[Ding, the system prompts: The host has completed the first stage of the main quest to rebuild the empire, and the task reward has been distributed. Please pay attention, host!].
[Ding, the system prompts: The host's funds have now accumulated to 2000 points. You may enter the system mall and activate purchase authority!].
The system mall was one of the most important functions of this war system.
It not only enhanced Mainz's personal capabilities, but also allowed him to procure modern and future advanced weapons, as well as raw materials of all kinds.
For Mainz—and for Germany—this meant everything.
According to history, after the First World War, the Allied Powers imposed extremely severe restrictions on Germany through the Treaty of Versailles. The German military industry was crippled, vast overseas colonies were seized, and the loss of raw material sources left the nation dependent and impoverished. The crushing war reparations further drained the treasury, plunging the country into debt.
By the early 1920s, the German currency, the mark, collapsed to unprecedented levels. Between 1918 and 1923, it depreciated by a factor of 100 billion. In 1918, a box of matches cost only 0.02 marks; by 1923, the price had soared to 200 million marks. A single loaf of bread could cost 1 trillion marks!
On the international scale, in 1914, 1 US dollar exchanged for 4.2 marks. By 1922, it took 420 billion marks to equal 1 dollar.
This hyperinflation was one of the most devastating economic disasters in world history. Even the currency collapses of later regimes—such as that of the Kuomintang in China during the 1940s, or the hyperinflation in certain African states—paled in comparison to the chaos of the Weimar Republic.
During those years, the wealth Germany had accumulated over centuries was wiped out. Families went bankrupt, millions of workers were unemployed, and countless people starved to death. War veterans—crippled and broken—wandered the streets begging, but even beggars could not find enough to eat when unemployment reached nearly 60 million across the nation.
Mainz, recalling the historical reports of such tragedies, felt his heart ache. He was determined not to allow Germany to collapse again.
But without money to buy supplies from the Great Powers, what could he do?
His thoughts turned to the east—to the Soviet Union.
Under the Tsarist Empire, Russia's industry had lagged behind Western Europe, and its technology was far inferior to that of Germany. But one thing Russia possessed was land—endless land. The fertile Eastern European Plain, stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, and from the Ural Mountains to the Baltic, covered over 4 million square kilometers.
This vast farmland had made Russia one of the world's largest agricultural exporters since the 18th century. But now, under the Soviet regime, isolated and blockaded by Western Europe—France, Britain, the Benelux countries, and even Scandinavia—the Soviet Union was rich in grain yet starved of industrial products, weapons, and machinery.
Germany, on the other hand, was overflowing with industrial capacity but short of food due to territorial losses and population pressure. Thus, the two nations could form a natural partnership.
If Germany could provide the Soviet Union with arms and machinery in exchange for cheap grain, it would solve the problem of hunger at home and stabilize countless German families.
Mainz also knew that historically, after the Genoa Conference of 1922, the Soviet Union and Germany secretly bypassed the Versailles restrictions and began covert cooperation.
Yet history showed the dangers of such a partnership. The Weimar government, desperate for money, sold not only weapons but also entire production lines and advanced technology to the Soviets. As a result, the Soviet Union rapidly industrialized, and after Stalin's first Five-Year Plan, it transformed from an agricultural state into a formidable industrial power.
From then on, conquering the Soviet Union by force became nearly impossible.
Thus Mainz resolved: yes, Germany could cooperate with the Soviet Union, but never to the point of "raising a tiger that would turn on its master." The Soviet Union's vast land, immense resources, and massive population made it far more dangerous than France or Britain.
In fact, within thirty years, the greatest threats to Germany would not be France and Britain, but the United States and the Soviet Union.
The United States, across the Atlantic, had fewer direct conflicts with Europe. But the Soviet Union, sitting right on Europe's borders, was destined to become the greatest and most dangerous enemy of the Third Reich.
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