Chapter 28: Was Hitler a Genius or a Mediocrat (Part I)
How could Vincent let the "little apple" down, holding the bayonet left and right to the east and west, inside the bunker, and the bullets in the bunker were also chasing the steel helmet in Vincent's hand, Vincent raised the steel helmet several times, and when he took it down, the entire steel helmet was full of bullet holes, and the "little apple" was like a mole.
……
Li Mo and the others are fighting in blood, and the struggle for power in Germany has officially begun, and the traditional German forces hold the vast majority of power in Germany, which is absolutely intolerable for the dictator Hitler.
Hitler had a natural acumen in political struggles, and was definitely not a foolish mediocrity, otherwise he would not have become the Führer of Germany from a corporal. After careful preparation and intelligence gathering, Hitler set his sights on Field Marshal Blunberg, commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, and all armed forces in Germany except the SS were under the leadership of the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht.
It was basically the traditional forces of Germany that held such a powerful armed force, and Hitler could only be regarded as the new Führer, except for the support of the people, he did not have much armed forces in his hands, and the SS was born under such circumstances, and now the opportunity has come.
In 1935, Hitler tore up the Treaty of Versailles and announced the beginning of a large-scale rearmament, the army would be expanded to 36 divisions, and the army general staff of the First World War would be restored. Soon after, the Ministry of Defense also underwent a large-scale reorganization, the Ministry of Defense was reorganized into the Ministry of War, and Blenburg's official rank was changed from "Minister of Defense and Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht" to "Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht".
With the deepening of the expansion of the armed forces, Blunburg began to carry out the transformation of the high-level command system of the armed forces, Blunburg's concept of governing the army, he believes that in the future modern warfare will guide an all-round way of thinking, the past era when only the victory or defeat of the war was decided by land wars is gone, and the Wehrmacht needs to have a leadership system that integrates the three services, in fact, it is necessary to establish a general headquarters of the three services in the real sense, instead of the current three armed forces acting separately and can only carry out superficial cooperation. But such a reform would inevitably touch the interests of Nazi upstarts like Air Force Commander-in-Chief Goering.
In Goering's view, the Air Force was an important bargaining chip in his political struggle, and it was intolerable for him to weaken the authority of the Commander-in-Chief of the services and thus strengthen the centralization of the Wehrmacht's upper echelons. There was also strong resistance to such a reform at the top of the army side, and most of the old-fashioned generals of the Army General Staff and the General Staff were staunch supporters of the "theory of victory in land warfare," saying that if a war broke out, only the army could solve the problem alone, and in their view, the reform of Brunburg was completely superfluous. Although Blenburg's reforms were not implemented due to many obstacles, on April 20, 1936, on Hitler's birthday, the 58-year-old Blenburg was promoted to field marshal, becoming the first person in the Wehrmacht after World War I to be awarded the rank of field marshal, reaching the pinnacle of his military career.
At the same time that Blunberg was at the height of his power, his modesty and enormous power in military matters began to arouse Hitler's displeasure, and he warned Hitler about this risky move as early as March 1936 when he ordered the Wehrmacht to march into the Rhineland demilitarized zone. On August 5, 1937, Hitler summoned Minister of War Blenburg, Commander-in-Chief of the Army Friech, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force Goering, and Foreign Minister Newright to a meeting at the Chancellery to announce to them his plans for the long-term war and his attempts to take aggressive action against Austria and Czechoslovakia in the near future. At the conference, Blenburg, with the support of Frisch, warned that the war would be intervened by the combined forces of the Western powers, so both he and Frisch had reservations or opposition to Hitler's attempts at a war of aggression. This infuriated Hitler, who realized that Blenberg and Frisch must be removed from power as soon as possible and replaced with obedient heads of the army. Otherwise, sooner or later, the two of them will become a stumbling block for him to launch a war of aggression. Soon, the marriage scandal in Blunburg gave Hitler this opportunity.
Since the death of his wife Hermich in Bremborg in 1932, he has lived a life of widowhood. But 5 years later, he soon fell in love with his secretary, Miss Gruen, and was ready to get married. However, Blenburg also knew that his marriage to Gruen, who was a commoner, would certainly be opposed by the conservative officer corps. To this end, he tried to find Hitler and Goering to be his witnesses, so as to silence the officer corps. On August 12, 1937, he married Eva. Gruen held a civilian wedding in the hall of the War Department. Later, Blenburg took his newlywed wife to Italy for his honeymoon. Hitler and Goering, the witnesses to the wedding, may not have imagined that the Brenburg event would give them a godsend to get rid of him.
While on his honeymoon in Blunburg, Berlin Police Chief Herdorf found a document that read about the marshal's new wife, Eva. Gruen had made a ** file, and he immediately handed this file to the head of the Wehrmacht Bureau, Blenburg's in-law - General Keitel's artillery, hoping that he could handle it properly, and after Keitel got this file about the fate of his boss, he gave the file to Goering for fear of shielding Blenburg and offending the Nazis and the SS and affecting his future. Goering, who had coveted the Blenburg marshal for a long time, soon told Hitler, who was furious, and his marshal deceived him and made him a witness, treating him as a fool. This news also caused the officer corps to abandon Blenburg completely, and the chief of staff of the army, Baker, once said to Keitel: "It is not tolerated that a field marshal and a ** marry." ”
Soon after, on 25 August, Blenburg was inaugurated by Hitler and forced to retire. The illustrious field marshal was thus forever crossed out of the army directory and suddenly disappeared from the public eye. After Blünberg's retirement, Hitler did not appoint a successor, but appointed himself commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, and at the same time, he reorganized the War Department in Brünnburg to form a new Wehrmacht High Command (OKW). As a result of the reorganization, the War Ministry, which had been in power, was downgraded and reduced to a general staff that was accountable only to Hitler.
After retiring from the army, Blenburg and his wife lived in seclusion in the small village of Visy in Bavaria, where he watched the Wehrmacht, which he had expanded (including his two sons), go to ruin.