Iron Cross

"Roosevelt brags on the radio all day long, and then we taught him a lesson he will never forget: the naval aviation dropped bombs on New York at about 3 a.m. yesterday, blowing up the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, and the Brooklyn Bridge!"

"Long live the Empire!"

"Now, we have to use artillery shells to tell them that the German air defense system is much more complete than they imagined, and they can't come and go as they please!"

"Defend Berlin to the death! Defend the Führer!"

After a brief mobilization order, all anti-aircraft artillery positions, radar stations, and air defense towers defending Berlin entered a state of war.

In the Berlin air defense tower command, many high-level air defense forces, including Jeschonnek, Kammhuber, and Garland, gathered. Looking at the bright spot group marking the enemy aircraft and the markings of their own air defense positions and aircraft assembly areas on the huge light screen map, and listening to the short and powerful orders of the staff officers and command officers, everyone felt nervous. Berlin has not encountered such a large air raid fleet for a long time. Everyone couldn't help but sweat. If the air defense interception mission was not completed today, it would be troublesome.

The Berlin air defense tower belongs to the first generation of air defense towers and is the earliest air defense tower built in the Greater Berlin area. Because it is located near the zoo, it is generally called the Zoo Air Defense Tower. Like other air defense towers, the tower is divided into two parts: one part is a building for anti-aircraft guns, called the G tower. Four bases form a G tower. The base area of ​​each base layer is 60 square meters and the height is about 25 meters. Each base is equipped with a Rheinmetall twin 128mm anti-aircraft gun on the top. The entire G tower is usually equipped with 4 twin anti-aircraft guns.

The other part is a smaller building for sensors, communication equipment and radars, called the L tower, which is usually set 400-500 meters away from the G tower and connected by an underground transportation supply line. Since there is no large-caliber anti-aircraft gun on the L tower, only a 37mm machine gun, the building is relatively small. Relying on the data transmitted from the L tower radar, the G tower anti-aircraft firepower can carry out precise shooting. In order to avoid interference, in addition to radar, the L tower is usually equipped with a listening machine and a searchlight to more effectively capture enemy aircraft.

A group of G towers and L towers are used together to form an air defense tower in the full sense. This rather spectacular reinforced concrete building is 70 meters long and 70 meters wide. In addition, it has 8-meter-thick walls and 5-meter-thick roofs. It is the largest air defense facility in the contemporary era.

After the British air raid in 1940, the Supreme Command secretly built an anti-aircraft turret for Berlin's air defense under the cover of the "Berlin Special Plan". The overall project was in charge of Speer and Todt organized the specific implementation. The Third Reich had planned to build 6 such turrets in Berlin in history, but only 3 were completed in the end. However, under Hoffman's vigorous adjustments, the priority of turret construction was greatly increased and the density was greatly increased. According to the plan, a total of 12 air defense towers will be built in the entire Greater Berlin area, and 8 have been completed so far.

Other key cities such as Hamburg, Frankfurt, Vienna, Dresden, Cologne, Bremen, and Nuremberg have planned 6-8 air defense towers, and the overall design has developed to the third generation. The integration of firepower and command has been greatly improved. The third-generation turret usually has 8 twin-mounted 128mm anti-aircraft guns, which are much more powerful and larger than the first generation. This type of anti-aircraft gun is usually powered by electricity and assisted by humans, so the degree of automation is very high. The turret provides and protects fragile and vulnerable power facilities, and also has its own independent power generation facilities.

Although the Zoo Air Defense Tower belongs to the first generation, it is ideally located in the west of Berlin, which is the first line of defense against air raids. Therefore, the high-level air defense commanders usually sit here instead of the Friedrich Turret in the center of Berlin-although it is a third-generation turret, more advanced and comprehensive.

The entire zoo tower consists of one underground floor and six above-ground floors, which can accommodate up to 15,000 people. The internal layout is very reasonable:

The first floor is an air-raid shelter for citizens, equipped with a separate power supply and water supply facilities. Civilians nearby do not need to dig air-raid shelters. They can hide inside after the air-raid alarm sounds;

The second floor is a temporary storage for art galleries and museum collections, with basic temperature and humidity preservation conditions, but most of the time it is used for material storage;

The third floor is a temporary hospital with nearly 100 beds and 2 operating rooms, 8 doctors, 20 nurses and 30 assistants;

The fourth and fifth floors are usually soldiers' living areas, as well as headquarters, communication centers, Gestapo branches and other facilities, so that they can climb to the top of the tower at any time and participate in air defense battles.

G Tower is usually defended by 350 air defense officers and soldiers, commanded by a major, and assisted by members of the Hitler Youth League (generally only 15-17 years old). Since the Berlin air defense tower was so perfect that Goebbels thought the American air defense facilities were a joke, his ridicule on the radio was based on facts.

Hoffman was very satisfied with the air defense tower and repeatedly stressed the need to increase the construction efforts. Under his promotion, Germany built hundreds of times more air defense towers than in history, and spent almost no extra money - he stopped the construction of a large number of meaningless Führer bunkers and command centers, and stayed in Berlin most of the time. Even the Vinnitsa Command on the Eastern Front was basically closed, and the saved funds were invested here. Bormann, who had some free time after the purge of the traitor group, found a job again and enjoyed it.

Hoffman stopped the construction of the Atlantic Fortress and helped Western European countries also build such air defense towers. Usually Germany provided the blueprints, weapons and equipment, and command systems, and Western European countries provided labor, steel, cement and other raw materials to jointly build it. This supplemented Germany's The overall air defense system has also played an important role in further uniting the hearts of Western European countries and stabilizing society. Even the Japanese were extremely impressed after seeing the design of this air defense tower, and tried their best to get a set of drawings for reference.

Hoffmann changed his attitude towards the Jews. A large number of Jews were not turned into corpses in concentration camps but were subjected to three years of forced labor. Although the Allies have been attacking Germany for having no human rights, at least in the eyes of Western Europe and the Germans, it is okay to do so. It is easy to blame, because in addition to Jews, Polish and Russian prisoners of war also participated in forced labor.

More importantly, the construction of an air defense system with an anti-aircraft tower as the core is economically extremely cost-effective. Building a first-generation anti-aircraft tower similar to a zoo costs about 6 million imperial marks, including the 128mm anti-aircraft guns above which cost 200,000 marks each. By the time the third-generation anti-aircraft tower was built, the construction cost had risen to 25 million Reichsmarks—it seemed expensive. After all, a Tiger was less than 300,000 Marks, but it was not expensive at all compared to its value.

Even if one does not count the value of its command, coordination, protection and warning, the anti-aircraft firepower alone can kill 8-10 heavy bombers costing more than 1 million marks each in one month - one month of fighting, the first generation of air defense The turret will recover its cost; after three months of operation, the third-generation anti-aircraft turret will basically recover its cost. With the increase in layout density and the large-scale promotion and use of proximity fuzes, there is room for further improvement in the efficiency of air defense towers. It's just that there are very few Allied bombers coming now, and the newly built air defense towers have generally not recovered their costs.

At first, many people criticized the construction of anti-aircraft towers, which cost a lot of money and took up a lot of manpower. But when Hoffman calculated the calculation to them, everyone was stunned and raised their hands to express their approval of speeding up the construction. For the citizens of Berlin, the huge and eye-catching air defense towers brought them a full sense of security - as long as they hide inside, their lives are completely guaranteed. There is even a widely circulated saying: "No matter what happens in Berlin, the air defense tower can last at least another year."

As a time traveler, Hoffman knew the situation in more detail and profoundly than anyone else. The strength of the air defense towers was far beyond imagination: not a single turret was destroyed by air strikes during the war. After the war, Britain and the United States spent 35 tons of explosives on the towers. It took hundreds of holes in the body and many attempts to bury explosives to dismantle the first-generation Zoo air defense tower. However, the British failed when they tried to dismantle the Fort William air defense tower in 1947: after 25 tons of explosives exploded The anti-aircraft tower was safe and sound. After being re-exploded with 35 tons of explosives, it was still standing tall. Tens of thousands of Berliners who were watching chanted the slogan "Made in Germany, can't be blown down!", finally forcing Britain and the United States to give up the explosion.

The other air defense towers have all been preserved and become visitable war relics. As a child, Hoffman often played hide-and-seek with his friends in the air defense tower. The gray and green mixed camouflage exterior walls, and the spiral staircase connecting each floor, The automatic lifting device between the top and the top attracts these teenagers to explore the unknown world, and usually they can encounter homeless people. It was this experience and understanding that gave Hoffman his instinctive persistence in building anti-aircraft towers.

"The enemy plane is 120 kilometers away from our tower. Highest combat readiness. Repeat once. Highest combat readiness!"

At 15:28, Le Mei led a huge group of bombers to the outskirts of Berlin. The neat flight boxes were shocking to see. The planes on the upper and middle floors of the box each carried 10 500-pound high-explosive bombs. Each aircraft carries 16 250-pound incendiary bombs. The aircraft in the three-layer airspace are all moving at a very stable speed relative to each other. They slow down when they are fast and speed up when they are slow. The bomber group is surrounded by vigilant escorts. Fighters are ready to drive away or shoot down any enemy planes that come to challenge them.

"Attention all formations, we are about to enter the sky above the target. Please pay attention to maintaining formation and spacing. We are about to lower our altitude. Don't panic when encountering enemy aircraft or anti-aircraft fire. Act according to your usual training plan and strategy."

Each aircraft responds to the formation commander (usually there is a formation commander for 40-60 aircraft, and Li Mei is only responsible for this level), while praying to complete the mission and return home as soon as possible. Li Mei pays close attention to the air defense firepower below and the forward interception fighters. situation.