Review: "Kaiserfront" by Heinrich von Stahl

The cover. It should have been warning enough...

 Review - Kaiserfront: Die Schwarze Macht

Bede-duuduu, bede-duduuu... welcome to The Twilight Zone.

You know, from time to time I come across novels that are just so way out there, I find them hard to categorize. How far out, you may ask? Well, far enough for my reaction to be:

Oh, fuck me, why the hell do I keep doing this?

That's what I've been asking myself since the very first moment I opened this book's cover. Well, I know why... but still, why?!

The most important qualification up front: this piece of fiction has been published solely in German so far, and if heaven choses to smile down on us, that's where it will remain, meaning 90% of the people reading this review will never have to suffer through the real thing. Consider this a look into the little shop of horrors eastwards across the Atlantic Ocean. It's also a sad indicator for the state of the whole German-speaking AH-scene.

Alternate history in is a genre producing a rather scarce supply for the German market, with few of the international greats being even translated, so I chose to take what I could get. And, in fact, the basic idea behind the book is as simple as it is intriguing for an alternate history scenario: what if the German Empire won the Great War, and what if there's still a Kaiser in power in 1949?

There's so much potential in that idea, so much space for the butterflies to play in. Perhaps 1918's Michael Offensive worked? Maybe the Italians didn't switch sides? Maybe Austro-Hungary remained united and started somehow solving its problems?

Of course not. This is going to be long and painful, so steel yourselves. Take a deep breath. ...ready?

In 1917, the Kaiser abdicates in favor of his son, who creates "Kastrup" (Kaiserliche Schutztruppe), which is basically the SS only for Imperial Germany. Over the coming two years, they shoot socialist workers left and right, beat down strikes, and generally make sure that any attempt of a socialist/democratic revolution in Germany drowns in its own blood. Because that works so well, Germany starts a spring offensive in 1919 (Home Fleet has lost 90% of its strength in a last grand battle with the High Seas Fleet, which it annihilated), breaking through the lines with new armored fomations. By April, France has surrendered, monarchy is restored, with the new king Louis I sweaing fealty to the Kaiser. In July, Italy surrenders. Austro-Hungary is merged with the Reich in November.

In 1921 the Kaiserreich lands 800,000 men in Egypt, beginning the conquest of the whole of British Africa, which is finalized in 1924. In 1926 the Nordic League is founded, soon encompassing basically the whole of northern and central Europe under Germany's leadership. The year 1941 sees the detonation of the first nuclear bomb in German-Lybia.

And all the while I thought: If I had posted such a timeline on AH.com, they would have ripped me to shreds, and with good reason.

Europe in the drug-induced reality of the "Kaiserfront" setting.

1949. Well, the story starts with a German bomber squadron sent out from Iceland to destroy the American nuclear facilities in California (because only Germany can be trusted with nuclear weapons) while a German moon mission is underway. Each of their Horten B1s can carry 50 tons of bombs, and they are to drop 450 tons of cluster bombs on the Silverlake installations. Naturally, they succeed, but witness that almost at the same time someone firebombs the nearby town of Rosamond, killing most of the 10,000 inhabitants. One of the German bombers gets shot down, the crew captured.

Chestbeating macho-monarchists that they are, the "Kastrup" and the Reich come up with an ingenious plan: bomb the crap out of the base the prisoners are held at, land paratroopers there to break them free, then return to Germany. Naturally, they succeed. Again.