How many wars took place after World War I?

The massive steel battle of World War I pushed the contest of national power between major powers to an extreme. While Germany was painstakingly rearming its armaments in order to break away from the Treaty of Versailles, the idea of ??"total war" gradually took shape. The book "Total War" published by Ludendorff, the deputy chief of the German General Staff, in 1935, summarized the war economic theory that sprouted from the "World War I" and emphasized that war requires the transformation of the country in all aspects of politics, economy and social life; It is necessary to mobilize the whole people's strength, including spiritual and economic, to participate in the war, and do not hesitate to use any means to destroy the enemy's troops and civilians. At the same time, in view of Germany's national conditions, it must expand its self-sufficiency in war resources, reserve strategic raw materials in advance, and ensure overseas sources. These ideas were undoubtedly important references for later Nazi war practices.

Hitler was not the orthodox successor to the undercurrent of German militarism after World War I, but he made his fortune during the economic crisis. In the "Twenty-Five Points Program" proposed as the Nazi party's platform during the "Beer Hall Riots" in Munich in 1920, this little man focused on national revanchism and catering to the social reform requirements of the small and medium-sized bourgeoisie, and violently attacked capitalism, trusts, and big companies. Industrialists and large landowners advocated "the prohibition of unearned income, the prohibition and confiscation of all illegal gains made from war, the sharing of the profits of large industries, the nationalization of large department stores and leasing them to small businessmen." Subsequently, the Nazi Party continued to win over small and medium-sized enterprises, handicraftsmen, small and medium-sized farmers and the lower classes of society with policies such as state ordering, solving employment problems, and banning land speculation. Hitler's theory is, "National socialism protects private property. Individuals sacrifice for society, which is nationalism; society serves individuals, which is socialism. The combination of these two points is national socialism."

Hitler did not intend to compete with Britain and France for overseas colonies, but established an expansion sequence of "Central Europe-European Continent-Global". Therefore, the first thing that made him angry was the current situation in Europe. In Mein Kampf, he proposed: “The National Socialist movement must strive to eliminate the imbalance between our country’s population and our country’s area, regarding the latter not only as a source of food, but also as the basis of power politics. "A territorial policy cannot be achieved in Cameroon, and today it can be achieved almost exclusively in Europe. The acquisition of territory in Europe is only possible at the expense of Russia... and the new empire must... use the German sword." The German plow obtains the land and obtains the daily bread for the German people. "We must turn our attention to the land in the east. This land exists for the people who have the power to possess it."

1933. On February 3, just five days after taking power, Hitler said in a speech to senior generals: "Germany's only survival may be immigration, but the living space of the German people is too small... Therefore, the first task is to build the Wehrmacht and rely on the Wehrmacht." ”

The prerequisite for rearmament is that the economy shifts to a war track. In July 1933, the Nazis ordered all industrial organizations to form syndicates to control the domestic market and prices. The "German Economic Association" established on the same day required all private enterprises to join one of the six major groups of industry, commerce, energy, banking, insurance and handicrafts, and also divided the country into 18 economic provinces. In 1934, the Nazis stipulated that the Ministry of Economic Affairs had the power to establish, dissolve or merge all industrial organizations, and sent leaders to enterprises to implement the "leadership principle" in the economic sector.

In the process of military expansion, the German central finance could only afford two-thirds of military expenditures. To this end, the Nazis not only confiscated the property of "enemies of the state" (only depriving the Jewish capital of 6 billion to 8 billion marks) ), and also used all financial means: controlling Deutsche Bank, Dresdner Bank and commercial banks, the government has the right to dispose of large-scale public capital such as pension funds and social insurance funds in all public capital storage centers in emergencies; cutting welfare Expenses; issues treasury bills, special bills of exchange, and tax stamps.

In the German government revenue from 1933 to September 1939, domestic taxes, customs duties, etc. accounted for 81.8 billion marks, "Metallurgical Research Institute" credit 10.5 billion marks, tax stamps 3.1 billion marks, plus Short-term credit is 6.9 billion marks, long-term credit is 16.7 billion marks, and *** is 119 billion marks, of which military expenditure accounts for 60 billion marks.

During the war from September 1939 to May 1945, Germany's military expenditure totaled 622 billion marks, accounting for 92% of the national budget during the same period. Total tax revenue amounted to 182.7 billion marks. The national budget deficit averaged 34% per year. In the spring of 1945, the national debt The total amount reached 379.3 billion marks. Although the government was deeply in debt, it was able to obtain all supplies through requisition, at the expense of a monetary system that was on the verge of collapse by the end of the war. But the Nazis did not rely on high tax rates because they could give the public an illusion of stability. In 1941, the income tax rate on an annual personal income of 10,000 marks was 13.7%.

Another source of wealth for Germany is the "cannons not butter" policy. "Skilled workers entered the arsenal and unskilled workers built highways." The prosperity of military industry and related industries solved Germany's serious unemployment problem and increased the overall purchasing power of society, becoming one of the achievements advertised by the Third Reich. Of course, the Nazis’ primary goal was not to improve life. Food production was controlled by the state. The reason why Germans were willing to accept the simple peasant life advocated by the Nazis was largely due to the contrast with the Great Depression and the beauty of the powerful empire outlined by the Nazis. Future expectations.

From 1932 to 1938, Germany's pig iron production increased from 3.9 million tons to 18.6 million tons, and steel production increased from 5.6 million tons to 23.2 million tons. In early 1934, the German National Defense Working Committee approved a plan to mobilize 240,000 factories to supply war orders. From 1933 to 1936, Germany built more than 300 new arsenals, including 55 aircraft factories, 40 automobile and tank factories, 70 chemical factories, 15 shipyards and 80 artillery factories. By the time of the invasion of Poland in 1939, Germany's industrial output had surpassed that of the United Kingdom and was second only to the United States and the Soviet Union.

Learning from the severe shortage of food during World War I that caused instability on the rear, Germany achieved self-sufficiency in food by 1938 and increased its grain reserves from 3.08 million tons the previous year to 9.13 million tons, which was enough. The country has been eating it for more than two years, and its oil reserves have increased from 130,000 tons to 470,000 tons, and potato reserves have reached 15.46 million tons.

However, military expansion and war preparations could not really solve the crisis. Instead, Germany's exports dropped in 1939 and its finances deteriorated. The foreign exchange and gold reserves were only 5.6 billion marks, and the national debt was as high as more than 60 billion marks. Hitler said on November 5, 1937: "For Germany, economic embarrassment has also become a driving force. The practice of stimulating the world economy through armaments production will never lay the foundation for economic arrangements in the long term. The basis...the only remedy that may be worthy of our dreams is to strive for a larger living space. "War is not only a temptation, but also a necessity.

When preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union began on July 31, 1940, the German army estimated that it would need 120 army divisions. On August 2, Chief of the General Staff Keitel asked the Bureau of War Economics and Armament to develop armaments to equip 180 army divisions. plan. By February 1941, within half a year, German arms production had increased by nearly 60%, including a 100% increase in ammunition, a 25% increase in tank production, 31.8 million tons of steel, 4.8 million tons of oil, and 439 million tons of coal throughout Western Europe. There were also 4,876 factories producing arms for Germany. At one time, Germany's industrial base exceeded that of the Soviet Union by more than 50%. In the same year, Germany obtained 8.12 million tons of fuel, which basically met the needs of the army. Together with the 8.8 million tons of oil reserves in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries, it could sustain the war for seven months.

Before the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, Germany controlled 2.47 million square kilometers of land, three times its own territory, with a population of 270 million. Its European allies also had 800,000 square kilometers of territory and a population of 78 million. In terms of soldiers, although the Soviet Union has 31.5 million men aged 20 to 39 years old and only 15.5 million German men in the same age group, Germany can make use of the army of slave countries and the industrial labor force replaced by foreign workers and prisoners of war.

The Soviet Union’s preparations for war

The Soviet Union’s preparations for war can be traced back to the industrialization in 1926. As the only socialist country that took advantage of the chaos of the First World War to achieve successful revolution, the Soviet Union’s peaceful construction was heavily preparatory to war.

The first Five-Year Plan started in 1928 marked the full launch of Soviet industrialization. In 1931, 1/3 of the world's total exports of machinery and equipment were purchased by the Soviet Union, and the following year it reached 50%. The proportion of industry in total output value has also increased to 70.7%.

The "Second Five-Year Plan" started in 1933 saw the establishment of 4,500 industrial enterprises, and the total industrial output value increased by 1.2 times, ranking first in Europe and second in the world. In the 13 years before the war, the Soviet Union’s cumulative defense expenditure was 170.1 billion rubles, which was only slightly lower than the total industrial investment of 185 billion rubles.

The Soviet industrial layout also fully considered strategic depth. The "First Five-Year Plan" established new industrial bases in Ukraine, the Caucasus, Belarus and Kazakhstan, the "Second Five-Year Plan" will invest half of heavy industry investment in the east, and the "Third Five-Year Plan" will focus on the Volga River Basin, the Urals and Siberia. as the focus.

In his speech in 1927, Stalin asserted: "This problem of a new imperialist war is the basic problem of the present. This is almost beyond doubt." The Soviet Union will face "a long-term, cruel war." competition in which the entire economic and political foundations of both warring parties will be tested." In 1933, he also stated that the enemy "can exploit our technological and economic weaknesses to attack us at any time." One month before the war, Stalin made it clear in his speech at the graduation ceremony of the Red Army command trainees: "Germany will be the enemy."

The Soviet army's war preparations, especially the scale of the planned mechanized equipment, were unprecedented in human history. It is unprecedented in the world and has reached the point of being divorced from reality. After the Soviet military personnel expanded from 855,000 in 1933 to 1.943 million in early 1939, it increased to more than 5 million in June 1941. The Army planned to increase from 98 divisions to 303. In March 1941, the Soviet General Staff formulated a plan to shift industry to wartime production, but equipment production lagged seriously behind. The adaptation required the tank force to be expanded to 61 tank divisions and 31 motorized infantry divisions. Each division should be equipped with 375 and 275 tanks respectively, totaling more than 31,400 tanks. Before the war, Japan only received more than 7,000 tanks, of which New tanks only have 26%. The adaptation required the establishment of 25 aviation divisions and 106 aviation regiments within one year, half of which were equipped with new aircraft. However, by the summer of 1941, the production capacity of the Soviet aviation industry was about 50% higher than that of Germany, and the total output, especially the output of new aircraft models, was far behind. It was far from keeping up with demand. By the time of the German invasion, only 19 regiments had been refitted. The five airborne corps established at the beginning of the year are seriously lacking in technical weapons, and the new air defense system has not yet been fully established. As a result, one month after the war broke out, the Soviet army's original organization plan was forced to significantly reduce. The aviation division was reduced from 4 to 6 regiments to two regiments, the aircraft of each regiment was reduced from 61 to 22 to 32, and the infantry organization was reduced by 25%. , artillery was reduced by 52%, cars were reduced by 64%, and the groping mechanized army was all cancelled.

In March 1940, the Soviet-Finnish War, which they barely won, exposed the weakness and chaos of the Soviet army after the Great Purge. A large number of officers promoted after the "anti-revolutionary campaign" lacked training and combat experience, resulting in a decline in the training level of many units. The youngest soldiers in the German combat units were recruited in the autumn of 1940, and those who were recruited in the spring of 1941 were sent to the reserve corps. However, Soviet soldiers were recruited to the front line as soon as they joined the army. Before the war, more than two-thirds of the soldiers in the border military region served in the first year, and half of them only joined the army that year.

In the words of a British historian: The Soviet army on the eve of the war was a powerful but unassembled machine. This is why Hitler was eager to take action and Stalin tried his best to avoid war in 1941.

The strength of both sides after the Soviet-German war

“Kick open the worn-out door and the whole house will collapse.”

——Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union Prediction

Precisely because total war requires the mobilization of the entire people, Ludendorff, who was well aware of Germany's national strength, particularly emphasized the importance of a quick decisive war in "Total War": "It must be committed without scruples from the beginning. 'The last soldier'. Ignore many known and possible threats and obey the arrangements of the war."

Hitler also knew the strength of the Soviet Union. Two months before the war, Germany The Air Force delegation visited several Soviet aviation bearing, alloy and engine factories. In their report to Goering, they admitted that the Soviet aircraft manufacturing industry was the largest and most advanced in Europe.

There was less than a year left from the time the determination to invade the Soviet Union was made to the spring of 1941. Hitler and the German high command, who overestimated themselves, bet on a quick decisive battle, believing that the invasion of the Soviet Union would only take 5 months. In September, it is not necessary and impossible to completely reload and mobilize. We only need to continue to implement the "Four-Year Plan" and the "broad armament" policy (that is, the military industry has a wide coverage, but the scale is not very large), mainly through the existing military industry. Full speed of power to meet need.

Hitler’s bigger bet was: “If (the war against the Soviet Union) is successful, it may create a situation that forces Britain to make peace.” At the same time, “the elimination of Russia will greatly increase Japan’s power in the Far East.” The entire world Everyone will "hold their breath" because of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The war broke out on June 22, 1941, and the Soviet Union suffered heavy losses in all aspects. In September of that year, 1.5 million square kilometers of land were lost, and about 75 million people fell behind enemy lines. Within a year, the Soviet army lost 8.04 million combat personnel, including 2.5 million dead, 4.34 million captured, and 1.2 million disabled. Half a year after the war began, the total industrial output value dropped to 48% of the pre-war level, and the production of key weapons materials such as ferrous/non-ferrous metal plates and bearings came to a halt. By 1942, the output of coal, pig iron and steel dropped from 166 million tons, 15 million tons and 18 million tons in 1940 to 75 million tons, 5 million tons and 4.8 million tons respectively.

However, the Soviet Union's rear mobilization mechanism quickly came into operation. Two hours after the war broke out, the Supreme Soviet issued an order "On the State of War", stipulating measures such as citizens' labor obligations, requisitioning means of transportation, and rationing of daily necessities. On the 26th, it issued an order "On the System of Working Hours for Employees in Wartime" . On June 30, the Soviet Union established the National Defense Commission as the highest wartime authority. In July, the comprehensive People's Commissariat of Defense Industry was reorganized into four professional People's Commissariat of Defense Industry: aviation, shipbuilding, ordnance and ammunition, and was replaced by medium-sized machine manufacturing. The Special People's Commissariat for Tank Manufacturing was separated from the People's Commissariat. In November, the People's Commissariat for General Machinery Manufacturing was restructured into the People's Commissariat for Rocket Equipment, which was specifically responsible for the production of rocket launchers and mortars. The original Economic Committee was reorganized into National Defense. , metallurgy, fuel and machinery manufacturing 4 professional economic committees.

The eastward relocation of industry was an important measure for Soviet wartime mobilization. The evacuation committee established on June 24 had arranged the relocation plan for 11 aviation plants on June 29. By the second half of 1941, equipment and large quantities of materials from 2,593 industrial enterprises had been relocated from the west. In May 1942, the transfer of enterprises in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic Sea coast was basically completed. In the second phase, enterprises in southern regions such as Stalingrad and the North Caucasus were evacuated. During the entire process of moving eastward, the railway system transported 1.5 million trains of industrial equipment and more than 10 million employees. Among them, the Trans-Siberian Railway, which was built after the Russo-Japanese War and was improved during industrialization, played an important role. Many enterprises that have relocated start operations at their new locations in less than two months on average, and some even partially start operations midway or in the open air.

In the national economic mobilization plan in the third quarter of 1941, the Soviet Union rapidly increased the production of coal, oil and metals, adjusted the distribution of raw materials, electricity and equipment for the military industry. By the second half of 1941, tank production ratio In the first half of the year, the number of aircraft increased by 60%, and the number of artillery pieces tripled. The 1942 War Economic Plan adopted in August called for mobilizing all material resources in the Volga River Basin, the Urals, Siberia, Kazakhstan and Central Asia to increase arms production. From 1941 to 1945, the Ural region alone produced 440,000 artillery pieces, 136,000 aircraft, 100,000 tanks and self-propelled artillery.

The waxing and waning of strength

“We once estimated that the enemy has about 200 divisions, but now we have identified 360 divisions... If we eliminate a dozen divisions, the Russians will A dozen more will be invested. Time... is good for them, they are closer to their own resources, while we are getting further and further away from our own resources." - German Army Chief of Staff Halder in 1941. August's diary

Six months after the Soviet-German war broke out, the German army was blocked under the walls of Moscow, suffering nearly 750,000 casualties and 2,750 of its 4,000 tanks. By the end of March 1942, the casualties had increased to 100. More than 10,000 people accounted for 1/3 of the total force on the Eastern Front. Among them, at least 15,000 officers were lost, and there were also a large number of non-combat attrition. The 400,000 "reserve troops" had been mobilized in August 1941, and 132,000 more were needed at the front.

Before the spring of 1942, the German army did not hesitate to mobilize workers, rear personnel and western front troops to supplement the eastern front with more than 40 divisions. However, by July of that year there were still only 2.847 million troops, and only 8 divisions were fully ready when the summer offensive began. Without preparations for the attack, the main attacking force was only half as strong. By the end of the year, although Germany's slave state troops had increased to 72.5 divisions, bringing the total strength to 266 divisions and 6.2 million people, it was still lower than the Soviet army's 6.591 million people. Moreover, the Soviet army has never been under the pressure of fighting on two fronts. In November 1942, only 47 of the 390 divisions were deployed in the Far East, while 71 of Germany's 264 divisions had to be stationed in Western Europe, Southern Europe, and North Africa.

Due to years of consumption, an armaments policy that seeks quick success, poor organization and management, and constraints on labor and raw materials, Germany’s war economy has not reached the expected level. Ammunition production has been significantly reduced, artillery and anti-tank weapons are insufficiently produced, and infantry Firepower has been weakened, the air force lacks long-range weapons for strategic bombing, and the naval equipment gap is even greater.

The Soviet Union also faced tremendous pressure. The first is the extremely difficult supply of food, and the second is the lack of labor. To this end, the Supreme Soviet implemented a rationing system, passed the "Decree on Mobilizing City Residents Able to Work in Production and Construction in Wartime," and established a labor registration and distribution committee. By the summer of 1942, the Soviet Union had completed the transformation of its national economy to war. 1,200 factories that had moved eastward and 850 new factories were put into operation. The proportion of industrial output in the eastern region increased from 28.4% in 1940 to 70%. The military output in the east alone was It has reached the national level before the war, and the output of major military products exceeds that of Germany. In 1944, the Soviet Union's annual output reached 40,300 aircraft, 28,983 tanks, and 122,500 artillery pieces, all several times that of Germany.

Twilight of the Third Reich

At the beginning of 1942, Hitler had to admit that the Blitzkrieg failed to defeat the Soviet Union. At the same time, the German occupied area began to shrink, and the strategic resources available had reached their limit. The "war to support war" was unable to continue, and there was a serious shortage of heavy industrial raw materials and human resources. It had to implement the general mobilization of the national economy, and the "war economy" truly began.

In February 1942, Speer was appointed Minister of the Ministry of Armaments and Munitions (reorganized into the Ministry of Armaments and War Production in September 1943) and began a major reorganization of German industry. While centralizing power, Speer also encouraged the autonomy, agency, and joint ventures of private enterprises. These measures helped overcome the various struggles for power and arbitrariness in German military industry management, and standardized the large-scale production system. Whether it was Krupp Large arsenals, or small family factories with only a dozen or so people in Silesia, can all collaborate, which is of special significance to maintaining production even as Allied bombing continues to intensify. On the other hand, Germany stepped up its plundering, obtaining 2.008 billion marks in supplies from the slave countries in 1942, and transporting 4.23 billion marks in supplies from the occupied countries in Western Europe in 1943.

It should be said that the German arms industry showed amazing adaptability and survivability during this period. It maintained growth in 1944, and weapons production reached its peak in July, expanding 5.3 times compared with 1939. The number of aircraft factories in this year increased from 80 in 1943 to 550. Aircraft production in the first half of the year increased by 19.4%. The annual aircraft production was 39,870, including 30,511 fighter jets, which were 3.4 times and 6.6 times those in 1941. Tank production was The number increased by 33.9% to 27,000 vehicles, and the number of artillery pieces increased by 50.3% to 87,000 pieces.

However, the result was that the goose was killed and the war economy developed abnormally. In 1943, 4/5 of German products were military supplies. Agricultural and animal husbandry production continued to decline. Industrial production briefly peaked in 1943 and then began to decline. , important basic industries such as steel, coal and electricity came to a standstill. By the first half of 1944, except for electricity, steel and aluminum, the output of most heavy industrial products in Germany declined, strategic material reserves became less and less, and transportation difficulties were fundamentally The foundation of military production was shaken.

In April 1944, the Soviet army broke through the pre-war borders. In June, the Allied forces landed in Western Europe. Germany, which was attacked on both fronts, fell further into trouble, and the war soon entered the German mainland. The balance of war economic strength between the two sides tilted rapidly. In 1944, the ratio of arms output between the Soviet Union, the United States and Britain and Germany reached 9:2.

Taking the Air Force as an example, in the second half of 1943, Germany produced 11,395 combat aircraft and repaired 5,144. In the first half of 1944, they were 15,299 and 5,491 respectively. However, losses on the battlefield caused the actual aircraft inventory to drop from 19,932 to 15,233. The entire Air Force can only work hard for local air defense. The Allies' escalating strategic bombings ranked submarine factories, aircraft factories, ball bearing factories, oil refineries, synthetic rubber factories and automobile factories as the six most important targets in sequence. Speer later admitted: "It took countless hours to rescue the damage caused by the air raids. "One hundred thousand soldiers." Goebbels wrote after a relatively peaceful night: "It is absolutely ridiculous. Just ten noisy bombers are enough to drive 15 million to 18 million Germans out of their beds." In the former Germans, the average daily food quota for each person was about 3,000 calories, which dropped to 2,500 and 2,200 calories in 1942 and 1944 respectively. By March 1945, on the eve of the Battle of Berlin, Germany's average monthly steel production was only 15% of 1944, coal was 16%, and monthly tank production also dropped from 705 to 333. At this point, Germany could no longer talk about wartime economic problems.

Revelation from the Soviet-German War

Throughout the Soviet-German War, the Soviets did not have any particularly clever strategies, tactics or risky actions. The decisive factor was that they were as huge as a polar bear. Manpower and material resources, as well as super strong will and patience. In the first few months of the war, the Germans captured 3.6 million Soviet troops. This was a big surprise, and they thought that the Soviet reserve force was running out. The exhausted Commander-in-Chief of Army Group Center, Bobok, who was exhausted outside Moscow, said: "Who is going to put in the last effort at this time?" Whoever has one battalion can win!" Unexpectedly, the Soviet Army High Command mobilized the reserves of nine more army groups. Not long after the war started, Hitler was also deeply shocked by the strength of the Soviet army. He once said to Guderian: "If I had known that the number of Soviet tanks listed in your book (referring to "Tanks, Forward!") was true, maybe We would not have started this war!” During the Nuremberg trial, Nazi Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop listed the “unexpected power of the Red Army” as one of the three major factors in Germany’s defeat.

Germany could not withstand not only equal consumption of combat forces, but also unequal consumption. The Soviet army lost more than 300,000 people on the Eastern Front more than once in battles, but it could still mobilize more troops. strength, but the German army was unable to attack across the board in the battle of Moscow, and fell into passivity in the battle of Stalingrad. If the estimate of the Soviet Union's mobilization potential was limited by the absolute secrecy of the Soviet Union's military construction, then Hitler and the German generals believed that the Soviet Union's popular sentiment would soon collapse. This can only be said to be racist arrogance and a lack of understanding of the Soviet Union's national conditions.

When talking about the cost of industrialization, Stalin once said: "If Germany is a country that has established a proletarian dictatorship, then the industrialization of the Soviet Union can certainly start with light industry." With the strict Cheka work law Dzerzhinsky, who is famous in economic management, also famously said: "Can the Russia of workers and peasants be anything else? It can only be made of metal." Therefore, the heavy lessons and great victories of the Soviet-German war have become specimens, "Empire "Theory of the Inevitability of Socialist War" became the truth, and industrialization, agricultural collectivization and "military productivity layout" became the red bible.

The two different technical philosophies embodied by the Soviet Union and Germany in weapons and equipment also had an important impact on wartime production. Soviet designers have always adhered to the simplest truth - weapons must be simple and reliable, easy to mass produce, train and maintain in order to meet the needs of war. Weapons production must pay attention to the highest total combat effectiveness produced by unit input, rather than simply pursuing performance. This is the reason for the numerical advantage of Soviet tanks and aircraft. Of course, Germany has also invested in quantitative wrestling with armor thickness and artillery power. In order to compete with the T-34 medium tank and KB-1 heavy tank, it has developed increasingly heavier "Leopard", "Tiger" and "King Tiger". Heavy tanks. However, the reality that the national power is inferior to that of the Soviet Union has always driven the idea of ??quality over quantity throughout Germany's armament development, and there have even been designs that were too "advanced" to be realized, such as the 188-ton "Rat" super-heavy tank. The Nazis' racism drove away a large number of scientists, but the new weapons that Germany developed or were about to come out at the end of World War II still astonish future generations. The prototypes of jet aircraft, guided bombs, anti-aircraft missiles, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles are all Originating from Germany, there are also a large number of incredible plans, which have something to do with that crazy party leader. Although these weapons are generally not used against the Soviet army, in contrast, the Soviet army basically did not pursue relatively novel weapons during the war.