The Rise of the Third Reich

The sound of leather boots hitting the granite floor interrupted Hitler's thoughts, and then he saw the door of the office was pushed open, and Hersmann, wearing the uniform of the Imperial Marshal, strode in and saluted Hitler - although the authority of the German Chief of the General Staff was not inferior to that of the Prime Minister, Hersmann was still Hitler's subordinate in name.

"Ludwig, come here quickly." Hitler waved politely at Hersmann and called the latter to the battlefield situation map hanging on a wall.

"Look at this, is it drawn correctly?" Hitler pointed at the map and asked Hersmann.

This map was made by Lieutenant General Keitel, Hitler's military adjutant, and several other adjutants based on the report of the General Staff, and they also used dotted lines to mark their predicted battlefield development trends.

Their prediction was very optimistic, and the two large arrows composed of dotted lines had already met east of Moscow.

"I'm not that optimistic. How is this possible?" Hessman shook his head repeatedly as he looked at the map Keitel drew. "How is it possible to go north from Kharkov to Moscow? The straight line is more than 600 kilometers, and there are more than 400 kilometers of road transportation lines behind... Where can we get so much gasoline? This is impossible."

Fortunately... Hitler breathed a sigh of relief and was relieved that the Soviet Union had temporarily escaped. However, Hessman's next words made his heart rise to his throat again.

"So the General Staff plans to launch a single-line assault, starting from Lyuban, southeast of Petrograd. There is a railway line that goes directly to the Baltic States and is still in operation, so we can quickly stockpile supplies and troops. We plan to concentrate 10 armored divisions, 10 armored grenadier divisions, 20 motorized infantry divisions, and 20 ordinary infantry or cavalry divisions to launch a round of offensive in August this year."

Hitler's expression immediately became very anxious, "10 armored divisions plus 10 armored grenadier divisions? How many tanks do we need?"

Hersmann stretched out a slap: "About 5,000!"

"5,000?" Hitler took a breath, "By the way, we are in Are there those 10 armored divisions near Petrograd? "

"No." Hersman answered, "There are currently 2 German armored divisions, 3 French armored divisions, and 1 Hungarian armored division near Petrograd. In addition, 4 armored divisions are being drawn from the Belarusian and Little Russian battlefields."

"4 armored divisions?"

"Only personnel, tanks and all equipment are transferred from the inventory," Hersman explained, "which is actually equivalent to forming 4 new armored divisions."

Compared with history, Germany is now really rich. The No. 4 tanks, Tiger tanks and Rhino anti-tank destroyers stored in the warehouse alone are enough to equip 5 armored divisions.

"Is there enough gasoline?" Hitler asked hurriedly, "Do we have that much gasoline?"

Hersmann shook his head and said, "Not quite, but we can deduct the quota from other places... With 500,000 tons of extra gasoline, we can launch an assault on Moscow."

The plan to attack Moscow is still in the planning stage. The plan to launch an offensive in the direction of Stalingrad stipulated in the "Purple Plan" by Hersmann had to be cancelled because of the accident in Leningrad and the excessive fuel consumption of the front-line troops (the combined battle and the subsequent mobile encirclement burned too much gasoline).

However, Guderian and the people in the Operations Bureau of the General Staff are now in high spirits and can't wait to end the Soviet Union in 1943. So after there was not enough fuel to fight Stalingrad, a more fuel-efficient offensive route was taken. Assault on Moscow from near Petrograd, because the railway line there was repaired after the siege of Leningrad, so there was a railway available from the Baltic to Lyuban. The part that really needs to burn gasoline is the more than 500 kilometers from Lyuban to Moscow, and the Tiger G tank can reach it with two tanks.

Even people who know nothing about military and politics know how great the strategic significance of taking Moscow is.

This is not the Soviet-German War, but the war between White Russia and Red Russia! For the majority of Russians, this is a civil war, except that the White Russian Queen borrowed soldiers from reactionaries in European countries.

The political economy of the Soviet Union or Russia has always been centered around the "two capitals". If Leningrad and Moscow are lost, the general trend of Red Russia will be gone.

In this way, the more than one million Red Army soldiers currently surrounded will definitely turn against their side, and with this more than one million troops, the Soviet-Russian civil war will most likely become a real civil war - the White Russian government will not need too much assistance from the German and French armies.

"No, this won't work!" Hitler shook his head like a rattle, "This is a plan that doesn't understand politics at all! Now is not the time to destroy the Soviet Union! We need the Soviet Union now!"

He laughed when he heard this. He actually understood some of Hitler's thoughts. Hitler only wanted the land of the Soviet Union but not the people of the Soviet Union. Although we are now trapped by Olga and have to bite the bullet and integrate with Russia, it is also good to integrate one less Russian.

As Olga said in "******", population is power! If the Soviet Union disappears in a few months, then the 100 million or so Soviet people will become European people, what will happen to the Germans? The Germans are now said to have 100 million, but in fact, the authentic ones are at most more than 90 million, which is almost half of the Russians!

If all of them are integrated, even if the Germans immediately stop fighting and go home to have children, they will not be able to catch up with the number of Russians.

Thinking of the population, Hitler looked at Herssmann with admiration - Herssmann was the "glorious father" and had seven children with Chloe, all of whom were blond and blue-eyed supermen! But Hitler himself was ashamed of the German nation. He didn't even have a child for a long time.

Fortunately, Eva was still young. Hitler thought that when the world war was won, he and Eva would give birth to more little Hitlers for the German nation...

Seeing that Hitler's expression was a little strange, Hersman thought he was worrying about how to help 100 million Russians to get rich together, so he smiled and comforted Hitler and said: "Mr. Prime Minister, the Soviet Union is not that fragile, and Moscow is not that fragile." Not that easy to fight.

According to our investigation, Moscow has been fully prepared for war since mid-June. Millions of people are busy building fortifications every day. It is estimated that a lot of supplies will be stored. Therefore, it is impossible for us to capture Moscow before the autumn mud season.

Therefore, in the finalized plan, the attack on Moscow was merely an intimidation operation aimed at shaking the morale of the Soviet Red Army who were still fighting in Warsaw, Minsk, Kharkov, Crimea and Petrograd. . "

The urban area of ​​Moscow is larger than Petrograd, and as the first capital of the Soviet Union, it is not a border city. It is a key city for construction in the three five-year plans of the Soviet Union. So there are more solid buildings to fall back on than in Petrograd!

In addition, based on the lessons learned from starvation in Leningrad, Moscow's material reserves will be very sufficient to cope with a long-term siege.

Therefore, it is very difficult to capture Moscow by raid and siege. The attack being planned by the Wehrmacht is just to create the illusion that Moscow will fall, prompting Petrograd, Minsk, and Kharkov (this city also has no Completely occupied), Crimea and Warsaw surrendered.

Hitler understood the idea of ​​the Wehrmacht General Staff, but he still said to Hersmann in a very serious tone: "Reichsmarschall, we didn't even think about capturing Leningrad when we besieged it, did we?"

Hirschman nodded. He didn't know whether Guderian and Kuechler ever thought about taking Petrograd, but he certainly didn't think about it himself.

"But Leningrad still became Petrograd!" Hitler suddenly shouted loudly, "So I don't want to see Moscow become the second Petrograd! We must give Stalin enough time to transfer the population... …Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East are very empty places and are good places to build a communist paradise, do you understand?”

Hitler wanted to drive the Russians as far as possible to Siberia, Central Asia and the Far East.

In the original history, when the Soviet Union collapsed, the five Central Asian countries had a population of more than 50 million, Siberia had a population of more than 40 million, and the Far East had a population of several million. There are about 100 million people in the three places combined.

In other words, there is still great potential to be tapped in Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East when it comes to hosting the Russian population.

"I understand!" Hersman also put away his smile and replied seriously, "There will be tens of millions of Russians going to Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East to build socialism, I guarantee it."

"In 1943, our troops cannot get too close to Moscow!" Hitler made another request. "They should stay 50 kilometers away from the Kremlin."

"Okay." Hersmann agreed to Hitler's request. Because he was afraid of Stalin's escape, he actually did not dare to let his troops get too close to Moscow.

"Replace Küchler!" Hitler continued, "and replace him with someone who will listen to you."

Hessmann had already had this plan. He said: "I will let General Paulus command the attack on Moscow. He is a very reliable general."

In order to ensure that the Battle of Moscow was foolproof, Hessmann decided to use the unlucky Paulus. Paulus was promoted to general of infantry after the surrender of the British mainland in early 1943. He is now the director of the Army Armament Bureau of the Wehrmacht. He has been busy finalizing the E-50 tank in the past few months.

"Very good, Paulus should be a suitable candidate." Hitler knew that Paulus had always been Hessmann's confidant, and he was not a general who was good at fighting, which was more reassuring - if it were Mansch Strong men like Stein and Model, Hitler and Hessmann would probably not be able to sleep.