Cabinet Meeting July 1944
0000 July 1st 1944
Reichstag, Berlin, Germany
"I have called this meeting so to be informed about the overall status of our Armed Forces. Julius, it's just you me and Speer; I hope you have enough data with which inform us" Bormann started the meeting.
"I do Martin" Ringel laid some paper and maps over the table "I will say it now: things are not good, but not even desperate."
"Good to know. Let us show that 'not good' in detail."
"For sure. I will start with the Eastern front, information kindly provided by our two commanders of the Eastern theatre, von Rundstedt and von Manstein."
"This is an overall look above the whole Eastern theatre in relation of our plans we devised ten days ago. The red line shows what was the front we planned to achieve, the yellow line shows alterations to that front. We have two hundred thirteen divisions grouped in forty armies. Those divisions do also take into account those of our allies. Many of them are terribly understrenght and will remain so for some months to come.
In the North everything is stable; the Soviets seem to be tired of so much walking and we're still waiting them. We plan to keep Riga as it is easy to defend, and we always have a river behind it which makes for an excellent place to retreat just in case. Hence the yellow line in Riga.
The central region is messy. We have several divisions under attack and it's difficult to keep the lines. We hope the Polish rebellion be quelled as soon as possible, as those divisions are needed.
The South is going as we planned. Romanian territories are still under our control and we see no risk of Soviet breakthrough. We are indeed taking the initiative, though we will probably stop such attacks soon. I also have more in-depth information."
"Bring it on Julius" Bormann asked Ringel.
"I will. Here is the Northern region of the Eastern theatre."
"The Northern region is the most quiet one. We have fifty-seven divisions there, and they are quite well-equipped too. Few are the attacks here."
"Here is our hot topic... Central region. We have fifty-seven divisions here too but not really fit for combat. Also, five of them are behind the front as they need to quell some tenacious insurgency. We can barely struggle to keep the Soviets from breakthrough."
"The South, as I said, is going as planned. We are soon going to stop that attack in Ismail as the Soviets have brought their Armored divisions there. We're not going to waste lives there. Model is, however, in serious trouble. Stryj cannot be held, even if additional forces have just arrived from the Hungarians. The odds are way too overwhelming and he will retreat soon."
"Looks like bad news, but it's still better than having to 'stand and fight'."
"Indeed it is, Martin. We'll get revenge. Let me now take a look at our Western theatre."
"We have forty-one divisions experiencing a heavy flow of reinforcements over the last ten days. Over the last few days, the Americans have tried very few attempts at breaking the new front we established. Their five divisions in Cholet have no option but to stand there, else they would risk to be cut off; if they expand from Orléans they would weaken their lines too much and face a possible encirclement; our forces in Bourges and Tours, despite being understrenght, are still well capable of sustaining an Allied attack. So their only attempt is attacking Le Havre again, where we have fourteen divisions defending and two more, armored and quite well-equipped, coming in two hours.
"Do you think we can mount an offensive soon, if at all?" Bormann asked.
"We can, but not before mid-July; those are Hausser's estimates and I think those are correct. His forces need rest and supplies and reinforcements. And no battles against the Americans. There are also a couple other reasons I will explain soon. Italian theatre."
"There's really nothing to say here. We have twenty-four divisions there, and we don't need any more or can spare any less. Nothing happened since June 20th and nothing will probably happen with this current balance of power."
"You pointed at a certain couple reasons an offensive can't be mounted before mid-July, Julius."
"I did not forget about that. Here are the reasons."
"We have several divisions being redeployed all over Europe. And they take time, but once the transfer is complete, they will really help balance the odds out. There, we have six well-supplied divisions that will complete their transfer in Braila July 3rd and will be operative July 4th. They can be used to help our efforts in the Central region.
More than ten divisions are being redeployed in Jelgava. This will help our odds considerably and will be operative by July 3rd.
Most importantly, we have five divisions being transferred in Valenciennes, of which three are Armored and in quite good shape. They will be operative July 8th and they will be tremendously useful in our struggle to close the Western theatre."
"That's definitely good news. I didn't know we had so many divisions undergoing redeployment. Speer, can we afford all this troop and material ferrying? Also, how's the reinforcements going?"
"Not bad, but we could do better. About our transport efficiency, it's not something we can really afford. Partisans and a heavy load brought by such redeployments do take their toll."
"Dissent took a hit recently, but we're progressively reducing it. We can't allocate many resources to satisfy the population actually, but there's not much we can do about it at present. Supplies are in low deficit but I'm not too worried about it. Oil is going to be of some concern in the near future. We're trying to limit its use but it's clear that we need more trade arrangements soon. Reinforcements can be handled up to a certain extent - we have reinforced our divisions with almost 100,000 new troops in ten days, and upgrades to our forces are something that's completely out of question for now. Our Industrial capacity remains fairly good, though it doesn't compete with the US, UK or USSR. I remain confident that our Armed Forces can change this status quo."
"That's quite good gentlemen" Bormann ended the meeting "It could be better, but given the state of our situation, it could be much worse. Ringel, I hope Hausser can mount an offensive in two weeks. France must be ours before anything else."
