Chapter 10. The War Cabinet
17 January 1945, Führerbunker, Berlin, Großdeutsches Reich
In the evening, Hitler and some of his ministers and generals met in the
Map Room of the Führerbunker in order to discuss the military situation of the Reich and to devise a new strategy taking into account the presence of the Dome.
Much to the surprise of those still unacquainted with Adolphine's revelations about the gloomy would-be future of the Reich, Hitler opened the meeting with a blunt statement:
"
The military situation of the Reich is abbysmal. If not for the presence of this formidable defensive shield, the Reich would be destroyed and partitioned by our enemies in less than four months."
With no more fear of being percieved as defeatists, the generals presented a realistic image of the horrendous military situation which was amplified by the chronic lack of oil and other supplies, the severely hampered logistical capabilities and the insufficient production of weapons and other war-related materials. Especially alarming was the situation on the Eastern Front where the Soviet armies were approaching the Oder.
Hitler lashed out at his faithful generals with a seemingly never-ending diatribe in which he accused them of deliberately withholding the gravity of the situation during their previous meetings. Although all those present knew this was clearly false, nobody dared to say anything.
Suddenly, Hitler calmed down and demanded solutions:
"
Let's forget about the past now and focus on the future! It is absolutely imperative to protect Berlin at any cost whatsoever. If the Bolsheviks manage to capture Berlin, as they did in the other history, they will destroy the Dome and all of us will end up hanged in Nürnberg! I want the Soviet offensive stopped! I want solutions to this crisis now!"
Besides Goebbels, nobody understood the meaning of the phrase "the other history" and neither did they understand why Hitler mentioned Nürnberg of all places. Not letting themselves to be distracted by these small issues, the generals did their job and came forward with various proposals. All of them suffered from one important problem: there were not enough soldiers available to stop the Soviet offensive before it would begin to lose steam due to lack of supplies.
As Hitler continued to insist that the Soviet offensive ought to be stopped long before being able to threaten Berlin, a voice was heard suggesting something considered unthinkable:
"
I understand that we can open doors in this Dome at will... We could try to bring home our armies stranded outside..."
Hitler's face turned red and he started to yell out of control then stopped suddenly and exclaimed:
"
Sure, let's bring them home! All of them! Who cares about those traitorous Italians? We need all our armies to protect the Fatherland! After clearing the Dome of enemy forces nobody will be able to stop us when we decide to invade them again and turn the Lebensraum into a reality! Except Norway. We need Norway for the Swedish iron and, besides, the Norwegians are of good Aryan stock [...]"
************
The meeting ended shortly before midnight with the following conclusions:
1. Enigma is compromised. In the future, it will be used only to convey false information to the enemy.
A new encryption system should be made available as soon as possible. To this end,
Konrad Zuse will use all available resources to program a modern encryption system in
Plankalkül or other programming language should
Plankalkül fail in this task.
All usable information should be extracted from Adolphine Heimat and the robots.
2. All German armies from Italy, Croatia and Courland will fall back inside the Dome in good order during the following 10 to 15 days.
The
Volkdeutsche from the vacated areas will be allowed inside the Dome.
The Courland Pocket will be evacuated by Sea, from the inside of the Dome.
All the available armies will be assigned to the Eastern Front and the defence of Berlin.
3. The defence of Berlin and the defeat of the Soviet offensive are given top priority.
All Soviet armies inside the Dome should be
annihilated and the Eastern Front completely closed by the end of April.
4. Norway should be defended for as long as possible without placing our armies in danger of being cut off from the Dome limit.
5. Besides recovering occupied Reich territory around Aachen, all other offensive operations on the Western Front must cease immediately. An accomodation with the
Anglo-Americans will be attempted.
6. The
Uranprojekt is given top priority. Werner Heisenberg will use all available resources in order to finish the first atomic bomb before the Americans.
All the technologies present in the Hirn will be studied and, if possible, replicated.
All usable information should be extracted from Adolphine Heimat and the robots.
7. The borders of the Reich are changed as follows:
- the Südtirol inside the Dome is annexed to the Reich and organized as Gau Südtirol;
- the rest of the Italian lands inside the Dome are organized as Reichsprotektorat Venedig;
- the Slovenian lands inside the Dome are annexed to the Reich and merged to Gau Krain, Gau Kärnten and Gau Steiermark;
- the Croatian lands inside the Dome are organized as Reichsprotektorat Kroatien;
- the small portion of the Reichskomissariat Ukraine inside the Dome is annexed to the General Government;
- the small portion of the Generalbezirk Weißrussland inside the Dome is annexed to the General Governement;
- the part of Bezirk Byalistok inside the Dome is annexed to the General Government;
- the part of Generalbezirk Litauen inside the Dome is organized as Reichsprotektorat Litauen;
- the small portion of Generalbezirk Lettland inside the Dome is organized as Reichsprotektorat Lettland;
Thus, the borders of the Reich follow the Dome limit in the south from the Swiss border to the Hungarian border and in the east from the Hungarian border to the Baltic Sea.
[Miscellanious points of lesser or local importance.]
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17 January 1945, the Hirn, Berlin, Großdeutsches Reich
Several metres beneath the Map Room, Adolphine received her guests and treated them with an awful tasting beverage which she thought to be tea. Magda Goebbels brought chocolate, which endeared her to Adolphine.
Afterwards, Adolphine, Magda and her daughters Helga and Hilde watched a short movie. The children were absolutely delighted by the 3D holographic projection emanating from Olaf while Magda was really dumbstruck by it.
Before leaving, the three children played a 3D virtual reality immersion shooting game which shocked Magda even more than the movie. The SS guards entered the room when hearing gunfire to see nothing but the kids wearing glasses, laughing and yelling while aiming their fingers at one another.
Later, Adolphine taught the SS guards how to play the game and, much to their dismay, "killed" them every time.
It was fun. Who cared that the Reich was burning around them?
. Rather than waste my time now doing that - although I can still spend 2/3 hours a day on assorted sites - I spend it far more constructive on computer gaming.
