"When I left this town many years ago, I had exactly the same faith in my heart as I do today. After so many years, I was able to make this belief come true, and I can see how deeply moved I am now. If God had told me to leave this town to become the leader of Germany, he must have given me a mission in doing so, and that mission could only be to bring my dear country back to Germany. I believe in this mission, I live to fight for this mission, and I think I have achieved it now. ”

After a brief stay in his hometown of Linhei, on March 14, Hitler finally arrived in Vienna, where he had wandered for so long. The gates of the Academy of Fine Arts are still majestic, and the caves under the Putles Stone Bridge are still damp and cold, but when 30 years of wind and rain have passed, everything has changed dramatically. The homeless man who wore an ankle-length coat and made a living by clearing snow, carrying luggage, and painting watercolors on the streets, has returned to the city that had kept him with hunger for five years, and today he has risen above the Nine Heavens and become the supreme hero of the 80 million Germanic people of Central Europe!

In the Hofburg Castle, the imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty, Hitler met with an excited Inquart. The latter proudly declared that the relevant provisions of the Treaty of Saint-Germain concerning the status of Austria had been rendered null and void. This made Hitler cry again, just as he had been five years earlier when he had first come to power. He then announced that a new referendum would be held on April 10, covering all of Germany and Austria's 74 million people, to decide whether Austria should be incorporated into Germany. In order to achieve this, Hitler resumed his old profession of speeches, issuing a series of surging and instructive speeches to his subjects.

In fact, it's just a formality for the world to see. With the full-scale influx of German troops into Austria, all rights and interests in the country were completely in the hands of Berlin. All military factories were taken over by Germany. in turn to the service of its war economy; Merchants and bankers also flocked to buy the property of the usurped Jews and anti-Nazis at a fraction of its own value.

Among the smiling visitors was Dr. Schacht, who no one else could emulate. Despite his quarrels with Hitler, he remained a minister in the German cabinet (regardless of minister) and was still president of the Rijksbank. He was overjoyed by the German-Austrian merger.

Just a week after Hitler's homecoming. Schacht came to Vienna on behalf of the Rijksbank, took over the Austrian National Bank, and looted and swallowed up all of its foreign exchange, precious metals, and bonds. He addressed the staff of the Bank of Austria: "Anyone who does not wholeheartedly support Adolf? Hitler's people have no future for us. Finally, Schacht led his listeners in pledging allegiance to Hitler and shouted three times the necessary "Long live victory" for the National Socialist rally.

The Danube River flows through the Habsburgs, but as the flag is raised, the Jewish community in the country suffers unprecedented misfortune. Overnight, they were reduced to third-class citizens and were swept out of all decent and high-end professional fields. Day after day. Crowds of Jewish men and women can be seen wiping Hushnigg's slogans off the sidewalks and cleaning the streets. They lay on the ground doing this kind of cleaning work, and the SS stood by and watched, and people gathered around to insult the Jews.

Hundreds of Jewish men and women were taken to clean public toilets and toilets in SS barracks. Their property was stolen and the police refused to take care of the cases, and soon ordinary Jews were reduced to a worse and more miserable situation than Hitler had been when he was a vagabond.

On 10 April, the referendum on the German-Austrian merger was held under the organization of the National Socialist Party. After nearly a month of stormy propaganda, the Austrians gradually came to identify with Hitler's ideas. That is, union with Germany was the ideal and inevitable end, because in 1918 Austria was cut off from the former vast Slavic and Hungarian interior. After all, you can't rely on yourself and exist decently. It can only exist as part of Germany.

Hitler's economic and diplomatic successes also made the Austrians look forward to their future after joining Germany, and did not have the slightest resistance to becoming slaves. As for the fanatical National Socialist elements, they unreservedly expressed their support for the Führer's call!

In addition to the lure of gentle promises, the National Socialist Party was prepared with enough sticks to intimidate Austrians who dared to vote against it. In Vienna alone, nearly 80,000 people were imprisoned before the referendum. A few days later, they returned home, glazed and distraught, and there was no more rhetoric to expel the German invaders. On the day of the polls, large cracks were opened in the corners of the polling booths in Austria, so that the Nazi election commissioners, who were sitting more than a meter away, could clearly see how people were voting. Ultimately. 99.75 per cent of Austrians and 99.08 per cent of Großdeutschland voted in favour, and Austria disappeared from the European map.

"Up-to-date map of Germany, map of Europe, map of the world!"

On April 12, the sky was twilight, and the crisp and immature and extremely excited voice of the newsboy sounded in the cities and towns of Germany. In just a few minutes, the otherwise empty streets were filled with ants emerging from their holes, crowding the paperboy's thin body and waving the finney bills in their hands to buy the scrolls that still smelled of ink. They were happy to find that the national border between Germany and Austria had disappeared and was replaced by a gray-blue plate representing the political districts. And Germany has also ushered in a leap forward in land area and population, which is even better than in the past imperial period!

Inside the Brom family's ancestral home in Hamburg, Fang Yan looked at the new map on the wall with emotion. For religious and political reasons, the two Germanic brothers, Habsburg Austria and Hohenzollern-Prussia, which were Protestant, were never united since the division of the Holy Roman Empire; In order to compete for territory and German dominance, the two sides fought several major wars in the previous two hundred years. And today, Germany and Austria have finally been merged in the hands of Hitler. If we go back to the historical level, Hitler's move is undoubtedly an immortal achievement that created an 800-year precedent and realized the great aspiration of 30 generations to create the Great Germany!

"Jonas, you probably won't have any more missions to sea in the near future, will you?" Rudolph, who was looming in Huafa, looked at his young son and asked with concern in his eyes. In the past half a year, Fang Yan only spent half a month at home, and the rest were all moving with the ship in the rough ocean; Mo said that it was Sylvia, who was extremely attached to him, and even Rudolph, who was close to his sixtieth birthday, couldn't help but feel a little longing in his heart. Rudolph has long been powerless to interfere with the path chosen by his young son, he just hopes that in the twilight of his life, he can feel more of the family happiness of his descendants around his knees.

Fang Yan smiled and said, "Father, rest assured, the navy will never have such a long-term mission in the future." At present, the Spanish National Army has achieved a decisive advantage, capturing all the coastal areas of the Bay of Biscay by the Republican Army; In this case, the Navy no longer needs to blockade this vast sea area, and the attendance rate of warships will drop dramatically compared to the past two years. If nothing else, I can stay in the country for a long time. ”

Speaking of this, Fang Yan paused slightly, his handsome and resolute face showed a bit of confidence, and said hesitantly: "Actually, this kind of mission is also the best promotion and sharpening for me. If it weren't for the Spanish Civil War, which gave me a valuable opportunity to practice, I would never have risen through the ranks so quickly. ”

Rudolph turned his gaze to Fang Yan's broad shoulders, and the four-pointed Venus on the epaulette stood out against the backdrop of the thick and tangled silver braids around it. Feeling the rapid growth of his young son, Rudolph's mouth also showed a smile containing pride.

Because of his outstanding performance in several cruise missions and his important theoretical and practical contributions to the development and formation of combat effectiveness of the German carrier-based aviation, Fang Yan, who has just turned 30, was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 7 April, becoming the brightest rising star in the entire Wehrmacht. Although Fang Yan's record is far from shocking in history, Napoleon, who served as a general at the age of 24, is a trench that countless regular soldiers are desperate for, but he has successfully climbed to the key position of his ideal through more than ten years of hard work!

At present, according to Fang Yan's initiative, the top brass of the Navy still set his position above the staff of the fleet, so that he can give full play to his expertise in the field of aviation as much as possible. After all, the captain of the cruiser, the commander of the destroyer detachment, and the commander of the torpedo boat unit did not fit his career direction, and engaging in administrative work was a sign of burying his talent. After several years of running in and getting along, Fang Yan has completely won the attention and serious attention of those senior colleagues, and the officers and men of the naval aviation have treated him as their own.

Originally, Rudolph didn't expect Fang Yan to achieve a high status in the army, after all, the family had only entered the military since his generation; However, now seeing Fang Yan's astonishing promotion speed, Rudolph, who was excited in his heart, couldn't help but be full of expectations for his family to appear as a military giant. (To be continued.) )