"Roosevelt bragged on the radio all day long, and then we taught him a lesson that he will never forget: Naval Air dropped a bomb on New York at about 3 a.m. yesterday, knocking down the Statue of Liberty, destroying the Empire State Building, and paralyzing the Brooklyn Bridge!"

"Long live the Empire!"

"Now we have to tell them with artillery shells that the German air defense system is much more complete than they imagined, and it is not that they come and go when they want!"

"Defend Berlin to the death! Defend the Führer! ”

After a brief mobilization order, all anti-aircraft artillery positions, radar stations, anti-aircraft towers defending Berlin were put into a state of imminent combat. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

In the headquarters of the Berlin air defense tower, many high-ranking air defense units, including Jeshunek, Kamhuber, and Garand, gathered high-ranking air defense units, looked at the huge light curtain map marking the bright spots of enemy planes, their own air defense positions, aircraft assembly sites, and other signs, and listened to the short and forceful orders of the staff officers and commanding officers, and everyone only felt a little nervous. It has been a long time since Berlin has encountered such a large air raid group, and everyone can't help but sweat, if it fails to complete the air defense interception mission today, this matter will be in trouble.

The Berlin air defense tower belongs to the first generation of air defense towers, and is the earliest air defense tower built in the Greater Berlin area, because it is located near the zoo, it is generally called the zoo air defense tower. Like other anti-aircraft towers, the tower is divided into two parts: one part is a building where anti-aircraft guns are housed, called the G tower, 4 bases are 1 group to form a G tower, the base part of each base is 60 square meters, about 25 meters high, each base is equipped with a Rheinmetall twin 128mm anti-aircraft gun, and the entire G tower is usually equipped with 4 twin anti-aircraft guns.

The other part is a smaller building with sensors, communications equipment and radar, known as the L Tower, which is usually located 400-500 meters away from the G Tower, and is connected by a transportation supply line located underground. Due to the fact that there were no large-caliber anti-aircraft guns on the L tower, only 37mm guns, the building was relatively small. Relying on the data transmitted from the radar of the L tower, the anti-aircraft fire of the G tower allows for accurate fire. To avoid interference, in addition to radar, towers are often equipped with listening phones and searchlights to capture enemy aircraft more effectively.

A group of G towers and L towers are used together to form an air defense tower in the full sense of the word. At 70 meters long and 70 meters wide, this impressive reinforced concrete building also boasts 8 meters thick walls and a 5-meter-thick roof, making it the largest anti-aircraft facility of our time.

After the British air raid in 1940, the Supreme Command, under the cover of the "Berlin Special Plan", secretly repaired the anti-aircraft turret for Berlin's air defense. The Third Reich had historically planned to build 6 such turrets in Berlin, but in the end only 3 were completed, but under Hoffmann's vigorous adjustments, the priority of turret construction was greatly increased and the density was greatly increased, and a total of 12 anti-aircraft towers will be built in the entire Greater Berlin area according to the plan, and 8 have been completed so far.

Other major cities such as Hamburg, Frankfurt, Vienna, Dresden, Cologne, Bremen and Nuremberg have planned 6-8 anti-aircraft towers, and the overall design has been developed to the third generation. The integration of firepower and command has been greatly improved, and the third-generation turret usually has eight twin-mounted 128mm anti-aircraft guns, which are much more powerful and larger than the first-generation guns. The anti-aircraft guns are usually electrically powered, human-assisted, and therefore highly automated, with turrets providing and protecting vulnerable and vulnerable electrical installations, as well as providing their own independent power generation facilities.

Although the zoo tower is of the first generation, it is ideally located in the west of Berlin and is the first line of defense against air raids, so the air defense command usually sits here instead of the Friedrich turret in the center of Berlin - although it is a third-generation turret, which is more advanced and comprehensive.

The entire zoo turret consists of one basement and six above ground, and can accommodate up to 15,000 people, with a very reasonable internal layout:

The first floor is a civil air raid shelter, equipped with separate power supply and water supply facilities, nearby civilians do not have to dig air raid shelters, and can hide inside after the air defense alarm sounds;

The second floor is a temporary storage place for art galleries and museum collections, with basic temperature and humidity storage conditions, but most of the time it is used for material storage;

The third floor is a temporary hospital with nearly 100 beds and 2 operating rooms, with 8 doctors, 20 nurses and 30 assistants;

The 4th and 5th floors are usually the soldiers' quarters, as well as the headquarters headquarters, the communications center, the Gestapo branch and other facilities, so that they can climb to the top of the tower at any time and participate in anti-aircraft battles.

The G tower was usually defended by 350 anti-aircraft officers and men, commanded by a major, and assisted by members of the Hitler Youth (generally only 15-17 years old). Since the Berlin air defense tower was so perfect that in Goebbels' opinion the Americans' air defense facilities were a joke, and there was a factual basis for his ridicule on the radio.

Hoffmann was very satisfied with the construction of anti-aircraft towers, and repeatedly stressed the need to increase the construction of them, and under his promotion, Germany built hundreds of times more anti-aircraft towers than in history, and almost did not cost much money - he stopped the construction of a large number of meaningless Führer bunkers and command centers, and most of the time he stayed only in Berlin, and even the Vinnitsa headquarters on the Eastern Front was basically closed, and the saved funds were invested here.

Hoffmann stopped the construction of the Atlantic fortress fortifications and helped Western European countries to build this kind of air defense tower in the same way, usually Germany produced drawings, weapons and equipment and command systems, and Western European countries contributed labor, steel and cement and other raw materials to build together, which supplemented Germany's overall air defense system, and also played an important role in further uniting the hearts and minds of Western European countries and stabilizing society. Even the Japanese side was extremely impressed when they saw this design of the air defense tower, and they did everything possible to go to a set of drawings for reference.

Hoffman changed his attitude towards the Jews, and a large number of Jews were subjected to three years of forced labor instead of being turned into corpses in concentration camps, and although the Allies had been attacking Germany for their lack of human rights, at least in the eyes of Western Europe and the Germans, there was nothing to blame for doing so, and in addition to Jews, Poles and Russian prisoners of war were also involved in forced labor.

More importantly, the construction of an air defense system with an air defense tower as the core is extremely cost-effective economically, and the construction of an original air defense tower similar to a zoo cost about 6 million Reichsmarks, including the 128mm anti-aircraft guns that cost 200,000 marks each, and by the time of the third generation of air defense towers, the construction cost rose to 25 million Reichsmarks - it seems expensive, after all, a Tiger is less than 300,000 marks, but it is not expensive at all compared to the value it plays.

Even if an air defense tower does not calculate the value of its command, coordination, shelter, and vigilance, it can kill 8 to 10 heavy bombers with a cost of more than 1 million marks in a month with anti-aircraft firepower alone -- the first generation of anti-aircraft turrets will recover their costs after a month's fighting; After three months of fighting, the third-generation anti-aircraft turret basically paid for itself. With the improvement of layout density and the large-scale popularization and use of proximity fuses, there is still room for further improvement in the efficiency of air defense towers. It's just that now the Allied bombers are very few, and the newly built anti-aircraft towers have generally not recovered their costs.

At first, many people complained about the construction of the air defense tower, which was costly and took up a lot of manpower, but when Hoffman told them the account, everyone was stunned and raised their hands in favor of speeding up the construction. For the citizens of Berlin, the huge and striking anti-aircraft towers gave them a sense of security – as long as they took refuge, their lives were completely secured. There is even a widespread saying: "No matter what happens in Berlin, the anti-aircraft tower will hold out for at least another 1 year." ”

Hoffman, as a traverser, knew the situation in more detail and depth than anyone else, and the anti-aircraft towers were far more robust than they imagined: none of the turrets were destroyed by air raids in the war, and after the war, Britain and the United States spent 35 tons of explosives, and painstakingly dug hundreds of holes in the tower and planted explosives in many attempts to dismantle the first generation of zoo anti-aircraft towers, while the British tried to dismantle the Fort William anti-aircraft tower in 1947 but failed: the anti-aircraft tower was unharmed after the explosion of 25 tons of explosives, and after the use of 35 tons of explosives to re-explode, Still standing tenaciously, tens of thousands of Berliners chanting "Made in Germany, can't be blown up!" The slogan finally forced Britain and the United States to abandon the blasting.

The gray and green camouflage facade, the spiral staircase between the floors, and the automatic lifting between the top and the top all attract the teenagers to explore the unknown, often encountering homeless wanderers. It was this experience and understanding that gave Hoffman an instinctive dedication to building air defense towers.

"Enemy aircraft are 120 kilometers from the main tower, the highest combat readiness, repeat, the highest combat readiness!"

At 15:28, Li Mei led a huge group of bombers to the periphery of Berlin, the neat flight box is shocking, the planes at the top and middle of the box each carry 10 500-pound high-explosive bombs, the planes at the bottom of the box are each loaded with 16 250-pound incendiary bombs, the planes in the three layers of airspace are moving at a very stable speed between each other, slowing down if they are fast, speeding up when they are slow, and around the bomber group are vigilant escort fighters, ready to expel or shoot down the enemy planes that come to challenge at any time.

"All formations should pay attention, they are about to enter the airspace over the target, please pay attention to maintaining the formation and spacing, we are about to reduce the altitude, do not panic when encountering enemy aircraft or anti-aircraft artillery fire, and act according to the usual training plan and strategy."

While responding to the formation commander (usually 40-60 aircraft have a formation commander, Li Mei is only responsible for this level), while praying to complete the mission and return home as soon as possible, Li Mei paid close attention to the anti-aircraft fire below and the situation of the interceptor fighters in front. (To be continued.) )