shock for a few seconds before he is snapped back into reality, suggesting that he does hold an ounce of affection for him.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He personally views Hüttig as unpleasant and draconian, even by his standards. Not to mention criticizing his abominable haircut.
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • His conflict with Schirach is essentially a power struggle between two unsavory, power-hungry Nazis.
  • Shortly after the civil war, Bormann tracks Göring to Central Africa and orders him discreetly killed before framing his demise as suicide.
  • Hardly any tears are shed when Bormann orders Albert Speer's assassination.
• Exotic Extended Marriage: Bormann legalizes polygamy at the height of his power during the Opulence, justifying it with man's nature to spread his seed everywhere and calling monogamy Jewish Christian nonsense that prevented the growth of the Aryan race. The German public, predictably enough to anyone but Bormann, is irked at the very thought of this concept.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Downplayed. Given Bormann's shrewdness and pragmatic approach to upholding orthodox National Socialism, it's not immediately obvious that the Reich under his rule is not what it seems. Even if he manages to bring forth the Opulence, however, the rot and excesses of the ideology ultimately wind up bringing Germany to the brink of chaos, no matter what he does. However, while his dream of a "Thousand Year Reich" may be unlikely, the NSDAP regime is still far from out of the game and Word of God has suggested that it can limp past Bormann's death, unless something catastrophic happens.
• Fat Bastard: He's a stout, fat Nazi.
• Foil: He's revealed to be one to Italo Balbo in Italy. While both are committed to upholding the vision of their predecessors (Hitler and Mussolini respectively), and claim to be orthodox in their views, Balbo is shown to be more pragmatic and proactive to ensure his brand of Italian Fascism endures. Though Bormann seems similar at first that goes out the window once the Opulence hits, and he doubles-down on the very excesses of National Socialism that would ultimately come back to haunt him.
• For Science!: Bormann can deploy experimental Wuderwaffen in the South African War, testing their new weapons against the enemy.
• Frameup: If Bormann decides to invade Poland to reassert German control, he will launch Operation Doppelganger, which uses dead bodies to create fake evidence that shows the Poles launching reprisal massacres against German settlers, giving him a Casus Belli to invade Poland in the name of self-defense. This is a Call-Back to the Gleiwitz incident, which was used by Nazi Germany to justify their invasion of Poland in 1939.
• Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Bormann smokes like a chimney, particularly cigars. One of his first events is rolling back the Reich's anti-smoking policies, claiming Hitler planned to do the same and confessed as such to Bormann on his deathbed. It bites him in the ass when he's diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.
• He-Man Woman Hater: As an orthodox national socialist, Bormann is big on masculinity and dismissive of women in general. He indirectly insults and directly snubs Margaret Chase Smith if she is president during his State Visit to America. During the Opulence, he attempts to institute polygamy for blatantly-misogynist reasons.
• Head-in-the-Sand Management: At the height of his arrogance during the Opulence, Bormann instructs all of his subordinates to ignore the Hamburg protests and other uprisings, claiming that they will blow over with time. Bormann gets knocked out of his high when the protests reach Germania and Hewel is butchered by the RAF, but by then, it's too late to salvage the situation.
• Historical In-Joke: Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung, Bormann's foreign intelligence agency, shares its name with East Germany's foreign intelligence agency, which was a part of The Stasi.
• History Repeats:
  • While investigating the June of Deceit conspiracy, Bormann uncovers a scheme of several conservative functionaries to seize power by establishing a committee that would circumvent the bureaucracy, very similar to Bormann's own attempt to do the same in 1943 through the Dreierausschuß. The event concerning the development is even titled with this trope.
  • In 1962, Hitler is very close to dying, he hasn't named a successor, his Reich will be in turmoil once he dies and is a shadow of his former self, dying in a year. In 1972, Bormann is very close to dying, hasn't named a successor, and is a shadow of his former self. The only difference is that the Reich is already in turmoil once he finds out he's got lung cancer and has got only two years to live. Not to mention Gehlen's increasingly close relationship with Bormann, not unlike Bormann's own with Hitler. Fitting for a man who sells himself as the continuation of Hitler.
• Historical Villain Downgrade: In this mod, Bormann is portrayed as a relative moderate compared towards Himmler's insane devotion to Nazi doctrine. In real life, Bormann could arguably be considered more fanatical than Himmler, criticizing his rival for not being extreme enough. For example, Bormann criticized Himmler's advocacy of collaborators in the SS.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: In the face of the troubles brought on by the Oil Crisis, Bormann concentrates more power to himself so that he can effectively respond to the crisis. However, this leads to many of his subordinates that he's becoming too dictatorial and taking away their power, which could culminate in Bormann's downfall through the June of Deceit.
• Hollywood Atheist: Bormann isn't an atheist in a strict meaning of the word, but he holds Christianity in utter contempt, believing that it is irreconcilable with the ideals of National Socialism. Being the savvy politician he is, however, Bormann recognizes the importance of the Church as a political institution and its place in German society and does not threaten it. He changes his mind during the Second Dismantlement and especially the Opulence, when he brutally cracks down on churches and the most outspoken priests and shames the religious people into worshiping the Party and the Führer instead.
• Hypocrite: At one point, Bormann insults Göring as a "fat pig", even though he's pretty portly himself.
• Internal Reformist: Downplayed. While obviously not to the same extent as Speer, Bormann is willing to make some reforms here and there to fix the Reich's problems. Ultimately though, Bormann remains an orthodox Nazi who will sooner or later dismantle the reformist faction in either the First or the Second Dismantlement.
• In-Universe Factoid Failure: In his legalization of polygamy, Bormann dismisses monogamy as "Judeo-Christian nonsense" alien to Aryan society. In reality, pre-Christian Germanic cultures were mostly monogamous and were generally "content with one wife" (according to Tacitus).
• It's All About Me: The person Bormann values most is himself. He considers himself the one true master of the Reich, discarding Hitler as someone to move on from and preparing to eliminate anyone else who would try to usurp his position.
• Jerkass: Geniality is not his strong suit. He's quick to anger, swears like a sailor, and displays a lot of cruel mannerisms when talking to other people. And that's without mentioning he's a Nazi.
• Join or Die: While preparing to industrialize the Reich, Bormann convinces the megacorporations to follow his agenda or be destroyed.
• Karmic Death: At the end of his route, Bormann is fated to die in 2 years from Lung Cancer, which is the direct result of him smoking like a furnace all the time and rolling back all of the Reich's anti-smoking laws.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Quite literally, during the lead up to his attempt to open diplomacy with the United States, when a friend's dog scares his own and the insecure Bormann quickly retaliates.
  • As Bormann implements harsher practices against the slaves to mitigate the Oil Crisis, he keeps them barely content by promising to free them when they've completed sufficient work. However, Bormann actually has no intention of keeping his promise, only interested in seeing how the slaves will compete with each other to be the first freed and remarking the whole situation to be "delightfully devilish".
• Know When to Fold 'Em: If the South African War lasts for an extensive period of time, Bormann may decide to cut his losses and make peace with the OFN, forgetting that the whole conflict ever happened.
• Last Disrespects: After winning the German Civil War, Bormann has all busts of Speer and Göring destroyed to bury their memory. By the end, the only art pieces left are of Bormann and Hitler.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste:
  • After Reichswerke's downfall in the First Dismantlement, Bormann will take advantage of their weakness by seizing their assets and either selling them or placing them under direct government control.
  • While managing the effects of the Oil Crisis, Bormann will use it as an opportunity to invest in new civilian Wunderwaffen that he's interested in, such as alternative power through wind power or solar energy.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Despite being a Nazi, Bormann's agenda is pretty vanilla and "moderate" compared to Göring's warmongering plans and Heydrich's desire to implement Spartanism, both of which will either lead to the Reich's collapse or a nuclear apocalypse.
• Magnum Opus: Bormann's proudest achievement is the Breitspurbahn, a massive construction project that builds long swathes of railways to link the Reich and other key cities throughout their East European territories. When it's completed, Bormann is ecstatic to see his legacy cemented and it's one of the few times where he genuinely smiles.
• Make an Example of Them:
  • To intimidate the militarists to remain loyal after the First Dismantlement, Bormann will have several of them killed to show off his power.
  • Irritated by bankers trying to buy up all of Reichswerke's stock after the First Dismantlement of the militarists, Bormann will have several of them killed to warn everyone else of what will happen if they oppose him again.
• Meet the New Boss:
  • Bormann cultivates a public persona that intentionally emphasizes continuity with Hitler's rule. Which he then uses to mask his own efforts to fix the Reich's growing faults, with the populace ostensibly none the wiser. By 1972, however, this takes on a more ironic meaning as his efforts wind up replicating a chaotic atmosphere and bringing the Reich on the precipice of collapse, similarly to how things were by the time Hitler died.
  • To provide more jobs for the average German, Bormann abolishes the slavery, though the slaves are not actually freed under the new system. Instead, they will be sent to camps, ghettos, and cities in Eastern Europe, where they can be forced into a life of indentured servitude and ultimately experience no true improvement to their livelihoods.
• Minigame: Bormann's central mechanic is "Das Kartenhaus", a system that tracks the loyalties and powers of all the sectors of German society under Bormann and allows him to interact with these factions to either manage their loyalty or their power. Getting enough control in Das Kartenhaus serves as the precondition to triggering the Dismantlements.
• Mood Whiplash: After the Second Night of the Long Knives, Bormann's Germany enters a phase known as the "Opulence", where the German economy shoots through the roof, new megaprojects are being started, while Bormann adopts a fireband position and passes some radical policies like abolishing slavery on the spot, formally integrating Ostland and the Generalgouvernement, and legalizing polygamy. After the Opulence, however, things go down sharply; Bormann is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, student protests rise in intensity and have to be cracked down, while the RAF abducts and later murders Reichsminister Walther Hewel and his wife. This triggers a period known as the "Herbst", with riots and terrorist attacks rising in frequency across the Reich.
• Moral Myopia:
  • Bormann has the nerve to get angry when Poland rejects his offer to rejoin the Pakt after his deal would've subjugated them under a satellite state with no autonomy of its own.
  • To keep the bankers loyal, Bormann blackmails them with information of the abuse they conduct in private, such as one individual physically abusing and extorting sex from women. It's extremely hypocritical coming from a Nazi who not only contributed to the Holocaust, but also extorts sex from young women.
  • After spending years ruling Germany as a cruel dictator, Bormann is left boggled when the people rise against him in the Herbst, deeming them all ungrateful.
• Morton's Fork: When a student protest rises up in Germania during the early stages of the Herbst, Bormann can either leave them be or unleash the Orpo to break them up. Neither option changes the ultimate outcome. The former option means the protestors will march towards the Volkshalle and require intervention from the Orpo, and both scenarios end with the protests returning the next day, stronger than ever.
• The Napoleon: Bormann is not a man of great physical stature, and he is pretty insecure about it. His state visits to the United States almost all reference his short stature, and a few of them even feature him being humiliated by it.
• Never Recycle a Building: Subverted. Bormann's reconstruction efforts explicitly mention that they will rebound from the civil war by rebuilding the urban ruins, believing that a weak man would do otherwise.
• No OSHA Compliance: Exaggerated during the Oil Crisis, where Bormann pauses the abolition of slavery and uses the remaining slaves to mitigate the disaster by extracting resources from Eastern Europe under harsher measures and with even fewer "luxuries".
• No True Scotsman: During the reconstruction after the civil war, Bormann will deem any German who opposed him as not wholly Aryan and judge that they "displayed a suspiciously subhuman mindset".
• Nostalgia Filter: Bormann considers the 1940's to be the golden era for the Nazi regime, compared to its birth in the 1930's and the troubles it faced in the 1950's and 60's. In the Opulence, Bormann will kickstart a "National Renaissance", where the people will recapture the spirit and culture of the idolized decade.
• Number Two: Bormann starts as the head of government for Hitler and the only person in the Reich who can rival the Führer in popularity and influence (if not already exceeded him after Hitler retired from making decisions).
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: After winning the German civil war, Bormann deals with the Reich's rebellious colonies by allowing them to peacefully return to the Reich's fold (with more autonomy), while making it clear if they refuse, they will not be able to withstand a German invasion.
• Only Sane Man: By 1962, Bormann sees himself as this. He's not blind to the faults within the Reich, and should he assume power, will try to do what's necessary to keep the regime from falling apart.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Bormann is generally characterized as a short-tempered, violent Nazi who doesn't take bad news very well. However, when he learns that he's developed lung cancer in a time where riots and terrorist attacks are growing in frequency and eating away at the Reich's stability. Instead of exploding with anger like he usually does, a dejected Bormann can only resign to the fact that his dream of a Thousand Year Reich may be impossible.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Bormann can choose to pardon Kiesinger and Erhard and allow them to return to Germany when the HVA locates them in Switzerland, with no strings attached and at no real benefit to himself.
  • Although he is angered by Terboven's desertion from Norwegene, Bormann can merely have his titles stripped rather than sentence him to execution out of gratitude for aiding him in the civil war.
• Plausible Deniability: To silence an exiled Speer, Bormann can order a discreet assassination on him, which would give them enough ambiguity to deny responsibility.
• Police State: Bormann massively expands and reforms the Ordnungspolizei under his rule, and has it absorb the Abwehr and the Gestapo to form a new Secret Police agency called Strategische Unterstützungspolizei.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Bormann, as an orthodox National Socialist unlike Speer, is an awful person with a loathsome ideology, and the game does not attempt to treat any of the things he believes or does as "good" per se. However, he is a shrewd man who understands that not every bit of the National Socialist machine is good for Germany, and as a result, while still an authoritarian state built on racism and exploitation, his Germany will make some incremental progressive reforms, like phasing out slavery and reducing oppression of native peoples, reigning in the abuses of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer, and demilitarizing society overall, to keep the regime stable. Zigzagged wildly during the Opulence, where he feels he's invincible before the one-two-three punch of the RAF's rampage, his cancer diagnosis, and the looming Second West Russian War take the wind out of his sails, as he does hugely ambitious things both villainous (cracking down on and trying to phase out Christianity, legalizing polygamy and having his way with any woman he wants) and non-villainous (abolishing slavery on the spot, starting crazy megaprojects) without regard to pragmatism.
  • Despite Schörner's aid to Göring during the German Civil War, Bormann has him pardoned because executing him would create a martyr for the militarists to rally around and severely weaken the Wehrmacht.
  • Though he has no further use of Speidel's reformists after taking out Schörner, Bormann may avoid executing them outright and instead persuade the less loyal to join his side because it would create less public backlash.
  • After pinpointing Schmidt's exile to the United States, Bormann avoids further persecution against him because he is being protected by the FBI and any move against Schmidt would incite open conflict with the OFN.
  • With harsh, unpopular rationing practices implemented to mitigate the Oil Crisis' effects, Bormann makes a consolation attempt to earn the people's support back by giving them a generous stimulus pack, placating their complaining. Simultaneously, Bormann establishes the Volksgemeinschaft, or People's Community", to provide more social programs and thereby win more goodwill from the public.
  • As the student protests approach their peak when they reach Germania, Bormann can refrain from breaking up the opposition and heed Gehlen's suggestion to let them voice their discontent, since suppression would only make them angrier.
• Propaganda Machine: To garner support, Bormann produces a propaganda children's show called Heil Zeit!, featuring a Teutonic knight version of Bormann invariably slaying all of his enemies, including Speidel, Schörner, and Schirach. The show is told from the perspective of a young German boy who eagerly watches the show, but grows out of it as he matures, eventually telling his younger brother to stop watching it and joining protests against Bormann.
• Properly Paranoid: During the South African War, Bormann is very suspicious of Hüttig, finding his admiration of Burgundy an indication of his diminishing loyalties to the Reich. He turns out correct when Hüttig does eventually absorb the other African Reichskommissariats and cuts ties with Germany.
• The Purge:
  • Bormann ends phase 1 of his focus tree with the discovery of a plot (known as the Reformist or the Militarist Plot) in the Wehrmacht to coup him led by either the Reformists under Hans Speidel or the Militarists under Ferdinand Schörner^note The faction that makes the conspiracy is the faction that Bormann didn't side with when appointing the Chief of the OKW., and will launch a purge on them in what is known as the Dismantlement.
  • Later on in Bormann's story, Gehlen will tip Bormann off on a massive conspiracy inside his government (known as the June of Deceit). If Bormann investigates it, he will discover that the conspiracy's mastermind is his deputy Baldur von Schirach, who's planning to depose him and seize the Führership by working with the leftover Wehrmacht faction, high ranking government officials, and the Big Four corporations. If Bormann successfully discovers Schirach's conspiracy, he will launch the Second Dismantlement, a far more aggressive purge into far more sections of the German society to root out the faction that he didn't purge in the First Dismantlement, and replace almost all ministers in his cabinet. This event is known in-universe as the Second Night of the Long Knives, and has an accompanying superevent.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • If Speidel wasn't removed as Chief of the OKH, but the Reformist Plot is stopped anyway, Speidel gets shot under Müller's orders, but Bormann doesn't take much satisfaction from his victory because the German markets are still left in ruins from the conspiracy and will take more time to recover.
  • When chaos erupts in the Wilhelmstraße Riots of the Herbst, Bormann sends the Orpo to crush them. Initially, their strategy works, but the protestors just keep coming back, even more zealous, culminating in some outright attacking or killing Orpo officers they see.
• Realpolitik: Bormann can engage in diplomacy with the United States as one of his focuses, and it is done to lessen their nations' hostilities in favor of aiming their focuses on Japan and its sphere. This includes a series of different events for Bormann to negotiate how they'll operate, ceremonial visits, and pictures and discussions between the countries' leaders.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: To weaken the influence of the militarists, Bormann can reassign them to useless positions where they can no longer pose a threat to his power.
• Regime Change: If Norway went independent after a Milorg coup, a pro-reformist Bormann will attempt to negotiate for them to rejoin the Pakt upfront (as long as they didn't go socialist), while secretly preparing for a pro-German coup in Norway led by Henrik Rogstad. A pro-Militarist Bormann cannot negotiate with Milorg Norway, though he can still attempt a coup instead of an invasion.
• Royal Harem: While he was already a womanizer and sexual predator, Bormann goes full-hog during the Opulence and legalizes polygamy explicitly so he can marry as many women as he wants. The German public is predictably not enthused.
• Sadist: Bormann is extremely vindictive towards traitors, such as when he orders a recording of the execution of some June of Deceit collaborators for his own viewing pleasure.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If Bormann fails the First Dismantlement, he'll try to flee Germania through a secret passageway, where he can escape in a getaway car.
• Secret Police:
  • After the First Dismantlement, Bormann regards the Orpo as his only true ally to securing his rule, absorbing the Abwehr and Gestapo into them so that they can silently root out potential dissidents.
  • Bormann also establishes the Stratgische Unterstutzungpolizei, designed to monitor all activities in the Reich and arrest anyone disloyal to the Führer.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Out of paranoia fed by Gehlen, Bormann purges Müller when he believes that he may be trying to overthrow him, which just makes Müller join Schirach's real conspiracy to topple Bormann. Simultaneously, it gets Schirach worried enough to begin initiating his June of Deceit plot, so Bormann's own fears of a coup end up confirming themselves.
• Sibling Rivalry: Martin Bormann has a strained relationship with his younger brother Albert. When the German Civil War erupts, Albert Bormann joins forces with Hermann Göring and fights against his own brother.
• Simple, yet Opulent: Subverted. Bormann would like to have a modest appearance because he dislikes pretentious extravagance, but he will show off grandeur because it inspires morale from the people.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Bormann tends to be rather foul-mouthed in private, especially if he is being informed of bad news.
  Bormann: What the fuck do you think? Tell High Command to get their shit together and put those fucking Poles in the dirt!
  • It can come out in public too, if he meets with President Curtis LeMay, another notorious Sir Swears-a-Lot, who not only openly refuses to play ball with him, but even calls him "Little Martin" to his face, leading to a downright swearing duel:
    LeMay: Hey! What did I fucking say? Save it for the conference! This ain't an oppotunity for little Martin to swing his dick around. Talks first, then the propaganda shit.
    Bormann: Don't you fucking dare call me that! Show some respect, or else.
    LeMay: Get over yourself, squirt. You don't intimidate me. You need me, I need you. The Japs are a big fucking threat right now. If they weren't, I wouldn't be shaking hands with a Nazi fucking bastard like you.
    Bormann: Your mongrel fucking nation won't outlast Japan by many years! History will prove this!
    LeMay: I don't give a shit what you think. Whether you like it or not, history is on America's side. We will bury you!
• Snake Oil Salesman: During the Opulence, Bormann advertises the drug, Pervitin, as a miracle cure to any ailment, from a hangnail to cancer. A few people question the validity of its claims and suspect that there's some hidden cost to it, especially since Pervitin is often found in the hands of rich NSDAP members.
• Status Quo Is God: Downplayed. While Bormann also implements his own reforms and pragmatic policies, he still remains an orthodox National Socialist and doesn't purge the ideology of its worst excesses, in contrast to Speer.
• Stealing the Credit: Once he has dealt with the first Dismantlement, Bormann sends his foreign minister, Walther Hewel, to negotiate with Sweden. If the talks succeed, he congratulates Hewel in private, but after he leaves, he decides that Hewel's role had been merely "advisory" and makes a call to the censors...
  I did most of that, not Hewel.
• Stupid Evil: For how shrewd Bormann usually is, it can be easy to fool him, if one appeals to his racism. One individual, lamenting the destruction of various art pieces under Bormann's watch, defects to Switzerland under the guise of caricaturing the average Swiss as a degenerate.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: When appointing a new head of the OKW, Bormann will be forced to work with either Speidel or Schörner, even though he dislikes both of them. He'll eventually be forced to purge whoever he works with during the Second Dismantlement.
• Tempting Fate: Throughout the Opulence tree, Bormann brags about eliminating all threats to his power and making his reign unquestionably invincible. His arrogance ends up proving foolish when the RAF and students rise up in the Herbst. For further irony, Bormann is initially in denial during the early stages of the Herbst and the first opposition to rise up in the Hamburg Protests, foolishly believing that it's just a minor and temporary setback.
• Tranquil Fury: Upon learning of Hüttig's betrayal, Bormann is obviously furious, but his reaction is one of mostly silence and a relatively quiet vow that Hüttig will pay for his treachery.
• Unaccustomed as I Am to Public Speaking...: For all his efforts to present himself as a continuation of Hitler, the one thing Bormann seemingly can't match is his predecessor's charisma. Bormann is self-aware of how bad he is at public speaking since he was a child, often peppering his speech with stammering and grammatical mistakes. However, Bormann delivers a shockingly good speech after the Second Dismantlement, indicating that he can be good at the practice if he's especially passionate.
• Uncertain Doom: If Heydrich defeats him during the Civil War, Bormann will mysteriously disappear, while his followers get butchered by the SS. This may be an Allohistorical Allusion to how Bormann also "disappeared" after World War II before it was discovered that he actually died discreetly during the Battle of Berlin, indicating that Bormann met a similar fate here.
• The Unfettered: During the South African War, Bormann may authorize the military to commit any atrocity or war crime needed to achieve victory, no longer bound to the conventions of war.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • He is suspicious of Hüttig's treasonous loyalty to Burgundy over the Reich, with his intuition being proven right when he forms the Reichstaat and cuts all ties with Germany.
  • Bormann rightfully points out the inefficiency of the German slave system and its detrimental effect on the economy. Hiring German workers proves to be a much more effective policy by increasing their spending power and thereby stimulating the economy.
  • When Bormann learns that Speer has published a book about the inner workings of the Reich, he gets pissed to learn that Speer has whitewashed his role by pinning his crimes onto Bormann. Even if Bormann is moreso angry about being slandered and is hardly a saint himself, his accusations toward Speer are correct.
• Villain with Good Publicity: A long-time associate of Hitler, Bormann learned a few tricks from his master and tries to present himself to the public as the second coming of Hitler, while pursuing his own, ulterior motives. As such, he is the most popular successor after Hitler's demise and thus the most likely to win the German Civil War.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • In the Reformist Plot, Hans Globke, a co-conspirator to Speidel, will blame the Party Chancellery of plotting to use Bormann as a puppet to Schörner, getting them all arrested. Rapidly losing control of the situation, Bormann loses all self-control and angrily shouts to Schörner over the phone to get the situation under control.
  • If Schirach successfully initiates the June of Deceit, Bormann becomes increasingly irrational as the situation around him falls apart. When Walther Hewel, his one remaining ally, urges him to evacuate, a paranoid Bormann accuses him of being a traitor like everyone else, pulling out a pistol to shoot him. Upon this, several loyal OrPo officers disarm Bormann and escort him to the panic room, while another gets medical aid for Hewel.
• Visionary Villain:
  • Bormann has grand ambitions to transform the Reich into an economic powerhouse through the "Modern Wunderwaffe", using the Entscheidungsnetzwerk (or "Cybersyn") to help balance the budget and setting up 'Volksgemeinschaft" to practically reduce unemployment levels to 0%.
  • Bormann also has a great passion for the sciences, offering generous sums of money to research and development firms to create new innovations.
• We Have Reserves: One tactic that can be adopted by Bormann in the South African War is to whittle the OFN down through attrition, using their surplus of "problematic natives" and exiles to slowly overwhelm the enemy, regardless of how many casualties ensue.
• Wham Line: After having a violent coughing fit in front of the Reichministers wherein he coughed up blood, Bormann calls for a doctor. His doctor then informs him that he has lung cancer and only has two years left to live.
  It's bad news, I'm afraid. You have terminal lung cancer. At most, I would give you two years left to live. I'm sorry, my Fuhrer.
• Workaholic: At one point, Bormann mentions that he's had to work twenty hours a day while serving as Hitler's deputy.
• Written by the Winners:
  • After winning the civil war, Bormann destroys all evidence of ever working with his former allies, creating a narrative that he would never cooperate with traitors to the ideals of National Socialism.
  • Once Bormann eliminates all of his remaining rivals in the Second Dismantlement, he picks up construction of Hitler's Welthauptstadt project, even stressing his role in the designs all the way back in the 1940's over Speer. Bormann is lying through his teeth with this story, but there's no one powerful enough or alive to disprove it.
• You Have Failed Me: Bormann has options to punish his subordinates if they make severe failures, such as executing Frank and Terboven for failing to maintain the Reich's control of Poland and Norway, respectively.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Resorting to desperate measures during the South African War, Bormann will authorize the deployment of "volunteer" divisions, which largely consists of disabled Bürgerkrieg veterans living on government assistance and sent to die on the frontlines as a show of their loyalty. However, Bormann has no intention of reintegrating them back into German society and will "dispose of them" when they've achieved victory.
• Your Days Are Numbered: In 1972, Bormann finds out he has at most two years left to live due to terminal lung cancer, all while the political situation in Germany decays further.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: Führer & Reich Chancellor^note Head of State, Leader of the Control Faction

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Control Faction) ^{Click to Show}The Control Faction spreads across the Reich like a maelstrom, sucking every institution and influential figure into its unfathomable depths. At the center of this vortex sits Martin Bormann, the Brown Eminence of the NSDAP.

Bormann's clade seeks the transformation of the NSDAP into a supreme body encompassing all societal and state institutions. The membership must be elite and centralized, comprising Bormann's loyal allies and fervent young men recruited from the Hitler Youth.

Some state the Control Faction has spread its influence due to its adherence to Orthodox National Socialism and Hitler's glorious legacy. Others claim corruption, bribery, and blackmail. Yet nobody denies that this Faction represents Bormann's entrenched power within the mechanisms of the Reich's bureaucratic apparatus.

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• Do Well, But Not Perfect: The teased "Pressure on the Final Bulwark" national focus shows that Bormann can reduce the Church's power as part of his partification plans, but he must not escalate the policy too quickly or else he might destabilize his regime.
• Do Wrong, Right: Bormann is just as much of a reformist as Speer. The difference is that, while Speer projects an international image of a liberalizing influence, Bormann criticizes Germany for not being committed to the NSDAP enough. From the teased description of the Control Faction, Bormann wants to subsume every governing body of Germany into the NSDAP's control so that they hold absolute power.
• Leave No Survivors: One of the more terrifying images from his facelift teaser is the option to mark a "dead zone" in Eastern Europe, a continuation of the Bandenbekämpfung doctrine that declares an entire population to be part of a "bandit" territory and authorizes its complete depopulation.
• Pragmatic Villainy: In a newspaper teaser for his facelift, Bormann can appoint Kurt Waldheim to be his Reichsminister of Foreign Affairs, adopting a less belligerent diplomatic approach so that he can repair Germany's reputation abroad.
• The Purge: When Bormann implemented the Third Four-Year Plan in the Modern Wunderwaffe teaser, he also purges the bureaucracy of those he deems to be corrupt or aging careerists who were hired by Göring and supported Speer, replacing them with loyal party men picked for their ideological zeal and willingness to do paperwork that will reinvigorate the German economy. Thus, Bormann creates the more loyal NSDAP Economics Office, led by Werner Fröhling.

Hermann Göring

^{New Goering portrait, coming in Victor & the Judge}

Role: Reichsmarshall^note Security Minister (Hitler cabinet), Head of State (German Civil War victor)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Militarist Faction^note National Socialist German Workers' Party

Ideology: Stratocratic Nazism^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Göring once made a public challenge that if any Allied bomber dare reach the Reich that forever after he would be known as Hermann Meier. The success of Nazism in the World War proved his bluff wise, and Göring was soon sure to cut himself a piece of the great pie the victors greedily dove into once the Allies lie destroyed.

Using a mix of a somewhat political able mind and several excessive uses of blunt force, namely in the deployment of thugs, militias and 'patriots' to harass and drive off any threats to his power, Göring has centered himself as the sole politician in the Reich who truly listens to the pleas of the soldiery. Seeing no other way to power, he has surrounded himself by uniformed sycophants who have convinced the aging Führer that the only way for the Reich to prosperity would be through the utter destruction of its enemies.

Now, Göring goose-steps arm and arm on what many consider a rapid road to the destruction of the Reich. That is assuming he is soon stopped however, for one can only imagine what may happen once Göring sets his sights overseas...

In-Game Biography (Hitler cabinet) ^{Click to Show}If Adolf Hitler is the undisputed father of the German Reich, Hermann Göring is its beloved uncle. Born in 1893 to Heinrich Ernst Göring, the former governor of Südwestafrika. An early follower of the Führer, Göring has been by Hitler's side since the early days of the Nazi Party in the 1920s. He was a prominent member in the abortive Munich Putsch of 1923 and prominent party leader. His loyalty has not gone unrecognized or unrewarded. Once the Nazi Party took power in 1933 he was made Minister-President of Prussia and President of the Reichstag, both positions he held until the 1950s. After his Luftwaffe aided in the stunning victory over France, Hitler bestowed Göring with the title of Reichsmarschall as a symbol of his authority, at least in theory, over the Wehrmacht - second only to Hitler's.

Following the Reich's victory in the Second World War, Reichsmarschall Göring's power seemed more secure than ever, but events quickly transpired to diminish his station. His choice to resign several key positions, including his Reichstag presidency, in protest of the attempted SS coup may have been an act of loyalty to Hitler, but it left him out in the cold when the reformist wing of the NSDAP began to make major pushes in the assembly. In the years since Göring has come to rely more and more on the militarist officers of the Wehrmacht for his base of support, a mutual partnership in which he supplies them political capital in return for the backing of their arms.

The former Minister of Aviation, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring has become the public face of a large group of hardline militarists from both the military and the Nazi old guard, united by their beliefs that Germany can return to glory by launching a new series of military adventures around the world. Göring initially attached himself to the hardliners in an attempt to bolster his own power, but has found himself becoming their puppet instead. As the militarists grow in power and embolden by the day, Göring finds himself in increasingly deep waters.

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• Affably Evil: For a Nazi, he's pretty polite and conversational, exchanging pleasantries with those he casually visits, like King Edward.
• Allohistorical Allusion: If Heydrich defeats and arrests Göring, he kills himself with a cyanide pill smuggled into his cell before Heydrich could execute him, exactly like what the real Göring did after being sentenced to death in the Nuremberg Trials.
• Appeal to Force: Göring uses brute force as his solution to every problem he's facing.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Göring soon comes to find that being the top man in the Reich, which he has strove to achieve since Hitler came to power, is not all that it's cracked up to be, when he is effectively a puppet of his militarist underlings, and could barely restrain the most hardline among them, if at all.
• Beneath the Mask: Despite nominally heading the Reich's militarists, Göring deep down has more in common with Albert Speer and his reformist plans than anything else. Yet while he personally disagrees with, if not outright resents the viewpoints promoted by the likes of Schörner, he keeps those thoughts to himself. Not that it stops him from trying to discreetly thwart them wherever he could.
• Deal with the Devil: Despite not personally agreeing with many of their viewpoints, Göring attached himself to the militarists because they were the last faction in the Reich who needed a public face in the NSDAP (the reformists, conservatives and SS already had Speer, Bormann and Heydrich). However, in doing so, he has become so reliant on his support base that he is now little more than the militarists' puppet.
• Defector from Decadence: He attempts to be this when he sends a letter to Speer or Bormann (depending on who Hitler chose as his successor), offering to join their side and separate himself from the militarists, knowing that their warmongering plans are suicidal. However, both of them will reject the offer and the letter gets leaked to Schörner, who's absolutely livid over this "betrayal". Fortunately for Göring, he lies that his conservative supporters sent the letter without his knowledge and Schörner buys it.
• Evil Old Folks: Having been born in 1893, Göring is 69 at game start and by far the oldest contender in the German Civil War.
• Evil Reactionary: While Speer is reform-minded and Bormann wants to maintain the status quo, Göring advocates for active regression. He desires a return to the good old days of the Second World War when the Reich was a rising military power. He believes that renewed military adventures will combat the scourges of complacency and modernity...or so is the public perception, when in fact he is only lumped in with true believers in these stances such as Schörner because Speer rejected his attempts at becoming part of the reformist camp.
• Fat Bastard: Göring is still fat and a Nazi, ruling Germany as a warmonger. That being said, time and weaning away from drugs have made him slimmer and leaner than in real life.
• Foil: To Albert Speer. Like him, Göring isn't blind to the flaws of Orthodox National Socialism, considers himself a "reformer", and originally aimed to sway the support of the Gang of Four before siding with the militarists. Unlike Speer, who can assert control over and thwart the Gang of Four, Göring is just barely able to impose power over the militarists to begin with and despite his growing resentment, simply lacks the clout and drive to change his predicament.
• Internal Reformist: At least in spirit. Göring is actually a driven reformist who went so far as to try and become the fifth member of the Gang of Four. He failed, however, as his stature in the Wehrmacht as Reichsmarschall led to his exploitation by the militarists and he is inexorably entangled with Schörner, a fact he deeply resents.
• I've Come Too Far: By 1962, Göring finds himself too involved with the militarists to walk away. With each successive conquest, it only reinforces to him that, despites his misgivings, he has no choice but to keep going along with their plans, lest he get deposed. That doesn't stop him from trying to discreetly thwart them or jostle for power, however.
• Lonely at the Top: Surrounded by both hardline militarists and disgruntled critics like Speidel, Göring has no one to really turn to in order to truly assert his power. Instead, he makes do with working behind their backs, wherever he could.
• Nazi Nobleman: While Göring isn't part of the nobility, he nonetheless acts as though he'd been raised as such. This is not unlike how he conducted himself real life.
• Pet the Dog: Göring fondly remembers his friend, Erich Schumann, down in Neuschwabenland, sending him a congratulatory letter on his nuclear tests and some chocolate to snack on.
• Puppet King: Göring is effectively a puppet of the militarist faction headed by Ferdinand Schörner. Göring himself is personally a fascist reformist, second only to Speer himself. He is mainly concerned with maintaining his personal power, and so actively wants to reform Germany into Speer’s sustainable fascism (minus any reforms that involve him losing authority). But with the reformists rallying around Speer, and Speer refusing to let him join the Gang of Four as its fifth member - Göring saw no path to power. He was forced to be the figurehead for the militarists instead - the one faction looking for a replacement “leader” after Goebbels' untimely death.
• Recovered Addict: At some point, Göring managed to beat his morphine addiction and stabilize both his physical and mental state.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If Göring loses the German Civil War to anyone other than Heydrich, he escapes to Reichskommissariat Zentralafrika alongside a small band of loyalists, only to die of malaria soon after his arrival.
• Smarter Than You Look: While he seems to be a Puppet King under the militarists, Göring intends to build a clique of technocrats and scientists to mold the Reich to his ambitious vision, using his connections with Schumann to do so and implying that he wants to cut loose with his militarist masters.
• Villainous Legacy: If Speer wins the Civil War, Tresckow will have to face the problem of dealing with Göring's warmongering and corrupt legacy in the Luftwaffe, which will either need to be limited or excised completely.
• We Used to Be Friends: Göring used to be chummy with Erhard Milch, a key organizer of the Luftwaffe and member of the Central Planning Board, thanks to Göring vouching Milch for these positions. However, this relationship turned adversarial in the 1950's, where Göring scapegoated Milch for the Luftwaffe's stagnation and did everything he could to strip him of his positions. Göring couldn't truly fire Milch as a Field Marshal because he was protected by Speer. Thus, Göring had him assigned to Madagascar, ensuring that Milch will not throw his influence behind one of his rivals.
• What You Are in the Dark: Beneath the surface, Göring becomes progressively more disdainful of the militarists and their plans, viewing himself instead as being more in line with Albert Speer. For the most part however, he keeps such thoughts to himself.

Reinhard Heydrich

^{As Deputy Reichsführer-SS for Bormann in Europas Narben}

Role: Head of State (German Civil War victor)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - SS Faction^note National Socialist German Workers' Party

Ideology: Spartanism^note National Socialism

The brutal and fanatical Reichsführer of the German SS, Reinhard Heydrich is utterly loyal to Heinrich Himmler and desires to totally reshape Germany into a Spartanist state. For his tropes, see his dedicated subpage. Unmarked Spoilers Ahead!

Oberkommando der Wehrmacht

Hans Speidel

Role: Military Commander, Head of State (Schutzzone Germania, SS Civil War)

Party: Oberkommando der Wehrmacht^note Armed Forces High Command

Ideology: Military Junta^note Despotism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Long has Speidel served proudly in the Wehrmacht and long has the nation been proud to host him. First rising to fame after narrowly staving off a Civil War in the 50s thanks to his quick coup against the SS in the east during the heights of the West Russian War, where he was awarded the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds for gallantry in battle. A rising star, he further rode off the popularity of his old leader and personal friend, Rommel and became one of the most beloved figures in Germany. Later Speidel challenged the Reich's many militarists, namely Ferdinand Schörner, sabotaging Schörner's career and for the second time in Speidel's life preventing a coup in the Reich when he prevented Schörner from taking control of the Wehrmacht for his own gains.

Still, Speidel is not a politician and feels strongly against the increasing ties between the Wehrmacht and the government. Fearing military control of the Reich would destroy it, he has refused all attempts to bribe and cajole him into one of the various factions in the Reich and continues to state that as a soldier his duty will always be to the people. While noble, this means that Speidel is a small island in a swirling sea, and every day the tide comes ever higher.

In-Game Biography (General) ^{Click to Show}Hans Speidel, like many of the senior generals of the German Reich, is a veteran of the First World War, having served as a company commander in the Battle of the Somme, and having remained in the down-sized German army following the Treaty of Versailles. He continued his excellent record of service in restoring Germany to power in the Second World War. Specifically, Speidel is famous for leading the capture of Leningrad in the Second World War, one of the Reich's most damning blows against Bukharin and his Bolshevik comrades.

Speidel is undoubtedly one of the most powerful men in the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, and he has the talent to show it. A leader for the Reformists within the Reich, Speidel believes that Germany should maintain its status as a global hegemonic power, but pays little heed to the Nazi racial policies, which he views as barbaric and outdated. As such, he has pushed for the Reich to adopt the trappings of modernity and reject some of the more outlandish aspects of National Socialism.

This, combined with his lack of membership in the NSDAP, has earned Speidel many enemies within the Reich. His promotion to Chief of the OKW caused outrage amongst the more conservative and reactionary elements of the nation, though the reformist faction was pleasantly surprised. Regardless of one's view on his political beliefs, however, Speidel's military record is damn near spotless.

A proud Wehrmacht general, Speidel gained prominence in the Wehrmacht due to his past acts of pacifying the mutinous SS and the German militarists in recent decades. Politically a reformist, Speidel feels loyalty to the German people first and foremost, and rejects the politicization of the Wehrmacht, while having little interest in Nazi racial policies.

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• Arch-Enemy: Hans Speidel and Ferdinand Schörner fiercely struggle for influence in the Wehrmacht and have a mutual antagonistic history, with Speidel preventing Schörner from taking over the Wehrmacht several times. While Speidel tries to protect the people and thinks that the Wehrmacht shouldn't exert an influence on the civilian government, Schörner desires it openly and wants to use the people as a weapon.
• Beneath the Mask: Even if he points out to Schörner that German troops are not immediately ready to conduct an invasion of HMMLR and that the east is still in rebellion with a calm attitude, he is quietly dreadful of HMMLR's victory and the opportunity it presents for the OFN.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: Speidel spins a complicated conspiracy in the Reformist Plot to overthrow Bormann and Schörner. Specifically, Reichswerke's corruption would be exposed to create an economic depression and give the momentum needed to launch a coup with disloyal Heer units.
• Cincinnatus: Even if he puts an end to the Civil War by himself, Speidel doesn't want to become the new German leader, since he believes that the military shouldn't have a massive role in the government. If he agrees to take the Führer's mantle, he will resign from the military.
• Defector from Decadence:
  • Speidel outright drops any pretenses of SS support following Heydrich’s death and openly aligns with the Deutsches Reich.
  • Speidel can also lead the reformist movement against Schörner and the other militarist factions during the Post-Göring Second German Civil War.
• Elite Army: Speidel's forces, though relatively small, are some of the best trained and most disciplined ones in Germany, and, by the time he enters the Civil War, his forces (compared to that of the other contenders) are fresh and undamaged by the prolonged war.
• Enemy Mine: Should Heydrich win the Civil War and spare his life, Speidel could wind up aligning with him, but only out of duty and in the mutual interest of opposing Himmler's Burgundy. That allegiance goes out the window the moment Heydrich dies, however.
• Face Death with Dignity: If Speidel is purged in the Second Dismantlement under Bormann, he decides to go down fighting rather than getting hanged.
• Historical Badass Upgrade: In Real Life, Speidel was a Generalleutenant in the Wehrmacht, later becoming a 4-star General in the Bundeswehr. In TNO however, as a reward for stopping Himmler's coup, Hitler promoted him to a Generalfeldmarschall, also making him the Chief of the OKW.
• I'm Having Soul Pains: If Speer outmaneuvers the Gang of Four, Henning von Tresckow will hear about Speidel compaining of Joint Pain. He knows in reality, Speidel is depressed over having lost the post of the Chief of the OKW to Otto Ernst Remer.
• I Warned You: He does this to Helmut Schmidt after him negotiating with the Frankfurt Slave Revolt causes several other slaves in other parts of the Reich to become overzealous, causing further revolts and casualties.
• Internal Reformist: Speidel wants to depoliticize the Wehrmacht and reform it away from its bloated, corrupt practices into a proper, modern military.
• Keystone Army: When Speidel gets assassinated by one of Müller's Orpo agents, the Reformist Plot loses all of its potential and his followers surrender shortly afterwards.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: While he is still a general in the Wehrmacht and seeks to uphold German dominance over Europe, in Bormann's route, Speidel becomes one of the leaders of the Reformists in Germany, opposed to his centralisation of power, and will oppose Bormann and plot his downfall either during the Reformist Plot or the June of Deceit.
• Mandatory Unretirement: When Speidel seizes control of Germania after the Civil War erupts, he invites his old friend Erwin Rommel, who is 72 years old and has retired from the military more than a decade ago, to help him protect the capital. During the Civil War, Rommel serves as Speidel's head of government; when the war ends, he retires from the military again and for good.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Speidel and the Wehrmacht elements under his command are loyal to the Reich and its people, rather than to either the Nazis or whoever's actually in charge, and will take matters to their own hands should the need arise. This especially comes into play in Heydrich's path.
• Neutral No Longer:
  • If Heydrich somehow manages to defeat the Anti-Heydrich Pact and the Schutzzone is the only part of Germany not under his control, Speidel will not turn Germania over to his control as with the other contenders, instead declaring a war on the SS that he is likely to lose by that point.
  • If he's not killed in Heydrich's path, he'll eventually and openly defy the SS warlords as head of the Deutsches Reich.
• Nervous Tics: Whenever nervous, while never showing it in the face, he could be seen fiddling with his pen.
• Noble Top Enforcer: Speidel is your next "friendly neighborhood Nazi" after Speer. Even though Speidel wants to preserve German territorial expansion (in the sense of ensuring all Germans are in Germany under German governance), he doesn't believe in racial theories, thinks the slave system is harmful to the country, and considers protecting the people to be his main goal as a soldier. However, unlike Speer, Speidel is very reluctant at his reforms (if he ever attempts them), not surrounded by the Gang of Four, and much less politically competent. Though as it turns out, Speer isn't all that enthusiastic about reform either.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: If Speer wins the German Civil War, Speidel's proposal for reclaiming Poland boils down to strongarming the Poles into peacefully accepting Wehrmacht occupation, under threat of invasion if they refuse.
• Old Soldier: Hans Speidel fought in World War I, fighting as a company commander at the Somme and has been in the military ever since.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: If he and the Schutzzone Germania gets defeated by Heydrich's Germany after the latter is done defeating the other contenders, it is revealed that he recruited Child Soldiers to fight against Heydrich in a great contrast to his professional and moral nature. However, he still comes off as sympathetic given who he is fighting against.
• Quality over Quantity: In contrast to Schörner, Speidel wants a smaller-scale, but more professional Wehrmacht that focuses on creating an Elite Army over a wave of cannon fodder.
• Red Baron: One of Bormann's foci refers to Speidel as Retter des Reichs (Savior of the Reich).
• Reluctant Ruler: He doesn't want to see himself as the new ruler of Germany; the Reichstag has to practically beg for him to stay in power should he win the Civil War. Should the SS plunge the Reich into civil war and warlordism, however, Speidel becomes less hesitant to restore German dignity.
• Series Continuity Error: His Description as a General states that he has been promoted as the Chief of the OKW. However, checking out the Officer Corps tab in-game as Germany reveals his rival, Ferdinand Schörner, to be described as the Chief of the OKW.
• Spotting the Thread: Speidel manages to conceal the Reformist Plot from Bormann, until a sergeant catches two soldiers vandalizing Köln with anti-Bormann propaganda, leading an investigation into wider dissidence from the Wehrmacht.
• Take a Third Option: During the Frankfurt slave revolt in Speer's Germany, Speidel offers a middle-of-the-road option between Schörner's plan to send the Wehrmacht to crush the revolt and Schmidt's plan to negotiate with the slaves. According to Speidel, Germany should send their best units to infiltrate the city and quietly dismantle the insurrection, minimizing casualties, but still appearing strong before the Reich's enemies.
• Team Switzerland: When the German Civil War erupts, Speidel marches into Germania with his like-minded generals and, on the steps of the Reichstag, declares neutrality in the conflict, with a stern warning of an unshakable resistance should any side attempt to attack the capital.
• Tranquil Fury: If Bormann sides with Schörner, Speidel is clearly disappointed and angered, but he hides it with enough composure to seem calm on the outside. It's a stark contrast to Schörner's reaction if he's sided against, in which he completely blows up to everyone's face.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • When he stopped the SS Coup, this caused Oskar Dirlewanger and his brigade to flee to the Southern Urals, unbeknownst to the German leadership, who assumed they would die there, where they are free to terrorise and brutalise the local population, free of meddling from the German High Command.
  • His victory against Bormann in the first Dismantlement only results in Schörner and his militarists mobilizing a counter-coup to seize power and declare a provisional government with themselves at its head.

Ferdinand Schörner

Role: Military Commander, Chef des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht^note Security Minister (Göring cabinet), Head of State (Military Coup)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Orthodox^note National Socialist German Workers' Party, Regierung des Nationalen Wiederaufbaus^note Government of National Reconstruction (Göring coup)

Ideology: Stratocratic Nazism^note Ultranationalism

In-Game Biography (Field Marshal)^{Click to Show}Born: 1892
Age: 70
Branch: Heer
Rank: Generalfeldmarschal
They call him "Butcher", "Bloody Ferdinand", "Hound of War" and many other brutal sobriquets. He is content with the title of Generalfeldmarschall. He is skilled in large scale operations involving hundreds of thousands of men, and he cares nothing for their individual lives. Ferdinand Schörner is a man loved by none and feared by all. In the West Russian War, it was said, the chances of being hanged as a deserter was greater than the chance of death in combat. His sway in the military was more than proven when, following a brief coup attempt at the end of that war, Schorner found his prospects for power actually rising.

A veteran of the First World War, Ferdinand would end up as one of the Führer's favorite commanders in the Second. In more recent times he has also cultivated a mutually beneficial partnership with Reichsmarschall Göring, the old ace lending his political capital to Schorner's requests in exchange for the loyalty of the militarist faction.

Still, the old devil of the Eastern Front has his own designs for the future, ones that may or may not require any politician to be his master. His rivalry with the other star of the Wehrmacht, Hans Speidel, is one of the largest obstacles he has yet to be encountered. Only time will tell if he has finally met his match, or, as some fear, he is only a step away from achieving his own ambitions.

In-Game Biography (Leader of the New Guard) ^{Click to Show}Jingoistic ideological warriors, the New Guard are the devout National Socialists inside the Wehrmacht. Members of this Clade are usually veterans of Germany's wars of conquest in Eastern Europe, sabre-rattling suits in government, or elderly guts-and-glory-style generals with ironclad faith in Hitler's vision. Together, these groups plot to depose the Old Guard in the High Command and establish the primacy of National Socialist ideology in the Wehrmacht.

Although the New Guard, by and large, do not involve themselves in Party politics, they do have their opinions on civic matters. Peace, they say, has made the Reich flabby and weak. The average German, who has probably never lifted anything heavier than a pencil, would not be able to defend the Fatherland if called upon. As Germans are, they need some discipline, a whipping-into shape. They need to sweat and strain and feel aches in their muscles to get back in touch with the 20th century, to win the Cold War. So the program of the New Guard goes: Germans will be great or they will be nothing.

In-Game Biography (Göring Coup - Warning: Unmarked Spoilers) ^{Click to Show}Many called Schörner a failure. He failed to achieve the glory he truly desired in the World War, he failed to stomp the Russians and fill the power vacuum left by the SS in West Russia, and he failed to take control of the Wehrmacht after years of planning when the damnable Speidel betrayed him and destroyed his career. Schörner, however, is a man with a plan. Having followed Göring for as long as was necessary to once find himself with a significant amount of power, Schörner now fights for nobody but himself.

Tearing down the infrastructure Göring had so desperately built to form his militant faction, Schörner has now declared that the Civil War will only end when every 'Volksverräter', or 'people's traitor', is dead.

Many, however, have taken issue with this statement. Not only at the insinuation that so many must die, but at the vagueness of the words. To Schörner, the Reich is a sterling white canvas, and the man only has one large brush and an ever-increasing bucket of blood.

The de facto leader of the German militarists, an ambitious and brutal Generalfeldmarschal of the Wehrmacht.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: If Bormann purges him in the First Dismantlement through an open attack, Schörner will be caught by several soldiers while he's trying to flee the city. Schörner cowers and helplessly pleads that he isn't the man they're looking for, but the soldiers shoot him before he can finish one sentence.
• Allohistorical Allusion: When authorized by Bormann to crush the remaining reformists in the First Dismantlement, Schörner plans to reduce the city of Dresden to a pile of rubble through artillery, in an image very similar to the Dresden bombing.
• Arc Villain: He is a major obstacle that eventually needs to be dealt with by the end of the 1962-1972 segment in three of the four German story routes.
  • In Speer's route, he ultimately gets reassigned to Moskowien, where he establishes military rule and later mutinies during the Slave Revolt, aiming to both crush the Slave Revolt and depose the "liberal" Speer regime, becoming a Climax Boss in the crisis, regardless of the way Speer himself deals with the slaves.
  • In Göring's route, he and the militarists ultimately are Göring's puppet masters, and he can depose him if the latter grows disloyal.
  • In Bormann's route, if Bormann appoints Speidel as Chief of the OKW, Schörner will craft the Militarist Plot and attempt to coup Bormann, and will be purged during the First Dismantlement. If he's the Chief of the OKW, Schörner will, later on, support the conspiracy of the June of Deceit, and either successfully overthrows Bormann or gets purged during the Second Dismantlement.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Hans Speidel and Ferdinand Schörner fiercely struggle for influence in the Wehrmacht and have a mutual antagonistic history, with Speidel preventing Schörner from taking over the Wehrmacht several times. While Schörner wants to use the people as a weapon and merge the German military and civilian government into one, Speidel dislikes the very idea of a military government and tries to protect the people.
  • Schörner is also a fierce opponent to Tresckow, much for the same reasons why Schörner despises Speidel. To Tresckow, Schörner represents all of the bloodthirsty and corrupt attitudes that fester in the Wehrmacht and its up to him to reform the organization into something more benevolent, inevitably curbing the field marshal's influence in the process.
• Berserk Button:
  • The idea of reforming the Wehrmacht to become less violent is a big one for Schörner, which repeatedly shows up in Speer's route when Tresckow pumps out multiple reforms to achieve this goal, such as lowering the military draft.
  • Likewise, hearing about the possibility of negotiating with slaves will anger Schörner to no end. This is best showcased during the Frankfurt slave revolt, where hearing Schmidt's proposal to negotiate with the rebels incites Schörner to begin flinging insults at him over Speer's phone. If Speer accepts the proposal, Schörner makes such a ferocious roar of anger that the phone nearly rattles off the table.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: If the militarists are purged in the Second Dismantlement, Schörner will kill himself with a self-inflicted gunshot, knowing that he's a dead man walking anyway.
• Bigger Is Better: To him, the size of the army is the deciding factor in war. It doesn't matter how professional it is or how many casualties ensue, so long as Germany has more bodies to expend.
• Blood Knight: Schörner is the true head of the German militarists, and relishes in the glory of war. He is despised by both subordinates and superiors alike, especially his rival Hans Speidel, who regards his clique as little more than a band of psychotic sabre-rattlers.
• Bungled Suicide: As Speer crushes Schörner's militarist mutiny during the slave revolt, he tries to take his life with a cyanide pill◊, but is captured by partisans and lynched.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: After the German Civil War is won by either Speer or Bormann, Schörner avoids execution because the Führer recognizes that killing Schörner would create a martyr for the militarists to rally behind and start another war, so he's kept alive to placate them for the time being.
• Cincinnatus: Subverted, if he coups Bormann in the first Dismantlement. In his speech to the Reichstag, Schörner declares himself leader of the Provisional Government of Germany, promising to restore order and step down when the Führer has been found. Obviously, the Führer is never coming back, considering his death, and Schörner has no intention of fulfilling his promise.
• Climax Boss: Schörner's mutiny is the last major war the player faces in both Speer's Paternalist and Fascist paths (both routes require the slave revolt to be ended by negotiation).
• The Corrupter: Even if Speer or Bormann manages to defeat Schörner's puppet Göring in the Civil War, they will have to deal with him and his militarists, who continue to advocate for military expansion and hawkish foreign policies.
• Deadly Euphemism: If Bormann throws his lot in with Schörne, the latter will advise purging the Wehrmacht of suspected traitors, with some being forced into a "permanent retirement".
• Distinction Without a Difference: After Schörner integrates the eastern Reichskommissariats into the Reich, he'll clarify that he's not abolishing them. He insists that he's only reduced their autonomy to an extreme degree, as if it makes any difference.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Being seemingly loyal to Göring, Schörner wouldn't have a second thought to dispose of his favored Führer if he becomes an obstacle to his plans.
• Enemy Mine: If Heydrich won the German Civil War, Hans Speidel can advise him to provide aid to Schörner so he can coup his renegade underling Remer, regain control over the Militarist remnants, and join Heydrich's Anti-Himmler Coalition to stop Himmler's nuclear plot.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Schörner is a rabid militarist, but even he wouldn't think of entering a nuclear war with the United States and Japan, unlike Remer. As his enemy Speidel puts it, although Schörner is bloodthirsty, brutal, short-tempered, cruel and borderline insane, he isn't stupid. He wants to conquer the world, not torch it.
• Evil Old Folks: Schörner, having been born in 1892, is 70 years old at game start, and one of the most evil figures in the Reich.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Schörner wears glasses and leads the warmongering militarist faction of Germany.
• General Ripper:
  • Schörner obsesses over fighting wars and destroying his enemies. His first goal after taking power is rooting out the Volksverräter ("people's traitors") by killing them all.
  • Schörner is outraged at a HMMLR victory in the British Civil War, believing it to be apart of an American plot to invade Germany, so argues for a swift invasion that mobilises every unit not preoccupied, dismissing Speidel when he points out that the east is still rebelling.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: While a ruthless Wehrmacht general and devoted Nazi historically, Schörner historically did not advocate using human wave attacks against his enemies as a way to crush all opposition to his opponents through sending his opponents to the front to die.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Despite being the de facto leader of the militarists during the German Civil War, Schörner usually escapes consequences on the aftermath of the German Civil War, and is a major problem for almost every Führer he serves under (except Speidel, who can easily fire him due to his massive support base in the Wehrmacht, and Heydrich, who actually ends up allying himself with Schörner to deal with Otto Ernst Remer). However, he can eventually get his comeuppance where he can be either Driven to Suicide or killed by partisans, in the case of Speer, or secret agents, in the case of Bormann.
• Keystone Army: Schörner is the brains behind the military conspiracy in the First Dismantlement. When he gets assassinated by FHO agents, the entire cabal crumbles, with the remaining conspirators turning on each other, fleeing eastward, or attempting a hopeless, desperate attempt to launch their coup in Riga.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Schörner isn't even the most rabid of the militarists. That title belongs to his second-in-command Otto Ernst Remer, a particularly bloodthirsty Wehrmacht officer who fully supports all of the militarists' warmongering plans and even advocates nuclear war as a means, something that Schörner is disturbed by. This gets Subverted during the Slave Revolt, in which it's actually Schörner who rebels against Germany, while Remer remains loyal.
• Military Coup: There are many ways for Schörner to forcefully seize power.
  • His skeleton content teaser shows that he can align with Oberländer and instigate a reactionary coup against Speer, if he botches the Slave Revolt.
  • There are three ways for him to coup Bormann.
    • If Bormann sided against the reformists, but gets killed by them, Schörner will gather his militarist allies and launch a counter-coup, declaring himself provisional leader of Germany.
    • If Bormann sided against the militarists, but can't dismantle them, Schörner kills Speidel and declares himself the Chief of the OKW. With Bormann committing suicide to spare himself a more grim fate, Schörner marches to Germany and holds an emergency vote in the Reichstag to be declared provisional leader.
    • In the 1970's, Schirach's successful conspiracy may lead to Schörner taking over, if the militarists weren't purged in the first Dismantlement.
  • In Heydrich's path, if Heydrich provides enough resources to Schörner, he will coup Remer (who has established a warlord state in Hannover made up of Militarist remnants), and join Heydrich to stop Himmler.
• Old Soldier: Ferdinand Schörner is a veteran of World War I who distinguished himself in the Battle of Caporetto as a lieutenant and distinguished himself with a Pour le Mérite medal.
• Press-Ganged: Schörner takes this to new heights once Goring takes power after the Civil War. In this new Germany, the entire population is mobilized for the war effort.
• Properly Paranoid: Bormann thinks Schörner is being paranoid of how Speidel might act against the two of them, but this fear is proven right when the reformist plot is uncovered and Bormann to purge them in the First Dismantlement.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: After Bormann dismantles the Reformist Plot, he openly taunts Schörner that he will be reassigned to Moscow or Ukraine so that he can no longer influence the Reichs' politics.
• Red Baron: Bormann's initial focus tree refers to him as Ungeheuer in Uniform (Monster in Uniform), which was Schörner's real nickname, along with Blutiger Ferdinand (Bloody Ferdinand).
• The Resenter: Towards Hans Speidel, his biggest rival in the Wehrmacht. Not only is Speidel the last obstacle for Schörner's undisputed leadership in the German military, but he also prevented him from taking over the Wehrmacht leadership during the West Russian War, an event for which Schörner could not forgive him.
• Series Continuity Error: Checking out the Officer Corps tab in-game as Germany him to be described as the Chief of the OKW. However, Hans Speidel's Description as a General states that he has been promoted as the Chief of the OKW.
• Sinister Shades: The Blood Knight General Ripper Schörner wears a pair of shades in his portrait. ^note It appears to have been on a picture from his OTL trial in 1957.
• Space-Filling Empire: After Schörner takes power through a coup, he'll annex all of Germany's eastern holdings into the Reich proper to increase efficiency and cement his control over them.
• Spotting the Thread: If Bormann sides with Speidel, Schörne discreetly prepares a military coup against the Führer. The preparations begins smoothly, until Bormann uncovers an abnormal increase in uniform expenditures in Ostland, leading up to a full-blown investigation into a military coup attempt.
• The Starscream: In Speer's route, after being sent to the Military Administration of Russia to deal with the Freies Europa slave revolt, Schörner leads the militarists to launch a coup against Alexis von Roenne, in the process going rogue from the Reich and forcing Speer to deal with him by force.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: In Bormann's route, if he ends up purging the militarists, he gets rid of Schörner by having polonium mixed with his morning tea. Over the course of a week, Schörner complains of his shaking hands, diarrhoea, bleeding gums and hair falling out before he drops dead.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: If Schörner crushes the Slave Revolt and marches onto Germania, he'll be welcomed to power by the more reactionary elements of the NSDAP, including Oberländer. Then, the two agree to work together for the time being, though Schörner and Oberländer begin building up their support bases in preparation for a coup against the other.
• The Unfettered: Schörner is glad to use any means to achieve victory and perpetuate the Forever War.
• Uriah Gambit: He sees his massive conscription program as a good way to deal with his opposition and dissenters in Germany.
• Villainous Breakdown: In Bormann's route, if Schörner is purged during the Second Dismantlement, he panics as Bormann's troops close in on him, and decides to shoot himself so he won't get hanged.
• We Have Reserves: Schörner is an unprincipled warmonger with no qualms about the human cost of his operations. To him, an army must be bloated with many conscripts to throw at the enemy, until victory is achieved.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: Leader of the New Guard (Speer)

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• General Ripper: In the Speer clade teaser, Schörner leads a new guard of devout Nazis and militaristic jingoists within the Wehrmacht, who believe peace made the Reich weak and that German society must be constantly ready for war. Schörner and his faction believe that strict militarization is the key to winning the Cold War.
• The Starscream: As shown in the Speer clade teaser, Schörner leads the New Guard of the Wehrmacht, who plot to overthrow the Old Guard and turn the military into an arm of the National Socialist cause.

Otto Ernst Remer

^{70s Remer Portrait}

Role: Military Commander, Chef des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht^note Security Minister (Assertive Reformist Speer cabinet), Economy Minister (Militarist Schirach cabinet), Head of State (SS Civil War)

Ideology: Stratocracy^note Ultranationalism, Reformed National Socialism^note National Socialism (Assertive Reformist Speer route)

In-Game Biography (General) ^{Click to Show}Born: 1912
Age: 50
Branch: Heer
Rank: Generaloberst
If Schorner is the butcher, Otto Ernst Remer is his bloody knife. As a young officer coming of age just before the rise of the Nazis, Remer devoted himself body and soul to the National Socialist cause. Remer served with distinction in the campaigns against Poland, the Balkans, and during Operation Barbarossa, eventually rising to a battalion command in the Grossdeutschland Division. Remer's crowning glory came when he was personally awarded Oak leaves to his Knight's Cross by no less than the Führer, Adolf Hitler, himself. Remer's unit served in the thickest fighting of the war, from the deep heart of Russia where the Union was finally broken to the hills of North England where war finally came to its close.

In the long years since then, Remer has steadily grown in his influence within the Wehrmacht, rapidly rising to become Field Marshal Ferdinand Schorner's right hand man, and as a consequence, the second most powerful man in the militarist faction of the officer corps. While Remer does have a strong degree of respect for his fellow warmonger and direct superior, his loyalty truly lies only with whoever he believes furthers the cause of the ultimate global victory of National Socialism, and whomever he thinks can best support that goal with action.

In-Game Biography (Assertive Reformist Speer Security Minister) ^{Click to Show}For Otto Ernst Remer, duty exists above all else. Though he supported Joseph Goebbels' promotion of Stratocratic National Socialism, his loyalty to Adolf Hitler remained absolute. Though he supported Hermann Göring's ascension to power in 1963, his loyalty to the new Führer Albert Speer remained absolute.

Though he supported Ferdinand Schörner's ideals, his loyalty to the official chain of command remained absolute.

Remer's betrayal of the Militarists has earned the Führer's trust and the Reformists' gratitude, despite their ideological differences. His promotion to Feldmarschall and newfound role as the OKW's Chief of Staff has shaken the Wehrmacht to its core, but Speer understands the necessity of such a gamble. With the likes of Henning von Tresckow scheming in the shadows, men of stoic obedience like Otto Ernst Remer are needed now more than ever.

Otto Ernst Remer, once a career soldier in Germany's Heer, found his way into the position of Schörner's right-hand man following the German market crash. Ambitious and opportunistic, Remer is considered to be the maddest of the Militarist mad dogs, his vision of conquest matched by few in the Reich.

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• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: If Heydrich wins the Civil War and then supports Schörner retaking command of the militarists, Remer can be heard pleading with Heydrich to save his life before Schörner empties a full magazine into his erstwhile subordinate.
• Allohistorical Allusion: In real life, Remer was crucial in the unraveling of the 20 July plot, which included Henning von Tresckow as one of its ringleaders. In TNO, he can ironically wind up working under him in Speer's Reich, however much Remer hates him and the reformists.
• Anti-Mutiny: Remer is a die-hard Schörnerite, but as unwavering as he is in his fanatical beliefs, his loyalty to the hierarchy of the state is greater, no matter how reformist and heterodox Speer's government gets. He opposes and refuses to join Schörner's rebellion, and as such can still be assigned as the leader of the forces Speer sends to retake Moskowien.
• Blood Knight: By far the most radical militarist in the Reich, Remer has always advocated for war as an end in itself.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being a mad militarist and hating Speer and the reformists, he is not willing to turn against the Reich and refuses to join Schörner in his rebellion in the Speer path. This earns him a promotion to Chief of Staff of the OKW, if Speer retains power from the Gang of Four.
• Depending on the Writer: The devs have noted that there are currently two completely opposing portrayals of Remer in the current TNO: a nuke-happy ultra-warmonger (as depicted in Heydrich and Göring's routes), and a traditionalist Nazi dedicated to serving the Führer (as depicted in Speer's route).
• Face Death with Dignity: After Schörner is assassinated by Bormann in the First Dismantlement, Remer tries rallying the remaining loyalists to launch a coup against Germany, but a Wehrmacht army stops him before he can commit anything major. As Remer is lined up to a firing squad, Remer heils Schörner one last time before he is killed.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Remer is one of the vilest and most profoundly evil people in the mod, and wears glasses in his advancing age.
• General Ripper: Remer is described as the maddest among the mad dogs and advocates for invading the United States and Japan (which are both nuclear-armed superpowers), even though doing so would end human civilization. Especially telling is that during Heydrich's power struggle with Himmler, letting Remer know about the Burgundian nuclear plot makes Remer more loyal to Himmler.
• Historical Villain Upgrade: Otto Ernst Remer was a Wehrmacht officer-turned Neo-Nazi politician historically. Here he is a militarist figure even more radical than Schörner, being amongst the main advocates for War Plan C, who are willing to end the world by invading another nuclear power. In fact, Schörner feels defeated when Remer is promoted to Field Marshal.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: In spite of everything else, Remer's loyalty to the Führer is absolute. In Speer's route, while he ultimately hates Speer and the reformists, and agrees with Schörner's ideals, he defects from the militarists and sides with Speer because his first loyalty does not lie with Schörner.
• The Starscream: If Heydrich wins the German Civil War, Remer seizes control of the militarist remnants in Germany after Schörner goes into hiding, appoints himself Generalfeldmarschall, and declares Schörner a pro-Heydrich traitor.
• War Hawk: Remer takes this to a degree not even Schörner advocates with how he pushes for the invasion of the US and Japan, who are nuclear powers and an invasion of both would trigger a nuclear war and end human civilization.

Alexis von Roenne

Role: Military Commander

Ideology: Despotism

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• Assassin Outclassin': In Bormann's route, the militarists attempt to assassinate Roenne by bombing the Ansbach garrison when he's meeting with some of his subordinates. If forewarned by FHO agents, Roenne cancels the meeting, while bomb-defusing specialists are summoned to safely dispose of the bomb.
• Enemy Mine: In Speer's route, after being kicked out of Moscow during Ferdinand Schörner's coup to seize the Militärbezirk Russland, Roenne flees to Sankt-Peterburg and recruits everyone who wants to run from Schörner, Russians and Germans alike, against their common enemy.
• Puppet King: When assigned to lead Moskowien by Speer, he's little more than a figurehead to maintain German hegemony over the region. Schörner even Lampshades this, noting that Roenne's true authority lies behind Speer's.
• Sacrificial Lamb: During the First Dismantlement against the militarists, von Roenne and several of his subordinates can be killed in an explosion at the village of Arnsbach, showing how serious Schörner is in overthrowing Bormann.
• Small Role, Big Impact: His fate in the militarist First Dismantlement determines how Schörner's uprising is dealt with. If he survives, Bormann orders Schörner to be discreetly assassinated with polonium. If he dies, the Reich will launch an open assault against the militarists in Riga.

Wilhelm Burgdorf

Role: Military Commander, Reichsministerium des Innern^note Security Minister (Bormann cabinet)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Konservativ Faction^note National Socialist German Workers' Party - Conservative Faction

Ideology: National Socialism

In-Game Biography (Reichsministerium des Innern) ^{Click to Show}A grizzled veteran of both World Wars and the West Russian War, Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Burgdorf has been a military man since he was assigned to the Prussian Army's Grenadier Regiment 12 in 1915. The 1930s saw him leaping up the ranks of the Wehrmacht and into the inner circle of Adolf Hitler, who Burgdorf served as Chief Adjutant. While some military officers keep their private thoughts to themselves, Burgdorf is notorious for wearing his heart on his sleeve. He supports Martin Bormann and the National Socialist state as virulently as he despises Jews, Catholics, Reformists and Militarists. If there is one thing he hates above all, however, it is defeatism.

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• Berserk Button: He's got plenty, including Jews, Catholics, reformists, militarists, and especially defeatism. To Burgdorf, all of these are a stain on Germany and must be eradicated.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: If Bormann fails to purge Schörner and the militarists in the First Dismantlement, Burgdorf and the other Conservative Wehrmacht officers will defect to his side to prevent a lengthy civil war, knowing that Bormann's cause is doomed.
• Old Soldier: Burgdorf is a veteran from both World Wars and the West Russian War, serving in the military since 1915.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Despite his hatred for the militarists during the German Civil War, Burgdorf pardons most of them because the Wehrmacht would be left too weak otherwise.
  • When Denmark is reconquered by Bormann, Burgdorf advises him to turn the country into a puppet state rather than a Reichskommissariat, both to increase the occupation government's stability and deny the militarists another avenue to increase their influence.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Once Müller is promoted to Bormann's security minister, Burgdorf drops out of the storyline completely, leaving it ambiguous if he joined von Schirach's June of Deceit or stayed loyal.

Wehrwirtschaftsführer

General Tropes

The Wehrwirtschaftsführer are the leading military industrialists of the Greater German Reich, directly controlling the vast amounts of the private sector across Germany, and holding millions of underclass populations as forced laborers.

With the end of the German Civil War, the Wehrwirtschaftsführer face a new Führer leading the German Reich. Führer Albert Speer especially sees a need to directly confront the Wehrwirtschaftsführer, as he aims to end the German slave system and introduce major reforms into the economy.

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• Arc Villain: Along with the party hardliners and Schörner's militarists, the German corporations present the biggest threat to Speer's reformist rule and act as the main obstacle for his and Erhard's economic plans for abolishing slavery in the Reich.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: All four of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer qualify as corrupt leaders with their use of mass slave labor (to varying degrees), but Hermann Josef Abs and Friedrich Flick especially stand out, with Abs being a selfish and power-hungry individual who holds the largest number of slaves and refuses to cooperate with even the Reich itself, and Flick being both a ruthless slave abuser and a hardline Nazi who's friends with Heinrich Himmler.
• MegaCorp: The four great industrial conglomerates grew on the spoils from the German conquests during WWII, swallowed conquered industry and employs an enormous amount of unpaid labor through the slavery programs. Like four giant leeches, they are slowing down the economy and reducing the common man's earnings by employing slaves. If Speer comes to power, he and Erhard will have to weaken and dismantle the four largest conglomerates to end the use of slave labor.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: With the notable exception of Flick none of the Wirtschaftsführers value Nazism or even ideological integrity next to their profits. While Geilenberg is ultimately revealed to be a sincere but hypocritical Nazi who has let the power and wealth of being a cartel mogul get to him, Siemens and Abs are both remorseless opportunists with reformist or outright anti-Nazi leanings.
• Pet the Dog: The Wirtschaftsführers send birthday gifts to Erich Schumann in Antarctica, where Abs sends 5,000 shares, Siemens sends an expensive watch, and Flick sends a glass of whiskey.
• Pragmatic Villainy: In Bormann's route, some of them will privately voice displeasure over his mild reforms to rein in their slavery, but they nonetheless oblige because they're still keeping their wealth and they don't want to get purged by him.

Hermann Josef Abs

Role: Head of IG Farben, Economy Minister (Bormann and Oberländer cabinets)

Ideology: Despotism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}From the stock exchanges in Milan and banks of Bordeaux to the institutes of Oslo and slave pens of Moskau stretches an economic empire unlike any other. Hermann Josef Abs sits on its throne, controlling it from the shadows and in the light, under one clear objective - power. His power, and no one else's. IG Farben is the largest asset of an empire that spans the Deutsche Bank and many dozen more companies. Abs is not a member of the NSDAP; in fact, he was always distanced towards Hitler and his clique. Despite this he was a major architect of the war economy and carved his empire out of the spoils of the World War, even indulging in and financing the slave business to the point of forging IG Farben into the largest slaveholding corporation in Germany.

His obsession with power and refusal to cooperate cannot be ignored any longer. Abs and his empire must be destroyed.

The Head of IG Farben and potentially the most powerful Wehrwirtschaftsführer.

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• Affably Evil: During his vacation to Hitlerstadt in RK Zentralafrika, Abs comes off as friendly and charismatic, even asking Siegfried Müller (who has gone out of his way to call him 'Herr Abs') to refer to him with his first name, all while trying to be imposing to get Müller off his guard.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: VERY downplayed, but there. Abs is the head of the largest of the great cartels and complicit in countless crimes and by any stretch of the imagination not a good guy. He is, however, more genuinely amiable and less malevolent on a personal level than his peers, and is a(n immoral) businessman, not a political animal or party fanatic, and is personally opposed to his cartel's use of slavery because of the practical problems with it. Moreover, he is the only one of the four Wehrwirtschaftsführers to possess genuine anti-Nazi convictions not driven by Siemens's cowardice, being convinced a democratic, capitalist republic will be much more beneficial to Germany and particularly *himself* than the National Socialist dictatorship. This means he tends to become a problem for Bormann, Speer, and other leaders and an ally of reformists.
• Ambition Is Evil: He's not even an official member of the NSDAP and his loyalty can switch on a dime. The one consistent trait about Abs is his craving for personal wealth and power and he won't give it up easily.
• Arch-Enemy: Whenever he meets Erhard from the Gang of Four, Abs acts as if they were old colleagues and friends. The feeling is not mutual, as Erhard holds him the greatest contempt out of all the reformers, being the most reluctant to even hear out his proposal to hand the support of Deutsche Bank to their reformist cause.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: The most triumphant example in the mod, rivalled only by those seen in Guangdong. Abs is leader of the largest MegaCorp in the Reich and possibly the world, complicit in theft on a continental scale and the slavery of dozens of millions of people. His opportunism proves to be a double edged sword. On one hand, he'll fund Schörner's attempt to crush the Slave Revolt and undermine Speer. On the other hand, he is an amoral but high-functioning capitalist robber baron who believes a democratic Germany will be more beneficial to him in the long run than a Nazi dictatorship that could confiscate his wealth and shoot him whenever the current government decides to, making him a useful, if tenuous, ally to the Gang of Four.
• Cigar Chomper: Abs is seen with a plump cigar in his portrait, which adds to his Corrupt Corporate Executive image.
• Fat Bastard: Abs is a portly executive who engages in mass slavery to build his opulent wealth.
• Graceful Loser: Zigzagged. When Erhard announces the dismantlement of his corporation, Abs takes it incredibly well and even confesses to having been a silent supporter of Speer's reforms, in part because even without IG Farben he still controls many companies and the Deutsche Bank. In fact, Erhard notes that he takes it too well and suspects that Abs isn't giving up just yet. These suspicions turn out to be correct when Abs and the rest of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer support Schörner's coup during the Slave Revolt. He pulls it again in the Gang of Four path, unexpectedly showing up to a meeting and offering the support of Deutsche Bank, the main holding left to him, to their bid to reform the Reich away from fascism. This being near the end of implemented content, it is unclear if he is honest this time or has some scheme in mind, though the devs have suggested he is, if only so long as the Gang of Four remain in charge.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: Abs doesn't have allegiance to any movement and will hop on to the faction that best suits his wealth and interests.
• Internal Reformist: Dark example. Abs holds few principles and no morals, but he is pragmatic to a T and what few principles he does have lead him to conclude that National Socialism in general and the slave system in particular are bad for business. As such he is one of the most open to reform of the Wehrwirtschaftsführers, trying to phase out slavery within IG Farben on his own imitative and making plans to support reformist plots against the current order.
• Irony: The amoral, corrupt, atrociously exploitative MegaCorp leader turns out to be a more genuine reformist than Speer. Whereas Speer wishes to reform National Socialism into a dynamic, pragmatic form of totalitarian dystopia, Abs wishes to get rid of it altogether.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: One of his greatest skills. He wishes to phase slavery out of IG Farben's portfolio after growing rich off of it because he believes it is an unsustainable business model that is more trouble than its worth, and responds to the dismantling of IG Farben with an unusual grace because he knows trying to fight it would just get him slapped down and because he has countless other business assets.
• The Leader: While all of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer qualify as threats in their own right, Abs is the largest of them all and generally represents their slave-owning interests as a whole.
• Morally Bankrupt Banker: Abs is one of the world's most powerful businessmen in the world. He is a chairman of Deutsche Bank, a giant slave conglomerate in the Einheitspakt, has connections throughout the globe, and serves as the CEO and board member of a dozen other European companies.
• Not Me This Time:
  • While investigating a potential military coup, Bormann suspects that Abs and Farben are a lead due to their recent sale of half their shares to Deutsche Bank. Abs explains that this recent move was carried out by other board members on Farben and he's actually telling the truth.
  • Later, while uncovering the June of Deceit plot, Bormann initially accuses Abs of playing a part in the conspiracy. However, Abs truthfully tells him that he's not among the Farben executives working against the Führer, going as far to help in the investigation.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Abs's first loyalty is to himself, and to that end he will ally with or betray any political entity and consider it "just business." He has no true political alignment and will do whatever makes him money.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The head Speer developer noted that the real-world Abs had pro-democratic views and funded pro-democracy think tanks, because he viewed democracies as better business partners than the Nazi dictatorship. And he actually is trying to phase out slavery, resisted by other members of the board, within IG Farben, though for similarly pragmatic reasons.
• Private Military Contractors: IG Farben's assets are protected by its private army of mercenaries.
• Unexpected Successor: Abs is promoted to the position of Reichminister of Economics if Bormann launches the Second Night of the Long Knives, since the former Reichsminister of Economics Kurt Lange was purged, while Abs has demonstrated his loyalty in cooperating with Bormann.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Abs is known in the corporate world as a model executive.

Friedrich Flick

Role: Head of Daimler-Benz

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Vereinigte Stahlwerke was only the first milestone in a lifelong career in ruthless industry and lobbyism for Friedrich Flick. Politically active since the days of Weimar, he became a generous sponsor of the NSDAP, going as far as joining the Circle of Friends of Heinrich Himmler and providing hundreds of thousands in funds to the SS.

Daimler-Benz, his domain, may be less expansive than those of his fellow Wehrwirtschaftsführer, but Flick's knack in stock affairs and all kinds of economics keep him a strong competitor regardless. A notorious user and abuser of the slavery system, Flick has burned through countless slaves already in his pursuit of maximizing profits, showing not even a sliver of repentance for his actions.

Flick is the best example of a ruthless industrialist who capitalized on the NSDAP's rise to power and all the atrocities it brought. He must be removed.

Head of Daimler-Benz.

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• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Due to his corporation's small size, most are unaware that Flick has ties with the SS and exploits millions of slaves in horrid labor camps and factories. One focus description even calls his conglomerate "a wolf in sheep's clothing."
• Bribe Backfire: When summoned to Ludwig Erhard's office to hear about Daimler-Benz's dissolution, Flick attempts to bribe Erhard, who then threatens to throw him in a concentration camp for trying to bribe a minister of the Reich. Flick then promptly flees from Erhard's office, and five minutes later, Erhard is still laughing.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Even hearing about the possibility of losing his power is enough to throw Flick into a shouting rage.
• Hate Sink: Flick embodies all the worst aspects of the German MegaCorp system. He is an unrepentant slaver and proud supporter of the SS, an enormous Jerkass, and when his corporation is dismantled he can't even be a Graceful Loser.
• Jerkass: Flick is the most personally unpleasant of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer, even disregarding his connections to the SS and complete disregard to his slave labor.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Notable aversion, because Flick is the only Cartel leader of the Big Four that Genuinely IS an unalloyed supporter of the National Socialist revolution and not afraid to let anybody know it.
• Out of Focus: In Bormann's route, Flick is the least prominent of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer, not joining Bormann's cabinet like Abs or Schirach's conspiracy like Geilenberg and Siemens. This might be because he is the most loyal, doctrinaire Nazi of them all and the most aligned with Bormann's views.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: During his vacation at Hitlerstadt in RK Zentralafrika, Friedrich Flick is enraged by how the resort he stays in employs German or Belgian workers, instead of the 'races who were best to handle them'. Notably, Bormann can earn his cooperation in winding down slavery by not only offering him more collateral in recompense, but also appealing to his "duty" towards National Socialism.
• Sore Loser: Compared to the rest of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer, Flick reacts the least well to his conglomerate's dismantlement, visibly showing displeasure with it and trying to bribe his way out of it rather than accept it.
• This Cannot Be!: When Daimler-Benz is dismantled, Flick voices his disbelief at this development.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Flick's company has a good image on the international stage, which is why Erhard only wants to replace their leadership and curb their worst excesses than outright dismantle them so that Daimler-Benz can still contribute to the economy as prodigiously as it does.

Edmund Geilenberg

Role: Head of Reichswerke

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Edmund Geilenberg presides over the Frankenstein's monster known as the Reichswerke, one of the largest industrial conglomerates on Earth. His placement as its new Wehrwirtschaftsführer was an easy decision - Geilenberg's connection to the conglomerate goes back to even before the Second World War had started. Reichswerke's reach across Europe bases on the plethora of industry it swallowed from the territories annexed by the Reich during its ascendancy. Although surpassed by IG Farben, it remains one of the largest cartels and slave holders in Germany.

Still, the fight against the conglomerate is not a lost cause. Being legally state-owned, direct action against Geilenberg's abomination is easier to justify to the ideologues and industrialists in the NSDAP. Geilenberg will fall, and Germany will finally move on from its barbary.

Head of Reichswerke.

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• Always Second Best: Geilenberg owns the second largest megacorporation in Germany, but he will rarely receive praise as such because he's always overshadowed by the larger Farbens, less prestigious than Siemens and its legacy, and less connected to either the SS or the Nazi Purists than Daimer-Benz. This jealousy can be exploited by Bormann to become a partner and invest more into slave camps and ghettos.
• Bastard Understudy: As a Party Bureaucrat playing business mogul, Geilenberg tends to follow either orders from his political bosses or the fashions of the other Wehrwirtschaftsführer, and in particular is shown to be under the influence of Abs in Bormann's route.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Geilenberg may be a corrupt bureaucrat out of his depth as Wehrwirtschaftsführer and the least flamboyant of the cartel leaders, but he is party to no small number of atrocities and is the Wehrwirtschaftsführer who cooperated most intensely with the Old Order. He is also a sincere Nazi, illegal US Stock trading aside, and will happily put his resources and that of his cartel at the disposal of militarist hardliners in order to safeguard his own power and stop what he views as excessive or corrupt reforms.
• Butt-Monkey: Geilenberg is a bureaucratic party apparatchik rather than a businessman, and so he tends to be one of the cartel leaders most prone to being outmaneuvered.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Subverted. While he fits almost every character beat and trait of this trope, Geilenberg is instead a Corrupt Nazi Party Bureaucrat in charge of a cartel the NSDAP created out of whole cloth. This means that while he is as despicable as a typical example of the trope, he is also out of his depth in a way his peers are not, and has let the power and opportunity to make a buck go to his head in a way the others have not. This lack of genuine business acumen and dependence on the state for his position undermine him in the long run.
• Dirty Coward: When his corrupt investments in American markets are uncovered, Geilenberg tries to save his own skin to Bormann by blaming Deutsche Bank for advising him to make such treacherous moves.
• Hypocrite: Geilenberg denounces "western capitalism" as decadent, even though he has been investing in American companies to exchange his goods directly for U.S. currency and make more profit.
• Paper Tiger: Geilenberg leads the second largest conglomerate of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer, but since it is legally state-owned, direct action against him can be more easily justified and thus dismantling his company will be easier than it initially looks.
• Pragmatic Villainy: When Ludwig Erhard announces the dissolution of Reichswerke to him, Geilenberg is angry at losing his wealth and position, but knows that in the end, he's just a functionary instated by the government to oversee a state-owned company. As a result, he chooses to cut his losses by accepting, and in return, Erhard allows him to become chairman of one of the new companies formed upon Reichswerke's dissolution.
• The Quiet One: Of the Wehrwirtschaftsführer, Geilenberg is noted to be the most silent executive.
• The Starscream: If the militarists weren't purged in the First Dismantlement, Geilenberg will secretly stockpile his corporations oil supplies during the Oil Crisis, joining Schirach's conspiracy to keep his wealth.
• Suspicious Spending: Geilenberg's money laundering scheme is uncovered when an investigation uncovers shell companies somehow purchasing Reichswerke assets in Ukraine, with the majority of these profits going to Geilnberg's pockets.
• Villain Has a Point: At the mercy of Bormann when his illicit investments in American companies are uncovered, Geilenberg blames Abs and Deutsche Bank for influencing him into this corrupt scheme. At first, it just seems like a shallow lie to get rid of his rival, but an investigation can not only vindicate his story, but also discover that they've colluding in a Reformist Plot.
• We Used to Be Friends: Despite originally being one of his primary supporters in the civil war, Geilenberg's relationship with Bormann can sour if he starts blocking economic opportunities to Reichswerke from Sweden in order to remain friendly with them.

Ernst von Siemens

Role: Head of Siemens

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Ernst von Siemens stands out as somewhat of an anomaly compared to his peers. Under him, Siemens has increased its profits ten-fold, while avoiding reaching the levels of slavery other companies display. His company stands out as one of the few in Germany still carrying a respectable international reputation.

Most importantly, von Siemen's fledgling empire of electronics and machines has shown sympathy towards the reformist cause; at least when it comes to programs from which Siemens would profit. No matter if this is out of genuine conviction or mere pragmatism at the inevitable demise of slavery in the new Germany, von Siemens and his family enterprise carry a significant amount of potential both economically and in the struggle against slavery.

Unlikely ally or not, Siemens' nature as a cartel interferes with Germany's economic potential. Whilst the company and its proprietor may be kept, its power must diminish.

Head of Siemens.

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• Dirty Coward: Erhard notes that Siemens' willingness to reform is not out of a change of heart, but merely because he sees the writing on the wall and cowardly wants to abandon ship before its too late. This disgusts Erhard, but he's willing to go along with it and form an uneasy alliance with Siemens to make it easier to reform the German economy.
• Egocentric Team Naming: His megacorporation is derived from his last name.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Siemens was thoroughly involved in the war economy and employs slaves, however, they're markedly less into slavery than the three other conglomerates, and still maintain a relatively respectable international relation. Speer and Erhard note that while the other three must be dismantled, Siemens only needs to be weakened, not destroyed.
• Pragmatic Villainy: If Albert Speer comes to power, Siemens will have to give up its slaves and lose its status as a cartel, something which its executive board does not like. Nevertheless, Ernst von Siemens will show some sympathy to Speer's reforms (at least when his company would profit from them), if it means not being the main target like IG Farben.
• The Starscream: If the reformists weren't purged in the First Dismantlement, Siemens will secretly stockpile his company's oil reserves during the Oil Crisis behind Bormann's back and join Schirach's conspiracy to keep his wealth.
• Unperson: If Bormann purges the reformists in the First Dismantlement, he'll have Siemens mysteriously disappear from the public for his collaboration with Speidel.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Since his conglomerate is markedly less into slave labor than the other Wehrwirtschaftsführer, Siemens carries a respectable international reputation as one of the more even-handed German companies.

Gang of Four

General Tropes

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Dissident^note National Socialist German Workers' Party

Kurt Georg Kiesinger, Helmut Schmidt, Ludwig Erhard, Henning von Tresckow. The main political allies of Albert Speer since the 50s, they become the leading figures in the politics of Germania when he wins the German Civil War. Putting their talents to use for the benefit of the Reich, they come as the main force behind Speer's reforms.

While the Gang is a tower of strength for Speer's reformist beginnings, their service to the Führer is a double-edged sword, as each of the ministers has a vision of his own, often misaligned with those of their leader. It won't take long for contradictions between the Gang and Speer to expose themselves.

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• Allohistorical Allusion:
  • Just as Speer is an analogue to the similarly pragmatic reformist Deng Xiaoping, the Gang of Four is a group of high-ranking officials in the ruling party that seeks to subvert Speer. The difference is that whereas the Chinese Gang of Four was a clique of Maoist hardliners that sought to obstruct reform; the German Gang of Four is a bloc of sincere reformists that wants to take the reform effort even further, not to "save" National Socialism, but to destroy it and restore democracy outright.
  • In real life, Erhard, Kiesinger and Schmidt were all chancellors of post-war West Germany. In this timeline, they can end up leading Germany as well, though in a very different way: by growing too powerful for Führer Albert Speer to control, eventually turning him into their puppet and dismantling Nazism from inside.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: They become one in the AuthDem path as they realize that Speer is just as bad as the government he is ostensibly reforming and defang his powers, becoming the true rulers of Germany as they slowly engineer a transition to a proper democracy.
• Big Good: They are the closest to this trope from all potential German paths, as their decisive victory over Speer and Schörner in Speer's Authoritarian Democrat path sets Germany on the path of slow but steady transition out of Nazism into a fully democratic nation, and ultimately transform the Einheitspakt into something comparable to OTL's European Union, aside from all other potential 'German Thaw' reforms (such as the formation of the United Nations analogue) that can be achieved on both Speer paths.
• Cliffhanger: Once the Gang of Four triumphs over Speer, the quadrumvirate will celebrate their victory, but also note that the NSDAP still wields massive influence in Germany and that the campaign to liberalize the country is still far from over.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: If Heydrich manages to win the Civil War, they will be hanged after being severely beaten and tortured.
• Dragon-in-Chief: If they win their power struggle against Albert Speer, the Gang becomes the effective rulers of the Reich, while the Führer becomes no more than a pen-pusher.
• Dragon with an Agenda: The Gang of Four's goals don't exactly align with those of their Führer: while the Gang genuinely supports democracy and wishes to turn Germany into a democratic nation, Speer remains a committed fascist whose reforms are only to make Nazism sustainable in the long run. By the end of the game's first decade, their differences will become irreconcilable, and only one could emerge victorious in the resulting power struggle: either the Gang turns the Führer into a puppet, or Speer purges them and becomes free to build his Thousand-Year Reich.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: The Gang of Four faces an uphill battle in swaying the Reich from Nazism and keeping Speer in check, which is exasperated by the Oil Crisis. Should they succeed, however, they stand as Germany’s best chance for both genuine reform and survival as a great power.
• Fire-Forged Friends: After a fashion. While they have differing political views and ideas for Germany's future after Speer is reduced to a Puppet King, at no point do they ever turn on each other or plot behind their backs.
• Foil: To Speer and the other Nazi contenders. While they represent different political and social visions for Germany, they nonetheless work together to bring about their common ideas and find strength in their diversity of views. This also stands in stark contrast to the regime in almost every way, as they never turn on each other.
• Gone Horribly Right: Speer elevates them to positions of power to forward his reformist platform and to serve as little more than a superficial facade, at least initially. Unfortunately for him, they prove to be far more effective and genuine than he expected, and have the potential to reduce him into nothing more than a Puppet King.
• Internal Reformist: The Gang of Four have no love for Nazism, and only joined the NSDAP so they could turn Germany into a better place. They are the chief architects of Speer's reforms, and are genuine about it, unlike their boss.
• Ironic Name: The Gang of Four shares their name with the real life Gang of Four that were active during China's Cultural Revolution. However, while the real Gang of Four are party hardliners, the TNO Gang of Four are party reformers.
• Long Game: The Gang of Four's true goal is to lay the groundwork for Germany's (relatively) peaceful transition to a proper democracy once Speer dies, through gradually implementing liberal reforms.
• Spanner in the Works: In 1972, when the Oil Crisis hits, Germany under the Gang of Four is one of the worst-affected nations. Erhard's plan is a very reckless, high risk-high reward gamble. The Oil Crisis hamstrings Germany at its most vulnerable, right when it comes out of its shell and puts itself out there, resulting in serious ramifications on reforms and risking the Reich's collapse.
• Un-person: The homes of Kiesinger, Erhard and Schmidt are demolished, and their names forbidden from being mentioned in any form of media, by Theodor Oberländer if his hardliners take over Germany.
• You Can't Go Home Again: If the reactionaries led by Theodor Oberländer manage to seize control over Speer and the Reich, Kiesinger, Erhard, Schmidt, and their families are forced to flee to the United States under the cover of night.

Kurt Georg Kiesinger

^{70s Kiesinger portrait}

Role: Stellvertreter des Reichskanzlers^note Head of Government (Speer cabinet)

Ideology: Right-Wing Populism^note Paternalism, Populist Conservatism^note Conservatism (democracy restored), Reformed National Socialism^note National Socialism (Speer victorious)

In-Game Biography (Minister) ^{Click to Show}Kurt Georg Kiesinger was once a successful lawyer, being offered highly respectable positions in both the Chamber Court of Berlin and the Nationalsozialistischer Rechtswahrerbund, but turning them down in favor of remaining an independent actor within the profession. When the war began, Kiesinger joined the Foreign Ministry to avoid being drafted into combat, eventually finding a position within the broadcasting arm. When the war ended, Kiesinger moved into the Propaganda Ministry, where he honed his charisma and public speaking skills and rose up the ranks, building a network of political connections along the way.

As the dysfunctionality of the Reich became more apparent, however, Kiesinger found himself drawn towards politics, where he began to preach the need for reform if the Reich were to survive. Dubbed "Silver Tongue Kiesinger" for his incredibly persuasive oration, Kiesinger was eventually approached by Albert Speer, and became the leader of the dissidents, taking upon himself the mantle of the third most powerful man in the reformist movement.

The mouth of the reformist movement, Kiesinger is not often found far from its head, Speer himself. When Speer's ideas (or the ideas of any of the dissidents) are questioned, it is often Kiesinger who manages to smooth the tensions, effortlessly persuading doubters of the necessity of Speer's reforms. Silver Tongue holds little love for party bickering, but as anyone who heard his speeches could tell you, he cares greatly for the German nation.

In-Game Biography (Gang of Four victorious) ^{Click to Show}Kurt Georg Kiesinger was once a successful lawyer, being offered highly respectable positions in both the Chamber Court of Berlin and the Nationalsozialistischer Rechtswahrerbund, but turning them down in favor of remaining an independent actor within the profession. When the war began, Kiesinger joined the Foreign Ministry to avoid being drafted into combat, eventually finding a position within the broadcasting arm. However, Kiesinger eventually came under suspicion for "hampering anti-Jewish activities." While he was never found guilty, it is widely considered to be one of the main reasons Kiesinger left his position after the war, returning to work as a lawyer.

After years of political service to the Führer and a dedication to upholding Germany's image across the world, many have been surprised to know that his true affiliations are different from their assumptions. Kiesinger may have acted as subservient to the Führer and his country, but he is no less inclined on the prospects of liberal democracy as the rest of his comrades. Now that the country has found itself on a new path, the Silver Tongue's voice will be louder than ever in the coming years of what is sure to be incredible political turmoil. Yet, Kiesinger is assured in his skills and his ability to defuse the massive bomb known as democratization, for he has immersed himself in danger his entire life.

In-Game Biography (Speer victorious) ^{Click to Show}Snake. Dissident. Speerite. Traitor. Kurt Georg Kiesinger has been labelled and insulted by many people over the last ten years, but never before has anyone dared to call him a silent man. Until now.

The catastrophe of the Oil Crisis has been placed at the feet of Ludwig Erhard and his radical economic reforms. The outbreak of the Slave Revolt has been pinned on the hesitation and incompetence of Henning von Tresckow. Helmut Schmidt has been blamed for the embarrassingly conciliatory negotiations. Yet Kurt Georg Kiesinger, who is no stranger to these three Dissidents, has retreated from the limelight into the shadowy corridors of the Reichstag. He has nothing to say to the forces of democracy within the Reich. He has nothing to say to the crumbling Dissident wing within the NSDAP. All that escapes from his lips is muted praise of Albert Speer and the Reformists.

A growing number of voices are unhappy with Kiesinger's position as Deputy Führer, considering his former allies. Once the charismatic mouth of the Reformist movement, it appears that Kiesinger has delegated that position to Speer himself. A question is spreading throughout the Party: Has the Silver Tongue stopped wagging?

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• The Creon: Deputy Führer Kiesinger doesn't embrace Nazism and Fascism wholeheartedly (having joined the NSDAP after it took power because of the job opportunities it offered), but he is the least ambitious member of the Gang and the one who Speer can trust the most. However, Kiesinger is no less inclined to democratization as the rest of the Gang and joins their opposition to Speer during the Slave Revolt.
• Despair Event Horizon: If Speer successfully outmanuevers the Gang of Four, Kiesinger is the only one left in his cabinet, but now completely disillusioned that their dream for a democratic Germany is dead and that he can do nothing besides sing empty praise for Speer.
• Fallen Hero: If Speer outmaneuvers the Gang of Four, he gets reduced to a mindless supporter of Speer.
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: When setting up autonomous governments in Germany's conquered territories, Kiesinger's plan is to mend the relationship between Germany and the other territories to create a more healthy and balanced relationship between them. While Kiesinger knows that it will take time to achieve the full extent of this goal, he figures that its the best course of action.
• Hegemonic Empire: Kiesinger wishes to turn the Einheitspakt into a hegemonic union of the Reich and a collection of satellite states or protectorates.
• Illegal Religion: Inverted. Rather than maintain Germany's anti-religious laws, Kiesinger wants to remove them, acknowledging that many Germans practice Protestantism and Catholicism anyway.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Kiesinger still advocates for maintaining German hegemony over their territories, but does so with a lighter hand than the foreign ministers of more hardline cabinets such as Bormann's administration.
• The Purge: Recognizing that the more reactionary elements of the Reich could pose a threat to Speer's agenda, Kiesinger has them expelled from the government to boost the reformist cause.
• Pragmatic Hero: Even though he knows that it will be uncovered eventually, Kiesinger has to cover up Speer's complicity in the slave labor exploited by Nazi Germany, lest his government collapse before realizing the full extent of its reforms.
• Red Baron: Kiesinger is called the Silver Tongue for his persuasive oration skills in German politics.
• Slave Liberation: Kiesinger plays a key role in abolishing slavery in Germany and helping Erhard fight off the slave-owning mega-corporations in favor of smaller businesses.
• Sole Survivor: Kiesinger becomes the last member of the Gang who isn't removed from Speer's cabinet in a route where he succeeds. Meanwhile, Erhard is blamed for the disastrous consequences of the Oil Crisis, Tresckow is blamed for allowing the Slave Revolt to happen, and Schmidt is blacklisted for trying to negotiate with the rebelling slaves.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: If Bormann is feeling merciful, he may offer clemency to Kiesinger and allow him to return to Germany, based on his popularity with NSDAP conservatives.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: Leader of the Inner Circle

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Inner Circle) ^{Click to Show}Responsibility for the genuinely anti-Nazi features of the reformist platform is chiefly depositable at the feet of the Inner Circle. These figures, most of whom came to prominence amid the political crises of the 1950s, are the internal opposition to Nazi rule. They aim to remove the NSDAP from power and transition to a new, more or less democratic state structure. To this end they will employ to brand new degrees the unique political agility that saw them slowly infiltrate Germania's halls in the first place.

The strategy of the Inner Circle is to turn the Party against itself. By slowly introducing reformist dissidents into the Reich's administration, the Inner Circle will slowly starve the Party of access to the decision-making organs that are instrumental to its rule. The Party would wither, die, and provide the space for a new regime without need for a revolution. This strategy is naturally contentious. Other dissidents prefer an insurrectionary platform, and some members of the Inner Circle reject the idea that Germany has a democratic future at all. At the moment, however, the figures of the Inner Circle are too busy with the task of disassembling Nazi rule to entertain external opinion.

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• The Ace: Kiesinger was previously an exceptional lawyer who was offered high-status positions in both the Chamber Court of Berlin and the Nationalsozialistischer Rechtswahrerbund, before he turned down both to be an independent actor.
• Draft Dodging: To avoid being drafted into service, Kiesinger joined Germany's foreign ministry.
• The Face: In the clade teaser, Kiesinger is considered the mouth of the reformist movement, using his oratory abilities to rebuke criticism against Speer or the party dissidents and has played a substantial role in persuading people the reforms are needed.
• The Leader: Kiesinger leads the inner circle dissidents in the Speer clade teaser, rounding up the rest of the Gang of Four to dismantle Speer's regime and the NSDAP from within.
• Long Game: Rather than use force or revolution, Kiesinger plants the seeds for the Nazis' downfall in the Speer clade teaser, turning the Party's elements against each other so they can be vulnerable to a coup and replaced with a democratic regime. However, many dissidents are cynical of this plan, either calling for more radical action or rejecting the idea that Germany could ever become democratic.
• Propaganda Machine: Kiesinger spent World War II in the broadcasting arm of the foreign ministry before moving to the propaganda ministry after the war. There, he honed his public speaking skills and formed a network of connections, which he uses in the clade teaser to act as the reformist movement's mouthpiece, a role given to him by Speer to convince people that the NSDAP regime needs to change.
• Token Good Teammate: Kiesinger isn't a saint, but he is the only figure seen in the Speer clade teaser to not be a genuine Nazi.

Helmut Schmidt

^{70s Schmidt portrait}

Role: Reichsminister des Auswärtigen^note Foreign Minister (Speer cabinet)

Ideology: Oligarchy^note Paternalism, National Liberalism^note Liberalism (democracy restored)

In-Game Biography (Minister) ^{Click to Show}Coming from a less than certain familial background and a less than glamorous career, Helmut Schmidt is a relative newcomer to the political scene. In his childhood, Schmidt served as a leader for the Hitler youth, until he was removed from that position for expressing sentiments believed to be against the party. He served in the Luftwaffe during the war, both as an administrator and later, in combat on the Eastern front. After the war, Schmidt returned to his home city of Hamburg, receiving degrees in both economics and political science from a local university. He began to serving under the Hamburg Gau Economic Advisor Schiller, and rose to prominence during the Hamburg floods in 1962.

Becoming a staunch supporter of reform, Schmidt became a prominent figure in the circles of radical reformists led by Kiesinger. Displaying undeniable political acumen and charisma, Schmidt quickly grew to be one of the main ideologues of the faction, forming connections with other like-minded people. With the outbreak of the Kampfzeit, Schmidt joined the broad Reformist coalition, securing the position of foreign minister in Speer's government.

Not as politically connected as Kiesinger nor as technically skilled as Tresckow and Erhard, Schmidt is something of the dark horse amongst the Gang's members. Wielding a network of like-minded experts in the Auswärtiges Amt and radical views, it is clear that the young firebrand clearly holds a great passion for his ideals, though it remains to see how much of his vision will come to pass.

In-Game Biography (Gang of Four victorious) ^{Click to Show}In his childhood, Schmidt served as a leader for the Hitler youth, until he was removed from that position for expressing sentiments believed to be against the party. He served in the Luftwaffe during the war, both as an administrator and later, in combat on the Eastern front. After the war, Schmidt returned to his home city of Hamburg, receiving degrees in both economics and political science from a local university. He began to speak against the German Reich and their policies, though never so brazenly as to attract attention from the NSDAP.

Helmut Schmidt now stands at the precipice of a strange, fresh, frightening but hopeful future. He has been the spearhead of the coup that managed to finally bring the fist down onto the NSDAP's dominance, and this has led to the dam of National Socialism cracking and breaking down, more rapidly than even the most optimistic people would have assumed. Many flock to the streets in a new sprint for choosing their political sides, others harden and double down on their stances, and some retreat into their homes, vividly aware that these events repeat a certain downfall of a certain country so many decades ago.

Faced with an overwhelming sense of dread and aspiration, Helmut Schmidt will keep his head high above the sea of worry. He considers himself but one man in the storm known as world history, but he has made his mark nonetheless - and knows he cannot stop here. The process of denazification begins at the first step, and ends when Germany's tricolor can proudly wave above every city in the country, and every German can hold their hand to their chest and be happy knowing that they have left their bloody past behind.

How far he will go to achieve this is not known, but Schmidt knows that sometimes a forceful hand may be necessary to persuade the uncertain.

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• Allohistorical Allusion: If Schmidt is forced to flee Germany following Oberländer's coup against Speer, he'll write an autobiography called "Inside the Third Reich" to detail all of the inner workings in Germany and experiences he faced while working under the Reich, just like the real-life book written by Albert Speer. However, unlike the OTL version, Schmidt is instead using the autobiography to paint Speer in an unflattering light and reveal all of the crimes he committed and promptly hid under a veneer of ignorance.
• Arch-Enemy: Once it's revealed that Speer was never a true believer in his democratic reforms, he comes to despise all of the Gang of Four, but his greatest hatred lies towards Schmidt, getting into the most intense and frequent clashes with him.
• The Atoner: Like Speer, Schmidt wants to reform Germany to atone for his past membership with the Nazi party. Unlike Speer, however, Schmidt's commitment is more genuine.
• Berserk Button: He's always frustrated whenever his reformist agenda is blocked in some way, but he loses his temper most when student protestors get needlessly gunned down.
• Beneath the Mask: In private, Schmidt is deeply insecure about his commitment to reforming Germany, in which he is haunted by visions of his father, Gustav Ludwig Schmidt, taunting him about his involvement with the Nazis and disowning him.
• Bookends: At the start of his campaign, Schmidt will reminisce about his past career in the Nazi party, leaving him with a great sense of guilt and remorse from abetting to their crimes. When the Gang of Four triumphs over Speer, Schmidt will recall his past involvement again, but rather than self-loathing, Schmidt feels a sense of renewal and pride from reforming Germany, having shed his past misdeeds.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: At the end of Speer's Paternalist tree, he implies to Kiesinger that he's called Speer a puppet to his face.
• Enemy Mine: Schmidt advocates for détente and the improvement of relations between Germany and the United States against their common rival, the Empire of Japan. He also wishes to pursue closer ties with the French State against their common enemy Burgundy, despite the historical rivalry between France and Germany.
• Evil Versus Evil: During the Sondergericht trials, Schmidt has the ability to influence the outcome of the trials to punish high-ranking Nazis like Baldur von Schirach and Heinrich Müller, delivering some Laser-Guided Karma in a world where the Nazis have won and gotten away with their crimes.
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: Schmidt's foreign policy mainly consists of sending apologizing to every country that Germany has wronged in the past, including the United States, Japan, and Italy. While these steps are met with wary acceptance, Schmidt himself recognizes these words will not be enough for everyone to truly forgive Germany and it will take much more work to repair their relations abroad.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Schmidt is a fan of Morita's reforms and eagerly shakes his hand when sent by Speer to discuss a market policy between their two nations.
• The Leader: While the Gang of Four can be considered the Big Good for Germany overall, Schmidt can be considered their overall leader to a certain extent. This is made apparent in the climax of both of Speer's paths, where Speer considers Schmidt his personal Arch-Enemy - in the Fascist path, when Speer purges the Gang of Four, he makes a point of killing Schmidt first, while in the Authoritarian Democratic path, where Speer believes the Gang of Four's reforming Germany into a democracy have only meant the death of National Socialism, he feels the most angered at Schmidt, for being "everything that represents the collapse of the Aryan man".
• Mysterious Past: In-universe, Schmidt is considered to have a "less than certain familial background".
• Peace Conference: When Speer is dealing with Poland, Schmidt's proposal is to negotiate a peace deal with them. If his negotiations are successful, Poland and Germany will sign the Königsberg Treaty: Poland becomes an independent satellite state of Germany and rejoins the Einheitspakt, and Germany in return does not invade it.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Even when compared to the other Nazi reformists, Schmidt stands out for his willingness to negotiate with the Reich's enemies, whether it be the United States or slaves protesting for better treatment.
• Rookie Red Ranger: Schmidt is the newest member of the Gang, being neither as well-connected as Kiesinger or respected as Tresckow or Erhard. Despite this, he is treated as the Gang's leader due to being the most radical proponent for democratization.
• The Scapegoat: Schmidt considers most NSDAP officials as acceptable targets to scapegoat for Germany's problems, potentially even including Hitler himself.
• Single Tear: At least according to one untrustworthy staffer, Schmidt sheds a single tear when he visits Washington D.C. and witnesses the Lincoln Memorial, inspired by the great American values it represents.
• What You Are in the Dark: His "negotiations" with Willy Brandt over the slave revolt amount to fairly casual conversation, as both already share many goals. Thus, any publicly made agreements are little more than a formality.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

• Allohistorical Allusion: His teased biography mentions that he came under the spotlight while serving under the Hamburg Gau Economic Advisor Schiller, praised for his management of the 1962 Hamburg floods, much like his own work in the Senate of Hamburg from OTL.
• Enemy Mine: While Schmidt has genuine allies in the foreign minister, he also to work alongside Speerite Nazis like Mussgnug and Waldheim, much to his disdain in the Speer facelift teaser. They find common ground in opening Germany up to the rest of the world and take meaningful action early on to prove they are not pushovers, but their ideologies will inevitably conflict one day.
• Rookie Red Ranger: In the Speer facelift teaser, Schmidt only rose to prominence in 1962, for his role in handling the Hamburg floods. Within that short timeframe, he's already become a prominent member of the radical reformists.
• The Social Expert: Schmidt is Speer's chief diplomat in his dedicated facelift teaser, where he will use his diplomatic skills to dethaw tensions with both the United States and Japan.

Ludwig Erhard

^{70s Erhard portrait}

Role: Reichswirtschaftsminister^note Economy Minister (Speer and Reformist Schirach cabinet)

Ideology: Liberal Corporatism^note Conservatism

In-Game Biography (Minister) ^{Click to Show}A wounded veteran during the first World War, Ludwig Erhard became a name in the business world when he joined the ECGFGI, a market research institute, and quickly rose to become deputy director. During the Second World War, he founded the Institut für Industrieforschung, a one-man institute which dealt with post-war planning. Publishing a paper which controversially assumed Germany would lose the war, he continued working with figures in the ministry such as Otto Ohlendorf.

Nowadays, Erhard is one of Germany's most important economists, and one of its most ill-mannered bureaucrats. Erhard is a strong advocate the neoliberalism of the Freiburg School, calling for a regulated free market with strong state intervention against monopolies. With the German economy crashing due to mass spending, Erhard became a prominent figure in the transformation of the German economy into a mix of corporatism and free market measures under Speer's guidance.

Because of these strict calls for change and liberalization, Erhard has become a core member of the dissident movement, bringing in a circle of Freiburg School theorists under his wing. Known for his extraordinary stubbornness, brashness, and immediate dismissal of any sort of compromise on his bold plans, Erhard leads Speer's plans for economic reform. Erhard will attempt to bring alive the neoliberal utopia-even if it means setting the Reich aflame in opposition.

In-Game Biography (Gang of Four victorious) ^{Click to Show}A wounded veteran during the first World War, Ludwig Erhard became a name in the business world when he joined the ECGFGI, a market research institute, and quickly rose to become deputy director. During the Second World War, however, he was the subject of controversy when he published a paper claiming that, although the Germans would win the war, the Reich's economy would disintegrate within a decade. Because of this paper, he was fired from his job, only to be proven right during the German Economic Collapse.

To a mixture of applause and hatred, Erhard has dragged Germany out of the dirt. His policies proved themselves true, then nearly faltered during the Oil Crisis - and he was mere moments away from being marked as the black sheep of economists across Germany. Yet, in the end, with the government gritting its teeth and Erhard tightening its belt, they made it. Now, from one hoop of fire they enter another one, one which Erhard must look straight into the eyes and march on forward, just as he always has. For nothing is stable and nothing is sacred, for here and now in these very next steps in history will show whether or not Erhard will remain the genius of Germany, or its fool.

But what the people think of him does not matter. Erhard hides his fear of the future, but hopes for it nonetheless. He always did hate Speer and the NSDAP, and thought of National Socialism as nothing but the tantrum of bloodthirsty children, though horrifically realized. If he can bring the boot down on Germany's fascism and wash it away from the Rhine to the Spree, he will gladly do so without a moment's hesitation. And if he can prove to everyone that free-market liberalism is far superior to National Socialist state-control, he might smile a little more whenever he pulls out a cigar.

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• Authority in Name Only: If Speer triumphs over the Gang, he turns the Reichsminister for Economic Affairs into a mere ceremonial profession, effectively turning Erhard into a powerless tool.
• Badass Boast: When Flick denounces his attempt to dismantle the Wehrwirtschaftsführer and swears to stop him, Erhard takes a final puff from his cigar, leans forward, and bluntly states:
  Trust me. You won't get the chance to.
• The Bus Came Back: If the reformist faction successfully coups Bormann during the June of Deceit, Erhard will return to Germany as Schirach's economic minister.
• Capitalism Is Bad: Inverted. A large part of Erhard's reforms is ending Germany's command economy and autarky in place of a free market without price controls and open trade with other nations, which can markedly improve the livelihoods of the average German citizen.
• The Cassandra: In the early 50s, Erhard predicted Germany's impending economic collapse. No one in the Reich listened to him until it was too late, in a modern version of Cassandra's tale.
• Cigar Chomper: Ludwig Erhard's portrait depicts him smoking a cigar, which he was famous for doing in real life. In one event, Speer complains that Erhard 'smoked like a damn chimney'.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Erhard's reforms to transition from the National Socialist econoic model to a free-market one is a radical change that could backfire on the nation, something that the man is aware of. His fears are validated when the Oil Crisis smashes the fragile economy, but if the Gang seizes power from Speer, Germany will be put back on the road to recovery and revitalization.
• The Determinator: He's the most stubborn member of the Gang of Four, wishing to implement all of his economic reforms to the fullest extent and will not accept any objections or bribes against his plans.
• Everyone Has Standards: Of all the plans that the Nazis pursued, Erhard is most disgusted by Generalplan Ost, believing that it decimated the economic potential of many regions that were deemed not Aryan enough. Not even previously working with some of its participants, like Otto Ohlendorf, is enough to stave off his horror. A major component of his reforms is rebuilding these areas and opening more economic opportunities to the Reich's ethnic minorities.
• Good Is Not Nice: Erhard is notoriously stubborn and ill-mannered on a personal level, but he is genuinely dedicated to reforming Germany into a democracy.
• Hegemonic Empire: Under the Zollverein, Erhard's plan is to give greater economic autonomy to Germany's collaborationist governments, while still maintaining German control of their resources and heavy industry.
• Pragmatic Hero: When the Oil Crisis hits, Erhard proposes a temporary hold on the repatriation of slaves, as focusing on that matter during the ensuing economic crisis will cause Germany's economy to collapse. Kiesinger and Tresckow are too divided to strongly protest this, but Schmidt is firmly against this proposal. Ultimately, Speer sides with Erhard.
• Slave Liberation: Breaking up the Wehrwirtschaftsführer also means ending their slave labor in place throughout the Zollverein. By the time Erhard realizes the full extent of his reforms, the label "Made in Germany" will be a mark of hard worker spirit rather than human exploitation.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: If Bormann chooses to do so, he can show mercy to Erhard and welcome him back to Germany because his economic expertise could be useful.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

• The Ace: Erhard is one of Germany's most prominent and important economists. During the interwar period, he joined the ECGFGI, a market research institute, and rose to become its deputy director. He would also found the IfI, a one-man institute that dealt with post-war planning and continued working alongside figures in the economic ministry. Alongside the clique of Freiburg School theorists in the Speer facelift teaser, Erhard now leads ambitious plans for economic reform in Germany, which includes the implementation of free market measures and intervention against monopolies.
• Cassandra Truth: Subverted. According to his teased biography Erhard wrote a controversial article predicting Germany's defeat in World War II. In OTL, this obviously turned out true. Here, not so much.
• Innocently Insensitive: In the Speer facelift teaser, Erhard works with his allies to build some economic plans and calls Kurt Schmücker by the name "Young Schmücker", lightly annoying the latter.
• Internal Reformist: Erhard is one of the most prominent dissident figures in the Speer facelift teaser, calling for reforms after the German economic crash and bringing in a circle of Freiburg School theorists to the dissident movement.
• Long Game: Erhard's plan, assisted by his Freiburg School allies and supported by Speer in his facelift teaser, is a long-term campaign to revitalize the German economy to compete with the western nations. Among these are the abolition of the monopolies, elimination of price controls, restoration of free trade, and the eventual abolishment of slavery. However, all of these will take the course of the decade to be realized to any significant extent.
• Shown Their Work: Erhard's economic theory is called neo-liberalism in his teased biography, which was the original term for the ideas proposed by the Freiburg school and would later form the basis for ordoliberalism. In OTL, the term would be appropriated by Anglo-American scholars, hence why neo-liberalism in this timeline proposes different policies than its real-life namesake.

Henning von Tresckow

^{70s Tresckow portrait}

Role: Military Commander, Reichsminister für Nationale Verteidigung^note Security Minister (Speer cabinet)

Ideology: Aristocratic Conservatism^note Despotism, National Conservatism^note Paternalism (democracy restored)

In-Game Biography (Minister) ^{Click to Show}Henning von Tresckow, is a well-known and well-regarded commander in the Wehrmacht. Born to a family of nobles in Brandenburg, von Tresckow intended to continue his family's proud military history, and fought in the Great War. After the war's loss, von Tresckow supported the Nazi movement, believing it to be the only way Germany would restore its territorial losses after the Treaty of Versailles. This idealism was shattered during the Night of Long Knives however, and von Tresckow began to feel a strong hatred towards the NSDAP, something that only increased during the Reich's later actions.

Duty called as the Second World War began, where he became the Chief of Staff for the 2nd Army in the Eastern Front. Under this role, he would oversee the implementation of the Heuaktion and anti-partisan reprisals in the German-occupied territories. While Tresckow was reportedly known to meet with several individuals who formed a circle calling for the overthrow of the Führer, they disappeared following the victory in the war, leaving them as mere rumours of divided loyalties.

A man of discipline, von Tresckow strongly despises the creeping politicization of the armed forces and the way that the Party's rule has driven Germany's glory following the victory into the ground. Becoming a reformist figure in the Wehrmacht, Tresckow converged with the broader reformist movement in the Reich, eventually getting the post of the Reichminister of National Defense. While a close associate of the Dissidents, Tresckow has a clear view of the ideal order: A military strongman at the top-and not weak pluralist rule. It remains to be seen how this reactionary divergence from the wider dissident views will affect the struggles inside the faction.

In-Game Biography (Gang of Four victorious) ^{Click to Show}Henning von Tresckow, called the Last Prussian, is a well-known and well-regarded commander in the Wehrmacht. Born to a family of nobles in Brandenburg, von Tresckow intended to continue his family's proud military history, and fought in the Great War. After the war's loss, von Tresckow supported the Nazi movement, believing it to be the only way Germany would restore its territorial losses after the Treaty of Versailles. This idealism was shattered during the Night of Long Knives however, and von Tresckow began to feel a strong hatred towards the NSDAP, something that only increased during the Reich's later actions.

Despite this, however, von Tresckow served admirably in the Second World War, leading numerous operations on the Eastern Front that some mark as vital to Bukharin's collapse and the victory of the Reich. During the war, Tresckow was reportedly known to meet with several individuals who would later be executed or arrested for conspiracy against the Reich or the Führer. Von Tresckow himself, however, was never implicated in any of these crimes, so these meetings were quietly swept under the rug.

Von Tresckow looks himself in the mirror with a dark expression. Much blood was spilled due to his inaction, and even his cowardice - but now he can, perhaps, make amends. To himself, to his God, to his friends and his family. He had tried to fight against fascism once, and so he fought again, in the dark and in the open, to shatter National Socialism's grip over Europe. In his wish for a strong and prosperous Germany, he now stands at the head of one of the world's most powerful militaries, and his ambitions have been tempered by his experience. Though he still wants his country to be powerful, he knows how easy it is to slide towards madness and blind nationalism at the cost of everyone around them.

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• Allohistorical Allusion: In real life, Tresckow took part in the July 20 plot because the Germans were losing the war and because of his strong religious convictions. In TNO, he takes part in another plot (abeit, one that is vastly different) with the Gang of Four to oppose the NSDAP.
• The Atoner: Part of the reason why Tresckow wants to reform the Wehrmacht is to take responsibility for their past complicity in the Nazis' war crimes and turn them into a more humane force removed from the quagmire of National Socialist politics.
• Boring, but Practical: One reform that Tresckow can pursue is limiting the size of the navy, as attempting to cover every kilometer of ocean would be a futile goal and a waste of time, especially when their neighbors have no interest in launching a naval invasion against them.
• Defector from Decadence: Tresckow used to support the Nazis out of belief that they were the only way to avenge Germany's losses from the First World War. However, once their true colors and brutality were exposed during the Night of Long Knices, Tresckow turned against the party, especially as their list of atrocities grew by the day.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Tresckow acknowledges this in regards to Wilhelm II. Like most Germans, Tresckow does not have fond memories of the former Kaiser, but he's willing to admit that he had a sound idea of projecting German dominance overseas through a powerful navy, which is why he proposes outfitting the Kriegsmarine with more technologically advanced equipment.
• Everyone Has Standards: Tresckow's anger over the Reich's cruelty towards its Jewish citizens as well as its conquered subjects in eastern Europe is what drove him to join the Gang of Four in their quest to end Nazism.
• Good Old Ways: Marshal Tresckow hails from a noble Prussian family in Brandenburg, who have had a history of serving in the military. Disgusted with how corrupt and morally debased the Wehrmacht has become, he wants to reform it into a force of discipline, loyalty, honour, dedication, and patriotism.
• Historical Villain Downgrade: Tresckow's portrayal as being shocked at the bloodthirsty attitude of the Wehrmacht towards both Jewish citizens and those in the Pakt's eastern territories is very generous to say the least. In real life, Tresckow never protested against any of the orders given to him despite never been in danger of being reprimanded for doing so, supporting measures called by one of the best Holocaust historians, Christian Gerlach, as being "harsher than what the Nazis had" such as his brutal anti-partisan measures. Similarly, Tresckow was also good friends with Arthur Nebe, commander of Einsatzgruppe B and a major perpetrator of the Holocaust.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When reforming the Wehrmacht, Tresckow realizes how deep the corruption ran through it and wonders how Germany even won World War II, referencing the implausibility of how TNO's setting could come to be.
• Must Make Amends: Tresckow considers himself party to the Wehrmacht's war crimes since he didn't do enough to prevent them. He hopes to redeem himself by helping the Gang depoliticize the Wehrmacht and denazify Germany as a whole.
• Nazi Nobleman: Inverted. He's the only explicit remnant of Prussia's old aristocracy in the Reich, and he's an Internal Reformist.
• Old Soldier: Tresckow joined the German military in World War I and fought in the Second Battle of the Marne as the youngest lieutenant of the German Army, winning an Iron Cross for his bravery in said battle.
• The Purge: When reforming the Heer and Luftwaffe, Tresckow will purge many of their reactionary and corrupt leaders, reassigning or forcing them into retirement.
• Quality over Quantity: A general theme of his reforms is downsizing the Wehrmacht in favor of a more professional and elite force. By the time Tresckow fully realizes his reforms, the Wehrmacht will have a division limit of 50.
• Real Men Love Jesus: Tresckow is a devout Christian, and one event chain has him (along with Kiesinger) urging Speer to end the Reich's crackdown on the Church.
• Reconcile the Bitter Foes: One of the last reforms pursued by Tresckow is to promote greater integration and cooperation, instead of rivalry, between the Wehrmacht's branches.
• The Remnant: In addition to representing the conservative elements of German society that would benefit from the reforms, he also embodies what's left of the Prussian Junkers who had resented Hitler, seeing him as an upstart Bohemian corporal.
• Technical Pacifist: Many of his military reforms involve curbing the Wehrmacht's most bloodthirsty attittudes, while still improving their professionalism to make them a strong enough force to deter any threats to the Reich.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In a minor subplot, Tresckow is tasked with promoting a promising military officer named Echkard Graebner. As Tresckow analyzes his records, he realizes that Graebner is actually not the officer's name and he's not even German; his real name is Filip Blazek and he's actually Polish, only that his old cultural identity was beaten out of him by the Nazis and now he genuinely believes that he's German.^note Even worse, the soldier's delusions are heavily implied to have be an effect of Heuaktion, a program of kidnapping thousands of Polish and Ukrainian children to use as labor, which was signed off by Tresckow himself. Tresckow has the option to tell Blazek his true past, but this completely shatters Blazek's view of the world and he later commits suicide. When he's informed of this, Tresckow is at a complete loss of words.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

• Dramatic Irony: His teased biography mentions that there were rumors of him being involved in a treasonous plot that bears resemblance to Operation Valkyrie, which he did participate in OTL. However, these were never proven in-universe.
• Internal Reformist: Downplayed in the Speer facelift teaser. Tresckow opposes the politicization of the armed forces and wants to reform towards a more traditional "apolitical" Prussian-style military. However, Tresckow also represents a reactionary divergence from the rest of the reformist movement, as he advocates for a dictatorial regime that adheres to aristocratic values.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: This characteristic has been more strongly emphasized in the Speer facelift teaser. Tresckow is a war criminal and a man unfriendly to the idea of a democratic Germany, but he isn't personally a fascist and opposes the more evil NSDAP regime.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Tresckow opposed the NSDAP regime as far back as the Night of Long Knives, but this did not prevent him from carrying out their atrocious orders in the Speer facelift teaser. Most infamously, Tresckow has been responsible for violent anti-partisan reprisals in eastern Europe and the implementation of Heuaktion, a World War II operation where tens of thousands of Polish children were abducted and either Germanized or sentenced to the concentration camps.
• Token Evil Teammate: The Gang of Four has complicity with the Nazi atrocities, but Tresckow has the dirtiest hands of all of them, as seen in the Speer facelift teaser. He knew and committed numerous war crimes in the Eastern Front of World War II, and is the only Gang member to not support a democratic future, instead believing Germany should be led by a military dictator.

German Intelligence

Reinhard Gehlen

Role: Security Minister (Bormann cabinet), Präsident of Reichsnachrichtendienst (Speer), Präsident of the Hauptvervaltung Aufklärung^note Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (Bormann), Head of State (SS Civil War)

Ideology: Despotism, National Socialism (as Bormann's minister), Reformed National Socialism^note National Socialism (SS Civil War)

Reinhard Gehlen, also known as Agent Kleiner Fuchs, is the head of the Abwehr and one of the most powerful men in the Reich, his tendrils of intelligence reaching into all corners of Germany. Gehlen is a Führer's most powerful blade, yet he is also a double-edged sword that cuts both ways, for his loyalties lie in not just the Reich, but also the people of Germany and himself.

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• Allohistorical Allusion: In OTL, he was instrumental in the creation of West Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst during the Cold War, which survives to this day.
• Ambition Is Evil: His primary motivation is to acquire as much power as possible, while remaining too important for his superiors to remove. However, this drives him to commit morally questionable things to maintain his power, such as faking evidence to manipulate Bormann into purging his rival, Müller.
• Blackmail: In the Gang of Four path, Gehlen threatens to reveal Speer's complicity in the slave system and the Holocaust during his tenure as Minister of Armaments and War Production, preventing him from acting against the Gang as they turn Speer into their puppet.
• Broken Pedestal: His mentee, Gerhard Wessel, regarded Gehlen with much respect as his superior. However, Wessel discovers that Gehlen has actually been conducting illegal operations to suppress far-left dissidents against Germany and sent Wessel on suicide missions to indirectly remove a potential obstacle to this plan, shattering Wessel's faith in him.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: He ends up working for every single Führer, a testament to his abilities as a skilled master of intelligence.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Gehlen is described to be an unimpressive man with a thin face and prominent ears, which masks the fact that he heads Germany's intelligence agency.
• Defector from Decadence: In Heydrich's Germany, Gehlen joins the resistance against the SS warlords following Heydrich's death, and can wind up the leader of the Deutsches Reich if Speidel is killed.
• Even Evil Has Standards: While Gehlen may be an ambitious schemer, he's disgusted to hear about Bormann's plan to legalize polygamy, viewing his general sexual predation as revolting.
• Evil Versus Evil: To eliminate a rival to his seat of power, Gehlen can frame Heinrich Müller of corruption to get Bormann to strip him of all ranks and discharge him. While mostly done to advance his own position, his abuse is at least directed toward a sociopathic spymaster who has been actively propping up the Nazi government for years and joined a plot to overthrow Bormann, even before he was fired.
• Graceful Loser: After Wessel uncovers Gehlen's corruption and forces him to resign, Gehlen sadly takes off his sunglasses, apologizes to Wessel for his misdeeds, and bids a final farewell to his former friend before leaving.
• Internal Reformist: In Speer's route, Gehlen reforms Germany's intelligence agency into the Reichsnachrichtendienst, which will consolidate all of the agencies in this field into a single efficient organization compared to the Abwehr and Gestapo. Given how immediate his proposal is to Speer, it's likely that he always harbored this idea before the game's start.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: His description outright states that, like Speidel, he is loyal to the German people over whoever's in charge of the government, and he sides with the lesser of two evils in every path, whether it's Bormann over von Schirach, the Gang of Four over Speer, or Heydrich over Himmler (and later the Deutsches Reich over the SS).
• Punch-Clock Villain: While ambitious and power-hungry, Gehlen doesn't really engage in the worst excesses of the Nazi regime. That said, he's not quite as open to reform as the Gang of Four, protesting some of their more ambitious plans, such as demanding Speer to stop Kiesinger's plan to increase funds for education and healthcare, believing that it would be a breeding ground for Bolshevik thought. It's later revealed that Gehlen has also been organizing corrupt deals and assassinations of far-left rebels in Germany to retain his authority in the Nazi government.
• Sour Supporter: Gehlen is willing to work with any of the contenders for Führer and rarely gives any indication as to his feelings on any of them, but he is least enthusiastic about working for Göring. During the planning for Fall Schwarz, Gehlen has to fight the urge to bury his head in his hands when Göring waxes nostalgic about his hatred of Himmler and celebrates his impending demise rather than planning the invasion, and he puts greater trust in Ferdinand Schörner of all people in ensuring the invasion doesn't collapse.
• The Spymaster: As head of the Reichsnachrichtendienst (under Speer) or the Strategische Unterstützungspolizei (under Bormann), Gehlen coordinates the spies that serve as the eyes and ears of these Führer both inside and outside of Germany. In Bormann's Germany, in the early stages of the Second Dismantlement, he will also replace Heinrich Müller as head of the OrPo when Müller is discovered to be working with the conspiracy.

Gerhard Wessel

Role: Präsident of Reichsnachrichtendienst (Speer)

Gehlen's protégé in the Abwehr.

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• Assassin Outclassin': When he uncovers Gehlen's corruption, an assassin is sent to murder Wessel before he can reveal the information to anyone else. Fortunately, Wessel manages to fight off the assassin with a penknife.
• Dragon Ascendant: He serves as the primary enforcer for Gehlen, primarily carrying out operations against Speer's enemies like Antifa and the student protestors. Once Gehlen is forced to resign after uncovering his corruption, Wessel takes his place as head of the Reichsnachrichtendienst.

Heinrich Müller

Role: Chief of the Ordnungspolizei^note Security Minister (Bormann and Reformist Schirach cabinet), Präsident of Hauptvervaltung Aufklärung

Ideology: National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}The Chief of the Ordnunspolizei, Heinrich Müller, has always surrounded himself in a mysterious air of apoliticism. Within seven years of the Third Reich's birth, this cold and calculating officer had evolved from Head of the Munich Political Police Department to Chief of the Gestapo, controlling the secret police of the Reich with ruthless efficiency.

Despite being a longtime member of the SS, Müller was quick to side with Bormann and the Conservative wing of the NSDAP. Whether he quietly aligns with the tenets of orthodox National Socialism, or simply considered Bormann to provide the most stability, is a matter of contention. For Bormann, it matters not. As long as the OrPo Chief remains a tenacious functionary and continues to serve the German state, the Führer will trust him to fulfil his duty.

Former director of the Gestapo who sided with the conservatives under Bormann, who appoints him head of the Ordnungspolizei, heading all security and intelligence organizations in Germany should he win the Civil War.

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• Corrupt Politician: Downplayed. Other than a few instances of potential bribery, Müller has a fairly clean career that wouldn't justify his removal from them Ordungspolizei. However, Gehlen fakes evidence to exaggerate his corruption and fool Bormann into thinking that he's part of Schirach's June of Deceit conspiracy, getting him stripped all ranks and banned from any form of military service.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being the one to order such interrogations, Müller is unnerved by the torture of his informants, preferring to do the more methodical and boring paperwork of his job.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: When ordered by Bormann to hunt down Speer's Gang of Four, Müller finds out that Schmidt is hiding in the United States under the FBI's protection. Müller and Bormann agree that they can't get to Schmidt, knowing that kidnapping Schmidt was not worth the risk of inciting nuclear war.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: After Bormann has him stripped him of all ranks on the grounds of being a potential conspirator in Schirach's conspiracy plot, Müller joins the conspiracy to try overthrowing Bormann in retaliation. If Bormann dismantles the coup, he'll punish Müller and the rest of his co-conspirators by hanging them on piano wire.
• Opportunistic Bastard: Opportunism is a trait actively encouraged by Bormann when he appoints Müller as the head of the Ordunspolizei, believing that a self-serving man with minimal loyalties to the Nazi party is the best choice for a head spymaster because an unscrupulous man would be an efficient subordinate.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He's only a secondary character in Bormann's storyline, but him being purged by Bormann is enough for Schirach and his co-conspirators to panic and believe that they'll be next, driving them to prepare for the June of Deceit plot.
• The Spymaster: Müller becomes the Chief of the Ordnungspolizei under Bormann, which heads all of the Reich's police, secret police, and intelligence organizations, including the foreign intelligence agency Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung.
• The Stoic: Müller is a rather emotionless Nazi who rarely shows any passion or emotion in his tone, usually detatched from the political intrigue of the Reichstag.
• Torture Technician: As head of the Orpo, Müller organizes the methodical torture and beatings of informants to extract confessions from them.

NSDAP officials

Walther Hewel

Role: Reichsminister des Auswärtigen^note Foreign Minister (Hitler and Bormann cabinet)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Konservativ Faction^note National Socialist German Workers' Party - Conservative Faction

Ideology: National Socialism

In-Game Biography (Reichsminister des Auswärtigen ^{Click to Show}In a world of foes both real and imagined, the Reich needs a politician capable of asserting its strength on the world stage. After the downfall of the incompetent Joachim von Ribbentrop, Adolf Hitler appointed his close friend and confidant Walther Hewel as the new Reichsminister for Foreign Affairs. A former coffee salesman, Hewel has scaled the greasy ladder of the Foreign Ministry to become the most important diplomat in the Einheitspakt.\n\nUnlike his boisterous predecessor, the shy and good-natured Hewel has sunk into the bureaucratic background as a tenacious and steadfast Conservative of the NSDAP. While he lacks the dynamic intelligence and independence necessary for being a great Reichsminister, his loyalty to the Führer is unmatched.

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• Affably Evil: Hewel is shy and quite friendly to his peers, despite being a Nazi.
• Asshole Victim: After a brief period of clam following the Second Night of Long Knives, Hewel, along with his wife, gets kidnapped by the RAF and shot in the head when their demands are not met.
• Blatant Lies: In the middle of making a public speech about the recent political developments in the Reich, Hitler suddenly suffers from an amnesia attack and starts talking about attending someone's wedding and the defunct SA. As an aide leads Hitler away, Hewel takes the podium and claims that the Führer was "accidentally" given the wrong speech, leaving the foreign minister to awkwardly talk about how the Reich's diplomatic progression mirrors the story of the SA.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Hewel is married and, at one point, complains to Bormann about working overtime because he can no longer see his wife.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Hewel is unnerved by Bormann's intent to betray the Polish and exterminate them, despite the fact that they surrendered and accepted his deal to become a semi-autonomous region to them.
• Gunboat Diplomacy: Hewel advocates a confrontational foreign policy against Japan, conflicting with von Schirach's proposal of détente.
• Mouth of Sauron: Downplayed. In the process of foreign investigations, Bormann can personally make some visits to spearhead negotiations, but he more often delegates that job to Hewel, who acts as Germany's representative.
• Pet the Dog: Before an upcoming visit to the United States, Hewel wants to buy a Disneyland souvenir for his wife and even von Schirach, until a stern look from Bormann shuts him up.
• Sacrificial Lion: After Bormann seemingly realizes his dream of a prosperous Reich, Hewel's execution by the RAF shakes those idealistic dreams and signals the "Herbst" period of instability and terrorist attacks across Germany.
• Sycophantic Servant: Generally unintelligent and would never dare question Bormann's word.
• Undying Loyalty: Unfailingly loyal to Hitler and later Bormann, when he becomes Führer. During Schirach's June of Deceit, Hewel is the only one in Bormann's cabinet to not join the conspiracy.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

• Yes-Man: In a teased event for the Speer facelift, Schmidt says that Hewel was a bootlicker who disempowered the foreign ministry compared to others, so it's up to the former to restore it.

Theodor Oberländer

Role: Reichstagpräsident^note Head of Government (Reichstag Emergency Council), Foreign Minister (Hardline Speer cabinet)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Reaktionär^note National Socialist German Workers' Party - Reactionary

Ideology: Idiosyncratic Nazism^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography (Reichstagpräsident) ^{Click to Show}Highly educated, highly opinionated, and highly controversial - Theodor Oberländer, the President of the Reichstag, is an anomaly amongst the ranks of the NSDAP. Speerites consider him a conservative, even a reactionary. Orthodox National Socialists, however, see Oberländer as a reformer - and a lesser evil compared to Speer -, one who would push for a great deal of social change and reform in the Reich's aching structures, yet try to keep the ideology alive.

After receiving doctorates in Economics and Agriculture, Theodor Oberländer went on to serve in the Abwehr, eventually leading the Special Group Bergman in Ukraine. Oberländer was, however, eventually removed from this position following a series of missives to the Führer in which he criticized racial policies such as Generalplan Ost as misapplied National Socialism.

Far from killing his career, however, this pushed Oberländer into the political sector. Campaigning from his position as a professor at Prague University, Oberländer managed to secure a seat in the Reichstag. At first one of the earliest members of the NSDAP's reformist faction, Oberländer split with Speer when it became clear to the doctor that the architect cared more about appealing to students and liberals than correcting ideological failings. While no faction loves Oberländer's ideas, it is clear many of the Reich's people do.

In-Game Biography (Hardline Speer cabinet) ^{Click to Show}Years of reform gone too far and too wrong under Speer have taken their toll on the German state. While madmen and militarists cheered on the torrent of needless bloodshed and havoc that the Reich had become, greater men instead took action. Theodor Oberländer, President of the Reichstag, was the foremost of those great men.

A long-time vocal critic of the Führer's more radical policies, Oberländer's criticism of the government's handling of the slaves was scathing. As the government began to collapse and the liberals took to the street, Oberländer made use of his connections within the legislature and Abwehr to secure support within Germania. In a move of dubious legality, the Reichstag voted to offer significant emergency powers to their own president to deal with this unprecedented crisis.

Although Speer is Führer, it is now clear who rules the Reich. After witnessing the Führer's collapse, Oberländer is only reaffirmed in his belief in measured, intelligent change to National Socialism, which he has boldly begun enacting. As the President slowly chips away at the Enabling Laws, Speer becomes less and less relevant to his own government. A truly reformed global power will be reborn in the chambers of the Volkshalle, and all of Germany will know that Oberländer is the man who saved the dream of a Thousand Year Reich.

The Reichstagpräsident and one of the top non-Speerist NSDAP reformists. An early critic of Hitler's applications of National Socialism, Oberländer supports collective Nazi leadership and a more lenient racial policy. Though considered by others to be Speer-aligned, Oberländer has in fact distanced himself from Speer due to the latter's gestures towards liberalism.

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• Allohistorical Allusion: Oberländer's Germany strongly resembles the Soviet Union as governed by the post-Stalin directorial order: bureaucratic, comparatively decentralized, less personalistic, and even egalitarian (within the ruling party), but dogmatic on the most fundamental level and ultimately staunchly opposed to actual liberalization.
• The Coup: If Speer brutally represses the Slave Revolt or fails to stop Schörner from doing the same thing, Oberländer launches an internal party coup to informally remove him from power and render him a puppet Führer.
• Condescending Compassion: Oberländer pushes for fairer treatment towards Slavs because he believes that they are actually Aryans who have been fooled into being Slavic. It never seems to occur to him that judging people by a racial hierarchy is morally wrong in the first place.
• Dragon-in-Chief: If he successfully turns Führer Albert Speer into his puppet, Oberländer becomes Germany's true ruler in all but name, despite being officially only Minister for Foreign Affairs. Accordingly, Germany's ideology changes from Speer's Reformed National Socialism to Oberländer's Idiosyncratic Nazism.
• Early-Bird Cameo: As President of the Reichstag, Oberländer makes a brief appearance as the head of government of Germany, when the Reichstag Emergency Council assumes power between Hitler's death and the German Civil War's eruption, eight years before he could rise to true prominence as the true power behind Führer Albert Speer.
• Emergency Authority: If Führer Speer's government collapses, the Reichstag votes to offer significant emergency powers to their President. Though this move's legal status is dubious, it effectively turns Oberländer into the true ruler of Germany.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Oberländer keeps a table gifted from his mother, in which he is not pleased to see Schörner smash his fist on it when he rants about Speer's reforms.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Oberländer despises the Wehrwirtschaftsführer and the destruction they've wrought to Germany's labor industry, and will fully support the Gang of Four's opposition to them.
  • When a mob breaks in the Reichstag to protest the economic woes of the Oil Crisis, Speer orders his men to execute every intruder. Once the deed is done, Speer expects Oberländer to support his decision, but instead the President is left in stunned silence.
  • While Oberländer represents the hardliners in Speer's Germany, he's neither as extreme as Heydrich nor as obsessed with orthodoxy as Bormann.
• Evil Counterpart: If Speer decides to crush the Slave Revolt through brute force, Oberländer launches a coup against him and the reformists, creating a new Gang of Four to model the Reich after his own vision. This corrupted version of the Gang is made up of himself, Paul Wegener, Hermann Josef Abs, and Heinrich Trettner.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Oberländer turning Speer into his puppet is considered Speer's fail state, signifying that his reforms have ultimately failed and that the Reich is doomed to a slow collapse as the hardliners revert his efforts to save it.
• Force Feeding: Oberländer tells a guard to force feed porridge to Albert Speer, if needed, to keep him alive, after turning the Führer into his puppet.
• I Warned You: In the ensuing economic instability in the Slave Revolt, Oberländer blames the Gang of Four for the crisis and even has the nerve to claim that he foretold that capitalism and democracy would lead to such a situation.
• Internal Reformist: Oberländer has some unique ideas about reforming National Socialism, criticizing the Generalplan Ost during his time in Ukraine, arguing that the Reich's policies should be reoriented towards strengthening the Aryan race as a whole over the German state itself, and even going so far as to challenge the Führerprinzip; in many areas, he is even more radical of a reformist than Speer himself is. However, he has zero interest in implementing a liberal democracy like the Gang of Four. If he coups Speer, he makes some vague promises about democratic participation in an overarching NSDAP structure, but it's left a mystery about how he's going to do so.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • When he is reassigned to Moskowien in Speer's route, Schörner tries proposing a Villain Team-Up between him and Oberländer to overthrow Speer. However, Oberländer recognizes that insubordination against Speer would have more dire consequences than letting Schörner go, so he refuses the offer.
  • If Speer decides to crush the Slave Revolt, Oberländer will launch a coup and deride Speer as an idiot for trying to violently suppress the uprising, believing that such a conflict would lead to tens of thousands of unnecessary casualties.
• The Remnant: If Heydrich wins the Civil War, Oberländer is mentioned to be leading the Speerite remnants that fled to Ravensburg, but doesn't play any real role in the story.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Should Speer fail to stop Schörner from crushing the Slave Revolt, Oberländer will coup Speer and invite Schörner to share power in Germania. However, the truce between them is extremely tenuous and both plot to betray the other when it is convenient.
• Token Evil Teammate: He's a part of the German reformist clique like Speer and his Gang of Four, but his ideology is much more unorthodox and conservative than Speer's agenda, so Oberländer regularly opposes him and can potentially coup him if his government becomes too unstable.
• Wicked Cultured: In addition to being a high-ranking NSDAP politician, Oberländer is also a professor at Prague University.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: President of the Reichstag, Leader of the Institutional Reformists (Speer and Bormann)

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Institutional Reformists) ^{Click to Show}Theodor Oberländer's infamy within the Party is matched only by his popularity throughout the public. Oberländer rode the wave of Reformist populism all the way into the Presidency of the Reichstag, beating out Paul Wegener and Rudolf Jordan. Yet his more heterodox views on rejuvenating the Party saw him butt heads with the wider Reformist current.

As such, Oberländer is a law unto himself, proposing radical changes such as greater intra-Party democracy and empowering the Reichstag Committees. More controversially, he advocates for more lenient attitudes towards Eastern Europe and racial theory in general.

Oberländer's clade is an amalgamation of similarly idiosyncratic National Socialists - left aside by Klopfer-led Reactionary opposition and too distant from Speer and his acolytes, Oberländer represents their voice and opportunity to rise to the top as his speeches and public appearances buoys his image ever higher.

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• Do Wrong, Right: Oberländer is a Nazi at his core, but he does advocate some reforms within Speer and Bormann's Germanies in the clade teasers, namely increased intra-Party democracy, stronger Reichstag Committees, and more moderate attitudes regarding racial theory and the treatment of eastern Europeans.
• Enemy Mine:
  • In the Bormann facelift teasers, Oberländer is joined by former Speerites, despite having previously clashed with his idiosyncratic Nazi supporters. However, with their old boss gone, they've decided to throw their lot in with the next best option to rival Bormann's control faction as the Institutional Reformists.
  • From the Speer clade teaser, Oberländer and the dissidents have common ground in pushing Speer to decentralizing power. If Speer gives token concessions on this matter to the Reichstag, both Oberländer and Kiesinger recognize that Speer is doing this to preserve his own position and that they will need to course correct him if his more authoritarian instincts appear. Oberländer promises to get the Reichstag behind Kiesinger's efforts to curtail Speer, if needed.
• The Face: Oberländer leads the Institutional Reformists in the clade teasers, representing a broader coalition of general idiosyncratic National Socialists who do not fit with any of the other groups.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Despite his professed controversial views in the Speer and Bormann clade teasers, Oberländer has attracted a wide following with his charisma, attracting those who are neither aligned with Klopfer's reactionaries or the Speerites. This culminated in his rise to President of the Reichstag, using his popularity and riding a wave of reformism and populism to land the position.

Rudolf Jordan

Role: Party Minister^note Head of Government(Assertive Reformist Speer cabinet)

Ideology: Reformed National Socialism^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Amidst a contradictory wave of ideologically fervent and ambiguous young Speerites stands Rudolf Jordan, a proud member of the Old Guard. Since joining the NSDAP in 1925, Jordan has leapt from rung to rung of the Party ladder with astonishing speed. The tenacious young man saw himself rising from the meek position of Fulda councillor to Reichstag Member, SA Obergruppenführer, Gauleiter, and Oberpräsident of Magdeburg in just fifteen years. Following the War, Hitler personally appointed him as Reichsminister for Civil Aviation and Stabschef of the SA.

The meteoric rise of this infamously blunt careerist was eventually hampered by the corrupt thug Martin Bormann, who sabotaged Jordan's run for Reichstag President by fielding his own candidate and inadvertently allowing Oberländer to sneak in. Disgusted by Party corruption and bureaucratic incompetence (and terrified by Bormann's increasing power), Jordan openly sided with Albert Speer's Reformist wing in the late 1950s, forging important links between Speer and the Conservative NSDAP. Speer's triumph saw him rewarded for his efforts with the Reich Ministry of the Interior.

At last, Rudolf Jordans holds the coveted title once owned by Martin Bormann. As Party Minister, the calculating ideologue is free to reign over the behemoth that is the NSDAP - and annihilate the last vestiges of dissent hiding within.

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• The Dragon: Jordan serves as this role for Speer in the path where he sidelines the Gang of Four, bridging the gap between Speer's Reformist Wing and the Conservative NSDAP.
• Irony: Jordan is a leading Nazi whose last name is also the name of a river extremely important to Judaism.
• Visionary Villain: Jordan is disgusted by the party's corruption and bureaucratic incompetence and with his role as party minister, he will annihilate the last vestiges of dissent hiding within it.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: Leader of the NSDAP Reichstag Delegation, Leader of the Party Reformists (Bormann, Speer)

Ideology: Reformed National Socialism^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Party Reformists under Bormann) ^{Click to Show}Rudolf Jordan, leader of the NSDAP Reichstag Delegation, represents the Alter Kämpfer left behind by Bormann's unstoppable centralization of power. In the 1950s, the careerist Jordan ran to be Reichstag President against Bormann's puppet, splitting the Orthodox vote and allowing Oberländer to slip in. This proved to be the final straw.

Gauleiters are simple tyrants. They crave love from the masses and despise losing power. It is little wonder that so many spat in Bormann's face and rallied behind Albert Speer, whose public popularity proved alluring.

While Jordan and his Clade begrudgingly accept Bormann as their Führer, they continue to push against corruption and stagnation in the government, promoting economic and institutional reforms that have a suspiciously Speerite leaning.

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Party Reformists under Speer) ^{Click to Show}Party Speerites are members of the reformist movement who hail from within the NSDAP itself. Such positions were once incredibly perilous, but have recently been made profitable by Albert Speer's accession to Führership. His supporters in the Party have been rewarded with key leadership positions and broadly defined portfolios. Officials such as Reichsminister of the Interior Rudolf Jordan, who leads the Party Speerites, have consequently seized the opportunity to advance a program which further expands their powers and renovates existing institutions.

The Party program will, naturally, be driven by party men. These Party men will be placed at every level of every initiative, committee, and executive body. Institutions such as the German Labour Front and the Hitler Youth will be strengthened, expanded, and used to foil intransigent members of the internal opposition. The SA will be rescued from its current, vestigial condition and transformed into a dependable power base which the Party Speerites can rely on. This program is radically different from the "revolutionary" change advocated by Social Revolutionaries or the managerial model timidly workshopped in Technocrat circulars. The Party Speerites celebrate this difference, for they alone, they say, remember that there is already iron in the glove.

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• Dragon Ascendant: With Speer's disappearance after the German Civil War, Jordan fills in for the reformist clade of the NSDAP. Many of his anti-corruption and economic reforms in the teased Party Reformist clade have a suspicious resemblance to Speer's own proposals.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The teased description of Jordan's clade mirrors many of Speer's own goals; to expunge the NSDAP of its most corrupt and power-hungry elements, while still strengthening their hold over Germany.
• Sore Loser: According to his clade's teased description, Jordan tried to be Reichstag President, running against Bormann's puppet candidate. Both ultimately lost and let Oberländer slip in, something that Jordan has never forgotten and still resents Bormann for.
• To Absent Friends: In his teased event, "The Party Man", Jordan raises his glass to a portrait of Hitler after he is finished contemplating how he will restructure the NSDAP.
  This is all for you.

Martin Mussgnug

Role: Staatssekretär im Reichsauswärtigen Amt^note Foreign Minister (Assertive Reformist Speer cabinet)

Ideology: Reformed National Socialism^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}As charming as he is ruthless, Martin Mußgnug represents the younger generation of fervent Speerites opposed to the degenerate democrats festering within the NSDAP. Once a Staff Leader within the Hitlerjugend, Mußgnug's political ascension and developing law degree were interrupted by the outbreak of the West Russian War. The experience dramatically affected the twenty-year-old, who returned from the front lines two years later to complete his degree and join Walther Hewel's Foreign Ministry.

Mußgnug soon gravitated towards a circle of Reformist diplomats which included Kurt Waldheim and Helmut Schmidt. The sheer incompetence displayed by the Reich during the West Russian War fueled his drive for reform, pushing him to risk his political career by supporting Albert Speer's claim to leadership. His gamble paid off, and Mußgnug was appointed as the State Secretary of Foreign Affairs under Helmut Schmidt in the 1960s.

Behind the diplomat's mischievous smile and cold eyes lies a burning passion to save the Reich from itself. His eyes are firmly fixed on Schmidt's crumbling throne, and some say he has already drawn up a list of dissidents within the Foreign Ministry to be purged without hesitation.

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• Do Wrong, Right: After witnessing the incompetence of the Reich during the West Russian War, Mussgnug began gravitating over to reformist circles to save the Reich from itself.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Mussgnug gravitated to a circle of reformist diplomats that included Helmut Schmidt, unlike Schmidt however, his desires for reformism is to preserve the Reich while saving it from incompetence unlike Schmidt's desire for democracy.
• The Purge: With Speer having secured his power from the Gang of Four, many believe Mussgnug has drawn up a list of dissidents to be purged from the Foreign Ministry.
• Treacherous Advisor: Mussgnug serves as the State Secretary for Schmidt and when given the opportunity by Speer, eagerly begins sidelining Schmidt's allies and setting his eyes on Schmidt's crumbling throne.

Hans Kehrl

Role: Staatssekretär im Reichswirtschaftsministerium^note Economy Minister (Assertive Reformist Speer cabinet)

Ideology: Reformed National Socialism^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}The Textile King has never been one to turn down an opportunity. The son and business partner of a cloth manufacturer, Hans Kehrl eventually earned positions on the boards of multiple stock corporations in the textile industry, promoting textile substitutes to help Germany reduce its dependence on imports. After serving as the Economic Adviser of Gau Kurmark, Kehrl was appointed to the Ministry for Economics where he worked tirelessly on the Four Year Plan.

It was after his transfer to the Armaments Ministry that Kehrl developed a strong respect for Albert Speer. To him, Speer was an inspiring and competent Minister, a man who was not afraid to appoint experts over Party buffoons. Following the War, Kehrl and many other technocrats followed Speer back to the Economics Ministry, where they supported his call for major reform.

Kehrl has served dutifully as the State Secretary for Economics for almost a decade, and once more his hard work and cunning have paid off. With the political downfall of his pugnaciou boss Ludwig Erhard, the man responsible for the Reich's economic turmoil, it is only a matter of time before the Textile King seizes the Ministry for himself.

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• Red Baron: Kehrl is otherwise known as "The Textile King" for his role in promoting textile substitutes to help Germany reduce its dependence on imports.
• Treacherous Advisor: Kehrl acts as the State Secretary for Erhard and when the opportunity arises, he is more than happy to usurp his old boss and seize the ministry for himself.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: State Secretary for Health and Social Welfare (Speer cabinet), Leader of the Reformist Technocrats (Bormann, Speer)

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Reformist Technocrats under Bormann) ^{Click to Show}In the aftermath of the Reformist Dismantlement, the Technocrats have crawled back into relevance. This Clade is not spearheaded by a specific figure, but dominated by a clique of engineers, technicians, architects, and economists.

The oldest members can trace the roots of their alliance to the Second World War, during which they served Albert Speer in the Armaments Ministry. At the time they were a young and lively bunch, earning the nickname 'Speer's Kindergarten'. The younger ones are STEM graduates with Speerist leanings, fueled by anti-establishment fervor.

The Technocrats despise what they consider to be a corrupt, bloated, and uneducated bureaucracy. They desire an elite technocratic state unimpeded by red tape, while the NSDAP serves as a powerless cultural institution.

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Reformist Technocrats under Speer) ^{Click to Show}The Technocratic Speerites are a compact group of civil servants and state functionaries which first formed around Albert Speer during his tenure as Minister for Armaments. Back then, more inveterate National Socialists called this group "Speer's Kindergarten" political novices with naive ideas about how Party rule should be supplanted by an empowered State. But with Speer as Führer, the Technocrats and their platform finally have a leading role in Reich politics.

Although the Technocrats are a leaderless faction, much of their political activity is in some way attached to Dr. Hans Kehrl, the State Secretary for Health and Social Welfare, and Rudolf Wolters, the Reichsminister for Propaganda. They advertise themselves as pragmatists, but are really no less ideological than the other Caesars of the Nazi political arena. They, like the other members of their clade, aim to stack the Reich's State branch with a class of expert and ideologically impenetrable National Socialists at the expense of direct Party control. Not a single component of the political machine would escape calibration by State experts, not any Gau, Party organ, or publishing house. For the Technocrats want a State that is National Socialist to its bones.

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• Do Wrong, Right: Kerhl is among the reformists seen in the Speer clade teaser, spearheading a technocratic faction of Nazis, once called "Speer's Kindergarten" to empower the State above the Party. However, Kerhl and his supporters are still Nazis and are just as ideological as most of the other clade leaders.
• The Face: While the reformist technocrats are nominally a leaderless faction in the Speer clade teaser, Kehrl is often attached as a leading figure alongside Rudolf Wolters.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Exploited by Kehrl and the other reformist technocrats in the Speer clade teaser, where they present themselves as pragmatists when they are still just as ideological as the other NSDAP factions.

Paul Wegener

Role: Head of Government (Oberländer cabinet)

Ideology: National Socialism

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• The Dragon: Wegener serves as Oberländer's loyal right-hand man and one of the few men he is willing to trust.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Wegener may be a fervent Nazi but he is hesitant at first when Oberländer first proposes potentially couping Speer should he fail to deal with the Slave Revolt. Subverted if Speer does fail to properly deal with the Slave Revolt, as he is happy to serve in Oberländer's cabinet after he secures power from Speer.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: Vice-Chancellor of the Reich^note Head of Government (Bormann), Leader of the Party Vanguardists (Bormann)

Ideology: National Socialist Orthodoxy^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Paul Wegener, ally and protégé of Martin Bormann, is one of many within the upper echelons of the Party to be rewarded for his loyalty. Once a mere adjutant, Bormann's Golden Boy now serves as Vice-Chancellor of the Reich.

Yet he leads a more radical school of thought than his master. As outlined in the Wegener Memorandum of 1942, this Clade supports a total purge and restructuring of the NSDAP into an elite, ideological aristocracy. Every generation of Party Comrades would be recruited solely from the Hitler Youth- brave young men trained in the truth of Orthodox National Socialism.

Wegener's Clade is younger and more fervent than Bormann's, and craves the accelerated 'Partification' of society.

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• History Repeats: Invoked in the Modern Wunderwaffe teaser, as Wegener brags about the success of the previous Four-Year plans and cites them as what enabled Germany to have enough production to win the war. Wegener claims that the Third Four-Year Plan will replicate this and revitalize Germany's economy, as it is cleared of supposedly disloyal technocrats.
• Dragon with an Agenda: From the teased description of the various NSDAP clades, Wegener is a loyal protege of Bormann, but with an even more extreme and rabid desire to accelerate the partification of Germany.
• Red Baron: Years of serving Bormann have earned him the nickname "Golden Boy", as stated in his teased clade's description.

Baldur von Schirach (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Role: Parteiminister^note Head of Government (Bormann cabinet), Head of State (June of Deceit)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Konservativ Faction^note National Socialist German Workers' Party - Conservative Faction

Ideology: National Socialism, Stratocratic Nazism^note National Socialism (Militarist June of Deceit)

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}While most of his fellow Party comrades maintain the reputation of brutal thugs and bland bureaucrats, Baldur von Schirach has never shied away from his aristocratic heritage. The speeches of his comrades are often guttural and punchy, but the new Chief of the Party Chancellery has always delivered his messages with a poetic flair. A keen patron of the arts and an avid author, the half-American von Schirach believes it is the duty of the Reich to protect European culture from those who would subvert it - be they Jews, Bolsheviks... or political rivals.

Joining the Party as a strapping young lad of eighteen, von Schirach rose through the ranks to become the Leader of the Hitler Youth and the man responsible for shaping the minds and bodies of the next Aryan generation. Though he fell out of favor with Hitler during the War, he maintained his sphere of influence as the Gauleiter of Vienna and the Reichsleiter for Youth Education. Having aligned himself with Martin Bormann and the powerful Conservative faction of the NSDAP - a political maneuver his detractors have dismissed as mere opportunism - von Schirach now finds himself as the second-most powerful man in the Reich.

Baldur von Schirach, former Leader of the Hitler Youth and Gauleiter of Vienna, maneuvered himself to the position of Chief of the Party Chancellery under Bormann's Germany. His detractors consider him opportunistic, but few can deny that he is the second most powerful man in Bormann's Reich.

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• Dragon Ascendant: Schirach takes over the Reich and ascends to the Führer's position if Bormann fails at the Second Dismantlement and is removed from power by the Reichstag.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Once his June of Deceit conspiracy is unraveled, Schirach and all of his collaborators are arrested or killed. As Schirach bunkers down in a last vain effort to salvage his plan, he can only think about what Bormann will do to his family as punishment for his actions, fighting back tears as he thinks about his wife and children.
• Foil: He's a dark mirror of Henning von Tresckow: a member of the old nobility who's not only an unrepentant Nazi, but seeks to become the dominant force in the regime rather than dismantle it.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Schirach is bespectacled and a Nazi who ends up betraying Bormann in a blatant grab for power.
• Hellish Copter: If Bormann launches the Second Night of the Long Knives (or the Second Dismantlement), Schirach is killed during the siege of his compound, when his helicopter gets shot down with him on it.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!:
  • Should Schörner overthrow Bormann in the First Dismantlement, Schirach will submit to him, since the Führer is nowhere to be found and there would be no point in starting a second civil war, especially with the militarists pledging to let him keep his station.
  • If Speer wins the Civil War, Schirach will start kissing up to the new Führer, hoping that sycophancy will lighten his punishment.
• The Mole: Invoked. If Speer becomes the new Führer, Schirach will write a letter to him from his prison, trying to claim that he was secretly aiding the reformist movement by sabotaging Bormann's conservative faction and should be restored to his post as Gauleiter of Vienna. Emphasis on "trying".
• Nazi Nobleman: Schirach is a member of the Sorbian nobility in addition to being a senior figure in the Nazi Party. He is described as having never shied away from his aristocratic heritage, as opposed to the other Nazis' reputation as brutal thugs and bland bureaucrats, though his heritage doesn't really come up in the story in any meaningful way.
• Number Two: Schirach becomes Bormann's Parteikanzler and Deputy Führer (and the second most powerful person in Germany) upon the latter's victory in the German civil war.
• Opportunistic Bastard: While Schirach is a fanatical Nazi, he will gladly side with either the Reformists or the Militarists in order to take down Bormann.
• The Paranoiac: As Bormann becomes increasingly autocratic to resolve the Oil Crisis, Schirach and several other Nazi officials get anxious that they're going to be purged by him, which is seemingly confirmed when Bormann expels Müller. Effectively, Schirach's June of Deceit is meant to depose Bormann out of fear that they'll get expelled in a future purge initiated by Bormann. If the plot is successful, Führer Schirach's government does not get any less paranoid about losing their power.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Schirach argues in favor of détente with Japan, stating that opening relations with Japan would be more beneficial than continuing hostilities.
  • As Bormann's control tightens over the Reich during the Oil Crisis, Schirach moves to restrain the Führer, but purely to ensure that his power won't be taken away and thus preserve his station.
• The Starscream: Not at first. Initially, Schirach tries constraining some of Bormann's authority out of fear that he'll start taking away his own power, rallying similarly minded individuals. When Bormann discovers the plot and has his paranoia fed by Gehlen in the 1970's, he moves to take out his perceived traitors, driving Schirach into a panic and orchestrating the June of Deceit conspiracy to get rid of his boss and save his own skin. If Bormann fails to deal with the conspiracy, the Reichstag will remove him from power and name Schirach the new Führer.
• Walking Spoiler: Schirach is a major character in Bormann's route, but his role in Bormann's story is significantly deeper than he initially seems, and he is tied to a major twist ending in Bormann's route.
• Wicked Pretentious: Schirach is proud of his aristocratic heritage, and is a patron of the arts and an avid author. However, this also fuels his arrogance and pretentious attitude to everyone around him.

Kurt Lange

Role: Reichswirtschaftsminister^note Economy Minister (Bormann cabinet)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Konservativ Faction^note National Socialist German Workers' Party - Conservative Faction

Ideology: National Socialism

In-Game Biography (Reichswirtschaftsminister) ^{Click to Show}Kurt Lange believes that there are three types of National Socialists: There are the thick-necked thugs who spill blood in the streets when necessary; there are the charismatic politicians with booming voices and magnetic personalities; and finally, there is Kurt Lange.

Though the bland bureaucrats of the NSDAP cannot beat their enemies to a pulp, or manipulate the masses with masterful oratory skills, their presence in the government is just as important. When Kurt Lange was the Head of Department IV in the Reichsministry of Economics, he dutifully stuck to his work in maintaining the new banking system; now as its Reichsminister, he silently oversees the National Socialist economy. Unlike most of his fellow Cabinet members, ambition is foreign to him. Above himself, he is loyal to the Führer, the NSDAP Conservatives - and his work

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• Ambition Is Evil: Subverted. Unlike his colleagues, Lange is a dutiful and silent, only dedicated to serving Bormann and his work.
• Boring, but Practical: The "Modern Wunderwaffe" project advocated by Lange rejects the ambitious megaprojects by Hitler and Speer to instead develop various infrastructure and pipeline projects in Germania, creating countless new jobs to revive the Reich's dying economy.
• Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems: The subplots involving Lange often concern mundane problems eating away at the Reich, such as a shortage of paper that requires Germany to negotiate a trade with Finland.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Lange urges Bormann to end the use of slavery in the Einheitspakt, deeming it a detriment to the economy for taking up jobs that should be given to the German working class, while the slaves are deported back to Eastern Europe with no compensation.
• The Starscream: He joins von Schirach's conspiracy to overthrow Bormann following the Oil Crisis.

Gerhard Klopfer

Role: Parteiminister^note Head of Government (Bormann cabinet)

Ideology: National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Gerhard Klopfer has owned a litany of titles within the NSDAP. Befehlsleiter of the Party. State Secretary of the Party Chancellery. Private Secretary to Martin Bormann. Chief of the Reich Chancellery. At long last, after the collapse of von Schirach's conspiracy, Klopfer has been named as the new Chief of the Party Chancellery and second-in-command to the Führer himself.

The fawning Klopfer, who has utilized his expertise in law and economics to forge a path to power through the NSDAP, is the personification of the National Socialist bureaucrat: Though cunning, his ambition has a sensible limit; though cowardly before superiors, his command of his underlings is absolute; though he maintains an air of moderation and restraint, he is a rabid ideologue. In times of conspiracy and deceit, Gerhard Klopfer may be the only man Bormann can truly trust.

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• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He's a fervent Nazi and wears a pair of glasses.
• The Remnant: If Heydrich takes over, it is offhandedly mentioned that Klopfer leads the surviving Bormannite bureaucrats.
• Sycophantic Servant: Klopfer is unquestionably loyal to Bormann, representing his boss during the Endlösung conference and happily accepting the position of Chief of the Reich Chancellery, despite it only being a ceremonial position.
• Team Switzerland: Subverted. He joins with Speidel during the German Civil War to seemingly refrain from picking a side, but everyone knows that his loyalties always belonged to Bormann, with some even suspecting that he may have been a Bormannite spy.
• You Are in Command Now: If Schirach's June of Deceit fails, Bormann will promote Klopfer to Deputy Führer, recognizing that he's perfectly content with working under him and thus would be unlikely to initiate a similar coup against him.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: Leader of the Control Faction (Speer)

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Control Faction) ^{Click to Show}They were the future, once. These days, the Control faction increasingly appears to be a relic. Formerly led by Martin Bormann, his protege, Gerhard Klopfer, now commands the clade dedicated to fulfilling the Brown Eminence's vision for a partified society.

Their ideal is a Party comprised of dedicated servants, the most educated and dedicated National Socialists molding the state's structure to fit their future, while the due-payers merely paying lip service to the Führer are excised. A radical Vanguardist fringe of this clade goes further, desiring a Party made up of an almost aristocratic elite sourced solely from the fanatical Hitlerjugend.

Today, the Control faction acts as Speer's main opposition within the Party, a reactionary edge eager to tear apart his plans. Tomorrow, when Speer's fantasy inevitably collapses upon itself, they will be the future once again.

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• The Apprentice: Klopfer is described in the clade teaser to be a protege of Bormann, championing his partificiation ideas.
• Arc Villain: As seen in the Sondergericht teaser, Klopfer can potentially become the leader of the main reactionary faction that opposes Speer's reforms and serves as a major obstacle to his agenda.
• Dragon Ascendant: The Speer clade teaser shows that Klopfer will take over the Control Faction, since Bormann has been neutralized as a threat to the new Führer. Though the Vanguardist clade is dying, Klopfer still poses the largest opposition to Speer.
• Meet the New Boss: In the clade teaser, Klopfer will assume leadership of the control faction of the NSDAP, if Speer is triumphant during the Kampfzeit, becoming one of the major opponents to Speer in the reactionary bloc.
• The Remnant: If Speer wins the German Civil War and spares Klopfer from execution, he'll lead a reactionary of former Bormannites who want to restore Orthodox National Socialism and put an end to Speer's reforms. The faction can be seen in the Sondergericht teaser.
• Villainous Friendship: In one of the teased events of the Sondergericht, Klopfer is good friends with two other hardliner Nazis, Helmuth Friedrichs and Albert Hoffmann. Together, the trio make up the "Big Three" and form a reactionary bloc to oppose Speer.

Artur Axmann

Role: Reichsjugendführer^note Foreign Minister (Göring cabinet)

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Militarist Faction^note National Socialist German Workers' Party

Ideology: National Socialism

In-Game Biography (Göring minister) ^{Click to Show}Artur Axmann is considered one of the first politicians wholly of the Nazi generation. Artur first joined the NSDAP in secondary school, becoming an exemplary member of the Hitler Youth. After his graduation from the youth ranks of the organization, Artur became Reichsjugendführer, and fully took upon his shoulders the responsibility of teaching the German youth of the greatness of National Socialism and of the German Reich. Notably, he was also responsible for conscripting members of the Hitler Youth into the German army.

Always a patriot, Axmann also gave service to his country during the Second World War. He fought with the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front, though was sadly forced to retire from this duty when he lost his arm in combat. Artur has known no life but that of a loyal Nazi since he was a child, and as such, remains totally and absolutely dedicated to the cause he has been brought up upon. As such, he is a clear symbol of the intelligence and dedication of the German children.

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• An Arm and a Leg: During his service in the Eastern Front, Axmann lost his right hand, forcing him to retire from duty.
• Blind Obedience: Artur Axmann has been loyal to the NSDAP since he was a child and follows every order of Hitler, and later Göring, without question.
• Child Soldiers: One of his more infamous responsibilities as Reichsjugendführer was to conscript young Germans into the Hitler Youth so they can fight in the Germany army.

Tropes pertaining to the facelift

Role: Leader of Axmann's Clade (Bormann), Leader of the Orthodox Reactionaries (Speer)

In-Game Biography (Leader of Axmann's Clade) ^{Click to Show}Artur Axmann was just a young man when Hitler became Chancellor, experiencing the glory of the National Socialist revolution and victory over the Bolsheviks. Since the assassination of Joseph Goebbels, Axmann has taken the reins of the Reactionary faction and installed himself as its political figurehead.

This Clade believes that society has fundamentally regressed. The citizens are crippled by stagnation and economic woe, while their children's futures are gambled away by corrupt politicians. Axmann demands a return to the glory days of the 1940s, when everyone knew their place. Men were soldiers of the battlefield, the farms, and the factories, while women were warriors of the home. The youth loved their nation and their race, and the leadership served National Socialism above all else.

For Axmann and his allies, the blame lies at the feet of the NSDAP. Bormann's corrupt conclave turns a blind eye while the lower echelons of the Party are stuffed with non-ideological opportunists. Change shall begin at the top.

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Orthodox Reactionaries) ^{Click to Show}Orthodox Reactionaries are the loosely grouped remnants of the original Reactionary clade which formed around Joseph Goebbels in the mid-1940s. Goebbels' assassination by Russian partisans in 1956 opened the clade's leadership to Arthur Axmann, who quickly established a new political program: German society has regressed, and is in need of systematic correction. The cure is to bring Germany back to the sunlit glory days of the 1940s, when hardline Hitlerism was the rule and reform was unthinkable. Complacency must be eradicated. Reform must be reversed. The un-ideological must be made ideological.

Although niche, the Orthodox Reactionaries retain a certain appeal among members of the public alienated by Speer's reforms. To them, the offer to restore hardline Hitlerism, to dismantle youth subcultures, to wrench the social order into alignment, to rampage against any and all resistance, finally, sweeping the rot and gore away for the last time needed in a thousand years, links them arm in arm with the living will of their Führer, Adolf Hitler - the flesh and blood of German salvation.

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• Do Wrong, Right: He blames the corruption and regression of German society on the NSDAP, perceiving its higher echelons to be too corrupt to purge disloyal opportunists who have sullied the Reich's glory. For this reason, he serves as a rival to Speer and Bormann in their facelift teasers, being the figurehead of "Axmann's Clade".
• Evil Reactionary:
  • In the Speer clade teaser, Axmann believes that the NSDAP and Germany have regressed from their height in the 1940's and advocates for an unquestioned return to those days, where reform was unthinkable and everyone is unquestionably loyal to Hitler. While his faction is niche, it has found appeal among those alienated by the changes brought by the other factions and its calls for social order by silencing dissent.
  • Axmann upholds extremely strict gender roles. As said in his clade's teaser, Axmann believes that the men must work or serve in the military, while the women stay at home and raise the next generation of soldiers.
• Meet the New Boss: According to one of the Bormann facelift teasers, Axmann took control of the NSDAP's reactionary faction after Joseph Goebbels was assassinated and he continues his predecessor's promotion of total loyalty to the Reich.
• Stay in the Kitchen: He believes that women are only fit to perform domestic duties and raise the children, as seen in his clade's teaser.

Resistance

Red Army Faction

Ideology: Communism

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• Evil Versus Evil: The RAF's most prominent victim is Walther Hewel, who has served as Reichsminister of Foreign Affairs since Hitler sidelined Joachim von Ribbentrop.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: By 1962, the RAF is a very marginal group in Speer's support base, which is already not very large in the first place; in fact, they never come up or are mentioned in any events if Speer wins the civil war. It is not until the end of the first decade of Bormann's route that they kill Walther Hewel, and potentially seize control over Germany later on as part of TNO2 content.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite 20 years of continuous Nazi rule, the radical students that make up the heart of the Red Army Faction still managed to become communist militants, and, if Bormann wins the German civil war, they'll go underground and later turn the RAF into a terrorist group exactly like in real life.
• Western Terrorists: Not different from real life, in Bormann's route, the RAF employs terror tactics like murders and bombings, culminating in the kidnapping and eventual murder of Reichsminister Walther Hewel.

Ulrike Meinhof

Role: Leader of Red Army Faction, Head of State (SS Civil War)

Party: Sozialistische Deutsche Einheitspartei^note Socialist German Unity Party

Ideology: Partisan Movement^note Despotism (Heydrich victory)

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• The Coup: If Heydrich wins the Civil War, Meinhof survives to lead a remnant of Speer's loyalists. As Germany falls into a second Civil War between SS commanders, she can lead a student uprising to overthrow Theodor Eicke, the SS-Obergruppenführer who established a fiefdom around Essen.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Despite being a significant figure among Germany's young radicals, she is still very marginal within the Reich as a whole, until she comes to lead the RAF in Bormann's route, or lead the democratic resistance against the SS in Essen in Heydrich's path.
• Kangaroo Court: In the aftermath of Heydrich's victory in the German Civil War, according to one account, Meinhof holds a mock trial before shooting or hanging Theodor Eicke, after she leads the Speer supporters in Essen to topple his Ordensstaat.
• Smurfette Principle: Should she take over Lothringen in the SS-Civil War, she would become the only female warlord in the Civil War.

Antifaschistische Aktion

Ideology: Socialism

Not everybody believed Führer Albert Speer's promises of reform and democracy blindly. Many used the Civil War as an opportunity to organize against the fascists who have ruled Germany for so long. Antifaschistische Aktion represents the core of the movement against fascism. Despite not having the popularity of the Reichsbanner or the effectiveness of Revolutionäre Zellen, they still pose a challenge to Speer in the more liberal territories of the Reich. However, while every victory against the NSDAP emboldens them and allows them to recruit more members, every victory also draws more and more attention of the German intelligence under Reinhard Gehlen.

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• Not Quite Dead: Antifa as an organization was presumed to be dead following their forced disbandment during Hitler's rise to power. Subverted when Gehlen tells Speer that they are but a copycat organization that was established by more radical members of the student movements that followed Speer during the civil war.

Rudi Dutschke

Role: Antifaschistische Aktion

Ideology: Communism

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• Chummy Commies: Dutschke is a Marxist revolutionary and one of the most prominent members of the anti-Nazi resistance in the Speer facelift teaser.

Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Ideology: Guevarism^note Socialism, Social Nationalism^note Paternalism, Partisan Movement^note Despotism

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• Early-Bird Cameo: Their name and leader, under the name "Spartakus" are mentioned in an early event during Speer's route, but only come into prominence during the late-game Slave Revolt.

Willy Brandt

^{Social Nationalist}

^{Partisan Movement}

Role: Leader of Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, Head of State (Slave Revolt)

Ideology: Guevarism^note Socialism, Social Nationalism^note Paternalism, Partisan Movement^note Despotism

See his entry in TNO Eastern Europe under the Armeeverband "Freies Europa" section.

Bohemia-Moravia

Wehrkreis XIX

Official Name: Wehrkreis XIX^Tr.Military Region XIX

Ruling Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Abteilung Böhmen und Mähren^note National Socialist German Workers' Party - Bohemia and Moravia Department

Ideology: National Socialism

The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is the German protectorate over former Czechia, and has only recently been fully integrated into the Reich. The territory is not fully controlled by any of the major factions in the court of German politics, but it, and more importantly its garrison, will swear fealty to whoever can win them over, opening up another front in the German Civil War.

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• Allohistorical Allusion: In real life, the villages of Lidice and Ležáky were razed to the ground, their residents massacred, under Hitler's orders as revenge for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. In this timeline, these very same villages are also burnt to the ground and massacred, as part of the SS's terror campaign.
• Choosing Neutrality: If no one can get the Wehrkreis to side with them, the garrisons in Bohemia will declare their neutrality in the chaos, fortifying their position and remaining there until someone emerges victorious.
• Protectorate: Prior to the German Civil War, one of Hitler's successors can win the Wehrkreis to their side by promising them protection.
• Satellite Character: Bohemia-Moravia's role in the plot entirely revolves around the German Civil War; it only fights alongside one of the factions in the German Civil War before getting either annexed or conquered by the winner.
• Shown Their Work: The name "Wehrkreis XIX" refers to the Military District established over Böhmen und Mähren. When the protectorate joins the German Civil War on the side it chooses, it gets called this after the local garrison takes over the country to fight against the other contenders.

Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk

Role: Head of State

Party: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - Abteilung Böhmen und Mähren^note National Socialist German Workers' Party - Bohemia and Moravia Department

Ideology: National Socialism, Fascism (Speer aligned)

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}A conservative lawyer and disgraced former finance minister, Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk is not the first man one would expect to be running any part of the Reich's vast territories. Appointed as Reich Minister of Finance by the hated von Papen, he managed to hold his position into and through the National Socialist takeover through a combination of keeping his head down and blindly following any order from Hitler, along with steadily managing the precious currency of the Reich during the years of massive spending. His competency, however, could not prevent the economic crash of the 1950s. His previous achievements on that field and even Hitler's respect, could not save his job.

Demoted from his post as Reich Minister, he was bounced around numerous departments, becoming a wandering bureaucrat shuffling papers but eventually ended up becoming the Reichsprotektor of Böhmen und Mahren due to his rather soft and skillful hand in placating natives. As it turned out, he was the last in that position, as the Reichsprotektorat was formally annexed into the Reich in the early 1950s.

Years after Reichsprotektorat annexation into the actual Reich borders, Krosigk emerged on the local political scene again, albeit this time as a Reichsverteidigungskommissar of Wehrkreis XIX, a local Wehrmacht command that took over after chaos engulfed the Reich. German Civil War participants had not yet managed to take over the rather small and neutral territory, but the future of such cordon - and the Reichsverteidigungskommissar with it - is rather bleak if things will fall apart under one of the contenders' wake.

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• Nazi Nobleman: As his full surname Graf Schwerin von Krosigk would indicate, Krosigk was born into a noble family before joining the NSDAP.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: After the 1950 crash, Krosigk was removed from his post as Minister of Finance and started being bounced around numerous departments, becoming a wandering bureaucrat shuffling papers. Finally, Hitler assigned him to govern Bohemia-Moravia, with the understanding that he is on thin ice.
• Pragmatic Villainy: When he was appointed Reichsprotektor of Böhmen und Mahren, Krosigk ruled with a soft hand to placate the natives and dissuade them from rebelling, which worked as the region was eventually annexed into the Reich.

Kurt Daluege

Role: Head of Government (Krosigk Cabinet), Head of State (Heydrich aligned)

Party: Befehlshaber der Waffen-SS Böhmen-Mähren^note Commander of the Waffen-SS Bohemia-Moravia

Ideology: Esoteric Nazism^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography ^{Click to Show}Born in a small Silesian town, Kurt Max Franz Daluege was always a German through and through, thriving in the military culture of the old empire. Daluege joined the Nazi Party in the early years, and soon moved onto the SS, serving as head of the Ordnungspolizei for many of the prewar years. It was a post perfectly suited for a sociopath such as himself, and Daluege was highly effective at crushing partisans and dissenters.

So it was that when Daluege was sent to Bohemia after the defeat of the Soviet Union it felt, to him, as if he was being stripped of his rank for little reason. But despite his distaste for the position, Daluege was convinced that he would return to the centre of German politics soon enough, and so he continued to exercise a callous cruelty towards those he watched over. As Himmler undertook his coup, Daluege could do nothing but watch from his post in Prague. The return to central German politics never came.

Lack of a position in the inner party did not truly put down Daluege, however. He has since built his network in Bohemia, even betraying SS principles and working with the Czech Resistance in the years after the West Russian War, allowing them to grow under his supervision and using them to undermine the garrison when he saw fit. When the civil war came, he called upon his network and chased the garrison out of Prague, declaring himself Oberstgruppenführer. There are few outside the SS who would support his coup, and the fanatical actions that are sure to follow.

But in Daluege's eyes, he has has been shunned long enough by Germania. Let decadent fools shout across the continent. Daluege now holds the power in Bohemia, and nobody, not in his own realm, not in Germany, not even in Burgundy, is going to take it from him.

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• What Happened to the Mouse?: He only shows up to take over the Wehrkreis XIX and assist Heydrich during the German Civil War before disappearing without a trace during the SS Civil War.

German Facelift

General Tropes

• Allohistorical Allusion: In OTL, the Groupement de Recherche et d'Études pour la Civilisation Européenn (GRECE) was a far-right think tank that promoted a traditionalist pan-European identity, opposed to liberal democracy and multiculturalism. In TNO, the same organization exists, composed of young, far-right ideologues from across the Einheitspakt and opposed to Speer's plan to create the Zollverein in his facelifht teaser. By doing so, they hope to get their big break in uniting Europe and already have an inside man in the NSDAP, Peter Glotz.
• Back from the Brink: When Speer reopens relations with the CPS in his facelift teaser, Germany and China will revive their relationship that existed in the 1930's. Li Linsi and Wu Kaixian, both of whom held important roles in this diplomacy, are excited and grateful because it gives them a chance to reopen the Sino-German Cultural Association at the Zhendan University in Shanghai, where they can get expertise from Germany again.
• Blatant Lies: In its teased national spirit description, the EEC is nominally an economic community of equal European partners. However, everyone knows that the organization is actually a means for Germany to assert its economic dominance over the continent, as the primary beneficiary of the arrangement.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • In the immediate post-war period, the NSDAP promised great riches and rewards for the youth, after everything their fathers did for the country. During the Lost Decade, as described in the Germany starting situation teaser, the NSDAP failed to meet these vows, so many dissatisfied students grumbled at the status quo, either supporting the radical "Revolutionary Nazis" or the underground political opposition.
  • In the teased events for Speer's facelift, various far-right pan-Europeanists lost faith in Germany for not living up to their pan-European rhetoric. They criticize the EEC as a mere tool by the Nazis to assert their dominance across the continent rather than build a "united Europe".
• Corrupted Character Copy: In their dedicated starting situation teaser, Germany's economic sphere, the European Economic Community, shares its name with the OTL predecessor to the European Union. The idea of an economic bloc in Europe has been entertained by various groups since the turn of the century in numerous forms, but the Nazis have adopted this idea for their colonial exploits and a means of controlling their puppet states.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Since Hitler stepped away from his administrative duties, his authority was filled in by the Inner Circle of Bormann, Speer, Himmler, and Göring in the starting situation teaser. All of them have clashing interests and Hitler's health has gotten so bad that he couldn't stop them, even if he wanted to.
• Face Death with Dignity: During the Sondergericht in Speer's facelift teaser, Konrad Adenauer is sentenced to death for treason as an anti-Nazi dissident, citing his attempted calls to separate the Rhineland from Prussia and negotiate with France to achieve this. Adenauer apathetically accepts his fate, already feeling his age and showing no emotion during the trial.
• Final Solution: One of the teased German starting laws is about Generalplan Ost being in its third phase, which entails the Germanization of all of Eastern Europe. In the Nazis' "perfect" world, it would mean that every administrative official, business owner, manager, and family is German, either as a settler or a re-Germanized "racially valuable" native collaborator.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The Nazi group names in every clade teaser are based on out-of-universe labels that were given to them by OTL historians. In-universe, the clade names are not actually used by the Nazis themselves.
• Hanging Around: Konrad Adenauer is killed in the Sondergericht of Speer's facelift teaser, where his corpse is left hanging from the rope until the elements claim his body.
• Hated by All: Beyond the Einheitspakt, Germany has little respect internationally. As mentioned in their starting situation teaser, even Germany's former Axis allies are distant or downright hostile to them.
• Historical In-Joke: In OTL, Nuremberg is the infamous city where court trials were conducted against the highest-ranking Nazis following World War II, marking an important step in denazification. Nuremberg is still relevant in this timeline, but one of Germany's teased starting laws mentions that it was actually where the Nazis empowered themselves and drafted their 1948 constitution, replacing the suspended Weimar Constitution and officially enshrining the NSDAP into the state, such as creating the Reich Senate and expanding the Reichstag's powers.
• Hollywood Atheist: Many NSDAP politicians are openly hostile towards organized religion, with the German starting situation showing that Germany has an official policy against it. Ideologically, they argue that Christianity descended from Jews and dull the German race by promoting a "servile" morality. Pragmatically, the churches, especially the Catholic Church, are a rival power base and a source for dissidents. The NSDAP would pursue an open policy of "Kirchenkampf" to break the church's influence, but the only reason it's dormant is because a lot of Germans are still Christian and open conflict with the churches would have dire consequences.
• A House Divided: As shown in the Germany starting situation teaser, those in the Inner Circle have been engaged in a wild power struggle for decades, plotting against each other so that their vision can succeed Hitler's. When the aged Führer is gone, a Succession Crisis will inevitably spill over.
• In It for Life: In the Germany starting situation teaser, the members of the Reich Senate fluctuate between forty and sixty members, but they are always appointed to the position for life. As the most influential members in the NSDAP who wield multiple positions, the lifetime Senate members are expected to connect the Führer to the people by advising him or electing a new Führer, if the position ever becomes vacant.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In a world where the Nazis have won and gotten away with their atrocities, the Speer facelift teaser shows that some justice can be exacted in the Sondergericht trials, where corrupt remembers and rivals of the party can be eliminated. Granted, Speer is just doing it to secure his own power base and he will kill anti-Nazi dissidents along the way, but some of victims are unrepentant Nazis themselves.
• Pen-Pushing President: Defied in the starting situation teaser. While Hitler is still the Führer, he willingly stepped away from the day-to-day administration of Germany towards the end of World War II so that he could focus on the grandiose tasks that he cared more about.
• La Résistance: Though small in numbers in the Germany starting situation teaser, multiple student movements have formed due to the stagnation of the Lost Decade. Their acts of defiance include protests and muted discussions of more organized resistance. Germany does not tolerate dissent and tries to crack down on them with police, batons, and tear gas.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Konrad Adenauer, the first German Chancellor after World War II, is an accused victim sentenced to death in the Sondergericht in Speer's facelift teaser, having never achieved the political prominence he did in OTL.
• Settling the Frontier: A core element of Nazi ideology is the colonization of Eastern Europe with German settlers, organized through Generalplan Ost. Its third phase (1958-1963) is seen in the German starting situation teaser, where every legal citizen in the eastern territories will either be a German settler or a native who has assimilated into the culture, if they are deemed "racially viable". Already, German settlements can be divided between urban "Strongholds" and rural "Marks" that aim to be 25% and 50% German, respectively.
• Shown Their Work: The most commonly known Four Year Plan from 1936-1940 was actually retroactively referred to as the Second Four Year Plan by the Nazis, with the first one being their employment program from 1933-1936. So, if Bormann starts a new Four Year Plan in his Modern Wunderwaffe teaser, it will be called the Third Four-Year Plan.
• Taking Up the Mantle: All of Hitler's successors in the starting situation teaser imagine themselves to be the true heirs to his vision.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • The Speerite movement in the clade teaser is broadly divided between three major factions: the party reformists, the reformist technocrats, and the new social revolutionaries. These factions often conflict with one another and it will be up to Speer on how to navigate these differences. Most prominent is the conflicting goals of those who want to institute free-market reforms and the social revolutionaries who want Italian-style corporatism.
  • Erhard's clique of Freiburg theorists rule the economic ministry in the Speer starting situation teaser. Even though there are a few of them, they have a tense relationship with each other, especially between Wilhelm Röpke, an anti-Nazi who spent time in exile, and Alfred Müller-Armack, a longtime NSDAP member.
• Vast Bureaucracy: Gone are the early days when Germany was a single-man dictatorship. Now, as shown in the German starting situation teaser, the country is a hodgepodge state of various ideas mixed together, which Hitler's successors will need to carefully navigate.
• Visionary Villain: In the German starting situation teaser, the Partificationists do not just want all major officials to be NSDAP members; they want the Party to subjugate every organ and governance structure in Germany, not dissimilar from the old USSR. Led by Bormann and supported by a group of quasi-aristocrats and Hitlerjugend fanatics, the once-weak Party apparatus has subsumed the constitution and completed the Reichsreform to advance their goals. Much work still remains, but if they succeed, Germany will be completely remolded to their whims.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The German starting situation teaser mentions that Germany used to have their administrative boundaries drawn by states that existed before 1871, meaning that the tiny principality of Waldeck-Pyrmont had equal political importance to the larger Prussia. These divisions, called Gaue by the Party, greatly undermined the central government, so Reichsreforms were carried out to redraw them as Reichsgaue and concentrate power back to the regime.
• Won the War, Lost the Peace: Following their victory in World War II, Germany has become an industrial and military juggernaut in Europe, fulfilling the predictions (and fears) that Germany would do so after Bismarck reunified the country. However, Germany's economy has also greatly stagnated since the 1950's. This period that has been dubbed "The Lost Decade", characterized in the German starting situation teaser as a time of eroding support for the Nazis, defiant student movements, rising prices outracing wages, stifled trade, and increasingly risky business opportunities.
• You Cannot Kill An Idea: Despite the German government's best attempts in their starting situation teaser, they have failed to dislodge religion and its institutions in their country, as most Germans are still practicing Christians. Some anti-clerical members wish to restart the Kirchenkampf, but more pragmatic Nazis argue that it would not be worth pursuing and risking significant social unrest.

NSDAP Officials

August Eigruber

Role: Leader of the Social Revolutionaries (Speer)

Ideology: Revolutionary Nazism^note National Socialism

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Social Revolutionaries) ^{Click to Show}Social Revolutionaries believe that the NSDAP should be a vehicle for the complete remaking of social and economic life. Economically, they aim to set up an unerringly corporatist economy reminiscent of Fascist Italy's. Socially, they aim to roll Party and society into one-the perfect Venn diagram of the Volksgemeinschaft. Old and decrepit institutions would be renewed or overturned, the weak and placid doldrum of Party life smashed, to build a new and living and vital national community.

Social Revolutionaries are a vestigial presence institutionally. Besides Rudolf Jordan, the sympathizing face of the Speerite strand of the movement, only a few aging Gauleiters align with this tendency. However, the more "revolutionary" wing of the movement commands a large share of Speerite youth, many of whom regard the NSDAP as a corrupt institution in dire need of bottom-up renewal. Once the Alter Kämpfer dry up and die, it will probably be this wing of the movement who inherits the leadership of the Social Revolutionary clade.

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• The Remnant: His collectivist version of Nazism has largely fallen out of favor in the 1960's and replaced by a new generation of "more revolutionary" Speerite youth, but Eigruber and a few sympathizers are shown in the clade's teaser, having not given up on the ideology just yet.
• Visionary Villain: According to his clade's teased description, he sees the NSDAP as a tool for total social change, which will render social class meaningless and create a collective national whole as a "Volksgemeinschaft". He argues that this must be done by dismantling the old institutions and entrenching the party into societal life. Economically, Eigruber also wishes to see corporatism implemented to its fullest extent, akin to the economic model practiced by fascist Italy.

Martin Pape

Role: DAF Reichsleiter (Speer cabinet), Leader of the Social Revolutionaries (Speer)

In-Game Biography (Leader of the Social Revolutionaries) ^{Click to Show}Speerite Social Revolutionaries, by and large, possess the youngest membership of any clade. These youths are often right-wing students or still-young veterans of the West Russian War. Many of them spent their late mid-to-late teens on the Eastern front, enduring conflict as their fathers did, or on the home front, where money was scarce and the future seemed dark and uncertain. For these youths, both experiences were but two sides of the same crisis, and that crisis was but a single sorrowful episode in the Lost Decade of the 1950s. In quiet moments, the youth would pause and think and ask themselves how it all came to this. They were the inheritors of the future the Führer won. More than that, the Führer had told them they were the future. Yet at the end of the decade, there were still no sunlit fields. They were not aloft on eagles' wings. Something had gone wrong. The promise had been betrayed.

Rather than Hitler himself, the Speerite Social Revolutionaries came to blame the institutions of the NSDAP. These institutions, the activists often say, are corrupt, indolent, and overflowing with fake National Socialists. That is the symptom; the cure is a Second National Socialist Revolution. The old institutions will be washed out or torn down. And there will be no more compromises with businessmen, noblemen, or bureaucrats. Not one more bourgeois weakling will disgrace that sacred brown uniform. Nothing but to-the-root revolution. Nothing but what was promised. Nothing but that perfect and isotropic people's community which rolls all the nation into itself. Only that will redeem the Lost Decade - that and no other thing.

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• Do Wrong, Right: Disillusioned that the NSDAP did not grant their lofty promises to the Germans in the Speer clade teaser, Pape calls for a revolution to tear apart their current institutions and rechristen a second Nazi regime.
• Dramatic Irony: In an early event from the Speer facelift teaser, Pape genuinely believes that Speer hates the party establishment as much as he does and that Speer is merely playing "liberal radicals" against "old reactionaries" so that he can sweep in and eliminate them both in a classic case of Playing Both Sides. He is seemingly unaware that Speer endorses Erhard's free-market reforms.
• No True Scotsman: Pape accuses the current NSDAP of employing "fake National Socialists", as said in the Speer clade teaser. They believe that the current institutions have compromised National Socialism through cooperation with businessmen, noblemen, bureaucrats, and bourgeois more generally.
• Rabble Rouser: In the Speer clade teaser, Pape leads a faction of young right-wing students and young West Russian War veterans. He channels their frustrations from Germany's struggles in the 50's to call for a Second National Socialist Revolution against the current NSDAP regime, believing that only Speer is capable of recovering Germany from the so-called "Lost Decade of the 1950s".
• Start My Own: According to the Speer clade teaser, Pape leads a new wave of social revolutionaries that arose from youth discontent during the Lost Decade, who place blame on the NSDAP's institutions, unlike the old guard social revolutionaries. These Speerites are rapidly overshadowing the older generation, who they see as outdated and in need of replacement, and will likely do so if Eigruber recedes further into irrelevance.

Wehrwirtschaftsführer

Otto Ambros

Role: Head of IG Farben

Head of IG Farben in the upcoming Speer facelift.

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• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Among the markets mentioned in Ambros' teased description, IG Farben deals several legitimate businesses, including synthetic rubber for car tires and plastic toys for children. On the flip side, he dabbles in lethal chemical products that were used in the Holocaust to fuel the genocide.
• Deadly Gas: In his teased description, Ambros is described as being responsible for creating Zyklon B, the infamous gas that is used by the Nazis to sustain their campaign of ethnic cleansing.
• Evil Genius: As shown in his teased description, Ambros has created perversions of science that have led to the deaths of countless numbers of innocents.

Paul Pleiger

Role: Head of Reichswerke

Head of Reichswerke in the upcoming Speer facelift. For tropes related to his current role in Reichskommissariat Kaukasien, see his entry in TNO Eastern Europe.

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• Evil Colonialist: In his teased description, Pleiger is shown to be responsible for the extraction of oil from the Reich's conquered Eastern territories.
• This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: Before World War II, Pleiger's specialty in iron extraction was relatively useless compared to the other corporations, only ever being called to rearm the war economy. According to Reichswerke's teased description, this all changed after Operation Barbarossa, where Germany needed them to extract the vast oil fields of Eastern Europe. Without them, Germany wouldn't nearly be as powerful.
• Vetinari Job Security: In his teased description, Pleiger is described as being indispensable to the Reich, with the Reich dying without Reichswerke, and Reichswerke dying without Pleiger.

Bodo Laffrentz

Role: Head of Volkswagen

Head of Volkswagen in the upcoming Speer facelift

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• Boring, but Practical: As described in his teased description, Laffrentz doesn't offer luxurious automobiles like Daimler-Benz does. However, the Volkswagen is cheap and reliable enough to make up the tradeoff and make it a powerful competitor to its fellow corporations.
• Bread and Circuses: Whenever the NSDAP can't rely on their security services to quash dissent, they can always turn to Laffrentz, whose production of Volkswagen gives a cheap, yet enticing product for every German to own and keep them satisfied with the current reigning NSDAP. As their teased description states "With such a deal like that, why should they speak out against the men killing their neighbours?"

Resistance

Student Movements

Ideology: Liberalism

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• Enemy Mine: In the Speer facelift teaser, the student movements formed a temporary truce with the Speerites during the German Civil War so they can eliminate every other potential successor to Hitler. Once the conflict concludes, the students turn on Speer.

Revolutionäre Zellen (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Ideology: Communism

Usually, partisans and resistance fighters cooperate. Their fight is public. Not in the case of Revolutionäre Zellen. Their battle against the NSDAP resembles a surgeon's precise incisions. Isolated, rare, but devastatingly effective, their attacks target all sectors of the state. The little information recovered from them come from pamphlets, yet they never, ever name their leader.

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• Allohistorical Allusion: The Revolutionäre Zellen existed in real-life West Germany between 1973 and 1995. The real RZ was a decentralized group formed by ex-RAF members in the 70s, while in TNO, RZ has a more centralized leader (who's an OTL Stasi spymaster) and forms several years earlier.
• Western Terrorists: Just like their comrades in the RAF, they execute terrorist attacks all over Germany, albeit in a more secretive, discreet and effective way in the Speer facelift teaser.

Markus Wolf

Role: Leader of Revolutionäre Zellen

Ideology: Communism

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• Allohistorical Allusion: In real life, Wolf was known as the man without a face, owing to his elusiveness and the lack of photographs taken of him for Western intelligence agencies and governments to identify him by. Here, his portrait is depicted as a faceless shadow, owing to how nobody outside the Revolutionäre Zellen knows his identity.
• The Faceless: Unlike Brandt who wears a facemask and shades to conceal his identity, Wolf's portrait in the Speer facelift teaser is completely black since his identity is completely unknown outside of Revolutionäre Zellen.
• Foil:
  • He and the Revolutionäre Zellen are heavily hinted as being this to Ulrike Meinhof and her radicals. While they in certain respects have mutual means and goals, right down to a penchant for terrorist attacks, they are much more discreet, precise and insidious. So much so, that not even their leader is known.
  • He is also a personal foil to Willy Brandt, just as his organization is to Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, fitting given it was his spy network that disgraced and embarrassed Brandt's administration in our world. Both are mysterious figures and the heads of anti-Nazi rebel groups, and just as in real life both have been fighting the Nazis since even before the Second World War. They even share socialist sympathies. However, while Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold seeks to recreate the Weimar Republic from before the fascists took power, Revolutionäre Zellen hopes to bring about a brave new communist state. Even their means of hiding are foils to one another; Brandt hides his identity behind a disguise and the nom-de-guerre of "Spartakus," while Markus Wolf prefers complete anonymity, ensuring neither his name nor his face is known to anyone who could possibly leak that information to his enemies.
• Richard Nixon, the Used Car Salesman: Markus Wolf is best known in real life for being the head of The Stasi's foreign intelligence division, the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung) from 1952 to 1986. In TNO, he's the elusive leader of the Revolutionäre Zellen terrorist group.
• The Spook: According to the Speer facelift teaser, the Revolutionäre Zellen's pamphlets never, ever name their leader; no one outside the group knows who he might be.

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