Chapter 12: A Meeting of Two Titans

Akado was not a man who only cared about his own promotions and fortune. He was also using his position to subtly build his influence within the military.

Akado secretly organized different branches within the newly formed Reichswehr divisions, establishing tank units, and covertly promoting qualified officers to be commanders of non-existent forces, while also improving their benefits.

Through his efforts, although Germany was not allowed to have its own tank forces, Akado had still given the fledgling German Reichswehr the most powerful armored force in the world—of course, this force existed only on paper.

According to Akado’s training results, Germany now possessed over five thousand qualified tank drivers and more than seven hundred tank warfare commanders whom he had personally trained in tank combat operations, enough for Germany to equip a thousand tanks at a moment’s notice.

Following Akado’s suggestion, the military secretly dispatched its air force officers to establish several large glider clubs among the civilian population, recruiting members in large numbers. Some pilots from the Great War joined these glider clubs. In order to soar in the sky again for just a few minutes, they would carry heavy equipment to the tops of high mountains and then, disregarding the danger, charge into the air currents and off cliffs.

Although the inspectors from the Allied Military Control Commission examined these glider clubs, because the gliders posed no real threat, the matter was eventually dropped. While Britain and France lodged formal protests with Germany, it was predictable that these protests would be ignored by the German authorities.

And there really wasn’t much to protest about. The German Reichswehr had a current strength of 100,000 men. To its east, the newly established Poland had a regular army of 600,000 and 1,000 aircraft. To its west, France had an army of nearly one million, plus a massive reserve force. In comparison, Germany posed no real threat to speak of.

However, no one knew that right under the noses of the Allied Military Control Commission, a German Army Lieutenant Colonel named Akado had already trampled the Treaty of Versailles into dust. A single Operation Pluto plan had allowed Germany to effectively possess a defense force of 200,000 men and retain modern military branches such as armored troops and an air force.

Akado, far-sighted and in control of certain financial powers, had even embezzled 3 million German Marks to secretly carry out his own, even more audacious, personal plans.

He secretly funded several private laboratories to conduct various scientific research projects that were immature at the time but would later prove to be epoch-making. These included radio miniaturization, liquid rocket fuel, synthetic rubber technology, alloy technology, and nuclear physics research.

Although this funding was just a drop in the bucket, as the money was divided into more than a dozen small portions to simultaneously support the research projects of many scientists, it was undoubtedly timely and forward-thinking. At this time, these projects were not taken seriously and were, in fact, almost completely ignored.

…

At the train station, steam filled the air. The train had just come to a stop when two men in dark yellow uniforms and military-style caps—Nazi Brownshirts—jumped down from the train. Behind them, a man in a grey trench coat followed.

His hair was meticulously combed to one side, and the small mustache just below his nose made his face unforgettable.

Most chilling of all were his eagle-like eyes. As they scanned the surroundings, they projected an air of dominance and authority.

“My Führer, the car is ready!” A man with a large belly stepped forward from behind him and said.

Hearing this, the man nodded and, surrounded by a crowd of Brownshirts, slowly walked out of the station platform.

Outside the platform, dozens of Brownshirts mixed with about a hundred civilians in various attire held up banners and shouted loudly, “Berlin welcomes you, Mr. Hitler!”

Hitler simply gave a casual wave and got into a high-end car that was waiting for him. As soon as he was inside, he spoke impatiently, “Don’t go to the hotel. I want to go to a friend’s place.”

The train had arrived in the evening, and it was now nearly five o’clock. This was a time to be heading to a reserved hotel to rest, not a good time for visiting friends.

The driver, seeing Hitler get into the car and hearing him change the itinerary, asked politely, “My Führer, it’s so late. Which friend are you going to visit?”

Hitler’s eagle-like eyes stared at the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. After a full few seconds, he averted his gaze. “Don’t ask so many questions. Drive to Unter den Linden.”

Unter den Linden was a very famous street in Berlin. The Kaiser had reviewed his troops here, and its sides were lined with historic buildings constructed by great architects. Finding a residence here was no easy feat, but for certain special people, it wasn’t difficult at all.

Through his connections with General von Seeckt, Akado had found an inconspicuous apartment here. He used his ever-increasing salary to cover the high rent and had made his home on this famous street. It wasn’t too far from the Reichswehr High Command and had a very nice view.

Akado placed an open bottle of red wine in the middle of the table and sat on the sofa, humming a tune. He was waiting for Hitler’s arrival. On the table, he had prepared red wine and some light food.

Hitler was a passionate vegetarian, a vegetarian through and through. This was no secret among scholars who studied him in later generations. The fact that he was a butcher and a mass murderer, yet also cared about green eating, was enough to show that the man suffered from severe schizophrenia.

“The view here is not bad,” Hitler said after entering the room. He didn’t shake Akado’s hand. After a few pleasantries delivered with a touch of pride and arrogance, he leaned against the windowsill and said, “It seems you haven’t fulfilled your promise to me.”

“Is that so?” Akado hadn’t expected their reunion after two years to be like this. It was somewhat awkward and somewhat poignant.

Hitler looked at Akado’s rather modest apartment and spread his hands. “You didn’t complete the plan! I am already one of the leaders of the Nazi Party. My subordinate, Röhm, even has tens of thousands of Brownshirts under his command! I have fulfilled my promise to you, but you are now nothing more than a measly lieutenant colonel!”

It was indeed a “measly” lieutenant colonel. The high-ranking officials the Nazi Party was now associating with included some of the most famous generals from the German military in the First World War. For Hitler to look down on Akado’s current rank was no exaggeration.

Akado also knew that although he had immense prestige in the grassroots of the Reichswehr, had personally directed its reconstruction, and could even sway the decisions of the Commander-in-Chief, General von Seeckt, he did not have a force that was truly his own.

Although General Hammon, the commander of the 1st Division, followed Akado’s every word, he was ultimately still one of Seeckt’s direct subordinates. Therefore, the 1st Division, where Akado had the deepest influence, was in fact still firmly in Seeckt’s hands. As for the other units, there wasn’t a single one that Akado could command directly.

The 103rd and 105th Regiments, with which Akado was on good terms, were now part of the 15th Division, headquartered in Hamburg. It could be said that this was Akado’s only real power base at the moment. After all, half of the division’s regimental commanders were old acquaintances of Akado’s, and the fact that this division was reorganized as a main force unit was entirely the result of Akado’s abuse of his authority.

Thanks to Akado’s efforts, this 15th Division had a batch of Germany’s newest armored cars, the entire division was equipped with over forty radios, and every company was equipped with some of the German Reichswehr’s scarce machine guns.

Because of Akado’s deliberate arrangements, this division was an elite unit, second only to the 1st Reichswehr Division. As a result, its commander, General Reo, was deeply grateful to Akado. This man was a Prussian noble but not one of Seeckt’s direct subordinates. He was now considered a peripheral member of Akado’s faction.

Speaking of Akado’s faction, it was essentially the “Young Turk” faction within the Reichswehr. This faction’s power was weak, and its voice was not loud, but it represented the future successors of the German military. Akado was the representative figure of these men, not their actual leader.

Thinking through all this only took a moment. Akado still spoke in a very calm tone, “You came all this way to see me, without even eating dinner. Surely it wasn’t just to mock my low rank?”

“Of course not! I need you, Akado! I need your ideas! I need your creativity! I need you to walk with me towards glory!” Hitler extended an olive branch, inviting Akado with an excited look on his face. “Join the Nazi Party! Become our comrade! What do you say?”

He stared at Akado, very agitated. “You are smarter than Röhm, more intelligent than all the others! I need a strategist like you! With you on board, I will be invincible!”

“Join the Nazi Party? I wonder what position I would hold after joining?” Akado asked with a smile.

“I will appoint you as the Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party! You will be the leader second only to me! I will make you a celebrity in all of German politics! If the two of us run in the general election together, we can make the Nazi Party the victor in the parliamentary elections! I am certain of it!” Hitler continued his persuasion, offering what he believed was an incredibly valuable chip, just waiting to see if Akado would take the bait.

Then, without waiting for Akado to reply, he waved his hand again. “No! You could have an even greater role! I will mobilize our Nazi Party’s hidden forces within the military to help you rise further! You will become the voice of the Nazi Party in the military! Until we completely control the Reichswehr! You will be the Vice President of Germany! How about it?”

“And what about the Nazi Party itself? Those radical anti-foreigner statements in the newspapers, and those speeches about controlling the military that are enough to alarm the army… I’m not saying I didn’t warn you, Adolf. By walking further and further down this radical path, you will not get the support of the military!” Akado said, looking at Hitler with some regret.

If Hitler had developed the Nazi Party according to Akado’s vision, Akado wouldn’t have minded cooperating with him, using the Nazi Party to gain control of all of Germany, and then, together with Hitler, launching a brand-new Second World War.

But clearly, Hitler had ignored every piece of advice Akado had written in that little notebook. He had willfully pulled the Nazi Party back onto its original historical trajectory, because while Akado’s development strategy was more stable and comprehensive, it lacked the speed that Hitler cherished most.