The Rise of the Third Reich

When evening came, Hersmann and Adolf Hitler climbed onto the walls of Saladin Castle, a majestic and simple city that had witnessed countless ups and downs over the centuries. A Roman eagle flag hung on the spire of the Muhammad Ali Mosque in the castle, motionless in the dim sunlight.

"In 621 AD, the Sasanian dynasty of Persia defeated the Eastern Roman Empire and completely controlled Egypt." Hitler seemed to be feeling a little emotional. He looked at the eagle flag and said to Hessmann, "After 1320 years, you let the Roman eagle The flag returned to Cairo.”

"Leader, this is the eagle flag of Italy, not the eagle flag of Rome." Hersman smiled sarcastically, "The Italians are not worthy of the name of the Roman Empire. They will never become Rome. In today's Europe, the only way to become Rome is to Only our German Empire!"

Rome has special significance to Europe. It symbolizes an era of glory and unity. When the Germans led Europe, they called their empire Holy Rome. When Emperor Napoleon was sweeping Europe, the French emperor took the name of Rome away from the Germans and made his son Napoleon II the King of Rome. There was no Roman Kingdom at that time, and the name of the King of Rome was Obviously it means the birth of French Rome.

And now, Mussolini made Italy raise the Roman eagle flag again!

The transformation of the Kingdom of Italy into the Roman Empire was not as simple as changing its name, because the European Community could accommodate Italy, but it was absolutely impossible to accommodate Rome.

"Marshal Reich, our friend Mussolini doesn't think so." Hitler said, pacing slowly on the ancient city wall with his hands behind his back, "His Roman Empire has a vast territory of 7.5 million square kilometers. It’s even more vast than Rome at its peak.”

Mussolini indeed established a great Rome. His empire roughly included Italy, Albania, Russia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Abyssinia and Somalia (including Italian, French, British Belongs to Somalia), almost 7.5 million square kilometers!

According to the cheeky Italian leader, the Roman Empire is now the second largest power in Europe in terms of territory, second only to the Soviet Union and larger than the German Empire and the French Republic.

"Big and useless," Hessman smiled. "Except for Egypt and Italy, other places are barren lands with little value. Now the Italians are just blinded by an illusory power and have produced some illusion."

In fact, Mussolini still has many valuable territories in his 7.5 million square kilometers, such as Libya and South Sudan, which are rich in oil. But the oil in Libya and Sudan has not yet been discovered. Even if oil is extracted there in the future, the oil revenue will definitely not be able to cover the development and management costs of more than 7 million square kilometers of African land.

In the future, Italy will either turn its African territories into mere resource collection areas without development or construction, or it will bear a heavy burden - considering that Italy's industry is currently underdeveloped, the burden of developing its African territories will be very heavy.

France, which swallowed up Algeria and French Morocco, also faces the same problem. The nearly 3 million square kilometers of land looks quite gratifying on the map. But it is very troublesome to develop and build, to assimilate the people there, and to truly turn it into a part of France.

Moreover, Algeria and French Morocco, like Italy's African possessions, were not suitable places for industry. Except for the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, which are not bad, other places are vast and sparsely populated, with inconvenient transportation and barren land. Besides oil and gas, there are no low-cost industrial resources. Even the advantages of oil and gas resources cannot compare with the Middle East controlled by Germany.

In contrast, Germany is preparing to take over its home territory, such as Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, part or all of Belarus, and Ukraine. Although they are not large in area, they are the real essence.

There is a very good foundation there right now, and the difficulty of integration and development is not too high. As long as it is done well, although the future German Empire will have an area of ​​less than 2 million square kilometers, its economic and industrial strength will far exceed that of France and Italy. .

However, comparing the 750 square kilometers of "Greater Rome" with the less than 2 million square kilometers of "Little Germany" will still give Italians like Mussolini an illusory sense of power.

And this illusory sense of power has now become the biggest obstacle to integrating Italy into the European Community. During this afternoon's meeting, Mussolini rejected the proposal for the Roman Empire to join the European Community and also proposed the annexation of Bosnia (part of Yugoslavia) and Montenegro (Montenegro) into the Greater Albania of Italy - —This is Italy’s compensation for abandoning Greece.

"Marshal Reich, I know Mussolini is a little hot-headed." Hitler pointed at his head and smiled bitterly, "But he is our friend after all, so we cannot order 100 divisions to march towards Rome... Although that would make us the masters of Italy in three months."

"Leader, you overestimate the Italians," Hessmann smiled and shook his head. "We don't need 100 divisions, nor 3 months... With 10 divisions and 2 weeks, we can occupy the entire territory of Italy. "

"Really?" Hitler looked back at Hersmann. Seeing the serious look on the Reich Marshal's face, Hitler knew he was not joking, but he still shook his head. "This won't work. Italians are a Latin race, different from us Aryans. These people are too cunning. The Holy Roman Empire spent hundreds of years not turning them into Germans. I don't want the Third Reich to be in Italy anymore." It’s a waste of energy on people. Germany…can only expand eastward!”

"Yes," Hessman nodded, "I don't think it is possible for us to assimilate the Italians... In fact, the peoples who are more similar to us Germans are the ethnic groups in Eastern Europe that have not been ruled by the Mongols for a long time. For example, the Poles and Lithuanians , Belarusians and right-bank Ukrainians, they are relatively similar to us and close in blood.”

This is the national view of the Prussian Junkers represented by Herschmann, which is different from Nazis like Hitler who came from South Germany.

Because many knight families in Prussia and East Prussia were aristocrats with transnational development in their ancestors. They spread their branches in Poland, Lithuania, Western Ukraine and the Baltic Sea coast. It is inevitable that they have West Slavic or East Slavic (under the rule of Lithuania) in their lineage. (East Slavic), so these Slavs were not regarded as outsiders. But at the same time, they regard the Russians as half-barbaric Tatars and do not regard them as authentic Europeans.

"But how should we cure the Italians' illusory feeling of strength?" Hitler looked at the Roman eagle flag hanging high and felt a little embarrassed.

Feeling too good is a disease and must be cured!

"Leader, there is still a small country in the Balkans today that is not very obedient." Hersman said slowly, "It also needs to be treated. Why not let Mussolini treat it, and also treat the Italian leader himself."

"Serbia?" Hitler frowned, "But the Hungarians don't want to see Italy expanding in the Balkans..."

"Actually, we don't want to see the Italians expanding their power in the Balkans!" Hersman shrugged. "Let's let the Hungarians, Serbs and Italians compete... We just need to control the scale."

"scale?"

"Hungarians and Croatians cannot compete directly with Italians," Hersman said.

What he meant was that the Italians could go to war with the Serbs, and the Croat-Hungarian Kingdom could provide some assistance to the Serbian resistance. But belligerence between Italy and Croatia-Hungary must be prohibited. In other words, Yugoslavia can exist as an "ulcer" for educating Italians...

"There will be a lot of refugees again," Hitler still shook his head. "Mussolini is an insatiable guy. Once he takes advantage in Bosnia, he will definitely invade Serbia. At that time, many people will flee to Croatia and Hungary. On the land, we can’t ignore it.”

Already many Ukrainians, Belarusians and Poles have fled to Western and Central Europe as refugees. Because they will all become Germans in the future, they have to be taken care of no matter how troublesome they are. But the Serbians did not receive this treatment, and no one prepared German passports for them.

"Send it to the Middle East," Hessman thought for a while and said, "You can send it to Lebanon and Syria. I think Syria is a good place to resettle European refugees."

…

While Hessmann and Hitler were discussing how to cure Mussolini's illusory sense of power, the greatest Roman after Chaszinni the Great was greeting Easterners from Japan at Cairo's Caesar Airport. Hideki Jo, Isoroku Yamamoto and others—because the host country of the Cairo Conference was Italy, Mussolini was also the one who welcomed the guests, while Germany only sent Foreign Minister Ribbentrop to accompany them.

Not seeing Hitler and Herschmann, Tojo Hideki and Yamamoto Isoroku were inevitably a little disappointed.

However, Mussolini was also one of the three giants of the Axis Powers (the other two were Hitler and Tojo himself), and the European Combined Fleet also had Italian shares. In terms of aviation technology, the Italians are now ranked third in the world after Germany and the United States (a ranking the Axis powers vaunted), and they seem to be able to provide some help to Japan.

Therefore, Tojo Hideki and Yamamoto Isoroku simply tentatively raised the issue of "sneak attack on Panama" and aviation technical assistance to Mussolini at the dinner held for them by the Italians that day.