Chapter 98: Development

“Sir, I am of course interested. But what I want to know is, what’s in it for me? And how much power do you have?” Hitler asked very solemnly.

“I have the support of a portion of the military! These troops are all currently loyal to President Hindenburg! But that old fellow now favors Akado! So I have come to you!” the old man said very slowly, as if speaking took all his strength.

Hitler was silent for a few seconds, then, with the rocking of the car, he spoke again. “I’m sorry! I cannot believe what you’re saying! In the past, too many people have written me useless empty checks. So I need to see something real before I can make a decision.”

“I can take you to meet someone. That way, you will know why I can gather so much strength, and you will also know what price you yourself will have to pay,” the old man said after some thought.

“Who?” Hitler asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Our Crown Prince Wilhelm,” the old man said softly, as if afraid of being overheard.

Hitler’s eyebrows shot up, and he blurted out, “Crown Prince Wilhelm? He wants a restoration? Impossible! Look at what happened to Seeckt back then! I have no desire to be the second one!” Seeckt, in his day, could be said to be at the height of his power. But just for revealing sympathy for the royal family, he was completely cast down into the abyss. If he, a mere leader of the small Nazi Party, were to walk down this old path, he would surely be doomed forever.

“We have learned our lesson. We are no longer prepared to challenge the democratic forces of Germany!” the old man said, answering Hitler’s doubts. “So this time we will not make a mistake! Nor will we fantasize about returning to the pinnacle of power in Germany again. What we need are other interests! To be precise, we now only hope to obtain money.”

“How much do you want?” Hitler asked with a frown.

The old man snorted and replied very proudly, “Mr. Hitler, we want everything! All of it! The Reichswehr’s arms will be supplied by Crown Prince Wilhelm. The German people’s butter and bread will be produced by Crown Prince Wilhelm. The cars on the street, the houses by the road, the clothes on their backs… we will monopolize all of this! What we want is the economy of all of Germany, and even the entire world.”

“Impossible! You can’t possibly have that much capital to acquire so many enterprises,” Hitler sneered mockingly. “These fields belong to many different financial consortiums and companies. How could you possibly control them all?”

“As long as you are victorious, as long as you become the one and only leader of this country, we will have a chance!” the old man said with a smile. “This is also the main reason I have sought you out! Because right now, only your Nazi Party can shake the rule of the Greater Germany Party.”

“You want to…?” Hitler suddenly felt a chill and stared at the old man.

The old man, seeing that Hitler had understood, nodded with a cruel smile. “That’s right! If major merchants like Krupp are all dead! Then we can smoothly take over these collapsing companies and enterprises. And under your authoritarian rule, they will have no ability to resist at all.”

“This plan is too insane,” Hitler said, shaking his head.

The old man chuckled. “If it’s not a little bit insane, how can it achieve an unexpected effect?”

“I take the power, and you take the money?” Hitler asked again for confirmation after some thought.

“Very fair, isn’t it?” the old man said, narrowing his eyes and laughing twice more. “That is why this plan is called ‘Operation Balance’.”

“You win! I agree to cooperate!” Hitler finally nodded after some thought. “I want to meet with the high-ranking officers of the military! Immediately!”

“No problem!” the old man said, very satisfied with this cooperation. “I will arrange it at once!”

Hitler fiercely bit down on his own teeth and muttered incessantly in his heart, “Akado! This time I have united the forces in France that are against you, and have also gathered the royalist forces and the old army faction—I’d like to see if you’ll get a big surprise in the parliamentary election! Hahahaha!”

At this very moment, Akado was still unaware that a strategic alliance had already been formed against the Greater Germany Party. He was single-mindedly dealing with his other enemy—the Allied Military Control Commission.

The Krupp factory, according to the original plan, was already using assembly line techniques to mass-produce the large-caliber artillery that Germany needed most. In the past six months, the Germans had produced 500 cannons of 150mm caliber and had blatantly equipped them to the infantry divisions deployed on the eastern front.

These cannons replaced the original 88mm anti-aircraft guns that were disguised as howitzers, instantly almost doubling the equipment of the German artillery. Many front-line German infantry divisions even had to put some cannons into storage because they didn’t have enough artillerymen.

And more and more divisions in the German army also began to see the appearance of tanks. For example, besides the traditional tank divisions, the 25th Panzer Division and the 26th Cavalry Division, the 11th and 12th Reichswehr Divisions were also equipped with P-2 tanks. And these tanks were the second-hand goods phased out from the two main tank divisions.

Now, Guderian’s 25th Panzer Division was fully re-equipped with the new Panther tank, that is, the new tank codenamed P-4. This tank had completely exceeded the standards stipulated in the “New Treaty of Versailles” and could be said to be the standard model for Germany’s future tanks. Therefore, the 25th Panzer Division had become the undisputed strongest armored division in the world at present.

Of course, Rommel’s 26th Cavalry Division was no slouch either. They were equipped with a large number of Panzer III tanks. Although this tank, codenamed P-3, was not as advanced as the P-4, its advantage lay in its mature technology. Moreover, the 75mm caliber assault gun improved from this weapon was recognized by the artillery troops and was being mass-produced in a race against time.

And the No. 3 assault gun, as a characteristic weapon of the German artillery, was listed outside the weapon prohibitions by the German military on the grounds that it “did not violate the treaty.” By the time the Allied Military Control Commission came to its senses and strictly ordered a halt to production, more than 400 of these self-propelled guns had already been produced and were dispersedly deployed in various infantry and armored divisions in Germany.

In this way, after a careful calculation, Akado found that his armored forces had already taken shape. The Reichswehr now possessed nearly 695 P-2 tanks, 391 P-3 tanks, and 347 P-4 tanks—and over 400 assault gun combat vehicles. The number of his armored weapons had already approached two thousand, several times the number of armored weapons stipulated for Germany by the “New Treaty of Versailles.”

At the same time, Germany was also equipped with 2,900 motorcycles, 1,132 armored personnel carriers, over 1,700 off-road jeeps, and 3,700 trucks and over 270 special tow trucks. This equipment meant that one in every nine German soldiers could be transported by a vehicle. Coupled with the nearly one hundred thousand warhorses Germany still maintained, for a time the German Reichswehr became the most mobile force in the world.

Counting the 70 fighter jets secretly equipped by the burgeoning air force, Germany now had over 130 fighter aircraft, and also over 40 transport aircraft (some planes were equipped as spare parts, while others came from the original civilian air transport departments). Although these planes did not bring any essential change in the balance of power for the German air force, they openly trained batch after batch of outstanding pilots for the German air force.

Although the Reichswehr had grown stronger in the past year, a portion of this strength had been exposed to France and Britain during the Rhineland crisis, which also directly attracted the attention of France and Britain. The most direct consequence was that the French-led Allied Military Control Commission’s supervision of the German Reichswehr, at least the army, became much stricter than before.

So although Akado now had the intention to deliver a fatal blow to the Nazi Party, he did not have the energy to personally wield the knife—he now had to accompany the French and Belgian military control investigators to various military bases in Germany to inspect those “absolutely non-existent” non-compliant military facilities and equipment.

So that afternoon, Akado had no choice but to go to the garrison of the 1st Division in the suburbs to accompany the Control Commission’s investigators to check the number of armored cars there. The next morning, Akado again took a plane to the Kiel naval port, because the Belgian Control Commission’s investigator had received intelligence that the German Reichswehr was building an airfield outside the Kiel naval port and using non-regulation fighter jets to train pilots.

“Colonel Grudo,” Akado said with a smile to the Belgian military man sitting opposite him on the plane, “The accusations against the Reichswehr are all non-existent. I don’t know who is providing you with all this intelligence, but the facts have proven that this intelligence is all wrong!”

“General Akado! You may not admit it, but you and I both know very well in our hearts! The German Reichswehr is playing with fire! You are trying every means to restore your military strength! And this military strength far exceeds the scale you would need for self-defense!” Grudo stared at Akado’s face, hoping to see something from it, but regrettably he saw nothing—Smith hadn’t, so he couldn’t either.

“Colonel Grudo! Is this the secret military airfield you were talking about?” Akado pointed to a short airstrip below the plane, and the two triplane civilian aircraft parked on it. “This airfield is on record with us and with you! This is a completely legal civilian airport!”

“Yes! But this runway can take off military aircraft!” Grudo said with a sigh. “And I have no way of checking what is actually inside the hangars here. Am I right, General Akado?”

Akado nodded with a smile. “You’re right! But I really don’t have time now to accompany you around inspecting all these miscellaneous civilian facilities! I have to rush back to Berlin to prepare for the upcoming parliamentary election.”

A wicked smile appeared on Grudo’s lips. He extended his hand and shook Akado’s. “I’m very sorry to have delayed you for so many days, General! I will complete the rest of the inspection on my own! I wish your Greater Germany Party success in the election!”

Akado nodded. “Thank you! We will!”