After all the personnel who had arrived at the "shelter" in U-396 had arrived, SS Major Siggenke walked to the front of the line, straightened his collar, and said in an official tone that he did not usually use:

"As new arrivals at the 'Shelter', we are about to be reprimanded by the Commander of the Base, followed by the award and promotion ceremony, and we will be given a new status and integrated into the new unit, and I congratulate you all in advance. Being able to uphold the immortal faith in the most dangerous times of the Empire, you are worthy of respect and bravery, and the most loyal warriors of the Empire! Now, as your team leader, I hope that you can be 100% in good spirits to welcome your new life! ”

These words are still a little vague, but when he heard about the training and promotion, Lynn suddenly figured out the doubts about the dormitory arrangement - it seems that the officers and soldiers who follow **OSS to this secret place will be rewarded accordingly, if nothing else, he will immediately become a second lieutenant like several people in the same dormitory, thinking that all the sergeant rank in the team have been given the key when they are assigned to the dormitory, it seems that this promotion has a highly common surname, and it is likely that "everyone has a share"!

Looking at his watch, Ziggenke straightened his collar and placket, and gave the order to "go".

Passing through the corridor with floor-to-ceiling windows on both sides, a group of more than 50 officers and soldiers entered the dining room with great curiosity and longing. The place is still brightly lit and spacious, and the outermost hall is made of wooden tables and forms three extremely long rectangular tables, which are the most common kind for Western dinners, with plain cloth on the tables, and vases and bouquets at intervals. There is a wide aisle between the wooden tables, and a thick red carpet is laid. Looking inside, the length of the entire restaurant is slightly exaggerated. It is divided into chambers by curved arches, and from the entrance to the innermost hall is far longer than the length of a football field, so that only a side portrait of the head of the empire hangs on the wall.

At the entrance to the cafeteria, a captain-officer in an army uniform was waiting, leading Ziggenk's group down the aisle on the left. Lynn saw that there were already four or five hundred soldiers seated in the outer hall, and the plates placed in front of them were quite rich in content and color, and there was no shortage of meat, vegetables, and soups, and they did not need to collect them themselves. The staff in white aprons were pushing the dining cart along the long table, and whenever the soldiers were seated or requested, they would take the initiative to serve them the food in the metal vegetable bowls and soup buckets on the dining cart - here the food was served by young women, who wore white caps, and under the aprons showed their legs of various thicknesses but only wearing socks, the youngest was estimated to be sixteen or seventeen years old, and the oldest should be less than thirty years old, and they always maintained a faint smile on their faces, tall, short, fat and thin, The hair is also curled in a variety of colors.

It was not an ordinary military meal, but an extraordinarily large dinner.

Entering the second room, the furnishings are obviously more upscale, with only two rows of long wooden tables, and the aisle in the middle is so wide that the red carpet cannot be completely covered. Here, the queues and seats are all captains and above, and the officers only need to take their seats to have a staff member pushing the food cart, and the dishes on the plates here do not look significantly different, but the waitresses who are in charge of serving the meals here are obviously better than those in the outer hall in terms of figure, appearance, and temperament. Lynn roughly counted that there were about fifty officers here, only about one-tenth of the number of tables and chairs, which looked a little empty, and left room for expectation and imagination.

In the last inner hall, there is only one dining table, which is very wide, and at least sixty or seventy meters long, which can accommodate hundreds of people to eat at the same time, each chair is equipped with black flannel, which is quite noble, and the corresponding tablecloth and tableware in the position also look very high-grade. Hitler's piercing eyes were watching everyone who dined here.

Lynn's eyes were opened, but she didn't know why her group had come here, and the captain officer who led the way quickly answered:

"Ladies and gentlemen, anyone who comes here on the first day will receive a special honor of having dinner at the same table with our esteemed Base Commander, and you are very fortunate that our honorable Imperial Minister of Propaganda will also be in attendance. Okay, please take a seat on the right! ”

Although the officers did not say it explicitly, as was customary, Ziggenke and the two captains sat in the center, and the others extended their seats to the sides by rank and rank, but fortunately there were only about fifty of the whole staff, and Lynn was able to sit in the middle of the room. The furnishings are certainly attractive, and the waiters pushing the food carts are all handsome, and this one is the only one where a goblet is placed in each place, and the young and beautiful waitresses pour red wine for them one by one.

Lynn's gaze passed through the vase and the candlestick, and in the center of the opposite side were two chairs slightly larger, presumably the seats of the Imperial Minister of Propaganda and the Base Commander.

The food on the plate was full of color and flavor, but like the outer hall and the second hall, the officers and soldiers were not in a hurry to start, but sat uprightly in their positions, seemingly waiting for all the staff to arrive - this did not delay too long, and after a few minutes, Lynn saw that only the service personnel pushing the food cart were left in the aisle, and nearly a thousand officers and soldiers were seated, and the sound of music soon sounded in the dining room, but it was not the national anthem of the Third Reich, but a song "Khorst. The Song of Wiesel. Accompanied by the majestic and passionate music, a group of more than ten officers entered directly from the entrance of the inner hall, and they walked to the seats one by one with their heads held high and their chests held high, and they walked to the seats in a rigid and serious manner. At a glance, Lynn saw Goebbels walking with a thin stature, lame, wearing a tawny blazer, wearing a red armband on his arm, and walking calmly in the front, while the general who followed him was also not tall, with very short sideburns and mixed white hair, he had a high nose bridge, his left eye was slightly closed, there was a deep scar on his socket, but there was a deep and keen gaze in his right eye, the red collar badge and gold epaulettes looked bright and noble, and he held a brilliant marshal's scepter in his hand.

With the appearance of these officers, the crunch of chairs moving in the whole hall was incessant, and Lynn quickly got up with his companions around him, and watched Goebbels and the Imperial Field Marshal walk directly in front with wide eyes. Rommel?

Based on the impression of historical pictures and black-and-white documentaries, Lynn was not sure for a while, after all, Rommel should have been implicated in the assassination of the Führer in 1944 and was given his death, and Germany even held a state funeral for him. It's just that the people around him also sighed because they were too surprised, and in the strange atmosphere, Lynn suddenly had some enlightenment: since the plan can arrange for the Führer's substitute to be buried in Berlin, can't Rommel be allowed to fake his death in advance, so as to deceive the eyes of the world?

All kinds of bold conjectures poured into my mind, and I was in a trance for a while.

The music stopped, the waiters and the food truck stopped moving, and as the last few footsteps stopped, the whole hall fell silent, so that anyone could speak without a megaphone or hoarseness, and could almost be heard by people from afar.

After taking his seat, Goebbels was the first to speak: "Loyal soldiers of Germany! On behalf of the great German leader and head of the Reich, I would like to pay tribute to your fearless spirit and absolute loyalty! Everyone selected for the 'Aryan Ark' project has undergone extremely strict screening and vetting, therefore, you are the elite of the imperial elite, please use your iron will and immortal spirit to protect our great leader for a thousand years! ”

These words were quite impassioned, but because of Rommel's appearance, Lynn's attention was not on Goebbels' side at all. The Reich Minister of Propaganda then went on to say something and reminded the soldiers not to believe the misinformation broadcast from the outside world, that although the enemy occupied Berlin, the German soldiers continued to fight, and that the war in Germany would not end until the enemy was defeated.

As soon as Goebbels had finished speaking, melodious music began to play in the dining room, followed by the sound of people seated and moving chairs, followed by the creaking of knives and plates, and the officers and men of the outer and secondary halls had already moved, but the inner hall was still sitting upright.

Finally, Rommel picked up his glass, swept over the more than fifty officers and soldiers at the table across from him with his normal right eye, and said in a calm and powerful voice: "Everyone! You may be surprised by my presence, but I'm Erwin. Rommel, Base Commander of the 'Vault', your faithful and reliable patron. It is called the 'Refuge', which is both a place of refuge for us and a fighting fortress for the preservation of the German spirit! On the battlefield of the European continent, everyone fought bloody battles and fought to the death, and they may be tired, tired, and even scared and afraid, but here, you can put aside those worries and worries, adjust your mentality, and recuperate your body, and we will accumulate strength, wait for the enemy to relax their vigilance, wait for the two camps that are incompatible with water and fire to contradict each other, and then look for opportunities to rise again! ”

In a few short sentences, Lynn was able to solve the biggest doubts in his heart in an instant, and it also made him look at Rommel with admiration - it is not difficult to foresee the pattern of the United States and the Soviet Union competing for hegemony, but the difficult thing is that as a person in the game, he can jump out of the battle and calmly look at the farther future.

Rommel then announced: "In reward for your loyalty and courage, each one of you will be awarded the Iron Cross and a promotion of the first rank, and you will be transferred from the original Wehrmacht and SS units to the elite and holy Imperial Guard, and in this new and different armed force, you will be part of the air, land or navy, equipped with the best weapons and the best training." For the sake of our common future, everyone, please raise your glasses! ”

(To be continued)