Following the collapse of Vituška's shaky coalition between Nazi collaborators and independent-ist nationalists, the lands in pro-Vituška revolt found themselves in total chaos as enemies of Belarusian freedom gained ground against their movement. Vituška's western-most pocket, completely cut-off and surrounded by enemies, turned to the last man who could unite their disparate interests and point them towards a singular, grassroots independence movement. Vladimir Ksyanevich, famed Father of Belarus, old Belarusian freedom-fighter in retirement, once again picked-up his weapon with gnarled hands and rallied the people of Belarus towards true freedom. An old, old Belarusian warrior, Ksyanevich fought the Soviet Union as the leader of partisan units, though he resigned himself to retirement upon the Nazi conquest of his homeland. Faced with the death of his homeland as the Ostland Civil War drags on, kills more and more civilians and destroys more of his homeland, Ksyanevich has sworn to be a last guardian of Belarus in the face of death and anarchy. Himself a right-wing populist who attached himself to the peasant movement at a young age, Ksyanevich has managed to unite pseudo-collaborators and left-leaning socialists behind his movement. Once victory is reached, Ksyanevich will oversee elections before returning to retirement. Those who can win are Vladimir Ksyanevich's second-in-command, Vincent Hadleŭski, the German-leaning fascist and militaristic-minded Barys Rahula, or the left-leaning socialist and rural populist Ivan Laskov. Though this ending is "wholesome" and the prospect of liberty for Belarus is tempting, Belarus is ultimately fated to fall at the knees of Germany, whatever shape it takes.
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Vituška's initial power base, consisting of a shaky coalition of Belarusian Nazi collaborators and fiercely independent, fiercely nationalistic Belarusians, collapses as soon as anarchy descends upon the Ostland Civil War. Vsevolod Rodko, head of the Black Cats and Mayor of Vitebsk, seizes power in... Vitebsk, rallying soldier and citizen alike to the banner of the Black Cats in opposition to the boot-licking collaborators who would "sell out Belarus for a Jew's dime." The collaborators, claiming to represent the legitimate, orderly and stable solution to the chaos of power-hungry dictators and total anarchy, seizes power in the Belarusian countryside to which Vituška's authority had previously extended. Vituška himself has a Death of Marat-style murder. Realizing that his political movement has crumbled in his hands, Vituška stages his own assassination, hoping to fulfill his egomania and go-down as a Simón Bolívar-esque hero of Belarus's freedom. In this, expect Vituška to be somewhat successful. While modern historiography will see Vituška as a flawed but heroic figure, the anarchy will be seen as a symptom of his flawed leadership. It's all fake, of course, in reality Vituška is fleeing into the Belarusian wilderness in a vehicle packed with expropriated government cash. The results of either the Nazi collaborators or the Black Cats winning is described in the Vituška design document.
Meyer-Landrut's chaotic and ever-shifting alliance of disparate sectors of Ostland's society did not, and could not, survive the toll a prolonged Ostland Civil War took upon the fledgling political movement. In fact, Meyer-Landrut's coalition utterly shattered, each faction scrambling for whatever of Meyer-Landrut's dwindling military authority remained to be taken. In the vacuum of power, a group of hardened anti-Nazi partisans, veterans of the long war, wielded the popular anti-German sentiment in the region in order to secure command positions for themselves. Pragmatic freedom-fighters themselves, they stand in contrast to Meyer-Landrut's idealistic and grassroots movement. While Meyer-Landrut aimed for the liberation of Ostland, the dissolution of the Reichskommissariat, an immediate return to democracy and an end to the slave system, the goals of Vilis Samsons and his "Austrumeiropietis" Liberation Council are much simpler, yet much more difficult. Samsons' goal is true, lasting freedom, not the temporary and admittedly weak goal of Meyer-Landrut. Samsons is a real anti-fascist, not some eye-for-an-eye revenge-seeker like Kovner, nor some weak liberal democrat like Meyer-Landrut. Samsons is not insane nor tyrannical, but he does seek to beat back or at least bloody the nose of Nazism, and to do this, he needs a militarized and efficient nation. Samsons is not an idiot, and he will not fuck around waiting for the jackboot to come to his neck. The instant he wins, he will prepare for a final war with Germany. Samsons will form an alliance with Poland, if it exists, Smolensk (Himl S Toyern), if it exists, and possibly even a post-Ukraine collapse anti-German resistance nation (if one ever exists). The instant the German Civil War is over, Samsons and his alliance will go to war with Germany. Samsons aims to create a Slave Revolt-esque Eastern European uprising to take advantage of Germany's weakness and claim freedom for the peoples of the east. Sadly, the conditions for a proto-Slave Revolt simply do not exist, and as such, even though Samsons and his alliance will be difficult to crack, he will most likely fail. That said, Samsons and his alliance will probably do more damage to Germany than anything else Eastern Europe can throw at them, besides Gardareich... perhaps.
Stahlecker's Reichskommissariat Ostland does not face the same institutional crises as the other contenders to the throne of Ostland. Unfortunately for Stahlecker, this does however mean his failure to claim victory in the Ostland Civil War is entirely blamed upon his own incompetence and unwillingness to act. The administration and bureaucracy of Reichskommissariat Ostland, seeing anarchy descend upon them and the war drag on to destroy more and more Ostland, unites behind the ruthless, cold and calculating backroom bureaucrat Friedrich Karl Vialon, and throws out Stahlecker to be mauled by the wolves. The administration, at this point, enters a state of complete and utter panic. Throwing ever-more desperate attempts at victory against the wall, Vialon abandons all guise of ideology, instead opting for whatever solution will get him Ostland the quickest. If Vialon manages to win, he will practically be sitting there, watching the ashes of Ostland slip through his fingers pretending nothing has changed and that everything is alright. It is a nation in shellshock, in denial of the trauma they have suffered. Diplomatic options should be the same as Stahlecker, though Vialon is much more insecure and mindful of his leadership than Stahlecker, who is a glory-seeking and arrogant prick.
The same Belarusian radicals as in the Meyer-Landrut failstate. Reichskommissariat Ostland's hold over southern Belarus collapses following the overthrow of Stahlecker and his replacement with backroom bureaucrat Friedrich Karl Vialon. These are Belarusian neo-partisans, seeking a return to the authority of Nikolai Bukharin's Soviet Union, or something approximating the Soviet Union's authority. Look at Mop's Meyer-Landrut design document for what happens if they win. More details later on, once Mop begins their work on it. All hail Comrade Krapiva.
Drechsler's junta, Generalbezirk Lettland, is not a stable nor efficient administration. If anything, it is persistently bogged down by the over-inflated ambitions of its rulers and the unabashed militarism of its military commanders. Once the Ostland Civil War enters a state of complete and utter anarchy, Drechsler's junta is pulverized by the burden of maintaining order, and soon falls to the many gripping hands of native rebellion and partisan insurgency. Yet, some hope remains in Drechsler's military apparatus. Though the administration and the bureaucracy effectively collapse, the military forces of Generalbezirk Lettland scramble to hold together Drechsler's general area of authority. Only able to maintain order in Courland, Drechsler's chief military advisor and commander, Friedrich-Wilhelm Müller, sweeps aside all organs of governance not under the control of the military, essentially taking the reins of power for himself. A caricature of Drechsler in many ways, Müller is somehow even more of a wrathful and loud ultra-militaristic jughead. Not to be outdone in the size of his ego, the depth of his delusions of grandeur nor in his over-bloated inferiority complex, Müller is not content with reconquering Eastern Europe from the grips of natives. No, him and his clique of head-in-the-clouds war criminals seek the highest office a German can possess. They want the Führership to all Germany. Müller proclaims himself the rightful Führer, declares his military junta the legitimate government of Germany and himself the rightful successor to Adolf Hitler. This is... a pipe dream. Once and if they manage to conquer Ostland, the instant Germany finishes the German Civil War, they will invade Germany and promptly lose.
Put under the strain of anarchy, the boundaries and limits of Drechsler's junta break apart at the seams. A clique of prominent and influential Ost-Deutsche settlers, forced to align with Drechsler early on in the Ostland Civil War, ride the wave of civil discontent and anti-militarist resentment in German-settled Lithuania in order to seize Drechsler's government apparatus in the region. Led by a group of apolitical Ost-Deutsche technocrats, their goal is to form an Ost-Deutsche minority-ruled Reichskommissariat over Ostland (neglecting both mainland Germans and the natives from roles in the administration). The leader of this group, one Georg Konrad Morgen, was one of the many men of the SS to abandon the SS upon the SS coup during the West Russian War. A hardline anti-corruption, anti-excess technocrat, he is not quite a reformist, though not a Nazi either. Him and his clique see the future of the eastern Reichskommissariats as minority governments, ruled over as settler states by selective Ost-Deutsche from their respective regions. He will, almost immediately, tie Ostland to the German settler state in Moskowien and any Ost-Deutsche state in Ukraine, if one exists. He will take steps to end the slavery system and rebuild Ostland in an entirely pragmatic fashion, so as to ensure the continuation of smooth governance more than anything else. This is to say, Morgen and his clique can never truly export their ideas beyond Ostland and select regions in Eastern Europe. Beyond Speidel, I can't see any Germany ever attempting his ideas of Eastern European Ost-Deutsche ruled settler states. This isn't to say no Germany would accept Morgen, he would most certainly act as an in-between for the conservatives and reformists for Speer, and the same goes for Bormann.
The pseudo-terrorist operations of Jeckeln's wing of the SS were not constrained to only Dünaburg and its surrounding areas. On the explicit orders of Ost-Paris, Jeckeln and his Ostland-SS participated in navally-based terrorist-attacks, piracy and inner-sea battles of influence over small islands in the Baltic Sea with Sweden and Finland, in a longshot attempt by Ost-Paris to strike international conflict or push Sweden and Finland into the OFN's camp. Though these efforts were largely a failure, due to the professional navies of both Sweden and Finland, what it did accomplish was the formation of an independent, though small naval force for Jeckeln's quasi-terrorist SS. During the course of the Ostland Civil War, though Drechsler laid down his authority upon the islands of Hiiumaa and Saaremaa, the remnants of Jeckeln's naval forces continued partisan strikes against Drechsler, weakening his iron grip over the Estonian archipelago. Upon the descension of anarchy and the collapse of Drechsler's Generalbezirk Lettland, it would be those naval forces of Jeckeln's SS (though, at this point, they were completely independent of Jeckeln's command) who would seize the Estonian archipelago. Hermann Baranowski, a longtime officer of the German navy and an SS concentration camp commandant during WWII, is the commander of those naval forces and its partisans. A seaman at heart, sadistic in his actions, Baranowski's cold and briny grip clutches the heart of these here frozen isles. Baranowski sees himself as a great admiral, the next Karl Dönitz, though he is at best a pale imitation. Baranowski openly challenges the authority of Sweden and Finland, blockading the Åland Islands and Gotland. He scours the seas for a decisive, awe-inspiring triumph, his own March Across the Belts. Baranowski will never fulfill his egomania, nor his search for a military victory against Sweden and Finland. He should only have one or two divisions, enough to guard the Estonian archipelago, but never enough to conquer Ostland (unless, of course, the player is in charge). Note: use Cthulhu-type seafaring imagery for icons and artwork.
Jeckeln survives, a fact that is most definitely not universal amongst the original contenders to the throne of Ostland. This is not for lack of attempts on his life, however. Beginning with the Sommer Conspiracy, organized by his very own officer corps, Jeckeln went on to survive several more attempted uprisings, assassinations and oustings. Oftentimes the mastermind behind these attempts were his very own benefactors in Burgundy, though he wouldn't know it. Similar to the assassination attempts against Josef Broz Tito, Jeckeln miraculously survives them all, though unlike Tito, he is far from unscathed. Though the wounds inflicted upon Jeckeln are very often physical, a slash there, a lost appendage here, even a gouged-out eye (I would like an updated Jeckeln portrait for the anarchy to display this), the wounds upon his psyche ring much deeper. Jeckeln is dropped deep into paranoia, becoming a recluse in the process, all in utter fear of the apocalypse Ostland has become. Jeckeln's military effectiveness and stability should plunge at this point, but he isn't finished yet. The player especially should still be able to claim victory in Ostland, despite the descension of anarchy. It should be described to the player, perhaps in Hitler's health-style events, how isolated Jeckeln becomes, and how even he is terrified of how everyone in Ostland he used to know has been slaughtered and overtaken by the next generation of butchers and neo-partisans. Jeckeln's events for a victory in Ostland should also be swapped out, for Jeckeln has returned to Hell and back, and his crusade for the purification of Ostland is no longer the ravings of a fanatic, but that of a war-hardened political movement. Similar to Bormann's anarchy however, all content for Jeckeln at this point should be removed. This is for development, later on.
A clique of Jeckeln's officers, organized under the up-and-coming SS hardliner and zealot Martin Sommer, forms a conspiracy to assassinate Jeckeln and replace him with a more ideologically-raucous and fanatically-determined leader. Working off of widespread discontent in the ranks, frustrated with Jeckeln's clumsiness, slavish devotion to Himmler, and unskilled leadership, the Sommer Conspiracy earns enough of a following to form a power-base in and of itself. The assassination attempt ultimately fails, however, and the Sommer Conspiracy, now condemned as traitors and still upset over Jeckeln's leadership, retreats northwards, essentially breaking in twine Jeckeln's general area of authority. Preaching a fanatical, absolutely puritan form of Burgundian System, in contrast to Himmler's so-called corruption of National Socialist ideals, Sommer and his officers seek complete and total purification of Ostland. There will be no transition, their conquest of Ostland will be the transition, Ostland will be shocked and whipped into a state of "Aryan utopia." No slaves, nothing but an ever-devouring ouroboros of radicalized men of the SS. The way Kovner wishes to transform Ostland into nothing but rubble and salted earth, Sommer and his clique also accomplish this goal, completely unintentionally. Sommer and his clique treat duty to the Fatherland, Burgundian System and the Aryan race as a cult-like affair, something spiritual, greater than themselves, that they pour fanatical devotion towards. This is also how they rationalize the atrocities which they mandate in their reconquest of Ostland, since in their worldview they are instruments of a God-like greater purpose in service of Aryanism, the horrors they inflict must be God-given punishments, and the pleasure they feel in their sadism must be a God-given reward for their actions. For this reason, they see Himmler and most SS higher-ups as weaklings and cowards, for being unwilling to get their hands dirty on a personal level. It is also for this reason that they idolize Hüttig, for being on the ground to manage a concentration camp during World War II, though they don't think he goes far enough in tearing down uncommitted, ideologically-impure Nazis. Upon victory, Sommer will 'liquidate' Ostland's cities of non-Germans, any Germans who didn't side with the SS, and of the Germans left, those who are deemed non-pure racially or ideologically (to Sommer, those are the same thing) will also be liquidated. Liquidation in this sense means not only to be murdered (though it often does), it also refers to the practice of dumping non-pure Germans into the wilderness, all of their belongings stolen, as a distorted form of atonement. With Ostland's major settlements… emptied, Sommer, his clique and whatever Germans are left set-up interspersed and isolated cult-like outposts, beacons of "Aryan utopia." Miniature fiefdoms, set up in service of whatever SS commander is assigned to rule over. The rest of Ostland, the vast majority of Ostland, is in an ever-constant state of native insurgency, partisan and guerilla warfare. It will crumble instantly upon the threat of foreign intervention. It will create a humanitarian nightmare and Germany will spend much of its time, concerning Ostland, attempting to completely rebuild and restructure Ostland, hopefully less corrupt and more self-sustainable than last time. It is a tragedy, but out from this tragedy, there is the hope that a new order may arise wherein such a monstrosity may never again see the light of day.
Kovner's and the United Partisan Organization's treatment of the Ost-Deutsche settlers, mainland Germans, and even natives of eastern Lithuania earned them no respect nor loyalty from the region, only resentment. Grabbing at any opportunity to break away from Kovner's grasp, the inhabitants of eastern Lithuania turned to no organization, nor polity, for none remained to be trusted. Instead, they turned to soldiers-for-hire, used-to-be guardsmen for the megacorporations or now-unemployed military commanders, men who would take on any challenge, for a price. Into this environment came Oskar Munzel, an adventure-seeker and Wehrmacht officer, fleeing the chaos of the German Civil War to etch out a place for himself and his men in Ostland. Out from eastern Lithuania's mess of mercenaries came mercenary companies, and out from those mercenary companies, a singular company, that of Oskar Munzel, dominated and amalgamated others. Eastern Lithuania's reliance on mercenaries (and Munzel's in particular) proved so strong that upon the Ostland Civil War descension into total anarchy, it would be Munzel of all people, a so-called "Wehrmacht man with a price tag," who would take the reins of power in eastern Lithuania from out of Kovner's hands. Munzel is no regular mercenary, however, and he shares few similarities with his fellows in the Congo, the Russian Far East, or even Tambow. Unlike them, he is dutiful, a man of principles who will fulfill what is bought of him, he has no lust for power nor need to engorge himself upon the riches of the poor and suffering. He is a modern Federico de Montefeltro, and eastern Lithuania is his Urbino. Seeing the horrors of Ostland firsthand, and the terror Kovner commits on his warpath, Munzel abandons his adventure-seeking and arrogance for a sort-of paternalistic sense of protection over the innocents of Ostland. Though a man of honor, he is still pragmatic and does not abandon charging money from those he protects. Yet, he only asks of people the money they do have, and will willingly protect even those who cannot afford it. His leadership is benevolent, yet it remains a mercenary-run junta, and the mercenaries working under him are not always as merciful as he is. Oftentimes, Munzel will find himself battling the excesses of his own men. Upon victory, he will simply wait for Germany to come knocking, and once they do, he will resign from ownership over Ostland and gift it humbly to the new Führer, himself now a changed man. Faced with a repeating cycle of violence and revenge, a will to protect may shine through.
The UPO section is unfinished, surprisingly. You'd think that a group dedicated to genociding Germans would have a lot said about it, but nope.
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