by Scott Palter
Fascist Grand Council – a mixed body of Italian state and Fascist Party officials that ran Italy under Mussolini. This was the body that voted Mussolini out in 1943.
Fascist Militia – in theory, a separate Party Militia in the manner of the SS. In practice, a reserve force for the Italian Army that also had public order duties.
Feldherrnhalle – a building in downtown Munich. Site of the ending of Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. Having marched with Hitler on that day made one an “old fighter” in the Nazi Party, comparable to being in Napoleon’s Old Guard. Gunter was, having marched behind the banner that day and stood tall under fire near Ludendorff while Adolph ran like the rabbit he was. Gregor went back that far in the Party but his physical problems kept him from marching that day.
Gau – The Nazi Party divided Germany (and later many surrounding annexed areas) into individual Gau’s as the political entity immediately below the national government. The head was the Gauleiter. In OTL, many of these ran their Gau as a semi-independent fief, backed by Bormann, who controlled access to Hitler. In this ATL, Heydrich takes much firmer control.
General Government – the Nazi colonial regime imposed on Poland after the 1939 conquest. The Nazis sliced off portions of their sector of prewar Poland, and formally made them part of Germany (essentially, the 1914 borders with some “improvements”). The rump was labeled the General Government and run from Cracow, not Warsaw.
General Zionism – bourgeois nationalists and predominantly middle class, these faction of the Zionist Movement dominated the international Zionist organizations. They were capitalist, incrementalist, legalistic, and somewhat willing to work with the British. The leader was Chaim Weizmann, Israel’s first President. The remains of this strand are now part of Likud.
Gestapo – GeStaPo - Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police). Founded by Göring from the pre-Nazi Prussian political police. Had a deserved reputation for violence, even by Nazi standards.
Golden Square – cabal of Iraqi Sunni senior military officers who made and unmade governments, before leading an unsuccessful revolt against the British in OTL. In this ATL the results are a tad more extreme and chaotic.
GRU – Soviet military intelligence. From Lenin’s time semi-autonomous from Cheka/NKVD. The two were bitter rivals (worse than FBI/CIA in US or MI-5/MI-6 in UK). GRU always had vastly fewer resources, but usually accomplished more, in part because they were willing to provide accurate information even when it was not what the bosses in Moscow wanted to hear. They were also less likely to rely on ideological sympathizers for agents, preferring the more normal intelligence methods of blackmail, cash, etc.
Haganah – Palestinian Jewish semi-clandestine militia. The “semi-clandestine” is because, while officially illegal, it often cooperated with the British - whose policy on this ebbed and flowed. Controlled by the Labor Party (in US terms, social democrats with a strong, more Marxist wing) it was strongest in the communal agricultural settlements but had real strength in the cities through control of the Trade Union Federation. The level of cooperation in these books is greater than OTL. In OTL London was always more worried about triggering another Arab Revolt than this series allows for. Of course, in this ATL the British position in Egypt and the Middle East is much weaker than OTL for a variety of reasons this series explores - starting with the Axis campaign beginning nearly a full year earlier and with FAR more German support.
Hatzohar – The Palestinian Revisionist Party - Revisionist Zionist organization and political party in Mandatory Palestine. Its main tenets were a willingness to respond to the Arab resistance with offensive measures, including both preemptive attacks and terrorism, plus an assertion that the proposed Jewish state should be all of the Palestine Mandate, including what is now Jordan, instead of just a portion of Palestine without Jordan. They were also more open and accepting of the need to ethnically cleanse the existing Arabs. Preempted during WW2 and after through the War of Independence, by its originally subordinate armed wing, the Irgun. When Irgun forms its own political party, Herut, post Independence, Hatzohar folds into it. With some twists and turns the reassembled party evolves into the modern Likud.
Hauptumsiedlungslager für Juden Rakowitz / Palestine #1 Jewish Relocation Center – fictional camp/ghetto adjacent to the old site of Cracow airport and adjacent “new city” suburb of Nowa Huta. Nazis clear the Poles out to make this happen. Think of it as a Jewish-run and -guarded ghetto. Eichmann is nominally in charge with a tiny SS staff, but otherwise the Jews administer the camp themselves while being fed by the Hoover Relief Agency. Initially a place to ship the Jews of the Baltic States, it will over time have added the Jews of Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Greater Germany, and the Benelux, plus many of the Hungarian Jews. It is vast and keeps growing. It’s also thrown together and eclectic in the manner of many modern refugee camps, such as Goma in 1994. Rakowitz #1 is a tiny administrative facility run by Eichmann with a small SS and BDM staff. Palestine #2 and after are the ever-growing numbers of residential camps with attached light industrial workshops.
Hawala – network for money transfers in the greater Indian Ocean/Islamic world areas. Used the equivalent of letters of credit to bypass the formal banking system and thus official notice. Most transactions are done by word of mouth and physical couriers. This is how Mary Collins got money from where ever she was, to her perpetually debt-ridden family in rural Bengal.
Heer – the German Army
Hiwi – literally “helper”. From Hilfswilliger - "willing helper". In terms of WW2 the “willing” part should be taken ironically. A generalized term used for locals and POW’s taken into German units. Some were volunteers. Some were little better than slaves.
HJ – Hitlerjugend - Hitler Youth. Nazi Boy Scouts, but with more emphasis on physical fitness and basic military skills.
Home Counties – the south and southeast of England, anchored on London and the Channel Ports. It is the most historically upscale part of England, and thus of the British Empire.
Honvéd – the national guard of the Kingdom of Hungary under the Habsburgs and then Horthy. It was technically a separate military service, not part of the Army.
Hoover Relief Agency – Fictional organization used for this series. It is a copy of an actual historic relief agency that Hoover headed in WW1, which fed Belgians and French behind German lines and later expanded to postwar relief, including saving Lenin’s regime from self-induced famine. OTL German policy allowed the Jews and, to a lesser extent, the Poles to starve so as to assure adequate food for Germans. Churchill historically vetoed proposals for relief aid through the blockade in the manner of Hoover’s WW1 work. In OTL, Churchill would finally relent to save the starving Greeks in 1943. Here, we have Heydrich making a diplomatic push that FDR chooses to answer. FDR’s running for a third term in 1940 was a major breach of US customs. His victory was quite uncertain down to election day. So, this would pander to US citizen Poles and Jews, who would raise the money and gratefully vote for him. The British were, in fact, in no position to risk firing on US ships going to ‘neutral ports’ [in this case a US zone of Danzig]. The American enclave in Danzig is nominally US soil and thus neutral. In OTL British took US ships into British ports to inspect for blockade compliance. In this ATL FDR does not allow this. Disputing this, and thus risking war with the US, is something the Cabinet would have sacked Churchill over.
Imperial Way – Japanese Army faction advocating war against the Soviets.
Iron Division – a post-WW1 Freikorps that operated in the Baltic states nominally on behalf of Germany, the Whites, and, at times, the Latvian Government. It was one of a grouping of similar such collections of embittered veterans and freebooters. Sometimes combat-effective, but other times acted like a bandit gang out of the Thirty Years’ War.
Iron Guard – Romanian far-right movement. Also called the Legion of the Archangel Michael and the Green Shirts. Extreme nationalists, populists, anti-capitalists, anti-Communists, anti-Semites
. Used by and made use of the ruling Romanian royalists and military reactionaries. Fanatic Orthodox Christians. They were ultra-violent, emphasized action over ideas, and prone to spontaneous outbreaks against Jews and the ruling Romanian classes. Think chaotic evil with a strong emphasis on chaotic. Even other right-wingers, such as the local Nazis, thought they were unstable and violent. In OTL, Gestapo found their pogroms to be revolting overkill.
Indian National Congress – the political vehicle of Gandhi in particular and Indian nationalism in general. In theory somewhat socialist. In practice it ran the gamut from bourgeois nationalist to quite radical. In theory it was above caste, religion, and region. In practice most of the Muslims split off to form Muslim League. Congress’s strength was highest in the Hindi-speaking north, but the party was resolutely secularist. In theory rigidly non-violent. In practice that was Gandhi, not Congress; and the struggle between the two paths continued down to independence day.
Jewish Agency – the Zionist parallel government during the period of the British mandate. Although the organization was big tent to the point of including Jewish philanthropic organizations with no interest in political Zionism, it was in practice controlled by what is now the Israeli Labor Party. Formal party names in Israel get tricksy. There has been an endless process of factional splits, short term coalitions and similar. Short form is that Labor covers what we now call secular liberals and socialists including some, but not all, Marxists. Revisionists were blood and soil nationalists who refused to be bound by non-violence. General Zionists were moderates and mostly in favor of some level of capitalism. The modern Likud is a fusion of the Revisionists and most of the General Zionists. Sort of. Tricksy.
Kenpeitai – police arm of the IJA; functioned both as conventional MP’s, and also performed intelligence and black operations functions in the various conquered territories and satellite states (and a limited domestic internal-security role in Japan itself).
KG – Kampfgruppe. Battle group, usually combined arms. The Germans were the best of the WW2 armies at fighting as combined-arms task forces, and getting the different components to actually work together.
KMT – Kuomintang. The main successful Chinese nationalist movement of the 20th century. By Western standards its ideology was all over the lot. Governed more or less continually from mid 1920’s to 1949. A party of the same name and claiming descent from it is one of the two major parties of modern Taiwan but the linkage is mostly mythic.
Kreis – county or district. The next level of political entity below Gau. The leader was a Kreisleiter.
Kripo – Kriminalpolizei - the national criminal police under the Himmler/Heydrich reorganizations of the 30’s. In US terms, the FBI minus the counterintelligence function.
LAH – Hitler’s life guards. Originally personal bodyguards, they expanded to headquarters guards, and then a hit squad for the Blood Purge. The original members were chosen for size and physique. This changed when the unit went to war in 1939. Over time, it just became an elite SS mechanized unit. Had a bad record of prisoner murders, but never got the rep for it that the 3rd SS Death’s Head division did. This is the unit that perpetrated the 1944 Malmedy Massacre of US prisoners in the Bulge.
Livret militaire – French military identity papers
Luftwaffe – the German Air Force
Mapai – Ben Gurion’s party circa 1940. A mix of socialists, social democrats and patronage clients. Mapai dominated the Jewish Agency and the Labor Federation. Life was easier if one were seen as a member. Evolves into the Labor Party. As noted above, such lineages in Israeli politics are tricksy. Ben Gurion’s personal faction was one of the founding blocks in the original creation of Likud. Left and returned to that block for personalist and factional reasons. This Rafi faction’s better known personages were Dayan and Shimon Peres.
Movement – the Nazi Party, speaking broadly to cover all its attached organizations. The Party/state overlap is confusing for many Anglophones, in part because it tended to chaotic/overlapping authority. One could be a believer in the Movement even while despising the formal Party for its petty tyrannies and bureaucratic absurdities.
Muslim Brotherhood – pan-Islamic movement founded in Egypt in 1928. Had above ground and underground components. The ideology was reactionary theocracy. The organizational structure including the above ground social and charitable network was quite modern. Their paramilitaries in Egypt were al-Tanzim al-Khass.
Muslim League / All-India Muslim League – the Muslim minority’s counter to Congress. A pure democracy of all India meant that Congress rules forever based on a rural Hindi speaking Hindu block vote. Originally supposed to be the four Muslim majority provinces of India’s northwest, it loses focus trying to rope in Bengal.
Nibelungen Legion – NL; new Party Militia fictionally created in this series.
Night Squads/Special Night Squads – mixed British and Palestinian Jewish counter terror organization during the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt. Protected the Kirkuk pipeline in part by preemptive night attacks on Arab villages deemed as bases for insurgents. It worked by making the villagers more scared of the Night Squads than they were of the partisans. The success frightened the British, who banished its commander Orde Wingate from Palestine, and stood down the Jews, using them only as static guards.
NKVD – Soviets went through multiple rounds of re-namings and reorganizations of their security forces back to Lenin’s original Cheka. For this period, the main designation is NKVD. I avoided burdening readers with the variant sister organizations and plan to continue to do so. They will all be NKVD. For current readers, think KGB/FSB.
Nürnberg Rallies – annual Nazi national gatherings (1923–1938). In Nürnberg from 1927. Largest reached a bit under a million participants. Elaborately staged and filmed for propaganda purposes and to inspire awe among its participants.
OKH – Army (Heer) High Command
OKW – Armed Forces High Command. In 1940, still a small planning staff serving as an adjunct to Hitler’s personal headquarters. In OTL, becomes a parallel OKH, handling all theaters of war other than the Eastern Front and the Replacement Army.
Ordnungspolizei – Order police. Other names Orpo and the Green Police [from the uniforms]. In 1936 Himmler unified and nationalized the various state and municipal police forces as well as firemen. In US terms included all uniformed first responders such as coast guard and air raid wardens as well. Starting with the Polish war and occupation, battalions of these were mobilized for field service (antipartian and occupation duties which in OTL came to include ethnic cleansing of Jews etc.).
OTL – our time line. History as we know it.
Panhard 178 – French armored car. The design was good enough to stay in service into the 1960’s.
Pawiak Prison: Famous Warsaw men’s prison taken over by Gestapo on occupation, 1939. The assault on the Warsaw Ghetto was staged from here.
Polish Blue Police – Polish police under the General Government. Completely penetrated by Home Army.
Polish Home Army – the Germans overran Poland in 1939, but the Poles set up a parallel state to preserve their authority for their supposed liberation by the West. The military branch, the Home Army, was dominant, but not outside civilian control, both within Poland and from the exile government in London.
Putzfrau – cleaning lady
Quit India Movement – in OTL happens in 1942. Congress turns on the British and the war. Demand immediate independence and British evacuation. In this series happens two years earlier and much more violently. With Bose waging a parallel people’s-war campaign of bombs and assassinations, Nehru and the other secularist/realist Congress leaders are willing to push back more against Gandhi’s utopian ideals.
Race Laws – the Nürnberg Race Laws were a series of laws designed to remove the Jews (and other undesirable-by-Nazi-criteria minorities) from German social and economic life. The specific subpart that will come up in this series are the rules on “race-mixing”. Sex between Aryan
s and non-Aryans was banned, with punishments including possible use of the death penalty. Needless to say, the rules were more likely to be applied when the Aryan was female. From 1938, there were a parallel, but less extreme, group of laws in Italy. Italy will repudiate it in this series over time, and in OTL never enforced their Race Laws with German rigidity or enthusiasm.
Ravensbrück – Concentration Camp some 80 kilometers north of Berlin, founded to house female inmates. A hellhole late in the war in OTL. Most of the camps imploded in the period from late 1944 to war’s end from a mix of lack of resources, fantastic overcrowding as inmates from camps about to be overrun were death-marched to new camps deeper in the interior, and the guard forces being increasingly from the ever-diminishing portion of the German people who were still fanatic regime supporters. At this point [1940] the inmates were mostly German women, with Poles as a secondary population. The Germans were mostly a mix of prostitutes, Jehovah’s Witnesses/Bible Girls, and rebellious young girls down to tween ages (what we would today call “minors in need of supervision” rather than actual juvenile criminals). The Poles were a mix of religious orders and politicals. The Jehovah’s Witnesses [and similar small Protestant pacifist sects] were political-oppositional, but completely non-violent about it - thus tending to get the best treatment when confined, as they were easy prisoners to deal with.
