Flag of GSND by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)

Gruppenschutzgebeit Norddeutschland (GSND; English: Group Protection Area North Germany) was a country created by 92nd-Cived for KaiserElectric's KIOT 2. Germany's history partially reaffirmed the timeline from the original KaiserIOT, but after World War II the country was occupied and partitioned similar to OTL. West Germany consolidated as the Federal Republic in 1958, while Brandenburg, Saxony, and Mecklenburg formed the rival "New German Empire". In 1972, Manfred Rommel was assassinated (historically he was the mayor of Stuttgart; his role in this timeline is unknown), triggering a war that saw the Imperial army crushed and the two Germanies reunited. At this time, West Germany did not have a standing army; experience from the war combined with domestic terrorism in Hamburg prompted the creation of Grenzschutzgrupe 9, officially a special branch of the Federal Police but that effectively functioned as the country's permanent military corps in a vein similar to the Japan Self-Defense Forces, serving as peacekeepers when the French government collapsed in 2004.

GSG 9 served as the nexus of central European planning during the alien invasion of the game's prologue; it was granted emergency powers shortly before Berlin was obliterated, and at war's end was the only functioning government agency. Its commander Egon Schuller (from the cancelled Generals 2) established an interim government in Hannover, rechristened New Berlin. Despite Civ'ed abandoning the signup before the first turn, it persisted as an NPC state, and became the battleground for a resurgent Nazi army under command of the deputy/successor to the lore's Red Skull-expy that pitted GSND and a UN intervention force against the Nazis, the opportunistic Gethic Hand, and a revanchist Pottsylvania.

This was uploaded to the now-defunct IOT Wiki in 2019, adjusting Civ'ed's original schematic so that the laurel branches weren't overlapping with the stars. Based on the flag of the European Union combined with the badge of GSG 9; the 16 stars denote the states of Germany.

Download submitted to DeviantArt September 2022; alternative download available via Patreon.