My German Empire - Chapter 25:

Before leaving, Wilhelm handed a stack of paper to Tukhachevsky who had come to see him off. “Your Excellency General Tukhachevsky, the grandeur of Moscow is very impressive, but a slight flaw is that it seems to lack some iconic buildings with Soviet characteristics, such as the Statue of Liberty in the United States and the Eiffel Tower in France. , Britain’s Big Ben, etc. You may not know but my hobbies include architecture and painting. These are some of my works. I hope you will transfer them to His Excellency Stalin as a small gift to consolidate the friendship between our two nations.”

He took great pains to draw these architectural drawings. The purpose was simple, just to make the Soviet Union waste more resources.

There are a total of eight draft architectural drawings, the first is the Soviet palace.

In the design drawing, the 416.5-meter-high Soviet Palace is a perfect combination of classicism and skyscrapers.

On its top, a 75-meter-high Lenin sculpture stands against the wind, dwarfing the 46-meter-meter Statue of Liberty, and the 38-meter-meter Rio Jesus.

At the bottom of the building is a meeting place for 10,000 people, which can accommodated upto 21,000 seats. If the palace is built, it will replace the Kremlin as the center of Soviet power. It will become the Soviet Union Tower of Babel with three laurels—the tallest building in the world and the largest in the world. It will also have the tallest sculpture in the world.

The Soviet palace has a total area of ​​11 hectares and a weight of 1.5 million tons. If this is completed, how much resources will it cost? The steel alone is enough to build several battleships, right? How many forts can be built with the cement used?

I feel a little excited when I think about it.

Is this palace too grand to build? That’s okay, there are also seven other draft buildings.

There’s the famous seven sister buildings in Moscow in later generations, Moscow University, Leningrad Hotel, Model Worker Apartment, Ministry of Heavy Industry Building, Ukrainian Hotel, Cultural People’s Apartment, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs Building.

Wilhelm didn’t believe that Stalin would be unmoved after seeing these drawings. After all, these buildings are a group of “red” buildings that the bearded man personally proposed to build in Moscow.

Even if you build one of them, it is a profit. After all, any of the blueprints is worth hundreds of tanks.

Of course, Tukhachevsky, who has no mind-reading skills, would not know the “Little Nine-Nine” in Wilhelm’s heart and nodded solemnly. “Your Excellency Wilhelm, rest assured, I will definitely transfer it to Comrade Stalin.”

“Then goodbye, Your Excellency. And Miss Natasha.” Wilhelm smiled at the translator Natasha beside Tukhachevsky and turned and walked into the carriage.

After a while, the train slowly started and left the station, and Wilhelm summoned the four into his cabin. “Major Guderian, I hope this trip was resourceful for you.”

Guderian nodded seriously. “His Royal Highness, this trip was really rewarding, it opened my eyes.”

Wilhelm reprimanded very seriously. “I hope so, Major Guderian, when you and General Tukhachevsky performed the sand table exercise, I think you used the ancient tactics of the cavalry era. You didn’t consider that you are holding modern Armored soldiers!!” In fact, this reprimand is a bit unfair to Guderian. After all, Germany is currently useless without a single tank, so complaining that he doesn’t understand armored tactics is really unreasonable.

Later generations have a lot of respect for Guderian. He is not only a first-level general of the German Army, but also the father of the Nazi German armored forces and the founder of the German “blitz”. As famous as Rommel and Manstein are, they can only be called the troika of Nazi Germany.

Guderian not only created the “blitzkrieg” theory, but also put it into practice, sweeping across Europe and attracting worldwide attention.

It’s just that his IQ is high enough, but it’s a pity that his EQ has not kept up. The impulsiveness of his own character and the inability to compromise, also limits his development and vision.

Many things from the last war were deeply burned into people’s souls. As a former cavalry officer, Guderian also failed to escape this deadly influence.

Although he introduced a new mode of war and invented new tactics, he did not fully understand the series of far-reaching changes and requirements brought about by the new mode and new tactics.

The thinking still stays in the era of the Napoleon Emperor and the American Civil War. The old cavalry officer believed in the unique force of a cavalry force to quickly break through the enemy’s position. Then go deep behind the enemy, and outflank the enemy’s active force.

But for him, the only change on the battlefield is to replace the horses with tanks and armored vehicles. All the strategies and tactics in Guderian’s head can be summed up in one sentence: “Go forward, go forward, go forward, and keep going forward.” Anything that deviates from the thinking in his head is heresy. His impatient and unwillingness to compromise has long offended everyone. He is rigid and stubborn, but fierce and less conspiring.

“Today’s military technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, and we must keep up with it. Sooner or later, the cavalry will be replaced by armored troops and withdraw from the stage of history.”

The characteristics of cavalry are battlefield impact and rapid mobility, which is the greatest advantage of cavalry over infantry. However, the armored forces (mainly tanks) just provided the powerful impact capability and rapid mobility of the battlefield, just replacing the cavalry. The cavalry obviously cannot offset the substitution effect of armored forces through some kind of improvement, so they can only withdraw from the battlefield.

“If you don’t change your mind, you will also be eliminated. If you lose the sand table deduction, you will lose only a few pawn cards. On the real battlefield, you will lose the lives of thousands of soldiers who trust you!”

Under Wilhelm’s reprimand, Guderian’s forehead oozed fine beads of sweat. “Understand, Your Highness, I will remember it in my heart.”

Wilhelm nodded and took out a booklet. “This is the combat theory I compiled based on the tactics that General Tukhachevsky is good at. Take it back and take a look. It should be helpful to you. Also, I want to give you a task. Write letters to General Khachevsky, asking more questions. Well, at least four or five letters a year. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t reply, you just write yours.