As always, special thanks to @Bookmark1995 for the original idea and writing the original piece and allowing me to use and modify it for the current TL.
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With the Battle of Moscow behind them, the Nazi Reich found itself on the defensive by the end of 1942 as Comintern forces to the east and Allied armies to the west began to close in on Nazi Europe. For many Germans, this led to rations being reduced, as wartime austerity set in.
The Free American State, a propaganda venture, was deemed a drain on resources in an area that had been largely pacified. Reichskommissarriat Baltenland made major cuts in its food supply, to be diverted to the ground troops.
William Dudley Pelley, the president, was faced with a dilemma. He sought to maintain the pristine image of the Free American State whilst not further angering the leadership that kept his project alive despite these cuts.
Pelley and Effinger decided to do what they perceived as the rational decision for their race: instead of cutting their own rations, they cut the rations of Belarusian laborers, POWs and concentration camp internees who maintained the expatriates’ quality of life, to raise rations for the FAS elite. Pelley believed that the reversal of fortune was temporary, but regardless didn’t much regard this change as significant.
With conditions for the laborers already so bad, the cuts to their already meager rations would be devastating for the Belarusians. As the effects became more and more apparent, this marked the beginning of the end for the FAS. Before 1943, the Free American State was something of a Versailles, a place where the elite could be insulated from the misery of those who made their paradise. And much like Versailles, the situation could not be maintained over the long term.
By March 1943, the slave laborers of the community began dropping dead from hunger and cold as well as overwork. Many would abruptly lose consciousness in the middle of a task. One witness would later describe how Maly Trostenets “resembled a village in the time of the Black Death: one would see more corpses in the street than people.”
By May, dozens of people were dropping dead everyday. As more laborers died, the quality of life declined as well. Not just because the constant dying created labor shortages, but disease began to spread rampant. Soon, the American and German civilians began trickling out of Maly Trostenets, as its hospital was overwhelmed, and the cuts in ration became clearer.
Effinger and the ASSB would have an interesting response to the increased death and disease: Those who “fall down on the job,” as Effinger put it, were brutally beaten and tortured, as were their comrades as a form of coercion. If one Belarusian person dropped dead, his living comrade would be butchered. In one particular tantrum, Effinger executed 50 personally with a machine gun in the town center to enact “a quarantine” after an outbreak of diphtheria among Belarusian chattel. Effinger’s motivational tactics, unsurprisingly, failed to deter death, disease or discontent.
Virgil Effinger’s bloodlust soon turned psychotic, as he blamed “Bolshevik intruders” for the decline of his prized utopia and the Comintern victories on the front. In his rage, he randomly slaughtered laborers as they worked. When he ran out of Slavs and Jews to kill, he would turn his gun toward recent American red turn coats, blaming their “lingering Redness” for defeat. Even those fleeing civilians discovered they would be dragged before Effinger and executed for treason.
Effinger’s rampage was the last straw with the Nazi leadership, with even longtime benefactor Henry Ford telling Pelley to reign Effinger in and try to find another solution to the labor crisis. Pelley delayed before finally putting an end to Effinger’s purge, but by then the damage was done.
The smell of blood, once rare in Maly Trostenets, was now frighteningly common as more and more laborers fell victim to Effinger’s motivational terror.
Even worse however, was the smell of burnt bodies. To deal with the increasingly massive death rate, a crematorium had been set up near the outskirts of town. While the crematorium relieved the number of dead bodies, the smell it produced was unbearable. Many residents of the community tried to block the smells by pouring perfume and cologne all over the streets. Soon, the town was coated in choking ash.
Ironically, whilst Effinger was rampaging, the POWs and laborers began plotting an uprising against their captors. With the POWs (many of whom were Civil War vets) passing clandestine information to the laborers, an underground resistance was formed, and when Effinger stopped his murderous rampage, they felt it was finally time to move.
On May 1st, 1944, whilst an armory guard was out to urinate, a Belarusian maid stole his keys, and the conspirators were given access to its weapons, including the ASSB’s various handguns, rifles, and grenades. Armed, they proceeded to the nearby camp, where they killed several guards and armed the prisoners. The group moved into the town, and began their rebellion in earnest.
Pelley and Effinger, caught off-guard by the rebellion, were forced to barricade themselves in the White House, whilst the ASSB were given confusing orders to resist, maintain and fight back.
Several of the homes, the school, post office, and even the reconstructed Capitol were seized and destroyed. 3 Representatives and 5 Senators were killed. Effinger, convinced he could stop the tide, eventually emerged from the barracks and led troops personally.
His wanton rage proved unable to actually stop the advance, and in fact, left him wide open for attack.
Helmut Rosenfield, an American POW, was securing one of the homes, when he spotted Effinger on the lawn yelling orders to confused troops. He carefully placed his rifle on the window sill, and with one shot, managed to shoot Effinger in the chest, right as Effinger heard the rifle click.
Eventually, Pelley was able to call in reinforcements, but by then, most of the rebels were able to escape, and those who remained died fighting off the reinforcements. By the time order was restored, much of the Free American State and Maly Trostenets camp was destroyed.
Pelley attempted to get the resources to rebuild, but soon found that the funding he could get was not enough for a full rebuilding. He also couldn’t rebuild the camp, meaning the laborers were in short supply. As Comintern forces were on the horizon, Pelley was left with a decaying, partially destroyed town and a dream that was becoming a nightmare. *[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation
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