The Rise of the Third Reich

In the blink of an eye, it was already the end of January 1925. It had been a year since the death of Comrade Lenin. His successor (although Lenin was reluctant to let him take over in the end) Stalin had firmly taken the throne of the leader of the Soviet Union. Just a few days ago, the Bolshevik rostrum At the meeting, his opponent Trotsky was dismissed from his posts as People's Commissar of the Army and Navy and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council.

However, personnel changes in the Soviet Union had no impact on Soviet-German cooperation. In the year after Lenin's death, relations between the two parties further deepened. First, the Soviet-German Military Cooperation Agreement was signed in Moscow, marking the official start of comprehensive cooperation in the military field between the two countries.

In April 1924, with the full promotion of Hersmann, a delegation headed by German Rear Admiral Arnold Spindler visited the Soviet Union and signed an agreement with Soviet Navy Commander Zov to cooperate in the research and development of aircraft carriers, submarines, cruisers and Destroyer Agreement.

Soon after, the experimental aircraft carrier "Lenin" (this carrier nominally belonged to the Soviet Union), which had completed most of its construction, was sent to the Leningrad Shipyard to begin laying the flight deck. At the same time, submarines weighing several tons were also sent. Design drawings and hundreds of German engineers and skilled workers in shipbuilding and a large corps of naval officers.

Also signed was a contract to help the Soviet Union repair the Leningrad (Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in 1924 to commemorate Lenin) shipyards and the Black Sea Shipyards, and significantly improve their technical level.

In November of the same year, the "Soviet-German Automobile Industry Cooperation Agreement" with a total contract value of more than 560 million marks was signed in Moscow. According to the agreement, a joint contractor composed of Mercedes-Benz, Opel, BMW, M.A.N and Krupp will undertake the construction of a large steel-automobile complex on the banks of the Volga River. This project will start in the spring of 1925 and will take five years to complete.

Just one month later, another "Soviet-German Petroleum Cooperation Agreement" with a total contract value of more than 500 million marks was signed in Baku. According to this contract, Germany's Farben AG (comprised of Akfa AG, BASF AG, Bayer AG, Casella AG, Griesheim Electrochemical Plant, Weiler Chemical Plant, Hoechst AG, Kahler AG) Merged in 1924) will undertake the project of expanding and repairing oil fields and building a super-large refinery in Baku. The project will start in early 1926 and be completed in 1931.

In addition, an "electrification construction" contract with a total value of more than 600 million marks is also being negotiated - the so-called "electrification" actually means "electricity", the construction of power plants and power grids. After the end of the civil war, the Russian Bolsheviks attached great importance to the so-called "electrification" and regarded "national electrification" as an indicator for the realization of communism. Since this point of view was put forward by Comrade Lenin, who had become a saint, Stalin also regarded the early realization of nationwide electrification as a top priority after he came to power.

It is clear that as the Soviet Union's economic strength recovers and Germany escapes hyperinflation, comprehensive cooperation between the two countries will reach its first climax in the next few years.

While Soviet-German cooperation was heating up across the board, German industry itself also ushered in an investment climax. This was not only due to the demand brought about by cooperation with the Soviet Union, but also due to the benefits brought by the "in-kind compensation scheme" in the "Keynes Plan".

If Germany wants to fulfill its compensation obligations, it will naturally have to significantly increase its industrial output. According to the negotiations between the German government and the reorganized Allied Compensation Commission, German compensation products will be composed of six major categories: raw materials (mainly coal), machinery and equipment, ships, automobiles, civil aircraft, mainly chemical raw materials, and steel.

Among them, raw materials (value) will account for 30% of the total compensation, machinery and equipment 15%, ships 15%, cars 14%, aircraft 10%, chemical raw materials 9%, and steel 7%.

Naturally, all industrial categories involved in the production of "compensation goods" have received large loans from the Industrial Promotion Committee. After Hindenburg and Ludendorff were elected President and Vice President of Germany, this committee changed from a "civilian institution" back to a government agency. Not only must it undertake the task of promoting the development of German industry, but it must also be responsible for negotiating with the Allied Reparations Commission to formulate the "reparations plan" for the next year.

Because the Keynesian Plan and subsequent negotiations only determined the proportions of various compensation items, the total price of compensation items to be paid each year, and the types of compensation items required by each country. It does not involve specific products and pricing, so before each "compensation year", the Industrial Promotion Council must also conduct a large number of negotiations with various countries to finalize the "annual compensation plan."

Under the Keynesian Plan, 1926 would be the first reparations year. Therefore, the Industrial Promotion Committee is extremely busy, and Colonel Hersman, as a member of the Industrial Promotion Committee, naturally has to assume corresponding responsibilities - this is a job he himself received from Karl Haushofer. Together with Val T. Tranau, he was responsible for negotiating with the Italians.

The general manager and director of the German General Electric Company is now (and also a member of the Industrial Promotion Council) wearing a very elegant double-breasted gray suit with wide white stripes, sitting in a car exuding a strong In the passenger seat of a Mercedes-Benz 6 car smelling of Cuban cigars, Hersman and Chloe were sitting side by side in the back.

The Jewish billionaire was a heavy smoker, lit another cigar, and said: "Ludwig, thanks to your arrangement, I became his adviser a few months before the leader seized power, and I can be regarded as the old man of fascism." Revolution. In the past two years, he has taken good care of my business in Italy and made me a lot of money.”

He now also runs a business and is the general agent of Siemens power generation equipment in Italy. After Mussolini came to power, Italy also accelerated the progress of industrialization, of which "electrification" was a focus, so Rathenau signed several large orders.

"Did you ever tell him about me?" Hersman asked.

"Of course, he is very interested in you," Rathenau nodded. "He has wanted to meet you for a long time, so as soon as you arrived in Rome, he invited you to meet at the Palazzo Venezia."

"What do you think of Italy? Does it have the potential for war?"

"War? Italy?" Tranau closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, then nodded and opened his eyes. "If you had asked this question before the leader came to power in 1922, I would have given a negative answer. Ludwig, you should know that Italy is not suitable for the development of industry, coal, iron ore, non-ferrous metals, oil... ...They have no shortage of anything that industry needs. Therefore, Italy's industry is relatively poor and its scale is small. It is not a country that can fight a modern war. But they are lucky to have a leader who is a genius and a leader. A great man, I believe he can change Italy and make the country fit to fight."

Jewish billionaires think highly of Mussolini. In fact, this was a common view in the 1920s. The Italian leader was not only popular in his own country, but also had many supporters internationally, especially capitalists like Val T. Rathenau.

Because the leader and the later head of state were not the same people. The leader was a capitalist, but the head of state was actually a socialist.

Hersman now has an expert level understanding of politics, especially the various isms of the 1920s and 1930s. Now he was basically a political officer like Big Brother Schleicher.

In the 1920s and 1930s, or even in the future, various "isms" can actually be combined. Let’s call this “corporatism.” Take the fascism that currently rules Italy, for example, which is a combination of nationalism (nationalism) and capitalism, plus the National Fascist Party and Mussolini's dictatorship.

Therefore, the governing purpose of Mussolini's National Fascist Party was fundamentally to expand Italy's national interests; and to protect the economic interests of the Italian bourgeoisie and aristocracy. Although the Italian National Fascist Party also established a trade union, it sometimes forced the capital to make some concessions to the workers. But on the whole, the fascist syndicals "lowered" rather than raised costs.

According to Mussolini, fascism also has "three stages". The task of the first stage is to increase wealth (social wealth); the second stage is to concentrate wealth; and the third stage is to distribute all resources. Acquired wealth – refers to increased welfare of the working class.

Of course, the primary stage, oh, it should be the first stage and the second stage will be two very long stages. If it had not been involved in a world war, it is estimated that the third stage of happiness would not have appeared in Italy by the time the leader's successor passed away.

Such a policy determined that Mussolini and the National Fascist Party were a party popular with bourgeois politicians in various countries. Even Churchill, who later scolded the Italian leader as a devil or other unpleasant words, admired Mussolini before the outbreak of the world war.

As for Hitler, who is currently writing "Mein Kampf" in a senior prison cell in Munich, he is actually a "socialist" - from the perspective of Germany and Western Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, he was a socialist!

Hitler's German National Socialist Workers' Party stood for nationalism + socialism, and represented the working class - including the middle class, petty bourgeoisie and so on. In Germany before the Nazis came to power, They are about as poor as the working class.

Therefore, under the rule of the Nazis, the German working class, petty bourgeoisie and middle class actually lived quite happily. Later, after Hitler launched the world war, the things he looted from foreign countries were not only used to maintain the war but also to provide welfare to the German people!

In fact, Nazi Germany was a country with high welfare, similar to that of later countries in Northern and Western Europe. But in Nazi Germany there was no "Mother", only Nazis, no globalization, only the state (nation) above all else. If the world war had not been lost in the end, most of the German people would probably have lived their lives very happily and been buried in their graves with gratitude and love for the Führer.

Therefore, in the later world war, the enthusiasm of German soldiers and Italian soldiers on the battlefield was completely incomparable. The former is to conquer the world for themselves, while the latter is to conquer the world for the capitalists and leaders.

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