The Hohenzollern Empire 5: Holy Phoenix - An Empire of Jerusalem Megacampaign in New World Order

[zenphoenix]

Another relative dead, and Anders and Angela's trust in each other are at an all time low (fair, given the circumstances). As always, we wait to see the fallout.

As with every case, blame Pavel.

Only what was necessary to save the franchise.

Rise, my new apprentice: Darth Rian Johnson.

*blocks using a big ol bible*

burns bible

N E I N

J A

xaxaxaxaxa

dasvidanya, tovarisch

NINGEN WHAT

...aaand she's dead again.

N-nani!

Omae wa moe shideiru!

Ouch, that got to put a dampener on Anders trust with Angela there, assuming it was a non fatal shot. I’ll say through, as much as I like Anders character, he was kind of a jerk to everyone around him this update, and that was before Conrad was shot which I understand his anger in that situation. Anders says that Angela isn’t giving him the trust of family, but I’m pretty sure family members don’t punch their uncles either and they aren’t paranoid of them either!

Angry Anders is scary Anders. Almost as bad as skeptical Anders.

legally even if she did kill them in a brutal and horrific fashion.

They were unarmed and legally not enemy combatants. They were intelligence agents working in an embassy, and such people are protected under international law. Killing Nina and Alek still constitutes a war crime.

Now Pavel legimatley murdered a man and tried to find frame his grandson for it which is worse than how Olga killed Pavel’s parents. In other words, looks like I wasn’t harsh enough on Pavel.

Yeah, Pavel just went off the deep end. There's no turning back now.

Forgive me if I’m asking too much, but can we also have mini biographies on the Annionas (Osterhild and Siegfried) and maybe Shriery Tempel since Siegfried is this TTL’s Christopher Lee and he did fight in WW2 in OTL. I like to know what happened to Osterhild after the war besides becoming UN repesenative and I remember Shirley Tempel had a career before WW2 so I’m wondering how did she fair during the war. This might sound weird too, but I kind of want to see Markous Angelos’s backstory and how he came to develop his radical ideology and how he listened to Gandhi when he started the Holocaust. You don’t have to write long detailed description if you don’t want to. Just some short and brief summaries would be good.

I'll think about it after I post the next update, as always.

Also what ever happened to Albert Speer since he was one of the few Nazis who admitted guilt and remorse towards the crimes of the Nazi regimes and he refused to carry out Hitlier’s Nero decree (which would’ve basically had Germany burnt to the ground) in OTL.

I don't know about Speer, but I might write a short bio for him as well.

I also think they were discussions in page 35 of the Hoi3 segment on Angeloi fascism and the Roman civil war and I recommend you check those out.

I'll take a look at that.

 

[zenphoenix]

Syndicate, Part 4​

Eibar, Euskadi – April 16, 1995, 9:00 AM

Anders woke up in an unfamiliar room.

“He's awake,” Alberto Garcia-Diaz said.

“Anders, it’s me,” Angela said, waving in front of his face and handing him a cup of water, “Drink it. You haven’t had any water in over 36 hours. Your shoulder’s going to be fine. The round went through nice and clean.”

“You shot me, Angie!” Anders said.

“Yes, I did,” Angela said, “You didn't give me much choice. You were going to shoot Pavel.”

“Why'd you shoot me?” Anders said. “He's the one. I heard Grandpa say his name!”

“If he is, then his weapon is probably the same one that killed Grandpa Conrad,” Angela said.

“What are you talking about?” Anders said.

“If you killed Pavel with that weapon, there would have been no way to prove that you didn't kill Grandpa,” Angela said, “I'm sorry about Grandpa, by the way. I haven't been able to tell you.”

“How'd you know it was Pavel?” Anders said.

“I didn't,” Angela said, “I went back to your apartment to pull the slug from the wall, but I noticed an unmarked van delivering soft water and I found this in one of the tanks servicing your building.”

She held up the filter.

“What is it?” Anders said.

“It's a dialysis filter,” Angela said, “It's a device used in the transmission of substance to solution, and considering the level of psychosis you were experiencing, it was probably LSD, amphetamines of some kind of exotic dopamine agonist. Maybe even LSDM like at Frankfurt an der Oder.”

“Mein Gott,” Anders said, “Walter took LSD. And there was a murder in my building.”

“Well it wasn't an exercise in subtlety,” Angela said, “Anders, these men are quite possibly the same ones who killed Uncle Conrad and who systematically tried to destroy you by turning everyone you could trust against you. I don't think I have to tell you why.”

“I'd gotten too close to the truth,” Anders said, “By the way, where are we?”

“We're in Eibar, Euskadi,” Angela said.

“Basque Country?” Anders said. “That’s on the other side of Europe.”

“I've just driven two days straight across country,” Angela said, “I had to put you out to let the side effects of the psychosis abate. This is Alberto Garcia-Diaz, he's been translating your files.”

“You're lucky she's a good shot,” Alberto said.

“Or a bad one,” Anders said.

Angela punched his arm.

“Anyways, Alberto was a Basque code talker during World War III,” Angela said, “He knew people who helped encode the original government documents.”

“How'd you find him?” Anders said.

“Through some Hispanian nobleman in Constantinople,” Angela said, “But he claims he knew you were coming.”

“Last week we had an omen,” Alberto said.

“Most of these files are written in jargon, but apparently there was an international conspiracy of silence dating back to the 1940's,” Angela said, “Alberto says that evidence of these secrets are buried outside this Basque village, not far from here. He says that he'll take you as soon as you are able.”

Anders got up. “And you?”

“I'm afraid you're on your own with this,” Angela said, “I didn't show up for a meeting with Dad the day before yesterday, and I don't know what the repercussions will be.”

“You've taken a big risk,” Anders said.

“I was certain they would have killed you Anders,” Angela said, “That’s what family’s for.”

“Thank you,” Anders said, “Thank you for taking care of me.”

“There's something else,” Angela said, “My name is in files. It appears in the latest entries with Daniel Burkard's.”

“In what context?” Anders said.

“It's not clear, but it has something to do with a test,” Angela said, “I want you to find out. I need you to.”


1:00 PM

Alberto drove down the dusty and empty highway in his old rusty car. He had two pictures on his windshield. Anders saw they were of two women, one old and one not as old.

“Who are they?” Anders asked.

“My mother and wife,” Alberto said, “Both are long dead.”

The picture of Alberto’s mother was torn, as if it was missing another half.

“Problems with your dad?” Anders said.

“Yeah,” Alberto, “A real control freak, as people say these days.”

“You said you knew I was coming,” Anders said, “How?”

“In the desert, things find a way to survive,” Alberto said, “Secrets are like this too. They push their way up through the sands of deception so that men can know them. Here, this is my house.”

He pulled up to a dusty wooden house on a hill and cut the engine. Anders got out and looked around at the shrubs and small trees populating the area. It was no desert, but this place was almost as dry and hot as one.

“But why me?” Anders said.

“You are prepared to accept the truth, aren't you?” Alberto said. “To sacrifice yourself to it.”

“I don't understand,” Anders said.

“We Basques are the descendants of an ancient people,” Alberto said, “No evidence of our origins exists. Historians say we were here when your ancestors arrived. Then our people disappeared everywhere but here. They say they don’t know where they went. They say that because they will not sacrifice themselves to the truth.”

“And what is the truth?” Anders said.

“Nothing disappears without a trace,” Alberto said.

“You think the Basques outside Euskadi were abducted,” Anders said.

“By visitors who come here still,” Alberto said, “And not just the Basques.”

Alberto led him to Pablo’s motorcycle.

“What's buried out there?” Anders asked.

“Lies,” Alberto said, “You will see for yourself.”

Anders got on the motorcycle. “Haven’t been on a bike since my ex left.”

“It's through these rocks, my grandson said,” Alberto said, “It's down there.”

Anders drove away and reached the quarry after a few minutes. He got off and climbed down the rockface towards the bottom. His phone rang.

“Humboldt,” he said.

“You're a hard man to reach,” the smoking man said.

“Not hard enough apparently, Cigarette Guy,” Anders said.

“Where are you?” the smoking man said.

“I'm at the Nancy Wilson Center, where are you?” Anders said.

“I need to talk to you, Herr Humboldt, in person,” the smoking man said, “There are some things to explain.”

“I'll save the government the plane fare,” Anders said, “I just need to know which government that is.”

“Your grandfather may have told you things, Herr Humboldt,” the smoking man said, “I should warn against taking those things at face value.”

Anders smiled. “Yeah, which things are those?”

“He was never an opponent of the project,” the smoking man said, “In fact, he authorized it. That's what he couldn't live with.”

“No, he couldn't live with it because you had him killed,” Anders said.

“We weren't involved in that,” the smoking man said.

“Now listen to me you black lunged motherfrakker, I'm going expose you and your little project to the Kaiser, and your time is over,” Anders said, “Assuming you don’t die from cancer before then.”

“Expose anything and you only expose your grandfather...” the smoking man said.

Anders hung up.


[REDACTED]

The smoking man hung up. He got out of his car and into a waiting helicopter.

“Sir, we got a co-ordinate on A,” a black-ops soldier said, “We’re ready to go.”

“Let’s go,” the smoking man said.

The helicopter flew off. The soldier offered him a pack of Mosley's.

“Need a cigarette?” he said.


Outside Eibar

Anders uncovered a plaque in the dirt, which read “Imperial Europa Railroad - 567 480.”

“Over here,” Pablo said, pointing to a hatch.

“This is a boxcar,” Anders said.

He and Pablo opened the hatch and looked inside.

“Refrigeration car,” Pablo said.

“Refrigerating what?” Anders said.

He jumped inside and took out his phone. Angela picked up.

“Hansen,” she said.

“Hey, Angie, it’s me,” Anders said.

“Where are you?” Angela said.

“Nowhere I ever expected,” Anders said.

“What do you mean?” Angela said.

“I'm in a boxcar buried inside a quarry,” Anders said, looking around, “There are bodies everywhere.”

“Bodies?” Angela said.

“Stacked floor to ceiling,” Anders said, walking over to a pile of dead bodies who looked like aliens.

“What happened to them?” Angela said.

“I don't know,” Anders said.

“Anders, in these files I found references to experiments that were conducted here in the Reich by Angeloi and Rasa scientists who were given amnesty after the war,” Angela said.

“What kind of experiments?” Anders said.

“Tests done on humans,” Angela said, “What they referred to as merchandise.”

Anders looked closer at the bodies. “But these aren't human, Angie. From the look of it I'd say they were alien.”

“Are you sure?” Angela said.

“They’re much shorter,” Anders said, “I'm pretty damn sure. Wait a sec...”

He looked at the arm of one of the bodies.

“This one...” Anders said. “It has a smallpox vaccination scar.”

“Anders...” Angela said. “What the frak did you find?”

“Mein Gott, Angie, what the frak have they done?” Anders said.

The hatch closed. Outside, the helicopter landed, and the black-ops soldiers ran out, with the smoking man not far behind.

“Move out, get away from there, keep him back,” the first soldier said, pushing Pablo back, “Cover us, we’re going in. Go.”

The smoking man approached Pablo. “What's your name, boy?”

“Pablo Garcia-Diaz,” Pablo said.

“No, your real name,” the smoking man said.

The soldier ran up to him. “He's not here.”

“Where's Humboldt?” the smoking man said. “He's here.”

“No sir, if he was, he's vanished without a trace,” the soldier said.

“Nothing vanishes without a trace, especially in Basque Country,” the smoking man said, “Burn it.”

The soldiers tossed incendiary devices into the boxcar, and it exploded. They climbed back into the helicopter and flew away.

 

[CaptainAlvious]

I think I asked about this too when I asked about Mussolini and Goebbels but I’m pretty sure this would be too much for you to write at this point so you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. Again, I’m sorry if I’m asking too much.

Maybe Stalin too since I´m wondering how he became Eccumenical Patriach.

 

[zenphoenix]

I think I asked about this too when I asked about Mussolini and Goebbels but I’m pretty sure this would be too much for you to write at this point so you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. Again, I’m sorry if I’m asking too much.

No worries, I'll think about it.

 

[zenphoenix]

I think I asked about this too when I asked about Mussolini and Goebbels but I’m pretty sure this would be too much for you to write at this point so you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to. Again, I’m sorry if I’m asking too much.

Just to let you know, I might have to delay the Siegfried Anniona biography to around 2015 (when the real Christoper Lee died) to avoid possible spoilers.

 

[CaptainAlvious]

Sorry about asking more about biograhies, but how is Kestrel/Castro doing at this point, did he ever become the Mayapan chancellor? I recommend saving this for when Kestrel dies in 2016 so as to avoid spoilers.

 

[zenphoenix]

Sorry about asking more about biograhies, but how is Kestrel/Castro doing at this point, did he ever become the Mayapan chancellor? I recommend saving this for when Kestrel dies in 2016 so as to avoid spoilers.

I'll add him to my list.

 

[zenphoenix]

Emma Osterhild Anniona was born October 11, 1884 in Sachsenhausen, Frankfurt, to minor aristoi Gisela Anniona and her husband, Elias von Hauteville. She had two siblings, a younger sister Elise and a younger brother Christopher. From an early age she preferred to be called by her middle name, Osterhild. Through her mother, she was a granddaughter of Alexandra Anniona, a lady-in-waiting to the late Kaiserin Sisi. Her mother nicknamed her "Granny" because she acted in such a serious manner as a child. Her mother was also somewhat ashamed of Osterhild’s plainness. Osterhild was born into a world of immense wealth and privilege, as her family was part of Frankfurt high society called the “swells”, though her family was considered minor nobility at best; actual nobility had wealth and privilege that dwarfed whatever her parents owned.

Her mother died from diphtheria on December 7, 1892. Her father died on August 14, 1894 after being pushed out a window by his brother, who suspected Elias was carrying on an affair with his wife. Osterhild’s childhood losses left her prone to depression throughout her life. Her father’s last wish for Osterhild was to take care of Elise, something Osterhild fulfilled until World War II broke out.

After the deaths of her parents, Osterhild and Elise were raised in the household of her maternal grandmother, Gisela. As a child, she was insecure and starved for affection, and considered herself the "ugly duckling” in comparison to her cousins. However, Osterhild wrote at 14 that one's prospects in life were not totally dependent on physical beauty: "no matter how plain a woman may be if truth and loyalty are stamped upon her face all will be attracted to her."

Osterhild was tutored privately and at fifteen was sent to a private finishing school outside Vienna, where she was educated from 1899 to 1902. The headmistress, Maria Souvestre, was a noted educator who sought to cultivate independent thinking in young women, brought on by her experiences as a member of the French minority. Souvestre took a special interest in Osterhild, who learned to speak Greek and the Berliner dialect of German fluently and gained self-confidence. Osterhild and Souvestre maintained a correspondence until March 1905, when Souvestre died, and after this Osterhild placed Souvestre's portrait on her desk and brought her letters with her. Osterhild’s cousin Clara, whose first term at the school overlapped with Osterhild’s last, said that when she arrived at the school, Osterhild was "'everything' at the school. She was beloved by everybody." Osterhild wished to continue studying, but she was summoned home by her grandmother in 1902 to make her social debut in Berlin.

At age 17 in 1902, Osterhild completed her formal education and traveled to Berlin; she was presented at a debutante ball at Brandenburg Palace on December 14, where many of her friends from Frankfurt were also present. She was later given her own "coming out party". She said of her debut in a public discussion once, "It was simply awful. It was a beautiful party, of course, but I was so unhappy, because a girl who comes out is so utterly miserable if she does not know all the young people. Of course I had been so long away that I had lost touch with all the girls I used to know in Frankfurt. I was miserable through all that."

Osterhild was active with the Frankfurt Junior League shortly after its founding, teaching dancing and calisthenics in the slums in the eastern districts. The organization had been brought to Osterhild’s attention by her friend, organization founder Matilda Harriman, and a male relative who criticized the group for "drawing young women into public activity”. Starting in the 1920s, Osterhild would also start working with the Women’s Trade Union League, raising funds in support of the union's goals: a 48-hour work week, minimum wage, and the final abolition of child labor. Throughout the decade, Eleanor became increasingly influential as a leader in the CMU’s Rhineland branch.

In 1927, she joined two of her friends in buying the Thaddeus Jager School for Girls, a finishing school which also offered college preparatory courses, in Frankfurt. At the school, Osterhild taught upper-level courses in Roman literature and history, emphasizing independent thought, current events, and social engagement. Later that year, she also established Mainer Industries in Vienna with her friends and the support of the CMU. The company was located on the banks of a stream that flowed through her mother’s estate outside the city. She and her friends financed the construction of a small factory to provide supplemental income for local farming families who would make furniture, pewter, and homespun cloth using traditional craft methods.

In the 1930s, Osterhild had a very close relationship with legendary aviator Amalie Earhardt. One time, while Amalie was attending a reception at Brandenburg Palace, she and Osterhild snuck out of the palace and went to a party dressed up for the occasion. After flying with Amalie, Osterhild obtained a student permit but did not further pursue her plans to learn to fly. The two friends communicated frequently up until Amalie’s disappearance while flying around the world.

Osterhild also had a close relationship with Die Zeiten reporter Lorena Hauser, who covered her during her first (failed) campaign for the Diet in 1932, though many suspected the relationship went much further than friendship, owing to Lorena’s open lesbianism (which ultimately led to her imprisonment, forced sterilization, and then execution for “hysteria and promiscuity” by the Angeloi in 1938). Markos Angelos despised Osterhild’s liberalism, her stance regarding civil rights, and her criticisms of Angelos’ surveillance tactics, and so Angelos maintained a large file on Osterhild which he intended to blackmail Osterhild with (the file was ultimately lost during the uprising of May 8, 1939, presumably destroyed by his security chief, Jacob Edelweiss Hoover, who remained loyal to Kaiser Otto).

In the years leading up to the Angeloi coup, Osterhild became an important connection to minority populations in the era of discrimination and state-supported racism. Despite Markos Angelos’ inflammatory rhetoric and threats against those who opposed him, Osterhild was vocal in her support of the civil rights movement. Osterhild also broke with tradition by convincing the Kaiser to invite hundreds of minority guests to Brandenburg Palace, offering to pay all expenses out of her own pocket. In 1936, she became aware of conditions at the Imperial Training School for Girls, a predominantly minority reform school in Constantinople. She visited the school, wrote about it in her daily My Day column in Die Zetein, lobbied for additional funding, and pressed for changes in staffing and curriculum.

Osterhild constantly looked to the future and was committed to social reform, using her connections in the Diet to lobby for reform. Those reforms helped working women receive better wages and placed women into less machine work and more white collar work. Women did not have to work in the factories making war supplies because men were coming home so they could take over the long days and nights women had been working to contribute to the war efforts.

Osterhild made far more use of the media than many politicians at the time, eventually rivaling Markos Angelos’ dominance of news radio. Throughout the 1930s, Osterhild held 348 press conferences and public speeches, where she restricted the number of male reporters to increase the number of female reporters hired by newspapers. In 1934, Osterhild also began broadcasting her own radio program, where she talked about current events and social issues. Any salary she earned from being on the air was donated to charity. The program, which was broadcast daily, became so popular that Markos Angelos forced through legislation to shut it down, and Osterhild retaliated with scathing denunciations of Angeloi intimidation. This “battle of the radio” continued until 1939, when Angelos used his coup as an excuse to shut down all independent radio stations and their broadcasts, Osterhild’s included.

When the coup began, Osterhild was in Vienna working with the Red Cross. Despite many of her friends urging her to evacuate to the south, Osterhild refused to leave Vienna. She participated in humanitarian relief efforts and helped draft emergency government policies. She briefly chaired the provisional government of the city of Vienna and later the Office of Emergency Management, a temporary office set up to coordinate the city’s response to the war, after the mayor was killed in a bombing raid and helped organize more relief efforts. Among one of her actions while in government was producing a short film which outlined the way in which women could participate in the defense of both the city and the nation against the Angeloi. Speeches and letters smuggled out of Vienna to Loyalist-controlled cities emphasized her support for the increased roles for women and minorities in the Loyalist war effort. Osterhild also urged women of all social backgrounds to learn trades and called for government-sponsored day care, eventually convincing Otto to mobilize women and minorities to work in the factories. However, her activism was put to an end when the Angeloi finally took Vienna, slaughtering its defenders and executing the members of the municipal government who refused to swear loyalty to Markos Angelos. Osterhild went underground and used her connections to rally the Viennese branch of the Resistance. Elise followed her into the Resistance, but Christopher sided with the Angeloi instead.

As the leader of the Vienna Resistance, Osterhild, going by the codename “Octavia,” used her wealth and connections to secure weapons, supplies, and information for her operatives, which she used to launch raids on the Angeloi occupying the city. This came at a cost, though; on April 6, 1941, the Angeloi, with intelligence provided by Christoper, launched a devastating counterattack on the Resistance which killed Elise and Osterhild’s husband and eldest son. The death of her sister broke Osterhild, and she ordered her fighters to wage total war against the Angeloi: all Angeloi and their supporters were to be hunted down and killed at all costs. She began ordering attacks based on questionable intelligence reports and using tactics that bordered on war crimes, such as suicide bombings, torture, and taking hostage the families and friends of Angeloi. Toward the end of the war, Osterhild personally led an attack on an Angeloi convoy outside Vienna led by Christopher. Everybody on the convoy was slaughtered in the ambush, and Osterhild personally strangled Christopher in retaliation for killing Elise. After Loyalist troops liberated Vienna, Osterhild resigned as leader of the Resistance and ordered her fighters to go home and hand over their weapons. She would be included in Kaiser Otto’s controversial pardon for all wartime Resistance fighters accused of committing crimes.

After the war, Osterhild went into politics, becoming one of the first senators to be chosen under the new Ottonian examination system. As a registered CMU senator, she was a strong proponent of deangelification, the plan to eradicate all traces of Angeloi influence in Roman society. Starting in 1946, on the recommendation of Konrad Adenauer, Otto appointed Osterhild as the Reich’s first ambassador to the United Nations. Several months later, she became the first chairperson of and the Roman representative to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and played an instrumental role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

By the 1950s, Osterhild’s international role as spokesperson for women led her to endorse the proposed Equal Rights Act, which had languished in the Diet for years. Throughout the 1950s, Osterhild embarked on countless national and international speaking engagements. She continued to pen her newspaper column and made appearances on television and radio broadcasts. She averaged one hundred fifty lectures a year throughout the fifties, many devoted to her activism on behalf of the United Nations.

In April 1960, Osterhild was diagnosed with aplastic anemia soon after being struck by a car in Vienna. After her condition deteriorated, she resigned from her United Nations positions and recommended Adenauer to appoint her protege, Shirley Tempel, as her successor. In 1962, she was given steroids, which activated a dormant case of tuberculosis in her bone marrow, and she died of resulting cardiac failure on November 7, 1962, at the age of 78. Kaiser Otto ordered all Roman flags lowered to half-staff throughout the world on November 8 in tribute to Osterhild.

Among other prominent attendees, Otto and Adenauer honored Osterhild at funeral services in Vienna on November 10, 1962, where she was interred next to her husband. At the services, Adlai Stevenson said: "What other single human being has touched and transformed the existence of so many?", adding, "She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world.”

 

[TheAnguishedOne]

Clarification: Did they just Pablo, or was he arrested?

Beautiful closing line for Osterhild from Stevenson.

 

[zenphoenix]

Clarification: Did they just Pablo, or was he arrested?

They arrested him.

 

[zenphoenix]

Just to make sure, I removed all possible spoilers from this bio, other than the Reich surviving until 2015 (shocker!). Surprisingly, there weren't many of them.

---

Siegfried was born in Vienna in 1922, the son of socialite Osterhild Anniona and her husband, Jacob von Karling. Siegfried’s father fought in the First World War and was a direct descendant of Charlemagne. He had one brother, Christopher Anniona, named after Osterhild’s brother.

As a child, his mother took him and his brother to Wengen, Helvetia. After enrolling in Frau Fischer's Academy in Territet, he played his first role, as Rumpelstiltskin. They then returned to Vienna, where Siegfried attended Wagner's private school, run by Jacob’s brother, Georg Raus, a banker and uncle of the future writer Ian Fleming.

When Siegfried was nine, he was sent to Sommerfeld School, a preparatory school in Vienna whose pupils often later attended prestigious private schools across the Reich. He continued acting in school plays, and upon graduating, Siegfried applied for a scholarship to the prestigious Friedrich the Glorious Academy in Berlin. His poor maths skills meant that he placed eleventh, and thus missed out on being a Kaiser’s Scholar by one place. His parents were not prepared to pay the higher fees that being an Oppidan Scholar meant, and so he reluctantly declined. Instead, Siegfried attended Nikephoros College in Athens, where he won scholarships in the classics, studying Ancient Greek and Latin along with the Homeric epics. Aside from a "tiny part" in a school play, he didn't act while at Nikephoros College. He was a "passable" fencer and a competent tzykanion player but did not do well at the other sports played: hockey, soccer, and boxing. He disliked the parades and weapons training and would always "play dead" as soon as possible during mock battles. Siegfried was frequently beaten at school, including once for "being beaten too often", though he accepted them as "logical and therefore acceptable" punishments for knowingly breaking the rules. At age 17, and with one year left at school, the summer term of 1939 was his last, because Angelos’ coup had shut down the entire Reich.

When the war broke out, Siegfried volunteered to fight for Kanatan forces. He and other Roman volunteers were kept away from actual fighting, but they were issued winter gear and were posted on guard duty a safe distance from the front lines. After a fortnight, they returned home.

Siegfried found work as an office clerk, then as a switchboard operator in Constantinople. When the Angeloi took Constantinople, he joined the Resistance. That summer, his father and brother were arrested by the Angeloi on charges of supplying weapons to the Resistance and then summarily executed; their arrest and execution was overseen by Siegfried’s uncle, also named Christopher Anniona. Realizing there was no way he could avoid the war now and hoping to avenge Jacob and Christopher, Siegfried volunteered for the Kaiserliche Luftwaffe.

After finishing his exams, Siegfried was assigned to the Middle East front. There, he was having his penultimate training session before his first solo flight when he suffered from headaches and blurred vision. The medical officer hesitantly diagnosed a failure of his optic nerve, and he was told he would never be allowed to fly again. Siegfried was devastated, and the death of a fellow trainee and friend from his school days only made him more despondent. His appeals were fruitless, and he was left with nothing to do. He was moved around to different flying stations before being posted in Mosul in December 1941. Urged on by Ian Fleming and thinking he should "do something constructive for my keep", he applied to join KL Intelligence. His superiors praised his initiative.

After "killing time" at Suez, he resumed intelligence work in Cairo. He was commissioned as a pilot officer at the end of January 1942, and attached to 260th Squadron as an intelligence officer. As Hugo Doukas’ Operation Scipio (the liberation of North Africa) progressed, the squadron "leapfrogged" westward along the coast, where they lent air support to the ground forces and bombed strategic targets. Siegfried, "broadly speaking, was expected to know everything”. The Loyalist advance continued into Cyrenaica with the squadron averaging five missions a day. As the advance continued into the province of Carthage, with the Angeloi forces digging themselves in around the city, Siegfried was almost killed when the squadron's airfield was bombed. After breaking through into Carthage, the squadron made their final base outside the city. After the collapse of Angeloi and Axis forces in North Africa in the summer of 1943, the squadron prepared for the invasion of Sicily. They then moved to Malta, and, after its capture by Loyalist forces, the Sicilian town of Pachino, before making a permanent base in Agnone Bagni. At the end of October 1942, Siegfried received his second promotion of the year, this time to flying officer. After the Sicilian campaign was over, Siegfried came down with malaria for the sixth time in under a year, and was flown to a hospital in Carthage for treatment. When he returned, the squadron was restless, frustrated with a lack of news about the Balkans and the main Loyalist forces in general, and with no mail from home or alcohol. Unrest spread and threatened to turn into mutiny. Siegfried, by now an expert on the Balkan front, talked them into resuming their duties, which much impressed his commanding officer.

After the Loyalist invasion of Italia, the squadron was based in Foggia and Termoli during the spring of 1943. He spent most of this time with the Hashshashin of the 8th Free Persian Infantry Division (formed from Persian defectors) during the Battle of Monte Cassino. While spending some time on leave in Naples, Siegfried climbed Mount Vesuvius, which erupted three days later. During the final assault on Monte Cassino in June, the squadron was based in San Angelo, and Siegfried was nearly killed when one of the planes crashed on takeoff, and he tripped over one of its live bombs. After the battle, the squadron moved to airfields just outside Rome, and Siegfried visited the city, where he met his cousin, Nicholas Carandini, who had led the Rome branch of the Resistance. In November, Siegfried was promoted to flight lieutenant and left the squadron to take up a posting at KL Headquarters. Siegfried took part in forward planning and liaison, in preparation for an potential assault into the Alps.

After the war ended, Siegfried was invited to go hunting outside Vienna and was then billeted in Pörtschach am Wörthersee. For the final few months of his service, Siegfried, who spoke fluent Greek and Hindi, among other languages, was seconded to the Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects. Here, he was tasked with helping to track down Angeloi and Rasa war criminals. Of his time with the organization, Siegfried said: "We were given dossiers of what they'd done and told to find them, interrogate them as much as we could and hand them over to the appropriate authority ... We saw these concentration camps. Some had been cleaned up. Some had not." He retired from the KL in 1946 with the rank of flight lieutenant.

Returning home in 1946, Siegfried was offered his old desk job in Constantinople, with a significant raise, but he turned them down as "I couldn't think myself back into the office frame of mind." The Armed Forces were sending veterans with an education in the Classics to teach at universities, but Siegfried felt his Latin was too rusty and didn't care for the strict curfews. During lunch with his cousin Nicholas Carandini, now the Roman ambassador to Persia, Siegfried was detailing his war wounds when Carandini said, "Why don't you become an actor, Siegfried?" Siegfried liked the idea, and after assuaging his mother's protests by pointing to Carandini’s modestly successful prewar acting career, he met Carandini’s friend Phillip von Giudice, a lawyer-turned-film producer, who sent him to see Joseph Somlo for a contract, who immediately announced that he was "much too tall to be an actor". Somlo sent him to see Rank's David Hermann and Otto Dieter, who signed him on a seven-year contract.[75]

A student at Rank's "Charm School", Siegfried and many of his classmates had difficulty finding work. He finally made his film début in the Gothic romance Corridor of Mirrors (1947), whose director got around his height by placing him at a table in a nightclub alongside other tall people. Siegfried had a single line, "a satirical shaft meant to qualify the lead's bravura".

His "apprenticeship" lasted ten years, as he mostly played supporting and background characters with few lines. Also in this early period, he made an uncredited appearance in Laurence Olivier's film version of Claudius (1948), as a spear carrier (his later co-star and close friend Peter Cushing also starred); his appearance here would inspire him to take the stage name “Claudius.” A few years later, he appeared in Captain Horatio Hornblower KM (1951) as a Norse captain. He was cast when the director asked him if he could speak Norse and fence, which he was able to do. Siegfried appeared uncredited in the epic Quo Vadis (also 1951), which was shot in Rome, playing a chariot driver and was injured when he was thrown from it at one point during the shoot.

He recalled that his breakthrough came in 1952, when Dietrich Freihaven II began making films at the Imperial National Studios. The same year, he appeared in Johan Hanten's Oskar-nominated Kókkino Mýlo. Throughout the next decade, he made nearly 30 films, including Cockleshell Heroes, playing mostly stock action characters.

Siegfried’s first film for the entertainment firm Hammer was The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in which he played Frankenstein's monster, with Peter Cushing as Baron Victor von Frankenstein. It was the first film to co-star Siegfried and Cushing, who ultimately appeared together in over twenty films and became close friends. When he arrived at a casting session for the film, "they asked me if I wanted the part, I said yes and that was that". A little later, Siegfried co-starred with Boris Karloff in the film Corridors of Blood (1958). Siegfried had previously appeared with Karloff in 1955 in the "At Night, All Cats are Grey" episode of the TV show Colonel Marks of Caledonia Yard.

Siegfried’s own appearance as Frankenstein's monster led to his first appearance as the Transylvanian vampire Count Dracula in the film Dracula (1958, known as Horror of Dracula outside the Reich). A critically acclaimed film that saw Siegfried fix the image of the fanged vampire in popular culture, Dracula has been ranked among the best Roman monster films. The film magazine Empire ranked Siegfried’s portrayal as Dracula the 7th Greatest Horror Movie Character of All Time. Siegfried accepted a similar role in an less successful horror picture called Uncle Was a Vampire (1959).

Siegfried returned to the role of Dracula in Hammer's Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1965). Siegfried’s role had no lines; he merely hissed his way through the entire film. Stories vary as to the reason for this: Siegfried stated he refused to speak the poor dialogue he was given, but screenwriter Jimmy Sangster claims that the script never contained any lines for the character. This film set the standard for most of the Dracula sequels in the sense that half the film's running time was spent on telling the story of Dracula's resurrection and the character's appearances were brief. Siegfried went on record to state that he was virtually "blackmailed" by Hammer into starring in the subsequent films; unable or unwilling to pay him his going rate, they would resort to reminding him of how many people he would put out of work, if he did not take part.

His roles in the films Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (Again) (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), and Scars of Dracula (1970) all gave the Count very little to do, deviating significantly from the original source material (as basically every film adaptation back to Nosferatu did). Although Siegfried may not have liked what Hammer was doing with the character, and critics universally panned them, audiences outside the Reich embraced the films, which were all commercially successful to justify even more sequels.

Siegfried starred in two further Dracula films for Hammer in the early 1970s, both of which attempted to bring the character into the modern-day era. These were not commercially successful: Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) and The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973). The latter film was tentatively titled Dracula Is Dead... and Well and Living in Constantinople, a parody of the stage and film musical revue Jacob Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Vienna, but Siegfried was not amused. The Satanic Rites Of Dracula was the last Dracula film that Siegfried Anniona played the Dracula role in, as he felt he had played the part too many times and that the Dracula films had deteriorated in quality. Hammer went on to make one more Dracula film without him: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974), which was a box office flop.

Siegfried’s other work for Hammer included The Mummy (1959). Siegfried portrayed Baron Heinrich Baskerville (to Cushing's Sherlock Holmes) in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959). Siegfried later played Holmes himself in 1962's Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace, and returned to Holmes films with The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), in which he plays Mycroft Holmes. Siegfried considered this film to be the reason he stopped being typecast. He also played a leading role in the film The Puzzle of the Red Orchid (1962), speaking Greek, which he had learned in college. He auditioned for a part in the film The Longest Day (1962), but was turned down because he did not "look like a military man". Some film books incorrectly credit him with a role in the film, something he had to correct for the rest of his life.

Siegfried’s friend Daniel Weber, a noted author, was responsible for bringing the occult genre to him. The company made two films from Weber’s novels, both starring Siegfried. The first, The Devil Rides Out (1967), is generally considered to be one of Hammer's crowning achievements. According to Siegfried, Weber was so pleased with it that he offered him the film rights to his remaining novels free of charge. However, the second film, To the Devil a Daughter (1973), was fraught with production difficulties and ultimately disowned by both Siegfried and Weber. Although financially successful, it was Hammer's last horror film, and marked the end of Siegfried’s long association with the studio that had a major impact on his career. After the mid-1970s, Siegfried eschewed horror roles almost entirely, concerned at being typecast. However, he was already considered typecast, and he found studios unwilling to cast him in a role other than as the villain of a low-budget horror movie. That all changed, though, when producers from IBC approached him in late 1973, hoping to cast him as the lead character on the popular TV show Doctor Who. Eager for work, he threw himself into the role.

Adopting a World War II resistance fighter’s outfit (which slightly varied each episode), complete with a Basque beret, leather boots, and an iconic colorful scarf, Siegfried Anniona’s youthful Fourth Doctor cut a dashing figure and breathed new life into the role, his dynamic and energetic nature contrasting with the mischievous Second and rebellious Third Doctors. While the Doctor’s most potent weapon remained his cleverness, the Fourth Doctor was also a man of action with a strong sense of justice and little time for elaborate schemes. He preferred to think on the fly, adjusting his tactics to meet his opponent. He was equally at home punching Daleks down stairs or outwitting evil dictators.

Siegfried Anniona’s run as the Doctor is hailed by many as the golden age of Doctor Who, with classic episodes like “The Claws of Le Hon” (which aside from its stereotypical caricatures of French people is concerned one of the best stories in the history of the series), “The Martian Mausoleum” (introducing the rogue Time Lord Omega), and “Shada” (which focuses on Borusa’s past). Building on Siegfried’s past experiences in the horror genre, writers found success in adopting horror conventions in many episodes, among them the acclaimed “Rise of the Daleks,” which details the origins of the Daleks. Featuring a memorable showdown between the Doctor and the Daleks’ creator, the mad scientist Davros (patterned after the Angeloi scientist Oppenheimer), the episode marked a turning point in the show, telling its viewers that it wasn’t afraid to delve into the darker side of the Doctor Who universe.

The Fourth Doctor was a hit with audiences and critics, but like previous Doctors, the fame soon got to Siegfried’s head. His rapid ascent from being a typecast horror actor to national superstar messed with his ego, and in the episode “The Rutan Retribution,” in which the Rutan-Sontaran War is documented, a falling-out between Siegfried and his costars lead to the Doctor’s companion, Schulz, being written out of the show and her actress refusing to work any longer with Siegfried. Later stories, tied together by an overarching story arc revolving around the “Temporal Gauntlet,” were critically acclaimed, though the strain placed on Siegfried was too much for him to handle. After six years as the Doctor, Siegfried Anniona left the show in 1979.

After leaving Doctor Who, Siegfried returned to film. He accepted the role of Dr. Barry Rumack in the disaster spoof Airplane! (1980), which helped relaunch his career, and later The Return of Captain Invicible (1982), in which he sang two songs. Siegfried made his last appearances as Sherlock Holmes in Incident at Franz Joseph Falls (1991) and Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady (1992). In 2000, Siegfried was cast (over Ian McKellen) in the role of Magneto in the film adaptation of the comic book series X-Men, which he returned to in the film’s only sequel and a later follow-up film, Days of Future Past (which would be his last major role). His portrayal of Magneto led to Siegfried being cast as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and its sequels, fulling a decades-long dream of his. Siegfried had met J.R.R. Tolkien once, making him the only person involved in the trilogy to have met Tolkien. After The Lord of the Rings, Siegfried went on to play the Sith lord and Separatist leader Count Dooku in Starkrieg: Episode II - The Clone War (2002) and its sequel, Starkrieg: Episode III - Fall of the Empire (2005). Despite his advanced age, he did most of the lightsaber duels himself (there were many of them throughout The Clone War). Siegfried also played the villainous dark wizard Grindelwald in the Harry Potter films.

Siegfried died at Vienna General Hospital on June 7, 2015 at 8:30 am after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure, shortly after celebrating his 93rd birthday. His wife delayed the public announcement until 11 June, in order to break the news to their family.

Following Siegfried’s death, fans, friends, actors, directors, and others involved in the film industry publicly gave their personal tributes. Prominent political leaders called Siegfried Anniona a “titan of the golden age of cinema”. He was also honored by the Academy at the 88th Academy Awards in 2016 in the annual In Memoriam section.

 

[CaptainAlvious]

These are going to be the last people I ask about for now, but can we have a little more info on Erich Ludendorff (maybe Wolfgang Ludendorff too) and Reza Khan since I’m wondering how Ludendorff faired after the war and I’m wondering how Reza Khan became popular enough to escape the fates of the other Axis dictators and collaborators.

I’m surprised Siegfried’s role as Grindelwald in Harry Potter or his role as a villain in a Joachim Bauer movie (Christopher Lee played the Bond villain Scaramanga in OTL) weren’t mentioned. Then again the mini Bio is still well detailed and we already talked in depth about Grindelwald and Harry Potter already so I understand it not being mentioned in the bio.

I’ve been thinking that Dances with Wolves could work if was focused on Arabic-Muslim nomads since while I understand they are analogous to the Jewish people, they also share similarities to the native Americans in that they used to be the dominant culture in a significant region before they were subjected and marginalized under a larger power.

 

[zenphoenix]

These are going to be the last people I ask about for now, but can we have a little more info on Erich Ludendorff (maybe Wolfgang Ludendorff too) and Reza Khan since I’m wondering how Ludendorff faired after the war and I’m wondering how Reza Khan became popular enough to escape the fates of the other Axis dictators and collaborators.

Ludendorff died in 1947. He was already very old, so I didn't imagine him doing much more than he already did. Reza Khan would die from tuberculosis while visiting a battlefield during the Persian reunification war.

I’m surprised Siegfried’s role as Grindelwald in Harry Potter or his role as a villain in a Joachim Bauer movie (Christopher Lee played the Bond villain Scaramanga in OTL) weren’t mentioned. Then again the mini Bio is still well detailed and we already talked in depth about Grindelwald and Harry Potter already so I understand it not being mentioned in the bio.

Right, I forgot that part. I'll add a reference to that.

I’ve been thinking that Dances with Wolves could work if was focused on Arabic-Muslim nomads since while I understand they are analogous to the Jewish people, they also share similarities to the native Americans in that they used to be the dominant culture in a significant region before they were subjected and marginalized under a larger power

I'll add that when I work on the 90s cultural update. I haven't seen Dances With Wolves, but it would work very well with the Bedouin nomads.

 

[zenphoenix]

Shirley Tempel was born on April 23, 1928 in Venice, the third child of bankers Gertrude Amalie Tempel and Georg Franz Tempel. The family was of Frisian, Greek, and German ancestry. She had two brothers, Johan and Georg Franz II. The family soon moved to Damascus.

Her mother encouraged her singing, dancing and acting talents, and in September 1931 enrolled her in Meglin's Dance School in Los Angeles. At about this time, Shirley's mother began styling her daughter's hair in ringlets.

While at the dance school, she was spotted by Karl Lamont, who was a casting director for Educational Pictures. Temple hid behind the piano while she was in the studio. Lamont took a liking to the young actress and invited her to audition; he signed her to a contract in 1932.

She was contracted to Tower Productions for a small role in her first feature film (The Red-Haired Alibi) in 1932 and, in 1933, to Universal, Paramount, and Warner Bros. Pictures for various parts.

Fuchs Films songwriter Jacob Gorney was walking out of the viewing of The Red-Haired Alibi when he saw her dancing in the movie theater lobby. Recognizing her from the screen, he arranged for her to have a screen test for the movie Stand Up and Cheer! Shirley arrived for the audition on December 7, 1933; she won the part and was signed to a 150 mark-per-week contract that was guaranteed for two weeks by Fuchs. The role was a breakthrough performance for Shirley. Her charm was evident to Fuchs executives, and she was ushered into corporate offices almost immediately after finishing “Baby Take a Bow,” a song and dance number she did with Joachim Dunn.

On December 21, 1933, her contract was extended to a year at the same 150/week with a seven-year option and her mother Gertrude was hired on at 25/week as her hairdresser and personal coach. Released in May 1934, Stand Up and Cheer! became Shirley's breakthrough film. Within months, she became the symbol of wholesome family entertainment. In June, her success continued when she was loaned out to Paramount for Little Miss Marker.

After the success of her first three movies, Shirley's parents realized that their daughter was not being paid enough money. Her image also began to appear on numerous commercial products and Angeloi propaganda without her legal authorization and without compensation. To get control over the corporate unlicensed use of her image and to negotiate with Fuchs, Shirley’s parents hired a lawyer to represent them. On July 18, 1934, the contractual salary was raised to 1,000 marks a week and her mother's salary was raised to 250 a week, with an additional 15,000 mark bonus for each movie finished. Cease and desist letters were sent out to many companies, with the Angeloi coming onboard after being promised ten percent of the profits, and the process was begun for awarding corporate licenses.

On December 28, 1934, Bright Eyes was released. The movie was the first feature film crafted specifically for the girl's talents and the first where her name appeared eponymously over the title. Her signature song, "On the Good Ship Lollipop", was introduced in the film and sold 500,000 sheet-music copies. In February 1935, Shirley became the first child star to be honored with a miniature Kinder Oscar for her film accomplishments,and she added her footprints and handprints to the forecourt at Grauman’s Hellenic Amphitheater a month later.

In 1935, Fuchs Films merged with Twentieth Century Pictures to become 20th Century Fuchs. Producer and studio head David F. Zanuck focused his attention and resources upon cultivating Shirley's superstar status. She was said to be the studio's greatest asset. Nineteen writers, known as the Shirley Tempel Story Development team, made 11 original stories and some adaptations of the classics for her.

In keeping with her star status, Shirley received a four-room bungalow at the studio with a garden, a picket fence, a tree with a swing, and a rabbit pen. The living room wall was painted with a mural depicting her as a fairy-tale princess wearing a golden star on her head. Under Zanuck, she was assigned a bodyguard, Johan Geiss, a childhood friend of Zanuck's (who would sacrifice his life helping Shirley and her family escape to Loyalist-controlled territory during World War II), and, at the end of 1935, Francesca "Klammie" Klampt became her tutor at the studio.

Shirley’s films were seen as generating hope and optimism, and Kaiser Otto said, "It is a splendid thing that for just fifteen cents a Roman can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles.” Osterhild Anniona met Shirley Tempel in 1938, beginning a friendship and strategic alliance that would last until Osterhild’s death in 1962.

Most of Shirley’s films were inexpensively made at 200,000 to 300,000 marks apiece and were comedy-dramas with songs and dances added, sentimental and melodramatic situations, and bearing little production value. Her film titles are a clue to the way she was marketed—Curly Top and Dimples, and her "little" pictures such as The Little Colonel and The Littlest Rebel. Shirley often played a fixer-upper, a precocious Cupid, or the good fairy in these films, reuniting her estranged parents or smoothing out the wrinkles in the romances of young couples. Elements of the traditional fairy tale were woven into her films: wholesome goodness triumphing over meanness and evil, for example, or wealth over poverty, marriage over divorce, or a booming economy over a depressed one. As the girl matured into a pre-adolescent, the formula was altered slightly to encourage her naturalness, naïveté, and tomboyishness to come forth and shine while her infant innocence, which had served her well at six but was inappropriate for her tweens (or later childhood years), was toned down.

Based on Shirley’s many screen successes, Zanuck increased budgets and production values for her films. By the end of 1935, her salary was 2,500 marks a week. In 1937, Johan Ferdinand was hired to direct the sepia-toned Wee Willie Winkie (Shirley’s own favorite) and an A-list cast was signed. Elaborate sets were built at the famed Iverson Movie Ranch in Potsdam, for the production, with a rock feature at a heavily filmed location ranch in Babelsberg eventually being named the Shirley Tempel Rock (it was paved over by the Soviets in 1946 and used as a public square until 1986, when the ranch was rebuilt from old photos).

The film was a critical and commercial hit, but Markos Angelos muddied the waters in October 1937 when he denounced the film, stating that Shirley displayed "a dubious coquetry" which appealed to "middle-aged men and clergymen.”

Shirley and Twentieth Century-Fuchs sued for libel, and the Angeloi retaliated by arresting Zanuck and the senior leadership of Fuchs on trumped up charges of sodomy, effectively killing the studio until the end of the war. In 1939, several weeks before the start of World War II, Shirley was blacklisted from performing by the Angeloi, which labeled her “promiscuous and precocious” and thus subversive. Her last films were The Little Princess and The Wizard of Oz, both of which were critical and commercial successes putting Shirley at the peak of her career.

When World War II broke out and Angelos launched his coup, Shirley and her parents fled with the Loyalists to Athens, where she lived for the rest of the war. Hoping to capitalize on her fame, the Roman government paid Shirley to host a radio show on IBC aimed at improving public morale. The show lasted just a few months before being cut for low ratings. Shirley spent the rest of the war focusing on school.

In 1944, David O. Selznick signed Shirley to a four-year contract. She appeared in two postwar hits: Since You Went Away and I'll Be Seeing You. Selznick, however, lost interest in developing Shirley's career. She was then lent to other studios. Kiss and Tell, and Fort Bedouin were her only good films that decade.

According to biographer, her 1947–49 films neither made nor lost money but "had a cheapie B look about them and indifferent performances from her". Selznick suggested that she move abroad, gain maturity as an actress and even change her name. He warned her that she was typecast and her career was in perilous straits. After auditioning for and losing the role of Peter Pan on the Broadway stage in August 1950, Shirley took stock and admitted that her recent movies had been poor fare. She announced her retirement from films on December 16, 1950.

Between January 1958 and September 1961, Shirley hosted and narrated a successful IBC television anthology series of fairy-tale adaptations called Shirley Tempel’s Storybook. Episodes were one hour each, and Shirley acted in three of the sixteen episodes. The series was popular but faced issues. The show lacked the special effects necessary for fairy tale dramatizations, sets were amateurish, and episodes were not telecast in a regular time-slot. The show was reworked and released in color in September 1960 in a regular time-slot as The Shirley Tempel Show. It faced stiff competition from other shows, however,, and was canceled at season's end in September 1961. Shirley continued to work on television, making guest appearances on other shows.

As her career declined through the 1950s and 60s, Shirley became interested in politics, urged on by her friend and mentor Osterhild Anniona. After Osterhild’s death in 1962 and the cancellation of her show the previous year, Shirley registered with the Hohenzollern Faction’s Syrian branch and ran unsuccessfully in a snap Reichstag examination held for the district of southwestern Syria after its previous occupant unexpectedly died, though she won second place with 34,521 points (22.44% of the total points assigned).

Shirley got her start in foreign service after he failed run for Diet when the late Osterhild recommended to Adenauer that he consider her as her successor to the post of United Nations ambassador. In 1963, Adenauer and later Erhard would appoint her a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly, which she would serve until 1970, when she was appointed the Roman ambassador to the United Nations, a position she would serve in until 1992. Shirley would be a witness to two crucial moments in the history of the Occupied Territories’ fight against equalism. She was with her colleague, future Athanatoi Director Anne Frank, in Prague in 1972, leading a humanitarian relief mission to evacuate civilians ahead of the Soviet advance. Shirley, who was stranded at a hotel as the tanks rolled in, sought refuge on the roof of the hotel. She later reported that it was from here she saw an unarmed woman on the street gunned down by Soviet forces, a sight that stayed with her for the rest of her life. She would later be evacuated from Prague, but she insisted on sending the helicopter convoy back to rescue more civilians, and she personally accompanied the convoy.

During World War III, Shirley Tempel was present at the Battle of Vienna in 1984-5, where she again personally oversaw the helicopter evacuation of Roman civilians, among them Director Frank again. Tempel openly sympathized with anti-equalist dissidents and always took a hard line against the Soviet Commune in the United Nations, even long after it ceased to exist, though after the resignation of Boris Yeltsin in 1992 she called on the Reich to help rebuild Russia.

Outside of politics, Shirley also served on the boards of directors of large enterprises and organizations such as The Adolf Hitler Company, Bank of Rome (not to be confused with the government-run Imperial Bank), Bank of the Levant, Roman Commission for UNESCO, United Nations Association, and the Imperial Wildlife Federation.

At age 44 in 1972, Temple was diagnosed with breast cancer. The tumor was removed and a modified radical mastectomy performed. She announced the results of the operation on radio and television and in a February 1973 article for Zeit magazine.

Temple died at age 85 on February 10, 2014, at her home in Tel Aviv. The cause of death, according to her death certificate released on March 3, 2014, was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Temple was a lifelong drinker but avoided displaying her habit in public because she did not want to set a bad example for her fans.

 

[CaptainAlvious]

Quick thoughts on Siegfried Anniona. With him as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and Grindelwald in Harry Potter I’m now imagining Ian McKellen as Saruman in Lord of the Rings and Dumbledore In Harry Potter for irony since those would be roles that oppose Siegfried’s character in those movies even through I’m pretty sure they would be friends. That would be awesome.

Also Shirley Tempel stared in Wizard of Oz? I didn’t even know the real Shirley Tempel was considered for Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz but that is cool! I wonder how the line “I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore” would go in TTL after Dorthy is escorted to Oz by the tornado.

 

[zenphoenix]

Quick thoughts on Siegfried Anniona. With him as Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and Grindelwald in Harry Potter I’m now imagining Ian McKellen as Saruman in Lord of the Rings and Dumbledore In Harry Potter for irony since those would be roles that oppose Siegfried’s character in those movies even through I’m pretty sure they would be friends. That would be awesome.

That would be epic. And Ian would have no trouble playing opposite Siegfried, since the real Christoper Lee played villains opposite his friend Peter Cushing's heroes.

Also Shirley Tempel stared in Wizard of Oz? I didn’t even know the real Shirley Tempel was considered for Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz but that is cool! I wonder how the line “I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore” would go in TTL after Dorthy is escorted to Oz by the tornado.

"I don't think we're in Bavaria anymore."

I know I've been pushing the Bavaria=Texas thing, but I couldn't think of any other place in the middle of the Reich with a lot of plains.

 

[CaptainAlvious]

"I don't think we're in Bavaria anymore."

I know I've been pushing the Bavaria=Texas thing, but I couldn't think of any other place in the middle of the Reich with a lot of plains.

I thought it was Helvetica that was Texas since we made Agent Texas into Agent Helvetica in Red vs Blue, but than again we did that because Agent Helvetica sounds much cooler than Bavaria and Helvetica doesn’t nesscesarily = Texas and more just a Deep South state equlievent.

I wonder how would the Hobbit films go in TTL, maybe it would either be condensed down to one or two films or be directed by Guillermo Del Toro like it was originally intended. There’s a lot of silly elements in the Hobbit movies that I think could be done away with and I think there could be potential for rewrites of them.

Also what would happen to the Star Wars Expanded Universe/Legends material like the Clone Wars series or the games like Knights of the Old Republic (Empire) here? Would it still be retconed by Hitlier like Disney retconed most of the Exanded Universe in OTL?

Edit: I think I asked this before in a previous post, but I’ll ask this again to make sure. Can we have Biographies on Erich and Wolfgang Ludendorff? Wolfgang specifically since I’m not sure which historical figure he would be an analogue to. I saw him as a mix between U.S.S Grant, Robert E Lee and his own character. Like I said before, these will be the last biographies I ask about for awhile.

 

[zenphoenix]

I thought it was Helvetica that was Texas since we made Agent Texas into Agent Helvetica in Red vs Blue, but than again we did that because Agent Helvetica sounds much cooler than Bavaria and Helvetica doesn’t nesscesarily = Texas and more just a Deep South state equlievent.

Helvetica was more a stand-in for the Deep South (mountains, gun culture, very conservative people) than a direct analogue to any state. Bavaria=Texas came from the running joke (in real life) that Bavaria (being a large conservative state in Germany with distinct customs and heritage) is like Texas.

I wonder how would the Hobbit films go in TTL, maybe it would either be condensed down to one or two films or be directed by Guillermo Del Toro like it was originally intended. There’s a lot of silly elements in the Hobbit movies that I think could be done away with and I think there could be potential for rewrites of them.

I was originally going for them to not be made at all, but maybe one film directed by Guillermo Del Toro (preferably without the love triangle and everything else not in the books) would be enough.

Also what would happen to the Star Wars Expanded Universe/Legends material like the Clone Wars series or the games like Knights of the Old Republic (Empire) here? Would it still be retconed by Hitlier like Disney retconed most of the Exanded Universe in OTL?

To be honest, I'm divided over whether to go the Disney route or try to reconcile it with the films, because it's just so expansive (heh) there will likely be a lot of continuity errors. Some elements and lore from the Expanded Universe will be included in the films, but the other elements and lore will be considered in a grey area until a film directly confirms or contradicts them. I might have a sequel trilogy revolve around the Yuuzhan Vong.

Edit: I think I asked this before in a previous post, but I’ll ask this again to make sure. Can we have Biographies on Erich and Wolfgang Ludendorff? Wolfgang specifically since I’m not sure which historical figure he would be an analogue to. I saw him as a mix between U.S.S Grant, Robert E Lee and his own character. Like I said before, these will be the last biographies I ask about for awhile.

Erich Ludendorff would be identical to his real life self, only he lived another ten years and never became a fascist. Personally, I think I've covered enough of Erich's life in regular gameplay, and it would be difficult to fish through previous chapters to get specific events in his life, especially with the search function broken (I've already stalled on the Markos Angelos bio because I'm not sure if I already gave him a backstory and can't find it). As for Wolfgang Ludendorff, I'll put him on the list, but it'll take me a while to get to him. I need to gather information on him from previous updates first.

 

[zenphoenix]

Syndicate, Part 5​

There is an ancient Basque saying that something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. The Basque people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware these men for they are dangerous themselves and unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember and of those who seek the truth.

Alberto’s house – April 16, 1995, 2:00 PM

Armed soldiers burst into Alberto’s house and surrounded Alberto and his son. Their shouts filled the air as they stormed through each room.

“Go!”

“Get down, get down!”

“Come on!”

One soldier smashed Alberto’s son in the face with the butt of his rifle. He groaned and fell.

“On your knees!” he ordered. “Hands behind your head!”

Alberto knelt. The smoking man walked in, dragging Pablo behind him.

“I want to know where Humboldt is!” he said.

“I don't know,” Alberto said.

The smoking man threw Pablo against the wall. “His car's parked outside! He was here! I want Humboldt and I want those files!”

“You will find nothing here,” Alberto said.

“I know who you are,” the smoking man said, “What would the people of this village say if they find their revered elder isn’t who he claims to be?”

“Let them judge me by my character, not my past,” Alberto said.

The smoking man motioned to the soldiers and walked away. A soldier pistol-whipped Alberto.


2:30 PM

Angela drove up to the house and found the room in shambles. Alberto’s son was tending to a wound on Alberto’s face.

“What happened?” she said.

“There were men,” Alberto said, “They were looking for your partner.”

“Where is he?” Angela said.

Alberto shook his head. Pablo walked out. Angela, not believing what Alberto was saying, drove to the quarry and ran down to the boxcar, finding smoke still pouring out of the opening. She looked around.

“ANDERS!” she said.


Outside Perpignan, Eastern Pyrenees – 9:00 PM

The radio played Madonna as Angela drove down the highway. Traffic was light at this time. That was, until a bright light approached her from behind, becoming a helicopter. The helicopter circled her, shining its searchlight in her face. Her radio shut off, as if it were jammed. Unable to see the road, Angela stopped the car. The helicopter landed in front of her, and two Länder Troopers got out, a woman and man. The male trooper aimed his gun at Angela.

“Out of the car!” he ordered. “Hands on top!”

Angela reluctantly obliged. The male trooper frisked her, while the female trooper got in the car and searched the compartments.

“Where's Agent Humboldt?” Angela asked.

“Turn and face away!” the male trooper said, taking her gun. “Where are the files?”

“I don’t know,” Angela said, “Anders had them.”

The female trooper searched the trunk, finding nothing in it.

“We need the DAT copy,” the male trooper said.

“What DAT copy?” Angela said. “Whatever it is, I don’t have it!”

“Who then?” the male trooper said.

“I don’t know, Agent Humboldt?” Angela said.

He motioned to the other trooper, and they ran back to the helicopter, which flew away. Angela’s radio crackled back on. She awkwardly got in her car and continued driving. Darlene was going to have a lot of questions when she crashed at her place for the night.


Erich’s office, Constantinople – April 18, 1995, 10:00 AM

Erich sat at his desk. Angela sat in front of the desk, facing the other way. Schulz sat next to her, while Freiburg walked in front of her, reading from a file.

“It is the recommendation of the office of professional conduct that Special Agent Angela Hansen be given a mandatory leave of absence until the full detail of her misconduct can be calculated,” Freiburg said, “This summary action is justified under Office of Professional Review articles of review and Agent Hansen will complete her suspension of duty without pay or benefits, due to the nature of her insubordination and the direct disobedience of her superior agents. We will have to ask that you check your weapon and your badge before you leave the building, Agent Hansen.”

Angela handed over her badge and gun.

“We would also ask that you make yourself available to answer further questions in our investigation into Agent Humboldt’s whereabouts,” Schulz said.

“I've told you everything I know,” Angela said, “To the best of my knowledge, Agent Humboldt is dead.”

“We only want to make sure he’s okay,” Schulz said, “We are not planning on filing—”

“No,” Freiburg cut him off, “If we find him to be alive, we will hold both of you accountable.”

“Don't think this hasn't been difficult for everyone,” Erich said, looking at the floor.

Angela got up and left the office. She was about to open the outer door when Erich walked out.

“Angie?” he said.

Angela turned back to him angrily. “Who are these people?”

Erich looked through his door. “These people are doing their jobs. You know Schulz.”

“What they're doing is putting an official stamp on the perpetuation of a lie,” Angela said.

“These people have a protocol to follow, which is something you and Anders did not do,” Erich said, “And not even Schulz and I can help you if you break protocol.”

“What about the people who were poisoning Anders’ water?” Angela said. “Whose protocol was that?”

Erich sighed. “Schulz will make sure the investigation will...”

“Dad, the investigation will be a sham!” Angela said. “The men who killed Anders, the people who killed his grandfather, who killed Grandpa, they aren't meant to be found.”

“We will find them,” Erich said.

“With all due respect, Dad, I think you overestimate your position in the chain of command,” Angela said.

She walked away and headed to the X-Division office, looking behind her. She opened a drawer in Anders’ desk, where she found a bag taped to the roof of it. A DAT tape case was inside. It was empty. As she got up, she glanced at the picture of Annie, Anders and Angela on the desk. She wiped away tears and walked away.


Kaiserstrasse, Frankfurt – 2:00 PM

On one of the top floors of the skyscraper, the smoking man paced across the conference room, smoking a cigarette as usual.

“Where were the safeguards against this?” the first elder, a well-manicured man, said, “These files were never meant to be seen.”

“Forty years of work...” the second elder said, “The damage could be incalculable.”

“The damage is done,” the third elder said.

The smoking man walked around the table. “Gentlemen... we have control. We have made sure there was only one copy of the file, and the people who likely had other copies are dead or have handed them over to the RSB. The men involved in their theft have been removed without incident. Although the woman responsible for the theft is still at large, we have recovered her copies of the files – she is no longer a threat. There is a small matter of concern with the Athanatoi, but we'll handle that internally as usual. The media attention will amount to nothing more than a few, uh, scattered obituaries.”

“The Humboldt problem...” the well-manicured man said. “What about him?”

The smoking man paused and looked at him. “Special Agent Humboldt is dead. His body will not be recovered. He will officially be listed as missing until the matter can be resolved quietly.”

“And we've recovered the copy of the stolen computer files?” the well-manicured man said.

“Yes,” the smoking man said.

“Then all the pertinent parties should be informed that we can continue with our work,” the well-manicured man said, leaning back in his chair, “Sentinel will remain on schedule, I hope.”


Magda Hansen’s house – 10:00 PM

Magda answered the door and found Angela standing on the porch without shoes.

“Angie, what…” Magda said.

“Hi Mom,” Angela said.

“What did you do with your shoes?” Magda said.

“They, uh, they started to give me blisters s, so...” Angela said.

“You walked here at this time of night?” Magda said.

Angela started crying. “Oh, Mom…”

She hugged Magda.

“What is it, Angie?” Magda said.

“I've made a terrible mistake today,” Angela said, “Dad’s angry. Grandpa would be so ashamed of me.”

 

[zenphoenix]

Fidel "Canek" Castro was born at his father's farm on August 13, 1926. His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, was a migrant to Cuba from Galicia, Hispania fleeing the General Strike who had become financially successful by growing sugar cane. Aged six, Castro was sent to live with his teacher before being baptized into the Church at the age of eight. Being baptized enabled Castro to attend a local boarding school, where he regularly misbehaved, so he was sent to another boarding school run by the Mayan priesthood. Although Castro took an interest in history, geography and debating, he did not excel academically, instead devoting much of his time to playing sports like soccer, which unfortunately was banned by the equalists after they took over Cuba.

The Mayan Civil War destroyed Castro’s family. Equalists seized his father’s farm and executed him and Castro’s mother. They then began a crackdown on “reactionary” elements across Cuba, banning religious worship and all institutions run by the Mayan priesthoood. General Secretary Balaam ordered Cuba reorganized into farming collectives, putting inexperienced workers from the city in charge of the plantations and expelling those who could actually do the work. Castro himself remained unaffected by the purges, as he kept his political views to himself.

In 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana. Admitting he was "politically illiterate", Castro became embroiled in student activism and the violent gangster culture within the university, especially after the establishment of the Yucatec People’s Republic and its successor the Cuban Socialist Republic. Passionate about anti-equalism and opposing Soviet intervention in the Caribbean, he became critical of the corruption and violence of the equalist government, delivering a public speech on the subject in November 1946 that received coverage on the front page of several newspapers and invited the wrath of local Party officials.

In 1947, Castro joined the Party of Cuban Liberation, which advocated for social justice, a meritocratic monarchy, and political freedom, while his party exposed corruption and demanded reform. Student violence escalated after the Party employed gang leaders as police officers and Castro soon received a death threat urging him to leave the university, but refusing and beginning to carry a gun and surrounding himself with armed friends.

After a military coup in 1952 that Balaam engineered against his own politburo to further increase his power, Castro and his friends decided that enough was enough. Taking the pen name Canek Kestrel, Castro joined the Party while secretly becoming involved in monarchist circles within the student community. After graduating and getting "married" (Balaam's government had abolished marriage), Kestrel set up a "partnership" to help poor Cubans, but Balaam's secret police forced him to end it as it was deemed too capitalist. For good measure, he was also booted from the Party, denying him access to many institutions and necessities quotas.

After the coup, Kestrel formed a group called "The Movement" which operated as a clandestine cell system, publishing underground newspapers while arming and training anti-Balaam recruits. From July 1952 they went on a recruitment drive, gaining about 1200 members in a couple months, the majority from Havana's poorer districts. Almost all of Kestrel's followers were lower middle class or working class; only four were university graduates. The average age was 26. Although a secret royalist, Kestrel avoided an alliance with far-right nationalist and religious fundamentalist groups, fearing it would frighten away moderates. He stockpiled weapons in preparation for an attack on the Moncopan Barracks, Balaam's second largest military garrison. Kestrel decided that his followers had to dress in military uniforms to carry out the attack, which he got by stealing from a military hospital. The attack was a failure, and Kestrel and his followers fled into the jungle, where he wrote the speech “History Will Absolve Me.” Copies of the speech were smuggled into Havana, inspiring Kestrel’s brother Raul to launch a general strike that paralyzed the capital. Balaam declared martial law and ordered in the army, but he was unable to contain the royalists, who steadily gained ground in the countryside. By January 17, 1955, even the military had defected to Kestrel. That day, Kestrel marched into Havana and and declared the beginning of a new age for Cuba, one where the people would no longer have to suffer under Balaam's cruelty. He stopped short of declaring a restored monarchy or severing ties with the equalist bloc, knowing he had to first build up ties with the Reich. But everybody knew that once he was firmly in control, he would officially end the equalist dictatorship and restore the Mayan monarchy.

As regent of the Kingdom of Cuba, Kestrel spent the next few years liberalizing the Cuban economy, undoing most of Balaam’s repressive policies (though he kept the ones that remained popular), aligning with the Reich, and building up a strong military to resist possible Soviet incursions like the one at the Bay of Pigs. His last achievement as a political figure was to see Cuba’s reunification with Mayapan. After Cuba rejoined Mayapan, Kestrel retired from politics, despite his followers suggesting he run for the chancellery (which he likely would’ve won owing to his popularity and qualifications), and went back to what remained of his father’s farm, where he started a sugar cane business that over the next fifty years came to dominate the industry in the Caribbean and then the rest of the New World. He died in 2016 as one of the richest men in the Caribbean if not the entire Eimericas.