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Chapter 3: Sisterhood and Childly Infatuation [Act II] Shocking Change (14)

During this period, Britain and France were somewhat fortunate that Italy, which they had always despised, had "fled" again this time -- in order to evade war obligations and fantasize about another "Munich Agreement"-style compromise, Benito Mussolini, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy, put forward the so-called "minimum material requirements" as early as August 25,[77] which was conveyed by his son-in-law, Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ziano, by telephone to Ambassador to Germany Atolico and informed the German side. This greatly displeased Adolf Hitler and other German high-level leaders. &65288;&26825;&33457;&31958;&23567;&35828;&32593;&32;&87;&119;&119;&46;&77;&105;&97;&110;&72;&117;&97;&84;&97;&110;&103;&46;&67;&99;&32;&25552;&20379;&84;&120;&116; &20813;&36153;&19979;&36733;&65289;So much so that before August 26, the true intention of destroying Poland had not been confided to their allies. He also demanded that Italy do its best to contain the land and naval forces of Britain and France during the Polish War, and provide labor support to Hitler for the war [78].

Thus, in order to facilitate the victory of the German-Polish War, from September 3 onwards, these special trains carrying the highest echelons of the empire sailed from Berlin to Poland day and night.

The first column was a special Führer train, which contained Adolf Hitler, General Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the General Staff of the Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces, Major General Alfred Yodl, the first Minister of Operations, and senior staff officers of the Army, Navy, and Air Force;

The second column belonged to the Hermann-Wilhelm-Goering special train and contained the air marshal and his adjutants, staff officers, etc.;

The third column belonged to the special train of Himmler, the 'leader of the nation', and because of Himmler's departure, the second train contained only the Imperial Foreign Minister, Ulrich Friedrich, Wilhelm-Joachim, von Ribbentrop, and Dr. Lammols[79]

"Hmph, what a friend of the 'dirty little champagne dealer'[80] is, really bold: not to mention that he inexplicably returned to Berlin a few days ago, why did he convene a reprimand at five o'clock yesterday morning, and after a meeting at the Central Ministry of the Interior at eight o'clock, he delayed for another day for no reason, and is still nowhere to be seen!? At present, the Führer is still on the front line of inspectors, and if he drags on in acting like this, is he not afraid that the Führer will be punished? The so-called 'elitist' SS turned out to be nothing more than that. In the carriage, the bloated Goering lay lazily on his side on a rare cheetah-skin mattress, and let his personal doctor give him a morphine injection, pouting disdainfully.

Exegesis:

[77] "Minimum material requirements": This war material requirement is actually very large, and the list includes 7 million tons of oil, 6 million tons of coal, 2 million tons of steel, 1 million tons of timber, and a long list of other items, all the way up to 600 tons of molybdenite, 400 tons of titanium, and 20 tons of zirconium. In addition to this, Mussolini wanted 150 anti-aircraft guns to protect the industrial zone in northern Italy, which was only a few minutes flight from the French air base, which he reminded Hitler in a reply he wrote at the time. So in the words of Ziano, who participated in the preparation of the list, the list is "enough to infuriate a cow, if the cow knows the words". It can be seen that the fascist government of Italy, represented by Mussolini, had a clear excuse to get rid of its obligations to Germany. For historical information, see History of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Chapter 17, by William Scheiler; Ziano's Diary, p. 129.

[78] For historical data, see History of the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Chapter 17; Letter from Hitler to Mussolini at 12:10 a.m. on August 27, Compendium of German Foreign Policy Essays, vol. 7, pp. 346-47; Mussolini's letter to Hitler on 27 August at 4:30 p.m., ibid., pp. 353-54......

[79] Excerpt from "Schlenburg's Memoirs" (English version), translated by Baidu Schlenburg Bar. In order to match the plot, individual historical materials and texts have been changed).

[80] 'Dirty little champagne dealer' (Göring was at odds with Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, who was openly called a "dirty little champagne dealer" because Ribbentrop married Annalis Henkel, daughter of the German champagne magnate Henkel, and peddled champagne in England, France, etc.).

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