The 1896 invention of the heat-killed cholera vaccine by
German bacteriologist Wilhelm Kolle greatly improved those created by Catalan
and Russian scientists in years before. It could be manufactured on a massive
scale, outpacing the growth of any potential catastrophe if cholera spread into
a local water system. When Kolle announced his development, the German Empire
won worldwide acclaim, including adoration from Japanese saved during an
epidemic in 1902.
Kolle continued his work, later written in the famous Experimental Bacteriology, to make a discovery
that warped his mind with power: he could create his own strains of cholera
resistant to other vaccines. If one of his strains were released, he alone would
have the cure. At a top secret meeting with Kaiser Wilhelm II, it was agreed
that such technology would be kept quiet and that it could be used to conquer
the world.
After controlled tests in German colonies like the Samoan
Islands and Kamerun, Wilhelm determined it was time to put the operation into
its fullest potential on the most obvious target: the United States of America.
The States had grown into a world power through its industrial development,
although few in Europe took the young nation as seriously as other Old World
empires. Millions of Germans had immigrated to America in search of work and
better lives since the seventeenth century, giving Germany a strong cultural base
of power already. A controlled plague would wipe out the others, leaving mineral
wealth and even a large deal of the industrial core of the country intact.
German agents introduced the man-made cholera into key water
systems in American major cities, beginning with the largest, New York City. Previous
cholera epidemics had been contained through quarantines, but health officials
were baffled as cholera continued to spread upriver to drinking supplies
throughout the country. Like other countries, Germany quickly responded with
medical aid, although the German Empire soon vastly outpaced the others in
resources being sent to America. Most of these resources were dedicated to
Pennsylvania, Ohio, the Midwest, and other areas where German nationals had
settled.
The survival rates of the German immigrants as compared to
those of other Americans grew suspicious. Anti-German sentiment rose, even
sparking riots in Texas, but the American government was too dependent on
German support to follow the outcry. Instead, American troops loyal to Germany
helped suppress those fighting against the tightening grasp of the Kaiser. When
increasingly advantageous treaties were granted to Germany, outright rebellion
broke out in independently minded portions of the nation, particularly in the
South. Militias formed to drive out “the Hessians” recalled Washington fighting
German mercenaries during the American Revolution. Unfortunately, these militia
camps soon found themselves devastated by cholera, and support vanished.
When the Archduke of Austria was killed by a terrorist in
1914, the Kaiser was so busy with plans for America that he barely commented on
the unfortunate. Instead, he continued to exert control over the New World. The
cholera epidemic spread to Mexico, whose own government was already in turmoil,
and the people gladly joined as a new province in the German Empire in exchange
for the near-mystical cure from Kolle’s vaccine.
After years of horrific death from coast to coast, the
German empire began rebuilding what became known as “New Prussia.” Other empires
were still fearful to venture into the area for their own colonization; Britain
maintained a tight quarantine along the border with Canada. German supporters
such as the Ottoman Empire, which was granted swaths of land in depopulated
Florida, and Japan, which had retained close allies with Germany after its own
epidemic. Austria tried its own hand at colonizing Baja California, although
its own resources were limited after a short and brutal war with Russia ending
much of Austria’s sway over the Balkans.
Formerly large cities in the United States became ghost
towns renamed by their new rulers, from Nagaseattle in the northwest to New
Hamborg that had once been New Orleans to New Potsdam, formerly New York. The
most obvious was the change from Washington, D.C., to New Berlin, but the
propaganda that flowed out of the new capital dripped with awe for the German “saviors”
of the few that remained. There were many Americans who beat the cholera
epidemic with their own immune systems, but those who attempted to stand up to
German imperialism were rounded up and shipped to the “American Reservation” in
what had once been New Mexico, watched over by tribal Native American forces.
--
In reality, this map was a Life Magazine production in
response to a German propaganda leaflet.
