The Third Reich in Desperation

Third Reich Episode 381

After Rommel experienced the defeat in Tobruk, he quietly wrote the following passage in his diary: "Italy's equipment is too poor, and most military and political leaders are generally not interested in war. Their incompetence has caused us to The battle plan fell through completely."

In fact, the defeat of Tobruk this time has nothing to do with the Italian army.Rommel's rejection of the pot this time is of no level.

In addition, it was not the Italian military and political leaders who stopped the Italian African Army, but the German head of state Reinhardt, who stopped it through Rossi.

In the final analysis, it was because of the German leader.

Of course, what Rommel said has a lot to do with his strong sense of honor.

He has a saying that often hangs on his lips: "There is no real soldier who doesn't want to get a medal."

In other words, he believes that qualified soldiers should want to get military medals.

When Rommel was a junior officer, he regarded honor as the best carrier to realize his self-worth. Because of his sense of honor, he even had a fight with Reinhardt 20 years ago.

Rommel's greatest shortcoming is precisely his greatest strength.

He always thinks about how to give full play to his strengths and achieve the best results on his own battlefield.But in this way, there is suspicion of emphasizing tactics and underestimating the overall strategic situation.

Of course, it is not a bad thing to pay too much attention to the battlefield that you are responsible for.Even Manstein, the most famous German strategist, actually likes to do this.

The difference is that if Rommel can make strategic achievements like Maninstein's plan to encircle Poland's main counterattack or bypass the Maginot Line, he will not be caught by the master of tactics. Don't let the braids go.

But it's actually not a big deal.

After all, in a war, someone will naturally make a strategic decision. As a battlefield commander, what Rommel needs is understanding and execution ability, so that he can turn the orders of the head of state into beautiful tactical victories time after time through his own hands, rather than To replace the thinking of the headquarters, as long as he does his job well, he can already become a generation of famous generals.

In fact, Rommel is completely capable of doing this.

But this time in the battle of Tobruk, if Rommel could have a strategic vision like Manstein's and put a little more effort into logistical supplies, then perhaps a defeat like this time could be saved to a certain extent. avoid.

Of course, failure is failure.The biggest reason for this failed attack was that the French and Italians responsible for the supply of the African Army Group were not strong enough because of Reinhardt's opposition.

Therefore, Rommel was unable to concentrate all his troops due to insufficient supply, and could only supply limited troops to fight, resulting in the failure of the attack.

Fortunately, the French troops that Petain promised Reinhardt to send to Africa have now arrived on the northern coast of Algeria, and the equipment of the remaining two armored battalions of Rommel's 15th Armored Division has also arrived.

Algeria, Port of Algiers.

The two German non-commissioned officers who were in charge of receiving the French landing force in Algiers watched Vichy French troop carriers approaching one after another, and former enemies, wearing familiar military uniforms, came to Africa to fight side by side with them when.

The two German non-commissioned officers who had participated in the French campaign were deeply moved for a while.

"What do you think the Frenchman will think now? He fought us with the British before, and now he comes to fight the British with us...I really can't figure it out." One of the German sergeants said to the side Among several black soldiers, the youngest one joked.

This black soldier is a native of Algeria, and is one of the black soldiers temporarily recruited by Lieutenant General Hans who came to Africa with Rommel and learned from Berente's method.

This black soldier has been influenced by the Germans since he was a child, so he can barely understand some daily German, and he can fully understand what the German non-commissioned officer said.

Then he replied slowly in broken German: "Sir, I don't understand what the French would think. But I think it's not bad, at least the British will be frightened when they see the formation on our side. They I certainly would not have thought that reinforcements would arrive one after another behind us, although most of them were French."

The black soldier didn't expect that he could speak so much German in one breath. He looked at the several black soldiers next to him in surprise, and nodded to them, meaning to ask if everyone understood.

The two German sergeants easily understood what he meant, and told him: "We understood, but it took us a while to realize what you said. You'd better practice your German more."

Hearing the praise from the German non-commissioned officer, the black soldier laughed happily. His dream is to live in Germany in the future, and learning German well is the first step if he wants to live in Germany.

In front of them, the entire city of Algiers was filled with the roar of the German Panther tanks and the cheers of the onlookers, and there seemed to be no end to the arrival of the Panther tanks this time.Those who don't know it will at least think that there are two regiments in size!

In fact, it was the two armored battalions that Rommel ordered to arrive after entering Algiers from the port, and first circled the French parliament building here a few times to bluff.

At the same time, in order to deceive the British aerial reconnaissance, Rommel also ordered hundreds of fake tanks to be made of wood and cardboard, and then installed on the "Volkswagen" car to go around, while the real tanks avoided the enemy's reconnaissance Secretly drove to the front line and planned to build the 15th Armored Division.

In fact, a large part of the reason why Rommel failed to launch an attack on Tobruk last time was because the troops were dissatisfied and the strength of each department was insufficient.This time, with the support of these French divisions and the delivery of tanks from the best two battalions of the 15th Armored Division, Rommel's grasp of the African battlefield will be further improved.

After all, he didn't lose much in the first place.

The Italian allies did not join, the French allies did not join, and even the 30th Mechanized Infantry Division of Lieutenant General Hans did not join.Only the dissatisfied 15th Armored Division actually participated in the previous battles.Moreover, as for the dissatisfied 15th Armored Division, due to the fact that the allies are not paying attention to supplies, they cannot all be in place.

Therefore, the failure in this case can't explain anything at all.

Now, using his cunning trick skills to the fullest, he allowed the British to misjudge the number of reinforcement tanks they had, so they could more fully plan the next battle that dazzled Wavell.

Fortunately, the intelligence agents placed by the British among the local people in Algiers successfully brought back the false news spread by Rommel.

Text Chapter 583 New Weapon

The head of state convoy drove along a small road to a military research and development area 20 miles away from downtown Berlin.

When the convoy came to the four walls, in front of the gate with the six-pointed star logo of the Rhine Consortium in the center, the gate with a width of nearly ten meters was slowly pushed open.

Beside the convoy, several SS security officers, led by General Aka, got out of the car first and lined up in two lines on both sides of the gate.

After an SS major opened a car door in the middle of the convoy, Reinhardt, the German head of state, stepped sideways and strode out.

"Let's go." Reinhardt waved to Akado, signaling him to enter the bronze door in front of him with him.

This is an important new weapon experiment meeting, just from the head of state, Reinhardt, is enough to see the significance of it and how important it is.

In fact, in the final analysis, there are only two protagonists in this experiment.

One, is Reinhardt's own Rein consortium.

The other is the Krupp company of Uncle Reinhardt.

Because of Reinhardt's intervention, Germany's military industry has actually been very different from history.

Rheinland AG, which was established with the Henschel company as capital, took advantage of the economic difficulties of German military factories and private factories under the Treaty of Versailles, or acquired, or merged, or invested in advance to establish subsidiaries, including Rheinmetall Group, Augsburg Machinery Factory, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Messerschmitt and many other military industries.

The Krupp Group also relied on its relationship with Reinhardt. When Reinhardt's methods were not yet mature in the early stage, he also took the opportunity to take a share of the pie and won the Hanomark Company and Vienna Neustadt in Austria. Industries such as aircraft factories.

And this time, it was Rhein and Krupp, the two major military giants, a subsidiary of Messerschmidt, competing with the Vienna Neustadt Aircraft Factory.

Alfred Krupp arrived at the experiment meeting early in the morning.After all, this bid competition has important interests for his group.

Once successful, the new weapons they produce will receive a large number of orders, thus making the Krupp Group's position in the German military industry more consolidated and stronger.

And Krupp, who knows the relationship between Reinhardt and the Reine Consortium (in fact, the German high-level and many people know that Reinhardt is the leader behind the Reine Consortium.), feels that the bidding The huge pressure, so personally solemnly go.

The comparison between Reinhardt and Krupp, the leaders of the two military empires, became the theme of this new weapon experiment meeting.Most of the people who came here knew the inside story and were prepared to witness the result.

Under the current war situation, division and failure are naturally not allowed by the overall situation.Therefore, under the general environment, the contradictions in this bid competition are not sharp.Coupled with the family relationship between Krupp and Reinhardt, it is unlikely that the two will confront each other unless necessary.

It's just that no one will dislike their own wealth, and their status as a business empire has become bigger and stronger.

Krupp wants to become a super family group that can last forever for his old family group and the Krupp business empire!

Reinhardt, on the other hand, wants to use the convenience of his head of state to build the emerging Rein consortium that he established himself into a "Third Reich" in the commercial field!For myself in this world, for my son who has just been born, leave a different starting line for life.