the inadequacy of our own tanks, is painfully true. I should have listened to you earlier, Rommel. I should have known you could not fail on your own merits.”
“If I had those tanks I would already be in Cairo,” said Rommel.
“I do not doubt it,” said Hitler. “You have done the best you could with what we gave you. Now we must do better. I am done with building battleships, much to Admiral Raeder’s chagrin. He has sent the entire navy gallivanting out into the Atlantic, and the British simply chased it back into French ports! Doenitz told me we would never have a surface fleet to match the Royal Navy, and he is another man I should have listened to. Yes, the British have these deadly new rockets. They have stolen a march on us with that, but we will catch up very soon. In the meantime, I do not think they can use this new naval rocket against our U-boats. I have already cancelled the H-Class battleship program, and the steel will be put to good use building more U-boats and these new heavy tanks. And what you have said about those Stukas has also been heard. I have underestimated the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe, and we will correct that matter. Rest assured, you will get all the air support you ask for in the desert.”
“Thank you, my Fuhrer,” said Rommel. “Yet it could take years before we get these new weapons into production. In the meantime, what am I supposed to fight with?”
“Not years, Rommel, months. The whole weight of the Reich is being committed to this, every engineer, every factory, all our resources. Yes, we will keep up a modest production on existing models to replace combat losses in Russia, but I have approved the new designs, and the bulk of our production is already gearing up for these new tanks and aircraft. If, by some miracle, the Soviets survive this winter, then by next spring, summer at the latest, things will be quite different. A year from today I expect to have at least three new tanks at the heart of all our panzer divisions, and soon after that, we will have these rockets that have been so troublesome. The British will see that two can play at this game. I hope to deliver the first prototypes to the Lehr units in a matter of months. Soon the big cats will be prowling the steppes of Mother Russia, and I assure you, they will have very sharp teeth and claws.”
Chapter 21
The Situation on the Russian front had been very difficult in the early weeks of July. The Soviets had suffered severe losses in May and June, but had managed to make a stubborn retreat, though not without great cost. Many rifle divisions had been ill equipped in transport, and fuel was rationed to a point where most units were relegated to moving by foot. The rail system had collapsed under heavy German air attack in the early weeks of the campaign, but it had slowly recovered, and was now the life saver of the Soviet Army. Running on coal, it was not hobbled by fuel shortages, as the Soviets had sufficient stockpiles of rail coal for at least a year. So rail was the primary means of strategic transport, and the Soviet Generals had used it most efficiently to rush the endless supply of troops forming into new divisions to the front.
The Germans would overrun and destroy a rifle division, only to find two more detraining and marching sullenly up to the front to reinforce the line. Yet Minsk had fallen, Kiev was besieged, and the Red Army had been pushed back behind the wide marshy flows of the Dnieper. Now Sergei Kirov was meeting in the Red Archives again with his intelligence chief, Berzin, and receiving a full report on the deteriorating situation after this intensive German offensive activity.
“They are making every effort to break out before we get too deeply entrenched behind the river,” said Berzin.
“Give me the whole report, Grishin,” said Kirov, using the old code name Berzin had adopted when he operated undercover in the Spanish Civil War. Kirov always called him that, particularly in any personal matter. And now these affairs of state had become very personal, for it was not only the fate of the nation at stake, but their own hides as well. “What is happening in the north?”
“No further developments. Army Group North has pushed as far