Chapter 59:
Chapter 59
“Is London burning?”
“Yes, Your Excellency! The remnants of the British army resisting in London are being suppressed. However…”
The Chancellor raised his eyebrows slightly.
However, some of the armored units had survived the air raid and joined the retreat northward.
The defense army’s situation officer answered stiffly and the Chancellor burst into laughter.
As expected, they only ran away!
“Beasts worse than animals. They can’t even fight and die beautifully! They cowardly show their backs and flee. How long do you think it will take for the American bastards to arrive?”
The Chancellor’s expression was full of ecstasy as he spoke the bizarre word “die beautifully”. The situation officer hurriedly answered the Chancellor’s question.
“The navy predicted that two divisions of American troops would land in Cardiff or Liverpool in four days. Our ground forces still have to pacify London and the occupied cities, and there is a report from General Rommel that we lack troops to immediately stop the landing operation.”
Of course, four divisions were not enough.
The second wave of landing troops had just left the ports of northern France with the supplies for the British expeditionary force.
Could two divisions and reinforcements do it? Rommel would surely create a miracle.
Rommel had already received the Chancellor’s letter.
Return victorious.
A field marshal’s rank and a golden diamond oak leaf sword knight’s cross iron cross are ready for you!
The rank of deputy chief of the entire defense army after Goering, and the de facto highest position of the army, was prepared for General Rommel.
The port for supply had already been secured, and Rommel’s victory was somewhat predictable.
The Third Reich had scraped together all the sea transport ships of their own and allied countries and deployed them between the English Channel, and they could barely supply the huge amount of materials they needed.
“The Americans will have to pay a heavy price in the landing process. Their aircraft carriers are heading to the Pacific to replace their battleship power, and their air power available for landing and combat is extremely scarce.”
That’s right.
No matter how advanced they were, just two divisions, just two divisions could not play a role in this battlefield.
It was to form a bridgehead, but that was too little.
The Chancellor rather expected another role.
That is… a spark.
The young Americans composed of 20,000 people would see themselves being slaughtered by the Nazis in a virtually indistinguishable defeat, and the Americans who were angry at the surprise war would burn.
If they throw troops to be slaughtered?
They should give them a proper slaughter.
“Afwehr reported that the British royal family is currently preparing to flee to Canada. Your Excellency. We are waiting for your orders on what action to take.”
“The royal family? Do they serve their people as kings by abandoning their homeland and running away?”
Maybe so. But reporting that was not the situation officer’s job, so he remained silent.
It was natural for the monarch, a symbol of national unity, to avoid enemy invasion, but the Chancellor did not understand that.
He always wanted to show off his presence in Berlin, and his operation seemed to be going well so far, so the situation officer kept his mouth shut even more.
The British Fascist Union issued a statement condemning the royal family who left London according to the Chancellor’s intention.
<The royal family and government have inflicted irreparable damage and humiliation on the nation by insisting on a futile war. Therefore, we want to stop this meaningless fight and get ‘the peace that the people want’!>
Of course, by now almost all of the people were burning with hatred for the Nazis, so the statement did not have much effect.
The heart of the British Empire, London, burned down and was trampled under the enemy’s boots.
The second wave of troops coming in, soldiers from Vichy France and Spain’s colonies were also colored people they despised so much, so maybe the arrogant British would resist more.
The Chancellor sneered at Canaris who cautiously said that.
Try to resist! Britain was already a toothless lion.
They tied up such a lion and pulled out its claws and teeth.
What was there to be afraid of?
Chandra Bose, an Indian independence activist from Britain’s colony India, fully agreed with the Chancellor’s opinion.
There were hundreds of thousands of Indians in India who wanted to retaliate against Britain and burned with hatred, and he argued that they could bring them in and ‘manage’ the British.
The collapse of the British Empire was nothing less than the biggest event of this century for Indians.
“We Indians have abilities but we only occupied the lowest position under the British, but if given a chance we can fully demonstrate our abilities! India’s best brains were educated in Britain but had to return to India after being discriminated and despised! We may have shortcomings. But with the cooperation of ‘the best ally’ Germany, we can control Britain!”
Chandra Bose gave a long speech. Many Nazi dignitaries glared at him, a lowly colored race, but some also applauded him.
According to the supporters, the Indians had the blood of the great pioneers Aryans who migrated to India, and that blood was strongly manifested in heroes like Chandra Bose.
Cooperation between brother Aryans was essential for world peace and prosperity, and he gave a lengthy speech for Bose, and the Chancellor nodded his head as if he liked his opinion.
However… someone poured water on this excited atmosphere.
When they were ranting about reclaiming the land from the Soviet Union, they were better than the Latin traitors of Romania who hit them on the back of the head and ran away.
It was a faint murmur, but the conference room cooled down and became quiet.
“Surely… the situation on the Eastern Front is not very good, is it?”
“That… that’s right, Your Excellency.”
Damn it. He didn’t know who said it, but he knew who answered.
It was Alfred Jodl.
He kicked the ankle of the guy who spoke out of turn in his mind.
He had to kick him for real when he went out. But who was it?
“I appointed the best commanders, so they should do their best. Dr. Todt!”
“Yes, Your Excellency?”
“Make what I want. The heroes of the empire who go to the battlefield and fight are cold and hungry, but it’s not good for the people to live a luxurious life. Don’t you think so?”
The dignitaries were all tense.
There was hardly anyone who had not touched a penny of the state’s funds, and of course they were not as extravagant as Goering who spent money like water, but they were all accustomed to a certain degree of luxurious life.
Todt bowed and nodded, and when the Chancellor left, they all flocked to him.
“No, Minister! The Chancellor ordered it, but…”
“Calm down! The Chancellor’s intention is probably to reduce the production of light industrial consumer goods and invest in heavy industry… If you are so worried, how about donating some of your personal wealth for the country?”
As he said that again, there was nothing to say.
They all licked their lips and looked at each other.
The second-in-command, Marshal Goering, decided on the amount he would give after seeing what they would give, and when Marshal Goering shouted 300,000 marks with a smirk, they all sighed deeply.
“I will donate 300,000 marks for the great army of this German nation! You teachers and doctors should think well!”
Goering led a group of flatterers and left with Todt. If Goering was 300,000 marks… were we 100,000 marks?
They all counted their fingers and sighed.
Of course, if they had heard the conversation between Goering and Todt outside the conference room, they would have been furious.
“Dr. Todt, I shouted 300,000 marks so that the fundraising amount would be quite a lot… Can’t we just settle for that?”
Werner M?lders, the chief inspector of fighters, and Adolf Galland, the commander of the naval air force, who heard him from the side, opened their mouths in disbelief.
No way, our Marshal who was so arrogant? Todt was also speechless in front of Goering’s eyes, but he had to laugh and soothe him.
“Haha… I’ll follow your will, Your Excellency.”
As he turned around laughing with Goering behind him, his eyes met with M?lders and Galland’s eyes and he shook his head desperately.
Galland buried his face in his hands as if he was ashamed.
Really, how ridiculous.
Dr. Todt also had his own troubles.
As the Minister of Armaments, he had to realize the frivolous demands of the Chancellor and dignitaries by efficiently using limited resources.
A 7th Lebe tank that weighed almost twice as much as a 4th tank, a medium bomber that could fly 10,000 km and drop a 10-ton bomb, an aircraft carrier that could carry 100 fighters and sail across the ocean…
The Chancellor demanded all these things, but Todt succeeded in compromising with the young rationalists in the military.
Instead of a huge surface fleet, a submarine fleet centered on two aircraft carriers and 150 U-boats, a four-engine medium bomber that could drop a 5-ton Grosser Yune bomb, and a Panther tank with performance adjustments from existing models.
But now the Eastern Front was becoming a black hole that swallowed up endless resources, and Todt had to fill that hole by mobilizing the power of the Third Reich, or rather all of Western Europe.
The Chancellor extended the nightmare-like two-front war by launching a full-scale surprise attack on America instead of concentrating on one front by bringing down Britain with all his might in the war with the Soviet Union that was not enough even if he poured out all his capabilities.
And with America that had production capacity that could not be caught up even by sending hundreds of thousands of Jews and Poles, Italians/French/Spaniards traitors to factories.
In addition to this, the Chancellor demanded one ‘ultimate weapon’ to overcome the crisis on the Eastern Front.
Germany’s top intellectuals were clinging to this project, and Todt’s desired aviation engine research and rocket research were almost stagnant and languishing.
But he was curious about what results the project, <Schwandau>, had for the huge amount of money it demanded.
The young genius who led the project, Heisenberg, who won the highest honor of the Nobel Prize at the age of thirty-one, monopolized astronomical budgets and support without properly reporting the results, saying it was confidential, and the Chancellor rather supported him more than urging him to produce results.
He didn’t know what use Heisenberg’s research had, and he honestly didn’t care. How many U-boats could he make with that money!
“If that young thing doesn’t explain the use of the budget…”
Ever since all the uranium allocated for research on new U-boat engines was handed over to Heisenberg by the Chancellor’s order, D?nitz had been grinding his teeth.
Caught between the Chancellor who defended Heisenberg and D?nitz who exploded, he was caught in a whale fight with a shrimp back and had to mediate the conflict by commissioning 12 giant 14-type U-boats with a displacement of 2,000 tons.
Todt also didn’t like Project Schwandau.
The Eastern Front was a war against the Soviet Union’s massive population and production capacity.
The Chancellor should have overcome the crisis with solid armaments and thorough conscription and mobilization, rather than fanciful new weapons, but no one could object to him who had achieved an overwhelming strategic victory with his trusted leadership.
He calculated the amount of money that Goering would ‘raise’ while grumbling.
“With this much… how many more tanks can we produce?”
***
At that time, Heisenberg had to be trembling in front of the Chancellor who was angry and slammed his desk and kicked his feet.
The Chancellor maintained a calm and cold attitude in front of others, but he always urged results and showed such hysterical reactions when Heisenberg reported secretly.
Only the closest secretary and a guard who knew that this was closer to the Chancellor’s original personality were present.
Heisenberg didn’t know what to do. When the Chancellor’s tantrum was over, he said what he always did to soothe him.
“Your Excellency, the development of the weapon you want will be completed by 1945 at the latest.”
“Yes, yes, it must be developed by 1945! Absolutely! The future of our Reich depends on the weapon that the doctor develops. Give those Soviet bastards who swarm like cockroaches a blow and burn them all! And to America, who is worse than beasts and ghosts, give them a few blows too! The Great German Empire must develop weapons as soon as possible to survive. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, of course, Your Excellency! I will do my best to deliver results!”
The Chancellor thought that all he needed to defeat the filthy inferior races was Project Schwandau. Block the Atlantic with the navy and air force, and then finish off the Soviet Union and America with <the ultimate weapon>!
The Nazi dignitaries and people like Heisenberg were not sure if that was possible, but the Chancellor pushed the project with an iron-like conviction.
He nodded as if he liked it and told him to go out, and Heisenberg left the Chancellor’s office and walked down the corridor.
If it was someone who saw it for the first time, they would have a heart attack from the huge and intimidating sculptures and paintings in the corridor that seemed to crush him.
When he first accepted this mission, he felt that the world recognized his talent.
He was now forty years old.
He surpassed his senior scientists who won the Nobel Prize earlier than him and was appointed as the head of this super-large project and thought it was an honorable mission and willingly participated.
But… as he got closer to the essence, he began to feel that something was wrong.
‘Bombs, bombs, bombs. That’s all they want…’
As Project Schwandau progressed, the outline of what the Chancellor wanted began to emerge.
A bomb that could burn and evaporate a whole city.
The German Air Force had already destroyed and destroyed several cities with hundreds of bombers, but the Chancellor wanted something more terrible and powerful.
In the Chancellor’s fantasy, a single ‘nuclear bomb’ could evaporate a city, and he ordered to make dozens of them.
And as the research progressed, Heisenberg was afraid that it was actually possible.
The Chancellor was extremely wary of America and insisted that they had to deploy this bomb in combat before they developed it, and that meant… before America burned Germany, they had to burn America.
But what if we burn them?
Then wouldn’t they burn us?
A huge flame like the sun rose in the sky over Berlin and swept through his eyes with a vision of turning this glorious city into ashes with a heat blast.
A letter he received added certainty to his guess.
He didn’t know how they found out and found him… but the letter from the Soviet Union contained everything he feared.
Bombs that can burn humanity and cities and make them ruins on earth, and our next generations, children who have to live in them for life.
Maria who is three years old now, Wolfgang, Yohan who is two years old, and Martin who is a newborn baby are in his eyes.
He had been married for only four years but was a father raising four children, and he sincerely hoped that the world they would live in would be a good place.
He answered the call of the country for these children who had to live in Germany… but he changed his mind.
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