"Brad Linaweaver - Moon Of Ice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Linaweaver Brad)

тАЬThat was largely the influence of Vice President Taft,тАЭ I reminded Hitler. His remarkable memory had
suffered these last years.

тАЬCrazy Americans,тАЭ he said, shaking his head. тАЬThey are the most unpredictable people on earth. They
pay for their soft hearts in racial pollution.тАЭ

We moved on into small talk, gossiping about various wives, when that old perceptiveness of theF├╝hrer
touched me once again. He could tell that I wasnтАЩt speaking my mind. тАЬJoseph, you and I were brothers
in Munich,тАЭ he said. тАЬI am on my deathbed. Surely you canтАЩt be hesitant to ask meanything . Speak,
man. I would talk in my remaining hours.тАЭ

And how he could talk. I remember one dinner party for which an invitation was extended to my two
eldest daughters, Helga and Hilda. Hitler entertained us with a brilliant monologue on why he hated
modern architecture anywhere but factories. He illustrated many of his points about the dehumanizing
aspect of giant cities with references to the filmMetropolis . Yet despite her great love for the cinema
Hilda would not be brought out by his entreaties. Everyone else enjoyed the evening immensely.

On this solemn occasion I asked if he had believed his last speech of encouragement in the final days of
the war when it seemed certain that we would be annihilated. Despite his words of stern optimism there
was quite literally no way of his knowing that our scientists had at that moment solved the shape-charge
problem. Thanks to Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg working together, we had developed the atomic
bomb first. Different departments had been stupidly fighting over limited supplies of uranium and heavy
water. Speer took care of that, and then everything began moving in our direction. After the first
plutonium came from a German atomic pile it was a certain principle that we would win.

I still viewed that period as miraculous. If Speer and I had not convinced the army and air force to cease
their rivalry for funds, we never would have developed the V-3 in time to deliver those lovely new
bombs.

In the small hours of the morning one cannot help but wonder how things might have been different.
WeтАЩd been granted one advantage when the cross-Channel invasion was delayed in 1943. But 1944 was
the real turning point of the war. Hitler hesitated to use the nuclear devices, deeply fearful of the radiation
hazards to our side as well as the enemy. If it had not been for the assassination attempt of July 20th, he
might not have found the resolve to issue the all-important order: destroy Patton and his Third Army
before they become operational, before they invade Europe like a cancer. What a glorious time that was
for all of us, as well as my own career. For the Russians there were to be many bombs, and many
German deaths among them. It was a small price to stop Marxism cold. Even our concentration camps in
the East received a final termination order in the form of the by-now familiar mushroom clouds.

If the damned Allies had agreed to negotiate, all that misery could have been avoided. Killing was
dictated by history. Hitler fulfilled Destiny. He never forgave the West for forcing him into a two-front
war, when he, the chosen one, was their best protection against the Slavic hordes.

How heтАЩd wanted the British Empire on our side. How heтАЩd punished them for their folly. A remaining
V-3 had delivered The Bomb on London, fulfilling a political prophecy of theF├╝hrer . He had regretted
that; but the premier war criminal of our time, Winston Churchill, had left him no alternative. They started
unrestricted bombing of civilians; well, we finished it. Besides, it made up for the failure of Operation Sea
Lion.