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While the Americas were in chaos, the European continent ushered in a brief period of peace, with the war in Leningrad coming to an abrupt end, all fronts were silenced, even Germany's uninterrupted air raids on the southeast of Britain were stopped, and the Soviet, German, and British countries were all fighting against their wounds, and the rain brewed a fierce offensive. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

On 30 September, the German Reichstag passed a bill to officially restore Leningrad to its original name, St. Petersburg, in order to demonstrate Germany's determination to fight the Soviet Union to the end.

St. Petersburg is the economic, cultural and scientific center of the Soviet Union second only to Moscow, and the capital of the imperial Russian era. After the capture of the city, the German Army Group North was liberated at once, and of the 500,000 German troops, in addition to the 200,000 troops remaining east of Lake Ladoga and Tikhvin, the remaining 300,000 were reorganized to form the General Reserve of the Eastern Front.

General Küchler, who replaced Field Marshal von Bauk as Army Group North, was promoted to the rank of general of the first class, and with the abolition of the army group, he was appointed commander of the reserve army by Hitler.

On 1 October, Hitler arrived in St. Petersburg with his Politburo colleagues for an inspection.

The first stop on the visit of the German bigwigs was the Kinov factory in the Syalin-style building.

Kinov was a Bolshevik revolutionary and important leader in the Soviet Union, focusing on local industrial construction. Seven years ago, a petitioner entered the heavily guarded Leningrad city office and killed Kirov with a pistol, thus beginning the Soviet Union's purge.

Heydrich, who still remotely controls the secret police force, has been presiding over the suppression of Soviet partisans in Belarus and Ukraine in Minsk for a period of time, and this time he came to the second largest metropolis of the Red Sè Empire, looked at the statue of Kinov, and thought: "This is definitely Stalin's bitter trick, otherwise how could an ordinary person enter the Smolny Palace unimpeded?" ”

Himmler, who was in charge of the Nazi Party and the SS, chimed in: "Stalin did not play with the future of the country and the nation in order to eradicate dissidents. Compared to him, we are really kinder than little sheep! ”

Himmler's analogy drew a burst of laughter, and Hitler said solemnly: "If it weren't for Stalin's madness and Tukhachevsky's regularization of the army,

The Soviet Union, a vibrant country, has always maintained political harmony, and we have no way to get our hands on it. Therefore, the suppression of the Soviet Union against the Germanic peoples was undoubtedly a great thing! Now the empire is absorbing enough nutrients from the huge body of the Soviet Union, and when we strike again, it will be an earth-shattering shock. Goering, Goebbels, Ribbentrop, Baumann and others said in unison, saying that this was a great opportunity given to Germany by God, and if it was not grasped, it would be regretted.

To Hitler's great delight, the Kinov factory had resumed production in a short period of time, and the arms tycoon Krupp proudly led a group of top leaders of the German party, government, and military to inspect the installation workshop, and hundreds of Soviet-made KV tanks were being assembled in the installation workshop. Of course, this is not so much a perfection as a move to avoid one's own mistake.

St. Petersburg itself is a museum of architecture and sculpture, and every building here is carefully designed and built, and each one is a delight to behold.

However, during the visit, Hitler's group did not find it very pleasant, because from the beginning to the end, they smelled the residual smell of gunsmoke, blood and dead bodies in the air.

Heilam recounted a tragic incident that had taken place here a few days earlier, as reported by the intelligence services: the German occupation authorities instigated the Russian volunteers to secretly push more than 100,000 dying, deranged and deranged people who had lost their limbs and were destined to become burdens into the Neva River, causing the bodies to accumulate and form a dammed lake, and the remaining citizens of St. Petersburg accepted the tragedy with indifference and calmness. After an unprecedented starvation tragedy, these people who survived death are so hard that there is not much left to touch them.

Everyone sighed, but Hitler and others unanimously put the blame on Stalin, saying that if he had not ordered stubborn resistance, there would have been no similar human tragedy.

After visiting the Kinov factory and being promoted to the rank of first class general, Qu Hiller acted as a volunteer tour guide and personally drove the motorcade of Hitler and others up Nevsky Prospect to the palace embankment and the Winter Palace on the other side of the Neva River. The Hermitage faces the palace square, with a slight protrusion in the center, with three arched iron gates, and a colossus of the god Atlas at the entrance.

During the German siege, the entire Hermitage, like other art buildings, was covered with a huge camouflage net and surrounded by replicas that were enough to be remarkable, so the damage suffered was relatively light.

To commemorate the victory over Napoleon, the Russians erected an Alexander Column in the center of the Hermitage Square, made of a single huā granite, without any support, standing on the cornerstone only by its own weight, and its top is an angel holding a cross with a snake on his feet, which is a symbol of victory over the enemy.

The Hermitage is surrounded by two rows of colonnades, which are majestic. The palace is richly decorated, with many halls decorated with malachite, jasper, and agate products, and is one of the four major museums in the world, along with the Louvre Museum in Paris, the British Museum in London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Witnessing all this, Hitler proudly introduced that this was the first museum of Empress Catherine II. Nearly two centuries ago, Catherine II bought more than 200 paintings by Rembrandt, Rubens and others from Berlin and stored them in the Hermitage in the Hermitage, hence the name of the museum.

The Hermitage has a collection of artworks from all over the world, including oil paintings, statues, carpets, furniture, handicrafts, etc., and has more than 400 exhibition halls and showrooms, among which the ancient Greek vase art, the ancient Roman sculpture art and the Western European art three parts of the collection are well-known in the world collection circle, and of course, there are Chinese porcelain. It houses oil paintings from the 14th to the 20th century, including works by Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, Raphael and other world masters.

Heydrich suggested that the Chinese culture obtained from Kiev, Minsk, St. Petersburg and other places should be returned to the South Chinese government, and Hitler agreed with a little groaning that it was still very necessary for Germany to avoid multi-front warfare and maintain peace with South China.

Emerging from the glittering and dazzling Hermitage, the group made a beeline for the majestic Isaac Church.

It is also the world's largest Isaac Kiev Church, together with St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and Santa Maria Dame of Huā in Florence, known as the world's four largest churches.

In front of the church is a bronze equestrian statue of Tsar Nicholas I, the two front tui of the horse are in the air, and the two back tui are on the ground, Hitler stares at the statue for a long time, full of emotion: the last Tsar Nicholas II was executed in Yekaterinburg on July 17, 23 years ago, along with other royal families, but the bronze equestrian statue of Nicholas I has been preserved intact.

The golden spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress Cathedral, like the masts of a sailing ship, glittering in the winter sun, is the symbol of St. Petersburg's iconic building: the Peter Paodor Cathedral, and the bell tower has become a symbol.

With so many places to visit, Hitler proposed to visit St. Isaac's Church, considered the "national church," because of its huge frescoes that would satisfy his hobby as an amateur painter.

The church was built by the French over a period of time, and it took eight years for the central dome, bell tower dome and gilded cross alone. The shape of the church is majestic, and the solemn overall structure and decoration reflect the characteristics of late classicism in Russian architecture in the last century, and have both Renaissance and Baroque imprints. The interior of the cathedral, which can accommodate more than 15,000 people, is both solemn and gorgeous because of the use of a large number of precious colored stones.

Hitler held his breath and stared up at the huge domed fresco "Madonna in the company of the saints" for a long time, and waited until his neck could not stand it anymore, then he turned his head to Goering and the others: "After more than half a year of preparation, our fuel and war materials are basically ready, and I have decided to launch the Battle of Moscow again before the arrival of winter...... Where you fail, you get up from there, what do you think? Everyone was stunned, and no one expected Hitler's topic to change so quickly.

Originally, everyone was immersed in the joy of the capture of St. Petersburg, but now when they heard that Hitler was going to relaunch the Moscow campaign, they suddenly felt a chill from the heart. After all, the fiasco at the beginning of the year was too impressive, and coupled with the defeat of Napoleon that year, no one wanted to take risks at this time when the situation was good.

Goering thought for a moment and said, "Führer, attacking under the cold air currents of the Arctic is a huge torture for the morale of the army!" Killing 3,000 enemies and losing 800 is really not worth the loss. Now we have a solid defensive position, from north to south to Stalingrad, against the Soviet offensive, and if we hastily change our deployment in winter, the whole line of defense will become full of holes, and if the front line is lost, the consequences will be unimaginable! ”

Speer, who had been silent, was in charge of the military production of the whole of Germany and the occupied areas, and he was most reluctant to see the results of the hard work of construction ruined. Since the oil was pumped out of Libya the year before last, this region has become extremely important for our Axis countries!

Due to the rise of the oil industry, Italy's shipping, oil refining, petrochemical and other related industries have developed, effectively solving the employment problem, stimulating economic development, and Italy's financial situation has improved rapidly.

"From June last year to June this year, Libyan oil fields supplied Italy and Germany with three million tons of crude oil, and I heard that many factories in Italy were full of orders, and the workers worked in three shifts, and Mussolini gained unprecedented prestige in Italy!

"At the beginning of this year, Mussolini took the opportunity to launch an operation to cut off the mafia, mobilizing not only the resources of the Italian fascist party, but also the Italian people on Mussoccani's side. It was said that the punishment was very cruel, and the arrested mafia members were tortured to make them want to die, and under the means of division and bribery, the mafia finally became a historical term in Italy, consolidating the rule of Mussolini......

"Yes!"

Goebbels picked up the conversation: "When I visited Mussolini in Rome last month as prime minister, he told me that Libya had in fact become a lifeline for Italy. Once Libya is lost, Italy will also lose its future, so the meaning of Libyan oil is fully promoted, and now, if a random passer-by is asked in Italy, what will he do if Libya is invaded? Ten likely, the Italian would have thought that he would fight the invaders to the end. "I didn't think that the Italians were bad at fighting, but they were facing more powerful industrial nations and the soldiers didn't know what it was about," Jodel said.

And now, they're working to make up for both! After a fundamental improvement in Italy's finances, Mussolini's Führer strengthened its armaments, the Afrika Army was fully strengthened, and Italy built a group of strong fortresses near the oil fields to ensure security there. ”

Speer added: "Yes, the oil industry has driven Italy's oil refining, petrochemical and other industries, and has imported nutrients into the veins of Italy's economy, and in order to accumulate oil, we have to exchange some equipment and áng for Libyan oil, which has further promoted the industrial development of Italy, and the construction of oil tankers has stabbed the development of Italy's heavy industry, and the construction of ports has to recruit more workers, and oil in turn has promoted the production of pesticides and fertilizers in Italy." The Italians have slowly ceased to be a burden to us"

"Stop!"

Hitler did not expect that everyone would oppose his launching of the Moscow campaign in the winter, and asked with a frown: "What is the intention of the comrades to talk about so many things in Italy?" ”

Goebbels and the others looked at each other, and finally it was Goering who spoke on the table: "Führer, Moscow is going to take it, but not now, but it should be next summer, and before that, we should first ensure the safety of the oil fields in Libya and Egypt!" The oil fields of the Gulf of Suez and the southwestern Sinai Peninsula in Egypt are now supplying us with almost 1.5 million tons of oil, and if you add Libyan oil, the interest in oil alone in this region makes it necessary to turn it into an impregnable fortress!

"Therefore, my opinion is to transfer the Panzer 41st Army to North Africa, cooperate with the Rommel cluster, take East Africa in one fell swoop, advance the war to South Africa, ensure absolute security in the North African region, and at the same time echo the military operations of our ally Imperial Japan on the American continent!"

Hitler looked at Speer: "Is East Africa suitable for large-scale military use?" ”

Speer said: "The British were very generous, and during their reign in Egypt, they built the Mediterranean Coast Railway and the Caia (Cairo to Aswan) railway along the Nile, and then we built a branch railway connecting Sudan, so that our troops could reach the southwestern Sudanese city of Wawu by train directly from St. Petersburg, and there was no problem in troop movement and supplies!"

"As long as we can repel the Allied forces entrenched in Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Tanzania, we can avoid the outbreak of war around North Africa, and when we attack Moscow next year, there will be no one behind us!"

Seeing that everyone was opposed to marching troops to Moscow in the cold winter and was unwilling to break away from the masses, Heydrich immediately said: "Führer, our attack on the guerrilla zone will not be completed until at least the end of the year, and if we draw troops from me to attack Moscow, I am afraid that the previous gains will be ruined."

"In addition, if we use this winter to stock up on more strategic materials, won't we be more sure when we fight in the future?"

Hitler was finally persuaded and nodded: "Well, since we are a democratic party, I will also be good and listen to the voices of my comrades, and let Stalin have another miserable Christmas!" But in any case, I'm going to parade on Red Square in Moscow on Christmas Day next year, and that can't be changed in any way, you know? "Hi, Hitler!" Everyone stood and stretched out their hands in a Nazi salute and replied loudly!

Hitler nodded with satisfaction and continued to admire the relics.