Chapter 195 Chapter 224 Green Plan 3
"Is the date set for the Spanish general election?"
"It's settled, January 1936, and the transfer of power will be February 1936."
"Polls?"
"The left-wing front has a relative advantage, and the Spanish left is already strong. The last time it was because the left-wing united front collapsed before the election, the right-wing coalition won the election. But this time the left-wing republicans have united, and the people I have also been angered by the right-wing rule in the past few years, and I am ready to fight. It seems that I can be elected."
In a conference room of the General Staff Headquarters in Zossen, Infantry General Hessmann was listening to a report from Director of Military Intelligence Canaris at a meeting. The meeting was attended by members of the so-called Green Solutions Group. Including Hersmann, Guderian, Kesselring, Manstein, Canaris, Halder, Model, Rommel, Falkenhorst, Tippelskirch and others.
Since the command of Germany now lies with Ludendorff instead of Hitler, the command system of the German army is also World War I-style - the large general staff leads everything instead of setting up a lot of general headquarters, staff offices and headquarters. .
In wartime, the General Staff will be divided into three, just like in the last world war, establishing the Eastern Front Headquarters, the Western Front Headquarters and the Berlin Headquarters.
According to the current plan, once the "Green Plan" is ready to be implemented, Hersman will serve as the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Front with the title of deputy chief of staff. The people who came to attend the meeting today will all be senior staff of the Eastern Front General Headquarters or commanders of the main group armies attached to the Eastern Front.
Although the "Green Plan" is "political and supplemented by military", we still need to be prepared for war.
And if you want to base yourself on fighting, you will naturally have someone to fight against.
On the current Eastern Front, Germany will face six countries: Poland, the Baltics, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Soviet Union. Other countries either cannot reach it or cannot control it.
Among them, the Baltics and Austria have been completely controlled by Germany and are de facto components of Germany.
The Soviet Union is definitely on the side of Germany - although the Soviet Union will not openly support Germany before the war breaks out, once Germany and the Polish-Czechoslovak Alliance go to war, the Soviet Union will 100% fight alongside Germany!
The position of the Kingdom of Hungary is also very leaning towards Germany - although Admiral Horthy, supported by France, is now in power, the Hungarian people have a blood feud against France, the Czech Republic, Romania and Yugoslavia!
If Admiral Horthy dares to support the Czech Republic against Germany, expect to be strangled to death.
Therefore, Hungary's position is either to support Germany or to be neutral, and it is impossible to be an enemy of Germany.
The only uncertainty is the Polish Federation, although Hersman is prepared to take out the two big cakes of the Ceshin region and Carpathian Ukraine. But it is difficult to say what measures Britain and France will take, and whether Czechoslovakia may cede territory for help—for example, ceding Ceshin and Carpathian Ukraine to Poland.
Therefore, the "Green Plan" made preparations for war with Poland and Czechoslovakia at the same time, and also made preparations for the worst - triggering World War II!
In addition, the launch time of the "Green Plan" was also carefully chosen - Hersman was prepared to choose the opportunity when the Spanish Left Front came to power to stir up trouble in Slovakia.
Because everyone knows that the backstage of the Spanish Left Front is the Third International! If the Spanish Left Front comes to power and implements a series of left-wing policies. Then Britain and France, especially France, may become restless.
In this case, Britain and France could either appease Germany on the Czech issue and let Germany and Italy send troops to Spain, or they could take action to extinguish the Spanish revolution themselves. No matter which policy Britain and France adopt, they must accommodate Germany on the Czech issue. Otherwise, it may trigger a world war between the Soviet Union and Germany against Britain, France, Italy, and Botswana!
"Will the Spanish right-wing government hand over power?" Hersman thought for a while and asked again - of course he knew the answer, but now he was just asking knowingly.
"Yes!" Canaris said, "The handing over of power is a high probability event, because the people in power now are not the extremist Falangists on the right. The people in power are just stupid moderates, otherwise there would be no 1936 It’s an election.”
"Then the launch date of the Green Plan will be February 1936." Hersman made the final decision!
He said: "The troops must be fully mobilized before this, the equipment adequacy rate of the mechanized forces must be higher than 100%, and the air force and naval aviation must remain on combat alert. If it is decided to activate the second plan and solve it by military means, then it must The Czechoslovak Air Force must be destroyed as soon as possible. If Poland supports Czechoslovakia with force, the Polish Air Force must also be severely damaged at the first opportunity.”
In other words, the attack will first be launched by the air force!
This is almost a common practice in World War II and subsequent wars (there are exceptions). However, before World War II, many countries were still poorly prepared for enemy air force raids.
"All airports in western Czechoslovakia, except those controlled by the Free German Army (Sudeten Germans), must be destroyed as soon as possible after the war begins. The same preparations must be made for Poland."
After Hessmann said this, he looked at his crony, Air Force General Kesselring, commander of the German Air Force.
"Please rest assured, the German Air Force will complete the mission," Kesselring, wearing a blue air force uniform, stood up from his seat and said with great pride, "Because our German Air Force has the best aircraft in the world, whether it is fighters or bombers, we have obvious advantages!"
Although Germany has not given up catching up with the world's advanced level in the field of liquid-cooled engines in the past decade, the main models of the German Air Force are currently using air-cooled engines.
Among them, the fighter with the best performance is the D.31 series launched by Fokker in 1934, which is used to replace the latest product of the D.21 series also designed and produced by Fokker. The D.31 series is characterized by a closed cabin, retractable landing gear, external disposable auxiliary fuel tanks and a 1,600 horsepower double-row 14-cylinder BMW145 engine-this is the most advanced of all mass-produced air-cooled engines in the world, at least one generation ahead of the air-cooled engines of Britain, the United States and France.
It is precisely because of the leading position in the field of air-cooled engines that this Fokker D.31 fighter, which did not exist in history, has become the guarantee for the German Air Force to seize air supremacy.
However, Germany's potential opponents, Britain and France, have not given up their efforts to fight for air supremacy. British and French aircraft designers also know that they cannot compete with Germany on the route of air-cooled engines, so they focus on the route of liquid-cooled engines where they have advantages.
According to reliable intelligence, the British **** Aircraft Company and the French Morane-Saunière Company are stepping up the design of new fighters equipped with liquid-cooled engines with good aerodynamic shapes.
However, before these new British and French fighters were mass-produced, the European sky was still dominated by D.31!
This is also the confidence of General Kesselring of the Air Force.
In addition to D.31, Henschel's Hs-123 series of attack aircraft and Junkers' latest Ju.78 series of medium-sized fast bombers are all the best among the same type of aircraft.
Moreover, the German Air Force currently has not only the leading equipment technology, but also a large advantage in the number of equipment.
Because Germany's economy recovered first and has been growing rapidly since 1932, the German government has strong financial resources to promote the "100,000 Pilots Plan" and the "5,000 Military Aircraft Plan". The former is a pilot training plan that requires a large number of pilots to be trained in peacetime, and strives to make the number of German pilots licensed reach 100,000 by 1939!
The latter requires the German Air Force and Naval Aviation to expand the fleet to 5,000 by 1939. According to the plan, by the spring of 1936, the German Air Force should have about 3,000 military aircraft, which will be second in the world after the Soviet Union in terms of quantity.
Of course, Germany's military strength is not without shortcomings. Germany's naval strength is insufficient. Not only are surface ships not ready for war, but even the submarine forces are not well prepared - in Schleicher and Hessmann's plan, the war will break out after June 1939, not in early 1936.
Moreover, according to the plan, in the initial stage of the war, that is, from 1939 to 1941, the combat mission of the German Navy was only to disrupt trade. Therefore, the Navy's expansion plan will be divided into two stages before and after 1939. Before 1939, the Navy mainly focused on accumulating horizontal ship hull technology (design, construction and use), developing shore-based aviation and carrier-based aviation, and developing submarine forces. After 1939, large surface ships will be built on a large scale.
This secret naval expansion plan code-named "Z" was proposed by Admiral Raeder and represented the collective interests of the German Navy. Naturally, Hessmann could only comply.
Therefore, the revision opinion given by the General Staff was to increase the number of submarines to about 300 before June 1939-this was also the request of Karl Dönitz, commander of the submarine force.
But it was only 1935, and Dönitz had less than 50 submarines that could be used for combat, of which only 20 submarines could be used for ocean operations. Even by February 1936, the number of submarines was only about 60, which was not enough to blockade Britain in wartime.
However, Germany was not without the possibility of winning in 1936 - the key was to unite with the Soviet Union!
Because the Soviet Red Navy currently had more than 80 submarines of various types, including about 20 large submarines that could be used for ocean operations. As long as the Soviet Union went to war with Britain and France, the submarines of the Soviet Union and Germany would be enough to pose a great threat to Britain's overseas routes.