The Rise of the Third Reich

Although the Baltic Republic was not the territory of the Second German Empire in the past, William II was surprised to find that he seemed to have been ruling the country when he set foot on this land.

When he walked down the gangway of the "Deutschland" at the Port of Riga, then got into a Maybach luxury convertible and drove into downtown Riga, he found that the whole city was rejoicing for his arrival.

"Long live the Emperor! Long live Germany!"

On both sides of the street, there were Riga citizens dressed in festive costumes, and some people came from other places to witness His Majesty the Emperor.

Unlike the situation in Germany, the Baltic Republic has still been promoting "imperialist" education in the past ten years. In the history of the Baltic Republic and German language textbooks, content glorifying the Hohenzollern dynasty and Wilhelm II can be seen everywhere.

In Riga and other cities in the Baltic Republic, there are squares, streets, schools and hospitals named after the monarchs, ministers and generals of the Hohenzollern dynasty.

Any words or deeds that attack and discredit the Hohenzollern dynasty and monarch will be punished accordingly according to Baltic law. And few Baltic people would do this - after all, most Baltic Germans were beneficiaries of the policies implemented by Wilhelm II.

According to Baltic official propaganda, the Baltic people's homeland was liberated by His Majesty William II, and their land was granted by His Majesty the Emperor. Without the emperor, Baltica would not be what it is today.

And this is almost true. The Baltic Republic, with a population of nearly 4 million, has some industries, such as aircraft manufacturing and shipbuilding. But it is mainly an agricultural country, with approximately 300,000 small family farms being the economic base of the Baltic Republic. The owners of these small family farms were mostly Germans who moved from Russia and Poland. They received land for free from the Baltic government.

Moreover, after granting the farms, the Polo government did not leave these family farms alone and let them fend for themselves. German-style fine management is vividly reflected in Polo.

A system called "cooperative family farming" has been in place in the Baltic Republic for more than 12 years.

In Hirschmann's view, this system was somewhere between family farms and collective farms. According to Rosenberg, this system originated from the Volga German settlement in Russia - there is a tradition of "cooperativeization" and "communization" in the history of Russian agriculture. This tradition influenced the Germans who immigrated to the Volga River Basin (Russian Jews were also influenced by it and implemented "Moshav agricultural collectivization" after immigrating to Palestine). They also organized small family farms into communes.

Later, they brought this system to the Baltic Republic, and they also had real "German-style scientific management" and formed a multi-level agricultural cooperation system supported by the government.

At the top is the Baltic Agricultural Cooperative, with provincial and county branches at the bottom. At the bottom are agricultural communes composed of family farms - this is a complex and peculiar system. Agricultural communes are actually a management system. The entity, similar to an agricultural corporation, is responsible for its own profits and losses. The cooperatives at all levels above the "commune" are non-profit agricultural service institutions, responsible for providing technical support, small low-interest loans, product sales and procurement (daily necessities, production tools, etc. needed by the commune) to the "commune" All provided by cooperatives).

Under the operation of Germans who are relatively disciplined and not good at cheating, the agricultural cooperative system in the Baltic Republic has been operating well in the past 12 years. This allowed the vast majority of citizens of the Baltic Republics to achieve a relatively stable and prosperous life - very good compared with neighboring Poland and the Soviet Union.

Moreover, this system has made the Baltic Republic a major exporter of agricultural products. It exports at least 1.3 million tons of grain to Germany every year (accounting for one-third of Germany's grain imports) and a large amount of meat products, seafood, and dairy products. .

Under such circumstances, the prosperous and stable Baltic German farmers were of course easily deceived by their royalist government, and confusedly followed the royalists together - in Europe, small and medium-sized farmers with relatively stable lives are often conservative forces Symbols of the movement, the grassroots of royalists in various countries are these people. The working class and urban intellectuals are often more radical, and they are the main force in making revolutions. If Hitler could get rid of these radical workers and intellectuals, he could unite Germany and turn it into a powerful war machine.

…

"Mr. Prime Minister, have you seen it? The 4 million Baltic people support the emperor. Unless the emperor is restored in Germany, they will not support the merger of the Baltic and Germany."

President Goltz of the Baltic Republic was sitting in another Maybach car with Chancellor Hitler and Infantry General Hessmann.

Hitler arrived in Baltica one day earlier than the German Emperor. He came not only to greet Wilhelm II, but also to observe the "Iron Fist-1935" military exercise. He also wanted to discuss Germany with President Goltz of the Baltic Republic - Polo's merger problem.

The merger was originally going to be implemented in 1933, but Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and Poland successively expressed their opposition, allowing the merger to be pushed back again and again. The Soviet Union's opposition should not be taken seriously. Stalin had already privately expressed the opinion of "non-interference" to Hessman. Among the remaining three countries, Britain, France, and Poland, Poland's attitude worried Hitler the most. Before Germany completed the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, it was necessary to maintain relations with Poland.

However, the news that Piłsudski was suffering from liver cancer and died soon made Hitler feel that the opportunity to annex the Baltic Republic was ripe.

But President Goltz put forward the condition of "restoring the Hohenzollern dynasty" at this time.

"I cannot say anything about restoring the dynasty alone," Hitler said in a cold tone, "This requires a referendum!"

Hitler agreed to submit the issue of "restoration of the Hohenzollern dynasty" to a referendum, which was already a huge concession.

However, the vote is not easy to pass. Now the only one who is really interested in restoration is the Juncker group. Although the Junkers have strong military power, their numbers are too small and they can control even fewer votes.

In today's German parliament, the National Socialist Workers' Party, the largest party, firmly holds a majority of more than 60%. The joint ruling "Junker party" Fatherland People's Party only has 28% of the seats - this is the result after by-elections were held after the Social Democrats were banned.

"Prime Minister, perhaps we can hold a referendum on the merger with the Baltic Republics and the restoration of the dynasty." Hessmann suggested.

He is much more knowledgeable about the rules of democratic elections than Goltz - Goltz implemented a military dictatorship and liberal democracy in Polo.

“It is of course easy to pass the two bills into one,” Hitler said, “but the support of the National Socialist Party is the key!”

"If the Reich is to be restored," Herschmann said slowly, "of course a new constitution will be needed... We need a constitution that can win victory for Germany! Under the leadership of the Emperor and the Chancellor, the upper and middle classes of Germany The lower level will truly unite and we will be invincible!”

"Invincible?" Hitler glanced at Hersmann, "Ludwig, you are very confident in the results of the exercise."

Hitler was talking about the military exercise code-named "Iron Fist-1935", which would start on May 1, 1935 and end on May 10, for a total of 10 days.

More than 135,000 officers and soldiers from Germany and the Baltic Republic will participate in this large-scale exercise. The purpose of the exercise is to test whether the "mechanized warfare theory" is correct or not.

According to the plan, these 135,000 officers and soldiers will be divided into "Blue Army" and "Red Army".

Among them, the Blue Army is composed of a temporarily formed armored corps, including the German 1st Armored Division, the 3rd Motorized Infantry Division and the Baltic 1st Motorized Infantry Division. This is not wartime, even armored divisions, motorcycles, etc. "High-tech" units such as the Chemical Infantry Division are not fully equipped in terms of personnel, so the three divisions total only 45,000 people.

In addition, there is a brigade of Hs123 ground support aircraft assigned to the Blue Army.

The Red Army consisted of nearly 90,000 officers and soldiers, including two Baltic infantry divisions and four German infantry divisions. There are twice as many people as the Blue Army, but they are not equipped with any air power.

In the exercise plan, the smaller Blue Army will be responsible for the attack, while the larger Red Army will deploy a 100-kilometer defense line in the southern part of the Courland Peninsula. The Blue Army must break through the defense line within 10 days and advance more than 20 kilometers north to be considered victorious.

In Hitler's view, unless it was cheating, the possibility of the Blue Army successfully completing the mission was zero. But if Hessman really wanted to commit fraud, he was confident that he could detect it.

If it were Hitler in another time and space in 1935, he would definitely not have this idea. Because in another time and space, this "corporal" was the supreme commander of the German armed forces, surrounded by a large number of brilliant military generals as advisors, and could always obtain the latest reports on the development of military technology. With his genius, he could keenly grasp the general direction of the military revolution.

But in this time and space, although he also has military adjutants and several military staff, their level and level are not high, and most of them are not active officers. He was also, by and large, the head of a civilian government with very limited knowledge of professional military matters.

"Mr. Chancellor," Hessmann certainly understood Hitler's thoughts. He smiled, "the exercise will start the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow you and His Majesty the Emperor can listen to the combat plan reports of the commanders of both sides. Then on May 1, go to Watch the blue team’s breakthrough.”

Hersmann did not intend to cheat, and he also had to convince Hitler that he was completely incapable of directing the war. Therefore, there is no point in lying. Although Hitler did not understand mechanized warfare, he was not a rookie who had never been on the battlefield.