The World Belongs to Us

Berlin, May 1941. The windows of the Reich Chancellery were tightly shut, heavy curtains blocking out the warm May sunlight. Only a desk lamp was lit in the office, its dim light illuminating the huge Eurasian map on the wall.

Hitler stood before the map, his back to the door. His finger moved from the French coast eastward across Germany, across Poland, and finally stopped on the vast Russian plains.

Footsteps came from behind.

"Your Excellency," Keitel said softly.

"Come in," Hitler said.

Keitel stopped a meter behind him. The Chief of Staff of the Supreme Command knew the Führer's habits; he didn't like anyone getting too close.

"General Sponak's report," Keitel said, "stated that the paratrooper losses on Crete were greater than expected. Studen estimated that more than four thousand were killed or missing, and nearly two hundred transport planes were lost."

Hitler's finger stopped on the map. Crete, the southern gateway to the Aegean Sea, the key to the eastern Mediterranean. His paratroopers took it, but at a heartbreakingly heavy price.

"Tell Stuart," Hitler said with a pained expression, "that paratroopers will no longer be used on a large scale. They are elite troops, not expendable resources."

Keitel nodded and quickly jotted it down in his notebook.

Hitler suddenly turned around. The light shone on his face from the side, outlining his gaunt features and high nose. His eyes were distinctive, gleaming in the dim light like the pupils of an owl.

"Keitel," he asked, "do you know why we're attacking Crete?"

Keitel paused for a moment. He already knew the answer to this question, but since the Führer had asked it this way, there must be a deeper meaning behind it.

"In order to control the Eastern Mediterranean, Your Majesty," he replied cautiously.

Hitler shook his head.

That's just the surface.

He walked to the window and pulled back a curtain. Outside was the darkness of Berlin; the city had been under a blackout for three years, and from the window, he could see only a few scattered streetlights.

"We attacked Crete," Hitler said, almost to himself, "so that the British would think we were going to attack Egypt from there."

He lowered the curtains and turned around.

"What are the British most afraid of now? Losing Egypt. If Egypt is lost, it will affect India, and if India is lost, the British Empire will be finished."

He walked back to the map, his finger tracing the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, and finally stopping on the huge triangle of the Indian subcontinent.

"The British had staked everything on Egypt. Churchill deployed his best troops there, transported his most advanced weapons there, and placed all his hopes on Wavell. He thought we were going to attack Egypt."

A slight smile appeared on Hitler's lips. It was the smile of a hunter seeing his prey walk into a trap.

"But our target has never been Egypt."

Keitel's brow furrowed slightly. He had followed Hitler for many years and believed he understood the Führer's strategic intentions, but at this moment, he suddenly realized that he might never have truly seen through the man.

"Sir, our goal is..."

Hitler did not answer directly. He walked to his desk and took an old book from a drawer. The cover was worn and the edges were curled, but the words on the cover were still clear: *Mein Kampf*, 1925 edition.

He opened the book, found a page, and handed it to Keitel.

Keitel took it and looked down. It was a passage of text underlined in pencil:

"When we talk about new territories in Europe today, we must first think of Russia and its peripheral countries. Fate itself seems to want to point us in the right direction here, that this vast Eastern empire is destined to collapse."

He looked up at Hitler.

"Russia."

Hitler nodded.

"Russia," he repeated, "not Egypt, not the Suez Canal, not India. Those are the British's lifeline, not ours. Our lifeline is in the east."

He walked to the map, placed his hands on the table, and stared at the vast Russian plain.

"Do you know how big that land is, Keitel?"

Keitel looked at the map. From the Polish border to the Ural Mountains, from the Arctic Ocean coast to the Black Sea shore, it was the largest plain on Earth, spanning eleven time zones and covering one-sixth of the Earth's land area.

"Seventeen million square kilometers," Hitler himself gave the answer, "forty times the size of Germany. There are inexhaustible food, inexhaustible minerals, and inexhaustible oil. The oil fields of the Caucasus, the black soil of Ukraine, the coal of the Donbas, and the iron of the Urals. All of these are waiting for us to take."

His voice grew louder and louder.

"Do you know why we're fighting the Soviet Union, Keitel? It's not because we hate the Bolsheviks, of course we hate them too. It's not because we want to save European civilization, of course we will. But the real reason is simpler than any of these, and also more brutal."

He turned around and looked Keitel into his eyes.

"Because we can't survive."

Keitel was stunned.

"Germany is a resource-poor country. We have no oil, no rubber, and not enough food. Every shot we fire, every cannon we fire, every tank we start burns oil bought from Romania, the Soviet Union, and the Americans. Every turn of our factories consumes iron ore shipped from Sweden, France, and all over the world."

"The British knew this. That's why they blockaded us. They wanted to starve us. They wanted to ground our tanks, ground our planes, and starve our soldiers. They thought that if the blockade lasted long enough, Germany would collapse from within, just like in the last world war."

He turned around and looked at Keitel.

"But they were wrong. Because this time, we won't wait to be locked down. This time, we will break out and smash those shackles that bind us, one by one."

He walked back to the map and pointed to the location of Ukraine.

"Ukraine. The breadbasket of Europe. It has the most fertile black soil in all of Europe. If we take Ukraine, we will never go hungry again."

The finger moved to the Caucasus.

"The Caucasus. The Soviet Union's oil reserves. The oil produced there is enough for us to last a hundred years. If we take the Caucasus, our tanks can run forever."

The finger continued moving eastward, tracing the Ural Mountains.

"The Urals. The industrial base of the Soviet Union. The factories there, the iron mines there, the coal mines there, could allow us to produce ten times more weapons than we do now. Take the Urals, and we will never fear any enemy again."

He withdrew his hand, looked at Keitel, and nodded.

"This is the significance of Operation Barbarossa. It was not conquest, but survival; not expansion, but necessity. It was not Hitler's ambition, but the destiny of the German nation."

Keitel remained silent for a long time.

He had followed Hitler for years, listened to countless speeches, and read countless orders, believing he knew the man's thoughts inside and out. But now, standing in this dimly lit office, listening to this gaunt man recount his plans in a calm, almost cold voice, he suddenly realized that he had never truly understood this man.

This person's image in his eyes became even more majestic.

Although in the eyes of the whole world, he is a devil.

But Keitel wouldn't think that much about it.

"Your Excellency, when did you begin planning all of this?"

"From 1924, from Landsberg Prison. At that time, I was locked in a small cell, and every day I could only see a small patch of sky through the iron bars. I thought I was finished, that my political life was over. But it was there that I realized something."

"A man can be defeated, imprisoned, and deprived of everything. But as long as he lives, as long as he can think, he can start over."

He walked back to his desk and picked up the book, "My Struggle".

"This book was written in that prison cell. Not with a pen, but with my heart. Every word, every sentence, every thought was painstakingly crafted, bit by bit, during those nine months in darkness and solitude."

He looked at Keitel.

"Do you know what I wrote in that book? I wrote: The German nation needs living space. That space is in the east. We must take over Russia. This is our destiny, our fate."

He put down the book and walked to the map.

"Fifteen years. From 1924 to 1939, a full fifteen years. I spent fifteen years, step by step, realizing the plan I wrote down in my prison cell. To annex Austria, reclaim the Rhineland, take the Sudetenland, annex Czechoslovakia, blitzkrieg Poland, and defeat France. Every step was carried out according to plan, every step was taken steadily."

He looked at the vast Russian plain on the map.

"Now, only the final step remains."

Keitel stood there, swallowed hard, and her eyes flickered slightly.

Hitler's plan was never to conquer Europe. Europe was merely the first step, a springboard and a base. His target was the East, that vast land waiting for the Germans to cultivate.

Keitel finally asked the question she had been holding back for so long.

"What happens after we take over the Soviet Union?"

"And then?" Hitler chuckled softly. "The real work begins then."

He walked to the other end of the map, his finger tracing the Mediterranean Sea, across Africa, and finally stopping on the Atlantic Ocean.

"Once we take over the Soviet Union, we will control the entire European continent. From the Atlantic to the Urals, from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean, it will all be ours. What will Britain have left then? They will only have an isolated island. No allies, no resources, and no hope. They will either beg for peace or join us, or be crushed by us."

The finger continued to move, past Gibraltar, past the Azores, and finally stopped on the east coast of the Americas.

"Then it's the United States."

Keitel's breath hitched.

"America?" he murmured.

Hitler nodded.

"The United States. That country that hides behind two oceans, enriching itself by profiting from war. That country that thinks it can forever stand by and watch. That country that will eventually become our greatest enemy. We will recuperate and then prepare for the final battle with them."

He walked back to his desk and took another map from the drawer. It was a world map, larger and more detailed than the one on the wall. He spread it out on the table and pointed to the markings.

"Look, Keitel. This is what we need."

Fingers traced the west coast of South America.

"This is Chile, there is copper here."

My fingers traced across southern Africa.

"This is South Africa. There is gold, diamonds, and chromium ore."

Fingers traced across the Middle East.

"This is Iraq, this is Iran, there is oil, more oil than in the Caucasus."

The finger finally stopped on the Indian Ocean.

"This is India. The crown of the British Empire. Take India, and Britain is finished."

He straightened up and looked at Keitel.

"But all of this will have to wait until the Soviet Union falls. Because the Soviet Union is in our way. It is the only obstacle to our access to the world. As long as it exists, we cannot go south, we cannot go east, we cannot go in any direction."

He paused.

"So Barbarossa is not the end. It's just the beginning."

The office was extremely quiet.

Keitel stood there, looking at the world map, at the dense markings, at the profile of the gaunt man. He suddenly realized that he wasn't listening to a military plan, but watching a madman sketch out his dream.

But Hitler wasn't a madman. A madman wouldn't have such clear logic, such precise calculations, or such a step-by-step record leading to where he is today.

Hitler was a different kind of person. He was the kind of person who turned dreams into plans, plans into actions, and actions into reality. His dreams were too grand, beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. But precisely because they were incomprehensible, no one believed he would succeed. And it was only after he succeeded time and time again that people began to fear.

"Your Majesty, do you really believe we can defeat the Soviet Union?"

"Believe?" Hitler repeated the word, a strange smile playing on his lips. "Keitel, I don't need to believe. I know."

He walked to the window, drew back the curtains, and looked out at the dark Berlin.

"The Soviet Union was a giant with feet of clay. Their officers were useless, their soldiers were slaves, and their equipment was garbage. Stalin killed his best generals and turned the rest into nodding echoes. Their factories were in the Urals, but their resources were in Europe. They had millions of troops, but their supply lines stretched for thousands of kilometers."

He turned around and looked at Keitel.

"Do you know the essence of Blitzkrieg, Keitel? It's not about speed, ferocity, or surprise. It's about catching the enemy off guard. It's about driving the war into the enemy's rear, into their command posts and communications centers. It's about disabling their command, disabling their control, and ultimately, losing their will to fight."

He walked back to the map and pointed to the three huge red arrows on the Soviet border.

"We have three routes of attack. To the north, we'll attack Leningrad. In the center, we'll attack Moscow. To the south, we'll attack Kiev and the Caucasus. With three armies advancing simultaneously, we'll keep Stalin guessing where we're going. By the time he realizes what's happening, we'll already be at his doorstep."

His fingers tapped on the map.

"Six weeks. Eight weeks at most. We'll be at the gates of Moscow. By then, Stalin will either surrender, flee, or die. Whichever happens, the Soviet Union will be finished."

Keitel looked at the red arrows, at the vast Russian plain, at the burning light in the thin man's eyes. Suddenly, something came to mind.

"Your Excellency," he said, "what about the British? When we were fighting the Soviet Union, what if the British attacked from behind...?"

Hitler raised his hand to interrupt him.

"The British?" He chuckled softly. "The British are in dire straits themselves. They've lost 40,000 men in Crete, 50,000 in Greece, and are being chased by Rommel in North Africa. What do they have to offer us in the back?"

He walked to his desk and picked up a document.

"Besides, I've already made the arrangements."

Keitel took the document and looked down at it.

It was a confidential diplomatic cable, dated three days prior. The sender was the German ambassador to Tokyo, and the recipient was the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin. The message was brief:

"The Japanese government has agreed in principle to launch an attack on the Soviet Union from the Far East after Operation Barbarossa begins. The specific timing is yet to be determined."

Keitel looked up at Hitler.

"Japan?"

Hitler nodded.

"Japan. They have over a million Kwantung Army soldiers in the Far East, with nothing better to do. If you send them to attack the Soviet Union, Stalin would be fighting on two fronts. One is us, and the other is Japan. How can he possibly manage both?"

He walked back to the map and pointed in the direction of Siberia.

"Do you know how many troops the Soviet Union has in the Far East? 1.5 million. Those are their most elite troops, all stationed there to defend against the Japanese. If the Japanese really attack, those troops can't move. If they can't move, we'll have 1.5 million fewer enemies on the Western Front."

He turned around and looked at Keitel.

"One million five hundred thousand..."

Keitel was speechless.

Hitler smiled with satisfaction.

"So, Keitel, do you understand? Barbarossa wasn't a gamble. It was meticulously planned. Every step was calculated. Troops, time, route, logistics, diplomacy—everything was planned. Six weeks. Eight weeks at most. The Soviet Union would be finished."

He walked to the window and looked out at the dark city.

"At that time, the whole world will be ours."