The Rise of the Third Reich

"Has the date of the Spanish general election been set?"

"It's set, January 1936, and the transfer of power is February 1936."

"Poll?"

"The Left-I Front has a relative advantage. The power of the Spanish Left-I is strong. Last time, the Right-I Alliance won the election because the Left-I United Front collapsed before the election. But this time, the Left-I Republicans have united, and the people have been angered by the right-I rule in the past few years. They are ready to do a big thing. It seems that they can be elected."

In a meeting room of the General Staff Headquarters in Zossen, Infantry General Hessmann was listening to the report of Canaris, Director of the Military Intelligence Bureau, at a meeting. Those who attended this meeting were all members of the so-called "Green Plan Group". Including Hessmann, Guderian, Kesselring, Manstein, Canaris, Halder, Model, Rommel, Falkenhorst, Tippelskirch and others.

Since the German command is now in the hands of Ludendorff instead of Hitler, the German command system is also World War I-style - the General Staff is in charge of everything, rather than setting up a large number of headquarters, staffs and headquarters.

In wartime, the General Staff will be divided into three, just like in the last World War, with the establishment of the Eastern Front Headquarters, the Western Front Headquarters and the Berlin Headquarters.

According to the current plan, once the "Green Plan" is ready to be implemented, Hersman will serve as the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front as the deputy chief of the general staff. And those who came to the meeting today will all be senior staff of the Eastern Front General Headquarters or commanders of the main army groups assigned to the Eastern Front.

Although the "Green Plan" is "politics as the only thing, military as the auxiliary", there must be preparations for fighting.

And to be based on fighting, there will naturally be targets for fighting.

On the current Eastern Front, Germany will face six countries, including Poland, the Baltics, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Soviet Union. Other countries are either out of reach or out of control.

Among them, the Baltic and Austria have been completely controlled by Germany and are actually part of Germany.

The Soviet Union is determined to stand on the side of Germany - although before the outbreak of the war, the Soviet Union will not openly support Germany, but once Germany and the Polish-Czechoslovak Union go to war, the Soviet Union will fight side by side with Germany 100%!

The position of the Kingdom of Hungary is also very inclined to Germany - although the one in power now is Admiral Horthy, who is supported by France, the Hungarian people have a blood feud with France, Czech Republic, Romania and Yugoslavia!

If Admiral Horthy dares to support Czech Republic against Germany, he will be strangled to death.

So Hungary's position is either to support Germany or to be neutral, and it is impossible to be an enemy of Germany.

The only uncertain factor is the Polish Federation, although Hessman is ready to take out the two big cakes of the Ciesin region and Carpathian Ukraine. But what measures will Britain and France take, and whether Czechoslovakia is likely to cede land for help - such as ceding Ciesin and Carpathian Ukraine to Poland - is hard to say.

Therefore, the Green Plan was prepared to go to war with Poland and Czechoslovakia at the same time, and also prepared for the worst - to trigger the Second World War!

In addition, the launch time of the Green Plan was carefully chosen - Hersman was ready to pick the opportunity of the Spanish Left-I Front coming to power to provoke an incident in Slovakia.

Because everyone knows that the backstage of the Spanish Left-I Front is the Third International! If the Spanish Left-I Front comes to power and implements a series of left-wing policies. Then Britain and France, especially France, will probably be restless.

In this case, Britain and France will either appease Germany on the Czech issue and let Germany and Italy send troops to Spain, or they will take action to extinguish the Spanish revolution. No matter which policy Britain and France adopt, they must accommodate Germany on the Czech issue. Otherwise, it is possible to trigger a world war between the Soviet Union and Germany against Britain, France, Italy, Poland and Czechoslovakia!

"Will the Spanish right-wing government hand over power?" Hersman thought about it and asked again - of course he knew the answer, and now he is just asking knowingly.

"Yes!" said Canaris. "It is highly likely that they will surrender power, because the party in power now is not the extreme Falange Party in the right-wing. It is just some stupid moderates, otherwise there would be no general election in 1936." "Then the launch time of the Green Plan is set for February 1936." Hersman made the final decision! He said: "The troops must be fully mobilized before that, the equipment sufficiency rate of mechanized troops must be higher than 100%, and the Air Force and Naval Aviation must be kept on alert. If it is decided to launch the second plan and solve it by military means, the Czechoslovak Air Force must be destroyed at the first time. If Poland supports Czechoslovakia with force, then the Polish Air Force must also be severely damaged at the first time." In other words, the attack will be launched by the Air Force first! This is almost a common practice in World War II and subsequent wars (there are exceptions), but before World War II, many countries were still not well prepared for the enemy Air Force's raid. "All airports in western Czechoslovakia, except those controlled by the German Free Army (Sudeten Germans), must be destroyed as soon as the war breaks out, and the same preparations should be made for Poland." After saying this, Hessmann looked at his confidant, the German Air Force Commander General Kesselring.

"Please rest assured, the German Air Force guarantees to complete its mission," Kesselring, wearing a blue Air Force uniform, stood up from his seat and said with great pride, "because our German Air Force has the best aircraft in the world, whether it is a fighter jet Or bombers, we both have obvious advantages!”

Although Germany has not given up catching up with the world's advanced level in the field of liquid-cooled engines in the past ten years, the main models of the German Air Force currently use air-cooled engines.

Among them, the fighter with the most superior performance is the D.31 series launched by Fokker Company in 1934, which was used to replace the latest products of the D.21 series also designed and produced by Fokker Company. The D.31 series is characterized by a closed engine room, retractable landing gear, external disposable auxiliary fuel tanks and a 1,600-horsepower double-row 14-cylinder BMW 145 engine - this is currently the only mass-produced engine in the world. The most advanced air-cooled engine is at least one generation ahead of the air-cooled engines of Britain, the United States and France.

It is precisely because of its leadership in the field of air-cooled engines that the Fokker D.31 fighter jet, which did not exist in history, became the guarantee for the German Air Force to seize air supremacy.

However, Germany's potential rivals, Britain and France, have not given up their efforts to compete for air supremacy. British and French aircraft designers also knew that they could not compete with Germany on the air-cooled engine route, so they focused on the liquid-cooled engine route where they had advantages.

According to reliable intelligence, the British Aircraft Company and the French company Morana-Saunière are stepping up their efforts to design new fighter jets equipped with liquid-cooled engines with good aerodynamic shapes.

However, before these new British and French fighter jets are mass-produced, the skies of Europe are still dominated by the D.31!

This is also the confidence of Air Force General Kesselring.

In addition to the D.31, Henschel's Hs-123 series of attack aircraft and Junkers' latest Ju.78 series of medium fast bombers are both leaders in the same type of aircraft.

Moreover, the German Air Force currently has not only a leadership in equipment technology, but also a large advantage in the quantity of equipment.

Because Germany's economy was the first to recover and has been growing rapidly since 1932, the German government has relatively strong financial resources to promote the "100,000 Pilots Plan" and the "5,000 Military Aircraft Plan." The former is a pilot training plan that requires extensive pilot training during peacetime and strives to increase the number of German pilot license holders to 100,000 by 1939!

The latter required the Luftwaffe and Naval Air Forces to expand their fleets to 5,000 aircraft before 1939. According to the plan, by the spring of 1936, the German Air Force should have about 3,000 military aircraft, ranking second in the world after the Soviet Union in number.

Of course, Germany's military strength is not without its shortcomings. Germany's naval strength was insufficient. Not only were its surface ships unprepared for war, but its submarine force was also very underprepared - in Schleicher and Hersmann's plan, the war would break out after June 1939, and It didn't start in early 1936.

Moreover, according to the plan, in the initial stage of the war, that is, from 1939 to 1941, the German Navy's combat mission was only to disrupt trade. Therefore, the Navy's military expansion plan will be divided into two stages with 1939 as the boundary. Before 1939, the Navy mainly focused on accumulating horizontal hull technology (design, construction and operation), developing shore-based aviation and ship-based aviation, and developing submarine forces. Only after 1939 will large-scale surface ships be built on a large scale.

This secret plan for naval expansion, codenamed "Z", was proposed by Admiral Redl and represented the collective interests of the German Navy. Naturally, Hessmann had no choice but to comply.

Therefore, the revised opinion given by the General Staff was to increase the number of submarines to about 300 before June 1939 - this was also the request of the commander of the submarine force, Karl Dönitz.

But it was only 1935, and Dönitz had less than 50 submarines capable of combat, of which only 20 were capable of ocean warfare. Even by February 1936, the number of submarines was only around 60, which was not enough to blockade Britain during wartime.

However, it is not impossible for Germany to win in 1936 - the key is to unite with the Soviet Union!

Because the Soviet Red Navy currently has more than 80 submarines of various types, including about 20 large submarines that can be used for ocean warfare. As long as the Soviet Union goes to war with Britain and France, the submarines of the Soviet Union and Germany will be enough to pose a threat to Britain's overseas routes. Great threat.