The Third Reich: The Return of the King

Becoming Hans's defense minister at a young age was a great challenge for Mainz.

However, while this position brings him great pressure, it also provides him with great power.

He can transform this army in his own hands according to his own ideas!

After the new official took office, Mainz did not immediately make any major arrangements.

Instead, he went to Wilhelmshaven in the northwest for an expedition.

Wilhelmshaven was an important base for the German navy, and although Hans's navy was almost extinct after the fall of the High Seas Fleet, it was extremely important to the Reich, and it was necessary to build a strong navy in order not to repeat the mistakes of World War II.

This navy was not only to protect the security of Hans's own territorial waters, but also to operate as the main force to carry out breaking engagements and even covering landing operations.

In World War II, after the Battle of Gaul in 1940, if the Germans had a strong navy, they would not have had to turn their guns to fight woolly bears.

They can take advantage of the power of a great victory, cross the sea to the west, and directly attack the mainland of the empire on which the sun never sets.

At that time, the empire of the sun never set had been crippled in the Gallic campaign, and their army suffered heavy casualties in Benelux and other places, although the retreat from Dunkirk gave them a little blood, but how much combat effectiveness these hundreds of thousands of frightened soldiers still had, I am afraid that even the sun does not set in their own hearts.

Therefore, this time was the best opportunity for the Germans to directly attack the sunset.

Once this opportunity is missed, the empire will slowly slow down, and then become a hateful fly in western Europe, which has been interfering with and influencing the Third Reich in the rear, and being threatened and influenced by the sunset, even at the height of the Soviet-German war, the German army had to maintain a large army in Western Europe to guard against the sneak attack of the British army!

Didn't the mustache understand that the threat of the Third Reich on the Western Front would always exist if the sun never set on the empire itself?

Of course, he knew, so the mustache launched an air raid on the sunset, hoping that the fierce air attack would make the sunset people submit and raise the white flag in surrender to the Third Reich like the Gauls.

However, the mustache's abacus failed, after being the world hegemon for hundreds of years, the sun does not set in their bones, they are different from Gaul, they will not surrender so easily!

Therefore, even though the bombardment of the German army was extremely fierce, and the capital that never set was bombed indiscriminately, the people who never set the sun still gritted their teeth and refused to surrender.

And the sun does not set, the people do not surrender, the mustache's plan is completely bankrupt, and the German army, in the absence of a strong navy, simply cannot control the English Channel, which is only a few tens of kilometers of narrow water.

And without naval cover, even if the German armored forces could fight, it would not be possible to swim directly into the sea, so the sun never set when almost all of Western Europe fell, but they picked up a life!

The lessons of World War II are profound for Mainz, and since we have traveled back to before World War II, we cannot treat the problems exposed by the Third Reich in World War II as if we did not see it!

To control the European continent, it is necessary to defeat Gaul and the Woolly Bear, and it is easy to defeat the Woolly Bear, but it is difficult to defeat the Woolly Bear!

With the size of the country and the huge population size of the woolly bear, in order to defeat the woolly bear, it is necessary to integrate the forces of the whole of Western Europe, and to ensure the stability of Western Europe, so that the third stable rear can confront the woolly bear, it is necessary to defeat the empire on which the sun never sets.

And to defeat the Empire, you must have a strong navy!

So, everything comes down to the Navy!

Hans must build a strong navy, this is the dream of generations of Hanse people!

The Navy does not yet have its own naval commander, the previous commander of the Navy was Tirpitz, but he was dismissed by Lian II in 1916, and he was replaced by the commander of the High Seas Fleet, Admiral Scheer, who was also removed from his post in 1918.

After the defeat and fall of the Second Reich, the nascent Weimar Republic continued to be in turmoil, and Field Marshal Hindenburg's main focus was on the army.

So at this time the Navy did not have its own commander, only the Joint Chief of Staff, and the current Chief of Staff was still temporary, Rear Admiral Adolf von Trota.

Historically, it was not until Raeder became commander of the navy that the commander of the German navy was fixed, and before that, many generals, including Rear Admiral Adolf von Trota, Rear Admiral Wilhelm Michelis, Vice Admiral Paul Beinck, Lieutenant General Hans Zenkel, and Admiral Hans Zenkel, were all appointed to this position, and then quickly replaced.

A navy that does not have its own main warships is in a really pitiful situation.

It was not quite what Mainz had in mind, he originally thought that after all the main battleships of the High Seas Fleet had sunk, Hans's navy would have no more warships.

Unexpectedly, in Wilhelmshaven, there were still more than two dozen battleships parked.

A dozen battleships, which sound like a good thing, are even larger than the High Seas Fleet sunk in Scapa Bay.

However, this is not the case, and all of the remaining battleships are pre-dreadnoughts built before 1905, and these battleships are generally over 20 years old.

These include:

Two Brandenburg-class battleships: Brandenburg and Wools.

Five Caesar Frederick III-class battleships: Caesar Frederick III, Caesar Wilhelm II, Caesar Wilhelm the Great, Caesar Karl the Great, and Caesar Barbarossa.

Five Wicchelsbach-class battleships: Wicchelsbach, Swabian, Vidin, Mecklenburg, Zaringen.

Five Braunschweig-class battleships: Braunschweig, Alsace, Lorraine, Hesse, Prussia.

Four Hans-class battleships: Hans, Hanover, Silesia, Schleswig Holstein.

Among these battleships, except for four Hans-class battleships because of their relatively close launch, the other battleships are all more than 20 years old, and the oldest Brandenburg has even reached the age of 7!

After the creation of the dreadnoughts of the empire, these old battleships fell almost all behind overnight.

Since the accession of Wilhelm II, the Second Empire has always hoped to build a powerful fleet to expand its interests overseas, so they have launched an arms race with the sun on the construction of warships, from 1893 to 1905, in just 12 years, they have built five types of 25 battleships, this construction speed can be called terrifying!

However, after the Dreadnought-class battleships came out, the previous efforts of the Second Empire were all in vain, and all the battleships fell behind overnight, and they had to quickly redesign new battleships, which was the main force of the high seas fleet in later generations.

After World War I, all the main warships of the High Seas Fleet were towed away, but all of these old former dreadnoughts were left behind.

The reason is that the Entente countries don't look down on these broken copper and iron at all, and they don't even have the desire to be dragged away as scrap, so they are lost in the German military port!_

Fei Lu reminds you: three things to read-