Petain, who listened to the full report, did not ask in detail how the war situation in South Africa collapsed, but only asked: "How many companies are willing to cooperate with the Germans?" ”

"If Germany really only buys 20-30% of the shares and does not have compulsory management, they think it is acceptable. After the war, the European defense market will be relatively small, and without German technical and political support, it will be difficult for many companies to sustain themselves. ”

Petain nodded, this batch of enterprises have initially felt the chill, with the end of the European war, Germany stopped a lot of military orders procurement, although civilian orders are still maintained, but everyone knows that this can not be maintained for a long time, even if the German light industry is not particularly developed, it does not mean that even a little scale of textile, ceramics, furniture and other industries do not want, Germany still has a strong competitiveness in some areas. Moreover, France also faces competition from Italy, which is significantly closer to Germany, and the industrial companies have been united much earlier, and in case of foreign orders to be fulfilled, Germany will certainly be the first to think of Italy - and then they will be able to recoup 25-30% of the dividends.

The French business circles are quite jealous of this, believing that letting Germany buy 25 percent of the shares is nothing, and that Germany and Europe will not be able to enter the future defense market without trading their names. Besides, in the future, won't European economic and industrial cooperation be about you and me, and I and you? Coal and steel, shipping, railways, and electric power are all jointly operated, and the joint operation of military industry, shipbuilding, automobiles, metallurgy, and machinery is naturally the next step. Didn't Germany also give France a 10% share of the Middle East Oil Fund? Didn't Germany, having taken 25-30% of the shares of Italian companies, not try to annex its rivals?

"Then talk to the Germans according to the standard valuation, the industrial enterprises will be discounted by 8 billion German marks, the remaining 4 billion will be offset with German government bonds, and the other 800 million will be offset with surplus materials - it is useless for us to keep them."

"What is the answer to the matter of French Guiana?"

"The Germans still want money?"

"The Germans are not lying, their fiscal deficits are indeed very strong, and the national debt has swelled to a very ferocious level, but there is one thing that Hitler and Speer insisted on - they would rather issue national bonds than print indiscriminately, so the value of the mark is very strong, and the credit is good, and the bond market believes that Germany will eventually pay it off." Darlang smiled bitterly, "In addition, the Dutch agreed to pay money, Dutch Guiana + Boer Republic + Caribbean Dutch territory a total of 5 billion marks, with the right to garrison the Boer Republic, and now the Netherlands is begging the Germans for help, hoping to talk to Japan about getting some of the Dutch East Indies back." ”

Petain nodded, it is impossible to get all of the Dutch East Indies back, the Japanese will never let it go, but it is possible to return some of it, because the Japanese control territory is too large and the debt is higher, and Japan will not be able to maintain it if it does not sell a little.

As for which part to be returned, it depends on what price the Netherlands can offer and how much pressure Germany exerts, at least there are talks about the ownership of Timor Island (East Timor originally belongs to Portugal, West Timor originally belongs to the Netherlands), after Germany takes New Guinea, Timor Island as a buffer between Java and Australia The conditions have basically been met, and Horikichi agreed to negotiate with the Dutch to buy back, the key is the price.

Petain thought for a long time, and finally sighed: "If the Germans can help us negotiate the South Indochina Peninsula, I will agree to pay ......"

"And our gold in the United States."

"That's right! This matter should be considered in conjunction with each other, and I will pay when the Germans are all done, and in order to show sincerity, I can pay half of it first. ”

After saying this, Petain suddenly sighed and smiled at Darlan: "My body is becoming more and more strained now, and I wonder when it would be better to hand over the position to you." ”

"Don't! You have to take care of the people of France, France can't live without you. Darlan hastened, "I have to go through more experience, I feel that there are many things that I have not handled maturely enough, and I cannot live up to the expectations of you and the French people." ”

Petain's idea of handing over power has been expressed many times, and the power at hand is indeed being dispersed, but Darlan is very cautious and will not take over until it is certain - he has a tacit understanding with the German side on this point, Hoffmann believes that when the war is over, everything is settled, and an armistice with the United States is realized, and it is too late for Petain to hand over power after the formal inaugural meeting of the European Union and the United Nations, and he wants to give this old man a feeling of retirement.

"Führer, the French have agreed to pay for 12.8 billion to buy the full set of technology for V2 rockets and V3 rockets, and 7.2 billion to ......pay for other package agreements," Keitel said happily, "This time it is 20 billion, and the fiscal hole is much smaller this year." ”

Hoffman nodded slightly: "Darlan is a smart man......"

It was Pétain's decision, but why did the Führer say that Darlan was a smart man? Keitel was a little dazed at first, and it took a turn of his mind to react that Petain would soon hand over power to Darlan, and without German support and recognition, Darlan's position would not be stable. Now Darlan is pushing for a big business of 20 billion marks, ostensibly to pay for the future of France, but in fact he is not paying for Darlan's own political future?

The news that South Africa was bulldozed in 10 days, 300,000 Allied troops fell in one go, and the German army's own casualties were less than 10,000 soon spread. In their opinion, the French campaign was won by surprise from the Ardennes Forest by surprise to the Anglo-French forces in the north, and if it had been pushed through the old road of the Franco-Belgian front, everyone would never believe that Germany could win so easily.

But the attack on South Africa was completely a posture of sitting and talking, and the German army coldly watched Bradley feverishly repair the defense line and deploy troops, but did not interfere with anything, and only mobilized troops to push over.

It was as if two heavy infantry were in a contest, one not only prepared excellent armor, but also stockpiled enough supplies, while the other side didn't look at it and punched it directly - the steel shield that the Allies had painstakingly managed was smashed like tofu scum in an instant. If Germany had used this strength to fight France, even if it chose to break through the Maginot Line head-on, I am afraid that France would not be able to stop it.

This can only show one problem: the German army, which has an endless stream of high-precision weapons, has a great advantage in strength on land, even to the point that it does not need to use the navy. It is very strange to all observers that Germany did not see the Axis Navy appear in addition to desperately using the fleet to mobilize materials and equipment in the early stage of the attack on South Africa, as if South Africa was a landlocked country and not near the sea.

What is even more surprising is that at the same time as the South African War, Germany was still fighting in South America, not only in the north of Brazil, but also in British, French, and Dutch Guiana.

The Germans called this Blitzkrieg 2.0, so the name of 2.0 soon spread, and in other European countries, newspapers and radio portrayed the whole set of tactics as fascinating, but the news was reported in Germany as insignificant - after 15 days of brave fighting, our African campaign cluster liberated the entire territory of South Africa, and a total of 300,000 Allied troops were wiped out in the first service, and our army lost less than 10,000......

Of course, the United States was also in a trap, and Bradley fled without reporting the situation to the Joint Chiefs of Staff at all, and Washington knew that the situation in South Africa was still being reported from Europe: the Swiss ambassador and military attache had sent back more telegrams about the course and evaluation of the war than Bradley had reported. It feels like Bradley has inexplicably failed without doing anything, and then escaped with the last money and South Africa's gold reserves, which Britain and Germany condemned unanimously and demanded that the United States return it as soon as possible.

The brilliant victory of Blitzkrieg 2.0 quickly made the Continental Army faction not sing the tune - the battle report from the front was clear, more than 400 Allied tanks were killed in the whole battle (and nearly 1,000 more were captured), 70% of which were solved by helicopters, attack planes or other aircraft, and only 30% by traditional ground military forces such as armored forces, artillery and anti-tank forces - the reduction of the army seemed to be a logical and politically correct thing to do.

On behalf of the Army, Guderian made a request: It is okay to reduce the number of army soldiers, but the army must form an aviation force and assign all tactical suppression forces, including helicopters and ground attack aircraft, to the army! Just like the Navy has naval aviation.

The Air Force ridiculed each other: the Army does not even have a single person who can fly an airplane, let alone an attack plane, even the helicopter is a pilot of the Air Force!

Hoffman, as commander-in-chief of the three armed services, of course, had to strike a balance between this kind of thing, and according to his guiding principles, Keitel quickly proposed a systematic solution: the army would reduce the number of traditional troops by another 2 million, increase the army aviation, ground support units, electronic countermeasures, and other troops, reduce the overall military expenditure ratio, and according to the nature of the rapid reaction force, the army would be required to form 12 Type 1946 rapid divisions, and said that it would come up with a grouping plan as soon as possible.

In this way, coupled with the 1 million troops scheduled to be disarmed after the Soviet-German campaign, it is equivalent to a net cut of more than 2.7 million army strength, from nearly 7 million at the peak to more than 4 million at once, and it is very likely that it will continue to be cut to 3.5 million, which involves the issue of the balance of services: the army strength was 20 times that of the SS at the beginning, and now the SS still has 350,000 troops, and the traditional army is the mainstay.

Hoffmann expressed his understanding that in the future, the establishment of the American Army Group will be lifted, some SS numbers will be reduced, and some foreign SS troops will return to the country's Wehrmacht formation (such as the SS Irish Division), such as the police division can return to China to continue to serve as police, and the SS strength will be reduced to 200,000 or even 180,000, and the overall army will still maintain a 20-fold superiority in strength, but the missile unit will continue to be handed over to the SS superintendent, and the guard flag division responsible for the security of the Führer will be listed separately, which is not within the scope of overall planning.

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