The Führer came to the Eagle's Nest very rarely, and never stayed for more than an hour at a time. But this is by no means to say that the Eagle's Nest is backward and old, on the contrary, as a birthday gift from the Nazi Party to the Führer's 50th birthday, the Eagle's Nest supervised by Martin Bowman can be called "great and magnificent" after 13 months and more than 6,000 workers' intense construction, and the air is fresh, the scenery is beautiful, it is a habitable mountain villa, in stark contrast to the gloomy and damp of the wolf's den, not to mention the cramped base camp of Vinnitsa during the war, the only drawback is that it is far from the Eastern Front. However, if the focus of operations is shifted to the southern front, this is the most suitable place for command.

The Eagle's Nest Operational Conference Room is more than 300 square meters, and the junior staff officers of the General Staff have already arranged everything, surrounded by the standard pale green, exactly the same color as the usual color of the Army Command, and the ground is covered with a field gray artificial carpet, which is very quiet to walk on, which fully meets the requirements of the meeting. On top of the roof is a crystal chandelier arranged in the shape of a cross, illuminating the interior. The only thing that may be uncomfortable is the closed windows and curtained walls around the perimeter, but for the sake of safety and confidentiality, this is understandable, and it doesn't look stuffy thanks to a well-functioning ventilation system. On the longer walls on both sides are the huge swastikas of the Third Reich on one side and the flags of the Army, Navy and Air Force on the other, and on the shorter walls are huge full-length portraits of the Führer on one side and a huge map on the other, on which the distribution of troops and the situation of the enemy are secretly marked, so that people can see the current battlefield dynamics at a glance.

With the Führer guarding the flag team, the guards shouted, "The Führer has arrived!" Hoffmann walked into the venue with steady steps, and the originally slightly noisy conference room suddenly fell silent, and everyone stood up from their seats and made a neat "Hi, Hitler" sound.

Looking at the twinkling stars and neat salutes in the conference room, Hoffman was so nervous that his heart almost rose to his throat. He was a little embarrassed when he talked to Martin Baumann, Guderian, Zeitzler and others in a small area yesterday, and then slowly overcame this emotion, and today he thought it would be better, but he didn't expect that the deafening cry just now almost made him shudder and collapse. If he was a scholar, each of these generals with red stripes on his trousers and cornflower patterns on his collar badges was the object of his admiration - signing a name was trivial, and he could write a scholarly masterpiece if he caught it, but he didn't expect that by mistake, these would become his subordinates, and he would have to direct them to go to war, which made him feel that it was an almost unattainable goal. He waved his hand slightly, his joints and wrists were stiff, and if someone stood by and listened carefully, they could probably hear the sound of his teeth "clucking" as he gritted his teeth.

"You may be seated." Hoffmann, who had easily calmed his mind, finally came to his place, his mouth was very calm, his voice was impeccable, very Führer-like, and only an attentive person could see the look on his face slightly distorted by nervousness, or it could be called hideous.

However, the focus of attention soon shifted, and Hoffman, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the army, declared: "The main content of the day is to discuss the war on the Eastern Front, and first of all, there are several personnel appointments...... General Halder was dismissed from the post of chief of the general staff and went to the Berlin Military Academy as director of education, focusing on the training of staff officers at all levels of the army, and the chief of the general staff was succeeded by General Zeitzler. Hearing this, Halder's face was very unkind, he personally had no ill feelings towards Zeitzler, who had replaced him, and only felt that it was a chore to be the chief of the General Staff to a person who did not listen to opinions, and it was a great loss of face to return to Berlin in such a disgraceful way, but he still suppressed the urge to get angry, wiped the lenses of his glasses, and then turned away silently - the next meeting was meaningless to him anyway. With Halder's departure, everyone whispered for a while, their faces were different, long before the meeting, the news that Zeitzler replaced Halder as the new chief of the General Staff had spread, and everyone even knew clearly that Zeitzler crossed the rank of lieutenant general last night and was directly promoted to infantry general, many people were not surprised by Halder's departure, but they didn't expect this position to fall into the hands of the junior Zeitzler, everyone's eyes showed envy and jealousy, and they also saw Guderian's figure, There was no other expression than surprise—Guderian had a bad relationship with them anyway.

If this sentence was still within their acceptable range, then they were shocked by Hoffman's speech, no less shocked than a 500-pound aerial bomb dropped on the room: "Remove General Paulus from the post of commander of the Sixth Army, go to the Western Front as chief of staff of the General Headquarters of the Western Front and concurrently serve as chief of staff of Army Group D." ”

What does this appointment mean? The Sixth Army under the command of Paulus was fighting on the Stalingrad front, and this was the strategic direction that the Führer himself delineated, so why was it suddenly replaced? What's more, Paulus is the Führer's favorite general, and he has been steadily promoted in the staff position, and the Barbarossa plan is his handiwork, and it stands to reason that he should continue to reuse it, but he actually moved to the Western Front? Although it seems that the promotion from the commander of the army group to the chief of the general staff of the Western Front also seems to have been promoted, there is no war at all on the Western Front, so what is the use of transferring Luce in the past? Could it be that Paulus made an unforgivable mistake that angered the Führer? But no one has heard of this.

Hoffman glanced at everyone with a grim gaze, and in an extremely rare way, he tapped the table with his fingers, and everyone immediately stopped talking and returned to a silent state. The capture of Paulus was the result of Hoffmann's careful deliberation yesterday: Paulus was an excellent staff officer, but he was obviously not a qualified general with troops, and hundreds of thousands of troops of the 6th Army were buried in Stalingrad by him, and what is worse was that after being urgently awarded the marshal's scepter by the Führer, he neither fought to the end nor committed suicide, but finally surrendered to the Russians, not to mention, and in 1944 he also called for an uprising of the troops, and finally became a tainted witness in Nuremberg - which made Hoffmann despise him as a person. It's better to use the method of rising and secretly descending to the Western Front to give full play to the chief of staff's expertise under the old marshal Rundstead, this guy will be like this for the rest of his life, stop thinking about the marshal's scepter.

General Weix, commander of Army Group B, decided to stand up and say a word for Paulus, although the Führer directly retained the command of the 6th Army after the Southern Front campaign was launched, and Paulus did not have much personal friendship with him, but at least the 6th Army was still a subordinate unit of Army Group B.

As soon as he stood up, and before he could open his mouth to question the Führer's decision, Hoffmann's order had already been issued: "General Weix, your position has also been adjusted, you have been sent to Army Group Center to take over Kruger's position, and the post of commander of Army Group B has been taken over by Field Marshal Manstein. ”

"Me?" Weix was obviously unprepared, his mouth was wide open enough to stuff an apple, what the hell was going on?

On the other side, Kruger, who had been dismissed from his post, also stood up, his old face flushed, and he said angrily: "Führer, why did you remove me from my post, I need an explanation!" ”

"Explain?" Hoffman glanced at him contemptuously, then suddenly raised his voice and shouted, "Guards! ”

"Hulala" rushed in from the outside, a squad of SS Führer Flag Guards soldiers with MP38s in their hands, led by the tall, blond-haired Major Otto Genscher, the Führer's personal guard commander, and the muzzles of a dozen submachine guns were aimed at Kruger, and as soon as Hoffmann gave the order, the custody could be immediately cracked into a sieve.